by Peter Tonkin
Halys’ whistle pierced the night once more. The oarsmen on the right side of the vessel slid their oars out in unison. The pausarius beat once on his drum. Fifty oar-blades bit into the sea’s surface. The forward impulse on that side stopped. But it continued on the other, swinging the hull in a tight arc. The oars strained. Artemidorus fancied he could feel them flexing, bending. Glaros shuddered. The deck sloped. Artemidorus staggered against the rail. The hull uttered a sound somewhere between a howl and a roar. Then it settled. The sail flapped once and fell back against the mast as the wind that had blown from astern now blew from the right instead. The pausarius struck his drum again. Then set up a rhythm for six strokes before falling silent.
By which time Glaros had completed her turn and was racing noiselessly and invisibly westwards.
XI: Egypt
i
The next day dawned fearsomely hot, despite the season. By the Roman calendar, rewritten by Divus Julius, they were just approaching the dog-days of Mars, soon to celebrate the calends of Aprilis, having been on their mission for well over a month already. But here, still some way north of the Egyptian coast, let alone of their final destination, it seemed that high summer had arrived. The north wind was still at their backs, because they had only run far enough west to be fairly certain that they had evaded the quinqueremes’ trap. Then, they turned south once more. Repairing the rigging had taken much of the night but it was done now, and the oarsmen were taking a well-earned rest while the deck crew oversaw their progress south.
Jentaculum of porridge and milk passed. A light, quick prandium of bread and warm water followed at noon, while the oarsmen dozed below decks and everyone above sought what little shade there was. But, just as Halys promised, as the afternoon waned towards dinner time, the horizon ahead took on a strange yellow hue, wavering as though they were approaching a sea of molten gold.
Which was apt enough, thought Artemidorus, standing beside the stempost looking earnestly ahead as he went over in his mind what he had revealed to User – and whether he had parted with too much information or too little, for that was the coast of Egypt: a land worth more gold than Rome and Athens combined. Ruled from Alexandria – which boasted more scholars, philosophers, and books than both of the northern cities put together.
Egypt, ruled not merely by a queen, co-regent with her brother as Divus Julius had planned all those years ago, but by the Goddess Isis who had inhabited the infant form of Cleopatra at the moment of her birth. Perhaps that was it, thought Artemidorus. Perhaps it wasn’t the beauty, wit, or learning; perhaps it wasn’t the limitless riches on offer, displayed at every turn with vistas of gigantic opulence; perhaps it was the thought of bedding a goddess that had tempted Divus Julius into near-madness and stolen Antony’s heart. And to be honest, he could sympathise with both of them. For, as Antony knew too well, Artemidorus himself was half in love with her. An emotion the queen recognised in him, indulged in him, and returned with as much friendship as was proper between a deity and a mortal.
The fact that he had known Cleopatra personally, since Divus Julius’ Egyptian adventure, and had visited her as Divus Julius’ emissary and Antony’s occasional messenger while she had lived in Rome in 709 and 710 – until the Ides of March that year – was one of the details he had not shared with User. Nor had he revealed the precise details of Antony’s messages. Nor the sum of the gold he still carried to smooth the way from the docks to her audience chamber. Nor the priceless gifts he carried – in place of the pomp and ceremony that might be expected in an emissary of Rome. A trust that could only be earned in time – not through promises and threats of revenge.
*
The coastline west of Alexandria was notoriously flat and featureless. But that didn’t seem to worry Halys. ‘The procedure is quite simple,’ User explained. ‘We turn left in the last deep water before the tide line and row eastwards parallel to the beach until we see the Pharos. At night it is brighter than any star and during the day it is so tall you can see it for twenty Roman miles, especially as it is white.’
‘450-feet high, including the statue of Poseidon right at the top of it, yes I know,’ said Artemidorus, his tone robbing the words of any possible offence in case the widely travelled Egyptian should feel his new Roman friend was talking down to him and, perhaps, to cover his slight unease at still keeping secrets from the man. ‘And on a still day, the smoke from the fire rises straight up and may even be visible for one hundred miles. eight hundred stades. Yes. I can see how it will guide us to the harbour. And that all we have to do is sail eastwards until we spot it.’
‘But?’ said User, catching the hesitation in Artemidorus’ tone.
‘The captains of the quinqueremes will know this as well. They missed us last night. But they still know where we are heading, advised by Messala or Lucius, or both. All they have to do is sail a little west of the Pharos and wait for us.’
‘True. I will discuss this matter with my old friend Halys and see if he can come up with a Cilician trick or two.’
‘By Cilician trick, he means pirate trick,’ said Ferrata, joining Artemidorus on the bow as User went astern.
‘Any trick that gets us into Alexandria will suit me fine,’ said Artemidorus.
User heard Ferrata’s comment and Artemidorus’ answer, for neither had lowered their voice. He turned with a bark of laughter. ‘No. friend Polyphemus,’ he said. ‘I rather think what we may need is not a pirate but a wine merchant!’
ii
No sooner had they spotted the Pharos with its golden crown of light, its column of smoke carried inland by the north wind, and its great tower painted blood red in the sunset than they saw the quinqueremes sitting apparently right at its foot, blocking the entrances to both the Great Harbour and the Eunostos Harbour to the west of it. And it seemed that the sharp-eyed watchkeepers high on the Roman vessels saw and identified them at once. As soon as Halys’ watchman called out the warning that they were there, it became obvious they were in motion. Four quinqueremes, line abreast. So close together that their oar-tips nearly touched. A huge wall of wood, covered with beaten metal, footed with massive rams, propelled by three hundred oars each, powering straight at them.
Halys watched them approach with a disdainful laugh. ‘You see how far out they are? How far from the shoreline? Their draft is the better part of twelve feet where ours is three. Your huge friend Hercules standing on another Hercules’ shoulders would hardly be as deep whereas our draft, as I say, might come somewhere between my belt and my armpit. Glaros can sail inside them if we want her to, skimming the surf-line like the seagull she’s named for. And, remember, they are like Hannibal’s elephants compared to our fleet-footed floating gazelle.’
‘Is that what you’re proposing?’ asked Artemidorus uneasily. ‘Just to skip along the beach inside them; sail straight past them and into the Western Harbour. Because your draught is shallower than theirs and your speed is so much greater?’
‘No, lad,’ answered Halys. ‘That would be too risky. There are no sailing manuals that tell us about these shores with any accuracy. We could hit a rock or a reef that no-one knew about. In any case, the shoreline all along here is constantly shifting. Only the direct intervention of the gods would get us safely past.’
‘And into the grip of a couple of military triremes – or even biremes with a draft as shallow as your own and speed to match,’ added Artemidorus, ‘just sitting waiting, like the black ships last night.’
He glanced at the shifting, unrecorded shore, prompted by Halys’ words. Beyond the narrow surf line, a thin beach gathered up into low dunes and these were soon clothed with reeds and rushes similar to the bank of the River Xanthos, and, behind them, more reeds, standing tall in the gathering evening, nodding their puff-ball heads in the breeze. Then, away in the distance, apparently removed from the reeds by a valley of some kind, low hill slopes which looked as though they were clothed with, of all things, grape vines, the existence of which tugged at somet
hing buried in Artemidorus’ memory – a distraction that he instantly dismissed.
‘Then what’s the alternative?’ asked Ferrata, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Turn and run. Don’t come back until they’ve got bored and gone home? Or died of old age? I don’t think poor old Quintus would survive that!’
‘No,’ answered Halys. User and I have come up with another plan entirely. An Egyptian plan which is so far beyond the imagination of your stupid Romans that it’s almost a kind of joke!’
*
‘There!’ called User from his position in the prow, ten minutes later. The Egyptian was right up at the furthest reach of the bow. He was just visible, one hand on the stempost leaning out over the cutwater almost like Quintus being seasick.
‘Thank the gods for that!’ answered Halys. ‘I was beginning to think we were going to lose the light. Or be run down after all by those Roman elephants!’
‘Not something I would recommend,’ called User. ‘That’s how I met my current travelling companions.’
‘And lucky to survive the encounter I dare say!’ Halys turned to the gubernator and his team at the steering paddle. ‘We turn here. The wind will help us. I will tell you when to ship the oars.’
Glaros turned right and headed south with the wind beginning to fill her sail once again, driving her onwards while her oars continued to push her through the water, growing shallower and shallower as they ran towards the beach. Artemidorus watched. For it seemed that there was nothing ahead of them but that dangerous, constantly shifting shore.
‘He’s going to beach us!’ called Ferrata, his voice wavering with shock. ‘At least Quintus will be happy!’
‘Ship oars!’ ordered Halys. And, with a rumble, the oars came aboard, just leaving the great sail to push them relentlessly through the low surf onto the pale swathe of sand.
‘Steady as she goes,’ came User’s distant voice.
‘Steady!’ Halys called to the navigator and his team.
And, with a shudder, Glaros came onto the land. Except that she didn’t. The land yielded to the south-running impulse of her bow. And Artemidorus realised that what had looked like solid ground was a floating reed-bed. What they were crossing was not a beach but a river-mouth, scarcely wider than the ship itself, the outflow issuing into the sea moving gently, invisibly. Almost stagnant, speaking of thick vegetation, shallow water.
Pushed relentlessly onward by the wind, the liburnian shouldered the reed-beds aside. There was a faint rumble and a slight shudder as her bottom brushed over the river-bed, but the imperative of that steady wind helped push her on. And in a few more moments she was free as the river widened and deepened while the vegetation fell back.
‘Through!’ called User.
Artemidorus looked over his shoulder – over Glaros’ stern. Immediately in their wake, the reed-beds had closed, hiding the river mouth once again. His gaze shifted northwards and eastwards to where their pursuers were still powering pointlessly along the sea-shore. Parallel to the beach, several stadia out in the deeper water of the Mare Nostrum, which the locals called The Roman Sea; and not as a compliment. The quinqueremes, as they had last night, were lighting their signal lamps, which made them easier to see as they approached the narrow mouth of the hidden river. They became a constellation of brightness moving relentlessly westward beyond a wall of beach-backed sand dunes topped by reeds and rushes. The Roman galleys might just as well have been cruising off Brundisium or Britannia for their chance of catching Glaros now.
As night fell around them, the dark liburnian sailed invisibly southwards until, abruptly, in the last of the light, she came out of the south-facing river-mouth and into open water. Artemidorus looked about in simple wonder. To his right, the low hill-slopes he had seen earlier, claimed the final red rays of the setting sun, turning the vine-leaves a fiery-red, making the whole hillside seem to flame as the leaves moved in the wind. He began to see, amongst the shadows along the shoreline, low warehouses, and what could only be wine-presses fronted by piles and piles of amphorae. Then, even as he stared, Halys ordered the oars run out and Glaros swung left, powering silently forward.
In front of the dazzled spy was a vast expanse of calm, clear water that reached forward, eastwards, in the darkness to a blaze of light almost equal to that of burning Xanthus. But this was no city being torched, sacked and destroyed. This was the legendary marvel; the wonder of the world which was his final destination.
‘Alexandria,’ he breathed.
iii
Just like Rome, Alexandria never slept, thought Artemidorus. But there the similarities ended. Rome stayed awake all night because its twisting rabbit warren of streets was so congested during the day that wagons were forbidden. Deliveries, therefore, had to take place after dark by traders with special dispensation to come and go through the guarded gates. Rolling and groaning along the stinking streets, wheels screaming like souls in Tartarus. Lamps and flambeaux grudgingly – and dangerously – kept the shadows at bay while ox-carts and mule-drawn wagons delivered everything from casks of fish and nets of molluscs to bushels of grain and amphora of wine. In contrast, Alexandria’s streets were wide, straight, laid out in the open grid favoured by Alexander the Great himself. For Alexander had designed the place. Deliveries were welcome at any time. The vias and boulevards were clean, fragrant, well-maintained. But still the city blazed and bustled through the hours of darkness. Alexandrians seemed to think that life was too short and too full of wondrous possibilities to waste half of it asleep.
Most of the buildings were stone or brick faced with limestone and marble, like the towering Pharos itself. The lights coming from great blazing sconces were all maintained by the city fathers, or rather, by the city’s mother: their goddess, pharaoh and queen, Isis Cleopatra.
And what was true of the city behind its tall, well maintained wall, was also true down here at the Royal Docks on the south side. Docks which formed part of the Lake Harbour that opened out onto the great freshwater Lake Mareotis, across which they had just come. The lake was fed by the Canopic branch of the river, which joined the Nile proper some twenty Roman miles north of Memphis. The westernmost branch named for the attendant city of Canopus that stood to the east of Alexandria. But a wide canal ran more directly from the city to the main stream, via the two cities of Elusisda and Canopus which existed to supply entertainments of every sort to the Golden City itself – as Artemidorus knew from personal experience. But, as the reed-blocked channel along which Glaros had only just managed to squeeze made clear, the great river was running low. Even the lake was shallow – though there was still enough water to fill the Lake Harbour.
As he followed Halys and User up onto the brightly-lit dockside, Artemidorus looked around. Glaros was by no means the only trading vessel here, for, as User had implied, and he had seen for himself, there was a bustling wine industry all along the lake’s southern shore. Mareotic wine, he remembered. Famous the world over, he remembered now as the whole place closed around him with the familiarity of an old lover rekindling the flame, the wine more important than ever now in the face of the Nile’s failure to flood for two successive years, robbing Egypt and her people of four successive grain harvests.
But the vessels riding beneath the massive sconces, flambeaus and municipal oil lamps were by no means all trading vessels. Away to the right, in the lakeside version of the Royal Harbour at the salt-water north side of the city, there was Cleopatra’s river fleet, at the heart of which sat her enormous golden barge. More than three hundred Roman feet long, it was nearly three times the length of Glaros; bigger than the quinqueremes that had hunted them – and twice as long as most of the polyreme battleships he had seen. It was fashioned of cedar wood, painted and gilded, forested with tall sandalwood pavilions, scented and silk-walled. He remembered visiting the main decks between the pavilions – the gardens with their fountains and enormous statues. The menagerie with its exotic animals and birds – the most beautiful with their wings clipped to st
op them flying away. The palatial living quarters, above-deck and below, accommodation for tens – hundreds – of honoured guests and the slaves required to tend them. The barge was only able to be so enormous, so opulent, because it was never designed to withstand the open sea.
‘Septem!’ Quintus interrupted his thoughts. ‘The Egyptian and the pirate are signalling to you.
*
Antony would no doubt have approved, thought Artemidorus cheerfully, that some of his gold went towards port charges and docking fees – and therefore straight into the coffers of the woman he most truly and deeply loved. Some of it also went towards transport costs – for the gold itself, the precious documents, the arms and armour that the legionary slaves and the oarsmen unloaded from Glaros’ hold. And a good deal of it went to Halys in payment for the passage. As it had turned out to be more adventurous than expected, Artemidorus was content that it turned out more expensive than initially agreed.
Then, as the unloading continued, Artemidorus showed his credentials to the dockside officials whose job it was to record the arrivals and departures of men and women, in groups or as individuals, working for the office of the dioketes Chief Steward who oversaw such matters. And, once his documents had been checked, thought the spy, word of the arrival of a Roman courier from Antony would be carried to whichever of the palaces Cleopatra and her court were currently occupying. Eventually, in all probability, to Cleopatra herself; even such a modest embassy as this. Especially as he had appeared at the Lake Harbour almost in secret instead of arriving at the Royal Harbour on the Mediterranean side, with the self-important pomp and ceremony that might be expected. Even so, he reckoned, there would be a summons. And he was fully prepared to spend the next days climbing the ladder of influence, seniority and power as one official after another handed him onwards and upwards through the court hierarchy.
