Terror of Constantinople

by Richard Blake

  Its oil exhausted, the lamp suddenly went out. We sat a while silent in the darkness.

  I gave up for the moment. There was no point trying to reason with a man in the grip of religious mania. I changed the subject.

  ‘We bury Authari tomorrow morning,’ I said. ‘Is the body prepared?’

  ‘Yes,’ Martin answered. ‘I’ve explained to Gutrune about the need for a sealed coffin. She was upset – her people like the more showy Arian ritual, where everything is on view. But I told her it was your will.’

  Since Authari had stood in for the Permanent Legate, Theophanes had given me the body of the slave who’d been poisoned by the stuff on my robe. He’d stand in for Authari. No one would ask what had become of his body.

  ‘How about flowers?’ I asked. ‘I want the church alive with the things.’

  ‘I scoured the city this afternoon,’ Martin assured me. ‘Everything is arranged.’

  At least that would go right. I thought.

  50

  I stepped out the following morning into a fully militarised City. The Ministry guards around the Legation had been withdrawn. They no longer served any good purpose, and were needed elsewhere. But the street junctions were now barricaded and guarded by the Circus Factions. Shopkeepers and craftsmen strutted about in makeshift armour, carrying swords of varied provenance. Those without swords carried whatever could be adapted into weapons.

  It wasn’t an army for trusting in the field – not against the forces massed outside the walls. But it might lend itself to days of vicious street-fighting.

  Whatever his other failings, Priscus did seem to know his military stuff. He even won a couple of battles, Martin had told me. One of them, to be sure, he’d won by reporting the opposing general to the Persian King for treason. He’d delayed his attack until the man was being impaled with his sons.

  Still, credit where it was due – Priscus was a better man on the battlefield. Perhaps Phocas should have trusted him with an army.

  With Martin, I pushed my way through the crowds and stood on the sea wall looking across to the Galatan shore.

  At last, a heavy chain had been stretched across the entrance to the Golden Horn. Nothing would be able to get close to the least impregnable stretch of defences. Even so, the size of the army Heraclius had positioned at all other points was a dispiriting sight. Tents covered the Asiatic shore. A steady stream of boats struggled back and forth across the choppy waters to the unwalled suburbs of Galata. There, among the trees and houses, the sun glinted on armour and bright swords. In the far distance – I had to strain to see against the sun – a whole body of mounted troops cantered off towards the Thracian suburbs.

  Someone beside me turned and asked if I knew how much food had been stockpiled against a siege. I gave a noncommittal answer. I knew that Martin and Authari had made sure to fill our own lower rooms with enough dry goods and beer to last for months. The Legation itself could have supplied a small town from its storehouses.

  Fuck the City. Whatever else happened, I and mine were unlikely to go hungry.

  Someone else said he’d come from the land walls. The army there was even larger, he said. He added that the guards had been issued with orders to let no one out. The City gates were now barred against a siege. No exit permits were being honoured. Even a party of missionary monks had been prevented from leaving.

  ‘That can’t possibly be true!’ the man beside me said. ‘The work of evangelising the barbarian is a duty for the whole Empire. No civil war can interrupt the Godly Work.’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ snarled the man who’d volunteered the news. ‘Because if you are, I’ve got a bigger sword than yours, and I know how to use it. I tell you – every fucking gate is shut. The whole world is sealed off from us.’

  ‘My dear Brothers in Christ,’ I intervened, eager to see if my status had more than token meaning, ‘my poor colleague the Patriarch Thomas is lying on his bed of sickness even as you speak. In this moment of sadness, we have more than a duty of love to each other.’

  The man pursed his lips and carefully chose his words.

  ‘My Lord,’ he said with a little bow, ‘I regret to inform you the Patriarch is not long for this world. He took a turn for the worse last night. Not even wine steeped with a single hair from the head of Saint Andrew could revive him. The doctors have abandoned hope.’

  ‘I am fully aware of these tidings,’ I lied. I looked down my nose at the man, and continued:

  ‘In these last days of the world, the Dark One himself dares to walk the streets of the city. Yes!’ I cried as I pointed at a conveniently black slab of granite cemented into the battlement – ‘The Dark One himself is abroad!’

  There was an impressed murmur at this, and several members of the crowd stepped back from the slab.

  I would have said more. With my dramatic gesture, though, I’d caught sight of flabby old Nicias in one of the gibbets. Still dressed in the robe he’d worn in the Imperial Box, false teeth rammed upside down in his mouth, his horribly twisted body swayed in the breeze.

  ‘And so,’ I ended lamely, ‘it is the duty of all good citizens to utter no words that may contribute to demoralisation of the people. Come, Martin,’ I said, eager to get away. ‘We have work of the highest importance.’

  The wine shops were still open for business. All other trading was at an end. The University was closed. Even the bookshops were shuttered and barred.

  ‘No exit from the City, after all,’ said Martin. He was quietly pleased with himself. I ignored him.

  Going back past the Great Church, for the first time I was required to prove my identity.

  The funeral was over. We’d managed a good showing in the church. There had been all my people – and these now included the Legation staff. Theophanes had turned up in time for the interment. Even Priscus had sent flowers.

  Overawed by the crowd, Gutrune had confined herself to silent weeping beside Martin. A dab of opium juice on his lead comforter, Maximin had sat quietly in her arms.

  Now – the gate securely fastened – we were back in the Legation. I sat at the Permanent Legate’s desk, going through his papers again. On the third day of the investigation, I was no longer put off by the volume of papyrus and parchment. It was no longer a question of examining each document, but of what nuggets of information could be extracted from the whole.

  ‘It’s the accounts from February onwards that are missing,’ Martin said, looking up from his own pile of boxes.

  I pushed the documents into a pile and reached for my cup. ‘There’s no point in going through all this again at the moment,’ I said. ‘I need to sit down alone for a while and think it into a pattern.’

  No such luck!

  ‘Pardon me for intruding, My Lord.’

  It was Antony. Now that I’d given him the routine business of the Legation to direct, he was looking almost cheerful.

  There was an Imperial messenger downstairs. Should he show the man in?

  51

  Phocas sat down heavily and waved me into another chair placed opposite his own. I was back in his private office. As if he found its mockery too great in his current situation, he sat with the map of the Empire behind him.

  ‘I came as soon as I received the message, Your Majesty,’ I explained. ‘It was the strip searches that held me up.’

  The Emperor threw me a bleary scowl. ‘That’ll be my eunuchs,’ he muttered. ‘They must have something to do to justify their salaries.’

  He straightened up and pointed at the secretary who was hovering over by the desk.

  ‘Get out of here!’ he snarled. ‘I’ll sign the death warrants later. The victims won’t complain at the delay. And shut both doors.’

  We were alone. I took up the wine cup set before me and drank. Phocas took up another of his parchment sheets.

  ‘You were shopped late yesterday evening to Priscus,’ he began. ‘Some bookseller says you were buying blasphemous writings.’

  I
nearly choked on my wine. I thought of Nicias in that gibbet.

  Phocas squinted at the writing on the sheet. It was a very big sheet, and the writing was very small. Someone had been busy, it seemed.

  ‘I have better things to do than fuss about the contents of your library,’ said Phocas, looking up. ‘But Priscus can be very persuasive in the matter of my duties.’

  He dropped the sheet on the floor and looked at me.

  ‘Sir,’ I began, trying to look and sound untroubled, ‘I am, as you know, here on Church business that requires me to consult a wide range of writings. Many of these are heretical, as they will allow us more effectively to counter heresy in the West. Some are atheistical writings from ancient times. Some are defences of the Old Faith. They are deeply shocking to anyone of delicate sensibilities. But it is my sorrowful duty to read them, in the hope that I may help steer others from the path of deception.’

  I would have said more along those lines. It usually went down well. But I could see that Phocas wasn’t really interested. Even so, I’d see that fucking bookseller hung from the city walls at the first opportunity. And I’d bribe the pick of his books out of the Black Agents.

  ‘I’m told all these books mean more to you than just the service of Holy Mother Church,’ said Phocas, pulling out another sheet from the box beside his chair. ‘Let me see—’ He raised the sheet close to his face but the tiny writing was too much for him in his present condition. That too landed up on the floor.

  His voice now took on an edge that was alarming.

  ‘Priscus has got hold of a list of all the books you’ve been consulting in the University Library,’ he said. ‘My son-in-law tells me you’ve been having many of them copied. These can’t all be for Church business. I’m told some of them shouldn’t exist, let alone be available for any barbarian to march into the city and inspect.

  ‘I suppose I should ask what your game is. Have you been sent here as a spy?’ He leaned forward and looked me close in the face.

  ‘As you know, Caesar, I am from a province currently under barbarian rule,’ I said. I was trying desperately hard not to shit myself on the spot.

  Espionage accusations – and from Phocas!

  ‘My people are fast accepting the light of Holy Mother Church,’ I said. ‘Nevertheless, they are an unlearned race, and our ancestors took no care of the libraries that once flourished in the cities of Britain. Those cities are all passed away, and we live in mud huts roofed with straw.

  ‘It is my ambition to help my people to a perfect understanding of the Imperial languages of Latin and Greek, so that they can more perfectly understand the doctrines of our Most Holy Faith. Perhaps it will also bring them to an acceptance that True Religion means obedience to God’s Political Representative here in the City.’

  Phocas tipped his head back and roared with laughter. ‘If I’m still Emperor when all this is over,’ he jeered, ‘I’ll certainly make you an ambassador. You’d do better with the Persians than some of the morons I’ve sent out.’

  That was a promise I didn’t fancy having remembered. I thought of what had happened to the envoy he’d sent to the Great One. But I made sure to look flattered.

  Phocas leaned forward again. As the laughing fit passed, his face sagged back into semi-drunken blankness. ‘Do you know what I want most in the world?’ he asked. ‘And how you might be able to help me get it?’

  I’d been wondering when he’d get round to this. I’d been turning responses over in my mind for three days.

  ‘I suppose, sir,’ I answered, ‘it has to do with a formal denunci ation of Heraclius.’

  ‘It might,’ he said, a faint sneer on his face. He leaned back to reach for his cup. ‘I’ve made you Acting Permanent Legate. That means you have all the powers of His Holiness in Rome. You could sign an excommunication here and now. I could send it outside the walls under a flag of truce, and then sit back while all hell broke loose around Heraclius.’

  ‘Indeed, sir, I could,’ I said. ‘If you put the document before me, it would be my undoubted duty as a citizen of the Empire to sign it. However, would it be in your present interest to ask such of me?’ I paused.

  ‘Well, get on with it,’ said Phocas with a slight, though not wholly genuine, impatience. ‘Let’s see how you too can wriggle out of paying back all the favours I’ve done those shitbag clerics in Rome. Let’s see just how good your diplomatic skills are.’

  I thought again of Nicias. No reply was plainly the wrong reply.

  ‘Sir,’ I began, ‘if I were to sign a formal excommunication of Heraclius, it would serve no useful purpose in your present circumstances. It might cause problems for Heraclius in Africa and in the West as a whole. But this would take months to have any effect – even if we could get it out of the City.

  ‘It might tip the Eastern Churches solidly behind Heraclius – and it is Easterners who are presently with him outside the walls. So far as I can tell, his main army out there is Syrian and Egyptian. They don’t like Rome at the best of times. Their reasonable inference would be that a deal had been done, under which you would declare His Holiness to be Universal Bishop.

  ‘I repeat – I will sign anything you put in front of me. I suppose it would be accepted in Rome, bearing in mind my present status. But would it be of any immediate use?’

  Phocas gave me another of his terrifyingly blank looks. Then he laughed again. He began softly, but soon, in his drunken state, ran out of control. He was now laughing so hard that tears ran down his face. He drained his cup and refilled it.

  ‘No,’ he said – ‘No, you aren’t anywhere near so stupid as my dearest Priscus assures me. Well said, my pretty boy. And do have another drink.’

  I said a prayer of thanks as he turned to discussing the Greek Patriarch. Had I, as representative of the Pope, any recommendations as to a successor, should poor Thomas not come back to life?

  ‘I may not be the most authoritative source on these matters,’ I answered with another stab at diplomacy. ‘The only person I can think of who is both holy and learned enough for such preferment is one Sergius, who is an associate of the Professor of Theology.’

  Phocas grunted and wrote the name on the back of one of his death warrants.

  ‘I’ll have to think about that,’ he said. ‘I suppose you are aware that Sergius has been nagging me to have you killed? He hates all Westerners and didn’t welcome your presence at all. Still, turn the other cheek and all that!

  ‘Do you suppose you’ll ever see Rome again?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘I have a woman there,’ I said, a renewed cold tingle in my guts. ‘I have a woman there with child. I may already be a father by now. It is my wish to return to Rome at some point. But I am a citizen of the Empire and a servant of the Church. My duty is to go where I’m sent and do there as I’m told.’

  ‘And my present wish’, said Phocas, ‘is that you should be here, and that you should continue investigating the death of the Permanent Legate.’

  He stretched in a manner that indicated he’d had enough of my company. As I rose and began the perfunctory bow he said he didn’t want, but always seemed to enjoy, he leaned forward again and caught my sleeve.

  ‘What did you find out at the Monastery of St John?’ he asked. For all his other problems, the man knew my movements pretty well.

  ‘I have some reason to believe the place is harbouring Demetrius,’ I explained. I added that the Abbot had refused my dispensation from his vow of silence.

  ‘Well, that’s as it should be,’ Phocas said, giving me another of his blank looks. ‘The Fathers of St John are good friends of His Holiness in Rome. They have his full confidence. That, of course, means they have my full confidence. Don’t go back there ever again.’

  ‘No, Caesar,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve already ordered Priscus to get those men withdrawn,’ he said after a long belch. ‘It’s a fucking insult to the Church, wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Without any possible doubt, C
aesar,’ I said.

  I was back in my own office with Martin and with Maximin. A light dinner had been served and cleared away. The sky outside the window was darkening. To the best of my knowledge, we were alone. For the moment, we spoke softly in Latin.

  ‘Oh, what can this mean? What can it mean?’ Martin asked in a stunned voice, going back to the main point.

  ‘It means’, I said, ‘that something is going on far beyond our guessing. Demetrius and Agathius seem to have killed the Permanent Legate. Agathius was almost certainly working for Heraclius. Theophanes helped set it up. Now Phocas is protecting Demetrius.

  ‘It’s possible that Heraclius wanted the Permanent Legate dead to prevent any deal between Pope and Emperor. Then again, it’s possible he wanted such a deal so the East would rise against Phocas.

  ‘Theophanes, we can be sure, is up to something that secures his own interest. But I don’t think he’d act without at least the knowledge and tacit consent of Phocas or Heraclius.

  ‘What Phocas is up to is beyond me. If he really wanted an excommunication, getting rid of the Permanent Legate and re placing him with me was a step in the right direction. But he wasn’t that keen this afternoon to ask anything beyond my advice on clerical appointments.’

  I explained the denunciation Priscus had made of me to Phocas. ‘I can’t begin to imagine what his interests could be beyond succeeding Phocas. But it’s quite obvious that he wants me dead. That, or he wants me as a friend. Or perhaps he wants both. They seem interchangeable in his mind.’

  We lapsed into silence.

  ‘I prayed hard this afternoon while you were at the palace,’ said Martin. ‘I prayed for your safe return. And I prayed for understanding of the mystery.’