Richard Blake - The Blood of Alexandria

I wasn’t powerful enough as Imperial Legate to do what I needed to save the Empire. Even if he’d wanted and had known how to act, Heraclius was in no better position.

So here I was, wasting time that would never come again. I was giving up all but the most hasty pleasures of youth. I was giving up the more solid pleasures of learning in what had once – Athens always excepted – been the university town of mankind, and pre-eminently its museum and laboratory. If I’d read and was using those mathematical writings Hermogenes still had in his basement, how much more might they give up if I weren’t spending so much of my waking time on that bastard commission of Heraclius?

I turned from looking over that boundless moonlit sea and walked back across the paved expanse. My sandals flopped loud on the marble. There might be a few guards on sentry duty far below at the gates who weren’t dozing. Otherwise, I must be the only person awake in the Palace. How they could all be asleep on such a night escaped me.

But were they all asleep? I stopped and listened hard. Nothing. Night can deceive the senses, I told myself. I took another few steps, then stopped again. I wasn’t alone up here. There was someone else on the roof.

I wouldn’t call it chanting. I’d have heard that at once. It was more a sort of broken, rhythmical whispering. If I couldn’t make out the words, I knew for sure it was in the native language of the Egyptians. Being in Alexandria, I hadn’t bothered learning any of it. But the pattern of guttural, short sounds was unmistakable. It came from the far side of the roof. Because of a parapet wall that closed off one of the smaller courtyards, I couldn’t see the far side from where I was standing. Moving softly now, I took myself over against the wall and moved round.

Long and thin, the moonlight gleaming on his scalp, someone leaned far over the rail, as if bowing through the gloom over Lake Mareotis at something in the vastness of the Egypt proper that lay beyond.

‘Macarius?’ I said hesitantly. There was little doubt who it could be. No one else I’d ever seen in the Palace matched that shape and size.

‘So you can’t sleep either?’ I asked, trying to sound natural. He straightened and turned. The moon was behind him, so I couldn’t see his face. But I could feel the close stare he gave me. He stood awhile in the confused silence of one surprised. I was preparing another comment to break the silence.

Then: ‘The night, My Lord, is made more oppressive by the storm.’ He pressed his shaking hands hard into the folds of his robe.

‘Oppressive is just the word,’ I said, stepping over beside him. ‘I believe the nights grow more endurable from October.’ My voice sounded loud. I dropped it to match the semi-whisper Macarius had used. ‘This one is certainly bad.’

We stood looking over Lake Mareotis. The moon stood high above, and shone back at us from the perfectly smooth waters. Beyond was the dull gloom. Whatever Macarius might think he could see, I saw nothing.

‘The storm will be with us by morning,’ he said.

As if in response, there was another flash. It still came from beyond the horizon. We crossed the roof to the shore view from the Palace.

Was that a very faint rumbling I could hear? Hard to say. Macarius was speaking again.

‘When these things blow up,’ he continued, an abstracted, slightly annoyed tone to his voice, ‘there can be an end for days to all contact with the world.’

I ignored his remark. If he thought at all as the other natives, he’d care nothing for the disrupted sea lanes. So long as the causeways into Egypt remained unsubmerged, Alexandria would not be entirely a place where Greeks looked outwards to the Mediterranean. I thanked him for his advice regarding that temple.

‘I understand that My Lord’s secretary was able to have the subsidy traced,’ he said, now himself again. His face showed in the moonlight. It had its usual bland expression. Though fluent enough, Macarius spoke the flattened Greek of the natives, and it could be hard to tell between a statement and a question.

I took this as a question and nodded. ‘The subsidy was hidden away in the military pensions budget,’ I explained. ‘It seems to have been that way for three generations. But for Leontius, it might have continued another three.’

‘And I understand the Viceroy sealed your proclamation,’ Macarius said, ‘and this will be published tomorrow.’

I nodded again. Dinner had been a ghastly affair. It had begun with a reading from Saint John Chrysostom on the horrors of gluttony, and then proceeded, to an accompaniment of loud, twanging music, through about fifty inedible courses. It had culminated with the mice in lead sauce that had been the last year’s fashion in Constantinople. Missing out on the wine had been a bitch. But I’d sat beside the Patriarch, and had used the opportunity to match him in refusing all but bread and water.

To my annoyance, Priscus had struck up an immediate friendship with Leontius. They’d sat together deep in conversation as they drank their way through about a gallon each of wine. Afterwards, arm-in-arm, they’d staggered off together, doubtless to carry on till morning. So much for hoping the man might put the frighteners on Leontius!

Still, I’d got the proclamation out of Nicetas. Martin had brought it in, neatly written in perfect imitation of the local chancery style. Nicetas had sealed it without reading, then returned to pestering me and the Patriarch about the location of the soul between death and the Second Coming. It would be on the streets at dawn. Shortly after, it would be on a fast boat up river as close to Philae as could safely be reached.

If, shortly after, it might be floating back towards us, ripped and covered in shit, that was not a problem for me. All that mattered was the appearance of action here in Alexandria with the landed trash of Egypt. On the other hand, I’d seen to it that this Temple of Isis wouldn’t get another clipped copper out of the taxpayers.

‘Of course,’ I went on, ‘there’ll be no investigation. But it would be interesting to know how the subsidy continued so long without comment. And it would be most useful to know how Leontius came to hear about it – and how no one else in that assembly appeared to have known about it.’

I looked at Macarius. I wondered again how old he might be. Fifty? Seventy? It was hard to tell from those shrivelled features. He’d probably looked much the same since he was my age.

‘Did you not once tell me,’ I asked, ‘that you lived awhile in the south?’

‘I did live there,’ Macarius answered. I wanted to ask in what capacity. But he continued: ‘In Alexandria and in all areas touched by Greek influence, the dispute is between orthodoxy and heresy. Go far enough up river, and the Old Faith makes up a third party in the dispute. I find it hard to believe that anything so important as the cult of Isis at Philae could be maintained as publicly as Leontius claims. But many of the old temples are quietly kept going.’

‘So,’ I asked, coming back to the main business in hand, ‘how do you suppose the man got his information? Has he been sniffing round in the south?’

Macarius bowed slightly. ‘I shall be better able to answer your questions the day after tomorrow,’ he said. ‘All I can report for the moment is that Leontius has recently been enlarging his manor house at Letopolis. Bearing in mind that his estate is known to be encumbered with various debts left by his uncle, it may be asked where he obtained the money.’

‘Men can be very sensitive to news that their financial transactions are being watched,’ I said. ‘But I repeat, we are now willing to take a certain risk of discovery.’