I gathered up the rope in loops and towed the meat with me. I have had better luggage. I kept remembering stories Philadelphion had told to thrill my daughters: Nile crocodiles’ persistence when trailing a victim; their great speed on land when they rose up on their legs and started running; their wiliness; their colossal strength; their vicious killing power.
Soon I found what Sobek really liked for dinner. The next horror lying in my path was a man’s body - though only part of it. Chunks of the corpse had been torn off. There was a lot of blood, so he had been alive during some of the agony. Sobek must have ripped off and gulped down the missing pieces. I wondered why he had left the feast. I guessed he would return for his prey as soon as his reptilian stomach rumbled. He had just gone to catch more.
Ominous scrapes and rustles still sounded close by in the darkness. The mighty beast must be circling around me. I thought of scrambling up the fence but Philadelphion had told us they kept Sobek in a pit because he could climb short distances. He was such a size he could certainly rear up quite high.
Then I heard a new noise - different, human, disconcerting.
I stared around, but saw nobody. Still, I had definitely heard a subdued whimper. My voice was hoarse: ‘Who’s there? Where are you?’
‘Up here . . . Help me, please!’
I looked up as instructed, and saw a distraught woman.
She was halfway up a date palm tree. Sheer fright must have propelled her up the tree; she had her arms and legs clasped desperately around the trunk, in the way boys shin up to collect fruit bunches, and was clinging on for dear life.
‘All right - I’m here.’ Not much comfort if she saw how scared I was. ‘Can you hang on?’
‘Not any longer!’
‘Right.’ I assumed she knew the crocodile was still about. No point stating the obvious. ‘Can you slither down?’
She could; in fact, at that moment her strength gave way, her grip on the trunk failed and she tumbled to ground level, landing at my feet. I helped her up, like a polite informer. She threw herself into my arms. It does happen.
Fortunately I still had one oil lamp, which facilitated a discreet inspection. My heart was pounding, but that was nervousness about Sobek. If she felt it, she was too distracted to notice. Her heart was pounding too - I could see it was, because her ruined gown had been flimsy in the first place; thanks to the hard stubs of palm trunk, her garments now hung in rags. She was covered with blood, where the sharp edges of vicious old leaf spurs had cut her. She must have disturbed insects as she fled up, and she may have known that palm trees are a favoured haunt of scorpions. None of that would have bothered her, because she had seen the part-eaten corpse that now lay at my feet. My guess was that the poor woman also witnessed exactly how the dead man had died.
I would have wrapped her in a cloak for comfort and modesty, but on a warm night in Alexandria only wimps wear cloaks. I had not been expecting to rescue distressed women. She had, if it’s relevant, dark eyes emphasised by cosmetics, masses of slithering dark hair that had come loose from various ivory hairpins, the figure of a still young woman who had never borne children and who took care of herself, pleasant features and a winsome manner. Only one piece of information was missing; she supplied it: ‘My name is Roxana.’ No surprises. Well, she was running around the zoo at night, looking spruce. She was not bad now, in this terrified state, and must have been exquisite when she first set out. No doubt she came to the zoo to see her lover, Philadelphion.
I understood why everything male at the Museion hankered for this beauty. Philadelphion, that silver-haired charmer, had all the luck. She was still young enough to be an extremely appealing prospect.
‘I am Falco. Marcus Didius Falco.’
‘Oh gods in heaven!’ she squealed in alarm, and immediately started to shoot back up the tree.
Olympus. My name may be ignoble, but it normally causes only mild contempt . . . But at once I realised what had caused her to scramble for safety. I too looked around madly for a refuge. There was only one palm tree, and since Roxana’s strength had dwindled, she was not far enough up it this time to leave any room for me - not it I wanted to be out of reach of the giant jaws of the thirty-foot-long angry crocodile that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and was rushing at me.
I whirled the goat on its rope, once, and chucked it. Sobek stopped to take a look. Then he decided I was better.
We had been told of his enormous length, but I wouldn’t volunteer to measure him with rulers. He stretched twice the distance of a fancy dining room, three times as long as mine at home. His four short, muscular, splayed legs had covered ground at a gallop in his first rush forwards; he looked happy to carry on at that speed if he had anyone to chase. I was not sure how long I could muster the same stamina -not long enough .When he opened his mouth, about sixty teeth adorned his yawn; they were all shapes and sizes, and all sharp-looking. The stench of his breath was terrible.
Roxana, more of a game girl than I had dared to hope, began to yell very loudly for help.
XXX
Sobek kept coming. My instinct was to run like Hades. ‘When crocodiles rise up on their legs, Julia, they can easily outstrip a man ...’
So don’t run, Falco; you’ll just encourage him ... I was about to scram regardless, when a shout stopped both of us. I leapt to one side. Distracted, the crocodile snapped his vast jaws, ripping off a large square of my tunic. Then he swung his great head towards the new arrival.
Thank Jupiter! Someone who was good with animals.
Out of the darkness burst my old friend Thalia, drawn by the noise. She looked rumpled even by her standards, but at least she had grabbed a spear and a heavy coil of rope. She threw me the spear. I caught it somehow. ‘Settle down, boy . . .’
Sobek might be pampered, but he despised endearments. He jerked from side to side, weighing up which of us to kill first. Excited voices were approaching; rescuers were unlikely to arrive in time. “We’re not going to lead him back home with a barley cake -Jump him, Falco!’
‘What?’
Sobek chose me.
As he decided, I rammed the great spear into his open jaws, trying to keep it vertical to wedge his mouth open. Useless. It was a heavy old-fashioned implement, but he splintered the wood like fine kindling and spat it out. He had disliked me before; now he was badly annoyed. Thalia yelled. She had lungs like an arena wrestler. Sobek’s jaws seemed to take on a sneer.
The pause was enough. As he lunged, I obeyed orders, dodged around and flung myself across his back. The reptile was all muscle. He twisted violently and threw me off as if I weighed no more than a puff of goose-down. Every bone in my body came close to a fracture as I landed. Then he jerked around to come for me.
Luckily, helpers turned up - Chaereas, Chaeteas, Thalia’s staff. Hard hands grabbed my leg and hauled me away as those terrible teeth closed. Both Thalia and Roxana were shouting at the tops of their voices. Winded, I scrabbled for safety, while Sobek turned on people who were flinging nets and ropes on him. Lashing his gigantic tail, he broke free as if these restraints were skeins of sewing thread. A rope end lashed me across the face. Nonetheless, I tackled him again, narrowly avoiding a ferociously stamping leg with claws that could have ripped me open.
Somehow I bestrode him again, clutching on just behind the eyes atop his skull. Others bravely seized his angry limbs. They were pressing down with all their weight. It was now or never. I threw both arms around his jaws, at full stretch, my face pressed to his ghastly leather skin, my body prone on the pulsating muscle that would soon thrash me senseless. I had never experienced anything so strong. I was blind to my companions, had no time to even think what they were doing. I squeezed tight - and whatever the Zoo Keeper had said about a man being able to close a crocodile’s mouth with a small effort, he was wrong. How wrong I cannot begin to describe. Hercules knows how I hung on to Sobek.
I had sensed more people arriving. They knew the routine. Sobek had to watch and avoid them. I kept clamping his jaws shut, on the verge of fainting from the effort. But the situation was changing. The crocodile tried a stupendous roll, but his plummeting was hindered by the sheer weight of bodies restraining him. People must be hanging on all along his legs and tail. I could still feel him thrashing.
‘Don’t let go!’ I heard Thalia chirp.
You are bloody joking! I thought, unable to reply or raise a Roman quip of suitable nobility. Still I gripped on - as I explained to Helena much later, holding the jaws shut from behind very firmly.
‘Got him! Loose your grip, Falco. Falco - loose him now!’
I could not let go. My arms were locked. Terror kept me there, in my sordid embrace with Sobek. ’Oh, somebody separate them!’ Thalia’s voice growled, as if she was ordering a bouncer to break up a pair of rivals who were fighting for a sweet girl acrobat. Finally I unclenched my arms just enough to slide off. Chaereas, I think it was, had the courtesy to catch me.
There was still work to do, roping the beast, before we all had to tow his tremendous weight back into his personal compound. At no point was he entirely safe. We were sweating with fear the whole time. We manoeuvred him in, then on a command all sprang back and scarpered, leaving him to break free of his ropes. It took him no time. I squatted on the path, put my head between my knees and tried to recover, as close as I had ever been to total collapse, both physically and mentally. Someone was banging new timbers across the gate. Philadelphion - where had he come from? - set a guard on the crocodile compound.
When I raised my head, somebody - Chaeteas? - gave me a hand up.
People were looking over the fence to see what Sobek would do. He snapped a few times, but then began a slow waddle down the long ramp back to his quarters. ’Good as gold!’ some wag remarked. Another man hurled the half-goat down to him. He ignored it.
By this time lights had been brought and those who dared were gingerly approaching the butchered corpse I had found near Roxana. Nobody could bear to touch the dead man. It was a man; you could tell by the legs.
Thalia, in a spangly tunic of such brevity it took bravado for even her to wear it, started eyeing up the Zoo Keeper’s mistress as if Roxana was a dog with a killer reputation. Roxana, who by the light of newly-arrived lamps appeared not as youthful as I had first thought, glared straight back as if everything was Thalia’s fault. Even though she had ended up scratched, bruised, tattered and terrified, the Zoo Keeper’s mistress showed admirable style.
Despite the numerous witnesses, Philadelphion abandoned discretion and had the kindness to turn to his female friend with murmurs of comfort. Obviously concerned, he enveloped Roxana in his arms and took charge of her. I saw Thalia sneer. As he gazed around the scene, I wondered dispassionately just what he made of it.
The commotion had roused the scholars. Camillus Aelianus arrived and pushed through the press of onlookers as if he had official rights. He was coming to me, but as soon as he spotted the body, he veered and knelt alongside. I saw his expression and roused myself to get over there. When I reached him, he looked white.
‘Who is it?’
‘Heras, Falco.’ Aulus was shaking. He must have recognised what remained of the young man’s clothes. ‘My friend Heras.’
XXXI
Someone threw a cover over the corpse. Not before time. Aulus stood up. He seemed fine for a moment, then turned aside and violently vomited.