The Blood of Alexandria Read Online Free PDF Page A

true orthodoxy, they at least accept that no salvation lies but through Jesus Christ.
    ‘No, I refer to the Old Faith of this land. Our Lord Viceroy Nicetas is second to none in his observance. Who does not know of his conversations with His Holiness the Patriarch – His Holiness who is like unto his own brother?
    ‘But what would Our Lord Viceroy say if I were to tell him that, even to this day, the government that he directs is pouring out oceans of our gold and silver for the support of a temple raised up in ancient times at Philae far in the south to the demon Isis?
    ‘What if I were to tell him that our taxes, even today, are feeding an army of shaven-headed priests? And that the sound of their blasphemous chanting extends far through Upper Egypt, to the scandal of orthodox and heretical alike?
    ‘Your Magnificence may seek to punish us with confiscation of our land for refusing to give more than we have for the worship of demons. But I say to you – as the Holy Martyrs of the Church said in the days of persecution – “What crime be there for them that have Christ?” ’
    There was a moment of silence after he stopped. This last point he had indeed been keeping to himself. The mystery had been total. No response had been planned. But the silence was only for a moment. If at first hesitant, the Hall soon filled with howls of almost convincingly outraged piety. Some ran about wailing and waving their arms. A few ripped their clothing. Others, with more conviction, swore they’d never again pay taxes. One even did a passable job of throwing up behind one of the chairs.
    Apion and the party I’d bribed and cajoled into existence sat eyeing each other in shifty silence. The chaos about them was resolving itself into a ragged chant of ‘No crime for them that have Christ’. I’d come here to scold a pack of tax evaders. Now, I was facing a mob of candidate saints.
    Leontius ignored the shouting and looked up to the gallery. He held out what I took to be documentary proof of his claims. I wasn’t the only one to have noticed Nicetas up there following this whole shambles of a reading. I was fighting the urge to send the guards in with the flats of their swords when the curtains billowed outwards and then fell still again. I ground my teeth in fury. I looked that piece of offal Leontius carefully in the face. One way or the other, I’d have him before I left this city. This morning, though, he’d beaten me. Even with Nicetas gone back into the Palace, there was no point continuing.
    ‘Gentlemen,’ I said bleakly, the louder troublemakers now running out of puff, ‘this meeting is adjourned until further notice. You will, in the meantime, do me the goodness of not going far from Alexandria.’

Chapter 3
     
    ‘It’s a fucking disaster,’ I snapped for the third time at Martin. ‘And if you can’t see what Nicetas has done to us, I can only assume this climate has turned your brains to shit as well.’ My robe dumped on the office floor, I sat naked at my desk. The blacks were fanning me like mad. Every so often, one of them would reach forward to sponge on more scented oil.
    ‘Well, whatever Leontius was trying,’ Martin said with another stab at the optimistic, ‘the law is now in effect. The enactment clause says it’s to come into effect by reading, and it was read.’
    ‘This isn’t Bithynia,’ I said, now wearily. I took up the cup of unwatered wine. I noticed I was starting on my fourth cup. I put it down and stared again at my commission. Written on to the parchment in words of gold and purple, it looked as grand a thing now as when Heraclius had presented it in full meeting of the Imperial Council. Back then, of course, I hadn’t seen the flaws in its wording. Now, if I scraped off the seal and washed off the ink with a sponge dipped in vinegar, I might at least have a useful sheet of parchment.
    ‘This isn’t Bithynia,’ I said again. ‘Nicetas isn’t some pen-pushing governor who