XI

Unlike Vercingetorix, Arsinoe and Ganymedes were not being held in the Tullianum, but if all went according to plan, they would both end up there tomorrow, to be dispatched by the executioner.

Their quarters were located in the vast new complex housing Pompey's Theater on the Field of Mars. Calpurnia's messenger had given me instructions on how to find the place, but, wending our way among the shops and arcades and meeting halls, Rupa and I became completely turned around and found ourselves in the theater itself, with its countless semicircular tiers of seats surmounted by a temple to Venus. On the stage, a play was being rehearsed, no doubt one of the many scheduled to be performed as part of the ongoing festival that would follow Caesar's fourth and final triumph. Dramas, comedies, athletic competitions, chariot races in the newly expanded Circus Maximus, and mock battles on the training grounds of the Field of Mars-all this and much more had been announced. After so many months of deprivation and dread, Caesar intended to give the people of Rome a prolonged series of holidays full of feasting and every kind of public entertainment.

I regained my bearings and found the dedicated stairwell that led up, up, up to the topmost floor of the theater. Rupa and I came to a heavily guarded door, where I showed my pass. I expected Rupa to be kept behind, but, perhaps carelessly, the guards allowed us both to enter.

I never knew such a place existed-a private suite located behind the highest tier of seats and just beneath the Temple of Venus. Perhaps Pompey had built this aerie to be his personal hideaway, but its seclusion and limited access made it an ideal place to lock someone away. Its proximity to the Field of Mars, where Caesar's troops would muster for the triumph, would allow quick and secure delivery of the prisoners to their place in the procession.

The spacious room was sparsely but tastefully appointed, lit by windows along one wall. There was even a balcony with an expansive view of rooftops below and the winding Tiber and rolling hills beyond. The balcony was much too high to offer any means of escape.

Apparently, the princess had been allowed at least one servant while in captivity. An unusually tall, plain-faced lady-in-waiting appeared, wearing a shimmering robe with wide sleeves and a khat headdress that gathered her hair into a kind of pillow behind her head. She wore no makeup except for a few lines of kohl around her eyes.

"Who are you?" she said sharply, eyeing me with disdain and Rupa with something closer to alarm. Perhaps I looked sufficiently resolute and Rupa sufficiently brawny to pass for public executioners.

"You've nothing to fear from us," I said.

"Are you Romans?"

"Yes."

"Then my princess can expect nothing good from you."

"I assure you, we wish her no harm. My name is Gordianus. This is my son Rupa, who does not speak."

"I presume you come from Caesar? No one gets past those guards, unless they're sent by the king-killer himself." Obviously, her view of Caesar differed from that of Cleopatra; he was not the peacemaker who restored the throne to its rightful occupant but the man who had murdered one monarch, young Ptolemy, and was about to murder another.

"But that's not quite true, is it?" I said. "You've had at least one visitor who was not sent by Caesar, who gained admittance on his own initiative, to satisfy his curiosity and to show his sympathy, I imagine. I speak of my friend Hieronymus."

Her whole bearing changed. The stiff shoulders relaxed. The deep wrinkles of her face recombined into a smile. Her eyes sparkled. She clapped her bony hands together.

"Ah, Hieronymus! Your friend, you say? Then tell me, how is that charming fellow?"

I was struck by two things: the household of Arsinoe was ignorant of Hieronymus's death, and the lady before me was infatuated with him. Why not? She looked to be about the same age as Hieronymus. Indeed, with her long neck and narrow, homely features, she might have been his female counterpart.

"I'm afraid that's why I've come. I have some bad news for your mistress."

She responded with a guttural, very unladylike laugh. "Bad news? On this of all days, the day before- What news could possibly qualify as 'bad,' considering the fate that hangs over the princess?" She shook her head and glowered at me-setting the wrinkles into a new configuration-then suddenly raised her eyebrows and gasped. "Oh, no! You don't mean that something has happened to Hieronymus? Not dear Hieronymus, of all people?"

"I'm afraid so. But I would prefer to deliver the news directly to your mistress. Or perhaps to her minister, Ganymedes-"

Even as I said the name, so did someone else who had just entered the room. Over the lady's shoulder, stepping toward us through a doorway, I saw the princess Arsinoe.

"Ganymedes!" She was saying. "Ganymedes, who's that at the door? What do they want?"

I stared at the lady-in-waiting. I blinked. In an instant, the illusion created by my own assumptions melted away. I looked at the bony hands; the flesh was soft and had never known physical labor, but they were not a woman's hands. I looked at the throat and detected the telltale bump, like a tiny apple. I looked at the plain, wrinkled face and wondered how I could have been mistaken. The lady was no lady. It was Ganymedes the eunuch who stood before me.

Arsinoe was allowed no servants, after all. She and her minister were the only inhabitants of the suite. No wonder the princess was so simply attired, since there was no one to dress her. Her long, shimmering robe was not much more elaborate than that worn by Ganymedes. Having no one to wash and set her hair, she concealed it inside a striped nemes headdress made of stiff cloth, which covered her brow and hung in lappets on either side, framing her plump, round face. Short and voluptuously built like her sister, Arsinoe had put on weight in captivity.

Ganymedes did not look starved either. A potbelly interrupted the otherwise straight line of his robe. Except for the nervous glint in their eyes, they looked like two bored house-guests who had nothing to do but eat all day.

Perhaps because neither was truly a warrior, it had not been thought necessary to reduce them by torture and starvation to a wretched state of near collapse. Or perhaps the lack of ill-treatment was on account of their genders. No princess had ever been paraded to her death in Rome before, and I do not think a eunuch had ever been paraded in a triumph, either. The organizer of the triumph (perhaps Caesar himself) may have considered the two of them sufficiently unmanly to begin with, so that no further degradation was deemed necessary to make them ready to be displayed for the scorn and contempt of the Roman people.

"Ganymedes, who are these men?" Arsinoe drew alongside the much taller eunuch and stared up at me.

Ganymedes delicately wiped a tear from one eye, careful not to smear the kohl. "Friends of Hieronymus," he whispered, his voice choked with emotion. "Dear Hieronymus!"

"My name is Gordianus. My son, who does not speak, is Rupa," I said. "Your Majesty," I added, and even made a slight bow, elbowing Rupa to do the same.

I could see she appreciated the gesture, however perfunctory. "You may be the last mortals on earth to call me that and acknowledge me with a bow," she said wistfully.

"Not true, Your Majesty," said Ganymedes, overcoming his tears. "I shall address you by your title and bow before you until the very end."

"Of course you will, Ganymedes," said the princess. "Not counting you, I mean. What's this about Hieronymus, then?"

"I'm very sorry to tell you that he's dead."

She drew a breath. "How?"

"He was murdered; stabbed to death."

"When?"