The Princess and the Pirates by John Maddox Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

enough of them for a while?” “I just want to see if Ion has sold them for firewood.” We found the ships hauled up onto a convenient stretch of sandy beach. The masts, sails, and oars were neatly laid out; the hulls propped up with timber balks; the sailors busily at work scraping the bottoms. Whatever his shortcomings, Ion was a thoroughgoing professional when it came to his vessels.
    I found him squatting beneath one of the hulls, inspecting a plank that appeared to be nearing the end of its serviceable life.
    “Why aren’t you using the naval harbor facilities?” I queried. “That’s for bigger ships, and the sheds are for bad weather. If you want a good look at your ship, there’s nothing like a good, sandy beach that won’t scrape the bottom and bright sunlight to see by. I’d not have spotted the rot in this plank in the shade.”
    “Well, I won’t advise you concerning your own work.”
    “Good. You’ll need to buy pitch. All three hulls need treating.” “I see you didn’t bother to go to the naval stores for it.” “Why bother? I haven’t seen any naval stores in the last two years east of Piraeus. We need some cordage, and you might as well pick up some paint. It always makes the men feel better to start a cruise with the ships looking good.”
    “At least we have paint. Go to the naval yard and take all you need.”
    “Well, there’s a miracle. Weapons?”
    “Enough to take on another hundred marines and provide at least light weapons for extra rowers. We’ll be looking over the available manpower tomorrow morning.”
    “I’ll be there. Don’t expect much.”
    “I’ve lived too long to expect much,” I assured him, “but I want the best of what there is to be had in this place.”
    I spent an hour looking over the vessels and the men as if I knew what I was doing, a talent much needed by a man involved with politics. A Roman official is expected to be proficient in law, public speaking, administration, priestcraft, agriculture, and warfare. In reality, proficiency in law and rhetoric are sufficient. The rest can be handled by competent subordinates.
    “Somebody’s coming,” Hermes said, pointing toward the water. A golden skiff manned by twenty rowers sped our way, oars flashing in perfect unison. When I say golden, I don’t mean it was touched up here and there with gilding. The whole thing was gilded, a truly Ptolemaic affectation. It looked like a piece of the sun detached and come down to visit. In the prow stood a man in white livery trimmed with golden embroidery.
    When the keel touched the beach, the rowers leapt over the bulwarks, grasped the boat, and lifted it onto the sand. They were a matched set, tall, long limbed, with skins just a little darker than the sand. Their hair was dressed like the square-cut Egyptian wig, and they wore the traditional linen kilt of that land—white as a candidate’s toga. When there was no danger of getting his sandals wet, the man in the white tunic hopped ashore.
    “Princess Cleopatra, daughter of King Ptolemy, sends greetings to the distinguished senator Decius Caecilius Metellus and invites him to join her aboard the royal galley
Serapis.
” He had the high, fluting voice of a court eunuch. This did not mean that he was a gelding though. Sometimes court functionaries pitched their voices falsetto in order to sound like eunuchs, who enjoy special status at the Egyptian court. Greeks are unfathomable people to begin with, and the ones who run Egypt are stranger than most.
    I climbed aboard, curious to see what sort of craft Cleopatra might consider a proper royal yacht. During my stay in Egypt I had seen the incredible river barges the Ptolemies amused themselves with: virtual palaces set atop two vast hulls, propelled upstream by thousands of rowers, like something the gods would travel in on their occasional forays to the world of mortals. Only logical, I suppose, when you consider that the Ptolemies, like the old pharaohs,