The first thing I noticed as I walked into the windowless room was an icon, high on the wall, of Christ in His most forbidding Majesty. Otherwise, the walls were of bare plaster. The only furniture in the room was a small table with three chairs. The light came from a tight array of lamps hanging from the ceiling.
Theophanes had motioned me in before him while he spoke to one of the hushed attendants outside. Alypius settled me into one of the chairs and then sat himself across the table from me.
So when, and of whom, was this interrogation to be? I tried not to ask myself. Because I could think of no reason for subterfuge from Theophanes, I willed myself not to speculate on what I was doing in this room.
Alypius looking fixedly at nothing in particular behind my left shoulder, we sat for what seemed an age without speaking. At last, the door widened and Theophanes came into the room.
‘My dear young friend,’ he began with easy charm, ‘I do so regret having brought you here for nothing. But I am now in no doubt that the interrogation would be distressing to one of your youth and sensitivity. It is sad how much moral, and even physical, harshness these matters often require.’
So it wasn’t just the basement they used for torturing people.
In a fair imitation of his own manner, I thanked Theophanes for his great consideration and assured him of how comfortably I was seated.
‘I would release you now from my invitation,’ he said with a smile, ‘and allow you to go home to your bed. But the streets are less safe at night than I might wish. And it will take me a few moments to deal with outstanding business before I can arrange for an armed guard to escort you back to the Legation.’
‘I wouldn’t hear of it!’ he said, in reply to my suggestion that I could make my own way back. ‘While you remain my personal guest, you must accept my personal concern for your safety. I really do not think I shall be more than a few beats of the heart about my business. I am sure you will find Alypius excellent company.’
How long we sat there in stony silence was beyond my reckoning. It may have been half the night. It may not have been so long at all. But with no diversion, nor any means of marking time, I sat there in a kind of numb apprehension.
Once, and only once, there was a sound. It was a gentle scraping that came from behind me, as if a mouse were running along the top of the icon.
And was that a muffled gasp?
I wanted to look round but Alypius had shifted his glance and now stared me straight in the face. Whatever it had been, the noise was over in a moment. All was silent again until, eventually, the door opened again and Theophanes was back in the room.
‘You cannot conceive how embarrassed I am to have wasted your evening,’ he said, trying to suppress a look of the most immense self-satisfaction. ‘You must come to dinner with me again tomorrow. Then, I promise, things will go more as you have the right to expect.’
I got up. I could have asked what the Devil had been going on – why had I been brought here for nothing at all? But you don’t ask a spider’s business in the middle of its web. And whatever had happened, it was over. The tension falling sweetly away, I turned on the charm myself.
‘For me, and for the good of the Empire, yes,’ he said, answering my question, ‘it was a most productive interview, and I guarantee that you can go about your business in renewed safety. Such are the fruits of civilisation.’
‘Can I go home now?’ I asked. I just wanted to get away.
‘But of course, young Alaric.’ Theophanes beamed at me. ‘Only we who are of full years can bear the strains of governing this great Empire. At your age, lateness to bed must ever be attended by dangers that may shorten life itself.’
I lurched forward into his outstretched arms.
19
‘This isn’t the way to the Legation,’ I said to Alypius.
We were alone in the dark, silent streets. Now the nights would be so much safer, Theophanes had said, I’d have no need of the armed escort he’d had in mind. It would be enough to have Alypius with me. He was armed, and that would be sufficient protection.
‘It is the way I am instructed to take you,’ he said coldly as we turned into the street that was one of the approaches to the square containing the University.
Light or dark, I’d never seen the streets of Constantinople so empty. The sound of our feet on the pavements echoed from the blank walls or shuttered faµades of the buildings. I knew them well enough by day but they were very different at this late hour.
Alypius led me into a side street, and then into a clearing that was neither a square nor a park. We stopped by a low brick building. He stepped forward and stroked the polished wood of the little door.
‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. It was about the size and shape of a rich man’s tomb from the days of the Old Faith.
‘Behind this door’, he explained, ‘lies a flight of steps. They lead up from the basements that run beneath the Ministry.’
Dear God! Theophanes had kissed me goodbye in the main hall a quarter of a mile back. And every step I’d been taking since had still been just feet above that vaulted labyrinth of horror. How big was the place?
I looked at Alypius. If he was armed, it was at best a small sword he was keeping out of sight. Even unarmed, I might be able…
I dropped the thought. Behind Alypius stood the whole power of the Empire. I was as much in its power now as if tied to one of the racks under the Ministry.
He smiled, no doubt appreciating the look of dull fear I couldn’t be bothered to keep off my face. ‘I did say’, he added, ‘that the stairs lead up from the basements. You have already seen the place that invariable custom has made the entrance. At the first light of dawn, the heavy bolts that secure this door on the inside will be drawn and the door will swing outward. Twenty-three bodies will then be carried out. It will be neither more nor fewer than twenty-three. I checked the release forms that His Magnificence signed before dinner.
‘According to their station, some will be put into gibbets for display from the City walls. Some will be scattered in the main streets, there to be stepped over and shunned by shopkeepers and by those who toil in the manufactories. They will be reclaimed or cleared away before people like you are accustomed to fall out of bed.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked. Alypius was evidently trying to keep me scared. But for all he strained to imitate his master, he was no equal of Theophanes. Whatever else happened tonight, I was realising, the Empire would not be disposing of twenty-four corpses.
‘Why did you bring me here?’ I asked again. ‘No – since your sort never act but on orders, why did Theophanes have me brought here?’
‘Why do you suppose we do this, day after day?’ he asked in return.
‘The official answer’, I said, my nerve returning, ‘is that they are traitors. Really, of course, none may be guilty of anything at all. It’s really a matter of keeping control, isn’t it?’
If I’d annoyed Alypius by draining the surprise out of his answer, his face said nothing.
‘Back in the days when Maurice was Emperor,’ he continued, ‘we were victorious on all fronts, or holding our own. It was nothing to the scum who inhabit this City. Once when he returned from a victory over the Slavs, he was screamed at in the street because he’d put up taxes. The Ministers and even His Magnificence were mobbed in their chairs.
‘The function of Terror is to break up all the guilds and clubs and professional groupings of the City into an agglomeration of individuals, each looking over his shoulder to see what the others might be saying about him. If no one speaks his mind, no one joins forces. This means Heraclius can come here whenever he likes, and he’ll beat his head against the city gates until pestilence and famine have thinned the ranks of his followers.
‘How anyone gets on our death-lists is left to chance. The use of those lists, though, is wholly deliberate. Kill enough people and you can announce that the sun rises at dusk and wait for the applause. It also helps compensate for the falling off of tax revenue.’
