Chapter 8
‘Of course it was Leontius,’ I said. ‘Who else is there to fit that description? Who else is likely to be going about preaching unity against us from both sides of the Wall?’ I’d finished with my meeting in the Food Control Office, and we were now heading back to the Palace. I’d said I wanted the new land survey reports on my desk after lunch at the latest. It was now surely pushing towards the sixth hour of the day.
‘But what can you do about him?’ Martin asked. He tagged along beside me, sometimes cheerful, sometimes quiet, as the opium worked its magic on his fairly virgin body. I stopped. We were about to come from a side street we’d taken to avoid the public executions into the square containing the obelisk and the statues of all the Ptolemies. From here, it was a short walk along the Processional Way into the Palace square itself. I looked at a pair of yellow shoes in the glazed window of a shop. They were pretty enough, but I preferred something cut a little lower to show off my ankles.
‘Among other matters Nicetas hasn’t decided to share with me are security and public order,’ I said. ‘That means I can’t just have the man taken up for suspected treason. But we had a threat of this yesterday – and Nicetas was watching. We now have some evidence that he’s going through with the threat. Stirring up the mob, especially both sections of it, is something that even His Highness will accept requires action.
‘I’ll go and see him tomorrow. At the least, I can have Leontius kicked out of Alexandria. And unless we’ve pushed them over the edge of desperation, I don’t think the dissident landowners will stand a moment by his side if they think he’s actually planning to raise the mob against us.’
As we passed into the square, we bumped into the front of a long procession. There wasn’t time to get past it. The best we could do was jump backwards out of its way. We stood in front of what had once been the Department of Medicine at the University, and was now a training college for missionaries, and watched it go by. It was soon obvious this would take some time. Led by three bishops I hadn’t seen before, its centrepiece was a great wooden image of Saint Mark. It was smeared over in elaborate patterns of mud, its feet kept ever wet from pitchers of clear water. The patterns were repeated on the bodies of the humbler celebrants. Waving papyrus imitations of corn sheaves, they sang their thanks for plenty in the year to come.
If anyone there knew what I’d just learned about the black mould on the remaining stores of grain, he didn’t seem inclined to spoil the party.
Still, there could be no doubt the Nile was rising nicely. The silver stream I’d seen the day before in the canal was become a dark flood. It gurgled loudly through the cisterns that ran under every street. Already, Lake Mareotis was seven inches up on the day.
Martin switched into Latin. ‘What does this mean for your speculations?’ he asked, a disapproving tone in his voice.
‘Nothing at all,’ I answered, following him into Latin, though the noise around us would have defeated the most intrepid spy. ‘The contracts I made last month were for sale at the current, very high prices. The lower the forward price drops from now on, the higher the value of those contracts. As it happens, there’s an excellent chance of a good harvest to come.’
Martin gave me one of his funny looks. So far as he understood financial matters, he took the view that I was profiting from misery, and probably increasing it. But this blessed change in the weather had cheered me no end, so I decided in turn to give him one of my little lectures on the science of enrichment.
‘If you take the March price of corn in Alexandria during the past eight hundred years’ I began ‘– yes, I’ve had those dozen clerks I commandeered extracting this for months now from the tax records – there is a fairly stable cycle. What makes it hard to spot is the quite independent cycle that correlates with the timing of the flood.
‘But if you can separate these two cycles, and take account of plagues and other disturbances, you’ll then be able to guess the future price. I’m not so fast as I’d wish at brute calculations, and I’ve applied the method to any past year chosen by lot. In eight-elevenths of cases, the answer has been sufficiently close to the actual price.’
Martin looked back at the image of Saint Mark. ‘That sounds rather like divination,’ he said still more disapprovingly, going now, for greater security, into Celtic.
‘Not at all,’ I said, warming to my theme. The flute and cymbal players were coming closer, so I raised my voice and went back into Greek, which is better for discussing these things. ‘Divination and astrology and all those other frauds rest on the claim that one class of future events can be known from the study of present or past events of another class. Since there is no proven connection between any of these classes, the predictions made are all worthless.
‘With the method I’m trying to develop, you can predict future events from the study of past events of the same class.
‘Have you noticed how lucky I am at all games of chance? Well, if you throw a single die a very large number of times, the ox will come up one-sixth of the time, and every other side one-sixth. That’s easy. But I’ve discovered that, if you throw two dice the same number of times, the chance of each combination will be—’
Martin broke in: ‘The purpose of mathematics,’ he said primly, ‘is to supplement Revelation by letting us see – however darkly – the Mind of God. I don’t think it was ever intended to assist commercial speculation. And didn’t your Epicurus dismiss mathematics as useless?’
He turned his mouth down into a very sour look. I knew, though, his mood had been improving by leaps and bounds ever since the potty man had slapped on the ointment. We’d had this argument and others like it more times than I could remember. It was Martin’s duty at this point to disapprove.
‘Martin,’ I said, trying to parry his attack on one of the few completely stupid things Epicurus had said, ‘I do believe that, the usual miracles aside, everything that happens in the world can be understood by the use of reason. And I further believe that understanding allows prediction and even control . . .’
I trailed off. We were now on such familiar ground, words were hardly needed. Martin could have made his usual move: that Epicurus had been interested in rational understanding only as a way of diminishing fear of death, not at all of improving the comforts of life. But he wouldn’t make the move. Even he must have seen how nice the afternoon would surely turn out.
We looked away from each other and crossed ourselves with varying piety as the image of some other saint was carried past. The procession would soon thin out, and we’d be able to continue back to the Palace. We could settle down after lunch to a long examination of how best to reapportion land in the Lower Thebaid region.
For the moment, it was enough to know I really had stumbled on a method that allowed vast personal enrichment without harming the poor wretches of Alexandria. They’d be able to fill their bellies in the season to come, and at low prices – if only, that is, they could get through this one.
‘My sweet young Alaric, how delightful to bump into you!’
Oh shit! I ground my teeth. Priscus had worked his way through the dancing maniacs who made up the rearguard of the procession, and was now beside me. Flanked by a couple of slaves he could only just have bought, he was wearing something new of the best Alexandrian silk. One of the slaves carried a wicker cage containing perhaps the nastiest cat I’d seen in ages. It glared balefully at me through the strands. Holding the cage as far away as he could manage, the slave already had a deep scratch on his face.
‘You seem to have found your way about town soon enough,’ I said coldly. The cat reached out at me with an open claw. I stared back into the hate-filled eyes.
‘Now, I thought you’d remark on that,’ Priscus gushed. Except he had definitely lost weight since Christmas, he’d become quite his usual self again.
‘Our mutual friend Leontius has proved most accommodating,’ he said with a flash of his dark teeth. He put his face close to the cage an
d smiled broader still. The thing shrank back. ‘Isn’t she just a beauty? I had a most useful mid-morning snack with the dear man.
‘He’s a low sort, of course, even by provincial standards. I’d not think him at all fit to move in the exalted society that we inhabit back at home – but he’s not without a rough charm. He gave me Margarita as a pledge of our new and happy friendship.’ He poked a finger into the cage. The cat sniffed gingerly, before shrinking back again. Priscus laughed.
‘You will not believe how greatly he esteems your efforts for our Sovereign Lord the Augustus,’ he went on. ‘I heard all about your performance yesterday. Everyone is discussing your divine eloquence for the scheme you and Sergius conceived of taking away their land.’
That wasn’t at all funny. Perhaps I should have killed him in the nursery.
‘I think I should ask you,’ I said, ‘roughly how long you plan to remain in Alexandria. I’m sure the Persian menace will not idly await your return to the theatre of war.’
‘But how little you know of war, my young and golden darling,’ came the reply. ‘With pestilence in all their camps, and barely an ounce of food left for them in any likely direction of advance, their campaigning season is over. Unless they can attack from Egypt – and that’s not very likely, is it? – Syria is perfectly safe. The Persians, I assure you, can’t stir from their Cappadocian positions again until March. That gives me plenty of time to take in the sights here and conclude all the business we discussed yesterday.’
‘Then I’ll wish you joy of this place,’ I said, trying to keep my voice as smooth as his. ‘But Martin and I have an appointment I am not inclined to break.’
‘We’ll meet again at dusk,’ he called after me.
‘What?’ I said, turning back.
‘He being indisposed again, Nicetas says he must leave it in your hands to keep me entertained in a fit manner.’
‘And Leontius?’ I asked. ‘Is he also indisposed?’
‘It seems to be the case,’ came the answer.
Was that a slight frown? I could hope.
‘His travelling chair came for him just as we finished our shopping. He’ll be on his way now on some business trip. That leaves no one but you to keep me company this evening.
‘Now, my dearest love, I’m told the Egyptian quarter can be most charmingly exotic.’
Chapter 9
So far as transacting the business in hand was concerned, the meeting went well enough. I’ll not go into the details of what we did in my office. But there were seventeen ways of dividing up the taxable land of the Lower Thebaid, so that the tenants got viable plots and the current owners kept enough to maintain some position. I’d commissioned maps and reports showing each one of these. Every one had its merits. It was a question of whether, and if so how hard, we wanted to hit the dissenting landowners. Then, of course, there was the complicating factor of lands willed in perpetuity to the Church.
Back in Constantinople, with officials from half a dozen ministries sitting in and everything on the record, it would have taken days. Here, it was just the two of us at my desk with a couple of clerks, and we were able to get through the complexities with nothing carried over.
‘Do come back a moment, if you please,’ I said to Martin as he was about to follow the clerks from the room. I’d been considering this since bumping into Priscus. Now, there was something important I needed to ask him.
He looked significantly at the quilted leather on the door. He sat down again, just a foot or so from me.
‘Aelric,’ he said, speaking low in Celtic before I could make a start, ‘I don’t know exactly how to say this. But there are things that I believe you ought to know.
‘I spent this last night going over those subsidy payments again. The Undersecretary in the Disbursements Office didn’t want to tell me more than I asked. But he left me with enough documentation for me to work some things out for myself.’
‘So, what was it?’ I asked. ‘Fraud or incompetence or superstition?’ I resisted the urge to smile. Even straight up the arse, the amount of opium he’d taken was derisory. Now, he was gabbling away like a confirmed eater waking from his dream.
‘All of them, and more,’ he said. He pushed a sheet of his own jottings across the desk.
I glanced at it. I then read it properly. I looked up.
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘The subsidy has been located and cancelled five times in the past seventy years. Each time, it’s been carried into another budget and continued unbroken. It seems we have a heathen conspiracy going on here in the Disbursements Office. It wouldn’t be the first time, of course, this has come to light. Look at that stupid bugger of a Prefect – the one Heraclius burned to death last year for sacrificing to Apollo. If that still goes on in Constantinople, there’s no saying what happens in the provinces.’
Martin leaned forward and dropped his voice still lower. I could smell the garlic sausage on his breath. A locked room, Celtic, whispering: these were natural precautions back in Constantinople; not here, though.
‘Aelric, we’re talking seventy-five pounds of gold here,’ he said, ‘seventy-five pounds of gold every year since the time of the Great Justinian. You don’t need that to keep up a clandestine temple in the back of beyond. With one year of that, Priscus could have another army.
‘And this subsidy isn’t the end of it. Regular fractions of spending have been creamed off whole budget items. This isn’t the usual petty corruption you expect to see anywhere. It’s too consistent, over too long a time.’
I stopped him. ‘This is all very interesting,’ I said. ‘But it’s outside the terms of our commission. We were sent here to get the new land law into force, not reform the finances. We got the subsidy stopped because Leontius had set it in our path. Frauds in themselves on the Disbursements Office don’t concern us.’
I looked again at the notes. There had been some very sticky fingers at work. I looked away and bit my lip. I looked for guidance at the silken hangings on the wall and the electrum water pitcher I’d bought in the antiquities market. I looked back at Martin’s heavy face.
‘I suggest you drop the matter,’ I said firmly. ‘It isn’t our problem.’
‘Aelric,’ Martin said, putting his face back into order, ‘there’s something I don’t like about this. I can’t give you evidence yet. But I know when things aren’t right. We need to be careful.’
‘Agreed,’ I said smoothly. ‘Egypt is a world in itself. Even Alexandria isn’t completely part of the Empire. Augustus took the whole place over as a going concern, and no effort since then at incorporation has been a success. You only need look at the title and functions of the Viceroy to know this.
‘Now, I do appreciate your concerns. But you’ve said yourself you have no evidence beyond this fraud. Your enquiries never took place, and will never be acted upon more than they have been already. After all, it isn’t money that would otherwise find its way to Constantinople. If not for the Old Gods of Egypt, it would only be stolen for some other use.’
Martin stood by the door again. I got up and went over to him. I put my hands on his shoulders and looked into his face.
‘Martin,’ I said, ‘I want you to forget all this. It doesn’t concern us except so far as Leontius made it our concern. From tomorrow, he’ll be closing up that shabby little place he lives in all alone while in Alexandria, and I doubt if our paths will cross again.’
Martin tried to protest, but I led him over to the window. On the fifth floor of the Palace, my office looked out over the Palace Square to the Church of Saint Mark. Down in the square, the Nile Festival was continuing with black belly dancers and a demonstration of fire eating. We stood awhile, listening to the rhythmical thud of the drummers. I waited for the continued breeze off the sea to bring him back to a semblance of rationality.
‘I’ve a favour to ask of you and Sveta,’ I said with an abrupt change of subject that brought the conversation back to where I’d wanted to start it. ‘Maximin ha
s been wandering again at night. Those useless bitches in the nursery won’t do the job I’ve set them, and I don’t see any value in having them whipped a second time. Can I ask the pair of you to take him into your own quarters while Priscus is about?’
All of a sudden, the cloud lifted from Martin’s face. He’d be delighted, he told me. The boy always got on so well with their daughter, and, this time, she could surely be trusted not to pull his hair or stick pins in him.
I thanked him. I’d now have to put up with Sveta twice a day; correction, we’d have to put up with each other. Though the heat and flies remained a sore trial, she still found energy for evil looks and God alone knew what private slanders to Martin. The immense and continuing favours I’d done him didn’t seem to register with her.
‘So you go directly off to Sveta,’ I said, taking him back to the door, ‘and get things arranged. See that Maximin is settled in with you. I want you to spend the rest of the afternoon and all evening not thinking about survey reports or Leontius or anything else connected with them.
‘I want you nice and fresh for tomorrow. The engineers will be coming round to discuss the reconnection of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Apparently, there is a difference of height between the two oceans, and we shall need to discover how the ancients managed the flow of waters.
‘Now, do pass on my regards to Sveta. I will try to visit your quarters before whatever Priscus has arranged for the evening entertainments.’
Down in the Eastern Harbour, the supplemental grain ships were still loading up under armed guard. They would be ready, the senior captain told me, to leave within the next five days. Assuming normal winds, all would be in Constantinople in time for Heraclius to pacify the Circus mob with double rations, and to shell out as bribes to get the Avars to leave Thrace alone.
The Harbour area itself was walled and gated. The streets by which it was approached, though, were dotted with small crowds. So far, protest was muted. So far, it seemed to involve men from the almost respectable classes. The supplemental requisition was little in itself. But it could easily be made an example of how the Empire was bleeding Egypt white. We needed to get those ships under way as soon as possible. Even before then, we had to get Leontius out of Alexandria and keep those landowners on side.
The Blood of Alexandria Page 7