useful mid-morning snack with the dear man.
‘He’s a low sort, of course, even by provincial standards. I’d not think him at all fit to move in the exalted society that we inhabit back at home – but he’s not without a rough charm. He gave me Margarita as a pledge of our new and happy friendship.’ He poked a finger into the cage. The cat sniffed gingerly, before shrinking back again. Priscus laughed.
‘You will not believe how greatly he esteems your efforts for our Sovereign Lord the Augustus,’ he went on. ‘I heard all about your performance yesterday. Everyone is discussing your divine eloquence for the scheme you and Sergius conceived of taking away their land.’
That wasn’t at all funny. Perhaps I should have killed him in the nursery.
‘I think I should ask you,’ I said, ‘roughly how long you plan to remain in Alexandria. I’m sure the Persian menace will not idly await your return to the theatre of war.’
‘But how little you know of war, my young and golden darling,’ came the reply. ‘With pestilence in all their camps, and barely an ounce of food left for them in any likely direction of advance, their campaigning season is over. Unless they can attack from Egypt – and that’s not very likely, is it? – Syria is perfectly safe. The Persians, I assure you, can’t stir from their Cappadocian positions again until March. That gives me plenty of time to take in the sights here and conclude all the business we discussed yesterday.’
‘Then I’ll wish you joy of this place,’ I said, trying to keep my voice as smooth as his. ‘But Martin and I have an appointment I am not inclined to break.’
‘We’ll meet again at dusk,’ he called after me.
‘What?’ I said, turning back.
‘He being indisposed again, Nicetas says he must leave it in your hands to keep me entertained in a fit manner.’
‘And Leontius?’ I asked. ‘Is he also indisposed?’
‘It seems to be the case,’ came the answer.
Was that a slight frown? I could hope.
‘His travelling chair came for him just as we finished our shopping. He’ll be on his way now on some business trip. That leaves no one but you to keep me company this evening.
‘Now, my dearest love, I’m told the Egyptian quarter can be most charmingly exotic.’
Chapter 9
So far as transacting the business in hand was concerned, the meeting went well enough. I’ll not go into the details of what we did in my office. But there were seventeen ways of dividing up the taxable land of the Lower Thebaid, so that the tenants got viable plots and the current owners kept enough to maintain some position. I’d commissioned maps and reports showing each one of these. Every one had its merits. It was a question of whether, and if so how hard, we wanted to hit the dissenting landowners. Then, of course, there was the complicating factor of lands willed in perpetuity to the Church.
Back in Constantinople, with officials from half a dozen ministries sitting in and everything on the record, it would have taken days. Here, it was just the two of us at my desk with a couple of clerks, and we were able to get through the complexities with nothing carried over.
‘Do come back a moment, if you please,’ I said to Martin as he was about to follow the clerks from the room. I’d been considering this since bumping into Priscus. Now, there was something important I needed to ask him.
He looked significantly at the quilted leather on the door. He sat down again, just a foot or so from me.
‘Aelric,’ he said, speaking low in Celtic before I could make a start, ‘I don’t know exactly how to say this. But there are things that I believe you ought to know.
‘I spent this last night going over those subsidy payments again. The Undersecretary in the Disbursements Office didn’t want to tell me more than I asked. But he left me with enough documentation for me to work some things out for myself.’
‘So, what was it?’ I asked. ‘Fraud or incompetence or superstition?’ I resisted the urge to smile. Even straight up the arse, the amount of opium he’d taken was derisory. Now, he was gabbling away like a confirmed eater waking from his dream.
‘All of them, and more,’ he said. He pushed a sheet of his own jottings across the desk.
I glanced at it. I then read it properly. I looked up.
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘The subsidy has been located and cancelled five times in the past seventy years. Each time, it’s been carried into another budget and continued unbroken. It seems we have a heathen conspiracy going on here in the Disbursements Office. It wouldn’t be the first time, of course, this has come to light. Look at that stupid bugger of a Prefect – the one Heraclius burned to death last year for sacrificing to Apollo. If that still goes on in Constantinople, there’s no saying what happens in the provinces.’
Martin leaned forward and dropped his voice still lower. I could smell the garlic sausage on his breath. A locked room, Celtic, whispering: these were natural precautions back in Constantinople; not here, though.
‘Aelric, we’re talking seventy-five pounds of gold here,’ he said, ‘seventy-five pounds of gold every year since the time of the Great Justinian. You don’t need that to keep up a clandestine temple in the back of beyond. With one year of that, Priscus could have another army.
‘And this subsidy isn’t the end of it. Regular fractions of spending have been creamed off whole budget items. This isn’t the usual petty corruption you expect to see anywhere. It’s too consistent, over too long a time.’
I stopped him. ‘This is all very interesting,’ I said. ‘But it’s outside the terms of our commission. We were sent here to get the new land law into force, not reform the finances. We got the subsidy stopped because Leontius had set it in our path. Frauds in themselves on the Disbursements Office don’t concern us.’
I looked again at the notes. There had been some very sticky fingers at work. I looked away and bit my lip. I looked for guidance at the silken hangings on the wall and the electrum water pitcher I’d bought in the antiquities market. I looked back at Martin’s heavy face.
‘I suggest you drop the matter,’ I said firmly. ‘It isn’t our problem.’
‘Aelric,’ Martin said, putting his face back into order, ‘there’s something I don’t like about this. I can’t give you evidence yet. But I know when things aren’t right. We need to be careful.’
‘Agreed,’ I said smoothly. ‘Egypt is a world in itself. Even Alexandria isn’t completely part of the Empire. Augustus took the whole place over as a going concern, and no effort since then at incorporation has been a success. You only need look at the title and functions of the Viceroy to know this.
‘Now, I do appreciate your concerns. But you’ve said yourself you have no evidence beyond this fraud. Your enquiries never took place, and will never be acted upon more than they have been already. After all, it isn’t money that would otherwise find its way to Constantinople. If not for the Old Gods of Egypt, it would only be stolen for some other use.’
Martin stood by the door again. I got up and went over to him. I put my hands on his shoulders and looked into his face.
‘Martin,’ I said, ‘I want you to forget all this. It doesn’t concern us except so far as Leontius made it our concern. From tomorrow, he’ll be closing up that shabby little place he lives in all alone while in Alexandria, and I doubt if our paths will cross again.’
Martin tried to protest, but I led him over to the window. On the fifth floor of the Palace, my office looked out over the Palace Square to the Church of Saint Mark. Down in the square, the Nile Festival was continuing with black belly dancers and a demonstration of fire eating. We stood awhile, listening to the rhythmical thud of the drummers. I waited for the continued breeze off the sea to bring him back to a semblance of rationality.
‘I’ve a favour to ask of you and Sveta,’ I said with an abrupt change of subject that brought the conversation back to where I’d wanted to start it. ‘Maximin has been wandering again at night. Those useless bitches in the nursery won’t do the job I’ve set them, and I don’t see any value in having them whipped a second time. Can I ask the pair of you to take him into your own quarters while Priscus is about?’
All of a sudden, the cloud lifted from Martin’s face. He’d be delighted, he told me. The boy always got on so well with their daughter, and, this time, she could surely be trusted not to pull his hair or stick pins in him.
