specified the content of my speech…’
After a very brief knock, Macarius came into the office.
‘His Imperial Highness regrets that he must decline the pleasure of your company,’ he said, looking discreetly away from me, ‘but he has urgent business with His Holiness the Patriarch.’
Martin scowled at Macarius and looked sharply at me. I ignored him. Yes, everything was awful. I had Nicetas to deal with. My own people couldn’t get on. Then there was this ghastly climate – hot all day, hot with bloodsucking flies all night. I’d been here at least a month longer than I’d expected. Unless recalled in something approaching disgrace, I might well be here till Christmas. But the wine was doing its job, and I could easily see Nicetas, at last understanding something of the balls-up he’d arranged, running off to take sanctuary from me with Patriarch John. Laughter was out of the question. But there was an absurd side to it all. I turned to the slaves.
‘Leave us,’ I said in Greek, dropping the Latin I’d been using with Martin.
They bowed low and packed up their stuff.
‘Do lock the door, Macarius,’ I said when we were alone. I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. It was a good twenty feet above me. But still the air didn’t circulate.
I turned to Martin, who was now fussing through a satchel of notes. It hid the sulky look he couldn’t keep off his face. I took up a handy sheet of parchment and fanned myself.
‘So, what’s all this about payments to pagan temples?’ I asked.
‘It’s news to me,’ said Martin, still looking away. He shrugged. ‘We’ve been investigating the trends and ratios of spending, never the budgetary details. Even so, I’d have noticed that sort of item.’
‘If Leontius is telling the truth, the payment is buried under some innocuous heading.’
‘If I might intervene, My Lord,’ Macarius said, speaking smoothly, ‘there was a Temple of Isis at Philae. This town was always on the fringe of Imperial control in the south. For some years now, it has been somewhat beyond.
‘The temple was exempted from the law that suppressed the Old Faith. It was an important cult centre for the kings of Ethiopia, who would come every year down the Nile to worship there; and diplomatic considerations prevailed. My understanding, however, is that the exemption was ended seventy years ago, when the Ethiopians were brought over to the True Faith of Jesus Christ.’
‘Thank you, Macarius,’ I said.
He allowed his hairless, desiccated features the ghost of a smile. Was there any end to the man’s usefulness? He’d come to me on my second day in Alexandria. From running the household, he’d progressed into a general adviser on all matters Egyptian. He and Martin stood looking at me in respectful but also anticipatory silence. I was their leader, and they were waiting to be led. I swallowed another mouthful of wine and thought quickly.
‘I want full details of the subsidy,’ I said to Martin. ‘You will be aware of my dealings with Jacob, who is Undersecretary in the Disbursements Office. I quashed the investigation into his return to Judaism. That is a favour he will now be able to return.
‘Go to Jacob. Tell him to do or promise whatever it takes to get the information. Make it clear we aren’t interested in punishing whatever fraud or corruption attended the subsidy. I want my involvement kept secret, but I want the information fast. I want it preferably before dinner tonight – certainly by this time tomorrow.
‘And the moment you’ve got it, I want a proclamation drawn up, cancelling the subsidy. Fill it with the usual attacks on the Old Faith and threats against recusants. Make a big point about how Leontius brought it to our attention. Call him “Our right trusty and beloved friend” and so forth.
‘I also want an order unblocking his appointment to the Commission of the Nile. It’s plain Nicetas messed up there, with his talk of “graduated pressure”. The man’s turned out brighter than expected. Threatening us with the mob wasn’t the limit of his abilities. Making non-payment of taxes into a religious duty was almost admirable. We’ve lost our present campaign against him. We might as well give way in style.
‘I want this done by you alone and in your best impersonation of the local chancery style. Again, secrecy and speed are of the essence. Ideally, I’d like both documents ready before dinner. I’ll force Nicetas to seal them. We can get them into the Friday Gazette.
‘As for you, Macarius,’ I went on, ‘I think it’s time to forget all that bleating from Nicetas about “clean hands”. I want you to investigate Leontius yourself. Reasonable caution, of course – plausible deniability wherever possible. But there’s dirt on everyone . It’s just a matter of finding it. He’s the biggest man in Letopolis. He must be up to something dodgy.
‘I want sworn statements, conversation transcripts, original documents. When I invite that man here again for a private dinner, I’ll serve him a meal he won’t forget.’
I put my cup down and smiled. I looked about me. Martin wasn’t looking too happy. Then again, he never did. Macarius, though, was looking as pleased as his impassive face would reveal. Whatever the case, I’d spoken. They’d wanted leadership. Now, they’d been given it.
‘Be aware,’ I took up again, ‘that Leontius has limited active support against the law. His threat of the mob was intended to scare us. At the same time, it will have terrified many others in that meeting. But the subsidy matter is important. We can’t risk getting the priests involved in matters of taxation. You never know with Heraclius. They might just win.
‘We cannot afford further delay. The whole thing must be knocked on the head before Sunday service. That being done, we go back to the main issue – preferably without Leontius against us. This morning, things went badly for us. That doesn’t mean we’ve lost.’ I had another thought.
‘I feel one of my “anonymous” pamphlets coming on,’ I said to Martin. ‘I may have said this morning that Heraclius is not Phocas. They didn’t seem that convinced. We can work on this. It may be useful to remind them how, when Caracalla turned up here, he organised a massacre in pretty short order. Diocletian was hardly the Lamb of God.
‘There’s something about Alexandria that brings out the worst in an emperor. This being so, dealing with me might be better than having to face Heraclius in person.
‘Leontius must be made to understand that, if he draws it, his sword will have two edges.’
I stood up. I really had finished now. Macarius hurried forward with a towel. I let him wind it round my waist.
‘Do arrange a cold bath for me,’ I said, ‘and something light and simple to put on. I’ll be in the Library, if anyone needs me.’
It was early afternoon, and the streets of Alexandria were baking in the sun. Elsewhere, the heat would have driven people indoors for a rest. The hours of business in Alexandria, though, were always when there was business to be done. If I’d taken my official chair, or put on finer clothes, I could have relied on a clear path through the crowds. As it was, I was jostled continually to the street edges. Even in the fifty-yard width of Main Street, I had to push back at people to avoid being pitched into shops I had no intention of visiting.
The street demagogues didn’t help. In this heat, of course, even they couldn’t be really active. But enough of them had taken up their usual positions – and they’d attracted enough of the usual scum – to add to the general unpleasantness. As I tried to pass by one of them, I had no choice but to stop and listen. He was ranting on about the floods. Apparently – and he assured us all he was the greatest expert on the matter – the Nile had risen too late, and was now rising too fast.
‘You mark my words,’ he bawled above the chatter of the passing crowds, ‘it will be evil as well as mud washed down from the south this year. These will be floods never to be forgotten.’
‘What I want to know,’ a strongly Syrian voice struck up beside me, ‘is where the police have all gone. In Antioch, this liberty of speech among the lower sorts would never be permitted.’
The answer I could have given was that the police had no manpower for pushing the demagogues off the main streets. Most of them were manning the Wall that kept our own central district sealed off from the Egyptian quarter. The rest were down in the Harbour, keeping the Greek trash from rioting as the supplemental grain requisition was loaded. But I was in no mood today for putting a finger on the pulse of street opinion. I tilted the brim of my hat to cover more of my face and prepared to move off.
‘Is it true the government is planning to require different grades of bread to be sold each side of the Wall?’ the Syrian asked again.
I stopped and looked hard at the man. Where had he picked this up? It had been raised in the Viceroy’s Council just a few days back. It had been a vague option, and the Patriarch and I had got it dismissed out of hand.
