“When did you Romans ever give back land once you had seized it?” “I can’t think of an instance right off,” I admitted, “but I’m not here on a diplomatic mission. I’m chasing pirates.”
“Oh, how exciting!” The animosity dropped from her like a discarded garment. “May I come along?” Now she sounded like what she was: a girl of perhaps sixteen years.
“That might not be wise. Most of my men are only marginally members of the human race, and a Liburnian is not a royal barge or even a halfway decent trireme.”
“I have my own yacht here. It’s a Liburnian for all.practical purposes, fully armed, and my men are all experienced marines.”
“Well, ah—” my resolve was crumbling.
“You probably need every ship you can get.”
“That is true, but—”
“There, you see? And there is precedent. Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus commanded ships at the battle of Salamis.”
“So she did,” I murmured. “Got out of it by a spectacular act of treachery, as I recall.”
“A queen does what she must for the good of her kingdom,” Cleopatra said. I should have paid more attention to that remark.
“Well, I have been instructed to continue the most cordial relations with your father, King Ptolemy.” That was another whopping lie, “but you must understand that I am commander of this little fleet and your royal status gives you no military standing.”
It may seem that I gave in rather easily, but it was by no means the beauty and famed charm of Cleopatra that caused me to do so. No, my motives were strictly military. Her yacht would give me four ships instead of three, and her hired thugs were undoubtedly at least as good as my own.
“That is understood,” she said, beaming happily. “I’ll just be another of your skippers.” I have observed upon other occasions that royalty often display the most unaccountable fondness for playing the commoner. Kings sometimes don common garb and hang around the taverns; queens go to the country, pick up a crook, and pretend to be shepherdesses; princes and princesses don the chains of recalcitrant slaves and insist upon being ordered about for a while, discreetly. It is all very puzzling.
Shortly thereafter I retired to the bath and luxuriated for a while, being rubbed with scented oil, scraped with golden strigils—well, gold-plated, anyway, and stewed in an extremely hot caldarium. A couple of hours of that and I was ready for dinner. I sensed that I would not be living this well for long, so I was determined to make the most of it.
Dried off, smelling faintly of perfume, I was led to the main triclinium, of which this mansion had several, another departure from the Roman model. Slave girls draped me with garlands of flowers and placed a wreath of laurel leaves on my brow to ward off drunkenness. The need for such precautions boded well for the festivities to come.
Silvanus himself rose to greet me. He was a plump, sleek-looking man with crisply curled hair, the product of a hot iron and a skilled hair-dresser. This was the sort of Oriental frippery we frowned upon in those days, but this was his house, he was laying on the feast, and he could dye his hair green for all I cared.
“Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger,” he proclaimed, “you bring great honor to my house! Please take your place by me. I trust you have been shown the most careful attention? I am so sorry that I was not here to receive you.”
I flopped down on the dining couch next to him, and Hermes, who was already in place, took my sandals. I lay to Silvanus’s right, the place of honor. He introduced me first to the man on his left.
“Decius, I believe you must know Aulus Gabinius?”
“All the world knows General Gabinius,” I said, taking the proffered hand, which was big enough to envelop my own. “But we’ve never met personally. I’ve heard you speak many times in the Senate and on the Rostra, General, but in the years when I’ve been in office you’ve usually been off with the eagles.”
“I’ve heard wonderful things about your double aedileship,” he said, in a sonorous voice. “It’s about time somebody used that office to get rid of the scoundrels instead of acquiring wealth.”
Gabinius had one of those great, old-Roman faces, all crags and scars, with a huge beak of a nose flanked by brilliant blue eyes beneath shaggy, white brows. Except for the intelligence in those eyes and the trained orator’s voice, he might have been one of those martial peasant ancestors we revere.
“It’s how the job is defined by law,” I said modestly. “I trust that your stay here will be short, pleasant as it must be to enjoy the company of our host. With all the glory you have brought to Roman arms, surely you’ll be recalled from exile soon and put at the head of another army.”