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.