I tried another wild throw of the dice. ‘O Lord,’ I cried out indignantly, ‘the bearded one is saying that the treasures brought to you by the fat one were washed in the blood of slaughtered prisoners, and cursed by the great priest of the cross-worshippers so that whoever touches them becomes as unmanly as the fat one.’ I dropped my voice to a scared whisper. ‘The other unballed one who speaks Slavic is even now passing this about the camp.’
There was a murmur of outrage from the assistants. Kutbayan didn’t so much as blink. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. He stared once more into my face, now seeming to look straight through its covering of dirt, now fixing himself on my eyes. ‘What is your name? Who are your people?’
‘I am Aelric,’ I blurted out. ‘I’m from a place in the furthermost west called England.’
‘Well, I don’t think I trust you,’ he said, not once taking his eyes off mine. He gave a thin and very suspicious smile.
He and Priscus would have got on with each other no end. My stomach turned over a dozen times in the space of a single heartbeat, and I pulled my eyes free and looked silently down. How much longer could I keep this going?
‘Go and find Kollo,’ he said, still facing me. Someone behind him bowed and made for the exit. ‘You,’ he said to me, ‘go and stand beside the fat one.’
I looked back at him. ‘I speak truly, O Great Chief,’ I said firmly. ‘But let me question the bearded one again.’ Without waiting for a repeat of his order to join Ludinus, I went and stood over Nicephorus, who’d now fallen on to his belly and was rubbing his face in the dirt. ‘Listen, you bag of shit,’ I said in a questioning tone. ‘His Nibs will give you both a fair chance. Whichever one of you gets first to the nearest set of bodies outside this tent can stay alive. If you don’t want to be rolled about in a nail-studded barrel, I suggest you get moving.’
Ignoring the knife that was still pressed against his throat, Ludinus now pushed forward. ‘Don’t move, you bloody fool!’ he urged Nicephorus. He sidled away from the armed assistant with a move that showed his origins as a dancing boy, and stepped suddenly forward. He knocked me aside and stood again before Kutbayan. He pointed at me and put a hand over his mouth. He made a quick gesture of a throat being cut and shook his head. He smiled and pointed at me again.
But I’d judged Nicephorus right. Even as Ludinus seemed about to bring everything back to order, the Count got up with a strangled scream and made a dash for the exit. I heard the rasp of a sword outside and a brief and bubbling scream. As Kutbayan swore loudly and hurried out of the tent, I let my shoulders sag.
I turned to Ludinus. ‘I’ll bet he didn’t trust you with the details of the secret way into Athens,’ I whispered.
‘Then it must be you to give those details,’ came the snarled reply. He gave me another big push in the chest, and made for the tent flaps.
I’ll say again that suicide was no part of this admittedly mad plan. Even as Ludinus was beside Kutbayan, who was now frigid with anger, and going into a speech so emollient no Greek was needed to understand that something had gone wrong, I took a very deep breath. ‘The fat one has a knife!’ I shouted. ‘He’s gone out to strike the Great Chief from behind!’ I pushed past the scrum of barbarians who’d got out before me and were piling on to Ludinus, and managing to fall on top of Kutbayan in their eagerness. I raised my voice and bellowed for assistance. I darted away from the tent, and tripped straight over Nicephorus. I landed with both knees on his belly, and his mouth opened and a loud burp came out. I thought for a moment he was only wounded. But wide, staring eyes that didn’t move told me he was dead. I scrambled up and shouted a call of alarm at the man who was coming at me with a sword. I pointed back at the tent and got out of his way. There were other men hurrying forward, all with drawn swords. But these weren’t interested in me. Without another look back, I ran as if I were trying to win some ancient foot race towards where I’d found the horses.
Chapter 56
I’ll pass over the details of my escape from the camp. I may have got to the horses in a state of advanced terror. The dead and naked barbarian may already have been found. But I was able to start a cry that Kutbayan had been killed, and that Greek soldiers were already fighting their way into the camp. I got on to the first horse I could touch once everyone was hurrying off to get armed, and didn’t look round till I must have covered a mile on the road back to Athens.
When I did look back, it was in the sure and certain knowledge that a hundred barbarians were riding me down – all of them mad with anger, and with Kutbayan in front. In fact, I was the only man in sight with a horse. I forced myself to slow from the irregular canter that was the best I’d been able to get from the horse over these worn paving stones and tried to look important as I was carried slowly past the unordered crowds who seemed to be wandering without purpose up and down the road.
I stopped at the second of the rain-swollen streams that I passed. I watered the horse and scrubbed all the dirt I could from my face and hands. I hadn’t eaten in over a day. But I drank until I thought my stomach would burst. As I passed over another little bridge that kept the road going without break across the flat plain of Attica, I found myself among a few dozen men of my own colouring. They shouted cheerfully up at me in one of the most northerly dialects of Lombardic. Not fancying a long conversation, I answered in English, and managed to get away with a halting exchange about the weather. I did overhear a few comments suggesting that this gigantic raid south had taken all pressure off Thessalonica and the remaining walled cities that guarded the approaches to Constantinople itself. But that much I’d already guessed for myself. The next crowd I passed all had the squat, yellow appearance of barbarians from the furthest reaches of Scythia. They parted in silence as I approached them from behind and let me ride through.
I passed through crowds of the starving. They held up imploring but weak hands as I pushed my way through. I passed by trains of well-guarded pack animals, all loaded with what must have been food. As the sun reached towards its noonday zenith, I passed by what had been the ruins of Decelea. There were fires here and there that were still burning from the fast and overpowering attack. Every gust of breeze carried over the stomach-turning smell of corruption. If I listened hard, I could just make out the buzzing of a million flies. But you’d never have guessed otherwise from the heaps of stone that began fifty yards from the road that this had only recently been a place of civilised habitation.
I was approaching the first of the tombs that began to line every road to Athens from a few miles out, when I heard the first sound of violence. I’d come to another stream. Even in spring, this one was too small to be worth a formal bridge. Instead, the stream where it cut the road had been filled with big stones that let water pass through underneath, while allowing men and beasts to cross with reasonable care. I thought at first the noise I’d heard was just an effect of water as it rushed through the stones. But, as I reached the crossing, there was the definite sound of a cry.
I reached nervously for my little knife as someone dressed in black reeled out and stood before me, sword in hand. The horse was tired, and it hadn’t been fed. But I was ready to try making a dash forward.
‘Well, dearie me,’ the man cried in Greek. ‘But who’s been the luckiest little bugger that ever was?’
I steadied myself on the horse and tried to glare at Priscus. I thought of getting down and beating him to a mound of red pulp. Then I thought of telling him he was under arrest for treason, or whatever else would most conveniently justify sticking his head on a spike somewhere inside Athens. But he was the one with a sword, and I just wanted to get back inside the walls. ‘Nicephorus tried to betray us all,’ I said quietly. ‘I got him killed outside Kutbayan’s tent.’
Priscus lowered his bloody sword. ‘And Ludinus?’ he asked.
I shook my head. He might have been butchered like Nicephorus. More likely, he’d crawled out from under a dozen armed barbarians and stayed alive long enough for Kutbayan to
call everyone back to order.
Priscus smiled and sheathed his sword. ‘I, of course, would have got him as well – and the Great Chief into the bargain. Did I ever tell you how I got out of Trampolinea alive?’
‘I don’t suppose the real truth does you any credit,’ I answered.
He laughed and helped me down from the horse. He laughed again as my legs gave way and I ended on my back.
‘You still can’t ride to save your life,’ he sneered. He reached down and pulled me to my feet.
‘Your friend over there – he is dead?’ I asked with a nod to where I’d heard the scream.
Priscus gave a sniff of tired scorn and sat down on a stone beside the road. ‘You may think yourself entitled to say otherwise, dear boy,’ he said with a trace of embarrassment. ‘But there really is much to be said for our previous agreement about standing or falling together.’
I did look about for the appropriate reply. But, as I arranged myself on another big stone, I yawned and stretched – and, then, without any feeling of what was about to happen, began to cry. I tried to stop. I put up my hands and tried to pretend I was wiping sweat off my face. I could tell myself with perfect internal calm that this was as disastrous in its own way as it would have been if Ludinus had found a couple of words in Slavic. It had no effect. My body shook with bigger and bigger sobs, and I found myself rocking back and forth on that stone as if I’d been poor Martin after any of the bigger frights I’d led him into.
I felt something hit me in the lap. I opened my eyes and looked down at a small satchel.
‘If you can forget about the smell, my fine, young barbarian,’ Priscus said, ‘there’s about half a pound of dried beef in this. It’s putrid stuff, but you’ll feel better with something to weigh your stomach down.’ He got up and went over to the horse, which had been edging slowly away from us. He took its reins and led it back to where he’d been sitting. ‘Oh, come on, cry-baby Alaric,’ he said with mock impatience. ‘When I was your age, Imperial Legates had much less mobile upper lips.’
I looked up again at the sun. This time, I sneezed. By the time I’d finished blowing my nose, the sobbing fit was over as quickly as it had come on. I looked back along the road. There might have been a very distant column of dust. It might have been the afternoon heat haze. It was hard to say – though I could feel the start of another jittery turn.
Priscus watched me and gave a pitying laugh. ‘Just noticed, I see, that we shan’t be alone,’ he said. ‘Did your barbarian ancestors really kick us out of Britain? Or did they just creep in behind those who did the fighting?’ He pulled me to my feet again, and laughed as I found myself unable to move. He sat down beside me. ‘Do explain, dear boy,’ he asked in a conversational tone, ‘why you responded so harshly to our fat friend’s scheme of increasing the coinage. We really are short of cash, you know.’
My legs were beginning to shake, and I thought I’d start crying again. But I put my thoughts into order and looked away from the distant but now unmistakable cloud of dust. ‘You can take in one hundred solidi,’ I said, ‘mix in a quarter of base metal, and reissue a hundred and twenty-five. It doesn’t actually increase the number of things you can buy with them.’
Priscus smiled. ‘Ah, but surely whoever issues them can buy more of what is available?’ he asked.
I thought again, trying to remember what I’d said in my long memorandum to Heraclius. ‘I’ll grant that whoever spends them first has an advantage,’ I said. ‘In the short term, though, you simply rob the last people to receive the debased coins, as they pay higher prices for things – and these are usually the poorest. In the longer term, you disorder all the exchanges, and destroy confidence in the Imperial money. It’s better to spend more on the military by cutting all other expenses.’
But Priscus had got me back in order, and was no longer interested in the finer points of coin debasement. He was instead looking at the approaching cloud of dust. ‘I hope you’ll not object to sitting behind me on your horse. To be sure, it’s the only way you’ll ever see Athens again from inside its walls.’ He grinned and gave the horse a comforting pat. He pulled me once more to my feet. This time, I could move.
I shivered again in the dank, underground chill, and looked at the fresh brickwork. ‘Martin begged me not to have the opening sealed up,’ the Dispensator explained. ‘However, I felt I had no choice.’
I nodded.
‘We can be relieved that you ensured the death of the Count of Athens before he could betray us all. At the same time, the man called Balthazar remains at large, and we cannot afford the danger of even a hidden entrance into the city.’
I nodded again. There was no need to go on about the bricking up of the opening in the tomb, or the mass of earth and rubble packed behind this wall that sealed the opening from the big tunnel. I turned away and looked along the tunnel. In the dark, it had, the night before last, seemed endless in itself, and part of something much larger. The lamps carried down with us showed that, whatever function it once had served – and I was no wiser about this – it was no labyrinth at all. Between the opening forced from the residency to the opening forced from the tomb of Hierocles, it was very long indeed. But it was only a single tunnel, with one sharp turn and with a few chambers leading off. Now I’d been from one end to the other, I could see there was no other means of access. Had it been an ancient tomb? In the absence of any inscription or other evidence, it was worthless to speculate.
The Dispensator stood back from his own pleased inspection of the brickwork. ‘I don’t know how long Martin waited beside that doorway in the rock,’ he went on, finally turning to the first questions I’d asked him. ‘But you really are a fool if you think he’d have followed your stupid orders. He dithered. He prayed. He dithered again. Long before the dawn, he and his wife were shouting for admission outside my monastery. They’d left every armed slave to watch for your return, and had taken their chance alone in the streets of Athens. It was Sveta who eventually took over the job of explaining to me what had happened.’
I looked away from the withering stare and walked beside him back along the tunnel. A bath and some wondrously clean clothes had restored me to an outward semblance of order. Martin had nursed me through another sobbing attack, and the Dispensator had shown enough tact to take Priscus out of my office to explain the defence orders he’d given in our absence. Why I’d been brought down here I couldn’t say. But it saved me the embarrassment of joining Priscus on the walls, where he must, even at this moment, be feeding his vanity on the shouted welcome back of the whole militia.
There was a loud scraping behind us as someone finished pushing his way down here from the residency. The Dispensator took the half sheet of papyrus from the silent monk and moved closer to one of the lamps. Now there was no draught of air through the tomb of Hierocles, it was increasingly stuffy down here. I could see the point of sealing the only other exit. But this did make the place distinctly less welcoming as a place of refuge for the entire household. It wasn’t my eyes – the lamps had burned distinctly lower ever since they’d been placed in the wall niches.
The Dispensator grunted and held the message out for me to read. I took it into hands that, try as I might, still wouldn’t stop shaking, and translated: ‘The mob is trying to break into the main granary. The monks of Saint John beg to be dispensed from their obligation not to draw blood.’ Either they hadn’t noticed that Priscus was back, or they’d chosen to stay under Church control.
I handed the sheet back and straightened up. ‘Give me one of your pens,’ I demanded of the secretary. After a nod from the Dispensator, I scribbled the required permission on the back of the sheet and watched as the secretary squeezed himself back into the fissure that led to the residency.
‘So you think Nicephorus and Balthazar weren’t just using the place as a convenient means of access?’ I asked with a return of my own to some earlier stage in our long and disordered conversation. ‘You think they were running things f
rom down here?’
The Dispensator looked back along the tunnel. ‘While searching for you and Priscus,’ he said, ‘I made a full inspection of this place. I cannot say that I was pleased by what I found.’ He put up a hand to silence any questions. ‘I have been in Athens just fifteen days, and have been mostly unable to follow anything said in my presence. But I have now had the chance to speak properly with His Grace the Bishop of Athens, and with Martin. I do not like anything that I have heard. And I think little of you for your stupidity. I might have hoped that even you would not be so blinded by lust.’
‘Where is Euphemia?’ I broke in. I was silenced by a cold look. I stepped back from him and waited obediently for him to continue.
‘The creature of whom you speak has withdrawn herself from the residency,’ the Dispensator said with quiet emphasis. ‘You may be assured that I have neither seen not set hands on her. Where she has gone is her business, and I do not suggest that you should make enquiries of her whereabouts. To be sure, no one whom you may command to begin a search will obey you. I have now moved into the residency, and I propose to ensure that you concentrate on your proper duties, which are to complete your chairing of the council and to assist in the defence of Athens.’
I let him go first through the narrow opening towards the residency. The tunnel itself had been transformed by a few dozen lamps. This long fissure was as horrid now as when I’d first pushed through it with Priscus behind me. But I kept my nerve by explaining in full the equal but different horror of our position: how we’d all been marked down by Heraclius himself for destruction, and how there was no certainty that any degree of success in Athens would change his mind.
The Ghosts of Athens (Aelric) Page 41
