Alexandria

Mollified immediately, Thalia sniffed. She had saved Helena’s life once after a scorpion bite, so they shared a special fondness. ‘The zoo always seems flush. They don’t get privileges, mind you - it may have been different in the pharaohs’ day, when everything belonged to the man on the throne, but now the man on the throne is a tight- arsed tax collector’s son back in Rome. When they buy a new animal, they have to pay the going rate! They moan - but they still get whatever they need.’

I grinned. ‘The same going rate as you pay?’

‘No fear. I have to beat the dealers down, so I can afford to pay Chaereas and Chaeteas for their kind assistance.’

‘So would you say -’ Helena posed the critical question - ‘the way the zoo is run is straight?’

‘Ooh, I should think so, darling! After all, this is the one city in the world that’s stuffed with geometrists who know how to draw a straight line . . . Mind you,’ said Thalia darkly, ‘it a group of us went out for a fish supper, I wouldn’t trust a geometrist to work out the bill.’

At this point Uncle Fulvius appeared with Cassius and Pa. Pa had introduced the others to Thalia last night. She was just the kind of colourful element that Fulvius and Cassius liked. Pa took all the credit for bringing her into their orbit; Helena and I, who had known her for years, were sidelined.

In this gathering of entrepreneurs, I felt an outsider. I picked up my notebooks and after arranging to meet Helena later for a visit to the Serapeion, I went out.

At the Museion I tidied up unfinished business.

I was still looking for Nicanor, the lawyer. He still would not let himself be found. If he had been the errant husband of a client in Rome, I would have thought he was avoiding me.

I found out where the dead Librarian had lived and went to search his quarters. I should have done this before, but there had been no opportunity. I discovered nothing that might explain his death, though the apartment was sufficiently spacious and well furnished to show just why there was keen competition to inherit Theon’s post. Subdued staff showed me around meekly. They told me when the funeral was to be - over a month away because of mummification. It was clear they were upset at losing him. I thought it was genuine and saw no need to make them suspects. A personal secretary, who seemed a decent fellow, had written to the family and packed up Theon’s private possessions, but he had had the sense to keep them here in case I needed to see them. I looked through all the packages and again found nothing of interest.

‘Did he say what he would be working on at the Library, the evening he died?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Were any Library documents kept here?’

‘No, sir. If the Librarian ever brought work home, he always took it back next day. But that was rare.’

‘Who cleared his office at the Library?’

‘One of the staff there, I suppose.’

I asked if he knew of any anxieties Theon had, but a good secretary never tells.

XXIII

I had some time before I had arranged to meet Helena. I went to the Library and managed to find my way back to the Librarian’s room.

The damaged lock had been repaired and polished. The doors were closed. Even with the lock-bar off, they were hard to budge. I used my shoulder to barge my way inside, nearly damaging myself and landing in a heap. ‘Bull’s balls! I wonder if Theon kept the doors so tight to discomfit visitors?’

I had asked the question of Aulus, whom I found in the room by himself, sitting in Theon’s chair, with an enormous scroll half unrolled. He had made himself at home, with his sandals kicked off and his bare feet on a footstool. The scroll lay across his lap as if he was genuinely reading it. He looked like a classic sculpture of an intellectual.

‘If you stay here long enough, Aulus, you may see which of the notable scholars slips into the room to measure himself for Theon’s fancy chair.’

‘I thought we knew who wanted the job.’

‘No harm in a double-check. What are you reading?’

‘A scroll:

I had played that game when I was young and silly. Camillus Aelianus knew I was asking the title - just as I knew he was being awkward on purpose.

‘Cut out the daft answers; I’m not your mother.’

I could not read the title tab the way he was holding it. Instead I walked over to an open cupboard from which he had presumably lifted the scroll. The rest of the set were equally heavy and ancient. Three deep on their shelves, just one series took up all the cupboards. I started a rough count. There must be a hundred and twenty. I whistled. These were the legendary Pinakes, the catalogue begun by Callimachos of Cyrene. Without doubt they were the originals, though I had heard that men who could afford it had copies made for their personal libraries. Vespasian wanted me to find out about that. With the going rate for top-quality scribes at twenty denarii per hundred lines, somehow I could not see the old man opting for a new set.

I lugged a few down. There was a broad division into poetry and prose. Then there were subdivisions, into which Callimachos had placed each writer; I guessed that these must correspond with the shelf system in the great rooms where the scrolls were stored. In full the catalogue was called, Tables of Persons Eminent in Every Branch of Learning, with a List of their Writings. The authors were bunched together according to the first letter of their name.

‘I’ve written stuff myself. Do you think they’ll have me in, one day? “Investigator and genius. He studied at the Museion of Real Life” . . .’

Aulus was staring across the room at me as I mused happily. ‘You are listed now. I looked you up - since, Marcus Didius, an author of your standing will not want to be so immodest as to search for himself

‘You looked me up!’ I was astounded. ‘Camillus Aelianus, I am touched.’

‘The Pinakes are claimed to be comprehensive. It seemed a good test. Your play was publicly performed, wasn’t it? “Phalko of Rome, father Phaounios; prosecutor and dramatist.” They only credit your Greek play, not any Latin legal speeches or recital poetry: “His writings are; ‘The Spook Who Spoke”‘. There isn’t a section for Ridiculous Nonsense, so you are categorised as a Comedian. So appropriate!’

‘Don’t be snide.’

Aulus seemed depressed, and not just because the celebrated Library at Alexandria was prepared to acknowledge any old tosh just so long as it was written in Greek. ‘We don’t have time to read the Pinakes,’ he said, rolling up his scroll.’ I’ve been in here for hours, just absorbing the style. I’ve barely tasted one volume. Creating the Pinakes was a flabbergasting feat, but it says nothing about how Theon could have been killed, or why. I’m giving up.’

I was back poking about in the cupboard. ‘The collection of Miscellanea even has cookbooks. I’d like to be listed here too, with my “Recipe for Turbot in Caraway Sauce”. That’s worth immortality.’

‘It may be,’ growled Aulus. ‘But it’s my sister’s recipe.’

‘Helena will never know. Women are not allowed in the Great Library.’

‘Some bastard will tell her, knowing your luck. “Oh Helena Justina, didn’t I see your husband’s name on a fish recipe, when I was browsing through the Pinakes?” Or a copy will be made for Vespasian’s fancy new library and she’ll see it there herself. You know her; she will go straight to the incriminating evidence on opening day.’ As he grumbled on cantankerously, I wondered if he had a hangover. ‘Still, plagiarism has a grand old history here.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘While you think I have been sitting on a bench doing nothing for three days, I have been diligently applying myself to research.’

‘Really? I imagined you munching in the refectory and wasting your time at lewd plays. Did you like Lysistrata?’ He snorted. I sat on a stool, folded my arms and looked bright. ‘So what’s your thesis?’

‘I had no instructions for a thesis .’Tossing back his hair, Aulus knew how to sound like an unsatisfactory student.