The Ghosts of Athens (Aelric)

by Richard Blake

  I fell silent. Through all I’d just said, Simeon had been trying to follow its meaning – as if you can understand an unknown language by looking intently at how a speaker moves his lips. Awareness of his desperate concentration had kept me from realising how depressed I’d suddenly begun to feel. Perhaps the stimulant was starting to fade. More likely, this was one of those times when putting thoughts into words shows them as the wishful thinking they probably are. With Sergius under house arrest, and all the palace eunuchs running wild against me, who could tell if I could even get into the Imperial Presence? Unless I could bribe someone to open one of the gates, and then force my way into the Presence, the white, thirty-foot-high walls of the palace were as impregnable as Constantinople itself. If Heraclius was resolved not to see me, it would be as much as I could do to avoid being torn apart by the city mob. I thought again of Martin’s private urging to make a dash to the West before word could drift back that we’d lifted the siege.

  I changed the subject. ‘What happened with the body of Irene?’ I asked.

  ‘I had her buried in the Church of Saint Eutropius the Lesser,’ the Dispensator said. ‘My secretary has taken over the running of this household. And I must apologise on his behalf for the extreme lateness of dinner.’ He walked over to one of the long windows and looked out into the darkness. ‘I did suggest boiled mutton. But we shall have to see what the slaves could manage.’

  Euphemia didn’t come to me that night. After a day of hard killing, I might have fancied her attentions. But I didn’t miss her. Instead, for the first time in days and days, I fell straight into a long and exhausted sleep. I dreamed I was back in the barbarian camp, with Priscus and Ludinus both gloating down at me. But it was one of those indistinct dreams, in which you feel no terror. Though I could taste the full sourness of my replaced gag, I stared serenely back at the twisted faces, and heard nothing of what was said to me.

  The dreams shifted, and I was now beside the tomb of Hierocles. The dead girl stood there, smiling wantonly and offering herself. Even before I could step backward on to the road, however, she was gone, and I had retraced both space and time to be once again in Richborough. I stood up to my waist in the chilly, grey sea water and looked out to where mist blotted out the horizon. Behind me, on the beach, there was something I didn’t care to turn and look at. I took a step further into the water, and then another, until the waters came up to my neck. With another step, they closed over my head, and I opened my mouth and breathed them into my lungs.

  Even before I could realise what I’d done, the dream shifted yet again, and I was grovelling before Heraclius. I couldn’t say where I was. When I looked up, I didn’t see anything beyond his very still purple boots. I stretched forward again, and adored the Great Majesty for ages and ages. As I lay there, I could feel my body shrinking and withering with age. When I managed to look up again, there were the same purple boots, though I now had the sense that they covered other feet. Still, they didn’t move.

  So the dreams tumbled through my head in a riot of muted colours and faint sounds. Perhaps they continued all night. Perhaps they were all crowded into the few moments before I opened my eyes and blinked in the morning sun that streamed through the uncovered window. But it was some while after I’d woken and looked about in vain for water in which to wash before I could shake off the feeling of vast and inconsolable sadness that had tinged every dream I could recall.

  Chapter 60

  As if nothing at all had happened, or was happening, Theodore was pushing Maximin in his swing. The sun had gone in behind one of the slightly grey clouds that were scudding across the sky, and Sveta stood beside me with her arms folded.

  ‘He will be coming back with us,’ she said in Slavic. She nodded at Theodore. When I said nothing back, she asked if I’d be adopting him as well.

  ‘You did well to go for the Dispensator,’ I said. I made an effort to look her in the eye. ‘Thank you,’ I eventually said in place of the more elaborate speech I’d had in mind.

  Unblinking, she stared back at me. ‘One of these days, you’ll get us all killed,’ she said. ‘You know my great booby of a husband worships you and prays nightly for your safety?’

  Having no answer in mind, I shrugged.

  Without another word, she walked past me to where Theodore had now lost his hat. The sun would soon be out again. Whatever she thought of the boy’s adoptive mother, she was entirely at one with Euphemia on the danger this might pose even to the slightly sallow skin of a Syrian.

  I heard a voice behind me in Latin. ‘Alaric,’ the Dispensator said, ‘I have prayed all night before the relic of Saint George. I am perfectly assured that God will bless our efforts.’

  I leaned closer to Sveta. ‘Get enough water into that cellar to last five days,’ I whispered. ‘Take a couple of picks too. If you can make anyone go down there again, have the slaves dig out the blocked exit through the tomb.’

  She nodded, then looked steadily back at me.

  Before hurrying away, I glanced quickly about. A couple of the slaves had continued clearing rubbish off one of the old lawns. It had no grass, of course, but looked as it if might by the next spring.

  The midday hour had come and gone, and still I stood beside Martin, looking in silence from the walls of Athens. One at a time, we’d been joined by what must have been the whole surviving militia, and then by a multitude of grim and hooded monks. At first, the wooden platform had shaken as every new arrival had stepped from the rickety ladder that led up from the cleared ground behind us. By now, there were so many of us that the platform had the deceptive solidity of something that might give way at any moment.

  Before the sun was fully up, the nearest gate had opened, and out, all alone, had walked the Dispensator. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Alaric,’ he’d snapped at me before then. ‘Do you suppose your presence will add an ounce of persuasive force? At the very best, you’ll only upset the man.’ And so, with one of his thinnest smiles yet, he’d looked upwards for a guidance that I, of course, didn’t see, and had stepped firmly on to the long Piraeus road. He’d been greeted by a little monk, and, I supposed, by Kollo who’d finally been sobered up to interpret between Greek and Latin and between Latin and whatever the Great Chief might choose to speak for this conference. Ludinus had been nowhere in sight. Perhaps he was somewhere in the dense crowd from which Kutbayan had stepped to greet the Dispensator.

  That had been hours before, and the Dispensator was still deep in conversation with Kutbayan, who sat opposite him at a small table that had been brought out and set with wine cups. They sat just out of arrow shot. I could have given orders for one of our working pieces of artillery to be brought over. A volley of six-foot arrows might have got the old monster, and rid the Empire of its most deadly enemy after the Great King of Persia himself. Oh, I might have given these orders and more. But no one would have obeyed me. Without the Dispensator to give them, everyone beside me was taking orders now from the Bishop of Athens. He stood a few yards from my left and looked on without moving. I might be the Emperor’s Legate. Up here, I was just another spectator. Though I’d put on a thin tunic, the clouds were gone, and, with every shift of the breeze, I could feel the chill of sweaty silk as often as it brushed against the small of my back.

  There was another burst of laughter from the armed men behind Kutbayan, and another clashing of swords on shields. I squinted to look harder into the sun. Kutbayan himself hadn’t moved, though the Dispensator now stood up and walked a few yards in our direction. He turned back to Kutbayan and raised a hand behind him to point at something above our own heads. There was more clashing of arms. But now Kutbayan was on his feet. I saw him walk forward to the Dispensator and lead him back to the table.

  I felt Martin shift slightly. He ran his tongue over very dry lips. ‘Do you remember,’ he whispered, ‘how Pope Leo of sainted memory went out of Rome in ancient times to a conference with King Attila?’ he asked.

  I nodded. I could have observed
that a century and a half wasn’t quite ancient times. But, with the Emperor safe behind the marshes that stretched far about Ravenna, and the few soldiers left in Italy there to guard him, it had, sure enough, been the Pope who’d gone out to plead with the Huns when nothing else could have stopped them from smashing down the walls of Rome. Whether Saints Peter and Paul really had hovered a few feet above his head, whether it had been threats of hellfire – or whether it had been the mass of gold he’d squeezed out of the Senators – Leo had performed the saving miracle of turning Attila back from Rome. And, since Kutbayan still hadn’t lost his temper and called an end to this conference, it looked pretty much as if the Dispensator was about to repeat the miracle for Athens.

  ‘At least someone’s had a good time in Athens,’ I sighed when I could think of any reply. Martin looked quizzically at me, and then turned to where something was now definitely happening.

  I’d been looking miserably down at what had been the ditch, so had missed the dramatic moment when Kutbayan threw both arms about the Dispensator. But I did look up in time to see the immense crowd part and the pair of them step within it. Arm-in-arm, they walked slowly back towards the now visible tent, and a great roar went up on all sides and spread with gathering volume through the whole of the multitude that surrounded Athens. You can forget the triumphant cheers of a packed Circus in Constantinople. This was far greater. It went on and on – a steady roar of approbation, and little eddies here and there of ecstatic battle cries.

  As the two men stepped together into the tent, the noise gradually faded away, and there was a renewed and very long silence. On each side of the wall, we waited and held our silence. For all I could tell of what was going on inside that tent, they might have been eating lunch together. Then, just as I was about to think the tension could last no longer, the tent flaps rose again and they stepped back out. Now, Kutbayan had put off his armour and was dressed in a robe of shimmering purple. He turned back to his nobles and said something that I was too far away to catch. Then a herald appeared beside him and shouted out in Avar. The Dispensator leading him by the hand, Kutbayan took a step towards Athens.

  I stood back from the wall and stretched. ‘It’s all agreed,’ I said flatly. I turned to one of the militia leaders. ‘Have the gate opened.’ Without looking in any direction, I raised my voice. ‘Any man who so much as shows a sword,’ I cried, ‘I’ll kill with my own hands.’ I did think of reminding everyone what horrors had now been avoided. But my voice was now lost in another roar that was joined from within the walls of Athens.

  ‘If she wants to pray in the big church on the hill, that is where she will pray.’ Though on his best behaviour, there was an edge in Kutbayan’s voice that didn’t ask for continued objection.

  I nodded, and the Dispensator gave another respectful bow.

  It was all over now. The grain would be carried out in sacks to the waiting carriages. In the meantime, I was, as agreed, giving Kutbayan a more informative tour of Athens than Nicephorus had managed for me. Keeping him as far as I could from any inspection of the walls, I’d shown him the dye works and the Church of a Thousand Relics. I’d presented every bishop to him who could stand without voiding his bowels. We’d drunk wine in the residency, and I’d let him try the now cleaned-out latrines. At last, we were standing in the shade of what may once have been another memorial to victory in the Persian War.

  Kutbayan reached up and touched the lower part of a relief in which some youths were leading a couple of bulls to sacrifice. ‘You seriously tell me,’ he sneered, ‘that a race of naked boys fought off the Great King of Persia?’

  ‘United under the Great Alexander, the Greeks as a whole conquered the Persians,’ I said, not bothering to keep the pride out of my voice.

  His answer was a sniff. Keeping silent, he stood on tiptoe and touched one of the perfectly shaped thighs. Then he turned and looked up at the Acropolis.

  ‘The priest you sent out did a good job,’ he said at length. ‘But I’d already promised to spare the big church on the hill.’ He looked down at the dark patch in the dust where one of his men had fallen in the attack. He laughed unpleasantly and pushed his face close to mine. ‘I’m given to understand that my men were turned back yesterday by an elderly priest and a stupid boy from a place called England.’

  I smiled back nervously. His face was turning an ugly colour, and I hoped desperately Priscus had been wrong about his sense of propriety.

  But he laughed a little less unpleasantly, and he looked again at the Acropolis. ‘You know that I was supposed to take the food you’ve been good enough to promise?’ he asked, now looking hard into my face.

  I resisted the urge to step back. ‘This way, we’ve agreed, we all get something of what we want,’ I said evenly. Of course, we were speaking in Slavic, and the crowd about us could only guess from the tone what was being said. I noticed a few scared looks, but put everyone back at ease by joining in the man’s renewed laughter.

  Kutbayan wiped his sweaty brow and looked at the hushed and respectful crowd. These were mostly the militia men, and I hoped they were keeping to the agreement and had left their weapons beside the walls. ‘I suppose we all do get something of what we want,’ he agreed. ‘Even you, Aelric of England, shan’t miss out on the blessings of peace.’ He showed his blackened teeth as I couldn’t resist stiffening at the mention of my real name. The man did have a good memory. I thought he’d had much else on his mind when I’d let the truth slip out in his tent. ‘I’ve sent your fat friend back to King Heraclius,’ he added. He’ll be home long before you get there.’ He stepped out of the sun that had now moved from where it was hiding behind the monument. He blinked for a moment and looked closer still into my face.

  Then he relaxed and laughed, now almost pleasantly. ‘Most of him will be back before you,’ he added. He reached into a leather pouch that hung from his neck and pulled out a bundle of stained silk.

  I took it from him. The moment I had it in the palm of my hand, I’d guessed what it had to be. But I undid it and stared for a long time at the podgy blue finger. The ring of a Grand Chamberlain was still set into the flesh.

  ‘If you are at all the man your priest says you are,’ he said, ‘this will put you back into the favour of the worthless effeminate the Greeks have set up as their King.’

  And it would. Whatever he might have ordered in private, Heraclius would never admit to sanctioning what, even for an Emperor, amounted to treason and blasphemy. Ludinus couldn’t wriggle free from the blame of having set the Avars on a city that, even now, was holy to every civilised man – a city, mind you, stuffed with bishops, and Western bishops too. I wrapped the finger very carefully and bowed.

  He looked up again at the Acropolis. ‘Women always take their time,’ he sighed. ‘But I think I can trust your people to keep her safe. If you want me to lift the siege before this day is out, I have things to do. I’ve had my fill of a city filled at best with worn-out glories. There really is nothing here to burn, and hardly anyone worth killing.’

  Just before passing back through the wide-open gate, he stopped for the customary embrace. As was only proper, I had mine after the Dispensator, and mine was considerably less warm. ‘Aelric of England,’ he said, ‘you may think you had the better of me in my tent.’ He smiled and took one of my hands between his own. He stroked the smooth and very soft flesh of my palm. ‘I was aware that you had been taken,’ he said with another smile. ‘I guessed who you were before you even opened your mouth. No Greekling would ever have done anything so utterly mad for his people. You really are wasted among them. Come and see me if you ever get sick of your Great Augustus.’

  Just beyond the gate, he stopped again and turned back. ‘And do give my best wishes to Priscus. I was hoping to see him, but appreciate that he’s still feeling poorly. Tell him even he can’t imagine the death I’ll give him when he’s finally brought before me as a prisoner.’

  I watched as Kutbayan walked briskly out to his waiting
people. The gate still wide open, I turned and went back inside Athens. A few of the lower classes were shambling about from wherever they’d been driven under cover for the visit. They capered in front of me, uttering cheerful obscenities and making still more obscene gestures with their hands. I paid them no attention. They’d be smiling on the other sides of their horrid faces when it sank in that bugger all of the food Kutbayan had left inside the walls would be doled out to them. It would be a long and deservedly cheerless winter for them.

  Chapter 61

  The light was fading as I got back to the residency. There was still a mountain of work to be scaled before I could give the orders to pack. There was the final vote of the council to be managed. I didn’t suppose this would be more than a formality. But it would take the better part of the next morning, with all the praying and formal acclamations that I’d have to sit through. Then there was the matter of how we were all to get back to Constantinople. I’d assumed that our Imperial galley was still waiting in Corinth. Even if it was there, I might have trouble with the Governor of Corinth. The only matter now settled was that we weren’t to have the barbarian multitudes roll over us.

  But that, let’s face it, seemed quite enough to me. The tension that had been only briefly lifted on my journey up from Piraeus, and then come back with still more crushing weight, was now lifted. Beside that, the further business that I’ve mentioned was nothing. Even the still doubtful reception I could face in Constantinople was something I’d think about when I had to, and not until then. I felt like a boy at the beginning of a school holiday.

  I knocked hard on the big wooden gate of the residency, and smiled at the grim slave who observed that I’d been going about unguarded. I peeled off my sweaty outer robe and dumped it into his arms. Martin, I was sure, would still be praying in the chapel – that, or Sveta would have carried him off to dinner in the nursery. I thought briefly of joining them. But I looked about the bare entrance hall, and wondered at how a change in my own mood could brighten what I’d come to think an oppressively dark and unwelcoming place. I passed quickly through it and passed through what had once been other grand rooms – rooms that also now seemed nearly as grand as in the old days. Even the labyrinth of dank corridors that stretched beyond seemed lighter and more airy.