Lucas snarled something at the carriers that didn’t sound particularly worthy of any love gift at all. They bowed and padded off somewhere.
‘If your people haven’t stolen all the cash I brought with me,’ I said, ‘I think I could stand you a dinner somewhere. I don’t suppose you’ll find anywhere about that’s fit for a king – not even a pretend king like you. But you might care to point me in the direction of an inn that won’t give us the shits.’
Avoiding a pile of rotting filth that I could more smell than see, I walked away from him and stood looking up at the Great Pyramid. Its lower parts were now buried in the advancing gloom of evening. Its topmost twenty or thirty feet, though – just below the stained apex, where some ornamentation of bronze, or perhaps even of gold, had once been – still shone bright in the rays of the departing sun. Even as I looked, the line of shadow moved rapidly higher, until only the very apex remained. For a moment, the apex alone glowed. It was as small and as bright as some object in the darkening sky. Then it too was gone. As a result, there was no longer any contrast in the light, and I could now see the whole bulk of the Pyramid outlined against the ever darkening sky.
I turned back to face Lucas. His torchbearers were picking their way towards him. Until they got closer, I’d not be able to see his face. But I could feel the disapproval radiating from him. And my perception of his mood was as cheering as a cup of really good wine.
‘So which establishment in this probably nameless dump is up to serving persons of our quality?’ I asked, taking up the last subject.
‘Are your bodily needs all that concern you?’ Lucas hissed at me.
The torchbearers had now arrived, and I could see the insanity blazing from his eyes.
‘Do you expect a visit to the town brothel once you’ve stuffed your belly?’
‘Oh, not at all, dear Lucas,’ I said, speaking brightly and loud. Several passers-by stopped and looked in my direction. I doubted if they understood me, but I carried on as if I had an audience. ‘If Egyptian women smell anything like the men, I’d have vomited on them long before I’d lost any mess inside them. Dinner will be quite enough – oh, and a little wine.’
I watched Lucas while various passions battled for control of his mind. There was outrage at the affront I’d offered him. There was his evident need to keep me in one piece and undamaged until further notice. As his fists unclenched and his face relaxed, he smiled and motioned me towards a large building almost next door to the main church.
I stopped for a moment at the open gate. I put a smile on my face and turned to Lucas with another witticism. But for the first time, I was seriously scared. Of course, I’d been in his power an entire day. At any time since I’d stepped out of the shadows, he could have had me strung up on hooks, or staked out naked under the burning sun. He could have done as he pleased. His people wouldn’t have lifted a finger. Siroes was rather stuffy about the proprieties and needed me alive until I’d turned up his piss pot. But unless he was serious about putting me up for emperor, we might be talking of days. And how much control did he really have over Lucas? Now, as I looked through that black entrance to who knows what, my stomach turned over. I stopped at the threshold and found I couldn’t go further.
‘Come now, Alaric – do you need a formal invitation?’ Lucas breathed behind me. He’d perked up since our last exchange. Worse, he was beginning to sound horribly gloaty again.
‘Not at all, Your Majesty,’ I jeered. ‘I’m just wondering how much nastier the inside of this place smells than the street.’ I thought I’d get a push from behind if I didn’t move soon. That was too much. Lucas might play at being Pharaoh. I was the Emperor’s Legate. If I was now to be put out of the way, blubbing at the doorway wasn’t likely to change matters. I might as well go out with a ‘Fuck you, arsehole!’. I bit my lip and stepped forward.
As we went through the usual gateway leading to a central garden, there was a left turn into the building. All was dark at first, though not smelly in the least. If anything, the place was rather pleasant. With Lucas to guide me, though without any lamp, I passed through a series of interconnecting rooms, each unlit and stuffed with furniture. We turned right into another stretch of the building. There were more rooms, again all in darkness. In still more complete darkness, we went up a staircase, our feet scraping on the rough brick of the stairs. There was a short corridor at the top. This terminated in a door, light pouring out from underneath to show the dull roughness of the floor.
‘You go in alone,’ Lucas whispered with what sounded like a suppressed snigger. I said nothing. He knocked briefly, then pushed the door open and stood back for me to go in. I stepped forward, my mind a deliberate blank, and rubbed my eyes in the sudden brightness. Except for a couple of chairs and a little table over by one of the walls, the room was unfurnished. In one of these chairs, his back to me, a man was sitting. He twisted round and looked at me.
‘Ah, Alaric,’ he said, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’
Priscus stood up and advanced towards me across the room. He had that bastard cat of his in his arms. As he got within a few feet of me, the thing hissed and raised one of its paws at me.
Chapter 57
‘Oh go on, my blonde little darling,’ Priscus said, returning to his theme, ‘just admit you’ve been had.’ He rocked back on his chair and raised his cup in a mock toast. He hadn’t bothered in this heat with cosmetics, but he did have on the robe of an Imperial Council member. ‘Yes, it is the piss pot. I was telling the truth when we first spoke in Alexandria, and a lie when we last spoke. You may have given our friend the Pharaoh the slip more than once. But when Uncle Priscus sets his trap, no one escapes.’
‘So tell me, Priscus,’ I asked with a sneer, ‘when did you turn traitor and throw in your lot with a bunch of wog rebels? Was it on your trip to Siwa? Or was it as late as your improbably lucky escape from the mob?’
He put his cup down and rubbed his face into the cat’s fur. ‘I don’t think I need explain the details of what I’m about,’ he said. ‘Besides, the story is both long and a touch improbable.’ He now put the cat down and reached for his satchel of drugs. He was about to make a selection when Lucas grew tired of lurking and walked into the room.
‘Lucas, how delightful to see you again,’ he said. ‘Would you be a dear and arrange for another jug of wine? You might also care to bring a cup for young Alaric here. I’m sure he could do with refreshments after his dash here through the desert.’
‘My name is not Lucas,’ came the chilly reply. ‘You call me “Your Majesty” or by the name my people have urged upon me.’
Priscus sighed. ‘My dear boy,’ he said with a tired wave, ‘this night is far too hot for unpronounceable and unmemorable wog names. Your real name is Gregory. You are the son of a customs clerk in Naucratis. You have a warrant still pending there for defacing a statue of Septimius Severus while drunk and disorderly. Unless you really want me to call you Gregory, you’ll have to settle for Lucas. Let’s face it, if you don’t like the name, you should have found a better one when you introduced yourself to Alaric. It’s too late now to change things. Now, go and get more wine – and be quick about it.’ Priscus mopped at his face and motioned me into the one other chair in the room.
Looking several inches shorter than when he’d come in, Lucas turned and went out.
Priscus waited until the door was pulled to. ‘You left Alexandria almost before I’d noticed,’ he said. ‘How you got here so fast is quite beyond me. You will surely rejoice when I tell you, though, that Nicetas remains out of action, and Alexandria is in most capable hands of my own choosing.’
‘You’re feeling sure of yourself,’ I said. ‘Where is Martin? I suppose you told me the truth in Alexandria about his being alive.’
‘I told you, my love,’ Priscus said, ‘that he was alive when the ear was sliced away from his head. I made no warranties regarding his continuation in this world. However, he is alive, and you will see him soon enough.’ He switched into Latin and dropped his voice. ‘It goes without saying that you will do exactly as I tell you if the pair of you want any chance of getting out of this in one piece.’
The door opened again. Lucas walked in, a slave carrying wine behind him. Priscus smiled and waved at the table against the wall.
‘I think His Magnificence the Legate may feel obliged to give up his chair,’ Lucas said in a tone that hovered between the mad and the plain nasty. ‘We do have another guest whose status may be taken as higher than that of
