room, they stood, also naked, against the one wall that had no fixtures. Gold rings trembled on the tip of each gigantic and unattended erection.
Forget the old Alexandrians. Forget even the wilder stuff I’d seen or read about the Old Faith. This was out of all experience. And, since I’d now accounted for the mistress and all her attendants, who could the musicians be?
‘What can you see?’ Martin hissed close behind me.
I jerked suddenly up and struck my head on the top of the window frame.
‘Nothing,’ I croaked. I tried to ignore the white flashes at the back of my eyes. I got up and wiped shaking hands on the back of my robe. ‘It’s just – it’s just their religious observances. I – I feel ashamed to have intruded on them. I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to repeat the intrusion.’
I led him back to the stairway down to the main deck. The Mistress was a foreigner, I told myself – and I’d known any number of Greeks who had an odd way of keeping order among their slaves. But it was probably for the best if Martin was kept away from that shuttered window.
The whole boat shook slightly and then turned free in the water. Sailors ran about again, pulling on ropes to let down the sails for some reason. There was another bump and we were still again.
‘Martin,’ I said, ‘there are some letters I need you to put into the correct official form. If you could have them ready by the time we get to Canopus, I’d be grateful. And I feel a headache coming on. I think I’ll retire to my cabin for a little rest. Do tell anyone who asks that I’m not to be disturbed.’
Chapter 26
There was a time when Canopus was the main pleasure resort for Alexandrians of quality. The breeze it took straight off the sea made it so pleasant a change in the summer months from Alexandria. Long before then, I believe – back in the time of the native kings – it was a main trading port. With the building of Alexandria, that source of importance had quickly disappeared. But it had more than compensated with its shops and brothels and temples. It also drew benefit as the nearest exchange point, by land or water, between Alexandria and the Nile. Before its branch began to silt up, it was both the nearest and by far the most convenient exchange point.
Then, the canal dug by the Ptolemies to join the two cities had been kept clear at all times, and poets had sung of the flotillas of gay barges that, throughout the day and night, would pass and re-pass the silver thread of water. Canopus was now in much reduced circumstances. It had lost position to the more distant but generally more convenient Bolbitine. Its people had withdrawn to a walled centre. Outside the walls, the old pleasure gardens were given over to fortified monasteries or overgrown wasteland. The place survived as a satellite port for Alexandria, and because no one had ever thought to reorder the posts along the Nile.
Except when the floods came and raised the water level the old canal was choked with reeds and rubbish and the usual connection was now by sea or by the road I’ve already mentioned. But the floods had now come, and the docks at the Alexandrian end retained some of their ancient elegance. It couldn’t be described any more as the best way of entering the city after a journey down the Nile. But if now used as warehouses, or divided into single rooms to house the poor, the palaces once built to stand close by the docks still impressed on first inspection. And it had, for me, the one advantage of privacy. I wanted to be back in my office, putting some kind of gloss on my adventures, before anyone noticed I was back.
As our barge rounded the last bend before the docks came in sight, I realised I was in for another disappointment. Not only had the news of my adventures raced ahead of me, but so had news even of my return. During the last few hundred yards of our approach, the mass of bodies that clustered round the landing place resolved itself into something like all the official and well-connected of Alexandria. I almost thought of joining the Mistress in the one covered place on the barge, and ordering the crew to take us straight past the docks into the Eastern Harbour. But then the cheering started. It began as a concerted buzz from the front of the crowd, then rippled back through the less important dignitaries, until there was, billowing across the closing distance of the water, a continuous roar of greetings and adoration.
‘Put that box down,’ I said to Martin without moving my lips. ‘Get up here and look happy.’ I’d already set my face into a smile and was nodding complacently back at the shining faces now clearly in sight.
‘My darling Alaric, how glad I am to see you looking so well!’ Our lips brushed as we kissed, and Priscus kept my hand to his chest as he stepped back a few inches. He was at his most convincing. The bystanders must have thought us the very dearest friends. ‘But you must tell me the whole story once we’re alone. What little I’ve picked up is absolutely shocking. Such rough and even impious behaviour to a person of your quality – it chills the blood.
‘Oh,’ he went on, answering my unvoiced question about the healing but still red gash across his forehead, ‘I can’t claim anything so dramatic as your own capture and escape. But the security of the Egyptian roads makes some of the places I’ve campaigned almost tranquil by comparison.
‘And, no,’ he added, now dropping his voice and leaning into another embrace, ‘I didn’t find it. I did learn much of value. But if I’d found what I went for, you can bet your life I’d not have arranged this homecoming for our impetuous little barbarian.’ Priscus followed my glance at the armed guard that surrounded the two chairs that had obviously come from the Palace. He smiled.
‘You must understand,’ he said, ‘that your safety is no longer something to be taken for granted, even in Alexandria. I’m afraid there can be no more casual wandering about the town. Besides’ – again, he stretched forward and dropped his voice – ‘there have been troubles while we were both away. There was nearly a riot yesterday in the Eastern Harbour. It was as much as the police guards could do to keep the grain fleet safe.’
‘Hasn’t it gone yet?’ I asked. ‘It should have been ten days at sea.’ I smiled graciously at one of my Jewish agents. I’d scare him and his friends shitless when we were alone. For the moment, I smiled again and gave him my hand to kiss. There were a couple of the greasier landowners behind him. They made nothing like so good an effort as my Jew or Priscus as they congratulated me on my survival and return.
A flash of steel drew my attention sharp left. All this milling about had left a momentary gap in the crowd of well-wishers. Looking through it, I could see the armed cordon, and, behind this, the much, much larger crowd of the poor. Held back in one of the wider avenues that led to the dock, all stood silent and grim. One thing I’d learned early in my stay was that you don’t let a crowd that size assemble in Alexandria. If it does, you break it up. I looked back at Priscus.
‘Main forces are in the Harbour,’ he explained shortly. ‘And no, the fleet hasn’t gone out yet.’ He came close again for another embrace. ‘If you can talk any sense at all into the wanker,’ Priscus whispered into my ear, ‘you’ll have the entire Council in your debt. Nicetas has kept the grain fleet in harbour pending his further instructions. The effect it’s having on the mob doesn’t appear to concern him.’
We were interrupted by Martin, who pressed a message into my hand. In a firm though somewhat odd script, the Mistress thanked me for the journey down the Nile, and said she’d send for me when she felt ready to receive guests.
I bit back the angry reply I was about to make. I could see Priscus was trying to get an upside-down view of the note. I stood on tiptoe and looked over the heads of everyone else in the crowd. That might have been her chair going off towards the centre. Or she might have disappeared already into one of the smaller streets. I had offered her rooms in the Palace. Since she hadn’t said no, I’d assumed her acceptance. Now she was gone. I hadn’t thought she knew Alexandria at all – let alone well enough to have got herself lodged already. And she hadn’t collected the emergency passport I’d had Martin draw up for her. She’d not get far without that. All told, though, it might be for the best if she weren’t to be in the Palace. The various households there were pretty broad-minded. But her notions of slave management would have raised eyebrows anywhere.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said, turning back to Priscus and waving Martin away. ‘I need a bath and a change of clothes. Then, I think, we might both profit from dinner without an audience.’
‘We are quite at one, my blond pot of love,’ he replied as we closed for another embrace. ‘You’ll see that everyone is keen to be away before dark. The mobs are gathering all over the place by night. So far, it’s just speeches. But you haven’t seen what’s going on in the Egyptian quarter. I’m so glad,’ he breathed softly, ‘that we can work together at last. We’ll both have what we want – and be out of here before the place bubbles completely over.’
