The Curse of Babylon (47 page)

Eunapius hurried past me into full sight of the bleary guard. ‘His Magnificence has asked us to wait outside a while,’ he said with a stab at firmness. ‘You may return to your place of supervisory inspection.’ With a laughed obscenity and a scraping of feet, the guard tramped off out of sight and hearing.

Eunapius turned back to Leander. ‘Come on,’ he said. He moved towards the room filled with candles. ‘We can grab him before he falls asleep in his chair. We’ll have him all to ourselves.’ He took Leander’s hand in his and stepped through the doorway. Since he hadn’t told us otherwise, I followed. I didn’t look round but had no doubt Antonia was close behind me.

On entering the palace, we’d skirted the areas I knew from my own visits. But, passing through empty, though vast and brilliantly lighted rooms, I could sense we were making our way towards the recital room. Sure enough, we reached the far end of a gallery filled with more art than I’d thought had survived from ancient times, to hear a muffled sound of drums and flutes on the other side of the door.

Uncertain again, Eunapius stopped. ‘Try to look confident,’ he whispered to Leander. For the first time, he turned to me. ‘He was complaining about his legs when we left him. There’s water and bandages in the usual place.’

Chapter 47

Upright in his chair, Nicetas opened his eyes. He focused on the three of us and reached for his walking stick. ‘I sent you away, Eunapius,’ he said wearily. ‘I said you had failed me and that I wouldn’t receive you again. Why are you back so soon?’

Antonia moved two paces to the left. She might have done this to let Nicetas see there were four of us. It also served, though, to block my view of one of the best dildo dances I’d seen outside a brothel. Stark naked, her father’s black girls weren’t at all put out by the lateness of the hour, or by their master’s lack of attention. I allowed myself one final look at the glistening, upturned breasts of the girl nearest to me, and turned my head back to the overdressed invalid for whom they’d been kept out of bed.

Eunapius poked Leander in the back. ‘Come on!’ he hissed, not moving his lips. The poet stepped forward and bowed with his arms stretched out. ‘I bring news of our preparations for the final assault,’ he began in a voice loaded with dramatic potential.

Nicetas paid him no attention. ‘There is a letter from my Imperial cousin,’ he said, still weary. He gripped harder on his stick and pointed me towards a silver side table. I bowed and walked slowly across the room. Formal communications from the Emperor were written in gold on a purple background. This was a personal note. The parchment sheet was folded in three and it wouldn’t do for me to be seen looking at it. One glance at Nicetas was enough to guess the generality of its contents. Never cheerful, he now radiated dejection. I carried the letter back and presented it with a low bow. Nicetas didn’t move. ‘I have been dismissed as Regent,’ he said after a long silence. ‘The Patriarch is appointed in my place and Alaric in his place till he gets back from Nicaea. Alaric has full authority to take such steps for the security of the Empire as he may think just and expedient.’

Behind me, I heard Eunapius fall to the floor. I suppressed my own desire to throw off this smelly outer robe and join the girls in a performance of the high step. With shaking hands, I put the letter on a spare footstool and cancelled the nap I’d had in mind for when I got home. The morning would be spent more productively getting Theodore to help write out six dozen arrest warrants and a terrifying proclamation. I’d drifted in with no idea what actions I could take to justify this entire digression from the work of buggering the catapult. But just standing about and looking nondescript had done enough for me so far.

Nicetas lifted his stick again and prodded me in the stomach. ‘Must I suffer all night without the ministrations of Holy Mother Church?’ he asked peevishly. Eunapius had said the bandages and water were in ‘the usual place.’ Search me where that might be. But Nicetas prodded me again and pointed a wavering finger at a polished chest beside the window. I bowed and went over to it. No bandages inside, unless I was supposed to tear up the cotton towels folded in a neat heap. I’d seen enough of Nicetas, though, to know the use of the other things I found. I gave the bowl and water jug to Antonia. The other things I carried back myself.

Leander started again in a voice too loud to shake. ‘The foul and bestial barbarian trembles behind his shattered walls. The renewed bombardment at dawn will cast down those walls as if they surrounded the city of Jericho. Then the Roman People will stream through the breach and find him wherever he takes cover. Was it not Sophocles who said that every barbarian excretes in his moment of death from every orifice?’

It was actually Callisthenes – but never mind that. While the poet’s voice rose to a squawk of enthusiasm, I set about my own work. My stomach had been turned any number of times by the sight, and the smell, of those inflamed legs. I’d never had cause to touch them. I undid the lower bandages and kept myself from puking by thoughts of my proclamation. I knelt back and allowed Antonia to do the washing. Trying to recall how I’d seen it done, I poured oil into a silver bowl and mixed in a double handful of something dark that had the consistency of roughly ground charcoal. I rubbed some of this between both hands, before starting work on the ankles.

With a long gasp of pain, Nicetas got me a sharp blow of his stick on my upper back. ‘Not so hard!’ he cried. ‘I’m not yet in Hell! The sacred earth from Sinai calls for only the lightest touch.’ He fell back again and groaned. I felt him scrabble for something. The crackle of parchment told me he was reading his cousin’s letter again.

Behind me, the door opened. ‘I thought you’d still be awake!’ Timothy said in his official voice. The door closed with a soft click, and there was the sound of leather soles on marble. Nicetas struggled to sit up again. With desperate urgency, he pushed the letter into my face. I turned to Antonia. But she was kneeling too far away to take it. He poked the letter inside my hood. I twisted my face this way and that, till the folded sheet was against the back of my neck. Assuming it said what I’d been told, it might come in handy once I was out of here. There was no certainty Heraclius had bothered writing to Sergius or me directly.

‘I said I’d give you till noon,’ Timothy said. ‘Bearing all things in mind, I’m having the mob cleared away as soon as there’s enough light for my men.’

‘So why have you come to tell me of your betrayal?’ Nicetas whined.

Timothy laughed. ‘Not out of politeness, you can be sure! What I want from you, my jumped up little provincial, is the names of your ringleaders among the mob. If you have any trace of common sense, you’ll agree on the value of having every last one of them hanging from the city walls. Even with Heraclius running the Intelligence Bureau, there are some kinds of evidence you don’t leave lying about. When our Lord and Master gets back, we need the past day to look as much as possible like a spontaneous collapse of order. The only alternative is for you to carry the whole blame.’

Nicetas hit me again with his stick. ‘But keeping order is your job,’ he whined. ‘You can’t shuffle the responsibility for that on to me. It was you who let the mob gather outside Alaric’s palace.’

Timothy laughed again, now with an unpleasantness that reminded me of Priscus. ‘Oh, I’ve got a signed note from silly Eunapius here, telling me to stand everyone down. I may get the sack for taking this as a direct order from you. But I’m presently only interested in keeping the head on my shoulders.’ I heard Eunapius scramble to his knees and begin a sobbing excuse – a piss-poor excuse, I’ll tell you it was: that sort of instruction he should have gone off to deliver in person.

Nicetas suddenly drew his legs back. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked me. In answer, I held up one of the maggots I’d been picking off his raw, ulcerated flesh. ‘You must
never
do that!’ he cried in horror. ‘Let them feast on what God has given them.’ There was no answer to that. I stared silently down at the heap of squashed bodies. Nicetas dragged his legs further under the chair. He poked me sharply in the chest. ‘Who are you?’ he asked angrily. ‘I don’t remember seeing you before.’ In Latin, he let out a brief apology to God. He looked at me again. He raised his stick as if to hit me across my face. He checked himself, but opened his mouth and drew a long and ragged breath. I hadn’t seen any guards on my way in. But who could say how many there were outside the main door to the room? Timothy was here. He’d surely have come with a file of prefecture guards to keep him safe.

But it was Leander to the rescue. ‘I can feel the Muse about to come upon me!’ he cried in what was supposed to be a thrilling descent. He clapped his hands together. The soft and wailing music that had never so far let up came to an abrupt end. I heard the rustle of clothing and the soft patter of his feet as he wheeled about in his poetic manner. Then:

O golden youth, this day

By seven and thirty summers blessed,

That only joyful thoughts we pray

Shall animate thy breast.

Who cares for Alexander?

Pelopidas who knows?

Than thee a manlier commander

Who shall dare propose?

This day, O splendid, golden youth,

By seven and thirty summers blessed,

Those who love thee know in truth

Of all days is the happiest.

Leander fell silent in a completely silent room. I watched Antonia’s shoulders tremble in one of her quiet laughing fits. Unfair, I thought – this had been one of his better productions. No one else moved. Nicetas was first to speak. ‘Bravo, my Poet!’ he cried. ‘Though my birthday is still four months away, was ever such a gift made by a poet to his patron?’ Timothy cleared his throat. But Nicetas wasn’t finished. ‘Leander, I say as a man famed for both learning and taste, that no poet, ancient or modern, has approached you in genius of inspiration or elegance of style.’ He reached once more for his stick, but this time missed it. With a sigh, he waited for it to stop its loud rolling across the floor. With another sigh, he pulled his left leg forward, then his right. ‘If only, my dearest friend, you would work miracles other than with words. Our heads sit so weakly on our shoulders.’

For the moment at least, Nicetas had forgotten about me. I could have grovelled at the man’s feet till he got sick of us all. I could then have crept off with Antonia back to my palace to wait on events. But the idea I’d been turning over was now complete. I finished washing my hands and stood up. I pulled at the main tie of my robe and let it fall to the ground. ‘Since you’ve asked for a miracle,’ I said, stepping free of the grubby cloth, ‘how about this one?’ I bowed to Nicetas. I bowed to Timothy. I bent down and fished for the Emperor’s letter. I picked it up and glanced at the childish hand. Nicetas had got this one right. A few words, followed by the impression of a signet ring on beeswax, had made me, until His Holiness could make it across the straits, supreme ruler of the Roman Universe.

More silence. Then, with a squeal of fright, Eunapius was on his feet and making for the door. Antonia got there first. He dodged the punch she threw at him. He wasn’t so lucky when she got out a lead cosh. She landed a blow to the side of his head and stood back to watch him thresh about. ‘Hello, Daddy!’ she said, pulling her hood down. ‘We’ve come to ask for your blessing.’ She came over and took my hand in hers. ‘Poor Mummy would have envied me rotten, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

Never vocal at the best of times, Nicetas had the look on his face of a man who’s just taken an arrow in the chest and isn’t sure yet if it merely hurts or will finish him off. It was Timothy who broke the silence. He snapped his fingers at Leander. ‘I want two chairs over here,’ he said. He looked at Antonia. ‘Make it three. And put another against that door.’ As he sat down carefully, the music started again. Slow and undulating, the girls formed a new line with their dildoes. Together, we made the four points of an irregular rectangle. Leander stood behind Nicetas with bowed head. Eunapius had crawled away from the door. A miserable and unmoving heap, he was in sight and in convenient distance for killing.

‘What’s in that letter?’ Timothy asked. I unfolded it and held it up to read. He sniffed. ‘I haven’t seen what you sent the booby. But, since you haven’t tried arresting me, dear boy, I might as well ask what deal you have in mind. At this stage in proceedings, you’ll find me refreshingly open to a deal.’

I smiled coldly. He’d learned much from Priscus, even down to the intonations of his voice. I’d always known he was a snake posing as a buffoon. Time to see if he was clever enough to recognise his own true interest. ‘At dawn,’ I said, ‘you clear the street outside my palace. I accept your claim that you were ordered not to intervene. I believe Nicetas when he says he was held prisoner in his own palace and orders were issued in his name. Such other dirt as I may have on you and your friends will disappear.’ I looked at Eunapius. The logic was inescapable. When something goes wrong, someone must be blamed. When the right people can’t be blamed, someone else must be. But Eunapius couldn’t be allowed to stand trial – not before Heraclius, not in public. All I had to do was kill a man in cold blood and I could have my heart’s desire. I passed over the detail. ‘Nicetas will, of course, accept me as his son-in-law and use every possible endeavour to persuade the Emperor not to withhold his own consent.’