They had reached the office. Paulus Alexander turned and gave Ozymandias a cold look. He led them inside.
Paulus Alexander sat behind his desk, his anger barely cooled by the fan-slave’s best efforts, but his guests were not accorded such a dignity. Ozymandias went to sit on the floor but one of the guards cuffed him and he rose smartly to his feet again, cringing. Flaminius was held by the other guard.
‘I did indeed give you permission to use whatever means necessary,’ the commander said to Ozymandias. ‘But that does not include torturing people as eminent as Basilides.’
‘You know him?’ asked Flaminius. ‘You can provide him with an alibi? He is one of our chief suspects, you realise.’
‘Between my wife Clara and her friends,’ Paulus Alexander said, ‘and myself, an alibi can be provided for him for the night of Julius Strabo’s death.
‘Clara and her circle of friends take a keen interest in spiritual matters. I, of course, am an initiate into the mysteries of Sarapis and Mithras, but most cults will not accept women into their ranks. Naturally, that makes women like my wife insanely curious as to the nature of such groups.
‘As a result, when she learnt that a group existed in Alexandria that accepted women, she was immediately interested. I was doubtful myself, and would have forbade her to join it, headstrong woman that she is, but after much discussion and investigation I decided that the group was harmless.
‘She attended several of their rituals, accompanied by a growing number of women of her own sort, and even asked me for permission to invite a leader of this group to my villa one night. I often include philosophers and poets among my guests; it’s what’s expected of a man in my position. I made no distinction between them and this sophist.
‘As it happened, the night I had arranged for Basilides to visit was precisely the night when I received Julius Strabo’s message via Ozymandias. Explaining that business affairs took me away from them, I departed my villa after dinner and went at once to the ruined temple, where I found Julius Strabo’s mutilated corpse. On my return later that night, Basilides was just leaving.’
‘So you were the public dignitary the sophist mentioned,’ Flaminius said. ‘He claimed that he had an alibi for the murder; I now see that it is a watertight one.’
Paulus Alexander shook his head. ‘I find it necessary once again to question your competence, tribune. No doubt under better circumstances you would not make such a blunder, but with this brain fever…’
‘The mistake was mine,’ Ozymandias said loyally. ‘Tribune Flaminius wasn’t responsible for what went on. As you say, he’s suffering from fever.’
‘Fever during which he was so irrational as to threaten the medic Achilles with his sword,’ said Paulus Alexander sadly. ‘I will be speaking with the legate about this matter. I doubt he will be willing to employ you further on when he hears of your eccentric conduct. I shall, of course, explain that the fever is to blame.’ He shook his head. ‘It is vital that this murder is investigated, but I doubt your competence. Do you not have any other suspects?’
Ozymandias blurted out, ‘The guard is looking for another man. Carpocrates, who attacked us in Rachotis, near the canal. He is clearly connected with this cult.’
‘You mean the cult that my wife belongs to?’ Paulus Alexander said. ‘You really intend to haul another citizen off the streets and subject him to torture?’
‘With respect,’ said Flaminius, ‘Carpocrates is an entirely different matter from Basilides. I still think there is a connection between them; they use the same mystical jargon, but while Basilides is to all intents and purposes as harmless an old Greek sophist as ever bored his audience rigid, Carpocrates is a nasty piece of work. I first met him at the forefront of the riot.’
‘Carpocrates,’ said Paulus Alexander slowly, as if tasting the Greek name. ‘That is the man who attacked you? You suspect he was Julius Strabo’s killer? He sounds a likely fellow, if he was involved in the riots and later attacked you in the street! Much more plausible than Basilides. I’m glad you are looking for him. If you can find him, have him brought here and my men will question him thoroughly.’
The commander was changing his tune. ‘Even if he is an Alexandrian citizen?’ Flaminius asked. ‘I don’t know if we’ll be able to find him. He is particularly elusive. But this is all by the by. I don’t think he is the murderer.’ He explained the situation in some detail.
Paulus Alexander shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re making too much of a few technicalities. If we can find Carpocrates, he will be tortured until he confesses, then crucified. Not only for murder, you understand. You are a witness that he was a ringleader of the riots, and he also assaulted you. Isn’t that right, tribune?’
Flaminius nodded slowly. ‘Certainly he was in the riot,’ he said. ‘He should be brought to justice. And I am a witness, as is Ozymandias here, of that and his attack on us in an alleyway off the canal in Rachotis. But I don’t think he murdered Julius Strabo. I think the killer was another man entirely.’
‘Who, then?’ said Paulus Alexander. ‘And where is your proof?’
‘I don’t have any—yet,’ said Flaminius. ‘I am not going to accuse anyone without proof. But when I get it, I will be sure to tell you.’
The commander shook his head. ‘I will give orders to the guards to increase the search for Carpocrates. We can arrest him on rioting charges even if you fail to provide evidence that he killed Julius Strabo. I request that you also join the search. You’ve seen the man recently. You must have some idea of where he can be found. Do this,’ he added, ‘and I will reconsider my intention to inform the legate of your treatment of Achilles.’
He picked up a report. ‘Dismissed,’ he said without looking up. The guards marched them out of the office.
‘Paulus Alexander wants Carpocrates caught,’ said Flaminius as they departed the palace a short while afterwards.
‘Don’t you?’ Ozymandias asked. Flaminius didn’t answer. Hobbling down the steps just ahead of them was an elderly man, aided by one of the civic guard.
‘I think we should have a quiet word with Basilides,’ the tribune said.
Flaminius set off after the old man. Ozymandias caught him by the arm. ‘After we tortured him?’
Flaminius shook his head. ‘All a mistake. And not by my orders.’ He pulled free and went up to Basilides, nodding to the guard.
‘I’d just like to extend my apologies, sir,’ he said as Basilides cowered back. ‘Terrible mistake. I hope the civic guard has recompensed you for your trouble.’
Basilides drew himself up bravely. ‘No coin could compensate me for what your men did,’ he said. ‘It is valueless, dross, like all material things. Happily, I know that the same applies to this envelope of flesh that imprisons the divine spark, which cannot perish or be harmed in any way, but yearns to return to the highest god down from which it was drawn.’
‘I see…’ said Flaminius. ‘I just wanted to apologise. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. High-handed action was taken. We’re now searching for Carpocrates.’
Basilides looked down his nose. ‘Carpocrates? You think he was the killer of the centurion?’
‘Personally no,’ said Flaminius. ‘He is guilty of assault, however, and was involved in the riots. He, er, seems to be a co-religionist of yours. Certainly he says a lot of the same things. This business about the demiurge, for example.’
Now Basilides drew himself up. ‘By no means do we follow the same religion! My teachings are mystical doctrines the apostle Mathias learnt privately from the Christus himself, Jesus; he who people believe was crucified when in fact it was Simon of Cyrene who was crucified in Jesus’ shape with Jesus looking on and laughing. The teachings of Carpocrates are warped and perverted imitations of my own and those of others who heard the word of Christus from his own lips. Considering his evident moral decay I am not surprised that Carpocrates is guilty of assault and riotous behaviour. I am not at all surprised that h
e is suspected of murder. He does not even observe the same days of worship as I! It is quite possible that he killed the centurion that night. Would you believe it, his cult meets tonight? The day of Mercury rather than the day of the Sun?’
Flaminius frowned. ‘They meet tonight?’
‘As far as I understand,’ said Basilides. ‘It is certainly the night when I have heard the sounds of their revels. I explained all this to the centurion when I first approached him about the matter, during the summer…’
‘I see,’ said Flaminius. So it was Basilides who had put Julius Strabo on the road to his death. ‘Thank you.’ He signed to the civic guard. ‘Help him home now.’
As Basilides hobbled off down the street, assisted by the two guards, Flaminius turned to Ozymandias.
‘What now?’ the Egyptian said. ‘Night is falling. And all that interrogation has given me quite an appetite.’
Flaminius looked around him. It was growing dark. He was weak and tired, but he only had another day left before he was sent to some desert outpost to spy on barbarians.
‘That’s a very good question,’ he said. ‘I also need food—and rest. And we need to talk over everything we’ve learnt. Somewhere private, where there aren’t too many people listening.’
‘I suggest we return to my house,’ Ozymandias said.
‘It was down in your end of town that I seem to have met the miasma that gave me this fever.’ Flaminius’ limbs were still shaking from the last attack.
‘You’d spurn my old fashioned Egyptian hospitality?’ Ozymandias looked disappointed. ‘Nitocris will be cooking lentil stew again. And I know how much you like her lentil stew.’
Grimacing, Flaminius followed the Egyptian down the street.
—23—
Rachotis, Alexandria, November 4, 123 AD
But when they reached Ozymandias’ house Nitocris was mysteriously absent.
‘Where is she?’ Ozymandias said, as the freshly lit lamp sent shadows skipping into every corner of the deserted room. ‘I wonder what’s up with the girl.’
He poured them beer and stirred the contents of the cauldron. Flaminius sat down on the paillasse with a thump.
‘Is she often out at night?’ he asked.
Ozymandias could make a better effort to control his wife. A Roman husband would; at least all the Roman husbands he’d cuckolded had done their best.
‘She often isn’t home,’ Ozymandias admitted. ‘She has these groups she goes to. Women, you know? I don’t ask. It does her good to get out, and not sit around at home all the time.’
Flaminius stared at him. ‘Groups? Do you mean cults?’
Ozymandias shrugged. ‘We Egyptians are a highly religious people. I don’t know what they are.’
‘Jove’s sake, man!’ Flaminius said in horror. ‘She’s going out at night and you don’t know where? You Egyptians know nothing about security!’
‘What are you trying to say?’ Ozymandias loomed threateningly over him. ‘What are you implying about my wife? You’re worse than Julius Strabo!’
‘You can’t trust anyone in this line of work.’ Flaminius remembered Medea, how she had betrayed him. How he had killed her. ‘That’s the first rule: trust no one.’
Ozymandias tried to grab him by the tunic, haul him to his feet. With barely a struggle, Flaminius disengaged himself from the man’s scrawny arms.
He remained sitting, and gestured for the Egyptian to sit beside him. Sullenly, beaten, Ozymandias sat on the packed earth floor.
‘The message that appeared so mysteriously,’ Flaminius said. ‘The one from Julius Strabo, asking Paulus Alexander to meet him in the Old Judaean Quarter. How did that get into your house?’
Ozymandias gazed at him, breathing harshly as he regained his temper, the kohl and the shadows from the lamp transforming his eyes into dark pits, dark abysses.
‘I’d always wondered,’ he admitted. ‘Do you think she brought it?’
Flaminius nodded. ‘It would make sense, wouldn’t it?’ he said. ‘If she is a member of the cult. One of these Christians. Remember what we’ve learnt today. Paulus Alexander’s wife is a Christian. That’s how they work, these people; everyone knows it. They go for women, children, the poor, the weak. People who have no hope of gaining salvation by joining a mystery cult.’
‘But the Christians are harmless,’ Ozymandias said. ‘You’ve said so yourself. It’s the official imperial position. It’s what Trajan of Blessed Memory said, what Hadrian himself says. They can’t be prosecuted simply for being Christian.’
‘Only for the crimes they commit,’ said Flaminius pensively. ‘But I wonder. Having met this Carpocrates, I really wonder.’ He remembered his last conversation with that pompous fool, Hadrian. ‘Far be it from me to criticise the emperor, or question his views.’
Flaminius was an initiate into the cult of Mithras, a soldier, as they called it, for all the good that brought. He had been accepted into an influential body of men, although he had seen in Britain how the cult’s power could be abused. Like all mystery cults, it offered salvation in the afterlife; after initiation into the cult, and progress through the levels of enlightenment, all that would lead the soul into heavenly bliss once this life was ended. Flaminius didn’t believe a word of it. Yet, membership of the cult benefited men in this world.
Few mystery cults accepted women, as Paulus Alexander had said, or poor men for that matter. No wonder this subversive Christian cult had become so popular. And yet, its teachings were questionable to say the least. But was it surprising that a cult of the underdog like Christianity should teach ideas that were so warped?
‘This is exactly what Julius Strabo believed,’ said Ozymandias. ‘He said that the cult was subversive, seditious; that unchecked it might bring down the empire. Paulus Alexander wouldn’t listen. He assigned me to aid him, but told me in confidence that I was not to believe his words without full proof.’ He looked Flaminius in the eye. ‘Julius Strabo certainly didn’t trust anyone. He didn’t even trust me, it seems. He went undercover without telling me, and I was his partner.’
‘But when he sent the commander a message,’ said Flaminius, ‘he went through you. And how did he get that message to your house?’
‘He had been here before,’ said Ozymandias. ‘I invited him home as I did you. He was very friendly with Nitocris,’ he added ruefully.
‘This is what I think,’ said Flaminius. ‘Julius Strabo decided that the only way he could find the truth was to go undercover. At some point, he reencountered Nitocris, and gave her the message to leave in a place where you could find it. I can’t imagine that even undercover he could have gained access to your house.’
‘How did he reencounter my wife?’ Ozymandias asked.
‘I think he met her at one of these meetings,’ Flaminius said. ‘A ritual of the Christians. He went undercover and joined them. Your wife was already a member.’
‘Without my knowledge?’
‘Do you know where she goes?’ Flaminius challenged him. ‘You’ve already admitted that you have only the vaguest idea. Now she’s missing again. And Basilides said that tonight is the night Carpocrates and his gang meet.’
‘You think she’s with Carpocrates,’ Ozymandias said flatly.
Flaminius gripped him by the shoulder. ‘It’s a possibility,’ he said. ‘We don’t even know if she is a Christian, let alone if she is with Carpocrates. But she’s not here.’
‘Thanks, Roman,’ said Ozymandias. ‘That’s set my mind at rest. We don’t know where…’ He halted. ‘The ruined temple.’
Flaminius nodded. ‘That’s where Basilides thinks Carpocrates’ cult meets.’
Decisively Ozymandias rose to his feet. ‘We’ll have to go there straightaway.’
Flaminius tugged him back down. ‘Not yet. What Basilides said suggests they meet later at night. Anyway, how can we infiltrate them as we are?’
‘Julius Strabo infiltrated them,’ said Ozymandias.
‘Yes, but t
hat was over a period of months,’ said Flaminius. ‘And it’s possible he had insider help.’
‘Insider help?’ Ozymandias was baffled.
‘You told me he was friendly with your sister,’ Flaminius pointed out.
Ozymandias shook his head. ‘Like you say, we don’t even know if she’s part of the cult. If they’re not going to meet until the middle watches of the night, where is she now?’
Flaminius shrugged. ‘With you out all day, she could be anywhere. Maybe she is at the house of a friend. Is there anyone in the Egyptian Quarter she goes to see?’
‘Plenty of women she talks to down at the well,’ Ozymandias says. ‘Gossips with, more like it. Who knows, maybe some of them are in the cult too. But she has friends in the Greek Quarter, or she did. She could be anywhere in the city.’
Flaminius got to his feet and began striding up and down the small room. ‘We could go to the ruined temple and see if she’s there. If Carpocrates is there! We could arrange it with Paulus Alexander to have men on hand to arrest him.’
‘And arrest my sister?’ Ozymandias said. ‘No you don’t!’
Flaminius turned to face him. ‘We can only arrest them if they’re breaking the law,’ he reminded the Egyptian. ‘Nitocris won’t be, will she? Carpocrates’—he rubbed his inflamed wounds— ‘certainly has done.’
‘No, I don’t like it,’ said Ozymandias. ‘Besides, there’s no reason to think they’ll be there until later.’ He pounded his fist into his palm. ‘I just wish I knew where she was.’
‘Could she be down by the well?’ Flaminius suggested. ‘Maybe she got talking to some of her friends.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ozymandias. ‘I just don’t know! Don’t keep asking me!’
Flaminius strode towards the door.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll give it a try. We need to talk to her one way or another.’
He stepped out into the warm evening air. Cicadas chirped among the tamarisk trees in the street down the alley. The goat was asleep on her feet. Flaminius reached the alleyway and looked back. Ozymandias had followed as far as the door and was watching him in silence, a dark shadow against the blackness of the doorway.
Our Man in Alexandria Page 16