have…’
I trailed off. I pulled my indoor clothes closer to me against the night chill and sat now in silence, looking at the streaks of uncleaned mud on the boots.
My thoughts wandered back to happier times. There was our first day of really good weather in Italy. We’d crept round the Alps, hugging the sea on our way in from southern France. At some point along the road, we’d come to a worn boundary stone, showing that we were now within the ancient provinces of Italy.
These had, Maximin explained, once been uniquely privileged in terms of citizenship and immunity from tribute. Rome had grown from a city state to the head of an Italian federation. And it might have remained the capital of a united Italy, but for a course of rapid conquest that had stretched its limits from the Tees to the Euphrates. Now, the conquests were long since reversed. Even before then, the unique status of Italy had been abolished in a world of universal citizenship and liability to taxes. But the stone remained.
‘It makes no difference to me,’ I’d said, looking at the invisible line Maximin had drawn across the road. ‘The trees on each side are the same. The rain is still coming down like it does in Kent, and from skies the same colour.’
‘Just wait,’ Maximin had said.
I had waited. A few days later, I’d crawled from under the trees where we’d dossed for the night, and looked into a morning that reminded me of the lightest and most sparkling cider. It was like that morning I’ve already described on the road – but I was seeing it for the first time.
I don’t know how long I’d stood wondering at the glory that Nature had strewn unexpectedly all about me. But Maximin at last had come up beside me. ‘Didn’t I tell you Italy was worth a look?’ he’d asked with the pride of a native.
‘Why did you ever set out for England?’ I’d enquired, holding up a hand to shield me from the light of the rising sun.
‘We all have our reasons for leaving home,’ he’d answered with a faint smile. ‘It’s for each of us to say whether we go to better or to worse.
‘Which will it be for you?’
I hadn’t answered. But the sudden joy and hope of that morning in early spring was all the answer anyone could wish for.
We’d set out along the road with renewed energy. Maximin had even sung, and I’d croaked along beside him with the closing uncertainties of my late-breaking voice. It had seemed we were advancing into paradise.
Now, I sat alone, amid the ruins of this city of cities – and perhaps amid the ruins of all hope. ‘I will avenge you,’ I said to the boots.
The boots said nothing back.
‘I will avenge you,’ I said again, speaking up to try and fill the void of silence all about me.
The problem was that I was no longer clear that I could avenge him. With every step I’d made on the road to knowledge since I’d sworn to Maximin’s body, my conviction that I could grasp the final truth had ebbed further away. Whatever facts Lucius and I could bring to the growing structure of knowledge, who had killed Maximin and why remained mysteries wrapped in the deepest shadows.
I knew he’d been killed for those bastard letters. But it was plain whoever had killed him hadn’t managed to lay hands on them. It was plain the letters contained important matters of state. The emperor’s agents were after them with frantic determination. The exarch of Africa’s man was promising untold wealth probably for just a sight of them. I had no doubt the Church was after them – why else strip these rooms so bare? Just as plainly, no one had yet found them.
What had Maximin done with the things?
As for what they contained, I couldn’t begin to think of an answer. Even Lucius couldn’t tell me that. I knew he was fussing on about not making hypotheses without evidence. But it struck me he was making a virtue of necessity – refusing to speculate on matters that were as much beyond his understanding as mine.
What I needed, of course, was some solid fact. The letters would certainly help. If I could know what was in them, I’d be able to work out why they were so important and to whom. In the absence of those, I needed something else that would at least point me clearly in the right direction.
‘What did you do with the fucking things?’ I asked out loud of the boots.
No answer.
It was now that I heard a scratching at the door. It was very gentle, and I thought at first it was a mouse in the room. But it was on the door. I froze, my thoughts wandering stupidly back to that dream. Then I heard a movement of the latch, and the door was pushed cautiously open.
‘Oh, it is you, sir,’ Gretel said with relief in her voice. ‘I heard noises from downstairs. I was frightened thieves might have broken in.’
Not much of a lie, I thought indulgently. The slave quarters were far distant from the guest areas of the house. I’d have needed to make a great deal more noise than I had for anything to reach her. And what would a lone woman be doing if thieves were a genuine fear?
‘Shut the door,’ I said, ‘and get those clothes off your back.’
She gave me a startled look. ‘But, sir, surely we should first go back to your own rooms.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I… I don’t feel comfortable tonight in my own bed tonight. I… er… think there’s a draught in the room. We’ll use this room.’
‘In the Saint’s bed?’ she asked, her shock at my suggestion for the moment overbearing the obsequious consent to whatever the free might command.
‘The Saint is with Jesus,’ I said firmly. ‘Undress yourself, and then undress me.’
The diplomat’s drug had now cleared my head and filled me with a pure, glowing energy. Such was the effect of the diplomat’s kaphkium . Next morning, be assured, I discovered why the man spent so long on the toilet.
35
Next morning, as predicted by the diplomat, the pope made his surprise return to Rome. All the bells had finished for the Sunday service by the time Gretel could shake some life back into me. As I staggered out of bed, they began again. I heard the distant sound of trumpets down at the Lateran. I groaned and clutched at my head.
‘Good business with the Jews,’ said the diplomat as he came out of the stables and flopped down beside me for a shit. Evidently, he’d been up some while.
‘They’re buying futures on silk. But I think prices will drop when Alexandria falls to the exarch’s forces.’
His voice flattened. ‘When can I have my share of the money from yesterday?’ he asked again.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ said I, ‘when the bank opens.’
He grunted and said something about an evident lack of trust where I came from.
I changed the subject. ‘What do you know about the Column of Phocas?’ I asked. Despite the headache, I was, you’ll observe, more with it this morning.
‘I don’t think the statue will be up there much longer,’ the diplomat replied smoothly. ‘I hear there is already a bid for the bronze. The dispensator is just waiting on events in Alexandria. If the city holds, the statue remains in place. If not, it comes down.’
‘Not the thing,’ I said, ‘the movement.’
Either he knew nothing of this, or he was keeping quiet. Almost certainly the latter. He gave me a funny look. Our conversation of last night was over. I’d told him nothing then. He’d tell me nothing now.
We drifted on to the price of Athenian olive oil. Then, as I finished my own business and got up to leave, he caught me by the sleeve.
‘Remember,’ he said, ‘whatever you do find will be shared with me to your considerable advantage. Whatever we did together yesterday was as nothing to what could easily be.’
Because it was a Sunday, I’d given everyone the day off. There would be no copying or binding at the Lateran. The secretaries could go to church. Martin, doubtless, had other plans.
