but decided not to push my welcome.
As the door closed and we were alone again, he continued. ‘You may be aware that it is now twenty years since the Spanish King abandoned the damnable heresy of Arianism that his barbarian ancestors introduced into the country. He and his successors have been ever since firm in the true Orthodox Faith of Nicaea.’
I was vaguely aware of the fact. But whether Christ was One with the Father or merely of the Father had never much troubled me. Nor was I much concerned what view any of the barbarians who’d planted themselves in the old Western Provinces took of the matter. When both parties to an argument scream incomprehensible formulae at each other, and threaten any observers with hellfire unless they fully agree with one against the other, the time is for men of sense to make their excuses.
But I knew it was the Dispensator’s duty to stand up for Nicaea. For all that it had started as an argument among Greeks, the Roman Church had for centuries been defending the Creed of Nicaea against anyone who presumed to doubt it. This had raised troubles in the West where most barbarians had – accidentally – converted to the wrong side. More importantly, the further argument over the Single or Double Nature of Christ had turned the Greek and other Eastern Churches upside down, and kept them from uniting against Rome. So I nodded and tried to look interested.
‘You will be aware then’, he continued, ‘that an insignificant but vocal minority in Spain have persisted in the darkness of heresy. The secular authorities have exhausted all the loving care at their disposal to win them over. Here in Rome, therefore, we have arranged one last meeting between the Orthodox and the spokesmen of heresy. These latter are to attend under a flag of truce. They may yet be brought over without need of a truly disruptive severity.’
‘And you want me to go to Spain’, I broke in, ‘to complete the work you began there of dishing out bribes to, or gathering dirt on, the Arian bishops?’
I thought this an inspired stab. A Spanish trip would have fitted my Cornish plans, and a mission for the Church would have been a fine cover. Mainly, though, I just wanted for once to break through that smooth, bureaucratic exterior.
No such luck. The Dispensator gave me a withering look and went on with his exposition.
‘Our problem’, he said, ‘is that one of the leaders of the Arian party – I do not, by the way, think “Bishop” an appropriate title for a heretic – is a person of some pretence to learning. He has raised questions regarding the procedural regularity of the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, and of the authorised Latin translation of their Acts. In particular, he notes that the Holy Ghost is said in the Creed to proceed only from the Father and not from the Father and Son. Making use of this alleged ambiguity, he denies that the Creed truly expresses what we have always taken it to mean.
‘These questions must have been raised at least once in the past three centuries, and doubtless fully answered. Sadly, neither we nor the Spanish Church have been able to find any discussion useful to our purposes.’
That must have been embarrassing, I thought. Forget theology – this was politics. If you’re English, you’ll be used to the fact that our churchmen look directly to Rome. Our secular authorities aren’t up to much at the best of times, and only get attention out of politeness or when something is wanted. It was different back then in the French and Spanish Churches. Of course, they accepted the spiritual primacy of Rome but they looked to their local kings much as they had to the Emperor when there was still one in the West.
This annoyed Rome like nothing else. Its ambition was to be Omnium Orbis Ecclesiarum Mater et Caput – the Mother and Head of all the Churches of the world. From the Pope down, the words hung on every pair of lips in the Lateran.
Now it was faced with an admission that it couldn’t flatten some heretical Goth on the meaning of the Creed. Yes, most embarrassing.
But the Dispensator hadn’t paused to give me time for a gloat. He put down the lead seal he’d been toying with and looked straight at me.
‘I therefore need someone competent in theology and in Greek’, he said, ‘to travel to Constantinople to consult the libraries and the religious scholars of that city.’
Well, you could have buggered me with a bargepole and I’d not have noticed. I think my mouth fell open. I sat for a while looking at him and trying to gather some reply.
‘According to what I’ve picked up on the Exchange,’ I said at last, ‘the Danube frontier has collapsed and Slavs are pouring into the Balkans. The Persians have invaded Mesopotamia and may already be in Syria. The Exarch of Africa is in revolt against the Emperor, and his people have taken Egypt. These are all converging on Constantinople and it’s an open bet who will get there first. Whoever does get there will find an emperor who is incompetent for every purpose but murdering anyone who might have some ready cash to steal, or who may have given one of his statues a funny look.
‘I’ll not deny, My Lord Dispensator, you have some right to my services. But you’ll need to try a lot harder to get me into that shambles. The two of us may have agreed that certain events here and outside Ravenna never took place last year. I hardly think Emperor Phocas considers himself bound by our agreement.’
The Dispensator gave me one of his bleak smiles and motioned me back into my seat.
‘Of course, Aelric,’ he said – as ever, when he needed my services badly enough, with a failed attempt at pronouncing my real name – ‘I have no means to compel you to do anything. You are a free agent. Our rule is one of persuasion and love, not of force. But do consider that you came here with Father – but I correct myself! with Saint – Maximin to gather books for the mission library in Canterbury. Now, think of the great libraries of Constantinople. Think of the entry to these that the Church could obtain for you. I can offer you all the learning of the ages – books the like of which haven’t been in Rome for a hundred years or more.
‘And you will be under the full protection of the Church,’ he added, ‘and our Permanent Legate in the City will watch over you at all times.’
‘So,’ I asked, trying to ignore the thought of those libraries, ‘why not get His Excellency the Permanent Legate to do your research? Isn’t it for that sort of thing that he gets paid?’
‘No, Alaric,’ came the reply. ‘The Lord Silas has many excellences, and comes from one of the very best families in Rome. But his Greek is not sufficient for our purpose. And we do not think a local agent would be appropriate.’
So it was the usual nepotistic stitch-up. The best job in the Church, short of a really juicy bishopric, and it had gone to another duffer who had to transact all business in the Imperial capital – a few formal occasions apart, where Latin was still used – through an interpreter.
‘What makes you suppose I’m any better as a scholar?’ I asked again.
The Dispensator’s smile broadened till it bordered on the grotesque.
‘But Alaric, I have from both Rome and Canterbury the most glowing reports of your scholarship. Only last month’ – he took up a sheet of papyrus from one of the trays on his desk and squinted over the writing – ‘you were praised in an oration to His Holiness himself as “the Light from the North; the beauteous young barbarian drawn here by the gold of our learning, not of our palaces”.’
I can’t say I’d seen much learning in Rome, or many palaces that weren’t half-ruined slums. Nor can I say I liked the bit about being a barbarian. At the time, though, I’d found the notice flattering. It made a change from all the complaints the Church authorities had been getting about my talent for shady finance.
Good as I was in Roman terms, that hardly fitted me to rub shoulders with the tenured intellectuals of the greatest centre of learning in the world. What mattered most, though, was that the Dispensator seemed to think otherwise. Rome hadn’t yet been flooded with refugees from the Saracen invasions. Back then, Greek had become a rare accomplishment.
But there was no point debating any of this. My mind was made up.
‘I won’t go,’ I said firmly. ‘You must accept my apologies for declining your invitation. But nothing you can say will make me go.’
I rose. I was starving for my breakfast and I had to get to that meeting about the Cornish tin. There was no saying what my associates would agree without me there to keep them in line.
The Dispensator ignored my preparation to leave.
‘I am asking a favour of some considerable importance,’ he said, his voice now silky smooth, his annoyance discernible but not evident. ‘I know you have persuaded His Excellency the Prefect to “recognise” your Roman citizenship, and your having reached an age that my sources assure me you have not. But there is more than a
