It was dawn the following day. I stood on the top of the sand dune, looking down over the excavated area. The diggers on the morning shift were being pushed away from their earnest conversations with the night diggers. Some of them were looking up at me.
‘What do you suppose is frightening them?’ I asked.
Martin looked down at the cluster of humanity nearest the foot of the dune. A couple of the Brotherhood guards were clubbing one of the diggers to pulp. He wasn’t screaming. No one was intervening on his behalf. Martin swallowed and looked away.
‘His Grace the Bishop comes and speaks to me now and again,’ he said. ‘He’s a native and a convinced Monophysite. But his Greek is good, and he means well. He tells me the diggers can feel they are being watched by night. Some have seen things they can’t describe. There are stories – stories that I don’t think you want to hear…’
I sighed. Reports of ghosts were the last thing we needed. For sure, it had been a difficult night. Every time the wind shifted, men had been throwing their shovels down and trying to run away. I had managed some sleep, though only after being kept awake by thoughts of a strike – or even a mass walkout.
I thought of asking Martin about the Bishop. He’d been brought in to supervise a thoroughly shifty oath regarding our safety. If he couldn’t lift a finger to save us in the event of failure, I didn’t see how he could insist on our release if we did find the thing. Having him turn up with his Gospels in Egyptian and his relic of Saint Antony was the best I could get. But I didn’t think it that good. Now, he seemed permanently on call about the camp. If he and Martin were starting up a friendship, it might come in handy.
My trail of thought came to an end. Lucas had now staggered from his tent. He stood about ten yards down from us, straining to watch the clubbing. It didn’t seem to concern him that he’d soon be minus yet another of his loving subjects. Since we were at one in wanting these poor buggers to work their guts out, I wasn’t inclined to think ill of his methods. I looked again over the excavated area. The sun was behind me to my right, and was still casting long shadows from the ruined walls. Nevertheless, it was possible to see the scale of what had already been achieved. We were nowhere close to uncovering the whole city; even at this frenzied pace, that would take nearly a month. But the whole centre was now exposed, and much of what had undoubtedly been the Jewish quarter.
‘You were a fool to come looking for me,’ Martin said again, now in Celtic. He was less bitter than sad. ‘It should have been obvious you were walking straight into a trap. You had one miracle in Alexandria. Don’t suppose you’ll get another one out here.’
We turned from looking over the broken ruins of Soteropolis and looked towards the sun. The dead trees were still there in the distance. They marked the limit to the city of tents called into being by the excavation – a city of tents that was now packed with shuffling, unwashed humanity.
‘Did you speak with Sveta?’ he asked. ‘Did she agree to your coming?’
I nodded.
‘With all respect, My Lord,’ Macarius broke in, ‘I have already told you both that Greek is the only language in which you are permitted to communicate. If you cannot keep to His Majesty’s rules, I am firmly instructed to have your secretary shown back to his place of confinement.’
‘His Majesty, my arse!’ I snapped in Greek. His back to me, Lucas stiffened and broke out in the little twitches of someone who wants to join in a conversation, but fears for the loss of dignity. ‘Isn’t it enough that you come before me again as a traitor? Must you show yourself a fool as well?’
Macarius shrugged and turned to an inspection of Soteropolis. The diggers were now setting to work. I was having them concentrate on the courtyard gardens in the Jewish quarter. He looked back and smiled weakly.
‘My Lord is from a place that was removed from the Empire two centuries ago,’ Macarius said. ‘Your secretary is from a place that was always beyond the frontiers. Let me ask what would be your opinion of the Greeks if their tax gatherers were stripping your people naked, and if their priests were calling your people heretics?’
‘That’s beside the point,’ I sniffed. ‘Your loyalty was to me personally, not to the Greeks. I suppose you forged the letter of introduction from my banker?’
‘If I might be so bold – Your Lordship has notions of personal duty more fitting to a Western barbarian than to a citizen of the Empire. I might also note that Jews have been given little reason to love the Empire.’
‘Fuck you!’ I snarled. And that was the only answer he’d get from me. At least Martin had other things on his mind than to glory in having been right all along.
‘Martin,’ I said, still in Greek, ‘I want you to know – and always to know – that friendship is a duty beside which all others are secondary. I believe this is one of those points on which Epicurus and your Gospels are in agreement. You must have known I’d come looking for you – whatever the risks. And if there is a God, there will surely be a miracle.’
I’d said my piece. I’ve never been one for showing my feelings when they can possibly be controlled. Forget all other evidence. It was their stiff upper lip that showed the old Romans weren’t native to the Mediterranean. Like me, they came from the North. Besides, I wasn’t giving that swine Lucas the joy of seeing me break down again and weep like Martin – not a man of the North, whatever his complexion said to the contrary.
I’d like to have asked when Martin had been taken out of Alexandria. Had he spoken first with Priscus? Had he any information about when the snake had joined up with Lucas? But there was nothing more to be said in front of Macarius. And the sun was getting stronger. Unlike me, Martin hadn’t the right clothes for keeping most of it off his skin.
‘It looks, my dear fellow, as if your celebrated luck is still holding,’ Priscus said.
We stood just outside the low walls that remained of what might once have been a carpenter’s workshop. It was probably within the Jewish quarter, though I was the only one able to comment on the geography of Soteropolis. The diggers held up the shapeless lead container.
‘It might have been a piss pot,’ he said. He stepped back to avoid contact with it. ‘And that is undoubtedly Jewish writing on the side.’
‘Don’t you think the writing looks rather fresh?’ Lucas asked. He wasn’t afraid of contact, and he snatched it from the digger. He held it up in the sunlight. His eyes took on their mad look and he raised his voice. ‘The Prophetess told me,’ he said in a tone of rising triumph, ‘that the twenty-third day of Mechir would bring glad tidings for all who fight against subjugation by light-eyed foreigners. This may be it.’ He looked closely at the lead container.
I couldn’t deny that the writing looked very fresh. On the other hand, who was I to argue with the Prophetess?
‘Your Majesty will surely know,’ the Bishop said in his heavy accent, ‘that from the moment it becomes holy, a relic never ages.’
That was a new one to me, but I’d not be the one to correct him. With shaking hands, he took the thing from Lucas. He began a dialogue with the digger who’d pulled it from the loose sand he’d been clearing from the courtyard. I didn’t need Macarius to interpret. The holy looks and upstretched arms were enough. I sat on a pile of mud bricks and kept my face non-committal. There was a sneering laugh behind me. I turned. Siroes was looking down from the level of the uncleared sand on the far side of the building.
‘I suppose I shall have to tell you till I’m quite black in the face,’ he said to Priscus, ‘that we are not looking for a chamber pot – nor anything else associated with Jesus Christ. I agree that it must be found by someone matching Alaric’s description. But I have not travelled all the way here – in considerable discomfort, and at some personal risk, I might add – to be palmed off with a piece of tat fished out of a rubbish dump.’
‘But, My Lord,’ the Bishop exclaimed, ‘you are looking at the first chamber pot of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is a relic of the highest-’
‘For all I care, it could still be full of his piss,’ Siroes said with rising impatience. ‘Priscus, if I find that you are trying to swindle me, you know perfectly well that-’
‘Oh, shut up!’ Priscus groaned. ‘This looks just the thing we came to get. We’ve even had provisional authentication. If you know something that I don’t, I really think it would save time to say what you are looking for, instead of what you’re not.’
‘I’ll tell you what we need when it’s put in front of me,’ Siroes said. ‘In the meantime, you can throw that thing away and have your people keep digging.’
Lucas looked confused. Unable to think of anything better to show his equality, he raised a hand to strike the Bishop. He suddenly realised what he was doing. The Bishop hadn’t flinched. Several of the diggers were looking surly. His own bodyguard was looking on in horror. He turned and padded after Siroes.
‘Nice try, Alaric,’ Priscus said with another look at the lead container. ‘But it does look as if you’ll need to work a great deal harder to please Siroes.’ He looked up at the sun. ‘You still have a whole day. I heard Martin praying as I came over. Shall I get him to pray harder – and this time in Greek? That is, after all, the language in which the Faith was revealed to the world.’
The Bishop looked happy enough with his relic. He was holding it up while every digger in sight grovelled in the sand. I’ll not say I felt much affection from the gathering. But I was for the first time feeling a certain lack of hostility. It was all worthless. I fought to control the tears.
‘What do you think it is, My Lord Alaric?’
Siroes passed the length of glassy cord to me. Priscus had tossed it back with a contemptuous sniff. Lucas had made up some nonsense about jewellery manufacture for export in the days of the native kings. I hadn’t supposed that a serious answer was required. But Siroes wasn’t giving up on his question. I reached across the table and took the offered eighteen-inch length of glass strands within a glass sheathing.
These weren’t jolly meals the four of us were taking together. It was uncooked food from a common plate, and water from cups allotted by casting dice. I might have insisted on proper food for myself – after all, I was the one person there who had nothing to fear for the moment. But it struck me as a better idea to keep up some pretence of equality. So it was dull food for me as well. Apart from this, there were long silences and funny looks every time the flow of bright chatter dried up between Priscus and Siroes. One friendly meal had been easy to ensure. This was our fourth dinner together, not to mention other meals. The pretence hadn’t broken down, and wouldn’t be allowed to break down during the time it had to be maintained. But the strain was getting to us all. Discussion of what had been found was something not yet seriously tried.
‘I don’t think jewellery manufacture explains this stuff,’ I said.
Lucas sat up, outrage on his face. No one paid attention. If I was there as a prisoner masquerading as an equal, his own equality was highly notional. Never much in the first place, his royal act was wearing thin. All he had to offer was some diminishing ability to control the diggers – and a continuing monopoly, it had to be said, of armed force.
I twisted the glassy cord, again noting how it moved in my hands as if it had contained bunches of silk rather than of glass. I forced the dull glow of misery to the back of my mind and tried to pretend I was here in more scholarly circumstances. I dipped my cup into the water bowl and drank awhile in the silence.
‘So far as I can tell,’ I went on, ‘Soteropolis exists on three levels. There is the modern city, dating back to the beginning of the Greek settlement. There are the remains of an Egyptian city. These two mostly run into each other, and it may be better to describe them as different periods of the same place. Deep underneath, though, there is something much older and much bigger. This stuff is buried in the foundations of that earlier city. It’s now in short lengths. But it seems once to have run in long stretches between the buildings.
‘Most likely, it served some religious function – though what it is and how it was made are beyond me.’ That wasn’t much of an explanation. But it gave me the excuse to ask a few questions of my own. ‘More useful to know, Siroes,’ I said, ‘is what you think is under those sands. It’s plain you aren’t interested in Christian relics. Indeed, all that seems to connect what the three of you are after is that it’s in Soteropolis, and I’m the one to find it.’
‘If my sources tell right,’ came the reply, ‘you will know what I seek when you find it. Beyond that, I am unable to comment. I hope for your sake, though, that my sources are right about who will do the finding. I am told it must be a man of light complexion from the West, who has much learning and great power over the Egyptians. Yes, let us all hope that describes you.’
We fell silent again. A gust of wind moved the leather flaps of the tent where we had our meals, and brought a little shower of sand through the woven papyrus of the roof. I wondered if this would cause problems again. From the wrong direction, a stiff wind could undo the work of half a day.
‘Shall I have musicians brought in again?’ Lucas asked with an attempt at bright hospitality. ‘They’ve had all day to cut new flutes.’
Siroes pulled a face. Priscus appeared not to have heard. I thought of making an excuse and creeping off again to where Martin was tethered. Doubtless, Macarius would notice and tag along. Certainly, I’d done everything I could, and it had failed. But we could sit together through the night. I’d try to think of some deal – even now – that I could strike with Priscus or anyone else. I might also find time to sit alone in the cold night air. I’d had little time for reflecting on things since leaving the oasis. There was much new material to fit into the hypothesis that was still only half formed in my mind.
‘What’s that bloody noise?’ Priscus asked, slamming his cup down heavily. His now rather bedraggled cat left off pawing at a dung beetle that had been deprived of a few of its legs. ‘Can’t you give us a single night when the fucking natives aren’t restless?’
Looking alarmed, Lucas got up and went to the leather flaps. Given luck, I thought, the diggers had grown sick of being driven day and night like pyramid builders, and had come to string up their latest Pharaoh. That being so, the Bishop would surely intervene for me and Martin. Lucas paused at the entrance to the tent, then went out. I heard his voice raised in some threatening snarls. The wailing started over again, almost blotting out the shouted jabberings to Lucas.
‘There has been another accident,’ he said as he came back in. He flopped down and looked at his cup. He thought better of daring to drink from it again, and instead stared at the ring of lamps.
‘My dear boy,’ Priscus sighed, ‘we are not so bored we need to be told about another dead wog. What is it this time? Scorpion bite? Falling masonry? Broken back at the bottom of a well shaft?’ He took up his fly whisk and flicked around without enthusiasm or success – not that he needed either. The flies were making a proper meal of me. They weren’t desperate enough to bite into Priscus.
‘This one is different,’ Lucas said, gathering himself back into a semblance of leadership. ‘I think you should all come.’