“What is your name, man?”
“Mercurius, my lord.”
Crassus said good-naturedly, “the proconsul, Mercurius, stands before you. Is that clear?” Gabinius’ man whimpered. “Mercurius,” Crassus mused. “I had an ornator by that name, oh…it must be twenty years ago at least. Nice fellow, but slow as sludge. What ever happened to him, Alexander?”
“You had me sell him, dominus.”
“Did I?” It would be pointless to add that Mercurius’ new master was less forgiving than dominus and his medicus less talented than ours. The wounds from the lash had festered and the poor man had died from his lack of alacrity.
“Tell your master,” Crassus was saying, “that I will rest awhile in my quarters before meeting him in the gallery, say in two hours time. For a man as busy as he, I am certain the time will fly on Pegasus’ wings. Until then, I do not wish to be disturbed. Is that clear, Mercurius?”
The man looked like he was being ground between two blocks of the Great Pyramid of Giza. He mumbled his assent and shuffled off to perform his unenviable duty. Crassus turned one of the hanging brass rings and unlatched the door. It swung open and he peered inside. “This is for one person?” we heard him say, his voice muffled by thick wood. He pushed the door wide and motioned the attendants inside behind two soldiers. As our people went in, several young men, women and boys came skittering out. “Centurion,” he said to Vel Corto, “post your guard here. Admit no one.”
Three stone steps led down to a wide floor of the same sand-colored tiles. Long narrow rugs woven in patterns of gold, red and blue crisscrossed throughout the room, matching the half-columns that rose to the painted twelve-foot ceilings. The tables, walls and floor were littered with all manner of decoration. Nothing simple, not a clean line in sight, only keepsakes to which the word ornate could cling with comfort. We stood on a platform, fifteen feet on a side. Straight ahead, steps led down to the open bed chamber; to the right one descended to the baths, separated from the main room by painted screens. Close by, a tall tripod topped by a burning dish of incense sent curls of cedar smoke toward the ceiling. Crassus wrinkled his nose and I motioned for an assistant to take the bronze platter away and douse it.
I inspected this Syrian bed. It was raised off the ground, not much higher than a sleeping lectus, but much wider, with a thick layer of matting. It was held aloft by a golden frame, the sleeper guarded on each side by twin winged Assyrian bulls. A pale blue curtain no thicker than a cobweb dropped from the ceiling to surround the entire piece. I was not sure of its purpose, for I did not think it would give a mosquito more than a moment’s pause. The bath was a sunken oval whose far wall contained a diamond-latticed window so wide it required the support of three gilt columns. The view of the river and the city beyond was stunning.
“This room is obscene. I shall need a potion or at the very least a mask in order to sleep here.”
“I will have it ‘simplified’ after the ex-proconsul departs.” Sending the attendants below to begin unpacking and preparing a bath, I asked dominus to sit for a moment on a couch near the double doors.
“I lied,” I said quietly. Crassus began unlacing his boots. A servant ran up the steps but dominus waved him off.
“I thought as much.” I waited. Dominus continued. “You never gave me a direct answer to my question as to whether or not you agreed with Cassius’ concerns. That is unlike you, at least when we are not alone.”
“As I recall, you never asked a direct question.”
“I attend, eager as ever.”
“I don’t trust either one of them, the Osrhoene king or the young Parthian.”
“We are agreed.” I raised an eyebrow. “My father once told me, ‘if you arrive for a meeting with a man you do not trust, and the man you do not trust does not arrive, do not trust the man who first arrives at the meeting.”
“He told you no such thing.”
“Not precisely, no, but they were words to that effect. Go ahead, explain yourself.”
“What of Marcus Antonius? He was among the ‘first to arrive.’”
“Pff. He is a Roman through and through. I can smell it on him.”
“Agreed. The first reason I don’t trust either one of the others is something you said earlier today. Something about the bonds of friendship loosening with distance. Armenia and Parthia have been at odds for ages, and Osrhoene sits between them and wonders, I am a dwarf caught between giants, and my ‘friend’ is far away. If I were Abgarus, I would not be motivated by friendship, but fear. Be cautious, my lord.”
“Agreed. And of the bowman?”
I pursed my lips. “With him it is strange. He is, there is something about him…”
“He is too likeable.”
“Yes! He is like a fragrant bowl of steaming soup you are compelled to taste knowing your tongue will burn. And his presence at our arrival was completely inappropriate. But there is more to distrust regarding the Aramean king. When you asked him when a Roman army was last seen in Syria, he hesitated.”
“Maybe he was traveling when Gabinius began his own invasion of Parthia.”
“It was less than three years ago! What reason could he have to hesitate?” If Pompeius hadn’t called his dog off to (illegally) put Cleopatra’s father back on Egypt’s throne-with a bone of thanks from Ptolemy, a fortune of 10,000 talents of silver-Gabinius might have conquered Parthia and Livia and I would be safe at home with our son. I had as much reason to be as disaffected with Magnus my master.
“Abgarus might have a hundred legitimate reasons. I see nothing there. However, here is how I shall play the Parthian. I shall take him into my confidence while at the same time removing you from it.”
“Dominus!”
“Patience. I shall keep the lad close. As I befriend him, I shall confide in him that I have reason to mistrust you.” My facial muscles felt as if they had begun to dance. “I will ask him, while he is able, to keep watch on you and report back to me. He should decline the offer outright, for he has no business with us.”
“If he accepts,” I said, my pitch and inflection straining for normal, “we have indication, if not evidence.”
“And if he makes frequent excuse to go and return, there can be but one reason.”
“He reports to his Parthian overlords.”
“Then, if we so choose,” said Crassus as he stood and smiled, it appeared in equal measure from his deceit as much as from the joy of wiggling his once again bare toes, “we may feed him a soup of our own choosing.”
•••
The man’s hair was in ringlets that fell to the back of his neck and halfway down his forehead. Each one was crimped with a narrow gold band. A fringed purple headband was tied tight at the top of his head. His face was rouged, but exertion had caused the paint to run. His matching robe was barely tied, beneath which his lean body was naked. Mercurius sat behind a rosewood table tucked diagonally up against the far corner of the room. He wrote furiously, his pen dipping in and out of the well, his eyes flicking from one piece of parchment to the next. Several players stood idly against the wall, fingering their instruments. Marcus Antonius sat on the edge of the long table. Draped over the back of his uniform, its paws tied beneath his neck, was a lion’s skin. The head, I am pleased to say, was not in evidence, but I am certain Antonius knew its whereabouts.
With a dozen bewildered legionaries behind us, we had entered the grand gallery of the Regia, unwilling players upon a bizarre and foreign stage. Crassus was dressed in all his polished military finery save for his helmet, which was tucked under his arm. The hall was magnificent. Columns painted green and black were spaced every twenty feet and rose almost that high to the beamed ceiling. Birdsong vanquished the echoes of our footsteps on the polished tiles as we drew to a halt. The entire length of the gallery was open-through the columns we could see a covered portico and from there a quadrangle planted with rows of trees whose white, starry flowers perfumed the air. Green, misshapen globes, some having turned bright yellow, hung so large and plentiful they made of their branches two-color rainbows. Later I learned the thick-skinned, tart fruit was called citron, what the Hebrews call an etrog, and the Persians know as a limun.