The Blood of Alexandria (7 page)

‘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.

I ignored Priscus and his unspoken query. ‘That is excellent. My compliments to the pair of you.’

Again to Priscus: ‘When my steward arrives, you will surely do me the honour of letting me accompany you to your suite. If I’m not mistaken, one of your rooms will be the office where Cleopatra killed herself.’

Chapter 6

I was awake. At first, all was silent in the darkness around me. I was alone in bed. That much I knew even as my head cleared. With the Patriarch scowling away through dinner, there had been no dancing girls. And, out of respect, we’d used the older serving boys.

I’d come to bed alone. So why was I awake? Instinctively, I reached under the pillow. Then the tiny voice spoke out of the darkness: ‘Daddy!’

I relaxed and focused on the dim shape. ‘Maximin,’ I said. I reached out and took his hand. As he clutched at me, I took him into my arms. There was no point in trying to get any sense out of him. I knew at once it had been another of his nightmares. With ‘uncle’ Priscus in town, it was hardly surprising. The man gave me bad dreams.

Now he was pushing two, the boy was finally growing bigger. Even so, he remained against my big barbarian chest and arms what that puppy was to him. Whispering comfort, I rocked him gently until he was asleep again. I thought to put him into bed with me and go back to sleep. But it would only have set the nursery maids into another panic when they finally woke. I waited until his breathing was completely regular, then slid out of bed and put on a gown.

The lamps burned low in the airless corridors. Night had brought no let-up in the baking heat, and the slightest movement had me dripping sweat. Maximin was normally light enough to carry, but holding him away from the furnace of my body was a strain that did nothing for my temper.

‘I thought I’d made it clear to lock the nursery at night,’ I hissed at the chief maid when I’d gently kicked some life into her. She opened her mouth to reply. I raised my hand for silence. ‘We’ll discuss this tomorrow,’ I said.

I watched her tuck the child back into his bed and arrange the netting above him, and waited until it was clear he’d sleep without break until morning.

Was that a flash of light?

I went softly over by the window. But it looked into a courtyard. Far overhead, the stars burned steadily down. I stretched out for a better view. I could see the reflected glare of the half moon on an area of roof tiles. There was nothing otherwise to be seen from here. Leaving the shutters open, I gently pulled down the reed blinds.

Outside again in the corridor, I waited until I heard the faint click of the door lock. Going back towards my bedroom, I reached one of the corridor junctions. Turning left would take me straight back to bed. Right would lead me out of the wing of the Palace assigned to me and my household. I thought briefly. About a hundred yards to the right, I recalled there was a staircase going up.

The inspection rooms had the advantage of greater height. In this sweltering heat, though, I preferred the openness of the main roof. Its flat span interrupted by the various courtyards and by the big central garden, this covered most of the Palace area and was mostly paved. It was sometimes used for theatrical performances, though more often for transacting business where much light was needed. It might now catch the occasional breeze.

I leaned on the rail that separated paved from tiled areas. I was on the seaward side of the Palace, and stood looking roughly north over the Harbour. Over to my left, the Lighthouse shone brightly, its curved mirrors taking and concentrating light from the burning oil in ways that no one nowadays had been able to explain to me. Because of its much greater height, its beams would reach beyond any horizon visible from where I stood.

Or they normally would. Tonight, there was a storm far out to sea. Those repeated and intense if irregular flashes left no doubt what was happening. Far out, beyond my horizon, the sea and the wind would be running wild. No ship that had dared a night voyage would ever get out of that howling chaos. We’d skirted a few storms on our crossing here from Constantinople. If they’d been nothing like this must be, they had almost made me reconsider my prejudice against long journeys by road.

But if a great storm, it was far out. Here on land, there was scarcely a gust of wind. It was enough to scatter the reflection of a few stray lamps on the Harbour, but no more than that. Down in the parks that fringed the Harbour, the palm fronds hung still on the trees. Around me, the dust lay still on the moonlit pavements. Suffused with the aromatic scent of the shrubs dotted in bronze pots over that roof, the air lay about me with the hot stillness of a bathhouse.

What the bloody hell was I doing here? I asked myself. And I wasn’t asking why I was out of bed. This whole way of life wasn’t anything I’d once have chosen for myself.