‘With your height, you’d never pass,’ she said. ‘Still, the clothes aren’t so much for disguise as for convenience.’
‘What about the chair?’ I asked. If those women had been fed and watered, it must have been while I was asleep. Though in the shade, they’d stood quietly by the chair the whole time we were inside the station.
‘They go back to Alexandria,’ she said. ‘How they get back in is of no importance to you. They will come out again as and when I see fit to summon them.’ She continued loading her things into the saddlebag. She dithered briefly over her book. Though small, it would take up valuable space. She took out a bag of dried dates and pushed it hard in.
I may have ridden a quarter of a mile before I fell off. Mine was a bigger and nastier beast than the one Lucas had tied me to. Rather than swear myself blue in the face, I suppose I should have been surprised I got that far.
‘Should I take off the saddle so His Magnificence can ride on his belly?’ the Mistress sneered. She wheeled her own camel round with the merest touch on its reins.
I glanced back to see if anyone was still watching us from the station. We were alone. ‘Where I come from,’ I groaned, ‘we ride horses. These things are wholly different.’ This was true – though I might have given the impression that I was very much better on horseback.
‘Oh, my poor little stray.’ She laughed. ‘Such duties I must assume for your welfare!’ She made a clucking noise, and her own camel immediately knelt. She swung off the saddle and began showing me the basics of riding a camel.
‘Remember,’ she finished as I climbed on for the fourth time, ‘don’t overcompensate for the motion. And do try not to pull hard on the reins. Camels are more intelligent than horses. They don’t appreciate instructions that go beyond the polite request. Now, let us be moving, my blonde barbarian from the West. We have much ground to cover if we are to have any element of surprise.’
Once you overcome the queasiness from the motion, riding a camel isn’t so bad. Just as we reached the limit of the black land, and as the road swung definitely west, we turned off to the south. For a while, there was the same scrubby, rocky terrain that I’ve already described. Then this merged insensibly into the desert proper. I thought of how much water we’d had packed for us on the camels, and felt nervous to be heading straight into this burning waste again. But the Mistress seemed to know exactly where she was going, and seemed – or so I thought from ten yards behind her – to be thoroughly pleased with herself.
Chapter 52
We rode on through the day. Until late in the afternoon, the sun beat down savagely. The camels pressed on across the firm sands, indifferent to the heat. I lost all track of time and fell into a kind of waking doze. I was conscious enough to keep myself on the camel, but not enough to feel worse than moderate discomfort. By now, I thought, it would be out that I’d left Alexandria, though not how or in what precise direction. The Mistress had asked the night before why I should trust her to help get Martin back. I hadn’t asked. I wouldn’t ask. But to have just the two of us, moving at whatever speed through this boundless desert, on our way to challenge a conspiracy that had come close to taking Alexandria from the Empire – and might yet succeed with Egypt – in the flashes when my thoughts moved in this direction, I was glad not to be fully awake.
At last, the sun lost its power as it sank low on our right, and the rocks on the desert floor threw longer and longer shadows.
‘We shall rest tonight over there,’ the Mistress called back.
I looked up and followed her pointed finger ahead to our left. How I hadn’t noticed the temple surprised me once I’d seen it. Built of sandstone, it was the same colour, near enough, as the desert, and the air all about was growing dark. But it was a gigantic structure. It was hard to get its proper scale out here in the middle of nowhere. But it must have been a couple of hundred feet high and five or six times that in length. At the centre of the colonnade that made up the whole of the front elevation, two colossal statues of seated kings or gods towered above the whole structure and framed the entrance.
Once you get off the black land, which is needed for growing food, Egypt is full of these things. The native kings of every generation competed with each other across thousands of years to heap up piles of sandstone more solid and more elaborate than any other. The Ptolemies had joined in the competition as often as they needed to draw notice from the fact of Greek domination. Even the early emperors had made the occasional gesture. Since the abolition of the Old Faith, of course, the temples had all been shut – excepting, that is, the temple at Philae in the south that I had closed. Some of them had been cut up into monasteries. Most had been abandoned. That doesn’t mean they were empty. The less fanatical desert hermits needed somewhere to live. There were wild animals and the rural poor if the floods completely swept their homes away. For months now, I’d been reading complaints to Nicetas about gangs of bandits and runaway slaves who were terrorising the countryside from these places.
‘Are we going inside?’ I asked.
‘Do you propose that we spend the night in the open?’ she replied. ‘You have been once in the desert. You will surely have noticed how cold it can get at night. Or are you thinking of the ghosts and other spirits that are said to haunt the temples of the formerly established religion of this country?’
That wasn’t a challenge I was inclined to refuse. I slid off the kneeling camel to get a light going. I found myself writhing and crying out on the ground. I’d noticed on the saddle how much I ached. Once I was off, my arse felt like I’d been in some brothel game gone wrong.
The Mistress stood over me, laughing cruelly. ‘Poor little Alaric!’ she said in mock sympathy. ‘A fine, young barbarian from the West, sent to put the corrupted Greeks and Egyptians of this land into order, and how sore his bottom must be from the look on his face! Lie on this,’ she added, spreading a blanket on the ground. ‘You’ll feel a little better by and by. But don’t wriggle so on the ground. You will only get sand inside your clothes. And that might bring you out in a rash.’
Burning with shame and annoyance, I made myself sit up. The Mistress turned away and took out the horn lanterns we’d got earlier from the station. She turned immediately back to me with both of them lit. Sore as I was, I had almost to bite my tongue not to ask the obvious question.
‘If you can possibly bring yourself to walk a few steps, shall we go in?’ she asked.
I ground my teeth and stood up. We led our camels through the gateway into what turned out to be the first of the courtyards. Much of the temple, indeed, turned out to be courtyards of various kinds. There was this outer courtyard. Through another massive gateway was an inner courtyard. There were smaller courtyards as well – or these were large rooms from which the roofs had at some time been removed. The covered spaces took up about a third of the total area. Most of them smelled damp; it does rain in the desert, and the rain does collect where no sun ever shines. Most had been used at various times, and put to various uses. For the moment, all that I looked into were empty. I think we looked in every part of the complex. This said, it was very large, and the light was going.
It was hard to see how much of the original colour remained in the fading light. But I could see the reliefs that covered every wall of the courtyards. Every inner wall was covered with paintings in the same style, though the damp had brought down most of the plaster from the walls. Inside or out, it was all in the standard native style: giant kings killing midgety foes, or offering pots and other objects to various gods with animal heads or green faces. Inscriptions in the old picture writing covered every patch of wall not taken up by the reliefs.
It really is hard to look at all this stuff without disgust. What I’d said to Lucas about his old civilisation I really did believe. Having read so much by the Greeks about the grandeur and antiquity of the Egyptians, I’d been shocked in Alexandria at the crude ugliness of their arts. I’d now seen enough outside Alexandria to be impressed b
y the scale of some of their architecture. But that broken-down Greek building just off the road to Canopus was worth more than all this stuff taken together. With her approving nods as she wandered about inspecting the reliefs, the Mistress appeared to think otherwise. But given her choice of reading matter, I had no respect for her taste. Still, I hadn’t put myself into her hands on account of her judgement as a critic.
‘Can you read Egyptian?’ I asked.
She looked away from an inscription made up more than usually of bugs and crouching women.
‘Do you know how this temple was built?’ she asked. ‘Do you see how these columns are in sections? They were once covered in plaster to hide their method of erection. But the plaster is long gone, and the method of erection is plain to see. Tens of thousands of workers toiled through the flood season to raise the outer walls. Then the column bases were laid out, and the first sections of the columns set on top. Sand was then brought in to fill the whole area. With every new level of columns, the level of the sand was raised. That is how the massive stone blocks of the roof were set in place. Once building was over, the sand was evacuated. Can you conceive anything more simple and more elegant?’
‘Very impressive,’ I said. No point asking again if she could read any of this writing. If she could, it probably told nothing of any value. I thought of the Great Church in Constantinople. Granted, it was a Christian building, and it was smaller than this pile of stone. But I doubted the Mistress could step inside there and not realise the true place of Egypt in the scale of civilisations.
‘Where shall I prepare dinner?’ I asked.
She turned back to her inscription. ‘Do it where you please,’ she said. She straightened up and pointed through one of the inner gateways. ‘Do it in there,’ she added. ‘There is a small room first on the left as you go down the corridor. It still has a roof over it. You will find it convenient in size and position.’
It was a cold dinner of bread and dried fruit. Then again, I didn’t need to share the wine. And at the end of this very long day, I made sure to drink deeply. I looked at the Mistress, who sat on the other side of the fire of dried reeds I’d managed eventually to get alight.
‘No doubt, you have a plan for getting Martin back from the Brotherhood,’ I said. ‘Might it be time to ask what is to be my own part in this?’
‘We have a while yet to go before these matters need to be discussed,’ she said airily. ‘I will prepare you when the time is right.’ She pushed another sliver of dried apple between the folds of cloth that covered her face.
‘I do accept,’ I said – I was beginning to feel decidedly ratty from the pain in my backside and the lack of information about anything at all – ‘that modesty has an eminent place among the feminine virtues. But do you not think this disinclination to show your face begins to border on the excessive?’
‘No man may see my face and live,’ she said, now coldly. She changed the subject to the fitness of Latin as a legal and administrative language. Since she gave no sign of understanding a word of Latin, what she made of my answers was rather hard to say. At length, as the fires burned low, and the sound of the desert winds outside the temple took on a mournful tone, she stood up.
‘It is time for you to sleep, Alaric,’ she said. She motioned inside the temple. In the little room she’d chosen for us, there was a pile of sand in the corner. If I patted it into shape and put my blanket over it, I’d make a fair mattress of it all.
‘Should I suggest taking turns to keep guard?’ I asked. I tried to avoid any note of satire. I probably succeeded. At any rate, the pointed finger didn’t waver. I had thought of asking the Mistress where she would be sleeping. Instead, I went inside and made a bed of sorts.
‘You will sleep,’ she said firmly once she’d followed me in. She lowered her voice and repeated herself: ‘You will sleep.’ It was the tone she’d used to get us out of Alexandria without showing passports and again in the post station.
If it had worked a treat back then, it had bugger-all effect on me now. Sooner or later, I’d have to nod off – and I had packed a box of opium pills, just in case I felt the need of one. On the other hand, I was lying on a heap of damp sand, in a pretty well ruined temple in the middle of a desert, with a being of ambiguous nature, and with a nagging doubt regarding what might be left of Martin. Add to this the increasingly unpleasant moaning of the wind outside, and you’ll appreciate I’d sooner have read that ghastly romance the Mistress had brought along than just fall asleep. I wasn’t at all sleepy. Still, I lay down as ordered and closed my eyes. The fire was burning low just outside the door, and it was soon quite black around me.
I heard her come deeper into the room. Her sandals grated on the sand that covered the stone floor. She stood over me. I lay still and kept my breathing regular. I sensed that she was bending low over me. I grunted softly and shifted position as if I were asleep. She straightened up and stood back. She laughed softly.
‘What a silly little man you are,’ she said. ‘If only you knew what I know, would you be here with me? Or would you put your worthless Martin from your mind and be on the first ship back to your Constantinople?’ She paused. Then: ‘But we must get Martin back – and we will get him. We will get him and much else besides.’
She laughed again, now bitter. Bearing in mind I was still wide awake, her confidence in her powers to command sleep was beginning to worry me. It was one thing to be here with a being of possibly immense power. It was another to be with someone whose confidence in her power was so misplaced. I was relying on her to help do over the Brotherhood. It was beginning to look as if her best contribution would be her choice of fast camels for running away.
‘You are not the one,’ she continued. ‘You are not the one for whom I wait. Yet I have been forced from my solitude to assist in your purpose. Oh, my dear and pretty little man – if only you knew what I know!’
I heard the slow scraping of her feet as she recrossed the floor. I listened and guessed that she was going back out into one of the courtyards. There I supposed she’d be making her own bed for the night. I kept my eyes shut and commanded sleep. I’ve never had much faith in my own power in this respect, and I was more annoyed than disappointed when nothing happened. I lay there a while longer. Then I got up and pulled off the cloak I was using as a blanket. We were safe enough in here, I told myself, and I’d need to get some sleep if tomorrow were to be as hard on the body as today had been. I fished around in my satchel for the lead box of pills. I thought again, but made my mind up. I washed one down with a mouthful of wine. I lay back down and waited to see which would be first to hurry me into an oblivion that would last out the remaining hours of darkness.
Still nothing. I lay there for what seemed an age, calculating price ratios. I felt warmer from the opium, but hardly sleepy. I’d not risk taking a second pill. Instead, I sat up again. I felt round for my shoes, then decided it would be better to do without them. I’d had time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. There was a tiny sliver of moonlight somewhere overhead. And there were the stars. In the desert, these shone dense and bright. I crept to the doorway, and then out into the inner courtyard. The ground was dark, and I made sure to keep against the walls. I was still dressed in black, and the Mistress, if awake, would need unusual powers of sight to see me as I skulked round the abandoned temple. I shivered in the night chill of the desert. I was glad I hadn’t bothered undressing.
I thought for a while I was making a fool of myself. It was a big temple, with many rooms and courtyards. The most I might do was get lost – that would be embarrassing. Perhaps I should go back to that little room and wait for the opium to do its work. It wasn’t that hard, however, to find the Mistress. She plainly thought I was dead to the world, and was doing nothing to silence her own motions. I heard the rhythmical scrape of sandals on the loose sand. It came from the other side of the entrance to what I’d earlier discovered was the innermost courtyard. I heard the scraping of her feet and a low ch
anting in what sounded like the language I’d heard her speak on the boat to Canopus. I crept over to the stone doorway and looked carefully round. I pulled back and rubbed my eyes. I wished at that moment I hadn’t bothered with the opium. Was this some waking dream? I thought hard about who I was and where I was. There were no oddities about the situation – other, that is, than the inherent oddity of what I was seeing. I wasn’t dreaming. This being so, what my senses told me must be taken as reliable beyond reasonable doubt. I looked up at the bright carpet of stars that threw an uncertain light, and looked once more.
As on the boat to Canopus, the Mistress was dancing. This time, though, she danced alone and unaccompanied. And this time, she was naked. Her clothes were piled up in a dark heap not two yards from where I was standing. In a slow, circling motion, she danced round the courtyard. She barely moved her head from looking at some part of the reliefs that I couldn’t see in the gloom. But I could see her well enough. The starlight was enough to show that slender white body as it went round and round in its slow, unaccompanied motions.
It was a splendid body. For seeing that alone, it would, in other circumstances, have been worth the risk of discovery. She had good legs, a firm belly and breasts, and a really glorious neck. But I’d been able to guess that already. As I said, she covered up, but did nothing to hide the shape of what she was covering. It was the face that I strained to see in the starlight. I could see every inch of that white and, so far as I could tell, completely hairless body. It almost shone with its own inner light. But her face was either fixed on that patch of relief work, or was covered by the waving of her arms when she did occasionally turn in my direction.
Once and once only I did see her face. It was a brief flash as she turned in my direction, this time with her arms fully outstretched. It really was the briefest of flashes. But that serene and utterly terrifying beauty didn’t need more than an instant to burn itself for ever into my mind. It has never left me. Certainly, if I close my eyes now, I can see it. I see no point in trying to describe what I saw. Words are useful for describing what others can see for themselves, or reasonable compounds of these things. But I do assure you, what I saw has nothing in the common run of things that compares to it. You can turn to some of the more imaginative ravings of the desert saints. If you can find any of these, and understand their language, good luck to you. I’ll not try competing.
The Blood of Alexandria a-3 Page 38