from St Paul had been circulated round the city. I wasn’t just a favourite of Saint Victorinus; everyone was now saying I had God Almighty Himself on my side.
I can’t say how many benedictions I’d had asked of me once out of the Legation. But I can say that I wasn’t once stopped at any of the barricades going up at street corners and made to show identification. Whether in Green livery or Blue, the pickets just stood smartly back and let us both through. This meant that, while it was on the far side of the city, getting to the Monastery of St John Chrysostom took only half the time Martin had set aside.
A grey building, abutting directly on to the Golden Horn, the monastery stood in one of the outlying commercial districts. In one of those slow, semi-tidal movements that carry business around a great city like Constantinople, the smarter establishments had long since moved towards the Bosphorus side. What remained were mostly the second-hand markets. Crowded with Jews and unwashed paupers, the streets might have been in another city. But, as you ought now to realise, Constantinople is a world in itself – a city of many cities.
‘Your Excellency will surely not object to the removal of his sword within this House of God,’ the clerk said, rising from his bow as I stepped through the opened gate.
‘Of course not,’ I replied, reaching for the buckle. ‘I’d have been surprised had you asked anything else.’
I passed my sword to a monk who’d been washing the floor. He put his mop down and bowed silently before hanging it on a peg for outer clothes.
As we passed down a shabby corridor that stank of boiled cabbage, I wondered how many monks there could be in this Order. The monastery must have been bigger than the Legation, but was absolutely silent.
Unless their foundations exist to bother God in earnest, abbots in the West tend towards the jolly. Think of my dear Benedict here in Jarrow. The Abbot of this monastery sat slumped at his desk, glowering in the Greek fashion into his huge, scruffy beard.
‘Reverend Father,’ I opened in my most courtly manner, ‘I represent His Holiness the Patriarch of Rome, and come with the full authority of His Most Sacred Imperial Majesty-’
I got no further. The Abbot continued looking down at his desk, breathing hard. Instead, the clerk who’d brought me in struck up:
‘Your Excellency must be aware that the monks of this Order are under a vow of perpetual silence. The Reverend Father cannot possibly respond to anything you say.’
‘What?’ I asked, astonished.
The clerk took up an oratorical pose and continued: ‘Our Patron Saint said everything that needed to be said. He said it as well as could be said. It would be a disservice to Him if the monks devoted to His Most Glorious and Eloquent Memory were to try speaking for themselves. They may use their organs of speech to give quiet thanks to the Heavenly Father. But there can be no profane use.’
This was a novel excuse for not trying to speak proper Greek. It was a bit of a conversation stopper, though.
I smiled and tried again:
‘I would ask the Reverend Father to consider that, in the fullest possible sense, I represent the successor of Saint Peter Himself. Our Lord and Saviour said to him: “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
‘In virtue of this,’ I continued, ‘I release you from your vow for the purpose of my audience with you.’
At this, the Abbot looked up. I thought for a moment he’d open his mouth and scream obscenities before attacking me. Instead, he clasped his dirty fingers harder together and looked back down.
‘We are aware that His Holiness of Rome stands at the head of all the Patriarchs,’ the clerk replied smoothly. ‘By law, he has primacy of place. And you have full authority on his behalf to make such a release. However’ – the clerk was beginning to enjoy himself – ‘Constantinople is not Rome or the West. You are within the jurisdiction of another Patriarch. Any communication from His Holiness in Rome must be passed through the office of our own Patriarch, who will, I have no doubt, be pleased in due course to send it down for our own miserable attention.’
Dear me – how very troublesome that the Greek Patriarch was indisposed!
I tried yet again: ‘Then you will surely accept that I speak also with the authority of our Most Sacred Emperor. I need to ask questions of the Reverend Father. He would not wish to impede the urgent business of the Empire?’
‘Indeed not!’ the clerk exclaimed, raising his hands in mock horror. ‘We are loyal citizens of the Empire. As such, we must without question obey every lawful command of His Majesty. If we choose not to obey commands unlawful to our faith, we are still obliged as citizens to stretch our necks meekly forward for the sword of execution. But we are convinced that His Most Sacred Majesty would never issue an unlawful command. You might therefore wish to return to him to seek a clarification of your warrant.’
I gave up on the Abbot. It was hard to imagine how he could run a monastery without opening his mouth. But there was no shaking their story in the time I was willing to give them before Heraclius broke into the city and the murder investigation was redundant.
‘Then perhaps you, sir, might be able to assist me,’ I said to the clerk. ‘There are several monks from your Order who with great kindness and diligence have been looking after the garden at my Legation. The last time they were definitely there was on the day before His Excellency the Permanent Legate was brutally slain. I appreciate that they cannot answer any questions put to them with regard to what they might have seen that day. But it would be most useful if I could have their names and if I could at least see their faces.’
‘I do regret’, the clerk replied in a voice that sounded only just the wrong side of genuine, ‘that I am not at liberty to comment on any aspect of our internal management. Only the Reverend Father can do that.’
I looked again at the Abbot. Had I misjudged him? Was that anger he was suppressing, or the urge to burst out laughing?
‘That wasn’t very productive,’ said Martin in Celtic. We stood in a second-hand bookshop that I hadn’t yet seen. It was coming on to rain, and I’d decided to take shelter there until a chair could be procured.
‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘it was most productive. I fail to see how Demetrius could have slipped out of the Legation unless dressed as one of these monks. It may be the same with his accomplice. My suspicion that he is inside those walls isn’t yet confirmed. But it has been strengthened.’
‘But, surely,’ Martin asked, ‘if he thinks you know that, he’ll now move on.’
‘Look over there,’ I said, pointing at a Black Agent who was trying without much success to look inconspicuous in a doorway. ‘I’ve had one stationed near every known entrance to the monastery. Demetrius might get out through some hidden tunnel. But with Black Agents combing the city for him, there’s nowhere else for him to go.
‘What I do next is get a permit out of Theophanes or the Emperor for a search. Give me Demetrius and I’ll have the truth out of him. Then I’ll pass him to Priscus to die under questioning.’
I turned to the bookseller. ‘Now, you listen here, my good man,’ I said, back in Greek and holding up a battered, crumbling roll of papyrus, ‘I know exactly how much these old things are worth. For this and the five others I’ll give you one quarter solidus. I’m doing you a favour to take them off your hands. Have you bothered opening any of them to see what loathsome blasphemy they contain? Sell them to me, and I will compose a refutation of their contents before destroying them. Keep them, and I will denounce you to the Prefect.’
The bookseller sniffed at my threat and told me that he might have other things of interest to me in his back rooms. He’d picked up a senator’s entire library at auction. He shuffled away, in the certain knowledge that I’d follow him.
As we haggled over the price of what I had found, Martin darted around to try and stop one of the chairs. But I was hardly thinking of the rain now coming down in sheets. I was thinking even less of the investigation.
As I pulled out roll after roll – no modern books here with pages bound in sections – the bookseller raised his prices. I just couldn’t keep the look of greed off my face. When I got to Porphyry’s banned attack on the Christian Faith he began demanding a solidus per roll.
But you should never not buy a book. You might never see it again. I negotiated hard, but I did so from an obviously weak position. In the end I got everything for twenty-five solidi, and the bookseller threw in as a freebie some of the anti-Christian writings of Celsus – one of the last big Epicureans, you know – that I’d already seen in the University Library but hadn’t, dared pass over for copying.
The second-hand book trade, the man assured me as I hesitated, was completely unregulated in
