Chapter IV

"What's all this about a murder?" Creticus demanded.

So I told him all about it, at least what little I knew so far. We were taking breakfast in the shaded courtyard of the embassy: flat Egyptian bread, dates, figs in milk and honey.

"Local matter, then," he said when I'd finished. "Nothing to concern ourselves about."

"Still, I want to look into it," I said. "It's bad form to kill someone when royalty and Romans are present. Especially Romans. They ought to show more respect to a Senator and two visiting patrician ladies."

"I'm sure the slight was unintended," Creticus said, spreading honey on a scrap of bread, to the delight of the hovering flies. "Still, if it amuses you, I see no harm in it. It can't amount to anything, though. He was just a scholar."

"Thank you, sir. These Egyptians are a touchy lot where their supposed authority is concerned, though. If they give me trouble, may I count on you for support?"

He shrugged. "As long as it doesn't cause me too much difficulty."

After breakfast I hurried to the royal quarters, where my toga and senatorial insignia quickly got me admitted to the royal presence.

I found Ptolemy enjoying a far more substantial breakfast than I had just left. There were whole roast peacocks and Nile fish the size of pigs, oysters by the bucket and a roast gazelle. Those were only the main courses. How he could face any sort of food in his condition was something of a mystery.

When I entered he looked up from his platter with eyes like ripe cherries. His nose looked as if it had been carved and lovingly polished from the finest porphyry. The rest of his face was veined somewhat less luridly. He had once been a fine-looking man, although a certain leap of imagination was required to discern this.

"Ah, Senator: Metellus, is it?"

"Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, your Majesty. I am with the Roman embassy."

"Of course, of course. Come, sit down. Have you eaten yet?"

"Just minutes ago," I assured him.

"Well, have some more. More than I can eat here, anyway. Have some wine, at the very least."

It was early to be drinking, but you don't get to sample a king's private stock every day, so I partook.

"You've heard about the murder at the Museum, sir?" I began.

"Berenice mentioned something about it earlier, but I was still a little fuzzy. What happened?" So I gave my account yet another time. I was used to this sort of repetition. When dealing with the Senate and its committees, you render your report in full to the lowest committee chief, who listens with a serious expression until you've finished and then sends you to the next higher-up to do it all over again, and so forth until you address the full Senate, most of whom snore through it.

"Iphicrates of Chios?" the king said. "Designed cranes and water wheels and catapults, didn't he?"

"Well, he said he didn't work on war machines, but that was the sort of work he did. The others seemed to think it was undignified, doing truly useful work like that."

"Philosophers!" Ptolemy snorted. "Let me tell you something, Senator: My family owns that Museum and we support everyone in the place. If I want costumes and masks designed for my next theatricals, I send an order there and they put their artists to work on it. If I want a new water-clock, they design it for me. If I need a new

Nile barge, they will design and have it built for me, and if one of my officers comes back from a campaign with an arrow lodged in him, those physicians will damned well come and get that arrow out, even if they have to get their philosophical fingers bloody in the process."

This was illuminating. "So their philosophical detachment from the real world is a pose?"

"Where I and my court are concerned it is. They may think they're some sort of Platonic sages, but to me they're just workmen in my employ."

"So if you tell them to cooperate in my investigation of this murder, they'll be sure to comply?"

"Eh? Why should you investigate?" The old sot was a bit sharper than I had anticipated.

"For one thing, I was present, as were two patrician ladies, and therefore Rome is involved." This was a stupendously tenuous connection, but I needed something. "And, in Rome, I have a certain reputation for getting to the bottom of these matters."

He squinted at me with his reddened eyes. "You mean it's your hobby?"

"Well: yes, I suppose so." This was truly lame. "Why didn't you say so in the first place? A man ought to be allowed to indulge his hobbies. Go ahead."

I couldn't believe it. "You mean you'll give me your official authorization?"

"Certainly. Have your secretary draw up the proper document and send it to my chamberlain for my lesser seal."

"Thank you, your Majesty," I said.

"Odd sort of hobby, looking into who killed somebody. Well, a man finds his pleasures where he can. Sometime I must tell you about the satrap of the Arsinoene Nome and his crocodile."

"Perhaps another time," I said hastily, finishing the excellent wine and getting to my feet. "I'll have the requisite document here shortly."

"Sure you won't have some smoked ostrich?"

"You are too generous. But duty calls."

"Good day to you, then."

I hurried back to the embassy and browbeat a scribe into composing a document making me official investigating officer for Ptolemy. That is the good thing about dealing with a king if he's favorable to you: He doesn't have to justify himself to anybody. If the Flute-Player wanted to name a foreign embassy official investigator in a murder, he could do it and nobody could contradict him.

I took the document personally to the chamberlain's office. That functionary, the eunuch named Pothinus, looked at it skeptically.

"This is most irregular." He was a Greek wearing, Asiatic jewelry and an Egyptian wig, not an uncommon Alexandrian combination.

"I have yet to see anything regular at this court," I said. "Be so good as to append the king's lesser seal. He has agreed to this arrangement."

"It is unethical to approach his Majesty so early in the morning. It is not the hour of his most discriminating discernment."

"I found his Majesty to be most perspicacious and in fullest command of his mental faculties," I said. "You speak disloyally, sir."

"I: I: I protest, Senator!" he sputtered. "Never would I offer the slightest disloyalty to my king!"

"See that you don't," I said coldly, and no one can speak as coldly as a Roman Senator. One must always maintain a firm hand with eunuchs. He appended the seal without further back talk and I left with it clutched happily in my fist. I was official now.

I found Julia and Fausta waiting for me in the courtyard of the embassy. I held up my royal commission triumphantly. Julia clapped her hands.

"You got it! Don't take full credit. I talked to Berenice and she went to the king when he rose this morning."

"He had very little memory of the event, but enough stuck in his mind to accomplish my ends," I said.

Fausta arched a patrician eyebrow. "Do you think that if you find the murderer, that will put Ptolemy in your debt?" Being who she was, Fausta could only assume that I sought some sort of political advantage.

"When did the gratitude of a Ptolemy ever do anyone any good?" I asked. "He barely knew who Iphicrates was, and I doubt he cares who the murderer might be."

"Why, then?" She was genuinely puzzled.

"Just being in Alexandria I have caught the fever of philosophy," I explained. "I am now developing my own school of logic. I propose to demonstrate the validity of my theories by uncovering the culprit."

She turned to Julia. "The Metellans are such a dull, plodding lot as a whole. It's good that they have a madman to lend them a bit of color."