1
The boy sprinted down the cobbled streets,
leaping and dodging, trying to make up for the delay the chaos in
the city had caused him. Alexandria was filled with the bruised and
bloodied soldiers of Mark Antony’s infantry, and the boy flung
himself between their bodies, here slipping alongside the flat of a
sword, here ducking to avoid a flailing fist. This was his own
city, and he knew the secret pathways to his destination. He flung
open a street-side door and bolted through the household within,
hoisting himself out a window in the back and shouting his
apologies to the old mother he’d disturbed. He somersaulted over
the sill, landing on his feet and bouncing as he resumed his run,
imagining himself at the head of a rushing army, a raider storming
the gates of some exotic city.
No one pursued the boy, but he was employed today,
a salaried messenger, and the man who hired him had emphasized that
speed was necessary.
His heart swelled with pride as he felt the small
purse clenched in his fist. He’d receive the other half of his fee
when the message he carried was delivered. The assignment had been
pure luck. They’d grabbed him by the shoulder as he was returning
from the countryside, where he’d been visiting a friend without his
mother’s knowledge.
Outside the city walls near the hippodrome, the
Romans waited in their tents, and inside the city, the soldiers who
still served Antony milled about, drunk with defeat, crowding
themselves against all of the other civilians.
It was all the boy could do to keep from being
trampled as he made his rushing way through the Jewish quarter near
Cleopatra’s Palaces and into the Greek portion of Alexandria. He
flew past the Museion, where the scholars could be seen bending
over scrolls, still at their work despite the fall of the city.
There was the scholar who tutored the queen’s children, standing in
the middle of the courtyard, arguing with one of his cohorts, both
of them red-faced and waving their hands in the air. The boy
wondered if the physicians were still working in the Museion’s
buildings. He’d heard glorious stories of dissections, corpses
smuggled in through hidden doorways, blood pooling in the stones of
the streets. It was a thrilling thought.
The boy made his way through the center of
Alexandria, where the markets were transacting business, as though
this were not a city under siege. There was money to be made on
warfare, and soldiers, even in defeat, thirsted. The boy dashed
past the tempting stalls, the soothsayers and the makers of toys,
the sellers of toasted nuts and the dancers stamping their feet and
flinging colored scarves in the air.
He gazed longingly into a brothel, pushing his chin
into the doorway and inhaling the scent of perfume.
“You’re bad for business, boy,” said a scowling
courtesan, and smacked him smartly on the ear, escorting him back
out into the street.
The lighthouse still shone on Pharos island just
offshore, and the boy grinned up at the glowing white limestone
facade of Alexandria’s marvel. It was said that the light harnessed
the power of the sun, that it could be directed to shine onto enemy
vessels far out on the water, causing them to burst spontaneously
into flame. The boy wondered why the lighthouse had not been
directed to destroy the Roman ships that way. Perhaps there had
been too many of them.
At last, the boy arrived at the alley in the Old
City that would lead him to his destination. It was easily
recognized, guarded as it was by armed legionaries, the only
soldiers in the city who were not drunk, and the only people in the
area who were not Egyptian.
A legionary appeared in front of the boy, his arms
crossed over his chest. The boy looked up to meet the man’s
eyes.
“I have an urgent message,” he said.
“What message?” the soldier asked.
“I cannot speak with anyone but the general, Mark
Antony,” the boy said.
“Who sent you?” another soldier asked.
“I come on behalf of the queen,” the boy replied,
reciting the words exactly as he’d been instructed. “I serve
Cleopatra.”