The Curse of Babylon

by Richard Blake

  ‘Isn’t he lovely?’ Shahin gloated. ‘Did you ever conceive such beauty could exist in the male form? Is it not a beauty that the eyes can behold without ever being slaked? Have you yet known the force and passion of his embraces? I’m sure you thought your luck had changed when he chose you above other women.’ He laughed softly and walked forward to kiss me on the lips. I tried not to gag as he forced my teeth apart with his tongue and licked the roof of my mouth. He took hold of my buttocks and ground his hips against mine. He pulled back and stared into my eyes. Then, as if understanding from the look in my eyes the consideration of risk and benefit that was running through my head, he darted back. He nodded and his man let go of Antonia’s wrist.

  He smiled again. ‘You heard the promise I made to your slag,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll extend it to you, Alaric. If you don’t do as I tell you, I’ll do more than cut her throat. She’ll die cursing the day you turned your lying charm on her.’ The ship moved slightly in a combination of breeze and current and he sat down heavily. He turned an ill-natured stare on Antonia, who was still looking at me. So far, she’d taken things pretty well – crying out with fear now and again but not completely breaking down in tears. But I could see in her eyes the expression of a condemned criminal who’s managed to smile and even banter with the crowd that has followed him through the streets and who now stands before the execution stake and sees the glowing brazier and the irons and knives and other implements of death. It didn’t help that she must have seen the same in my own eyes. Shahin looked on complacently. He giggled in his eastern manner and reached for the wine jug. ‘You may sit down, Alaric,’ he said with a return to fake jollity.

  I allowed myself one sip of wine and smiled easily. ‘You know, Shahin,’ I said, back in Persian, ‘you always did have a taste for the dramatic. But don’t you think it would save time if you simply told me what you wanted?’

  Shahin drained his cup and stared at the ceiling. ‘Do you know what His Majesty did to my uncle after you’d given him the slip in Ctesiphon?’ he asked, still in Greek. I raised my eyebrows. Knowing Chosroes in general, and knowing how eager he’d been to pay me back for wrecking a whole year of his war effort, I could imagine poor Bahram had been put to considerable discomfort. I hoped the exact manner would be left unsaid, or at least explained in Persian. But Shahin had settled into his excellent Greek and was in talkative mood.

  ‘My uncle was taken into the Shaft of Oblivion. You know that place, don’t you, My Lord Alaric?’ I did. Two years back inside the Empire and I still sometimes woke in a panic when I took opium in the wrong mood. I kept my face expressionless.

  ‘He was taken to the lowest dungeon. There, Chosroes himself was waiting, with his own hands to geld and blind the Lord Bahram’s two sons – and with a delicacy that ensured their survival. This done, a coat of silk mesh was wrapped tight about his body. It was wrapped so tight that one-inch squares of his bare flesh projected through. Every day, the Great King returned to slice off more squares with a razor . . .’

  ‘Oh, Shahin, Shahin,’ I cried as he stopped for a very dark scowl at me, ‘but I never realised Chosroes would miss me so!’ I smiled brightly and pushed my chair back so he could see more of me again. It made sense for Shahin to take no chances with me. Even so, stripping me naked plainly served more than one purpose. He still fancied the arse off me and, even before his latest demonstration of interest, had been drooling over me all though dinner like a voluptuary in a slave market. Of course, he’d have to be mad to get alone into bed with me. Come to think of it, I’d rather have got into bed with the toothless boy – and you could forget about the bath. Still, it was worth trying to divide his thoughts. Shahin was no fool. He’d not mess up like poor old Bahram had. But lust had finally topped intelligence in Ctesiphon. So it might do here. Sooner or later, I’d find means of escape. In the meantime, I could try to find out how he’d come to be operating as a pirate within sight of Constantinople – and how he’d known when to lift His Magnificence Alaric straight off that beach.

  But Shahin paid me no attention and finished his account of how the two ruined sons had screamed reproaches at their father until the blood poisoning got to them, and how Bahram had lived another month as a bag of screaming, maggoty slime. I felt sorry for the poor man, and wondered how many days it might be from here to Ctesiphon. No – I put that straight out of mind. I needed a clear head. I couldn’t afford to think of that grinning fiend, slavering and scratching himself on a mountain of yellow silk cushions.

  ‘Sad stuff,’ I broke in again. This time, I kept Shahin quiet by reaching down and playing, as if absent-mindedly, with my foreskin. Antonia pretended not to notice. Shahin tried not to look too obvious as he leaned forward, but trembled so much, he spilled wine down his front. Bearing in mind how shrivelled up I was from horror and the cold, there wasn’t much to see. Still, I tried to keep up the impression of a man at full ease. ‘Oh, sad stuff indeed,’ I repeated. ‘But we can be glad you got off lightly. You only got sent to sea. I hope you’re enjoying Beirut. The Aegean is a sight you Persians haven’t had in a very long time, except as prisoners.’ I gave him a sweet smile, and began stroking the ridges of muscle on my belly. ‘Just a few thousand sit-ups,’ I’d once told him between bursts of drugged buggery, ‘and you’d have the same.’ I hadn’t mentioned his flabby thighs or the distasteful flatness of his buttocks, nor the absence of any neck or the lack of symmetry in his nipples. He seemed to have lost weight in the past couple of years. But that must have owed more to some falling out with the sea than to any change in his generally shitty style of life.

  Shahin got up and licked very dry lips. ‘I’m going out on deck,’ he muttered darkly. ‘The pair of you will, of course, join me.’

  The sun was going down behind me as I looked at the masses of shipping that sailed to and fro in the Propontis, or were scattered at rest along the shore. We’d moved away from the place of ambush but were at anchor again perhaps a few miles to the west.

  Shahin leaned on the rail and looked sulkily at an armed convoy of grain ships. ‘Our empires have been at war for years,’ he spat. ‘All trade is at an end with us. The tax gatherers take barely a half of what they’re owed. You’d never think it was your empire that was losing.’ He slumped forward on to the rail and continued watching the endless lines of shipping. I could have given my lecture on how a skilled boxer rolls with every punch he can’t parry and nurses his strength for the eventual fight back. Though past its best, the empire I helped rule was still vast enough to absorb even the hammer blows of an invading army. And I would, in the financial sense, nurse it back to a health that would surprise everyone. But Shahin was now up again and his face was taking on a nasty smile.

  ‘Oh Alaric,’ he smirked, ‘we’re not a quarter mile from the shore. I should be careful that you don’t step over the side. Haven’t I seen you swim a hundred yards under water before needing to come up? On the surface, I’ve never seen a man swim so fast. You could be ashore before we’d even got our boat ready to go after you. Or you could make for one of the other ships. What trouble you’d make for us then! You know we had orders to take you alive – the best we could do was pull up our anchor and trust to our sail.’ He took me by the arm and led me across the little deck to look at a pleasure boat that was scudding by almost within hailing distance. Leaving me alone there, he turned and went over to where Antonia was held by a leash attached to a leather collar about her neck.

  ‘Will the Lord Alaric make a successful dash for freedom – and leave this delightful young creature in my charge?’ he jeered. ‘Will you do to her what you did to Bahram?’

  ‘Jump, Alaric,’ Antonia shouted. ‘Don’t worry about me – just go.’ Her keeper pulled the leash tight and her words ended in a squawk. He pulled again and she went down on her knees. Before she could steady herself, he landed a kick where she’d tied her breasts flat, and looked about for approval as she brought out a cry shrill with pain and fear. He kicked her again and
watched her squirm at his feet. He shouted an obscenity in Syriac and uncoiled a whip from about his waist.

  I got to him as he had his arm raised. I took him by the wrist and pulled his arm sharply back and to the left. I felt the click of his dislocated shoulder before he could realise what I’d done. I silenced his scream by twisting his arm another half turn and sending him into a spasm that checked even the working of his lungs. But I made sure, as he hit the deck, to smash the ball of my foot into his throat. I’d disabled this piece of human offal for life in perhaps a dozen heartbeats. Another half dozen and I’d have ended his life. But I left him and grabbed Antonia. I was inches from throwing myself over the side with her, when two men took me from behind. They got me on to my back and another put a sword to my throat. Someone else threw himself across my knees.

  ‘No violence!’ Shahin called in Syriac. I stared up into his gloating face. ‘Whoever harms the Lord Senator gets impaled.’ The sword vanished. My legs were free. I ignored the hand that Shahin offered and got to my feet. I turned to Antonia and helped her up. Someone else had got hold of her leash but was making sure to leave plenty of slack. She had her eyes closed and seemed to be making a big effort not to cry.

  ‘Keep quiet and do what they say,’ I said firmly. I couldn’t tell if she’d heard me.

  ‘Oh, Alaric, Alaric, I knew it was a good idea to keep the girl alive!’ Shahin cried, triumphant. ‘You’ll not get away from us so easily this time.’ I repressed a shudder as he rested a hand on my shoulder. The sun was halfway to the horizon and I shivered in the continuing wind. I allowed myself a final look across to the shore, then stood against the outer wall of the deck cabin. It still had some heat from the sun. ‘I’m going to enjoy this voyage, Alaric. I’m going to enjoy it almost as much as I’m looking forward to the closure of a business everyone had thought would remain forever open.’

  ‘Do I get any clothing?’ I replied. ‘Or are you proposing to keep me naked all the way to Beirut?’

  ‘I’m having the pair of you tied up in a locked cabin,’ was all Shahin replied. ‘Shahrbaraz will decide what to do with you.’

  Chapter 14

  We were alone in the blackness of the hold. I’d lost track of the time. From the steady creak of ropes and timbers and the regular motions of the ship, I could suppose we were under sail. That meant it wasn’t yet dark outside. Perhaps we’d be spending the night in some quiet inlet on the southern side of the Propontis. Or perhaps not.

  ‘Alaric, who was that man?’ Before Shahin had done with feasting his eyes on me and gone out, taking the lamp with him, I’d seen Antonia tied to the far wall in the cabin. The first effort I’d made at comfort had gone nowhere. Since then, lost in my own thoughts, I’d barely registered her gentle sobbing. Now, she’d finally pulled herself together. Though her face was eight feet away from mine, her voice seemed much closer in the dark.

  I made my lower jaw stop shaking. ‘It’s a long story,’ I began. That was as far as I got. We’d been locked away below the waterline and I was frozen through. That, and I was rapidly falling apart. I’d arched my back and smiled wantonly at Shahin before he withdrew. With just Antonia for company, I could spare myself the strain of concealing what I really felt. Even those few words and my voice shook out of control. I squeezed my eyes shut – it made no difference whether I had them open or not – and felt tears running down my face. I twisted round and wiped them on my shoulders. I sniffed and tried to make it sound as if I were taking in the smell of tar and stale water.

  ‘Why didn’t you leave me here?’ she whispered. ‘You could be back in Constantinople, directing the capture of that man.’

  ‘Because I didn’t,’ I said. That was all I might have said. But I felt some obligation not to go back to my own thoughts. I sat up. ‘I had no idea the day would end like this,’ I managed to say with an approach to lightness of tone. ‘But I do most humbly apologise for having brought you into this nightmare.’ Yes, I should have had her taken into custody at the Golden Gate. Better still, I should have had a look at that dodgy seal before it was absolutely too late. I’d brought this on the pair of us. ‘I got you into this and I’ll get you out. I’m sorry,’ I ended before trailing off.

  There was a long silence. Then, after a funny whimper, ‘What will happen to us?’ Antonia asked. I blew warm breath over my nose and put my thoughts together.

  ‘If we don’t get away, it will be bad,’ I answered. We’d reached the point where false assurances would have been worse than the truth. ‘But let’s try putting what has happened into some kind of order,’ I went on in a voice that was unlikely to travel though the locked door. ‘I got a message very early this morning to come outside the walls. The obvious intent was to murder me. My eunuchs and you unwittingly conspired to slow me down. By the time, I arrived at the appointed place, my killers had themselves been killed.

  ‘Questions: Who was trying to kill me this morning? Who was able to forge a more than reasonably convincing message? Why did Shahin turn up and stop the murder? How did he know I’d be there? Generally speaking, what is a Persian ship doing unobserved in our home waters?’

  I thought again. ‘I kept mentioning Beirut to our friend. That’s where the Persians have their Aegean naval base. However, he mentioned Shahrbaraz. He’s their best general. We tried to bribe him last year into revolting again Chosroes. The last I heard of him, he was hovering somewhere east of Armenia – we were expecting an attack on your own province. It’s possible he could have got from there to supervise a naval assault on us. But I don’t think he has. It’s question enough how Shahin got into the Propontis from the Aegean. It staggers the mind how he got here from the Black Sea and is now proposing to go back there. How on earth could he have got past Constantinople?’ How indeed? Forget smugglers and a bit of corruption – this implied treason close to the top.

  Antonia broke the silence. ‘I ran – I mean, I left Trebizond at the beginning of the month,’ she said. ‘There was no talk of a Persian fleet in the Black Sea. And where could it be based?’

  Good question. Most likely, though, we were headed for the Black Sea. I began shivering again. Ever since I’d heard the name Shahrbaraz, I’d been in a state of horrified despair. So long as I thought he was operating out of Beirut, I’d told myself I had ages to find and use the right opportunity to get away. A dash through the Black Sea to one of its most eastern ports was something else. A man far thicker than Shahin could be trusted to keep me trussed up and helpless. I went back to thinking about suicide. The messiest lurch into the blackness of death beat the reception I could expect in Ctesiphon.

  ‘When they found I was a woman,’ Antonia said, ‘they stopped searching me. But I’ve got a knife.’

  I swallowed and counted downward from five. ‘And can you get to it?’ I asked, no longer caring if my voice shook.

  ‘They tied my hands behind my back,’ she said. I gritted my teeth. As if I hadn’t known that already. The best way to magnify despair is to season it with hope. Far overhead, there was a shouted command in Syriac. It was too distant for me to catch any words. But it suggested the sun was finally down and we we’d be putting in for the night. Where? I wondered again. And, unless at least three ministries were riddled with treason that couldn’t be kept secret, what story was being told to cover the ship’s presence here?

  Yes, I was thinking again as if I were in no danger and was gathering information for later use. It took my thoughts off what might be planned for me. And this general turn of events did have its interesting side. I thought again about the timings of my progress that day through Constantinople. No delay at all and I’d be dead by now – well, dead unless those killers had been complete duffers. If only Antonia had slowed me down more than she did, Shahin would have been gone by the time I got to the little bay. It was bastard luck, I thought, to have got there almost but not quite too late enough to find a pile of dead bodies. If I ever got out of this, I could work up a nice speech about the role of continge
ncy in human affairs. Yes – if only . . .

  I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts, I didn’t at first notice the gentle but persistent scraping on the far side of the cabin or the squeaks of suppressed pain. ‘What are you doing?’ I finally asked. The answer was more scraping and what sounded like a piece of furniture tumbling over. I waited for what seemed a very long time. As I was about to ask again, I heard a quiet sob.

  ‘I’ve got my hands from behind my back,’ she said. ‘But I can’t lean forward to get to the knife.’ For the first time, Antonia broke down and cried. It was now, I could hear, that the full disgusting horror of everything had reached the core of her mind. We’d reached the same point of despair. The only race from here involved whose bowels would give way first.

  The muscles all about my ribcage were twitching and I knew my voice would shake no matter what control over it I attempted. But I took a deep breath and stopped worrying what my voice might say about me. ‘Antonia, where is your knife?’ I asked. I waited for another long shudder to pass. ‘If you’ve managed to twist your hands from behind you, can you also push yourself across the floor to me?’ I struggled for a tone that was calm but authoritative. ‘Where is your knife?’

  She began a stuttering answer that went nowhere. I waited. ‘In a belt about my right thigh,’ she finally managed to say. Her tone indicated she’d say more. Either she’d spoken oddly or she changed her mind. I heard a renewed scraping as she set about getting as much as she could of her lower body into the middle of the cabin. My own hands were tied behind me in a complex arrangement that didn’t compress the flesh, and there was a rope that held them to my bound feet and was looped through a metal ring fixed into the wall. I found, if I twisted on to my stomach and bent my knees, that I could push my head and upper body towards Antonia. It took much scraping and a progressive tightening of the bonds about my wrists and ankles but I finally made contact with her clothing. I then realised, with a jump of the spirits, that we’d both been squeezing ourselves along paths that didn’t cross. One moment, I was bumping my nose against a piece of cloth that might have been a discarded rag. Another, and my face was resting on the warmth of her lower belly and hands, close together, were dabbing about in my hair.