The Curse of Babylon (24 page)

Glaucus came out with something unflattering and walked slowly round me, grunting and poking at me with his cane. ‘The purpose of training,’ he said as if telling me for the first time, ‘is not to make yourself look like a human bull for two seasons, before running to fat. It is to keep the body in balanced proportions throughout the whole term of life. Hair goes. Teeth go. Get it right early enough and good muscle tone lasts a lifetime.’ He stopped and looked angrily into my face. ‘I have told you many times, a depilated crotch is unattractive. It gives an impression of effeminacy. You waste your time in modelling your speech on the correct elegance of the ancients, if you cannot leave your manhood clothed with its natural modesty.’

I bowed again and thought of the all-over kiss of silk undergarments. ‘I crave indulgence for the weakness,’ I said. Saying no more, I joined Glaucus in a probably illegal genuflection before an empty niche.

‘Your
kava
, Sir,’ young Eboric said behind me in Latin. I nodded and continued taking the salutes and greetings from the multitudes who passed back and forth along the Triumphal Way. It was one of those glorious mornings the spring gives only occasionally to Constantinople. The sun shone clear on my right, but a cool breeze from the north took away all but a hint of what it might do later in the day. The roofs of the lower City shone a cheerful red or glittered like jewels on velvet. The seabirds called and circled overhead.

And here I was, alive and well, and bathed and oiled and perfumed. Dressed in a white outer tunic crossed by bands of shimmering green, I stood at ease on the front steps of my palace. There could be no doubt of the previous day’s horrors but I was almost ready to believe the lying account of my capture and escape I’d dictated in the steam room. It was already set up on its easel and attracting a most flattering number of readers. I was alive and well, and Shahin and all his friends could go fuck themselves.

Not even Timothy’s presence could sour the morning. ‘Duty presses, dear boy,’ he said again, ‘Duty presses. Can’t possibly step inside.’ Even so, his cold unsmiling eyes were looking past me into the darkness of my entrance hall. Of course, a man of my quality deserved no less than the City Prefect in person – though his local deputy would have been more welcome.

He turned and looked down the steps to where my easel had been set. ‘Shocking story,’ he went on – ‘perfectly shocking. These bandits were never so bold when I was your age. A man could ride halfway to Thessalonica before hitting serious trouble.’

I sipped delicately at the contents of my glass beaker and continued looking into the street. Was that Eunapius of Pylae down there? His head and shoulders were hidden behind the easel. But there was surely no one else in the City with that combination of emaciation and fussy taste in clothes. From what I could see, he was reading my account to a crowd of his parasites and to the general trash who couldn’t read for themselves. I looked harder. I frowned. Several of the listeners were breaking into a shambling dance. I was sure I could hear a low titter. I pretended not to notice. ‘The street cleaners have done a good job,’ I said, looking back at Timothy.

I’d caught him in the act of picking his nose. He moved a forefinger that had been poised an inch from his mouth and wiped the bogie into the off-yellow banding of his robe. ‘It was the least I could do, my dear fellow,’ he answered. ‘I had them out with the dawn, scrubbing and cleaning. I was here myself to supervise. We had to flog a few of the stragglers awake. A couple of dead, too, we had to carry away.’ He pointed to a brown patch where two of the public slaves were still at work. The lower part of his face took on a sad smile. ‘You should have seen what had been done to the poor creature we found there. Animals in human form – no, demons out of Hell – some of the humbler people of this fair city.’ He looked carefully at my face.

‘Any reports of an older body found in the area?’ I asked with a slight wrinkling of my nose. ‘My own slaves found a dried blood patch in the side street round the corner. If you have found anything, I feel a certain obligation to pay for its collection.’

‘Your goodness, young Alaric, is proverbial,’ was Timothy’s answer. Without giving more of an answer, he turned to feast his eyes on Eboric, who was waiting quietly for me to finish my
kava
. ‘As, if you’ll pardon the compliment, is your taste in slaves.’ His lower jaw sagged open, giving full view of his teeth. ‘Where does one lay hold of such freshness and elegance?’ he cried with sudden enthusiasm. ‘Speaking for myself, I find the markets in this city a continual disappointment.’ He leaned forward and stroked the boy’s cheek. ‘So fresh, so elegant!’ he repeated. Eboric shrank back and turned appealing eyes on me. I gave him the tiniest reassuring nod.

‘I take a personal care in the training of my younger slaves,’ I said, staring into a face visibly consumed by lust.

Timothy settled his features into a look of only moderate satyriasis. ‘If you’ll pardon an older man’s advice,’ he said, now in a patronising tone, ‘your way with slaves has provoked a certain degree of adverse comment.’ He continued staring at Eboric. ‘You don’t make a human being into a slave by the mere facts of capture and sale. Taking anyone into your house who hasn’t been broken by the dealers to servitude is rather like taking in a dangerous wild animal. Having more than a few slaves of the same nation compounds the risk. You’ll never sleep soundly. You’ll never rely on them in a crisis – you mark my word.’ Still looking at Eboric, he controlled himself. He leaned close to me. ‘To see the boy naked would not displease me, though,’ he whispered from the corner of his mouth.

Eboric and his brother had been glorious finds after the repulse of a Lombard attack on Naples. Leaving aside their own dignity, I’d be buggered if I so much as considered sharing either of them with anyone – certainly not the tub of rancid fat that was His Magnificence Timothy. I gave my empty cup to the boy. ‘Tell Cook you’ve earned a very big spoonful of honey,’ I said in his own language.

The same thought in our minds, Timothy and I watched him scamper up the last flight of steps to the entrance. He’d outgrown his tunic again and it barely covered his upper thighs. My attention was pulled away from those endless bedtime romps by a low groan of horror from the street behind me. It was followed by a faint babble of insults.

‘Some of your Jewish friends, I think,’ Timothy said, now in accusing tone. ‘If you can bear another friendly word of advice, they’re all Persians at heart. Your good nature was surely misled when you persuaded the Council to advise Heraclius against enforcement of the conversion law.’ I nodded vaguely. I could have asked what use there was in making things worse than they already were. But we’d had that argument already. It was a nice morning, and my Jews were here. I stared at the three uncovered chairs that were making their way past the big statue of Poseidon. There are many reasons for employing Jewish financial agents. One is that they don’t waste time when you call them to an emergency meeting.

I watched ben Baruch and his cousins carried towards the lesser entrance to my palace. ‘I imagine there’s something they want,’ I said dismissively. Not quite truthful, that. I was about to call in some favours. Another reason Jews are worth employing is that they’re often a good substitute for the Intelligence Bureau. If there was anything I needed that morning, it was a bit of intelligence.

I took off my hat and smiled my thanks at the slave who was setting about me again with his fan. ‘Withdraw five baskets of the new coin from the consignment for the Lord Exarch of Ravenna,’ I said. ‘Exchange it for gold at the bank of ben Baruch and give it to the envoys of the Chagan. Give them also three pieces of purple cloth and an appropriately altered copy of the letter written earlier this year to the Grand Chieftain of the Malakioi. The oral message to give them is that the Emperor would look benevolently on their crossing the Danube, so long as it was for an attack on the Avar encampment outside Sirmium. A further payment will be made in copper on the standard scale for every Avar scalp presented by the next embassy sent to Constantinople.’

I waited for the clerk to finish making notes on wax that was probably melting in the heat of my official garden. ‘Send notice of my decision to the Lord Caesar Nicetas,’ I went on with a sigh. ‘Draw attention to my compliance with the Emperor’s Standing Order made on the Feast of Stephen in the second year of his reign. Make sure to get a receipt from the Lord Caesar’s secretary.’ A useful requirement, that, as the notice wouldn’t be read by His Magnificence the Lazy Turd. I thought about the depleted shipment of silver to Ravenna. I hadn’t made any definite promise to the Exarch of how much subsidy he’d get. But the shipment I was now making was barely more than a token of our continued interest in Italy. ‘Tell the Lord Exarch,’ I added, ‘that he is at liberty to approach His Holiness of Rome for another contribution to Imperial defence. He is permitted, in return, to overlook the Pope’s dealings with the Lombards in respect of their withdrawal from the Septenna district of Etruria.’ I put my hat beside me on the stone bench and closed my eyes. The sun was turning hot enough for August. ‘Bring me the draft of the letter to the Exarch. I will expand on it in my own hand.’

Another clerk stepped forward with his own load of correspondence. An earthquake had damaged the running track in Aphrodisias. Would the Emperor pay for its repair? ‘No,’ I said. ‘The general remission of taxes to the Home Provinces is the only help we can presently give. Diverting money from the war effort is out of the question. Find the letter I wrote last month to the town council at Nicomedia on a similar request. Adapt it and bring it to me for checking.’ There was a new paragraph I had in mind about the joys of voluntary effort in an age of lower taxes.

‘Your son, Theodore, craves a moment of your time,’ one of the clerks suddenly intoned.

I opened my eyes and focused on the boy. ‘At your age,’ I said, going into Syriac for privacy, ‘you should be wearing no clothes at all on a day like this. But you might at least take off that bloody cloak. Do you want to be ill again?’ He bowed and said nothing. I gave up on the next sentence I was forming. If overdressed, Theodore had put on cleanish clothes. He’d even washed and combed his hair. I wondered if I could manage a paternal smile. Best not, I thought. I had a dozen clerks watching me with close attention. ‘What is it?’ I asked, trying instead to sound friendly.

‘I have a favour to ask of you,’ he mumbled in Greek.

I got up and put my hands on his shoulders. Even through four layers of wool, I could feel how bony they were. Why would the boy not give himself to Glaucus? There were limits to what could be done with a body so naturally unpromising but daily training would put something on those bones. It might also open out his lungs. I smiled into his sallow face, and felt the usual wave sweep over me of pity mingled with guilt. I should have sent him home to Tarsus. I could easily have paid for one of his dead father’s neighbours to take him on. But I’d felt so sorry for him in Athens, once his stepmother was gone.

‘Ask your favour,’ I said loudly. ‘The answer must surely be yes.’ There was an approving murmur from the clerks. Theodore opened and closed his mouth. He turned a shade of pink. He looked round at the clerks.

‘My Lord,’ a new voice called behind me, ‘the map is ready for your inspection.’

I looked away from Theodore. ‘Ready so soon?’ I asked. The drafting office must have been working night shifts to get that ready. I looked again at Theodore. He was no closer to making his request. ‘I’ll be up in my office,’ I said generally. ‘Join me after a half-hour break by the sun dial.’ I took Theodore by the arm. ‘Come on, I said. ‘We’ll talk indoors.’

After so long in bright sunshine, it was a matter of feeling my way to the foot of the backstairs or waiting for my eyes to adjust. I chose the latter. Even this far, a brisk walk had left Theodore wheezing slightly. ‘How is that eunuch who was taken poorly yesterday?’ I asked.

‘Father Macarius was with him at the end,’ came the answer in Theodore’s mournful voice. ‘His skin turned the colour of lead and he cried out that the Devil had taken his soul.’

‘Oh, surely not!’ I said in a voice of what I hoped was firm piety. Obviously, I thought about my cup. Unlike ceramic or wood, you can’t impregnate metal with poison. Both eunuchs had pawed all over the cup. One of them had polished it on his robe. That would have removed anything nasty smeared over the surface. There had been nothing left for me. I made a note to have a proper look at the thing once I was completely alone.

Chapter 25

I looked up from the squares of starched linen that covered half the floor in my office. ‘My compliments to the entire drafting office,’ I said. The young clerk nodded and tried not to look as pleased with himself as he deserved to feel. I took another step back to admire the neatness with which numbers had been turned into blocks of colour. If the basic idea was mine, the Treasury officials had eventually taken it up with an enthusiasm that made its final shape their own achievement. I took a step left and wondered if there had been some defect of scale in showing the Italian provinces. Also, was Syracuse really so far south of Corinth? It didn’t matter. It might even be useful to give Heraclius something he could then correct in some unimportant detail from his own knowledge. What did matter was the correspondence of numbers with colour. That, I could see, was wholly correct.