‘What is truth?’ I demanded airily. I like to annoy experts by wading into their disciplines. ‘Routine procedure. Think nothing of it.’
‘They will believe I am in some sort of trouble!’
‘Apollophanes, I am sure your pupils all know you as a man of impeccable ethics. How could you lecture on virtue, without knowing right from wrong?’
‘They are paying me to explain the difference!’ he quipped, still flustered but yet taking heart as he sank back into his discipline’s traditional jokes.
‘I have been talking to some of the young scholars. I liked their style. As one would expect at such a renowned centre of learning, they seemed exceptionally bright.’
‘What have they been saying?’Apollophanes anxiously pleaded, trying to gauge what I had found out. Anything I said would go straight back to his master. He was a good toady. Philetus must find him invaluable.
‘Nothing your Director needs to worry about!’ I assured him with a fake smile as I took my leave.
I could not find the lawyer. I asked a couple of people, suggesting that Nicanor might be in court. Both times this notion was greeted with bursts of hearty laughter.
Zenon the astronomer was easier. By now dusk was falling, so he was on the roof.
XIX
The purpose-built observatory was at the top of a very long flight of winding stone steps. Zenon was fussily adjusting a long, low seat which must be what he used when he gazed at the heavens. Like most practitioners who use equipment, astronomers have to be practical. I suspected he himself designed the star-watching lounger. He may have constructed it too.
After a swift glance at me, he lay down holding a notebook, tipped his head back and looked skywards like an augur out bird-spotting.
I tried being topicaclass="underline" ‘“Give me a place to stand and I will move the world!’” Zenon received my quotation with a thin, tired smile. ‘Sorry. Archimedes is probably too earthbound for you . . . I’m Falco. I’m not a complete idiot. At least I didn’t ask what your star sign is.’ He still gave me the silent stare. Men of few words are the bane of my job. ‘So! What is your stance, Zenon? Do you believe the sun orbits the earth or vice versa?’
‘I am a heliocentrist.’
A sun man. He was also balding early, his gingery curls now providing a ragged halo around the top of an oval head. Above the obligatory beard, the skin on his cheeks was stretched and freckled. Light eyes surveyed me unhelpfully. At the Board meeting, he had been so quiet that compared with the others he had appeared to lack confidence. It was misleading.
‘Your arm seems to have mended rather quickly, Falco.’ I had ditched the napkin sling as soon as Helena and I left that morning’s meeting.
‘An observant witness. You are the first to notice!’
On his own ground, or his own roof, he had the autocratic attitude so many academics adopted. Most were unconvincing. I wouldn’t ask a professor the time; not even this man who probably fine-tuned the Museion’s sundial groma and knew what hour it was more exactly than anyone else in Alexandria. Zenon certainly did not view time as an element to be wasted: ‘You are going to ask me where I was when Theon died.’
‘That’s the game.’
‘I was here, Falco.’
‘Anyone confirm it?’
‘My students.’ Briskly, he gave me names. I wrote them down, checking in my notes that they were different names from those Apollophanes provided. Without prompting, Zenon then told me, ‘I may have been the last person to see Theon alive.’ He jumped up and steered me to the edge of the roof. There was a low balustrade, but not what I call a safety barrier. It was a long way down. We looked over at the rectangular pool and the gardens that lay adjacent to the main entrance of the Great Library. ’I tend to be here until late. I heard footsteps. I looked and saw the Librarian arrive.’
‘Hmm. I don’t suppose you could make out whether he was chewing leaves? Or holding a bunch of foliage?’
Zenon’s derision was tangible. ‘No - but he had a dinner garland looped over his left arm.’
Word had got out that the garland was critical. ‘It seems to be lost . . . Still, that’s the kind of clue I like - what a geometrist would call a fixed point. All I need are a couple of others and I can start formulating theorems. Did you see anyone else, Zenon? Anybody following him?’
‘No. My work is looking up, not down.’
‘Yet you were curious about the footsteps?’
‘We have intruders at the Library sometimes. One does one’s duty.’
‘What kind of intruders?’
‘Who knows, Falco? The complex is full of high-spirited young men, for one thing. Many have rich parents who supply too much spending money. They may be here to study ethics, but some fail to embrace the ideas. They have no conscience and no sense of responsibility. When they get hold of wine flagons, the Library is a lode-stone. They climb in and he on the reading tables as if they were symposium couches, holding stupid mock debates. Then for a “lark” these boys break into the carefully catalogued armaria and jumble all the scrolls.’
‘Regular occurrence?’
‘It happens. Full moon,’ said the astronomer mischievously, ’is always a bad time for delinquency.’
‘My friends in the vigiles tell me so. According to them, they don’t just experience more members of the public going crazy with axes, but increased dog bites, bee stings and absconding from their own units. This could be a ground-breaking topic for research - “Social consequences of Lunar Variation: Observed Effects on Volatility of the Alexandrian Mob and Behaviour of Museion Layabouts . . .”Was there a full moon two nights ago?’
‘No.’ Helpful!
Zenon now changed his suggestion; he was playing with me - or so he thought. ‘We Alexandrians blame the fifty-day wind, the Khamseen, which comes out of the desert full of red dust, drying all in its path.’
‘Are we in the fifty days?’
‘Yes. March to May is the season.”
‘Was Theon affected by red dust?’
‘People hate this wind. It can be fatal. Small creatures, sickly infants, and - who knows? - depressed librarians.’
‘So he was depressed, you’d say?’ I moved away from the edge of the roof. ‘How did you regard Theon?’
‘A respected colleague.’
‘Wonderful. What kind of indemnity must I offer to obtain your real opinion?”
‘Why should you think I am lying?’
‘Too bland. Too quick to answer. Too similar to the nonsense all your esteemed colleagues have fobbed me off with. Were I a philosopher, I would be Aristotelian.’
‘In what way?’
“A sceptic’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ replied Zenon. Night had drawn in. There had been one small oil lamp burning up here where he wrote his notes; now he pinched the wick. It prevented my note-taking, and it stopped me seeing his face. ‘Questioning - especially to reassess received wisdom - is the foundation of good modern science.’
‘So I’ll ask you again: what did you think of Theon?’
My eyes adjusted. Zenon had the quicksilver intelligence of a drover selling rustled mutton, just far enough outside the Forum Boarium to avoid notice from the legitimate traders. Any minute now he would halve his price for a quick sale. ’Theon did a respectable job. He worked hard. He had the right intentions.’
‘And?’
Zenon paused. ‘And he was a disappointed man.’
I scoffed quietly. ‘That seems common around here! What caused Theon’s disappointment?’
‘Administering the Library was too great a struggle - not that he lacked the energy or talent. He faced too many setbacks.’