The Blood of Alexandria (Aelric)

 

In 612 AD, Egypt, the jewel of the Roman Empire, seethes with unrest as bread runs short and the Persians plot an invasion. In Alexandria, a city divided between Greeks and Egyptians by language, religion, and far too few soldiers, the mummy of the Great Alexander, dead for 900 years, still has the power to calm the mob—or inflame it. Aelric, the young British clerk who has become a senator and the trusted henchman of Emperor Heraclius, has come to Alexandria to send Egypt's harvest to Constantinople and to force the unwilling viceroy to give its land to the peasants. But the city, with its factions and conspirators, thwarts him at every turn. When an old enemy from Constantinople arrives, supposedly on a quest for a religious relic that could turn the course of the Persian war, he will have to use all his cunning, charm, and talent for violence to survive.