The Ghosts of Athens (Aelric)

by Richard Blake

  Immediately, as if on cue, came the quavering voice: ‘Is that you up there, Nicephorus?’

  I heard Priscus call from the bottom of the stairs. I heard the uncertain scrape of indoor sandals on the beads as he set one foot on the stairs, and then another.

  Chapter 19

  Here, in the library, there was a moment of panic. ‘You must hide,’ Nicephorus cried in sudden though soft despair. ‘Look, just go over there.’ Luckily, they were a long way over to my left, and the fallen bookracks where Balthazar now took cover didn’t allow him to see the pair of us.

  ‘Isn’t this wonderful?’ I whispered happily. Things were turning out better than I’d even dared to hope.

  Martin gave a strangled sob beside me and let himself down fully on to the loose mosaic tiles. As they scraped a little under his belly, I thought he’d fallen dead with fright. But he breathed again finally, and, now in Celtic, started another whispered round of prayer.

  And it really was wonderful! I’d been rained out of my bed in a filthy mood. Now, if I’d believed anything at all, I’d have been muttering prayers of my own – but, in my case, prayers of thanks.

  Priscus came into the library. I heard nothing for a moment but the gasping of a man who’s had trouble with a dozen steps. But he pulled himself together soon enough. ‘Ah, dear Nicephorus!’ he called, now in a tone of nasty enjoyment. ‘I thought I’d find you up here. Even if you aren’t much of a reading man, this always was your favourite place for skulking away by night.’

  I didn’t dare look up this time – Priscus had eyes in the back of his head, and at the sides. But he’d paused again, and I could easily imagine how he was looking about. I was right.

  ‘This building is still more of a dump than the last time I was stuck in it!’ he spat. I heard a scrape, followed by a spattering of mosaic tiles, as he kicked viciously at the floor. ‘That hovel of a room you’ve given me is cold enough for making ice.’ He kicked again at the floor. Then he laughed. I heard him walk quickly past where we were hiding as he made for the table. There was no glow of lamplight on the glass bricks overhead. Trust Priscus to be wandering about in total darkness. He stopped, and I think he now kicked at an unravelled book on the ground. ‘But I can see that, even if you’ve turned from peculation to wholesale embezzlement, you still haven’t been found out by that duffer in Corinth.’ He laughed again, and I heard the faint crunch of cushions as he reached the good chair and sat down in it.

  ‘I never thought you’d dare return,’ Nicephorus said with a recovery of nerve. ‘What do you want now?’

  ‘Oh, don’t flatter yourself I’m here by any exercise of free choice,’ came the reply. ‘I just happened to be with bastard Alaric when he got sent here to chair that fucking Church council. Believe me when I say that Athens was the last place I fancied dropping by on my way back to Constantinople.’

  ‘So who is that blond boy we’re all supposed to grovel to?’ Nicephorus asked. ‘The letters I had gave me to expect someone much older.’

  The reply now was a long and contemptuous chuckle. ‘The Senator Alaric,’ he added, ‘is the current apple of Caesar’s eye. If I didn’t know the fool better, I’d have said he fancied the boy. But Alaric really is just a eunuch with balls. He’s one of those men without deep connections, who do as they’re told and can’t raise any challenge, no matter how they’re promoted, nor how they’re pulled back down. Yes, he’s the current apple of Caesar’s eye – and the fly in my own ointment. He’s some barbarian from God knows where in the West. He rolled into the City two years back, and has stuck about ever since like a bad smell.’

  There was another long pause, during which I took a chance and looked up again. I put my head back down at once. Priscus was turned away from me. But I could see Balthazar looking up from behind his own cover. One look right, and he’d need to be blind not to see me.

  I think Priscus swung his feet on to the table. ‘But let’s not be so dismissive about dear little Alaric,’ he said gloatingly. ‘He’s not so bright as he thinks himself. But don’t be deceived by those pretty boy looks. Neither is he a fool. He’s been pissing in my bathwater these past two years, and I still haven’t managed to bump him off. That, you’ll appreciate, needs either great skill or great luck – let’s just say it needs both. If you think he isn’t already suspicious about your accounting, you’re a bigger fool than you look. Tomorrow, he’ll get hold of you and start asking questions about the use of that direct grant you’ve been thieving. Give him one look at your accounts, and he’ll turn very nasty. And you’ll be bleeding lucky if he stops his enquiries there – yes, bleeding lucky, I can tell you.’

  ‘And what, pray, do you mean by that?’ Nicephorus asked with a failed attempt at sharpness.

  There was a long moment of silence, broken finally by a low and menacing chuckle from Priscus. ‘You don’t need me to tell you he’s a tow-headed barbarian,’ he said. ‘Well, my darling little Syrian, jumped-up clerk that you are, you look hard enough past that fancy diction and those finicky ways, and you’ll see barbarian right the way down. He has a very strong moral sense, that young lad. He’ll do you for bloody murder, and hand you straight over to me for execution. Don’t expect me to put in any pleas for clemency.’

  Was that my name I heard from Nicephorus? He’d broken down rather fast, and was now reduced to faint whispers of protest and supplication.

  Priscus gave one of his more villainous laughs, and I heard a loud scrape and a creaking of wood as he got up from the chair. ‘And you give me one reason why I should even try saving your worthless hide,’ he sneered. I heard what may have been the thud of knees on the floor, and then the muffled voice of what may have been a face buried in clothing. Now, I heard a yelp and the sound of scattered mosaic tiles.

  I couldn’t resist the urge. I tried, but couldn’t resist. I held my breath and darted my head up for another look. There, in the moonlight and the glow from the lamps, I saw Nicephorus grovelling on his belly a few yards from where Priscus stood with his chin jutted forward. Looking straight forward, Balthazar wasn’t even trying to keep his head down.

  ‘Did you ever see a man crucified?’ Priscus asked.

  The answer was a terrified squeal and a babble of pleading that trailed off into Syriac.

  ‘Let’s ignore the details,’ Priscus went on in a conversational tone. ‘But I was crucified for half a morning when I was a cadet. It was a good lesson. Pain in itself can be handled. It’s the fear of lasting and even fatal damage that breaks you. Once he’s finished his inexorable questioning – and it’s amazing what he can learn without even the threat of racking – that blond boy will condemn you for false accounting and sorcery. He’ll not come and watch when I have you nailed to a shithouse door in this place. But he’ll get pissy drunk with me after it’s all done.’ I was looking again. Priscus threw his head right back and laughed softly. He laughed so much, he staggered slightly. He steadied himself against one of the overturned tables and sat down again. ‘It was a shame, let me tell you, when the Great Constantine banned crucifixion after he converted to the Faith – such a fine penalty withdrawn from the arsenal of the state!’

  He paused in mid-laugh. ‘But have you been playing with yourself in this chair?’ he asked accusingly. ‘Look’ – he lifted his right arm – ‘there’s wank all over my sleeve.’ Like some reptile, he shot out his tongue and licked at the crumpled silk he was wearing. ‘Yes, that’s wank,’ he sneered. ‘You disgust me!’

  Beside me, Martin suddenly let out a long fart. It was too gentle to be heard above the loud babbling, now in Syriac, from Nicephorus, who was back on his knees. But the frogs had definitely made their way to the relevant area of Martin’s insides, and the smell would have startled a dead fox. If I had to suppress a coughing fit, though, the smell didn’t seem to reach across the room to where Nicephorus had caught Priscus by the lower legs and was now trying to kiss his feet. Priscus sneered something also in Syriac that sounded awful. He kicked out, and
laughed at the no longer subdued cry of pain.

  He got up and followed Nicephorus as he tried to crawl under a broken table. He stood over him and gloried in his power. ‘But, my dear, dear Nicephorus,’ he said, now at his most charming. ‘There really is no need for unpleasantness. We parted as friends. It is as a friend that I return to Athens. Of course, I’ll stand by you when Alaric gets round to questioning you. I’ll take him off any path that leads to suspicions of a capital offence. I’ll not ask what you’ve done with all the Emperor’s money. But I can see the deal you made two years ago is holding. You keep reporting back to Governor Timothy that Athens is too poor to tax. The locals don’t complain about your total filching of the budget. So long as Timothy remains too lazy to get himself over here, you can spend your ill-gotten gains as you please.’ He laughed, and I heard what may have been the scrape of a hand on dust-covered wood. This may have been followed by the rubbing together of dirty hands. ‘Oh, Nicephorus, Nicephorus.’ He laughed. ‘I said I’d not ask what’s become of the money. But I can wonder about the lack of slaves even to keep this place habitable.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Nicephorus asked pleadingly. ‘Just say what you want – I’ll do it.’

  There was another long creak as Priscus sat down again and made himself comfortable. ‘Don’t ask me why the Great Augustus has called this bloody council together in Athens,’ he drawled. ‘The man’s a right fool – you can take that from someone who knows him very well. But why Athens, when all his reports tell him the place is a heap of ruins? No point, though, trying to understand the workings of a mind far below even yours. It doesn’t suit your convenience to have the place crawling with nosy priests. It certainly doesn’t suit mine to have them reach agreement with Alaric at their head.

  ‘So do be a love, Nicephorus, and have the boy killed for me.’

  There was an explosion of horrified protest. I heard the scrape of more loose mosaic tiles as Nicephorus got to his feet, and another creak as Priscus got up.

  ‘Oh shut up, you fuckwit Syrian!’ he snapped. ‘I’m not asking for much. Just kill the little shit. I imagine that loser Balthazar is still leeching money out of you? Well, it’s about time he and his friends did something tangible to earn their keep. Just make sure that, when it is done, there is nothing that a full commission of enquiry can pin on me.

  ‘Do that, dearest heart, and you can shuffle, unaudited, round this glorified cowshed till you retire – or your “researches” reach some triumphant conclusion and I have to grovel to you.’ Priscus laughed. He may have picked up another of the fallen book rolls.

  I pulled my head right down as he turned and walked in my direction. I didn’t breathe – Martin didn’t breathe – as he hovered just inches from where we cowered. I heard the crackle of papyrus and a snort of contempt. I heard the book hit the floor and unravel. Then, Priscus was walking quickly back to the door. I heard him stop just beyond it.

  ‘I’m doing you a mighty favour, Nicephorus,’ he said. ‘Do as I ask, and I’ll stand by you all the way to Hell and back. Fail me, and I’ll put you there myself.

  ‘Yes, my dear little man,’ he said after more whining from Nicephorus, ‘I’ll get myself to sleep by composing his funeral speech. It’ll be the finest thing Athens has heard since Demosthenes topped himself. I’ll deliver it with a ripe onion cupped in my hand.’ He paused again and sniggered. ‘I really am counting on you, Nicephorus – don’t let me down!’

  I heard the sound of his feet on the beads as I counted him down the stairs. There was a loud sobbing over by the desk. For the first time, I noticed the loud splattering of water from a broken downpipe outside the window. But Balthazar was now clambering out from behind his hiding place, and he was trying to jolly some appearance of manhood back into Nicephorus.

  ‘Those were most ungracious comments,’ he said when Nicephorus had finally unclamped both hands from his face, ‘particularly, I might observe, as they applied to me! Nevertheless, you can be sure that I looked fully upon His Magnificence the Senator Priscus, and I saw the Hand of Death on his shoulder. Did you not see how old he has become in just two years? He will not trouble us much longer.’

  ‘That’s what you said about him at the beginning of the month,’ Nicephorus sobbed. ‘But he’s here.’ He went down on his knees again. ‘And you haven’t seen the blond boy. He’s read all the public wisdom of the ancients. He’s big and strong enough to crush a man’s windpipe in one hand—’

  ‘Silence!’ Balthazar cried with a dramatic upward sweep of both arms. ‘Can you not feel it? Are you not aware of the Presence in this room? I tell you, Nicephorus of Tarsus, we are not alone!’

  Beside me, Martin froze. For a very short moment, I thought of getting myself right down again on the floor. But it was just more fraud to silence the Count. Balthazar was uttering another stream of gibberish in what I knew must be a made-up language.

  ‘I watched the boy’s arrival in Athens,’ he said with a dismissive wave. ‘Using powers that are allowed only to me, I have looked into his mind. He is a dirty savage, fit only to smear butter into his yellow hair. Before you waste time on killing him, let us call on the Goddess to take him and his vicious debauchee of a friend together out of this world.’

  A dirty savage, I can tell you, would have been straight out from where I was hiding, to crush a windpipe in each of his hands. I, of course, merely noted that the deal Priscus had offered wasn’t to be taken up.

  Now Balthazar was walking away, towards the far door that led into the upper depths of the residency. He stopped and looked back at the Count. ‘I have told you that so many bishops in Athens are displeasing to the Goddess,’ he said. ‘Their endless praying to the Jewish Sun God has caused a disruption in the Force. Let us, then, pray as arranged for Priscus and the blond youth to be destroyed, and for the council never to meet. It will please the Goddess. Surely then, she will crown all our long efforts with success.’

  I could see Nicephorus looking up at him with a face that glistened with tears in the lamplight. He didn’t seem terribly convinced.

  But Balthazar was now setting to work with the tones and gestures common to the ministers of every religion when confronted by less than total conviction. ‘Come with me, Nicephorus, Count of Athens,’ he declared thrillingly. ‘Let us consult the Goddess while the heavens are still washed clean.’ He reached out for the door handle. There was a loud scrape as he pulled it back open, and he vanished into the darkness.

  I pulled my head down as I heard a soft moan and what may have been a prayer from Nicephorus. I could see the moving reflection on the glass bricks overhead as, lamp in hand, he hurried after Balthazar.

  Chapter 20

  Martin and I huddled together a while longer in the silence that resulted. At last, when it seemed clear that the door wouldn’t open again, I got up carefully. ‘Well, come on,’ I whispered, taking him by the arm. ‘Don’t you want to know what they’re about?’

  It was a worthless question. Martin sagged forward over one of the bookracks and farted again. His face was in shadow, but I could hear his terrified whisper about the need to get out of here. He pulled his face out of the shadow and reminded me that Sveta was still waiting with Maximin.

  ‘Very well,’ I said impatiently – if she couldn’t get a frightened child back to sleep, she wasn’t the woman who could sometimes frighten even me – ‘you stay here and wait.’ I hurried over towards the door. I kept to the side of the room, ready to jump under cover if the door opened again.

  As I stepped into the renewed darkness of the corridor, I heard a padding of feet behind me.

  ‘You’re mad, Aelric,’ Martin groaned. ‘What do you think you’ll say if we’re caught?’

  I stopped and spread my arms. I slapped my now dry chest. ‘I am the Emperor’s Legate,’ I announced. ‘If any explanations are needed, they won’t be mine.’ I hurried forward.

  Trying to control his heavy breathing, Martin tagged along behind me. We had no lamp
with us, and it was a matter of relying on the moonlight and on my own recollection of what was about us.

  I didn’t suppose they were heading for Euphemia’s room. Hadn’t Balthazar said something about an appeal to the sky? Sure enough, opposite the niche where Demosthenes continued his burst of silent eloquence, a door was now open. I looked up about a dozen steps to another open door that led on to the roof. I crept up and looked quickly out. This part of the building was covered by a double roof. The door opened on to a path of nailed lead sheeting that went, in deep shadow, between the two roofs. To my left, the path terminated in a wall of crumbling brick. I stood and listened. I could hear a gentle sigh of wind on roof tiles, but nothing more. Leaving Martin to follow at his own pace, I darted to the right, making sure not to step in any of the puddles or disturb any of the heaps of shattered tile that covered the path.

  It was hard to match the roof to the corridors and rooms that it covered. There should have been a turn right at the end of the path. This would have taken us on to the roof covering the back block of the residency. Instead, after the beginnings of a path, progress in that direction was closed by another wall. I could only go further if I went back and climbed a ladder that went all the way to the top of the left-hand roof. As I set a foot on the lowest rung and tested its strength, Martin clutched at me.

  ‘Let’s go back,’ he pleaded. ‘Can’t you feel the evil all about us?’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ I answered. ‘Stay here and be ready to make a dash if I hurry down.’ I tested the next rung, and then the next. The ladder had been here a long time, and the wood was rotted through in places. Though reinforced with iron bars, these too had rusted, and one of the rungs sagged under my weight. Even as I was ready to pull myself to the top and look over, Martin clamped both arms about my middle and pressed a hot, sweaty face into the small of my back.