Terror of Constantinople (34 page)

    Though now past sixty, he still had a good head of dark hair and a jauntiness about his manner that put you in mind of a much younger man. He soon discovered that I was new to the races, and he spent some time explaining rules that I hadn’t been able to pick up for myself. He even made me laugh a few times. This isn’t normally something you should do in front of an emperor, except the politest, most strangled titter. But he seemed to be in the mood for uncourtly behaviour. So I downgraded my own Latin to match his, and we chatted away like two outsiders in this most rarefied society of the Empire.

    After a rough start, I was feeling remarkably full of myself, but I was also beginning to feel distinctly odd. I had to steady myself once or twice to stay on my feet.

    ‘But even an Emperor can’t monopolise his hero,’ said Phocas at length. ‘Let me introduce you to some of the Divinely Fortunate who are able to share My Exalted Company.’

    With this, he had everyone in the room lined up for a presentation. As he walked beside me, looking deeply into their faces, a slave called out the names and titles of the assembled grandees. Those who survived the last purge of Phocas and the first of Heraclius I got to know rather well later on. For the moment, they were mostly simpering yet scared faces, sweaty through the paint.

    They were, that is, except one.

    ‘And this’, said Phocas with a flourish, ‘is my supremely talented and loyal son-in-law, Priscus – Count of the Palace Guard, who will succeed me as Emperor as soon as I am called away from this world.’

    I found myself looking straight into the face of the Tall Man – that is, of the Black Agent who’d supervised the arrest of Justinus.

34

‘You will scarce credit’, said Priscus in his smoothest voice, ‘how delighted I am to make your acquaintance. I have heard so much about you. All Constantinople sings your praises. And now I am doubly blessed. I bask in the Divine Presence itself, and I meet the one who has for so long been in my thoughts.

    ‘Accept, O Alaric of Britain, my heartiest greeting,’ he called in a raised voice. ‘Unless the Augustus has need of you, I must demand the honour of your company at dinner this evening.’

    I took the clammy hand and looked into the coldly mocking eyes that stripped all pleasantness from the smile with which he greeted me. Is this how he’d have looked at me had we met again in those stinking cells under the Ministry? Was it with the same impassive gloat on his face that he’d have brought me to his ‘orgasms of pain’?

    ‘My Lord Priscus,’ I said, fighting to keep a semblance of outward composure, ‘your name is already familiar to me – your name and the tales of your devoted service to the Empire. I also have looked forward to this meeting. Unless I must bow to a command still higher than your own, I shall feel myself honoured to accept your invitation.’

    ‘Then I must count myself very fortunate,’ said Priscus. ‘Isn’t that so, my dearest colleague and friend?’ he added to Theophanes, who’d just arrived beside us.

    It was like watching two very hostile but well-behaved cats face each other. They smiled. Theophanes made a little bow. Priscus took him by the arm and helped him back up.

    ‘My Lord Caesar is too kind,’ Theophanes said, brushing his lips against the hand that raised him. As Priscus pulled away, I could see a smear of scarlet lip paint on his wrist.

    ‘Darling Theophanes,’ Priscus smiled back, ‘you will, as a matter of course, be joining us tonight?’

    ‘You will pardon me’, came the smooth reply, ‘if I must remind you that the Great Augustus has need of our services tonight.’

    ‘Too right!’ the Emperor broke in, still in his good mood. ‘Until we’ve laid hands on that fucker Heraclius, these races are all the entertainment we’ll get. That means no official banquets.’

    Priscus opened his mouth as if to protest, then thought better of it. In any event, Phocas ignored him.

    ‘Now’ – he dropped his voice to a confidential tone – ‘I need to make a decision pretty sharpish on the punishment. We haven’t had an
unsuccessful
attempt on the Purple in three hundred years. We’ll need to put on something really memorable for the mob. Something lingering goes without dispute. But should it involve boiling oil or melted lead?

    ‘Hey, Nicias,’ he called, catching hold of a short flabby creature who was so shocked at the sudden attention that his false teeth fell out on to the floor. ‘Which would you prefer – boiling oil or melted lead?’

    ‘As the Lord Augustus wishes,’ the man mumbled, hand covering his mouth, ‘so let it be.’ He scooped up his teeth then scuttled sideways, rather like a crab. Phocas laughed. Priscus and I joined in.

    ‘You’ll have fun with Priscus soon enough,’ said Phocas. ‘He assures me you have so much in common.’

    With that and a very queer look, he was off. I saw him take up with some leading members of the Green and Blue Factions who’d somehow been invited to the Imperial Box. Shifty-looking, low-born, they’d looked conspicuously uncomfortable so far, and had formed their own gaggle over in a corner. Now Phocas was among them, dispensing charm and good humour.

    Theophanes looked at my tiny cup. Since meeting Priscus, I’d been knocking back cup after cup of the nearly pure water some slave was dishing out every time I caught his eye. Other than to reinforce that feeling of oddness, they seemed to have no effect.

    After the buffet lunch I returned to my place at the foot of the Imperial Throne. I should have paid more attention to the races. They were every bit as exciting as in the morning. Indeed, there was a big smash in the final lap of one of them, and one of the lesser charioteers had his arm torn off right at the shoulder. The crowd went wild at this and it gave rise to a rhythmical grunting that rippled up and down the rows.

    But the sun was shining in my eyes, and my mind wandered over everything but the events on the racecourse. I almost nodded off a few times.

    As the Patriarch gave his final benediction of the day and Authari kicked and punched our way through the crowd into the street outside, Martin confessed that this was only his second visit to the Circus. His father had always regarded the games as sinful, and they’d normally spent Circus days at home in quiet prayer.

    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’ll surely make a point of going in future. Just think what you’ve been missing.’

    ‘You forget, sir,’ came the obvious reply, ‘there are no games in Rome nowadays – not since Pope Gregory cut off funding for the Circus there. This will be our last view of the races.’ Martin caught hold of my sleeve, as if I were about to lose my footing.

    He was right. It was homeward bound for us – back to boring but safe Rome. There, under the rule of those old womanly clerics, all we had to fear was the Lombards and the occasional fleck of gutter scum that didn’t know its place.

    I gave him the basic details of lunch in the Imperial Box. Martin didn’t seem impressed by the stuff about Priscus.

    ‘The first meeting was accidental,’ he said, ‘the second unavoidable. Let us pray there will be no third. When I was last here, he was permanently away at the front. In those days, he was only a general with a good background. Even then, though, his name stank.’

Back at the Legation, Demetrius was preparing a surprise dinner.

    ‘We hear the young citizen is not much more to be with us,’ he leered as I walked through the main hall. ‘In celebration of which we shall kill a pig and feast our full this night.’

    Well, this was a better mood than I’d seen from the man in months. We never had got round to the meeting he’d demanded over Maximin’s crying, instead of which he had received a soft kicking from Authari and threats of worse if he didn’t piss off. Now he was inviting me as guest of honour – even if that did mean sitting beside him.

    ‘We regret that the citizen Alaric is indisposed,’ Martin surprised me by saying. Before I could protest, he and Authari had shoved me through the door into my suite. Even more surprisingly, while Authari propelled me up the stairs Martin turned back and accepted the invitation for himself and the rest of my household.

    ‘You’re going to bed, Master,’ said Authari as he pulled me out of my fine clothes. ‘You look awful.’

    I tried to disagree but was overcome by a fit of the shivers as my sweat-soaked undergarments fell to the floor.

    ‘I’ll sleep until the dinner starts,’ I said as Martin drew the bedclothes over me. ‘Make sure to get me up.’

    That’s the last I recall before crashing out. I hadn’t done much all day. But the adulation I had received at the Circus had taken its toll. I was shattered. I sank backwards into a bottomless slumber. Was that Alypius, I thought as the blackness closed over me, talking in a low but urgent voice? If it was, it would have to wait.

After some unmeasurable period of mist, it was night-time. I was standing somewhere in the outer suburbs of Rome outside a small public park, which now doubled as a churchyard. I must have been there earlier in the day for I had left my bag on one of the benches that surrounded a monument in the centre. I’m not sure what the bag was supposed to contain, but it was plainly of some value to me.

    There was no moonlight in the street where I was standing, and the high terraced houses behind me were also dark. Like most buildings on the edge of Rome, they must have been abandoned. In daylight, I’d have seen them in ruins.

    There was, however, a brightness in the clouded sky, and I could see the monument about a hundred yards beyond the locked entry gate. It stood out oddly white in the surrounding gloom. My bag, I felt, should still be there.

    I could also see that the park was not empty. I can’t recall how many of the creatures stood looking back at me, but I do recall their appearance. Smooth and covered with scales that glinted in a light that shone from nowhere, each was about the size and shape of a ten-year-old child. They had about them the strange stillness combined with rapid, darting motions that one sees in certain reptiles. Most striking about their appearance, though, was the eyes. These glowed a bright green. It was a strange brightness, having great intensity but no power.

    The creatures looked at me over the top of the gate, pointing and whispering to each other in a low, sinister gibberish.

    I was frightened, but I wanted my bag, so I climbed the gate and jumped down among them. They scattered from me as if frightened, but as I moved deeper into the park towards the monument, they seemed to recover their nerve and clustered round me, plucking at my clothes and whispering excitedly.

    By now I was terrified. My heart was beating wildly and I could feel my hair standing on end. My mouth was dry and I bit my tongue in an effort to control my chattering teeth. I wanted desperately to turn and run, but I also wanted my bag so I forced myself to carry on.

    When I reached the bench by the monument, all I could find was a white cloth bag filled with scraps of papyrus. I grabbed it and turned to run back to the safety of the street.

    But the street had vanished. I found myself no longer in an enclosed park but at the top of a low hill. As far as I could see in the now bright moonlight, there was only neatly cut grass, and in the distance a copse of trees that cast shadows of indescribable blackness. Though I could see for miles, there were no lights or any other sign of human habitation.

    The low whispering took on a triumphant note, and the creatures moved closer, now wholly surrounding me. I could feel their sharp little hands brushing cold against mine as they tried to pull me to the ground  ...

I woke with a start. I was still in my bedroom. Outside, the light had long since faded and stars were shining through the window. On the beside table, a lamp was turned down low.

    I reached for the jug of melon pulp Martin had thoughtfully left for me in place of the usual wine. A bad dream, I told myself – just the sort of thing to round off a day of repeated excitements.

    ‘Authari?’ I croaked. Then I remembered the dinner. Everyone would be with Demetrius. Straining, I could just hear the sound of merriment. It must have been coming from the public areas of the Legation. These were beyond the dome, just under or close by the Permanent Legate’s quarters.

    Good luck to the old sod, I thought, wondering how His Excellency was taking the noise from dinner. If his hearing was sensitive enough to be upset by Maximin’s crying, this must be driving him out of his wits.

    Laid neatly out over by the door, my clothes were ready for the morning.