language rich in scornful epithets. Dickhead, Fuckwit, Shit-for-Brains, Wanker… You could fill half a papyrus roll with writing them all out. And I could imagine every one of them whispered about me behind my back.
From the moment Lucas had let his captain act start wearing thin, I’d been kicking myself. But I’d always had other matters to claim my active attention. There was trying to get away from Lucas and the Brotherhood. There was our shamble through the desert. There was sucking up to the Mistress all the way to Letopolis, where I then had the business I’ve described. Now, on the journey back, there’d been little else to do but dwell on how the ludicrous disaster – which needed no exaggeration – would appear in Alexandria. The public baths weren’t a place men of my station frequented. But I’d heard enough on the streets of the ruthless mockery that began there and was sharpened there.
I’d gone out from Alexandria to deal with two highly contingent threats to my reputation. I was going back with my reputation in shreds. If the full story of my dealings had been put in the Gazette – if this had been followed by the whole packet of dirt on me Leontius had commissioned – the effect couldn’t be worse than a plain telling of what I’d let happen to me during the past twelve days.
‘I’ve just realised, looking at the date of your letters, why you’re so eager to get back.’
I gave Martin a blank look. I’d supposed he was somewhere below, juicing dates for the Mistress or whatever.
He put his bag down and joined me in looking over the Nile. ‘Tomorrow is Saturday,’ he prompted. ‘Saturday, 26th August,’ he added.
I pulled my thoughts off the approaching horrors of Alexandria and tried to think what on earth the man could be getting at.
‘Maximin’s second birthday?’ he said at length, a shade of disappointment in his voice.
Of course it was! I relaxed my grip on the rail and thought of the boy. How could it be just two years since Martin had brought him back to the Legation? Taking in all that had happened since, it seemed more like ten or even twenty years. But count back just two years, and we were in Constantinople, on our ‘mission’, from the Roman Church to gather readings and arguments for a refutation of heresy. That was before I met Phocas and was taken up by him, and before I made the leap – last of all in the City, if most glorious – from him to Heraclius. Yes, forget the vast drama in which I was the one visible and completely unwitting player: just two years ago, and I was an obscure visitor from the West.
What could have prompted Martin to take the little thing up from outside the church he never had been able to discuss rationally. Then again, I’d been shocked by my own behaviour. I’d barely drawn breath to insist the child be taken back and dumped where found than I was announcing his adoption. He’d been so small and defenceless – and so very beautiful.
So I’d adopted the boy and named him after the poor, dear Maximin – correction: Saint Maximin – who’d saved my life in Kent. His first birthday had been a joyous and even triumphant occasion. The Emperor himself had attended the festivities and presented him with a golden box for his toys. Not even having to put up with Priscus skulking round my palace and muttering hints about being regarded as an ‘uncle’, had spoiled the occasion. There was no doubt he’d be pleased to see me again in Alexandria. He was one person who’d run to me squealing with pleasure. He was the one patch of brightness to lighten my return. And I’d clean forgotten about his birthday. It was fortunate I hadn’t had time yet to drink very much. It wouldn’t do to shed tears in front of Martin. I gripped the rail again and looked at a point far out over the swirling waters.
‘The way this journey’s going,’ I said, ‘we’ll be stuck in mud until his third birthday.’
There was a shrill cry through the wall of the cabin behind us. I looked up. It came again – a long, bubbling cry, now followed by silence. It was quite loud, especially in the general silence of the river. Some birds who’d been bobbing around on the waters now took off with an answering splash and were climbing fast into the sky.
‘What in God’s name was that?’ I asked. I turned and looked at the smooth planking of the cabin wall.
‘The Mistress!’ said Martin.
Certainly, it was her cabin. Women can make the most peculiar noises, I’ll grant. Give one an ivory comb, and she’ll probably give every impression of going into labour. But this sounded more than a little distressed. We hurried along the deck and turned left to get to the entrance. The door was guarded by one of her huge blacks. Unarmed and almost naked, he practically hid the closed door with his bulk.
‘Your Mistress,’ I said, ‘I need to see if all is well with her.’
If the man knew any Greek, he did a good job of not letting me know. He put up an arm to hold me back and opened his mouth in a snarl that showed all his teeth – very white and filed to points, they were. He flexed his hips. It was then I noticed the erection bulging through the skimpy white of his loincloth. I tried not to look at the spreading dark stain. I’ve never been much into that sort of heavy muscle; and the teeth and that web of tattoos on his shaven scalp were hardly a come-on. Then again, those gold nipple rings were well over this side of the exciting. But I remembered myself.
‘Stay here,’ I said to Martin. ‘See if the door opens.’ I ran quietly back along the deck to the stairway that led to the small upper deck where the Captain did his notional directing of the boat. As I’d expected, he was nowhere to be seen up there: he was probably down in the hold, praying again before his icon of the Virgin for deeper waters. Again as expected, the little window that threw light into the Mistress’s cabin was shuttered. But there was a little hole in the wood I’d noticed the day before, and I’d been idly wondering if there was any chance of an unobserved look through it. Now, the chance was come, and so was the need. I got down on my knees and put my right eye to the hole.
At first, I saw nothing. What I heard, though, was a soft piping, as of some exotic flute. It was too low to be heard through the plank walls of the boat. But it was a low, throbbing sound. There was nothing about it I could recognise as tuneful. But its complex moaning was joined by the soft tapping of a drum. I strained harder to see anything at all through that little hole.
When I’d adjusted to the gloom, I had to pull back and rub my eye to make sure I was seeing straight. It was the Mistress. There could be no doubt of that. Still veiled, and still in her full robe, she stood in the centre of the cabin. She stood with each foot on the back of one of her maidservants. Naked, they lay face down on the floor. All were on the floor but one. Also naked, she was hung by her bound wrists from one of the overhead beams. With a terrified whimper, she twitched her feet, and the motion caused her whole body to swing gently round.
Red on black doesn’t show well at the best of times, and the light was very poor. But the dark stains splashed all over the Mistress told me the truth about the gleam on the maidservant’s body. It was as she stepped forward on to the third naked back that I saw the Mistress had a knife in her hand. It glinted dull in the lamplight, and more blood dripped from it on to the spoiled whiteness of her robe.
There was a shuffling on the cabin floor as one of the prone women shifted position and held something up. The Mistress bent and took the cup. As she did so, the fluting ceased, though the drum continued its gentle tapping. I pressed my face closer to the hole and looked round for the musicians. They must have been directly below me, as I couldn’t see either of them. The drumming continued a while longer without accompaniment. Then it too fell silent.
As if for half an age, the Mistress stood absolutely still in the silent gloom of her cabin. I think I saw a regular fluttering of her veil, as if she were quietly praying. The black bodies trembled and twitched all round her on the floor. Then she stretched full upright and raised the cup in both hands. She set it under the veil to her lips and drank. She tipped her head back as she drank and then drank again. As she did so, the drum and then the flute began again. Now, it was something still more complex and utterly alien. It was a while before the beat was firmly established. There was the dull sound of metal on wood as the Mistress relaxed and tossed the cup away. Now, she turned and – standing ever on the backs of those maidservants – began a slow wheeling dance. The steps were elaborate and sedate. The wet robe clung to her legs. The chief movement was in her arms and upper body. At every variation in the fluting and her step, there was a renewed moaning from the women on the floor, and another whimper from the bound woman.
The Mistress was certainly talking now. She spoke low and not in Greek. It was some language I’d never heard before. It sounded neither Egyptian, nor like the language of her maidservants. The words might have been a poem, or they might have been some ritual chant. Not understanding what she said, I couldn’t tell. But the chilling, sinister tone was enough. The elegant coquette who’d lain in my own cabin, talking up the virtues of a diet of bread and fresh fruit, was a world removed from this bizarre and horrifying creature. The whole thing reminded me of something I’d read in one of the sicker Alexandrian poets.
Because they’d been so still, I hadn’t noticed the male slaves before. Except the one on duty outside the
