The Ghosts of Athens (28 page)

If I’d finally got the boy’s interest, preaching even a bastardised version of the truth hadn’t been my intention. But I had got his interest. Trying not to show how pleased I was beginning to feel, I waited for him to smooth off his previous notes with the wide end of his stylus.

‘I think the reason Epicurus is so unpopular with all the other pagan philosophers,’ I continued, ‘is not his openness to refutation by logical paradox, but his claim that government is fundamentally unnecessary. He asserts that a viable human society can exist on the basis of free association of its members – no slavery, no taxes, no lies. Does not our Gregory here also deny the legitimacy of slavery . . . ?’

And so, as the sun dipped lower and lower, and the glass bricks overhead turned various shades of pink, I settled into my first long dialogue with young Theodore. Looking back, I can regret that it wasn’t our last. But all those shouting matches and pamphlet wars were still so many years in the future. I could have no premonition of them here in the library, as I set out my case, and filled it with just enough weaknesses for a clever boy to best His Magnificence and think well of himself.

I looked up finally as the last reddish tinge faded from the glass bricks. ‘But you must forgive me, young Theodore,’ I said as if startled by how long we’d sat here together. ‘It will surely soon be your bedtime.’ I paused. I let my face break into a friendly smile. ‘The lady Euphemia tells me that you have been deprived, here in Athens, of the company of other children.’

‘But, My Lord,’ he cried, ‘I was playing all day with the children of your secretary. They are delightful creatures.’

I smiled. He could find out for himself that one of them was mine. ‘Then I must arrange,’ I said, ‘for you to spend one or two nights in the nursery. My secretary’s wife is a most charming woman. She would like nothing better than to let your mother sleep free of cares. And I’m sure she would appreciate your help in getting the youngsters to sleep. Her own singing voice is more determined than pleasing.’

Theodore nodded. I managed to avoid biting my lip as he explained that Euphemia had come up with exactly the same suggestion.

‘Then I must arrange it for this very evening,’ I said. I got up and straightened my clothes. I could already feel a pleasurable tingling in my loins.

There was an approaching crunch on the stairs. I heard the telltale cough. ‘You were quick about your business, Martin,’ I said without turning. ‘Come in – you will find me less – er – less preoccupied than on your previous visit.’ I looked over at Theodore, who’d now turned back to the Alexander sheets and was trying not to move his lips as he read. ‘You have met young Theodore already. I’ve no doubt you’ll both get on very well indeed. He has a request from his mother to discuss with you.’

‘My Lord,’ Martin said in his most formal voice, ‘His Grace the Bishop of Nicaea would have a word with you in private.’

I barely had time for a scowl, when I heard another crunch of steps outside the library.

Simeon walked in and gave a long sniff of disgust. ‘You, boy,’ he snarled at Theodore. ‘If the Emperor’s Legate can stand for a bishop, you have no business sitting in my presence.’ Ignoring that the boy had been making every effort to climb from his chair, Simeon sniffed again. ‘Get out,’ he said, speaking either to Martin or to Theodore – perhaps to both. ‘Come back with something fit for me to drink.’ He looked down and glared at one of the areas of mosaic that still held firmly in place. It was the bare breast of one of the Muses. Avoiding a shattered reading stand that lay in his path, he walked over to where Theodore had been sitting. He picked up one of the cushions and beat the dust out of it. He sat down heavily and looked steadily up at the last glow of light from the dome. It was just enough to bring on a sneeze. By the time he’d finished blowing his nose, Martin and the boy had gone off together, and we were alone.

I walked over to the mural of Athens in its best age. The Acropolis had been painted both higher and smaller than it really was. There were obvious inconsistencies of perspective that told me the painting was fairly modern. This was less interesting, though, than further evidence of burning in the library. At some time, there had been a series of bonfires in the room. The heat in several areas had been so intense that the mosaic tiles were lifted and the underlying concrete had cracked. Looking up, I could see that some effort had been made to clean smoke from the glass bricks.

I turned to Simeon, who was now muttering over the text of Gregory. ‘My Lord,’ I opened with a smooth and diplomatic smile, ‘I cannot say what a pleasure it always is to see you.’

‘Then it’s not a mutual pleasure!’ came the immediate and spat reply.

I caught sight from where I stood of a reasonably complete book roll within one of the fallen racks. I bent and picked it up. Big disappointment: it was complete, even to the firmness of the glued sheets, but someone had washed it in vinegar or some other corrosive, and all the lines had faded to a pale grey.

I walked back over to the table and sat down again. ‘It would please me much to learn the reason for My Lord’s intemperancy of mood,’ I said, still very smooth.

Simeon glared back at me like some caged beast. ‘I have just discovered,’ he said, rising towards another snarl, ‘that I shall not be sitting on your right at tomorrow’s dinner. That place, I am told, is promised to some gross and vulgar barbarian out of Italy.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘But, surely, Simeon, you will appreciate that the Lord Fortunatus represents the Universal Bishop,’ I said. ‘As for his origins, he comes from a most illustrious family that has produced great men ever since very ancient times. I do even think he is related, on his mother’s side, to the Great Augustus himself.’
Gross and vulgar barbarian
– eh? I could be glad the Dispensator was half a mile away in his rat-infested monastery. I could think of no words better calculated to have him calling for his packing boxes.

‘If it doesn’t know Greek, it’s a barbarian!’ Simeon snapped.

I looked back at the twisted face and thought quickly. I could have lectured him on the continuing status of Latin, even now that I’d got Greek established as the official language of the Empire. But you’d have to be a bigger fool than Simeon was not to be aware of this. I gave him a long and very cold stare.

‘My dear Simeon,’ I said quietly, ‘I can see from the slight blueness of the powder under your left nostril that you’ve come straight here from a meeting with your dear cousin Priscus. Doubtless, he told you about the seating arrangements for tomorrow. He may also have told you certain things about the reason for the council that has been summoned to Athens. But do please allow me to give you the full story.’ I could have waited for someone to come back with wine. I could have waited for the effect of the drugs he’d been given to fade. But, if that made him less personally unpleasant, it would have done nothing to shift what I could see was his settled view of things. There’s a time for jollying along, and a time for turning nasty. I could see it was time for the latter.

‘Simeon,’ I took up again, ‘you were appointed to your see with the express consent of the Emperor. By the Emperor’s grace, you are permitted to spend part of the year amid the joys of Constantinople. You undoubtedly have certain advantages of wealth and learning over your brethren of Rome. The Scriptures were composed in your own language. You may claim primacy in certain spiritual matters. But the real difference between you and the Lord Dispensator is this.’ I leaned forward over the table and snapped my fingers into his face. I took hold of his beard and pulled it. I pushed him gently in the chest and watched as he nearly went backwards.

‘You presume too much, Alaric,’ he finally cried back at me. ‘Just because the Great Augustus—’

I silenced him with a crash of my fist on the table that knocked all Theodore’s waxed tablets out of order. When he’d finished jabbering back at me, I leaned forward and pushed my face close to his.

‘Don’t talk back to me about the Emperor,’ I said with quiet menace. ‘So long as he keeps the army sweet, and doesn’t let the Circus mob get out of hand, Heraclius can declare for any Eastern heresy that takes his fancy. He can announce that Christ appeared on earth as nothing more than a ghost, and that it was by a continuing miracle that those round him thought he was other than a direct Emanation of God. Or he can resurrect the Arian heresy. Or he can declare that Christ had a bald patch two inches wide, and got seven children on Mary Magdalene. He can do all of this, and your interest will be best consulted by assenting to what he says and preaching it to however sceptical a people. And if you breathe so much as a word about his orthodoxy or sanity, a file of guards will march straight into your church and arrest you at the very altar. If you still refuse to see sense, you’ll be lucky to drag out the rest of your days in some monastery on the edges of Scythia. Shall I take you through some of the precedents? Or can we take them as read?’

When he was able to look back at me, I continued: ‘Those Western clerics you’ve spent the past ten days or whatever insulting, and over whom you’ve now insulted me and the Emperor himself, are in a very different position. They don’t ultimately give a toss about us or our difficulties with the Eastern Patriarchates. They don’t need to. Between Ravenna and Bari, I don’t think we have a single armed man in Italy. Certainly, Rome is both governed and defended by the Church. For all we can do anything to those he represents, the Lord Fortunatus might as well be from China.

‘We can do nothing to him and his,’ I said, now with savage ill-humour, ‘but they can fuck us over good and proper. That deacon from Rome has more power in his little finger to hurt us in our Syrian and Egyptian dealings than you Greeks have in your collective loins. And I know that he will use that power if he thinks he or the Roman Church has not received the total respect he believes appropriate. And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him absolutely sweet – even if it means dragging you by the hair into the dining room tomorrow and setting about you with a cane until you offer him your clerical kiss of peace.’

‘And what makes you think Heraclius really wants your settlement of the Monophysite heresy?’ Simeon now got the wind to cry back at me. ‘How much confidence do you think he’s still got in Sergius? If anyone is at risk of being shipped off to Scythia, it’s surely His Present Holiness the Patriarch of Constantinople – a Patriarch, I’ll remind you, appointed by the tyrant Phocas against the wishes of every Greek bishop.’ He laughed bitterly, and even managed to stare me in the face.

‘And I know exactly how much confidence he has in
you
, My Lord Senator!’ he went on. ‘You failed him in Alexandria. You’ve made trouble for him among everyone of quality with your land confiscation project. You want to give land to the peasants, in the hope that they’ll do more to defend the Empire than their betters have. More likely, you want to reproduce the same chaotic spirit of independence as among your own dirty barbarians! Can’t you see how you’ve been set up to fail? Oh, you can lay violent hands on me. But it doesn’t alter the truth of the matter.’

Whatever drug Priscus had fed him was working miracles for his courage. But, if he really thought I’d set about him with the cane he deserved, he was wrong. I made my mind up and smiled calmly back at him.

‘Dear Simeon,’ I said. ‘The workings of the Imperial Mind are far above both of us. Let us not argue what they may or may not have resolved before you took ship for Athens. But I will remind you that we have a most important council starting the day after tomorrow. Your duty there will be to judge such issues as may be raised purely on their theological merits. If I find reason to think that you are following some other agenda, I will see to it personally that Heraclius is made aware of certain facts that will not stand to your credit. I assure you that your truest interest lies in acting as a bishop of the Church and not as some third-rate politician, dabbling in affairs that are beyond your understanding.’

I waited for this to impress itself on his mind. The thing about intelligence information is that it should only be used when all else has failed. Even then, it should, in the first instance, be used allusively. This was now one of those first instance times. Possibly, Heraclius
was
out of sorts with me. Possibly, he was tired of Sergius, and was interested in some purely local deal with the Greek Church. Whatever the case, all I could do was press on as if the words of my commission were explicit instructions to do as I’d resolved. And, if I gave him that on my return, he might even decide it was what the Great Augustus had wanted after all.

‘Simeon,’ I continued in more earnest tone, ‘I will assume Priscus has told you what you may already have suspected. This being so, please do consider that nothing in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, nor officially declared since by way of explanation, rules out the possibility of a Singularity of Will for Christ. If you can agree with the Westerners that this is not ruled out, we may bring the Eastern Churches, little by little, to full orthodoxy. The main council may still be several years off. But do consider that you have been spoken about as the next Patriarch.’ I paused and waited for that lie to sink in. ‘We know that Sergius has weak lungs, and that the smoke of last winter in Constantinople was a sore trial for him. Who knows what advice the doctors may give him this winter? Who knows what gratitude Caesar will feel for a man who has done more than any other senior Greek churchman to enable a reconciliation with our separated brethren in the East?’