The Curse of Babylon

by Richard Blake

  I stood just outside the white semicircle drawn on the floor and looked at Priscus. Ever since Martin had opened and read out the Abbot’s letter – and fallen into a heap of sobbing misery after a second re-reading of it – I’d been going through possible openings to this conversation. Priscus had committed people to worse than this and for less. Our first ever meeting had involved my arrest, followed by promises of torture. Now the tables had been irreversibly turned, I could have opened with any number of self-righteous lectures. Instead, I looked at the bald and shrunken scarecrow huddled in his own filth. ‘Hello, Priscus,’ I said softly, ‘I’m given to understand that your head is filled with all manner of insane fancies and that you barely survived a suicide attempt.’ I stepped forward across the line. The look he gave didn’t indicate he’d get up and kiss the hem of my robe. I wondered if he’d spit in my face. ‘I’m surprised to see you alive at all,’ I added – ‘let alone so comparatively well.’

  He swung himself stiffly into a seated position. ‘I knew you’d come,’ he sneered in Latin. He kicked the stained quilt on to the floor and stretched his legs. ‘No cups, I’m afraid. But there’s a jug on that table. The horse from which its contents were collected seems to have been drunk at the time.’ He let out a cold laugh. I waited for the coughing fit. Nothing. If he’d put on no new flesh, three seasons of enforced holiness in the damp seemed to have arrested a decline I’d been sure would carry him off in months. He stood up and waved his left arm. The chain that connected his manacled wrist to an iron bracket on the wall rattled. ‘It means stepping well within range of wicked old Priscus,’ he said with one of his nasty grins. ‘But, unless you’ve brought your own refreshments, that’s a risk you’ll have to take.’

  I took up the jug and carried it over to where Priscus had sat again. He laughed bitterly and raised the jug to his lips. Then he caught sight of the icon of Saint George on the far wall. He put on a look of patient humility and handed the jug to me. ‘Do sit beside me, My Lord Alaric,’ he said with another of his grins. ‘I do have fleas. But I’m sure you were used to those in Britain, or wherever it was you were born and dragged up.’

  I sat down on the ledge and nerved myself for a mouthful of the thin yellow liquid. I felt something behind me, and twisted round to see a familiar wooden box. ‘It may have soothed your conscience to keep me in powders and potions,’ he said. ‘But I’m not inclined to blame you for that.’ He took the jug from me and drank. He smacked his lips and reached for his box. ‘Won’t you join me in a pinch of blue powder? It goes well with the wine. If I take the first pinch, you can be sure the second won’t poison you.’ I knew Priscus well enough to be sure of no such thing – if he wanted, he could poison a man by kissing him. But I didn’t suppose he’d brought me here to kill me.

  ‘I gave instructions for you to be treated well,’ I opened in a voice that I couldn’t force into the tone I wanted. ‘Why did you try to kill the monk Nicetas sent to see you?’

  Priscus wrinkled his nose. ‘Would you believe me if I said I bit his finger off because he spoke disrespectfully of you?’ I’d spoken in Greek. He stayed in Latin and nodded slightly towards the door. I took a small pinch of the stimulant he was offering me. I put it on my tongue and washed it down with another mouthful of wine. I had specified comfort for him. No doubt, that’s what he’d been given till he upset Nicetas.

  ‘The man offended me,’ he went on. ‘He was here to explain how, in your absence, the new Commander of the East was about to become a second Alexander. I was more interested in where you’d been and for so long that you’d lost the advantage you got from fucking me and the eunuch over. Of course, fathead Heraclius tells everything to his cousin and he’d told enough to his confessor for me to get the drift of things. I’ll be surprised if the story isn’t all over the City.’

  He took another drink. He smiled. ‘When I was first brought here, I could hardly believe you’d done what you did. You were Alaric, the silly young barbarian. Then astonishment ripened into hate and I went three times a day into the chapel to implore God for your destruction. But, if I won’t say I’m a reformed character, I’ve had time enough in this place to reflect on things. Whoever it was Ludinus sent to whisper in your ear only told you the truth.’ He laughed nastily. ‘I won’t lie to you – not at this stage in proceedings. I really thought it was all settled for you to be sent here, not me. And I was planning to have you blinded as well as locked away.’ He sighed. ‘But I’ll bet you’ve forgiven me. So long as you come out on top, you’re not the sort who bears grudges. About the only thing that makes you endurable is your lack of belief in God.’

  I said nothing. A flea had hopped on to the white silk of my outer tunic. I took it between forefinger and thumb and popped it with my nails. I wiped the blood on a napkin. Priscus sighed again. Beneath his sneery façade, he seemed almost as embarrassed as I was. ‘But, you might tell your dear old friend Priscus the details,’ he took up again with forced jollity. ‘I get bugger all excitement in this place.’

  I stood up and lifted a corner of the curtain. The giant walls of Constantinople were about a half mile to the east. Between there and this place lay the ruins of one of the suburbs that, in better days, had spread far beyond the walls. Barely any light had come into the room. But Priscus was squeezed against the wall, hands pressed over his eyes. I let the curtain drop. I went to where I’d put the lamp and moved it closer to the bench. Despite the heavy clothes I had on, I could feel a damp chill soaking through. I was sure I could hear the squeaking of a rat. I sat down again beside Priscus. ‘I’m waiting, Alaric,’ he jeered. ‘I’ve heard something dismissive of what you did in Persia. I’d like to know exactly what happened.’

  He sprawled on a pillow black with grease from his scalp and listened as I felt my way into a story that I hadn’t come here to tell, and that still managed in places to bring a scared lump into my throat. A few times, he stopped me to ask a question about persons or places. But he listened mostly in silence as I spoke until the faint glow of light on our side of the curtain had faded and we were in darkness but for the wavering gleam of the lamp.

  When I’d finished my account of my last days in Persian territory – speaking a different language and giving a different story to every picket that stopped me – he got up and walked to the farthest length his chain allowed. He turned and made a bow that I thought for a moment was ironic. Then he was back beside me and reaching for his box of drugs. He watched me take a small pinch of his orange powder and waited for its effect to begin. He put his face close to mine. For the first time since we’d met, his breath smelled only of rotting teeth. ‘You know, dear boy, I decided to kill you after your first proposal of a law to dispossess my class of its land. I went out with Heraclius when he needed a piss during the banquet after that Council meeting. I just happened to be carrying the right poison in a flask about my neck. I found myself alone with all the boots and I could tell yours from their size. Five drops in each and you’d have fallen dead some time the following day. Everyone would have agreed it was a heart attack. Instead, I stood looking at those boots till Heraclius had put his catheter away. I never had such an easy chance again.’

  He stopped and gathered his thoughts again. ‘Listen, Alaric,’ he whispered, ‘if Heraclius will never understand the brains and courage required to keep the Home Provinces safe, I do. Give Uncle Priscus your hand. He’d like to touch a man who at last has become his equal.’

  I could have laughed at him. Perhaps I should have got up and crossed to the other side of the white line. I could have called an order to the monk praying in a scared voice outside the door. I could have walked out. I could have hurried through the ruined suburbs. If the Military Gate was already locked and barred, I could have ordered it reopened. I could have let my eyes glaze over every time I found myself looking at the Fortified Monastery.

  Instead, I gave him my hand.

  Chapter 21

  So was resumed what you might call our friendsh
ip. On the first Friday in every month, I’d slip outside the City and walk alone through the ruins to call on Priscus in the Fortified Monastery. After my first visit, I’d given orders for the whip to be put away and for him to be moved into better quarters. There, we’d spend the evening drinking wine and sniffing drugs and talking over the state of the Empire. It was an odd relaxation from the cares of office. Perhaps I should confess it was a support for those cares. Beyond torturing householders in fallen cities into screaming where they’d hidden their savings, Priscus knew nothing of finance. The delicate web of dealings I was beginning to map out in earnest, one touch on any part of which would be felt in all the others, was as great a mystery to him as colours are to a blind man. But show him the correlation of forces in the Imperial Council and he had the feel of a master for how to break up hostile combinations – who should be bribed, who blackmailed, who should be quietly entrapped, without showing by whom, into boys or heresy or financial losses to the Jews. My survival so far in the councils of the Empire – indeed my achievements in the demented snake pit that was Ctesiphon – showed some understanding of the courtly arts. What Priscus now taught me was of a wholly different character. Even when I had no taste for following his advice, it was useful to know what others might be planning against me.

  Martin stopped before a statue that showed Polyphemus in the act of eating a man. ‘Aelric, I still don’t like this place,’ he whispered in Celtic. ‘The very walls pulsate with evil. Can’t we just move back to the smaller palace you were given?’

  I frowned and looked at the statue. Though not from the very best age of Greek art, it was a fine composition. Its provenance carried it through a line of owners and dealers that led back to the demolition of Hadrian’s villa outside Rome. It might have been commissioned by the Emperor himself. I waited for a couple of slave girls to walk past us in the corridor. One of them looked back at me and smiled. I smiled and nodded. That was tonight sorted, I told myself with a thrill of lust I took care not to show.

  I turned to Martin, whose face had taken on a greyish colour in the light from a glazed window. ‘Bricks and marble do not pulsate with anything,’ I said with greater patience than I felt. ‘Now, I’m the Lord Treasurer. I can’t be expected to slum it in a residence stuck between a monastery and an ivory warehouse. I need a big audience hall and room for offices. I need somewhere in which I can show off to all who attend on me.’ I could have gone on to say that I needed somewhere with walls thick enough to let the Emperor’s Lord High Economiser not be torn apart by the mob. But I smiled and reached out to my bedraggled secretary. ‘Oh, come on, Martin,’ I said. ‘We’ve finally got the place spotlessly clean – and you have said how you love the rose garden.’

  We continued together along the corridor. The door to my office anteroom was ajar and I heard Samo inside let out one of his moderately drunken burps.

  I sat at my desk and stared at the sullen boy. The look in his eyes had already taken Martin’s thoughts off invisible horrors. He was sitting on my left and giving nervous glances at the iron sword on my desk.

  I looked up and down the semi-literate scrawl on the wooden board that had been taken from about the boy’s neck. ‘Your name is Rado?’ I asked in Slavic. He stared back at me, his eyes showing their first trace of humanity since he’d been made to stand before me. I let my face break into a smile. ‘I speak several languages,’ I said – ‘most of them rather well. However, the working language of this palace is Latin. Do you know any Latin?’ His eyes darted sideways at Samo, whose chair creaked with every movement. He focused on me again and nodded.

  I looked again at the wooden board. ‘You were found trying to run away on a sprained ankle after the failure of your tribe’s raid on Rhodope.’ The boy nodded, but made no other answer. I got up and went to stand over him. He stank like a dead fox. His hair was still plastered with something that made it white and spiky. I guessed its natural colour was light brown but this was only from looking at his eyes. ‘Your people have colonised some high mountains,’ I said. Breathing through my mouth, I walked round him. He had the wiry look you get in mountain races. At the same time, he had the makings of something rather more harmonious. My agent had been in Rhodope at the time of the raid and had been able to get first pick of the human debris left after an unusually firm defence of the city. This boy had been his only selection. I stopped in front of him. He was too young to have suffered the scarification that made adult males of his race useless for anything but working in the mines. In its few moments of relaxation, he had a pretty face.

  ‘Take off your clothes,’ I said in Latin.

  ‘You’ll have to kill me first!’ he snarled back in a voice that wasn’t quite broken. He looked at the sword and tensed his muscles as if to make a lunge for it.

  I shook my head at Samo to stay seated. I picked up the sword by its blade and handed it to the boy. As I’d expected, it was too heavy for him to do other than let its point bump on the floor. Leaving the sword in his hands, I pulled out a low stool and sat before him. ‘Listen, Rado,’ I said, now back in Slavic, ‘you were held in the slave pens of Rhodope for several days before the road was declared safe enough for travel. I’m sure that let you see how the other captives were made ready for servitude. Did my agent beat you? Did he starve you? Did he cause you to be raped? Did he force you to eat his shit or to assist in killing the injured boys of your people? According to the note that came with you, he bound up your ankle, and packed you off to me.’

  I paused and continued looking at the boy. The agent knew my instructions. Despite the unpromising snarl on the boy’s face, he probably hadn’t failed me. ‘You are my slave,’ I said softly. ‘I haven’t had you broken to slavery. But a slave is what you are. You are a two-legged beast as much in my absolute and unaccountable power as a pig bought in from the market to serve at my dinner table.’ I smiled again and waited for my words to register in his head. ‘Here is the deal, Rado. You can be trained as a dancer for my guests and perform such other duties as are assigned to you. You will be taught the rudiments of Greek and be baptised into the Christian Faith. It goes without saying that I expect obedience at all times. I also expect personal cleanliness. In return, you will not be beaten. You will not be chained up at night. You will, moreover, train in the use of that sword and you will keep it sharp and within reach; and you will use it as required in my defence or in defence of this palace. You will receive my absolute trust. Most of the time, you will be holding that sword when my back is turned on you. On the Emperor’s birthday, I free one fourteenth of my slaves, and send them into the world with my blessing and a gift of money.

  ‘You can accept this deal. Or I can send you to one of the slave markets in Constantinople, where you can hope for – and almost certainly not find – a better master. How do you choose, Rado?’

  ‘Do you give me any choice?’ he asked bitterly.

  I smiled again. ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘But I always like to ask.’ I stood up and took the sword from him. ‘So do untie that tunic, Rado. It’s filthy as well as torn. It can help feed the boiler that provides water for your first-ever bath.’

  I flashed a happy smile at Martin. He might think this palace accursed and claim there were shadows moving just out of his direct view. There were upwards of a hundred other people here who counted it their lucky day when they were brought through the gates. And every night because of that, I slept soundly in an unlocked room.

  ‘Alaric, I’d like to ask you a question,’ Priscus announced one late afternoon. Outside, it was raining and the barred window had no glazing to keep out the chill. After a fair beginning, the conversation had languished. All Priscus could bring out was another of those ghastly anecdotes that showed what a good idea it had been in general to lock him into this cage. As for me, I was depressed by news of another campaign mishandled by Nicetas – this one had let a Persian army deep into the Home Provinces and, only after much loss of life and property, had a confederation of my loc
al militias eventually forced a retreat.

  I looked away from a stain on the table cloth that reminded me of a map of Britain. ‘By all means,’ I said, trying for an interest I didn’t feel. I was thinking of an excuse to make a dash back inside the City before the rain came down in the volume that, before it darkened, the sky had seemed to be threatening.

  ‘The philosophers and priests teach that it doesn’t,’ he said after fumbling with his wine cup. ‘But do you think the end ever justifies the means?’

  I put my own cup down. ‘Yes,’ I said. By tacit agreement, we’d long since given up on trying to deceive each other. If we were lurching into a symposium, we might as well both be honest in ways that would have shocked Plato. ‘The end does justify the means if a number of conditions are satisfied. First, the end must be worth achieving as reasonably understood. Second, the means chosen must be reasonably likely to achieve the end. Third, they must be the most economic means available. Fourth, they mustn’t involve reasonably foreseeable costs that outweigh the expected benefits of the end. Answer yes to all of these, and the means are justified.’