trusting to luck that passes for courage. Now, for the first time, I realised what it was to be a coward. I was jumping at shadows. I knew there was no one and nothing out there that intended me the slightest harm. And I was shitting myself with fear at the sight of Letopolis in the moonlight.
I took another drink and breathed deeply. I really was awake, I told myself. I’ll grant there are dreams that seem real enough – I’d just had two of them. But they can always be known afterwards as dreams. What distinguishes them from reality is a lack of full self-awareness, or some observed deviation from the laws of nature, or, failing that, a set of events that cannot be related in space or time to the rest of my experiences. But here I now was – in a place where I expected to be, at a time that followed on from that dinner with the Mayor. Whatever I thought I could see outside could be dismissed as tricks of the moonlight on a heated mind. I was awake, and I was safe.
But I was still cold, and still dripping with sweat. And I could feel another fit of the shakes coming on. There was a faint doubt in my mind.
‘How much of that filth have you been taking?’ Martin asked sharply. He sat up and stared into my eyes. I wasn’t sure what he could see in the dim light, but he already knew what he was looking for.
‘It was dried resin,’ I muttered. ‘You can’t always judge the dose when it’s not an apothecary’s pills.’
‘You’re as bad as Priscus in your own way,’ he said flatly. He poured me a cup of sour fruit squash and watched as I drank it. He was still angry at the shock of being woken. But he was growing calmer, and I could hear a slight satisfaction in his voice as he went on.
‘You first told me when we were living in Rome about the Richborough dream,’ he said. ‘You’ve been having it since you were still a boy in Richborough. I think you had it most recently in Alexandria, just before the floods began. Did the monster take hold of you this time? Or did you sit in that bright room, talking with the woman?’
I shook my head. You can dream about having had dreams, and you can dream about having had dreams about having had dreams. I needed Martin’s assurance that I wasn’t suffering some disorder of the mind. It was just the opium working with the after-effects of a difficult few days. I remained sitting on the bed. I was feeling better with every breath. I was even beginning to see the absurdity of running to Martin – of all people – with an attack of the vapours. But I didn’t feel inclined to go back to my own room.
Martin sighed. He got back into bed and held the curtains open for me. I got in beside him. I could smell the stale sweat of his body. It was oddly reassuring. Suddenly very tired, I cuddled up close beside him.
‘You saw me coming out of church this afternoon,’ he said. ‘God spoke to me again. He explained how He acts in the world partly through direct miracles, and partly through what you call secondary causes. I know perfectly well that you don’t believe in these either, and that you only mention them to avoid upsetting me with your belief in a world governed by purely natural causes. But there are secondary causes. There are times when God works through events and even persons for His Will to prevail without the intercession of the obviously miraculous.’
Martin was still softly lecturing me on the Workings of Providence as I drifted off into a now dreamless sleep.
Chapter 25
‘Perhaps your husband grows concerned at your long absence?’ I said. I sat behind the desk in the front cabin of the – now genuine – Postal Service boat. The stack of papyrus on which I’d been writing letters all morning had a most satisfying look.
‘My poor young Alaric,’ came the laughed reply, ‘I trust your official enquiries are less transparent than this.’ The Mistress kicked off her sandals and stretched back on the couch.
I tried not to move my eyes as I looked to see if her feet were showing. I took in a mouthful of rich Syrian wine and struggled to take my thoughts off the taut yet voluptuous shape that, however faintly, was outlined by the thin silk of her robe.
‘I wasn’t aware,’ I said, with a sudden shift of my attack, ‘that there was ever a Greek colony so far in the south.’
‘Nor I,’ said the Mistress. She popped a date into her mouth. Her veil moved slightly as she chewed. I stared at the jewelled and impossibly elegant fingers.
‘Then it would much interest me,’ I said, now feebly, ‘to know where you managed to learn such good Greek. The schools of Alexandria, and of the cities of Egypt, do not, I believe, take women as students.’
‘Was it ever thus?’ she asked. She reached out towards the dish of sliced melon. ‘Must the ladies of Alexandria remain unlearned and even unlettered?’
‘A long time ago,’ I said, ‘about two hundred years back, there was a woman professor of mathematics there. She wrote interestingly about the relative weight and density of liquids. But she was murdered in a riot. Women since then have been barred from all places of learning in Alexandria.’
‘How perfectly barbarous!’ said the Mistress, managing to sound almost scandalised. ‘It was the view of Epicurus that both sexes could benefit equally from instruction. Do you not think our modern world so very corrupt?’
I’d almost jumped at the mention of Epicurus, and wanted to ask how she could even know the name. But there was a knock at the door. Martin came in, carrying a big papyrus roll. He bowed low before the Mistress and looked at her for further instructions.
‘Do continue about your business, Martin,’ she said. ‘I was only just thinking how fortunate you must feel to have Alaric as an employer. His resourcefulness, yet gentility of manner, are surely the talk of your – what is the place called? – your Constantinople.’
Martin blushed. I looked down and scowled at my letters. I’d expected him at least to keep a little distance. He’d snivelled very promisingly halfway to Letopolis about sorcery. Then he’d decided she too was an agent of the Divine Providence. Now he’d doubtless have painted her toenails if asked.
‘I think we’ll soon be approaching Canopus,’ I said with an attempt at blandness. ‘If I’m not mistaken, the waters will now be high enough for us to take the canal into Alexandria.’
I leaned on the rail and looked morosely over the vast, shining expanse that the Delta had become. I hadn’t been mistaken about the waters. They might not have risen that much more since the journey up river. But they had undeniably widened. Except for the endless series of those mounds, where the wretched natives huddled, we really might have been at sea. If I looked ahead hard enough, there was a blur on the horizon that I knew was the spit of land separating Nile from sea. Canopus was built where the two merged. We’d be there before the afternoon. From there, it would be the dozen or so miles to Alexandria.
There had been another storm out in the desert. So far down river, it had shown in little more than a brisker wind from the north and a haze high overhead that had dulled the glare of the sun. It was now clearing, and the sky was taking on the happy blue that it always had in the realms washed by the Mediterranean. I asked again what could have persuaded my own people to invade the chilly dump we’d made into England, rather than follow the Vandals and the Goths into that warm light.
I gripped hard on the rail as there was another great shudder. The boat stuck again. I’d gone up river from Bolbitine because its branch of the Nile was wider and better for speed. The Canopus branch we were taking back down would have been slower at the best of times. But with the river banks now under water, it was hard to keep in channel. Men ran to the left-hand side of the boat and pushed out with long poles to get us off the mud.
‘No, My Lord, we’re headed for Canopus,’ the Captain had said, replying to my suggestion that the Bolbitine branch would be faster. ‘The posts always go to Canopus. They have always gone to Canopus. Not the Viceroy himself can change the order of the posts.’
I’d been in no position to pull rank. Having no documents with me, the Captain had at first refused to take us on board at Letopolis. It was only when the Mistress intervened that he’d caved in. Now, she was queening it in the best cabin, with the whole crew to do her bidding. She’d even had the boat stop to take in more fruit and fresh bread for her. Doubtless, she could have had us diverted down the Bolbitine branch. But that would have meant putting myself still more in her debt.
Did the extra day matter? Probably not. Even going at full tilt down to Bolbitine, I had little enough chance of outrunning the news. I’d now be well behind it. I was sick of the Nile, and my heart rose at every thought of seeing the Mediterranean again. At the same time, I dreaded the return to Alexandria. As in everything else, Greek is a
