‘That is him, isn’t it?’ Priscus asked softly, not taking his eyes from the dark, shrivelled thing in that box. ‘I expected it would be bandaged all over.’
‘The embalming, My Lord,’ Hermogenes explained, ‘was carried out by his Greek physicians in Babylon. They steeped the whole body in aromatic honey, having first prepared it by some art of the ancients now lost to us. The method was less intrusive than that of the Egyptians. So long as the honey was kept replenished, I understand that the body retained its living freshness and even suppleness for many centuries.’
I pointed at some dark puckering on the right thigh. ‘According to the biography written by King Ptolemy,’ I said, ‘he took an arrow here in one of his Indian battles.’ I stretched my arms out. ‘And, even if we assume a degree of shrinkage, this does confirm the general claims that he was below normal height.’
‘He conquered and united all of Greece,’ said Priscus, still speaking softly. ‘He liberated the Greeks of Asia Minor. He conquered Syria and Egypt. He smashed the Persian Empire. He marched through regions lost before and since in the realms of fable. Had he lived and gone west, Rome itself would never have been known as other than the head town of some Italian league.’ He looked up at me, awed at the mere summary of the man’s achievement.
I ignored him and continued looking at the face of Alexander. There could be no doubt this was him. The documentation Hermogenes had brought in earlier was conclusive. The body had been ordered to be removed from display by Caracalla on his visit. It had been taken from its temple on the legal suppression of the Old Faith by Theodosius. There was an unsealed order for its burial in the necropolis – unsealed because of some dispute among the bishops about what to do with a body that had been so long worshipped as a god. Since then, it had been down here in the bowels of the Library.
It was the man. There could be no doubt of that. But I could look and look at the thin and brittle flesh that held to the skull, and at the lips shrunken back over the teeth into a perpetual snarl, and still see nothing to remind me of the statue by Lysippus set up outside the Imperial Palace in Constantinople. Stone is for ever, bronze for as long as a new shape isn’t found for it. But – Greek method, Egyptian method – the embalmer’s art gives somewhat less than immortality to the flesh.
Priscus was speaking again. ‘I know a lot about Alexander,’ he said. ‘I am, after all, supposed to repeat him in smashing up the Persians.’ He paused and glanced at me.
Still I said nothing.
He continued: ‘When Augustus came here, he scattered flowers on the mummy. He was asked if he wanted to see the mummies of all the Kings Ptolemy. He said: “I came here to see a king, not a row of corpses.” ’ He took a gold ring from his finger and placed it carefully on the mummy’s chest. It rolled slightly and settled into a depression between two of the ribs. It glinted up at us in the lamplight.
‘Get this sealed up again,’ he said, turning to Hermogenes. ‘Keep it safe. I will be back when I have destroyed the Persians a second time.’
As the door closed, leaving us alone again, Priscus sat down. He reached for his drug pouch, and was soon lost in fussing over which blend of powders might most likely produce the mood he wanted. If going into the streets was out of the question, it was decidedly chilly down here. Alexander might be kept in a dry place, but with the waters rising just a few feet below in their brick vaults, this room was bordering on the dank.
I walked over to the far wall of the room and peered into one of the loosely stacked boxes. More old books, I noted. I took one out and read the tag attached to the papyrus roll. It was the volume in which Tacitus narrates the reign of Caligula. I hadn’t known there was a Latin section here. It might be worth looking through what was left of it for rarities.
‘So, my dear, what further thoughts have you had regarding last night?’ Priscus suddenly asked behind me.
‘I questioned the slaves,’ I said, not bothering to turn. ‘Apparently, Leontius came back unexpectedly from his Canopus trip, and sent all the slaves out to a religious ceremony. He was then alone in the house, except for an old crone in the kitchens, who is deaf.’
Priscus put his cup down heavily. In the silence that followed, I turned back to him.
‘Don’t trifle with me over this,’ he snapped, for a moment losing control. ‘I haven’t come all this way to be fucked over – not by you!’ He pulled himself together and laughed. I think it was intended to be light and mocking. The drugs, however, plus the unerased emotions of our viewing, left just enough of his real nature still showing.
‘My dear young Alaric,’ he said, trying hard for his usual slimy charm, ‘if you suppose I give so much as a rotten fig for Leontius, you are sadly mistaken. His death hardly stopped the flowering of a beautiful friendship. I am referring to that slut and her message about the piss pot. You will surely agree that is a matter of greater importance.’
‘Come now, Priscus,’ I said, sitting opposite him. He pushed the jug forward. I filled his cup and then my own. There are times for jollying someone along, and times for trying to talk some sense into him. I’d never quite got the balance of this right with Martin. How to begin with Priscus? Having not the foggiest where his piss pot might be, or how to set about finding it, I decided to try for the second.
‘What we saw in the Egyptian quarter was nothing more than a marketplace trick,’ I said earnestly. ‘Go back there tonight in a different suit of clothes, and you’ll get more of the same. Don’t ask how she knew Greek and put on that funny voice. But we’ve both seen marvels of conjuring at dinner with Heraclius. No one can explain how the tricks are done. No one assumes on that account that silk napkins really are burned to ashes and then produced without so much as a scorch mark.’
‘And is it because they are such frauds,’ Priscus said, now in his tone of menacing lightness, ‘that someone fitting your man what’s-his-name’s description was seen handing them money this morning, since when they haven’t been seen?’
‘I’ll question Macarius about that when I see him,’ I said as smoothly as I could manage. Indeed, I would question him. Whatever could he have been up to?
‘Now, what else did I hear when I was with Nicetas?’ Priscus continued. ‘Ah, yes – that you’d got him to seal an order to dig out some old canal, and then diverted five hundred of the workmen, complete with digging equipment, to your own ends. Would you mind sharing with me what those ends might be?’
‘Priscus,’ I said firmly, ignoring his nasty look, ‘I’m having those men for something that is of no interest to you and that was planned long before you showed up here on your quest for that wretched piss pot.’ Macarius and his doings were still uppermost in my thoughts. I was also beginning to wonder, though, if Nicetas was entirely as useless as he’d always seemed. I dismissed the possibility. As Viceroy of Egypt, he’d surely get the best intelligence reports to be had. As Nicetas, he’d still be an unintelligent slob.
‘No,’ I finished, cutting off the reply Priscus was forming, ‘I promise that, if I ever stumble across the first chamber pot of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I will have it wrapped in purple silk and sent to you, together with your weight in whatever you’ve just shoved up your nose.’ Not, of course, I wanted to add, that Alexander had needed any piss pot other than his own for conquering not just Persia but the whole East. But you don’t really push your luck with someone like Priscus.
‘After Nicetas, I went to the nursery in your quarters,’ Priscus said, with a change of subject and of tone – he was now all aggrieved reasonableness. ‘I was told Maximin was with Martin. I was stopped at the door of his quarters by that ghastly woman of his. I’ll swear she’s on her way to becoming as fat as he is.
‘You know, Alaric’ – he was becoming easier and more natural in his manner – ‘when the Great Augustus does eventually get as sick of you as everyone else did two years ago, the worst you have to expect, in our wonderful new order of things, is being shut away in a monastery. This
isn’t a privilege, though, that stretches down far enough to touch your secretary and his family. Come the day, I’ll see that bastard Celt and his bitch wife walled up in an oven with that child of theirs. I’ll even provide the oven – the one I showed you back in Constantinople, with the inspection window I had fitted. Since Heraclius probably won’t have you blinded, I’ll allow you to watch.’
‘Well, really, Priscus,’ I answered, trying to match his mood, ‘you overestimate the space you take up in my thoughts. I had Maximin moved for other reasons. I have no objection to a short visit every day after his afternoon nap. But it all depends on your further conversations with Nicetas.’
Priscus smiled.
There was no point trying to extract any promises from him. If he’d broken oaths made in church, why should I dream of trusting his word? But the implied threat might be enough.
‘So, here at least, we do understand each other,’ he said, getting up from his chair. ‘Now, my golden young stunner, shall we walk out of here arm-in-arm – a most edifying spectacle of unity in the Imperial Council? And will you do me the kindness of showing me where you get your perfumes mixed?’
Chapter 17
Even by his own high standards, Patriarch John had preached a fine sermon. It was all about the parable of the talents, and in the Greek of Constantinople. He’d turned it very cleverly to an injunction to give to his relief fund for the distressed churches of Cappadocia. Beyond making sure everyone saw what I dropped into the collecting box when it came past, I’d paid no attention to his use of the parable. I was instead reflecting on how much sense can be found in Scripture – if only you have the patience to look for it.
Martin was going over the fine points again to me and Sveta as we sat in their quarters for an early lunch. The two children played happily at our feet, Maximin looking up every so often to make sure I was still with him.
‘I had that Chief of Police go through the Egyptian quarter last night, and again this morning,’ I explained when Sveta and the children had finally left us alone. ‘He seems to have vanished.’
‘No great loss, if you ask me,’ Martin sniffed. ‘I told you he was dodgy. Didn’t you say he knew the doorman in that place? Well, he was probably in it with the sorcerer and his girl.’
‘That doesn’t explain why Macarius should have chosen simply to disappear,’ I said, ignoring the challenge. ‘No body fitting his description has turned up in any of the usual places – not that I believe he’s the sort of man who could easily be murdered. It’s all most puzzling, and more than a little inconvenient.’
I looked again at the pile of document boxes on the table. Martin had done his usual efficient job in securing every scrap of written material from the house of Leontius. He’d also taken full notes during my second interrogation of the slaves.
‘So what do you think all that stuff means?’ Martin asked, waving at the largest box.
‘We might be able to know if Macarius was at hand,’ I said, lifting out a stack of papyrus. There was sheet after sheet, all covered very neatly in the pseudo-Greek alphabet used nowadays by the Egyptians for writing their own language. I sorted through it and pushed one of the sheets across the table to Martin. ‘This one is in Greek,’ I said, ‘and it may be a translation of something else in the box.’
‘Then shall the breath of Sekhmet roll over the red land and the black; and the men of neither land shall be smitten – yea, the very flesh shall be divided from their bones,’ Martin read. I raised a hand to stop him. There was no point reading more. It was probably all in the same wild and rhapsodic style.
‘Some poem, no doubt, from before the natives took up the Faith,’ I said. ‘If that’s a fair sample of what they write, I’m rather glad not to have learned any Egyptian. You saw from all those ugly antiques in his house that Leontius had an interest in the ancient history of the country. It wouldn’t surprise me if he knew the language.’ I smiled. ‘It wouldn’t much surprise me if it turned out that was what he spoke in private.’ I put the sheets back into their box and replaced the lid. I reached across the table and pulled open one of the boxes where everything was in Greek.
‘Now, we have a problem,’ I explained, returning to our hushed discussion of its contents as we’d wandered back from church. ‘His accounts show that Leontius had liabilities about three times larger than his assets. And some of those liabilities were falling due in the next month or so.’
‘I still don’t follow how so much of what he owed was to you,’ Martin said.
I sighed. I had tried to tell him about the forward contracts. Evidently, I’d failed once again to hack any path through the thicket of his financial ignorance.
‘It seems that his rebuilding expenses in Letopolis were financed by loans from the wealthier landowners,’ I said. ‘Most of his creditors were willing to hold off foreclosing so long as he fronted resistance to the new law. Some of them, however, wanted at least part payment – and even part payment was more than he could manage.’
I took up a letter from a Saracen banking house on the other side of the Red Sea. I waited as Martin read it again, hoping he’d understand the promise of a big payment from some person or persons unknown – but only in October, and on condition he disclosed nothing of the payment in advance. What he was supposed to deliver in return was unstated, but it seemed to have been somewhat more than just keeping me at bay: it may have been goods as much as services. Indeed, there was a certain eagerness that came through the standardised commercial phrasing. I wondered if this might have been the matter that would have concerned me had the man lived.
‘To tide him over,’ I said, dropping the letter back on the table, ‘he entered the financial markets; not a wise move for someone as thick as he appears to have been. My own positions were taken through those Jewish bankers. This should normally have kept me in the clear. You can always trust Jews to keep quiet about who their clients are. But the bankers used by Leontius told him who my people were. That, plus the contract I got Nicetas to award them to handle the customs arrears in Ptolemais, provides at least the ghost of a trail for anyone of intelligence to follow back to me. Leontius wasn’t clever enough to follow the clues. His executors may not be so stupid.’
‘I warned you not to get involved in speculations on the price of bread,’ Martin said, finding something at last he could understand and condemn. ‘When the people learn you’ve been behind the price rises, there will be endless trouble.’
And that – in spite of what I’d told Nicetas and everyone else – is what had me still investigating Leontius. Who had murdered him and why were matters of no importance. What he’d been up to that involved getting me out of Alexandria would normally have been of some importance. What really concerned me, however, was the avoidance of scandal.
‘Martin,’ I said very patiently, ‘I have explained many times that my speculations have been on lower prices come the harvest. I’ve been selling corn in advance at lower prices than others expect, but at much higher prices than I know will be the case. Generally, speculating on future prices has the same effect on those prices as bets on a charioteer have on the speed of his horses. If not, the only effect such speculations can have on present prices is to lower them from what they would otherwise be. If prices are rising at the moment, it’s because the corn is actually running short.’
‘So, if you want the prices to be lower,’ Martin asked, clutching at random words, ‘why did you oppose the price controls?’
I sighed again, and put my thoughts into order. I needed to settle this with Martin. If I could persuade him, I might have an excuse ready for everyone else if the worst came to pass.
‘Martin,’ I said, ‘there will be a good harvest. I’ve already explained how I know this. Therefore, speculating on the fact will tend eventually to release stocks of corn on to the market that would otherwise be stored longer than was needed. Fixing the price by law, on the other hand, will either encourage the people to be less thrifty than they shou
ld be, or give merchants reason to withhold stocks from the official market. It will turn shortage into famine.’
Oh dear, I’d lost Martin for sure. He wasn’t stupid, and he always tried to think the best of me. If I couldn’t make myself plain to him, what chance might I have against those landowners in persuading any of the Alexandrian mobs?
Martin opened another of the boxes and took out a document written on parchment. He looked at it and frowned.
‘This is in Persian,’ he said.
I looked. He was right. There was no mistaking those neat squiggles. It had been covered all over the other side in Egyptian writing that may have been a translation. A shame it hadn’t been translated into Greek.
‘I think you should hand all this over to the Intelligence Bureau,’ he said.
I shook my head. Bearing in mind what we knew of these documents, I didn’t fancy having so much as a sniff of their contents pushed under noses that answered to Nicetas.
‘Did you say Priscus would be here in the afternoon?’ Martin asked with a change of subject.
I looked at the furnishings he and Sveta had insisted on bringing out with them from Constantinople. I had told him much better could be picked up for remarkably little in Alexandria. But for all they’d struck me as tatty, and for all the additional carrying cost I’d had to pay, Martin had been too proud of them to think of leaving them behind. He hadn’t changed the subject. Indeed, he’d simply moved the discussion forward.
‘Priscus had me out of bed at dawn,’ I said. ‘He needed a passport and money for a trip to a monastery somewhere off the road to Siwa. He’d heard a rumour that the first chamber pot of Jesus Christ was kept there. I didn’t try disabusing him of this. Since it was at Siwa that I believe Alexander first discovered he was a god, Priscus will surely find something there to keep him happy. He’ll be gone, I rather hope, at least fifteen days.’
‘He went alone?’ Martin asked. ‘He went into Egypt alone?’ he repeated, aghast. ‘He went without guards at a time like this?’
The Blood of Alexandria a-3 Page 12
