The Alexandrian Embassy Read online

  ‘Not enough red,’ Caligula said and doubled back causing Magnus and Vespasian to part for him.

  Callistus scribbled a note as he chased his master out.

  ‘Philo was under the misapprehension that the Emperor had the same grasp of justice as a learned Jew would,’ Vespasian muttered. ‘I would guess that his reaction to the reality would be …’

  ‘Outrage?’ Magnus suggested. Vespasian tilted his head indicating agreement with Magnus’ assessment.

  ‘Why won’t you eat pork?’ Caligula asked, much to the vocal amusement of the Greeks.

  Philo’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times. ‘Er, well, Princeps, different nations have different laws; there are things of which the use is forbidden to both us and our adversaries.’

  ‘Ha! That’s true,’ Caligula said, causing the Greek mirth to subside.

  Philo pressed his point. ‘There are many people who don’t eat lamb, which is the most tender of all meats.’

  Caligula laughed. ‘They are quite right for it’s not at all nice.’

  Philo beamed with relief that he had finally got the Emperor to accept a point.

  ‘Perhaps you’re not so backward,’ Caligula mused. ‘What principles of justice do you recognise in your constitution?’

  ‘So did they find the Scorpion?’ Magnus asked as Philo launched into an in-depth analysis of Jewish law, failing dismally to capture the Emperor’s attention.

  ‘They did,’ Vespasian replied with a half-smile. ‘Sempronius is currently languishing at the Urban Prefect’s pleasure whilst he decides whether to condemn him to the arena as he deserves.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And they took the Scorpion away.’

  ‘Obviously. But where did they take it?’ Magnus asked as they entered a huge hall at the heart of the villa.

  ‘As it happens, I had them deliver it to my house.’

  Magnus looked at Vespasian, astounded.

  ‘It’s too cold in here, Callistus; have all the windows filled with glass pebbles so the light can still get in.’ Caligula moved onto the next room as Philo continued his monologue on all aspects of Jewish law, unattended by the imperial ear.

  ‘How did you manage to do that?’ Magnus asked once he had digested the information.

  ‘In very much the same way as Lentullus hoisted responsibility for Philo’s embassy, when the Emperor took an interest in it, onto Corbulo’s shoulders and then he onto mine so that any mistake could be construed as my fault, not theirs.’

  ‘Ah! You told Lentullus that the Emperor was involved.’

  ‘Yes; I said the Emperor had heard a rumour, as he came up the Appian Way, that something was to be smuggled into the city using his arrival at the Capena Gate as a diversion and he had asked me to look into it. Lentullus, naturally, couldn’t pass on all responsibility to me fast enough.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘So I used the centurion who had let it through the gate to search Sempronius’ place, explaining to him that since he knew what it looked like, having been bribed to let it through the gate, it would make it much easier for him to find it again before forgetting he had ever heard of it in the first place.’

  ‘Very sensible.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Caligula asked abruptly, bringing Philo’s speech to a sudden halt.

  ‘I was saying, Princeps—’

  ‘Bring my father’s pictures that he brought back from Syria and install them in here,’ Caligula said, his attention now on the small, intimate library he had just entered rather than on Philo.

  ‘Yes, Divine Gaius,’

  Callistus said, making another note. Caligula contemplated the ceiling for a few moments before turning to Vespasian. ‘These Jews don’t appear to me to be wicked so much as unfortunate or foolish, in not believing that I have been endowed with the nature of God.’

  ‘Indeed, Divine Gaius,’ Vespasian replied, the solemnity of his voice matching his expression.

  ‘Princeps, may we now put our case?’ Philo asked.

  ‘Case? What do you think you’ve been doing for the last half an hour? You’ve put your case to me and I’ve decided that you are misguided in your attitude to my divinity and not malicious and therefore can be allowed to live. You may go.’ He turned on his heel and headed off with Callistus padding behind him leaving Philo straining, with every fibre of his being, to swallow his view on how he had just been treated until Caligula was out of earshot.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Vespasian said, amusement on his face, ‘it’s time to go home now. We’ll take you to Ostia tomorrow to find passage back.’

  ‘It’s an outrage!’ Philo finally burst out.

  ‘If you mean your still being alive, Philo, then you may find some that would agree with you. However, if I were you I would get on a ship back to Alexandria and thank your god that you caught the Emperor in a merciful mood.’

  ‘But we were here to complain about our ill-treatment.’

  ‘No, Philo; you were here to defend your ill-treatment of the Emperor and in his magnanimity he forgave you.’ He steered Philo around; the rest of the Jewish embassy followed to the jeers of the victorious Greeks.

  ‘About that Scorpion,’ Magnus said as they retraced their steps.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would you happen to know exactly where it is in your house?’

  ‘No,’ Vespasian said unhelpfully.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But I can tell you that at the fourth hour of the night it will be on a wagon in the yard behind my house, totally unattended.’

  ‘Now that is a very foolish place to leave it.’

  ‘Not if you want it to be stolen and never to hear of it again. I’m sure the Urban Prefect will rest much easier if he knows the whole thing has disappeared and is completely out of his hands.’

  ‘And I’m not someone to disturb such a great man’s rest, if you take my meaning?’

  ‘I do, Magnus; so when you’ve done whatever you plan with that Scorpion, destroy it and we’ll consider ourselves equal for the favour that you did me in keeping Philo out of trouble until the Emperor could decide his fate.’

  ‘Now tie that off with a good tight knot, Sextus, and then secure it with a nail that doesn’t go all the way through.’

  ‘A good tight knot and nail it, right you are, Magnus.’

  As Sextus carried out his instructions Magnus looked with admiration at the Scorpion, now reassembled in the moonlight on the roof opposite the West Viminal’s headquarters.

  ‘She’s a beauty, ain’t she, Magnus?’ Marius said, stroking his hand along the groove in which the two-foot-long bolt would rest.

  ‘She is indeed, brother,’ Magnus readily agreed, examining the wound torsion springs, made of animal sinew, in which the bow arms were set. ‘There should be ample power in these for our purposes. Are you ready, Tigran?’

  The easterner grinned and slipped off his tunic leaving only his trousers and a small sack hanging from his belt. ‘The less weight the better, I would say, Magnus.’

  ‘You’re the lightest we’ve got and you’ll be fine, brother; the pace with which this thing will thump into that wood over there will make it impossible to dislodge the bolt. I’ve seen these things pass through two barbarians in a row before getting stuck in a third. Very pleasing to the eye it was too.’ He tested the stability of the weapon standing on four splayed legs as if perched atop a pyramid. ‘Perfect. All right, Cassandros, wind her up.’

  The Greek attached the engine’s claw to the bowstring and then wound a pair of winches at the rear of the weapon to ratchet it back tight against the counter tension of the torsion springs.

  ‘Sextus, the bolt,’ Magnus said as the weapon reached maximum draw.

  ‘Right you are, brother.’ Sextus picked up the two-foot wooden bolt, as thick as his thumb, with a vicious-looking iron head and three leather flights at the other end. Tied to it, with a good tight knot, was a hemp rope; a nail was driven into the bolt just behind the knot.


  ‘The sharp end goes at the front,’ Magnus said helpfully when Sextus appeared confused. ‘And make sure that the nail is upright.’

  The bolt in place, Magnus looked along its length, sighting it up towards its target. He made a couple of adjustments to the weapon and then, when satisfied, hit the release mechanism.

  With a crack that echoed off the surrounding buildings, the two bow arms, set in straining sinew, blurred forward and whacked into the restraining uprights, sending the bolt fizzing through the night, pulling the fast-uncoiling rope behind it. An instant later a resounding hollow thump announced its piercing of the wooden structure on the opposite roof, closely followed by the vibrating thrumming of the missile juddering, lodged firm in its target.

  Magnus took hold of the rope and gave it a couple of test tugs before putting all his weight against it; it held. ‘Tie that off with a nice tight knot, Sextus.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, brother, I’ll do it myself,’ Tigran insisted. ‘Then I’ve only myself to blame if I end up splattered all over the street below.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Magnus said as Tigran fastened the rope to a roof beam exposed by the removal of a couple of tiles.

  When all was secure, Tigran dangled himself from the rope upside down with his legs curled around it. He shifted his weight; the rope bounced slightly but held. ‘No time like the present.’ He grinned and began to move his hands one over the other, hauling himself up the gradient. As he came to the edge of the roof he muttered a short prayer before pulling himself out over the void whence came the rumble of night-time traffic and the jollification of drunkenness.

  Magnus held his breath as he watched the silhouetted figure ease along the rope, taking care not to make it swing and loosen the bolt. Little by little he progressed over the twenty-foot-wide drop until, with a suddenness that caused Magnus’ throat to constrict so that he almost chocked, Tigran let go of the rope and fell a few feet onto the other roof.

  ‘Done it,’ Magnus blurted in relief.

  A few moments later the rope slackened off as Tigran detached it from the bolt. The tension came back to it as he fastened it to something more secure.

  ‘Good lad,’ Magnus muttered. ‘Now open the door.’ The cracking of wood being worked at with a crowbar confirmed that that was indeed what Tigran was doing, and very shortly Magnus could see the door to the West Viminal’s private gaol swing open and a couple of shadows stalk out. ‘Well, they can either stay or come over here, it makes no odds to me,’ Magnus informed the brothers watching with him.

  Both the men, having by now been acquainted by Tigran of his objective, decided to risk the crossing rather than stay where they were. As the first man climbed onto the rope, Magnus saw orange glimmers come from inside the wooden structure; soon it was a constant glow. By the time the first man had made it over, flames flickered from the structure and, Magnus hoped, would be now catching on the roof beams beneath the tiles that Tigran had, hopefully, removed from the floor of the gaol with his crowbar.

  The fire grew and Magnus rubbed his hands together. ‘Sempronius will never suspect that it was us who started it; he’ll think that the prisoners did it somehow – if he escapes being condemned to the arena, that is.’

  The second man was halfway across when Tigran came racing out of the gaol and back to the rope, flames sheening his naked torso. ‘Hurry up, you bastard.’ The escaping prisoner quickened his movement; as soon as he dropped down onto Magnus’ roof Tigran clambered onto the rope and all but slid back down.

  ‘Eh? Look what we have here, Magnus,’ Marius said, grabbing the newly escaped prisoner by the wrist. ‘You little bastard, where’s my money?’

  ‘Ah! So that’s how they knew the way through our tavern,’ Magnus said, recognising the man’s face. ‘Did they hurt you, Postumus, or did you just offer free directions to be friendly, like?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Magnus, they caught me in one of their whorehouses; I was stupid to go in. They chucked me in their gaol and Sempronius threatened me with a red-hot poker, he did. I didn’t like it.’

  ‘You liked it well enough the other night.’

  ‘Not to be on the receiving end, though. Anyway, I didn’t think that telling them the layout of the tavern would do much harm; it was only directions they wanted.’

  One flick of Magnus’ head was enough for Marius and Sextus to lift a screaming Postumus up. Marius looked briefly down into the street before nodding at his brother. With a diminishing howl Postumus hurtled streetwards to slap onto the stone as Tigran arrived safely back with the roof ablaze behind him.

  ‘What happened to him?’ the easterner asked as he handed the jar of the River-god’s fire to Magnus.

  ‘He’s been giving people directions that he shouldn’t; so we gave him directions for the quick way down to the street. The rest of you lads had better join him but I recommend using the stairs, even though it takes slightly longer.’ He took a rag and smeared the Scorpion all over with the remains of the jar’s contents. ‘Quick as you like, Cassandros.’

  With a few deft strikes of his flint, Cassandros got a cascade of sparks falling into his tinderbox which, coaxed with gentle breaths, caught into a small flame. Lighting his rag from the kindling, Magnus lobbed it at the Scorpion’s feet. Flames jumped from the wood and raced up to the main body of the weapon, along the bolt groove and then left and right to the bow arms and up and down the torsion springs.

  Magnus looked at the raging Scorpion with regret. ‘Pity, but it would be unwise to break a promise to Vespasian, however expensive.’ Beyond it the West Viminal’s roof was an inferno and shouts of panic issued from the building as the flames spread. ‘Still, she did a good job. Time to go, Cassandros.’ Cradling the empty jar so that it was safe, Magnus turned and sped down the stairs. From across the street came the crash of the first roof beams collapsing onto the floor below.

  ‘On a grain ship? Me? It’s an …’ Philo began spluttering, his outrage such that he could not even spit the word out as he stared in horror at the hulking monstrosity of the flagship of the Egyptian grain fleet.

  ‘It’s all that’s available,’ Magnus replied, trying not to show his irritation. ‘The first grain convoy of the season has almost filled the harbour, and of the few other ships berthed here, none is destined for Alexandria. Take it or leave it, but that’s what the port aedile said.’

  ‘Then we shall wait until a vessel more suitable to my standing arrives.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise that, Philo,’ Vespasian said from his seat on a folding chair set beneath a makeshift awning. ‘Firstly, you don’t know how long you might have to wait for so fine a ship, and secondly,’ he indicated around the crowded, bustling port and the clogged streets leading off it, ‘where would you stay? I doubt that you’d find anything that you would consider suitable here.’

  ‘We’ll go back to the Gardens of Lamia.’

  ‘No you won’t, Philo. I can’t allow you back into the city.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I can’t guarantee your safety, and because of my friendship with your brother I would not wish to put you at risk.’

  ‘But yesterday the Emperor …’

  ‘What the Emperor does one day bears no relation to what he might do the next. Indeed, if he did hear that you were back in the city he might very well forget that he has already questioned you as to why you don’t recognise his divinity.’

  ‘Then I’d have another chance to put the case against Flaccus and the Greeks to him.’

  ‘No, Philo, you won’t; but Caligula might come to a different conclusion than he did yesterday. So forget Flaccus, forget all the outrages that you have been subjected to and get on that ship.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts, Philo,’ Vespasian said, rising to his feet to emphasise his earnestness. ‘Just get on board, go back to Alexandria and write to Caligula protesting about Flaccus. Meanwhile, if I get the chance, I will remind the Emperor that Flaccus would not hand over
Alexander’s breastplate to me and mention to him how rich Flaccus has become whilst serving as prefect of Egypt. That’s the best way to deal with a god who needs all the money he can find for his Germania campaign.’

  ‘But he’s not a god.’

  ‘Yes he is, Philo, and you’d be wise to remember that. If the Emperor, who has the power of life and death over us all, considers himself to be a god then a god he is, and I for one will be the first to keep up that pretence.’

  ‘So you don’t really believe that he is a god.’

  ‘What I believe is irrelevant. Now go.’

  Philo stroked his beard, considering his position. ‘Very well, I’ll take your advice.’ He signalled to his fellow ambassadors to board the waiting vessel and then approached closer to Magnus and Vespasian. ‘I would thank you for the help that you have both given us – me. I have found it hard not to be treated according to my rank and that has led to a few outbursts of frustration, so that you haven’t, perhaps, seen me in the best light.’ He produced a weighty purse from inside his mantle. ‘As a token of thanks and in anticipation of what you will do to aid us in bringing Flaccus down I would like to give you the last of the money we have set aside for bribes.’ He offered the purse to Vespasian. ‘Take it, there are a hundred and fifty-three aurei in it.’

  Vespasian pushed it away. ‘I can’t be seen to take money off you in public like this, but there is absolutely no reason why Magnus should not accept the gift and we’ll share it out later.’

  ‘Very good,’ Philo said, handing the purse to Magnus who took it with a grave face. ‘I bid you both farewell and will carry your greetings to my brother and his sons.’

  ‘Do that, Philo,’ Vespasian said with feeling, ‘and tell him that someday Magnus and I will come back to Alexandria and he can repay the debt he owes us with hospitality.’

  Philo bowed and then turned and walked up the gangway.

  ‘Did I hear you right, sir?’ Magnus asked as they watched him go. ‘I could have sworn that you said we’d share the money out.’

  ‘I did. I thought a third for you and two-thirds for me.’