The Curse of Babylon (9 page)

They now decided they’d finished earning it. As the crowd drifted in the direction of the food wagons, I walked slowly across to the wide steps that led down to Imperial Square. This journey was already taking longer than it should. I needed a short cut to the city walls.

Dignity almost recovered, I stood on the topmost step and took my hat off. I fanned myself and put it back on. The breeze was settling into a regular wind and the afternoon might not be quite so sweltering as I’d thought it would be. I looked at my boots. They could do with a light brushing but I’d avoided stepping in any of the filth that drops from the bodies of the poor. I’ll not say my spirits were rising but it was a fine day for being out of doors. Nicetas was trying to do me over. Good seditionaries don’t come cheap. He’d spent a fortune on a cup that would be an excuse for one of Leander’s leaden epigrams. But I’d more than match that. I’d send the cup off to the mint and put notice of this into
The Gazette
. That would put a sour look on his face.

But all that could wait. Lucas was waiting outside the walls, and with evidence that might let me save still more of the taxpayers’ money on salaries and pensions. I prepared to hurry down into Imperial Square.

‘Might Your Honour be a gambling man?’ someone asked in the wheedling tone of the poor. I paid no attention and looked up at the sky – not a cloud in sight, but the gathering shift to a northern wind would soon justify my blue woollen cloak. ‘Go on, Sir – I can see it’s your lucky day!’ I looked round at someone with the thin and wiry build of the working lower classes. He looked under the brim of my hat and laughed. ‘For you, Sir, I’ll lay special odds,’ he said. ‘You drop any coin you like in that bowl down there.’ I didn’t follow his pointed finger. I’d already seen the disused fountain thirty feet below in Imperial Square. He put his face into a snarling grin. ‘Even a gold coin you can drop, Sir. The ten foot of green slime don’t count for nothing with my boy. He’ll jump right off this wall beside you, and get it out for you.’

I was about to tell him to bugger off and die, when I looked at the naked boy who’d come out from behind a column. I felt a sudden stirring of lust. Like all the City’s lower class, he was a touch undersized and there was a slight lack of harmony in the proportion of his legs to his body. For all this, his tanned skin was rather fetching. Give him a bath and . . .

Oh dear! He’d no sooner got me thinking of how much to offer, when he swept the hair from his eyes and parted very full lips to show two rows of rotten teeth. The front ones were entirely gone. The others were blackened stumps. Such a shame! Such a waste! So little beauty there was already in this world – and why did so much of that have to be spoiled? I could have thrashed the boy’s owner for not making him clean every day with a chewing stick. I stood up.

His owner hadn’t noticed. ‘Oh, Sir, Sir!’ he cried, getting directly in my way and waving his arms to stop me. ‘Sir, the deal is this. You throw in a coin. If the boy gets it out, you pay me five times your coin. If he can’t find it, I pay you five times. If he breaks his neck or drowns, I pay you ten times.’ He laughed and pointed at the boy again. I didn’t look, but wondered if I might make an exception. Bad teeth are bad teeth – but the rest of him was pushing towards excellent.

But I shook my head. I could fuck anything I wanted later in the day. Until then, duty was calling me again. Trying not to show I was running away, I hurried down the steps.

‘You’ve a nerve, showing your face in public!’ the old man croaked accusingly. I’d been aware of him – of him and all the others – as I hurried across the square. My main attention, though, had been given to an epigram about me scrawled on a statue plinth. It was in better Greek than your standard graffito and involved a play on words that joined the name Alaric with the use of powdered lark wing as an emetic. ‘Not content with stealing half my pension, you’re also putting both my boys out of work.’ He stopped in front of me and stamped his foot angrily.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here, Simeon,’ I said, taking my hat off in deference to his years.

‘And if you had seen me,’ he snapped, ‘you’d have been back up those steps before I could say “knife”.’ There was a murmur of agreement from all the other old wrecks in the square. I sighed. Would I
ever
get outside the city walls?

But let me explain. Imperial Square takes its name from the ministry buildings that surround it on three sides – either that, or from the group of statues at its western end. This is a complete set of emperors, beginning with Julius Caesar and culminating with Anastasius, whose reign, a century before, had seen the last big wave of city beautification. The statues were ordered in a tight spiral, with Anastasius at the outermost point. The series could easily have continued – Justin, Justinian, Justin, Tiberius, Maurice, Phocas – who, like the other tyrants, would simply have had an unmarked plinth – and then Heraclius. But the money or will had run out and the series stopped with Anastasius.

From the depression it had worn in the paving stones, the ritual of the aged could easily date from the time of Anastasius. The idea was to begin with Anastasius and, touching every plinth in turn, get round the outside of the spiral to Julius Caesar in the smallest number of breaths. The lap was then to be repeated on the inside on the spiral back to Anastasius. When there was no chariot racing or executions to watch, you could lay bets on who would get round the fastest. Sometimes, the square would be filled to bursting with the idlest sort of rich. Mostly, though, it was just a few dozen old men, some walking briskly, others staggering. No doubt those staggering had once been brisk and, assuming they got that far, the brisk would eventually stagger. So it had been going on since time out of mind despite the sun or rain or snow. So, if not quite to the end of time, it would continue.

And I’d brought it to a pause. Simeon took a step forward. The rest of the aged formed into a decrepit mob behind him. ‘Is it him? Is it
him
?’ one of them was crying insistently. ‘Is it the one the Devil has sent to destroy us?’ I could have taken to my heels. But I’d pulled my hat off. The least I could do was be polite.

‘Gentlemen,’ I said earnestly, ‘you have been repeatedly assured that the halving of salaries and pensions will be balanced by payment in the new and purer coinage. With the late fall in prices, I really don’t believe anyone will be worse off than before.’ That wasn’t true – unless renegotiated, most rents would effectively double – and it got me a low jeer, followed by a moaning, varied chorus of disapproval that was more genteel only in its expression than the roasting I’d had from the vermin who clustered round Nicetas. From more than one mouth, I caught the word ‘barbarian.’ I pretended not to hear this and waved my hat for silence. ‘Look, my dear friends, we’re at
war
,’ I went on in my reasonable tone. ‘We all have to make sacrifices.’ I caught Simeon’s eye, and put a faint edge into my voice. ‘Besides, your two sons are among the lucky third,’ I said to him directly. ‘They still have their positions.’ I smiled and waited for the threat to sink in. And it was more than a threat. Now I’d been allowed to make a proper start, even Heraclius was asking how much of the administration he’d inherited from the past was needed. I’d been looking at the Food Control Office for two years – you could double manpower in the home fleet if you shut down that gigantic waste of space.

I looked up briefly at the sun. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ I said with what I hoped was a winning smile, ‘I am on official business. I wouldn’t wish to keep you from your exercise.’

‘You won’t get away with this!’ an old man shouted after me as I set off again.

‘You try stopping me,’ I said under my breath.

‘You’re a cuckoo in the nest, Alaric,’ Simeon shouted as I hurried out of the Square. ‘I hope that assassin carves you up good and proper.’ He drew a long and wheezing breath. ‘God pays his debts without money – you mark my words.’

I pretended not to have heard.

Chapter 9

A word of advice, Dear Reader. If you ever feel inclined to follow someone about in the full light of day, do not dress yourself all over in black. Unless you’re in a place governed by odd sartorial rules, your victim will need to be blind or drunk not to notice you. My further advice is not to flit from tree to tree, or try taking shelter behind free-standing columns and street posts somewhat narrower than you are. Even if no one beats you up for looking dodgy, you’ll be laughed at.

I’d been aware of the absurd figure behind me long before Simeon had tried to do me the goodness of a warning. He’d probably been following me down the Triumphal Way. I’d certainly heard him clattering down the steps to Imperial Square. He was now making a pitiful effort not to be seen as he tiptoed twenty yards behind me, turning to look at statues or inscriptions every time I found reasonable cause to look round. Sadly for him, we were fully into siesta time. The streets were empty of everyone but a few skiving clerks. It looked a very cheap assassination attempt. If this were another Nicetas effort, he’d exhausted his budget on silver cups and seditionaries. Or probably not: Nicetas was the sort of man who’d spend more on finding this incompetent than on getting the job done properly.

I slowed down and took off my hat again. I wanted to make sure he’d keep my hair in sight. We were entering the medical district and it wouldn’t do for him to lose me in the drug market.

Indeed not. In all the years I knew it, there was never a siesta in the drug market. It was as crowded, as I walked that day into the square containing it, as the surrounding streets were empty. And why not? Along with all the worthless mummy dust and incantatory herbs, it’s here that the only heaven we’ll ever know is bought and sold by the ounce. I looked at the happy lunchtime trade. I breathed fully out and waited for a moment, before slowly breathing back in. Yes – it was the usual smell of opium vapour and the dust or steam from every other mood-altering substance known to man. Here is the one place where you can be awake and fully clothed and truly forget the horrors of existence. Here is a place where every species of physical and moral pain can be blotted out, and where every type and gradation of pleasure can be infallibly dispensed. I’ll add that, if you can’t make your own and you know the right people, it’s a fine place for buying poison.

‘Oh, My Lord!’ someone brayed into my left ear. ‘My dearest and sweetest young Lord!’ The compounder’s voice would have said Jewish, but for the inky skin of one whose ancestors had lived so long in the African sun that the colouring had become hereditary. Most who knew him struggled to recall his name. It was best to avoid trying to pronounce it. I turned to face him, and watched him sink to his knees. ‘No one said
you’d
be coming here!’ he whined up at me without moving his lips. He shuffled forward a few inches, nearly crushing the hand of one of the naked beggars who’d been trying to pick a blob of cannabis wax off the ground, and kissed the hem of my outer robe. ‘I don’t want any part of what’s going on.’

I glanced about the busy immensity of workshops and sampling booths, and put my thoughts in order. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I said softly. Two assistants came forward and helped him back to his feet. He struck up in a loud voice about a new kind of stimulant imported from a place beyond the knowledge of the geographers. As if from nowhere, another assistant stood forward with a tray of silver cups. I took one of them and twisted it between forefinger and thumb. Its contents had the sheen and solidity of quicksilver and a faint peppery smell. Though a stimulant was the last thing I needed this day, I nodded approvingly.

The compounder took the cup from me and leaned forward. ‘I thought
you
would know the penalties for treason,’ he said. He licked suddenly dry lips. ‘I can’t help you. No one can make me do that.’

I took the cup again and twirled its contents. I fought off a second, though slighter, panic attack. He’d been recommended to me shortly after I began my rise to eminence. He may have guessed, from the way I’d combined orders the year before, that I was not entirely correct in my dealings. But why start making a fuss
now
? I thought once more about my silver cup, doubts pressing heavy on what I could feel had been only a brittle certainty. It would have been useful to take him aside for questioning. A shame I was being followed. ‘You want to pull yourself together,’ I whispered. ‘The penalties for treason only apply to those who get caught. You just fill the same order every month and send me the bills – and keep your speculations to yourself.’ A look of confusion flickered across his face, before it lapsed into another happy smile. I put the cup back and said something loud and flattering.

I stopped at the last main booth to look at myself in one of the big mirrors young men used for practising how most elegantly to sniff vapour from a heated spoon. I moved into a shaft of sunlight and grinned uncertainly at my own reflection. Given my lack of beard, I’d have had trouble passing for twenty, let alone the thirty-five I’d implied without ever claiming to be. The dominant appearance though, for anyone able to see past the beauty, was of a man trying not to give way to an unease that was never far below the surface. Suppose that compounder’s nerve snapped and he turned himself in to the Emperor? Whatever happened to him, I’d probably get off with being locked away in a monastery – Heraclius had lately shown a taste for punishments to fit the crime. But it would be as spectacular a fall as any in the Empire’s ancient or modern history.