into a doorway, out of sight, and marveled at the size of the mob as it passed by. Half the residents of Rhakotis were after the Roman in blue!
Once the main body of the mob had passed, I stepped back into the street. Following behind were a number of stragglers. Among them I recognized a man who sold pastries from a shop on the Street of the Breadmakers. He was breathing hard but walked at a deliberate pace. In his hand he clutched a wooden rod for rolling dough. I knew him as a fat, cheerful baker whose chief joy was filling other people's stomachs, but on this morning he wore the grim countenance of a determined avenger.
'Menapis, what is happening?' I said, falling into step beside him.
He gave me such a withering look that I thought he did not recognize me, but when he spoke it was all too clear that he did. 'You Romans come here with your pompous ways and your ill-gotten wealth, and we do our best to put up with you. You foist yourselves upon us, and we endure it. But when you turn to desecration, you go too far! There are some things even a Roman can't get away with!'
'Menapis, tell me what's happened.'
'He killed a cat! The fool killed a cat just a stone's throw from my shop.'
'Did you see it happen?'
'A little girl saw him do it. She screamed in terror, naturally enough, and a crowd came running. They thought the little girl was in danger, but it turned out to be something even worse. The Roman fool had killed a cat! We'd have stoned him to death right on the spot, but he managed to slip away and start running. The longer the chase went on, the more people came out to join it. He'll never escape us now. Look up ahead-the Roman rat must be trapped!'
The chase seemed to have ended, for the mob had come to a stop in a wide square. If they had overtaken him, the man in blue must already have been trampled to a pulp, I thought, with a feeling of nausea. But as I drew nearer, the crowd began to chant: 'Come out! Come out! Killer of the cat!' Beside me, Menapis took up the chant with the others, slapping his rolling pin against his palm and stamping his feet.
It seemed that the fugitive had taken refuge in a prosperous-looking house. From the faces that stared in horror from the upper-story windows before they were thrown shut, the place appeared to be full of Romans-the man's private dwelling, it seemed. That he was a man of no small means I had already presumed from the quality of his blue tunic, but the size of his house confirmed it. A rich merchant, I thought-but neither silver nor a silvery tongue was likely to save him from the wrath of the mob. They continued to chant and began to beat upon the door with clubs.
Menapis shouted, 'Clubs will never break such a door! We'll have to make a battering ram.' I looked at the normally genial baker beside me and a shiver ran up my spine. All this- for a cat!
I withdrew to a quieter corner of the square, where a few of the local residents had ventured out of their houses to watch the commotion. An elderly Egyptian woman, impeccably dressed in a white linen gown, gazed at the mob disparagingly. 'What a rabble!' she remarked to no one in particular. 'What are they thinking of, attacking the house of a man like Marcus Lepidus?'
'Your neighbor?' I said.
'For many years, as was his father before him. An honest Roman trader, and a greater credit to Alexandria than any of this rabble will ever be. Are you a Roman, too, young man?'
'Yes.'
'I thought so, from your accent. Well, I have no quarrel with Romans. Dealing with men like Marcus Lepidus and his father made my late husband a wealthy man. Whatever has Marcus done to bring such a mob to his door?'
'They accuse him of killing a cat.'
She gasped. A look of horror contorted her wrinkled face. 'That would be unforgivable!'
'He claims to be innocent. Tell me, who else lives in that house?'
'Marcus Lepidus lives with his two cousins. They help him run his business.'
'And their wives?'
'The cousins are married, but their wives and children remain in Rome. Marcus is a widower. He has no children. Look there! What madness is this?'
Moving through the mob like a crocodile through lily pads was a great uprooted palm tree. At the head of those who carried it I saw the man with the Babylonian beard. As they aligned the tree perpendicular to the door of Marcus Lepidus's house, it purpose became unmistakable: it was a battering ram.
'I didn't kill the cat!' Marcus Lepidus had said. And 'Help me! Save me!' And-no less significantly, to my ears-'I'll reward you!' It seemed to me, as a fellow Roman who had been called on for help, that my course was clear: if the man in blue was innocent of the crime, it was my duty to help him. If duty alone was insufficient, my growling stomach and empty purse tipped the scales conclusively.
I would need to act swiftly. I headed back the way I had come.
The way to the Street of the Breadmakers, usually thronged with people, was almost deserted; the shoppers and hawkers had all run off to kill the Roman, it seemed. The shop of Menapis was empty; peering within I saw that piles of dough lay unshapen on the table and the fire in his oven had gone out. The cat had been killed, he said, only a stone's throw from his shop, and it was at about that distance, around the corner on a little side street, that I came upon a group of shaven-headed priests who stood in a circle with bowed heads.
Peering between the orange robes of the priests I saw the corpse of the cat sprawled on the paving stones. It had been a beautiful creature, with sleek limbs and a coat of midnight black. That it had been deliberately killed could not be doubted, for its throat had been cut.
The priests knelt down and lifted the dead cat onto a small funeral bier, which they hoisted onto their shoulders. Chanting and lamenting, they began a slow procession toward the Temple of Bast.
I looked around, not quite sure how to proceed. A movement at a window above caught my eye, but when I looked up there was nothing to see. I kept looking until a tiny face appeared, then quickly disappeared again.
'Little girl,' I called softly. 'Little girl!'
After a moment she reappeared. Her black hair was pulled back from her face, which was perfectly round. Her eyes were shaped like almonds and her lips formed a pout. 'You talk funny,' she said.
'Do I?'
'Like that other man.'
'What other man?'
She appeared to ponder this for a moment, but did not answer. 'Would you like to hear me scream?' she said. Not waiting for a reply, she did so.
The high-pitched wail stabbed at my ears and echoed weirdly in the empty street. I gritted my teeth until she stopped. 'That,' I said, 'is quite a scream. Tell me, are you the little girl who screamed earlier today?'
'Maybe.'
'When the cat was killed, I mean.'
She wrinkled her brow thoughtfully. 'Not exactly.'
'Are you not the little girl who screamed when the cat was killed?'
She considered this. 'Did the man with the funny beard send you?' she finally said.
I thought for a moment and recalled the man with the Babylonian beard, whose shout had saved me from the mob in the street-'The man in blue is the one we want!' — and whom I had seen at the head of the battering ram. 'A Babylonian beard, you mean, curled with an iron?'
'Yes,' she said, 'all curly, like sun rays shooting out from his chin.'
'He saved my life,' I said. It was the truth.
'Oh, then I suppose it's all right to talk to you,' she said. 'Do you have a present for me, too?'
'A present?'
'Like the one he gave me.' She held up a doll made of papyrus reeds and bits of rag.
'Very pretty,' I said, beginning to understand. 'Did he give you the doll for screaming?'
She laughed. 'Isn't it silly? Would you like to hear me scream again?'
I shuddered. 'Later, perhaps. You didn't really see who killed the cat, did you?'
'Silly! Nobody killed the cat, not really. The cat was just play-acting, like I was. Ask the man with the funny beard.' She shook her head at my credulity.
'Of course,' I said. 'I knew that; I just forgot. So you think I talk funny?'
