The Blood of Alexandria (26 page)

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 letters, 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 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.