The Curse of Babylon

by Richard Blake

  I stood up and took the silver cup into my own hands. My legs were shaking and I had to steady them against the seat of my chair. But, as quickly as it had come over me, the attack was gone. Its afterglow was rapidly fading. It no longer felt as if I had a pint of vinegar swilling about in my stomach. My heart was steady again. With every heartbeat, my legs were shaking a little less. Everyone stepped one pace forward and went into a three-quarter bow. This was followed by another long blast of Latin. In hands that didn’t tremble, I held the cup at chest height for everyone to see.

  It’s a birthday joke, you idiot! I told myself. And what else could it be? Though the Emperor hadn’t chosen to notice, let alone object, I had been four years now on the Imperial Council, and I’d been Lord Treasurer for two years. All this and I was currently a day past my twenty-fifth – that is, I was one day into my manhood, as these things are counted under the laws of the Empire. Of course, it had been a quiet joke throughout the City. But, if an emperor doesn’t notice or object, why should anyone else – in public, that is? I was only now eligible for the increasingly exalted offices I’d been occupying these past few years. Someone was having a laugh at me.

  I looked for support at the bizarre and probably impossible act Tiberius was committing on the far wall with a dolphin. No support there today. I looked again at the cup. It screamed every possible expense, tinged with an odd sense of humour. Who could have sent it? Heraclius? This was the sort of joke Emperors played on their friends. But it couldn’t be Heraclius. He had no visible sense of humour. Besides, he was a hundred miles away in Cyzicus, consulting some smelly old monks on pillars about how to beat the Persians. Even granting he’d discovered a playful side to his nature, he had other things on his mind. I gave up on questions. Doubtless, someone important would come up to me later in the day and give me a knowing slap on the back.

  I felt a returning trickle of moisture into my mouth and was able to stand forward. By now, the adoration of my gift had run its course. I gave my present back to the Master of the Timings and sat down. I closed my eyes for a moment. When you have a Secret, of course, any mention of secrets will set you off. This was hardly the first panic attack I’d had in the past year. But it was the oddest. None other had faded so fast without opium or cannabis to knock it on the head. If only I could think what to do about their cause . . .

  I leaned forward. ‘Let’s hear the petitioners in their own right,’ I said to the Listings Clerk, almost forgetting to hush my voice. I glanced over to where they’d been placed at the back of the hall. Dressed in shabby brown, they had been gawping all morning at a slow, heavy ceremonial they’d never guess had been laid on for their benefit. They were already being brought forward, when the Master of the Timings staggered over and tapped one on the head with his staff. He hissed something frantic at the Listings Clerk and opened his mouth so wide for air that I thought his false teeth would crash on to the floor. ‘I said to get those men forward!’ I snapped. The Master of the Timings shook his head, and the Listings Clerk stepped sideways, knocking over a basket of documents.

  ‘You can’t hear unlisted petitions while there is any other business,’ the Master of the Timings cried in a soft panic. ‘It’s listed petitions, then other business – and only then unlisted petitions.’ He leaned harder on his staff and rolled his eyes back till only the whites were visible. ‘It was ever thus,’ he whispered.

  ‘Oh, indeed, My Lord,’ the Listings Clerk added in the tone of one who reminds a child that the sun doesn’t set till dusk. ‘It was ever thus – from the very creation of the world.’

  ‘Then get on with it!’ I groaned. I knew I was making one of those surrenders even emperors make when eunuchs close ranks. But it was that or let everything fall into chaos.

  Looking relieved, the Master of the Timings turned and raised his voice. ‘A letter from His Magnificence the Lord Senator Nicetas, Commander of the East,’ he trilled in a fair approximation of his usual manner. A bearded messenger came forward and scowled at the pool of sunlight that was moving steadily down one of the columns. I’d been idly watching him all morning. He’d looked as impatient as I felt. He now took his place at a special lectern that set him at right angles to me and the crowd, and waited for the golden bell to be rung three times to indicate the quality of his employer. This done, he held out his knife and, with a dramatic flourish, slit the cords of the scroll he’d been wearing round his neck. He arranged his heavy features into a semblance of the charming as he read out the greeting and, after a pause for everyone to shout the praises of the Emperor’s worthless cousin, went into the main body of the letter:

  The Divine Plato it may justly be observed stands to be corrected inasfar into the mouth of Socrates he betook himself to present the notion that the art of impressing marks upon the skin of a beast or upon the woven mat of Nilotic reed, hasn’t nay in any sense diminished the memoriative powers of mankind . . .

  I tried for a look of reverential joy and thought about the work piling up in my office. At last, raising his voice in the customary manner, the messenger got to the letter’s climax. This involved a line of Theophrastus falsely given to Hesiod, and a series of grammatical blunders gross enough to raise the thought that I was being insulted. But there was no insult. Like the Emperor, Nicetas had been raised in Carthage. They were both happier in Latin. And I’d had worse from natives. Indeed, this probably had been ghosted by a native. For all its faults, it did the usual job of a letter between persons of quality: You are absent. But no separation can sunder those who are united in spirit.

  The messenger came forward and embraced my slippered feet. ‘What’s the message?’ I whispered.

  ‘No offence meant,’ came the reply, ‘but the Master’s legs is taking a turn for the worse. Tomorrow evening’s off.’

  Mindful of how the egg underlay on my face was coming loose, I wiggled my toes to show the required desolation. ‘Give my sympathies to the Lord Nicetas,’ I replied without moving my lips. The man nodded. This was my first good news of the day. Nicetas might, this time, be festering to death. At the least, I’d been spared an evening of the poet he’d brought back with him from Egypt and was crying up as a second Callimachus. ‘Tell him that I pray for angels to attend upon his bed of sickness,’ I added. The messenger bowed, and walked backwards down the steps from my chair. I suppressed a cough and got up. There was a sound of shuffled feet and much brushing of sweaty hands on robes.

  ‘Let the whole universe bear witness,’ I began, ‘to the learned eloquence of My Lord Nicetas. Truly, has such a letter been received since the glorious days of old?’ There was an attempted murmur of admiration, though somewhat more coughing. I heard someone quote one of the more illiterate phrases. Someone else repeated it and threw in a loud groan of ecstasy. ‘Let it be known,’ I cried when all was silent again, ‘that this most astonishing of letters shall be displayed in my hall of audience beneath the icon of the Emperor. Let it be shown there for all eternity.’ There was a sound of clapping that began in the centre of the crowd and moved outward. It was followed by a variant on the standard acclamation, and then by another handful of incense, and then by helpless coughing. Still on my feet, I let out a sigh of relief. I’d just had an explanation of the cup and of its Latin message. Like his Imperial cousin, Nicetas had no visible sense of humour. But I could suppose he’d set Leander to work on an epigram to be recited at me the next time I had to attend one of his horrid soirées.

  As I sat down, the Master of the Timings went into a sort of waddling dance with the messenger. It was all as should be expected – save that the eunuch kept missing his steps, and the messenger didn’t give the customary embrace, but kept his hands clamped behind his back. Everyone else continued shouting himself hoarse in Latin and bells rang out repeatedly from overhead. I glanced at the back of the crowd. One of the older petitioners looked as if he’d died and was being propped up from behind. I moved a hand to get the Listings Clerk’s attention. For some reason, I glanced dow
n at the litter of documents that hadn’t yet been cleared away. Among various parchment scrolls was a half sheet of papyrus, cracked and then split where it had been folded over. I couldn’t see the message. But the seal was plain. I reached down and snatched at the broken sheet and read its contents:

  My Lord Alaric,

  I beg to inform, further to your standing orders, that we have impounded a ship that foundered last night near the second milestone on the western road out of the City. It is registered in Tanais and stuffed with furs. We have reason to believe that no tolls were paid on its journey through the Straits from the Black Sea to the Propontis.

  Again further to your standing orders, we have secured the area, and we await your personal attention.

  It was signed by Lucas, Head of Customs Enforcement, and a standard Treasury seal covered the end of his name.

  I forgot about my new cup. Furs from Tanais, and on the far side of the Straits, and untaxed – possible evidence of corruption in the Tolls Office? Even if it showed just negligence, I had more urgent work than sitting here in bored and largely ornamental magnificence.

  ‘Why was this not given to me when it came in?’ I snapped. ‘When did it come in?’ The Master of the Timings shrugged and gripped harder on his staff.

  ‘It wasn’t delivered into my hands,’ the Listings Clerk added in a voice that accused everyone and no one. I looked again at the message. It could well have been here since before the beginning of the audience. Just in reach, the two eunuchs were hissing at each other in the rapid and deliberately unintelligible chatter their sort used for arguments. I could have handed out two bloody noses – that, or I could have promised immediate transfers to some barbarian-ravaged border province. I did neither. I looked again at the seal, and how negligently it had been rammed into the unmelted beeswax. The whole production screamed urgency. How much time had been lost already?

  I stood up. The crowd stopped its shuffling and coughing. ‘This audience is at an end.’ I said loudly. ‘All unheard petitions are stood over to next Monday.’ I looked round at the uncomprehending faces. As I made for the door into the private quarters of my palace, I made sure to snatch up my birthday present and greetings. Until I could find time for a proper look at these, they could be locked away.

  I barely heard the dejection in the voice of the Master of the Timings as he got everyone ready for a prostration before my now empty chair.

  Chapter 7

  It was one of those days in late spring when the sun is pitilessly bright. I stepped through the hidden side exit from my palace and hurried blinking into the first shade I could see. Back then, Constantinople still had a population of about half a million – possibly more, depending on how you counted the dwellings. That meant the City air could never be called sweet. But my palace was in one of the best areas, far from the slums and smellier workshops. Why, then, did this empty dead end of a street smell like a broken sewer? It was a change from the incense the Treasury eunuchs had been burning, but in no sense an improvement.

  Oh, there was a body in the street! I hadn’t seen it at first. But someone had got himself beaten to pulp and his belly slit open, and then dumped in a spot where the sun must have been cooking him since an hour after dawn. The bloody vomit he’d splashed over himself didn’t help – nor the wide pool of blood that had already turned brown, and was attracting a solid buzz of flies.

  Oh, but the nuisance of it! I’d got a body in a side street it was my responsibility to keep clean. There would have to be a letter about this to Timothy. For me, he’d squeeze himself into his official carrying chair and be straight over. Questions, endless questions – most of them irrelevant to the case, all of them intrusive – that would be our City Prefect. I clenched my fists and snorted. But I shut my eyes and waited for the flash of anger to fade. Making sure not to tread on anything nasty in my fine new boots, I went over for a look at the body. All I could see of the face was that it had been bearded. The rest was smashed in. The clothing suggested a vagrant. So, unless it had been taken, did the lack of any weapon. I bent forward and sniffed at the vomit. No smell of wine. I’d gone off to sleep the previous night to a distant sound of brawling. The most likely explanation was that some young men of quality had got fighting drunk and found a sleeping beggar to kill. It was coincidence they’d finished him off outside my palace. I hoped the bastards had got themselves covered in gore – that, after all, would be their only punishment.

  I stood back from the body. Samo would be out here later for his daily check on how clean the palace and its surrounds were being kept. He could deal with this. I looked down at my boots. They were still unspotted. I lifted the front of my outer tunic. My leggings were as white as my boots and showed my calves to nice effect. Once that brocade had been lifted off me, I’d put on some lovely clothes. I couldn’t see it but my cloak pin alone would get me the envy of anyone I passed. I looked up at the dark blue of the sky. Not long to go and the sun would be fully overhead. For the moment, I stood in the shade of my own palace wall and, after so much gloom and smoke, the sky was of the deepest and most astonishing blue. It was the colour I’d demanded – with moderate success – for my cloak.

  I looked at the body again. If this was an impulse killing, why had someone broken all the fingers on the right hand? My spirits sank back to where they’d started. But I tried to lift them again. In even a well-policed city this size, you could expect a few dozen bodies most nights. These had to be left somewhere. Why not here now and again? I could have rolled the body over and had a proper sight at the clothing. But that would have spoiled my own. I’d seen enough. I stood upright and smoothed the front of my outer tunic. I had official duties, and was already late for them. I stood forward and crushed an engorged fly that had crawled a little too close by my left boot.

  I turned and walked towards the archway that led into the Triumphal Way. I stopped in the shade and pulled the wide brim of my hat down another inch. Just a well-dressed man about his business, I slipped though the archway and turned right into the road that cut through the vast ceremonial district of Constantinople.

  When barbarian kings or ambassadors are honoured with a tour of the City, they always start with the view along the Triumphal Way. This isn’t the main street on Constantinople, or the longest. It is simply what its name suggests – a street that, deviating neither to right nor left, and cutting through two hills, and crossing one valley on brick arches, runs for a mile through the centre. That mile really is the most astonishing vista of glittering porticos and colonnades, triumphal arches and colossal statues and gilded inscriptions. Whether you look at magnificence that goes on seemingly without end, or at the swarming, chattering multitudes of the well-dressed as they go about their business, you’ll think you’re in the capital of an empire at the height of its glory. But that’s always been the intention. You don’t call a street the Triumphal Way and line it with monasteries and sewers. It was laid out so the Emperor himself could ride along it in his chariot of state.

  Truth was, the Empire was on its uppers. The Persian War I’ve already mentioned had been going on for a decade. With Nicetas now in charge of the defence, we’d just lost Syria. Egypt would surely be next. The magnificence on view was all about the past – sometimes the distant past.

  Grim thoughts to keep me company! Still, they kept me from visible impatience. The sun was about to turn beastly overhead and we were in the last rush before siesta time. There was no chance yet of a decent speed. Come the siesta, I’d be able to get a move on. The Triumphal Way would take me past Imperial Square and into Middle Street. From there, it would be another reasonably straight two miles to the Golden Gate, and another two after that to where Lucas would be waiting like a cat that’s caught a bird for its mistress. Until then, it was a matter of threading my way through crowds that seemed to have all the time in the world, and avoiding the carrying chairs that crept or hurtled along in both directions.

  I looked into the colonnade on my left. That
was packed – you might have thought the shouting, jostling mass there was gathered to pass the time of day, not to get from one point to another without stepping into the sun. I reached up to check if my hat was still in place and stepped round a heap of replacement paving stones that would be set in place once the crowds had melted away. I thought again of Nicetas. It’s only reasonable that an emperor should hand all the really plum jobs about his own family. But why make Nicetas Commander of the East – that is, put him in charge of the Persian War? Why then bring him back to Constantinople, while Heraclius was away, and make him Regent as well? The man wasn’t fit for changing the straw in a public toilet. Any one of the statues I was passing would have made a more active Regent. In Syria, he’d run away from the Persians so fast, he hadn’t even stopped by Jerusalem to snatch the True Cross to safety. The Empire was on its uppers, and there was a good case for blaming it on Nicetas.

  Far ahead of me, there was a sudden disturbance. It looked like another carrying chair race. I didn’t want to get in the way of that. I gave an involuntary look at the sky and moved towards the right-hand side of the road. I found myself looking at a big statue of Cicero. I could have looked at many other things. If I turned, I’d see the vast mass of the Great Church looming above all else in the City. Though not visible from here, the immensity of the Circus was a half mile beyond. I’d got chariot racing cancelled until further notice, but might be able to hear the faint cheering as one of the cheaper entertainments came to its end. But Cicero suited me better. I looked into the troubled, bronze face. What would he have thought of all this?

  To be fair, his opinion might not have been the one I currently wanted. However useless Nicetas was, there was a limit to how much blame you could load on one man’s shoulders. It wasn’t just the Persians. Every other frontier was soft or collapsing. We were losing Greece to the Slavs and Avars. We’d mostly lost Italy to the Lombards. Our foothold in Spain was going to the Visigoths. Our control of Africa stopped barely twenty miles inland. You couldn’t blame Nicetas for that. As for the Persians, with one partial exception, we’d found no one else able to stand up to them. If Nicetas was useless, he wasn’t alone in his uselessness.