‘We’d better get a move on, sir,’ Magnus reminded Vespasian.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Vespasian sighed, feeling immensely fatigued. He led the remainder of the column through the gates and into the Royal Harbour; its quays were empty except for the occasional scuttling rat in the torchlight.
They had almost reached the far end when the gates to the palace swung open and Flaccus appeared in full uniform surrounded by the legate and tribunes of the XXII Deiotariana.
‘Just what the fuck have you been up to, senator?’ he bellowed, his face almost purple with rage.
‘What you should have been doing yourself instead of conspiring with religious maniacs: saving the lives of decent people.’
‘And how many Roman lives did that cost?’
‘None; now get out of my way.’ He pushed past the prefect, almost throwing him off-balance.
‘You’re confined to your suite, senator, until I decide what to do about you,’ Flaccus shouted after him. ‘All the guards will have orders not to let you out.’
‘Shit!’ Magnus spat. ‘Where does that leave us trying to get to the ship in the morning?’
‘We’ll have to take our bags with us tonight and go straight from the mausoleum.’
‘What about Flavia?’
‘Flavia’s in for a shock.’
CHAPTER XXI
‘JUST ANOTHER TEN feet,’ Vespasian called softly up to the struggling figure of Flavia suspended on the end of a rope. Forty feet above her Magnus could be seen in silhouette on the terrace slowly lowering her down. Vespasian checked his balance as he fought to remain upright while the boat bobbed on the mild swell of the Great Harbour; Felix laboured with a single oar to keep it in a fixed position hard up against the palace’s sea wall.
After another few anxious moments Vespasian grabbed her ankles. ‘Got you; now stop kicking or we’ll all be in the sea.’
Flavia went limp as she was lowered the last few feet. ‘That, Vespasian, was the most undignified way to leave the Palace of the Ptolemies,’ she informed him as he undid the knot around her waist, ‘and painful.’
‘But necessary,’ he reminded her, giving the freed rope a tug. ‘Now sit down and stop complaining.’
Flavia shook her head with a wry smile and went to sit in the bow next to their large travel-sacks as Magnus, with his sack slung over his back, slithered, with surprising agility, down the rope.
He landed in the small boat and looked back up at the rope. ‘That’s going to be a giveaway when Flaccus finds it.’
‘Flaccus won’t think that we’ve done anything more than escape from his custody.’
‘And he’ll find that annoying enough,’ Magnus mused, unslinging his sack and stowing it next to Vespasian’s.
‘Are we all set,’ Felix asked, ‘or are there any more surprises?’
Vespasian sat down by Flavia. ‘No, Felix, once we’ve dropped Flavia off at the ship it’ll be everything as planned.’
Felix snorted and pushed against the wall with his oar. As the boat came round he deftly hauled up the triangular sail and took his place at the steering-oar; with a light snap, the soft breeze filled the sail and drove the boat forward over the moon-dappled water.
Magnus tried not to touch Flavia’s behind as he and Vespasian helped her up the ladder onto the stern of the ship but the task was impossible without doing so. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he muttered as he placed his right hand under her firm left buttock.
‘Help yourself.’ Vespasian grinned, his hand already wedged under the right cheek. With a co-ordinated shove they propelled Flavia, with a squeal, up the ladder and into the arms of the triarchus and Alexander. Her two maids came to her rescue, clucking in concern.
‘Be ready to sail in a couple of hours,’ Vespasian told the triarchus as he clambered aboard with his sack.
‘It’ll still be night then, senator; I won’t be able to get the port aedile to stamp our exit warrant,’ the triachus replied as Magnus appeared with the last two sacks.
‘Exactly, so do it quietly.’
The triarchus shrugged and gave orders to wake the crew, who were sleeping, wrapped in blankets, on the deck.
‘You will all have to come with us, Alexander,’ Vespasian said as he helped Felix up; over his shoulder was a bulging leather bag and in his hand a small cage containing two geese.
‘We can’t desert our people. We must stay and get back to them.’
‘That’s your decision. We’ll be back in a couple of hours; use that time to work out how you’re going to do that with three dead bodies and a wounded man.’
‘Where are you going?’
Vespasian smiled and, patting Alexander on the shoulder, moved off without a word.
Apart from the occasional sailor asleep in a drunken stupor where he had fallen, the docks were deserted. By the light of the quarter-moon, Vespasian, Magnus and Felix moved swiftly along the empty quays and climbed the steps up to the promenade, coming out next to the Caesareum. Vespasian paused as they passed one of the obelisks guarding the building; the crescent moon seemed to be balanced perfectly on its point as if it were a part of the monument. Wondering if it could be construed as an omen of any sort, he hurried after his companions as they flitted through the deep shadows of the colonnade surrounding the building.
‘We should walk from here,’ Felix said as they descended some steps onto a wide thoroughfare, ‘we don’t want to attract undue attention.’
Although most of the city’s population had sensibly decided to stay behind locked doors after dark, there was no curfew being enforced and there were a few people abroad. They slowed down to a brisk walk, crossing the thoroughfare into another street heading south. The night sky to the east still glowed with the fires burning in the ransacked Jewish Quarter, but there was no sign of the violence spreading and they pressed on for another quarter of a mile unnoticed until they came to the gate of the Soma.
The two Macedonian guards stood with their pikes crossed barring the entrance.
‘We’ve come to make an offering,’ Felix explained, lifting the geese in their cage.
‘It’s a busy night for the priest,’ one of the guards commented as they stepped aside. ‘You come to put a curse on the Jews too?’
‘Something like that,’ Felix replied with a grin as they passed through the archway.
Swathed in the thin light of the crescent moon the courtyard felt even larger than it had by day; the fire on the altar at its centre, silhouetting a cluster of people gathered round making their offerings, seemed far off.
While still in the shadow of the wall, Felix nipped away to the right; Vespasian and Magnus followed. Keeping close to the wall they made their way north towards the Temple of Alexander, skirting around the mausoleums of various Ptolemys. Without mishap they arrived in the shadow of the mausoleum closest to the temple, just thirty paces away; between the two buildings was open, moonlit ground. The two night-time guards could be just seen at the top of the steps in the gloom under the portico.
‘Look around for some stones,’ Felix whispered, setting down the goose cage, ‘half a dozen should be fine.’
‘What for?’ Vespasian asked, feeling the ground and immediately finding a couple of small pebbles.
‘To encourage the geese forward.’ Felix took a goose out of the cage and handed it to Magnus before retrieving the other one, holding it firm under his arm. ‘On the count of three, Magnus, hurl your goose as far as you can towards the temple and then when they land, Vespasian, throw your stones at them to move them forward.’
‘Won’t they fly off?’ Vespasian asked, finding the last few stones that he needed.
‘They’ve had their wings clipped; they can’t fly more than a few paces. All right; one, two, three.’
Felix and Magnus hurled their geese towards the temple; the birds flapped their wings and flew as best they could, hissing in outrage, until they landed heavily just short of the steps. With a couple of well-aimed shots Vespasian got the
m waddling forward, honking loudly. From within the building the geese could be heard taking up their fellows’ cries. The guards looked at each other and exchanged a few words before one handed the other his pike and started slowly to descend the steps. The geese eyed him suspiciously; as he got to within three paces of them they extended their necks, flapped their useless wings at him and hissed threateningly. He pounced and, much to his mate’s amusement, began chasing one of the honking birds in a series of twists and curves until eventually capturing it as it tried but failed to mount the steps. Gathering the goose in both arms he jogged, laughing, back up to his mate, who pulled a key from a cord around his neck and turned to the door.
‘Now!’ Felix whispered.
As the two guards busied themselves with opening the door and shoving the goose inside, much to the honking consternation of its fellows already within, Felix led Vespasian and Magnus at a sprint across the open ground to the temple, getting around the side wall out of view of the guards as they closed the door.
‘How did you know that they would try and catch the geese?’ Vespasian asked as they made their way along to where the temple abutted the Soma’s surrounding wall.
‘I stole them from the geese enclosure this evening,’ Felix replied, stopping by a wooden ladder attached to the wall. ‘The guards would have known that they were two geese short so when they saw them they assumed, rightly as it happens, that they were the missing two. Up we go.’
At the top of the ladder they stepped over a low parapet onto the flat roof and crept towards the hole in the centre.
‘This should be fine,’ Felix said with relief, testing the solid iron hinges with which the hatch was attached to the roof. ‘I didn’t fancy having to hold the rope all by myself.’ He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a coil of hemp rope with a lead weight tied to one end and began to knot the other around the hinge. ‘Now we wait.’
‘What for?’ Vespasian asked, looking down through the hole. As he did a pale light faintly illuminated the chamber and he could make out the shapes of geese waddling around the floor; a cacophony of honking erupted as the second goose was thrown into their midst. The light went out; the door had closed.
‘That.’ Felix began to let down the rope.
Far below, the dim glow of the sconces in the burial chamber showed the position of the viewing passage; after a couple of nervous attempts Felix managed to get the lead weight into its entrance and continued feeding out the rope, swinging it slightly so that the weight clattered lightly against the stone sides of the passage.
‘That’s to alert Ziri that it’s on its way down,’ Felix explained. ‘We don’t want it cracking the crystal, do we?’
A few moments later he felt a couple of tugs on the rope. ‘Good, he knows we’re here.’
Vespasian peered down into the gloom and eventually was able to make out a shadowy figure at the top of the steps leading to the burial chamber, seemingly waving its arms around; there was a slight increase in the honking and the patter of many feet.
‘Down you go, gentlemen,’ Felix said, giving Magnus his leather bag. ‘The breastplate is in here; be as quick as you can. The geese won’t want to eat all night.’
‘I’ll go first, sir,’ Magnus offered, ‘I’m the heaviest.’ He took hold of the rope and lowered himself through the hole.
Vespasian watched him descend; as he reached the balustrade around the viewing passage he swung slightly and managed to land on the temple floor. There was a slight increase in goose activity as he landed in their midst but the bread and grain seemed to be doing a good job at distracting them from their guard duty.
Felix helped Vespasian into position on the rope. ‘They’re unsettled at the moment so the guards won’t worry about a bit of honking; just make sure that you don’t tread on one.’
‘Thanks for the advice, Felix,’ Vespasian replied as he let himself down into the gloom.
Following Magnus’ example, Vespasian swung gently over the balustrade and landed lightly next to it, eliciting a smattering of honks from the geese close by before they settled back down to their surprise midnight feast. Stepping carefully around the dim grey forms pecking at the ground, he came to the steps, swiftly descended and joined Magnus and Ziri down in the burial chamber.
With no light source other than the flaming sconces, Alexander’s body seemed even more ethereal in its crystal cocoon than it had when they viewed it with daylight seeping down the shaft.
‘Ziri, get the rope and untie the lead weight,’ Vespasian ordered as he and Magnus got either side of the coffin. ‘We lift it just enough to get the rope under, all right?’
Magnus nodded and, easing their fingers under the lip of the lid at the level of Alexander’s chest, they braced themselves.
‘Ready, Ziri?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the little Marmarides replied standing at the head end.
‘Go.’
With a huge effort they prised the lid from the base lifting it at an angle; a waft of the preserving spices and incense filled the chamber. Ziri quickly fed the rope through and they lowered the heavy crystal back down with relief.
‘Minerva’s slack tits, that’s heavy!’ Magnus exclaimed, rubbing his fingers together. ‘Here, Ziri, give me that rope.’ He took the loose end and tied it in a secure knot back on itself around the lid. ‘All right, Ziri, you and I help support this while Sir does his bit.’ He gave the rope a tug and the slack was taken out of it as above them on the roof Felix began to pull.
Very gently the lid rose until Vespasian could see the mummified face undistorted by the crystal; in the soft flame-light it looked more weather-beaten than preserved but the dry skin lacked the sheen associated with living flesh and Vespasian felt an illogical relief: he would not be disturbing the great man from a deep sleep, he was quite patently dead.
The lid was now raised high enough to be able to get at the breastplate; Magnus and Ziri stood with legs braced taking some of the weight from the rope.
Vespasian leant in and, feeling the buckles on either side, started to work on them to find that they were not done up: the cuirass had been simply laid on the body’s chest. ‘That makes matters simpler,’ he muttered, placing his fingers in each of the arm holes and lifting the plate tentatively. It came free. Holding it with his left hand he moved his right hand down to gently lift Alexander’s arms, which were folded across his body at the waist. The touch of the dried skin thrilled him as he raised the arms a thumb’s breadth and slid the breastplate out.
He held it up in the faint light to examine it and sucked in his breath. ‘Shit!’
‘What is it?’ Magnus asked nervously.
‘There’s a stain here,’ Vespasian replied, pointing to an area just below the left pectoral.
‘Blood?’
‘Could well be.’
Removing the replica from the bag, he laid the two breastplates side by side on the floor and then, taking his knife from its sheath, slit the tip of his thumb. The blood oozed out and Vespasian carefully rubbed his thumb on the replica, creating what he hoped would be a tolerable imitation of the stain. Once satisfied he buffed the stain with his tunic, drying it and then, picking up the replica, began the process of replacing it.
It fitted perfectly.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Magnus said, giving two tugs on the taut rope.
Very slowly the lid lowered. Vespasian looked at his handiwork; in this light it was impossible to tell the difference, then something caught his eye. ‘Shit! Stop.’
Magnus and Ziri took the weight of the crystal lid; the rope went slack for a moment and then tautened, taking the strain.
‘What’s the matter?’ Magnus hissed.
‘I’ve left blood on the neck-edging,’ Vespasian replied, leaning forward and wiping away a spot of blood that must have dripped from his thumb.
Magnus gave another couple of tugs on the rope and the lid lowered until it was a hand’s breadth above the base when Magnus and Ziri halted it; Vespas
ian quickly undid the knot and slipped the rope out before they lowered it the last short distance. With a slight grate it came to rest.
‘That was surprisingly easy,’ Vespasian commented, putting the breastplate into the leather bag.
‘We ain’t out yet,’ Magnus said, heading for the steps. ‘Come on, Ziri, and watch out for them geese.’
A short bout of honking greeted them as they reached the temple level but it was half-hearted as most of the geese seemed to be intent upon settling down for a nap while they digested their bread and grain.
Ziri clambered up the rope first, scaling the fifty feet in surprisingly quick time; Vespasian followed, though not quite so nimbly.
‘Did it go all right?’ Felix asked as he helped Vespasian out of the hole.
‘Fine,’ Vespasian replied, looking at Ziri who was urinating prodigiously.
‘Fuck me, I needed that,’ Ziri said with evident relief, ‘hours I’ve been waiting.’
‘No wonder you climbed the rope so fast.’ Vespasian grinned. ‘So, Felix, back the way we came?’
‘No, you three go straight over the Soma wall from here, then I’ll throw the rope down to you and make my way back down the ladder; if I get caught in the Soma’s grounds all I’ll have on me is an empty bird cage.’
Once Magnus was up, Felix undid the rope and, keeping low, they moved to the rear of the temple roof. Felix wrapped the rope around him and threw it down over the Soma wall. Ziri and Magnus quickly descended into the street below.
Vespasian clasped Felix’s forearm. ‘Thank you; come and see me when you’re back in Rome, Felix, I’m in your debt.’
A loud disturbance at the Soma gate prevented a reply. They looked back; a unit of legionaries was running towards the temple led by a centurion with a flaming torch; next to him ran a priest.
‘Cybele’s flabby arse!’ Vespasian exclaimed. ‘Flaccus must have guessed.’
‘Go, quick, I’ll be fine, they’ll go straight to the temple.’
Hitching the leather bag over his shoulder, Vespasian slipped over the parapet as Felix braced himself against it taking the weight of the rope.
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