After the cool quiet of the TARDIS, the heat, noise and smells of Alexandria were almost overwhelming. Everywhere she looked, Zoe saw something she had only ever read of: a spice she had imagined but never smelt, or an animal that had featured in childhood storybooks, and then only just – for Zoe childhood had been brief, the period of learning longer and always intense.
Everywhere he turned, Jamie saw another preacher or street politician, touting their faith, declaring their truth, insisting their cause was the cause of right. He was sorely tempted to find a soapbox and step up to harangue the English, until the Doctor pulled him away with a stern whisper that if he was going to shout at anyone for invading Scotland, he’d have to shout at Romans now, and that Alexandria, just a century since Mark Antony was in Cleopatra’s passionate embrace, probably wasn’t an ideal time to decry the notion of empire, not without a full army.
They walked on, following the Doctor’s lead, past stalls promising remedies for everything from broken bones to bad breath, others laden with sweet pastries, dense with nuts, dripping in rosewater and honey syrup, a fishmonger’s stall that assaulted Zoe’s nose; the synthesised foods she’d grown up with had had scent but no smell, and certainly not the rich tang of just-caught fish. Poor Jamie took one look at the pile of fresh, silvery herring and was desperate to buy up a load there and then to take back to the TARDIS and smoke into kippers – maybe that would be a breakfast the Doctor would approve. He turned to ask the Doctor and found the older man trying on a round, red, boxy hat, with a silky black tassel hanging from it.
Jamie shook his head. ‘It’s not you, Doctor.’
Zoe joined in. ‘Not you at all.’
‘Another time perhaps,’ the Doctor said, with an apologetic shrug to the stallholder, as he took off the fez, putting it back down on the table.
They were forced to edge their way around a crowd five-deep at one stall, and Jamie hoisted Zoe onto his shoulders so she could see what was worth such attention. She looked past the clamouring hands with fistfuls of coins to a stall piled high with silks in a dozen different reds, clashing with the oranges alongside, the purple beneath indigos and yellows, the stallholder holding up a green fabric shot through with so much blue that it appeared to change colour as he ran his hand beneath the fine cloth.
As they pushed through, and the morning sun climbed higher, light reflecting from every kind of copper pan and pewter bowl, the Doctor explained the enthusiasm for silk. ‘No one knows how it’s made.’
‘Silkworms—’ Zoe began, and the Doctor shushed her furiously.
‘Only the Chinese know that yet. It’s highly profitable to them and to the traders. Right now, silk sells for more than gold.’
‘But we’ve been synthesising silk for centuries…’
‘Yes, Zoe, when you come from, you have. But as you noticed at the fish stall, there’s a difference between real and synthetic. Here, take this.’
He pulled out his own pocket handkerchief, and tied to it was another, and then finally a long measure of the same blue-green silk the stallholder had been touting.
‘How did you get that?’ Jamie asked.
‘I paid,’ the Doctor replied, ‘if that’s what you’re suggesting.’
‘But you were beside us all the time.’
‘Not while you were showing off, lifting Zoe onto your shoulders. Now, Zoe, I’d like you to feel my own perfectly pressed handkerchief, then the synthetic one.’
Zoe felt both pieces of fabric. The Doctor’s own was soft, but the second piece of cloth was entirely different.
‘It’s so…’
‘Real,’ the Doctor declared. ‘Yes. Synthetics are extremely handy when you can’t get hold of the real thing, or when the old one is worn out, but a facsimile will never have the depth of the original. Now, my friends, here we are, at the original Musaeum.’
The Doctor had been leading them down an alley away from the market. Now they turned a corner, and there, dazzling in the sunlight, stood the Musaeum of Alexandria itself. Imposing though elegant in line and symmetry, it was a complex of walls within walls, buildings within buildings. It was beautiful. And yet –
‘What on earth’s that stink?’ asked Jamie.
‘Ah, that’s the Zoo. The Musaeum of Alexandria was famed for its wide collection of animals from all over the known world. I believe we’re at the western entrance.’
As a spray of water from an elephant’s trunk beyond the wall hit Jamie full in the face and chest, the Doctor nodded his head. ‘Yes, the western entrance.’