‘He laid out everything himself

‘Well you don’t become the greatest general in history unless you know to never trust subordinates!’

‘Apparently’ Helena informed me, ‘he had brought no chalk - or, since his satchel was full of maps of Mesopotamia, there was not room for enough. So some ingratiating courtier told him to use bean flour instead, to mark out the street plan. He went to endless trouble over the alignments - he wanted the cooling, health-giving winds from the sea to waft in for the inhabitants - they are called Etesian winds, by the way -’

‘Thank you, dearest.’

‘Then when Alexander had finished, a huge dark cloud of birds rose up off Lake Mareotis and devoured all the flour. The books say -’ she was frowning - ‘Alexander was persuaded by soothsayers that this was a good omen.’

‘You disagree?’ I myself was busy devouring - the array of bread, dates, olives and sheep’s cheese that Uncle Fulvius had provided.

‘Well, obviously, Marcus. If the birds ate the markings, how did Alexander’s nice Greek grid of streets ever get built?’

‘No allowance for myth and magic, Helena?’ asked my uncle.

‘I cannot believe Alexander the Great let himself be bamboozled by a bunch of soothsayers.’

‘You chose an extremely pedantic wife,’ commented Fulvius.

‘She chose me. Once she made her views known, her noble father handed her over very quickly. This should perhaps have worried me. Still, her attention to detail comes in handy when we work.’ I enjoyed alluding to our work. It kept Uncle Fulvius on the alert. The old fraud liked to imply he was involved in undercover dealings for the government. I myself had taken on tasks as an imperial agent but I had never found anyone official who knew about this uncle of mine. ’Informing needs scepticism as well as good boots and a high expenses budget, don’t you find, Uncle Fulvius?’