"Trade secrets," the boy said, as if the subject of commerce bored him beyond bearing. "We heard that you fought some pirates on your voyage here," he said, brightening. "Was it exciting?"
"Combat is always exhilarating," Marcus told him. "But it wasn't a desperate fight." He saw the two principal eunuchs eyeing him with calculation.
"I've never seen a real fight," Ptolemy admitted. "Boxers and wrestlers can't be much like real battle."
"Sharp steel and the intent to kill put a different complexion on matters," Marcus said. "Real fighting must be taken seriously."
"I wish I could see a real fight," the boy said. "But a king is never allowed to get close to a battle."
Things must have changed since Alexander and the first Ptolemy, Marcus thought, filing this information away for future use.
"Don't despair," Flaccus put in, having swallowed enough wine to talk too much. "One of us may die here and the rest can stage a munus. Then you may see some real fighting."
"What is a munus?" Ptolemy asked.
Marcus shot Flaccus an annoyed look. "It is a ceremony we hold at the funeral games of a great man. Specially trained men fight to the death. The losers accompany the shade of the dead man on his journey." He heard one of the eunuchs mutter, "Barbarous!"
For the first time the boy seemed intrigued. "Who are these men?"
"For the most part they are slaves or men condemned to death. By fighting well a number of times they may win their freedom and pardon. Sometimes free men volunteer because they love fighting or like the excellent conditions in the training schools. The food is the best, the quarters are better than soldiers enjoy, they have first-rate medical attention."
"Well," the boy said, "perhaps one of you will die!" Clearly, he was looking forward to the prospect and considering arranging it personally.
"I should point out," Brutus said, "that none of us are distinguished enough to rate a munus."
"Oh," Ptolemy said, disappointed.
For a while they amused themselves watching the court attack the banquet. Plainly, they had nothing resembling the Roman sense of decorum. Like famished beasts, they bolted handfuls of meat, sloshed it down with huge goblets of unwatered wine and talked constantly while they were doing it. They pawed the slaves and each other without regard to age or gender.
"We could conquer these swine with a cohort of auxilia," Caesar said in Latin.
"Don't mistake the court for the army," Marcus said. "And speak in Greek. We can compare notes later. Just because they have no manners is no reason why we should imitate them."
When the rest of the court were rolling on the couches, stuffed to repletion, the Romans took up the offer of a tour of the remarkable vessel. Stepping onto an outer deck, they could see the oars working in a mysterious silence. The loudest sound was the faint splash as the broad ends dipped into the water and were pulled back, then raised to dip again. Banks of oars worked on both sides of each hull, supplying adequate power to move the immense barge through the water of the lake.
"What makes them so noiseless?" Caesar asked.
"I will show you," said Dion, the Second Eunuch. He led them to a broad stairway that led below, into the portside hull. Within, it proved to be much broader than the hull of a warship, flat-bottomed and ballasted with meticulously cut stone polished to a high luster. To each side were three levels of benches, as on a trireme. At the lowest bench, pulling the shortest oar, sat a single man. On the next bench up two men drew a longer oar and on the highest bench three men toiled. The oarsmen worked naked, their benches heavily padded with sheepskin.
At once, the Romans saw why the oars worked so silently. Instead of common wooden oar holes, the oars passed through holes encircled with pads of stuffed leather. The men themselves were heavily muscled and they sweated mightily at their exertions. At intervals along the stone flooring burned braziers of incense, that the passengers above might not be offended by the odor of perspiring rower.
Here there was no hortator to keep time for the rowers with the rhythm of drum or flute. Instead, a small man conducted them silently with movements of his arms and hands.
"How can they coordinate?" Marcus wanted to know. "Between the two hulls, I mean. Without a drum to time them, surely one side must row a little faster than the other and send this thing in circles."
The eunuch pointed to a small port beside the timekeeper. "Through there he can see the pace-oar of the other hull. With gestures he speeds or slows his rowers. A slight discrepancy is inevitable, but the steersmen above can easily compensate. This is not a warship, after all, just a barge for leisurely outings on the lake and the river."
"Can it go all the way to the river?" Brutus asked.
"Oh, certainly. At the eastern end of the lake we will enter the canal to the Delta and thence proceed upriver."
"We are going to the Nile?" Marcus said, astonished. "We did not come prepared for such a voyage!"
Dion waved a hand airily. "Oh, we took the liberty of bringing your belongings aboard, not that you will need them. Everything a civilized human being needs is to be found aboard the king's pleasure-barge."
Seeing that any sort of protest would be pointless, the Romans went on with the tour. "What do you want to bet they didn't bring our weapons aboard," Flaccus said from the side of his mouth.
"Who needs weapons with this lot?" said Caesar.
"Shut up," Marcus said. "Greek only, remember?" Despite his apparent impassivity, he was alarmed by this development. Surely even a court as lax and decadent as this one would not spirit off a foreign embassy without prior notification. Or would they?
Chapter 13
Zarabel watched the Romans in the courtyard below. They were arguing over something. She could not understand Latin, but the subject was of little import. She could read the language of posture and gesture as well as anyone. Better than most, for to survive in the cutthroat environment of the Carthaginian court required an almost preternatural sensitivity to such wordless signals.
What she saw below confirmed what she already knew to be true: With Marcus Scipio gone, the Roman party left behind deferred to Titus Norbanus. They argued, they disputed, but in the end it was his word that carried weight. When he spoke, the others straightened and listened without interruption. No other member of the party received such respect.
As had become her custom these recent days, she studied him closely. She liked what she saw. It was still difficult for her to accept men with such fair hair and skin, with eyes so blue, as civilized people. Yet, a few of these Romans were as pale as Gauls or Germans. She suspected that this meant an admixture of northern ancestry, for none of the historical sources she had consulted spoke of the Romans as being a fair-skinned people. It seemed not to lessen them in the eyes of their more conventionally tinted fellows. Of course, these Romans were but marginally civilized at best.
Norbanus was of the fairer sort. He was a large man, ruddy of face and yellow of hair, with regular, square features set in the harsh expression that seemed to be habitual with Romans. He had the soldierly bearing and hard, athletic build of the others as well, but none of these things gave her particular pleasure. What Zarabel found to her liking was the weakness she could discern beneath his Stoic mask.
When Norbanus looked at her, she felt the lust beneath his disdain. Of course, they all pretended contempt or indifference, but Norbanus was less adept at hiding his true feelings. Indeed, of all the Roman party only the amiable, now-departed Flaccus had not bothered to put up a hypocritical front in her presence, allowing his sensual tastes to be seen by all, whether the subject was women, food, wine or leisure.