Uri cogitated.
“Then why didn’t he do that if he took their money?”
“Because we gave him even more!” Tija cried out. “Even more! If it goes on like this, we’ll end up in poverty!”
He’s not stupid, this Flaccus, thought Uri. Relieved of his office by the emperor, yet still in place. Back against he wall, he still manages to amass for himself in just a few months at least five years’ worth of his salary as prefect in just a few months, and still everyone is on his side — Greeks, Jews, legions! How is the emperor going to untangle that?
When, for the third day running, a large crowd gathered on the Gymnasium’s grounds, Isidoros did not put in an appearance. But the soldiers did. They brought along several rostrums, and a series of unknown, loud-voiced Greek speakers yelled out from atop them. An ever-growing number of soldiers arrived and finally, to Uri’s astonishment, Flaccus himself showed up, carried on an ornate chariot.
The soldiers cleared a way for him through the crowd, which then closed around him. There must have been at least four cohorts gathered together there, along with a crowd of some twenty thousand people.
Flaccus stepped onto the platform beside the Square Stoa. Four soldiers with shields clambered up beside him, along with a centurion: “Castus! Castus!” was the chant that went up from crowd.
Flaccus bellowed a query as to what their problem was. Not that he was drunk; the crowd fell silent. A Greek orator was hauled out in front of the platform and tugged up onto it.
“Who was it who taught you to slander me?” bellowed Flaccus.
“Isidoros…”
“Louder!”
“Isidoros!”
“Away with him!”
The next speaker was called up.
“Who taught you to spread lies about me?”
“Isidoros…”
They stopped at the fifth speaker. Flaccus declared that not one word of the slander was true: let that be the end of it. Isidoros was being exiled; never again would he be allowed to enter Alexandria. He was also banning assembly on the grounds of the Gymnasium. The crowd should be happy to have been let off that lightly.
Centurion Castus gestured, the soldiers cleared a way through the crowd, and Flaccus’s chariot was towed behind, drawn by six horses with an entire cavalry division leading, flanking, and bringing up the rear.
That must have cost the alabarch a pretty penny, Uri supposed.
“It’s by no means sure that Isidoros slipped away,” Marcus ventured that evening. “He may be hiding somewhere.”
Philo shared that view: Shrine leagues, many of which had Isidoros as president, had become conspicuously active, but Flaccus was doing nothing to move against them. Tija explained to Uri that these were groups whose members ate and drank free, for sacrificial purposes, out the money offered by believers. The main thing was that any shrine was also a sacrosanct place of refuge; soldiers were not allowed to enter them — at least hitherto that was unprecedented — and even Flaccus could not contravene the rule because all of Alexandria would be up in arms.
“I don’t believe Flaccus will make any effort to capture Isidoros,” Marcus commented. “If he were to bring him to trial, Isidoros would spill the beans. It’s better that he is not captured…”
Not long after, it was rumored that a substantial shipment of arms had arrived. Bassus was the centurion who was organizing the unloading; on Flaccus’s orders, he had collected the arms from all over Egypt, and now the spears, short swords, slingshots, and shields were being packed onto asses and camels, innumerable asses and innumerable camels, and carried from the harbor on Lake Mareotis to the arsenal of the prefect’s palace. The harbor was some ten stadia from the palace, and the beasts of burden were touching one another. There were no elephants among them.
Philo asked Uri to take a look to see if the rumor was true. Up till now they had keenly followed Uri’s spontaneously offered reports as to what was happening in Alexandria. They would be recognized, but Uri was known solely by students at the Gymnasium so he could go about as freely as he pleased. I’ve become an official spy for the alabarch in Alexandria, Uri reflected, and laughed at the absurdity.
That evening he reported back: indeed, masses of arms were being delivered to the arsenaclass="underline" Greeks by the side of the road were gaping and arguing over whether the weapons were going to be used against them or against Rome.
“I’ve heard tell that Agrippa will have need of you in his kingdom,” announced Tija one evening as he entered Uri’s room.
Uri was agog. It was exactly what he had been wanting to ask but he had never found the right moment.
“But Agrippa’s in Rome,” Uri noted.
“He’s going to have to accede to his throne sooner or later,” said Tija. “Let’s just hope that you won’t forget the two years you spent in Alexandria with us.”
Uri nodded. They had come to their decision: he was going to be the alabarch’s family spy by Agrippa’s side.
He no longer felt any fear with regard to Agrippa. He would simply explain the misunderstanding that had existed from the very beginning and Agrippa would forgive him. Maybe he would not even have to tell him that much: enough people had reported on his actions already.
“When am I to set off?” he queried.
“Not long now, we hope,” replied Tija.
It crossed Uri’s mind whether or not he ought to take offense at that, but this time Tija was not being sarcastic: he wouldn’t be with a matter concerning Agrippa.
Tija was on his way out of the room when he turned back to face him.
“For a long time I really did think that you would be my strategos when I became prefect, but then I came to see that you wouldn’t be the right man for that job. I’d lay a claim to you for just about any other position: chief collector, chief archivist, anything.”
A devil took hold of Uri.
“And Marcus will be a prefect as well?” he asked sweetly.
Tija’s eyes widened only a little in hatred.
“Marcus will be king,” he declared with poise and with that was gone.
On August 1, the anniversary of Egypt’s conquest by Rome, defamatory graffiti appeared on the walls of houses: “Pig Jews,” “Filthy Jews,” “Go back to Jerusalem, homeless Jews,” “Jewish cat killers,” and the like. Big noses and even bigger circumcised sexual organs, meant to signify that the growth of the Jewish population was considered excessive by comparison with the more judicious proliferation of the Greeks. Jews were cursed by drunks in the harbor. Greeks were delighted.
“They’ll desist,” said Philo nervously. “It’s just a fad, it’ll blow over.”
A few days later the graffiti was washed away; very few new slogans were daubed on the walls thereafter.
In mid-August Uri was wakened at daybreak by a commotion.
In the darkness he reached for a bedside oil lamp; he had been reading by its light late into the night. There was swearing outside. He heard the alabarch’s voice as he called out in exasperation: “Failed!”
Philo hushed him.
“It doesn’t matter!” he exclaimed, though he was not in the habit of shouting. “That’s how it worked out. Never mind! Get a grip on yourself! The Almighty willed that it be so — without blood! He knows best why!”
“Failed!” raged the alabarch.
Marcus was also shouting, calling for the guards.
Uri hazarded a look outside. Armed guards were scrambling toward the gate. An uproar could be heard from the street. Uri listened attentively. A crowd was cheering Agrippa, king of the Jews.
Unfamiliar armed men hurried past him.
A burly, balding, double-chinned, middle-aged man on a palanquin was brought out of one of the rooms. His features were crimson, his head was nodding, he was half asleep.