Siroes laughed bleakly. ‘Then let it be so, Priscus,’ he said. ‘I did suppose His Majesty the Pharaoh would choose to make his capital in Alexandria, and that this might be taken with conventional force. But if you wish to see Nicetas devoured from within, let fire and pestilence be spread also through the streets of that great and famous city.’
If Priscus still didn’t look convinced, there seemed no point in his continuing the interrogation. He shrugged and pointed at the wine. Lucas sat nearest the jug. He pulled a face and stared back. But there were none of his people in the tent to witness any humiliation. Priscus pointed again, then went back to stroking his cat. Putting on what he may have thought an hospitable look, Lucas got up and filled four cups. Siroes took out his dice and Priscus cast them. We took the cups allotted, and then exchanged them one last time at random.
‘Come, dear friends,’ Priscus called with a semblance of cheer, ‘let us drink to Success in Unity.’
Two firm voices, and one with a mutter, repeated the toast. We raised our cups. I drank.
I looked up in the sudden silence. Still full to the brim, three other cups had been set down again on the table. I looked at Priscus, who was now smiling expectantly.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ I cried. ‘I blame myself for this. I should have remembered what a fucking snake you were.’ I clutched at my throat and rolled my eyes.
‘You were right, Priscus,’ Lucas cried exultantly. ‘The barbarian drank as greedily as if he’d been a sick slave.’ He turned to me. ‘You can now look forward to an eternity in Hell for your impertinence to the Chosen One of Isis. You can see there what the demons think of your “State of Nature” and your “Perfect Freedom”.’ He took up his water cup and refilled it. ‘Did I not once tell you,’ he asked, ‘that I am now a sworn stranger to wine? Did that fact slip your drunkard mind?’ He spat in my direction and laughed. ‘No witch will save you now,’ he gloated. ‘You will die choking in pain before our eyes. The very night beasts of the desert will spurn your tainted barbarian flesh.’ He drank again and laughed triumphantly.
‘Do believe me, Alaric,’ Priscus said, now friendly, ‘that this was a difficult task. I did argue your case. But I was outvoted. And you will agree that your usefulness as finder of whatever this object may be is now at an end. Siroes is assured we can do the rest together.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, now raising his voice again, ‘I give you the toast a second time: Success in Unity!’
I fell back and coughed hard. Siroes raised his water cup in another ironic toast and drained it.
‘Oh, Aelric! Aelric!’ Martin sobbed as he threw himself at me. ‘This is all my doing. You should have left me to die at the Church of the Apostles.’ He snatched the cup from my hands and drained it to the bitter dregs. He embraced me and slobbered a kiss on my cheek. My blanket fell loose and my nipple stiffened in the slight chill that I now felt around me. ‘O God,’ he cried in a loud voice, ‘let me burn in Hell for my sins. But show mercy on this blessed if foolish barbarian child.’ He dropped the cup and clutched at himself. ‘I feel death already clawing at my vitals,’ he called, now speaking still louder. ‘Let the agonies of death be just the prelude to my deserved sufferings in Hell. O God in Thy Mercy, let-’
‘Oh, do shut up, Martin!’ Priscus said wearily. ‘Whatever happens when you’re out of it, you really should remember your position in this world, and only speak when spoken to.’
I kicked Martin hard on the shin and pulled a face. That shut him up. I resisted the urge to laugh at the expression on his face. I rearranged my blanket and sat forward again.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ Priscus said to the whole company, ‘because I’m in talkative mood, I’ll tell you something not many people know.’ He took out one of the black pills he reserved for moments that he was already relishing. ‘Tittymilk of Hera is the finest weapon in the poisoner’s arsenal. I cannot recall how useful I’ve found it these past forty years for removing those inconvenient souls who cannot be got at by other means. However – and Alaric should know this – it is completely useless in wine. Never mind the taste, you’d need to be pissy drunk not to notice the smell.
‘In water, on the other hand, it has neither smell nor taste.’ He put down his own still full water cup and put the black pill on to his yellowish tongue. He washed it down with a long single gulp of his wine. He looked around, bright anticipatory pleasure on his face.
Siroes opened his mouth, his face gone suddenly grey. He looked at his empty cup. Lucas simply looked stupid.
Chapter 66
‘Because I’m still in talkative mood,’ Priscus continued with a complacent look round the table, ‘I’ll tell you what you can expect. In the dose I’ve just administered, you should already be feeling a paralysis of the speech organs and of the limbs. This should last some while, the stiffness growing progressively more uncomfortable. You should feel the approach of death in some convulsions – convulsions that will be exquisitely painful and, from my point of view, conveniently silent.
‘Do have some more of this, Alaric, my dear boy,’ he said, leaning forward with the wine jug. ‘I’ll not grudge a taste to Martin. But it really is too delicious to pass up.’
I drank again and it set my teeth on edge. Martin was still retching and clutching at his stomach. I kicked him again, and followed this with a gentle slap to the unbandaged side of his face. Siroes and Lucas, now speechless, were beginning to tremble and to sweat heavily. Priscus smiled and stretched his arms. He sat back in his chair. He looked round for his cat. It was quietly shitting over in a corner of the tent.
‘I must thank you, Alaric,’ he said, ‘for playing along so well. Do tell me, though, how it was you managed to guess my intentions.’
‘I’ve never known you to trust anyone,’ I said. ‘I really couldn’t imagine you’d play along with these two a moment longer than you needed. It was when you had the water bowl filled right up that I guessed you’d been at work on the brim.’
‘Clever lad!’ he said appreciatively. ‘If I ever need to poison you, I see I’ll not be able to pull that one again. But how did you know the wine wasn’t poisoned? Three bodies, after all, might be just as useful to me as two.’
I smiled. The truth was that I’d taken a risk. If the wine had been poisoned and I’d refused it, death would have been at best delayed. Playing along, on the other hand, might keep me alive. And Priscus might easily still have some use for me in arranging the getaway. I changed the subject.
‘It took me far too long to realise the truth,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think it would have saved a lot of time and effort if you’d told me what you were about?’
Priscus smiled. He leaned across the table and pressed his fingers together. ‘Why not tell me, my dear, what it is that I was about?’ he asked. He looked at his two victims. His smile broadened.
‘I knew that last evening in Alexandria that you were trying to set me up,’ I said. ‘I didn’t yet know why. I knew you were up to something with Lucas, and I assumed it was treason – though I couldn’t work out why – even if you were plainly after the piss pot – you’d chosen a duffer like him for accomplice. My only surprise, though, when I saw you again in that scummy town was at your speed in getting up the Nile. I’d already realised, listening to Siroes and Lucas, that you hadn’t turned traitor.’
Priscus grinned and waved his cup at me.
I continued: ‘I supposed you’d some notice of what Siroes was up to and you came here to stop it. That’s why you really had Nicetas combing the Red Sea ports. A few hundred Persians in Jedda could be left even to Nicetas. Siroes, I could see, was another matter.’
‘My dear young fellow!’ Priscus said with another look at his two victims. ‘The Battle of Caesarea wasn’t a complete disaster. Heraclius did his best. Even so, we managed to capture one of the senior staff officers. He gave me some very useful information that supplemented our intelligence reports. I was able to learn that Siroes had been sent to Egypt on a mission to get s
omething important, and that he would be able to claim the assistance of a light man from the West. I really couldn’t have you blundering into his clutches.’
With a gasp, Siroes moved his right hand in the direction of his sword. The effort was too much, and he fell heavily forward on to the table. Priscus had him back in position directly. He checked the pulse and smiled. He kissed him on the forehead and sat down again.
‘I did think at first of going to Heraclius with a treason accusation,’ he continued. ‘That would have killed two birds with one stone. It would have got you away from Siroes – and removed what I must regard as a general irritant. But the man has too much faith in you for accusations to mean much with the evidence I had. So I decided to come out here myself. You already know I’d been in Alexandria ten days before I rolled up at the Palace. I’d already made contact with the Intelligence Bureau and got a fair bit about the Brotherhood. I made up the piss pot story, and watched it go round Alexandria like fire in a corn field.’
‘How did you kill Leontius?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I guessed Lucas would want him dead for what he did with the temple subsidy, but was short of time. And I too wanted him dead. His dealings with Siroes were far less open to prediction and control than I could manage through Lucas. Yes, I wanted only Lucas to be at the centre of the web connecting the Brotherhood and landowners and, at whatever remove, the Persians. I wanted Leontius out of the way, but didn’t put him there myself. The police did the job for me. They aren’t ever good for much, but they can usually manage a moderately inventive murder. They did question him first, but got nothing useful. If I’d thought there was anything to learn, I’d have made sure to be there myself.’ He followed my glance at the twisting body of Lucas.
‘Oh,’ he said carelessly, ‘I can’t be bothered with the details, but I had already made contact with him through a double agent in the Intelligence Bureau. I called him by his real name at first – that mouthful he took on for the wog trash was never worth learning. Lucas suits him better than Gregory ever did. And it’s too late to insist on proper names, especially for such a low sort as this. He fancied himself a king. His breath alone ruled him out for that.’ He got up and leaned close over Lucas. ‘I would have killed you anyway,’ he said, enunciating carefully. ‘But do regard this, at least in part, as your punishment for violating the mummy of Alexander. That wasn’t on the agenda. Yes, for that alone, the punishment is just.’
‘So, you arranged that pantomime in the Egyptian quarter?’ I asked, trying not to look at the dying man. ‘That was your way of getting me involved?’
The tent flaps opened at this point. I thought of reaching for the sword that was now useless to Siroes. But it was Macarius. He looked at the two victims, and went to stand beside Priscus.
‘I got Macarius to arrange that,’ Priscus said. ‘Fuck knows what went wrong there. You were supposed to be sent to the Pyramids, not this burning waste where you can’t get an army from the Nile without being seen a day in advance. But the slut seems to have got carried away. No harm done, though. It fitted in rather well with the details of what Siroes had in mind, and with the accidental discovery of that stuff about Christ. You must know for yourself that a well-planned conspiracy often gets additional and unplanned lubrication. Call it the Mandate of Heaven – not, of course, that you’d call it anything of the sort. But we don’t need to argue over your religious inclinations, or lack of them.’
‘How did you know I’d go straight south after looking at those documents you left with Leontius?’ I asked.
Priscus smiled and shook his head. ‘Because I can read you like a book. Macarius had already told me about your spying mission. Leaving all that evidence of your financial corruption was as good as an instruction from Heraclius. I’d already put Lucas in place to lift you in Bolbitine. The idea was that we’d get you up here before Siroes arrived. As it is, I got you here just in time – and I had to treat poor little Martin with a roughness I’d never otherwise have found necessary.’ He smiled again and looked at Martin. ‘Do forgive me,’ he said with a stab at the apologetic. ‘You’ll get used to the loss in time. Otherwise, I can have you fitted for a nice red wig. And it was all for the higher good of the Empire. If I hadn’t been here, who can say what trouble Siroes might have made for us in Egypt and in Syria? As it is, things have worked out rather nicely. Chosroes has lost one of his most able men. The Egyptian Brotherhood is fucked.’ He looked at me again. ‘You even get your land reform.
‘Let’s face it – all’s well that ends well. You came up here to get dear Martin back. Uncle Priscus followed on to keep you from harm, and, of course, to foil a dastardly plot. We might tweak the story a little to have you in on foiling the plot. But there’s plenty of time for agreeing the details. I think Heraclius will now be inclined to forget any shifting of blame for that little local difficulty in Caesarea.
‘Yes, all’s well that ends well.’
With a soft thud, Lucas fell to the carpeted floor. Priscus got up and stood over him as the final convulsions took hold. Eyes bulging, his lips twisted back on themselves in a silent scream, Lucas jerked and twisted like a slave under the branding iron. I looked down at him.
‘He is still conscious,’ Priscus assured me. ‘Have you any last words for the Great Pharaoh?’
I shook my head. I’d sooner have continued with questioning Priscus. I had nothing to say to his victims. As I continued staring down at Lucas, his tongue forced itself out. It swelled and swelled, forcing his mouth open as wide as the jaws would stretch. It blackened in the lamplight. I thought it would burst. But it swelled further until both throat and nasal passage were blocked. The ragged breaths became more frantic, then stopped. Still the wild threshing continued, his face ever more contorted. As if from some inner fermentation, his body was now swelling. I heard a gentle ripping and smelled the eruption of shit. I saw a dark stain spreading over the front of his linen tunic. Then – suddenly – it all stopped. Hands now clamped over his face as in some closing gesture of depair, Lucas lay dead.
‘The punishment was just,’ Priscus softly repeated. He turned to look at Siroes, who still hadn’t entered the stage of convulsions.
He looked back at us, rage and hatred blazing from his eyes. I looked away.
‘What is your getaway plan?’ I asked. Unpopular as Lucas had been for his theological views, I couldn’t imagine that his people would be terribly pleased if any of them now chose to walk into the tent.
‘Time enough for that, dear fellow,’ said Priscus with a casual wave. ‘Do be a love and put that eggy tart down,’ he said to Martin. ‘I saw Lucas fussing round them earlier,’ he explained. ‘I don’t know about you, but I can almost smell the arsenic.’
Martin dropped the thing with a terrified grunt and went back to cowering by the tent flap.
Priscus went over to Siroes and looked closely at him. He reached for the bracelet on his left wrist and unscrewed the tip from one of its ends. He pulled out a two-foot length of fine cord. ‘Though somewhat distant,’ he said, ‘we are cousins. And – as I hope you’ll both agree – blood does have its duties.’ He stood behind Siroes, arranging the cord around his neck. He bent forward and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Goodbye, old friend,’ he whispered. ‘Be assured that if I ever lay hands on Chosroes, I’ll get even for you over the smashing up of your family.’ When the work was done, he sat heavily down and reached for his drug satchel.
I listened for any sign of disturbance outside. There was a distant sound from the diggers of something churchy. Otherwise, it was quiet. We might have finished another of our dinners and been getting ready to retire to our sleeping tents.
‘We do need to be away from here,’ I said again.
Snot and tears running down his face, Priscus smiled blearily back at me. ‘I’ve told you, dear boy – it’s all in hand.’ He looked at Macarius. ‘Have you given the signal?’ he asked.
Macarius bowed.
‘Do oblige us,’ he said. ‘I’ve little doubt your many talents stretch to reading Persian. This, however, is in Greek. I just don’t see too well nowadays after one of my black pills. Do let’s hear these no doubt magic words. Siroes died in the effort to make them effective. The least we can do, I suppose, is intone them over his body.’
‘Would My Lord have me read this?’ Macarius asked, looking directly at me.
I listened again. All was still fine outside – why shouldn’t it be? Martin was now sitting on the carpet and looking up at me, his face ghastly with shock and continuing strain.
‘Is it My Lord’s wish to know the contents of this document?’
‘Yes, it is,’ I said, ignoring the renewed protest I felt sure Martin was trying to form. I might have told him the words only had effect alongside the object. But I didn’t. ‘We might as well know what it says,’ I added. ‘Just be quick about it.’
Macarius took the unfolded sheet over to one of the lamps and looked hard at the faded script. From where I sat, it had an aged look about it.
‘It is a rather corrupt Greek,’ he said. ‘I think it might have been written by a Persian, and may be a translation of something from Egyptian. However, it says that, for the destruction of enemies – their destruction as a last resort – an object that is not described should be taken in sight of the enemy. There, its possessor, who shall have fasted and washed according to detailed instructions, must hold up the object’ – Macarius paused again and squinted – ‘while saying or singing: “ Santi kapupi wayya jaja minti lalakali ”.’
The Blood of Alexandria a-3 Page 48
