The Blood of Alexandria (56 page)

‘And Egypt will be absolutely free – on that you have my unforced word. It was a mistake of Cambyses to try incorporating Egypt the last time we were powerful in this region. Once we have succeeded in placing you on your rightful throne – in Memphis or perhaps in Alexandria – we shall, of course, withdraw all our advisers and such other persons as we may send for the purpose of your liberation.

‘Be assured, Your Majesty, we are determined that the age of universal empire is past. Darius and Alexander and Caesar are all dead. There will be no other. Our new order of things will be based on justice among peoples freely covenanting together.’

I say I was trying not to breathe. After all this, it was hard not to gasp – or just burst out laughing. Here was someone talking, at the end of a thousand years, about repeating the work, while avoiding the mistakes, of Cambyses, Darius and Xerxes. And he was doing it in Greek to someone who should have thought himself a Greek, but was instead prancing about in stuff that could only have been snatched by Leontius in one of his tomb-raiding sprees.

‘Your words fall on my ears like music,’ Lucas said earnestly. ‘You will be aware of the treason of the National Church of Egypt, which has objected to my coronation in Memphis next month. If you could prolong your stay, it would be highly symbolic of the new order that we both ardently desire if you were the one to place the double crown formally upon my head.’

‘Oh, Your Majesty,’ the Envoy cried, ‘nothing would do me greater honour. And, of course, I will prolong my stay with you. There is, after all – and do forgive my raising this yet again – the matter of the object that is part of the reason why the Great King sent me to you.’

‘Yes, the object,’ Lucas said with a hint of impatience. ‘You shall have your object. That I can promise. But we both know the prophecy. Until the One Who Shall Find can himself be found, we have a probem.’

‘That, Your Majesty, is most regrettable,’ Siroes drawled. ‘When I took ship from Jedda, I left seven hundred men behind me. There was no point in bringing them to Egypt. But they were sorely pressed by a tribe of Saracens Nicetas had bribed into hostility. I came here myself at great personal risk. It would be most helpful if I could have
some
indication of when I can at least set my hands on the object.’

I’d put myself in the barrel. I’d pushed myself into the right current. It was now simply a matter of shutting my eyes as I was carried straight over the waterfall. I tried to look nonchalant as I stepped out of the shadow.

‘Hello again, Lucas!’ I said with a warm smile. ‘I see you’ve done rather well for yourself since our last meeting.

‘Oh dear, is that camel dung in which the double crown of Egypt has just landed?’

Chapter 55

There are meetings on which the books of etiquette give little advice. But I did my best in the circumstances. I stepped past Lucas, who was now kicking viciously at the man who’d failed to catch his crown in time, and held my hand out to the Persian Envoy.

‘Greetings, Siroes,’ I said as easily as I could. ‘I am Alaric, Legate Extraordinary from His Imperial Majesty in Constantinople. It may please you that the Imperial Council is aware of your name and your many achievements on behalf of the Great King.’

One of the nice things about a beard for a diplomat is how it can help in moments of utter confusion. But Siroes was good. His eyes barely widened as he looked back. He smiled and took my hand.

‘And greetings to you, Alaric,’ he said. ‘We in Ctesiphon have heard much about you. Together with Priscus and Sergius, you are nearly at the top of our list of dignitaries to be handed over for execution when we dictate peace to the Empire. It may please you to know that if Priscus is before you on the list, you are before Sergius. It goes without saying that the usurper Heraclius comes right at the head of the list.’

‘Funny you should call him that,’ I said. We both ignored Lucas, whose crown was still covered in camel shit. ‘There’s no doubt Phocas was an usurper. He killed poor old Maurice and all his family, and then ruled as a tyrant. You might have had a case for not recognising him. Heraclius, on the other hand, was freely accepted by the Senate, the army and the people. He was crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople; and he has the full endorsement of the Universal Bishop, His Holiness in Rome. It can be argued whether the constitution requires an emperor to have the Church on his side. There’s no doubt, however, that the opinion of some foreign prince is of no account whatever.

‘You are, by the way, on one of our lists. Only we aren’t thinking of your execution. We’ll need a candidate for the Persian throne once Chosroes has been put out of the way.’

Siroes touched his knuckles to his head in a gesture of respect. Lucas opened his mouth to say something, but one of those big men he’d had with him on our first trip through the desert came in sight. He took one look at me and screamed like a stricken bull. Straight down on his knees he went, crossing himself and babbling away in Egyptian. Whatever he was saying was taken up by a few others who’d been following Lucas and Siroes. As it spread to the low-grade Egyptians, Lucas had to start a screamed lecture of his own. He wheeled about, hitting out with his rod of Kingly Office and kicking anyone within reach. His crown was off again, and his wig was slipping down the back of his head. I looked at him and did my best not to laugh at the crudely applied make-up on his face. He was supposed to look majestic. The best his people had managed was to make him remind me of the Circus buffoons in Constantinople.

‘You join us at a most opportune moment,’ Siroes said, speaking loud above the incomprehensible shouts and squeals of the debate in progress. I think he also was trying not to laugh at Lucas. ‘There is immediate business of which you may be aware. If you serve me well enough in that, I may see fit to put in a word for you with the Great King. You see, our Christian minority speaks well of you for the tolerance of their heresy you have urged within the Empire. We might spare you as a token of our mercy in victory.’

‘Your goodness of heart robs me of normal speech,’ I said.

Siroes touched his forehead again. He even smiled. It was now that Lucas, who’d restored a sullen order among his men, butted in with a gloating and self-important speech about my function as finder of the piss pot of Jesus Christ. It seemed this really had been on the agenda the last time I was taken. This time, he said, I’d be under closer watch.

‘No one will save you now,’ he said. ‘Not the Greeks in Alexandria, nor, I think, the sorceress whose concern for your safety has surely not outlived her better acquaintance with you.’

‘That’s all very well,’ I said. I paused and waited while the whole headdress was stabilised again. ‘However, I do represent His Majesty the Emperor, and I think that entitles me to supper.’

We set out from the camp just after dawn, and were soon headed south-east along a rough trail through this borderland of the desert. There was no camel for me now. Instead, I was tied into the chair that I supposed had been made available to the Persian Envoy. Muttering away in his own language, Siroes looked on.

‘With the deepest respect, Your Majesty,’ he said once Lucas had come over, ‘I do suggest that, as a person of quality, His Magnificence should not be bound – not, at least, with common rope.’

‘You will understand, my dear Lucas,’ I added, ‘if I agree with the Lord Siroes. If you were the low bandit that I at first took you for, common rope would be appropriate. However, you are in rebellion – even if not with much success – against the Empire, and I do represent His Imperial Majesty. I would suggest golden fetters or nothing at all.’

Siroes nodded gravely and seemed inclined to add another of his own protests. More to the point, some of the Brotherhood men who’d survived the rising in Alexandria were drifting over and looking mutinous again. Lucas swore softly and twisted with rage, but came forward and shouted for the procession to stop. He took out a knife and cut the ropes.

‘If you so much as move from this chair,’ he hissed into my face, ‘I will personally cut off your feet at the ankles.’

‘God’s tits!’ I gasped, pulling myself back from the filthy gust of his breath. ‘I know your rules demand celibacy after you’ve produced two sons. If you won’t take a little guidance on oral hygiene, you’ll remain celibate before then as well.’

Lucas gave up trying to look majestic. ‘I will also tell you this,’ he continued, keeping his face close. ‘If you do somehow manage to escape again, I will lay hold of your secretary and personally stitch his testicles into his mouth. Don’t deny any interest in his fate. There is no other reason for your being here – and so many days before anyone would have thought it possible for you to get here from Alexandria.’

‘Is it true,’ I asked loudly, ‘that the old kings of Egypt used to strip off once a year and have a public wank into the Nile?’

He stared at me a moment. He swallowed, plainly thinking of some response that would crush me. Then, with a scowl, he was off, shouting at everyone to get under way again.

‘Not like a horse, is it?’ I said brightly.

Siroes stared down at me. He’d put off the fussy robes of the night before. Now, he was in the local riding costume. Like all Persians, he was probably an accomplished horseman. Camels, as I don’t need to keep saying, are not the same as horses.

‘The less time I spend seated on this beast,’ came the reply, ‘the happier I shall be. I am assured that, if all goes as planned, I shall require neither chair nor camel for my return.’

I shifted position. The chair was big and comfortable. Even if the sun hadn’t yet acquired its full power, I was glad of the shade from the canopy overhead. I yawned and stretched my legs.

‘Oh, you expect me to dig out your piss pot,’ I said. ‘Do you suppose it will let you grow wings and fly back? If so, it must be
ever
so powerful.’

Siroes gave me a sour look and twisted in his saddle.

‘Do tell me, though, Siroes,’ I said with a change of subject, ‘you really can’t be serious about leaving Egypt to the wogs. Whoever controls Egypt and its corn is in a position to control the world.’

‘We are perfectly determined,’ he said with a shade too much emphasis, ‘to reorder the world on a basis of equality between peoples.’

‘And you really mean to set up Lucas here as Pharaoh?’ I asked. I could hear him far off, close to the front of our procession. Something or someone had upset him, and he was screaming again like a steward over a broken vase.

‘Our mutual friend,’ he answered ‘– let us call him Lucas: it is less of a mouthful than the other name he has tried to teach me – is a man of just the qualities we need in a ruler of Egypt. However, let us discuss your own interesting position. When I spoke last night about your death, I think we should take that as a statement of possibility rather than of intention.

‘We are expecting to bring an end to the war between our two empires some time in the next six months. It will be an unconditional surrender on the Greek side. I am already considering how what remains of the Greek Empire is to be ruled. I could speak at great length of nothing very important. But I will avoid doing so and simply ask if you would like to be the next emperor? You would, I must clearly state, be an emperor under our complete protection. We would even station forces in Constantinople to ensure the safety of your reign.’

‘Once more, your goodness of heart astonishes me,’ I said with a little nod. ‘But let us leave aside the question of how someone like me could rule the Empire except as a Persian satrap. What interests me more is how you can be so certain the war will soon end. Granted, it’s been going on for the past ten years, and hasn’t gone our way. But you’ve not yet made a breakthrough. Cappadocia was hardly a catastrophic loss. And we are aware in Constantinople of the strain the war has put on your own resources. What makes you suppose we are anywhere close to suing for peace – let alone on the terms you mention?’

Siroes smiled and turned his attention to the camel. I thought he’d be diplomatic about this. Not so. He looked back at me, his smile now become a broad grin.

‘My dear young Alaric,’ he said, ‘how right you are when you say that whoever controls Egypt is in a position to control the world. If only we had known properly a thousand years ago what we think we know today, Alexander would never have taken Egypt from us. Nor would he have conquered us. Our archives earlier than some four hundred years ago are fragmentary. Indeed, we must often rely on Greek sources for our history before then. But some records have survived. The Great King is advised that Egypt contains a prize that brings control of the whole world. I am here to ensure that he gets it.’

‘You know about this prize from records that predate the conquests of Alexander?’ I asked.