It was here, outside the city, yet within reach of its protective walls, that the very rich had once built their country villas, and the district had been quite a garden suburb. With the decline of population, and of order beyond the city gates, the villas had long been abandoned, and were now mostly fallen down. Slaves still toiled in the occasional cultivated field, growing lettuces and other delicacies for the city markets. Slaves still trod the occasional wheel, raising water from the low canals to irrigate the land. Otherwise, the area was a near-solitude of rocky green bordering the blue solitude of the sea.
About a mile outside the walls, the solitude became complete. The birds twittered in the little trees. There was a continual rustling under the bushes of lizards and small furry creatures. Over to my left, the sun sparkled on the sea. I was on a fairly narrow spit of land that separated Lake Mareotis from the sea, and the road to Canopus ran through this. But I was on a side road that ultimately led nowhere. Here, there wasn’t a human being in sight.
It was hard to say what had got me out this way. Partly, of course, it was the joys of solitude. You got none of that in the Palace, and still less in the streets of Alexandria. If Martin had been working hard, so had I.
Then, it was the news I’d had of Leontius. He’d told the potty man he was setting out along the Canopus Road. Priscus had told me he’d not have set out till after lunch. Taken together, these might be significant facts. You see, no one ever set out by chair on the road to Canopus in the afternoon – not even with two relays of carriers to go at a steady trot. The Police Chief there had started locking the gates well before sunset, and was famous for not opening them for anyone till the sun was well up again. By day, the road could be as delightful over its whole stretch as the countryside around me. By night, it was a haunt of bandits and God knows what other mischief. No one ever started a journey that would have meant being stuck on that road after dark. Nobody local was stupid enough to do that, even with an armed guard.
But if the potty man had been accurately reporting what he’d been told, Leontius was on a journey along the Canopus Road. Now, the settlements that had once lain between the two cities had been abandoned a good century before. If it wasn’t Canopus, then he might well be up to something decidedly fishy.
I had thought at first to leave all this to Macarius. If Leontius was under continual surveillance, whatever he was up to would surely be known without my intervention. But little as I had any faith in his judgement, Martin’s endless mutterings about Macarius were getting to me. Perhaps I could take some hand in digging up the dirt on Leontius.
I turned up a slight incline. It was about the only high ground on the entire spit of land that stretched east of Alexandria. From the top, you could see down on the other side over a longish part of the Canopus Road. I stood and looked up and down the road. It was as empty as the road I’d just left. No one, of course, would be going down from Alexandria. Neither, though, was anyone coming up.
Leontius would have been long since out of sight. That is, if he’d done other with Priscus than make a polite excuse from his company – hardly a surprising act.
I swore at myself and turned back to look over the sea. But no one can be really out of sorts when looking over that wonderful ocean that washes every civilised shore. It sparkled so prettily in the sun. About a mile out, a few coastal ships were hurrying into port from Canopus or perhaps further out. If I strained, I could just hear the regular beating of time for the oarsmen chained to their benches.
Uton we hycgan hw?r we ham agen, ond?onne ge?encan hu we?ider cumen
I sang in English. Other than for secret notes to myself, I hadn’t used my own language in years. I no longer thought in it, though I believe I did sometimes dream in it. Now, its harsh sounds grated in my throat, nearly as unfamiliar and as menacing as Egyptian. I’d spent so long away from the language that any other Englishman who might overhear me would surely have thought I was a foreigner.
I fell silent. Once again, I asked what I was doing here. Again, the question had nothing to do with immediate circumstances. What was the point in this lunatic mission to stabilise the Empire by raising up the low? Hadn’t that landowner been right? Perhaps there was a reason for the difference between high and low that went beyond human injustice. Give it as you will, would not the cultivators of the soil eventually lose the soil again?
What was I doing here? On the other hand, what else should I be doing? There was a question worth asking. If only I could think of the answer…
I turned from looking over the endlessly fascinating sea and walked over to the little ruin.
I’d come across the abandoned shrine on one of my earlier walks. I call it a shrine, but it might have been a tomb. After so many centuries of neglect, it was hard to tell what the thing once had been. Roughly the shape and size of a small house, it stood up here about fifty yards off the Canopus Road.
It had plainly been intended as a place of some importance. Now, its roof had long since fallen in. Its walls held, but were buried up to perhaps two feet above their original base. The inscriptions covering the inner and outer walls might have been younger than that inscription in the Library. But they’d been in the open, exposed to the sea air. Reading even a few words here and there had so far been as much as I could manage.
I sat down on a fallen column. With a wild olive tree for shade, I reached into my satchel and took out the bread and cheese I’d brought with me. As I chewed on the slightly stale crusts, I fixed my eyes on the least worn area of the outer wall and willed myself to make sense of what could still be read.
Was this a dedication to one of the Kings Ptolemy? Or did it record an erection by a commoner called Ptolemy? Who was Aristarchus? What significance had these repeated quantities of oil and grain?
Land redistribution, Martin, Priscus, even the spring prices – these were all forgotten. Perhaps, I thought, after an endless scanning and re-scanning of those broken words, the place had been neither a tomb nor a shrine. Perhaps it had been some kind of civic building. If so, however, why so far outside the city walls? I took a swig from my wine flask and got up to look again at the rear inside wall. There had been words carved here that I’d already tried to read. They might now make sense.
Behind me, over on the road, there was the crack of a whip and a shrill cry. I turned and looked through the boughs of the olive tree. It was a chair for longish distance travelling, and one of the slaves had put his corner down too roughly. I could hear angry scolding from behind the curtains, while some steward laid about the offending slave with one of those flexible leather rods you use when pain is intended rather than actual bodily harm. If there was still a queue back at the gate, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the owner of the chair to be thoroughly pissed off.
There was a sound of hooves further along the road. Still keeping behind the tree, I looked far to the left. Yes, it was a horseman. Dressed all in black, hood pulled over his head, he came on at a slow canter. So far as I could tell, he was alone. Or he might have been the first of several from round the far bend in the road. But unless those slaves were armed – and ready to fight – I doubted if their owner would be up to very much in the way of resistance, to one man or to many. I squinted into the now lower sun and looked at the monogram on the curtains.
Well, well, well, I told myself. Who was it but Leontius himself? He’d been telling the truth about his journey. And how late he’d set out! Well, if he were to get his throat cut, it would be no loss to me. Even if it was a question of lifting his purse and personal jewellery, it would be a sight worth the journey to behold. I pulled myself back deeper behind the boughs of the olive tree and squeezed myself harder against its trunk. It would never do to be seen.
The horseman came level with Leontius. No sword showing, I noted with disappointment – only a salute. Another moment, and he’d swung off his beast and was standing on the smooth slabs of the road, stretching his arms and legs and brushing the dust from his cloak. Two of the slaves pulled the curtains aside and helped Leontius on to the road. He waddled forward as if to embrace the horseman. But the horseman stepped back. Going over to his horse, he dug into his saddlebag and pulled out a large package.
There was a conversation that I was too distant to hear. Then Leontius pointed straight up to where I was standing. I cursed and prepared to go down towards them. The thought of politeness to the man was enough to make the bread and cheese heavy in my guts. I’d not have put anything past Leontius, but I didn’t expect I’d have any need of the sword I had at my belt. At worst, I’d have to cry off the dinner invite with the real excuse of Priscus. It was worth asking which of the two’s company I least fancied for the evening.
But no – he wasn’t pointing at me. He was pointing at the shrine. Leaving horse and chair and slaves behind, they were picking their way through the brush as they came up for some quiet conference. Given more time, I’d have backed round to the other side of the far wall. But there was no time. The best I could manage was to drop down on hands and knees and crawl as fast as I could over to the fallen column. If I squeezed underneath it from behind, it would need to be rotten luck if either of the approaching men were to push through those bushes and find me lurking there.