‘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.’
‘Such as?’
‘Not my field of expertise.’ That was a cop-out. I asked if the setbacks might be caused by colleagues, specifically the Director, but Zenon went celestial on me: he refused to dish the dirt.
I tried another tack. ‘Were you friends with Theon? If you saw him eating a meal in the refectory, for instance, would you take your bowl alongside?’
‘I would sit with him. And he with me.’
‘Did he ever talk about his private life?’
‘No.’
‘Did he talk about being depressed?’
‘Never.’
‘Were you after his job? Are you up for consideration now he’s dead?’ Perhaps the wrong wind blew in from the desert just then. As I probed his own ambition, the astronomer took umbrage suddenly and flared up: ‘You have made enough insinuations. If I had been Theon’s enemy, you would now find out, Falco! I would hurl you off the roof1.’
I was glad I had stepped back from the edge. ‘How painfully normal to find suspects offering threats!’
That got to him. Maybe too much starshine had invaded his brain. At any rate, Zenon snapped. It was quite unexpected in an academic. In a trice the man was on me. He leapt behind my back, locked his arms around my chest and marched me back to the head of the steps.
He would have made a good bouncer in a rowdy tavern where the stevedores are massive, over by the quays where the grain ships were loaded. If he tipped me downstairs it would be a long, hard fall. Probably a cracked skull and a premature entry ticket to Hades.
I co-operated just long enough. I was fit. I had recently spent the long days on shipboard catching up on exercise. Recovering myself, I dropped forward abruptly, pulled him off his feet, bucked him right over my head and dumped him on the ground. I made sure I did not pitch him down the staircase.
Zenon got up, winded, yet barely embarrassed. I watched him brush down his tunic, one-handed. I think he hurt the other wrist when he landed. He was hiding the pain from me.
I wondered if I had made an enemy. Probably. Since there was no point holding back, I snapped, ’I want to see those budget figures you whipped away in the meeting this morning.’
‘Not a chance,’ replied Zenon, as mildly as if he was refusing a tray of pastries from a street-seller he saw regularly.
‘The Emperor runs this Museion now. I can get a warrant from the Prefect.’
‘I await your subpoena,’ the astronomer retorted, still calm. He went back to his observation chair. I stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, then I left him.