I could have hung around, waiting for another look in my direction. But I’d seen all I needed to – and rather more than I’d been intended to. ‘No man may see my face and live,’ she’d said. Well, I had seen it, and I was still alive. I now planned to keep it that way by not hanging around to be discovered. I’m not saying I’d changed my mind about any supposed supernatural abilities. A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. And I hadn’t seen anything – not this night, nor the day before, nor any of the preceding days – that couldn’t somehow be explained in naturalistic terms. But that face had been supremely mad or wicked. Having her round me day and night with a grudge simply wouldn’t do at all. And the opium was now reaching out in earnest with fingers of delicious warmth. It was time to be getting back.
With some going wrong in the darkness, and then going back on myself, I found my way to where I’d made my bed. As I waited to be carried out of this world on a litter of black velvet, I heard the faint scraping of sandals on sand. How long she stood over me I can’t tell. I suppose she was now fully dressed, though I heard her still breathing hard from her endless if slow dancing. She may have whispered my name. She may have prodded me. She may even have rolled me over. But I was too far gone to notice.
Chapter 53
The Mistress threw her book across the weeds with a howl of rage. I reached instinctively for my sword and looked round. The camels were making their usual noise as they continued drinking from the pool. There was no reason to suppose we weren’t wholly alone in the oasis. She pointed accusingly at the book that had come unrolled where it landed.
‘That bookseller will beg for death before I release him,’ she snarled. She trailed off and looked towards the setting sun.
I got up and retrieved the book. It had bounced off one of the stunted trees and had now become completely unrolled. I took it up and smiled to myself. The Mistress had been had good and proper. At some point during its lifetime, the book had come apart and been repaired. The long roll of papyrus had been glued back to the inner spine minus at least one sheet. The final sentence read: ‘And thus spake Apelles, saying…’
‘How shall I ever know,’ she cried almost tearfully, ‘if he escapes from the pirates and is reunited with his Penelope before her uncle marries her to the false Antiochus?’
One of the camels looked up at her.
‘I’m sure it all works out well in the end,’ I said reassuringly. ‘These things always do. Let us imagine that he escapes from the pirates by leaping into the sea. He is then saved by a friendly dolphin, who just happens to be passing by, and is taken to the very spot where Penelope is to be married. There needs to be an argument, and perhaps even a duel. At last, though, Apelles convinces the uncle that he really is whatever the Reader knows him to be, and the wedding feast goes ahead with another groom. Everyone, then, including – and I’m only guessing here, not having read the preceding adventures – Penelope’s ever faithful slave, lives happily ever after. There, does that ring true?’
I could feel the suspicion radiating towards me from that well-wrapped face.
Then the Mistress relaxed and laughed. ‘Am I become so contemptible because I sometimes act as a woman?’
I put on my emollient look and assured her of my deepest respect for her abilities and my deepest gratitude for all she had done to help. But she wasn’t interested.
‘Can you imagine how it is to sit absolutely alone as long as I have?’ she asked. ‘Can you imagine how it is to have read and reread every outstanding work of the Greek mind? Do that and you may begin to appreciate how welcome the trashiest new writings can seem.’
‘I can try to imagine,’ I said. ‘Even so, the Greeks since their very best age have produced much that is considerably better than The Trials of Penelope. There is, for example, Plutarch, and there is Lucian, and there is-’
She grunted and snatched at the book that I’d just finished rolling back up. She was now more angry than disappointed.
We’d covered an immense distance since leaving the temple. That was the morning of the day before. The desert border was far behind, and we were deep into the limitless waste of sand where only the sun told the direction. All day, whenever we’d stopped for me to piss or shit or have a sip of our now indifferent water – the Mistress herself didn’t seem to need any of these things – she’d been hurrying with heightened excitement through the last stages of the romance. Now that we were comfortably seated within the little oasis we’d reached just as the sun was beginning to go down, there was nothing for her to do but talk to me. There was nothing else to do, that is, unless she wanted to go back to the beginning and read more slowly to where it broke off – this time stopping to search for any incidental beauties of language or construction of the plot.
‘It was in surroundings rather like these that we first met,’ I opened. ‘I now believe we were above the ruins of Soteropolis. Back in Alexandria, I took the trouble to learn something of the place.’
‘So you know about Soteropolis?’ she asked. ‘I wonder how much of what you know is true and how much childish legend?’
I kept silent. For a while, I thought I’d have to try again. But she reached for her cup of fresh water and sipped through the hollow tube that let her drink without uncovering her face. She put the cup down and stretched her legs.
‘You will surely be aware of its anomalous position in the Kingdom of Egypt,’ she continued. ‘Unlike the Egyptians, its people did not originate in this land. Like you, they were people of the lightest colouring from an island in the West. Their island was about the same shape and size as your own, but was much further out in the great sea that terminates the world as it is known to the geographers.’
Ireland? I thought. But I said nothing. The Mistress was telling me something that might be of value. I didn’t wish to break the flow.
‘They rose but slowly from the barbarous state. But, undisturbed in the remote fastness of their island, they had time, and they were persistent. They took no interest in philosophical matters. Without ever seeking to learn the underlying nature of things, or the connections between things, they were satisfied if they could fashion devices to enrich and glorify their rulers. At last, they brought on themselves a disaster involving the complete loss of their home and its works. The survivors – a pitiful remnant of what had been – came for refuge to Egypt and still further south. Long before the beginning of time as recorded even by the Egyptians, they built their cities and set about the recovery of what they had lost.
‘It was in vain. Those who survived were the least of their race. They had only fragments of the ancient knowledge, and no grasp of the method by which it all might be regained. After a long stagnation, they were overcome – either by pestilence or by the incursions of the lower but more numerous men of these regions. So it was with Soteropolis. So it was with the larger settlements far south beyond the origins of the Nile.’ She fell silent and watched as I made my best efforts with steel and flint to get a fire lit. My efforts amused her, but also took her from her theme.
‘I believe the people of Soteropolis contributed much to the Egyptians,’ I said, prompting her to start again. ‘And I suppose their learning passed in some measure through the Egyptians to the Greeks.’
‘No,’ came the reply. ‘The Greeks took certain things from other peoples. But the essentials of the Greek genius owed nothing to any but the Greeks themselves. Unlike the people I have described, there was nothing slow about the Greeks. What they sought in the first instance was abstract understanding. And it is from this that practical knowledge most surely and swiftly follows. They were like a comet that suddenly appears in the sky, and, as if from nothing, outblazes every other object. I doubt I need say more to you of how different the Greeks were from every other people – how everything good that men have since achieved owes something to their legacy.
‘But it is only a legacy. The Greeks gave the world a new beginning. But like a comet in the sky, they dazzled on
ly to fade away as quickly as they had emerged. In destroying themselves, they destroyed all hopes for mankind. There will be unbalanced recoveries, and men will boast of how they have exceeded the Greeks. There will be no full recovery. It will at best be Soteropolis again.’
Well, that was a mournful end to the day. Beside the inherent gloom, it brought back memories of the poem Hadrian had caused to be set up on the statue in Soteropolis. But I’d got the fire going, and the water would soon be boiled in which we could soak some of the dried fruit and soften the now hardened bread we still had. Though not so much as before, I was stiff again after a day on my camel. I was tired. I’d not be in need of assistance tonight for sleep.
‘You should bathe before it grows cold,’ she said with a change of tone.
I looked over at the little pool in the middle of the oasis. It would soon be warmer than the surrounding air, and I was beginning to smell. It was three days since my last bath, and not far off that since I’d changed clothes. If I got in at the other end from where the camels were spitting and showing their teeth, I might also wash my clothes. Would they dry, though, once the night was here and it turned cold again? Or would we have a while in the morning? I also thought about the blanket I’d have to use for drying myself – it might be sandy. Above all, of course, was the matter of seemliness. Having a bath was all very well. Having one with her looking calmly on was not so well.
I’d pretty well decided to make my excuses. But the Mistress was now pulling at her own boots and then unwinding her leggings. I slumped back in confusion. I tried to think of something to say.
‘Cleanliness, my dear Alaric, is our duty as well as our pleasure,’ she said, with a slight lingering on ‘pleasure’.
You might, if you are a person with limited opportunities, think ill of me if I decline to say in detail what happened next. However, while pain is easily described – in yourself as well as in others – pleasure is something as hard to describe as beauty. The mingling of limbs and the repeated bursts of ecstasy are things that can be imagined without any close narrative. I will only say that, throughout that night of continuous and unrestrained passion, the Mistress never once thought it appropriate to uncover her face.
‘You are not the one,’ she whispered softly in my ear as I finally drifted asleep. ‘But you have pleased me.’
I woke with a start. The sun was already rising high in the east. It would soon be on my face. It was already on my body. I tried to sit up, but found I was wrapped in my blanket as tightly as an embalmed corpse. I lay down and wriggled free. I stood up and stretched. My back was sore. From the red scratches all over my belly and thighs, it wasn’t hard to guess the cause. Whatever she’d done for me after the rioting, it was plain that these would have to heal by themselves. The only part of me to escape her mauling was where I had the medal of Saint Peter hung round my neck.
‘Surely, we ought to be moving,’ I began to cry out. I looked at the single camel tethered to the biggest of the trees and fell silent. The oasis was only about sixty feet across at its widest point, and there was no need to do more than glance round. Just for the avoidance of doubt, I wandered about its perimeter, looking in all directions at the sands stretching endlessly around me.
She’d gone. When she had gone I couldn’t tell. Where wasn’t worth asking. But she had gone. And I didn’t believe she’d be back. Naked, I went over and washed myself by the pool. The water had been warm enough last night. Now, it felt chilly. My clothes had been hung up where they’d catch the first rays of the sun. They were completely dry. I dressed with slow deliberation. The tunic had shrunk a little, and some of its colour had gone in the wash. But it was good to be clean and to wear clean clothes.
Finally, I went over to my camel and picked up the folded sheet of papyrus I’d seen even before realising I was alone. It was taken from The Trials of Penelope, cut carefully from the front of the roll to avoid any further loss of the main text. She’d written on the rather stained outer side with a burned twig from the fire.
‘I have brought you as far as is required of me,’ the message went. ‘The Brotherhood camp where Martin was taken is twenty miles due south of here. You will know what to do.’
You will know what to do, she was telling me! It was a good joke, and I made sure to sit down and have a good laugh over it. But the camel looked back at me, and the sun was rising higher. Oh, I’d conceived a general plan of action back in Alexandria. When it came to details, though, I hadn’t the foggiest what I was supposed to do. I’d have to start rather earlier than expected on settling the details as and when required.
I went and stood on the outer edge of the oasis – right on the eighteen-inch border within which the tangled green sustained by the pool and shaded by itself gave way to the yellow sand. I looked out over the sands that stretched like the sea on and on up to the horizon. Had the Mistress run off, I asked myself, because we’d spent half the night fucking? Or had we spent half the night fucking so she could be sure I’d sleep through her getaway? The latter struck me as more likely – even if it supposed that she’d seen me watching her in the temple. Why, then, had she run off? Was she punishing me for having watched her? Was she working with the Brotherhood, and was this the trap from which I’d be collected? Was she a fraud? She might have certain healing and persuasive abilities. But going against the Brotherhood on its own territory might be far outside those abilities.
I asked these and other questions. I didn’t get very far with answering them. I regretted saying goodbye to the fraud theory. But – with all the reservations already made – I had no doubt she could avoid any direct confrontation with the Brotherhood, and could win in any confrontation that she cared to allow. Her decision to clear out was part of some design that I hadn’t means of explaining.
Still keeping to the green side of the border, I sat and thought, and I thought harder, and I went back on my thoughts, and I thought again from fresh. I can’t say I reached any conclusions that advanced beyond any that I’d already formed in Alexandria. But it was reassuring that, after all I’d been expecting, whatever I now did would be at my own direction. Whether it would work was another matter that might best be left unconsidered.
I had a late breakfast. I refilled the water skins. I attended as best I could to the camel. I sat down in the shade and commanded myself to sleep. My body obeyed me this time. I woke again as the sun was heading into the west. I felt rested and relaxed. If the Brotherhood really were twenty miles due south, now seemed a fine time to be setting out.
Chapter 54
At least I’d got my timings right. I arrived at the Brotherhood camp just as the sun was dipping below the western horizon. The sandy ocean was at my back, and I was once more in one of the rocky zones separating this from the black land. I got the camel to kneel down at the far side of a cluster of rocks behind a small hill that overlooked the camp. Tethering it to anything that would keep it from running off like the last one had was out of the question. Leaving it there was yet another risk I’d have to take.
I had rather expected this to be the main Brotherhood camp. I’d hurried through the last miles of desert with another old temple in mind – something high and solid, with a continual stream of animal and human traffic. Banners and rebuilding works had also featured in my imagination. What I’d found was a disappointment. If it held more than a few dozen men, I’d have been surprised. It was just a collection of tents made from woven papyrus, grouped round a couple of mud-brick buildings that looked about to fall down. There was no outer wall or other protection. The only men I saw had on the loincloths of the lowest grade of Egyptian. Nothing had kept the sun off their upper bodies all through the day. I didn’t suppose they’d have anything to put on against the cold of the night. With no appearance of urgency, they slouched between the tents and the buildings with various jars and packages.
I’d almost missed it at first. Having seen it, I’d come close to dismissing it as the place I was looking for. It was only b
ecause there was nothing else in sight for miles around that I’d bothered with a second look. It was then, however, that I’d seen the covered pen filled with camels, and the heaps of spears and shields between the buildings.
This couldn’t be the main camp of the Brotherhood. But it was the place where the Mistress had wanted to send me. The closer I’d approached, the more I’d been thinking about whether I was going straight into a trap. After all, who was the Mistress? What was her interest in me and my concerns? Questions it had been so easy to settle or dismiss back in the oasis wouldn’t stop coming into my head. But I could see that no one here was expecting to be disturbed. It made sense. It would take days longer to get a body of armed men through the desert, and they’d surely be seen long in advance. As for the Nile approach, all landing places would be covered as a matter of course.
The last time I’d done anything like this was with the Lombards, back in Italy. Then, it had meant getting close to King Agilulf in the middle of his army. And I’d known Agilulf was on to me, and had put the managers of his torture garden on alert. But Pavia was nothing compared with this. Then, I was on terrain that I understood. I could dress as a Lombard and, so long as I didn’t try for extended conversations, be taken for one. Above all, I’d known what I was looking for and where to get it.
Keeping my head low, I looked down again at the camp and watched until the darkness had thickened and a few fires were lit. This was nothing compared to the Lombards – except it seemed impossibly harder. But here I was, and the quicker I was about my business, the better it might be. I looked up at the brightening stars to get some bearings. It would be at least an embarrassment if I somehow managed to lift Martin out of there, only to have mislaid the bloody camel.
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