a mere commoner.’
There was a long moment of silence as Priscus and Siroes looked at each other. Their faces would have been a scream in better circumstances. But persons of quality don’t allow their composure to slip in front of people like Lucas. After the first shock of recognition, and the first apparent realisation that things were not as they’d agreed, they both recomposed their faces.
‘Siroes, what a delightful surprise, and after so many years,’ Priscus cried. He got up and hurried across the room.
Siroes opened his arms, and there was a most convincing reunion of old friends.
‘And do tell me,’ Priscus asked after some endless reminiscing over a work of nastiness they’d played on a barbarian king back in the days of Maurice, when the two empires had been at peace, ‘how is Roxana doing? And the children?’
From the brief answer, I gathered the woman had been taken as one of the Great King’s concubines, and the children had been smothered. Priscus squeezed his face into an expression of sympathy, and the conversation moved to less personal matters. I noticed that Siroes continued looking downcast.
‘Since when,’ Lucas broke in loudly, ‘has a Pharaoh been host to supplicant representatives of such great rulers?’ He struck a pose, showing his chest and shoulders while twisting his legs and head into profile.
I don’t suppose it was other than incompetence that led Egyptian artists into painting their kings in this pose. But Lucas appeared to think otherwise. Siroes looked at him, a thoughtful look just visible on the strip of his face not covered in hair. Priscus smiled politely.
‘It may be that I have called you here with a slight element of deceit,’ Lucas continued. ‘But you are here, and I will state my demands of you both.’
No chair was now free, and I wasn’t inclined to sit on the floor. It was as clean as anywhere else I’d sat this day, and there were some rugs that had a comfy look about them. But this wasn’t the time for putting aside dignity. I leaned against the wall and waited for this little comedy to play itself out. Priscus was first to speak.
‘I don’t know about Siroes, but I haven’t found it hard to guess what you have in mind. Let us consider. We made a deal. I would deliver Alaric. He would find the relic. I would then use this for my own purposes, granting Egypt full autonomy within the Empire and recognising you as its lawful King. You appear to have made a similar deal with Siroes – or with Chosroes directly. Now that we’re all gathered here, you are about to announce that all deals are off, and that you will keep the relic for yourself. Is that it?’ Priscus waited for Lucas to puff his chest out before continuing. ‘Well, my dear Lucas – and I still can’t speak for Siroes – do you really think I’d deliver myself into your hands, here in the back of beyond, without some precautions?’ He held out his cup for a refill.
Lucas scowled and muttered an order to the slave.
‘If I don’t return to Alexandria,’ Priscus went on, ‘or if I do return without what I came here to get, a series of letters in your own hand will be passed over to the Monophysite Patriarch. These are most incriminating, and you should recall that they are conclusively incriminating. In particular, you will recall your promise to Leontius to establish Isis as the tutelary deity of Egypt. I got these from poor foolish Leontius after I’d killed him. While he was still alive and able to speak, I got a mass of circumstantial information that only blackens your name further.’
‘How the fuck did you kill Leontius?’ I blurted out. I thought back and tried to reconcile the times. They didn’t fit. He’d been with me all evening. Priscus gave me a look of cold power. It was as if I were in one of his dungeons, awaiting his pleasure. I fell silent and leaned back against the wall.
‘All very good, Priscus – and I expected nothing less of you,’ Lucas replied, sounding more troubled than he wanted to appear, ‘but what should I care about the opinion of a Christian priest? You know that my first act as Pharaoh will be to reopen all the temples, not merely the one at Philae.’
‘Don’t give me any of that, you silly little man!’ Priscus said. As he stretched his legs out, his robe fell back slightly, showing a patch of varicose blue. ‘You know as well as I do that Egypt is a Christian country. The wogs will humour your taste in dress, so long as you can kick out all the foreigners. They won’t stand by you for a moment if you lay hands on the Faith. I haven’t made enquiries among the common wogs, but I had a real heart-to-heart with all the other leaders of your Brotherhood. Get a man close enough to an impaling stake, and he’ll scream the name of the God in which he truly believes. Not one of those fuckers you betrayed to me called on Isis. When it comes to the Old Faith of Egypt, I’ll wager you’re in a decided minority.
‘But this isn’t the end of it. I have some of the letters you wrote to the Brotherhood leadership, getting them to Alexandria. The Intelligence Bureau broke your code years ago. I have the most damning evidence that you sold out the whole upper leadership of your movement. Those who might be inclined to overlook your theology will never forgive you for that. Let those letters be published, and you’re in the shit good and proper.’ He put his cup down again and beckoned to his cat. It jumped straight up. He stroked it with his free hand. Its back arched as it purred. It still found time to twist round and give me a horrid look.
‘Now, Lucas,’ he added, ‘you just have my dear friend Siroes taken out and hanged, and we’ll proceed with our business.’ With a flash of his riddled teeth, he smiled broadly at Siroes, who got up from his chair and bowed to Lucas before sitting back down.
‘I don’t think that would be wholly sensible,’ Siroes said with one of his diplomatic smiles. ‘You may agree that Priscus has a controlling hold over you. But what makes you think he’ll give up this hold once he has what he wants? I think he will cheat you – just as he tries to do with everyone. I can give you the names of a dozen fools who trusted him and are now dead.
‘With all respect, Your Majesty, I suggest you have my thrice-sworn brother Priscus taken out and hanged. You just put yourself in our hands, and we guarantee you the throne of Egypt. We may have a Christian minority. But our army is true to the Faith of Zoroaster.’
The room fell silent. The window out to the courtyard was shuttered and bolted. With five people there, and all those lamps, the air was growing uncomfortably stuffy. Priscus rubbed noses with his cat. Siroes drank steadily. Lucas tried to put on a brave face in front of the slave. He failed miserably.
‘But I am now in a position to get the relic for myself,’ he said at last. He straightened up and began to look as chirpy as he’d been when Siroes had first come in. ‘I must remind the pair of you that I command every armed man within a day’s ride of this place – perhaps more. Neither of you has so much as a bodyguard. We all agree that whoever has the relic becomes unapproachably powerful. Why should I listen to either of you? Now that Alaric is here, I can take what I please.’
‘Dear me, no!’ said Priscus with an easy smile. ‘We all agree that the relic confers great power, but it does so only once it’s been authenticated as what it’s claimed to be. If your Patriarch declines the authentication, you might as well piss in it yourself. And your Patriarch won’t support someone like you against the Empire – not when there’s a deal on the table to settle the whole Monophysite controversy and get him back in full communion with Constantinople and with Rome. You could ask Alaric here about that. He’s the scholar, and can lecture you black in the face about these things. But I don’t think you’ll need to do that.’
The room fell silent. The three protagonists of the little play acted out under my eyes looked at each other and then at no one in particular.
‘You all seem agreed,’ I said, breaking the long silence that followed, ‘that only I can lead you to this powerful object.’ Since there appeared to be at least two opinions about the nature of what was sought, I clung to the ambiguous phrasing I’d had from Siroes. ‘You all assume that I will do this for whichever of you is still alive tomorrow morning. Well, I want to see my secretary before I make any commitments. I also want to know what guarantees you can provide that either of us will survive its finding.’
‘Please keep out of this, Alaric,’ Priscus said wearily. ‘You will see Martin when I see fit to have him produced. If you refuse to do exactly as told, you know what I can and will do to him. If that fails to persuade you, bear in mind what I will certainly then do to you. If I tell you that you will both return safely with me to Alexandria, that is just something you’ll have to make yourself believe. You have little choice, after all. You gave up all freedom of action in this matter the moment you fell in again with Lucas.’
‘Not good enough, Priscus,’ I said. I stared at Lucas and pointed at the wine.
He spat an order to the slave, then went back to a morose inspection of the floorboards.
‘You see, if I don’t choose to believe you, I remain as free an agent as the three of you. When I’ve seen Martin and the nature of your joint guarantees, I will consider what steps may be required to secure the object. One way or another, let me observe, everything you have and everything you want is staked on getting this object. Either you give me what I want, or you might as well kill me now, and then see how well you can sort out the resulting mess among yourselves.’ I drained my cup and sat on the third chair a slave had just brought in and set
