‘Alaric,’ he said with slow deliberation, ‘whatever may be the case in Rome, roofs here in Constantinople do not shed their tiles on passers-by. I am informed that every pin had been removed.’
‘Oh!’ I said again. I tried to add something to break the resulting silence, but nothing came.
‘What can you tell me about the man who engaged you in conversation at that very point in the street?’ Theophanes asked.
‘Not much,’ I said. ‘He was in early middle age. He might have been balding – though the hood made that hard to tell. He was well-spoken, but I think his accent was from the East. He wanted me to interpret a new law set up on the wall.’
‘And you think nothing out of the ordinary that a stranger should stop you and ask for a Latin translation?’
‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘Latin may be the official language of the Empire, but it’s gone decidedly out of fashion in the Imperial capital. I often wonder why you don’t just publish everything in Greek and have done with it.’
In support, I looked down at the uncluttered areas of my table. Generations of students had worn it to a dull gloss. What were obviously the older comments carved into the wood were all in Latin. The more recent ones were invariably in Greek. You could write a book about change in the City on the basis of that table. But I won’t.
Theophanes gave a mirthless smile. He turned to Alypius – as ever by his side – and spoke rapidly in a guttural language I’d never before heard. With a curt answer in the same tongue, Alypius was off. Theophanes turned back to me, now with one of his most charming smiles.
Of course, I’d been suspicious at the time. That stranger had jumped back before the noise overhead, and had been off very sharp. But whatever Theophanes might care to say, roofs did give way, even in the City.
So, at least, I tried forcing myself to believe. A murder attempt in Rome was one matter. I was at home. I had friends. I understood my surroundings. I was in control of my life. If someone tried to end that life, I knew exactly how to respond. In the street, I could carry weapons. My home was fortified.
Murder attempts in Constantinople were different. They rubbed in just how dependent I was on one man whose interests were as beyond calculation now as they had been at the Senatorial Dock.
I smiled weakly back at Theophanes. I tried again to place his accent, but couldn’t. His Greek was admirable. For all his courtliness, he always avoided the diffuse pomposity of the educated. But I’d never imagined he might be a native speaker. He didn’t sound Syrian or Egyptian, but was undoubtedly from the East.
‘Your stay in the city’, he said with an abrupt return to a ceremonious manner, ‘has been prolonged somewhat beyond our expectations. While your presence is a source of infinite pleasure to us all, and to me in particular, I have for some while now been looking forward to discussing when and how you intend to go back to Rome. A sea journey might present certain difficulties at the moment. But an armed guard along the whole length of the Egnatian Way is yours for the asking.
‘We could get you to Ravenna within twenty days. His Excellency the Dispensator could then use his known relationship with the Lombards to ensure a safe journey from there to Rome.’
‘Look, Theophanes,’ I said, growing impatient, ‘it was you and the Dispensator who arranged for my visit. I have every personal need to be out of here by the middle of September at the very latest. If I could go tomorrow, I’d run to the Legation now and pack. It’s hardly my fault if every post from Rome brings letters of further instruction.’
I looked over at the most recent. Martin had wept with horror when it was opened. The Dispensator’s requirements seemed to expand every time he took up a pen. From a straightforward collection of materials against the Arian heresy, I was being pushed into a general defence of Orthodoxy. Was he storing up favours from every Church in the West? I was beginning to wonder.
Theophanes ignored the letter. Why not, after all? He’d probably seen it well before it got anywhere near the Legation.
‘What is the book you are reading at the moment?’ he asked.
‘It is a work of technical philosophy from before the Triumph of the Faith,’ I answered cautiously. ‘Such works are often useful for the light they shed on the terminology of the Fathers.’
Theophanes gave a brief upside-down glance at the unrolled part of the papyrus. He sighed.
‘I am aware, my young Alaric, that you and Martin are a pair of the most wondrously fast scholars. I have been informed of the packets and whole boxes of copies of translations and of original commentaries and glosses you are sending with every post back to His Excellency in Rome. Your diligence, indeed, is the talk of Constantinople.
‘My correspondence with His Excellency, however, did not assume such productivity or such prolongation of stay. You are an honoured guest of the Great Augustus himself. It is my duty to see that your stay is without mishap. But half of every day in this place and only half in the Patriarchal Library may not be the full straining of effort needed to get you home for the birth of your child.’
I was sufficiently used to Theophanes by now not to stare at this latest revealing of knowledge.
‘I am aware, Your Magnificence,’ I said as smoothly as I could, ‘that His Excellency the Permanent Legate is displeased at my presence, and that his displeasure is not wholly to your advantage.’
Theophanes frowned. He looked about at the hushed, bent heads of the students. He dropped his voice, though not by much.
‘When the traitor Heraclius does finally arrive in the City,’ he said, ‘it will be minus his body, and what remains will be put on display in the Circus according to the traditional etiquette. Until then, he remains stranded in Cyprus, his forces dwindling by the day as his means fall short of his need to keep them in good spirits.
‘However, because of the love he bears us all – those who remain loyal and those who through weakness or folly have strayed from their proper loyalty – the Great Augustus is eager to see how this almost insignificant revolt can be brought sooner rather than later to its end. There are certain services His Holiness in Rome can render. In return, there is something that we can give.
‘The longer you stay in Constantinople, the more our discussions with His Excellency the Permanent Legate are disrupted.’
I looked back at him, the whole tangled knot of the previous few months seeming to unravel around us.
‘I am indebted to His Magnificence for such clarification and advice,’ I said. I leaned forward and dropped my own voice to a whisper. ‘Though surely you might have told me all this over dinner.’
‘I regret that I am unable to enjoy the pleasure of your company this evening,’ came the reply. ‘You cannot imagine how I shall miss our little repast in the usual place. But urgent business elsewhere in the City calls me away.’ He stood up. ‘You will appreciate, however, that my concern for your safety is ever uppermost in my thoughts, and you will forgive my disturbing you in work that is, I cannot but suppose, of the highest value to the Faith.
‘You may suppose yourself a little old to be advised not to speak to strangers who accost you in the street. It may, nevertheless, be advice worth considering.’
‘We can be sure, then,’ I said later on to Martin, ‘we were sent here to freeze negotiations. I’m ready to believe His Excellency in Rome does want materials for his Spanish council. And he probably is annoyed about the heresy in Ravenna. But all that is really just a cover. Our true purpose here is to put a brake on the diplomatic wheels. That explains why we weren’t told anything. We aren’t here to act, but to provide others with an excuse not to act.’
We were walking alone on the City walls. A strong breeze cooled us and carried our hushed voices out over the narrow sea beyond. For additional safety, we spoke in Celtic, replacing names and untranslatable titles with circumlocutions.
‘Right from the start,’ I added, ‘I knew it was all connected with the Universal Bishop business. The Dispensator wants it sorted – but not if the price is calling down anathema on the rebels. I imagine the Permanent Legate was under pressure here to make a deal. Then we turned up, and gave him cause to shut himself away.
‘I did think it was the rebels who’d tried to murder me in Rome. I now see it was the Emperor.’
Martin turned and looked straight at me. Oh dear – I hadn’t meant to tell him about that. As I filled him in, it mixed with the roof-tile incident and got him into a right panic.
‘For God’s sake, Martin,’ I had to hiss, ‘can’t you keep a stiff upper lip, at least in public? Gibbering away like this, and in a foreign language, is the quickest way into one of those cages.’ I nodded at a cluster of freshly gibbeted corpses further along the wall.
