“When these here come to be poor, they may come to their senses,” Uri ventured.
“They won’t!” Aristarchos forecast. “They’ve been pampered for three hundred years; nothing’s going to help them.”
At the corner of a nearby street a fight broke out, and many people hurried over to take a look.
“That’s something like a storm must be for you,” said Uri.
Aristarchos spat.
“Not really,” he said. “At sea you at least know what to expect, but not here.”
Uri’s stomach rumbled again.
“Have you got any money?” he asked.
Aristarchus did not answer straightaway.
“A bit,” he said finally.
“So you’re not going to starve,” Uri suggested.
“I’ll ride it out for a while,” said Aristarchus.
They stood wordlessly. From the other side of the wall the laughter of the Greeks was audible; a stone block had dropped on someone’s toes, that was what they found amusing.
Uri had to concede that the limits of the newly won friendship extended only so far and no farther.
“God be with you!” he said and set off back toward the interior of southern Delta.
The uproar, terror, quarreling and wailing went on. Some young men broke into a shop and pounced on the food. A dried-out flatbread rolled into Uri’s path, as he happened to be poking around the neighborhood, so he wolfed it down. Delta’s indigenous inhabitants did what they could to defend their homes against the strange Jews, but some of them realized that this was not going to work and so thought it better to admit a family or two now so that they would have some help later holding off the rest. The dimmer ones proclaimed their rights, shouting from the windows. From the taller buildings lots of people were looking out from the upper floors, reporting what was going on at the far side of the wall. The Greeks were organizing a guard; they might have no military weapons, but they did have cudgels. Uri took this to mean that Flaccus had not opened the arsenals, which was a good sign, but then again he was not scaring off the rabble, which was a bad sign because that was something he could have done a long time ago. Either of the legions could reach the city in less than a day, and the uproar was now in its third day.
That evening Uri lay down on the street; he was tired. He sought out a gateway in which many people were already sleeping in the hope that he’d find safety in numbers. When he awoke the next morning, however, his sandals were missing, even though he had tied the laces tightly to his ankles. They must have been cut off; numbers had given no protection to his sandals. Uri just laughed; a least he would not have to worry about them any more.
The whole of the next day he prowled around south Delta. Others were also prowling around, searching for something to eat and drink; the fine palms and papyrus trees along the broader main thoroughfares were cut down, chopped up and then kindled to boil cauldrons of water brought from the canal to be used in cooking or to drink. Men gestured, yelled, and conferred; children ran around happily and freely; women cooked, cried, shrieked, yelled, and gave orders. The search for shelter went on. Families kept jealous and determined watch on their handcarts, their remaining possessions piled up on them, with the eldest lying on top to protect their belongings with their bodies.
Supposedly yet more new people were being squeezed into Delta. On the north side, the Greeks built a gateway to act as the sole exit; everywhere else the wall was fortified. Flaccus would come to the assistance of the Jews. The Eternal One would assist them. They prayed and pleaded. The alabarch would assist them. But the alabarch was not there, the abject scoundrel; he was in discussions with Flaccus. He was discussing nothing with Flaccus; he had turned tail and run from the city. His army had clashed with the Greeks; there had been no clash. But the alabarch’s bankers were in negotiations with the Greeks, seeking to buy them off. We won’t negotiate with the Greeks! Everything should be returned to us, and compensation would even be paid! Those who had been murdered could not be given back, and what compensation could make up for them?
Late that afternoon, news spread that the Council of Elders had assembled; there were fifteen of them; and names were given but Uri did not recognize one. Some twenty-five names were bandied about: fifteen of those, then. They wanted order to be kept. That would be good. They would distribute people among the homes. That would also be good. Everyone who had been long established in southern Delta would be compelled to accept at least two families. Or four, even five. But then who’s going to make them? The elders would be organizing a guard of fit and strong young men. About time too. The Eternal One can see how we’re holding our ground. He won’t desert us in this hour of need either.
The elders were getting ready to go to Flaccus and lodge a complaint. What is the point of that? Flaccus is involved in it. No, he’s not involved, he doesn’t even know what’s going on; he’s been sprawled in a drunken stupor in the Akra for days. Sure he knows what’s going on: he planned the whole thing, paid the Greeks off. How can the emperor permit this? He doesn’t! He relieved him of the post, but Flaccus ignored that; he’s getting ready to go to war with Rome. Rome will trounce him, but by then we’ll be dead. We should dispatch a deputation to the emperor! Fair enough, but who should go? And how? Let the alabarch go! The alabarch won’t go: the emperor dislikes him! Why would he dislike him? Because the alabarch informed against the emperor’s father, his bankers said as much. Where are those bankers, speaking of that? Not one of them among us? Yes, they are. Several of them have been seen; they too have been squeezed in here. But what are they doing? Lending money at usurious interest rates? They’re smarter than that: they’re buying up food stocks to sell off at sky-high prices! What food stocks? Where are any food stocks to be found? There’s no purchasing of food being done here: more like thieving and pilfering!
I’ll have a look at the Council of the Elders, Uri resolved.
That happened sooner than he had supposed.
He was poking around the bank of the Taurus canal, wondering what he could use to catch fish, when someone called out:
“The alabarch’s man!”
He was surrounded, pushed around and had his staff wrenched from his grasp.
“The alabarch’s spy!” they called out.
Uri tried to pull himself free but was held fast. These people are hacking me to pieces, he realized with astonishment.
“Let’s take him to the council,” proposed one.
He was pushed and shoved; someone thumped him on the back with a stick, but murmurs went up not to do that. Uri muttered a prayer of thanks.
He was jostled to the upper floor of a pretty house where lots of people were seated, walking around or just standing in the reception room.
“The alabarch’s spy!” someone declared. “He always had a seat along with them in the Basilica!”
They let go of him. Uri stood there, breathing heavily. He screwed his eyes up but was unable to make out any faces. His feeling was that these were people he had never seen before, but they could have been in the Basilica for all he knew.
An intelligent-looking man stepped up to him. He was not someone whom Uri remembered seeing.
“What did the alabarch’s send you for?” he asked.
Uri held his tongue. He had been Agrippa’s messenger, and he had been the alabarch’s spy in Greek Alexandria, so now he had turned into the alabarch’s spy in the Jewish quarter. Whatever he said, the people here would only believe what they wanted to believe.
“I wasn’t sent,” he declared after a brief pause. “I came of my own accord.”