was supposed to contain, but it was plainly of some value to me.
There was no moonlight in the street where I was standing, and the high terraced houses behind me were also dark. Like most buildings on the edge of Rome, they must have been abandoned. In daylight, I’d have seen them in ruins.
There was, however, a brightness in the clouded sky, and I could see the monument about a hundred yards beyond the locked entry gate. It stood out oddly white in the surrounding gloom. My bag, I felt, should still be there.
I could also see that the park was not empty. I can’t recall how many of the creatures stood looking back at me, but I do recall their appearance. Smooth and covered with scales that glinted in a light that shone from nowhere, each was about the size and shape of a ten-year-old child. They had about them the strange stillness combined with rapid, darting motions that one sees in certain reptiles. Most striking about their appearance, though, was the eyes. These glowed a bright green. It was a strange brightness, having great intensity but no power.
The creatures looked at me over the top of the gate, pointing and whispering to each other in a low, sinister gibberish.
I was frightened, but I wanted my bag, so I climbed the gate and jumped down among them. They scattered from me as if frightened, but as I moved deeper into the park towards the monument, they seemed to recover their nerve and clustered round me, plucking at my clothes and whispering excitedly.
By now I was terrified. My heart was beating wildly and I could feel my hair standing on end. My mouth was dry and I bit my tongue in an effort to control my chattering teeth. I wanted desperately to turn and run, but I also wanted my bag so I forced myself to carry on.
When I reached the bench by the monument, all I could find was a white cloth bag filled with scraps of papyrus. I grabbed it and turned to run back to the safety of the street.
But the street had vanished. I found myself no longer in an enclosed park but at the top of a low hill. As far as I could see in the now bright moonlight, there was only neatly cut grass, and in the distance a copse of trees that cast shadows of indescribable blackness. Though I could see for miles, there were no lights or any other sign of human habitation.
The low whispering took on a triumphant note, and the creatures moved closer, now wholly surrounding me. I could feel their sharp little hands brushing cold against mine as they tried to pull me to the ground…
I woke with a start. I was still in my bedroom. Outside, the light had long since faded and stars were shining through the window. On the beside table, a lamp was turned down low.
I reached for the jug of melon pulp Martin had thoughtfully left for me in place of the usual wine. A bad dream, I told myself – just the sort of thing to round off a day of repeated excitements.
‘Authari?’ I croaked. Then I remembered the dinner. Everyone would be with Demetrius. Straining, I could just hear the sound of merriment. It must have been coming from the public areas of the Legation. These were beyond the dome, just under or close by the Permanent Legate’s quarters.
Good luck to the old sod, I thought, wondering how His Excellency was taking the noise from dinner. If his hearing was sensitive enough to be upset by Maximin’s crying, this must be driving him out of his wits.
Laid neatly out over by the door, my clothes were ready for the morning.
Could I tie the leggings on for myself? I wondered.
35
In the central districts, Constantinople by night is lit up almost like the day. Here, the function of dusk is only to mark the tipping point of activity between business and pleasure.
I had thought of visiting the usual brothel. But the excitements of the Circus had filled these places already to bursting, and I wasn’t in the mood for being some whore’s second or third helpings. Indeed, I wasn’t in much of a mood for sex. As I pushed my way through those chill, crowded streets, I found myself shuddering with a nervous energy that made me game for anything – except whatever I turned my mind to.
Why had I gone out? I’d gone out because I could, and because I had no wish to show myself in any company led by Demetrius. Back to bed was out of the question so I paced the streets, unfocused and discontented.
Beggars huddled together for warmth under the flaring torches. Someone must have been busy with paint during the Circus performances. The street walls were covered in graffiti – most of it for Heraclius. No one had bothered yet to clean it off.
For the first time, I saw men stop to read the competing libels. Stood in little groups, not looking at each other, they blocked the colonnades outside the Covered Market as they followed the crudities of the debate. Taking all this in, my eyes had the super-sharp focus you normally get only in the bitter cold – or in certain kinds of dream.
I was stopped as I tried to enter the Senatorial Dock. There was a wine shop just inside where Baruch transacted his evening business. He hadn’t really blamed me for my part in the shake-down. And there was a refinement on the tin business that I wanted to put his way.
‘Halt and show your papers,’ I was told. ‘You are entering a controlled military zone.’
I looked at the guard. A pile of lard squeezed into a semblance of order by armour that, even so, only fitted because of leather gussets down both sides. He might have been seventy, but wrinkles never show properly on fat.
‘I am Alaric,’ I said. ‘You might have seen me earlier today with the Emperor.’
The Aged Guard grinned back at me. ‘Of course I know who you are,’ he said. ‘But orders are orders. If you don’t have no papers, I must arrest you on suspicion of treason.’
‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ a voice drawled behind me. The Aged Guard stood stiffly to attention, his arm raised in a good military salute.
I turned. It was Priscus, got up in some very fine golden armour.
‘My dear young friend!’ he said, taking me by the shoulder. ‘I really did think I had been deprived of your company for tonight. Now, it seems Saint Victorinus smiles on us both.’
I looked at him. In a huge place like Constantinople, how could I have run almost at once into Priscus? Could I still be dreaming after all?
‘Think nothing of it, my sweet and dearest Alaric,’ he replied, brushing aside my thanks. ‘I might wish you hadn’t been there once. Very few go twice under the Ministry.’
Phocas, he told me, had armed the Circus Factions and called up everyone in the city who had ever done military service. Priscus had been put at their head and told to come up with a plan of defence, should Heraclius get through the gates.
‘Do you suppose there will be an attack?’ I asked at length to break the long silence of our walk. I wondered if he, too, had seen Alypius behind us. I’d spotted him earlier when inspecting myself in the reflection from a shop window. Now he was following us, dodging round corners or into the crowds whenever I looked round.
‘There can be no doubt of an attack,’ said Priscus. ‘Do you see that?’
He waved his hand over the battlements of the sea wall. The moon was not yet bright enough to reveal the flotilla that was ferrying in the main part of the rebel army. But there was no need of illumination. The ships were as brightly lit as the better class of shops in Middle Street. They were guided by further lights on the Asiatic and Galatan shores.
‘No one can get through these walls,’ he added. ‘Even if the Persians and every barbarian race known to man joined forces with Heraclius, they still couldn’t get in. But no one believes the gates will stay closed. Heraclius has his people all over the city. My job is to go through the motions of leading an army of trash into battle against some of the best fighting units in the provincial armies.’
Priscus paused and lowered his voice. ‘Fat lot of good to give me any command now,’ he spat. ‘If Our All- Wise and All-Conquering Augustus had trusted me with an army two years ago, we’d by now be laying siege to Ctesiphon, or at least be dictating terms to the Persians. As for Heraclius and his father’ – he broke off. Then: ‘Instead, he gave me his daughter and a few promises.’
I looked nervously over my shoulder. There was a respectful void around us. But probably tens of thousands
