The Sword of Damascus

by Richard Blake

  Mine was hardly luxurious, but this place was bleak to the point of uninhabited. The cot was of bare boards. The one blanket was folded ostentatiously on the table, which was devoid of writing materials. There was a wooden cross hung on the wall. That was just beside the window – which was wide-sodding-open to the courtyard.

  ‘God-bothering shitbag!’ I snarled softly. Little wonder it was always so cold. ‘No consideration for others,’ I muttered again. ‘Just self, self, self.’ I thought of pulling the shutters to. Then again, Cuthbert would only reopen them, and wouldn’t take kindly to the attack on his humility. I looked round the room. It really was bare. I couldn’t see so much as a teaching note, let alone a penknife. I could feel the advance warnings of another shivering attack, and was about to go when I saw the box. The candle was at the far side of the room, and the box was the same colour as the bed boards under which it had been pushed. It’s more of a surprise that I saw it at all than that I’d almost missed it. I stared at it a moment, wondering if it was worth the effort of bending down. But old habits die hard. If something was worth any degree of concealment, it was worth looking at. I opened the wind shield and pressed the candle into shape until its flame was clear. Setting it on the edge of the bed, I bent creakily forward and pulled the box into the open. About fifteen inches square, it had been adapted from some original use that I couldn’t guess. There was no lid. Instead, a mass of stained rags covered whatever lay within. I sat carefully down on the floor. Taking care not to disturb any arrangement that might have been methodical, I lifted out the rags so far as possible in a single mass.

  Oh, joy! I hadn’t been so lucky with snooping since that time in Ctesiphon when, got up as a Nestorian bishop, I let myself into the diplomatic archive and found those letters that helped us win the Persian War. First thing I saw was a dildo. It was a big, alarming thing – twelve inches of finely stitched leather over a thick wooden dowel. I picked it up and sniffed. It had the smell of recent use. I sniggered and blotted the cold out of mind. I’d think about this thing stuffed up his arse as often as I saw Cuthbert in prayers. The way he walked about so stiffly, perhaps he had it with him in prayers. Remembering its position in the box, I put it on the floor. Ditto with the many-headed whip coiled up beside the dildo. That showed signs of less frequent use. Underneath was a little book of parchment sheets sewn together. There was no name or other details on the binding. I opened it at random and held it up to get what help there was from the guttering flame of the candle. It was the buggery small writing you get on parchment, and I thought at first it was beyond my old eyes. But I squinted hard and found a distance where the neat lines of blurriness resolved themselves into something legible:

  Puer decens decor floris

  gemma micans uelis noris

  quia tui decus oris

  fuit mihi fax amoris . . .

  So it went on in a paean of love to some unnamed boy. As it didn’t even try to keep to any of the quantitative rules, I’ll not call it poetry. Still, it had a nice accentual rhythm, and the end-rhymes were interesting. Was this something Cuthbert had picked up on his travels before settling in Jarrow? Was it his own work? Hard to say. The script had a vaguely English look about it, and Cuthbert was a native. One thing, though, I could say, was that he’d have every word of this stuff whispered back to him the next time we sat together in prayers. That would wipe the pious look off his face.

  I carried on looking into the box. The revelations were not exhausted. There was a bag of silver coins. They were the crude, heavily clipped money issued by the French kings. I counted thirty of them. I’d learned all I needed to know about Cuthbert’s vow of celibacy. So much now, I’d found, for his vow of poverty.

  Then, right at the bottom of the box, hidden under more of those disgusting rags, I found a canvas document pouch. Weighing about half a pound, it had once been sealed. It reminded me strongly of the pouches used in the Empire for sending out confidential instructions to provincial governors or generals in the field. The seals were now cut away. In their place, the pouch was closed with a set of tight knots. I pressed it all over, trying to guess the nature of the documents it contained. Of course, I didn’t get much further than knowing they were written on parchment. Given time, I could get the knots undone. Getting them retied would be the problem. My hands might still be up to that sort of work – but not here, not now. I’d keep quiet for the moment, I decided, on the poetry. Instead, I’d come back with Wilfred. I knew he’d have scruples about snooping. I also knew I could get round those easily enough. I’d already lectured him half to death about a historian’s need for an enquiring mind.

  I was just about to put everything back as I’d found it when I heard voices in the corridor outside. Oh shit! I thought. It was Cuthbert, back already.

  Chapter 4

  There was a time when I’d have heard the voices long before they were directly outside. But age is a terrible thing. There were perhaps four beats of my rather uncertain heart between hearing the voices and hearing the rattle of a hand on the latch. There wasn’t time to squeeze myself under the bed. Even if I could get under there – some doubt to put it mildly – and then not wheeze away like a snuffling hog, getting out would surely be beyond me.

  I thought of trying my confused act when the door opened. Looking blank and talking nonsense had got me out of trouble more than once during my escape from the Empire, and again on the roads through France. Or perhaps I should just heave myself up and confront them. More fun to do this later – but now might have its enjoyable side.

  But the hand rattled the latch and then pulled back. Cuthbert was standing outside in deep conversation. I turned my good ear towards the door and strained to hear what was said. Gradually, the muffled whispering resolved itself into the jumbling of Latin with English that even the foreign monks have taken to using.

  ‘You saw it? You saw it with your own eyes?’ he was asking in a hushed but exalted tone. ‘You saw the knife held aloft? You saw the spurting of blood and heard the long, terrified scream? You saw the bright, hopeful manhood severed from the body? You saw it held before terrified, barely comprehending eyes?’

  ‘No, Master,’ came the mournful reply. It was Edward. His own voice was coming on to break, and I’d have known it anywhere. ‘The Old One got Brother Joseph to put an arrow in his heart before the knife could fall. I heard My Lord Abbot call that a sin,’ he added.

  ‘Sinful indeed!’ said Cuthbert, now indignant. His hand brushed the latch again. I braced myself for the effort of getting up. But the door remained shut. ‘To every one of us,’ he said, in his lecturing voice, ‘God has appointed a certain end. We must each of us face our end with cheerful faith in the love of Jesus Christ. For anyone to frustrate that end is a damnable sin – utterly damnable. I thank you, boy, for telling me about the sin and its attendant circumstances. The sin I will take up first thing in the morning with Benedict himself. His indulgence of Brother Aelric’s ways grows increasingly scandalous. This must end in any event. But you have now given me a most opportune means of smoothing any scruples in My Lord Abbot’s heart.

  ‘But let us turn back to the attendant circumstances. You saw the slitting of the belly and the pulling out of intestines. Was there much blood? Did the boy scream? Was there a cloth soaked in vinegar held to his face?’

  From the tone of Edward’s answer, I now had no doubt it had been wank on his sleeve. Next time the lazy wretch misconstrued Cicero, I’d have the arse off him so viciously he wouldn’t sit down for a month of Sundays. For the moment, though, he was getting me out of trouble with Cuthbert. That door hadn’t yet opened, and probably wouldn’t.

  ‘Softly, softly, my son,’ Cuthbert said. ‘This is not the place for such conversations. You can see the light under the door of Brother Aelric’s cell. We both know he never sleeps, but writes and writes in what is surely the catalogue of shame to serve as his last confession. I think again of the quiet place where the wood is kept. Let us continue there in our
usual privacy. It will be – ah – spiritually uplifting for us both were you to remove your clothing and show me the spot where the knife was pressed into the unfortunate’s body . . .’

  I could hear the hushed voices grow quieter as they went back the way they had come. I heard much whispering and laughter. Before he turned the corner, I think I heard Edward talking about his need for a whole cup of honey.

  I replaced everything as I’d found it and closed the door quietly behind me. I could have gone back to my own cell. But the thrill of that near discovery had perked me up again. On a whim, I turned away from my own cell and went towards the great hall. There was no chance of embarrassment. Cuthbert must already be hurrying the boy through the basements for their rutting session. It would be daylight before Edward was released to wash out his mouth with anything more substantial than water.

  All was quiet in the great hall. The only light was from the now dying and quite smoky brazier. The villagers had bedded down in their own corner. The new baby had died the night before, and the mother just after breakfast. The rest of them were now snoring peacefully. The boys would be sleeping in one of the animal sheds. Everyone else was in his cell. Everything was as normal as, given the circumstances, it could possibly be. Above all, the gate was still securely barred and bolted.

  ‘My Lord is unable to sleep.’ Because he’d been sitting so still in Benedict’s chair, I hadn’t seen Joseph. Now, he stood and bowed to me across the hall. I could see he had his bow and arrows on the table before him. By the side of his chair came the dull gleam of one of the more ferocious knives from the kitchen.

  ‘I need a penknife,’ I said, as if I’d been looking for him all along. ‘Mine has been taken.’

  Joseph turned and rummaged through a small bag. He took out a wooden case and opened it. He handed me a small surgical knife. ‘It is very sharp, My Lord,’ he said. I looked at the black steel. I could see at once it had better uses than sharpening pens. ‘Would you have me bring it back with you to your cell?’

  I shook my head. I could still be trusted to carry knives with me, however sharp. Besides, Joseph was doing his best job here in the hall.

  On my way back here, I went past my cell and stood by the side gate. I tried to ignore the white flashes my bladder was sending up once again to my eyes. I leaned hard on the table and fought to control the ragged gasps of my breathing. There was a half-inch gap at the bottom of the gate. Through this came the glare of what seemed to be many torches. I listened hard to the urgent and argumentative conversation beyond. I still couldn’t follow a word. But there was a malevolent sound to those guttural exchanges that chilled me.

  I’m now back in my cell and feeling better. I have Edward’s charcoal and the remains of Joseph’s drink to keep me warm. The papyrus sits, invitingly blank, before me. My pens are sharp. Time, then, to forget the horror that lurks and crawls outside the walls of the monastery – break in or go away, let me be clear, there’s bugger all I can do about it. Time also to put aside those ‘lovers’ in the basement; though, if we’re all still alive come dawn, I’ll not overlook Cuthbert’s plot against me: I’ll have the whole truth out of him, and then him and his pretty catamite on to penances neither will forget. Yes, put it all out of mind. I have my papyrus. I have my memories. Let us see how many of these and how much of this I can join before death, in one form or another, stills my trembling hands.

  Would you like to know about my first visit to Athens? It’s tough titty if you don’t, as that’s what I now propose to write about. But, even after seventy-four years, it’s a story worth telling.

  Chapter 5

  It was Tuesday, 10 October 612. I was twenty-two and rejoicing in all the health and beauty of my early manhood. Well, perhaps rejoicing is too strong a word. My mission to Egypt hadn’t gone as smoothly as I’d hoped, and I was beginning to worry about the supplementals Heraclius might have for me once he’d read the report I was carrying with me. Oh, I’d made sure to get Priscus to add his name to it, and we’d bullied Nicetas in Alexandria to attach his own seal as Viceroy of Egypt. Before taking ship, I’d thought that report a little masterpiece of evasion and tasteful self-glorification. I’d hugged myself at some of the wording. Martin had looked up several times from putting my final draft into his best clerical hand to compliment me. Now, a day or so off Cyprus, all I could think about was long faces in the Imperial Council, and that slow, moany voice at the head of the table, asking questions that didn’t admit of easy answers.

  But the sun shone from skies of cloudless blue, and the smooth waters of the Mediterranean sparkled as far around the ship as I cared to look. I was His Magnificence the Lord Alaric, Legate Extraordinary of the Emperor. And, for the moment at least, I was the youngest member of the Imperial Council in living history – ‘not since Caligula made a consul of his horse’ Priscus had sneered when the appointment was published. On and off, I’d been brooding on that ever since. Not bad, though, for someone who, just three years before, had been a native clerk helping his boss fake miracles in Canterbury. I was number four or five in the Imperial pecking order, and if I was currently stark naked from my swim, I had the robes to prove it.

  ‘I fail to see why we couldn’t have taken the land route,’ Priscus groaned as he looked up from another of his vomits over the side. ‘I did tell you more than once that I had work to do in Syria.’

  I sat up in my chair and stretched my arms. I took another sip of wine and gave the cup back to the bearer. As another slave rearranged the cushions behind me, and yet another began fanning me a little harder, I smiled for the first time that day.

  ‘I don’t recall, Priscus dear, insisting that you should accompany us,’ I said smoothly. My one joy of this voyage had been the discovery of his seasickness. In the two years or so I’d known him, this was the first human weakness I’d seen. At first, he’d tried concealing it. Then he’d worked heroically on mixing powders from his box of mood-altering substances. When those failed him, he’d tried praying before an icon of Saint Demetrius. I’d have been quite put out had that worked. Of course, it hadn’t. I looked steadily into his withered face. With all the retching, patches of white lead had come off, revealing the true greenish tinge beneath. ‘I told you I wanted the sea passage for speed and because of all the luggage. Besides, I don’t trust the Persians not to be sniffing round Jerusalem. I’ve had enough of falling into enemy hands.’

  ‘I can’t recall how often I’ve told you, my lad,’ Priscus said with another queasy look over the side, ‘that hostilities ceased on the eastern front in June, and won’t pick up until spring. I do know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘All the more reason, My Lord Priscus,’ I said straight back, ‘for the Commander of the East to be inspecting the Syrian defences, and not taking his ease with a purely civilian minister of the Great Augustus.’ As he turned to make yet more of those wonderfully disgusting noises over the side, I got up and walked down the length of the Imperial transport I’d commandeered. I’d made sure to arrange my quarters as far away from Priscus as was consistent with my own exalted status. I was still stuck with him as often as I ventured out and he wasn’t groaning in his bunk. But this latter hadn’t so far been a common occurrence.

  ‘Something you must bear in mind, Alaric, is that we did save Egypt.’ Priscus was hurrying beside me. There was an urgency in his voice that had nothing to do with the slight pitching of the ship. ‘Even Heraclius accepts in his heart that there was nothing I could do to save Cappadocia. Oh, he’s given me the blame because it’s the only way he can get it off his own useless shoulders. But there’s a limit to what he can say in the Council. There’s no doubt, though, that we saved Egypt. Take that away – rob us of its corn – and the Empire disintegrates.

  ‘Yes, whatever else can be said, we did save Egypt.’

  I stopped and took a hard look at the ravaged face. So he’d also been reflecting on our less than glorious time in Egypt, and how to gloss over its details in Constantinople. H
e sat down on a handy coil of rope and groaned. But for that, I’d never have noticed the slight gust that was rippling the otherwise loose sails. He clutched at his stomach. I stood back in case there was anything left in there to bring up on deck. But the spasm passed.

  ‘And don’t forget, dear boy – I did save your life.’

  I shifted position to steady myself as the ship moved slightly. Overhead, the sailors were now padding about on the masts. Far below, there was a tightening of the drum beat to keep the slaves rowing in time. I heard the lash used a few times and a muffled scream. I stared down at the shivering wreck that Priscus had become the moment Alexandria dropped below the horizon.

  ‘My own recollection, dear friend, is that you got me out of one scrape that you wholly engineered, and chose not to murder me in Soteropolis when you’d decided I might be more useful alive than dead. Unless there are facts about our doings in the south that still haven’t come to my attention, saving my life is the last description I could make of your behaviour.’ I stared pitilessly down at Priscus.

  Of course, none of this was relevant. We’d feed Heraclius a version of the truth so tarted up, it would amount in places to a pack of lies. But however incredible it might sound in places, none of it could be properly shaken so long as we both swore to its truth and didn’t try bitching behind each other’s back. Because he was the Emperor’s cousin, there was a limit to what we could say openly about him. But we’d left Nicetas behind in Alexandria. It therefore stood to reason that everything was his fault. He was the one who’d let the mob get out of hand. He was the one who’d ensured there had to be twenty thousand bodies rotting in mass graves outside Alexandria, and a heap of burned-out ruins in much of the centre. He was the one who’d abandoned Upper Egypt to the Brotherhood, and who’d failed to stop the Persians from coming close to stealing the whole country from us. Certainly, he was the one who’d blocked the land reform law all the time I’d been there to get it implemented; and it was he who’d cancelled the implementation warrants Priscus had sealed in his own moment of power. We’d get the man recalled in well-merited disgrace – though not before we’d done a thorough job of shuffling our own failures on to his shoulders.