Ptolemy's Gate

  The nature of this reprieve did not go unnoticed, and the child was swiftly dedicated to the sun god, Ra. He grew steadily in strength and years. Quick-eyed and intelligent, he was never as strapping as his cousin, the king’s son,4 eight years older and burly with it. Ptolemy remained a peripheral figure in the court, happier with the priests and women than with the sun-browned boys brawling in the yard.

  In those days the king was frequently on campaign, struggling to protect the frontiers against the incursions of the Bedouin. A series of advisers ruled the city, growing rich on bribes and port taxes, and listening ever closer to the soft words of foreign agents—particularly those of the emerging power across the water: Rome. Swathed in luxury in his marbled palace, the king’s son fell into precocious dissipation. By his late teens he was a grotesque, loose-lipped youth, already potbellied with drink; his eyes glittered with paranoia and the fear of assassination. Impatient for power, he dawdled in the shadow of his father, seeking rivals in his blood-kin while waiting for the old man to die.

  Ptolemy, by contrast, was a scholarly boy, slim and handsome, with features more nearly Egyptian than Greek.5Although distantly in line for the throne, he was clearly not a warrior or a statesman and was generally ignored by the royal household. He spent most of his time in the Library of Alexandria, close to the waterfront, studying with his tutor. This man, an elderly priest from Luxor, was learned in many languages and in the history of the kingdom. He was also a magician. Finding an exceptional student, he imparted his knowledge to the child. It was quietly begun and quietly completed, and only much later, with the incident of the bull, did rumor of it seep out into the wider world.

  Two days afterward, while we were in discussion, a servant knocked upon my master’s door. “Pardon me, Highness, but a woman waits without.”

  “Without what?” I wore the guise of a scholar, in case of just such an interruption.

  Ptolemy silenced me with a gesture. “What does she want?”

  “A plague of locusts threatens her husband’s crops, sir. She seeks your aid.”

  My master frowned. “Ridiculous! What can I do?”

  “Sir, she speaks of …” The servant hesitated; he had been with us in the field. “Of your power over the bull.”

  “This is too much! I am hard at work here. I cannot be disturbed. Send her away.”

  “As you wish.” The servant sighed, made to close the door.

  My master stirred. “Is she very miserable?”

  “Mightily, sir. She has been here since dawn.”

  Ptolemy gave a gasp of impatience. “Oh, this is rank foolishness!” He turned to me. “Rekhyt—go with him. See what can be done.”

  In due course I returned, looking plump. “Locusts gone.”

  “Very well.” He scowled at his tablets. “I have altogether lost the thread. We were talking about the fluidity of the Other Place, I believe….”

  “You realize,” I said, as I sat delicately on the straw matting, “that you’ve done it now. Got yourself a reputation. Someone who can solve the common ills. Now you’ll never get any peace. Same thing happened to Solomon with the wisdom thing. Couldn’t step outdoors without someone thrusting a baby in his face. Mind you, that was often for a different reason.”

  The boy shook his head. “I am a scholar, a researcher, nothing else. I shall aid mankind by the fruits of my writing, not by my success with bulls or locusts. Besides, it’s you who’s doing the work, Rekhyt. Do you mind removing that wing-case from the corner of your mouth? Thank you. Now, to begin …”

  He was wise about some things, Ptolemy was, but not about others.The next day saw two more women standing outside his chambers; one had problems with hippos on her land, the other carried a sick child. Once again I was sent to deal with them as best I could. On the morning after that, a little line of people stretched out into the street. My master tore his hair and lamented his ill fortune; nevertheless I was dispatched again, along with Affa and Penrenutet, two of his other djinn. So it went. Progress on his research slowed to a snail’s pace, while his reputation among the ordinary people of Alexandria grew fast as summer’s flowering. Ptolemy suffered the interruptions with good, if exasperated, grace. He contented himself with completing a book on the mechanics of summoning and put his other inquiries aside.

  The year aged, and in due time came the Nile’s annual inundation. The floods went down, the dark earth shone fertile and wet, crops were planted, a new season began. Sometimes the queue of supplicants at Ptolemy’s door was lengthy, at other times less so, but it never went away entirely. And it was not long before this daily ritual became known to the black-robed priests of the greater temples, and to the blackhearted prince sitting brooding on his wine-soused throne.

  5

  A disrespectful sound alerted Mandrake to the return of the scrying-glass imp. He put aside the pen with which he was scribbling notes for the latest war pamphlets, and stared into the polished disc. The baby’s distorted features pressed up against the surface of the bronze as if it were frantically trying to push free. Mandrake ignored its writhing. “Well?” he asked.

  “Well what?” The imp groaned and strained.

  “Where’s Bartimaeus?”

  “Sitting on a lump of masonry twenty-six miles southeast of here in the shape of a long-haired girl. Very pretty she is, and all. But she ain’t coming.”

  “What? She—he refused?”

  “Yep. Ooh, it’s dreadful tight in here. Six years I’ve been inside this disc with never a glimpse of home. You might let me out, you really might. I’ve served you heart and soul.”

  “You have no soul,” Mandrake said. “What did Bartimaeus say?”

  “I can’t tell you, you’re that young. It was rude, mind. Made my ears wax up. Well, he ain’t coming voluntarily and that’s all there is to it. Burn him and have done, I say. Can’t think why you ain’t snuffed him already. Oh, not back in that drawer again—can’t you have mercy, you hateful boy?”

  With the disc wrapped and the drawer shut fast, Mandrake rubbed his eyes. The Bartimaeus problem was growing intractable. The djinni was weaker and more cantankerous than ever; almost useless as a servant. In all logic he should let him go, but—as always—he found the thought distasteful. Quite why was hard to say, since alone of all his slaves the djinni never treated him with anything approaching respect. His abuse was tiring, exasperating beyond measure … and also oddly refreshing. Mandrake lived in a world where true emotions skulked forever behind politely smiling masks. But Bartimaeus made no pretense of his dislike. Where Ascobol and company were emollient and fawning, Bartimaeus was as impertinent now as the day he had first met him, back when he was just a child, owner of an entirely different name….

  Mandrake’s mind had drifted. He coughed and drew himself up. That was the basic point, of course. The djinni knew his birth name. A risky thing for a man in his position! If another magician summoned him and learned what the demon knew….

  He sighed; his mind trundled from one well-worn track to another. A dark-haired girl. Pretty. No prizes for guessing the djinni’s guise. Ever since Kitty Jones had died, Bartimaeus had used her shape to mock him. Not without success, either. Even three years on, visualizing her face gave Mandrake a sharp pang in his side. He shook his head in weary self-reproach. Forget her! She was a traitor, dead and gone.

  Well, the wretched demon was of no importance. The pressing issue was the growing disruption caused by the war. That—and the dangerous new abilities appearing among the commoners. Fritang’s tale of the egg-throwing urchins was just the latest in a long line of troublesome accounts.

  Since Gladstone, magicians had observed a basic rule. The less commoners knew about magic and its tools, the better. Thus, every slave, from the scrawniest imp to the most arrogant afrit, was ordered to avoid unnecessary exposure when out on his master’s business. Some utilized the power of invisibility; most went in disguise. So it was that the myriad demons thronging the streets of the capital or
rushing above its rooftops went, as a rule, unnoticed.

  But now this was no longer the case.

  Each week brought new accounts of demonic exposure. A flock of messenger imps was spotted above Whitehall by a squealing group of schoolchildren; magicians reported that the imps had been correctly disguised as pigeons—they should not have aroused suspicion. Days later a jeweler’s apprentice, newly arrived in London, ran wild-eyed down Horseferry Road and leaped over the river wall into the Thames. Witnesses claimed he had screamed warnings of ghosts among the crowds. Close inquiry revealed that spy demons were at work in Horseferry Road that day.

  If commoners were being born with the power to see demons, the disruption that had lately plagued London could only get worse…. Mandrake shook his head irritably. He needed to visit a library, look for historical precedent. Such an outbreak might have happened before.… But he had no time—the present was difficult enough. The past would have to wait.

  A knock at the door; his servant entered unobtrusively, keeping well away from the pentacles on the floor.

  “The Deputy Police Chief is here to see you, sir.”

  Mandrake’s forehead runkled in surprise. “Oh. Really? Very well. Show her up.”

  It took three minutes for the servant to descend to the reception room two floors below and return with the visitor, giving Mr. Mandrake ample time to draw out a small pocket mirror and inspect himself carefully. He smoothed down his shorn hair where it stuck up in a tuft; he brushed a few motes of dust from off his shoulders. Satisfied at last, he immersed himself in the papers on his desk—a model of zealous, well-kempt industry.

  He recognized that such preening was laughable, but he did it anyway. He was always self-conscious when the Deputy Police Chief came to see him.

  A brusque knock; with light feet and deft, decisive movements, Jane Farrar entered and crossed the room, carrying an orb-case in one hand. Mr. Mandrake half stood courteously, but she waved him back down.

  “You don’t need to tell me what an honor this is, John. I’ll take it as read. I’ve got something important to show you.”

  “Please …” He indicated a leather chair beside the desk. She sat, laying the orb-case heavily on the table, and grinned at him. Mandrake grinned back. They grinned like two cats facing each other over an injured mouse, sleek and strong and confident in their mutual distrust.

  The golem affair three years earlier had ended with the death and disgrace of the Police Chief, Henry Duvall, and since then the Prime Minister had not seen fit to appoint a successor. In fact, in a mark of his increasing distrust of the magicians around him, he had awarded himself the title, and relied upon the Deputy Police Chief to do most of the work. For two years Jane Farrar had fulfilled this role. Her aptitude was well known: it had allowed her to survive a close association with Mr. Duvall and work her way back into Mr. Devereaux’s favor. She and Mandrake were now two of his closest allies. For that reason, between themselves they were achingly cordial; nevertheless, their old rivalry bristled beneath the surface.

  Mandrake found her disconcerting for another reason. She was still very beautiful: her hair long and darkly gleaming, her eyes wry and green beneath long lashes. Her looks distracted him; it took all the confidence of his maturity to keep pace with her in conversation.

  He slouched casually in his seat. “I’ve got something to tell you too,” he said. “Who’s first?”

  “Oh, go on. After you. But hurry up.”

  “Okay. We must get the PM interested in these new abilities some commoners are getting. Another of my demons was spotted yesterday. It was kids again. I don’t need to tell you the trouble this brings.”

  Ms. Farrar’s elegant brows furrowed. “No,” she said, “you don’t. This morning we’ve got new reports of strikes by dock workers and machinists. Walkouts. Demonstrations. Not just in London, but the provinces too. It’s being organized by men and women with these unusual powers. We’re going to have to round them up.”

  “Mmm, but the cause, Jane. What is it?”

  “We can find out when they’re safely in the Tower. We’ve spies working through the pubs now, getting information. We’ll come down hard. Anything more?”

  “We need to discuss the latest attack in Kent too, but that can wait till Council.”

  Ms. Farrar reached out two slender fingers and unzipped her case, pulling back the cloth to expose a small crystal orb, blue-white and perfect, with a flattened base. She pushed it toward the center of the desk. “My turn,” she said.

  The magician sat up a little. “One of your spies?”

  “Yes. Now pay attention, John—this is important.You know that Mr. Devereaux has asked me to keep close watch on our magicians, in case anyone tries to follow in the footsteps of Duvall and Lovelace?”

  Mr. Mandrake nodded. More than the American rebels, more than their enemies in Europe, more than the angry commoners demonstrating on the streets, the Prime Minister feared his ministers, the men and women who sat at his table and drank his wine. It was a justified anxiety—his colleagues had ambitions; nevertheless it distracted him from other pressing business. “What have you found?” he asked.

  “Something.” She passed a hand across the orb, leaning forward so that her long black hair fell down around her face. Clearing his throat, Mandrake leaned forward too, enjoying (as always) her scent, her shape, their shared proximity. Dangerous and feline as she was, Ms. Farrar’s company had its charms.

  She spoke a few words: grains of blue ran away across the surface of the orb to collect in a pool near the bottom. The upper surface was left clear. Here an image formed—a face of shadows. It flickered, moved, but did not draw near.

  Ms. Farrar looked up. “This isYole,” she said. “Yole has been keeping watch on a certain junior magician who has aroused my interest. Name of Palmer, second level, works in the Home Office. He has been passed over for promotion several times and is a frustrated man. Yesterday Palmer reported in sick; he did not go to work. Instead he left his apartment on foot and made his way to an inn near Whitechapel. He wore common workman’s clothes. Yole here followed him and can relay what occurred. I think it will interest you.”

  Mandrake made a noncommittal gesture. “Please proceed.”

  Jane Farrar snapped her fingers and spoke into the orb. “Show me the inn, with sound.”

  The shadowy face retreated, vanished. An image formed inside the orb—rafters, whitewashed walls, a trestle table beneath a hanging brass light. Smoke drifted against grimy pebble-glass windows. The viewpoint was low down; it was as if they were lying on the floor. Dowdy women passed above, and men in rough-cut suits. Faintly, as if from far away, came laughter, coughing, and the chink of glasses.

  A man sat at the trestle table, a burly gentleman in middle age, somewhat pink about the face, with gray flecks in his hair. He wore a shabby overcoat and a soft cap. His eyes ranged ceaselessly back and forth, evidently scanning the people in the inn.

  Mandrake leaned closer, taking in a gentle breath: Farrar’s perfume was especially strong that day. There was something pomegranaty about it. “That’s Palmer, is it?” he asked. “This is an odd angle we’ve got. Too low.”

  She nodded. “Yole was a mouse by the skirting board. He wished to be unobtrusive, but it was a costly error, wasn’t it, Yole?” She stroked the surface of the orb.

  A voice from within, whimpering and meek. “Yes, mistress.”

  “Mmm.Yes, that’s Palmer. Ordinarily a very dapper fellow. Now—this is important. It’s hard to see from down here, but he has a pint of beer in his hand.”

  “Remarkable,” Mandrake murmured. “This being a pub and all.” Definitely pomegranates … and possibly a hint of lemon …

  “Just wait. He’s watching for someone.”

  Mandrake considered the figure in the orb. As was to be expected in a magician among commoners, Mr. Palmer seemed ill at ease. His eyes moved constantly; sweat glistened on his neck and shiny forehead. Twice he lifted his glass as if to d
rink his ale; twice he halted with it at his lips and replaced it slowly on the table out of sight.

  “Nervous,” Mandrake said.

  “Yes. Poor, poor Palmer.”

  She spoke softly, but something in her tone carried the sharpness of a knife. Mandrake breathed in again. That hint of tartness was just right. Set off the sweeter scent quite nicely.

  Ms. Farrar coughed. “Something wrong with your chair, Mandrake?” she inquired. “Any farther forward and you’ll be in my lap.”

  He looked up hurriedly from the orb, narrowly avoiding crashing his forehead into hers. “Sorry, Farrar, sorry.” He cleared his throat, spoke in a deep voice. “It’s just the tension—can’t pull myself away. I wonder what this Palmer’s game is. A most suspicious character.” He pulled absently at a cuff.

  Ms. Farrar regarded him for a moment, then gestured at the orb. “Well, observe.”

  Into view from the side of the orb came a newcomer, carrying a pint of beer. He went bareheaded, his ginger hair slicked back, dirty worker’s boots and trousers shuffling beneath a long black raincoat. With casual but deliberate steps, he drew near to Mr. Palmer, who had shuffled over on his bench to make room for him.

  The newcomer sat. He placed his beer upon the table and pushed his glasses higher on his little nose.

  Mr. Mandrake was transfixed. “Wait!” he hissed. “I know him!”

  “Yole,” Farrar ordered. “Halt the scene.”

  The two men in the orb were half turning their heads to greet one another. At her command, the image froze.

  “That’s good,” Farrar said. “You recognize him?”