The Curse of Babylon (28 page)

‘Oh, shut up and be seated!’ I snapped. ‘I’ll have no more of this nonsense. The stars tell us nothing. The Horn of Babylon is a piece of silver looted from a tomb. You’ve already admitted you can’t understand whatever’s written on it.’ I looked from one shaking face to another. ‘If your methods gave true knowledge about the world, I think we’d have seen better results after so many thousands of years.’ There I stopped. I hadn’t time or patience for lectures on the nature of true science. I’d softened them for questioning and I’d now have some answers. ‘The Horn of Babylon,’ I said, ‘is wanted by a man called Simon. I want to know what connection he has with the Emperor’s cousin. I also want to know to what extent both these men are connected with the Persians, and why.’

I could say what I wanted. Fat chance I had of getting it. There was a loud cry of warning that came through the window. It rose to a shrill scream before suddenly ending. It was followed by a wild scraping of boots and a shouting of orders and by a firm banging of sword pommels on wood.

Chapter 28

I turned and pulled the curtain down. In the light from the candles, I could see that the door’s one bolt wouldn’t stand a hard shove from the other side. I looked about for something to wedge against it. Even before I could give up on that idea, someone banged loudly.

‘Alaric,’ Simon shouted, ‘I know you’re in there. I’ve given orders that you aren’t to be harmed. Put your sword down and stand away from the door.’

‘O Reverend Masters,’ the compounder begged, ‘let me stand within your pentagram of safety.’ Not speaking, the old men moved to its centre and clutched at each other.

I didn’t ask for permission. I stepped over the chalked line and kicked one of the candles over. ‘You can have this back in a moment,’ I said, picking up its iron holder. I carried it over to the window. I heard a scrape of many feet outside the door. ‘I’ve got my sword ready, Simon,’ I shouted. ‘Whoever comes in first gets it in his guts.’ That would buy me a little time. I swung the candleholder against the shutter. The whole rickety thing fell outwards and I blinked in the sudden brightness. It was a small window. I’d have to go out diagonally. Men were banging on the door and shouting. The men in the room were deep in argument over who had a right to be within the chalked line on the floor. I put my hands on the frame and heaved myself through into the daylight.

The bottom of the window was level with the ground and I came out on my hands and knees. ‘There he is!’ someone shouted from my left. I jumped up and went for my sword. Picking their way forward over the broken ground and forming a loose crescent as they came, there were a dozen men who hadn’t gone with Simon inside the building. He may have been telling the truth. Perhaps I wasn’t to be killed this time. If so, I could make a dash forward and cut my way to freedom. But these were big men and they were armed. Mad as it seemed, the only escape was back inside the building.

‘Don’t read the inscription, Alaric!’ I heard one of the old men shout feebly from the room. The next sound had to be the compounder’s dying scream. For another few moments it would be chaos in there and more men would be hurrying down to join it. I waved my sword at the nearest armed man and stumbled back inside the building.

I nearly bumped into someone at the top of the first flight of stairs. He had time to fall back and pull out his knife. Before he could shout for help though, I’d got the point of my sword under his chin. I pushed until it hit the back of his head. I pulled it free and stepped over his twitching body. From the far end of the corridor came a noise of approaching boots. ‘Remember, I want him alive!’ Simon shouted. ‘I don’t care if he’s wounded. But I want him alive.’ It was worth hearing that. But there were men behind me now and I’d soon be caught from both sides. I tried to keep my feet from making any noise and darted up the next flight of stairs.

Most buildings in the poor districts are designed for rapid escape – that, or the inhabitants prefer to avoid stepping into those stinking puddles when calling on their more distant neighbours. On first entering, I’d instinctively looked for and seen the slender walkway of planks held together with rope that connected this building to another across the yard. That’s what I was now looking for. At the top of every flight, I expected to see a hole knocked into the wall and my means of escape. Below me, I could hear a sound of smashed wood and of screams mingled with loud shouting. Simon was dividing his forces with a search of the whole building. No one yet behind me, I raced higher and higher upward in the stone tower. I found nothing until the topmost flight of stairs. This ended in a wooden door. I sheathed my sword and hurried towards it.

Just in time, I realised I’d overshot the walkway. I’d almost overshot the roof. I threw myself back from the dazzling sunshine and a wild fluttering of birds. It was only because the door was unlocked that I hadn’t smashed through it and plunged sixty feet to my death. I gripped the doorframe and looked down into the yard.

‘He’s up there!’ Simon shouted. He’d left the building and, shading his eyes, was looking up at me from the courtyard. ‘Look – he’s on the roof!’ He laughed happily and, making quickly for the entrance to the building, rapped out a stream of orders that I couldn’t hear. Behind me, there was already a clatter of boots on the stairs. The walkway was ten feet below me and another eight to my right. I hadn’t seen it on my way up because it led from one of the lodging rooms. I ran fingers though my hair and tried to think. Trying to jump from here was a desperate last resort. I was some way from that. I looked at the crumbling roof tiles I’d have to crawl across to be able to jump down to the walkway. Keeping hold of the doorframe, I leaned forward into nothingness and twisted round to see how easily I could heave myself on to the roof.

A few yards behind me, someone shouted a warning. I turned and drew my sword again. He dodged my main blow but I managed a slicing cut to the side of his neck. With a scream of horror, he fell back, clutching at himself, blood spraying from where I’d got him. He was a big man and his body blocked the way for the other two men who’d come up with him – not that either who stood back from the twitching, blood-soaked thing I’d thrown at them seemed inclined to try his luck. Keeping my sword ready, I pulled off the cloak the compounder had given me and threw it at the men. I thought longer than I should about my outer tunic. It was of cotton, brought all the way as a made-up garment from India, and dyed a lovely blue. Its price would have paid any rent in this district for a hundred years. But I took it off and threw this down as well. I sheathed my sword and blew a kiss at the two men. Before either could make a dash to stop me, I’d sprung with a force and agility that would have made even Glaucus cheer and was spreadeagled, face down, on the roof.

Or would Glaucus have cheered? I had intended one roll to the left, followed by an easy jump down to the walkway. When you’re still feeling the rush of a quick kill, everything looks possible. I’d made my calculations and I had no reason to doubt them. But I’ve never been one for heights and, for one sickening instant, I felt myself gather speed as I slid down the roof. With a ripping of silk on wooden holding pegs, I stabilised. But this only gave me the time to go into a full panic. My stomach had turned to ice and my limbs felt as if they’d turned to stone.

One of the men pushed his bearded face above the doorframe to see where I’d gone. ‘Come back, you fool!’ he shouted. He stretched a hand forward and scrabbled on tiles about nine inches from me. Deep inside the building, someone was shouting for Simon.

I wanted a triumphant cry of ‘Fuck you!’ All I managed was a faint squawk, followed by another wave of panic as the man pulled his hand back and I saw what seemed to be my one chance of staying alive move out of reach. He stretched forward again, this time only dislodging one of the tiles. I saw it slip out of sight. What seemed an age later, I heard it strike something solid in the yard. I pressed my sweating face closer against the roof and forced myself to think. Now, the tile peg that had got itself tangled in my inner tunic snapped and, if I didn’t move yet, I had the awful feeling that one breath would send me on my way. Willing my wrist not to move, I dug the fingers of my left hand underneath one of the tiles. It snapped halfway up as if it had been made of dried mud and slid down with a clatter, ending in a silence that set off a dull roaring in my head. I controlled myself and got my fingers under what remained. This time, it came fully away, and there was a three inch gap where the tile below didn’t cover. I plunged my whole arm down, dislodging more tiles, until I was clutching at one of the more solid battens. With another ripping of silk, I pulled myself into a sitting position and recovered a semblance of nerve while staring across a sea of other roofs, until the view was blocked by the clouds of steam that rose above the tanneries.

‘Fuck you!’ I did now cry. ‘If you want me, you come and get me.’ No answer. In place of another grab at me, there was a splintering of wood in the room directly below me. I looked forward. I was just about level with the walkway. If I dithered here much longer, those big men would grab hold of my legs and pull me back inside. I bit my lip and edged forward to where the tiles were unbroken. My stomach was twisting into funny knots and I wondered if I’d find the nerve to jump straight down. Once I was away from where I’d been able to hold on, though, it was like going down a children’s slide. Gathering speed, and attended by a clatter of more dislodged tiles, I was over the edge before I could realise the full madness of what I was doing. After a moment of nothingness, I hit the walkway chest first and with a loud smack that trailed off into an echo that reminded me of a plucked harp string.

The walkway had no upper ropes for holding on. Using it was a matter of acquired balance. On instinct, I’d spread my arms and legs as I hit. Now, fighting for the breath that had been knocked out of me on impact, I joined my hands underneath the slats and got my feet together. More shocked than scared, I held on grimly and waited for the whole slender things of rope and rotting wood to stop swaying like a branch in the wind. ‘Stiff upper lip – stiff upper lip!’ I kept telling myself, for some reason in English. It didn’t work. I wasn’t as high up as the windows of my sleeping quarters. But there’s a difference between standing on a rising sequence of brick arches that have survived a century of earthquakes, and looking through the two-inch spacings between wooden slats that are only eighteen inches long and half as much wide. I clutched harder and was aware of the still-dancing image, so very far below, of men who ran about, shouting and pointing up at me.

But I heard more shouting behind me, and I forced myself up on hands and knees to crawl across the void that separated me from the far building. Other slats disintegrated as I passed over them. I thought, the whole way, I’d tip over or go through. I focused on the slats a foot in front of my nose and did my best not to see the impossible distance they kept me from falling. Men shouted from the building I’d left. Because no one dared follow me, the cries grew fainter as I made my way steadily forward. Below in the yard Simon was in sight again and was ordering men into the far building.

I’d not be staying in the far building. I pushed past a couple of curious boys and an old woman, who’d woken from their siesta, and made for the next walkway. I was already a quarter across it and wondering if the next building would allow a choice of further escapes, when on the far side two men with the dark beards of Syrians stepped forward from the shade and raised their swords in silent warning.

I turned back. I was still on the last slats when another man appeared in front of me. ‘You’re going nowhere, my lad!’ he snarled. He spoke to an accompaniment of approaching feet on the stairs. ‘You’ll come quietly if you know what’s good for you.’ He would have spoken more. But I now had my sword out. As he went for his own, I lunged forward and ran him through in the lower belly. I got up unsteadily, grabbed him by his beard and kicked him downstairs. Screaming and tumbling head over heels as he went, he crashed into more men who’d been hurrying up to join him. I was having a good day with the body on the staircase blocking move!

I turned back to the walkway. One of the men at the far end had a better sense of balance than I had and was already halfway towards me. I wheeled about and looked frantically for some other escape. I could go up the last flight of stairs to the roof but I didn’t expect there to be any way off that. I could hear more men coming upstairs to join the two who were untangling themselves from the dying man I’d thrown at them. I went down a step and slashed at them with my sword. They fell back and looked round for the approaching support. I put my sword away and jumped back to the entrance to the walkway. I bent down and took hold of the two ropes that secured all the slats. I lifted and pulled them, and watched the Syrian I’d surprised throw himself forward to catch hold of the walkway. I pulled again and sent an undulating motion towards him. He missed his hold and fell headfirst, screaming all the way. He landed in a mass of filth and, alive though injured, cried piteously for help. His colleague stepped back to safety and waved his sword again.

‘Simon wants me alive,’ I said softly in a voice that shook like sobs. ‘He wants me alive.’ I waited for the swaying walkway to stabilise, then made myself get down again on all fours and crawl carefully forward. The seam of my inner tunic had split and its silk was slithering down my forearms. If only I’d been brave enough to lift my hands off the ropes, I’d have pulled it free and sent it billowing towards the ground – even in the state I’d put it, it was another windfall for some lucky pauper.