and concrete-spreaders and carpenters for scaffolding and all the rest, are not so easy to come by. We’ve had trouble with them.” He looked as if the admission pained him.
It puzzled the magistrianos. “But why? Surely they must obey an imperial order to provide then services.”
“My dear sir, I can see you do not know Alexandria.” Dekanos’ chuckle held scant amusement. “The guilds-”
“Constantinople also has guilds,” Argyros interrupted. He still felt confused. “Every city in the empire has its craftsmen’s associations.”
“No doubt, no doubt. But does Constantinople have anakhoresis?”
“ ‘Withdrawal’?” the magistrianos echoed. Now he was frankly floundering. “I’m sorry, but I don’t follow you.”
“The word means more than just ‘withdrawal’ in Egypt, I fear. The peasants in the farming villages along the Nile have always had the custom of simply running away-withdrawing- from their homes when taxes get too heavy or the flood fails. Usually they come back as things improve, though they may turn to banditry if the hard times last.”
“Peasants do that all over the empire, all over the world.” Argyros shrugged. “How is Egypt any different?”
“Because here, anakhoresis goes a good deal further than that. If, say, a man is executed and the locals feel the sentence was unjust, whole villagefuls of them may withdraw in protest. And if”-Dekanos was ahead of the magistrianos’ objection- “we try to punish the ringleaders or force the villagers back to their places, we’re apt to just incite an even bigger anakhoresis. A couple of times the whole Nile valley has been paralyzed, from the Delta all the way down to the First Cataract.”
Argyros understood the horror that came into the Alexandrian’s voice at the prospect. In Constantinople, officials feared riots the same way, because one once had grown till it had almost cast Justinian the Great from his throne. Every province, the magistrianos supposed, had special problems to give its rulers sleepless nights.
All the same, something did not add up here. “The peasants are not restless now, though, or you would not have said you had plenty of unskilled labor available,” Argyros said slowly.
“Very good,” Dekanos said, plainly pleased the magistrianos had stayed with him. “You are right, sir. Very good. But here in Alexandria, you see, the guilds have also learned to play the game of anakhoresis. Let something not go to their liking, and they walk away from their jobs.”
“And that-”
“-is what has happened with the pharos, yes.” “May the Virgin preserve us all.” Argyros felt his head begin to ache.
“There’s more.” Mouamet Dekanos seemed to take morbid pleasure in going on with his bad news. “As I say, this is Alexandria; we’ve dealt with guild anakhoreseis before-or with one guild’s withdrawing, anyway. But all the guilds pulled out of working on the pharos at the same time, and none will go back till they all agree they’re happy. And this is Alexandria, where no one wants to agree with anyone about anything.”
“Well,” the magistrianos said, doing his best to hold on to reason, “they must all have been happy once upon a time or no work ever would have been done. What made them want to, uh, withdraw in the first place?”
“Good question,” Dekanos said. “I wish I had a good answer for you.”
“So do I.”
Most of the letters on the signs above shops in Alexandria’s western district looked Greek, but most of the words they spelled out were nonsense to Argyros. He knew no Coptic; as well as confusing his eyes, the purring, hissing speech filled his ears, for the quarter known as Rhakotis had for centuries been the haunt of native Egyptians.
The locals eyed him suspiciously. His inches and relatively light skin said he was not one of them. But those same inches and the sword on his belt warned he was no one to trifle with. Hard looks were as far as the natives went.
He stopped into a cobbler’s shop that advertised itself not only in Coptic but in intelligible if badly spelled Greek. As he’d hoped, the man inside had a smattering of that language. “Can you tell me how to find the street where the carpenters work?” the magistrianos asked. He jingled coins in his hand.
The cobbler did not hold out an open palm, though. “Why you want to know?” he growled.
“The leaders of their guild will have shops there, surely. I need to speak with them,” Argyros said. The fellow, he noticed, had not denied knowing; he did not want to get his wind up. When the cobbler still said nothing, Argyros gave a mild prod. “If I intended anything more, would I not come with a squadron of soldiers who know exactly where the guildsmen work?”
The cobbler grinned at that. His teeth were very white against his dark brown skin. “Suppose you might,” he admitted. He gave directions, so quickly that Argyros made him slow down and repeat them several times. Alexandria’s grid of streets helped strangers find their way around, but only so much.
The magistrianos had a good ear for instructions. After only a couple of wrong turns, he found himself on a street loud with the pounding of hammers and fragrant from sawdust. Again he looked for a shop with a bilingual sign. When he found one, he stepped in and waited for the carpenter to look up from the chair he was repairing. The carpenter said something in Coptic, and then, after a second look at Argyros, tried Greek: “What can I do for you today, sir?”
“You can start by telling me why the carpenters’ guild has withdrawn from work on the pharos.”
The carpenter’s face, which had been open and interested a moment before, froze. “That’s not for me to say, sir,” he answered slowly. “You need to talk to one of the chiefs.”
“Excellent,” Argyros said, making the man blink.”Suppose you take me to one.”
Outmaneuvered, the carpenter set down his mallet. He turned his head and shouted. After a few seconds a stripling who looked just like him came out of a back room. A rapid colloquy in Coptic followed. The carpenter turned back to Argyros. “My son will watch the shop while we are gone. Come.”
He sounded resentful, and kept looking back at the mallet on the floor. Then he saw the magistrianos’ hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Shaking his head, he led Argyros out into the street.
Argyros glanced up at the sign again. “Your name is Teus?” he asked. The carpenter nodded.”And who is the man to whom you’re taking me?”
“He is called Khesphmois,” Teus said. He kept his mouth shut the rest of the way to Khesphmois’ shop.
KHESPHMOIS-MASTER CARPENTER, the sign above the establishment declared in Greek and, Argyros supposed, Coptic. The look of the place did not contradict the sign’s claim. It was three times the size of Teus’ shop, and on a busier comer to boot. People bustled in and out, and the racket of several men working carried out to the street.
Teus led Argyros through the beaded entrance curtain that did something, at least, to keep flies outside. A carpenter looked up from the dowel he was filing, smiled and nodded at Teus. The fellow did not seem to be Khesphmois himself, for Teus’ sentence had the master carpenter’s name in it and sounded like a question.
The other man’s reply had to mean something like “I’ll bring him.” He got up and hurried off. When he came back from behind a pile of boards a moment later, he had with him another man, one with only a few more years than Argyros’ thirty or so. The magistrianos was expecting a graybeard, but this vigorous fellow had to be Khesphmois.
So he was. Teus bowed to him, at the same time dropping a hand to his own knee, an Egyptian greeting Argyros had already seen a dozen times in the streets of Rhakotis. When Khesphmois had returned the salute, Teus spoke for a couple of minutes in Coptic, pointing at the magistrianos as he did so.
Khesphmois’ round, clean-shaven face went surprisingly stem as Teus drew to a close. Like Teus-like all the carpenters in the shop-he wore only sandals and a white linen skirt that reached from his waist to just above his knees, but he also clothed himself in dignity. In good Greek, he asked Argyros, “Who are you, a stranger, to question the long-established right of our guild to withdraw from a labor we have found onerous past any hope of toleration?”
“I am Basil Argyros, magistrianos in the service of his imperial majesty, the Basileus Nikephoros III, from Constantinople,” Argyros replied. Khesphmois’ shop went suddenly quiet as everyone within earshot stopped work to stare. Into that sudden silence, the magistrianos went on. “I might add that in Constantinople guilds have no right of anakhoresis, long-established or otherwise. Seeking as he does to restore what is an ornament to your city and its commerce, the Emperor does not look with favor on your refusal to cooperate in that work. He has sent me
