nap. But it all depends on your further conversations with Nicetas.’
Priscus smiled.
There was no point trying to extract any promises from him. If he’d broken oaths made in church, why should I dream of trusting his word? But the implied threat might be enough.
‘So, here at least, we do understand each other,’ he said, getting up from his chair. ‘Now, my golden young stunner, shall we walk out of here arm-in-arm – a most edifying spectacle of unity in the Imperial Council? And will you do me the kindness of showing me where you get your perfumes mixed?’
Chapter 17
Even by his own high standards, Patriarch John had preached a fine sermon. It was all about the parable of the talents, and in the Greek of Constantinople. He’d turned it very cleverly to an injunction to give to his relief fund for the distressed churches of Cappadocia. Beyond making sure everyone saw what I dropped into the collecting box when it came past, I’d paid no attention to his use of the parable. I was instead reflecting on how much sense can be found in Scripture – if only you have the patience to look for it.
Martin was going over the fine points again to me and Sveta as we sat in their quarters for an early lunch. The two children played happily at our feet, Maximin looking up every so often to make sure I was still with him.
‘I had that Chief of Police go through the Egyptian quarter last night, and again this morning,’ I explained when Sveta and the children had finally left us alone. ‘He seems to have vanished.’
‘No great loss, if you ask me,’ Martin sniffed. ‘I told you he was dodgy. Didn’t you say he knew the doorman in that place? Well, he was probably in it with the sorcerer and his girl.’
‘That doesn’t explain why Macarius should have chosen simply to disappear,’ I said, ignoring the challenge. ‘No body fitting his description has turned up in any of the usual places – not that I believe he’s the sort of man who could easily be murdered. It’s all most puzzling, and more than a little inconvenient.’
I looked again at the pile of document boxes on the table. Martin had done his usual efficient job in securing every scrap of written material from the house of Leontius. He’d also taken full notes during my second interrogation of the slaves.
‘So what do you think all that stuff means?’ Martin asked, waving at the largest box.
‘We might be able to know if Macarius was at hand,’ I said, lifting out a stack of papyrus. There was sheet after sheet, all covered very neatly in the pseudo-Greek alphabet used nowadays by the Egyptians for writing their own language. I sorted through it and pushed one of the sheets across the table to Martin. ‘This one is in Greek,’ I said, ‘and it may be a translation of something else in the box.’
‘Then shall the breath of Sekhmet roll over the red land and the black; and the men of neither land shall be smitten – yea, the very flesh shall be divided from their bones,’ Martin read. I raised a hand to stop him. There was no point reading more. It was probably all in the same wild and rhapsodic style.
‘Some poem, no doubt, from before the natives took up the Faith,’ I said. ‘If that’s a fair sample of what they write, I’m rather glad not to have learned any Egyptian. You saw from all those ugly antiques in his house that Leontius had an interest in the ancient history of the country. It wouldn’t surprise me if he knew the language.’ I smiled. ‘It wouldn’t much surprise me if it turned out that was what he spoke in private.’ I put the sheets back into their box and replaced the lid. I reached across the table and pulled open one of the boxes where everything was in Greek.
‘Now, we have a problem,’ I explained, returning to our hushed discussion of its contents as we’d wandered back from church. ‘His accounts show that Leontius had liabilities about three times larger than his assets. And some of those liabilities were falling due in the next month or so.’
‘I still don’t follow how so much of what he owed was to you,’ Martin said.
I sighed. I had tried to tell him about the forward contracts. Evidently, I’d failed once again to hack any path through the thicket of his financial ignorance.
‘It seems that his rebuilding expenses in Letopolis were financed by loans from the wealthier landowners,’ I said. ‘Most of his creditors were willing to hold off foreclosing so long as he fronted resistance to the new law. Some of them, however, wanted at least part payment – and even part payment was more than he could manage.’
I took up a letter from a Saracen banking house on the other side of the Red Sea. I waited as Martin read it again, hoping he’d understand the promise of a big payment from some person or persons unknown – but only in October, and on condition he disclosed nothing of the payment in advance. What he was supposed to deliver in return was unstated, but it seemed to have been somewhat more than just keeping me at bay: it may have been goods as much as services. Indeed, there was a certain eagerness that came through the standardised commercial phrasing. I wondered if this might have been the matter that would have concerned me had the man lived.
‘To tide him over,’ I said, dropping the letter back on the table, ‘he entered the financial markets; not a wise move for someone as thick as he appears to have been. My own positions were taken through those Jewish bankers. This should normally have kept me in the clear. You can always trust Jews to keep quiet about who their clients are. But the bankers used by Leontius told him who my people were. That, plus the contract I got Nicetas to award them to handle the customs arrears in Ptolemais, provides at least the ghost of a trail for anyone of intelligence to follow back to me. Leontius wasn’t clever enough to follow the clues. His executors may not be so stupid.’
‘I warned you not to get involved in speculations on the price of bread,’ Martin said, finding something at last he could understand and condemn. ‘When the people learn you’ve been behind the price rises, there will be endless trouble.’
And that – in spite of what I’d told Nicetas and everyone else – is what had me still investigating Leontius. Who had murdered him and why were matters of no importance. What he’d been up to that involved getting me out of Alexandria would normally have been of some importance. What really concerned me, however, was the avoidance of scandal.
‘Martin,’ I said very patiently, ‘I have explained many times that my speculations have been on lower prices come the harvest. I’ve been selling corn in advance at lower prices than others expect, but at much higher prices than I know will be the case. Generally, speculating on future prices has the same effect on those prices as bets on a charioteer have on the speed of his horses. If not, the only effect such speculations can have on present prices is to lower them from what they would otherwise be. If prices are rising at the moment, it’s because the corn is actually running short.’
‘So, if you want the prices to be lower,’ Martin asked, clutching at random words, ‘why did you oppose the price controls?’
I sighed again, and put my thoughts into order. I needed to settle this with Martin. If I could persuade him, I might have an excuse ready for everyone else if the worst came to pass.
‘Martin,’ I said, ‘there will be a good harvest. I’ve already explained how I know this. Therefore, speculating on the fact will tend eventually to release stocks of corn on to the market that would otherwise be stored longer than was needed. Fixing the price by law, on the other hand, will either encourage the people to be less thrifty than they should be, or give merchants reason to withhold stocks from the official market. It will turn shortage into famine.’
Oh dear, I’d lost Martin for sure. He wasn’t stupid, and he always tried to think the best of me. If I couldn’t make myself plain to him, what chance might I have against those landowners in persuading any of the Alexandrian mobs?
Martin opened another of the boxes and took out a document written on parchment. He looked at it and frowned.
‘This is in Persian,’ he said.
I looked. He was right. There was no mistaking those neat squiggles. It had been covered all over the other side in Egyptian writing that may have been a translation. A shame it hadn’t been translated into Greek.
‘I think you should hand all this over to the Intelligence Bureau,’ he said.
I shook my head. Bearing in mind what we knew of these documents, I didn’t fancy having so much as a sniff
