The Blood of Alexandria

by Richard Blake

  There had been another storm out in the desert. So far down river, it had shown in little more than a brisker wind from the north and a haze high overhead that had dulled the glare of the sun. It was now clearing, and the sky was taking on the happy blue that it always had in the realms washed by the Mediterranean. I asked again what could have persuaded my own people to invade the chilly dump we’d made into England, rather than follow the Vandals and the Goths into that warm light.

  I gripped hard on the rail as there was another great shudder. The boat stuck again. I’d gone up river from Bolbitine because its branch of the Nile was wider and better for speed. The Canopus branch we were taking back down would have been slower at the best of times. But with the river banks now under water, it was hard to keep in channel. Men ran to the left-hand side of the boat and pushed out with long poles to get us off the mud.

  ‘No, My Lord, we’re headed for Canopus,’ the Captain had said, replying to my suggestion that the Bolbitine branch would be faster. ‘The posts always go to Canopus. They have always gone to Canopus. Not the Viceroy himself can change the order of the posts.’

  I’d been in no position to pull rank. Having no documents with me, the Captain had at first refused to take us on board at Letopolis. It was only when the Mistress intervened that he’d caved in. Now, she was queening it in the best cabin, with the whole crew to do her bidding. She’d even had the boat stop to take in more fruit and fresh bread for her. Doubtless, she could have had us diverted down the Bolbitine branch. But that would have meant putting myself still more in her debt.

  Did the extra day matter? Probably not. Even going at full tilt down to Bolbitine, I had little enough chance of outrunning the news. I’d now be well behind it. I was sick of the Nile, and my heart rose at every thought of seeing the Mediterranean again. At the same time, I dreaded the return to Alexandria. As in everything else, Greek is a language rich in scornful epithets. Dickhead, Fuckwit, Shit-for-Brains, Wanker . . . You could fill half a papyrus roll with writing them all out. And I could imagine every one of them whispered about me behind my back.

  From the moment Lucas had let his captain act start wearing thin, I’d been kicking myself. But I’d always had other matters to claim my active attention. There was trying to get away from Lucas and the Brotherhood. There was our shamble through the desert. There was sucking up to the Mistress all the way to Letopolis, where I then had the business I’ve described. Now, on the journey back, there’d been little else to do but dwell on how the ludicrous disaster – which needed no exaggeration – would appear in Alexandria. The public baths weren’t a place men of my station frequented. But I’d heard enough on the streets of the ruthless mockery that began there and was sharpened there.

  I’d gone out from Alexandria to deal with two highly contingent threats to my reputation. I was going back with my reputation in shreds. If the full story of my dealings had been put in the Gazette – if this had been followed by the whole packet of dirt on me Leontius had commissioned – the effect couldn’t be worse than a plain telling of what I’d let happen to me during the past twelve days.

  ‘I’ve just realised, looking at the date of your letters, why you’re so eager to get back.’

  I gave Martin a blank look. I’d supposed he was somewhere below, juicing dates for the Mistress or whatever.

  He put his bag down and joined me in looking over the Nile. ‘Tomorrow is Saturday,’ he prompted. ‘Saturday, 26th August,’ he added.

  I pulled my thoughts off the approaching horrors of Alexandria and tried to think what on earth the man could be getting at.

  ‘Maximin’s second birthday?’ he said at length, a shade of disappointment in his voice.

  Of course it was! I relaxed my grip on the rail and thought of the boy. How could it be just two years since Martin had brought him back to the Legation? Taking in all that had happened since, it seemed more like ten or even twenty years. But count back just two years, and we were in Constantinople, on our ‘mission’, from the Roman Church to gather readings and arguments for a refutation of heresy. That was before I met Phocas and was taken up by him, and before I made the leap – last of all in the City, if most glorious – from him to Heraclius. Yes, forget the vast drama in which I was the one visible and completely unwitting player: just two years ago, and I was an obscure visitor from the West.

  What could have prompted Martin to take the little thing up from outside the church he never had been able to discuss rationally. Then again, I’d been shocked by my own behaviour. I’d barely drawn breath to insist the child be taken back and dumped where found than I was announcing his adoption. He’d been so small and defenceless – and so very beautiful.

  So I’d adopted the boy and named him after the poor, dear Maximin – correction: Saint Maximin – who’d saved my life in Kent. His first birthday had been a joyous and even triumphant occasion. The Emperor himself had attended the festivities and presented him with a golden box for his toys. Not even having to put up with Priscus skulking round my palace and muttering hints about being regarded as an ‘uncle’, had spoiled the occasion. There was no doubt he’d be pleased to see me again in Alexandria. He was one person who’d run to me squealing with pleasure. He was the one patch of brightness to lighten my return. And I’d clean forgotten about his birthday. It was fortunate I hadn’t had time yet to drink very much. It wouldn’t do to shed tears in front of Martin. I gripped the rail again and looked at a point far out over the swirling waters.

  ‘The way this journey’s going,’ I said, ‘we’ll be stuck in mud until his third birthday.’

  There was a shrill cry through the wall of the cabin behind us. I looked up. It came again – a long, bubbling cry, now followed by silence. It was quite loud, especially in the general silence of the river. Some birds who’d been bobbing around on the waters now took off with an answering splash and were climbing fast into the sky.

  ‘What in God’s name was that?’ I asked. I turned and looked at the smooth planking of the cabin wall.

  ‘The Mistress!’ said Martin.

  Certainly, it was her cabin. Women can make the most peculiar noises, I’ll grant. Give one an ivory comb, and she’ll probably give every impression of going into labour. But this sounded more than a little distressed. We hurried along the deck and turned left to get to the entrance. The door was guarded by one of her huge blacks. Unarmed and almost naked, he practically hid the closed door with his bulk.

  ‘Your Mistress,’ I said, ‘I need to see if all is well with her.’

  If the man knew any Greek, he did a good job of not letting me know. He put up an arm to hold me back and opened his mouth in a snarl that showed all his teeth – very white and filed to points, they were. He flexed his hips. It was then I noticed the erection bulging through the skimpy white of his loincloth. I tried not to look at the spreading dark stain. I’ve never been much into that sort of heavy muscle; and the teeth and that web of tattoos on his shaven scalp were hardly a come-on. Then again, those gold nipple rings were well over this side of the exciting. But I remembered myself.

  ‘Stay here,’ I said to Martin. ‘See if the door opens.’ I ran quietly back along the deck to the stairway that led to the small upper deck where the Captain did his notional directing of the boat. As I’d expected, he was nowhere to be seen up there: he was probably down in the hold, praying again before his icon of the Virgin for deeper waters. Again as expected, the little window that threw light into the Mistress’s cabin was shuttered. But there was a little hole in the wood I’d noticed the day before, and I’d been idly wondering if there was any chance of an unobserved look through it. Now, the chance was come, and so was the need. I got down on my knees and put my right eye to the hole.

  At first, I saw nothing. What I heard, though, was a soft piping, as of some exotic flute. It was too low to be heard through the plank walls of the boat. But it was a low, throbbing sound. There was nothing about it I could recognise as tuneful. But its complex mo
aning was joined by the soft tapping of a drum. I strained harder to see anything at all through that little hole.

  When I’d adjusted to the gloom, I had to pull back and rub my eye to make sure I was seeing straight. It was the Mistress. There could be no doubt of that. Still veiled, and still in her full robe, she stood in the centre of the cabin. She stood with each foot on the back of one of her maidservants. Naked, they lay face down on the floor. All were on the floor but one. Also naked, she was hung by her bound wrists from one of the overhead beams. With a terrified whimper, she twitched her feet, and the motion caused her whole body to swing gently round.

  Red on black doesn’t show well at the best of times, and the light was very poor. But the dark stains splashed all over the Mistress told me the truth about the gleam on the maidservant’s body. It was as she stepped forward on to the third naked back that I saw the Mistress had a knife in her hand. It glinted dull in the lamplight, and more blood dripped from it on to the spoiled whiteness of her robe.

  There was a shuffling on the cabin floor as one of the prone women shifted position and held something up. The Mistress bent and took the cup. As she did so, the fluting ceased, though the drum continued its gentle tapping. I pressed my face closer to the hole and looked round for the musicians. They must have been directly below me, as I couldn’t see either of them. The drumming continued a while longer without accompaniment. Then it too fell silent.

  As if for half an age, the Mistress stood absolutely still in the silent gloom of her cabin. I think I saw a regular fluttering of her veil, as if she were quietly praying. The black bodies trembled and twitched all round her on the floor. Then she stretched full upright and raised the cup in both hands. She set it under the veil to her lips and drank. She tipped her head back as she drank and then drank again. As she did so, the drum and then the flute began again. Now, it was something still more complex and utterly alien. It was a while before the beat was firmly established. There was the dull sound of metal on wood as the Mistress relaxed and tossed the cup away. Now, she turned and – standing ever on the backs of those maidservants – began a slow wheeling dance. The steps were elaborate and sedate. The wet robe clung to her legs. The chief movement was in her arms and upper body. At every variation in the fluting and her step, there was a renewed moaning from the women on the floor, and another whimper from the bound woman.

  The Mistress was certainly talking now. She spoke low and not in Greek. It was some language I’d never heard before. It sounded neither Egyptian, nor like the language of her maidservants. The words might have been a poem, or they might have been some ritual chant. Not understanding what she said, I couldn’t tell. But the chilling, sinister tone was enough. The elegant coquette who’d lain in my own cabin, talking up the virtues of a diet of bread and fresh fruit, was a world removed from this bizarre and horrifying creature. The whole thing reminded me of something I’d read in one of the sicker Alexandrian poets.

  Because they’d been so still, I hadn’t noticed the male slaves before. Except the one on duty outside the room, they stood, also naked, against the one wall that had no fixtures. Gold rings trembled on the tip of each gigantic and unattended erection.

  Forget the old Alexandrians. Forget even the wilder stuff I’d seen or read about the Old Faith. This was out of all experience. And, since I’d now accounted for the mistress and all her attendants, who could the musicians be?

  ‘What can you see?’ Martin hissed close behind me.

  I jerked suddenly up and struck my head on the top of the window frame.

  ‘Nothing,’ I croaked. I tried to ignore the white flashes at the back of my eyes. I got up and wiped shaking hands on the back of my robe. ‘It’s just – it’s just their religious observances. I – I feel ashamed to have intruded on them. I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to repeat the intrusion.’

  I led him back to the stairway down to the main deck. The Mistress was a foreigner, I told myself – and I’d known any number of Greeks who had an odd way of keeping order among their slaves. But it was probably for the best if Martin was kept away from that shuttered window.

  The whole boat shook slightly and then turned free in the water. Sailors ran about again, pulling on ropes to let down the sails for some reason. There was another bump and we were still again.

  ‘Martin,’ I said, ‘there are some letters I need you to put into the correct official form. If you could have them ready by the time we get to Canopus, I’d be grateful. And I feel a headache coming on. I think I’ll retire to my cabin for a little rest. Do tell anyone who asks that I’m not to be disturbed.’

  Chapter 26

  There was a time when Canopus was the main pleasure resort for Alexandrians of quality. The breeze it took straight off the sea made it so pleasant a change in the summer months from Alexandria. Long before then, I believe – back in the time of the native kings – it was a main trading port. With the building of Alexandria, that source of importance had quickly disappeared. But it had more than compensated with its shops and brothels and temples. It also drew benefit as the nearest exchange point, by land or water, between Alexandria and the Nile. Before its branch began to silt up, it was both the nearest and by far the most convenient exchange point.

  Then, the canal dug by the Ptolemies to join the two cities had been kept clear at all times, and poets had sung of the flotillas of gay barges that, throughout the day and night, would pass and re-pass the silver thread of water. Canopus was now in much reduced circumstances. It had lost position to the more distant but generally more convenient Bolbitine. Its people had withdrawn to a walled centre. Outside the walls, the old pleasure gardens were given over to fortified monasteries or overgrown wasteland. The place survived as a satellite port for Alexandria, and because no one had ever thought to reorder the posts along the Nile.

  Except when the floods came and raised the water level the old canal was choked with reeds and rubbish and the usual connection was now by sea or by the road I’ve already mentioned. But the floods had now come, and the docks at the Alexandrian end retained some of their ancient elegance. It couldn’t be described any more as the best way of entering the city after a journey down the Nile. But if now used as warehouses, or divided into single rooms to house the poor, the palaces once built to stand close by the docks still impressed on first inspection. And it had, for me, the one advantage of privacy. I wanted to be back in my office, putting some kind of gloss on my adventures, before anyone noticed I was back.

  As our barge rounded the last bend before the docks came in sight, I realised I was in for another disappointment. Not only had the news of my adventures raced ahead of me, but so had news even of my return. During the last few hundred yards of our approach, the mass of bodies that clustered round the landing place resolved itself into something like all the official and well-connected of Alexandria. I almost thought of joining the Mistress in the one covered place on the barge, and ordering the crew to take us straight past the docks into the Eastern Harbour. But then the cheering started. It began as a concerted buzz from the front of the crowd, then rippled back through the less important dignitaries, until there was, billowing across the closing distance of the water, a continuous roar of greetings and adoration.

  ‘Put that box down,’ I said to Martin without moving my lips. ‘Get up here and look happy.’ I’d already set my face into a smile and was nodding complacently back at the shining faces now clearly in sight.

  ‘My darling Alaric, how glad I am to see you looking so well!’ Our lips brushed as we kissed, and Priscus kept my hand to his chest as he stepped back a few inches. He was at his most convincing. The bystanders must have thought us the very dearest friends. ‘But you must tell me the whole story once we’re alone. What little I’ve picked up is absolutely shocking. Such rough and even impious behaviour to a person of your quality – it chills the blood.

  ‘Oh,’ he went on, answering my unvoiced question about the healing but still red gash across his forehea
d, ‘I can’t claim anything so dramatic as your own capture and escape. But the security of the Egyptian roads makes some of the places I’ve campaigned almost tranquil by comparison.

  ‘And, no,’ he added, now dropping his voice and leaning into another embrace, ‘I didn’t find it. I did learn much of value. But if I’d found what I went for, you can bet your life I’d not have arranged this homecoming for our impetuous little barbarian.’ Priscus followed my glance at the armed guard that surrounded the two chairs that had obviously come from the Palace. He smiled.

  ‘You must understand,’ he said, ‘that your safety is no longer something to be taken for granted, even in Alexandria. I’m afraid there can be no more casual wandering about the town. Besides’ – again, he stretched forward and dropped his voice – ‘there have been troubles while we were both away. There was nearly a riot yesterday in the Eastern Harbour. It was as much as the police guards could do to keep the grain fleet safe.’

  ‘Hasn’t it gone yet?’ I asked. ‘It should have been ten days at sea.’ I smiled graciously at one of my Jewish agents. I’d scare him and his friends shitless when we were alone. For the moment, I smiled again and gave him my hand to kiss. There were a couple of the greasier landowners behind him. They made nothing like so good an effort as my Jew or Priscus as they congratulated me on my survival and return.

  A flash of steel drew my attention sharp left. All this milling about had left a momentary gap in the crowd of well-wishers. Looking through it, I could see the armed cordon, and, behind this, the much, much larger crowd of the poor. Held back in one of the wider avenues that led to the dock, all stood silent and grim. One thing I’d learned early in my stay was that you don’t let a crowd that size assemble in Alexandria. If it does, you break it up. I looked back at Priscus.