The Curse of Babylon (38 page)

Again with his back to me, Shahin pulled another book from its leather case and unrolled it a few turns. ‘So this is the latest fashion in poetry?’ he asked accusingly. He dropped one of the spines and allowed the book to unroll completely. ‘These modern Greeks are sadly decayed, don’t you think? Perhaps Chosroes is right that the time is come for a new language to dominate the East.’ He sniggered and went back to his inspection. ‘But look at this metaphor. It doesn’t even scan.’

I walked across the room and, keeping just out of reach, bent down to look at the opening sheet of the book. Shahin tipped the lamp forward so I could read the neat rows of text. ‘It’s not so very bad,’ I said. ‘You should have been where I was earlier tonight.’ I straightened up. ‘But I don’t think your main interest here is literary criticism. Can I take it that you’d like to bypass those losers downstairs and deal directly with the possessor of the Horn of Babylon?’

He sniggered again. ‘It has its convenient side,’ he said, now in Persian, ‘that you overheard everything. So, yes – let’s talk about the Horn of Babylon. I do wish I’d known, when we had that yummy dinner onboard my ship yesterday, that you had it. We could have saved much time – and avoided so many embarrassments.’ He dropped the other spine of the book and perched himself on one of the reading tables. ‘How can I persuade you to give it to me? I don’t imagine money will tempt you. I daren’t make
you
Emperor: you’d find a competent general, and ease his path straight to Ctesiphon with gold and diplomacy. So what price has pretty young Alaric in mind?’

‘You could try guessing,’ I answered. I moved the lamp to another table, where Shahin’s rhythmical swinging of legs wouldn’t tip it over. I pulled over a chair and sat down a couple of yards from him. If I could arrest him, I’d kill the plot stone dead. But he was easily a match for me with his sword – that was one exercise he’d never neglected. And there were his men to keep in mind. At best, he’d get away. At worst, the noise would bounce Timothy and Eunapius into a revolution that might succeed.

Shahin watched my face. He smiled knowingly. ‘You can’t keep the silver cup,’ he said. ‘You can’t give it to Heraclius. But you’ve probably worked that out for yourself. As for those idiots we left snapping at each other, you can’t make a deal with them. Since old Priscus croaked his last, Timothy has taken over as shitbag in chief. He’d have a knife in your back before he could draw breath from saying “Many thanks, dear boy.” So why not bring it to me while I wait at the docks? You can come with me to Shahrbaraz. Bring the girl too. You’ll be surprised how merciful and forgiving Chosroes can be to those who give him what he wants.’

‘That would be a side to the Great King’s character I haven’t yet seen,’ I said. ‘How about telling me why the cup is so important?’

He giggled again. ‘Since the cup goes where you go for the moment,’ he said, ‘let’s talk about you.’ He straightened his face. ‘Look, Alaric, my orders include an express instruction to keep you from harm, so far as I can, and to beg you to come back to Ctesiphon. Chosroes promises a total safe conduct and will swear any oath to that effect.’

‘I’ve seen how your boss keeps his promises,’ I said. Far down in the main hall, I heard a noise. It was followed by one of?
Timothy’s rumbling laughs. Either they’d finally settled on the next Emperor, or they were sick of arguing. I walked across to the door and listened. I turned back to Shahin. ‘Supposing I refuse to do business with you?’ I asked.

‘You’d be a fool, Alaric,’ he said. ‘You owe fuck all to Heraclius. Everyone else in this Empire is praying for your death. Come back with me to Ctesiphon. The Jews will always put in a kind word for you. Our own Christians are at war with the Empire over theological trifles – and they appreciate your efforts at securing a toleration within the Empire of their heresies. All Chosroes wants is to put some ideas to you. I know he still likes you.’

I walked to the far end of the room. I put my hand on a solid rack that had once contained a full set of Livy. The brass plate on one of the square openings still gave the name and title of the work. Some of the slots, I’d found on an earlier visit, were now filled with trashy novels in Greek. The others were used for a guessing game with dice. I turned and stared back at Shahin. The moon had shifted and he sat within a shaft of its dim light.

‘I’ll grant that Heraclius may not be pleased to know I’ve learned his secret,’ I said. ‘However, I’ve always been able to bring him round. I don’t feel so sure about the Great King. And why should I trust
you
?’

‘That’s a chance you’ll have to take, my beautiful darling,’ he chuckled. He got up and went over to the door. He pulled it open and possibly a dozen of his big Syrians filed in. ‘Now that we’re alone, I think I can risk a little noise. Take the boy alive,’ he ordered in Syriac. ‘I want him unhurt.’

Shahin and his men were thirty feet away. I was beside one of the bigger windows. Though glazed, its lead framework was perished. Beyond this, I knew, was a ten-foot drop to a tiled roof. ‘Oh, Shahin,’ I said, ‘you can’t be serious about taking me. It’ll soon be dawn. If you expect to march me all the way home to get that cup, you’ll be making your way back through the City in broad daylight.’

His men were coming forward in loose formation. Shahin kept behind them. ‘That isn’t my plan at all, my pretty,’ he called soothingly. ‘I’m assuming the attraction between you and that girl is mutual. You’re coming with me – though perhaps to better quarters than we managed last night. If the girl brings the cup tomorrow, I won’t kill her. If she doesn’t, you must appreciate that you’re almost as big a trophy to carry back as the cup itself.’ He bowed satirically and touched his forehead. He dropped his voice to a bureaucratic snarl. ‘I don’t want a mark on him,’ he reminded his men.

The big window was a foot behind me. I could have chosen better rooms for a getaway when Shahin called for his parley. I didn’t fancy a second tiled roof in one day – not in a toga, not in the dark. But the library had been safely distant from the tunnel where I could hope Antonia had made her own escape.

Of course, I’d wasted my time. Even as I weighed the benefits of pulling the window open, or jumping straight through it, you can guess who sidled into the room. I say sidled – with that overdone creeping across the floor, Antonia would have been booed off any stage where she was playing in a chorus of conspirators. Luckily, everyone else was now making too much noise to notice her. The first Shahin knew of her was when she got behind him.

‘Move an inch,’ she cried in a poor approximation of the manly, ‘and I’ll saw your head off.’ She pulled him backwards and tightened her grip. I saw the dull sheen of steel in the moonlight.

Shahin opened his mouth and laughed. ‘What splendid taste you have in women, Alaric,’ he cried in Persian. ‘So many the chances I passed up at our last meeting.’ Letting out a squeak that was probably meant to be a growl, Antonia pressed the blade harder still against his throat. ‘Shall I order my men to put down their swords?’ he jeered. ‘Or shall I just shit myself with terror?’ As he finished, he produced what may have been his best ever artificial fart. A moment later, he went limp. Surprised, or trying for a better angle, Antonia relaxed her pressure. That was the end of her hostage-taking. I couldn’t see what Shahin did with his left arm. But I did hear the thud of her knife against one of the bookracks. He twisted round and knocked her to the floor. With a cry of triumph, he was waving his men forward again. ‘Change of plan, Alaric!’ he sniggered. ‘Go for that window, and you’ll never see her again.’

But I’d already given up on the window. Sword in hand, I punched his closest heavy aside, and dodged past another, and was level with Shahin before he could draw breath again. I gave up the chance of killing him. Instead, I snatched Antonia into my free hand and threw her towards the door. ‘Get out!’ I said urgently. I turned back to deal with Shahin. But he’d got himself behind one of the tables and was calling out a stream of orders in Syriac. I reached for the lamp and threw it at the men. It went out at once and crashed uselessly against a wall, but gave me time to dart past them after Antonia.

Out on the big landing, I paused to get my bearings. The best way out was down the stairs. The soft patter of feet on marble, though, ruled that out. If we turned sharp left, there was another room with an open balcony. We could barricade ourselves in there till Shahin ran out of time. I reached out for Antonia. She wasn’t where I’d expected her to be, but cried out from behind me. I turned in time to get one of the dim shadows with the flat of my sword. I heard his head strike loud on one of the marble balustrades. Before I could reach out again, someone else grabbed hold of my cloak. It was now all a blur about me of darting shadows. I stepped backwards and raised my sword. Antonia cried out again and I think she wriggled free. Because I lunged in her direction, most of the blow from behind landed on my shoulder. Even so, I staggered and lost my footing on the topmost step. I grabbed at nothingness, but thought I’d catch my balance. I didn’t quite. The best I could manage as I fell backwards was to twist so that I rolled down the first flight of steps. Dazed and winded, I pushed myself to a kneeling position against one of the balustrades and patted round for my sword.

‘Someone, get a light!’ Shahin roared. ‘Find him. I want him alive.’

Antonia was suddenly beside me. ‘Get up,’ she moaned, pulling at my clothes. ‘I don’t think they can see us.’ I rubbed my head and looked about. Far above in the library, someone had struck a light. Someone else was feeling his way down the stairs. The moment we ran for it, we’d be seen. But it was that or be found anyway. Still feeling for my sword, my hand touched on the face of the man who’d broken my fall. I didn’t recall the impact, but hoped he was alive – that, or that I hadn’t made him bleed. Just as much as Shahin, I needed no signs of violence left behind in the baths.

Antonia pulled harder. ‘We must go,’ she moaned, her voice hovering between desperation and tears. I gave up on my sword. Holding hands with Antonia, I stumbled down into the main hall and let her take me towards the door that led down to the furnace rooms. I pulled it open and looked back into the hall. Leaning over the balcony, pointing and calling out, Shahin was surrounded by men carrying makeshift torches of papyrus. A few yards behind me, two dark figures had stopped chasing and, swords in hand, were now creeping forward.

I slammed the door in their faces and didn’t wait to feel if there was a bolt I could draw. We fell down more steps into the complete darkness of the drainage tunnel. Expecting at any moment to hear the creak of wood on rusty hinges and a shouting of many voices, I kept hold of Antonia and rushed along the tunnel. We crashed once into a wall where it curved. I think I stumbled twice on the uneven floor. But there was no sound of a chase behind us. In a silence broken only by the crunch and echo of our own footsteps, we ran the length of the tunnel and came out into the comparative brightness of the moonshine that lit up the rubbish-filled depression hiding the tunnel’s entrance.

In silence, we walked together in the shadow of the immense warehouses that lined every street in this part of the City. It would need supreme bad luck to bump into Shahin or any of his people out here. I had no sword and Antonia’s knife was somewhere on the library floor. Even so close to the dawn, there was some risk of thieves or of drunken youths of quality out for one last thrill.

In safety, though, we came once more to the Central Milestone. The sky behind the Great Church was already bright. Before long, the public slaves would be out to clean the streets. With them would come the working lower orders about their business. I turned in the direction of the Triumphal Way.

‘We did it!’ Antonia said flatly. ‘We got away.’

‘We got away again,’ I corrected her. I thought of a brief lecture on the folly of getting involved in men’s work. But, in the growing light of day, I stared down at the sorry thing my toga had become. You could now soak it in urine for a month and the stains wouldn’t come out. As for the long rip from the waist down . . .

Antonia caught the look on my face and went into quiet though helpless laughter. It was impossible not to join in. Hand in hand, shaking with a mirth no observer could have explained, we made our way round the big fountain Constantine had set in a square laid out to commemorate the religious concord he thought had followed the outcome of the Council of Nicaea.

What a fathead he’d been! Still, he’d given his name to the City. That could make anyone’s name immortal.

Chapter 39

I stretched out lazily for my wine cup. Making sure not to spill any on the silken sheets, I sipped with exaggerated delicacy. ‘You will marry me?’ I asked, trying not to sound as eager as I felt.

Antonia wriggled free of me and sat up. Since dawn, we’d coupled and slept, and coupled again and again, and slept. It was hours since I’d told Samo to go away and tell anyone who asked that I was still indisposed. Long before then, I’d barely noticed how the sun had reached its blazing zenith and the rumble of traffic far below my sleeping quarters had died away. But the long ecstasy was over. Bruised and bitten, sore from the unobserved drying up of every fluid supplied by nature for the normal satisfaction of lust, I kicked the bedclothes away and wiggled my toes.