The Blood of Alexandria (69 page)

As he spoke, the Master of the Works came in sight. I nodded to him. He bowed to me. I’d last seen him as I pushed him inside the Church of the Apostles and went after Martin. Other than assuming the whole of the Council had been saved along with Nicetas, I hadn’t thought of him since. He now stood before me, looking almost elegant in the cloak that partly covered his robe of office. He bowed again and moved past me. He stopped before Priscus, who was fiddling with the saddlebag on his camel.

‘My Lord Priscus,’ he said in a loud official voice, ‘I bear a warrant for your arrest signed and sealed by His Highness the Viceroy himself. The charges are desertion of your military post and high treason. There are other charges that you can read for yourself. My instructions are to place you in close confinement. Once in Alexandria, you will be examined by His Highness in person prior to being sent on to Constantinople for trial by or before the Emperor.’

Priscus snarled something and went for his sword. But the surprise had been total. Without that, he might have got back on his camel and bolted. No one could have stopped Priscus. Then again, where would he have gone? Even he wouldn’t have got far as an outlaw. Even now in the Empire, a warrant of that nature couldn’t be ignored. Resistance was futile, and it was impossible to fly.

‘You can add sorcery to the charges,’ I said with a smothered smile. ‘In that saddlebag you’ll find a magical text of the highest illegality. He was hoping it would assist him in his treason.’ I looked at Priscus.

He stared back more astonished than angry. ‘You fucking snake!’ he spat. ‘You came out here with all this ready planned.’

I made an ironic bow. I did think of a little speech about the Mandate of Heaven – or at least how I’d see him boiled alive in the Circus for what he’d put Martin through. But I’d had enough for one day. A good sit down now, and a cup of something hot, would do nicely. As I turned away, I saw Priscus throw down the sword he’d taken from Siroes, and go and sit quietly on a pile of mud bricks.

‘Your Holiness,’ I said to Anastasius – and why not concede him the title he claimed? – ‘I should much appreciate a doctor or such medical help as you can provide for my secretary.’ No one could glue Martin’s ear back on. But a dab of opium on those bruised piles would be an immediate comfort.

The sun would soon be up. Now they’d finished vomiting up the feast that had continued through the night, the Sisters were getting ready for prayers. I stood upwind of the camp and looked steadily towards the faint glow on the eastern horizon.

‘My Lord is content?’ Macarius asked. He stood beside me.

I looked at his closed, impassive face. ‘Content is not the word I’d use,’ I said eventually. ‘But if its rules and purpose continue to evade me, I suppose the game is now over.’

Macarius stepped forward and looked back at me, the faint glow behind him. ‘A full understanding is not often given to men,’ he said. ‘But do you believe the game, as you call it, is over? You must realise that, before it does really end, you are called upon to act once more. No one can force your choice. No one can advise you. But you know what needs to be done. Whether and how you do this has an importance you might imagine, but will never know for sure.’

I stepped to my left and looked again at the eastern sky. The smallest ark of brightness was now peeping above the horizon, scattering the darkness of the night. I hadn’t slept in a day, and I felt suddenly very tired. What I most wanted was to lie down and sleep until noon. I’d then be able to think all this through. The politics had been easy, once I’d laid bare the various interest groups involved. But Macarius was right: there was still more to be done. If only I could understand the why of it. Sleep might banish the paralysing confusion I could now feel every time I tried to take thought. But there was no time, I knew. Without shifting his position, Macarius continued looking at me.

‘If you will permit me, My Lord,’ he said, ‘you have played your part very well so far. I was dimly aware of your doings before you left Alexandria. I do not think anyone else could have guessed your intentions. Even if what you might describe as luck gave assistance, it was a clever strategy to get back your secretary and ruin Priscus.’

I continued looking at the horizon. Soon, the light would dazzle and I’d have to turn away. I was thinking of what Priscus had told me in the street outside the Prefecture:
Do ask yourself how an empire survives without men like me. It needs heroes to found it, and poets and artists and philosophers to make it noble. And it needs someone to direct the rack if it’s to be kept in order
. But why think of this now? I wondered. There were other words that were more relevant.
You will know what to do
, I’d been told back at the oasis. I looked away from the rising sun and straightened myself.

‘We’re going back to Soteropolis,’ I said quietly. ‘Do please arrange an escort if possible. Otherwise I have no doubt the Sisterhood will be more than a match for what little remains of the Brotherhood.’

Chapter 68

‘Can you not feel the evil down here?’ Martin asked with a dramatic shiver. ‘It radiates as from a second, dark sun.’

I looked up from the fifth scroll of Eratosthenes. The words might have had more impression had I not been hearing their like for the second time in two days. ‘Not really,’ I said. I leaned back in the rickety chair and took a deep breath. Still watching me, Martin stood in the doorway of the converted tomb. ‘You must bear in mind,’ I added, ‘I have already been down here in far gloomier circumstances.’ To say the cavern was now ablaze with light would be an exaggeration. It was, even so, far better lit than on my first visit. And the screams and trills of the Sisters as they went about their business completed my impression of a very different place. ‘Such evil as was here,’ I said, now reassuring, ‘was brought to an end many ages ago. We are here today only to exorcise its memory.’

I suppose I was stretching things with the word ‘we’. In truth, while I was the one to explain matters to him, Anastasius was the guiding force down here. He was the one who supervised the clearing of the tombs and the gathering up for burning of the rubbish that littered the cavern floor. He was the one who directed the sweating, joyously shouting Sisters as, inch by inch, they dragged the local representation of Moloch to the chasm edge. I was here, and not in bed, only because Macarius had been insistent again that I was needed – and because I wanted to see if those books were quite so lunatic as I’d at first thought them.

My short answer is that they weren’t. What inspiration old Eratosthenes claimed to have found here left no evidence in his text, which, as said, was solidly Epicurean in its approach. The main difference, its numerical basis apart, was that Eratosthenes had taken what for Epicurus were fundamentals and resolved them into different expressions of something more fundamental yet. It was fascinating, and I was glad I’d made for the book rack just as soon as I could convince Anastasius that his own work was a matter for the Church alone, and just as soon as I could give Macarius the slip.

‘My Lord.’

Damn! It was Macarius: he must have read my mind.

‘My Lord, the preparations are now complete. Your own presence has become essential.’

I scowled, but checked my temper. Though I could feel the tiredness trying to claw its way back into my attention, the return of all Lucas had confiscated after my surrender meant I once again had the means to keep tiredness at bay. I’d never match Priscus when it came to mixing drugs. But half a pinch in wine of dried Lazarus weed, and I was as perky as anyone could wish to be.

‘Will you also be taking these books and the box of stones?’ I asked. I twisted round and nodded to the now open Library crate. One of the Sisters had smashed it open for me. It had been filled with stones wrapped in lead.

Macarius gave me one of his blank looks. ‘Is My Lord asking,’ he replied, ‘for the various effects of Eratosthenes to be carried back to the surface?’ He spoke in a tone presaging an argument.

I grinned and rolled the last book shut. I had not been asking that. But I felt no obligation to explain myself to Macarius. He hadn’t really betrayed me to Lucas – or even to Priscus. At the same time, he’d not served me with anything approaching devotion. ‘I think they can stay here for the moment,’ I said. I carefully replaced the book in its place and followed him out into the main cavern. The Sisterhood had done a fine clearing-up job. The place was swept clean of shrivelled flesh and broken wood. Everything movable was heaped up close by the edge of the chasm. The statue itself was only kept from falling straight into it by a web of ropes ultimately attached to the stone bollards that also held the bridge.

This was all a hundred and fifty yards from where Eratosthenes had made his office. But we stood now only in gloom rather than in punctuated darkness. With Macarius leading the way and Martin hurrying after, I made my now confident way across the floor towards Anastasius. Dressed in their filthy cowls, the less emaciated – and presumably the younger – of the Sisters shuffled about me, gathering up any small objects that had escaped their main sweep. As I approached him, Anastasius bowed deeply.

‘On behalf of His Majesty the Emperor,’ Anastasius asked loudly in Greek, ‘will his Magnificence the Legate resign these objects of the Old Faith to Holy Mother Church?’

As I stopped before him, unknown hands – possibly it was Macarius – reached from behind and pulled off my cloak, revealing the best approximation we’d managed to the robe of an Imperial Councillor.

‘In accordance with the law made in the seventh year of the Great Theodosius of blessed memory,’ I responded just as loudly, ‘these accursed objects, already confiscated to the Sacred Treasury, I hereby resign to the disposal of Holy Mother Church.’ I bowed low before him, making sure to keep off my knees; whatever the circumstances might require, however convincingly he might be dressed, Anastasius still wasn’t the Orthodox Patriarch. ‘Let their fate be oblivion.’

Anastasius lapsed into Egyptian, now walking about the piles of accumulated rubbish to shake holy water over them. At last, it was done. With a dramatic gesture to the Sisters, he stepped back. Again bowing to me and receiving my own response, he stood beside me about six feet from the chasm. Two of the Sisters pushed everything over the edge. There was nothing ceremonial in the motions. The ritual was over. I walked to the edge and looked over. I heard things knock against the walls of the chasm. Once again, I heard no final impact.

Attention had now shifted to the statue, still suspended on the brink. There was the same committal in Greek from Empire to Church, and the same endless chanting in Egyptian. Then this too went over the edge. The Patriarch himself achieved this with a sharp little axe that he took to the retaining ropes. I heard the rush of air as the thing fell and gathered speed. I heard it knock once or twice against the wall. Yet again, there was no final crash. I ignored Martin’s whisper about the Pit of Hell. The chasm was deep, I’d allow, but I’d probably seen deeper in the mountains inland from Ephesus.

‘It is time now for My Lord to act,’ Macarius prompted.

I smiled and took from beneath my robe the sheet of parchment Siroes had brought all the way from Persia. I had skimmed it in the sunshine above. It was just as Macarius had paraphrased it. All I could add was a knowledge of scribal fashions and of how ink and parchment blended together over time. I could tell from this that the document was very old – it might have been contemporary with Eratosthenes: it might have been older still.

‘Does My Lord act in this of his own free will?’ he asked.

‘I do,’ I said. Anastasius was watching with surprise as we made up another ceremony on the spot. I tried not to giggle as I went through the responses. When these were over, I looked round for something heavy. All I could see was the topmost nine inches or so of the stone erection. Somehow, this had broken off the statue as it was dragged over to its committal and somehow had escaped the last clearing up. I now lifted it, then wrapped about it the sheet of parchment, securing all with a leather office band Macarius produced as if out of nowhere. I stood on the edge, waiting for every eye in the room to settle on me.

‘There is a story,’ I said loudly in Greek – if the Sisters didn’t understand, there were three men with me who could at least understand the words – ‘of a Syrian trade expedition to my own country. This was after my people had displaced the original Celtic inhabitants and before the arrival of the Faith. The Syrians went ashore with strings of coloured glass beads. They returned with pearls of jet black and, where these had been insufficient, with the fair-headed children of their customers.’ I paused and looked appreciatively at the two baffled male faces about me. To call Macarius baffled would be saying too much. He just looked stiffer than usual.

‘Each side, I have no doubt,’ I continued, ‘bade farewell to the other in the assurance that it had driven the harder bargain. We know who truly gained and who lost. It is a sure sign of barbarism not to understand the true value of things.’ I held up the package of stone and parchment. I waited until even the Sisters had their eyes turned to it. With a contemptuous gesture, I tossed it over the edge. Without bothering to see how it fell, I turned and walked back to where the statue had stood. I stopped here and looked again towards the chasm. I stared at Macarius and pointed at the rope bridge. ‘I’ve done all that was required of me,’ I said, now in Latin. ‘The rest you can do by yourself.’ I watched as he took hold of one of the torches set into the portable brackets, and then as he walked with it over to where the bridge stretched deceptively across the chasm. He held it up and threw it hard towards the middle of the bridge.