The Blood of Alexandria (15 page)

‘The translation, My Lord,’ Macarius whispered in my ear, ‘is: “The tears of Alexander shall flow, giving bread and freedom.” ’

I nodded. So the word wasn’t ‘Alexandria’, but ‘Alexander’. I wished I’d taken the trouble on arriving to start lessons in Egyptian. But how could I have known I’d be stuck here so long? I thought to ask Macarius how he’d got himself away from the mob. But the police officer was speaking again.

‘We would have come looking in more than one group,’ he explained, filling up the silence that resulted. ‘The problem is we’re stretched rather thin tonight, what with the commotion outside the Great Synagogue – oh, and the murder.’

‘Murder?’ I asked. ‘Why should that be taking up police resources?’

‘But, of course, you won’t have heard,’ he answered. ‘It was that big landowner – what’s his name? Leontius, I think – horribly murdered, you know. Horribly murdered, and in his own bed.’

Chapter 14

Priscus cocked his head to get a look at the corpse from a new angle.

‘Nasty work,’ he said appreciatively. ‘By the look on his face, they must have kept him alive and awake till close to the end. I’d imagine he was being questioned as well as put out of the way.’ He pointed at the screwed-up napkin. It stank of something that made my nose itch. ‘Useful as far as it goes for keeping a victim conscious. Of course, I know better mixtures for that. I could manage better all round – but I’d need leisure and skilled assistants. Nasty work,’ he said again.

‘You say the guts are all arranged in those pots?’ he asked the Chief of Police. He took up one of the lids and peered at the pale, slimy entrails. ‘The brains as well?’ he added, looking into another of the pots. He turned back for another inspection. ‘How were those taken without spoiling the head?’ he asked.

‘I think it was Herodotus who said they are pulled down the nose with special hooks,’ I volunteered. I gripped the back of a chair for support. I wondered again how much of the smell in the room was from a gutted Leontius and how much from what I’d managed to splash over myself in the Egyptian quarter.

‘I defer to your greater learning,’ Priscus said. ‘But are you telling me poor Leontius was killed in some parody of wog mummification?’

‘I’m saying no such thing,’ I said carefully. ‘In these cases, you make no inferences until all the facts available have been collected and weighed. As for your own inference, my understanding is that embalming went out of use after the Old Faith was abolished here. That doesn’t mean all knowledge of the process has disappeared, or that such knowledge might not be taken as a guide for murder.

‘Do have that crowd moved on,’ I said, turning to the Chief of Police. His subdued yet anxious manner was getting on my nerves. ‘I didn’t like its look as I came in.’ Indeed, I hadn’t. That combination of silence and numbers might equal trouble. I thought of the mob in the Egyptian quarter and shuddered.

I heard a familiar voice in the hall outside. I called the Chief of Police back before he could open the door.

‘And do get a blanket over that thing,’ I said. ‘There’s no reason why everyone needs to look at it.’

‘I was told you were here,’ said Martin when the door was closed again. He looked at the large but now hidden mound of flesh. A dark stain was seeping through the blanket. He swallowed and looked away. He looked at me and also looked away.

I rubbed at the bruise on my left shoulder. I’d be stiff for days but, all told, had nothing to complain about. I looked at the Chief of Police.

‘You’ll need to leave a couple of men in the street,’ I said. ‘But I see no further reason for your involvement. This is a matter for the man’s family in Letopolis.’

A look of relief on his face, he bowed his way out, muttering something about needing to make an entry for the next public order report.

‘Well, my dearest,’ said Priscus as he lifted a corner of the blanket for a final look at what had been Leontius, ‘I think I’ll take that as my own invitation to retire. It’s been a glorious day, and I have so much to consider. Oh’ – he paused by the door – ‘did I overhear you back by the Egyptian quarter talking about Alexander’s mummy? Do say that I did.’

‘I believe it’s been in the basement of the Library since the temples were closed,’ I said. ‘So far as nothing could be uglier, I suppose it must be an improvement on Leontius.’

‘Decidedly!’ he said with an appreciative smack of his lips. ‘Well, I really must have a look at the great man. After all, we have so much in common, what with the Persian War and all.’

‘Before you go, Priscus,’ I said, ‘I’ll note that you may have been one of the last people to see Leontius alive. I hope you’ll not mind if I call on you tomorrow for a brief discussion.’

Priscus stopped by the door and smiled. ‘My dear boy,’ he cried in mock alarm, ‘you surely can’t think I had a hand in this? I’ve told you I could have done it much better. Besides, aren’t there the little matters of means, motive and opportunity? You did give me a most interesting lecture on these things. Don’t think I ever forget a word of what you say to me.’

I grunted and rubbed my shoulder. I couldn’t, I had to agree, think how or why Priscus might have murdered the man. But it was annoying – so much learned in one afternoon; so little hope now of following it up.

‘Now that you’re here,’ I said to Martin once the door was closed again, ‘I want you to help me go through the man’s papers. In particular, we need to look out for a packet that may not yet have been opened and filed.

‘Macarius,’ I said, turning to the figure who’d been standing silent throughout, ‘I want the entire household lined up in the big front hall. Sit them about a yard apart, and make sure they don’t speak to anyone until I’ve had each one in for questioning.’

‘The packet you seek, My Lord, will not be here,’ he said.

I gave him a hard stare.

‘I also observed the meeting between Leontius and his agent,’ he explained. ‘I was not so close as you were, and was not able to hear all that passed between them. However, I did follow Leontius back to this house. He was met at the city gate by another man on horseback who took delivery of the documents he had bought. I heard a reference to Letopolis, and assume from this that Leontius wanted everything taken off to his manor house in Egypt.

‘Certainly, I had already discovered that he was planning a trip to his estates – this despite your instruction that no one should leave Alexandria.’

The things I wanted to ask of Macarius were beginning to accumulate like snow before an unused gate in winter. But they would need to remain unasked for the moment. He was continuing.

‘I must, My Lord, inform you that all the circumstances of this murder indicate involvement by the Brotherhood.’

‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’ I asked. Martin might have jumped as if he’d seen a ghost. I was wholly in the dark, and in no mood to be kept there.

‘The Brotherhood,’ Macarius answered, ‘does not usually operate in Alexandria, and prefers in general to shun the Greek regions of Egypt. But it does maintain a strong presence in the south of the country, where, indeed, it is often the effective power.’

I took one of the entrail pots from the chair on which it had been placed and sat down. I rubbed again at my shoulder and looked round for something to drink. It was probably for the best that the only wine jug in the room was on the floor overturned.

‘You’d better continue,’ I sighed. ‘Since I have no choice but to investigate the murder, I’ll need to know exactly what this Brotherhood is.’

‘It claims to be a very old organisation,’ Macarius began. ‘The story is that it was formed nearly twelve hundred years ago, when Cambyses of Persia invaded and extinguished the last native dynasty. For the next few centuries, it operated as a resistance movement, keeping hopes alive of a national recovery and largely confining the Persians to their garrison towns.

‘When the Great Alexander invaded and expelled the Persians, he was at first welcomed by the Brotherhood and was offered much assistance. Greeks then were not hated by the natives, and their own victories over the Persians were taken as an example of what could be done, given the right spirit of unity. When, however, he died in Babylon and his general Ptolemy hurried here to make himself King, there was a reaction against the Greeks.

‘The Ptolemies, however, turned out to be less hostile than expected to native customs, and the Brotherhood went into decline, reappearing only during the breakdown of order in the final reigns, when it operated as an order of brigands. It was suppressed by the Romans and, for centuries after Egypt’s incorporation in the Empire, the Brotherhood was known only from old stories.

‘It became prominent again after the closure of the temples, and has grown mighty since the decay of Imperial control over the south. It sometimes inclines to the Old Faith – and you know already that this continues in the south. More often, it is associated with the less compromising wings of the Monophysite heresy. Whether from Rome or Constantinople – whether by Latins or by Greeks – it remains pledged to end all foreign rule, and to restore Egypt to the sway of its own Pharaohs.’

‘Very interesting,’ I said drily. ‘So we have a robber band that legitimises itself by attachment to something that may have existed in the past, but that probably existed only occasionally.’

‘Not so, My Lord,’ Macarius broke back in. ‘The Brotherhood has rituals and an organisation that do point to long continuation. For example, every member must be tattooed on the small of his back with the name in the old Egyptian writing of the greatest native Pharaoh. More importantly, it is his duty to produce two sons. This done, he must pass the remainder of his life in strict continence. There are further rituals and customs of which the initiated never speak. But all the evidence is of long continuation.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Martin,’ I snapped suddenly, ‘do come away from those lamps. You’ll have a fire going if you don’t stop knocking them over.’ It was no excuse that I’d fancied a look myself ever since ordering them in to illuminate the murder scene. Like everything else in the house, they were in the hideous style of the ancient Egyptians. Some of the stuff, mind you, was impressively solid. Forget the workmanship – one or two pieces, such as this array of lamps, must even have been valuable on account of their materials. If Leontius hadn’t furnished the whole place from tomb excavations, I’d have been surprised. Quite fitting, I thought, Leontius had come to the end he had. No doubt the style of his murder had been prompted at least partly by the surroundings.

‘Macarius is right,’ he blurted out. ‘This is all to do with the Brotherhood.’ He stepped back from the array of lamps. ‘These people were big in Antinoopolis. No one crossed them – no matter how big he was with the government in Alexandria.’

‘So, what do you know about the Brotherhood?’ I asked. It was nice that even he knew of some organisation I’d been here months without so much as hearing about.

Martin looked back, his face pale in the light of a dozen lamps. ‘I’ve been looking again into those payments we were discussing,’ he said. He stared at Macarius. After some internal struggle, he decided to go on properly with his explanation. ‘That subsidy to the Temple of Isis – you know it’s been cancelled five times. What I’ve now found is that every official who signed the cancellation order was murdered. Only one case was ever investigated, and the report is missing from the archives.’

I sat awhile in silence. Macarius was his usual impassive self. He’d not moved from the position he’d taken on first coming into the room with Priscus and me. Martin looked, as ever on these occasions, undecided between shitting himself and passing out. I stood and walked back over to the corpse. The fine blanket had settled over its contours, and it really might as well not have been covered at all. I lifted the blanket and looked under at the twisted, staring face. Priscus knew his business, and I had no doubt Leontius had been kept alive far into the murder. What I did wonder was how he’d been kept quiet.

Yes – there were questions to be asked of those scared, silent slaves I’d seen lurking in the hall.

‘It seems to be the case,’ I said, making sure to emphasise the mood of doubt or hypothesis, ‘that we have one of those instances where two separate intrigues come accidentally together. Somehow, Leontius had got to know about the subsidy. How he got to know may be connected with his interest in Egyptian antiquities. With his known talent for understanding the wider implications of his acts, he used this to trip me up in yesterday’s meeting. Those parts of this Brotherhood adhering to the Old Faith were consequently angered. He has now been punished for setting events in course that led to the sixth cancellation of the subsidy.’

I thought back to the conversation I’d overheard outside Alexandria. It would have closed matters if Leontius had been intending only to blackmail me into backing off from the land law. But he’d been planning to blackmail me into leading him to something that would make him powerful. That was one of those leftover details that tends to wreck neat explanations.