Alexandria Page 33

  Now it was all fixed up, we experienced the last ridiculous pang of travellers' melancholy, wishing we could stay after all. No use: it really was time to go. So, for the last time, Helena and I borrowed my uncle's far-from-discreet purple-cushioned palanquin. We slipped out of the house past the muttering man, who still sat in the gutter hoping to accost us. Of course we ignored him. We had one last thing to do: I took Helena to return her library scrolls.

  Unable to use the Great Library, she had been borrowing from the Serapeion's Daughter Library. Don't ask whether taking out scrolls was really allowed; Helena was a Roman senator's daughter and she wielded her charm well. So we jogged there in the palanquin, jumped out, entered the stoa - then I had to go back to our conveyance because we had forgotten the scrolls. Someone was talking to Psaesis, the chief litter-bearer, but whoever it was scuttled off.

  By the time I reached the Library with my armful, Helena was talking to Timosthenes. I handed in the reading-matter like her trusty pedagogue, while she continued her conversation. 'Before we go, Timosthenes, did I hear a little rumour that your name was on the shortlist now for the Great Library post? We both want to congratulate you and wish you well - though sadly, it seems Marcus and I will have left Alexandria by the time they make the appointment. These things take so long...'

  Timosthenes bowed his head gravely.

  Helena could not resist lowering her voice to say, 'I know you must have been very disappointed not to have been included in the first place. But it is good that despite the efforts of a certain party, the Prefect was alerted to the error.'

  'By Philadelphion!' said Timosthenes.

  I saw Helena blink. 'Oh! Did he tell you that?'

  Timosthenes was sharp. He had caught her surprise. 'Well, I believed so - when my name was added he said to me, I always thought you should have been on the list .'We watched Timosthenes reassess the remark, realising it could have been mere politeness from the Zoo Keeper. For a fraction of a second, I thought his eyes took on a new coldness.

  'We all thought that!' Helena told him crisply.

  I was studying Timosthenes. He wanted the post; I remembered him saying so. He had thought the Director's prejudice counted too much against him, because he was a professional librarian not an academic. Even so, people had told me that when the original shortlist was announced by Philetus, Timosthenes was so livid, he threw a tantrum and flew out of the Academic Board meeting. I tried to remember if I had ever told him that I believed Philadelphion was the favourite candidate...

  Timosthenes was contained now. His manner was almost arrogant. I felt concerned for him; yes, he should be on the list, though he probably stood little chance. He was younger than the other candidates, must be less experienced. Yet I could see he believed he should get the job. He had convinced himself. To an old soldier like me, his certainty was dangerous. His yearning showed in the merest flicker of an eye, a slight tension in the muscles of his cheek. But I saw it there and was perturbed by the strength of feeling.

  He noticed me watching. Perhaps he also saw Helena slip her hand into mine. It was a natural enough gesture, to anyone who had seen us both together. What he would not have detected was the extra pressure of her thumb against my palm and the mild squeeze as I returned acknowledgement.

  She sighed as if weary. I said we had to go. We said our formal farewells. I took Helena to the palanquin. I kissed her cheek, told Psaesis she must be taken home, then without further comment, I went back across the stoa on my own.

  Timosthenes was walking away from the great temple trio: the dominant shrine of Serapis, flanked by a smaller temple to his consort Isis and a much smaller one to their son Harpocrates. I saw him enter a place I had previously noticed, and dreaded: the passage down to the oracle. I followed him, despite a horror of underground spaces. In all the godforsaken provinces that I had ever visited, if there was ever a hole in the ground where a man could be terrorised, I ended up going into it. Ghostly tombs, eerie caverns, cramped and unlit spaces of all kinds just waited to unnerve me with their claustrophobic interiors. Here was another one.

  This was built by the pharaohs so it was civilised. It had a clean smell and was almost airy. A long, limestone-lined corridor sloped away under the stoa. Like all pharaonic structures, this passageway was beautifully built - roomy, with a good rectangular shape. The steps were shallow and felt safe. From what I knew, it probably led to a subterranean chamber used for the cult of the Apis Bull. That had rituals with similarities to Mithraism and in Egypt was connected to the cult of Serapis. The rituals for initiates took place underground; I could guess they involved darkness, fear and gore.

  There were plenty of people out in the stoa but down here we were completely unobserved. I refused to go far. I stood close to the entrance and called out.

  Timosthenes must have been expecting me. That meant he had lured me underground on purpose. I had supposed I would be compelled to chase after him into the fearsome dark, but at my shout he stopped and turned around pretty quietly. His behaviour had a strange, unnerving courtesy.

  'This is a secret way to our oracle, Falco.' He stood still while he spoke. 'Perhaps it will tell me who is to be given that post.'

  'There is something you should know.' My voice was cool. We had liked him once, but now I knew better. 'The night that the crocodile was set loose to kill, a witness saw a man nearby.'

  'The woman Roxana. She named Nicanor.'

  'She has reconsidered and denied it was him. I think she can be persuaded to confess the truth. So who will she name then, Timosthenes?'

  I expected him to try something. All Timosthenes did was shrug, then he began to move towards me. I was still near the exit. There was room for him to pass.

  I was happy for him to leave without trouble. I let him go by then I quickly turned to follow. In this great city of contrived effects, it was intended that those emerging from the underground into the bright upper world would be dazzled. As soon as I faced the exit I was blinded by the natural sunlight. Timosthenes had judged it perfectly.

  He thumped me so hard I was winded. He shoved me so fast that I fell. I had no time even to curse. With the same pedantic logic that had made him try to kill the Zoo Keeper with his own beast, he tried to kill me with my knife. He must have spotted it earlier, close against my calf; he went for it instantly. I had barely begun to reach down for it myself. We fought briefly at close quarters, struggling on the steps. The knife was pulled out by one of us. It slipped through my fingers; it skittered past his hand too.

  Someone let out a grunt. I heard three blows, each hard. None of them punched into me.

  Timosthenes fell off me. Everything went quiet.

  I was alive. If you are stabbed, you do not always know at once. I moved gingerly, testing. I sat up, easing myself by stages against the wall behind me, uncertain what to expect. Here near the exit there was enough light to see that Timosthenes was dead. I had been rescued.

  I knew him. Squatting beside the body with a pleased expression, my saviour was middle-aged, scrawny, in a long grubby tunic. He looked unwashed and seedy, all starvation and beard-shadow. As ever, he seemed both sinister and desperate. Grinning, he wiped the blood off my knife on to his tunic, then offered it back to me, handle first.

  'Katutis!' I gave him a good long stare, then took the knife. I could not manage Egyptian so I spoke to him in Greek. 'You saved my life. Thank you.'

  'At the Pharos too!' he told me, sounding excited. 'I saw you going. I ran to the Palace. Sent soldiers over to help you!'Well, that explained how they arrived so quickly. So much for military signalling. Amazing.

  'Very well, Katutis, I give up. Don't mess about; you have your chance at last: just tell me what you want.'

  'Work!' he pleaded. He said it in Latin. His accent was awful, but then so was mine to anyone not from the Aventine. At least he had spoken clearly, without muttering or cursing. 'I need work, legate.'

  'I live in Rome. I am going back to Rome.'

&nb
sp; 'Rome!' enthused Katutis. His eyes shone with eagerness. Great city. Rome - yes!'

  Why does it happen to me? This was not what I had expected yet I recognised its ring of doom. 'What can you do?' I ventured despondently.

  'Perfect secretarial Greek, my legate. I read, I write. Every letter fully formed, all the lines straight -' He knew I had no need of him, but his need of me would beat me down. As I sat helpless, he hit his stride and sang out joyously, 'Good copies, Phalko - I can copy many scrolls tor you!'

  LX

  Rome.

  A month later we were home. I had soaked in enough old-world Eastern luxury. Here in the modern thriving West, the sun was clear, the skies were blue, the Forum reeked satisfactorily; it reeked of lassitude, fraud, rumour, corruption and depravity. There was nothing exotic about it; this was our own home filth. Now I was happy.

  About another month passed before we had a letter from Uncle Fulvius. In fact it was written by Cassius. He and Helena had struck up one of those friendships in which news is passed to and fro with delightful flippancy. Fulvius and Cassius were still at Alexandria, though my father was said to be now on his way home to us.

  'Oh how can we wait? - Read out the rest, Helena, if it won't upset me.'

  Helena and I were relaxing under our own rose-clad pergola in our rooftop garden. She was ready to produce, so I spent a great deal of time close by, ready for the domestic crisis. My cautious support seemed to amuse her; it also helped fend off my hysteria.

  'I could call your secretary to read this to you.' Helena Justina teased me without mercy.

  We had cleaned him up, but it would take much more than hot water and a new tunic before Katutis matched the suave factotums other men employed. I growled that Helena was prettier and had a better voice; besides, I claimed, Katutis was busy co-ordinating my memoirs. 'I have put him to flattening papyrus, which you do - any stationer will tell you - by sitting on it...'

  'Oh hush, Marcus! This is important - Cassius has sent us the list of appointments at the Museion!'

  I was picking my teeth with a twig, which generally superseded most things, but I sat up. Then Helena read out the news to me: 'Here is the first announcement. The Librarian of the Great Library is to be - Philadelphion.'

  I tossed my twig. I folded my hands and put myself into full assessment mode. 'Lucid, steady, good with staff, popular with students - on the surface an all-round decent candidate. Since all the Library readers are men, his belief in his good looks and his womanising will not be relevant. Unfortunately, academically he only cares about experimental science. His understanding of a great collection of written literature, much of it philosophical, may be inadequate... He was the only man to come out and tell me that he did not want the job.'

  'The natural choice,' Helena cynically said.

  'This is the dark side of public appointments.'

  'Those who chose him may feel that any man who wants the post too much is bound to bungle it. This could be a sophisticated way around that.'

  'Or a complete rat's arse.'

  'Well, you know how everything works, Marcus. It's not choosing the best candidate, but avoiding the worst. It cannot have been easy, picking through the idiots and incompetents, not to mention one candidate who escaped execution for murder only because he was already dead.'

  'I left behind a very clear briefing note. I don't know how palace secretariats justify their salaries . . .Who is next?'

  Cassius must have a wandering style. Helena searched before she said, 'Additions to the Academic Board, promotions to fill vacancies. Two new faces. Aedemon, our medical friend, which we already knew, plus Aeacidas, the historian.'

  'Could be worse.'

  'Oh here is another. Nicanor is made head of the Daughter Library at the Serapeion.'

  I groaned. 'Cobnuts! Nicanor? A bent lawyer - if that isn't a tautology. This is useless. All flash and pyrotechnics. What does Nicanor know about sanctuary libraries? He will just regard it as a sinecure, a useful step to worm his way into more senior positions. I see it all. He will never take decisions, so he never does anything for which he can be criticised. The Serapeion is well run and flourishing; from now on it will deteriorate. Everything will just stagnate.'

  Helena gave me a look, then unravelled more of the letter from Cassius. 'He is, however, to have our friend Pastous as a special assistant.'

  'Promotion on merit - an innovative concept, my dear, but it could just work! Whenever Nicanor is away, playing about with Roxana or defending some utter crook in court for an exorbitant fee, the excellent Pastous can fix up all that needs doing. Just let's hope his dire position never wears him down. Or perhaps Pastous can somehow organise a fatal accident for Nicanor; he will be well placed to take over...'

  'Nothing for Zenon. Cassius says, Zenon's fate is to be a permanently disappointed man. Still, he will have foreseen that, if he is any good at star-gazing.'

  'Old joke! The kind I like, however.'

  'He should have spoken up.'

  'Man of few words. They are always shoved aside.'

  There was a small silence. Helena gave a woeful sigh. 'Brace yourself, darling. Here we have it: the new Director of the Museion. Ugh. I dread what you will think about this, Marcus.'

  'What could be more horrible than we have heard already? Tell me the worst.'

  She laid the scroll in her lap. 'Apollophanes.'

  'Well, there you are.' Sadly, I applied my characteristic phlegm. 'There is no justice. That must be absolutely the worst, most depressing solution any bunch of ludicrous, remote, ignorant officials could possibly dream up. I assume they decided this nonsense when they had all just reeled back from a five-hour drinking bout, all paid for by luxury goods importers who want the Prefect to do them favours.'

  Helena drew upon her natural fairness. 'Let us try to be optimistic, Marcus. Perhaps Apollophanes will rise to it. There are men, men with limitations at the outset, who nonetheless defy opinion and grow into a new position.'

  I said nothing. I would not argue with my wife, lest it brought on premature birth-pangs and our mothers laid the blame on me.

  Besides, she was right. The new Director was a creep but a serious scholar. He might come good. In the terrible satire that is public life, you have to have some hope.