I glanced over at the right bank of the river. It was slipping by about a half-mile away. And, if I’d laughed at Martin’s fears, there were crocodiles in that filthy water. They broke the surface less often than the corpses. They were out there, even so, and they scared me.
I opened one of the wooden chests I’d brought along. Big, heavy things they were. Lucas had taken one look at them before telling me how the loading of his boat required them or our slaves to be left behind. That’s why I was having to pour my own wine. I took out a sheaf of papyrus. I went through it and put it back, taking out another. From this, I took out three of the larger sheets. I passed them over to Martin.
‘It’s the Devil who puts thoughts in idle minds,’ I said with a stab at piety. I cast around for a definite text from Scripture to reinforce the point, but could think of nothing appropriate. ‘Now,’ I continued, ‘since there’s nothing very scenic to look at in any direction, we might as well get on with some work. You may disagree, but I think we can reconcile these two sets of land measurements if you assume that one of them uses the units abolished by Diocletian. Why anyone should still have been using them two centuries after the event is a question not worth asking . . .’
And so we worked productively away for the rest of the afternoon. I was vaguely aware of the orders Lucas was shouting in his maniac voice and the rapid movements of the crew as they went about their pulling on ropes and shifting of sailcloth. I ignored the periodic cries from still more of those wretched flotillas. Every so often, Martin would set about himself with his flywhisk. Once or twice, he may have killed something.
At dusk, the flies came down in earnest. It was then that the fine mesh netting was let down around us and the smoky charcoal was set alight in the brazier next to us.
‘It would be most pleasing if you could spare the time to join us,’ I said to Lucas as he watched Martin dishing out our food. ‘I’m not eating anything connected with the river,’ Martin had insisted in Celtic while our stuff was being carried on board. ‘If you don’t want the runs all the way there and back, you’ll take your own food along.’ I’d given way to his urging. After all, he had lived in the country, and might for once be expected to know what he was talking about. And so, while everyone else ate food that, cooked down in the little galley kitchen, smelled divine, we were grimly munching our way through increasingly stale bread with olive paste and dates pickled in honey.
Lucas bowed and touched his forehead. He quickly rearranged the netting once he was under the awning and squatted on the deck in the Egyptian manner. It was one of those alien touches – nothing in itself, but cumulative – that had set Martin off, and was progressively undermining my own composure.
‘With the river as it is,’ he said, leaving the hard bread untasted, ‘we can put straight in at the makeshift dock that Letopolis has outside its walls this time of year. I understand, however, that My Lord has business at the house of Leontius. This is a fortified compound a mile outside the walls. With your leave, I will arrange chairs to carry you there. To be sure, it is sad news you carry to the household.’
‘I assume the news has not preceded us,’ I said, looking steadily at Lucas.
He stared impassively back.
‘It seems to have preceded us along the coast from Alexandria,’ I added.
‘He was a man of note in his own district,’ came the reply. ‘He was famed far beyond for the attention he paid to the boundaries of his estate, and to his collection of rents and customary dues. He was a man of considerable note in other ways – learned in the ways of Egypt, and assiduous in collecting objects from its days of glory. News of his death reached Bolbitine some while before My Lord’s arrival.’
‘But it will not, I think, have reached so far up river yet as Letopolis,’ I prompted.
‘It is sad news for the household that My Lord carries,’ came the reply.
I darted a look at Martin’s scared face. I took another sip of wine, and asked about general conditions in Letopolis.
‘Though I have, in the absence of your slaves,’ Lucas answered, ‘undertaken to interpret for you, I can assure you that Greek remains well enough known in and around the city. I do not suppose that my services will be required for any confidential dealings.’
I nodded and chewed hard on my bread. To keep the conversation going, I asked if it was true that no one had Greek any more as a first language south of Oxyrhynchus.
‘My Lord and his secretary speak the language to each other,’ he answered, ‘but neither of you, I think, is Greek?’
‘A Greek,’ I said firmly, ‘is anyone who speaks the language and follows the ways of the Greeks.’
‘Or whose ancestors began to do so long enough ago for the taint of wogitude to be forgotten,’ Lucas added with a smile.
‘There was a time,’ he went on, ‘when the Greeks came upon Egypt like the Nile flood. Then, they went where they pleased and were irresistible. But their flood has for many generations now been ebbing. And, again as with the Nile, the ebb exposes more and more of the hidden land of Egypt. It is, perhaps, a land enriched by the Grecian flood. The Greeks leave us the Christian Faith, and their alphabetic writing, and the concept they took, I think, from the Latins of a determinate and written law. But it will be Egyptian land.’
He put his hand up to refuse the wine I was offering. Most natives, I’d found, would drink anything offered them that wasn’t actually poisonous. Many, though, were oddly abstemious. Lucas, I realised, was one of these. The evening before, I might have sent Martin to dig out some of my kava beans. I’d brought them along, though hadn’t managed an infusion since leaving Alexandria. But it was the present evening, and I decided to leave them packed away.
‘So, you think the Greeks will eventually lose Egypt?’ I asked, drinking the wine myself.
‘To every nation is appointed one day of glory,’ Lucas said. ‘The Jews and Latins each had theirs. Whoever and wherever they be, your people may, in some future age, have theirs. It is obvious that the day of the Greeks is now coming to its end.
‘To every nation is appointed one day of glory. To some, God allows a second. Such is the case with the Persians. Who can tell if such is not also the case with Egypt?’ He rose, saying there was much to be done if we were to sail through the night for a morning arrival.
Martin clutched at the little silver cross Heraclius had given him as a coronation present. I stirred honey into the wine and drank deep from the jug.
Chapter 19
As I’d expected, they came for us around the midnight hour. There was no point resisting. I could have cut a few of them down. But the numbers were against us, and we were on their territory. Martin would never have dared follow me into the Nile – not that I thought those dark, infested waters were any safer than giving in quietly.
‘I didn’t notice any odd tattoos on your men,’ I said, trying to keep some air of normality to the proceedings. ‘But I might more usefully have examined your own body back in Bolbitine than your documentation.’
Lucas smiled grim in the moonlight. He gave another order to his men, who now began pulling in earnest on their ropes. I felt the boat slow and then turn towards the left bank.
‘There are many things of which you know nothing,’ he said.
‘I think it reasonable to assume,’ I said, holding up my bound wrists, ‘that you were ordered simply to deliver us to your masters. You could have killed us at any time after yesterday afternoon. Instead, you’ve waited until we are almost at Letopolis. I take it you know who I am, and why I was sent to Alexandria?’
‘We have, of course, been watching you since you arrived,’ said Lucas. ‘Perhaps you suppose your mission will have endeared you to the children of the soil. Do not suppose, however, it has endeared you to their legitimate representatives. Had he not overreached himself by revealing what should not have been revealed, our favour would still have extended to Leontius, your leading opponent.’
‘I see,’ I said dri
ly. ‘Where you people are concerned, “worse is better and better worse”.’
‘Euripides was a fine poet,’ came the acknowledgement of the quotation; we might, for that moment, have been back in Constantinople, playing at who was most learned. At least it wasn’t some low cutpurse of a wog who’d taken me in. ‘You will have noticed, though, that, like all other Greeks who are to be admired, he died a long time ago. But you are right,’ he added. ‘We are not interested in reforms that will only sweeten the gall of foreign domination.’
‘So,’ I asked with a look at the fast approaching left bank, ‘is it worth asking what’s to be done with us?’ I didn’t think it worth asking what he’d meant about Leontius. A few words had clarified all that hadn’t made sense when I was sitting beside the body. The temple at Philae was funding the Brotherhood. Leontius knew this because he was with the Brotherhood. He was killed for revealing its secrets.
‘Yes,’ I repeated, ‘what is to be done with us?’
‘That is a question you should consider saving for later,’ Lucas said. ‘According to Leontius – and according to someone else of whom I will not speak for the moment – you possess information that is of the highest value to the cause of our independence. And you should also work to ensure that your answers will be in order.’ He raised the lid of one of my boxes. One of the crew stood forward with a lamp so he could make out my scrawled note on one of the sheets.
‘Is there anything confidential in here?’ he asked. ‘You will appreciate that lying would not be in your interests at this stage.’
I sniffed and looked up at the now almost full moon. I couldn’t be bothered to explain it was all routine stuff. A shame, though, it would pass out of my hands. I’d put a great deal of effort into making sense of it.
We were now only a few dozen yards out. Over on the bank, the lights that had guided us in were still bobbing about. We were beginning to pass under the blanket of heat that covered the land. After so long on those foul waters, the land had a dry and bitter smell.
‘Do exactly as they say,’ I whispered to Martin in Celtic. ‘At the same time, try to stay as close by me as you can.’ I’d seen sheep on their way to slaughter with less apathetic faces. In his position, I’d have thought very ill of the man who’d got him into this. Being Martin, he was probably recalculating his tariff of sins and wondering if they only merited Purgatory, and, if so, how long there.
The crew stayed behind with the boat. But they were obviously sailors and of no use on the land. Lucas came along with us, now with about a dozen big, rough-looking men. The moon shone on what showed of their faces above the beards. Dressed in dark clothing against the sun and the desert winds, they bowed low before him, and a rapid conversation started up. There were looks in our direction and more bowing. Then they set us – still bound – on camels. Since the Nile was on our right, we were heading back north along the military road that ran above the highest flood point.
I’d seen camels before. That was in Constantinople. There’d been a parade of them in the Circus when Priscus had his Triumph after the previous year’s successes. The things are best described as resembling a misshapen horse. They’re rather bigger, with a tall hump on the back. They terrify real horses and smell like death. Their big advantage is that they don’t need the same watering as horses, and so are ideal for desert terrain.
They don’t ride much like horses. Even without being tied at the wrists, it would have been hard enough to keep hold. As it was, we had to be tied to the harness to keep us from falling off. I could hear Martin behind me. When not gasping from the pain of bruised haemorrhoids, he was praying softly in Celtic. I’ll not say I felt calm inside. There was no telling what this wog Brotherhood had in mind for me. But the mention of ‘information’, had made it hard to believe we’d be done over straight away like Leontius.
As the sun came up, I looked around. Not much chance of escape that I could see. The Nile rolled massively by a hundred yards to our right. There were a few boats out there, but nothing with the slightest military look about it. Immediately on the left, patches of low, broken rock stretched up a slight incline to the reds and yellows of the boundless desert. The men before and after us on the road might have been born on camel back. Even if they were the bound ones and we the free, they’d have been able in no time to outride us.
As it rose higher in the sky, the sun turned baking. Lucas rattled out some orders and we stopped for refreshments and what I took, by the spreading of rugs, to be a longish rest. The water looked clean enough – not that I was inclined by now to fuss over anything I was given to drink. More welcome were the hooded cloaks the men had tied over me and Martin. Back in Alexandria, I’d seen some nasty cases of sunburn on northern slaves. I’d made sure to limit my own exposure there. Now we were further south and in the desert. In places like Jarrow, the sun is a welcome friend. At all times in Egypt, it can be the most terrible enemy.
‘So you really don’t think we’re to be killed?’ Martin whispered back when I’d finally trailed off from my mixture of apologies and reassurance. ‘You know I’m not brave like you. But I understand when the Will of God is made manifest. What must happen will happen. I was told many years ago that I’d be dead before my thirty-second birthday. That will be next month.’ He groaned loudly and pushed his head between his legs. By the look of him, it didn’t surprise me he was thinking of death.
But thirty-two? With his bald patch peeling under that hood, and his puffy face, I’d forgotten he wasn’t somewhat older. But that was a secondary point. As with Priscus a few days before, I found myself wondering how to begin reasoning with a view of things so systematically perverse. This wasn’t the time or place to talk about the mad old woman who’d told me outside Richborough I’d be dead within ten days. That was when I was twelve. But Martin hadn’t finished yet.
‘If God chooses in His Infinite Mercy to spare me,’ he added, ‘it will be because He truly has reserved you for some greater work, and that I am needed to assist. That must be our only hope.’ I left him to his renewed praying and munched on the unleavened bread one of the men had tossed in my direction. Sad to say, it was the tastiest thing I’d eaten in days.
‘I trust you are enjoying your view of the real Egypt,’ Lucas said. He stood over me, not bothering to squint in the sun that shone straight on him. The rather fussy official I’d met in Bolbitine was a fading memory. He strutted before me now, almost blazing with hatred and triumph.
‘My dear Lucas,’ I said, smiling up at him, ‘would it be worth – even at this late stage – offering you a bribe? I’m sure I could get you a promotion within the Imperial Postal Service. Captain Second Class might suit your abilities.’
‘My true name, be aware, is not Lucas,’ he said, the sarcasm lost on him. A shame this, as anger can unlock the most cautious tongues. And it was – you’ll agree – a matter of some importance to get whatever information could be had. ‘I am known among the discerning – and shall be acknowledged by all when the Greeks are driven out – as Meriamen Usermaatre Setepenre.’
‘Well,’ I said, still smiling into his lunatic eyes, ‘that’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? I’ll bet your father called you something much closer to Lucas than to that. I hope you’ll not mind if I go on calling you Lucas.’
‘The name has been corrupted by the Greeks – as is their way with all names foreign to them – into Ozymandias,’ he said with a scowl. ‘Perhaps you have heard of him.’
Of course I’d heard of Ozymandias, the Egyptian King of Kings. ‘Isn’t he the one,’ I asked with mock reverence, ‘whose name is tattooed above every arsehole in the Brotherhood? You surely chose well!’
‘You are not a Greek,’ Lucas said, still refusing to be drawn, ‘yet you side with them. Have they not also been a sore trial to your people?’
‘And why do you side against them?’ I asked, turning the question. ‘Why all these woggy airs and graces when you can almost pass for a civilised man?’
&n
bsp; I’d finally got to him. Just as he was about to let rip, though, there was another commotion behind him.
‘Oh dear’ – I nodded at the bearded figure coming towards us – ‘it seems your followers are getting uppity again. Do you suppose another flogging might be needed to put them in order?’
With a scowl, he turned away. I was right. It was another argument. I had no idea what was going on. But the servile manner those men had shown Lucas at the landing had been turning sour. Now, with the Nile behind us, Lucas was having to insist on his authority at almost every step.
Yes, we were now headed away from the Nile. Once we’d slept through its worst heat, the sun was before us, though very slightly to our left. We were heading west. At some point, we turned south-west, and then south. All the time, we were pressing further and further into the outermost desert. As with the Nile, I hadn’t done a very good job of imagining this. I’d thought of it as rather like the prettier beaches you get on the Mediterranean shore: all flat, white sand, but much more of it. My first impression was of a great and rather scary ugliness. We were on a sort of road that snaked off into the far distance. On either side of us, low hills of jagged rock rose and fell in undulations that stretched again as far as the eye could see. Here and there were patches of what might have been dead weed, or weed that had somehow managed to survive at a low level of growth.
As for the sand, I think it’s best described as an accumulation of very fine dust. It fills up the spaces between the rocks, and is stirred into almost invisible but choking clouds at every breeze or other disturbance of the air. I got my first real lungful of the stuff some time in the latish afternoon. As we rounded a bend in the road, we came upon a group of the desert nomads you find all over those parts. We’d been hidden from each other by one of those low hills. Now, we came in full view. In white robes that covered their bodies, dark bands securing the scarves on their heads, they sat still as stone on their camels. They watched our approach. Then, as they came within hailing distance, they wheeled suddenly about and were off.
The Blood of Alexandria Page 14