Lindsey Davis - Alexandria

As for these young men on the brink of their public careers, they were at least more impressed by an imperial agent than their master had been. One even winked, as if my presence in Alexandria was some insider secret. 'Only a fact-finding mission,' I bluffed – and even that was pushing it.

'Are you making progress? Can we smooth your path? Remember, we are here to help. 'The old lies were flowing. Every time a new boy came out on detachment, the well-thumbed bureaucrats' lexicon must be passed on, along with the inkwells and the petty cash for bribes.

'I am bogged down working on your suspicious death.'

'Oh you landed that!' Gaily he pretended not to know.

'I landed that.' I was grim. 'Actually you could speed my task; something would help me incredibly -' I saw Helena flash approval of my diplomatic phrasing, though she looked suspicious. 'I need to see the financial budget of the Museion, please.' I nearly choked on 'please'. Helena smiled wickedly.

The golden bureaucrat pursed his lips. I knew what was coming. It was too difficult. To know where to lay hands on a document was far beyond the vague, floppy-haired senatorial brats who came out to the provinces. For them, this was a twelve-month posting that would clinch their next move up the ladder. The one I was talking to only wanted to survive it without getting Nile mud on his white tunic. He was here for a year of sun, wine, women and collecting exotic stories, then he would go home to the next elections, taking the lifetime patronage of the particular Prefect he had served and sure of a bench in the Curia. Daddy would have a rich bride waiting; Mummy would have ensured the selected heiress was, or could pass herself of as, a virgin. The new wife would face a marriage, whether short or long, full of dreary stories about Sonny's triumphal experiences in Egypt, where according to him he ran the place single-handed, fighting off local ineptitude and graft, plus the obstructions of all his Roman colleagues. Probably with Barbary lion hunts and a narrow escape from a rhinoceros thrown in.

Think again, highborn aide-de-camp. Who really ran Egypt for Rome were the centurions. Men like Tenax. Men who acquired geographical knowledge, legal and administrative skills, then used them. They would resolve disputes and root out corruption in the thirty or so old Ptolemaic local districts, the nomes, where appointed locals supervised local government and taxation but Rome was in overall charge. No twenty-four-year-old son of a senator could safely be let loose on embezzled land, sheep-stealing, house burglary or threats against a tax collector (especially if the taxman's ass was stolen or he himself had gone missing). How could this thumb-sucking juvenile decide whether to believe the word of the witness with the scar on his thigh who smelt of sweat and garlic or the word of the man with one leg and a scar on his cheek who smelt of sweat and horses – both speaking only Egyptian, looking shifty and signing their names with just a mark?

'I'll check, Falco. That request might be a smidgeon tricky.'

See what I mean? Useless.

I gave the sign that he need not bother. Quickly, he sidled out of reach.

Somewhere must be a tribune, who was nominally in charge of finance. Better still, I knew from experience, in a small accounts office off a poorly decorated corridor, plying his abacus furiously, would lurk an imperial freedman who could find me what I needed.

'You're tired.' Helena had read my expression. Before we came, I had been allowed to go out to the baths, which enlivened me, but the effect was temporary. On the way here I had given her the gist of my afternoon's investigations so she knew my head was whirling with facts to digest – not to mention our joint experiences at the Board meeting and the zoo. Plucking a triangular cheese tart from a passing tray, she fed it to me. Tiny shreds of onion invaded the gaps in my teeth. That would give me something to play with if I was bored.

'Come along; I've found out where the entertainment room is. You can loll on cushions like Mark Antony and doze off while someone plays a lyre at us.'

Helena jerked her head; Albia shed her covey of admirers and scampered after us. I was sure I heard my foster-daughter mutter 'Prunes!'

'You are talking about the cream of Roman diplomacy, Albia,' I said.

'Not all young men are idiots,' Helena soothed her.

'No; I remain an optimist.' Helena had taught Albia the knack of sounding strait-laced while being satirical. 'Thanks to you, I am travelling large distances and seeing very many foreign lands. I am sure one day I shall meet the only fellow in the world who has a drip of intelligence. I learned today,' breezed Albia, grazing a salver of almond fancies as we passed, 'the earth is a sphere. I only hope the one man with a brain has not fallen off the other side while I am looking.'

'You made her like this,' I grumbled at Helena.

'No, the men she knows did that.'

'Your views are just as scathing.'

'Perhaps – but I believe my role as a mother is to instil fair-mindedness and hope. Anyway -' Helena's fine dark eyes gleamed with reflections from many lights on a mighty candelabrum – 'I know men can be good, bright and honest. I know you, dearest.'

You could rely on a Ptolemaic palace to have long, wide, apparently deserted corridors, with handsome statues on enormous plinths and with shiny floors up which you could chase women, sliding along and larking about with squeals of glee.

'There is probably a wily eunuch spying on us!' Helena whispered, pulling up.

'A priestly conspirator, who will send us to a lingering death to satisfy his raven-headed god's demands!'Albia must have been reading the same myths. She was enjoying herself this evening and darted around us like a scatterbrained butterfly. More attendants appeared, so we all slowed to walk more sedately; I placed Helena's right hand formally upon my own as if we were a pair of bandaged corpses going to the Egyptian underworld.

'Nuts, Albia. Your conspirator is going to be that man who lurks outside Uncle Fulvius' house, forever trying to guide us to the Pyramids.'

The women collapsed, giggling, until Albia became serious. 'He followed you and Helena Justina when you went out to the Museion this morning,' she told me, a little anxiously. I had taught her that my work could involve danger, and she must report anything suspicious.

'Uncle Fulvius calls him Katutis.' I never saw him tailing us. We must have lost him along the route. I gave both my girls a reassuring squeeze.

We let ourselves be steered by the hired-in party managers, who shooed us into the great hall where music, dancing and acrobatics were to take place for our entertainment. Half-naked Nubians waving ostrich feather fans confirmed the cliched taste of the current Prefect. Fortunately there was more wine; by now I was ready to drink anything that came along in a goblet.

A large group of Alexandrian glass exporters had arrived ahead of us and ensconced themselves in the best seats. They were perfectly friendly, however, and happy to move up for a pregnant woman and an excitable young girl; even I got a look-in, because they thought I was Helena and Albia's escort-slave. They were talking in their own language but we exchanged greetings in Greek, then nods and smiles, and passed each other titbit bowls from time to time. Less approachable were a pair of well-dressed women, in attire so expensive they had to keep rearranging skirts and bangles in case anyone had missed their price-tags. They continued gossiping together the whole time and never spoke to anyone else. It could be that one was the wife of the Prefect, or they were just from that tiny top layer of society in Alexandria who were settled Romans. They could not be senatorial, but they were solidly wealthy and incurably snobbish. Apart from commercial visitors, everyone else here was from the next layer down, either Greek or Jewish – people with enough money and status to become Roman citizens (they had to call themselves Alexandrians). Needless to say, I saw none of the native Egyptians who toiled at useful trades and were stuck fast at the bottom of the social pile.