Our Man in Alexandria

by Gavin Chappell

  And Drustica.

  He wondered if he would ever see the warrior woman again. An empire lay between them. Her people lived on the very edges of the province, Hadrian’s new wall cutting straight through their traditional territory. And here was Flaminius. Two weeks’ travel up the Nile would bring him to the desert forts of Rome’s most southerly frontier. The two of them could hardly be further apart, without Flaminius taking off for India or the distant Seres or Drustica setting sail for Ultima Thule.

  And it wasn’t just that which was keeping them apart, Flaminius told himself as the scribe led him off the main street and up a squalid, narrow alleyway paved mainly with human excrement. His work meant that his chances of returning to Britain any time soon were low. Even if this investigation had proved to be as simple as he had hoped, even if he had found Julius Strabo alive and well and living with an Egyptian wife in Syene, rather than mysteriously dead in a political hotspot like the Old Judaean Quarter, he would not have found it easy to return to Britain, at least not officially. The governor had made it quite clear that Flaminius was no longer welcome in his province. But if he solved the murder, he would be able to return to Rome to report to Probus. And then perhaps he would be posted elsewhere.

  And in the meanwhile? Drustica was an important woman amongst her people, a powerful chief. Chieftains from far and wide would court her while her Roman lover was elsewhere. Flaminius had turned her down when they first met; a peregrine wife wouldn’t have been good for career advancement, which had been uppermost in his mind in those days. So disillusioned was he with serving his emperor he would not think twice before taking the offer of living the rest of his life in a draughty hut amidst the heather.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Ozymandias moments later.

  Flaminius couldn’t understand how he could be so certain. The alleyway off the street was as dark as Tartarus. He could dimly make out an archway with some kind of door, leading to a court off the alley. But it was about all that was visible in this gloom. There were no lanterns or torches or cressets, and Ozymandias hadn’t seen fit to bring one. He must know the route by instinct.

  ‘I can’t see a blind thing,’ Flaminius complained.

  ‘No,’ said Ozymandias thoughtfully. ‘And that’s worrying. My sister should be home, and she always leaves a lantern burning so I can find my way in.’

  He produced a key from the folds of his kilt and opened the door, revealing a starlit court. It was dark and cold in there. No sign or smell of life, other than some stale cooking smells and an overpowering stink Flaminius thought to be that of an unwell goat. For a moment the tribune considered using his lance-head brooch to get a room for the night at the nearest waystation.

  ‘Another mystery,’ said Ozymandias with a laugh, leading Flaminius into the court. ‘I wonder where the silly girl’s got to.’

  Despite the amusement in the Egyptian’s voice, Flaminius could tell that he was worried.

  —8—

  Rachotis, Alexandria, November 2, 123 AD

  The goat smell was explained when Flaminius blundered into a hard, warm, woolly thing that bleated at him in annoyance. A light flared ahead of him and he saw Ozymandias holding up a terracotta lamp. In its light he saw a tethered nanny goat. The mangy creature took up most of the little court.

  ‘Watch out for her,’ the Egyptian said. ‘She bites. A bit like my sister,’ he added with a laugh.

  Flaminius knew all about goats, having spent much of his childhood on his father’s farm. Warily, he edged round the court as the goat eyed him darkly. Ozymandias was standing in the entrance to a small shed, its walls of dried mud, its roof thatched with reeds. He ushered his guest inside.

  The room was about large enough to pen a goat in, and smelt as if someone had tried to, but Flaminius gathered from the few furnishings and the firepit in the centre that this was where Ozymandias and his sister lived. In one corner stood a small loom containing a half-woven square of fabric. On the right-hand side was a single paillasse. He wondered which of the siblings slept on that, and in that case where the other one slept. Or did they sleep in turns? It was a far cry from the splendours of the Pharaohs. On one wall was a shelf beneath a crude painting of a goddess, presumably Isis, cradling a baby, Horus or Sarapis. Flaminius gave it a respectful nod.

  ‘No seven-branched candlestick?’ he asked.

  Ozymandias gave him an odd look. ‘You’re thinking of the Judaeans,’ he said, exasperated.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ said Flaminius, smiling to himself. ‘My mistake. To a Roman, all these Eastern cults are the same.’

  A cauldron hung from a metal tripod over the cold ashes. Grumbling under his breath at Flaminius’ ignorance, Ozymandias produced tinder and flint and set light to the dried camel dung that provided fuel for the fire. While they were waiting for the cold lentil stew to heat up, he took down two ceramic jars from a shelf and filled them from a jug.

  ‘Some zythus while we’re waiting,’ said the scribe, kicking a reed rug over for Flaminius to sit on cross legged. Ozymandias sat down. Flaminius sniffed at the drink.

  ‘Zythus?’ he asked.

  Ozymandias quaffed enthusiastically. He brushed foam from his mouth. ‘I don’t know that there’s a Roman word for it. You all drink wine, don’t you? We have wine here, but only for the rich. Zythus is cheaper. Cheaper than anything except palm wine, and you don’t want that, it’s bad stuff. This is better. Fermented grain.’

  ‘Fermented…?’ Flaminius looked in revulsion at the liquid. Then his face cleared. ‘Beer? Ah, they drink that stuff in Britain. I developed a taste for it out there. That, and mead.’

  Britain reminded him of Drustica. Drustica reminded him of Ozymandias’ errant sister.

  ‘Where do you think she’s gone?’ he asked. ‘I mean your sister… What’s her name?’

  ‘Nitocris,’ Ozymandias said. ‘There’s a group she belongs to, her and a few other women. They meet frequently of an evening. She might be with them, but it’s the wrong day for that. I hope she didn’t…’ He broke off.

  ‘What’s worrying you?’ Flaminius asked. He sipped at the beer. It tasted not unlike the drink he remembered from the other end of the world.

  Ozymandias fidgeted. He rose to his feet and strode up and down the small space.

  ‘It’s just… it’s been a dangerous night,’ he said. ‘Nitocris is all the family I have. We’ve always been together, except when I was a slave. Now that I’m a freedman, I look after her as best I can. Now that my mother is gone.’

  He sat down again, and sipped at his beer, but shifted restlessly.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll turn up,’ said Flaminius.

  Ozymandias shook his head. ‘I think I should go out and look for her,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’ asked Flaminius. ‘It’s a big city.’ He frowned. ‘She wouldn’t have gone to the Old Judaean Quarter. Would she?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Ozymandias. ‘Look, this is nothing to worry about. I just wish it hadn’t happened tonight! She’s often out till all hours. I speak to her about it, but… she’s headstrong.’ He sipped at his zythus again. ‘We’ll stay here until morning, then carry on with the investigation.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Flaminius. ‘Of course! We’ll call in on Paulus Alexander first.’

  The beer was making him feel light headed. Or was it the effects of his spell of unconsciousness? After the drama of the day, sitting here in this hovel worrying about a missing girl seemed very domestic. But he had a job to do here in Alexandria. As soon as he had completed it, he could hope to go back to Rome, even back to Britain.

  ‘Did you mean what you said in the bathhouse?’ Ozymandias asked absently. He seemed to be listening out for something. ‘You really think there are political overtones to this murder?’

  ‘A wise man said to me that in Alexandria, politics and religion go hand in hand,’ said Flaminius. ‘And there certainly are religious overtones. Much like in Britain, it seems, the two are inseparable. I’
ve got no time for it myself. I splash the odd libation now and then, but I don’t think for a second that the gods listen.’

  ‘That’s a bleak view,’ said Ozymandias with a laugh. ‘In Egypt, the gods are at the back of everything that happens, from the inundation of the Nile to the growing of the grain, the baking of bread and the brewing of beer.’ He took a deep sip and nodded appreciatively at the image of Isis and Baby Horus on the wall.

  ‘What would the gods want with this imperfect world?’ Flaminius asked. The beer was strong. He didn’t usually get philosophical until he’d had several cups of wine. ‘It was formed out of chaos, and chaos is its nature, or at least that’s what the Platonists say. That might explain our friend of the afternoon.’

  ‘Friend?’ Ozymandias shook his head. ‘What friend? That other tribune?’

  ‘Crazy Eyes,’ Flaminius said. ‘Or did you not meet him? In the riot. He was raving on about the demiurge, the god of this world. I never knew a Platonist to take to the streets before. Rioting sophists now, is it?’

  Ozymandias held up a hand for silence. He had his head cocked. Flaminius listened, puzzled. At first, he heard nothing. Then he caught it; movements from outside. Someone in the alleyway. Ozymandias sat up expectantly. Then the footsteps thudded away into the distance.

  Ozymandias sighed. ‘I thought it might be my sister,’ he said in explanation. ‘Rioting sophists? Some of the chariot supporters claim to follow schools of philosophy. I know little about it. The ways of Greeks are alien to my people.’

  He put down his beer jar then went to the cauldron. ‘It’s getting late,’ he said in a hollow voice. ‘If we’re going to be up early tomorrow, we’d better eat and turn in. You can have the paillasse.’

  He reached down two earthenware bowls from the shelf and filled them with lentils from the cauldron. Flaminius took one and ate ravenously. Lentils weren’t his idea of gourmet fare, but he had had nothing to eat for hours, and he had had an energetic time, for all that he had spent several of those hours on his back. He washed the stew down with the rest of the beer, then unstrapped his breastplate and laid it down on the packed earth floor, his helmet and sword belt beside it.

  Ozymandias pinched the wick of the lamp, and now the room was lit only by the glow of coals from under the cauldron. Flaminius wrapped himself in his cloak, lay down on the paillasse, and went to sleep.

  His mother had always warned him about going to bed straight after eating. She wouldn’t have been surprised that her son’s dreams were troubled that night. Despite his weariness, his sleep was disturbed by a triumphant procession of phantasmagoric images.

  Dark robed figures met somewhere underground, shades of night fell on ruinous ground, rioting figures battled in darkness. Somehow Ozymandias’ goat was mixed up in it all, gazing down at the chaos with contemptuous beast eyes. Egyptian temples and tombs floated before Flaminius’ eyes and he ran endlessly through catacombs whose walls were hewn with enigmatic hieroglyphs, pursued by something ancient and long dead.

  Everything Flaminius had heard about Egypt appeared in that dream. He lay in the desert sand, his tongue dry, as vultures circled in a brassy sky. He gazed out across the sand, watching its eternal shimmering with empty eye sockets. He was dead. He was buried. He broke free from his tomb but he was nothing but dusty bones and desiccated flesh wrapped in linen.

  The sun set in seas of blood. He was pursued through swamps by dark figures. Crazy Eyes was there, sitting cross legged on a tussock like a scribe, mouthing Platonic platitudes. Flaminius was seized by men clad in women’s clothes, gutted, his heart eaten in front of his eyes, then dried while still alive over a fire.

  He awoke sweating. Ozymandias was sitting cross legged by the fire. Flaminius was reminded of something, a memory so hazy it faded in his mind before he could fully grasp it.

  The scribe was sitting up, listening again. Flaminius realised he could hear noises from outside, in the court. Dim memories of the goat in his dream chased themselves through his mind. He heard the gate creaking open. Shaking, he sat up.

  Ozymandias shot a frightened glance at him. Flaminius stared back in unease, then scrabbled on the ground for his dagger. The door swung open and a figure rushed inside, slamming the door behind itself as it did so.

  Ozymandias leapt to his feet at the same time as Flaminius. The tribune confronted the intruder with a drawn dagger. Ozymandias with a broad grin. The scribe lit the lantern and the newcomer was revealed in its yellow glow.

  Staring sphinx-like back at Flaminius and his glittering blade was a beautiful girl, no older than twenty, with lustrous black hair cut squarely at the shoulders, wearing a long white gown and a grey cloak of the Greek kind known as a chlamys. Kohl rimmed her eyes, much more fittingly to Flaminius’ mind than it did the Egyptian men he had met. It exaggerated their wideness, although this was no doubt in shock at being threatened by a dagger wielding Roman. Gripping her chlamys at her throat, the girl gave Ozymandias a hesitant look.

  ‘Who’s the new boyfriend, brother?’ she murmured. ‘I’ve had a bad enough evening as it is without being assaulted in my own home.’

  Flaminius lowered the dagger. This must be the famous Nitocris, he realised. ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said, feeling foolish. Ozymandias enveloped his sister in a warm embrace.

  ‘I didn’t know where you’d got to, Nitocris,’ the scribe said anxiously. ‘The whole city is in uproar and you choose tonight to go missing.’

  ‘I’d noticed the riots, brother,’ said Nitocris scathingly. ‘Hard not to notice, in fact, when there’s mobs and big booted soldiers charging about. Who’s this?’ she repeated, nodding at Flaminius.

  Flaminius stepped forward, sheathed his dagger, and took her hand in greeting. She snatched it back, and stared meaningfully at Ozymandias.

  ‘This is my new partner,’ the scribe explained. ‘I’m helping him in his investigation.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nitocris, startled. ‘Like that other Roman? The one who… went missing?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Ozymandias, looking away. ‘We’ve had word of Julius Strabo. The news is not good.’

  ‘What has happened to him?’ she said urgently.

  ‘He’s been murdered,’ said Flaminius. Nitocris gave a gasp and turned to face him.

  ‘Murdered?’ she whispered, a hand over her mouth. ‘Did they kill him?’

  ‘Yes, my dear.’ Ozymandias took her by the shoulders and encouraged her to sit on the paillasse. She was shuddering as she complied.

  ‘That tops off a terrible day,’ she said faintly.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to hear it like this,’ said Ozymandias. He glanced up at Flaminius. ‘My sister met the centurion a couple of times,’ he said in explanation.

  ‘I hardly knew him,’ said Nitocris. ‘It’s just that… murdered? Do you know who did it?’

  Flaminius shook his head. ‘We’ve been trying to investigate all day. The riots made that difficult.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Nitocris in a small voice. ‘The riots.’ She lay back on the paillasse and stared up at the ceiling.

  ‘Were you caught up in them?’ Ozymandias asked, pouring her a jar of beer. ‘So were we.’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ Nitocris confirmed, rising on one elbow to take the beer. She shuddered. ‘It made getting home very hard. But I don’t want to talk about it. So the centurion was murdered. How shocking.’ She looked carefully from her brother to Flaminius, rubbed absently at her ear, and sipped her beer. ‘And now you’re investigating the murder?’

  ‘As soon as it’s light,’ said Flaminius. ‘So if it’s all the same to you, ma’am, I’d like to catch some sleep.’

  He lay down on the ground on the other side of the fire, bundled in his cloak again, his sheathed sword and dagger on the floor beside him. His last sight before sleep took him was of the Egyptian brother and sister embracing tenderly again.

  For some reason, it haunted his dreams.

  —9—

  Rachotis, Alexandria, November 3, 123 ADr />
  Flaminius awoke. Sunlight streamed in through the bead curtain that covered the doorway. There was no sign of Ozymandias, but Nitocris knelt beside the fire, stirring the cauldron. Flaminius sat up and scratched absently at his flea-bitten ankles. She saw him and came to sit by him.

  ‘My brother is outside,’ she said reassuringly, ‘milking the goat. You will go to the Old Judaean Quarter today.’

  It was a statement, not a question. Flaminius wanted to learn more about this mysterious sister of the scribe. ‘Well, with your permission, of course,’ he said.

  She frowned. ‘Why should I not permit it?’ she said seriously. Her eyes were big and oval and brown, her hair midnight black. Her skin was milky white, very pale considering the hot climate; a stark contrast to Ozymandias’ swarthy brown. Although the soul of impudence whenever she spoke to her brother, if she addressed Flaminius, she always did one of four things: either she shut her eyes and raised her eyebrows every time she opened her mouth; held her hand to her mouth and muffled most of what she was saying; rubbed at her earlobe, or blushed bright scarlet. It was strangely engaging.

  ‘You must look after my brother,’ she said seriously, pouring Flaminius a jar of beer. As she handed it to the Roman, she gave him a grave look, her eyes closed. ‘Don’t let him get into any trouble.’

  Her voice was musical, vibrant, and despite the fact that she seemed serious, somehow seductive, playful. Flaminius felt a stirring in his breast. Drustica’s face flashed through his mind but he pushed away the memory for the moment.

  ‘Me, get him into trouble?’ he laughed. ‘I think your brother can take care of himself, can’t he? He tells me he was a gutter thief before he took up tomb robbing.’

  Her finely drawn eyebrows contracted in a frown and she looked away. ‘It’s a dangerous path you’re taking,’ she said, covering her mouth with her hand.