So that was the reason. I’d thought this was the Stylite hermit – getting his crown of martyrdom somewhat earlier than he’d had in mind. Instead, he was one of the envoys from Phocas that I’d heard the Germanics discussing.
As we passed out of the camp, I looked far over to my left. A dog had caught a rabbit which he carried in his mouth, his tail up, eyes shining. For us, too, it looked set to be a glorious day. I eased the stiffness from my back and took in a breath of the fresh morning air.
The Yellow Linguist walked in front. Behind us walked two armed guards. At the far end of the street we had entered, the only unruined building was a fortified church. Its heavy door had been scorched in a recent attempt on the place, but was unbreached.
Was that a movement I’d seen from the window of its tower? Hard to say.
I suddenly remembered my sword back in the camp. I hadn’t thought to ask for its return. Nor had it been offered. No point in suggesting I should go back for it.
Then I heard Theophanes beside me. He spoke in a bright conversational Greek, pointing at the dog.
‘Aelric,’ he said, ‘I must regret to inform you of a change in our circumstances. Do not plague me with questions – now or ever – about my sources of information. But it seems that our positions are reversed. I am safe. It is now you who are in danger.
‘Ten paces after I finish talking to you, I will cry out and fall to the ground. I shall give every appearance of having had a stroke. Because my life has become of considerable value to them, these barbarians will turn all their attention on me.
‘When that happens, you and Martin will run. The City must be to your left – perhaps only a half-mile away. You will outrun our guards because they are more accustomed to riding. Do not stop, do not look round. Do you understand?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said with a cheerful wave.
‘Yes,’ said Martin, his nerve surprisingly steady.
Would I ever learn what these ‘sources of information’ had been? I looked down at my heavy, ill-fitting boots that had been made for everything but speed.
But we’d underestimated the Yellow Linguist. It wasn’t only Latin he understood. He turned and barked an order at which he and the two guards drew their swords with a menacing rasp of steel, glinting in the early sunlight.
Having passed the church, we were now in a narrow street, one sword in front of us, two behind. All three were too close to be tackled one at a time.
I pushed Theophanes back against a broken wall and felt for my knife. Martin stood like a man turned to stone.
I might get one of them if I were lucky.
‘Take this, you yellow fuckers,’ a harsh voice cried out from above in Latin.
I think I shall be forgiven if I say I was long since past any degree of surprise. If it had been Saint Victorinus himself dropping down from that wall, his flowers tumbling behind him, I’d not have raised an eyebrow.
But it was Authari. Like me, he was dressed in the clothing of one of those Germanics. His sword glinted dull in the morning light.
So that’s what had become of Hermann, I thought as I lunged at the Yellow Linguist while he was still in shock. But he recovered too fast. It was only the leather tunic that saved me from his raking sword-blow. I danced back, wrapping my cloak around my left arm and lashing out again with the knife.
No luck with that. Though largely useless for fighting on foot, a sword was still better than a knife.
I glanced round. My eyes lit on a spar that might be useful as a club. Before going for it, I threw the knife at his face. I was in luck this time. I got him straight in one of his eye-sockets. The knife went in and dropped out again as he fell down squealing and writhing on the broken cobbles like a worm that has just had salt poured over it. Through hands clamped tight over his eye came a stream of black fluid. It was the sort of wound that doesn’t kill at once, but can fester for days in an agony that doesn’t abate.
Feeling a surge of joy I hadn’t felt in months – not, indeed, since I’d skewered that killer outside the Lateran – I left the knife where it lay and bent down for his sword. Then, hearing a loud clashing behind me, I turned round to join in the action.
No need. Authari had made short work of the Yellows. He’d had that massive Germanic sword and had taken them too much by surprise. They lay at his feet in two crumpled heaps.
I saw Theophanes relax his grip on the knife in his hand. No more killing for him at the moment. The work was already done.
My legs went from under me in a sudden fit of the shakes. I flopped to the ground beside the Yellow Linguist. Everything about me went dark, with little flashes of light at the corners of my eyes.
‘Not this one,’ I whispered to Authari as he raised his sword in both hands above the Yellow Linguist. ‘I want to finish him myself – with the knife.’
The beast had another eye, and much else that he might do before drawing his last breath.
But Authari ignored me. With a crunch, that heavy sword had smashed through quilted tunic and ribs, and the Yellow Linguist lay as silent as the other two.
He stood over me, breathing heavily. He put his hand down to me as I struggled to regain control over my little nervous fit.
‘Get up, my Golden Aelric,’ said Theophanes. ‘Get up. Just one more effort before we can be safe.’
‘Come along, Master,’ Authari added, pulling me up with one arm. ‘I want meat for my breakfast.’
28
‘I think a touch more oil on your back, sir,’ the slave said, flask in hand.
I could feel the heat baking though my sandals as I stood looking down at the brown sweat that oozed from every pore of my body in that room. Another slave knelt before me on a leather mat, scraping at my legs with his strigil.
‘With all respect, sir,’ he said, looking up, ‘we’ll surely cook before we can get all that dirt out of you.’
On the far side of the hot room, Martin was trying to insist that he could scrape himself. For all the notice his own ministering slaves took of him, he might have been speaking Celtic.
Theophanes had been right. The City was to our left, but some of the Germanics had been over on our right – four of them. I don’t know if they’d been waiting for us on orders carried from the Great One, or if they’d still been looking for us.
All that mattered was that they’d almost caught us. We’d run like lunatics over that broken ground towards the defensive clearing. Martin and Theophanes had run hand in hand. Authari and I had followed, turning every so often to throw bricks at the exhausted pursuers. They’d been hardly six feet behind us, swords in hand, as we came within range of the City artillery. Only then had they given up the chase, standing out of probable range and shouting obscenities as we made for the nearest gate.
The negotiations required of Theophanes had seemed endless before the gate had been swung open by its quaking sentries and we were able to pass back into the City. But once inside, with nine inches of iron-clad gate between us and the rest of the world, I’d realised it was all over. We’d sat quietly drinking the dark, powerful wine the soldiers gave us, listening vaguely to the stream of peremptory orders and explanations Theophanes had snapped at the officer in charge, the creaking of the iron gibbets overhead, and the muffled shouts that drifted underneath the gate.
Authari explained that he had become separated from us in the attack and by the time he’d caught up with us the Germanics had taken us. He had followed us back to the guardhouse, and hidden out in an old hen coop from where he could see all that passed. He’d waited there for a chance to to rescue us. On the second day, he’d come upon Hermann and broken his neck, taking his clothes and hiding the body. His plan had been to kill another guard early in the morning of the fourth day and take the dead man’s place for an inspection.
‘But I missed your escape, sir,’ he said guiltily. ‘I wetted my lips with a little beer I’d found, and then fell asleep for just a few moments. I woke to the sound of shouting. I knew it must have been you who’d got
