Alexandria Read online

  Sometimes a moment makes you catch your breath. Doubt settles on you. Dear gods, why did I do this job?

  There was an answer. If, like me, you were born to a poor family on the Roman Aventine, there were very few options. A boy with a father in trade could be introduced to a guild and might be allowed a lifetime of hard effort in some unrewarding industry; you needed an introduction - and I had had an absent father. No grandfathers. Uncles all too old or with no decent contacts. (As a bitter example, one had been Fulvius - at that time far away, cavorting on Mount Ida, hoping to castrate himself as an act of religious devotion...) The only alternative had seemed good to a teenager: the army. I had joined, but found that in legionary life neither the bloody tragedy of war nor counting boots and cooking pots in the comedy of peace had suited me.

  So here I was. Independent, self-employed, favoured with a job full of challenge yet leading a life of madness. Informing was only decent if you liked standing in a doorway for hours by yourself, while everyone with any sense was cosily at home, enjoying dinner and conversation, prior to sleep or love or both.

  That could have been me. I could have learned to use an abacus or taught myself to be a seal-cutter; I could haul logs or run an apple stall. I could be a bakery owner's bread-oven-paddle-poker or a butcher's offal-bucket-toter. Right now, I could be sitting in a wicker chair, with a drink on a side table and a jolly good scroll to read.

  Nothing appeared to be going on, but I was patient.

  As far as I knew I was observing a fraud, nothing dangerous. I had on decent boots, a knife tucked in one of them and a belt I was fond of. The weather was fine. The night was young. I was clean and fed; I had trimmed fingernails, an empty bladder and money in my arm-purse. Nobody close to me knew where I was, but otherwise my situation was comparatively good.

  As soon as I arrived, I noticed at the side of the building a discreetly parked, typical Alexandrian horse, between the shafts of a typical Alexandrian flat cart. It seemed unattended. The knock-kneed off-white horse was waiting with his head down as they generally do, his mouth halfway down his nosebag for comfort, though he was not bothering to eat. He was thin, yet not visibly abused. Perhaps people loved him. Perhaps at the end of a long day, plus half a night when his man was moonlighting, he went home to a tolerable stable where the water in his old bucket would be not too dirty and his manger hay was part-way decent. He was a work-horse. He would not be spoiled, though it was in no one's interest to make him suffer. He led the life his master led: hard work that he had always known and that would last until he collapsed and ceased existence.

  Close by, in a shadowed doorway, a door stood ajar.

  Eventually a man staggered out of the doorway, pulling behind him a loaded hand-barrow. He was moving backwards at first, in order to haul the barrow over a bumpy threshold. Then he turned around and pushed it to the back of the cart, where he began, slowly, to unload small bundles and lift them on to the cart. A second man soon followed him and even more slowly moved more bundles. They had to reach across the tailgate awkwardly Neither thought of climbing up and taking the items from his colleague so they could pack them more easily. Neither had bothered to let down the tailgate. They had no sacks to collect up the items they were shifting, but handled them two or three at a time. It was a tedious process.

  Before they returned indoors for another load, they both went and patted the horse. He leaned his head towards them, so they could whisper in his flicking ears. You could call it endearing, though whoever was employing them would probably not say so. One of them started to eat a bread roll.

  Typical. If Uncle Fulvius and Pa were involved in this, they had mixed themselves up with an outfit that lacked even basic efficiency. Trust my relatives.

  I watched the two clowns saunter back inside, chatting together, then they came out again, having reloaded their barrows. Abruptly the scene changed. Our friend Pastous walked around a corner. He saw the open door, though perhaps did not take in the clowns with the cart. Before I could signal or call out, he rushed inside the building.

  The men with the hand-barrows looked at each other apprehensively, then bolted after him.

  Groaning, I wrenched myself from the security of my doorway, to follow all of them. My situation, previously so good, was now turning dirty.

  Inside the building, I found one large room. It was murky but still dimly lit by the evening sun. Upon various work-tables and the floor stood piles of scrolls. These were what the two fellows had been transferring to the horse and cart. Their labours were being supervised by the unsmiling man called Diogenes. He might employ clowns, but he was better quality. Though neither tall nor agile, his thickset, pear-shaped body was strong; he looked like a man nobody should cross. In short sleeves today, he had an old scar from his shoulder to his elbow, and large hands. His tiny eyes seemed to notice everything. I put him at forty-five, grim-natured, and from the thick black eyebrows that met in the middle, I thought he probably came from the north side and eastern end of the Mediterranean.

  When I walked in, Diogenes had knocked Pastous to the ground and was tying him up. He must have reacted extremely fast. He was using cord he must have brought to gather scrolls into manageable bundles.

  He looked up.

  'Evening,' I said. 'My name's Marcus - nephew to Fulvius. My word, I don't know what you were doing with the old fellows yesterday. They got your message, but they are all flaked out like a row of squashed slugs today. I've been sent instead.'

  I made a show of looking at Pastous; I favoured him with a large wink, in the manner of a no-good, cheeky cabin boy. Ashamed of letting himself be captured, he said nothing.

  Diogenes scrutinised me suspiciously while he tightened knots on Pastous. I stood and waited. I just hoped Fulvius and Pa had kept quiet about me. They could certainly be secretive.

  Did Diogenes remember he had passed me on the stairs that night? Had he then asked Fulvius about me?

  He grunted. 'You're from Fulvius?'

  'And Geminus,' I answered meekly.

  I passed his test, it seemed. Diogenes bent over Pastous, ripped off the hem of the assistant's tunic and gagged him with it. Before he was reduced to helpless gurgling, Pastous managed to come out with the old cliché. 'You won't get away with this!'

  'Ah, but we will!' Diogenes told him with mock-sadness.

  Silenced, Pastous glared. I reckoned this rather literal man now thought that I must have been working with the trader all along. His antagonism suited my act.

  Diogenes seemed to accept that I could be trusted. He ordered me to set to and help the other men. So, in this strange fashion, I found myself unexpectedly working for relatives, as I could have done for the past twenty years if life had been different.

  Before the room had been emptied, the cart was laden. Diogenes told his two men to wait there until a fresh cart came. He climbed up to drive, indicating that I was to go with him and unload the scrolls at the destination. Tracking the cargo suited me, so I obeyed. Only after we had left the Museion and were driving through many streets, heading westwards, did I ask casually, 'Where are we going?''

  'The box-maker's. Weren't you told?' Diogenes glanced at me. I detected a sardonic note.

  Now I was stuck with my role: the family idiot, the one to whom nobody ever bothered to give explanations. So I sat quiet, clinging on to the cart as if I was nervous I would fall off, while I let the trader take me wherever he was going.

  If this went wrong, my adventure could have an unpleasant, very lonely outcome.

  XLVIII

  We travelled for ages, or so it seemed. Now I learned just how large a city Alexandria was. Journeys through unknown streets always seem interminable.

  We kept going west, into what I knew must be the district called Rhakotis. This part, peopled by the native inhabitants, was an area Uncle Fulvius had warned me never to go to. This enclave had always been a bolthole for descendants of the original Egyptian fisherfolk Alexander displaced when he decided to build
his city. They were at the bottom of the pecking order, almost invisible to the rest - Romans and Greeks, Jews, Christians and the multitude of other foreign immigrants. According to my uncle, these were also the descendants of the semi-pirates the Ptolemies had encouraged to pillage ships, looking for scrolls in all languages which they commandeered for the Great Library. According to Fulvius, they had never lost their ferocity or their lawlessness.

  The street grids were like all of Alexandria or any planned Greek city, yet these alleyways seemed more sinister. At least in a poor district of Rome, I knew the rules and understood the dialect. Here, lines of drab washing were hung from the same kind of crowded apartments, but the barbecued meats smelt of different spices while thin men who watched us pass had distinct local faces. The usual half-starved donkeys were impossibly laden, but the middens were scavenged by long-legged dogs with pointed noses, mongrels that looked interbred with aristocratic golden hunting hounds; instead of Suburra sewer rats, skeletal cats swarmed everywhere. Human life was normal enough. Semi-naked children squatted in gutters playing marbles; sometimes one bawled after a brief squabble. Tears of indignation trickling through the dirt on a scabby child's face are the same anywhere in the world. So is the flaunt of a couple of girls, sisters or friends, walking down the street in similar scarves and bangles, wanting to be noticed by the male population. So too the malevolence of any hooked, black-clad old lady, muttering at shameless girls or cursing when a cart passes, just because it is occupied by foreigners.

  After enough time passed, the unfamiliar became familiar. We drove through now seemingly ordinary streets where people carried on regular occupations: bakers, laundries and dye-fullers, garland-weavers, copper-beaters, oil-lamp-sellers, oil and wine merchants. We passed down one magical alley where, by the light of hot fires, glass-blowers produced their jewelled flasks, jugs, beakers and perfume bottles. We reached roadworks and building renovations, where trenches, implements, piles of sand and heaps of bricks or cobbles impeded progress, but as soon as we were spotted, work stopped and our horse was led through safely with impeccable courtesy.

  Once I stopped feeling anxious, I saw that this district was busy but conventional. A great number of people, mainly at subsistence level, lived and worked here; suffered; made others suffer; reached the end of their span and died. Just like anywhere.

  Diogenes pulled up the horse.

  We were in yet another side street with washing lines threading over it. Two men were playing dice with murderous intensity - though they looked up whenever a woman hove into view. Any women excited them, even grandmothers. A noisy trio of youths were dashing about with a melon for a football. A dilapidated bath house stood on one corner, with a small temple diagonally opposite. Each had a very old man sitting on a stool outside, either attendants or just lonely octogenarians who had staked out good places to stop people for enforced conversation. They looked as if they had fought at the Battle of Actium and would tell you all about it if they could grab a chance, drawing diagrams in the dust with their wobbly walking sticks.

  The box-maker came out. He worked from a traditional one-room lock-up with a large shutter. It was only half open when we arrived, giving the place a secretive air such workshops normally do not have. I could see lights inside, but no clustered family. The man himself had a pale, gaunt face with an unpleasant twist to his mouth. He kept his lips together all the time as if he had bad teeth. He was not introduced to me, nor I to him.

  Diogenes started to act as if there was urgency. He himself marched to and fro, unloading the scrolls from the cart, while he ordered me to start putting them into the boxes. These had been made in advance, simple round capsae with flat bases and lids, in the same form as the elaborate ones made from silver, ivory or rare, scented woods in which rich men guard their valuable scroll sets. Diogenes had bought very basic containers, just enough to protect the scrolls on shipboard and make them look respectable for selling on. Bothering to buy boxes meant he expected to make a lot of money.

  Indoors with the box-maker, I tried chatting: 'Where are all these going, then?'

  'Rome.'

  I unrolled one, holding it upside down as if I was illiterate. The end-tag proved it came from the Library. It seemed to be a play, Menander by the look of it. He might be a raging bestseller in all the Roman theatres, but I was never keen on Menander. 'Who for?'

  'The people of Rome,' grunted box-maker. 'Get on, and don't waste time.'

  I packed scrolls into boxes. Nowadays only one public benefactor was allowed to splurge gifts on 'the people of Rome'. Their Father, their Chief Priest, their Emperor. I was beginning to see what the plan might be.

  The box-maker looked up. Diogenes had come back into the workshop with the next armful of scrolls. 'He asks a lot of questions. Where did you find him?'

  'He says he's Marcus.' Diogenes finally introduced me. I did not like his tone of voice. 'He says he works with Fulvius - but Fulvius told me different.'

  He knew. He had known all along. Both men were now glaring at me, the impostor.

  So Fulvius had told Diogenes his nephew worked as an informer. It could even be my fault that getting these scrolls removed from the Library then packed up and shipped tonight had become so urgent: my father could well have reported that Helena had assured him I was close to uncovering the scams at the Museion.

  Now I was in trouble. The box-maker had grasped the situation. He stood up. In his right hand appeared a small knife that he must use for box-making; its narrow, shiny blade looked hideously sharp. 'What did you bring him here for?' he demanded accusingly

  'To get him away and deal with him,' Diogenes replied.

  The workshop and its rectangular doorway were about six feet wide; with the shutter half pulled, Diogenes filled most of the doorway, blocking escape that way. He had no weapons on show, but looked tough enough not to need one. He yanked the shutter further towards him. I was now trapped indoors with them, and any cries for help would be well muffled.

  This was no time to hesitate. I half turned, hoping for the possible one chance - yes, at the back of the workshop, uneven wooden stairs ran up. I bounded up them fast, fully aware this could put me in a worse trap. I came through a hatch into the dark living-room-cum-bedroom such places often have, where the workman can live cheaply with his family. I grabbed the bed. One built into the wall would have failed me, but this one was free-standing. I shoved it hard clown the hatchway, jamming the legs as best I could so it blocked the stairs. There was another way up, little more than a vertical ladder. It brought me one floor higher, in among old boxes and box-making materials. At first I thought I was stuck. But we were in Alexandria; the place had access to the roof. The door was barred, but I managed to free it. I pushed my way out into fresh air, under the night sky.

  I could hear Diogenes and the box-maker coming up hard behind me. Nothing for it but to shin over a parapet wall on to the next roof. I ran straight across and clambered through some kind of reed screen. I kept going. From then on, the buildings were separate, but along the street they were so close together I could take a breath and leap. So I continued from one house to another - not always easy. People had gardens up there; I fell into giant flowerpots. They stored furniture; I hurt my legs on chairs and beds. I startled moths. A stork flew up and frightened me. At the far end were select apartments where family occupiers led leisured evening lives. At one, enormous women sat out on long, battered cushions, drinking from small copper cups and chattering. When I flew down among them like an ungainly owlet trying out his wings, the shocked ladies squealed, exuding sour breath and raucous laughter. But they heard my pursuers coming and at once blew out several oil lamps so they could hide me quickly among their husky-scented soft furnishings. I lay there trying not to choke. Diogenes and his companion thumped on to the roof and were sent on their way with extravagant curses.

  Emerging, I faced a tricky moment with a crowd of excited women who appeared to think the gods had sent me as a mercurial gigol
o. But amidst many giggles and painful pinches, they sent me down a narrow stair, which let me out at street level. It must be the way they admitted their lovers, I thought (admiring the stamina of men who could deal with such heavies). But they were women with good hearts, quick to grasp an emergency. I had thanked them genuinely.

  I emerged in a dark alley. It smelt the way they all do, with some extra strong Egyptian whiffs. I had no idea where I was. I recognised nothing. I saw nobody from whom I could ask directions, even if I dared trust them. My pursuers could at any moment burst from some other doorway.

  Suddenly, a cat meowed. I started. 'Get lost, filthy moggie. I'm a Roman; you're not sacred to me.' I flattened back against a wall, breathing hard.

  While I listened for trouble, I thought grimly about Vespasian and my supposed 'mission' as his agent. In fact I had no mission, not in the paid sense. My reasons for visiting Egypt were exactly as I had told everyone: Helena wanted to see the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Pyramids and Sphinx; because of her pregnancy we had had to travel as soon as possible. Uncle Fulvius had made us a convenient offer to stay with him. The Emperor meanwhile was completing his new overspill Forum, called the Forum of Peace; in it would stand a new Temple of Peace, while dominating the temple forecourt would be two beautiful public libraries, one Greek, one Latin. All Vespasian had said to me was: 'If you are in Alexandria, Falco, take a look at how the Great Library works.' There was no mention of scrolls. I reckoned he had not thought ahead as far as making acquisitions for his new buildings; it was, of course, a good moment for an entrepreneur to turn up in Rome offering cheap books.