The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World (Novels of Ancient Rome) (40 page)

Anubion cocked an eyebrow and emitted a noncommittal grunt. “When do you meet with your contact at the Library?”

“Today, as soon as I leave you.”

“Very well. Tell him I need the list of locations as soon as possible, and after that, a list of the signals and codes he proposes to use. Do you understand?”

“Of course I do. You think I’m stupid, but I’m cleverer than you think.”

Anubion pursed his lips. “On second thought, tell our friend at the Library that it’s time for him and me to meet face-to-face.”

“He won’t like that. He says you should stay apart, to avoid suspicion.”

“Nevertheless, he should have a firsthand look at the Pharos. He can say that his historical research necessitates a visit, and I was generous enough to offer him a tour. Give him this, to serve as a pass.” He produced a ceramic token with a seal on it.

“Shall he come alone?”

“He may bring his new colleague with him, if he likes. Tell them to arrive here at the wharf, an hour after sunrise. Now go.”

Nikanor turned to leave, then looked over his shoulder. “Rome is the disease,” he whispered.

Apparently this was a kind of watchword, for Anubion replied as if by rote: “And Mithridates is the cure!”

The two parted and headed in opposite directions.

Their final words echoed in my ears. My blood ran cold.

Before I could move, some workers entered the storage house, and I was obliged to remain hidden. As soon as the workers moved on, I stole away, and hurried past the guard post, where the guard was still absent. I peered up and down the waterfront, but Nikanor was nowhere to be seen.

He had said he would be meeting someone from the Library. I headed in that direction, thinking I might spot him again, but I reached the entrance of the Library without seeing him.

My head spinning, I wandered up the street. What would Antipater think of my story? Would he even believe me, or would he scoff at the idea that I had seen the killer from Olympia so many months later and so many hundreds of miles away? And what of the man’s fantastic notions about the Pharos and the magical powers of its mirrors? Anubion had dismissed his ideas—but the keeper of the lighthouse was by his own admission a master of deceit and secrecy. A space between two buildings suddenly afforded me a view of the Pharos—and I felt a shiver, wondering if the unblinking eye of its beacon was watching
me
.

Walking aimlessly, midway between the Library and Isidorus’s apartment I passed a tavern. On such a warm day, all the doors and shutters were open. I chanced to look inside, and in a far, shadowy corner I saw Isidorus. He sat facing the street, listening intently to a man who sat with his back to me. So eager was I to talk to someone about what I had seen and heard that I almost stepped into the tavern to join them. Then the man with Isidorus turned his head a bit to one side.

It was Nikanor.

*   *   *

That night at dinner, Antipater asked if I was unwell. I told him I was fine.

“Then stop fidgeting. One would think you were sitting on a needle. And you’ve eaten hardly a bite of the pomegranate salad. A loss of appetite is most unlike you, Gordianus.”

I shrugged.

“Nor have you even tasted the excellent wine to which Isidorus is treating us tonight. Imported all the way from Chios.”

I shrugged again. I was intentionally avoiding the wine. I wanted to keep my wits about me.

“Leave the young man in peace, friend Zoticus,” said Isidorus. His use of the false name set my teeth on edge. “Less of the Chian for him means more for us.”

The two of them shared a laugh and clinked their silver goblets.

I excused myself and headed for my room.

“Sleep well, Gordianus,” Antipater called after me. “In the morning, I may have a surprise for you.”

As I stepped into my room, I heard Isidorus whisper, “Do you think he’s sick?”

“Lovesick, more likely. Some pretty thing must have caught his eye and spoiled his appetite. Ah, to be his age again. I am reminded of a verse—”

Rather than hear him declaim, I shut the door, fell into bed, and covered my head with pillows. Time passed. My mind was a dull, aching void. I threw the pillows aside, returned to the door, and quietly opened it. Antipater and Isidorus were still talking, so quietly I could barely hear them.

“Nikanor has become a liability,” said Antipater. “I told you what he did in Olympia, killing that wretched Cynic. I’d known poor Simmius when we were boys together in Sidon, but we hadn’t seen each other in fifty years, and he was surely no more an agent of Rome than I am! But Nikanor became convinced that Simmius had recognized me, and would expose me, so on his own initiative Nikanor murdered Simmius—never considering what might happen if he was caught, and his affiliation with Mithridates came out. I might have been exposed along with him, putting an end to my usefulness when I’d hardly begun. Nikanor was always reckless. Now he sees spies and infiltrators everywhere. I think he’s gone mad.”

Hackles rose on the back of my neck. There could be no doubt: Antipater was an agent of Mithridates. I had no time to think, for Isidorus was talking and I felt compelled to listen.

“You can question Nikanor’s judgment, but not his loyalty,” he was saying. “No one has made greater sacrifices, traveled greater distances, or taken more risks for the cause than Nikanor—not even you, Antipater.”

“You’re not listening to me, Isidorus. It’s not his judgment I question—it’s his sanity. He says things that make no sense. What was it he told you about the Pharos today? Something about using the mirrors to gaze into the royal palace, and to read King Ptolemy’s mind?”

“He does have strange notions—”

“He’s crazy, Isidorus. He was always a little crazy, but now he’s become more so—to a degree that poses a danger to us all.”

Isidorus sighed. “Unfortunately, he’s my only trustworthy go-between for communicating with Anubion at the Pharos. You said yourself, the very day you arrived, that establishing a system of signals using the Pharos must be our highest priority. Once war breaks out between Rome and Mithridates, what if the Romans invade Egypt? Our ability to communicate in secret will be absolutely vital.”

“The Romans will never occupy Alexandria,” said Antipater.

“Perhaps not. But even if Egypt stays out of the war, Alexandria will be crawling with spies. The Romans are children when it comes to setting up secret operations. Mithridates is a master at such things, and that may be his greatest advantage. Our ability to use the Pharos to communicate in secret could mean the difference between victory and defeat.”

“Let’s not get carried away, old friend—you’re beginning to sound as grandiose as Nikanor.”

Isidorus laughed softly. “All my life, I’ve been nothing more than a scribbler in the birdcage of the Muses. The idea that I could do something to change the world is a bit intoxicating, I must admit.”

“Rather like this fine Chian wine. Shall we finish it?”

“No, I’ve drunk too much already. I’m off to bed. We have a busy day ahead of us. Are you still determined to take Gordianus along with us?”

“If he finds out that I’ve been to see the Pharos without him, I shall be at a loss to explain why I didn’t take him along. Don’t worry, I’ll see that he stays out of the way while you confer with Anubion. Gordianus is young and easily distracted.”

“You’re certain that he suspects nothing of your mission?”

“Not a thing. As Gordianus has demonstrated repeatedly during our travels, he’s quite clever in some ways, but terribly naive in others. He’s smart, but not yet cynical. He still has a boy’s faith in his old tutor; it’s rather touching, actually. He’s never pressed me about my reasons for traveling incognito, and I’m quite sure he has no idea of my activities in every place we’ve visited—studying the local sentiments, seeking out and conferring with those who might be useful to our cause, making a list of those who pose a danger to us.”

“Even in Babylon?”

“Especially there! The Parthians are suspicious of both Rome and Mithridates, but when the time comes, they must be persuaded to take our side.” Antipater sighed. “Ah well, if there’s to be no more Chian wine, then I too am off to bed.”

As they rose and moved toward their separate rooms, I heard Isidorus whisper: “Rome is the disease.”

Antipater whispered back: “And Mithridates is the cure!”

I silently closed the door and returned to my bed.

My head was so filled with painful thoughts that I imagined it might burst. From the very beginning of our journey, Antipater had deceived me. What a fool I had been, never to see through him!

Perhaps I had not wanted to see the truth.

In Olympia, on the night before Simmius the Cynic was murdered, I had overheard two men talking in the tent of our host. One had been Nikanor. The other had spoken in such a low voice that I could not discern what he said, much less recognize his voice. Now I knew that the other man had been Antipater—and both were agents of Mithridates.

Thinking back, I remembered all the times in all the cities when Antipater had supposedly kept to his room while I went out for the day … or said he was meeting with fellow scholars to talk about poetry (knowing that nothing was more certain to send me away) … or went to some temple without me, since I had already visited the place and did not care to see it again. How many of those times had his actual purpose been a meeting with confederates to plot the rise of Mithridates and the ruin of Rome?

What schemes had he hatched with Eutropius in Ephesus, and with Posidonius in Rhodes, and with all the others he must have met in all the stops we made at Athens, Delos, Lesbos, and elsewhere?

In Halicarnassus, during all those blissful hours I spent with Bitto, I had presumed that Antipater was immersing himself in the volumes of her library—when in fact he must have been carrying on a furious correspondence with his contacts all over the Greek world. I had been oblivious. How had Antipater just described me? “Young and easily distracted.”

He and Isidorus were old friends—their conversation made that clear—but for my benefit they had pretended to be strangers on the boat that brought us to Alexandria. How many times had such charades been carried out right in front of me? And now, every day, when the two of them went to the Library, presumably to engage in esoteric research amid the dusty scrolls, they were devising a code that could be used to send secret signals from the Pharos.

A sudden thought chilled me to the bone: what was my father’s role in all this? He had certainly abetted Antipater’s faked death and his disappearance from Rome. Had he done so knowing of Antipater’s mission? Was he, too, an agent of Mithridates, and therefore a traitor to Rome? Had he intentionally kept me in the dark, deceiving me just as Antipater had done?

Almost as disturbing was the only other possibility—that Antipater had duped him as well as me. What did that say about the wisdom of my father, the so-called Finder?

I felt an impulse to rouse Antipater and demand the truth. I rose from my bed, left my room, and went to his door. I stood there for a long time in the darkness, but I could not bring myself to knock. I was not yet ready to confront him. I returned to my bed. To bide my time was the wiser course, I told myself.

Would things have turned out differently, had I followed my first impulse?

I thought I would never sleep, but soon enough Somnus laid his hand on me, and Morpheus filled my head with terrible dreams. All was chaos, noise, and horror. My father and Antipater were in the midst of a bloody riot. Lurking on the outskirts, mad Nikanor suddenly lunged forward and sent a hissing serpent through the air. Then a massive finger of stone erupted from the earth and soared skyward, a white spire amid the fiery darkness. The beacon at the top was impossibly bright. The ray of light seared my eyes and burned into my brain, exposing my deepest fears and stripping me of every secret.

*   *   *

The next morning, at breakfast, I tried to look pleasantly surprised when Antipater made his announcement. I must have looked dazed, instead. I would never make a good spy.

“Gordianus, I do begin to think you’re unwell,” said Antipater. “Did you not hear me? Isidorus has arranged for both of us to visit the Pharos today. It’s quite a rare opportunity. The lighthouse isn’t open to just anyone, you know. We shall see it inside and out, and climb all the way to the top, if our legs hold up.”

“Wonderful,” I managed to say.

Antipater frowned and shook his head at my unaccountable lack of enthusiasm. “Don’t just sit there, gaping. Eat your breakfast and get ready to go out.”

We made our way to the wharf where the ferryboat carried workers to Pharos. A different, more attentive guard was on duty that morning; he demanded to see our pass, which Isidorus duly presented. We were escorted to the front of the queue and allowed to board the next boat.

Even in my glum, anxious mood, it was impossible not to be invigorated by the trip across the harbor. The air was cool and refreshing. The morning sun glittered on the water. The temples and obelisks of the royal islands to the east were in silhouette, scintillating with fiery outlines, but ahead of us the Pharos was lit from bottom to top with soft yellow light. From a distance it looked too delicate to be made of stone—it seemed to be built of butter or goat’s cheese. But as we drew closer, the illusion of softness faded, as if the warming sun itself baked and hardened the massive blocks into sharp-edged stone.

“The Pharos was built of a special kind of masonry,” said Isidorus, as if reading my thoughts, “something between a limestone and a marble. They say it actually grows harder as it’s exposed to the moist sea air. The Pharos has stood for nearly two hundred years, and the experts say there’s no reason it shouldn’t remain standing for another thousand.”

As we drew near the Pharos, I felt a sense of awe in spite of myself, and a thrill of excitement.

A guard met us as we disembarked. After examining our pass, he led us to a bench shaded by an awning of thatched reeds. Soldiers and green-clad workers were everywhere. The three of us looked rather conspicuous, wearing our ordinary tunics.