Hannibal's Children (26 page)

"Well," Marcus said, "it floats. I'll believe it moves when I see it."

So stunning was the barge that they scarcely noticed the crowd of people aboard it, colorful and striking though they were. There were hordes of seminude dancing girls, giants and dwarfs, transvestites of both sexes, apparent hermaphrodites, women wreathed in ivy vines like maenads, men in leopard skins, persons in the regalia of native Egyptian priests, foaming priestesses in transports of prophetic ecstasy, boys swinging smoking censers on long chains, towering black guardsmen with zebra-hide shields and carrying spears with blades as long and keen as swords. And these were only the ones that first caught the eye.

"So this is the royal court," Flaccus said. "Looks to be a lively place."

"Keep your faces straight," Marcus instructed them. "Act only politely impressed, and try not to laugh."

A man dressed in an odd combination of Greek and Egyptian court robes came down the gangplank to greet them. His face was heavily painted and he wore a square-cut black wig dusted with gold powder. He clasped his hands before his breast and bowed deeply.

"Welcome, envoys of Roma Noricum," he trilled. "I am Dion, Second Eunuch to the court of King Ptolemy. His Majesty is most anxious to meet you."

"Took his time about satisfying his anxiety," muttered Caesar.

"We are most eager to open negotiations with your king," Marcus said.

"Then, if you would be so good as to follow me, gentlemen."

The eunuch led them up the ramp and boys fell in beside them, swinging censers to cover them with fragrant smoke. Barely nubile girls draped them with wreaths and slaves dipped bundles of withies into golden bowls of rose water and sprinkled them with the mild perfume. Dark young women wearing golden belts and nothing else unrolled a scarlet carpet before their feet as flower petals sifted down from the ceiling.

They entered the great interior hall of the vessel and found that its ceiling was a full three stories up, the upper two floors forming balustraded galleries. Massed at the railings were more of the bizarre inhabitants of the Ptolemaic court, but the Romans would not crane their necks to gawk at them. Ahead, at the end of the long room, sat enthroned the King of Egypt, Ptolemy Alexander Philadelphus Eupator, fourteenth monarch of his line by the official count, although pretenders and doubtful or delegitimized heirs had been plentiful.

The boy sat rigidly, encased in court robes of stiff linen embroidered with gold thread, magnificent jewelry, wearing the simple diadem of Hellenistic royalty, holding crossed before him the crook and flail of the pharaohs. Young as he was, his expression was neither childlike nor truly adult, but rather a sort of reserved wariness, as if he had seen little in his short life to inspire him with confidence.

"Your Majesty," said the Second Eunuch, "I present the envoys from Roma Noricum."

"We are pleased to receive men of such distinction," the boy intoned, as if the formula were some prayer that he chanted without thought.

A man who stood at the king's right hand came forward. "I am Eutychus, the First Eunuch. I will accept your credentials and present them to His Majesty."

At Marcus's signal Caesar came forward with their documents and placed their documents into the soft hands of the eunuch. He was careful to avoid touching the half-man's flesh. Eutychus showed the documents to the king but the gesture was symbolic. The king barely glanced at them.

"These presents merit our closest study and I am certain that we shall find all in proper order," said young Ptolemy. "In the interim, please accept my humble hospitality." This he said with more enthusiasm.

At a gesture of his flail, a horde of slaves appeared, the first wave of them bearing furniture: chairs and couches, cushions and drapery. Many carried legs and struts and lengths of wood, and with amazing speed they assembled long tables down the length of the great room. A higher table was set before the throne, at right angles to the lower boards. The Romans barely had time to marvel at the splendid, exotic wood, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, before it was covered with cloths no less valuable.

With equal efficiency, staff-bearing stewards conducted the Roman party to their places at the high table. The couches were covered with cushions stuffed with rare herbs and no sooner had their feet left the floor than they were relieved of their sandals. Simultaneously, basins were held beneath their hands and water poured over them from pitchers of finely wrought gold. Food appeared as if by the working of some subtle god.

Where, Marcus wondered, was all this food coming from? They had seen no smoke rising from the barge, so there was no kitchen aboard, at least none equal to this prodigy of cookery. Lines of slaves filed in, each bearing a tray or bowl of some delicacy, even more elaborate than the viands they had enjoyed in Carthage. The slaves seemed to be organized in regiments distinct as to nation and costume: Blacks with sooty skin dressed in leopard-skin kilts and feathered headbands carried the fruits. Fish came in carried by Greeks dressed in white chitons. Brawny, pale-skinned northerners wearing fanciful fur loincloths, their arms and necks encircled by rings of bronze brought in meats. They worked in teams of four, bearing gigantic platters upon which rested entire roasted animals, some of them quite unknown to the Romans.

If their soldiers were as well trained and disciplined as their slaves, Marcus thought, these people would rule the world. Even as he thought this, a team of sleek, near-naked men rushed in, waving long, curved, swordlike knives. Behind them were girls in wispy tunics, with double flutes in their mouths, the instruments bound by ribbons tied be-hind their heads. In time with the rhythmic music of the flutes, the men carved the roasts, their movements as graceful as those of dancers, reducing the smoking carcasses to steaks and slices and tiny chunks with incredible speed and skill.

"It's stifling in here," Ptolemy complained, sounding for the first time like the boy he was. A steward clapped his hands and the curtains between the columns rose silently to reveal an expanse of water stretching in all directions. The Romans stuffed food into their mouths to keep from gasping. The immense barge had set out upon the water and they had not noticed. At the stern, Marcus saw another barge connected by a broad gangway. It was from this barge that the slaves were carrying the provisions for the banquet. Even as he watched, the gangway rose and the barge backed away. Behind it were others, doubtless bearing the other necessities required by the Alexandrian court while roughing it on the water.

"How is this vessel propelled?" Marcus asked. "I hear no oars working."

Eutychus smiled indulgently. "First, enjoy and refresh yourselves with a little food and wine. Later, you shall have a tour of this pleasure-barge."

"Is there more than one?" Flaccus wanted to know.

"There are a score or so," said the eunuch. "This one is specially designed for banqueting. Others are for sightseeing or sport or for the king's personal use."

"We thought all you Romans were dead," Ptolemy said, picking sullenly at a dish of eels in some sort of dark sauce.

"Quite a few of us are still alive," Marcus said. "The mainland Greeks we trade with could have told you, but I suppose they had their reasons for keeping our existence to themselves."

"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?

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.