The Tribune's Curse(65)

Conducting an investigation in Rome was largely a matter of discovering correspondences and linkages. Ordinarily, my sense of these things was extremely acute, but now everything was off: my timing, my judgment, my ability to sense the life and experience of the City. I was sure that, had I been in the City continuously these last three years, I would have arrived at the common point shared by all these events long before.

Amid such ponderings I reached the Forum itself, and I knew that its mood was ugly. That much of my sensitivity was functioning. The day before the mood had been vehement. Today it was dark and brooding. People weren’t shouting; they were muttering. The senators on the steps weren’t arguing so much as hissing at one another like a nest of disturbed vipers.

In front of the curia I saw a very distinctive conveyance: a huge litter draped with colorful curtains, its poles of polished ebony tipped with golden lions’ heads with jewels for eyes. Over its roof a golden vulture spread sheltering wings. It was the litter of the Egyptian ambassador, Lisas. A dozen magnificently clad bearers stood by the poles, patient as oxen.

As usual, a number of senators stood around on the steps of the curia. These were men with committee meetings to attend or juries to organize or, often as not, just senators with nothing else to do. I walked into the midst of one such group and jerked my head toward the litter.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Old Lisas showed up about an hour ago,” said a man named Sulpicius. “He looked like a man under death sentence. Demanded to see Pompey at once. The two of them are in there now.”

“Must be bad news out of Egypt to get that fat pervert up this early,” said another.

“When is there ever any good news out of Egypt?” Sulpicius snorted.

Then a praetor named Gutta spoke up. “Plenty of good news for Gabinius.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Haven’t you heard? Word has it old Ptolemy paid him ten thousand talents to reinstall his fat backside on the throne. Took three battles to do it, but the Flute-Player’s king now, and Gabinius comes home a rich man.”

“I knew Gabinius had restored Ptolemy,” I said. “I heard that as soon as I returned to Rome. I thought it was all rather bloodless. Who was he fighting?”

“It was one of the princesses who raised a rebellion. Had a lot of the Alexandrians on her side, too. Which one was it?” Gutta scratched his head, suffering from the usual Roman difficulty in keeping Egyptian dynastic politics sorted out.

“Cleopatra?” I asked. “She’s awfully young, but she’s the only one in the whole family with any brains.”

“No, it was one of the others,” Sulpicius said. “Berenice, that’s the one.”

“Berenice?” I said. “I know her. The woman can’t plot her next party, much less a rebellion.”

“She married a fellow named Archelaus,” Sulpicius said, “a Macedonian whose father was one of Mithridates’ generals. A real soldier, so they say.”

I thought I remembered him: one of the hard-faced professionals who kept the degenerate Macedonian dynasty on the throne of Egypt, supporting whichever of the claimants treated them best.

“Here comes Lisas now,” Gutta said.

I looked up toward the entrance of the curia and saw Pompey coming out with Lisas on his arm. He was patting the ambassador’s shoulder as if to reassure him. Lisas parted from the consul and descended the steps, mopping at his face. His makeup was running in streaks, even though the morning was chilly.

I went up the steps to meet him. “Lisas, what’s happened?”

“Ah, my friend Decius! In the middle of the night, a terribly disturbing dispatch arrived from Alexandria.”

“Old Ptolemy’s croaked, eh?” I said, unable to imagine that anything else would upset Lisas so deeply. “Well, it happens to them all, and there are plenty of—”

“No, no, no!” He waved his purple-dyed scarf in agitation. “It is not that at all! My master, King Ptolemy Dionysus, is in excellent health. But, it became necessary for him to put Princess Berenice to death to punish her for her unfilial rebellion.”

“That’s sad news,” I commiserated. “The woman was just a pawn. What happened to Archelaus?”

Now he waved the scarf dismissively. “Oh, the usurper died in the last battle with Gabinius. He was of no account.”

“I see. But, sad though this news may be, surely it is nothing unusual. Anyone who tries to seize a throne must expect death as the price of failure.”

“Even so, even so,” he said, wringing his hands, covered as they were with perfumed oil and inflamed lesions. “Great as was my affection for the princess, I understand that His Majesty had no choice in the matter. No, there were—more severe consequences.”