and I sat down carefully. I sniffed at the cup that someone pressed into my hands.
‘You may be assured,’ said Macarius, ‘it is just the free distribution wine.’ Doubtless whoever had pissed this stuff out was drunk at the time. There the resemblance to wine ended, though. I put the cup down and looked at the act that was now making a start. The girl got up and scratched herself. As the old man finished coughing his lungs into the brazier, she struck up what sounded like a bored patter she’d had by heart since she was a child.
‘She says,’ Macarius explained, his face close to Priscus, ‘that the Ancient One can see all with the eyes of his mind – all that is past or future or far away. He can also communicate with the dead, and even with the yet unborn. You have only to ask in order to learn the secrets of the world.’
‘As if, with that sort of power,’ I sniffed, ‘I’d be showing off in this shithole.’
‘Quiet, you fool!’ Priscus hissed at me. ‘You’ll spoil everything.’ He went back to looking intently at the Ancient One – who, bearing in mind how fast the lower classes grow old, might easily have been younger than he was. He swallowed another mouthful of the wine.
Someone who was sitting with his back to us had asked an involved question. In response, the Ancient One was muttering low towards the brazier while the girl relayed him in words that may have made a little more sense. Whatever the case, the questioner raised his arms in astonishment. He opened his purse and showed two silver coins. There was an appreciative hum from the rest of the audience. Someone else now asked a question. This time, money had to change hands before the stream of gibberish would start again.
Priscus touched Macarius on the shoulder.
‘I want to know,’ he said, speaking hoarsely, ‘the whereabouts of a most holy relic. It is the first chamber pot of-’
‘Oh, Priscus!’ I called softly. ‘My dear Priscus. I’ve thought you capable of most things, but never imagined you’d be taken in by this sort of shite.
‘No, listen,’ I went on, ignoring the outraged look he threw me. ‘This is all just a fraud. The first question was a plant. It was there to set the tariff for whatever nonsense dribbles out of the old fool’s mouth. Let’s have a demonstration.’
I glanced round the smoky room. Priscus now had a sulky look on his face. Macarius looked worried. No one else, however, was paying any attention. The Ancient One was still babbling away into his brazier, while the girl babbled something different at her own speed.
‘Macarius,’ I said, ‘tell them we want information about King Chosroes of Persia.’
As he put the question, several people now turned round to look at the seated strangers. I doubted if anyone here knew Latin or what it represented.
Still, I dropped my voice lower. ‘Ask what Chosroes is doing at the moment.’
The answer came back that he was at dinner. An obvious answer – though surely a false one, bearing in mind Ctesiphon was far enough to the east for the evening to be much more advanced. But I overlooked this. I’d set up the line of questioning.
‘Is the King a short man,’ I asked, ‘or a very tall man with a crippled foot?’
Came the answer: he was the latter. I smiled.
‘Is he a man with white hair or with red hair?’
Came the answer: he was the former.
‘Has he one eye or two?’
Came the answer: he had one.
‘See, Priscus,’ I said, trying hard to keep my voice low and suppress the note of triumph, ‘see what garbage a few leading questions can produce. You’ve seen the pictures of Chosroes, just as I have. Shall we ask if Heraclius has three heads or five? Or how many teeth you have left?’
Priscus threw himself out of the chair and swore viciously. Macarius stepped back out of his path.
‘I think we’ve seen enough here tonight,’ I said, keeping my voice neutral. Seeing Priscus angry and baffled wasn’t worth the unpleasantness of this evening. But it was some kind of offset. ‘You must let me take you somewhere much more interesting for a late dinner.’ I’d allow myself a good snigger once back in the darkness of the streets.
We got up to leave. If I’d got a few looks while having my questions put, we were now forgotten. No one looked at us. The girl was emphasising the Ancient One’s latest answer by hopping up and down on one leg and flapping her arms like a bird. As we reached the door, I heard a rustling and a commotion behind me.
‘Wait!’ a voice called in Greek. ‘Do not depart this place.’ It was a loud, strangely impersonal voice – for all the world as if someone were speaking at a thin sheet of metal hung up before his face. It silenced the low buzz of conversation and clatter of dice. Even the druggies left off their bobbing and moaning.
Chapter 13
‘Wait if you would find the answer to your question,’ the voice cried again, still in Greek. The flow of conversation started again, though for just a moment. It was now part angry and part scared. Then it died away. All was silent again.
‘Time to get out of here,’ I muttered to Priscus. I heard Macarius breathing hard behind me. But I turned back. I wanted to see who was speaking. Wouldn’t you have done the same?
It was that girl. She’d left off her demonstration of whatever and had followed us halfway across the room. Now, she stood just before one of the gaming tables. A look of utter blankness on her face, it was as if the cunning imposter I’d seen by the brazier had suffered some kind of seizure while remaining on her feet. She was turned in my direction, though her eyes showed only the whites. She raised her arm in a stiff motion and pointed at me. I stepped over another of the fallen druggies to stand before her.
‘If you would find your heart’s desire,’ she said, ‘and all and more needed to save your world, seek it by the place on the map between the dead palms and the monument to human folly. Seek and you shall find.
‘Beware, however, those who hate you, but trust in your friends and in those who cannot choose but to be your friends.’
She repeated the words ‘ but trust in your friends and in those who cannot choose but to be your friends ’. Her voice had reached every corner of that large room. She’d spoken a correct Greek – more correct than usually heard even from the Greeks of Alexandria. But it had been absolutely without emphasis. Imagine someone slowly and accurately reading out a text in a language he didn’t understand, and you have some idea of the effect that girl had produced.
I looked at her. Everyone else in the room looked. All stood or sat or lay in frigid silence. Priscus shoved past me. He took hold of the girl and shook her.
‘What the fuck is all this about?’ he said softly yet intensely in Greek. ‘What’s this about maps and palm trees?’
Before I could get him from the room, someone darted behind me and pulled at my hood. As it came off and showed my golden hair, there was a shout of horror in the room. Someone else was yelling the Egyptian word for ‘Greeks’. It seemed Macarius had been right about the effect Greek had on the natives.
Priscus was now shouting at the girl. But she’d passed out. She flopped loose in his arms. With a spluttered obscenity, he dropped her and wiped his hands in his cloak. The Ancient One had been up a while from his brazier and was shambling about. As he called something out, someone gave him a push from behind that got him sprawling over the girl. He ran shaking hands over her face and began to cry.
I thought Priscus would set about them both with a kicking. Instead, he twisted suddenly round to floor someone who’d dared lay hands on him. He threw his cloak back to get at his sword.
‘My Lords, we must leave,’ Macarius cried from the corridor. He looked ghastly in the dim light. I’d seen men look more composed at their own executions.
‘I’ll get Priscus,’ I answered. I moved forward again. The room had dissolved into a chaos of shouting and movement. Everyone who could stand was on his feet, and holding a weapon or looking round for something to use as one.
A man swung at me with a broken chair leg. Straight away, I had my own sword out and gave him a shallow
