This schoolroom don’t get enough sunshine in the afternoon. Palm trees cut up the light into thin shadows, they do. Shit, I did it again… I’m surprised that slave Apollinos has a hand left, he slaps it so hard every time he shouts superfluous repetition!
His large desk, directly in front of my smaller one blocks the view beyond the terrace. Apollinos is writing another one of his lists. Diana says the only time he smiles is when he gets to cross a word off. Words. Words are built from the letters of the alphabet. A few gangs of letters all Alexandrians know – fish, cheese, bread, taverna, doctor, lawyer, fight, god – signs we see in the street. But writing them is practice and pain, practice and pain… and boring.
Once a week I get to use ink. Writing’s easier with the wax tablet as I can scrub out the mistakes. This page is already smudged with inky fingerprints.
I’d grow to loath you, dear. That’s why Rufius sent the slave to teach me; his attention span’s shorter than a kid's. Lessons start sharp after dawn. Break at noon, more lessons. We dine together. Routine, routine, routine.
Looks like Apollinos’ long sucked in face will sink into itself one day. Younger than Rufius, but those hollow cheeks make him look older than he is, whereas Rufius’ excess fat makes him look more like a chubby-cheeked baby than a wrinkly.
A whiff of cut grass. Garden smells tug like tarts calling from windows on Venus Street. Fed up being cooped up inside Biblos, I am. I want to run barefoot on the lawn, but Apollinos ain’t letting me go nowhere, not until I finish the alphabet – over and over again.
Rufius made such a fuss turning this guestroom – Biblos has rooms just for visitors – into a schoolroom. Made me feel well special, it did. The Muses in one corner: all white and perfect, a bust of Rufius in the other. Can’t get away from him, can I? It’s like he’s watching me in every room. How many of them does he have?
A palm frond sways and chops criss-cross shadows on the walls. Apollinos sighs, puffs at his list and looks up.
‘Concentrate. The sooner you finish, the sooner you’ll be out there.’ By the look on Apollinos’ face, he wants to add: you little tyke.
I’d better scratch my pen across the page or he’ll start slapping his hand on my desk again. He wants to whack me, but I reckon Rufius told him he can’t. Biblos is better than my plan: pinch the Snake People’s book and bargain with Seth to teach me to write. Who’d want to live in a crusty old temple full of snakes and nutty Christians? Not me!
Apollinos ain’t bad. Even when he looks at me odd, he don’t hate me. Seen hate in Lanky’s face, wicked ideas in his eyes; seen revenge in Turk’s. When I think of Turk and Lanky my heart goes bang, bang. They’ll come after me – unless they kill each other first. I’ve been searching for Croc, running the rooftops at night. Looked everywhere. Even went back to the gang’s tomb. Deserted, it was. Serapis only knows where he’s hiding.
Stop eyeballing me, Apollinos. Here he comes again. Better put my head down. He pads over. His eyes dig into the back of my head. I want out of here, away from his beady glare.
My wrist’s killing me. Let’s wiggle my fingers, clench and stretch. No difference. Ain’t natural, holding a pen for so long. Curse this pen for not doing what I want.
‘Unless you relax your grip, you won’t achieve a smooth stroke.’
Why, in Hades, do all the alphas have to be exactly the same size, with the same shaped loop and tail? Tyrant slave. At least I’m keeping my promise to Dad. Look at me now, Dad.
‘Line them up flush to the edge. Your deltas are going to walk off the page.’
How about I itch my head like I’ve got lice? That’ll scare him off. Ain’t no lice left after all the stinky potions I’ve been scrubbed and dunked in.
Apollinos takes a step back from my desk. It worked.
‘Relax your hand. It’s not a knife. Hold it gently, like you’d hold a fish you’ve just caught in Lake Mareotis,’… like the street urchin you are, he wants to add. It’s a dig: only the poor fish.
His breath stinks: lunch must be rotting in his belly.
I know that look. Dead jealous of me, ain’t yer, Apollinos? But he’s more secure as Rufius’ slave, than I am as Rufius’ lover. Reckon he loves the old cinaedus.
‘Thumb rests against index finger.’
Nag, nag, nag. Yuk, he’s sprayed gob on me again. I wipe my cheek. Why does he have to spit his sibilants? By Serapis, I know what a sibilant is! I’m getting clever. Maybe I should start exaggerating my s’s? Nah, makes honey-noses sound like snakes, and Apollinos sound like a hissing snob.
Rufius would say what he thinks. ‘This room’s hot enough without your smelly breath on my neck.’ I mumbled it.
‘Did you say something?’
‘No.’ Head down. I’m trapped too, Apollinos. What other options I got? It’s the streets, or that snake pit of a church… or forget my promise to Dad and become a brickie’s apprentice like Dera wanted. The thought of Dera makes me sad. I miss him.
‘Concentrate!’ Spit sprays the side of my face.
‘Curse this pen.’ The reed pen jerks from my grip and smacks the floor beside the carved legs of my desk… the feet are leopard paws. Apollinos bends to pick it up in the automatic way slaves do. So do I. Sunbeams light up his face: he’s cross. I get why. It’s up-side-down: a brainbox like Apollinos picking up a street kid’s pen.
Let the slaves do the work, dear. Rufius’ words nag me from last night when I’d poured his wine. It was my way to thank him for my new tunic and sandals, but there’s only one way to thank Rufius. Apollinos didn’t like me serving Rufius either.
Better sit up and look at the page. My writing’s a right mess.
Take the reins, that’s what they respect, dear boy. You steal their purpose in life if you do their work.
‘Apollinos, stop puffing.’ The snap of my voice surprises both of us. Never spoken to an adult like that before. My thighs and buttocks grip the seat – will he slap me?
We eyeball each other… if it’s a staring match you want, take a load of these! Hold it. Stretch my eyelids wider… focus on the black dot of his pupils. His lids are a bit stretched. Not slits like the Eastern traders that arrive on the spice boats, but not round like mine. Steady. That’s it. This is more fun than the alphabet.
With a sigh, his face softens. I won! His eyes roll as if to say, you’re just a kid. That’s more annoying than him looking down his long nose at me like I’m an uneducated pleb.
A wipe of the cloth and the nib’s clean again. He places the pen in the pot and squeezes it to pull the ink up the shaft. Each movement is exaggerated for my benefit.
‘You’re pressing too hard with the nib. The shaft is like a fish. Hold it too tight and it will jump from your grasp, too gently and it will slither away. Try again.’
He places the pen on the gold tray along with the neat row of nib knives and offers it to me in the humble way he’d offer it to Rufius. Some battles can be won without drawing blood. That’s new to me.
This ink’s black. Is purple ink more expensive?
‘Try filling it yourself this time.’
Why’s nothing happening when I squeeze? Squeeze harder.
‘Gentle, but firm. A fish, remember?’
‘Apollinos, ’ow much does ink cost?’
His eyes narrow. The ink will be locked away tonight. There’s less trust in this house than in the Necropalace.
‘Some types cost more than others. The most expensive is Tyrian purple sourced from the purpurea.’
He reads the question on my face.
‘It’s a shellfish. The veins of its neck and jaws secrete a tiny amount of the royal colour. Rare, and in constant demand. I once saw it used by the Head Librarian.’ His eyes are distant as he stares straight ahead of him into his past, as if this was an important moment in his life. ‘It resembled the colour of coagulated bullocks’ blood.’
‘Really?’ Is that what you left me, Dad – a bottle of Tyrian ink?
‘Really.’ He mimics my exclamation and shoots me a warning look. ‘This ink here is the common sort, made from a solution of copper, soot and charcoal, and not worth anywhere near as much.’
‘What does the purple stuff cost?’
‘It can cost as much as three pieces of gold.’
I was conned. That copyist in the Emporium gave me silver.
‘How much does three pieces of gold buy?’ A boat, a house?
‘That was the sum the master paid for me.’ His stare fixes on the statue of Memory. So does mine. Yup, Apollinos was Rufius’ bum boy. No doubt about it.
‘Enough talk. Back to the alphabet. Practise, practise, practise.’ He never calls me by my name. Can’t bring yourself to call me master either like you were told, can you? That’d be strange for me too.
If I push the side of my hand into the desk it’s easier to make the α round.
‘That’s it. Now try to pick up the pace.’
The faster I go the more the letters lose their roundness. The brickies would laugh at me struggling. Apollinos don’t laugh. I like him for that.
‘Shit!’ The pen’s slipped out of my hand again. I’m burning up with the shame of failing.
‘If you don’t learn to write, he’ll tire of you. Learn, and you might hold his interest – the master likes a project.’ Is he trying to help me, or himself?
‘And you avoid a whipping for failing to teach me, right?’
His sigh’s lost its edge of irritation. ‘The master intends to present you at the Library. He has a fantasy that you will enter public life.’
My head spins. Public life! That’s way beyond Dad’s vision. But then what exactly was Dad’s vision? What would Dera think? It’s a trade. Can’t imagine Dera would like the idea of me as a… what?
‘What d’you mean, public life?’
‘The law, politics.’
A politician? Dera definitely won’t rate it.
‘I just wanna learn to write.’ My voice sounds bewildered.
‘There are degrees of writing. Beyond copying there are the arts of transcription, translation, of putting on the page one’s private thoughts, the thoughts of a nation, or the words of the gods.’
I can’t do all that. The room feels smaller like I’m being sucked into an airless tunnel.
‘Little by little. Great books are written word by word.’ Apollinos speaks in the low, gentle tone mothers use to trick babies to eat.
Breathe, Aeson, breathe in the roses from the garden. Are those hairs on the back of my hand new? Everything’s changing so fast. Must keep up with it. This is the pace of my life now. Money did this; money made my life speed up.
‘What does a politician do?’
‘Talks.’
‘Then why am I learning to write? Anyone can talk.’
‘To talk well is the highest art. Oration requires written preparation.’ His tone is no nonsense. ‘You’ve missed your first level of schooling. We have a year to bring you up to speed. You’ll join the Library school midway through the Grammatica, which will polish your writing skills, teach you the basics of oration as well as Latin and Greek.’
‘I speak Greek.’
‘In a fashion…’
‘You taking the piss?’ That’s another difference between us. You speak like a honey-nose, Apollinos, with your fat vowels.
He ignores me and continues. ‘You will learn all you need to know by reading Homer and Virgil. There will be some geometry and astronomy, but you won’t have the opportunity to focus on any subject in detail until you finish your Grammatica. Then, if the master wishes, you will progress to the Rhetor.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You will learn to speak. Not recital, but composition, public speaking. You will acquire style – how you say something is as important as what you say. Listen to the politicians in the Agora…’ He’s on a roll. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Apollinos so excited. He strides over to the statue of the Muses and rests his long fingers on Memory’s marble shoulder. ‘Finally, you will learn how to memorise your speeches.’ He looks into the eyes of the goddess and caresses the marble like Rufius strokes Diana. ‘But first you will master the alphabet.’
I can’t be an orator. This pen won’t ever feel like ropes do in my hands.
‘I’m just a brickie’s son.’ Shit! That’s not what I told Rufius.
‘All in good time. The best civil engineers know the perfect mix for mortar.’
It’s a good comparison.
‘From the bottom up.’
He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something then clamps it shut to stifle a laugh. I didn’t mean Rufius’ bottom, but that’s what we’re both thinking.
‘You have wit beyond your years. We just need to make you sound like it.’
Rufius would snap at you for saying we. I like it – makes me feel like we’re a team. I like that I know it’s the first person plural too, makes me feel well clever.
‘Deal. Shake on it?’
He stares at my hand.
‘Deal.’ He says the word like it’s the first time he’s ever struck a bargain. That’s another difference between us: I can trade. ‘We all stumble when we learn something new.’
That made me smile. Everyday you dole out another bit of pride, don’t you, Apollinos? But then so does Rufius every time he bends over.