Black Salt

Black Salt - Chapter 04

 Built by the will of Alexander, the genius of war who conquered every land he set foot on, Alexandria was sited on an Egyptian coastal town, Rhakotis. When the warrior, hailed as a god by the priests at Siwa, died still young, it had seemed that his achievements would die with him. His generals fell to squabbling over the lands they had taken, and the Macedonian empire collapsed into the warring states of the successors. He had caused many cities to be raised in his name, and this, Alexandria-near-Egypt fell into the grasp of general Ptolemaios, the first and ablest king of that city. He took the name Soter, the saviour-king, and made his city into the marvel of the world. Within those walls, from the Gate of the Sun at the east, to the Gate of the Moon at the west, he concentrated such riches of treasure, arts, crafts and culture that Alexandria-near-Egypt became the Alexandria.

Generations of Ptolemies followed Soter, and at first they, too, were worshipped as saviour kings. But whereas Soter the First was a fighting general, his sons and his sons' sons were born to a life of ease. Ptolemaios of the Bull Neck took pleasure in battles of boxers, pankratiasts and swordsmen. He enjoyed watching other men batter, slash and gouge each other, but when it came to his own majestic hide, he stood always behind his paid experts.

Nikias led Ptolemaios and his retinue from the royal harbour up along Point Lochias, a small peninsula jutting out from the body of the city. Here, insulated by the sea, stood the royal palace, a beautiful building in white marble, built along classical lines as planned by Deinokrates, Alexander's greatest architect. Within the walls of the palace compound were gardens and a zoo. The king would talk all day about his tigers, even better than the lions, he liked to say, even if the lions were quite good too. Nikias did not linger in the gardens, although the shade of the palm trees felt good on that hot day, and the cuts on his body made him long to rest.

"Slow down," said Leaina.

He shook his head, and marched on.

"Even the king is sweating," she said. "You don't need to punish yourself."

"You ran off at the arena."

She fell silent.

They continued on to the palace. Deinokrates had modelled the building on the grand designs of Periklean Athens, and whenever Nikias saw the pearl white marble pillars and the low flat triangle of the roof, his eyes crinkled up, and his lips curled in the minutest smile as he remembered the city of his birth. He remembered the agora, the air full of the smells of lettuce, onions and fresh bread. He remembered the bustle and murmur as men and women of the free city talked of new ideas and brilliant inventions. They had lost their empire to Sparta, and then to Alexander, but they would never lose their spirit.

"Father," said Leaina. "Your eyes are damp. Do you need something for the pain?"

"Sweat," he said. "Just sweat." He wiped his face with the back of his hand, and winced as he tore his scabbing cuts.

"You shouldn't march around in this heat, all dripping with blood. You need to see a doctor."

"What I need," he said, "is for my little girl to stay at home, where it's safe. You can't run after every singer with a sweet voice."

"Leontas isn't a singer!"

"So it's Leontas, is it?"

She gasped. "You tricked me! You, you baboon-headed dog! How can you play tricks on your daughter? Bastard offspring of Circe and Odysseus."

He laughed. "Your mother would flay your tongue if she heard you talk. And what if I tricked you? Your father was born in the temple of Athena."

"And conceived in the wine-soaked grove of Bacchus!" She folded her arms, and fell back to let the king and his retinue go past. His hand clutched at the air where her wrist had been, and he ground his teeth as he watched her go and disappear among the trees of the royal gardens. He lingered on the threshold of the palace, frowning at the trees, until Ptolemaios came up, his brow twisted, his thick lips pressed together.

"Where are my accursed guards? It's quiet."

Nikias listened. "I hear voices within."

"A song?" Bull Gut's face cleared, and he laughed. "They're singing. There's nothing wrong after all. Not that I was wor-"

He fell silent as Nikias held up his hand. "That's not singing," he said.

The king's eyes went wide, and he shuffled backwards. "Then what?"

Nikias drew his sword. "Weeping," he said. "They lament the dead."