The Book of the Dead

by Paul Davis

  Kaires laughed and went to his room for his money bag. After a few moments he reappeared on the gangplank and waited at the bottom for Iola to join him. Myrine watched her daughter follow him down, and they both walked off towards the main street of the city. She wondered if Kaires had already chosen a wife. There could be no shortage of suitable women for him. With his Egyptian father his place in society might be slightly questionable, but he was of noble stock, his mother was Roman and his family was wealthy. Moreover, he was undeniably very attractive. She had seen that Iola was falling for him, and wondered whether Kaires himself was aware of it. She hoped Iola wouldn’t set her heart on him only to have it broken. She could think of worse options for a son-in-law, but Kaires may not consider her suitable; Iola could offer little other than herself. But now now, she thought, it may be nothing. She mustn't read too much into it...

  The rest of the scholars were coming back to the barge en masse, and crowded up onto the sun deck to finish drying off.

  ‘Where's Kaires?’ asked Thestor.

  Myrine answered. ‘He's gone into town with Iola.’

  ‘Damn. I'll have to catch him later.’

  His brother turned to him. ‘Why?’

  ‘I just wanted a word. About Mantios.’

  Aristeon looked up sharply. ‘You mean you know something?’

  'We could go after him, see if we can catch up. We ought to see the town, anyway.’ said Dexios

  Thestor hesitated. ‘No, it can wait. It's probably nothing important. I think I'll go and rest. I didn't sleep at all well last night.’

  ‘What's not important?’ asked Chaeremon.

  ‘Well... Just something... It can't be right. But I don't know... It doesn't really make sense. Like I said, it's probably nothing. It doesn’t make much difference.’

  ‘You've got Philosophers' itch again,’ said Aristeon. ‘I'll go into town with you, if you like, Dexios.’

  ‘Good idea. Anyone else?’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Haemon.

  ‘Why don’t we all go?’ suggested Prokles.

  ‘Yes, do,’ said Thestor. ‘It’ll give me some peace.’

  -0-

  ‘Kaires!’

  The call boomed out from a tavern about half way up the main street of the town. There was no mistaking the voice.

  ‘Oh dear, we've been spotted.’ Kaires grimaced at Iola. ‘Why don't you browse round the stalls for a minute? Don't go far.’

  ‘All right. I'll be looking at those little faience hedgehogs over there. Try not to be long.’ She crossed to a stall laden with bright blue little figurines of various members of the animal kingdom. Kaires ducked into the doorway of the tavern, squinting his eyes from the sun.

  ‘Doing an impression of Strabo? Quite good, actually. Come and have a drink. You've been avoiding me, which suggests you haven't got anywhere with the simple task I set you. Waiter!’ The Prefect called across to the bar tender. ‘Another cup of this disgusting concoction you call wine.’

  Gallus sat in the shade, at a table at the back. Kaires greeted him as a boy set a cup containing a reddish brown liquid, slightly murky, before him. Kaires looked at it suspiciously.

  ‘‘Don't be so fussy,’ said Gallus. ‘It's all right after the first few mouthfuls. It'll help keep you regular.’

  Kaires took a tentative sip. Surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as it looked. ‘Where's Strabo?’ he asked.

  ‘Picking up his bowl. We saw that cup belonging to Herodotus in the Temple. Miserable little pottery thing, with the letters of his name all over the place. Laughable, really, if that’s the best he could do. Strabo’s bought a fine bronze bowl from a metalworker down the street, nicely decorated with a hunting scene, and he's getting his name added around the rim. He wants it to be kept next to the cup. He seems to think it will be some sort of metaphor about the respective value of their writings, although obviously he’s deluding himself as far as that goes.’

  ‘Well,’ said Kaires, ‘his Historical Memoirs are really rather interesting –‘

  ‘You don’t mean to say you’ve actually read them?’

  ‘A little while ago, now, but –‘

  ‘Pft! I’d rather read my predecessor’s poetry.’

  ‘Anyway, I’d like to see this bowl of his. Will the Temple accept it?’

  ‘Of course they will’ said Gallus. ‘They won’t want to miss the opportunity of melting it down as soon as he's gone. Never trust a priest.’ He glanced at Kaires. ‘Present company excepted, of course, not that you are one, really.’ He cleared his throat. ‘He'd have been better to give a pottery one; they can't do anything with that. That's the only reason they still have the other cup. Sensible man, Herodotus.’

  ‘He'll ask to see it on the way back,’ suggested Kaires.

  ‘Then they'll tell him it's so special that it's being used in the Holy of Holies, to which he is unfortunately not allowed access. You wait and see.’

  They took another sip of the wine, then looked across to the doorway where there seemed to be a bit of a disturbance as Strabo pushed his way in, clearly not in a good mood.

  ‘Where's your bowl?’ asked Gallus.

  ‘Stupid idiot put “STABO” by mistake. I'm not going to pay a fortune to be known to posterity as “I shall stand.” Why on earth would I give them a bowl with that written on it? Everyone would wonder what it meant. Now he’s going to have to squash in the “R” and it isn't going to look anything like as good. Everyone who sees it will say “Oh look, they've had to shove in an extra ‘R’, I wonder why they did that?”'. It's a complete mess, and if he thinks I'm paying extra for the engraving, he's got another think coming. Hello, Kaires, didn't see you there.’

  ‘It will make them more likely to remember you,’ said Gallus. ‘They'll say: “Remember that bowl that had the ‘R’ squashed in? I wonder if that's the famous geographer.”’

  Strabo did not look mollified. If anything his scowl deepened. ‘How would you like it if instead of Aelius they put” Allium” or something on a bowl you'd paid good money for? Would you like to be remembered as “Garlic”?’

  Kaires had been taking a sip of his wine, and a sudden cough sent some of it into his nose, making him sneeze. Gallus fixed him with a jaundiced eye.

  ‘I hope you’re not coming down with something, Kaires, or is the wine too strong?’

  Kaires was still recovering and could only splutter. Gallus turned his attention back to Strabo. ‘Why don't you go and sort out your bowl and take it to the Temple? I'm sure he'll have fitted the “R” in very nicely by now. Kaires and I have things to discuss.’

  ‘Very well. But if I don't like it, I'll have my money back, and the metalsmith - not that he deserves such a title - can do what he wants with it.’

  Strabo drained his cup and made his way through the bar back out into the sunlight. Gallus watched him go and then turned back to Kaires.

  ‘All right, then, have you got to the bottom of all this business?’

  ‘I suppose I'm beginning to see some sense. But I'm afraid it's all still far from being clear.’

  ‘You mean you haven't a clue who killed Zeno and Mantios?’

  ‘Zeno could have been killed by anybody. But the fact Mantios was also killed means it must have been one of the people round the court that day. The real problem is why Zeno was killed. They all have motives. But I don't know if any are really strong enough to make someone commit murder.’

  ‘Try me,’ said Gallus.

  ‘Well, let's start with Dexios and Thestor, as they both share the same motive. Zeno was about to be made the next Director of the Museum, a position of considerable prestige and, of course, money. Not just from the salary, but from lectures and appearances at private dinners and so on. Dexios was also in the running, but had lost out. If Zeno was removed, then it would go to Mantios, or him - as it now almost certainly will.’

  ‘And Thestor?’

  ‘Dexios had always looked after Thestor, even though he was the younger of
the two. This may have made Thestor feel inadequate. If he made sure that Dexios became the next Director, he would feel at last that he had done his part. Perhaps even more importantly, having his brother as Director would inevitably bring perks for him as well.’

  ‘Fine, but what about Caesarion's ring?’

  ‘That's the other thing. Zeno had two Library manuscripts when he went in to his room, ostensibly to copy, but one went missing. The one that was left was just some maxims. There's hundreds of copies of the same thing. Zeno was careful to keep the other hidden from Aristeon. Mantios caught a glimpse of it in the study room before Zeno covered it over. He thought it looked like an architect’s drawing or a plan of some kind. Zeno had been working with documents from the archive covering the last days of Cleopatra. He mentioned something about it to Iola. He might have found something about some sort of fund she had left for Caesarion, ready for his return to Egypt - to help him raise an army and retake his homeland.’

  ‘You're joking,’ said Gallus, but he had a gleam in his eye.

  ‘It's largely guesswork, I admit. I think Caesarion's ring may be some sort of key. To understand the plan, or map or whatever it is, you need the ring, and vice versa. Which is why the murderer had to go to such a risk to get the ring back.’

  ‘But this treasure could be vast... why leave the ring with Mantios?’

  ‘Because they no longer needed it. They now had the information they required, and it was too great a risk to keep hold of the ring - it might be found if we searched the barge. So they left it with Mantios. I think they even might have enjoyed doing so, knowing it would taunt us.’

  ‘Why didn’t they keep it in the first place, after Zeno’s death?’

  ‘Because they couldn’t. I’ll explain why later. And until they had the manuscript they probably had no idea of its significance.’

  ‘If that's why Zeno was murdered, it lets Dexios and Thestor off the hook.’

  ‘Not at all. If they knew about the map, it might have been what finally persuaded one or other of them - or both - to take action.’

  ‘And Mantios?’

  ‘He was up on deck the night the ring was stolen, and saw who took it. But he didn't realise the importance of what he'd seen. His mistake was to think it was just a bit of petty larceny, and take the opportunity to try a little blackmail.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Well, going round the court, Prokles was in the next room to Mantios. He thinks that someone may have tried to push him in front of the horse, but he may be mistaken, or he might be trying to deliberately mislead us. He might have thought it was Zeno who pushed him, and he wanted revenge. Or perhaps he was the one Zeno told about the map, and he decided to go for it himself. But he couldn't have climbed up from your rooms to the upper deck, so he must have had an accomplice. And, like everyone else, he had gone ashore before Mantios went down to his cabin for the last time, and returned after we found the body.

  ‘Then there's Chaeremon. It seems he was a rival for the affections of Assia Alexia. He claims not to have known that Zeno was also her lover, but I doubt that. A very rich widow would be worth fighting for, especially, as with Chaeremon, you're a bit strapped for cash.

  ‘And Aristeon. He had a grudge against Zeno. He had been deeply in love with Zeno's son, Eukles, and blamed Zeno for his death. I don't think he's ever got over it.

  ‘Finally Haemon. I have a suspicion, although I can't prove it, that he had something to do with the Library's manuscripts ending up in Adonis's shop. I think Zeno may have found him out and was threatening to expose him. He would be ruined. It's possible Chaeremon was also involved in the same thing.

  ‘Bear in mind that each or any of these could have been aware of the map, whatever that might lead to, and you see my problem. I believe that any of them could have had sufficient motive to have killed him.’

  ‘You still haven't told me how.’

  ‘Well, I can see how any of them could have killed Zeno. It struck me when I saw what was missing from his desk in the study room. But as for Mantios, I’m afraid I’m at a loss. It’s difficult to get round the fact that everyone was on shore when he died. No one had any blood on their clothes – I looked closely at everyone and even checked with the laundry as well – and no one saw the napkin go missing from the table.’

  They were distracted by a scuffle at the door. A shout of ‘You can't go in there!’ was followed by a yelp as Iola stamped on the bartender's toe. She came straight across to Kaires.

  ‘You told me you'd only be gone a minute,’ she complained.

  -0-

  As soon as Thestor had gone down to his room he lay on his bed. He seemed very tired of late. He never felt good in hot weather, and always tried to stay out of the sun, which gave him a headache. He hadn't been sleeping well recently, either. The movement of the barge, which others seemed to find soothing, just made him feel queasy. He closed his eyes and tried to doze for a while, with little success.

  A knock at the door roused him. Slightly annoyed at being disturbed, he called out to see who was there, but the only answer was another knock. Muttering irritably to himself, he got up and went over to open the door.

  There was no one there. He looked up and down the empty corridor, annoyed at what he thought must be a silly joke. Then, looking down, he saw that someone had left a cup of his favourite mint infusion on the floor outside his door. Smiling, he picked it up and took it in. Probably Dexios, he thought, not wishing to disturb him too much. He knew how mint soothed his headaches.

  He sat back down on the edge of his bed and took a sip. It had been sweetened with honey, although he could detect a slight bitterness behind it. But the smell of the mint was delicious, so he drank some more.

  -0-

  ‘It's not my fault,’ said Kaires. ‘He cornered me.’

  ‘I was hanging around that stall for so long the owner became suspicious and I had to buy something. You owe me for this delightful little cat.’ Iola brought out a faience Bastet with a slightly wonky front leg.

  ‘I thought you were after the hedgehog.’

  ‘I got one of those too. And a hippo. What were you talking about for so long?’

  As they walked among the stalls towards the Hellenion Kaires briefly went over his conversation with Gallus.

  ‘Really all we have to do is find this map and the case is solved,’ said Iola.

  ‘Well you didn’t find it in anyone’s room when you still had the run of them, and I've had a good look when I could. It's either well hidden, or our murderer has no further need for it. Perhaps they've memorised it and destroyed it.’

  ‘I don't think they'd take that chance. Not until they'd found whatever it is that they're looking for. I think I'd better go back to helping to make up the rooms.’

  ‘I don’t think the actual staff really want you to, now they know who you are. It makes them feel uncomfortable. And I don’t think you’d find it, anyway. Not now.’

  They reached the steps of the Hellenion, the temple for which Naucratis was famous. Founded by several Greek City States hundreds of years ago, it honoured all the Greek gods. It was indeed a magnificent building. The portico offered some shade from the sun, and several groups of men were walking up and down among the columns, discussing the business of the day. Kaires and Iola passed through the great doorway into the dark of the Temple itself. In the gloom they could discern a good number of statues of the various gods, Zeus at the centre. To one side they saw Chaeremon, Strabo, and a priest. They went across to join them.

  ‘Ah, Kaires. Hello, Iola,’ said Chaeremon. ‘ Strabo is just passing across his bowl for dedication. Isn't it splendid?’

  The bowl was indeed magnificent. Bigger than Kaires had expected, and exquisitely decorated. Strabo's name was prominent around the rim, and the mistake had been rectified so that you would hardly think that the “R” hadn't stylistically always meant to have been tucked in under the bar of the “T”. Kaires was quite impressed wi
th the metalsmith’s work. Further down the bowl a perpetual hunting scene encircled the middle, several hounds eternally chasing a wounded stag, followed by the goddess Artemis. Round the base was a wreath of laurel leaves.

  ‘Looks like they've had to squash in the “R”,’ said Iola, before Kaires could stop her.

  Chaeremon smirked. ‘That’s exactly what I said. It seems a shame to have paid such a lot of money for something not quite perfect, but of course I’m sure Strabo is thinking only of the glory of the gods, and not of his own.’

  Strabo glared at them but said nothing, returning to his discussion with the priest. He was insisting his offering was placed close to the cup of Herodotus, and was assured that for a few more coins it could certainly be arranged.

  Iola and Kaires left them to it and went off to explore the rest of the Temple. All the principal gods of the Greek pantheon seemed to be there, brightly painted and looking eerily realistic in the dim light. Several priests were milling about, some carrying out their ritual duties and others helping visitors with their questions. Kaires went over to one of their number standing near a statue of Aphrodite. After talking with him a while he returned to Iola.

  ‘Apparently the best healer round here is to be found at the Temple of Apollo next door. Would you mind if I went to see him?’

  ‘Not at all, as long as I can come too. I'm becoming more and more interested in the use of your plants. Perhaps I could become a healer myself.’

  ‘Hasn't your mother got a husband lined up for you?’

  ‘She knows better than to try. If and when I wish to marry, it will be my own choice. And I don't see why you should think that would stop me, anyway.’

  Kaires blushed. ‘I didn't mean...’

  ‘Yes, you did. But never mind. Let's go and see the Temple of Apollo.’

  She turned on her heel and left, leaving Kaires to follow.

  -0-

  The Temple of Apollo was close by the Hellenion. Not comparable in size, it was nevertheless beautifully constructed; the proportions seemed entirely harmonious and the white marble gleamed brightly in the sun, perfectly framed against the bluest of skies. A bronze statue of Apollo playing the lyre stood outside it, fashioned by a sculptor of great skill and feeling. They spent a few minutes looking round in admiration, then went over to one of the priests. Asking for the healer, they were directed through a courtyard at the back of the Temple to a room where they discerned a man sitting at a table in front of a young woman. He was giving her something, presumably a prescription of some kind. Kaires and Iola didn’t go in but took a seat on the bench outside until the woman emerged, carrying a small packet of papyrus.