Cast Not the Day (42 page)

They had been joined on the way by volunteers – landowners and their tenants and workers, who had been harried and bullied by the bishop’s mobs, whose farms had been burned and whose ancient rural shrines had been desecrated. There were, it seemed, good men still, who were prepared to stand up to tyranny.

On the third day after our arrival, on a cold, still, grey afternoon, we reached the outskirts of the city.

As we drew near, a ragtag band of the notary’s guards and the bishop’s roughs emerged, clad in ill-fitting armour and brandishing whatever they had been able to find in the garrison armoury.

We laughed at them; and they, having taken a careful look at our small determined force, retreated once more and closed the gates against us.

After that, feeling safe behind the walls, they discovered a courage of sorts. They jeered down at us, wasted a few javelins, and threw stones.

‘Now what?’ said Gauron, regarding them with distaste. ‘We are too few to take the city by siege, and they know it. They will send to Gaul for reinforcements.’

But I said, ‘I know a way.’

The tide was up. The piles of the old jetty loomed in the darkness.

‘This is the place,’ whispered Marcellus to the rowers behind.

The boat eased left, and from my place in the bow I stretched forward, grabbed the mooring-chain, and pulled us in. We paused and listened. Torches flickered from high up on the riverside wall, reflecting in the black still water around us.

I secured the boat and climbed out onto the wet planking of the jetty. The old wood creaked and I hesitated; but no light showed at the postern, and advancing I peered in at the iron grille.

The cell inside was dark. I made a sound like a birdcall. No one responded; there was no sound of sleeping bodies shifting. Then I tried the heavy door. It stirred, groaning on its rusted hinges. It was not locked.

I signalled; the others advanced behind me, and once again the foul stench seized my nostrils.

‘By the Bull,’ muttered the trooper beside Marcellus, ‘what is this, a sewer?’

‘It’s the notary’s prison,’ said Marcellus. ‘This is perfume, compared to what it’s like inside. Come on; this way.’

The wall-torches had been left to die down and fail. But we found a clay lamp burning in an alcove, and took it to light our way.

Carefully, silently, we advanced along the reeking passage. Most of the cages on each side were empty; but every so often we passed a man lying in the muck and straw. Some were dead. Others shifted and stared, disturbed by the light.

‘Where are the guards?’ I said to one. But he just looked at me blankly.

‘Why don’t they speak?’ said one of my comrades.

‘They have lost their wits,’ said another. He shook the door of the man’s cell, rattling it on its chain. The man inside let out a whine of terror and curled up in the corner, covering his eyes with his hands, as if the evil could be averted if he could not see it.

‘Be still,’ I said to him. ‘We are not here to harm you.’ But he seemed not to hear me.

Presently we came to a flight of stone steps, rising in a spiral. At the top the air was cleaner. There was an air shaft, and then, through a low brick arch, a wide hexagonal room with a bare-wood table, and, on one wall, suspended on hooks, a collection of loose chains, and irons, and sets of keys on rings.

‘The guardhouse,’ I said to Marcellus.

‘And where are the guards?’ he replied.

There was no sign of them. They had been called, we guessed, to man the walls.

Further on we came to the cellars proper, white-painted brickwork vaults where old furniture and storage jars stood piled up. This part I remembered from my time with the Protectors, and from here I knew the way up to the governor’s palace above. We followed old passages and stairs, and emerged into a servants’ corridor; and then, passing through a door, we came into one of the elegant rooms-of-state, a long chamber with arched windows, gilded furniture, and decorated panels.

Here we encountered a man – the first we had seen. It was the chamberlain, the same self-important fussing official who had conducted me to my first interview with Count Gratian four years before.

‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, ‘you are not permitted here!’ He had taken me for one of the palace sentries, for whom the interior was out of bounds.

But then, from the doorway behind, the rest of my company emerged with swords pointing. The chamberlain, whose only battles had been the intrigues of clerks and the struggle for place in the imperial bureaucracy, raised his knuckle to his open mouth and stared.

‘If you want to live,’ I said, ‘tell me where to find the notary.’

The chamberlain needed no persuading. ‘He is in the private rooms,’ he answered in a wavering voice. ‘But he is not to be disturbed. Those were his orders.’

‘This for his orders!’ said one of the men, making a clear hand-gesture. The chamberlain goggled, appalled that anyone should dare to show such disrespect to a superior.

‘Who is with him?’ I demanded, showing him the point of my sword.

‘He is alone. He always dines alone.’

‘Well tonight,’ I said, ‘he will have company.’

We found him in the governor’s private dining-room, with its green and gold painted walls, and expensive Italian couches upholstered in silk and crimson damask.

His head snapped round as I entered. A tall lamp of wrought bronze stood between him and the door, illuminating the couch where he sat, and the low table in front of him. He had not allowed the trouble in the city to disturb his dinner. The last of his meal sat there in silver dishes, and on the floor lay a mess of chewed bones, waiting for the slaves to clear away. No doubt he felt secure behind the walls, and knew our small army was no match for them.

He stared angrily, his eyes wide and unblinking, like a bird of prey disturbed at its meal. The light had dazzled him, so that, at first, he could not discern who was there. He began to speak – some sort of angry protest. But then my sword, and those of my comrades, flashed in the lamplight, and his mouth set into a hard thin line. He had been chewing. With a slight inclination of his head he spat whatever it was onto the floor.

‘How did you enter?’ he said quietly.

‘No matter. We are here. The city is ours.’

Already a contingent of men had gone off to open the gates from within.

He gave a slight nod; I saw the calculation in his face. Whatever else he was, he was not a fool, and though he seemed unarmed, I did not allow my guard to fall, or permit myself to forget that he was dangerous.

And now, as he sat still and rigid, the notary made use of the weapon he had honed through years of expert practice: fear and insinuating terror, and the threat of the dark unknown.

In a smooth, reasonable voice he said, ‘You have been resourceful in finding your way in, and I commend you for it. But now use your wits, and reflect for a moment that whatever you may do to me, you cannot win. The emperor is all-powerful, and I am his trusted servant. Let this matter end before it goes too far. Leave now, while I do not know your names, and have not seen your faces. You have taken a wrong turn in the corridors of the palace, that is all – an easy mistake, when it is dark. Go now, and no more will be said.’

There was a silence. He regarded us with a face of accommodating warmth – except for his eyes, which were deadly.

‘I took no wrong turn,’ I said.

His eyes moved to my face. I think, then, for the first time he knew me.

In a low, measured voice he said, ‘This is treason.’ He let the dread words hang in the air. Then he said, ‘Think on it, all of you, and on what it means. Some of you have families – wives and children. So far you have done no wrong, just a simple error, no more. You stand on the threshold: do not cross it. You have been misled, deceived. You do not know what you are doing. Arrest this traitor, and all will be forgotten.’

There was a pause. My men were standing behind me. I could not see their faces.

Then one of them said, ‘Go and tell it to Trebius’s shade!’

The notary looked blank. The name meant nothing. One might as well have asked a butcher the names of the animals he had slaughtered. I knew the men had seen it too, and I knew that in that moment he had lost whatever hold he had on them.

I heard them shift, and felt their anger like heat from a fire. The notary let out a short sigh, as though he had lost some minor wager in a dice-game. He sat up straight, and smoothed his clothing with his pale long-fingered hand.

‘Then let us have done with it,’ he said. ‘Which of you will kill me, or will it be all of you, so that the guilt attaches to no single one?’

I exchanged a look with Marcellus. We had talked about this, he and I and all the officers who had marched on London, and had made our decision. But still the words came hard, now that the man was in front of me, and my sword was in my hand.

‘We are sending you back to the emperor,’ I said eventually. ‘Let him judge you.’

The notary’s eyes snapped to mine, and for the first time I saw fear there – and this I had not predicted. He seemed to still himself; but then, in a flash of sudden movement, his hand darted to the table, and from one of the dishes, beside a sliced half-eaten apple, he snatched an ivory-handled fruit-knife. One of the men let out a snort of derision: did the notary suppose the tiny blade was a match for our swords? But my eyes had been on his face: I realized what he intended.

I threw myself forward, overturning the slender-legged table, sending the silver dishes sliding over the inlaid floor. The notary was fast; but I was faster. I caught his bony wrist just as the knife was at his throat. He struggled – he was strong, for all his emaciated look – and as I fought I felt the sting of the blade as it sliced my hand. But I had a firm hold of him. I prised his arm away, forcing it downwards until at last I heard the knife clatter on the ground.

Our eyes locked. I could feel his breath on my face. In a silken voice more menacing than any knife-blade he said, ‘You fool! You should have let me do it.’

I understood, and for a brief moment we regarded one another in dreadful silence. The emperor’s notaries worked in the shadows, performing what was shameful to be seen or known. And now this man had been exposed in all his crimes, and the emperor with him. Constantius would make him pay; and the notary knew it best of all. ‘Take him down to the cells,’ I said.

During the night the city was retaken, though it would be truer to say that resistance gave way without contest, as the rotten fruit collapses at the first touch. Only the barbarian German guards put up a fight. The urban mob, who had been so brave against ageing unarmed citizens, vanished from the streets.

Next day, we brought the notary from the cells and put him on a ship to Gaul.

Before he stepped on board he turned to me, fixing my eye. Even now, as a manacled prisoner, there was something terrifying about him, a reaching into one’s soul. I forced myself not to look away.

Seeing this, and knowing his power, his gaunt face moved in a brief, cold smile. In a quiet voice he said, ‘You had better hope we never meet again.’

I said, ‘The emperor will see to that.’

For an instant he paused. My words had sounded brave and hollow, like a child’s. I could tell it amused him; but I did not care. He had dwelt too long with the dark things. I did not want such knowledge as he possessed.

I thought he was going to speak again; but with a final chilling look he turned away, and the guard led him up the gangboard, and took him below.

The squat, iron-studded door of the bishop’s residence stood open. Within, strewn about the courtyard, lay signs of destruction and hurried flight – a shattered wine-jar, its contents splashed across the old flagstones like blood; a single doeskin slipper with a silver clasp; the crumpled homespun of a monk’s habit.

We walked on, through the deserted entry, into the bishop’s grandiose audience-chamber.

The vast embroidered tapestry still filled the far wall. The heavy stag-footed gilded divan, where once I had sat, was still in its place before his marble-topped desk, and from the alcoves the heavy statues still stared impassively. But everything that was portable was gone – the gilded cups, the jewel-studded caskets, the filigree silverwork.

We stepped cautiously ahead. On one side of the divan a half-filled wooden chest stood. A goblet protruded from the straw packing, embossed with grapes and vine-leaves. I took it up and turned it in the grey winter light, and recalled the last time I had seen it, clutched in the bishop’s hand.

Marcellus, who had not been here before, regarded the opulence and said dryly, ‘I thought Christians chose to live in poverty.’

‘Not this one,’ I replied. I let the cup fall back onto its straw bed.

‘It looks,’ he said, ‘as though the fat pigeon has flown.’

I frowned about the room. Even with his life in danger, the bishop had not been able to leave without his riches. The city gates had all been closed: he must have taken one of the small river-boats during the night, under cover of darkness.

At the great desk – sculpted white marble streaked with cherry-red – I frowned and paused, then glanced up at Marcellus.