Alexandria

XLVIII

We travelled for ages, or so it seemed. Now I learned just how large a city Alexandria was. Journeys through unknown streets always seem interminable.

We kept going west, into what I knew must be the district called Rhakotis. This part, peopled by the native inhabitants, was an area Uncle Fulvius had warned me never to go to. This enclave had always been a bolthole for descendants of the original Egyptian fisherfolk Alexander displaced when he decided to build his city. They were at the bottom of the pecking order, almost invisible to the rest – Romans and Greeks, Jews, Christians and the multitude of other foreign immigrants. According to my uncle, these were also the descendants of the semi-pirates the Ptolemies had encouraged to pillage ships, looking for scrolls in all languages which they commandeered for the Great Library. According to Fulvius, they had never lost their ferocity or their lawlessness.

The street grids were like all of Alexandria or any planned Greek city, yet these alleyways seemed more sinister. At least in a poor district of Rome, I knew the rules and understood the dialect. Here, lines of drab washing were hung from the same kind of crowded apartments, but the barbecued meats smelt of different spices while thin men who watched us pass had distinct local faces. The usual half-starved donkeys were impossibly laden, but the middens were scavenged by long-legged dogs with pointed noses, mongrels that looked interbred with aristocratic golden hunting hounds; instead of Suburra sewer rats, skeletal cats swarmed everywhere. Human life was normal enough. Semi-naked children squatted in gutters playing marbles; sometimes one bawled after a brief squabble. Tears of indignation trickling through the dirt on a scabby child's face are the same anywhere in the world. So is the flaunt of a couple of girls, sisters or friends, walking down the street in similar scarves and bangles, wanting to be noticed by the male population. So too the malevolence of any hooked, black-clad old lady, muttering at shameless girls or cursing when a cart passes, just because it is occupied by foreigners.

After enough time passed, the unfamiliar became familiar. We drove through now seemingly ordinary streets where people carried on regular occupations: bakers, laundries and dye-fullers, garland-weavers, copper-beaters, oil-lamp-sellers, oil and wine merchants. We passed down one magical alley where, by the light of hot fires, glass-blowers produced their jewelled flasks, jugs, beakers and perfume bottles. We reached roadworks and building renovations, where trenches, implements, piles of sand and heaps of bricks or cobbles impeded progress, but as soon as we were spotted, work stopped and our horse was led through safely with impeccable courtesy.

Once I stopped feeling anxious, I saw that this district was busy but conventional. A great number of people, mainly at subsistence level, lived and worked here; suffered; made others suffer; reached the end of their span and died. Just like anywhere.

Diogenes pulled up the horse.

We were in yet another side street with washing lines threading over it. Two men were playing dice with murderous intensity – though they looked up whenever a woman hove into view. Any women excited them, even grandmothers. A noisy trio of youths were dashing about with a melon for a football. A dilapidated bath house stood on one corner, with a small temple diagonally opposite. Each had a very old man sitting on a stool outside, either attendants or just lonely octogenarians who had staked out good places to stop people for enforced conversation. They looked as if they had fought at the Battle of Actium and would tell you all about it if they could grab a chance, drawing diagrams in the dust with their wobbly walking sticks.

The box-maker came out. He worked from a traditional one-room lock-up with a large shutter. It was only half open when we arrived, giving the place a secretive air such workshops normally do not have. I could see lights inside, but no clustered family. The man himself had a pale, gaunt face with an unpleasant twist to his mouth. He kept his lips together all the time as if he had bad teeth. He was not introduced to me, nor I to him.

Diogenes started to act as if there was urgency. He himself marched to and fro, unloading the scrolls from the cart, while he ordered me to start putting them into the boxes. These had been made in advance, simple round capsae with flat bases and lids, in the same form as the elaborate ones made from silver, ivory or rare, scented woods in which rich men guard their valuable scroll sets. Diogenes had bought very basic containers, just enough to protect the scrolls on shipboard and make them look respectable for selling on. Bothering to buy boxes meant he expected to make a lot of money.

Indoors with the box-maker, I tried chatting: 'Where are all these going, then?'

'Rome.'

I unrolled one, holding it upside down as if I was illiterate. The end-tag proved it came from the Library. It seemed to be a play, Menander by the look of it. He might be a raging bestseller in all the Roman theatres, but I was never keen on Menander. 'Who for?'

'The people of Rome,' grunted box-maker. 'Get on, and don't waste time.'

I packed scrolls into boxes. Nowadays only one public benefactor was allowed to splurge gifts on 'the people of Rome'. Their Father, their Chief Priest, their Emperor. I was beginning to see what the plan might be.

The box-maker looked up. Diogenes had come back into the workshop with the next armful of scrolls. 'He asks a lot of questions. Where did you find him?'

'He says he's Marcus.' Diogenes finally introduced me. I did not like his tone of voice. 'He says he works with Fulvius – but Fulvius told me different.'

He knew. He had known all along. Both men were now glaring at me, the impostor.

So Fulvius had told Diogenes his nephew worked as an informer. It could even be my fault that getting these scrolls removed from the Library then packed up and shipped tonight had become so urgent: my father could well have reported that Helena had assured him I was close to uncovering the scams at the Museion.

Now I was in trouble. The box-maker had grasped the situation. He stood up. In his right hand appeared a small knife that he must use for box-making; its narrow, shiny blade looked hideously sharp. 'What did you bring him here for?' he demanded accusingly

'To get him away and deal with him,' Diogenes replied.

The workshop and its rectangular doorway were about six feet wide; with the shutter half pulled, Diogenes filled most of the doorway, blocking escape that way. He had no weapons on show, but looked tough enough not to need one. He yanked the shutter further towards him. I was now trapped indoors with them, and any cries for help would be well muffled.

This was no time to hesitate. I half turned, hoping for the possible one chance – yes, at the back of the workshop, uneven wooden stairs ran up. I bounded up them fast, fully aware this could put me in a worse trap. I came through a hatch into the dark living-room-cum-bedroom such places often have, where the workman can live cheaply with his family. I grabbed the bed. One built into the wall would have failed me, but this one was free-standing. I shoved it hard clown the hatchway, jamming the legs as best I could so it blocked the stairs. There was another way up, little more than a vertical ladder. It brought me one floor higher, in among old boxes and box-making materials. At first I thought I was stuck. But we were in Alexandria; the place had access to the roof. The door was barred, but I managed to free it. I pushed my way out into fresh air, under the night sky.

I could hear Diogenes and the box-maker coming up hard behind me. Nothing for it but to shin over a parapet wall on to the next roof. I ran straight across and clambered through some kind of reed screen. I kept going. From then on, the buildings were separate, but along the street they were so close together I could take a breath and leap. So I continued from one house to another – not always easy. People had gardens up there; I fell into giant flowerpots. They stored furniture; I hurt my legs on chairs and beds. I startled moths. A stork flew up and frightened me. At the far end were select apartments where family occupiers led leisured evening lives. At one, enormous women sat out on long, battered cushions, drinking from small copper cups and chattering. When I flew down among them like an ungainly owlet trying out his wings, the shocked ladies squealed, exuding sour breath and raucous laughter. But they heard my pursuers coming and at once blew out several oil lamps so they could hide me quickly among their husky-scented soft furnishings. I lay there trying not to choke. Diogenes and his companion thumped on to the roof and were sent on their way with extravagant curses.

Emerging, I faced a tricky moment with a crowd of excited women who appeared to think the gods had sent me as a mercurial gigolo. But amidst many giggles and painful pinches, they sent me down a narrow stair, which let me out at street level. It must be the way they admitted their lovers, I thought (admiring the stamina of men who could deal with such heavies). But they were women with good hearts, quick to grasp an emergency. I had thanked them genuinely.

I emerged in a dark alley. It smelt the way they all do, with some extra strong Egyptian whiffs. I had no idea where I was. I recognised nothing. I saw nobody from whom I could ask directions, even if I dared trust them. My pursuers could at any moment burst from some other doorway.

Suddenly, a cat meowed. I started. 'Get lost, filthy moggie. I'm a Roman; you're not sacred to me.' I flattened back against a wall, breathing hard.

While I listened for trouble, I thought grimly about Vespasian and my supposed 'mission' as his agent. In fact I had no mission, not in the paid sense. My reasons for visiting Egypt were exactly as I had told everyone: Helena wanted to see the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Pyramids and Sphinx; because of her pregnancy we had had to travel as soon as possible. Uncle Fulvius had made us a convenient offer to stay with him. The Emperor meanwhile was completing his new overspill Forum, called the Forum of Peace; in it would stand a new Temple of Peace, while dominating the temple forecourt would be two beautiful public libraries, one Greek, one Latin. All Vespasian had said to me was: 'If you are in Alexandria, Falco, take a look at how the Great Library works.' There was no mention of scrolls. I reckoned he had not thought ahead as far as making acquisitions for his new buildings; it was, of course, a good moment for an entrepreneur to turn up in Rome offering cheap books.

No way would the Emperor pay me to come and look at the Great Library. The mean old beggar was making no contribution to my travel expenses and the only reason I would actually complete a report for him would be a vague hope of future gratitude. Helena believed that in return for a good brief (which she had promised to write), the Emperor would give me a big thank-you. I thought he would just laugh. He had a reputation as a joker. Trying to screw payments out of Vespasian was the biggest joke on the Palatine.

So for this nebulous concept – a job that had never existed – I was now being hunted down by the hostile confederate of my scheming relatives. They knew nothing about the trouble they had landed me in; they were ensconced at home with their feet up, while doting women tended them with dollops of hot broth.

I now saw what their scheme was: acquiring scrolls cut-price from the twisting Museion Director, shipping them across the sea then presenting them in Rome as an easy-buy, save your on-costs, complete package for the so-far empty libraries of the Temple of Peace. If I knew Pa and Fulvius, they would recoup seven times their investment. The grim-faced Diogenes would want a large cut – but that shifty pair would still make an enormous profit. Was any of it illegal? It was certainly illegal in intention, for everyone from Philetus and Diogenes to Fulvius and Pa.

I was implicated as a relative. Since I was staying in the same house, it looked doubly bad. I doubted that even the eminent Minas of Karystos could get me off charges of guilt by association.

Furious, I walked to the end of the alley and I surveyed the street in both directions. I was hoping for a donkey that I could 'borrow' – better still, if I saw a man with a horse and cart, I would offer him a large sum to take me back to the centre; I could name somewhere he would be bound to know, the Caesarium, for instance, or the Soma, Alexander's Tomb…

But my surveillance remained unfinished. I wanted to discover what ship Diogenes was using. It could already be half laden. I also needed to stop him conniving further with Fulvius and Pa – and stop him telling them that I was on to their project. I would like to arrest Philetus and Diogenes, but saw no way to do that without involving my relations.

Walking about, at last I recognised the street where the box-maker lived. All members of the public had now dispersed; both the baths and the temple looked closed for the night. As I turned up, a second horse and cart was arriving with the two clowns I saw at the Library, bringing a whole load more of scrolls. Despondently I parked myself in the shadows. A donkey came trotting by, carrying two men who from their build and manners looked like brothers, similarly dressed in black desert robes, with head-dresses they had wound up to cover their faces as if a sandstorm threatened. They stopped and looked at the box-maker's, but rode on. Nobody else was about now, not at street level. I could hear woozy music from behind closed shutters, and voices from inside houses or shops. People had hung up lights, though at infrequent intervals.

As I continued to watch, the two clowns loaded up the first cart with filled boxes. Once all the boxes were in place, Diogenes came out and assumed the driving seat. As the clowns began unloading loose scrolls from the second cart and carrying them indoors to be packed by the box-maker, Diogenes set off.

The horse was tired and went quite slowly. I followed on foot. At one point, cursing, I had to stop to pick a sharp stone out of my boot. As I leaned one-handed against an awning support, fiddling madly, a donkey passed me, with two riders. It was the one I saw earlier. A while later, when the same donkey was drinking from a horse-trough, I overtook them again. The two men did not look at me; I wondered if they knew I was there. Somehow, I hoped not. I was starting to ask myself whether, just as I was tailing Diogenes, the two donkey-riders might be following both of us.

Diogenes went on in one direction, apparently aiming for the Western Harbour. He had turned north towards the ocean. Somewhere ahead must be the canal which I knew came through to this harbour from Lake Mareotis. To our right at the far end of its causeway stood the dark shape of the Lighthouse, topped at this time of night by the mighty glow of its signal fire, reflected out to sea but eerily lighting up the topmost turret. Diogenes turned on to Canopus Street, unmistakable in its porticoed grandeur. We were very near the Moon Gate; due to the city's orientation, this end of Canopus Street lay quite close to the sea. The horse picked up speed. I saw Diogenes glance back over his shoulder. I ducked into the portico. When I dodged back out through the columns, I had lost him.

He could not have got far. I nipped along, trying to catch him up. Very soon, I saw the cart, recognisable by its load of scroll boxes. The horse was standing still, the driver's seat was empty. Six feet away from the cart, someone else had abandoned a donkey.

My heart thumped unevenly.