Rome: The Emperor's spy

Chapter Twenty-One

Ptolemy Asul, it became evident, lived a life of contradictions.

His house was as hidden as it was possible to be in Alexandria. Surrounded by stinking shadows, another iron-bound door at the end of the corridor contrived to open on to a peristyled garden, where a fountain played into a marble bowl and small birds pecked in dusty sunlight. The rooms off were open and airy, scented with dried roses and peppery hyacinth, the floors done in mosaics of the old type, depicting Ptah and Sekhmet, Hathor and Horus in pastel shades of blues, citrons and golds with an artistry that had been lost three generations before. Sunlight angled in through painted screens so that Pantera walked on a carpet of subtly shaded teardrops in honey, amber, lavender and lime.

At length, he was brought to a dusty library. Shutters closed the windows incompletely, allowing light to leak around their edges. Shelves lined all the walls, piled high with papyrus scrolls and sheaves of parchment, with jars and vessels and bottles marked illegibly with the signs of the apothecary’s trade and all covered with the dust that thickened the air and layered every surface.

‘Will you be seated?’

Hypatia’s voice was laced with scorn, but there was a richness beneath that roused hidden memories from Pantera’s childhood. Tall and Greek-boned, she had a fine, long nose and high eyebrows plucked in the old fashion of Cleopatra and Octavia. Only her arrogance prevented her from being breathtakingly beautiful.

‘Thank you.’ He sat where he was shown, on an ebony stool carved in the likeness of an elephant, bearing in its coiled trunk the gift-sheaf of corn. Hypatia towered over him. Her black eyes burned. ‘You’re not here at my invitation. If I could make it so, you would never have lived the length of the alley.’ She backed away out of the room, leaving him to explore his surroundings alone.

On the shelf beside him, a lone candle sat atop a volcanic mound of old wax that yet failed to hide the curved limbs and lithe form of the candlestick beneath, which was shaped as a woman, barely dressed, and raising her arms above her head.

Curious, Pantera picked it up and, turning it aslant, tested the yellow metal of one graceful female foot with his fingernail.

‘It’s gold,’ said a quiet, grey voice behind him.

‘From west Britain,’ Pantera agreed, without turning. ‘Cut with a little silver to brighten the hue. Caesar had such things made as fancies to present to his friends. I saw one once, in the shape of Isis, said to be modelled on Cleopatra. It had feet such as this, spread wide in a dancer’s pose, balanced on the toes, with the arch taut as a bow and ankles fine as a gazelle’s. That such an ornament could stand upright was considered a wonder of the craftsman’s art.’

‘Then you are, I think, the only man still living who has seen both of them. The other was given to Mark Antony, whence it passed to Octavian and then ultimately to the tyrant Caligula, who rendered it into bullion to pay for his failed venture in Britain. Will you join me in a drink?’

Ptolemy Asul was of middling height. His lean, ascetic face was built around the strong bones of the true patrician, blurred only a little by age. He stood in the middle of the room holding out a clay beaker, filled to the frothing brim with a drink whose scent pervaded the room.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘I can offer little of great worth, but the keeper of the Black Chrysanthemum is a native of Heliopolis where they retain skills lost to us since the time the gods walked the earth. They named the inn for this, his drink, and he has not yet been induced to give up the recipe. Rich men venture deeper than is prudent down the street just to taste it.’

Pantera felt himself sucked into a rusted courtesy. Gravely, he raised the beaker in a toast. ‘I am honoured by both your trust and your gift.’

The mug foamed with the lightness of sherbet and was cold to touch in the sweating heat of the morning. Over the sweet spice of the incense, Pantera caught the lighter scents of citron, marigold and chrysanthemum oil.

He drank and the taste crashed along his tongue, surging simultaneously up to his head and down to his stomach, sweetening both. After the shock of the cold, his first thought was that Hannah would like it, and that he would like to share it with her, soon. His second, longer, less happy thought was that he should have thought of Aerthen first.

He looked up. Ptolemy Asul regarded him owl-like over the rim of his own mug. ‘The living deserve more of our consideration than the dead,’ he said, as if that last thought lay in common between them. ‘The living know pain and hurt and heartbreak and wish only to escape them, while the dead remember these things with nostalgia.’

Pantera tasted ginger, honey and wild sweet-sharp berries beneath the shock of the first flowers. It still left him thinking of Hannah.

Shreds of marigold sparked the surface. He picked one up and tasted the tip between his teeth.

‘I killed Akakios’ man on the way in,’ he said. ‘I may have led him here, although I believe not. Either way, if Akakios is on the same quest as I am, you would do well either to give him what he wants or to leave before he can ask.’

‘So soon the pleasantries are gone.’ Ptolemy smiled sadly. ‘What is your quest?’

‘Do you not know?’

‘I would hear it from you. What is it that you and Nero’s spymaster both seek?’

‘The missing words in the Sibyl’s prophecy, that will tell us the date on which Rome must burn in order to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven.’ Pantera drew from his tunic a piece of folded papyrus and laid it out on the desk.

At the sight of it, Ptolemy Asul reached behind him for a candelabra and, with swift economy, lit all nine stubs of wax. Numinous golds swarmed across the marble desk, across the inlaid sigils thereon, across the old man’s white hair, as he sat to read the neat writing with its purposeful gaps.

He read aloud, as Pantera had done.

‘… and thus will it come about in the Year of the Phoenix, on the night when — that which is unknown — shall gaze down in wrath from beyond the knife-edge of the world, that in his sight shall the Great Whore be wreathed in fire, and burned to the utmost ashes, seared to nought in the pits of her depravity. Only when this has come to pass shall the Kingdom of Heaven be manifest as has been promised. Then shall — the second unknown — be rent, never to be repaired, and all that was whole shall be broken and the covenant that was made shall be completed in accord with all that is written.’

Ptolemy Asul lifted his head. In the wavering light, his eyes were dark. ‘Rome, of course, is the Great Whore, and the veil is in Jerusalem’s temple, but you know that. As does your enemy, I’m sure. In your opinion, why is Akakios hunting the prophecy?’

‘He must know that Nero has commissioned me to find both the date when Rome must burn and the identity of the thin man with the dark hair who bought the other copy. He won’t want me to succeed in my endeavour. His status with Nero would be… tenuous, if I did so.’

Ptolemy traced his forefinger in the dust on the desk. ‘And, again in your opinion, he has no interest in facilitating Rome’s destruction?’

Pantera hesitated. ‘I don’t know. You’re not the first to suggest that he might have. Rumours say Nero wishes to build a palace that will outshine even the Forum Augusta, a place greater than any temple, more spectacular than the pyramids of Egypt. That’s hardly unusual — unless someone has convinced him to build it in Rome, not outside. To do so, he would have to clear the ghettos around the forum.’

‘So it may be to Akakios’ advantage to burn the city — but selectively, so that the slums are cleared and the greatness preserved?’

‘If he is to be the architect of the new colossus, then it would be very much to his advantage. Nero, however, may not be party to this. He is, after all, paying me to stop the fire, whoever is trying to light it. If I can find out the date the prophecy implies, I’ll be a step closer to doing that. Will you tell me?’

‘I would if I could, but the gaps in the manuscript were there in the original. I was required to copy it, nothing more. I neither made the prophecy, nor heard it spoken.’ Ptolemy Asul held the papyrus towards the light, the better to study the script. ‘This is not in my hand,’ he said. ‘Do you have the original somewhere safe?’

‘I have the original, and three copies made by me, all hidden in different locations.’

‘In that case…’ Ptolemy Asul held a corner of the papyrus over a candle. Flames blossomed bright, and swept up its length, dying back as soon as they had come. The last scorched his fingers, but he did not let go, only turned his hand over and caught the black ash, crushing it in his closing palm.

‘Jerusalem will fall,’ he said absently. ‘No one can stop that now. Some things must run their course.’

Pantera snuffed the candle before it burned Asul’s hand. ‘But if Rome can be kept from burning, then surely the prophecy is broken? If I can find the date on which Rome must burn, then I can stop it.’

‘He can’t tell you what he doesn’t know, however you plead.’ Hypatia’s voice came sharp as a sting. Pantera had not known she was there. ‘To find the truth, you must go to the source.’

‘I thought I had done so, lady, in so far as I am able. I was under the impression that it came from the Sibyls, whom no man might approach.’

‘And yet you must approach them.’ Asul moved the candlestick across his desk. ‘To find what you lack, you must ask a boon of the Oracle at the Temple of Truth, who resides in Hades.’

There was a long silence, when Pantera expected someone to laugh. ‘I thought the underworld a child’s tale, spawned of the dark nights,’ he said at last.

‘You thought wrongly.’ Hypatia stepped up to the desk and lifted the gold dancer. ‘Every tale has its seed. This is no different. Did you think Alexander built his city here just for the harbour? Because it was a good place to set a lighthouse? No: he met the Sibyls and made his own pact with them. Had he listened to their advice, he would have lived to see his vision made real in bricks and mortar. Men never listen.’

‘Some do,’ Ptolemy Asul said mildly. His slow gaze came to rest on Pantera’s face. ‘Only a woman can take you; one who was raised by the Sibyls, is gifted in their laws and familiar with their ways. My father, for instance, was escorted by the woman who became my mother. She’s dead now, of course.’

Pantera’s heart missed a beat. A number of things became clear, suddenly. He felt very stupid. ‘Hannah could guide me?’ he said.

‘If she’s willing, yes. Be sure you are clear beforehand why you go. The truth is not always easy to hear, but the Oracle can give nothing else.’

‘And before that,’ said Hypatia, ‘you should speak to Shimon the zealot. He has some questions that only you can answer.’

‘He’s here?’ Pantera stared out at the pale garden beyond the doorway. ‘Where?’

‘In the library on the eastern side of the town. He’s conversing with men whose philosophy he abhors, waiting for you to join him. I told him you would be with him before noon. If you leave now, you will reach him just in time.’

‘Go.’ Ptolemy Asul bowed over his clasped hands. His speech had settled back into the old archaic cadences of the past. ‘Go with our good grace. You will not return here in my lifetime. Know that I have found joy in your presence, and need nothing from you but peace.’