“What about you, Pecunius? From what Menkhep told me, you didn’t exactly choose to come here, did you?”
I was reluctant to lie to him outright. “I arrived here by an odd chain of circumstances, to be sure. I think perhaps the goddess Fortuna guided me here.”
“Really? Most of the time the gods have nothing to do with us, or we with them-an arrangement suitable to all concerned.”
“You speak like a philosopher, Artemon.”
“And what do you know of philosophers, Pecunius?”
More than I do about bandit chiefs, I thought. “A wise man tutored me from time to time when I was growing up in Rome. That’s how I came to know Greek. He was more a poet than a philosopher, if there’s a difference. What about you, Artemon? How is it that you speak Latin? Or is that a forbidden question?”
He made no answer. Instead, he put down his empty plate, rose to his feet, and looked north.
“That’s a storm,” he said.
The sky above our heads was blue, but dark clouds were heaped along the northern horizon.
“Those clouds weren’t there a moment ago,” I said.
“No. They’re over the open sea, beyond the mouths of the Delta. Storms can come up very suddenly at this time of year.”
I shrugged. “Your huts look sturdy enough to me. The wind and rain may not even reach this far.”
Artemon smiled. “I’m not worried about the storm, Pecunius. Quite the opposite.”
I noticed that several of the men had joined Artemon in gazing toward the north. Some nodded gravely. Some nudged their comrades, pointed at the sky, and grinned.
I shook my head, not understanding. “Is it an omen?”
“What do you think, Pecunius? Aren’t you Romans always reading the sky for signs and portents?”
“The men who do that are called augurs. They train for years.”
“So you have no skills at augury?”
I shook my head.
“Ah, well. Fortunately, we already have a reliable soothsayer among us.”
I looked around, dubious that any member of this motley band might possess even a sliver of divine insight. Hadn’t Artemon just admitted that his gang had nothing to do with the gods?
“You’ve eaten hardly anything, Pecunius. I thought you liked the food.”
I shrugged. “The excitement of the day…”
“Well, if you’re finished, don’t waste the food. Menkhep is over there, eating with friends. Give your portion to him. Djet, come with me. We’ll rinse our plates in the river and return them to the stack. Then I suggest we withdraw to my hut.”
From the outside, the hut of Artemon was indistinguishable from the rest. Inside, on a dirt floor, a raised pallet held a straw mattress. Next to this was a trunk with a lock on it, which for all I knew was crammed with stolen treasures.
The rest of the hut was different from the others, I suspected, for every bit of available space was crowded with what we Romans call capsae, portable leather drums for storing scrolls. On every flat surface I saw a scroll, unrolled and held open by little lead weights. Most of these scrolls were covered with Greek writing, but some appeared to be maps.
I stepped closer to one of the maps, which lay open on a low table beside the bed, and saw that it depicted Alexandria. I gazed at the symbols for familiar landmarks-the Moon Gate and the Sun Gate, the Temple of Serapis, the Tomb of Alexander-and felt a stab of homesickness.
Even Djet, who could not read, recognized the map. He put his finger on the image of the Pharos Lighthouse and said, rather astutely I thought, “I wonder if that storm will reach as far as Alexandria?”
“Probably not,” said Artemon, following us inside and tying back the piece of cloth that covered the doorway so as to let in more light. “The wind appears to be blowing more east than west, and mostly south.”
I looked down at the map again. Someone had drawn a red circle around the Street of the Seven Baboons, and a red dot marked the exact location of the house of Tafhapy. My breath quickened and my heart pounded in my chest. Surely this meant that Tafhapy’s supposition had been correct-this was indeed the gang that had attempted to kidnap his beloved Axiothea, but had taken Bethesda instead. Was she here among them or not?
“Are you a reader of books, Pecunius?”
“When I can get my hands on one.”
“You sound quite breathless! It’s good to meet another man who gets excited at the mere sight of scrolls. It must be frustrating for you, living in Alexandria. No city on earth has more books, but only those permitted by the royal librarians are allowed to see them. Still, there’s quite a trade in bootleg copies turned out by royal scribes eager to earn a bit of extra money. A man can find just about anything in Alexandria, if he looks hard enough.”
I nodded dumbly.
“Most of these scrolls are just boring old documents-administrative letters, tax records, travel permissions … the kinds of things you find when you raid a caravan or scavenge a shipwreck. Still, I never throw any scroll away, at least not until I’ve had a good look at it. You can learn some interesting things from those boring old documents. And sometimes you find a real treasure. The complete poems of Moschus are in that capsa at your feet. But speaking of treasure … let’s have a look inside that sack you carry.”
He removed the map from the low table, rolled it up and put it away, then held out his hand and took the sack from me.
He sat on the bed and opened the sack, then peered inside and let out a low whistle. First he removed the coins and sorted through them, dividing them into neat piles. Then he removed the rings, one by one, and carefully examined each, like a jeweler assessing its value. All this he did without comment, but when he pulled the last item from the sack, the silver necklace with the ruby, he let out a gasp. He held the jewel in a slanting sunbeam from the doorway, causing the stone to glow with a smoldering red light, like a hot coal.
“So this is why the old coot from Sais followed you all the way here, and all the way to his death. Truly, it’s magnificent.”
For a long time, Artemon seemed unable to take his eyes off the ruby. At last he took my hand and pressed the jewel into my palm.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to give up the rings, Pecunius, and half the coins. But the ruby necklace you can keep.”
“What?”
“You object to giving up the rings?”
On the contrary, I was shocked that he was permitting me to keep the ruby.
He misunderstood. “Think, Pecunius! Next to the ruby, the rings are trivial, and so are the coins. Their greatest value is the goodwill they’ll buy you when you share them with the others. No one is more beloved than a generous thief.”
“Well … if you insist.”
“I assure you, it’s the right thing to do. But don’t flaunt the ruby. All the men like to wear their booty, but no one here owns anything remotely like this. The mere sight of such a treasure might drive one of the men to do something we’d all regret.”
I clutched the ruby in my fist. If Artemon considered it so rare and valuable, then surely I could use it to buy Bethesda’s freedom-if indeed she was here. Had the time come to ask Artemon about her? Should I be circumspect, and begin by asking about the woman I had seen when we first arrived, or simply ask if any women at all resided in the Cuckoo’s Nest? Or should I be more direct?
While I was mulling this over, and before I could reach a decision, Artemon stood and indicated that it was time to leave the hut. I scooped up my half of the coins and returned them, with the ruby, to the sack, then tied the sack securely around my waist. Artemon, I noticed, took one of the rings-the smallest, set with a sapphire, which Obodas had probably worn on his little finger-and tucked it inside his tunic, but the rest of the rings and coins he left in plain sight on the low table. He didn’t even bother to cover the doorway with the cloth. His trust in his fellow bandits astounded me.