Swords Around the Throne

by Ian Ross

  ‘You are frightened, aren’t you?’ Sabina said, drawing close to him. She placed her palm upon his chest, as if to steady his heart.

  ‘And you’re not?’ he asked her.

  She laughed quietly. ‘Of course I am. That’s why you’re here.’

  They moved slowly, stepping over fallen stones in the grass. The tombs made fantastical shapes in the moonlight: some rose into tall spires or pyramids, while others were built low and square like houses, their faces thick with crumbling stucco. Every city had its necropolis outside the gates, but this one was older and grander than most. The tombs must be hundreds of years old, Castus guessed; some still had the great slabs blocking the doors, but most had been stripped a long time ago. Everywhere Castus saw faces: the empty eyes of the dead staring back at him from oblivion. He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword; not, he thought, that a sword would do much good against a ghost or a demon. But not all the eyes in the darkness were dead stone: there were animals moving in the undergrowth, and perhaps men too. Cemeteries had long been haunts of brigands and thieves.

  Sabina paused at the corner of one large structure. She pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders. Castus leaned against the wall beside her. ‘So,’ he said, trying to keep the nervous irritation from his voice. ‘Tell me what we’re doing here.’

  ‘There’s a sorcerer...’ she told him. Castus shoved himself away from the wall in sudden anger.

  ‘Gods below!’ he hissed. ‘Is that what this is about? Black magic in a necropolis?’

  ‘Listen... Listen to me. You don’t need to worry – I only needed a companion to see me to the place where the ceremony will be conducted...’

  ‘Ceremony?’ Castus said. The practice of magic was strictly illegal, and punishable by a grisly execution; it was well known that Constantine hated it above all things. ‘What is this? Summoning spirits to curse your enemies? Bringing back the dead?’

  ‘Only divination,’ Sabina said quickly, pressing herself back against the wall. She had been nervous already, but Castus realised that his anger was scaring her more.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘His name is Astrampsychus,’ she said. ‘He’s a Babylonian, they say, an expert reader of the future. One of the most powerful.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Castus said. He had been to Babylonia, and had met no fortune tellers there.

  ‘The ceremony has to be a secret, for obvious reasons, but many people are going. Highly placed people. Who wouldn’t welcome the chance to know the future? I thought about disguising myself, but only those who share the secret will see me, so...’

  ‘And why does it have to happen in a necropolis?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ she asked, and he saw her eyes widen in the darkness as she drew closer. ‘The presence of the dead makes the magic stronger!’

  For a moment she stared at him, smiling, then leaned towards him and kissed him lightly on the mouth. ‘You can wait outside if you prefer,’ she whispered.

  They found the tomb quickly enough; it was one of the largest, and would have been a grand edifice once. The stone and stucco around the black portal of the doorway was shaped to resemble pillars and a pediment, and there was a miniature courtyard before the door with an ivy-grown wall around it. As they approached they could see dark figures, cloaked and cowled, moving around the doorway and disappearing inside: others drawn by the illicit promise of magical divination.

  Sabina left him in the overgrown courtyard, with only a silent touch on the shoulder before she stepped through the portal. There were long stones in the trampled grass, and Castus was about to sit on one when he realised that it was a sarcophagus. Probably dragged from inside the tomb, he thought, and shuddered.

  Now that he was alone his senses became a lot sharper. He moved back into the shadows as a couple more people came stumbling between the tombs and passed in through the open portal. He could hear a low echoing murmur of voices from inside now. How many people had come to witness this ceremony? Out in the wilds of the necropolis an owl cried.

  Time passed. Castus stilled his mind and forced himself to calm, remembering the long watches he had spent on night sentry duty. This was no different, he thought, in a way...

  Then, with a quick prickling of nerves, he made out the strange roaring noise coming from inside the open tomb. Like the sound of wind rushing through trees; but the night was still and motionless. The roaring rose and fell, from a low hum to a high whine. Castus was on his feet, sword partially drawn, staring at the black mouth of the tomb: the sound was coming from within it. Then he heard the voices.

  The first voice he could not make out: a sort of rapid cackling chant. The second voice rose above it, above even the continued hum and whine.

  ‘BARBARITHA CHENUMBRA ABRAXAS ABRAHAT! O Chthonic gods! O Dis Pater! O Mother Hecate! BARHARRANGES AOIA MARAAROTH AMARZA! Holders of the keys to Hades! Gods and Daemons of the Underworld! Spirits of the Untimely Dead! Rouse yourselves for me, bring yourselves to me! THOOTH PHOKENTAZEPHU BARBARITHU ABRAHAT! Demons who lie here! Spirits who reside here! I adjure you to aid this divination – Rouse yourselves! Bring yourselves...!’

  Castus felt the sweat burning on his brow, but his heart was ice. He had drawn his sword and held it ready, as if to strike at anything emerging from the black mouth of the tomb. Panic beat in his chest – he wanted to run, needed to escape this foul place. It’s just a man, he told himself. Just a man, just some words.

  The strange chant ended, with a dull dying echo, and the roaring noise fell away into silence. For a few heartbeats there was no sound, and then Castus heard other voices speaking, hushed but carrying. A pungent smell was coming from the tomb, like burning hair and incense.

  Fighting down his nerves, Castus edged closer to the open door. At first he could see only blackness, then he made out the faint glow of lamps from deep inside. There were steps leading down from the doorway into a sunken chamber. The light and the voices must be coming from another, deeper, chamber beyond. Once again the roaring noise started, rising and falling. Castus slid his sword back into its scabbard, pulled his cloak over it, and began picking his way slowly down the steps.

  Close black warmth engulfed him, and he stumbled from the fourth step onto the dusty floor. A moment, crouched in breathless silence. His eyes adjusted to the glow from the inner room, and he saw he was in a low chamber, arched alcoves on all sides. The walls were painted with figures and scenes: he made out the shape of a winged lion, a leaping dolphin. At the far end of the room was a low doorway with a heavy stone lintel, and he crept slowly towards it. The light wavered, and his shadow twisted and leaped behind him.

  Now he could make out the speaking voices more clearly: one, high and cracked, was asking questions, and a few moments later a deeper and more sonorous voice seemed to be answering them.

  As he neared the doorway, Castus noticed a gap in the wall to his left; the bricks of one of the arched alcoves had been knocked through to make an opening into the next chamber. Stooping, he thrust his head into the alcove and peered through.

  The chamber beyond was much larger, twice the size of the entrance room. Scattered lamps burned from niches in the walls, and by their dim smoky glow Castus made out a crowd of figures almost filling the room. There were both men and women, some sitting on the floor and others standing around the walls. Surely twenty or thirty of them, but in the flicker of shadow it was hard to be sure. Castus picked out Sabina at once, sitting against the wall at the far side of the room, her face turned as she listened. He followed her gaze across the clustered heads and bodies to the far end of the chamber.

  Between two heavy square pillars, a fire burned in a low tripod set on an altar. The man behind the altar, the speaker with the sonorous voice, was robed all in white. Linen bound his skull, and a white mask shaped like a dog’s head with staring black eyeholes covered his face. Behind him, a squat youth held a length of wood with holes bored in it; as Castus watched, the youth whirled the wood around his head on a co
rd; the weird rushing roar filled the chamber again.

  The figure in the white mask – Astrampsychus himself, Castus assumed – stooped forward over the altar fire, raising his hands as he inhaling the fumes. There was a dead cockerel on the altar, its blood staining the stone and its feathers scattered around the fire. Now Castus could make out a second assistant, no doubt the man with the cackling voice, stepping carefully through the throng of spectators. He saw coins change hands, the glint of gold. The magician reared back from the smoking tripod, swaying on his feet.

  ‘The spirits bring good tidings,’ he intoned. ‘The child is yours, and will glorify your name...’

  A ripple passed through the crowd, several people reaching out to a man near the front to congratulate him.

  The assistant came creeping back towards the altar, holding what looked to Castus like a stack of broken pottery pieces. One of his legs was crooked, and he limped heavily. He placed the shards upon the altar, and the magician selected one without looking at it. The assistant picked up the shard and read from it in his cracked voice.

  ‘O Great Astrampsychus of Cunaxa: Will my son gain admittance to the Corps of Notaries this year?’

  Castus could see what was happening now: those in the crowd who wished to ask a question wrote it upon a shard of pottery and passed it to the assistant with the crooked leg, along with a coin. The magician, after standing for a moment with his eerie mask gazing out over the crowd, began muttering his incantations.

  ‘CHAOR CHTHOR CHARABARAX IAO! Wake demons, wake spirits! Bring me truths, I adjure you...’

  The assistant tossed a bundle of herbs and feathers onto the fire, and Astrampsychus stooped again into the smoke. The youth whirled his roarer, and the noise boomed out between the pillars.

  ‘You have placed your faith in unworthy men!’ the magician cried, reeling back from the smoke. ‘You have wasted your riches. False promises bring no reward...’

  A groan went up from the crowd, and Castus saw a matronly-looking woman hunch her shoulders and cover her face. Now that he had grown used to the dull glow in the chamber, he could better distinguish the people in the crowd. Most looked quite wealthy, for all their drab costumes. Then, as he scanned the back of the room, he saw the round bald head and bulky Maximian’s steward.

  The assistant was holding another shard of pottery now, tilting it to read the scratched words by the light of a lamp. His mouth fell open. Astrampsychus, jolted momentarily from his trance, snapped his fingers at the man.

  ‘Next question!’ he hissed.

  ‘I... I don’t know...’ the little man stuttered. The blank white dog-mask turned in his direction. ‘O Great Astrampsychus of Cunaxa,’ the assistant read in his cracked and wavering voice, ‘the question is: Who will be our next emperor?’

  A collective gasp filled the room. Castus flicked his eyes to the crowd and saw the ripple of shock, people shuffling and edging back towards the door, others glancing at those beside them in suspicion. To ask any question about the fate of emperors was outright treason.

  Castus pressed his shoulder into the alcove, turning his body so that he could watch the crowd without the light from the altar fire dazzling his eyes. He had seen enough of Astrampsychus and his rituals: the reaction of the people filling the room was of greater interest to him now. A hush had fallen, and the lamps seemed to flare up and burn a little brighter. At the back of the room, the eunuch Gorgonius had not moved.

  The roaring noise again, and the crackle of the altar fire. The stink of burning filled the shadows.

  ‘I see letters forming in the smoke!’ the magician intoned.

  Castus saw the crowd move forward again. In the lamplight he saw faces raised, mouths open in anticipation. He saw Sabina craning to see over the people in front, her eyes gleaming. Then his gaze fell on another figure, near the first row: a woman, with a deep hood covering her face.

  ‘I see... M...’

  More gasps, and what sounded like a stifled giggle. Somewhere near the back, a woman was quietly sobbing.

  ‘I see... A...’

  This time there were loud cries. Several people in the crowd were scrambling to their feet, hands raised as if to catch the treasonous words in the air.

  ‘I see... X...’

  ‘Enough!’ a man shouted, surging up and shoving his way through the throng. Castus thought he might be one of the Praetorian tribunes from the palace. Screaming women pushed themselves away from him. The man had a sword in his hand. ‘Enough! This is treason!’

  Damp air rushed suddenly through the chamber, and the lamp flames twisted and died. Utter blackness: Castus scraped his head on the alcove as he dragged himself backwards. The noise of screaming echoed beneath the low ceiling, and already there were figures bursting through the doorway from the inner chamber, rushing in panic towards the steps that led from the tomb.

  Reaching blindly along the wall, Castus found the edge of the door and hauled himself around it. A body slammed against him and he punched it aside. Two more, trying to push him back, and he barged between them with arms outstretched. He thought he had memorised the layout of the larger chamber, but now all was darkness and for a moment he was lost in the tumult, bodies shoving him from both sides, a wild confusion of sweat and echoing screams.

  He reached the far wall, and heard her voice to his left. His hand caught her shoulder and he pulled her close; she fought against him, panicking.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said, wrapping his arms around her. ‘It’s me. Stay close behind me and we’ll get out of here.’

  Somebody sprawled against his legs and he almost tripped; there were cries from the darkness, and he heard the rasp of a blade striking stone. Sabina was pressed against his back now, clasping his shoulders, and he pushed himself forward into the struggling mass that surged towards the door.

  The night air was like a tonic, and they ran between the broken tombs feeling the oppressive weight of darkness sloughing off them. Sabina was still trembling, but gulping back laughter. She came to a halt, bracing herself against a crumbling wall.

  ‘Praise be to Isis! Praise be to Isis!’ She grinned, hands raised to the sky. ‘I thought I would die in there... Thank you...’ She stepped towards Castus and embraced him, pressing herself against his chest. ‘Thank you for coming back for me.’

  ‘Did you get to ask your question?’

  ‘Yes!’ she said, raising her head. ‘It was one of the first he answered. I asked what the fate of my husband would be, and he said...’ She pursed her lips, remembering. ‘He said: All will be given to those who are worthy; all will be taken from those who are not. What could that mean, do you think?’

  ‘I think it means the Great Astrampsychus is a very clever man,’ he said. He was all too aware of her body close against his, her arms still lightly draped over his shoulders. ‘Plenty of wealthy people in that room. Plenty of gold coins too. I’d bet that if we went back there now we’d find Astrampsychus and his mates crawling about on their hands and knees, collecting up a good sum off the floor.’

  ‘Do you think?’ Sabina said, and looked mildly offended for a moment. Then she laughed again and swatted lightly at his shoulder. ‘How unexpectedly cynical of you!’

  ‘I also think it means we should find the carriage and get back to the palace as soon as we can, before anyone notices we’re gone.’

  They took the straight way back to the city, out through the fringe of the necropolis and onto the main road that led towards the Mogontiacum gate. In the back of the carriage Castus sat with Sabina clasped to his side; it was all too soon that the wheels slowed beneath them, he heard the driver calling out, and he leaned from the carriage to see the massive buttressed towers and double arched portals of the gateway looming in the torchlight. He spoke to the sentries himself: he was past caring whether any of them identified him now, and they would be seeing plenty of travellers that night far more exalted than he.

  On the paved streets of the city the carriage jolted and rolled.
A short ride, a turning, and they were drawing to a halt outside the stable gate of the palace once more. Castus made to get out, but Sabina clasped his arm. The faint light of a torch showed through the gap in the carriage curtain. She looked at him for a moment.

  ‘You’re very ugly, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘And this is why you choose to trust me?’

  ‘You have kind eyes,’ she said. ‘Sometimes.’

  Then her arms were around him, her lips pressed against his, and the carriage creaked and swayed as he embraced her.

  * * *

  It was past midnight as he stepped back through the gateway to the precinct of the Protectores. The watch had just changed, and Victor was standing guard.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ the young man said. Castus could hear the sour disappointment in his voice. He shook his head.

  ‘The emperor’s coming back early from Britain,’ Victor went on. ‘And Maximian’s leaving the palace. Which means we’re going with him... to somewhere called the Villa Herculis, wherever that is.’

  Castus knew of the place: it was a few miles up the river. He thanked Victor for the information and walked on towards his chamber. Perhaps it was best to get out of the Sacred Palace, he thought. He had grown used to it over the last year, but it felt hazardous all the same. Would this Villa Herculis be any better?

  Back in his chamber he threw himself down on the bed. Sabina’s scent was still lingering in the folds of his cloak and tunic, and he stood up again and stripped them off. Sweat ran down his back. For a few heartbeats he stood in the gloom, remembering keenly the sensation of her body pressed against him, her mouth...

  But then another thought came to him: M... A... X... Was the name supposed to be Maxentius? Or was it Maximian? Somebody in that subterranean room had known the answer, he was sure. The same person who had paid to ask the question. The same person, perhaps, who had rushed up to stop it when only the first three letters of the name had been uttered. Castus thought back to the faces in the crowd, trying to place them. The eunuch, Gorgonius, Maximian’s steward: what had become of him?