their efforts, and are recruiting fools and the disaffected of every condition.’
‘Was that the case with Justinus of Tyre?’ I asked, dropping my voice to a whisper. ‘And is it so with all those lives I’ve just watched you smashing up?’ I was aghast. I hadn’t known exactly what Theophanes did when he wasn’t entertaining me. But I hadn’t imagined it was anything so gross as this.
Theophanes looked sharply at his assistant, Alypius, who went over to the door. He opened it and looked out to right and left. He looked back. Theophanes nodded. Then Alypius went back outside and stood there, leaving the door very slightly ajar.
‘Alaric,’ said Theophanes, speaking low, ‘you must by now be aware that we do not do things here in Constantinople as they are done in Rome. This is not a small provincial city, surrounded by barbarians and left largely to the governance of the Church.
‘You are here on business for His Holiness in Rome. As such, you are under the highest protection. His Holiness our own Patriarch is less safe in his palace than you are with the backing of the Lateran. But you must learn not to interfere in matters that do not concern you or your mission. And when I say not to interfere, I mean also not to notice that certain things may be happening around you.’
‘Is that why everyone’s been warned off me?’ I asked. ‘Is that why I’m to be treated as a leper by everyone else in the city?’
Theophanes looked hard at me. ‘Alaric,’ he sighed, ‘the traitor Justinus was accused and convicted by wholly regular means – means that long predate the present emergency. He has disappeared from the face of the world. His goods have been confiscated. His wife and household have been turned into the street. All that remains to show that he ever lived at all is the number that you may have noticed on the bills of auction posted in the financial district – and I know that you were there the morning before last with the Jew Baruch.
‘As for his body, it may have been left out in the streets for clearing away by the public slaves. Or it may be swinging from the City walls. Do not even ask me what has become of it. His treason was dealt with outside my jurisdiction. I do not make it my business to look outside that jurisdiction.
‘So far as I can tell, the man was most inconsiderate in dragging you into his affairs. I will not waste time in asking if you really did know the contents of that now destroyed letter. I will only remind you of the pressing duties that lie among your books. His Excellency the Dispensator assures me that these duties should not detain you in the City beyond the end of this month. You will surely agree that nothing should be permitted to keep you from them.’
‘So, who is this man Sergius?’ I asked for the second time.
It was later, and I was back in the Legation with Martin. He rinsed his mouth again and spat more bloody wine into the bowl that a grinning Authari held under his chin. My promise that it wouldn’t hurt had been optimistic. But the dentist had been and done his work, and Martin would soon get over the pain and trauma of the extraction. For the moment, though, he was out of sorts with me.
He put the cup down and looked at me through tear-filled eyes.
‘I didn’t say I knew him,’ he said. ‘I heard his name from one of the copying clerks. If he’s the man who spoke to you in the University canteen, you’ve encountered someone really big in the Greek Church. He’s the leading authority among the Patriarch’s advisers on the Monophysite heresy. And I’m told he’s leader of the party that doesn’t want us here. They don’t believe we were sent to clarify the meaning of the Creed. They think you are an envoy from the Pope to negotiate a deal on the Universal Bishop title.’
Martin spat again and looked back at me. ‘But you say you only met him this morning,’ he said. ‘You seem to have been with him quite a while.’
‘I went shopping afterwards,’ I said hurriedly. ‘I know you don’t approve of opium pills. But the unrefined resin, heated over charcoal, can be most comforting…’
Martin wasn’t interested in that either. He must by now have spat out enough of our best wine to pay his rent for a month in Rome. But the thought of something that might take the pain clean away seemed somehow to strike him as improper.
I looked out of the window. Perhaps I had been a fool to drift off to Theophanes like that. But it had been incidentally useful. Without trying, I had gathered up at least two facts in one day. The problem was to work out how everything fitted together.
The Dispensator was up to something, but hadn’t thought it necessary to let me know what it was. That had been obvious back in Rome. Now it was clear that Theophanes was up to something, too. And whatever that thing was, it was important enough to justify diverting him from what was currently the most vital job in the Empire. For once, the Greek Church was refreshingly straightforward in its motivations – even if only because my own motiv ations had been misapprehended.
I looked back at Martin, who was glaring into a mirror. Since he never smiled, the gap in his front teeth would never show. The look on his face, even so, would have curdled milk.
‘I’m having dinner with Theophanes again tomorrow night,’ I said, now in Latin. For all he understood of our situation in any language, Authari was looking annoyed at being cut out of the conversation. ‘It will be in that same restaurant by the Ministry. He wants a report from me on the political situation in Kent. He also asked me to remind you about the written account of affairs in Ireland and the Celtic areas of England.’
Martin put the mirror down. ‘And you’ll give him what he wants?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you think it’s all very suspicious? Haven’t these people enough to worry about nearer home? Britain dropped out of their world two centuries ago. Ireland was never in it. Don’t you wonder what is going on?’
‘You know I’m eaten up with curiosity,’ I said, now peevish. ‘I will get to the bottom of this before we’re finished here, but I’ll also give Theophanes whatever he wants.
‘You’ve been whining at me ever since we got here about not upsetting anyone. If the eunuch wants a map of Canterbury, I’ll draw him one. If he wants one of London, I’ll make something up. It’s the same with diplomatic relations between the barbarian kings in the old Western Provinces, and the flux and reflux of heresy there.
‘Whatever he wants, I’ll give him. You’ll do the same, whether you have any current information or not.’
And so we continued about our work. That open permit Theophanes had pulled out with such a flourish had been a sentence of solitary confinement. The main difference between it and prison was that my place of confinement followed me about. I had Martin. I had my slaves. I had formal dealings with all those assigned to assist in our mission. I had discussions with Baruch about making money without ever making any. And that was it.
It all, even so, had its convenient side. With nothing else to distract me by day, I had no choice but to throw myself heart and soul into the work of collecting materials.
Given this kind of consolation, you can get used to most things. Day followed day, and the sun grew hotter. Our work gave shape to our lives, and Martin and I soon barely noticed the Terror around us or the almost general shunning that insulated us from it.
13
Or so it continued until one morning late in August.
I was sat in the University Library. As ever, I sat alone. One of the books Epicurus had written on the good life had finally been located among the reserve stock. I was half into it when Theophanes came into the reading room.
He was announced by the collective intake of breath and the shuffling as several people stood for their formal bows. With a benign look around him, Theophanes waved everybody back to work.
‘I came as soon as I heard the terrible news,’ he said. ‘No, my dear friend, please do not trouble yourself with rising in my presence. This is an informal visit.’ He sat down at my reading table. The cane chair bowed under his weight, but held.
I looked at him and thought hard. My favourite writer on his favourite theme had taken me clean out of Constantinople. Had Antioch declared for Heraclius?
‘Oh,’ I said eventually, pulling myself back into the present, ‘you mean the roof tiles. That could have been nasty. But I knew that warning slide overhead well enough to get away in plenty of time. Shame about the old woman, though.’
