The Terror of Constantinople a-2

by Richard Blake

  ‘Anathema on the traitorous Exarch,’ someone at the front of one of the two opposing mobs bellowed. He wore a hood but wasn’t a monk, and spoke Latin with an accent that was neither Roman nor barbarian. ‘And on the Exarch’s son and on the Exarch’s nephew who would challenge our Lord Caesar Phocas for the Purple,’ he added. There was a ragged cheer behind him.

  ‘Anathema, much rather, on the tyrant Phocas,’ someone shouted back at him, ‘and blessings on the young hero Heraclius who, even now, journeys to Constantinople to heal the Empire’s grievance.’

  More cheering, and a few howled insults.

  And so they carried on at each other. For the moment, it was just more of the ritual shouting that had been getting on Roman nerves for the past six months. Both sides in the civil war had their embassies here, each negotiating for the blessing of the Church – which would bring the support of the whole West and a fair bit of the East. And while the Church stayed aloof but formally loyal to the Emperor in possession, each side had its hired mobs to fill the streets with noise.

  For the time being, as said, it was just more of the shouting. At any moment, though, it might proceed to the throwing of dead cats and rotten vegetables, and then to actual violence. It was all a matter of what directions came from the covered chairs lurking just beyond each of the groups.

  I hurried past the smaller of these groups. Someone clutched at my arm.

  ‘Will you sign our letter to His Holiness?’ he rasped, breathing garlic and bad teeth at me. He waved me in the direction of some other piece of scum who was carrying a suspiciously clean and expensive sheet of parchment.

  ‘Piss off and sign it yourself,’ I snarled. As he stood back, I took my sword half out of the scabbard and let him see its notched edge.

  That got me past without any stains on my tunic. But as I walked towards the Caelian Hill my ears burned at the abuse they had called after me. I could just about stomach it from persons of quality. But to be called a barbarian by these verminous out-of-towners really was the limit. I was inclined to turn round and tell them that I was a man of considerable wealth and learning, and that I could trace my ancestry through a line of nobles and kings that reached back – my mother had assured me – to the Tribal Gods of Kent.

  But I resisted the urge. My face turning redder and redder as I hurried past some of my neighbours, I went home and called for more wine.

  I sat in my library much later. It was that time of day early in a Roman summer when the light is fading but there is no need yet for lamps. The preserving oil had now dried on the book racks, and the main smell in the room was of the dust my slaves hadn’t yet managed to clean entirely off the books. These were still mostly in their crates. Piled up beside me was an edition of Saint Jerome I had bought cheap at auction and was planning to send off to the Lateran scriptorium for copying and dispatch to Canterbury.

  I should have been going through this, making sure the pages were stitched in the right order and that there were no obvious copying errors. Once in England, copies would be multiplied with great enthusiasm, but with no critical awareness. It was up to me to ensure that we’d send no cripples or bastards into the world.

  Instead, though, I was going again through the rebuilding accounts. My requirements had been specific. I wanted something large and solid and readily defensible by just me and a few armed slaves. At the same time, the house had to be low enough on the Caelian Hill to receive water from the one aqueduct that hadn’t yet been cut. I was looking forward to having one of the only working bathhouses in Rome.

  I’d known that would come at a price. Apart from the financial district across the river, the Caelian was now the only decent part of Rome to live in. All the best people were there or trying to buy their way in. Most of the few habitable buildings that came on the market were being snapped up long before they got to auction.

  I’d been glad enough when the agent had found me this place. It had needed new floors throughout and much new plastering, but had been sound in its externals. So why were those swindling beasts putting in bills for new roof tiles? Indeed, bearing in mind the perfectly good tiles that could be harvested for free from the derelict properties at the foot of the hill, why charge at all for the things?

  ‘I suppose they think I was born yesterday,’ I sneered to myself. The more money you have, I can tell you, the more careful you become about giving it away. I took up a stylus and scratched through that part of the bill. There was room enough at the foot of the waxed tablet for some nasty comment. I looked up and tried to think of something cutting but simple enough for the owner of the building company to understand.

  My slave Authari knocked and put his head round the door. ‘The Lady Marcella and her man of law beg to be received,’ he said in the pompous manner he’d got from his last owner.

  ‘Do then show them in,’ I said, rising from my desk. ‘And do send in wine and cakes,’ I added. ‘We have important business to transact.’

  He stepped fully through the door. ‘Begging your pardon, Master,’ he said, ‘but the good wine is all spoiled.’

  He stood in a late ray of sunlight that slanted through the overhead window. Except that the battle scar on his face shone more livid than usual, his expression remained as bland as the Dispensator’s. As I opened my mouth to speak, Marcella came into the room. She wore a confection of silk that might have harmonised with the fresh blackness of her hair, but for the green tinge she’d taken of late to adding to the lead paste that covered her wrinkles.

  ‘Well, young Alaric,’ she said, not waiting for the formal greeting. ‘You’ve certainly brought this place on. My dear husband – the Senator, you know, or would have been had God spared him – couldn’t have done no better himself.’

  ‘Dearest Marcella,’ said I, ‘you are always welcome in my house – just as I was in yours. If you are no longer my landlady, I rejoice daily in your friendship.’

  I settled her into a chair and sat down opposite. The lawyer began fussing with his satchel. He wasn’t the jolly little man who’d drafted the terms of the agreement, but someone new – a big creature with a mass of brown hair and with bags under his cold, glittering eyes.

  Another slave entered carrying a tray. The wine was an embarrassment but, served in those nice glass cups the builders had dug out of the basement, no one had any right to notice.

  ‘The provisional agreement’, said the lawyer, still on his feet, ‘was made on the Kalends of May between the Lady Marcella, relict of the sub-Clarissimus Porcinus, official in the Imperial Service, and Alaric, citizen from the presently alienated Province of Britain. The citizen Alaric, believing himself to have got with child one Gretel, a slave in the household of the Lady Marcella, has offered a price to be agreed by further negotiation for the sale of the said Gretel. He has further offered to continue paying rent on his suite in the house of the Lady Marcella until such time as the said Gretel shall have been transferred to his ownership and until such time as his own house shall be ready to receive…’

  And on and on the man droned, going through all the formalities of the sale. I thought back to that winter afternoon when the first upper rooms in the house had been ready for occupation and I’d sent off with an excuse to get Gretel to come over. She’d said to be careful as I ripped at her clothes and pulled her on to the new bed. But I’d been too drunk on unmixed wine and self-love to pay attention. Sure enough, my seed fell on good ground and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased. As I watched her belly take on a firm roundness, my joy and excitement had passed into a fixed intention.

  The droning came to an end and I pulled myself back to the present.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘we need to agree the price, and then we can sign the contract. I believe the practice is to name an arbitrator in case of disagreement – though I hardly think that will be necessary.’

  I leaned forward and poured another two cups of wine.

  A look flashed between the lawyer and Marcella. Before anything co
uld register in my mind, I could feel the sweat breaking out on my upper back. I sat up and looked properly at her in the fading light. She wasn’t quite her normal self.

  ‘I apologise if I have not made myself plain,’ the lawyer took up again. ‘Allow me to explain further. The provisional agreement was that you were buying the slave Gretel for the purpose of marrying her and acknowledging her child as your own. We have, however, received information that you are already married – to a barbarian woman in the Province of Britain, on whom you fathered a son before settling in Rome.’

  For the second time that day, my mouth fell open. That Edwina had given birth to a son was more news than I’d been able to get out of Canterbury. My repeated letters to Bishop Lawrence had either gone unanswered or received evasive replies.

  And married to Edwina? Well, if Ethelbert, that murderous royal shitbag, had confirmed my noble status and let me marry the girl, I’d never have had to leave Kent.

  What was going on? I closed my eyes and commanded the winey clouds to disperse.

  ‘The Lady Marcella must be aware’, I said, ‘that I am not married, in Britain or anywhere else. I am prepared to swear to that in any church she cares to name. She is misinformed.’

  ‘I must insist’, the lawyer replied, ‘that My Lady has her information from an unimpeachable source. She cannot possibly consent to a sale that would enable fornication. In a word, the contract is void, on the grounds of fundamental immorality in its subject matter. Such I am instructed to argue for my client in any legal proceedings.’

  ‘That’s right, young Alaric,’ the old witch broke in. ‘That Gretel is a right hot-arsed prick-teaser – if you’ll pardon my Greek. You don’t know that trash in her belly is yours. You just forget her and send for that nice girl you left behind in Britain. I’m told she’s very well-born, even if a barbarian. And she must be fair pining for you after such a long time away. As for that tramp Gretel, I curse the day I let her bring you washing water.

  ‘Tomorrow morning, first thing, I’m selling her to the brothel I shouldn’t never have saved her from when she was brung to market from the Lombards.’

  I ignored Marcella. I turned in my chair and spoke directly to the lawyer.

  ‘You will inform your client, or at least the Lady Marcella,’ I said coldly, ‘that whatever information may have arrived from Britain is false. I am not, nor ever have been, married. I have negotiated in good faith for the sale of Gretel. It is my intention to marry her the moment I have freed her.

  ‘One way or another, the agreed transfer will go ahead. It may be by friendly consent. It may be on the judgement of the Prefect. It may be following some other process. Until such time as that happens, the Lady Marcella will retain Gretel in her own household and will continue to allow her all the indulgences we agreed when her pregnancy was confirmed. Do I make myself clear?’

  Marcella glanced away from me. She looked suddenly a good fifty years older than the eighty I’d always taken her for. The lawyer looked back at me, unimpressed.

  ‘I understand the slave’s child is due in October,’ he said. ‘You will be aware, I have no doubt, of the great length that legal proceedings can often reach. You will equally be aware that, unless the mother is freed at any time between conception and birth, the child will also be a slave. Even if subsequently freed, the child will suffer certain disabilities. This might not count much in the case of a girl. Boys, however-’

  ‘I know the law perfectly well, if you please,’ I snapped. And I did. If I couldn’t be father to Edwina’s child, I’d not pass up the opportunity Gretel had presented me. I would be a father, and my child would have everything a father could give. You can’t give looks and intelligence: those come from Nature. But you can give education and wealth and status. No one this side of the grave would stop me from giving those.

  I looked at the fresh tiling on the library floor and stood up. There was nothing more to discuss with these people. That much was plain. What further business I had lay elsewhere. With frigid politeness, I asked Marcella if she needed an escort back to her lodging house. The streets would soon be far too unsafe for the elderly slaves I imagined she’d brought with her.

  ‘You’re a good boy, Alaric,’ she whispered once the lawyer had left the room ahead us. ‘You know, by myself I’d never do nothing to hurt you-’

  She broke off. Then: ‘Oh, this wicked world surely can’t be for much longer,’ she sobbed gently. ‘It must surely be the end of times when-’

  She broke off again. Then: ‘Oh, my poor husband the Senator. Why couldn’t I be carried off with him?’

  I was once more alone. I’d paced up and down in the library until no light came from overhead. I’d crossed over the courtyard to the main part of the house and walked around the rooms on the upper floor. Fresh paint and woodwork, restored mosaics and frescoes – things that until then had cheered me and filled me with confidence in the future – now seemed a kind of mockery. Of course, I’d bought the place with only myself in mind. But I’d soon got used to the idea of a growing household with me at the head of it. I’d shown Gretel where her quarters would be. I’d ordered furniture for the child and looked into the procedure of buying the right sort of wet nurse.

  Back in the library, I shouted for Authari. ‘Get me an opium pill,’ I told him. ‘I rather hope you’ve not been dipping down those as well. I have a meeting at the Lateran just as soon as the dawn comes up. With time to get down there, I want you to wake me with enough hot water for a bath and my pink robe – the one with brown roses embroidered on the front. For what I’m about to do, I want to look my best.’

  4

  I was so angry as I stepped out into the square that I almost missed the flash of steel. But there’s a difference between almost and not at all. Probably before even managing to nick my arm, he had my sword sticking six inches out of his back.

  For a thief, he had the etiquette all wrong. It’s at night, you see, that you kill and then grab. By daylight, you grab and run, and only pull out the knife if you can’t get away. But that was his problem. He was the one on the pavement, gurgling out bloody froth as he sped into the final darkness. Though breathing hard and not altogether with it, I was still on my feet.

  ‘Hey, you can’t do that here!’ It was one of the armed churchwardens, come up beside me. He pointed down at the now dead man, outrage in his voice. ‘This is Church property.’

  He was wrong. I was just outside the Lateran precinct. Here, it was a matter for the Prefect – if for anyone at all.

  But I wasn’t up for debate. And Authari had now lumbered up beside me.

  ‘Fuck off, you!’ he snarled. ‘You leave my master alone – or else.’

  ‘That will do, Authari,’ I said weakly, putting a hand on his sword arm. I wanted no more trouble that morning. Inside the palace, it had been ‘Aelric this’ and ‘Aelric that’ from the Dispensator, who’d almost wet himself at his triumph. He’d been waiting with his – unsigned – letter of clarification for Marcella regarding my ‘marriage’ in Kent, and with his undertaking to act in my place regarding Gretel if I should be delayed past her time of delivery.

  I didn’t fancy another trip into that office. Not over a matter like this.

  ‘But you’re bleeding, Master,’ said Authari.

  I looked down at my forearm. So I was. That had been a savage little knife. It was the sort of weapon that had Murder written all over it. Luckily, the man had got me below the hem of my sleeve. You couldn’t get new silk that year in Rome for love or money.

  Authari pulled me across the square to the side not yet reached by the sun, and sat me on a stone bench. He called for wine and biscuits from one of the hawkers.

  ‘I would have come sooner, Master,’ he explained in a panicky tone. ‘But those friends of his were all about me, jabbering something about His Holiness.’

  He sat down heavily beside me and drank half the wine straight off. While that settled another of the fits of shakes that had made m
e leave him outside the Lateran, I followed his vague pointing. A hundred yards off, the churchwarden was still fussing over the bloody heap. He’d been joined by a couple of monks. Every so often, he was pointing across at me.

  Over to their left, there was another crowd of those petitioners. Even as I looked, they melted into the smaller alleyways that led from the square.

  Deep beneath the shock and the after-effects of what might have been a shade too much opium, I felt a faint stirring of alarm, and of what now was a creative anger. This wasn’t a matter of thiefly etiquette. The man hadn’t looked at all like a thief. And he’d been far too swarthy for a native: an African, perhaps, or a Sicilian?

  I turned back to Authari, whose babble of explanations was now descending into his native Lombardic.

  ‘I am entirely satisfied you did your best,’ I said firmly, trying to shut him up. ‘Indeed, you may have done me quite a favour. Had you been with me, they might have gone for me some other time and with more success. As it is, forewarned is forearmed.’

  Unconvinced, Authari fell silent, his face still dark with shame and the fear of a slave who has slipped up in his duty. I leaned back against the still cool bricks of the wall behind me and gathered my thoughts.

  ‘Tell me, Authari,’ I said, sipping what he’d left me of the wine, ‘do you know which side it was that grabbed you? And do put your sword away. The only trouble we might have now is from those monks over there.’

  He gave me a look of rather vexing stupidity and replied that the men had been talking about His Holiness.

  I sighed, but kept my temper. ‘You do know’, I prompted, ‘there’s a civil war in the Empire?’

  He didn’t.

  ‘It doesn’t normally affect us here,’ I continued. ‘Since your people turned up in Italy, the Emperor’s Exarch doesn’t control much more than Ravenna. Under His Holiness, Rome is effectively an independent city-state.

  ‘Yes, a city-state,’ I mused. ‘After fifteen hundred years, Rome ends its experience of empire more of less where it began.’