two.’
I smiled. The truth was that I’d taken a risk. If the wine had been poisoned and I’d refused it, death would have been at best delayed. Playing along, on the other hand, might keep me alive. And Priscus might easily still have some use for me in arranging the getaway. I changed the subject.
‘It took me far too long to realise the truth,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think it would have saved a lot of time and effort if you’d told me what you were about?’
Priscus smiled. He leaned across the table and pressed his fingers together. ‘Why not tell me, my dear, what it is that I was about?’ he asked. He looked at his two victims. His smile broadened.
‘I knew that last evening in Alexandria that you were trying to set me up,’ I said. ‘I didn’t yet know why. I knew you were up to something with Lucas, and I assumed it was treason – though I couldn’t work out why – even if you were plainly after the piss pot – you’d chosen a duffer like him for accomplice. My only surprise, though, when I saw you again in that scummy town was at your speed in getting up the Nile. I’d already realised, listening to Siroes and Lucas, that you hadn’t turned traitor.’
Priscus grinned and waved his cup at me.
I continued: ‘I supposed you’d some notice of what Siroes was up to and you came here to stop it. That’s why you really had Nicetas combing the Red Sea ports. A few hundred Persians in Jedda could be left even to Nicetas. Siroes, I could see, was another matter.’
‘My dear young fellow!’ Priscus said with another look at his two victims. ‘The Battle of Caesarea wasn’t a complete disaster. Heraclius did his best. Even so, we managed to capture one of the senior staff officers. He gave me some very useful information that supplemented our intelligence reports. I was able to learn that Siroes had been sent to Egypt on a mission to get something important, and that he would be able to claim the assistance of a light man from the West. I really couldn’t have you blundering into his clutches.’
With a gasp, Siroes moved his right hand in the direction of his sword. The effort was too much, and he fell heavily forward on to the table. Priscus had him back in position directly. He checked the pulse and smiled. He kissed him on the forehead and sat down again.
‘I did think at first of going to Heraclius with a treason accusation,’ he continued. ‘That would have killed two birds with one stone. It would have got you away from Siroes – and removed what I must regard as a general irritant. But the man has too much faith in you for accusations to mean much with the evidence I had. So I decided to come out here myself. You already know I’d been in Alexandria ten days before I rolled up at the Palace. I’d already made contact with the Intelligence Bureau and got a fair bit about the Brotherhood. I made up the piss pot story, and watched it go round Alexandria like fire in a corn field.’
‘How did you kill Leontius?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I guessed Lucas would want him dead for what he did with the temple subsidy, but was short of time. And I too wanted him dead. His dealings with Siroes were far less open to prediction and control than I could manage through Lucas. Yes, I wanted only Lucas to be at the centre of the web connecting the Brotherhood and landowners and, at whatever remove, the Persians. I wanted Leontius out of the way, but didn’t put him there myself. The police did the job for me. They aren’t ever good for much, but they can usually manage a moderately inventive murder. They did question him first, but got nothing useful. If I’d thought there was anything to learn, I’d have made sure to be there myself.’ He followed my glance at the twisting body of Lucas.
‘Oh,’ he said carelessly, ‘I can’t be bothered with the details, but I had already made contact with him through a double agent in the Intelligence Bureau. I called him by his real name at first – that mouthful he took on for the wog trash was never worth learning. Lucas suits him better than Gregory ever did. And it’s too late to insist on proper names, especially for such a low sort as this. He fancied himself a king. His breath alone ruled him out for that.’ He got up and leaned close over Lucas. ‘I would have killed you anyway,’ he said, enunciating carefully. ‘But do regard this, at least in part, as your punishment for violating the mummy of Alexander. That wasn’t on the agenda. Yes, for that alone, the punishment is just.’
‘So, you arranged that pantomime in the Egyptian quarter?’ I asked, trying not to look at the dying man. ‘That was your way of getting me involved?’
The tent flaps opened at this point. I thought of reaching for the sword that was now useless to Siroes. But it was Macarius. He looked at the two victims, and went to stand beside Priscus.
‘I got Macarius to arrange that,’ Priscus said. ‘Fuck knows what went wrong there. You were supposed to be sent to the Pyramids, not this burning waste where you can’t get an army from the Nile without being seen a day in advance. But the slut seems to have got carried away. No harm done, though. It fitted in rather well with the details of what Siroes had in mind, and with the accidental discovery of that stuff about Christ. You must know for yourself that a well-planned conspiracy often gets additional and unplanned lubrication. Call it the Mandate of Heaven – not, of course, that you’d call it anything of the sort. But we don’t need to argue over your religious inclinations, or lack of them.’
‘How did you know I’d go straight south after looking at those documents you left with Leontius?’ I asked.
Priscus smiled and shook his head. ‘Because I can read you like a book. Macarius had already told me about your spying mission. Leaving all that evidence of your financial corruption was as good as an instruction from Heraclius. I’d already put Lucas in place to lift you in Bolbitine. The idea was that we’d get you up here before Siroes arrived. As it is, I got you here just in time – and I had to treat poor little Martin with a roughness I’d never otherwise have found necessary.’ He smiled again and looked at Martin. ‘Do forgive me,’ he said with a stab at the apologetic. ‘You’ll get used to the loss in time. Otherwise, I can have you fitted for a nice red wig. And it was all for the higher good of the Empire. If I hadn’t been here, who can say what trouble Siroes might have made for us in Egypt and in Syria? As it is, things have worked out rather nicely. Chosroes has lost one of his most able men. The Egyptian Brotherhood is fucked.’ He looked at me again. ‘You even get your land reform.
‘Let’s face it – all’s well that ends well. You came up here to get dear Martin back. Uncle Priscus followed on to keep you from harm, and, of course, to foil a dastardly plot. We might tweak the story a little to have you in on foiling the plot. But there’s plenty of time for agreeing the details. I think Heraclius will now be inclined to forget any shifting of blame for that little local difficulty in Caesarea.
‘Yes, all’s well that ends well.’
With a soft thud, Lucas fell to the carpeted floor. Priscus got up and stood over him as the final convulsions took hold. Eyes bulging, his lips twisted back on themselves in a silent scream, Lucas jerked and twisted like a slave under the branding iron. I looked down at him.
‘He is still conscious,’ Priscus assured me. ‘Have you any last words for the Great Pharaoh?’
I shook my head. I’d sooner have continued with questioning Priscus. I had nothing to say to his victims. As I continued staring down at Lucas, his tongue forced itself out. It swelled and swelled, forcing his mouth open as wide as the jaws would stretch. It blackened in the lamplight. I thought it would burst. But it swelled further until both throat and nasal passage were blocked. The ragged breaths became more frantic, then stopped. Still the wild threshing continued, his face ever more contorted. As if from some inner fermentation, his body was now swelling. I heard a gentle ripping and smelled the eruption of shit. I saw a dark stain spreading over the front of his linen tunic. Then – suddenly – it all stopped. Hands now clamped over his face as in some closing gesture of depair, Lucas lay dead.
‘The punishment was just,’ Priscus softly repeated. He turned to look at Siroes, who still hadn’t entered the stage of convulsions.
He looked back at us, rage and hatred blazing from his eyes. I looked away.
‘What is your getaway plan?’ I asked. Unpopular as Lucas had been for his theological views, I couldn’t imagine that his people would be terribly pleased if any of them now chose to walk into the tent.
‘Time enough for that, dear fellow,’ said Priscus with a casual wave. ‘Do be a love and put that eggy tart down,’ he said to Martin. ‘I saw Lucas fussing round them earlier,’ he explained. ‘I don’t know about you, but I can almost smell the arsenic.’
Martin dropped the thing with a terrified grunt and went back to cowering by the tent flap.
Priscus went over to Siroes and looked closely at him. He reached for the bracelet on his left wrist and unscrewed the tip from one of its ends. He pulled out a two-foot length of fine cord. ‘Though somewhat distant,’ he said, ‘we are cousins. And – as I hope you’ll both agree – blood does have its duties.’ He stood behind Siroes, arranging the cord around his neck. He bent forward and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Goodbye, old friend,’ he whispered. ‘Be assured that if I ever lay hands on Chosroes, I’ll get even for you over
