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The Temple of the Muses(81)

By:John Maddox Roberts


The two went inside and the rest of the embassy staff went with them. I was left alone at the top of the steps, above the crowd of Roman refugees. Achillas finished giving his orders and he came up the steps. grinning at me. I itched to draw my sword and kill him, but I was so tired, he would have taken it away from me and skewered me with it. Then he stood a foot from me, wearing a strange expression of hatred, puzzlement and grim respect.

“Why did you do it, Roman?” he asked.

That was simple. “You should not have committed murder within the sacred precincts of the Temple of the Muses,” I told him. “That sort of behavior angers the gods.” He regarded me for a moment as if I were truly insane; then he whirled and went back down the steps. Weary to my bones, I turned and staggered back within the embassy. They attacked me as soon as I was inside.

Laughing and whooping, the embassy staff bore me to the floor and tied my hands behind me; then they bound my feet at the ankles.

“You still think you can get out of paying me!” I gasped, too weak to do anything else.

“Don’t forget to gag him,” Creticus said. A rag was stuffed in my mouth and tied securely behind my head. Creticus came over and nudged me in the ribs with his toe.

“Decius, in case you were wondering where those marines came from, the war galleys Neptune, Swan and Triton are in the harbor. I’ve sent orders for the Swan to come to the royal harbor, and that’s where you are going right now. The marines from the Neptune are going out on a little mission of arson on Lord Achillas’s nearby estate; then the flotilla sails for Rhodes. That is as far as they take you.”

“Beautiful place, Rhodes,” Ptolemy said. “A bit dull, though. No army, no politics. In fact, nothing there except schools.”

“Maybe you can attend a few lectures, Decius,” Creticus said gleefully, nudging me with his toe again. “Learn a little philosophy, eh?” Then the two of them laughed until the tears ran down their degenerate old faces.

I was carried down to the harbor and thrown aboard the ship. Julia accompanied me tearfully, holding my bound hands, which were already growing numb. She said she would follow me to Rhodes as soon as possible. Probably just wanted to meet all those scholars, I guessed. Hermes carried my weapons and a jug of wine, muttering and cursing, already missing the soft life in Alexandria.

As the ship backed away, Creticus came down to the dock and yelled across the water, “If we hear that Rhodes has sunk beneath the sea. I’ll know who was responsible. Captain, don’t untie him until you’re out past Pharos!”

By the time we rounded the lighthouse, another column of smoke rose to the east of the city, a short way inland. I knew that much wood should make a fine fire. I was glad we were too far away to smell the stench from those human-hair ropes.

Before long, Alexandria was out of sight. I would not see it again for twelve years, but when I returned, it was with Caesar, and Cleopatra was queen and events made my little adventures of my first sojourn there seem dull and uneventful, and I finally got to settle matters with Achillas.

These things happened in Alexandria in the year 692 of the City of Rome, the Consulship of Metellus Celer and Lucius Afranius.