‘I’ll ask again,’ I said. ‘Why are you telling me this? Why has Theophanes sent you here with me?’
Alypius moved away from the door and reached within his cloak. He pulled out his leather satchel.
‘While you were at dinner,’ he said, ‘there should have been a small riot in the Jewish quarter. A priest who was active in policing the conversion of the Jews will have been seriously injured. In view of this, His Magnificence will suggest to the Most Noble Caesar Priscus the need for making an example. A number of prominent persons will be arrested. Among these will be your banker, Solomon ben Baruch.’
This was the last thing I’d expected to hear. All thought of the Ministry dungeons was swept aside by the realisation that I was holding at least a dozen notes from Baruch. If he were taken in for treason or whatever, they’d be worthless.
But Alypius was continuing: ‘As you know, the Great Augustus has seen fit to command all the Jews of the Empire to embrace the True Faith of Jesus Christ.’
‘Yes,’ I said jeeringly, ‘and it’s set off wild rioting in every Eastern city still controlled by him. Haven’t the Jews of Antioch lynched the Patriarch there? Certainly, you’ll find no business with the Syrian traders.’
‘They have indeed murdered His Holiness of Antioch,’ came the stiff reply, ‘and the Jews will be punished just as soon as we have any spare forces in Syria. The word of Phocas is law, and he has been assured by a monk of the highest orthodoxy that the Empire will only fall to a circumcised race. He has therefore seen fit to accomplish what Saint Paul on his various missions failed to do.’
Well, that was an interesting prophecy – and it was made before the event. A shame, I suppose, the drunken fool hit on the wrong circumcised race.
Still Alypius hadn’t finished. ‘The Jew Baruch will be allowed’, he said, ‘to pay off some of the Caesar’s more embarrassing debts. In return for this, he will be released unharmed at nightfall. He will be free to give thanks the day after tomorrow in whatever Sunday service takes his fancy.’
‘I see,’ I sneered. ‘I suppose you’ll want paying for this information.’
Without bothering to reply, Alypius pushed his satchel into my hands.
‘This contains a number of drafts on a bank run by two Saracen brothers,’ he said. ‘You will pass these on the Exchange at whatever time and in whatever manner you see fit. The drafts are made out in your name. When you eventually see the Jew Baruch, the proceeds will be made payable to bearer. You will hand the new drafts to His Magnificence when you see him in a sealed packet. You will not discuss them with him.’
The moon came out from behind a cloud and lit up the space in which we were standing.
‘I don’t think’, I said to Alypius, ‘I need detain you any longer. I can probably make my own way safely back to the Legation. And, let’s face it, whoever tried to murder me yesterday will be snoring like a dog this time of night.’
‘There is one more matter,’ he said. ‘Though he has not yet had an opportunity to offer his congratulations, His Magnificence is aware that you became a father last night.
‘Of course, now you have been blessed with fatherhood, you will need to be still more prudent in your conduct. You have seen that Constantinople can be a dangerous place for those who do not look at all times to their safety. It can be dangerous for them – and, I feel it worth saying, for those around them.’
‘Martin?’ I asked next day over breakfast.
He looked up from his beer, bleary and unshaven. He should have been glad he was awake at all. I’d got back to my suite, only to find him and Authari huddled together on my office floor, knocked out on wine and opium. I’d thought at first that Martin had killed himself with the so far untasted fruits of the poppy. But he’d still been breathing, a look of rapture on his face I’ll bet he’d never got from praying.
Now he was paying for it.
I smiled brightly, pretending not to notice what a wreck he looked. If I said I was cheerful, I’d be exaggerating. Nevertheless, if I was stuck in Constantinople, still without a guess of why and for how long, I’d got myself out of what might have been a thoroughly nasty scrape. All I had to do was rip off the Jews and I was back in favour with Theophanes – or so it appeared.
‘Yes, Martin,’ I said, ‘you realise we shall have to invite Theophanes to the baptism.’
He looked down again and grunted. He began another of his unflattering comments about eunuchs.
‘I don’t think there’s any question of not inviting him,’ I said, cutting him off. I looked again at the note of elaborate congratulation I’d found on bouncing out of bed. Theophanes was promising – I read – ‘a cot of polished ebony, trimmed, of course, with ivory and with gold’.
Not bad, that, and at short notice. With Martin, I’d combed every shop in Middle Street the day before looking for almost the same thing. We’d been told in five establishments that ebony was out of the question for at least a month. Theophanes, it seemed, had far greater powers of persuasion than I with a mere purse full of gold. He was assuring me he could have it made ready in a day.
‘I’ll leave it to you’, I went on, ‘to draft the invite. I have urgent business coming up that will keep me busy all day. But I’d like something in the most pompous and flowery Greek style.’
Martin scowled and went back to his beer. Then he switched into a Celtic that he appeared suddenly to know less well than I did myself.
‘I’ve heard the rumour from Antony’, he said, ‘that the Emperor has offered the Persians all of Syria east of Jerusalem and the Avars all they’ve already taken south of the Danube, if only they’ll leave him a free hand with the revolt.’
‘None of our business now, Martin,’ I said briskly in Latin. ‘We obey whatever instructions come from Rome. We accept whatever protection Theophanes sees fit to give. In short, we wait on events.’
I called him back as he reached for the door handle.
‘Can you remind me what happened with Pope Silverius?’ I asked.
‘Why,’ said Martin, ‘wasn’t he the one who was deposed by Justinian for being in the pay of the Goths?’
‘That’s the one,’ I said. ‘I think we can agree that politics can be dangerous.
‘By the way, if you bump into Gutrune, do remind her to clean her nipples before she feeds Maximin. I once read that the seeds of pestilence can gather in those little folds of skin.’
Though I’d told him nothing, Authari now doubled his precautions. He found another, heavier bar for the door of my suite. He also took to locking every room not immediately in use. He put all the keys on an iron ring and carried it about on his waist. No other slave was now allowed to leave without his permission.
He even took to searching the copying secretaries when they came to work in my suite. He confined them to one room, and had them followed as they went off to the slave latrines. Crabbed little creatures who knew only how to wield a pen, they were no danger. But Authari was taking no chances now we had Maximin.
He took the wet nurse, Gutrune, into his own charge. To be honest, he took her into his own bed. Both facts were a relief to me. I had excellent reason, beside her looks, to keep my hands off her. And I didn’t have to worry about giving directions for the care of Maximin.
I still found myself strangely drawn to the child. After those first couple of days, the fascination grew even stronger. I’d spend as much time as I could working in the nursery. Sometimes, when alone with him, I’d put my things aside and pull my chair over to the cot. There I’d sit talking endlessly to the child in English.
I didn’t fail to notice that time was passing. I knew that Marcella would, in her usual way, be haggling with the midwives and doctors in preparation for Gretel’s confinement and that I had, sooner rather than later, to be away. But now we were settled in and its rules were accepted, the Legation had become our home. Once Authari had barred the door to my suite, we were inside our own world. It was as if we were again on the ship that had brought us here. I passed through the world outside the Legation as often as I travelled to the libraries but I was never part of it.
So day followed day. The endless chatter in those baking-hot streets of high summer often reminded me of the sound of bees as they swarm together and begin to turn angry, but the people never did turn constructively angry; they were held in check by the Terror. The flow of events was smooth and predictable on the surface and I made no further efforts to look beneath it.
20
‘Such is the Word of God and of the Universal Church,’ the Professor of Theology intoned for the third time
