invisible.
Then, just as the dawn was breaking, the main gate opened slightly. A face looked cautiously out and peered right and left. Once it was clear the street was empty, the gate swung half open, and a procession of the younger monks emerged. They strained and grunted as they carried out great containers of the previous day’s excrements for casting into the Golden Horn.
The Clerk had no time for more than the opening words of his protest as I smashed the pommel of my sword against the side of his head. He went down stunned. I pushed him into a broom cupboard, and we walked straight into the interior of the Monastery.
‘This way,’ I hissed to Baruch, pulling him just in time from a turn into the chapel. For the moment, we had the advantage of surprise. We needed to keep it that way.
The Abbot was rolling up a letter as we walked into his office.
‘What in God’s name?…’ he asked, jumping to his feet.
‘Excellent,’ I said in my easiest tone. I shut the door softly. ‘I take it you are now dispensed from your vow of silence?’
I told him what I wanted. His response was to dash for a window that opened on to the courtyard. How he’d ever have got through it, and then where he’d have gone, were questions Baruch saved him from having to answer. With a single blow of his fist, he had the Abbot floored.
‘You can make this easy on us, or hard for yourself,’ I said, looking down, my voice conversational.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ the Abbot spluttered. He gasped in horror as Baruch stepped heavily on his right hand. I could hear the bones cracking.
‘You know exactly what I mean,’ I said, pulling him back to his feet. ‘Now…’
There was a banging on the door.
‘Reverend Father, Reverend Father,’ a voice called urgently. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Oh shit!’ Baruch muttered. He spat on his sword blade for luck and added something about ‘corpse-eating Nazarene dogs’.
I pulled the door open. For monks, the three men outside were well-armed. I walked towards the doorway, the Abbot now held before me, right arm twisted high up his back, my sword at his throat.
‘If you don’t do exactly as I tell you,’ I said, still conversational, ‘I’ll kill your Reverend Father. And then, if you resist me, I’ll kill you. And if you make a noise while trying to avoid being killed by me, you’ll have some soldiers straight from Heraclius banging on the gate.
‘Which is it to be?’
‘Do as they say,’ the Abbot cried.
‘An excellent choice,’ I snarled in his ear. I stepped into the corridor. Still holding their swords, the three monks moved away from us.
Baruch covered me from behind as I followed the Abbot’s directions and pushed him down the long main corridor of the building. Doors opened before us, and pale, scared faces looked out from the tiny cells. But no one else was armed. As we approached, the faces pulled back and doors were slammed again.
‘In there,’ the Abbot gasped, indicating a smaller doorway near the end of the corridor.
‘In there – and may God punish your blasphemy.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ I said coldly. I held my sword tighter to his throat and stared at the armed monks, who’d followed us closely down the corridor. For a moment, they stared back. Then, with a gesture of submission, they put their swords down. For them, the game was over. What point in wagering now?
‘Get me the keys to this door,’ I said to no one in particular. His use as guide and hostage now at an end, I pushed the Abbot so he fell sprawling to the floor.
‘Keep your sword up,’ I said to Baruch as keys rattled somewhere in trembling hands. ‘We’ll need to look overpowering.’
My voice shook as I strained to hear any sound from inside. Was that the rasp of a sword from its scabbard?
For me, the game wasn’t over at all.
65
Though still hardly into the eastern sky, the sun had risen with almost summer-like heat as we set out upon the Golden Horn.
‘That one, over there,’ I said to the boatman, pointing at the largest of the ships that rode at anchor in the narrow bay.
I emptied a whole vial of perfume on to my sleeve and raised it to my nose as the oars began turning over the filth that lurked just beneath the sparkling water. Common sense told me I should sit in the boat but dignity was more important. I steadied myself against each gentle pitch of the boat and remained standing.
I’d thrown off my dark cloak and was showing off the dazzling white and purple-fringed robe of a senator. That, plus my golden hair and the general dignity and assurance of my pose, must have fixed every eye on those anchored ships.
I couldn’t be sure. If the sun shone full on me, it was also in my eyes, and I could see damn all of what might be happening ahead of me.
‘Who goes there?’ a voice cried from the flagship as we came within hailing distance.
I waited until we were close enough for me not to have to strain my voice with shouting.
‘I am the Senator Alaric,’ I called back at the second hailing, ‘formerly Acting Permanent Legate of His Holiness the Roman Patriarch, and lately Count of the Palace Guard.’
There was a long silence. We came alongside the flagship and skirted round the banks of oars to the wide stern. I remained standing, my head held up proudly for anyone to see who was inclined to look.
A face peered over the stern of the flagship. ‘What do you want?’ a voice asked uncertainly.
‘I have come to pay my respects to the Emperor,’ I said mildly.
The face retreated. There was a subdued conversation several feet above me. Then, instead of the rope ladder I’d expected, there was a clumsy squeaking and a whole wooden staircase swung over the side, its lowest step just above the waterline. I stepped across on to it.
‘Wait here,’ I muttered to Baruch. ‘Do exactly as I say.’ He looked at me, suddenly doubtful. His free hand tightened on the leather satchel that contained the promissory notes made out to bearer.
As I came on deck, it was like stepping into one of the grander mosaics you see in the Great Church. In full dress and all in proper place before me stood what looked like the whole of the new Imperial Court. Here were the generals, the priests and bishops, the scholars, the ministers, and all the other leading men of the New Order of Things. They stood before me grave and silent, glorious in their robes of many colours. I had no idea what they had been about before I came aboard, but they were as fine a reception committee as anyone short of an emperor himself might have wanted.
Right at the heart of the gathering sat Heraclius. I recognised him from the purple robe, and from the fact that he was sitting while all the others stood. He was just approaching his thirty-fifth birthday when I first saw him. Tall and thin, his light hair cut short, his face close-bearded, he looked barely older than I was. He stared back into my face, confused and perhaps a little annoyed.
A eunuch just to the left of Heraclius coughed gently and looked meaningfully at the purple carpet that lay between us. I stepped forward into my best ever prostration. Every movement was exactly as it ought to be. I could hear a whisper of admiration around me as I tapped my head a third time on the carpet and then rose in a single movement.
‘You will be aware’, someone who looked rather senior began, ‘that you are excepted from the amnesty, and that you stand ready condemned as a traitor.’
‘I am so aware,’ I answered in a firm voice. ‘But His Imperial Majesty may be assured that I neither sought nor accepted an election that was made in my absence.’
Suddenly, just behind Heraclius, I noticed Priscus. How I hadn’t spotted him at once is beyond me. Perhaps he only came forward when I was deep into my grovel. Perhaps it was the white lead that had blurred and softened
