To Demetrius: ‘I will, of course, apologise in person to His Excellency – just as soon as he sees fit to receive me.’
That stopped him short. With a scowl and a mutter about letters to Theophanes, he was off back to his part of the Legation.
21
The bells were still sounding the call to prayer. For all my connection with the Church, I’ve never been a frequenter of Sunday services. I’d been alone since dawn at my desk in the University Library. Sergius had broken my routine and, day of rest or not, I had work to do.
The Chief Librarian had finally made good on his promise to dig out the complete letters of Epicurus on government. This was a glorious find. Written over eight hundred years ago, the letters were as fresh today as when first dictated.
I’d guessed right about his political opinions. A wise man, he said, is one who wants to be left alone, who wants to leave others alone, and who wants others to be left alone. Therefore, the sole functions of government are to secure individuals in the possession of life and property.
‘Most unlike our own dear world of universal love and justice,’ I muttered, looking up at the frescoes of the Creation and Fall that adorned the ceiling.
I looked down again. The book rolls must have been four hundred years old. From the protocol still attached to one of them, the papyrus dated from before the reorganisation of the Egyptian factories. The last time I’d seen anything that old with proper attribution, it dated from the reign of Caracalla.
How they’d reached the Library was clear. The tag on one of the rolls recorded a confiscation about a century earlier. Less obvious was how they had survived for so long and in such an indifferent climate. A whole line of owners must have treasured them. Perhaps they too had been borne up by the knowledge of death as the end of things.
Half into the third volume, I decided to vary the pleasure of this find by taking a shit. The public latrines of Constantinople are best avoided unless the call of nature is particularly imperious. But the University Library had a nice, clean one that I didn’t scruple to use. It was scrubbed and polished three times a day, and gave off very little smell.
I took off my outer robe, hitched up my tunic, and sat on the common bench. Just as I was preparing to finish off, someone else sidled in and sat beside me.
Small, balding, he had the look of a Syrian or Egyptian. He wore good but nondescript clothing. He was rather old for a student, but might have been one of the Sunday lecturers. As I sat there with open bowels, I thought with vague interest that I might have seen him before.
There were five other places on the common bench, and I took a little more interest when the man chose to sit right beside me. Did he fancy me? I wondered, as I unfolded some of the linen scraps I carried for such purposes and leaned forward to dip one in the water channel. I didn’t fancy him at all, with his hairy legs and pallid skin.
But I was thinking most about what I’d been reading. Perceiving the truth and having a good shit are both pleasures, so far as they lead to peace of mind. But how to compare them? If they produce the same end, they do so by very different means. There had been nothing in Epicurus to suggest any answer. An idea was floating through my head about comparing not whole experiences, but small increments of each ...
I got no further. The man next to me cleared his throat and shifted his position slightly.
‘That’s a good practice, young man,’ he said, with an approving look at the wet cloth in my hand. ‘I normally carry my own sponge with me. You never can tell what contagion may lurk in these places.’
In the Greek of an educated Syrian, he described various modes of cleansing he had observed on his travels through the East.
I grunted and set about wiping myself. Since he evidently had no sponge with him, I wondered if it might invite more familiarity if I were to offer him one of my private bum-wipes. I decided it would.
‘But you are’, he continued, ‘rather a fastidious young man in all respects. Isn’t that so, Alaric of Britain?’
‘What business have you with me?’ I asked, keeping my voice neutral. This wasn’t an attempted pick-up. More likely, I was being approached by some agent of provocation. If he was fishing for treasonable words, he’d get none out of me.
‘Why have you followed me here?’ I varied my question.
‘Partly because getting hold of you in any other way was proving difficult,’ he said in a voice so quiet I had to lean towards him even in that little room. ‘It was pure luck that I saw you coming into the University on a morning when we’d be alone.
‘I believe you tried to save Justinus of Tyre.’
‘Your belief is mistaken,’ I said flatly.
‘You may not yet be aware,’ he continued, his voice still low, ‘that Heraclius has moved from Cyprus. I was with him just before he set out. He’ll be at the Straits within the next few days, and Abydos will open its gate to him without a fight. With a secure base there, he’ll move forward to the City. The gates will then open without any need for violence.’
I wondered if I should just grab my clothes and bolt for the Legation. Instead, I leaned forward to wash off the shit I’d smeared over my shaking hands.
‘I’m a stranger to the city,’ I said at length. ‘I’ve no interest in politics. If you are as you seem, I ask you to understand that I cannot and will not get involved in your affairs. If I see you again, I’ll denounce you.’
As I got up to leave, he said in the same level tone: ‘I’m not here to recruit you to our band. I only wanted to make your acquaintance, and to commend you for your brave attempt to see right done by poor Justinus. But it was foolish of you to interfere. The work you have been sent here to do is too important to be risked for the life of any one man.’
I looked hard at the man again. I did know him.
‘You’ve changed your mind’, I sneered, ‘since you tried to kill me with those roof tiles.’
He looked back at me and grinned. He’d given up on his air of mystery.
‘Call that a mistake,’ he said lightly. ‘I follow my orders as given. Let’s say that they weren’t so clear last month as they have become since. I won’t ask if Justinus did tell you anything before the eunuch cut his throat.’
I got up again.
‘Keep to your work, Alaric,’ he said. ‘And remember – God is on our side. What Heraclius is doing, he does not for himself, but for the Greater Glory of God.
‘God is with us,’ he continued, as if telling the way to the spice market. ‘God is before us. When the Blessed Heraclius rules the world as His Universal Exarch, Justice and Peace and Glory will be restored.’
He gave up on trying to sound committed to his cause, continuing in his normal voice: ‘But if you want to see something remarkable, that will explain the exact importance of your work, be at the Great Church this afternoon. I can’t say more, but the Patriarch himself will be there, and perhaps the Emperor. The service will end before you normally go back to the Legation for your evening entertainments.’
He smiled at the stony look I gave him.
‘You will see me again, Alaric, and when you do, it will, I assure you, be to your advantage. In the meantime, you are under our quiet protection.’
Back at the Legation, I called for a jug of wine. And then I called for another.
‘Where’s Authari?’ I grunted at Martin, who had come in with the wine.
‘I thought it best to ask him to stay with Gutrune,’ he said.
I grunted at no one in particular. At least someone was having a good time in Constantinople.
‘Another altercation with Demetrius, I’m afraid,’ Martin added.
‘Not again?’ I sighed. Perhaps I really should beat Authari this time. I was frightened. Much more, though, I was angry. For months, we’d had no more trouble. I had chosen not to ask further questions. Seemingly, in return, whatever was truly going on had retreated from direct view, or did so far above my head or behind my back. I had just learned that I was unde
r the ‘protection’ of people who had already tried once to murder me.
The last thing I wanted was another whining complaint from Demetrius.
‘He told me he’d expect to see you in his office the moment you got back,’ Martin said. He flinched as I sat back and opened my mouth.
But I controlled myself. ‘If you see Demetrius as you go about your duties,’ I said with icy calm, ‘you will ask him to attend on me in my office. You will remind him that my status as a guest of the Emperor is considerably higher than his. If he has a complaint, therefore, he must bring it to me, and at my convenience.
‘Before then, you will ask Authari to unhook himself from Gutrune and come to me at once. I will do such things ...’
I trailed off. I would, of course, do nothing. I hadn’t laid violent hands on a slave since leaving Rome. I’d not start now – not on the say-so of bloody Demetrius, and certainly not with Authari.
I looked at the empty jug. If I asked politely, would Martin bring me another?
I pulled myself together. I’d show what I thought of that spy and his advice, and I’d put off any contact with Demetrius until I was less likely to knock his teeth out.
‘Martin,’ I said. ‘The dispatch we were intending to write this afternoon can wait. Today is the Feast of Saint Victorinus. I believe that means a holiday outside the City walls, and no need of any special permit. Let’s get changed. If Authari is sober enough to stand, he can come with us.’
22
It seemed the whole City had had the same idea. It took an age to get along the wide Middle Street to the Charisian Gate and then out into the ruined suburbs. Old and young, rich and poor, all wearing their best, the people of Constantinople were streaming as one out of the City. We had to push our way through crowds of the semi-washed, and thread our way through the chairs of the great.
The Terror forgotten for the moment as we passed through that massive gate, everyone chattered brightly. I even heard natural laughter, as children ran about playing with balls and little sticks.
With the coming of bad times, the city had reacted like an alarmed snail and withdrawn behind the impenetrable fastness of its walls. But if the houses and gardens that had once stretched deep into Thrace were now largely abandoned, the churches and religious houses were still kept up.
The Church of St Victorinus was one of these places. It was far too small for the thousands who’d come out for the festival, but was an elegant place – built in the shape of a cross, and painted a tasteful red. About fifty yards distant, some hermit had taken up residence at the top of a column that still stood over the building it had once helped to support. With lunatic eyes bulging from his dishevelled face, he stared down at the crowds from the edge of the wooden platform his followers had put up for him. He was uttering benedictions and prophecies for anyone who could take his attention from Saint Victorinus and provide him with morsels of bread and wine.
According to the interminable sermon a young priest delivered to us while we stood in a dense mass outside the church, Victorinus was a fuller from Adrianople who had been clubbed to death here after having delivered to the heretical Emperor Constantius a long oration in the best theological Greek on the equal substance of Father and Son. Afterwards, flowers of unearthly beauty had sprung up on the spot – flowers that sang the Creed of Athanasius to everyone whose life so far had been exceptionally blameless.
Of course, multitudes were soon claiming to hear these singing flowers, and there had been the usual cures of the lame and the blind. So a church had been built there, and the anniversary of the martyrdom was a standing excuse for a good time outside the walls.
Now we were there to say hello to the man, and to see if his flowers could be persuaded back into tune.
‘I must be going deaf in my old age,’ I whispered to Martin as, during a pause in the sermon, we all stood looking up to a raised patch of ground close by the church on which a shrivelled rose bush was shedding its petals.
‘Shut up, dolt!’ someone next to me hissed. ‘I can barely hear the singing of the Creed for your barbarian ribaldry.’
Barbarian, indeed! Anywhere else, he’d have got my fist in his mouth and my knee hard in his groin. But I held my peace. There would be food and drink soon enough. From the preparations I’d seen in hand when we arrived, there would be acrobats and jugglers too. The whores who flitted discreetly round the edges of the crowd were already taking bookings for later.
I looked over the heads of those gathered outside the church, bowed in reverence. There was a bit of shuffling and coughing, and a few groans that I took to be outpourings of rapture. No bird sang in that hot September air. Even the various bugs had been intimidated into silence.
It would be jolly enough later. For the moment, though, boredom and the late-afternoon sun were making the time drag. Was there anyone in that crowd worth looking at? Was there any face there I could bring to mind for a good wank later?
‘How sweetly the flowers sing of the True Faith,’ a voice behind me whispered. ‘Do you not hear the delicacy of phrasing?’
‘But of course I do, Theophanes,’ said I, turning. ‘I hear them as well as you do.’
Did I see the man’s face twitch for just a moment? It was hard to say. He stood a few feet back from me in a small parting of the crowd. For once, Alypius wasn’t in attendance. Instead, Theophanes was accompanied by two black slaves who fanned him gently with ostrich feathers. There was enough paint on his face to cover the prow of a warship, and enough jewellery on his bloated neck and arms to stock one of the finer shops in Middle Street. Certainly, the robe he wore must have kept the silkworms busy for a year.
‘It is so restful to breathe the pure air of the country, do you not think, young Alaric?’ he said in a more conversational tone. ‘I regret that my duties prevent me from leaving the City as often as I might wish.’
He turned to Martin. ‘And you too, my little Martin, how unexpected to see you outside the City.’
Martin gave a rather shifty downward look. Before he could be expected to answer, Theophanes was continuing:
‘But why not join me? I have a private tent beyond the crowd, where food and wine await your attention.’
I suppose the country has its charms. But refreshments have a charm of their own, and lunch was a distant memory.
‘Did you not hear the singing flowers?’ I asked Martin as we pushed our way out of the crowd.
‘No, sir,’ said he in a mournful voice. ‘I don’t think my life has been sufficiently holy.’
‘Never mind,’ I consoled him. ‘You did see that miracle in Lesbos that I said was a trick of the light.’
I decided to leave Authari to stand out the rest of the sermon. He’d not have approved its anti-Arianism if he had been up to following the Greek. We had taken up a position convenient for the wine stalls, because I didn’t fancy risking an evening of fruit juice.
I needn’t have worried. Theophanes’ refreshment tent was about the size of a small house and was all of yellow silk. It was furnished with an opulence I will not try to describe except to say that, gleaming in the suffused yellow light, there was some of the finest silverware I’d ever seen, and piled high on this was a quantity and variety of delicacies an epic poet might have struggled to enumerate.
‘I am ashamed to bring you before so miserable a collage,’ Theophanes began. ‘Had I known I should be blessed by such worthy company as your own—’
He was cut short by a scream outside.
One scream we might have ignored. Perhaps a woman was giving birth. Perhaps someone had trodden on her toes. Women can’t keep their mouths shut at the best of times. But that first scream was taken up by others in the crowd. What had been an enlarged gathering of the reverent was breaking up into a shouting, terrified commotion.
Fast-moving shadows flitted at random across the walls of the tent. Someone now tripped over and broke one of the retaining cords. The corner it had held taut went limp and began gently to sag
.
I wrenched open the tent flap and looked out. All was breaking up in chaos. People ran about, some shouting and waving their arms, others with firm determination as they dashed for the road leading back into the city.
I saw a man climb into his chair, which fell abruptly to earth as the slaves dropped the supporting poles and raced off in the same direction. He struggled to his feet waving his arms despairingly at them. Then he was off himself on foot, following the slaves as fast as his tangling robe would allow.
‘The barbarians,’ a man turned to shout at me, ‘the barbarians are upon us!’
And they were!
I saw them about half a mile away coming down a little incline behind the church. Mounted on short ponies, they approached slowly in a wide crescent. There must have been a few dozen of them, spaced apart. I could see their chainmail glittering in the late sun, and the glint of their drawn swords. I could see their squat, beardless faces, and could feel their anticipatory smiles as they looked on the harvest of wealth and human flesh spread out before them.
The road back to Constantinople was already a seething mass of bodies. The ground about was crowded with derelict buildings and bare rocks and bushes.
The Stylite hermit had pulled up his folding ladder and withdrawn to cower unseen in the middle of his platform.
People ran about, crashing into each other, as if they were terrified hens whose coop had been broken into by a fox.
I turned to Theophanes, who looked like death. He leaned heavily on the back of an ebony couch.
‘Where are your guards?’ I asked.
He waved vaguely at the jostling multitude. His blacks had no weapons. Authari was God knows where in the crowd, and was himself unarmed. The soldiers who’d come out with us to keep order were nowhere to be seen. I later heard they’d been the first to mount up and ride for the walls, followed by the priests and then by anyone who had brought or could procure some animal of burden.
We were on our own. Our only available weapon was a jewelled fruit knife. I’d not have trusted the thing for spreading olive paste. I thought of making a dash for it, but Martin and I would have trouble forcing our way to the head of the crowd. No – we’d never get through. We were too far behind.
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