Creticus cogitated for a while. "The Egyptians are resistant to any sort of change. There hasn't been a change of dynasty since the first Ptolemy. They don't like rule by non-natives, but they haven't much choice in that. Before the Macedonians it was the Persians and even the Nubians. Conquest by Alexander wasn't so bad, since they think he was a god. In any case, they're used to the Ptolemies now, and they don't want to see anyone else on the throne. Achillas is just another Macedonian upstart to them. Even if he married one of the princesses, they wouldn't recognize him as legitimate ruler."
"And with the nomes in a state of unrest, the whole country could dissolve in civil war."
"That makes it all the more unlikely that he's planning a takeover, doesn't it?" Creticus said.
"If he could build a reputation as a great general," I pointed out, "he would be more palatable to the Egyptians. And the only people left for him to fight are the Romans. How many of our recent wars have begun with an uprising of the local populace against Romans?"
"Most of them," he admitted.
"Mithridates did it, and so have others. It's what will precipitate the war with Gaul, if that comes. The local king or chief or whatever sends out agitators to stir up bad feelings against the local Romans-never difficult to do at the best of times. The next thing you know, there is riot and general massacre. By the time people have come to their senses, it's too late. They're at war with Rome and they have no choice but to support the leader who encouraged their folly in the first place."
"It's effective," Creticus allowed. "The Roman public is always for war when foreigners slaughter Roman civilians. If Egypt wasn't so damned rich and tempting, I wouldn't mind a quick war of conquest myself. But it's the wrong time for a war in Egypt. Macedonia's a fiasco and we're preparing for war in Gaul. Even Roman legions can get spread too thin, and there would be that many more veterans to settle."
"Keep working on Ptolemy," I advised. "If he's afraid of Achillas, he might not be upset to see the man out of the way."
"What are you suggesting?" Creticus demanded.
"Just that one less troublesome, subversive soldier would be infinitely preferable to riot and war, both civil and foreign."
"Why, Decius, I never took you for an assassin." There was something akin to family pride in his voice.
"Nothing underhanded about it," I said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's open warfare between me and Achillas now, and the better man will walk away from it."
"Spoken like a true Roman," he said, chuckling.
Back in my quarters, I made preparations for a foray into the city. First I laid out my weapons: caestus, dagger and sword. I decided against the rather bulky legionary gladius I wore when in uniform. Instead I had a very nice short sword of the sort favored in the arena by certain types of gladiator. It was about three-fourths the size of the military sword, light, wasp-waisted with a narrow point for stabbing and edges so sharp you could cut your eyes just looking at them.
"You're not really going out in the streets, are you?" Hermes asked with a touching concern for my safety.
"I'll be safe enough," I assured him. "As long as I'm not dressed as a Roman and don't speak Latin, nobody will notice me." In our travels down the river I had picked up some good desert garments for protection from the sun. I had an excellent striped robe with a hood that would conceal my Roman coiffure. I kicked off my Roman sandals and slipped my feet into a pair of light, camel-skin slippers such as the caravaneers favor.
"Got your will made out?" Hermes said. "The one where you give me my freedom in the event of your death?"
"If I ever made such a will, I'd live in fear every day of my life. Don't worry, I'll come back safe." Actually, I'd long since made out my will and registered it at the Temple of Vesta, with manumissions and stakes for all my slaves. But you must never allow a slave to think you softhearted.
With my weapons concealed about my person, I slipped on the long desert robe. I fought the temptation to darken my skin. Such subterfuges are rarely convincing and would make me that much more likely to be uncovered. The fact is, fair-skinned people are not all that rare in the East, what with the mercenaries who had policed Persia's far-flung empire and Alexander's rampaging armies and the equally polyglot Successor armies, which for the last two hundred years had included Gauls from Galatia. My typically Italian features would pass easily enough, as long as I watched my tongue. I could butcher Greek with the best of them.
"Good luck, then," Hermes said.
"Stay out of the wine," I cautioned.
Out in the street, I made an effort not to walk like a Roman. This was not too difficult as the desert men also have a very erect posture, but they walk more slowly. We are accustomed to the quick legionary pace, while they adopt a stride calculated to avoid heat stroke. My main worry was that I might encounter real desert men who would want to converse, but that was no great danger. There are a number of languages spoken in the dry parts of the world, and I could always pretend to speak one of the others. In any case, the desert people are very haughty and rarely deign to acknowledge someone of another tribe.
I walked casually, as if I had already sold my goods and was engaged in a little sightseeing before mounting my camel for the caravan homeward. In a city like Alexandria such a one was all but invisible, which was what I most desired.
Most of the city streets through which I walked were quiet, if a bit uneasy. Few of these people were Egyptians and they did not look like good material for a rampaging mob.
In the Rakhotis it was different. Here there was an air of tension. People spoke in mutters instead of their usual cheerful babble. They drew away from foreigners and generally exhibited the mannerisms of people who were on the verge of violence directed against outsiders I had seen it at work elsewhere. I had seen much the same in my recent visit to Gaul, although we had managed to temporarily calm matters there.
But I was not merely tasting the mood of the city. I had a specific goal in mind. My mission also contained a certain amount of dangerous foolhardiness, and I took pleasure in that. Before long, I stood at the steps of the Temple of Baal-Ahriman.
Many people lingered around the courtyards, as if waiting for something to happen. I mounted the stairs unnoticed, just another sightseer. Then I stood on the platform before the sanctuary of the god himself. I passed within.
As I had anticipated, the inner sanctum was deserted. In Egypt the temples are not places of assembly. When there are rites to be performed, the priests go within and perform them. The rest of the time the inner temples are deserted. The occasion of Baal-Ahriman's address to the faithful had been an exception.
The shaft of sunlight still illuminated a small space before the ugly idol. I avoided the light and circled until I was within touching distance of it. I looked around to make sure that I was unobserved; then I put out my hand and gripped its jaw. There was no movement whatever. It was carved from solid stone. But I did feel something odd, and I leaned close and squinted to make out the anomaly.
Near the thing's putrid-looking lips and paralleling them were ridges of stone, also in the shape of those lips but not so prominently carved, as if the sculptor had begun one set, then changed his mind and carved another without destroying the first effort. Then I ran my fingertips over the lion's teeth and found there were two sets. The easily visible teeth were much longer. In front of them were shorter teeth, offset in serried order like legionaries standing in open formation. I felt the interior of the mouth. The tongue was oddly rippled and I noticed that the roof of the mouth had been painted black. Why black? So as not to reflect light?
I looked to the pool of light where Ataxas had knelt, his hands clasped to his belly. And what had he been doing? Holding a silver bowl. A silver bowl much like the ones I had seen in Iphicrates's study.
I searched the sanctum and found a table that held boxes of incense and the silver bowl. I took the bowl and walked back to the pool of light. Another quick scan for watchers, and I held the bowl l
ow and directed its reflected light to the face of Baal-Ahriman. Carefully, I shifted the bowl, making the spot of light move along the god's mouth and jaws. The ridges and false lips and serried teeth had been exquisitely placed to reflect light alternately, so that only one set at a time showed. The effect was that the jaw seemed to move as the light played across it. But what of the flashes of light that had seemed to shoot from the mouth? Even as the thought occurred to me, a wisp of incense smoke drifted past the statue's face, and the light reflected startlingly from the white smoke. The silver bowl had contained frankincense, and Ataxas had dumped it into the brazier before going down on his knees. Every aspect of the effect had been carefully planned.
"What are you doing here?"
I almost dropped the bowl as I whirled around. It was Ataxas, flanked by a pair of brawny acolytes. It is never a good idea to get too absorbed in your work, however fascinating it may be.
"Why, I was just admiring your handiwork. First-rate design; you have my congratulations."
"I have no idea what you are talking about, but you profane our holy of holies. And, Roman, why are you dressed as a desert nomad?" It seemed to me that his heavy Eastern accent was slipping a little.
"The streets aren't safe for Romans these days." I looked for a fast-exit route. "Something about your god's predictions."
His eyebrows went up in exaggerated puzzlement. "But my Lord said nothing about Romans."
"No need to. Your message came across well enough."
"You talk in riddles. You are not wanted here, Roman. Go while you still have your life."
"Do you threaten me, you Oriental fraud?" I demanded.
He smiled, placed spread fingertips against his breast and bowed. "But how could a humble priest out of Asia Minor constitute a threat to an envoy of the mighty Roman Empire?"
"Sarcasm should be left to those with the wit to deliver it well."
He turned to his flankers. "My sons, expel this man." The two unfolded their arms and came for me.
I would never have accounted myself as any sort of professional swordsman, but I always took a certain pride in my capacity as a brawler. As the one on the right closed, I floored him with a left hook to which my caestus gave added authority. The man went down with a splintered jawbone.
The other fancied himself a wrestler and went for the classic cross-buttock throw, which I foiled by sticking the point of my dagger into his left armpit. He jumped back howling. I did not wish to complicate an already deteriorating situation with homicide, which I thought displayed admirable restraint on my part. I could have gone for my sword and killed both of them easily.
Now Ataxas was yelling, calling for guards and acolytes and priestesses and the legions of the faithful to come and slaughter this impudent Roman for him. I took the hint and deemed myself unwelcome. On winged heels flew from the Temple of Baal-Ahriman, stashing my weapons beneath my clothes as I did so. Ataxas pursued me, but his long, heavy robes hampered him. I was down the steps and heading for a side street before he even got out of the sanctum. The people I passed were too far from him to hear his words and only blinked in puzzlement as I ran past them. But I could hear sounds of pursuit beginning behind me.
Alexandria, I found, was not an easy place in which to shake pursuit. It was all those straight, wide streets. My beloved Rome was different. A veritable rabbit warren of a city, Rome featured so many twisting streets and narrow alleys that a few paces would carry you out of sight of those who thirsted for your blood. I ran from many a rampaging mob in my day, and no few assassins, and even a jealous husband or two, and I knew that the best way to lose pursuers was to get lost yourself. After all, if you didn't know where you were, how could they be expected to find you?
Not so Alexandria. Luckily, I had a long head start on my pursuers. I made random turns down side streets and never went more than a block without making a turn. To my great relief I chanced upon the Alexandrian Salt Market. In that part of the world, salt is the monopoly of caravaneers who carry blocks of it loaded on camels from the Dead Sea in Judaea. Among so many long, hooded robes my own did not stand out. Of course, mine was a good deal cleaner than theirs, but one had to get close to notice that.
I worked my way well into the crowd, pretending an interest in salt and the price thereof. The buyers were many, so the market was quite crowded when Ataxas's mob, mostly shaven-headed acolytes, stormed in looking for me. One of them grabbed a nomad and jerked his hood down, which proved to be a mistake. Not only was the man not me, but the nomads are a very proud and touchy people who consider it a mortal offense for a stranger to lay hands upon them. This one drew a short, curved knife from his sash and slashed the acolyte across the face.
The desert men thought they were attacked, which made sense, what with the recent anti-foreign sentiment that gripped the city. And, indeed, the mob may have been unclear about Ataxas's instructions and thought that he wanted them to attack all men they saw in desert robes. It is little misunderstandings such as this that enliven the days of any city, and soon there was a full-scale riot going on in the Salt Market. The followers of Ataxas were greater in number, but few of them carried any weapons save for staves, whereas no adult male nomad ever goes unarmed. All had daggers, some had swords and many of them employed spears as walking sticks.
It made for a fine bloodletting, but I thought it imprudent to stay too long to enjoy the show. I quietly slipped away down a side street and began to make my way back toward the Palace. I restrained myself to a leisurely pace. No one pursued me now, and I did not wish to attract attention. As I ambled past the Macedonian barracks, I saw men forming up hastily, scrambling into their armor as they did so. With a series of barked commands, they were marched out into the street and set out for the Rakhotis at the double. Apparently, a runner had come to bring news of the riot in the Salt Market.
As I neared the Palace I stepped into a small public garden and pulled my robe off over my head. With my weapons rolled up in the robe and the bundle thrust beneath my arm, I strolled through the gate dressed in my tunic. I acknowledged the salutes of the guards and made my way to the embassy. In my quarters I stashed arms and robe and practiced looking innocent.
The summons from Creticus was not long in coming.
He looked decidedly impatient when I walked into his study.
"Decius, you were seen this morning leaving the Palace compound dressed, for some reason, as a desert nomad. I have just received word that the desert salt caravaneers and an Egyptian mob are fighting a pitched battle and troops have been sent to restore order. This cannot be mere coincidence. What have you done now?"
"Just engaging in a bit of investigation, sir." I described to him what I had discovered.
"Do you mean to say," he began, in that long-suffering voice that superiors always use to dress down subordinates, "that you put on a childish disguise, went out and committed mayhem and got a riot started, just so you could satisfy yourself how a foreign mountebank accomplished one of his cheap tricks?" The written word fails to do justice to this speech, which began in a near-whisper but which ascended with each word until the last few were delivered in something very much like a shriek.
"There's more to it than that," I maintained. "In the first place, I didn't make those fools attack the nomads. Anyway, I am certain that it wasn't Ataxas who designed the talking idol. It was Iphicrates of Chios. He was working with the properties of reflected light, using concave mirrors identical to Ataxas's frankincense bowl. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he designed the system of pipes or whatever that transmitted and magnified the god's voice."
"Are you still fixated on that dead Greek? With all the problems we now have, with Roman-Egyptian relations in a shambles and anti-Roman riots in the offing, you are still concerning yourself with a dead foreign mathematician?"
"It isn't just him anymore," I said. "It's what he was up to! Somehow, everything that has been happening here is tied in to Iphicrates, and he was murdered because of it."
"Decius, these fancies of yours get wilder as the years go by. It was hoped that you could stay out of trouble in Alexandria, but you would find trouble if you were locked up in the Mamertine."
Like most men of my acquaintance, he lacked the facility for building evidence into a solid image of what has happened. In fact, I am the only man of my acquaintance who has ever had that quality.
"Decius," Creticus said, "I want you to forget about that Greek. I want you to concentrate on helping me, which means quieting the fears of the Roman community here and being agreeable to Ptolemy and his family. You are not to investigate any murders. You are not to go near Ataxas or his temple. You are to avoid General Achillas. Is all this clear?"
"Perfectly, sir," I said.
"And you agree to my rules?"
"Absolutely, sir."
He looked at me for a long time. "I don't believe you."
"You wound me, sir."
"Get out, Decius. Allow me not to hear about you for a long time."
I left, relieved at getting off so lightly. Back at my quarters, I found that my adventures for the day were not yet over. Hermes came to me with a tiny, sealed scroll.
"A slave girl came here this morning and gave me this. Said it was extremely important and you were to read it at once."
"Did you recognize the girl?"
He shrugged. "Just some little Greek."
"Did she identify her owner?"
"Didn't say a thing except what I've told you. Gave me the letter and ran off."
"I've taught you better than that."
"She was well-dressed, but all the slaves in this Palace wear good clothes. She was small, dark-haired and -eyed, like most Greeks. I think her accent was Athenian, but I don't know Greek all that well."
Of course, all the elocutionists teach the Athenian mode of speech, but if a slave spoke that way, she was probably actually from Athens. That told me little, slaves being an international sort of people.
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