While I was trying to work out in my still fuddled mind what was going on, the canopy that had kept me in darkness was pulled away. My eyes adjusted slowly to the light of the Egyptian day that was all about me. It was some while before I could see for sure that it was Lucas grinning at me through the bars of the cage in which I was shut.
‘Has My Lord slept well?’ he asked as I rolled back into a seated position. ‘Was he calling out perhaps for breakfast? Or for the ministrations of some native harlot?’
‘What the fucking hell…?’ My throat was too raw for me to get out more than a few words. I pulled myself on to my knees and looked out through the bars. We weren’t in any part of Letopolis that I knew. Except it was still Egypt, we weren’t in any other place I’d visited. Pulled by two oxen, the wheeled cage in which I was the one exhibit rumbled down streets as crowded and as wide as those of Alexandria. On either side rose buildings of an opulence that had nothing in common with anything of the Greeks, old or modern. Lucas walked beside me. Children danced round and about, keeping roughly level with our slow procession, their elders looking on in angry excitement. In starched loincloths, their bare torsos burned a reddish brown by the sun, some of them called eagerly at Lucas. Others bowed low before him.
Lucas had turned from me and was shouting something in Egyptian that had more of those alien, jabbering faces looking in at me.
‘Do you suppose you could escape the Brotherhood?’ Lucas asked when he’d turned back to face me. ‘Did you suppose you would be safe anywhere in Egypt, or in Alexandria itself? Your sorceress friend has powers that do not reach this place.’
‘What are you going to do with me?’ I gasped. There was much else I might have asked. But this was the first real question I could get out – and, I suppose, the most important.
‘Drink before speaking,’ said Lucas, pushing a cup of something liquid through the bars. ‘You’ll not be needing eyes to see the places where you’ll be seen. But you will need a voice for proclaiming the end of Greek dominion and the restoration by me of the people’s ancient and most perfect freedom.’ He dropped his voice – as if it mattered what he said: we were as far beyond the hearing as the reach of any Greek.
‘But let us continue our debate of the other day. You spoke about your own state of perfect freedom. You may wish to explain to me how, if there is no room here for kings or any government, you have allowed yourself to be sent among us as the representative of the most powerful king in the world. Is there some subtlety in your argument that my wog mind is not up to appreciating? Or is there just the smallest touch of hypocrisy in what you say?’
‘Fuck off, shittybreath wog!’ I snarled. ‘Laying hands on me is high treason.’
‘Not the answer, I confess,’ said Lucas, speaking very even, ‘I had expected from a subtle and learned student of the Greeks. But let it be as you declare. My real interest in speaking with you is to discuss your possible release, and even safe return to Alexandria.
‘You have in your possession, I am reliably told, an object of considerable value. The moment I have this in my own hands, let me promise you-’
‘Now, why should I trust your word in anything?’ I asked, checking the obvious protest that I had no idea whether this bloody piss pot existed, let alone where it might be. ‘I’ll consider giving you what you want when I’m in a better position to rely on your side of the bargain.’
Lucas shrugged. He turned and shouted out a rapid stream of orders. With a frantic pulling of oxen, the wheeled cage came to a stop. The crowd about me thickened, and those dark faces pressed in closer and closer against the bars. I could see the blank ovals of their eyes, and smell the stale garlic on their breath. From every side, hands reached through the bars. Even cowering in the dead centre, I wasn’t out of reach of those sweaty yet chill hands as they plucked at my clothing, uncovering and touching and squeezing every part of my body.
‘Behold how the Day of Reckoning is at hand!’ Lucas was shouting above the babble. For some reason, he shouted now in Greek. ‘So the last shall be first, and the first last. Indeed, O ye children of soil, the last shall be first and the first last.’
I could already smell the charcoal when I saw the man with the blinding instruments – who had appeared as if from nowhere – standing beside Lucas. They conferred in hushed tones, with significant looks at me as I lay bound in the cage, trying desperately hard to blot out the horror of those cold sweaty hands still at work on exploring every part of my now naked body.
This time, I really was awake. I lay in my bed, safe on the top floor of the Letopolis administrative building. The netting hung white above me in the moonlight that streamed through both windows. There was a regular chirruping of insects from outside. The air about me was sultry in ways that no Alexandrian could have imagined. But I lay there freezing and unfreezing with terror. With every beat of my rapid pulse, there were bright flashes of pain in my head.
I couldn’t really have been crying out. That would at once have brought people into my room. Instead, I lay alone in the moonlit silence. But my throat was parched as if I’d been shouting all night. I scrambled out of the netting. The flies it was there to repel had long since gone off to sleep. I lifted the cover from the wine jug and drank deeply. I forced myself to ignore the sour taste of the local vintage and drank again. Feeling better, I got up and went over to the window through which the moonlight shone most directly.
I looked over the low huddle that remained of Letopolis, all colours bleached out in the whiteness. There was the street where I’d been speaking with Macarius. The church lay at the far end, where the street forked before leading down to the Nile. The moon looked pretty on the water, for all I could smell the mud.
Was that a shadow that had moved? It had been on the edge of my field of vision. My heart began its hammering again, and I clutched at the stone sill of the window. I looked straight ahead and ignored what might have been two glowing green eyes. If I’d never gloried in danger, and if I’d usually had to deal with an attack of nerves after what I thought an unreasonable danger, I’d always so far managed the combination of resolution and trusting to luck that passes for courage. Now, for the first time, I realised what it was to be a coward. I was jumping at shadows. I knew there was no one and nothing out there that intended me the slightest harm. And I was shitting myself with fear at the sight of Letopolis in the moonlight.
I took another drink and breathed deeply. I really was awake, I told myself. I’ll grant there are dreams that seem real enough – I’d just had two of them. But they can always be known afterwards as dreams. What distinguishes them from reality is a lack of full self-awareness, or some observed deviation from the laws of nature, or, failing that, a set of events that cannot be related in space or time to the rest of my experiences. But here I now was – in a place where I expected to be, at a time that followed on from that dinner with the Mayor. Whatever I thought I could see outside could be dismissed as tricks of the moonlight on a heated mind. I was awake, and I was safe.
But I was still cold, and still dripping with sweat. And I could feel another fit of the shakes coming on. There was a faint doubt in my mind.
‘How much of that filth have you been taking?’ Martin asked sharply. He sat up and stared into my eyes. I wasn’t sure what he could see in the dim light, but he already knew what he was looking for.
‘It was dried resin,’ I muttered. ‘You can’t always judge the dose when it’s not an apothecary’s pills.’
‘You’re as bad as Priscus in your own way,’ he said flatly. He poured me a cup of sour fruit squash and watched as I drank it. He was still angry at the shock of being woken. But he was growing calmer, and I could hear a slight satisfaction in his voice as he went on.
‘You first told me when we were living in Rome about the Richborough dream,’ he said. ‘You’ve been having it since you were still a boy in Richborough. I think you had it most recently in Alexandria, just before the floods began. Did the monster t
ake hold of you this time? Or did you sit in that bright room, talking with the woman?’
I shook my head. You can dream about having had dreams, and you can dream about having had dreams about having had dreams. I needed Martin’s assurance that I wasn’t suffering some disorder of the mind. It was just the opium working with the after-effects of a difficult few days. I remained sitting on the bed. I was feeling better with every breath. I was even beginning to see the absurdity of running to Martin – of all people – with an attack of the vapours. But I didn’t feel inclined to go back to my own room.
Martin sighed. He got back into bed and held the curtains open for me. I got in beside him. I could smell the stale sweat of his body. It was oddly reassuring. Suddenly very tired, I cuddled up close beside him.
‘You saw me coming out of church this afternoon,’ he said. ‘God spoke to me again. He explained how He acts in the world partly through direct miracles, and partly through what you call secondary causes. I know perfectly well that you don’t believe in these either, and that you only mention them to avoid upsetting me with your belief in a world governed by purely natural causes. But there are secondary causes. There are times when God works through events and even persons for His Will to prevail without the intercession of the obviously miraculous.’
Martin was still softly lecturing me on the Workings of Providence as I drifted off into a now dreamless sleep.
Chapter 25
‘Perhaps your husband grows concerned at your long absence?’ I said. I sat behind the desk in the front cabin of the – now genuine – Postal Service boat. The stack of papyrus on which I’d been writing letters all morning had a most satisfying look.
‘My poor young Alaric,’ came the laughed reply, ‘I trust your official enquiries are less transparent than this.’ The Mistress kicked off her sandals and stretched back on the couch.
I tried not to move my eyes as I looked to see if her feet were showing. I took in a mouthful of rich Syrian wine and struggled to take my thoughts off the taut yet voluptuous shape that, however faintly, was outlined by the thin silk of her robe.
‘I wasn’t aware,’ I said, with a sudden shift of my attack, ‘that there was ever a Greek colony so far in the south.’
‘Nor I,’ said the Mistress. She popped a date into her mouth. Her veil moved slightly as she chewed. I stared at the jewelled and impossibly elegant fingers.
‘Then it would much interest me,’ I said, now feebly, ‘to know where you managed to learn such good Greek. The schools of Alexandria, and of the cities of Egypt, do not, I believe, take women as students.’
‘Was it ever thus?’ she asked. She reached out towards the dish of sliced melon. ‘Must the ladies of Alexandria remain unlearned and even unlettered?’
‘A long time ago,’ I said, ‘about two hundred years back, there was a woman professor of mathematics there. She wrote interestingly about the relative weight and density of liquids. But she was murdered in a riot. Women since then have been barred from all places of learning in Alexandria.’
‘How perfectly barbarous!’ said the Mistress, managing to sound almost scandalised. ‘It was the view of Epicurus that both sexes could benefit equally from instruction. Do you not think our modern world so very corrupt?’
I’d almost jumped at the mention of Epicurus, and wanted to ask how she could even know the name. But there was a knock at the door. Martin came in, carrying a big papyrus roll. He bowed low before the Mistress and looked at her for further instructions.
‘Do continue about your business, Martin,’ she said. ‘I was only just thinking how fortunate you must feel to have Alaric as an employer. His resourcefulness, yet gentility of manner, are surely the talk of your – what is the place called? – your Constantinople.’
Martin blushed. I looked down and scowled at my letters. I’d expected him at least to keep a little distance. He’d snivelled very promisingly halfway to Letopolis about sorcery. Then he’d decided she too was an agent of the Divine Providence. Now he’d doubtless have painted her toenails if asked.
‘I think we’ll soon be approaching Canopus,’ I said with an attempt at blandness. ‘If I’m not mistaken, the waters will now be high enough for us to take the canal into Alexandria.’
I leaned on the rail and looked morosely over the vast, shining expanse that the Delta had become. I hadn’t been mistaken about the waters. They might not have risen that much more since the journey up river. But they had undeniably widened. Except for the endless series of those mounds, where the wretched natives huddled, we really might have been at sea. If I looked ahead hard enough, there was a blur on the horizon that I knew was the spit of land separating Nile from sea. Canopus was built where the two merged. We’d be there before the afternoon. From there, it would be the dozen or so miles to Alexandria.
There had been another storm out in the desert. So far down river, it had shown in little more than a brisker wind from the north and a haze high overhead that had dulled the glare of the sun. It was now clearing, and the sky was taking on the happy blue that it always had in the realms washed by the Mediterranean. I asked again what could have persuaded my own people to invade the chilly dump we’d made into England, rather than follow the Vandals and the Goths into that warm light.
I gripped hard on the rail as there was another great shudder. The boat stuck again. I’d gone up river from Bolbitine because its branch of the Nile was wider and better for speed. The Canopus branch we were taking back down would have been slower at the best of times. But with the river banks now under water, it was hard to keep in channel. Men ran to the left-hand side of the boat and pushed out with long poles to get us off the mud.
‘No, My Lord, we’re headed for Canopus,’ the Captain had said, replying to my suggestion that the Bolbitine branch would be faster. ‘The posts always go to Canopus. They have always gone to Canopus. Not the Viceroy himself can change the order of the posts.’
I’d been in no position to pull rank. Having no documents with me, the Captain had at first refused to take us on board at Letopolis. It was only when the Mistress intervened that he’d caved in. Now, she was queening it in the best cabin, with the whole crew to do her bidding. She’d even had the boat stop to take in more fruit and fresh bread for her. Doubtless, she could have had us diverted down the Bolbitine branch. But that would have meant putting myself still more in her debt.
Did the extra day matter? Probably not. Even going at full tilt down to Bolbitine, I had little enough chance of outrunning the news. I’d now be well behind it. I was sick of the Nile, and my heart rose at every thought of seeing the Mediterranean again. At the same time, I dreaded the return to Alexandria. As in everything else, Greek is a language rich in scornful epithets. Dickhead, Fuckwit, Shit-for-Brains, Wanker… You could fill half a papyrus roll with writing them all out. And I could imagine every one of them whispered about me behind my back.
From the moment Lucas had let his captain act start wearing thin, I’d been kicking myself. But I’d always had other matters to claim my active attention. There was trying to get away from Lucas and the Brotherhood. There was our shamble through the desert. There was sucking up to the Mistress all the way to Letopolis, where I then had the business I’ve described. Now, on the journey back, there’d been little else to do but dwell on how the ludicrous disaster – which needed no exaggeration – would appear in Alexandria. The public baths weren’t a place men of my station frequented. But I’d heard enough on the streets of the ruthless mockery that began there and was sharpened there.
I’d gone out from Alexandria to deal with two highly contingent threats to my reputation. I was going back with my reputation in shreds. If the full story of my dealings had been put in the Gazette – if this had been followed by the whole packet of dirt on me Leontius had commissioned – the effect couldn’t be worse than a plain telling of what I’d let happen to me during the past twelve days.
‘I’ve just realised, looking at the date of your let
ters, why you’re so eager to get back.’
I gave Martin a blank look. I’d supposed he was somewhere below, juicing dates for the Mistress or whatever.
He put his bag down and joined me in looking over the Nile. ‘Tomorrow is Saturday,’ he prompted. ‘Saturday, 26th August,’ he added.
I pulled my thoughts off the approaching horrors of Alexandria and tried to think what on earth the man could be getting at.
‘Maximin’s second birthday?’ he said at length, a shade of disappointment in his voice.
Of course it was! I relaxed my grip on the rail and thought of the boy. How could it be just two years since Martin had brought him back to the Legation? Taking in all that had happened since, it seemed more like ten or even twenty years. But count back just two years, and we were in Constantinople, on our ‘mission’, from the Roman Church to gather readings and arguments for a refutation of heresy. That was before I met Phocas and was taken up by him, and before I made the leap – last of all in the City, if most glorious – from him to Heraclius. Yes, forget the vast drama in which I was the one visible and completely unwitting player: just two years ago, and I was an obscure visitor from the West.
What could have prompted Martin to take the little thing up from outside the church he never had been able to discuss rationally. Then again, I’d been shocked by my own behaviour. I’d barely drawn breath to insist the child be taken back and dumped where found than I was announcing his adoption. He’d been so small and defenceless – and so very beautiful.
So I’d adopted the boy and named him after the poor, dear Maximin – correction: Saint Maximin – who’d saved my life in Kent. His first birthday had been a joyous and even triumphant occasion. The Emperor himself had attended the festivities and presented him with a golden box for his toys. Not even having to put up with Priscus skulking round my palace and muttering hints about being regarded as an ‘uncle’, had spoiled the occasion. There was no doubt he’d be pleased to see me again in Alexandria. He was one person who’d run to me squealing with pleasure. He was the one patch of brightness to lighten my return. And I’d clean forgotten about his birthday. It was fortunate I hadn’t had time yet to drink very much. It wouldn’t do to shed tears in front of Martin. I gripped the rail again and looked at a point far out over the swirling waters.
The Blood of Alexandria a-3 Page 18
