"You're right, Theodotus," said Achillas abruptly. He put his knuckles to his mouth and bit them. "We're having our own war here—a secret war! We daren't draw Rome's attention to it—what if Rome should decide we're incapable of managing our own affairs? That old will still exists. It's still in Rome. I say that we send a message to Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus at dawn tomorrow and tell him to take himself off. Give him nothing."
"What do you think, great King?" asked Potheinus.
"Achillas is right!" cried the thirteenth Ptolemy, then heaved a sigh. "Oh, but I would have liked to see him!"
"Theodotus, you have more to say?"
"I do, Potheinus." The tutor got up from his chair and went around the table to stand behind the little King, his hands fondling the boy's thick, dark gold hair, sliding to the smooth young neck. "I don't think what Achillas suggests is strong enough. Naturally the mighty Caesar won't come chasing after Pompeius himself—the ruler of the world has fleets and legions for that, legates by the hundreds to depute. As we know, at the moment he is touring the Roman province of Asia like a king. Where might he be now? They say he is in his own ancestral home, Ilium, Troy of old."
The little King's eyes closed; he leaned against Theodotus and drowsed off to sleep.
"Why," asked Theodotus, carmined lips straining, "don't we send the mighty Gaius Caesar a gift in the name of the King of Egypt? Why don't we send the mighty Caesar the head of his enemy?" He fluttered his darkened lashes. "Dead men, they say, do not bite."
A silence fell.
Potheinus linked his hands on the table in front of him and stared down at them reflectively. Then he looked up, his fine grey eyes wide open, still. "Quite so, Theodotus. Dead men do not bite. We will ship the head of his enemy to Gaius Caesar."
"But how do we accomplish the deed itself?" asked Theodotus, delighted that his was the mind thought of it.
"Leave that to me," said Achillas crisply. "Potheinus, write a letter to Pompeius Magnus in the King's name, granting him an audience. I'll take it to him myself and lure him ashore."
"He mightn't want to come without a bodyguard," said Potheinus.
"He will. You see, I happen to know a man—a Roman man—whose face Pompeius will recognize. A man Pompeius trusts."
* * *
Dawn came. Pompey, Sextus and Cornelia ate stale bread with the lack of enthusiasm a monotonous diet makes inevitable, drank of water which tasted faintly brackish.
"Let us hope," said Cornelia, "that we can at least provision our ships in Pelusium."
Philip the freedman appeared, beaming. "Gnaeus Pompeius, a letter from the King of Egypt! Beautiful paper!"
The seal broken, the single sheet of—yes, beautiful paper indeed!— expensive papyrus spread open, Pompey mumbled his way through the short Greek text and looked up.
"Well, I'm to have my audience. A boat will pick me up in an hour's time." He looked startled. "Ye Gods, I need a shave and my toga praetexta! Philip, send my man to me, please."
He stood, properly robed as proconsul of the Senate and People of Rome, Cornelia Metella and Sextus one on either side of him, waiting for some gorgeous gilded barge with purple sail to swan out from the shore.
"Sextus," he said suddenly.
"Yes, Father?"
"How about finding something to do for a few moments?"
"Eh?"
"Go and piss over the other side, Sextus! Or pick your nose! Anything which might give me a little time alone with your stepmother!"
"Oh!" said Sextus, grinning. "Yes, Father. Of course, Father."
"He's a good lad," said Pompey, "just a little thick."
Three months ago Cornelia Metella would have found that whole exchange puerile; today she laughed.
"You made me a very happy man last night, Cornelia," Pompey said, moving close enough to touch her side.
"You made me a very happy woman, Magnus."
"Maybe, my love, we should take more long sea voyages together. I don't know what I would have done without you since Mitylene."
"And Sextus," she said quickly. "He's wonderful."
"More your age than I am! I'll be fifty-eight tomorrow."
"I love him dearly, but Sextus is a boy. I like elderly men. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that you're exactly the right age for me."
"Serica is going to be marvelous!"
"So I think."
They leaned together companionably until Sextus came back, frowning. "The hour's gone by and more, Father, but no royal barge do I see. Just that dinghy."
"It's coming our way," said Cornelia Metella.
"Perhaps that's it, then," said Pompey.
"For you?" his wife asked, tone freezing. "No, never!"
"You must remember that I'm not the First Man in Rome anymore. Just a tired old Roman proconsul."
"Not to me!" said Sextus through his teeth.
By this time the rowboat, actually somewhat larger than a dinghy, was alongside; the cuirassed man in the stern tilted his head up.
"I'm looking for Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus!" he called.
"Who wants him?" asked Sextus.
"General Achillas, commander-in-chief of the King's army."
"Come aboard!" cried Pompey, indicating the rope ladder.
Both Cornelia Metella's hands were fastened about Pompey's right forearm. He looked down at her, surprised. "What is it?"
"Magnus, I don't like it! Whatever that man wants, send him away! Please, let's up anchor and leave! I'd rather live on stale bread all the way to Utica than stay here!"
"Shhh, it's all right," said Pompey, disengaging her hands as Achillas climbed easily over the rail. He walked forward with a smile. "Welcome, General Achillas. I'm Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus."
"So I see. A face everyone recognizes. Your statues and busts are all over the world! Even in Ecbatana, so rumor has it."
"Not for much longer. They'll be tearing me down and putting Caesar up, I daresay."
"Not in Egypt, Gnaeus Pompeius. You're our little king's hero, he follows your exploits avidly. He's so excited at the prospect of meeting you that he didn't sleep last night."
"Couldn't he do better than a dinghy?" snarled Sextus.
"Ah, that's due to the chaos in the harbor," said Achillas nicely. "There are warships everywhere. One of them ran into the King's barge by accident and holed it, alas. The result? This."
"Won't get my toga wet, will I? Can't meet the King of Egypt looking bedraggled," said Pompey jovially.
"Dry as an old bone," said Achillas.
"Magnus, please don't!" Cornelia Metella whispered.
"I agree, Father. Don't go in this insult!" said Sextus.
"Truly," said Achillas, smiling to reveal that he had lost two of his front teeth, "circumstances have dictated the conveyance, nothing else. Why, I even brought along a familiar face to calm any fears you might have had. See the fellow in centurion's dress?"
Pompey's eyes were not the best these days, but he had learned that if he screwed one of them three-quarters shut, the other one snapped into focus. He did his trick and let out a huge Picentine whoop of joy—Gallic, Caesar would have called it. "Oh, I don't believe it!" He turned to Sextus and Cornelia Metella, face alight. "Do you know who that is down there in my ship of state? Lucius Septimius! A Fimbriani primus pilus from the old days in Pontus and Armenia! I decorated him several times, then he and I almost walked to the Caspian Sea. Except that we turned back because we didn't like the crawlies. Well! Lucius Septimius!"
After that it seemed a shame to crush his joy. Cornelia Metella contented herself with an admonition to be careful, while Sextus had a word with the two centurions from the First Legion who had insisted on coming along when they found Pompey in Paphos.
"Keep an eye on him,” Sextus muttered.
"Come on, Philip, hurry up!" said Pompey, climbing the rail without fuss despite the purple-bordered toga.
Achillas, who had gone down the side first, ushered Pompey to the single seat in the bow. "The dri
est spot," he said.
"Septimius, you rogue, sit here right behind me!" said Pompey, disposing himself tidily. "Oh, what a pleasure to see you! But what are you doing in Pelusium?"
Philip and his slave servant sat amidships between two of the six oarsmen, with Pompey's two centurions behind them and Achillas in the stern.
"Retired here after Aulus Gabinius left a garrison behind in Alexandria," said Septimius, a very grizzled veteran blinded in one eye. "All went to pieces after a little scrap with the sons of Bibulus—well, you'd know about that. The rankers got sent back to Antioch and the ringleaders were executed. But yon General Achillas had a fancy to keep the centurions. So here I am, primus pilus in a legion full of Jews."
Pompey chatted for a while, but the trip was very slow and he worried a little about his speech; composing a flowery speech in Greek to deliver to a twelve-year-old boy had been difficult. He turned on his seat in the bow and called back to Philip.
"Pass me my speech, would you?"
Philip passed him the speech. He unrolled it, hunched his shoulders and began to go through it again.
The beach came up quite suddenly; he had become absorbed.
"Hope we run this thing up far enough not to muddy my shoes!" he laughed to Septimius, bracing himself for the jar.
The oarsmen did well, the boat coasted up the dirty, muddy beach beyond the waterline, and came to rest level.
"Up!" he said to himself, curiously happy. The night with Cornelia had been a lusty one, more lusty nights would come, and he had Serica to look forward to, a new life where an old soldier might teach exotic people Roman tricks. They said there were men out there whose heads grew out of their chests—men with two heads—men with one eye—sea serpents—oh, what mightn't he find beyond the rising sun?
You can keep the West, Caesar! I'm going East! Serica and freedom! What do the Sericans know or care about Picenum, what do they know or care about Rome? The Sericans will deem a Picentine upstart like me the equal of any Julian or Cornelian!
Something tore, crunched and broke. His body already half out of the boat, Pompey turned his head to see Lucius Septimius right behind him.
Warm liquid gushed down his legs; for a moment he thought he must have urinated, then the unmistakable smell rose to his nostrils. Blood. His? But there was no pain! His legs gave way, he fell full length in the dirty dry mud. What is it? What is happening to me? He felt rather than saw Septimius flip him over, sensed a sword looming above his chest.
I am a Roman nobleman. They must not see my face as I die, they must not see that part of me which makes me a man. I must die like a Roman nobleman! Pompey made a last, convulsive effort. One hand yanked his toga decently down over his thighs, the other pulled a fold over his face. The sword point entered his chest with skill and power. He moved no more.
Achillas had stabbed both the centurions in the back, but to kill two men at once is difficult. A fight broke out; the rear oarsmen turned to help. Still glued to their seat, Philip and the slave suddenly realized that they were going to die. They leaped to their feet, out of the boat, and were away.
"I'll go after them," said Septimius, grunting.
"Two silly Greeks?" asked Achillas. "What can they do?"
A small party of slaves waited nearby, a big earthen crock at their feet. Achillas lifted his hand; they picked up the crock—it seemed very heavy—and approached.
In the meantime Septimius had pulled the toga away from Pompey's face to reveal its contours: peaceful, unmarred. He put the tip of his bloodied sword under the neck of the tunic with the broad purple stripe on its right shoulder and ripped it down to the waist. The second blow had been true; the wound lay over the heart.
"It's a bit hard," said Septimius, "to cut a head off with the body like this. Someone find me a block of wood."
The block of wood was found. Septimius draped Pompey's neck across it, lifted his sword and chopped down. Neat and clean. The head rolled a little way; the body subsided to the mud.
"Never thought I'd be the one to kill him. Funny, that... A good general as generals go ... Still, him alive is no use to me. Want the head in that jar?"
Achillas nodded, more moved than this Roman centurion. As Septimius lifted the head up by its luxuriant silver hair, Achillas found his eyes going to it. Dreaming ... but what of?
The crock was full almost to the brim with natron, the liquid in which the embalmers soaked an eviscerated body for months as part of the mummification process. One of the slaves lifted its wooden plug; Septimius dropped the head in and stepped back quickly to avoid the sudden overflow.
Achillas nodded. The slaves picked the jar up on its rope handles and carried it ahead of their master. The oarsmen had pushed the dinghy off and were busy rowing it away; Lucius Septimius plunged his sword into the dry mud to clean it, shoved it back into its scabbard and strolled off in the wake of the others.
Hours later Philip and the slave crept to the place where Pompey's headless body lay on the deserted beach, its toga a browning crimson as the blood grew old yet still seeped through the porous woolen fibers.
"We're stranded in Egypt," said the slave.
Worn out from weeping, Philip looked up from the body of Pompey apathetically. "Stranded?"
"Yes, stranded. They sailed, our ships. I saw them."
"Then there is no one save us to attend to him." Philip gazed about, nodded. "At least there's driftwood. No wonder they came in here; it's so lonely."
The two men toiled until they had built a pyre six feet high; getting the body onto it wasn't easy, but they managed.
"We don't have fire," said the slave.
"Then go and ask someone."
Darkness was falling when the slave returned carrying a small metal bucket puffing smoke.
"They didn't want to give me the bucket," said the slave, "but I told them we wanted to burn Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. So then they said I could have the bucket."
Philip scattered the glowing coals through the open network of sea-silvered branches, made sure the toga was well rucked in, and stood back with the slave to see if the wood caught.
It took a little time, but when it did catch the driftwood blazed fiercely enough to dry the fresh spate of Philip's tears.
Exhausted, they lay down some distance away to sleep; in that languorous air a fire was too warm. And at dawn, finding the pyre reduced to blackened debris, they used the metal bucket to cool it from the sea, then sifted through it for Pompey's ashes.
"I can't tell what's him and what's wood," said the slave.
"There's a difference," said Philip patiently. "Wood crumbles. Bones don't. Ask me if you're not sure."
They put what they found in the metal bucket.
"What do we do now?" asked the slave, a poor creature whose job was to wash and scrub.
"We walk to Alexandria," said Philip.
"Got no money," said the slave.
"I carry Gnaeus Pompeius's purse for him. We'll eat."
Philip picked up the bucket, took the slave by one limp hand, and walked off down the beach, away from stirring Pelusium.
FINIS
AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD
Having arrived at the years which are very well documented in the ancient sources, in order to keep my wordage within limits my publishers find acceptable, I have had to pick and choose rather than retell every aspect. The addition of Caesar's Commentaries, both on Gaul and on the civil war against Pompey the Great, enriches the ancient sources enormously.
I don't think there is much doubt that Caesar's Commentaries on the war in Gallia Comata are his senatorial dispatches, and so have made them; the modern debate occurs more about whether Caesar published these dispatches in one lump at the beginning of 51 b.c., or whether he published them over the years one at a time. I have chosen to have him publish the first seven books as one volume around the beginning of 51 b.c.
For my comments on the codex as used by Caesar, see the Glossary entry under codex.
The
amount of detail in Caesar's Gallic War Commentaries is daunting, so also the number of names which come and go, never to be mentioned again. Therefore I have adopted a policy which curtails the mention of names never heard again. Quintus Cicero in winter camp along the Mosa had military tribunes under his command, for example, but I have elected not to mention them. The same can be said for Sabinus and Cotta. Caesar always cared more for his centurions than his military tribunes, and I have followed his example in places where a plethora of aristocratic new names would serve only to confuse the reader.
In some other ways I have "tampered" with the Gallic War Commentaries, one quite major. This major one concerns Quintus Cicero at the end of 53 b.c., when he undergoes an ordeal quite remarkably similar to his ordeal in winter camp at the beginning of that year. Again he is besieged in a camp, this time the oppidum of Atuatuca, from whence Sabinus and Cotta had fled. In the interests of brevity I have changed this incident to an encounter with the Sugambri on the march; I have also changed the number of his legion from the Fourteenth to the Fifteenth, as it is difficult later to know exactly which legion Caesar led in such a hurry from Placentia to Agedincum. Caesar's penetration of the Cebenna in winter has also been modified in the interests of brevity.
Other, more minor departures stem out of Caesar's own inaccuracies. His estimates of mileage, for example, are shaky. So too, sometimes, his descriptions of what is going on. The duel between the centurions Pullo and Vorenus has been simplified.
One of the great mysteries about the Gallic War concerns the small number of his Atrebates whom King Commius was able to bring to the relief of Alesia. I couldn't find a battle wherein they had perished en masse; until Labienus's little plot, Commius and his Atrebates were on Caesar's side. The only thing I could think was that they had marched en masse to the assistance of the Parisii, the Aulerci and the Bellovaci when Titus Labienus slaughtered those tribes along the Sequana (Seine) while Caesar was engaged in the campaigns around Gergovia and Noviodunum Nevirnum. Perhaps we should read "Atrebates" for "Bellovaci," as the Bellovaci did remain alive in sufficient numbers to be a great nuisance later on.