The Curse of Babylon (12 page)

And that’s what she now gave me – and what facts they were! At once, I’d forgotten the injured slave. I think I’d forgotten Lucas himself. I took Antonia by the arm and led her to the side of the road. Not far off two miles we’d been walking. Only now had she got to the point that mattered. Had she only started with it, I’d now be shepherding her back through the City in search of her clients. ‘Please, repeat that name for me,’ I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

‘Which name?’ she asked.

I took my hat off and ran fingers though my hair. ‘The name of the man who ejected your clients from the land they’ve been assigned,’ I said, speaking slowly. ‘He is the man who ensured they got no hearing in the local courts and against whom they’ve come to seek my help.’

I thought she’d said Eunapius of Pylae but needed it confirmed. Eunapius it was. I put my hat on again and fussed to get it back in the right position. It was one way to keep myself from jumping up and down and laughing. I made sure to darken my voice. ‘I wish you’d begun with Eunapius. He complicates everything.’

I’d made my voice too dark and Antonia misread me. ‘So, you won’t help those men?’ she asked, a tone of outrage coming into her own voice. ‘They walked here all the way from Zigana, hundreds of miles away. They believed you were the only honest man in the government and that you’d help them for sure.’ She tried to see under the brim of my hat. ‘You do know that all the country people in Pontus pray every Sunday for your health?’

I began walking again. It was pleasing to know there were
some
people in this Empire who didn’t hate me. I smiled and turned to Antonia. ‘I will get justice for your clients,’ I said. ‘But you need to understand that I’m in no position to give it by myself.’ I fell silent. That wasn’t the way to explain anything to a woman. That needs simple words and some attention to making their sense clear. I gathered my thoughts.

‘You are right about the land law,’ I said. ‘It has no exceptions in any of the Home Provinces. Every free householder in every country district has the right to enough land to feed himself and those who look to him. There are different provisions that cover the different grades of land and these have already caused much litigation. There are also varying degrees of inalienability and of the obligation to serve in the new militias. But no landowner is exempt. Any landowner who refuses to make such land available as my surveyors have determined he should, may be sued in the courts. If he avoids judgment through bribery or nepotism, he may be charged with perverting the course of justice and tried in Constantinople.’

‘Then what’s the problem?’ she asked.

‘The problem,’ I explained, ‘is that your clients have come up against Eunapius of Pylae. He’s in thick with Nicetas, who is the Emperor’s cousin. Anyone else and I could write one letter ‘asking’ for the law to be obeyed. Writing to Eunapius would be a waste of papyrus. He wouldn’t be scared by the implied threat of a tax audit. And you can forget about formal proceedings. He’d go straight to Nicetas, who’d run to the Emperor with a cloud of accusations against me and your clients. No, it’s worse than that. While the Emperor’s away, Nicetas might try his luck and directly order me to desist. He’d also go public. Set up that manner of dispute and there’s no chance Heraclius would side against his own blood.’

‘So, what
will
you do?’ she asked. ‘The men who walked here aren’t the only victims. There are dozens of other families who have had their land taken back. There are also accusations of rape and murder against some of his men.’

Now I had the relevant facts, this was getting better and better. And I’d been under the impression that Antonia was an assassin hired by Nicetas to supplement his seditionaries! I’d said I’d have him for the trick he’d pulled on the Triumphal Way – and I would!

I stuck my chin out. Doing that, I’d been told, made me look older and more authoritative. ‘Your clients must wait until the new currency law comes into operation,’ I said. ‘On that day, Heraclius is due to come back from his pilgrimage and I have a long private meeting booked with him. If I use the right approach, he’ll issue a formal rebuke against Eunapius. There will be no going back on that. Until then, I want your clients to keep out of sight. If they’re short of money, I’ll give help through an intermediary. But they must stay out of sight. I don’t want anything that will prod Nicetas into action.’

Now I’d got the whole story, I could finally be glad that we’d met. Here was an open breach of the law – probably documented, if I got someone to dig round the local archive – by a known agent and possible nominee of Nicetas. If I used this right, I could get the Emperor to slap his cousin down good and hard. I might not be able to stop his general campaign against me but I could shut off the stream of collusive actions in which Eunapius of Pylae always managed to be a first- or second-hand party.

‘So, we’ll have to see the Emperor’ – she squeezed her eyes shut, evidently thinking back to what I’d said in my hall of audience – ‘on the second day of the second week. Will I need special clothes to see him?’

I stepped off the road to let a wide cart rumble by. I frowned at Antonia. ‘What makes you think
you
are coming with me to see the Great Augustus?’ I asked with a lordly toss of my head. All I needed to do was get Heraclius on side, and then produce those rough-handed farmers to look noble and put-upon. I didn’t need a woman there to babble away like a drunken litigant in person.

‘Because it’s the custom,’ she answered. ‘When a Minister needs special clearance to do something, the petitioning agent always goes with him.’

‘Don’t be silly!’ I said with another lordly toss, this time nearly dislodging my hat. ‘All else aside,
you don’t even look like a man.
I won’t ask how you got this far. But there will be no more of this ludicrous attempt at a petitioning career.’ I paused and made myself look very firm. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, I’m having you put on a fast carriage back to Trebizond.’ I paused again for dramatic effect and found I was growing more out of love with myself with every moment I allowed to slip by. ‘However,’ I said, softening my voice, ‘the lowest clerical grade in the tax administration is sometimes open to women. Since I assume you can read and write, I will provide you with a letter of appointment to the office in Trebizond.’

I couldn’t say fairer than that. Even if unwittingly, Antonia had done me a favour. I’d return it by keeping her and her mother from going hungry. She’d had her big adventure in life, and could look forward to telling her children and grandchildren how, for one day, she’d laid petitions before Alaric the Magnificent.

That wasn’t how she saw it. ‘It’s not fair!’ she cried. She stamped her foot. ‘I don’t want to go back to Trebizond – and you can’t make me!’ She sat down in the road and drew her knees up to her chin. I looked at her.
Couldn’t make her
– eh? I was a member of the Imperial Council. If I wanted, I could drag her aside and rape her in full view of everyone else on the road. If she didn’t know that, her father must have done a crap job of bringing her up. I smiled and said nothing as she repeated and varied herself on the matter of fairness. Now I’d got used to the short hair, I couldn’t deny she was a pretty girl. But that only made it more important to get her out of a place like Constantinople. I really was doing her a favour.

I kicked another stone, this time making sure it skipped into the brambles lining the road. ‘I could make you an inspector of taxes,’ I said, trying not to think of the scandal that would cause in the Trebizond office. ‘You couldn’t appear in court yourself as a prosecutor. But you could employ a clerk for that. The other duties would make you a woman of some consequence.’

‘I’ve told you, I’m not going back to Trebizond!’ she snapped. ‘I’d rather die than see that dreadful place again.’ Someone on a donkey who’d just overtaken us looked back at this. I fell silent and thought about my silver cup. I wouldn’t send it to the mint, I decided. I’d write a poem of thanks that would annoy Nicetas by outshining anything his own Leander could make up.

Chapter 12

At last, we were at the second milestone beyond the walls. It was here that the road veered right to avoid some very hard rock that lay along the shore. This left about a half mile of shoreline invisible from the crowded road. This was where I should have been before the sun was high enough to be warm. Serves me right if Lucas was stamping up and down on the beach like an enraged bull, and if the desk in my office had already vanished under a burial mound of unanswered correspondence. I looked at the expanse of low crags. I’d heard – and I may have heard wrong – that this was the mouth of a river long since diverted to feeding the City water supply. What remained was an alternation of dark and jagged rock and low points between that ranged between smelly puddles and salt marshes. Beyond that, Lucas should still be waiting. I glanced at the first of the puddles, and wished I hadn’t come out in such lovely boots. But I could be glad of my cloak. If the sun was just lately over its zenith, the northerly breeze had settled into a chilly blast. I let my sleeves down and pulled my cloak forward.

‘Smugglers put in here at night,’ I said for the sake of conversation. ‘It’s the final link in a chain of evasion that begins at the Red Sea. You land small high-value items here – incense or pepper, for instance. You then carry them under your clothing into Constantinople. It’s the same with contraband like heretical books or magical paraphernalia.’ Antonia nodded vaguely. I’d got her back to her feet by offering an illegal appointment to clerk of the fourth grade. Since then, she hadn’t spoken.

I stepped off the road. ‘Give me your hand,’ I said. ‘You’ll tear your clothes if you fall.’ She ignored me. I shrugged. We scrambled without another word over the first series of crags. I tore my leggings and put a deep scratch into my left boot.

‘Is Tanais in Egypt?’ Antonia asked as we finished climbing down. The road was now out of sight. We’d soon be looking down at the sea. I was glad she was out of breath. I reached my hand out again. This time, she took it. She came down beside me in a little shower of stones.

‘Tanais is a city on the far shore of Lake Maeotis,’ I said in a return of my lordly manner. What
had
her father taught her? ‘The lake is entered through a narrow strait from the north of the Black Sea. Since you live in Trebizond, I really thought you’d know that. It’s been there for over a thousand years,’ I went on with a mild frown – ‘very important for trade. The River Tanais leads straight into Scythia, and may be part of an alternative water route to a place called England.’

‘Oh, you mean
Tanais!
’ She sounded annoyed, and didn’t seem to have picked up on the reference to England. ‘So, why are we on this side of the City?’

I reached forward and steadied her as she slipped on one of the smoother rocks. ‘That’s the reason I’m here,’ I said. ‘In itself, smuggling is something dealt with by subordinates of subordinates. But I’m told the detained ship is from Tanais. That raises the question of how it got through the narrow straits past the City.’ Yes, that was my concern. Now I was so wretchedly late, I was thinking about criminal charges as well as general sackings in the Tolls Office. I tried to look fierce. I was his Magnificence the Lord Senator Alaric, Lord Treasurer to Heraclius – but I wasn’t above getting my hands dirty, or my boots scratched, to make sure I ran a department as efficient and incorruptible as everyone knew I was.

I leaned forward and put my hand on a convenient lump of rock. Unless those unusually active seabirds overhead were lost, it was one more upward climb and then a descent to the shore. I recalled from my one previous visit that this was a narrow bay with a flat and sandy beach. I frowned and pulled my hand back. I looked at my hand. I rubbed my fingers together and sniffed them. I used my other hand to get out the napkin I’d soaked in perfume. I cleaned myself and stared at linen that was no longer white but stained with congealing blood.

Eyes suddenly wide, Antonia didn’t cry out. I tried for a smile. I wondered how long I had before she realised what a total dickhead I’d been.

There was a salty puddle at the foot of this depression in the rock, and I moved to a loose rock in an effort to keep my boots dry. I drew a deep breath and tried to ignore the sound of my own racing pulse. I took out the two halves of the papyrus sheet. The message looked absolutely right. It was in the right handwriting, and was expressed in the right stilted phrasing. I’d read it once in my hall of audience and got it straight by heart. Why was I fussing over a few spots of blood? Perhaps one of my own people had slipped here and cut himself. These rocks were buggery sharp. But it was more than a few spots of blood I’d just wiped off my hand. I looked up again and tried not to sneeze as I stared close by the sun. Those seabirds were very active. They might be feeding. Or they might have been disturbed.