trust Martin.’
He smiled so suddenly and broadly that some flakes of paint dropped from his face on to his breasts and belly.
‘I don’t think you have anything to fear, Aelric,’ he said. ‘You and your secretary are safe enough. And the less you know, the safer you will be. If I am right, however – and I am sure that I am right – I have much to fear. I’m surprised I have still not been identified. My end will not be swift or dignified if you refuse this favour that you should know enough to realise you owe me.’
He fell silent for a while, looking towards the fire that burned outside the doorway. The raiders had lit this for keeping an eye on it by night and for their own comfort.
‘Well, Theophanes,’ I said, ‘before I even consider taking that stone to you, I think there are certain things to be discussed. Can you explain, for example, why the ransom negotiators were turned back? Might it be because this is not an ordinary raid? Is there some unseen principal who might not be well-disposed to Your Magnificence once it is known you are among the captives?’
‘You are most perceptive, my dear Aelric,’ came the answer. ‘But I repeat – your own safety is in proportion to your ignorance.’
I ignored that. ‘So, let us think this through,’ I went on. ‘Heraclius is now a short voyage from the City. He hasn’t the forces for a regular siege. Even if he had, it would fail. He must, therefore, rely on disaffection within for the gates to be opened. Phocas keeps a tight grip on the city and people are frightened to move against him.
‘What might a man like you advise in this case? Surely, you’d tell Heraclius to hire some barbarians to stage a raid. You make sure the Imperial envoys are turned discreetly away. You then arrange yourself for the release of captives. You show up your devotion to the public good at the same time as you reveal how little Phocas cares.
‘Of course, you make an exception for certain people whom luck has put into your hands. Their death can be blamed on the barbarians. But so long as the other prisoners return unharmed, no tears will be shed over that.
‘You will agree, Theophanes, this seems to fit very well with our own apparent circumstances – even down to your assurance that Martin and I have nothing to fear.’
Theophanes shrugged. ‘If you are right, dearest boy, nothing changes. You are safe. And it remains that I seek a favour of the greatest value to my peace of mind.’
I wanted to jump in here and continue the questioning. This was my chance – perhaps my last chance – to find out what had been going on above my head. But Theophanes had almost forgotten I was his audience. He spoke now in a slow, dreamy voice, his eyes half closed.
‘It was in the year before the first visitation of plague that I was snatched from herding my father’s goats. The raiders came from out of the desert – the great, burning desert, as wide and illimitable as the seas that lie to the west of your islands. They came in daylight. They killed my father and his brothers. They carried me off, together with my mother and my sisters.
‘My mother was left to die where she fell down on the long trek through the desert. My sisters and I were separated from each other at the slave auction outside Bostra. That is where I was castrated.
‘For a while, I was a dancing boy ministering to a rich Syrian in Antioch. Then I was sold to a brothel in Beirut. There, I was bought by a lecturer in the School of Law…’
He drifted into silence again and reached for the stone. He cupped it in his hand. ‘I know I can make myself sleep tonight. I can will myself to anything.’
‘But you came at last into the Imperial Service?’ I broke in. I’d get back to the main question shortly. For the moment, I’d learn what else I could.
‘The plague that destroyed so much of the old world’, he said, taking up the thread, ‘gave unlimited opportunities to those of us who lived and knew how to survive. I achieved my present eminence under His Late Majesty the Emperor Maurice. You know, I signed his death warrant, and the warrants against his five sons. I watched the deaths, and then signed the release forms for the archive.’
He paused, doubtless reflecting on the enormity of what he’d done – breaking a peaceful continuity of centuries. Then he continued: ‘I’ll not deny that what I did greatly advanced my position. But I also insist that I acted in what I truly thought at the time was in the best interests of the Empire as a whole. We were beginning to face pressures within and without that Maurice had repeatedly shown himself unable to handle with the necessary resolution.
‘I did try explaining this to the poor man as we took him from the cell. He simply bowed, quoting the old verse:
“One who does evil, then is caught,
I hate to hear insist he ought.”’
Theophanes laughed gently. ‘My real life began with a capture. Now it will so end. I have done many wicked things in the time between but I am not ashamed to ask that a final – and perhaps justified – wickedness against me shall be frustrated.’
Well, that was Theophanes – still secretive and still trying to be a slippery Oriental right to the end.
‘What is it to be, then,’ he asked, with a return to practicalities – ‘mercy at your hands, or a roughness of handling that I am surprised has been so long delayed?’
‘Neither,’ I said, speaking softly but urgently. ‘Even if Heraclius is trying some clever trick, I don’t trust these savages. Their nerves are fraying, and I know what they’re capable of doing once the drink has gone round a few times. I’ve seen the Lombards at work any number of times on their prisoners. I’ve – er – seen much unpleasantness among my own people.
‘Your death, when it comes, Theophanes, will not be at my hands. Nor am I planning to sit here in the hope that orders will come from Abydos or wherever before it’s too late. I’m getting out of here,’ I added. ‘Come with me if you want to stay alive.’
Theophanes leaned forward and looked hard at me. He brushed some creases from the front of his tunic and leaned still closer.
‘I do believe, my dear and beautiful boy,’ he said, ‘you have a plan. Would you do me the honour of sharing it with me?’
Speaking fast and in my quietist whisper, I explained the plan. At first sceptical, Theophanes, I could see, was brightening. He raised objections I hadn’t considered. He made suggestions that I incorporated. By the time we were finished, the plan was settled.
We agreed that it had a slender chance of success, but was worth trying. At worst, it might bring us faster or at least more dignified deaths.
All that remained was to put it to Martin. Theophanes and I looked at each other.
‘I think it will be best coming from you,’ he said.
I put my hand over Martin’s mouth and my knee in his stomach to wake him as quickly and silently as I could. We didn’t want to alert any of the other captives, who’d gone placidly to sleep around us like good little citizens of the Empire. And we wanted no attention from our captors.
In the end, it took us both to convince him. Only when Theophanes spread his legs and hitched up his robe and belly to show his castration scar shining silver in the dim light from the dying moon, and spoke about the blood and pain involved even for a small boy, did Martin come to a semblance of his senses.
‘But if it fails…’ he said, his eyes rolling with terror at the thought of actually taking matters into our own hands.
‘It won’t fail,’ Theophanes said in a tone that crushed dissent. ‘Have you seen Aelric fail in any of his ventures? I can assure you, I have never once failed in mine.
‘Do you see this stone in my hand? If you don’t say “yes”, now, this very moment, I swear I’ll use it to provide a real corpse – your own.’
That was it. For what little he might be worth, Martin was in.
We waited until what was left of the moon was high in the night sky. The other captives had drifted as deep as they ever would into sleep on the damp, stinking ground. The Yellow Barbarians had all disappeared to wherever they went by night. The Germanics were left in charge of us.
Around us were the snores of the sleeping. From over by the fire came the shouted laughter and guttural calls on Lady Fortune of about a dozen barbarians having fun. I heard the steady rattle and fall of dice from a cup.
