Six for Gold by Mary Reed, Eric Mayer Read Free Book Online Page A

network of alleyways behind the harbor in Alexandria, clutching his satchel to his chest. He had crept out of the hostelry before dawn. Now the sun beat down on his uncovered head. The sparse gray hair covering his scalp felt hot to the touch. The master and mistress would have missed him hours ago, though he had planned to accomplish his mission before they realized he was gone. Now, no doubt, they would be worrying about him.
    Peter had not loosened his protective grip on his satchel all morning. The bag contained silks he had packed before their hasty departure. There had been no time to prepare properly for the journey, but silks could be folded small, were light, and, being of great value, were easily converted to coins. It had been kind of Nikodemos to return the boat fare, but judging from the cost of their first night’s lodgings in Alexandria, the sum regained would not be nearly enough to cover their needs.
    Unfortunately, he had not been able to find any establishments dealing in fine fabrics. Perhaps that was not surprising so close to the docks. Nonetheless he was amazed he had not, at least, run across a brothel whose employees and patrons might be interested in his wares. Or so he supposed. Now elderly as well as devout, Peter’s experience of brothels and their inhabitants was some years behind him.
    Aside, that is, from infrequent exchanges with John’s old friend Madam Isis, who occasionally visited John to chat about former times. She, like John, had once lived in Alexandria, or so she claimed. Surely Isis would know where to find a brothel in this city even after being away from it so many years?
    She might have lived near the docks, he thought, might even have purchased items from the now old men he saw everywhere, squatting beside their merchandise.
    Their stock in trade was mainly edible, even if barely so in some cases—sticky dates and figs encrusted with dust, pungent onions marred by an occasional rotten patch, cucumbers displaying small fuzzy patches of gray mold, and cabbages wilting from the heat.
    Peter emerged into sunlight and crossed a busy square. Brightly clad men, hawk-nosed and wavy-haired, squabbled over bunches of leeks and radishes and baskets of coriander. Half-naked children teased thin, scavenging mongrels. Swirling clouds of droning, fat, black flies hovered over everything, crawled on the face of an infant held in its mother’s arms, tracked across slices of melon oozing sweet liquid. The air smelled of rotted and fermenting fruit. The scene might have been just off the Mese in Constantinople, except for the throngs of long-legged ibis strutting about, hopefully sticking their curved beaks into piles of debris littering the gutters.
    Peter slumped against a brick wall and made the sign of his religion. He bent his head and closed his eyes.
    “Please, Lord,” he murmured under his breath. “Show me a merchant, or a brothel, or even a prostitute. Someone who will purchase these silks.”
    When he raised his head he found he was gazing toward a cul-de-sac leading from the opposite corner of the square.
    Upon investigation he found his prayer had been answered. This particular narrow thoroughfare boasted a number of emporiums selling wares different from any he had seen thus far. Here was a candlemaker, its neighbor a silversmith.
    The next establishment, little more than a cubbyhole open to the street with a counter in front and shelves lining its back walls, caught Peter’s interest because of the variety of its dusty goods. Colored glass bottles, statuettes, medallions, and tiny, stoppered, clay flasks jostled for space.
    The shopkeeper, a big man in a voluminous red and white striped robe, accosted Peter in Coptic.
    When Peter replied in Greek, the shopkeeper responded in Greek of a sort. “Remember good. Yes?”
    The man grabbed a green bottle from his stock and held it out to Peter, who saw it was engraved with a picture of the lighthouse as he had seen from the