‘The way this journey’s going,’ I said, ‘we’ll be stuck in mud until his third birthday.’
There was a shrill cry through the wall of the cabin behind us. I looked up. It came again – a long, bubbling cry, now followed by silence. It was quite loud, especially in the general silence of the river. Some birds who’d been bobbing around on the waters now took off with an answering splash and were climbing fast into the sky.
‘What in God’s name was that?’ I asked. I turned and looked at the smooth planking of the cabin wall.
‘The Mistress!’ said Martin.
Certainly, it was her cabin. Women can make the most peculiar noises, I’ll grant. Give one an ivory comb, and she’ll probably give every impression of going into labour. But this sounded more than a little distressed. We hurried along the deck and turned left to get to the entrance. The door was guarded by one of her huge blacks. Unarmed and almost naked, he practically hid the closed door with his bulk.
‘Your Mistress,’ I said, ‘I need to see if all is well with her.’
If the man knew any Greek, he did a good job of not letting me know. He put up an arm to hold me back and opened his mouth in a snarl that showed all his teeth – very white and filed to points, they were. He flexed his hips. It was then I noticed the erection bulging through the skimpy white of his loincloth. I tried not to look at the spreading dark stain. I’ve never been much into that sort of heavy muscle; and the teeth and that web of tattoos on his shaven scalp were hardly a come-on. Then again, those gold nipple rings were well over this side of the exciting. But I remembered myself.
‘Stay here,’ I said to Martin. ‘See if the door opens.’ I ran quietly back along the deck to the stairway that led to the small upper deck where the Captain did his notional directing of the boat. As I’d expected, he was nowhere to be seen up there: he was probably down in the hold, praying again before his icon of the Virgin for deeper waters. Again as expected, the little window that threw light into the Mistress’s cabin was shuttered. But there was a little hole in the wood I’d noticed the day before, and I’d been idly wondering if there was any chance of an unobserved look through it. Now, the chance was come, and so was the need. I got down on my knees and put my right eye to the hole.
At first, I saw nothing. What I heard, though, was a soft piping, as of some exotic flute. It was too low to be heard through the plank walls of the boat. But it was a low, throbbing sound. There was nothing about it I could recognise as tuneful. But its complex moaning was joined by the soft tapping of a drum. I strained harder to see anything at all through that little hole.
When I’d adjusted to the gloom, I had to pull back and rub my eye to make sure I was seeing straight. It was the Mistress. There could be no doubt of that. Still veiled, and still in her full robe, she stood in the centre of the cabin. She stood with each foot on the back of one of her maidservants. Naked, they lay face down on the floor. All were on the floor but one. Also naked, she was hung by her bound wrists from one of the overhead beams. With a terrified whimper, she twitched her feet, and the motion caused her whole body to swing gently round.
Red on black doesn’t show well at the best of times, and the light was very poor. But the dark stains splashed all over the Mistress told me the truth about the gleam on the maidservant’s body. It was as she stepped forward on to the third naked back that I saw the Mistress had a knife in her hand. It glinted dull in the lamplight, and more blood dripped from it on to the spoiled whiteness of her robe.
There was a shuffling on the cabin floor as one of the prone women shifted position and held something up. The Mistress bent and took the cup. As she did so, the fluting ceased, though the drum continued its gentle tapping. I pressed my face closer to the hole and looked round for the musicians. They must have been directly below me, as I couldn’t see either of them. The drumming continued a while longer without accompaniment. Then it too fell silent.
As if for half an age, the Mistress stood absolutely still in the silent gloom of her cabin. I think I saw a regular fluttering of her veil, as if she were quietly praying. The black bodies trembled and twitched all round her on the floor. Then she stretched full upright and raised the cup in both hands. She set it under the veil to her lips and drank. She tipped her head back as she drank and then drank again. As she did so, the drum and then the flute began again. Now, it was something still more complex and utterly alien. It was a while before the beat was firmly established. There was the dull sound of metal on wood as the Mistress relaxed and tossed the cup away. Now, she turned and – standing ever on the backs of those maidservants – began a slow wheeling dance. The steps were elaborate and sedate. The wet robe clung to her legs. The chief movement was in her arms and upper body. At every variation in the fluting and her step, there was a renewed moaning from the women on the floor, and another whimper from the bound woman.
The Mistress was certainly talking now. She spoke low and not in Greek. It was some language I’d never heard before. It sounded neither Egyptian, nor like the language of her maidservants. The words might have been a poem, or they might have been some ritual chant. Not understanding what she said, I couldn’t tell. But the chilling, sinister tone was enough. The elegant coquette who’d lain in my own cabin, talking up the virtues of a diet of bread and fresh fruit, was a world removed from this bizarre and horrifying creature. The whole thing reminded me of something I’d read in one of the sicker Alexandrian poets.
Because they’d been so still, I hadn’t noticed the male slaves before. Except the one on duty outside the room, they stood, also naked, against the one wall that had no fixtures. Gold rings trembled on the tip of each gigantic and unattended erection.
Forget the old Alexandrians. Forget even the wilder stuff I’d seen or read about the Old Faith. This was out of all experience. And, since I’d now accounted for the mistress and all her attendants, who could the musicians be?
‘What can you see?’ Martin hissed close behind me.
I jerked suddenly up and struck my head on the top of the window frame.
‘Nothing,’ I croaked. I tried to ignore the white flashes at the back of my eyes. I got up and wiped shaking hands on the back of my robe. ‘It’s just – it’s just their religious observances. I – I feel ashamed to have intruded on them. I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to repeat the intrusion.’
I led him back to the stairway down to the main deck. The Mistress was a foreigner, I told myself – and I’d known any number of Greeks who had an odd way of keeping order among their slaves. But it was probably for the best if Martin was kept away from that shuttered window.
The whole boat shook slightly and then turned free in the water. Sailors ran about again, pulling on ropes to let down the sails for some reason. There was another bump and we were still again.
‘Martin,’ I said, ‘there are some letters I need you to put into the correct official form. If you could have them ready by the time we get to Canopus, I’d be grateful. And I feel a headache coming on. I think I’ll retire to my cabin for a little rest. Do tell anyone who asks that I’m not to be disturbed.’
Chapter 26
There was a time when Canopus was the main pleasure resort for Alexandrians of quality. The breeze it took straight off the sea made it so pleasant a change in the summer months from Alexandria. Long before then, I believe – back in the time of the native kings – it was a main trading port. With the building of Alexandria, that source of importance had quickly disappeared. But it had more than compensated with its shops and brothels and temples. It also drew benefit as the nearest exchange point, by land or water, between Alexandria and the Nile. Before its branch began to silt up, it was both the nearest and by far the most convenient exchange point.
Then, the canal dug by the Ptolemies to join the two cities had been kept clear at all times, and poets had sung of the flotillas of gay barges that, throughout the day and night, would pass and re-pass the silver thread of water. Canopus was now in much reduce
d circumstances. It had lost position to the more distant but generally more convenient Bolbitine. Its people had withdrawn to a walled centre. Outside the walls, the old pleasure gardens were given over to fortified monasteries or overgrown wasteland. The place survived as a satellite port for Alexandria, and because no one had ever thought to reorder the posts along the Nile.
Except when the floods came and raised the water level the old canal was choked with reeds and rubbish and the usual connection was now by sea or by the road I’ve already mentioned. But the floods had now come, and the docks at the Alexandrian end retained some of their ancient elegance. It couldn’t be described any more as the best way of entering the city after a journey down the Nile. But if now used as warehouses, or divided into single rooms to house the poor, the palaces once built to stand close by the docks still impressed on first inspection. And it had, for me, the one advantage of privacy. I wanted to be back in my office, putting some kind of gloss on my adventures, before anyone noticed I was back.
As our barge rounded the last bend before the docks came in sight, I realised I was in for another disappointment. Not only had the news of my adventures raced ahead of me, but so had news even of my return. During the last few hundred yards of our approach, the mass of bodies that clustered round the landing place resolved itself into something like all the official and well-connected of Alexandria. I almost thought of joining the Mistress in the one covered place on the barge, and ordering the crew to take us straight past the docks into the Eastern Harbour. But then the cheering started. It began as a concerted buzz from the front of the crowd, then rippled back through the less important dignitaries, until there was, billowing across the closing distance of the water, a continuous roar of greetings and adoration.
‘Put that box down,’ I said to Martin without moving my lips. ‘Get up here and look happy.’ I’d already set my face into a smile and was nodding complacently back at the shining faces now clearly in sight.
‘My darling Alaric, how glad I am to see you looking so well!’ Our lips brushed as we kissed, and Priscus kept my hand to his chest as he stepped back a few inches. He was at his most convincing. The bystanders must have thought us the very dearest friends. ‘But you must tell me the whole story once we’re alone. What little I’ve picked up is absolutely shocking. Such rough and even impious behaviour to a person of your quality – it chills the blood.
‘Oh,’ he went on, answering my unvoiced question about the healing but still red gash across his forehead, ‘I can’t claim anything so dramatic as your own capture and escape. But the security of the Egyptian roads makes some of the places I’ve campaigned almost tranquil by comparison.
‘And, no,’ he added, now dropping his voice and leaning into another embrace, ‘I didn’t find it. I did learn much of value. But if I’d found what I went for, you can bet your life I’d not have arranged this homecoming for our impetuous little barbarian.’ Priscus followed my glance at the armed guard that surrounded the two chairs that had obviously come from the Palace. He smiled.
‘You must understand,’ he said, ‘that your safety is no longer something to be taken for granted, even in Alexandria. I’m afraid there can be no more casual wandering about the town. Besides’ – again, he stretched forward and dropped his voice – ‘there have been troubles while we were both away. There was nearly a riot yesterday in the Eastern Harbour. It was as much as the police guards could do to keep the grain fleet safe.’
‘Hasn’t it gone yet?’ I asked. ‘It should have been ten days at sea.’ I smiled graciously at one of my Jewish agents. I’d scare him and his friends shitless when we were alone. For the moment, I smiled again and gave him my hand to kiss. There were a couple of the greasier landowners behind him. They made nothing like so good an effort as my Jew or Priscus as they congratulated me on my survival and return.
A flash of steel drew my attention sharp left. All this milling about had left a momentary gap in the crowd of well-wishers. Looking through it, I could see the armed cordon, and, behind this, the much, much larger crowd of the poor. Held back in one of the wider avenues that led to the dock, all stood silent and grim. One thing I’d learned early in my stay was that you don’t let a crowd that size assemble in Alexandria. If it does, you break it up. I looked back at Priscus.
‘Main forces are in the Harbour,’ he explained shortly. ‘And no, the fleet hasn’t gone out yet.’ He came close again for another embrace. ‘If you can talk any sense at all into the wanker,’ Priscus whispered into my ear, ‘you’ll have the entire Council in your debt. Nicetas has kept the grain fleet in harbour pending his further instructions. The effect it’s having on the mob doesn’t appear to concern him.’
We were interrupted by Martin, who pressed a message into my hand. In a firm though somewhat odd script, the Mistress thanked me for the journey down the Nile, and said she’d send for me when she felt ready to receive guests.
I bit back the angry reply I was about to make. I could see Priscus was trying to get an upside-down view of the note. I stood on tiptoe and looked over the heads of everyone else in the crowd. That might have been her chair going off towards the centre. Or she might have disappeared already into one of the smaller streets. I had offered her rooms in the Palace. Since she hadn’t said no, I’d assumed her acceptance. Now she was gone. I hadn’t thought she knew Alexandria at all – let alone well enough to have got herself lodged already. And she hadn’t collected the emergency passport I’d had Martin draw up for her. She’d not get far without that. All told, though, it might be for the best if she weren’t to be in the Palace. The various households there were pretty broad-minded. But her notions of slave management would have raised eyebrows anywhere.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said, turning back to Priscus and waving Martin away. ‘I need a bath and a change of clothes. Then, I think, we might both profit from dinner without an audience.’
‘We are quite at one, my blond pot of love,’ he replied as we closed for another embrace. ‘You’ll see that everyone is keen to be away before dark. The mobs are gathering all over the place by night. So far, it’s just speeches. But you haven’t seen what’s going on in the Egyptian quarter. I’m so glad,’ he breathed softly, ‘that we can work together at last. We’ll both have what we want – and be out of here before the place bubbles completely over.’
Though half gone now, the moon was still bright enough to show all the streets below. I stood on the roof of the Palace, looking down. Priscus hadn’t been wrong. The streets were almost alive with people. With torches to make up whatever light the moon didn’t supply, the crowds swarmed around the main squares. I couldn’t make out the words of the leaders as they stood on the fountains or clung to the legs of statues. But I could hear the angry buzz. In Constantinople, the custom was for trouble to start in the Circus and then spill on to the streets. Here, it began in the streets. Because the days were so hot, it made sense for protests to take place in the evening.
‘Without actual provocation,’ Macarius had told me earlier, ‘it will be just gatherings and speeches. There is hardly ever serious rioting except in the spring.’ He was probably right, I thought, still looking down. On the other hand, I knew that food supplies had barely ever been so short except in the spring. Nothing would happen tonight. It was too late. Priscus had told me of his meeting with the Police Secretary. There weren’t the forces to disperse the crowds. But so long as they could be kept apart, nothing at all might happen. But rioting was something no person of quality in Alexandria ever wanted to see. Even when the city was new and still mostly settled by Greeks who hadn’t yet had time to go rotten, the mob had been a fact of life. The reason the Ptolemies had built the Palace so close to the harbour was so they could make a quick getaway to Cyprus or Cyrene if the mob got out of hand – which it had been doing periodically ever since.
‘You’ll have to make it clear to her,’ I said, turning back to Martin, ‘that, whatever she says in private, she just can’t go about t
he whole Palace making threats against the Emperor’s Legate.’
‘I think I’ve talked some sense into her,’ Martin said uncertainly. His black eye shone clearly in the moonlight. ‘I can promise she’ll not embarrass you again with Priscus.’ He tried to say something more, but trailed off and turned back to an inspection of the streets. A column of armed police was pushing its way between a dangerously large crowd in the Square of the Ptolemies. Divided in two, it might soon disperse of its own accord.
‘It really is because she was so worried for the pair of us. You see, I did tell her we’d be away just a few days. When we didn’t come back in the time I said, she grew worried. Then Priscus came back early, and he kept turning up at the nursery. Then news of our difficulties began coming through in Alexandria. You can’t imagine the things Priscus said to her when she locked all the doors and kept Maximin under her own bed.’
‘Let’s drop the matter,’ I sighed. Imagining what Priscus had said was something easily within my capacities. Back in Constantinople, I’d made an agreement with Sergius to get Martin and his family plus Maximin shipped straight out in the event of my fall. There was money pledged to get them all the way to Rome, and even, if need presented itself, on to Ireland where Martin might still have a few relatives who recognised him. Priscus was now in Alexandria, where I’d never thought it necessary to make any plans at all.
The Blood of Alexandria a-3 Page 19
