by Anne Rice
"Come here," I said.
He obeyed.
"Now look at these pages, read them, are they not in Latin?"
Two slaves came timidly, hastily washing my feet and fastening on my sandals, Above me Flavius looked at the pages.
"This is ancient Egyptian writing," Flavius said. "The oldest form I've ever seen. This would fetch a fortune in Athens!"
"I just wrote it!" I said. I looked at the Priest, then the Priestess. "Summon your tall blond-haired friend," I said. "Get him here. The mind reader, the one who can read the old script."
"We can't, Madam." The Priest looked helplessly at the Priestess.
"Why not? Where is he? He only comes after dark, doesn't he?" I asked.
They both nodded.
"And when he shops for books, all the books on Egypt, he does this by the light of lamps too?" I asked. I already knew the answer.
They looked at one another helplessly.
"Where does he live?"
"Madam, we do not know. Please don't try to find him. He will be here as soon as the light fades. He cautioned us last night that you were most precious to him."
"You don't know where he lives."
I stood up.
"All right," I said, I picked up the sheaf of my pages, my spectacular ancient writing.
"Your burnt one," I said, as I walked out of the room, "your murdering blood drinker. Did he come last night? Did he leave you an offering?"
"Yes," said the Priest. He looked humiliated. "Lady Pandora, rest and take some food."
"Yes," said my loyal Flavius, "you must."
"Not a chance," I said. Clutching the pages, I walked across the great hall to the front doors. They pleaded with me. I ignored them.
I went out into the heat of the day. Flavius followed. The Priest and Priestess pleaded with us to remain.
I scanned the enormous marketplace. The good booksellers were all grouped at the far left end of the Forum. I walked across the square.
Flavius struggled to keep up. "Madam, please, what are you going to do? You've lost your mind."
"I have not and you know it," I said. "You saw him last night!"
"Madam, wait for him at the Temple, as he asked," Flavius said.
"Why? Why should I do that?" I asked.
The bookshops were numerous, containing manuscripts in all languages. "Egypt, Egypt!" I cried out, both in Latin and Greek. There was lots of noise, many buyers and sellers. Plato was everywhere, and Aristotle. There was a whole stack of the book of his life by Caesar Augustus, which he had completed in the years before his death.
"Egypt!" I cried out. Merchants pointed to old scrolls. Fragments.
The canopies flapped in the breeze. I looked into one room after another, at rows of slaves busily copying, slaves dipping their pens, who did not dare to look up from their work.
There were slaves outside, in the shade, writing letters dictated by humble men and women. It was all very busy.
Trunks were being brought into one shop. The owner, an elderly man, came forward.
"Marius," I said. "I come from Marius, the tall blond one who comes to your shop only by night."
The man said nothing.
I went into the next shop. Everything was Egyptian, not merely the scrolls rolled out for display but the fragments of painting on the walls, the chunks of plaster holding still the profile of a King or Queen, rows of little jars, figures from some long-defiled tomb. How the Egyptians loved to make those tiny wooden figures.
And there I beheld just the sort of man I sought, the true antiquarian. Only reluctantly did he look up from his book, a gray-haired man, the book a codex in modern Egyptian.
"Nothing that would interest Marius?" I asked, walking into the shop. Trunks and boxes blocked me at each turn. "You know, the tall Roman, Marius, who studies the ancient manuscripts, buys the most prized of them? You know the man I mean. Very blue eyes. Blond hair. He comes by night; you stay open for him."
The man nodded. He glanced at Flavius and said with a lift of his eyebrows, "Quite an ivory leg there." Cultured Greek. Excellent. "Grecian, Oriental and perfectly pale."
"I come on Marius's behalf," I said.
"I save everything for him, as he asks," said the man with a little shrug. "I sell nothing that isn't offered first to Marius."
"I'm sure you do. I come on his behalf." I looked around. "May I sit down?"
"Oh, please do, forgive me," said the man. He gestured to a sturdy trunk. Flavius stood perplexed. The man sat back down at his cluttered table.
"I wish I had a proper table. Where is my slave? I know I have some wine around here. I just... I was reading in this text the most amazing story!"
"Really," I said. "Well, take a look at this." I thrust the pages into his hand.
"My God, but this is beautiful copying," he said, "and so fresh!" He whispered under his breath. He could make out many of the words. "Marius will be very interested in this. This is about the legends of Isis, this is what Marius studies."
I drew back the papers gently. "I've written this for him!"
"You wrote it?"
"Yes, but you see, I want to surprise him with something, a gift! Something newly arrived, something he hasn't seen yet."
"Well, there's quite a lot."
"Flavius, money."
"Madam, I don't have any."
"That's not true, Flavius; you wouldn't leave the house without the keys and some money. Hand it over."
"Oh, I'll take it on credit if it's for Marius," said the old man. "Hmmm, you know, several things came onto the market this very week. It's because of the famine in Egypt. People were forced to sell, I suppose. You never know where an Egyptian manuscript comes from. But here -" He reached up and took a fragile papyrus from its niche in the dusty crisscross of wooden shelves.
He laid it down reverently and most cautiously opened it. The papyrus had been well preserved, but it was flaking at the edges. The thing would disintegrate if not handled with care.
I stood to look at it over his shoulder. A dizziness overcame me. I saw the desert and a town of huts with roofs of palm branches. I strained to open my eyes.
"This is," said the old man, "positively the oldest manuscript in Egyptian which I have ever seen! Here, steady yourself, my dear. Lean upon my shoulder. Let me give you my stool."
"No, not necessary," I said gazing at the letters. I read aloud, "To my Lord, Narmer, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, who are these enemies of me that say I do not walk in righteousness' When has Your Majesty ever known me not to be righteous? Indeed I seek to do always more than what is asked of me or expected. When have I not heard every word of the accused so that he may be judged in fairness, as would Your Majesty?..."
I broke off. My head swam. Some brief recollection. I was a child and we were all going up into the mountains over the desert to ask the god Osiris, the blood god, to look into the heart of the evildoer. "Look," said those around me. The god was a man of perfection, bronze of skin and under the moon; he took the condemned and slowly drew out his blood. Beside me a woman whispered that the god had made his judgment and rendered punishment and the evil blood would go back now to be cleansed and reborn in another in which it would do no harm.
I tried to banish this vision, this sense of enclosing remembrance. Flavius was greatly concerned and held me by the shoulders.
I stood suspended in two worlds. I gazed out at the bright sun striking the stones of the Forum, and I lived somewhere else, a young man running up a mountain, declaring my innocence. "Summon the old blood god! He will look into my husband's heart and see that the man lies. I never lay with another." Oh, sweet darkness, come, I needed it to shroud the mountains because the blood god slept by day, hidden, lest Ra, the sun god, find him and destroy him out of jealousy.
"Because she had conquered them all," I whispered. I meant Queen Isis. "Flavius, hold me."
"I have you, Madam."
"There," said the old man, who had risen and pushed me d
own on his stool.
The night over Egypt filled with stars. I saw it as distinctly as I saw this shop around me in Antioch at midday. I saw the stars and knew I had won. The god would rule. "Oh, come forth, please, from this mountain, our beloved Osiris, and look into my husband's heart and my heart, and if you find me in the wrong, then my blood is yours, I pledge it." He was coming! There he was, as I had seen him in childhood before the Priests of Ra had forbidden the old worship. "Righteousness, righteousness, righteousness!" the crowd chanted. The man who was my husband cowered as the god pointed his finger in judgment at him. "Give me this evil blood and I shall devour it," said the god. "Then bring back my offerings. Do not be cowards in the face of a rich priesthood. You stand before a god." He pointed at each of the villagers and pronounced his or her name. He knew trades. He could read their minds! He drew back his lips and showed his fangs. The vision dissolved. I stared at common objects as though they had life and venom.
"Oh, yea gods," I said in genuine distress. "I must reach Marius. I must reach him now!" When he heard these things, Marius would draw me into the truth with him. He had to do it.
"Hire a litter for your Mistress," said the old bookseller to Flavius. "She is overtired, and it's too long a walk up that hill!"
"Hill?" I perked up. This man knew where Marius lived! I quickly went faint again, bowing my head, and with a weary gesture said, "Please, old gentleman, tell my steward precisely how to reach the house."
"Of course. I know two short cuts, one slightly more difficult than another. We deliver books to
Marius all the time."
Flavius was staring aghast.
I tried to suppress my smile. This was going much better than I had ever hoped. But I was torn and bruised from the visions of Egypt. I hated the look of the desert, the mountains, the thought of blood gods.
I rose to go.
"It's a pink villa on the very edge of the city," said the old man. "It's just within the walls, overlooking the river, the last house. Once it was a country house outside the walls. It is on a mountain of stones. But no one will answer Marius's gate by day. All know how he wants to sleep all day and study all night, as is his custom. We leave our books with the boys."
"He'll welcome me," I said.
"If you wrote that, most likely he will," said the old man.
Then we were off. The sun had fully risen. The square was filled with shoppers. Women carried baskets on their heads. The Temples were thriving. It was a game, darting through the crowd, one way and then another.
"Come on, Flavius," I said.
It was a torture keeping to Flavius's slow pace as we mounted the hill, turn by turn, drawing ever doser.
"You know this is madness!" said Flavius. "He can't be awake during the light of day; you've proven this to me and to yourself! I, the incredulous Athenian, and you the cynical Roman. What are we doing?"
Up and up we climbed, passing one sumptuous house after another. Locked gates. The bark of guard dogs.
"Hurry up. Must I listen to this lecture forever'? Ah, there, look, my beloved Flavius. The pink house, the last house. Marius lives in style, Look at the walls and the gates."
At last I had my hands on the iron bars. Flavius collapsed on the grass across the small road. He was spent.
I pulled on the bell rope.
Trees laid down heavy limbs over the top of the walls. Through the mesh of leaf, I could make out a figure that came out on the high porch of the second floor.
"No admittance!" he cried out.
"I have to see Marius," I said. "He's expecting me!" I cupped my hands and shouted. "He wants me to come. He told me to come."
Flavius said a quick prayer under his breath. "Oh, Mistress, I hope you know this man better than you knew your own brother."
I laughed. "There is no comparison," I said. "Stop complaining."
The figure had disappeared. I heard running feet.
Finally two darkheaded young boys appeared before me, little more than children, beardless, with long black curls, and beautifully dressed in gold-trimmed tunics. They looked Chaldean.
"Open the gate, hurry!" I said.
"Madam, I can't admit you," said the speaker of the two. "I cannot admit anyone to this house until Marius himself comes. Those are his orders."
"Comes from where?" I asked.
"Madam, he appears when he wishes, then he receives who he will. Madam, please, tell me your name and I will tell him that you have called."
"You either open the gate or I will climb over the wall," I said.
The boys were horrified. "No, Madam, you can't do that!"
"Well? Aren't you going to shout for help?" I asked.
The two slaves stared amazed. They were so pretty. One was slightly taller than the other. Both wore exquisite bracelets,
"Just as I thought," I said. "There's no one else here but you." I turned and tested the thick snaggle of vine
that rose over the plastered brick. I leapt up and planted my right foot as high as I could in the thick
mesh and rose in one leap to throw my arms over the top of the wall.
Flavius had risen from the grass and rushed to me.
"Madam, I beg you not to do this," said Flavius. "Madam, this is bad, bad, bad! You can't just limb this man's wall."
The servants within were chattering frantically with one another. I think it was in Chaldean.
"Madam, I fear for you." cried Flavius. "How can I protect you from such a man as this Marius? Madam,
the man will be angry with you!"
I lay on the top of the wall, on my stomach, catching my breath. The garden inside was vast and
lovely. Ah, what marble fountains. The two slaves had backed up and were staring at me as if I were a powerful monster.
"Please, please!" both boys pleaded with me at once. "He'll exact a terrible vengeance! You don't
know him. Please, Madam, wait!"
"Hand me the sheets of paper, Flavius, hurry. I have no time for disobedience!"
Flavius complied. "Oh, this is wrong, wrong, wrong!" he said. "Nothing can come of this but the
most fearful misunderstandings."
Then I slid down the inside of the wall, tickled all over by the thick overlay of bristling and brilliant
leaves, and I lay my head in the matted tendrils and blossoms. I didn't fear the bees. I never have. I rested. I held tight to my written pages. Then moved to the gate so I could see Flavius.
"You let me handle Marius," I said. "Now, you didn't come out without your dagger."
"No, I did not," he said, lifting his cloak to reveal it, "and with your permission I would like to plunge it through my heart now so that I will be most assuredly stone-cold dead before the Master of this house arrives home to find you running rampant in his garden!"
"Permission denied," I said. "Don't you dare. Haven't you heard all that has been said? You are on guard not against Marius but against a shriveled limping demon of burnt flesh. He'll come at dark! What if he reaches here before Marius?"
"Oh, yea gods, help me!" His hands flew to his face.
"Flavius, straighten up. You are a man! Do I have to remind you of this perpetually? You are watching for this dreaded burnt bag of bones, and he is weak Remember what Marius said. Go for his head. Stab him in the eyes, just cut him and cut him and shout for me, and I will come. Now go to sleep until dark. He can't come till then, if he even knows to come here! Besides, I think Marius will arrive first."
I turned and walked towards the open doors of the villa. The beautiful long-haired boys were in tears.
For a moment the tranquillity and moist cool air of the garden lulled all fear in me, and I seemed safe, among patterns I understood, far far from dark Temples, safe in Tuscany, in our own family gardens there, which had been so rich like this.
"Let me beg you one last time to come back out of this man's garden!" Flavius shouted.
I ignored him.
All the doors of this lovely plaster
ed villa stood open to the porches above or the outdoors below. Listen to the trickling of the fountains. There were lemon trees, and many a marble statue of a lazy, sensuous god or goddess, round which flowers grew in rich purple or blue. Diana, the huntress, rose from a
bed of orange blossoms, the marble old and pitted.
And there; a lazy Ganymede, half-covered in green moss, marked some path that had been overgrown.
Far off, I could see the naked bending Venus at her bath on the edge of a pool. Water flowed into the
pool I glimpsed fountains all around me.
The small common white lilies had gone wild, and there stood old olive trees with marvelously twisted
trunks, so wondrous to climb in childhood.
A pastoral sweetness hung over all, yet nature had been kept at bay. The stucco of the walls was
freshly painted, and so were the wooden shutters, opened wide.
The two boys were crying. "Madam, he'll be so angry. '
"Well, not with you," I said, as I entered the house. I had come across the grass and left scarcely any footprint on the marble floor.
"Boys, do stop sobbing! You don't even have to plead with him to believe you. Isn't that true? He'll
read the truth in your thoughts?"
This startled each in his own way. They looked at me warily.
I stopped just past the threshold. Something emanated from the house, not loud enough to be called a sound, but very like the rhythmic precursor of a sound. I had heard this very soundless rhythm before. When was it? In the Temple? When first I entered the room where Marius had hidden behind the screen?
I walked on marble floors from room to room. Breezes everywhere played with the hanging lamps. There were many lamps. And the candles. How many candles. And lamps on stands. Why, when this place was lighted up, it must have been bright as day!
And gradually I realized the entire lower floor was a library, except for the inevitable sumptuous Roman bath, and an enormous wardrobe of clothes.
Every other room was filled with books. Nothing but books. Of course there were couches for lying and reading, and desks for writing, but every wall had its prodigious stack of scrolls or shelves of bound books.
