Envoy Extraordinary

So they laughed together under the song of the nightingale. The Emperor was the first to compose himself to stillness. He nodded towards the curtains Mamillius went towards them, pulled one aside and spoke in a coldly formal voice.

"The Emperor will see the petitioners Phanocles and Euphrosyne."

Then he was back by the pillar and they were nodding and grinning at each other conspiratorially.

But Caesar could not be approached as though he were no more than a man. A fat secretary came through the curtains, sank on one knee and rested the tablets on the other. With a stamp and clank a soldier in full armour marched into the loggia. He came to attention behind the Emperor and a little to one side, rasped out a sword and flashed it upright. There were voices whispering behind the curtain and two slaves drew them back. Someone struck a staff on stone paving.

"The Emperor permits you to approach him."

A man came through the curtain and a woman followed him carrying a burden. The slaves dropped the curtain and the man stood for a moment, perhaps dazzled by the sunset so that they had a moment or two to inspect him. He wore a lightcoloured tunic and over that a long green cloak. His dark hair and beard were wild, ruffled either by the wind of his own approach or by some exterior insolence of weather that was not permitted to invade the Emperor's seclusion. The cloak was threadbare, patched and dusty. No one had taken care of his hands and feet. His face was lumpy, haphazard and to be accepted as nothing more than the front of a head.

The woman who had followed him shrank aside to the shadowy corner that seemed her natural place. She was little but a pillar of drapery, for a veil was over her head and caught loosely across her face. She stood sideways to the men and bowed her head over the bundle she carried. The instep lifted the long robe so that it revealed a sandal and four inches of modelled foot. The soldier made no sign behind his sword: only his eyes swivelling sideways raked her, assessing, expertly removing the wrappings, judging with the intuitive skill of long practice, from the few hints she allowed him, the woman who lay beneath. He saw a hand halfhidden, the rounded shape of a knee beneath the fabric. His eyes returned to their divided stare on either side of the sword. His lips pursed and rounded. Breathed through at a more propitious time and place they would have whistled.

Suspecting this transaction, the Emperor glanced quickly behind him. The soldier's eyes stared straight ahead. It was impossible to believe that they had ever moved or would ever move again. The Emperor glanced at Mamillius.

He was watching the woman sideways, his eyes, swivelling, raked her, removing the wrappings, judging with the intuitive and boundless optimism of youth the woman who lay beneath.

The Emperor leaned back happily. The man found his woman and took the bundle from her but could see nowhere to put it. He peered shortsightedly at the Emperor's footstool. The Emperor crooked a finger at the secretary.

"Take a note."

He watched Mamillius, kindly, triumphantly.

"Pyrrha's Pebbles, Jehovah's Spontaneous Creation, or the Red Clay of Thoth: but it has always appeared to me that some god found man on all fours, put a knee in the small of his back and jerked him upright. The sensualist relies on this. The wise man remembers it."

But Mamillius was not listening.

The wild man made up his mind. He removed some sacking from the bundle, bent and placed a model ship on the pavement between the Emperor and Mamillius. She was about a yard long and unhandsome. The Emperor glanced from her to the man.

"You are Phanocles?"

"Phanocles, Caesar, the son of Myron, an Alexandrian."

"Myron? You are librarian."

"I was, Caesaran assistant-until--"

He gestured with extraordinary violence twards the boat. The Emperor continued to look at him.

"And you want to play boats with Caesar?"

He was able to keep the amusement out of his face but it crept into his voice. Phanocles turned in desperation to Mamillius but he was still occupied and more frankly now. Suddenly Phanocles burst into a flood of speech.

"There was obstruction, Caesar, from top to bottom. I was wasting my time, they said, and I was dabbling, in black magic, they said, and they laughed. I am a poor man and when the last of my father's money-he left me a little you understand-not much and I spent that-what are we to do, Caesar?"

The Emperor watched him, saying nothing. He could see that Phanocles had not been blinded by the sunset. The dregs of it were enough to show him that the man was short-sighted. The frustration of this gave him an air of bewilderment and anger as if some perpetual source of astonishment and outrage hung in the empty air a yard before his face.

"-and I knew if I could only reach Caesar-"

But there had been obstruction and more obstruction, mockery, incomprehension, anger, persecution.

"How much did it cost you to see me today?"

"Seven pieces of gold."