Priscus looked awhile into his cup. For a moment, I even thought he’d cry. But the moment passed, and he was looking at me again.
‘How much do you know about Cappadocia?’ he asked.
‘Only what you said during that supper with Heraclius,’ I said, ‘and the reports that have drifted here on the posts. You said you’d have the entire Persian Army holed up in Caesarea, where you’d starve them into surrender. Instead, I understand the Persians broke out and annihilated half the Army of the East while you lay in your tent, knocked out on those shitty drugs.
‘I’m told it’s now only a matter of time before siege armies turn up outside Damascus and even Antioch.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Priscus in quiet despair. ‘You still won’t or can’t understand the scale of what I achieved last summer and autumn. With armies a third of their official strength, I harried the Persians. I pushed their smaller forces back across the Euphrates. The main forces I drew further and further from their supply routes. I bribed. I spread dissension. I fed false reports via double agents.
‘I don’t think any other general – not even Belisarius himself – could have done more with less. I had effectively the whole Persian invasion force and their Commander-in-Chief squeezed into the last place military logic suggested they should be. It should have been a question of waiting for the invasion to collapse, and then ending the war on favourable terms.’
‘So what went wrong?’ I jeered. All other involvements with the man aside, I had grown thoroughly sick of his strategic playacting at Christmas.
‘Fucking Heraclius went wrong!’ he cried with an involuntary look at the door. It was faced with padded leather. ‘He turned up in person to take the credit for the surrender of eight Persian generals. I told him to wait. But the fool wanted a battle. He insisted it was “unseemly” to gain such a victory without a blow.
‘And so challenge was laid and accepted, and the Persians marched out to discover that what they thought was an army of forty thousand men was instead a half-starved rabble of five thousand.
‘Even then, I might have managed a draw. But our New Alexander confined me to quarters while he strutted round in a golden breastplate that must have weighed ninety pounds.
‘We were lucky the Persians showed more interest in breaking free than staying to enjoy the fruits of victory. We’d all by now be on display to the rabble in Ctesiphon – we or our heads.
‘And you are right about Damascus. I haven’t a single fighting unit anywhere in Syria. With Constantinople itself in danger, all forces have been drawn to the north.’
There was no need for cross-examining about any of this. I knew Priscus was telling the truth. I could almost hear that voice – half sulky, half dreamy – as the Emperor laid down his childish notions of war craft. Sergius and I had managed to get a free hand in religious controversy by showing that letter I’d squeezed out of the Pope. Keeping him from military affairs would have defeated anyone, let alone Priscus.
Oh, if only Emperor Phocas hadn’t been a complete duffer, he’d still be boiling his victims alive in the Circus, and I’d be back in Rome, playing the markets and sending books to Canterbury. As it was, we had Heraclius; and if his personal body count was much lower, he was proving still less effective at holding the Empire together.
I unrolled the letter again. We both served Heraclius. That brought certain duties – even to Priscus.
‘I’ll put in a word to Nicetas about the money,’ I said. ‘Gold can always be found if the need is pressing. I stand by what I said about the corn, though. Until the next harvest comes in, there’s a shortage we daren’t risk adding to.’
‘Thank you, Alaric,’ he said. Unlikely words, these, from Priscus – and they even sounded genuine. He finished the cup and refilled it.
‘There is one other thing not on my list,’ he said, starting over with an echo of his old bounce. ‘The Patriarch of Jerusalem turned nasty when I asked for a loan of the True Cross. You see, soldiers won’t gather unless you pay or feed them or both. They won’t fight – and certainly won’t die – unless you give them something more. Have you heard about the first piss pot of Jesus Christ?’ he asked.
‘Er – no,’ I said.
‘Well’ – Priscus smiled weakly and reached again for the jug – ‘you know that when Herod had all those boys killed, the Holy Family came to Egypt and remained some years in safety?’
I nodded. I was already beginning to guess what would come next.
‘The child Christ,’ he went on, ‘had a piss pot. After He returned to Palestine, this remained in Egypt. It is, I’m told, a relic of the highest power. You see, it received His excrements while His Human Nature was still undeveloped, but His Divine Nature was already perfect. The True Cross, by comparison, was in contact with a body that was fully half human.’
‘My dear Priscus,’ I said, trying hard not to burst out laughing, ‘I don’t think this heresy’s been advanced even in Alexandria. What you are saying is that had Christ died as a baby, the Monophysites would be broadly correct. If, on the other hand, he’d made it to fifty, the true orthodoxy would be Nestorian. How lucky for the majority at the Council of Chalcedon that he died at thirty-three, when His Nature was a perfect balance of God and man conjoined in one substance!’
Priscus shrugged. ‘How the priests sort these things out is their business,’ he said. ‘My business is to raise another army and lead it into battle with a relic beside me the men would run through fire not to lose.’
‘I’ve not heard of this relic,’ I said, ‘and I’ve been here for months now, and spoken to hundreds of people. Where do you suppose it might be kept?’
‘I believe it’s secreted in the base of the Great Pyramid,’ came the reply. ‘I looked around for this as I entered the city. Perhaps it’s smaller than I was told.’
I did laugh now. I really couldn’t keep it back. I laughed until tears began to run down my cheeks. The thought of Priscus, wandering round Alexandria like a barbarian pilgrim in Rome, no guidebook in hand, looking for the Pyramids!
I got up and moved to the north window. I pulled back the blind and looked out past the Lighthouse to the calm, sparkling waters of the Mediterranean. I turned back to Priscus, whose face, I could see, had gone puce under the make-up.
‘You must forgive me, Priscus,’ I said, ‘but the Pyramids are three days up river – five if the winds are against you. And you need to add a day for the sea voyage from here to Bolbitine, or half that if you’re willing to take the Nile from Canopus. And though I haven’t seen them, it’s my understanding that the Great Pyramid was last opened three thousand years ago. No entrance has ever been found since then, assuming, that is, the thing isn’t just solid stone. Christ lived here about six hundred years ago. You’d need a miracle to get the poor man’s piss pot inside the Pyramid, another to let anyone know it was there, and another for no one in Alexandria to know what your doubtless very holy informant in – in Syria? – has told you.
‘If you want relics, I’ll get you an appointment with the local Patriarch. He might be more accommodating than His Holiness of Jerusalem. I believe Alexandria has the head of Saint Mark, both feet of John the Baptist, and three right hands of Saint John the Divine. But there’s no holy piss pot that I know about – not of Jesus Christ, nor of anyone else likely to inspire your men.’
‘My sources are confidential,’ Priscus snapped, ‘but I have it on good authority the relic is where I’ve said.’
I changed the subject. ‘Have you any soldiers with you?’ I asked. An interesting thought had come into my mind. I’d rather Priscus had been stuck in a tent somewhere close by Armenia. Since he wasn’t, I might as well find some use in him.
But he shook his head. He’d come alone and in secrecy.
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘You are Commander of the East, and I doubt if any of the notables here have been introduced to a military dignitary close to your exalted status. You must allow yourself to be guest of honour at tonight’s dinner. All the big men of Egypt will be there. And I think I can promise the Viceroy for you to sit beside.’
I took up the little bell from my desk and rang it.
‘Ah, Martin,’ I said as the door opened. ‘The Lord Caesar Priscus will be in Alexandria for at least the next few days. Please ask Macarius to make all necessary preparations in the Palace.’
Martin bowed. He let his fingers rasp ever so lightly on the papyrus sheet he was carrying.
‘A productive afternoon with our friend?’ I asked.
Martin nodded.
