away from the sun, there was that slight change in the colour of the light creeping through that indicated the afternoon was almost over. Nicetas looked down at his leg. As his face had grown redder, this seemed to have taken on a blueish tinge. Managing somehow not to move his leg, he twisted round and thrust his face into a cushion. As the slaves redoubled their fanning, he began to sob bitterly.
‘I won’t seal anything more,’ he said indistinctly. ‘You can’t make me do anything against my will. All we have to do is sit quiet, and the conspirators will send round for an amnesty. This is what always happens. If we do nothing, the trouble will go away. As for the Persians, the Red Sea tides won’t let them across. The way you both talk about them, anyone would think they were led by Moses.’
‘In ancient times, the poor understood their place in the order of things,’ some old fool in a cloth wig intoned for the third time. ‘They starved without involving themselves in the affairs of their betters.’ For the third time, there was a burst of appreciative comment about him. Someone else stamped hard and called on the Judgement of Heaven.
‘I hear the perimeter about the Harbour has gone down,’ I said, leaning on the rail that went round the roof of the Palace. ‘We’ll know soon enough if the incense warehouses take fire.’
‘My dearest boy,’ Priscus sniffed, ‘even now, I could stop all this with three hundred men. Give me the right seal on wax, and I could pacify Alexandria for a century to come.’ He went back to looking over the rail. ‘Has Martin turned up my relic?’ he asked with a sudden change of subject.
It was coming towards the midnight hour. The Viceroy’s belief now that doing nothing would help settle things down hadn’t turned out yet to be right. Seen from the Palace roof, Alexandria was beginning to look like the constellation of lights on a fresh grave. As yet, most of them might only have been bonfires in the public squares. But here and there, it was plain that public buildings were being fired. Every so often, as the breeze shifted from the north, snatches of wild shouting and a smell of burning were carried up from the city. The one large exception to the rising tide of chaos was a district bounded by the Library, the Wall and the sea. From here on the Palace roof, it showed up as an oval of unbroken darkness against the scattering of flares all around. I tried to remember what district this was, but I was too fixed on other matters. I looked round again at Priscus.
‘I think we need to speak about your piss pot,’ I began.
I got no further, as it was now that the Master of the Works came on to the roof. Reports of his murder, he assured us, had been exaggerated. Even so, he’d had a close escape. Everyone gathered round as he described how the mob had seized and cut the throats of his carrying slaves. Luckily for him, he’d managed to get into a public toilet, where he’d hidden until a Syrian banker had taken the mob’s fancy. It had been his entrails wrapped about the statue of Julius Caesar.
A crowd now formed round Priscus, who began his lecture about the need for a show of force before the mob ran out of all control. Except our meeting with Nicetas hadn’t gone as hoped, he’d had a wonderful day: crisis management, and torture that had actually worked. The cup in his hand ever refilled, he was sliding into his confident military hero act that had so pissed me off in Constantinople. How he didn’t drop from exhaustion was testimony to a superb constitution – or advertisement for the powders he was alternating with the wine.
‘We are quite safe in here, though, aren’t we?’ Martin asked. We’d moved across the roof and were now looking over the Egyptian quarter. As yet, this was less brightly lit than the centre. I had no doubt, however, things were running out of control there as well.
‘The Palace was built with this sort of thing in mind,’ I said reassuringly. ‘I did read that one of the Ptolemies was torn to pieces by the mob when it broke in. However, he had just raped and murdered his sister, and the guards may have been on strike. I’m not sure of the details, but I believe the Palace defences were strengthened after that. I really doubt if we are in any danger.’
Martin gave me the scared look he kept in reserve for my reassuring tone.
I thought of our families, huddled together in my quarters down below.
‘That bloody Jewboy’s here again,’ the man in the cloth wig shouted behind me. ‘Is there no security in this place?’
Martin looked even more scared. I turned and looked at the youth. He bowed low.
‘So it’s arranged?’ I asked softly.
He nodded.
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Do tell Isaac I’m in his debt – not that he doesn’t know that already.’ I’d set up my lamp at dusk. Unregarded by all on the roof, it was still burning away in the inspection room. I turned to Martin. I ignored the question on his face.
‘Now,’ I said, ‘unless you fancy the entertainment of watching Alexandria begin to go up in flames, with Priscus to provide the commentary, I suggest there are better uses of our time.’
‘You’ll not be knocking yourself out on opium?’ he asked.
I smiled and shook my head. After what I’d seen today, who would blame me for seeking oblivion in two brown pills and a jug of wine? Bearing in mind what I was about to try, who could forgive me?
Priscus, I could see, had been pretending not to glance in my direction ever since Isaac’s clerk had shown his face. But the crowd about him of nervous, twittering eunuchs and the few persons of quality who’d managed to take refuge in the Palace was too large and too appreciative of his own proposals for settling matters with a massacre. He now looked openly at me, and seemed inclined to come over.
‘Come downstairs with me,’ I said hurriedly to Martin. ‘There’s business where you might be of use.’
In my office, the lamps were turned up full. The two hooded figures who sat together on the sofa got up and bowed to me as we walked in. The men who stood behind them went down on their knees. I nodded briefly and pulled out the chair from behind my desk.
‘I must thank you, My Lords,’ I began, ‘for your goodness in coming out on this most dangerous of nights.’ I stopped and turned to Martin.
‘Get up off the floor,’ I said gently. ‘This is an informal meeting. Even so, I need you to take a full record.’
Chapter 40
Next morning, we went up to the roof and then climbed into the inspection room. Seen from up here, Alexandria looked much the same as ever. The early mist was joined by smoke from the fires that continued to burn. But there had as yet been no general conflagration. The great buildings were all still in place. The shops wouldn’t be opening today. But Alexandria was a city big enough to absorb a few nights of rioting. Ignorant or uncaring of purely human events, the birds still whirled and circled above Lake Mareotis. Nicetas had summoned a meeting of his Council for just after morning prayers. There, we’d learn exactly what the damage had been overnight. We’d also discuss my plan of pacification.
‘Are those bodies down there?’ Martin asked, pointing at the square in front of the Palace.
I followed his finger and squinted. ‘I rather think they are,’ I said. I looked harder. ‘Some of them may be dead. But look – that one’s sitting up. I don’t believe the Office of Supply would fall straight away. It’s nearly as well fortified as the Palace itself. More likely, the wine shops have been plundered.’
‘It’s all so peaceful,’ Martin said. ‘Do you suppose the rioting is over?’
‘Hard to say,’ I said. ‘Alexandria isn’t Constantinople. Whatever experience we have of things there doesn’t seem to apply here.’
‘Priscus is coming up,’ Martin said.
I turned from my inspection of the still sleepy city and looked down to the roof. Priscus was indeed coming. Bathed and dressed and painted, he’d put aside some of his military swagger. But, even at a dozen yards – even under the paint – I knew him well enough to recognise the expression on his face. He paused as he looked at the steep flight of stairs to where we were standing. I sighed as I saw him take firm hold of the rail and heard the rasp of his boots on the bronze of the lower stairs.
‘So who’s been the slippery shit overnight?’ he barked as he walked in. He left the glass door open behind him. There was a sudden cooling of the air inside the room, and I could hear the distant calling of the birds. ‘Who’s been selling out the honour of the Empire for the sake of a little peace?’
‘We’ll need all the Schedule D maps in one box,’ I said to Martin.
