The Ghosts of Athens (10 page)

His Grace the Bishop of Nicaea gave me the sort of look that might have soured milk. ‘I was told you were dead,’ he grated. ‘The devil himself couldn’t have survived those storms.’

‘But, Simeon, my dearest love,’ Priscus broke in beside me, ‘we
did
survive – and here we are, to keep you safe in Athens.’ He reached up and wiped a rivulet of black dye the rain had carried from his hair to the beak of his nose.

Simeon arranged his face into a gloating frown and stared a while at Priscus. ‘He forgave you the loss of Cappadocia last spring,’ he sneered. ‘But, when the Emperor heard you had abandoned your post, and gone off to join this barbarian child in Egypt, he shut himself in with his confessor for three whole days. He’ll need more than your usual pack of lies if you aren’t to be degraded to baggage carrier.’

‘And a very full report he will have,’ came the reply in the voice of a man reprieved at the last moment. ‘It isn’t just on the field of battle that the enemy is defeated. Isn’t that so, Alaric?’

Simeon shrugged contemptuously. ‘You can save your lies, the pair of you, for those more gullible than me,’ he said. He turned his bearded face up at what should have been the sky, but was simply a brightness of grey mist. ‘I’m getting myself back into my chair before I catch my death of cold.’ Without looking at either of us, he stepped past. He was followed by the other bishops. I recognised the Bishop of Ephesus. He cut off my greeting with a haughty sniff. The others did make some effort to look charming – then again, being Asiatic Greeks, they all had the dark looks and oily manner of Syrians: if the pair of us had just been sentenced to row in a ferry boat across the Bosporus, they’d have still managed those smiles and fluttering hands.

But this wasn’t the end of the matter. After a few paces, Simeon stopped and looked back at us. ‘I hear, My Lord Alaric,’ he chuckled, ‘that you never did get your land law published in Alexandria. Such a pity, everyone in Constantinople agrees, you let Priscus burn the city down instead.’

His Grace of Ephesus gave a spluttering laugh.

Simeon raised a hand to silence him. ‘You may think His Holiness the Patriarch will protect you again,’ he sneered. ‘The question back home, I can tell you, is who will protect the Patriarch? If Ludinus gets his way, Constantinople will soon have a new and very different Patriarch.’

‘Yes, a new and
very
different Patriarch!’ His Grace of Ephesus repeated in a high-pitched snigger. They looked at each other and laughed. Then they were hurrying over to their covered chairs.

Not caring who might be watching, Priscus leaned with both hands against the wall. ‘So Ludinus
is
back in favour,’ he whispered, going back to one of our more panicky on-board conversations. ‘I could smell the old eunuch’s breath all over that commission of yours.’

I looked round again. Mention of that awful name had set my insides churning again. This was just the sort of joke Ludinus would play: give us time to frighten ourselves silly – and then pounce once we’d had a moment’s relief. And if he really was back in the ascendant, neither of us could expect anything better than his best ever joke. It would seal his victory and his revenge. But I could still see no glint of armour under any of the cloaks on the wet docks. Nor could I believe the whole assembled company – not in a place like Athens – was up to playing along so well. I glanced over at Martin, who was getting things ready for the journey to Athens. Since I hadn’t yet been arrested, he was assuming that my orders to get everyone safely away had lapsed.

‘Not quite in the clear, I’ll grant,’ I said to Priscus. ‘But I hope you’ll agree it could be worse.’ I bit my lip and wondered how to get word to tell Martin at least to stay in Piraeus. Perhaps his judgement was sound, however. Perhaps I was right in what I’d just said. There could be no fatted calf awaiting us in Constantinople. Even getting to the Emperor would be a matter of sneaking past an army of court eunuchs. But that was looking too far ahead. For the moment, we weren’t under arrest. It could have been worse.

Priscus gave me one of his blankest looks. ‘We stand or fall together,’ he whispered so low I could barely hear him. ‘Let’s not forget that.’

It was now that I saw the common people of Athens. Rather, it was now that I saw about a hundred of them. Obviously sick of grovelling on their bellies, they were clambering to their feet. My heart should have sunk as I looked at them. Even making allowances for the rain, you’d have had to go to one of the lowest districts of Constantinople to find an uglier, dirtier rabble than this. If these were a fair sample of its common people, Athens was well and truly fallen below its ancient glory. One of them shambled forward, a sly look on his face. What he said must have been a kind of Greek, but I’d hardly have guessed.

I forced a gracious smile and accepted a bunch of ruined flowers that someone had produced. Speaking very slowly, and in Greek that a barbarian slave just brought to market couldn’t have failed to understand, I made a little speech of thanks. I got a subdued cheer that would have pleased me more if some toothless creature hadn’t started a long cackle and pointed at me. Someone else to his left was grinning and repeatedly dabbing the tip of his nose. Deeper in the crowd, I saw a couple of men dressed in the sort of dark clothing I’d seen the desert people wear in Egypt. They may have been a little cleaner than the others, but were no taller. One of them had his right hand outstretched in my direction. Normally, I’d have seen nothing through the piece of cloth he’d put over his hand. The rain, though, had soaked this along with everything else. I could see the gesture, in which middle and ring fingers were held down by the thumb, and index and little fingers were extended outward like horns.

‘Since you have no wife to cheat on you, dear boy,’ Priscus called from behind me, ‘I’d say the locals were scared of your evil eye.’

‘A shame we can’t see his face,’ I replied. ‘But I rather think he’s looking at
you
!’

Leaving Priscus to stare back, or pull faces – or just wish there had been a few properly armed guards he could send into the crowd – I turned away, and picked my way back to where Nicephorus and everyone else were standing in the full drizzle of the rain. I lifted both arms to stop them from going down for another prostration. Too late! All I managed was to dislodge the canvas from my shoulders. By the time I’d got it back in place to save my fine clothes from a proper soaking, everyone was up again. With a bow that might have looked graceful in better weather, Nicephorus stared just a while too long at Priscus. Then he pointed at two covered chairs that had appeared from somewhere.

As I parted its curtain with my own hands and fell into the dryish if rather putrid interior, I heard Sveta shouting in her native Slavic at a couple of slaves who’d dropped some of our luggage. I heard their bored excuses. Close by was the shrill crying of her child and then of my own. Now, I heard the cries of sailors and the steady splash of water as the Imperial galley that had carried us in such pomp from Alexandria set off to make its appointment in the dry docks of Corinth.

I did mention my first sight of Athens. So far, I hadn’t seen much of Piraeus. But who could care about that? I looked at my shaking hands. There wasn’t the hint of a manacle on either wrist. I was about to see whatever had become of Athens. And, unless my greeting really had been the cruellest trick even Ludinus could play, I’d see it as a free man of considerable status.

I leaned out of my carrying chair and looked at the little mounds of rubble that lined each side of the road. ‘I’d have thought some effort might go into keeping the Long Walls in repair,’ I said. I tried not to sound as displeased as I felt. If the rain had let up and the mist was clearing away, the sun still hadn’t broken through the solid mass of grey far above us. ‘Without them, Athens must surely be reduced to an inland settlement whenever the barbarians are on the prowl.’

‘They were damaged, My Lord, in an earthquake during the time of Emperor Maurice,’ came the airy reply from Nicephorus.

He still hadn’t arrested us. But I was beginning to find something decidedly offhand about his manner. It didn’t help that the common people seemed to adore him almost as much as the town assembly did not. Before getting into his own chair, he’d passed a very long time among that dirty, chattering mob. They’d swarmed about him, stroking his official robe – even kissing his hands. With a few disapproving looks at each other, the assemblymen had stood away from him. They now trudged along behind the chairs, separating us from the common people.

‘The stones have all since then been carried away by farmers to fortify their homes,’ Nicephorus said, finishing his explanation with a complacent leer.

I nodded and let the damp curtains fall back into place. Once the weather was improved and I had time, I made a note to walk the four miles separating Athens from its port. There were still broken inscriptions scattered all over the ground. It would be interesting to see how Greek had been carved on to stone in the best ages of the language. Who could tell what little gems of verse and eloquence might lie there unregarded?

‘Pausanias says they were demolished in ancient times,’ Martin whispered as he pushed his head inside the curtains. ‘The walls built by Themistocles were taken down during the time of the thirty Tyrants. They were restored by Conon, but had fallen down by the time Sulla laid siege to Athens.’

‘My Lord’s secretary is, of course, correct,’ Nicephorus interrupted from within his own chair. The man had excellent hearing – more likely, he’d been listening in on our conversation. ‘But new walls were raised about three hundred years ago, after the first barbarian incursion. These were, in turn, repaired when Alaric – the
King
Alaric of the Goths,’ he added as if remembering my own official name – ‘invaded Greece. There were walls to shelter the road between Athens and Piraeus within living memory. I believe the earthquake was about twenty years ago.’ He twisted his face into a look of polite helplessness. ‘I simply regret that they fell down before I was appointed, and I have lacked the resources to rebuild them.’

‘Is this a closed threesome – or can I join the history seminar?’ I heard Priscus croak from behind me. A cane projected unsteadily from behind the curtains of his chair, and poked one of the carriers in the back. He was carried level with me and Nicephorus. There was now no room left on the road for pedestrians, and Martin fell back with the others. I heard the familiar click of a wooden lid pushed into place. Either that burst of ambiguous joy on the docks really had restored him, or Priscus had finally hit on the right combination of powders. He pushed a ravaged face though his curtains and looked at the desolation that stretched out on either side of the road. Athens was still a few miles ahead, and the mist hadn’t cleared sufficiently to allow a view even of its high places. But, as if what he could see gave him some perverse delight, he smiled and sniffed the air.

‘I think I can settle the whole dispute,’ he said, now in a semblance of his usual voice. ‘When I was here two years ago, there were no walls then, but I did sign an order for the erection of a line of stakes along both sides of this road. If the Lord Count ever did take note of my order, I see the stakes have now been removed as well.’ He flashed a most unpleasant look at Nicephorus, who smiled greasily back.

‘I regret that His Grace of Nicaea is travelling so far behind us,’ I said. ‘It would be useful to know the reason for his own visit to Athens.’

‘Oh, but hasn’t Your Magnificence been told?’ Nicephorus cried with an astonishment that might well have been genuine. ‘We are blessed with a closed council of the Greek and Latin Churches. In all its long history, Athens has never been so honoured.’

I composed my face into a devout smile and waited for the dramatic pause to reach its end.

‘You will surely be aware,’ he continued, ‘of the anomalous position occupied by the Lord Bishop of Athens. Though he ministers to a Greek see within an Eastern province, he is subject to His Holiness the Patriarch of Rome. No one has been told the matter to be discussed, but it was thought appropriate that it should be discussed at a place where the two jurisdictions overlap.

‘But, really, My Lord,’ he now burst out with undeniably genuine astonishment, ‘I was told that you had been sent to reveal the matter to be discussed and to chair the council. Surely you . . .’

So that was it! As Nicephorus prattled on, I pulled myself out of the past, and my regrets that I’d spent only one afternoon skimming the
Description of Greece
written in the old days by Pausanias, and then only for details that had nothing to do with town fortifications. It must be that Sergius had finally got the Emperor interested in our scheme of religious settlement. If so, it was to get Rome on side that this council had been called.