I stuck my chin out. Doing that, I’d been told, made me look older and more authoritative. ‘Your clients must wait until the new currency law comes into operation,’ I said. ‘On that day, Heraclius is due to come back from his pilgrimage and I have a long private meeting booked with him. If I use the right approach, he’ll issue a formal rebuke against Eunapius. There will be no going back on that. Until then, I want your clients to keep out of sight. If they’re short of money, I’ll give help through an intermediary. But they must stay out of sight. I don’t want anything that will prod Nicetas into action.’
Now I’d got the whole story, I could finally be glad that we’d met. Here was an open breach of the law – probably documented, if I got someone to dig round the local archive – by a known agent and possible nominee of Nicetas. If I used this right, I could get the Emperor to slap his cousin down good and hard. I might not be able to stop his general campaign against me but I could shut off the stream of collusive actions in which Eunapius of Pylae always managed to be a first- or second-hand party.
‘So, we’ll have to see the Emperor’ – she squeezed her eyes shut, evidently thinking back to what I’d said in my hall of audience – ‘on the second day of the second week. Will I need special clothes to see him?’
I stepped off the road to let a wide cart rumble by. I frowned at Antonia. ‘What makes you think you are coming with me to see the Great Augustus?’ I asked with a lordly toss of my head. All I needed to do was get Heraclius on side, and then produce those rough-handed farmers to look noble and put-upon. I didn’t need a woman there to babble away like a drunken litigant in person.
‘Because it’s the custom,’ she answered. ‘When a Minister needs special clearance to do something, the petitioning agent always goes with him.’
‘Don’t be silly!’ I said with another lordly toss, this time nearly dislodging my hat. ‘All else aside, you don’t even look like a man. I won’t ask how you got this far. But there will be no more of this ludicrous attempt at a petitioning career.’ I paused and made myself look very firm. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, I’m having you put on a fast carriage back to Trebizond.’ I paused again for dramatic effect and found I was growing more out of love with myself with every moment I allowed to slip by. ‘However,’ I said, softening my voice, ‘the lowest clerical grade in the tax administration is sometimes open to women. Since I assume you can read and write, I will provide you with a letter of appointment to the office in Trebizond.’
I couldn’t say fairer than that. Even if unwittingly, Antonia had done me a favour. I’d return it by keeping her and her mother from going hungry. She’d had her big adventure in life, and could look forward to telling her children and grandchildren how, for one day, she’d laid petitions before Alaric the Magnificent.
That wasn’t how she saw it. ‘It’s not fair!’ she cried. She stamped her foot. ‘I don’t want to go back to Trebizond – and you can’t make me!’ She sat down in the road and drew her knees up to her chin. I looked at her. Couldn’t make her – eh? I was a member of the Imperial Council. If I wanted, I could drag her aside and rape her in full view of everyone else on the road. If she didn’t know that, her father must have done a crap job of bringing her up. I smiled and said nothing as she repeated and varied herself on the matter of fairness. Now I’d got used to the short hair, I couldn’t deny she was a pretty girl. But that only made it more important to get her out of a place like Constantinople. I really was doing her a favour.
I kicked another stone, this time making sure it skipped into the brambles lining the road. ‘I could make you an inspector of taxes,’ I said, trying not to think of the scandal that would cause in the Trebizond office. ‘You couldn’t appear in court yourself as a prosecutor. But you could employ a clerk for that. The other duties would make you a woman of some consequence.’
‘I’ve told you, I’m not going back to Trebizond!’ she snapped. ‘I’d rather die than see that dreadful place again.’ Someone on a donkey who’d just overtaken us looked back at this. I fell silent and thought about my silver cup. I wouldn’t send it to the mint, I decided. I’d write a poem of thanks that would annoy Nicetas by outshining anything his own Leander could make up.
Chapter 12
At last, we were at the second milestone beyond the walls. It was here that the road veered right to avoid some very hard rock that lay along the shore. This left about a half mile of shoreline invisible from the crowded road. This was where I should have been before the sun was high enough to be warm. Serves me right if Lucas was stamping up and down on the beach like an enraged bull, and if the desk in my office had already vanished under a burial mound of unanswered correspondence. I looked at the expanse of low crags. I’d heard – and I may have heard wrong – that this was the mouth of a river long since diverted to feeding the City water supply. What remained was an alternation of dark and jagged rock and low points between that ranged between smelly puddles and salt marshes. Beyond that, Lucas should still be waiting. I glanced at the first of the puddles, and wished I hadn’t come out in such lovely boots. But I could be glad of my cloak. If the sun was just lately over its zenith, the northerly breeze had settled into a chilly blast. I let my sleeves down and pulled my cloak forward.
‘Smugglers put in here at night,’ I said for the sake of conversation. ‘It’s the final link in a chain of evasion that begins at the Red Sea. You land small high-value items here – incense or pepper, for instance. You then carry them under your clothing into Constantinople. It’s the same with contraband like heretical books or magical paraphernalia.’ Antonia nodded vaguely. I’d got her back to her feet by offering an illegal appointment to clerk of the fourth grade. Since then, she hadn’t spoken.
I stepped off the road. ‘Give me your hand,’ I said. ‘You’ll tear your clothes if you fall.’ She ignored me. I shrugged. We scrambled without another word over the first series of crags. I tore my leggings and put a deep scratch into my left boot.
‘Is Tanais in Egypt?’ Antonia asked as we finished climbing down. The road was now out of sight. We’d soon be looking down at the sea. I was glad she was out of breath. I reached my hand out again. This time, she took it. She came down beside me in a little shower of stones.
‘Tanais is a city on the far shore of Lake Maeotis,’ I said in a return of my lordly manner. What had her father taught her? ‘The lake is entered through a narrow strait from the north of the Black Sea. Since you live in Trebizond, I really thought you’d know that. It’s been there for over a thousand years,’ I went on with a mild frown – ‘very important for trade. The River Tanais leads straight into Scythia, and may be part of an alternative water route to a place called England.’
‘Oh, you mean Tanais!’ She sounded annoyed, and didn’t seem to have picked up on the reference to England. ‘So, why are we on this side of the City?’
I reached forward and steadied her as she slipped on one of the smoother rocks. ‘That’s the reason I’m here,’ I said. ‘In itself, smuggling is something dealt with by subordinates of subordinates. But I’m told the detained ship is from Tanais. That raises the question of how it got through the narrow straits past the City.’ Yes, that was my concern. Now I was so wretchedly late, I was thinking about criminal charges as well as general sackings in the Tolls Office. I tried to look fierce. I was his Magnificence the Lord Senator Alaric, Lord Treasurer to Heraclius – but I wasn’t above getting my hands dirty, or my boots scratched, to make sure I ran a department as efficient and incorruptible as everyone knew I was.
I leaned forward and put my hand on a convenient lump of rock. Unless those unusually active seabirds overhead were lost, it was one more upward climb and then a descent to the shore. I recalled from my one previous visit that this was a narrow bay with a flat and sandy beach. I frowned and pulled my hand back. I looked at my hand. I rubbed my fingers together and sniffed them. I used my other hand to get out the napkin I’d soaked in perfume. I cleaned myself and stared at linen that was no
longer white but stained with congealing blood.
Eyes suddenly wide, Antonia didn’t cry out. I tried for a smile. I wondered how long I had before she realised what a total dickhead I’d been.
There was a salty puddle at the foot of this depression in the rock, and I moved to a loose rock in an effort to keep my boots dry. I drew a deep breath and tried to ignore the sound of my own racing pulse. I took out the two halves of the papyrus sheet. The message looked absolutely right. It was in the right handwriting, and was expressed in the right stilted phrasing. I’d read it once in my hall of audience and got it straight by heart. Why was I fussing over a few spots of blood? Perhaps one of my own people had slipped here and cut himself. These rocks were buggery sharp. But it was more than a few spots of blood I’d just wiped off my hand. I looked up again and tried not to sneeze as I stared close by the sun. Those seabirds were very active. They might be feeding. Or they might have been disturbed.
I looked again at the message and blinked until my eyes had adjusted. Though possible, convincing forgery of a seal is difficult and therefore uncommon. But I held it closer and looked carefully at the wax. Was it my dazzled eyes? Or was there a slight variation of colour? I tried to reconstruct how the seal had been pressed into the wax. Shouldn’t it have left a full rather than a partial impression?
Put me before some commission of inquiry and I’d have persuaded everyone of how reasonably I’d acted throughout – how any other reasonable man would have found himself standing just outside the jaws of a trap. I might even have got away with a commendation for how I’d spotted things just in time. In the private turnings of my mind, however, there was no denying I’d been a dickhead – a total and culpable dickhead.
I turned to Antonia, who seemed to have picked up on my mood. ‘Listen,’ I said, keeping all urgency out of my voice. ‘I want you to get yourself as quickly and quietly as you can back to the road.’ I slipped off my signet ring. ‘Stop the first carrying chair that comes past with more than a dozen armed guards and give this to the owner. Tell him I need immediate support.’ I stared her into silence. ‘I may not need help,’ I went on. ‘You may find that you get to the road with me only a dozen yards behind you. But I do implore you to go.’
I turned away from her and took my sword out. Now I was looking, I could see where a stream of blood had run down from above to my right. If I stepped up to a narrow ledge on the rock, I could pull myself level with the top of the ridge. As I considered whether I should take off my cloak and outer tunic, I realised that Antonia was still behind me.
‘Go!’ I said, jerking my sword in her direction. ‘If I need to use this, having you about will only complicate things.’
She screwed her face up as if to start another of her objections. Suddenly, she pointed. ‘Look out – behind you!’ she hissed.
I’d already heard the scrape of shoe leather on rock. All clerical dithering over, I pushed her close against the ridge and got a fighting grip on my sword. The armed man didn’t have time to call out. He didn’t have time to stop. I braced myself as we made contact. I think he was dead before his breastbone had crunched against the pommel of my sword. Certainly, I had my sword back out of him and cleaned on his padded tunic before he was fully down. Unspotted by his blood, I was ready to fight again.
There was no need to fight again. He’d been alone. The brief sight I’d had of his face told me street thug. His clothing and the cheap sword he’d been carrying said much the same. He hadn’t been the sort who attacked without cover of darkness or plenty of support. I could guess he’d been running away and had found me in his path.
‘Did you see where he came from?’ I asked, very calm. There’s nothing like a quick and almost elegant kill to settle your nerves. Whatever my internal commission of inquiry might eventually decide, we’d reached the point of emergency. I managed a smile as I asked again. He must have jumped down from the shore side. Everything suggested that. But I needed to know beyond doubt. Not speaking, Antonia pointed at the shore side. She looked scared, but not on the point of collapsing in tears. I was casting about for the right form of words to get her scampering back in the direction of safety, when I heard a distant clash of weapons and a cry of what may have been pain. I now heard a much shriller cry, though also from a distance. There was a fight down on the beach.
Antonia found her voice. ‘Alaric – My Lord,’ she said with quiet intensity – ‘can’t you see this is a trap? Let’s both get out of here.’
She was no fool. That much was clear. I frowned as if to let her know she’d spoken out of place. I turned and looked up again. If I went carefully, I could stop at a point from where I could bob my head up very briefly. There was a chance that Lucas and his men were waiting on the other side. They might have had trouble with some smugglers. The man I’d killed might have been running away. Or they might be in trouble. I had a plain duty to have a look. As for Antonia, I’d given her the chance to get away. There’s a limit to the consideration you give women. I took off my outer clothes and arranged them where they wouldn’t be blown down by the breeze. Keeping my sword in hand, I climbed noiselessly up a ten-foot incline of jagged rock. The plan was to put my head up and then straight down. I took a deep breath and held it. I pushed my head up.
I was looking down a long incline towards a rocky beach. Thirty yards out from the shore, there was a small ship at anchor. The message had told me there was a ship – though this one wasn’t beached, and was plainly not a trading vessel. The beach itself was covered with a few dozen men who lay very still. I didn’t bother wondering if they were dead. I could see the dark splashes on their clothes. Here and there, I could see the shafts of arrows. I could see at least one man still alive near the water. He was held down by a small man who sat on his chest, and was twisting with pain as another man did something to his feet. He let out a long scream and what may have been a claim of ignorance. It could have been a cord twisting tighter about a couple of toes with a stone between them. It could have been a knife point into the sole. Sensitive things, feet – you can carry a most effective torture chamber about with you if you know what to do with feet. There was a dead man to my right. He was the one whose blood had run down. There was another six feet away from him, this one with an arrow in his throat. So far as I could tell, none of the dead was from customs enforcement.
For someone who was planning to pull his head straight down, I’d seen rather a lot. But it hadn’t been a quick look. I’d put my head up and found myself staring into the face of a man who was standing not a yard away. It was a dark and bearded face. Its owner was carrying a sword of his own. A couple of yards further down the incline, there were three other men. All were carrying bows. One of them had an arrow already in place. I stared into a face that passed quickly through blankness, to surprise, to recognition, to relief, and then to a final glow of something between cunning and triumph.
‘Oh, Alaric,’ he said in Persian, ‘you won’t believe how pleased I am to see you! We thought these wretches had already killed you, and were about to go looking for your body.’ Shahin, son of Cavad, gave me a flash of teeth dyed red, and went into Greek. ‘Will you come on board as my guest? Or must I have you clubbed into submission?’
Chapter 13
‘It gets chilly at sea, I’ll grant. But, following your last escape, I’d be mad to leave you with even a scrap of clothing to cover your nakedness.’ Shahin smiled and leaned back in his chair. The ship was pitching very gently and we both watched as a wine cup moved a few inches on the table. When all was still again, he got up and bowed to Antonia, who had sat through our meal in silence. He spoke again in Greek. ‘It is against our customs to strip women – even when they drift into our clutches on the arm of Alaric the Faithless.’ He managed to scowl and smile at the same time. He put his face so close that his beard seemed to tickle her nose – at any rate, she blinked and shrank back. ‘But I promise you this – one move out of place from you and I’ll give you to the crew to be gang-ra
ped. After that, I’ll cut your throat with my own hands. Do you understand?’ Antonia swallowed and nodded. That wasn’t good enough. ‘I said, do you understand?’
‘Oh, come now, Shahin dearest,’ I drawled in Persian, ‘the girl is worthless. I picked her up this morning in one of the poor districts. Instead of threatening to pollute yourself with her murder, just put her ashore. You might then explain what you want with me.’ When you’re in the charge of a man like Shahin, the best reaction to being stark bollock naked is to carry on as if fully dressed. I cleaned my fingers on a napkin and reached lazily for the wine jug. ‘Go on,’ I urged – ‘this is a very little boat for carrying even the pair of us to Beirut. Three’s a proper crowd.’ I put my face downward and looked up at him. I thought about simpering but decided that could wait.
‘Get on your feet, Alaric,’ he snarled. ‘I want to look on your naked body.’ I raised my arms to wave them about, as you must when speaking Persian. But he rapped out an order in Syriac and one of his men stepped forward to put a knife against Antonia’s throat. ‘Not her throat,’ he said with silky menace. ‘Get ready to cut off the little finger of her left hand.’ He smiled at me. ‘Would you care to watch this, Alaric?’ I looked briefly at the wine jug. It had been a meal without cutlery. But you can do a lot of damage with a two-pound weight of ceramic – or you could, so long as you didn’t worry what Shahin’s men would do next. I got up and stood away from the chair. Shahin waved at his man to wait before cutting. He kicked his own chair away from the table and stood up.
‘Arms and legs outstretched, Alaric,’ he said. He looked quickly at Antonia, who had squeezed her eyes shut and was biting lips that were as pale as her face. ‘Look at him,’ he said. Another order in Syriac, and her head was forced round so she had no choice but to look. Another of his men came over and ran his hands lightly over my body. I let myself grimace at his stinking breath, but tried otherwise not to look as close to shitting myself as I was.
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