would have to be left unbarred as everyone else was asleep, but we took the precaution of locking the door to the nursery.
Leaving the main gate of the Legation unbarred wasn’t an option, now that all the doorkeepers were out cold. I needed someone to stay behind and look after things, so we spent more time slapping some life into Radogast, who was now the most senior of my Lombard slaves. He had all the strength and loyalty of Authari but none of his resourcefulness. Still, he would easily be able to lift the heavy bar into place behind us, and then to let us in again.
‘Sit over there,’ I said, motioning him to a bench against the wall. It was midway between the gate and the doorway to my suite. ‘If you see anyone strange, kill him.’
He nodded. There was no point giving him more detailed instructions.
At last, we set out. It was still blackest night and while the streets were brightly lit, there were fewer people about than when I’d been carried back from the Imperial Palace. Mostly drunk, the Circus Faction bands took no interest in us. No one asked us for identification.
We’d dressed the body in a long hooded cloak. Similarly clad, Authari and I walked on either side of it. The leather thongs about its wrists that we clutched tight to our chests made it look as if the dead man had his arms around our necks for support. The hood was of a stiff enough fabric to hide how the head flopped low on the chest, and the length of the cloak to some extent concealed the fact that the feet weren’t stumbling beside us, but trailing along the ground.
Authari and I swayed gently from side to side as we dragged the body along, giving our best appearance of a trio of drunks – one being helped along by the others.
Also hooded, Martin walked a few yards ahead, keeping an eye out for Black Agents or anyone else who might be inclined to give us more than a passing glance.
We dumped the body in the cellar beneath a derelict wine shop where the stench of decayed human shit and other filth was already overpowering. Martin struck steel on flint to get our lamp going and, as in Rome with any dead burglar, we stripped the body. He slid a ring off the signet finger for later dropping through a drain cover.
As a final precaution, Authari took out the short sword he’d brought along and cut the head off the corpse. Then we heaped rubble over the body, and hoped the rats would find it before anyone else did.
‘Murderous fucking Greek!’ he snarled, spitting on to the mashed-up brains.
‘I’ll see you in Hell!’ Martin added with uncharacteristic passion.
‘Mustn’t the Last Trump sound first?’ I asked with a deliberate lack of relevance. My own head was coming on to ache again.
After disposing of what remained of the head in a neighbouring cellar we crept back to the Legation by a different and very circuitous route, arriving there just as dawn was preparing to fringe the eastern sky with rosy fingers.
I couldn’t speak for Authari. He was now in impassive freedman mode, carrying out his duties without question. But I know Martin and I were feeling rather better for having got rid of the body. So I was surprised by the argument that broke out between him and Authari as we approached the Legation.
‘I told you,’ Martin whispered, ‘not to leave him alone.’
‘Don’t moan at me,’ came the reply. ‘I left the dinner earlier than you. I only nodded off for a moment.’
I turned and shut them up. This was not the time or the place for discussing anything – not even what Alypius might have been doing in my bedroom earlier.
‘We’ll sleep,’ I said firmly as I knocked at the Legation gate and Radogast raised the bar. ‘We’ll sleep until the sun is well up. Then we’ll decide with clear heads what to do next.’
Inside the main hall I helped to lower the bar on the gate, then I led the way towards my suite.
Just at that moment Demetrius burst through the door to our right.
‘There you are, sir!’ he cried, his eyes wide with terror. Other officials milled around him, silent in their panic. ‘Oh, sir – we’ve been looking for you everywhere. Do come at once and help. I fear His Excellency the Permanent Legate has come to grief.’
39
The Permanent Legate had his private rooms arranged almost as a mirror image of my own suite. Where mine were to the left of the main hall, his were to the right. For the first time since my arrival, the door leading in was unlocked and open.
With an involuntary but brief pause at the doorway, I stepped through into the corridor and made for the staircase, which was in the same relative position as my own. I hadn’t before realised how my suite had come to differ from other parts of the Legation because we’d improved it by a series of incremental touches over the past few months – a rug here, an ornament there, and so on. We’d made it into a home.
Over on this side, there had been no improvements. The change of season had combined with the dilapidated externals to produce a damp smell on this side of the dome. Paint was flaking off the plastered walls to reveal brown stains beneath.
At the top of the stairs I encountered the legal official, Antony. He was dancing from side to side with agitation. Behind him, a slave was pushing in vain at what I took to be the door of the Permanent Legate’s bedroom.
‘Oh, sir,’ Antony cried, ‘the door is locked and bolted from the inside. We fear the worst.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I shouted above the wailing of the slaves.
‘Shut those fucking slaves up,’ I added with a snarl, ‘or I’ll have them flogged.’
There was silence. Then Demetrius embarked on a babbling explanation in his wretched Greek. Just before dawn, he’d been woken by a scream coming from the Permanent Legate’s room.
‘Where do you sleep?’ I broke in. He indicated quarters beyond those of the Permanent Legate, in the right arm of the Legation. I wondered if he’d managed to hear any of the disturbances in my suite much earlier in the night. Perhap he’d been drunk in any event.
Demetrius explained that he’d got the key to the Permanent Legate’s rooms – they were normally locked, he added – and had gone up to knock on the door.
‘All I heard,’ he said in a sepulchral whisper, ‘was a shuffling, and then nothingness.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you have the key. Get the door open, and we can see for ourselves.’
‘I tried opening the door,’ he replied. ‘The key pushes and pulls from the outside but the door is bolted on the inside. Look-’ He pushed the key in and out again, and rattled the door handle, to make his point. He fumbled again with the key.
‘Let me,’ I said, pushing him out of the way. I wanted my bed and I wanted to see the Permanent Legate. I’d achieve neither unless I took matters into my own hands.
I banged hard on the door. ‘Your Excellency,’ I shouted, ‘please unbolt the door. We need to speak with you urgently.’
Nothing.
‘Please, Your Excellency,’ I tried again, ‘we fear you are in some trouble. Please open the door, or at least reply. Otherwise, we must force the door.’
Still nothing.
The officials were looking agitated again. Martin’s face was a blank of tired confusion.
I turned to Authari. ‘Go back with Radogast,’ I said, nodding towards our own suite. ‘Find something we can use as a battering ram. We’ll get in there soon enough.’
It didn’t help that the narrowness of the corridor gave us very little room for battering the door down, or that it was tougher than expected. While Martin kept the officials out of the way, the three of us – big strong Northerners all – smashed again and again at what was as unyielding as a brick wall. By the time we’d loosened the door in its frame, the oak bench from our own kitchen would never see service again except as fuel for the ovens.
With a massive splintering of wood, the door was at last off its hinges. We’d damaged most of the frame and part of the wall in our assault. Once the dust had settled, and it was clear that no one in the room was moving, I
