The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus. David Price Williams

sold them again to make money. After all this time I was stunned by his audacity.

      “My apologies,” I began hesitatingly, “this man stole my father’s office books and incidentally his young wife too; he would have stolen his life savings as well had he managed to find them. Alas my father is dead. He died two winters ago. I’m so sorry if you are out of pocket. Is there something I can possibly do to help?”

      The old man thought for a while and then stroking his chin he said, “You will no doubt say you don’t have the money to pay me directly. But you are young and strong and full of adventure no doubt? Might I ask a favour from you? I need someone to go on a journey for me, a long way from here, into the depths of Arabia in fact. I need someone to go to the Frankincense Mountains of Sheba to buy some of their perfumed gold, as we call it. Would you be prepared to do that for me, to arrange a consignment for me? You must have worked with your father. You know something about qualities and harvest times.”

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      Although I had studied for the priesthood, I wondered if I might not make this short journey before taking a full time position, so I said, “I’ve never actually been there, but yes, to recompense you I would do it, especially to restore our family’s good name. I did work with my father for some years and certainly I do know about the terebinth trade.”

      “It would be a difficult journey,” he continued. “It’s a long way to a very wild place. Are you sure you can do it?”

      “Yes,” I said, thinking what an exciting interlude it would be. “I’ll do it for you.”

      He smiled a wry smile, then coming over and shaking my hand he continued,

      “I knew your father well and I respected him as a business man and as a person. It would be a pleasure to work with his son. Is there anything further you need to know that I can explain to you Nicholas?”

      I thought a moment then asked, “I know it was some time ago, but tell me, when this man Chronos came here, do you remember if there was a young woman with him, someone he seemed close to?”

      “I didn’t really pay much attention to be perfectly honest and it was a long time since he was here, but now you come to mention it, I seem to remember there was some young lady

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      hanging about in the background. Maybe that’s the woman you’re thinking of?”

      Could that have been Calista, my father’s faithless wife, I wondered? Had she managed to escape from the shipwreck as well? How could that possibly be? For a moment I felt outraged, but then I thought of my new calling, of the message of Jesus to be generous to your enemies, to those who seek occasion against you. I tried to put it to the back of my mind.

      “It’s of no importance,” I said, collecting myself. “So, if I am to make this journey for you what do we have to do next?”

      “We have to go to the Temple of Isis to seal the bargain,” Apollodorus announced, putting his arm around my shoulder in a fatherly way and, making as if to leave the shop, he confided, “No time like the present, is there?”

      He guided me into the street and we walked a couple of blocks to a very colourful Egyptian building decorated with palm columns topped with opening lotus flowers across the façade. The whole lintel above the door was painted with huge outspread wings with a golden sun disk in the middle from which sprang two winged cobras. I’d seen that motif before in one of the Egyptian temples back home. Feeling a little uncomfortable, I walked with him up the steps into the interior where there was a large seated female effigy with a statue of a small boy in her lap. She was wearing on her head

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      another sun disk flanked by two bull’s horns. Apollodorus genuflected and sidled swiftly around to the back where a heavily-painted young woman in a diaphanous green and gold robe whom I assume was a cult priestess was standing. She held up her right hand in greeting.

      “Welcome Apollodorus. Welcome to the Temple of Isis and Horus. What is your will?”

      “Ah, Mother of Wisdom, I need to formalise a contract with this young man here. If you would be so kind as to witness it and deposit it in your archives, I will of course make the usual offering to the goddess.”

      Saying this, they moved into a small office-like room behind the cult statue, where the priestess drew out a pristine sheet of papyrus and handed it to Apollodorus, pointing to a stylus on the nearby table. He sat and wrote for several minutes in a language I didn’t recognise but assumed was demotic Egyptian and then he wrote a brief passage in Greek at the bottom to the effect that I was to act as his agent in a particular incense transaction in Arabia. There was no specific amount of money identified at this stage on Apollodorus’ side of the bargain but upon delivery he would pay what he thought fit. He must have expected me to return to claim the money. He re-read the contract, handed the stylus for me to sign too and then gave it to the priestess who added her own very ornate appellation at

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      the bottom and taking a small stamp seal, pressed this onto the centre of the document.

      “So is it written,” she intoned, “so shall it be done.”

      With that, she raised her arms in blessing. Apollodorus waved me out of the building while he hung back, rummaged in his clothing and gave a few coins to the priestess before joining me in the street. If I had only known at that point what I was letting myself in for, I might not so readily have agreed to make this momentous voyage into the unknown. I naively thought it would be an interesting and exciting journey. Little did I know that this wily old man was well aware of the enormous risks and perils that I would face and that he had deliberately kept those facts from me. I was soon to find out to what extent he had connived in my co-operation.

      I walked back along Canopic Street, back through all the maelstrom of traffic to the Jewish Quarter and the old synagogue where I found Andreas, the man who had been baptised with me and with whom I had kept in constant contact. During our time together, he had become a close friend and confidant; he was the same age as me after all. Andreas was an interesting man. He originally came from the ancient Greek city of Ptolemais, one of the Pentapolis in Libya and for some years he’d been loosely attached to the Roman army. He was not a soldier, he had assured me, but had been a junior assistant

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