"What's all this about a murder?" Creticus demanded.
So I told him all about it, at least what little I knew so far. We were taking breakfast in the shaded courtyard of the embassy: flat Egyptian bread, dates, figs in milk and honey.
"Local matter, then," he said when I'd finished. "Nothing to concern ourselves about."
"Still, I want to look into it," I said. "It's bad form to kill someone when royalty and Romans are present. Especially Romans. They ought to show more respect to a Senator and two visiting patrician ladies."
"I'm sure the slight was unintended," Creticus said, spreading honey on a scrap of bread, to the delight of the hovering flies. "Still, if it amuses you, I see no harm in it. It can't amount to anything, though. He was just a scholar."
"Thank you, sir. These Egyptians are a touchy lot where their supposed authority is concerned, though. If they give me trouble, may I count on you for support?"
He shrugged. "As long as it doesn't cause me too much difficulty."
After breakfast I hurried to the royal quarters, where my toga and senatorial insignia quickly got me admitted to the royal presence.
I found Ptolemy enjoying a far more substantial breakfast than I had just left. There were whole roast peacocks and Nile fish the size of pigs, oysters by the bucket and a roast gazelle. Those were only the main courses. How he could face any sort of food in his condition was something of a mystery.
When I entered he looked up from his platter with eyes like ripe cherries. His nose looked as if it had been carved and lovingly polished from the finest porphyry. The rest of his face was veined somewhat less luridly. He had once been a fine-looking man, although a certain leap of imagination was required to discern this.
"Ah, Senator: Metellus, is it?"
"Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, your Majesty. I am with the Roman embassy."
"Of course, of course. Come, sit down. Have you eaten yet?"
"Just minutes ago," I assured him.
"Well, have some more. More than I can eat here, anyway. Have some wine, at the very least."
It was early to be drinking, but you don't get to sample a king's private stock every day, so I partook.
"You've heard about the murder at the Museum, sir?" I began.
"Berenice mentioned something about it earlier, but I was still a little fuzzy. What happened?" So I gave my account yet another time. I was used to this sort of repetition. When dealing with the Senate and its committees, you render your report in full to the lowest committee chief, who listens with a serious expression until you've finished and then sends you to the next higher-up to do it all over again, and so forth until you address the full Senate, most of whom snore through it.
"Iphicrates of Chios?" the king said. "Designed cranes and water wheels and catapults, didn't he?"
"Well, he said he didn't work on war machines, but that was the sort of work he did. The others seemed to think it was undignified, doing truly useful work like that."
"Philosophers!" Ptolemy snorted. "Let me tell you something, Senator: My family owns that Museum and we support everyone in the place. If I want costumes and masks designed for my next theatricals, I send an order there and they put their artists to work on it. If I want a new water-clock, they design it for me. If I need a new
Nile barge, they will design and have it built for me, and if one of my officers comes back from a campaign with an arrow lodged in him, those physicians will damned well come and get that arrow out, even if they have to get their philosophical fingers bloody in the process."
This was illuminating. "So their philosophical detachment from the real world is a pose?"
"Where I and my court are concerned it is. They may think they're some sort of Platonic sages, but to me they're just workmen in my employ."
"So if you tell them to cooperate in my investigation of this murder, they'll be sure to comply?"
"Eh? Why should you investigate?" The old sot was a bit sharper than I had anticipated.
"For one thing, I was present, as were two patrician ladies, and therefore Rome is involved." This was a stupendously tenuous connection, but I needed something. "And, in Rome, I have a certain reputation for getting to the bottom of these matters."
He squinted at me with his reddened eyes. "You mean it's your hobby?"
"Well: yes, I suppose so." This was truly lame. "Why didn't you say so in the first place? A man ought to be allowed to indulge his hobbies. Go ahead."
I couldn't believe it. "You mean you'll give me your official authorization?"
"Certainly. Have your secretary draw up the proper document and send it to my chamberlain for my lesser seal."
"Thank you, your Majesty," I said.
"Odd sort of hobby, looking into who killed somebody. Well, a man finds his pleasures where he can. Sometime I must tell you about the satrap of the Arsinoene Nome and his crocodile."
"Perhaps another time," I said hastily, finishing the excellent wine and getting to my feet. "I'll have the requisite document here shortly."
"Sure you won't have some smoked ostrich?"
"You are too generous. But duty calls."
"Good day to you, then."
I hurried back to the embassy and browbeat a scribe into composing a document making me official investigating officer for Ptolemy. That is the good thing about dealing with a king if he's favorable to you: He doesn't have to justify himself to anybody. If the Flute-Player wanted to name a foreign embassy official investigator in a murder, he could do it and nobody could contradict him.
I took the document personally to the chamberlain's office. That functionary, the eunuch named Pothinus, looked at it skeptically.
"This is most irregular." He was a Greek wearing, Asiatic jewelry and an Egyptian wig, not an uncommon Alexandrian combination.
"I have yet to see anything regular at this court," I said. "Be so good as to append the king's lesser seal. He has agreed to this arrangement."
"It is unethical to approach his Majesty so early in the morning. It is not the hour of his most discriminating discernment."
"I found his Majesty to be most perspicacious and in fullest command of his mental faculties," I said. "You speak disloyally, sir."
"I: I: I protest, Senator!" he sputtered. "Never would I offer the slightest disloyalty to my king!"
"See that you don't," I said coldly, and no one can speak as coldly as a Roman Senator. One must always maintain a firm hand with eunuchs. He appended the seal without further back talk and I left with it clutched happily in my fist. I was official now.
I found Julia and Fausta waiting for me in the courtyard of the embassy. I held up my royal commission triumphantly. Julia clapped her hands.
"You got it! Don't take full credit. I talked to Berenice and she went to the king when he rose this morning."
"He had very little memory of the event, but enough stuck in his mind to accomplish my ends," I said.
Fausta arched a patrician eyebrow. "Do you think that if you find the murderer, that will put Ptolemy in your debt?" Being who she was, Fausta could only assume that I sought some sort of political advantage.
"When did the gratitude of a Ptolemy ever do anyone any good?" I asked. "He barely knew who Iphicrates was, and I doubt he cares who the murderer might be."
"Why, then?" She was genuinely puzzled.
"Just being in Alexandria I have caught the fever of philosophy," I explained. "I am now developing my own school of logic. I propose to demonstrate the validity of my theories by uncovering the culprit."
She turned to Julia. "The Metellans are such a dull, plodding lot as a whole. It's good that they have a madman to lend them a bit of color."
"Isn't he amusing? He's better than Berenice's entourage."
I was outnumbered. "Jest as you will," I said, "but I am going to be doing something infinitely more interesting than sorting out the problems of a pack of brainless Macedonian bumpkins who masquerade as the royalty of Egypt." I stalked off haughtily, bellowing for Hermes to show himself. He came running.
"Here are the things you asked for," Hermes said. I took my dagger and caestus and tucked them inside my tunic. My sightseeing idyll was over and I was ready for serious business.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"To the Museum," I said.
He looked around. "Where's the litter?"
"We are going to walk."
"Walk? Here? You'll cause a scandal!"
"I can't set my mind to serious work if I'm being carried around like a sack of meal. It's all right for decadent, inert foreigners, but a Roman should have more gravitas."
"If I could be carried about, I'd never wear out another pair of sandals," Hermes said.
Actually, I wanted a closer look at the city. Prowling the streets and alleys of Rome had always been one of my choicest amusements, but I had as yet had no opportunity to do the same in Alexandria. The attendants and guards at the Palace gate stared in amazement to see me walking out attended only by a single slave. I half expected them to come chasing after me, begging to carry me wherever I wanted to go.
It was a strange, disorienting experience to walk in a city made up of straight lines and right-angled intersections. Merely crossing one of the wide streets gave me an odd sensation of exposure and vulnerability.
"It must be hard to elude the nightwatch in a city like this," Hermes observed.
"They might have been thinking something of the sort when they designed it. A bad place for a riot, too. See, you could line up troops at one end of the city and sweep through the whole town. You could herd rioters down the side streets, separate them into little groups or crowd them into one place, wherever you want."
"It's unnatural," Hermes said.
"I agree. I can see the advantages, though."
"All made of stone, too," Hermes said.
"Timber is scarce in Egypt. It's comforting, knowing you aren't likely to be incinerated while you sleep."
The people who thronged the streets were of all nations, but the bulk of them were native Egyptians. The rest were Greeks, Syrians, Jews, Sabaeans, Arabs, Galatians and people whose features and dress I did not recognize. There were Nubians and Ethiopians in every shade of black, most of them slaves but some traders. Everyone spoke Greek, but other languages formed a subcurrent beneath the predominant Greek tide, especially Egyptian. The Egyptian language actually sounds the way those hieroglyphs look. At every street corner there were mountebanks to be seen, dancing, tumbling and performing magic tricks. Trained animals went through their paces, and jugglers kept unlikely objects in the air with uncanny skill. Hermes wanted to gawk at all of these, but I tugged him past them, my mind set on greater matters.
We could have entered the rear of the Museum complex from the Palace itself, but I preferred to get a feel of the city. One raised in a great city has a feel for cities, as a peasant has a feel for arable land and a sailor for the sea. I had grown up in Rome and had urban bones. These people were foreigners, but they were city-dwellers, and all such have certain things in common.
My bones told me that this was a fat, happy, complacent populace. Whatever discontent there might be was minor. Had there been a riot or insurrection brewing, I would have known it. Alexandrians were known to riot from time to time, even killing or expelling a king or two, but these people were too busy making money or otherwise enjoying themselves to represent a threat. Civil discontent is always a menace in polyglot cities like Alexandria, where tribal antipathies sometimes override respect for law and authority. Not that Rome has place of pride in that respect. Our civil disorders tend to involve class rather than national divisions.
"Don't even think it, Hermes," I said.
"How do you know what I'm thinking?" he said, all wounded innocence. I knew when he said it that I was right.
"You're thinking: 'Here's a place where a presentable lad can fade into the population, and who's to notice? Here I can pass myself off as a free man, and no one will know I was ever a slave.' Isn't that what you were thinking?"
"Never!" he said vehemently.
"Well, that is good to hear, Hermes, because there are many cruel, brutal men in this city who do nothing but look for runaways to haul back to their masters for the reward, or to sell off to new masters. Should you disappear some morning, I would only have to pass the word and you would be back before nightfall. This is a large city, but the accents and inflections of the Roman streets aren't at all common here. So forget such fantasies and apply yourself to my service. I'll free you one of these days."
"You've never trusted me," he complained. I could understand why he thought so, since I delivered that same speech, with minor variations, every few days. One can never truly trust slaves, and some, like Hermes, are less trustworthy than others.
The day was a pleasant one, as most are in Alexandria. The climate was not as ideal as that of Italy, but then, no place save Italy has such a climate. The throngs were lively and cheerful, and the scent of incense mixed with the pervasive smell of the sea. In most respects Alexandria was a more pleasantly aromatic city than Rome.
Armed with my royal commission, I mounted the steps of the Museum. I wanted to pay another visit to the Temple, but on this morning I had more urgent business. I passed through the entrance and made my way past the lecture halls that resounded with the droning of the philosophers, down the long colonnade of the Peripatetics, back to the courtyard where Iphicrates's marvelous canal lock sat forlornly, unattended. This, I thought, was a project that might not see completion for a while.
I went into Iphicrates's quarters, which had been tidied up. The blood had been scrubbed from the floor and a pair of secretaries were scribbling away, collating the writings and drawings on a large desk. A third man wandered around the study with a puzzled expression.
"Is the inventory nearly complete?" I asked.
"Almost, Senator," said the elder of the two secretaries. "We will soon be finished with the drawings. This"-he indicated a papyrus lying on the table-"is the list of his writings and this"-he pointed to another-"is a listing of all the objects we found in these quarters." I began to study the latter. It would have helped immeasurably to know what had been there before the murder, but this was better than nothing.
"And what might be your business?" I asked the third man. He was a Greek with a long nose and a bald head, dressed like the Librarians I had seen.
"I am Eumenes of Eleusis, Librarian of the Pergamese Books. I came here to find a scroll that the late Iphicrates borrowed from my department."
"I see. Was it by any chance a large scroll, of Pergamese skin-paper, with olive wood rollers, the handles stained vermilion?"
He looked surprised. "Why, yes, Senator. Have you seen it? I've been looking all morning."
"What is the subject of this book?" I asked, ignoring his question.
"Forgive me, Senator, but Iphicrates borrowed this book in strictest confidence."
"Iphicrates is dead, and I have been appointed to investigate. Now tell me-"
"Who are you?" interrupted someone from the doorway. Annoyed, I turned to see two men standing in the doorway. The one who had spoken I did not recognize. Just behind him stood a man who looked familiar.
I drew myself up. "I am Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus and I am investigating the murder of Iphicrates of Chios. Who might you be?"
The man came into the room, followed by the other. Now I remembered where I had seen that one. He was the hatchet-faced officer who had shooed me away from the parade ground.
"I am Achillas," said the first man, "Commander of the Royal Army." He wore studded boots and a rich, red tunic. Over that he wore one of those leather strap-harnesses that military men sometimes wear to give the appearance of armor, without having to endure its weight. His hair and beard were trimmed close all around.
"And I'm Memnon, Commander of the Macedonian Barracks," said the other. "We've met." They were both Macedonians, a nation of men who simply use their names, without the of-this-or-that the Greeks delight in so.
"So we have. And what are you two doing here?"
"By whose authority do you investigate?" demanded Achillas.
I was ready for that one.
"The king's," I said, holding out my sealed document. He studied it through slitted eyes.
"That damned, drunken fool," he muttered. Then, to me: "What is your interest in this matter, Roman?"
"Rome is the friend of Egypt," I said, "and we are always pleased to render aid to King Ptolemy, Friend and Ally of the Roman People." I always loved this sort of diplomatic hypocrisy. "I am known in Rome as a skillful investigator of criminal acts, and I am more than happy to place my expertise at the service of the king." I refolded my commission and placed it inside my tunic, leaving my hand there for the nonce. Memnon pushed forward, glaring at me. He wore cuirass and greaves, but no helmet. I was intensely aware of the short sword belted at his side.
"You aren't wanted here, Roman," he growled. "Go back to your embassy and drink and fornicate like the rest of your worthless countrymen. This is Egypt."
At our first encounter we had been on his ground, surrounded by his soldiers. This was different.
"I am in the service not only of the Senate and People of Rome, but of their ally, your king. I believe that I am far more loyal to him than you are."
They always get that look in their eyes when they go for their weapons. With a strangled sound of rage he gripped his sheath with one hand and his hilt with the other. I was ready for that, too.
The blade was halfway out of its sheath when my own hand emerged from my tunic, now gripping my caestus. I fed him a good one, the spikes on the bronze knuckle-bar catching him on the jaw just in front of the ear. He staggered back with a grunt of amazement. I was amazed, too. I had never struck a man with my caestus without knocking him down. So I hit him again, on the same spot. This time he toppled amid a crash of bronze, like those heroes sung of by Homer.
The secretaries and the Librarian wore round-eyed expressions of surprise and fear. Hermes grinned happily, like the bloody-minded little demon that he was. Achillas looked very grave.
"You go too far, Senator," he said.
" I go too far? He attacked a Roman Senator, an ambassador. Kingdoms have been destroyed for that."
He shrugged. "A hundred years ago, perhaps. Not now." Well, that was true enough. With a visible effort, he calmed himself. "This is not a matter worth provoking a diplomatic crisis. You must understand, Senator, that it always vexes us to see Romans come here and assume authority as if by right."
"I quite understand," I said. "But I am here by authority of your king." On the floor, Memnon groaned.
"I had better see him to a physician," Achillas said.
"I recommend Asklepiodes," I said. "He's nearby. Tell him I sent you." He summoned a few slaves and they bore the fallen hero away. I still did not know why the two were there. They had been reluctant to say, and I thought it unwise to press the matter.
I turned back to the Librarian. "Now, you were about to tell me the nature of the missing book, were you not?" I slipped off my caestus and tossed it to Hermes. "Go wash the blood off that," I told him.
"Why: ah: that is:" Eumenes took a deep breath and calmed himself. "Actually, Senator, it is one of the more valuable works in the Library. It was written by Biton and dedicated to King Attalus I of Pergamum more than one hundred years ago."
"And its title?" I asked.
"On Engines of War."
Hermes handed back my caestus as we left the Museum.
"That was as good as an afternoon in the amphitheater," he said. "But that was one tough Greek."
"Not Greek," I corrected. "Macedonian. An altogether tougher breed."
"I knew he was some sort of foreigner. You should have killed him. Now he'll be coming for you." Hermes had a delightfully simple way of looking at things.
"I'll talk to the king. Maybe I can get him posted up the river someplace. I am more concerned about Achillas. He's the ranking man in the royal army. See what you can find out about him."
I do some of my best thinking while walking, and I had much to think about. So, Iphicrates never designed military machines, did he? Obviously, he had been lying. Typical Greek. But I wondered why all the secrecy. It was not as if the activity were unlawful. There had to be more to it.
Before long, we found ourselves in the quarter of the Jews, an odd race with a paucity of gods. Other than that, they were much like other Easterners. Many thought it strange that their god had no image, but until a few centuries ago, there were no statues of Roman gods, either. The early Ptolemies had favored the Jews as a balance against the native Egyptians. There was some sort of ancient antipathy between the two. As a result, Jews had flocked to the city.
The streets were quiet and almost deserted, an odd thing in Alexandria. I asked at one of the open stalls and found that it was a day of religious observance for the Jews, one that they spent at home rather than in a temple. This was commendable piety but boring for the observer.
"There's other places in this city more lively," Hermes said.
"Unquestionably," I answered. "Let's go to the Rakhotis."
The Rakhotis was the Egyptian quarter, the largest in this most cosmopolitan of cities. It was easily the size of the Greek, Macedonian and Jewish quarters combined. In its own way, it was the oddest, to Roman eyes.
The Egyptians are the most ancient of peoples, and so profoundly conservative that they make the most reactionary Romans appear wildly mutable. The common subjects of the Ptolemies are identical to the ones you see painted in the temples of the oldest Pharaohs. They are short, sturdily built people, dark of skin, although not as dark as Nubians. The usual garment of the men is a kilt of white linen, and most wear short, square-cut black wigs. They rim their eyes with kohl for its supposed beneficial effects, believing that it protects the eyes. The old Egyptian nobility, of whom there are still a few specimens here and there, is of a different race, taller and fairer, although darker than Greeks or Italians. Their language is spoken nowhere outside Egypt.
To see them now makes it difficult for one to believe that these were the people who built the mind-stunning pyramids, but then the Greeks of today aren't much like the heroes of Homer, or even like their more recent ancestors of the Persian wars. The Egyptians take their religion very seriously, despite having some of the most supremely silly-looking gods in the world. Everybody thinks the animal-headed gods are hilarious, but my personal favorite is the one who is depicted dead and wrapped up like a mummy except for his face but who stands upright with an erect penis protruding from his wrappings.
In the Rakhotis we found the usual uproarious street scene, with hawkers plying their wares, animals being led to the markets, and the endless religious processions that are an inescapable part of Egyptian life. Here I was not simply sightseeing. I had a specific destination, but I didn't want to look as if I were investigating in this district.
Our first stop was the Great Serapeum. It was another example of the Cyclopean architecture that so delighted the Successors. Almost as large as the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, the Serapeum was dedicated to the god Serapis, who was himself an Alexandrian invention. The Successors thought they could do everything better than anyone else, including god-making. Alexandria was a new sort of city, and they wanted a god for their city who would blend Egyptian and Greek religious practice, so they concocted a god with the majestic, serene countenance of Pluto and melded him with the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis, hence the name Serapis. For some reason this cobbled-together deity proved to be popular, and now he is worshipped throughout much of the world.
The Serapeum, like the Palace, forms a veritable city within a city, with livestock pens for the sacrificial animals, several cohorts of priests and attendants, rooms full of paraphernalia and treasures, fabulous art objects and even an arsenal and a private army to guard it all.
The temple itself was typical of the type, which is to ay a standard Greek temple, only bigger. It sat on a lofty, man-made hill of stone, and the upper, visible part was always open to the public. It contained the statue of the god, which was surprisingly modest in its proportions. All this was for show. Since Serapis was an agglomeration of Chthonic deities, the actual worship was carried out in a series of underground crypts.
I strolled among these wonders, gawking like any other foreign tourist, but my attention was elsewhere. It was directed toward a smaller temple two streets south of the Serapeum. From it rose smoke as from a minor volcano, and the breeze carried the sounds of wailing song and clashing musical instruments. I stopped one of the priests, a man dressed in Greek sacerdotal garments, but with a leopard skin thrown over his shoulders in the Egyptian fashion.
"Tell me, sir," I said, "what god might be worshipped in that noisy temple over there?"
From the lofty eminence of the Serapeum he stared down his equally lofty nose at the temple in question.
"That is the Temple of Baal-Ahriman, although in better days it was a respectable temple of Horus. I would recommend that you avoid it, Senator. It is a cult brought here by unwashed foreigners, and only the lewdest and most degraded of Alexandrians frequent it. Their barbarous god is worshipped with disgusting orgies."
Hermes tugged at my arm. "Let's go! Let's go!"
"We shall, but only because it is within the scope of my investigation," I said.
We descended the majestic steps of the Serapeum and crossed two blocks to the Temple of Baal-Ahriman, which was thronged with worshippers, sightseers and idlers. It seemed that the inaugural festivities were still in progress. People danced to the clanging of cymbals and the rattle of sistra, the wailing of flutes and the thumping of drums. Many lay inert, worn out by their sanctified exertions.
Incense burned in huge bronze braziers all over the temple and its courtyards. It was needed, too. Fifty bulls produce a great deal of blood when they are sacrificed, far more than the gutters and drains of the temple were designed to cope with. The incense deadened the smell and kept down the flies a bit. The heads and hides of the bulls were mounted on stakes, facing inward toward the temple.
Like most Egyptian temples, it was rather cramped inside, what with the thick walls and the usual forest of squat pillars. At the utmost end was the statue of the seated god. Baal-Ahriman was about as ugly as a god can get without turning viewers to stone. His head was that of a lion that appeared to suffer from some form of leonine leprosy. The body was that of an emaciated man with withered female breasts, a little difficult to discern because he was still wearing his cloak of bulls' testicles. The flies were especially numerous in this inner sanctum.
"You have come to pay your respects to the great Baal-Ahriman?" I turned to see Ataxas, still draped with his snake.
"A Roman official always gives due respect to the gods of the lands he visits," I said. I took a pinch of incense from a huge bowl and tossed it onto the coals that glowed in a brazier before the disgusting thing. The resultant puff of smoke did very little to allay the stench.
"Excellent. My Lord is pleased. He harbors only the greatest love for Rome, and would like to be numbered among the gods worshipped in the greatest city in the world."
"I shall speak to the Senate about it," I said, mentally vowing to start a major war before allowing his ghastly death-demon to set a diseased paw within the gates of Rome.
"That would be splendid," he said, beaming greasily.
"Am I to understand," I inquired, "that the god is soon to speak to the faithful?"
He nodded solemnly. "That is true. Upon several occasions of late, my Lord has come to me in visions and has told me that he will soon make himself manifest among his worshippers. He will speak forth in his own voice, requiring no intermediary."
"I take it, then, that he will speak oracular pronouncements, which you will then interpret for the ears of the vulgar?"
"Oh, no, Senator. As I have said, he will require no intermediary. He will speak plainly."
"Since his original home was in Asia," I hazarded, "I presume that he will speak in one of the Eastern tongues?"
"My Lord has now made his home in Alexandria, and it is my belief that he will therefore speak in Greek."
"And the subject of his pronouncements?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Who may know what is the will of a god, until that will is made manifest? I am but his priest and prophet. Doubtless my Lord shall say that which he deems meet for men to hear."
Typical priestly prevarication.
"I shall look forward to his advent among men," I assured the scoundrel.
"I shall send word to the embassy should my Lord tell me that he is preparing to speak."
"I would appreciate that."
"Now, please be so good as to come with me, Senator. I am sure that you have not yet seen much of our new temple." Taking my arm, he gave me a tour of the building, explaining that the papyrus-headed capitals of the pillars were symbolic of Lower Egypt, as lotus capitals symbolized Upper Egypt. I already knew this, having taken the Nile tour, but I wanted the man in a forthcoming mood.
We passed through the back of the temple into the rear courtyard, where a feast was in progress. Great carcasses turned on spits over glowing coals. Like so many thoughtful gods, Baal-Ahriman desired only the blood of the sacrifice, and left the flesh for his worshippers.
"I beg you to partake of our feast," Ataxas said hospitably. "My calling forbids me the eating of flesh, but my Lord wishes his guests to enjoy themselves."
Sweating slaves stood beside the carcasses wielding curved, swordlike knives. As the spits rotated slowly, they shaved off papyrus-thin slices of the flesh and piled them on flat loaves of Egyptian bread. Hermes looked at me longingly and I nodded. He rushed off to snatch up one of the cakes, which he brought back to me rolled up around its dripping contents. Then he dashed back to get one for himself. A slave girl brought a tray laden with winecups and I took one. She was barely nubile, wearing one of those delightful Egyptian slave outfits consisting of a narrow belt worn low on the hips, from which depended a tiny apron of beaded strings. Aside from that, she wore a good many ornaments. This was one fashion I knew I would never succeed in transferring to Rome.
"Excellent wine," I commented.
"A gift from her Highness," Ataxas explained.
It had been a long time since breakfast and I had been regretting passing up Ptolemy's invitation to share his own, so the bread and sacrificial meat were doubly welcome.
"I take it you have heard about the murder of Iphicrates of Chios?"
He paused. "Yes, I have. It was most upsetting. Who would want to kill him?"
"Who, indeed? At Princess Berenice's reception the other evening, I noticed that the two of you were conversing. What were you talking about?"
He looked at me sharply. "Why do you ask?"
"The king has commissioned me to investigate the murder. I was wondering if Iphicrates might have said something to indicate that he had an enemy."
He relaxed. "I see. No, we had met at a number of royal receptions where we discussed the relative merits of our callings. He, a Greek philosopher and mathematician of the school of Archimedes, had a great disregard for the supernatural and the divine. He was known to say so loudly. We were merely carrying on a debate of long duration. I fear that he said nothing to indicate who might have had reason to kill him." He bowed his head and passed a few moments in what appeared to be deep thought. Then: "He did say one odd thing. He said, 'Some believe in the power of the gods, and some believe in magic, but when the kings of the East want to defy Rome, they consult with me, for in geometry lies the answer to all things.'"
"That is a curious statement," I said.
"Isn't it? I thought it was merely more of his philosophical pompousness, but perhaps not, eh?" He shook his head, making his long, oiled locks and curled beard sway. "Perhaps he was involved in things a philosopher ought to avoid. Now, Senator, I must prepare for the evening sacrifice. Please, stay and enjoy yourself. All that we have is yours." He gave that fluttering, Eastern bow and left. By this time Hermes had returned to my side and was tearing away at the bread-wrapped sacrificial meat.
"What do you think of him?" I asked Hermes.
"He's done well for himself," Hermes said, his mouth half full.
"Have you ever eaten beef before?"
"Just scraps, out at your uncle's country estate. It's tough, but I like the taste."
"Take some of the fruit and olives as well. Too much meat is bad for the digestion. But how does Ataxas impress you? It seemed to me that his Asiatic accent slipped a little while I was questioning him." One of the priestesses gyrated by us, clashing her tiny cymbals in time to the music. Her robes were shredded and her back was colorful with red stripes from the previous day's flogging.
"He still has chalk between his toes."
I paused in the middle of a bite. "He was a slave? How do you know?"
Hermes smiled with superior knowledge. "You saw that big ear-bangle he was wearing?"
"I saw it."
"He wears it to cover a split earlobe. In Cappadocia, a slave who runs has a notch cut out of his left earlobe." There is a whole world of slave lore most of us never learn.