The Blood of Alexandria by Richard Blake

markets and sending books to Canterbury. As it was, we had Heraclius; and if his personal body count was much lower, he was proving still less effective at holding the Empire together.
    I unrolled the letter again. We both served Heraclius. That brought certain duties – even to Priscus.
    ‘I’ll put in a word to Nicetas about the money,’ I said. ‘Gold can always be found if the need is pressing. I stand by what I said about the corn, though. Until the next harvest comes in, there’s a shortage we daren’t risk adding to.’
    ‘Thank you, Alaric,’ he said. Unlikely words, these, from Priscus – and they even sounded genuine. He finished the cup and refilled it.
    ‘There is one other thing not on my list,’ he said, starting over with an echo of his old bounce. ‘The Patriarch of Jerusalem turned nasty when I asked for a loan of the True Cross. You see, soldiers won’t gather unless you pay or feed them or both. They won’t fight – and certainly won’t die – unless you give them something more. Have you heard about the first piss pot of Jesus Christ?’ he asked.
    ‘Er – no,’ I said.
    ‘Well’ – Priscus smiled weakly and reached again for the jug – ‘you know that when Herod had all those boys killed, the Holy Family came to Egypt and remained some years in safety?’
    I nodded. I was already beginning to guess what would come next.
    ‘The child Christ,’ he went on, ‘had a piss pot. After He returned to Palestine, this remained in Egypt. It is, I’m told, a relic of the highest power. You see, it received His excrements while His Human Nature was still undeveloped, but His Divine Nature was already perfect. The True Cross, by comparison, was in contact with a body that was fully half human.’
    ‘My dear Priscus,’ I said, trying hard not to burst out laughing, ‘I don’t think this heresy’s been advanced even in Alexandria. What you are saying is that had Christ died as a baby, the Monophysites would be broadly correct. If, on the other hand, he’d made it to fifty, the true orthodoxy would be Nestorian. How lucky for the majority at the Council of Chalcedon that he died at thirty-three, when His Nature was a perfect balance of God and man conjoined in one substance!’
    Priscus shrugged. ‘How the priests sort these things out is their business,’ he said. ‘My business is to raise another army and lead it into battle with a relic beside me the men would run through fire not to lose.’
    ‘I’ve not heard of this relic,’ I said, ‘and I’ve been here for months now, and spoken to hundreds of people. Where do you suppose it might be kept?’
    ‘I believe it’s secreted in the base of the Great Pyramid,’ came the reply. ‘I looked around for this as I entered the city. Perhaps it’s smaller than I was told.’
    I did laugh now. I really couldn’t keep it back. I laughed until tears began to run down my cheeks. The thought of Priscus, wandering round Alexandria like a barbarian pilgrim in Rome, no guidebook in hand, looking for the Pyramids!
    I got up and moved to the north window. I pulled back the blind and looked out past the Lighthouse to the calm, sparkling waters of the Mediterranean. I turned back to Priscus, whose face, I could see, had gone puce under the make-up.
    ‘You must forgive me, Priscus,’ I said, ‘but the Pyramids are three days up river – five if the winds are against you. And you need to add a day for the sea voyage from here to Bolbitine, or half that if you’re willing to take the Nile from Canopus. And though I haven’t seen them, it’s my understanding that the Great Pyramid was last opened three thousand years ago. No entrance has ever been found since then, assuming, that is, the thing isn’t just solid stone. Christ lived here about six hundred years ago. You’d need a miracle to get the poor man’s piss pot inside the Pyramid, another to let anyone know it was there, and another for no one in Alexandria to know what your