The Blood of Alexandria a-3

by Richard Blake

  ‘Since when,’ Lucas broke in loudly, ‘has a Pharaoh been host to supplicant representatives of such great rulers?’ He struck a pose, showing his chest and shoulders while twisting his legs and head into profile.

  I don’t suppose it was other than incompetence that led Egyptian artists into painting their kings in this pose. But Lucas appeared to think otherwise. Siroes looked at him, a thoughtful look just visible on the strip of his face not covered in hair. Priscus smiled politely.

  ‘It may be that I have called you here with a slight element of deceit,’ Lucas continued. ‘But you are here, and I will state my demands of you both.’

  No chair was now free, and I wasn’t inclined to sit on the floor. It was as clean as anywhere else I’d sat this day, and there were some rugs that had a comfy look about them. But this wasn’t the time for putting aside dignity. I leaned against the wall and waited for this little comedy to play itself out. Priscus was first to speak.

  ‘I don’t know about Siroes, but I haven’t found it hard to guess what you have in mind. Let us consider. We made a deal. I would deliver Alaric. He would find the relic. I would then use this for my own purposes, granting Egypt full autonomy within the Empire and recognising you as its lawful King. You appear to have made a similar deal with Siroes – or with Chosroes directly. Now that we’re all gathered here, you are about to announce that all deals are off, and that you will keep the relic for yourself. Is that it?’ Priscus waited for Lucas to puff his chest out before continuing. ‘Well, my dear Lucas – and I still can’t speak for Siroes – do you really think I’d deliver myself into your hands, here in the back of beyond, without some precautions?’ He held out his cup for a refill.

  Lucas scowled and muttered an order to the slave.

  ‘If I don’t return to Alexandria,’ Priscus went on, ‘or if I do return without what I came here to get, a series of letters in your own hand will be passed over to the Monophysite Patriarch. These are most incriminating, and you should recall that they are conclusively incriminating. In particular, you will recall your promise to Leontius to establish Isis as the tutelary deity of Egypt. I got these from poor foolish Leontius after I’d killed him. While he was still alive and able to speak, I got a mass of circumstantial information that only blackens your name further.’

  ‘How the fuck did you kill Leontius?’ I blurted out. I thought back and tried to reconcile the times. They didn’t fit. He’d been with me all evening. Priscus gave me a look of cold power. It was as if I were in one of his dungeons, awaiting his pleasure. I fell silent and leaned back against the wall.

  ‘All very good, Priscus – and I expected nothing less of you,’ Lucas replied, sounding more troubled than he wanted to appear, ‘but what should I care about the opinion of a Christian priest? You know that my first act as Pharaoh will be to reopen all the temples, not merely the one at Philae.’

  ‘Don’t give me any of that, you silly little man!’ Priscus said. As he stretched his legs out, his robe fell back slightly, showing a patch of varicose blue. ‘You know as well as I do that Egypt is a Christian country. The wogs will humour your taste in dress, so long as you can kick out all the foreigners. They won’t stand by you for a moment if you lay hands on the Faith. I haven’t made enquiries among the common wogs, but I had a real heart-to-heart with all the other leaders of your Brotherhood. Get a man close enough to an impaling stake, and he’ll scream the name of the God in which he truly believes. Not one of those fuckers you betrayed to me called on Isis. When it comes to the Old Faith of Egypt, I’ll wager you’re in a decided minority.

  ‘But this isn’t the end of it. I have some of the letters you wrote to the Brotherhood leadership, getting them to Alexandria. The Intelligence Bureau broke your code years ago. I have the most damning evidence that you sold out the whole upper leadership of your movement. Those who might be inclined to overlook your theology will never forgive you for that. Let those letters be published, and you’re in the shit good and proper.’ He put his cup down again and beckoned to his cat. It jumped straight up. He stroked it with his free hand. Its back arched as it purred. It still found time to twist round and give me a horrid look.

  ‘Now, Lucas,’ he added, ‘you just have my dear friend Siroes taken out and hanged, and we’ll proceed with our business.’ With a flash of his riddled teeth, he smiled broadly at Siroes, who got up from his chair and bowed to Lucas before sitting back down.

  ‘I don’t think that would be wholly sensible,’ Siroes said with one of his diplomatic smiles. ‘You may agree that Priscus has a controlling hold over you. But what makes you think he’ll give up this hold once he has what he wants? I think he will cheat you – just as he tries to do with everyone. I can give you the names of a dozen fools who trusted him and are now dead.

  ‘With all respect, Your Majesty, I suggest you have my thrice-sworn brother Priscus taken out and hanged. You just put yourself in our hands, and we guarantee you the throne of Egypt. We may have a Christian minority. But our army is true to the Faith of Zoroaster.’

  The room fell silent. The window out to the courtyard was shuttered and bolted. With five people there, and all those lamps, the air was growing uncomfortably stuffy. Priscus rubbed noses with his cat. Siroes drank steadily. Lucas tried to put on a brave face in front of the slave. He failed miserably.

  ‘But I am now in a position to get the relic for myself,’ he said at last. He straightened up and began to look as chirpy as he’d been when Siroes had first come in. ‘I must remind the pair of you that I command every armed man within a day’s ride of this place – perhaps more. Neither of you has so much as a bodyguard. We all agree that whoever has the relic becomes unapproachably powerful. Why should I listen to either of you? Now that Alaric is here, I can take what I please.’

  ‘Dear me, no!’ said Priscus with an easy smile. ‘We all agree that the relic confers great power, but it does so only once it’s been authenticated as what it’s claimed to be. If your Patriarch declines the authentication, you might as well piss in it yourself. And your Patriarch won’t support someone like you against the Empire – not when there’s a deal on the table to settle the whole Monophysite controversy and get him back in full communion with Constantinople and with Rome. You could ask Alaric here about that. He’s the scholar, and can lecture you black in the face about these things. But I don’t think you’ll need to do that.’

  The room fell silent. The three protagonists of the little play acted out under my eyes looked at each other and then at no one in particular.

  ‘You all seem agreed,’ I said, breaking the long silence that followed, ‘that only I can lead you to this powerful object.’ Since there appeared to be at least two opinions about the nature of what was sought, I clung to the ambiguous phrasing I’d had from Siroes. ‘You all assume that I will do this for whichever of you is still alive tomorrow morning. Well, I want to see my secretary before I make any commitments. I also want to know what guarantees you can provide that either of us will survive its finding.’

  ‘Please keep out of this, Alaric,’ Priscus said wearily. ‘You will see Martin when I see fit to have him produced. If you refuse to do exactly as told, you know what I can and will do to him. If that fails to persuade you, bear in mind what I will certainly then do to you. If I tell you that you will both return safely with me to Alexandria, that is just something you’ll have to make yourself believe. You have little choice, after all. You gave up all freedom of action in this matter the moment you fell in again with Lucas.’

  ‘Not good enough, Priscus,’ I said. I stared at Lucas and pointed at the wine.

  He spat an order to the slave, then went back to a morose inspection of the floorboards.

  ‘You see, if I don’t choose to believe you, I remain as free an agent as the three of you. When I’ve seen Martin and the nature of your joint guarantees, I will consider what steps may be required to secure the object. One way or another, let me observe, everything you have and everything
you want is staked on getting this object. Either you give me what I want, or you might as well kill me now, and then see how well you can sort out the resulting mess among yourselves.’ I drained my cup and sat on the third chair a slave had just brought in and set before Lucas.

  There was another long silence. Then Siroes got up. He brushed away more of the dust that still clung to his riding clothes and looked round.

  ‘Do you not agree how fine a place this world would be if only there were a little more trust among equals?’ he asked with a sigh. ‘However, it does appear that not one person in this room trusts any other person. This being so, I can only propose that we proceed as if we did trust one another. His Magnificence must be given what he demands. Once he has done what the prophecy says that only he can do, we can proceed to a discussion of what should be done next. I already feel a suggestion for compromise may be in the air. But I do beseech you all to put everything out of mind for the moment except the finding of what we are all gathered to find.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Priscus. He and Siroes smiled at each other.

  Lucas appeared set to speak again. But the slave was looking at him. If he hadn’t understood a word of the conversation, it couldn’t be hard to guess that Lucas had been worsted. All else aside, he was the only one of us still standing. The anger on his face was visibly giving way to dejection. Priscus put his cat down. It went and sat on one of the rugs. It looked up at me with the sort of face even his master hadn’t been able to match – not even after a lifetime of practising in front of a mirror.

  ‘That leaves the matter of our late supper,’ Priscus said. ‘Let us pretend it is out of friendship alone that the four of us will drink from the same cup.’

  Chapter 58

  We set out again at dawn, this time for Soteropolis. Priscus and Siroes rode together. Watching them talk, anyone would have thought they were bosom friends. I rode with Lucas.

  ‘I hope I shan’t need to remind you,’ Priscus had said as we were mounting up, ‘that His Magnificence Alaric is not a prisoner. It should be enough that we have his secretary.’ Lucas had scowled into his beard. But Priscus had started to border on the nasty, and that was the end of the matter.

  It was a ride of about twenty miles through the edge of the desert. The Nile rolled by sluggishly far down on our right. I did see a few boats, though nothing that could have been useful to me, even if the wish had been there. The journey was completely without event. Lucas had put off all his antique finery and was now dressed in normal riding clothes for the desert. This meant we attracted no more attention from the few lowly travellers on the road than twenty mostly armed men always would.

  Martin and I had been coming from the north when, a month earlier, we first saw the monument marking the centre of the old Soteropolis. We’d then had to go over a sand dune before we could see the Mistress and beyond her to the dead palm trees. We were now approaching from the south. The whole expanse of sand that had then seemed so desolate was now crowded with tents. They stretched all the way to the dune, and spread out right and left before then. Was this where the Brotherhood had pitched its camp? I asked myself. There could easily have been a thousand men in this temporary city. This was almost everything the camp I’d found had not been. But, no. I squinted to see better in the bright sunshine. Most of the figures darting between the tents were locals of the lowest class. As usual, burned a dark red by the sun, they ran about almost naked. These weren’t the five hundred workmen drilled and well fed I’d been thinking to divert from work on the old canal. But they would do very well for the excavations I had evidently been brought here to oversee.

  As we rode into the camp, someone came running over to Lucas. He saluted and shouted something. There was a brief conversation. Lucas sounded mighty pleased with everything. He got down from his camel and disappeared among some of the minor players in the Brotherhood who had escaped the purge laid on by Priscus in Alexandria.

  ‘I think you’ll find everything in order, my dear,’ said Priscus as he helped me down from my camel.

  I wanted to say that the tents might be covering the area under which the Library reserve stock was buried. Sadly, even a twenty-mile ride had left me bruised and stiff again. I pulled my hood back, and let the breeze rustle my hair. A few of the locals stared with dull interest at my unusual colouring. The Brotherhood people, however, let up a terrified clamour. Those who’d seen me the night before last had got almost used to the idea of having in their midst what they took for a corpse brought back to life by a sorceress. These evidently hadn’t been given prior warning. Pointing at me, and calling out an unfamiliar phrase over and over again, they shrank back. ‘My empire is of the imagination,’ the Mistress had said. I was beginning to see there might be advantages in being one of her provincial governors. I smiled back at the scared, jabbering throng.

  No one could claim Priscus had been brought back from the dead. Still, he was able to cause a big commotion of his own. Here, among them, was the Hammer of the Brotherhood, the man who’d skewered so many of their Grand Masters through arse or belly and had saved Alexandria from what might otherwise have been their most spectacular success in a thousand years. I was almost forgotten in the now threatening buzz. Lucas had to come out of the tent he’d been inspecting and work hard to keep his people from butchering at least Priscus on the spot.

  But the commotion was eventually settled. I still got any number of funny looks, and Priscus got worse. But the Brotherhood was again following the orders of its leaders, who now set in earnest about doing the bidding of the one Grand Master who’d not come to an end in Alexandria.

  ‘I was serious when I told you last night to follow my instructions,’ Priscus said softly to me in Latin as we found ourselves together in the jostling crowds.

  ‘No Latin!’ Lucas shouted from nowhere. He pushed his way past a couple of grooms and stood before us. ‘You will not be alone together,’ he said firmly. ‘All you have to say to each other will be in front of me and in Greek. I must remind you, Priscus, of how little loved you are among the Brotherhood. Without my protection, your safety cannot be guaranteed.’

  ‘Oh, Lucas, Lucas!’ Priscus said, rolling the hated name in his mouth with cheerful satisfaction. ‘I’ve given you Alaric. I’ve given you the one man all the prophecies say is the One. And I’m not the only one needing to remember that it’s thanks to me that anyone up to challenging you is now rotting in one of my mass graves. Don’t presume, Lucas dear, the pair of us to be in anything together. That would need to be a very deep plot.’

  Lucas wasn’t impressed. He took me by the hand and led me up the dune to look over the monument.

  ‘We’ll eat,’ he said. ‘Then you will supervise the digging.’

  I looked across the still clear expanse of sand that covered the centre of Soteropolis. From what I knew of his way with his beloved people, he’d have a few flogged to death if they slacked. The rest would dig as if someone had buried gold coins for them to find. Even so, it was a large area, and there was nothing at surface level to indicate street plans or other buildings. I heard Priscus following behind me.

  ‘I don’t think, Alaric, introductions will be in order,’ he said.

  I turned. Martin stood beside him. He was manacled with eighteen inches of chain between his wrists. There was another manacle about his right leg. This was attached by another length of chain to a large iron ball that needed two hunched brown bodies to lift off the ground. Someone else held a sunshade over him.

  For the first time, I lost control. I broke down at the shock of seeing him. I didn’t bother trying to hide my sobs as we embraced. He pushed me gently back.

  ‘Aelric, you’re a fool for coming,’ he said in Celtic. ‘I prayed you would simply light a candle for me in church and get everyone out of Alexandria.’ He sat down in the sand. The sunshade was moved to keep it in position. ‘I prayed for you to use some common sense. But I knew in my heart you wouldn’t.’

  Martin hadn’t sh
aved, and his red beard was flecked with grey. So far as it wasn’t covered in a stained bandage, there was a haunted look on his face. Otherwise, he was in good health. I looked more closely at the bandage. Priscus caught my glance.

  ‘A regrettable but necessary loss,’ he said loudly in Greek. ‘But I found Martin unusually firm about signing the letter I’d had drafted for you to read. All things considered, though, has the Legate’s secretary any complaints about his treatment?’

  ‘No, My Lord,’ Martin said. Not bothering to look up, he stared glumly at the heavy manacle round his ankle.

  ‘Then let us keep it that way. Alaric,’ Priscus said, still with raised voice, ‘I must inform you of these conditions. You will supervise the digging as you see fit. You will lay hands on the relic and pass it immediately to the three other principals in this endeavour. Once you have done so, you and Martin will be taken to Letopolis and sent in a postal boat safely back to Alexandria. Siroes, Lucas and I will swear later this day in public to keep our word. The Bishop of Letopolis will witness our swearing, and you must rely on his influence with virtually the entire Brotherhood and all the local population to ensure that we keep our word.

  ‘If you have not located the relic within fourteen days, you and Martin will be put to death. Be assured that I would give you longer than this. However, Siroes has been privately advised that the only auspicious time for locating the relic will soon pass. I cannot dispute his advice, and so must bow to his insistence.

  ‘There is one further point to these conditions. We are in a hurry, and wish to make it clear that seven days mark the reasonable limit of our patience. Today is nearly half gone, and so does not count. Tomorrow is a Sunday, and I have already been worsted in an argument over that. I will give you one day beyond that. Three days, I hope, will be sufficient for you to do your work. However, if you have uncovered nothing that I find interesting by noon on Tuesday, I will have Martin’s other ear sliced off. If you have uncovered nothing by the noon following, I will have the little finger of his left hand cut off. We shall then proceed by such stages as I think suitable until Friday, which is the twenty-seventh day of the month of Mechir that Lucas specified in his letter. At midnight, I shall have Martin blinded or perhaps castrated. Enough of him will survive the full time specified either to be sent back with you to Alexandria, or to be put to death with you in such manner as we shall find appropriate. Do you understand me?’