As I neared the Palace I stepped into a small public garden and pulled my robe off over my head. With my weapons rolled up in the robe and the bundle thrust beneath my arm, I strolled through the gate dressed in my tunic. I acknowledged the salutes of the guards and made my way to the embassy. In my quarters I stashed arms and robe and practiced looking innocent.

The summons from Creticus was not long in coming.

He looked decidedly impatient when I walked into his study.

"Decius, you were seen this morning leaving the Palace compound dressed, for some reason, as a desert nomad. I have just received word that the desert salt caravaneers and an Egyptian mob are fighting a pitched battle and troops have been sent to restore order. This cannot be mere coincidence. What have you done now?"

"Just engaging in a bit of investigation, sir." I described to him what I had discovered.

"Do you mean to say," he began, in that long-suffering voice that superiors always use to dress down subordinates, "that you put on a childish disguise, went out and committed mayhem and got a riot started, just so you could satisfy yourself how a foreign mountebank accomplished one of his cheap tricks?" The written word fails to do justice to this speech, which began in a near-whisper but which ascended with each word until the last few were delivered in something very much like a shriek.

"There's more to it than that," I maintained. "In the first place, I didn't make those fools attack the nomads. Anyway, I am certain that it wasn't Ataxas who designed the talking idol. It was Iphicrates of Chios. He was working with the properties of reflected light, using concave mirrors identical to Ataxas's frankincense bowl. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he designed the system of pipes or whatever that transmitted and magnified the god's voice."

"Are you still fixated on that dead Greek? With all the problems we now have, with Roman-Egyptian relations in a shambles and anti-Roman riots in the offing, you are still concerning yourself with a dead foreign mathematician?"

"It isn't just him anymore," I said. "It's what he was up to! Somehow, everything that has been happening here is tied in to Iphicrates, and he was murdered because of it."

"Decius, these fancies of yours get wilder as the years go by. It was hoped that you could stay out of trouble in Alexandria, but you would find trouble if you were locked up in the Mamertine."

Like most men of my acquaintance, he lacked the facility for building evidence into a solid image of what has happened. In fact, I am the only man of my acquaintance who has ever had that quality.

"Decius," Creticus said, "I want you to forget about that Greek. I want you to concentrate on helping me, which means quieting the fears of the Roman community here and being agreeable to Ptolemy and his family. You are not to investigate any murders. You are not to go near Ataxas or his temple. You are to avoid General Achillas. Is all this clear?"

"Perfectly, sir," I said.

"And you agree to my rules?"

"Absolutely, sir."

He looked at me for a long time. "I don't believe you."

"You wound me, sir."

"Get out, Decius. Allow me not to hear about you for a long time."

I left, relieved at getting off so lightly. Back at my quarters, I found that my adventures for the day were not yet over. Hermes came to me with a tiny, sealed scroll.

"A slave girl came here this morning and gave me this. Said it was extremely important and you were to read it at once."

"Did you recognize the girl?"

He shrugged. "Just some little Greek."

"Did she identify her owner?"

"Didn't say a thing except what I've told you. Gave me the letter and ran off."

"I've taught you better than that."

"She was well-dressed, but all the slaves in this Palace wear good clothes. She was small, dark-haired and -eyed, like most Greeks. I think her accent was Athenian, but I don't know Greek all that well."

Of course, all the elocutionists teach the Athenian mode of speech, but if a slave spoke that way, she was probably actually from Athens. That told me little, slaves being an international sort of people.

"Well, are you going to read the damned letter?" Hermes said impatiently.

"These things require a sense of pace," I informed him as I broke the seal and unrolled the little note. It was on fine papyrus and was written in excellent Greek penmanship with what appeared to be a split-reed pen rather than a quill or an Egyptian brush. All of which was amusing but not terribly relevant. The message, however, was. It read:

To Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, Greeting. We have not met. I am Hypatia, concubine to his Excellency Orodes, Ambassador of King Phraates III of Parthia. I have urgent information to convey to you concerning Parthia, Rome and Iphicrates of Chios. Meet me tonight in the Necropolis, in the tomb of Khopshef-Ra. It is the largest tomb on the south edge of the plaza dominated by the Obelisk of the Sphinx. I will be there at moonrise arid will await you for one hour.

"I suppose you'll go," Hermes said. He'd been hanging on every word, naturally. "It's the most foolish thing you can do, so you'll just have to do it."

"You think it's a trap?" I said.

He gaped. "You think there's a possibility it isn't?"

"It's conceivable. The woman has already told Julia that she was privy to correspondence between Iphicrates and the Parthian court. She may well have something she believes is valuable."

"Why should she betray Parthia?"

"She isn't Parthian, she's Greek, and Greeks will betray anybody. Besides, she's a hetaira, a companion hired for the ambassador's stay here. He'll go home to his wife and she'll be looking for another patron, only this time she'll be a few years older than last. It's not the sort of relationship that builds strong loyalty."

"You just want an excuse to go out and seek trouble again," Hermes said.

"Admittedly, that's a part of it. Creticus has forbidden me to pursue this matter any further, and that, to me, is like a bestiarius in the Circus, waving his red kerchief at the bull."

"The purpose of the kerchief," Hermes pointed out, "is to lure the stupid bull onto the spear."

"Don't trifle with my metaphors. Or was that a simile? I am going."

And so, forbidden by a Roman official and warned by a slave, I went forth at dusk to meet with a high-class Greek prostitute.

Chapter X

No desert robe this time. After dark, a simple traveler's cloak was sufficient. A cool wind blew from the sea across the city, making the street-torches flutter. These illuminations are something that would benefit Rome, where the streets are so dark that a man out in them and struck suddenly blind wouldn't know it until morning. At intervals of about fifty paces along the broad streets, these torches burned atop ten-foot poles. They were made of tow or hemp soaked in oil and were tended all night long by public slaves. Between the torches and a fine, full moon, one could walk the streets of nighttime Alexandria as swiftly and assuredly as during the day. More swiftly, in fact, for at night the usual crowds were absent.

Individuals and small parties walked about, going to and from dinner parties and symposia, visiting, carrying out assignations and so forth. Alexandrians don't always go to bed at sunset the way Romans are supposed to.

For much of the route I took the street that paralleled the harbor. On my right hand the Pharos sent its plumes of flame into the night sky, a most impressive sight. I passed the Temple of Poseidon and the northern periphery of the Macedonian barracks, the two huge obelisks, the rows upon rows of warehouses that smelled strongly of papyrus, Alexandria's chief export. At the Moon Gate I turned south along the Street of the Soma, then turned west at the Canopic Way.