Alexandria mdf-19

by Lindsey Davis

  Once again I had the impression that each man here moved in his private space, engaged in his unique studies. For some, this great place must provide a home, a retreat, even a reason for existence they might otherwise not have. It could be lonely. Its subdued sounds and respectful mood could seep into the soul. But the isolation was dangerous. It could, I had no doubt, drive a vulnerable personality quite mad. If that happened, would anybody else ever notice?

  In search of general information, I strolled back outside and fell in with one of the groups of young scholars who clustered in the porch. When they heard I was investigating Theon's death they were fascinated.

  'Will you tell me about the routines here?'

  'Is that so you can spot inconsistencies in witness statements, Falco?'

  'Hey, don't rush me!' Like Heras last night, these lively sparks were snatching at answers far too soon. 'What inconsistencies do you know about?'

  Now they failed me: they were young; they had not paid enough attention to know.

  However, they gladly filled in details of how the Library was supposed to operate. I learned that official opening hours were from the first to the sixth hour, which was the same as at Athens. This covered about half the day, on the Roman time system where day and night are each always divided into twelve hours, which vary in length depending on the season. A good citizen will rise before dawn to catch the light; even an effete poet will be spruced up and parading in the Forum by the third or fourth hour. In the evening men bathe at the eight or ninth hour and dine after that. Brothels are forbidden to open before the ninth hour. Manual workers down tools at the sixth or seventh hour. So scholars can be stuck at their work for a similar period to stokers or pavement-layers. 'Also ending up with stiff backs, cramp in the calves and serious headaches!' giggled the students.

  I grinned back. 'So you think it healthier to work reduced hours?' At the sixth hour, in Alexandria during most of the year, it would still be light. No wonder they had to organise music and poetry recitals, and rude plays by Aristophanes. 'Listen. When the Library is closed to readers, are the doors locked?' They thought so, but I would have to ask the staff. None of these youthful characters trying out their first beards had ever stayed late enough to find out.

  They were bright, excitable, open-minded – and willing to test theories. They decided to come along tonight and see whether the place was locked or not.

  'Well, promise not to go tiptoeing through the great hall in the dark. Somebody may have committed murder in this building, and if so, he is still at large.' They were thrilled by my statement. 'I suspect it will be locked. The Librarian would be able to come and go with keys, so too perhaps some senior academics or select members of the staff, but not all and sundry'

  'So who do you think did it, Falco?'

  'Too early to say.'

  They quietened, nudged one another surreptitiously, then one bold – or cheeky – soul piped up, 'We were talking among ourselves, Falco, and we think it was you!'

  'Oh thanks! Why would I top him?'

  'Aren't you the Emperor's hit-man?'

  I snorted. 'I think he sees me more as his boot-boy.'

  'Everyone knows Vespasian sent you to Egypt for a reason. You cannot have come to Alexandria to investigate Theon's death, because you must have set out from Rome several weeks ago…' Under my hard stare my informant had lost his nerve.

  'You've studied logic, I see! Yes, I work for Vespasian, but I came here for something quite innocent.'

  'Something to do with the Library?' the scholars demanded.

  'My wife wants to see the Pyramids. My uncle lives here. That's all. So I am fascinated that you knew I was coming.'

  The students had no idea how the word had spread, but everyone at the Museion had heard about me. I supposed that the Prefect's office leaked like the proverbial sieve.

  This could be either vindictiveness or simple jealousy. The Prefect, and/or his administrative staff may have felt they were perfectly equipped themselves to answer any questions from Vespasian without him needing to commission me. They may even have imagined my story about the Pyramids was a cover; perhaps I had a secret brief to check how the Prefect and/or his staff were running Egypt…

  Dear gods. This is how bureaucracy causes needless muddle and anxiety. The result was worse than a nuisance: putting out false stories locally could get agents into trouble. Sometimes the kind of trouble where a poor mutt doing his duty landed up losing his life in a back alley. So you have to take it seriously. You never think, 'Oh I am the Emperor's agent, so important the Prefect will look after me!' All prefects loathe agents on special missions. 'Looking after' can take two forms, one of them filthily unpleasant. And of all the Roman provinces, Egypt probably had the worst reputation for treachery.

  While I was musing, the scholars leaned against column bases quietly. These young men showed respect for thought.

  It was unsettling – quite different from my normal work at home. If I was trying to identify which of three grasping nephews stabbed some loose-tongued tycoon who had foolishly admitted he had written a new will in favour of his mistress, I had no time to think; the nephews would scarper in all directions if I paused, and if I appeared vague, even the indignant mistress would start screeching at me to hurry with her legacy. Tracking stolen art was worse; to play 'find the lady' with chipped statues at some dodgy auction in a portico required keen eyes and close attention. Stop to let the mind wander, and not only would the goods be whipped away on a handcart down the Via Longa, but I could have my purse lifted by a thieving ex-slave from Bruttium, together with the belt it was hanging on.

  I pulled myself back to the present. 'Sorry, lads. Off in a world of my own… Alexandrian luxury is getting to me – all this freedom for daydreaming! Tell me about the library scrolls, will you?'

  'Is that relevant to Theon's death?'

  'Maybe. Besides, I am interested. Anybody know how many scrolls are in the Great Library?'

  'Seven hundred thousand!' they all chorused immediately. I was impressed. 'Standard lecture they give all new readers, Falco.'

  'It's very precise.' I grinned. 'Where is the spirit of mischief? Don't renegade staff ever put about conflicting versions?'

  Now the scholars looked intrigued. 'Well… Alternatively there are four hundred thousand – possibly.'

  One pedantic soul who collected boring facts to give himself more character then informed me gravely, 'It all depends whether you believe the rumour about when Julius Caesar set fire to the docks, in his attempt to destroy the Egyptian fleet. He had sided with the beautiful Cleopatra against her brother and by burning his opponents' ships as they were at anchor, Caesar gained control of the harbour and communication with his own forces at sea. It is said that the fire swept away buildings on the docks, so quantities of grain and books were lost. Some people believe this was most or all of the Library itself, although others say it was only a selection of scrolls that were in store ready for export – maybe just forty thousand.'

  'Export?' I queried. 'So what was that? – Caesar grabbing loot – or are scrolls from the Library regularly sold off? Duplicates? Unwanted volumes? Authors whose writing the Librarian personally hates?'

  My informants looked uncertain. Eventually one took up the main story again: 'When Mark Antony became Cleopatra's lover, it is said he gave her two hundred thousand books – some say from the Library at Pergamum – as a gift to replace her lost scrolls. Afterwards, perhaps, Cleopatra's library of scrolls was taken to Rome by the victorious Octavian – or not.'

  I made a bemused gesture. 'Some say and perhaps… So what do you think? After all, you do have an operational library now.'

  'Of course.'

  ''I can see why the Librarian seemed a trifle put out when the conversation flagged awkwardly and my wife asked for figures.'

  'It would reflect on him badly if he was unable to say what his stocks were.'

  'Is it possible,'' I suggested, 'that at various times, when threate
ned, wily librarians misled conquerors about whether they had taken possession of all the scrolls?'

  'Everything is possible,' agreed the young philosophers.

  'Could there be so many scrolls, nobody can ever count them?'

  'That too, Falco.'

  I grinned. 'Certainly no one man can read them all!'

  My young friends found that idea quite horrible. Their aim was to read as few scrolls as possible, purely to tickle up their debating style with learned quotations and obscure references. Just enough to obtain flash jobs in civic administration, so their fathers would increase their allowances and find them rich wives.

  I said I had better not keep them from that laudable aim any longer. 'I just remembered I forgot to ask the Zoo Keeper where he was the night Theon died.'

  'Oh,' the students told me helpfully, 'he's bound to say he was with Roxana.'

  'Mistress?' They nodded. 'So how can you be so sure that he had an assignation that night?'

  'Maybe not. But isn't ''with my mistress'' what all guilty parties tell you, when they are fixing up an alibi?'

  'True – though colluding with the mistress requires them to admit to a racy way of life. Philadelphion may need to be circumspect; he has a family somewhere.' I saw the young men were envious – though not of the family. They wanted to hook fabulous mistresses. 'So what is Roxana like? Bit of an exotic specimen?'

  They came alive, making voluptuous gestures to indicate her curvaciousness and seething with lust. I had no need to go back to Philadelphion. Whether or not he had something to hide, he would make Roxana swear he was with her all night and any court would believe him.

  When he had finished the necropsy, he had told me he was going to dine somewhere. I gained the impression at the time that, wherever it was, Philadelphion was well in. After cutting up dead flesh, he must have welcomed the warm delights of living.

  I wondered at which hour of the day a citizen of Alexandria could decently visit his mistress.

  I asked one last question. Remembering the item on the Academic Board's agenda on discipline (-which they had deferred very eagerly), I asked: 'Do any of you fellows know somebody called Nibytas?'

  They looked at one another in a -way I found puzzling, but said nothing. I made my gaze sterner. At last, one replied shiftily, 'He is a very old scholar, who always works in the Library.'

  'Know anything more about him?'

  'No; he never speaks to anyone.'

  'No use to me then!' I exclaimed.

  XVIII

  The young man took me indoors and pointed out where Nibytas generally sat – a lone table at the very end of the great hall. I would not have found it unaided; the table had been pushed right into a dark corner and set at an angle as if creating a barrier to others.

  The old man was absent from his place. Well, even the studious have to eat and pee. A mass of scrolls littered the table. I walked up to have a look. Many of the scrolls had torn strips of papyrus stuck in them as markers, while some were lying half unrolled. They looked as if they had been left like that for months. Unruly piles of private note-tablets were jumbled in among the library scrolls. The reading position reeked of intense, long-winded study that had been going on for years. You could tell at a glance the man who sat here was obsessive and at least a little crazy.

  Before I could investigate his weird scribbles, I spotted the tragedy professor, Aeacidas. I wanted to interview all the likely candidates for Theon's job, and do it as quickly as possible. He had seen me; afraid he would decamp, I walked over and asked for a few words.

  Aeacidas was big, lolloping, bushy-eyebrowed, with the longest beard I had seen in Alexandria. His tunic was clean, but had worn nap and was two sizes too big. He refused to leave his work station. That didn't mean he would not speak to me: he just stayed where lie was, no matter how much annoyance his booming baritone caused to others nearby.

  I said I had heard he was on the Director's shortlist. 'I should damn well hope so!' roared Aeacidas unashamedly.

  I tried to murmur discreetly. 'You may be the only outsider, the only one not from the Academic Board.'

  I was favoured with an explosion of disgust. Aeacidas claimed that if Philetus was given his head, the Museion would be run by archaic representatives of the original arts assigned to the Muses. In case I was the ignoramus he took me for, he listed them, both good and bad: 'Tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, erotic poetry, religious hymns – religious hymns! – epic, history, astronomy and – the gods help us – song and bloody dance.'

  I thanked him for this courtesy. 'Not much room at the moment for literature.'

  'Damn right!'

  'Or the sciences?'

  'Stuff bloody science!'All charm.

  'If you wanted to get added to the Board to speak for your discipline, how are people elected? Dead men's shoes?'

  Aeacidas made a restless movement. 'Not necessarily. The Board steers Museion policy. Philetus can co-opt anyone he thinks has a contribution to make. Of course he doesn't. The ridiculous little man just can't see how much help he needs.'

  'Drowning in his own incompetence?'

  The big, angry tragedy teacher stopped and gave me a hard look. He seemed surprised that anyone could come in as a stranger and immediately grasp the institution's problems. 'You've met the bastard, then!'

  'Not my type.' Aeacidas was not interested enough in other people to care what I thought. He only wanted to stress that in his judgement the Director lacked skills. That was old news. I cut him off. 'So, wasn't the death of Theon fortunate for you? Without it, you wouldn't stand much chance of wriggling in among Philetus' tight little clique. By putting yourself forward for librarianship, you may join the Board as of right.'

  Aeacidas immediately caught my drift. 'I would not have wished Theon dead.' Well, tragedy was his medium. I guessed he understood motive; no doubt fate, sin and retribution too.

  I wondered how good he was at spotting the essential human flaw that tragic heroes are supposed to have. 'What's your assessment of Theon?'

  'Well-intentioned and doing a decent job according to his abilities.' Always, this man managed to suggest the rest of the world failed to meet his own grand standards. Under his rule, everything would be different – assuming he ever won the post. If sympathetic man-management was a requirement, he stood no chance.

  I asked where he was when Theon died. Aeacidas was astounded, even when I said I was asking everyone. I had to point out that failing to answer would look suspicious. So he grudgingly admitted he was reading in his room; nobody could verify his whereabouts.

  'What were you reading?'

  'Well… Homer's Odyssey! The tragedian admitted this lapse of good taste as if I had caught him out with a racy adventure yarn. Forget that; the Odyssey is one. Say, caught with a pornographic myth, involving animals – sold under the counter in a plain wrapper by a seedy scroll shop that pretends to be offering literary odes. 'Sorry to disappoint you, Falco – that's all I can do to clear myself!'

  I assured him only villains took elaborate precautions to establish their movements; to have no alibi could indicate innocence. 'Note my gentle inflection on could. I adore the subjunctive mood. Of course in my trade the possible does not necessarily embrace the feasible or believable.' Helena would tell me to shut up and stop being clever now; her rule was you have to know somebody extremely well before you engage in wordplay. To her, word games were a kind of flirting.

  Aeacidas gave me a filthy look. He thought sophisticated verb deployment should be barred to the lower classes – and informing for the Emperor was definitely menial. I sneered like a thug who didn't mind getting his hands dirty – preferably by wringing suspects' necks – then I asked where he thought I might find Apollophanes so I could try out my grammar on him.

  The philosopher, the Director's sneak, was reading, on a stone bench in an arcade. He told me it was forbidden to remove scrolls from the complex, but the walks, arcades and gardens that linked the Museion's elegant buildings we
re all within bounds; they had always been intended as outdoor reading rooms for the Great Library. Works had to be returned to staff at the end of opening hours.

  'And scholars can be trusted to hand them in?'

  'It's not inconvenient. The staff will keep scrolls until the next day, if you still require them.'' Apollophanes had a weak, slightly hoarse voice. At the Academic Board he had had to wait for a pause to open up and then jump in, in order to be heard.

  'I bet quite a few go missing!' He looked nervous. 'Steady! I'm not accusing you of book-stealing.' He was so jumpy he was quivering.

  Perhaps Apollophanes had a good brain, but he hid it well. Away from the Director's protection, he looked hunched and so unassuming I could not imagine him writing a treatise or teaching pupils effectively. He was like those idiots with absolutely no bonhomie who insist on running a bar.

  I asked the usual questions: did he see himself as a shortlist candidate and where was he two evenings ago? He fluttered that oh, he was hardly worthy of high office – but if considered good enough, of course he would take the job… and he had been at the refectory, then talking to a group of his pupils. He gave me names, apprehensively. 'Does this mean you will question them about whether I have told the truth, Falco?'

  'What is truth?' I demanded airily. I like to annoy experts by wading into their disciplines. 'Routine procedure. Think nothing of it.'

  'They will believe I am in some sort of trouble!'

  'Apollophanes, I am sure your pupils all know you as a man of impeccable ethics. How could you lecture on virtue, without knowing right from wrong?'

  'They are paying me to explain the difference!' he quipped, still flustered but yet taking heart as he sank back into his discipline's traditional jokes.

  'I have been talking to some of the young scholars. I liked their style. As one would expect at such a renowned centre of learning, they seemed exceptionally bright.'

  'What have they been saying?'Apollophanes anxiously pleaded, trying to gauge what I had found out. Anything I said would go straight back to his master. He was a good toady. Philetus must find him invaluable.