matters of doctrine and authority.
How long the Eastern Provinces would have stood for that – especially with the Persians running wild – is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the Phocas challenge would have sunk without trace. But it might have split the Empire, leaving a Greek core, the other parts moving off in different directions.
That this had now been achieved by the Saracens, from whom Theophanes was snatched as a child, is one of the curiosities of history.
Perhaps it would have been better for the world if the inevitable that I’ve spent much of my life trying to put off had happened at one stroke. Perhaps Theophanes was after all a faithful servant of the Empire.
I couldn’t know that as I stood looking at his severed head. While you shouldn’t weep for a man like that, I had to fight myself not to. How he must have dreamed of a return to the burning wilderness of his childhood – free to pass the remainder of his life without lies or betrayal. He’d come so close to that. Then he’d given it all up for the child of his own worst enemy and for a barbarian who’d tried his hardest, without knowing what it was, to wreck his plan.
I reached forward and pulled the eyes shut. Then I took Maximin in my arms.
Now that the sun was up, a whole flotilla had set out from the shore. It was obvious even to the most cautious or foolish of the better classes who was the undisputed victor. I could already hear the salutations and cries of loyalty.
Whether they now raced against each other not to be last on that purple carpet, or stayed on shore to greet the Saviour on his entry into the City, all would be welcomed – with a few named exceptions, and a slightly larger number of others who would be disposed of before the coronation.
Behind me, I heard Baruch offering round his ivory cards and explaining the precise location of his bank. There can be advantages, you’ll agree, in being the first.
66
Once again, the Dispensator avoided looking me in the eye.
‘I wanted you there’, he said for the third time, ‘to secure the best outcome for the Church.’
All over Rome, the bells were ringing for Christmas Day. A steady drizzle since dawn had taken the fun out of the processions. But there was feasting and dancing and general good cheer within doors.
Or there was in all places but the Lateran. The great spider that lurked at the centre of the extended web of the Roman Church was taking no rest from its continual watch over the whole, or from its spinning of new threads to secure still more power for itself.
‘You cannot imagine, my dear Aelric,’ the Dispensator said, ‘how those coded reports I kept getting from Silas alarmed me. I agreed in principle that any price was worth paying to get our Patent of Universality. But the deal Silas proposed was potentially ruinous. It would have been ruinous had it come unstuck. It might have been still more ruinous had it succeeded.
‘Holding Phocas might have been useful for us – but not in England.
‘I hardly need remind you that England belongs to the Church as a religious asset. With England as a direct province of Rome, the whole of the West can be ours until Judgement Day. We can hold it against all heresies that exist or may arise. It is therefore important that England should not be embroiled in merely Imperial politics.
‘There was no chance that Heraclius or any other Emperor could invade England. But the use of England as a place of refuge for Phocas would have worked a diplomatic revolution throughout the West. The Lombard and Frankish courts would have swarmed with Imperial agents – and, for all I know, agents of the Persian King. The northern kingdoms of England would have been locked into the new diplomatic system. Even the Irish would not have been left out.
‘We needed the title of Universal Bishop – but not at the expense of losing all that made it worth having. England is ours. We will not share it with anyone. We will not risk having to fight for it. We will compromise in nothing – not even for the considerable short-term advantage we might have obtained.’
The Dispensator paused and looked again at the Patent of Universality I’d put on his desk.
‘On the other hand,’ he said with a change of tone, ‘Silas had actually opened a negotiation that seemed likely to give us the title. For the first time, we were told that no declaration against Heraclius would be required. Phocas had abandoned hope of saving his throne. All that interested him now was finding some place of refuge beyond the reach of Heraclius.
‘You don’t refuse a bargain just because the price is not currently the one you are willing to pay. And this was a price that might, with proper management, be wholly avoided.
‘As you know, I travelled to the East earlier this year. That it was a long and dangerous journey you won’t need telling. Its inconvenience was all the greater because I had to travel in absolute secrecy. Heraclius, the Persians, and anyone else who might be interested, all had to be kept in the dark. That is why the meetings were arranged in Ephesus.
‘I met there with Silas and with Theophanes, and we agreed the main terms of the bargain. This was the bargain that you uncovered in your usual way.’
‘So why send me to Constantinople?’ I asked. ‘You could hardly expect me to vary the terms of an agreement of which I knew nothing until nearly the end of my time there.’
The Dispensator gave me one of his joyless smiles.
‘In Ephesus,’ he went on, ‘it was agreed that Silas must withdraw from all official business in order to save himself from assassination by person or persons unknowable. Sending out someone from Rome of low status to perform some of his functions was an excellent cover for this.’
I frowned at the words ‘low status’ but let the Dispensator continue:
‘When I met the old eunuch, I realised at once he was nobody’s fool. He spoke of saving his Imperial Master from the punishment he richly deserved. It was obvious he had some wider agenda in his mind. From what you say, it was bolder than I imagined. You tell me that he had no other master, but was serving an idea? That he was aiming at a shortening of the Empire’s frontiers to make it both more orthodox and more defensible?
‘Without some positive statement of his to that effect, I am not sure what to make of your inference. If that was his intention, it might not have been inconsistent with our own interests. Such an Empire would be at once less able to intervene in our own sphere of influence, and a more reliable friend. And it would ultimately bring the Greeks to a better understanding of their place in the order of things.
‘I could know nothing of this at our meetings but it was obvious that Theophanes would not be easily deceived. Any ordinary agent would have been flushed out in no time at all. I needed someone in Constantinople who could be trusted to look after the essential interests of the Church, and not be suspected of any double game.’
‘You could hardly trust someone to look after your essential interests’, I reminded him, ‘unless he’d been told what they were.’
‘Not so!’ the Dispensator replied. He smoothed his white robe and righted some pens on his desk. ‘You, Aelric, are less intelligent than you think yourself, but you always succeed. Some would call that luck. I prefer to think of it as something less vulgar.
‘Whatever the case, I needed someone in Constantinople who could be trusted to do the right thing at the right moment. I had no idea when that moment would come, or what that thing would be. I only knew that you were that person.
‘And now’ – he looked again at the Patent – ‘and now, everything has worked out as it should. We have the title that is rightly ours. We have none of the embarrassments that Silas had arranged as its price.’
He stood up to file the document. Later, he’d already told me, it would be taken out again and copied and sent all over the West with the usual attestations.
I smiled and leaned forward. I’d been waiting for this moment.
‘Not so fast, my Lord Dispensator,’ I said. ‘You seem to have overlooked the fact that all the official acts of Phocas were annulled by Heraclius. It was the first act of his reign. You can hardly believe that the last document Phocas ever signed will be accepted as valid anywhere. That sheet of parchment has about the same value as the draft of a broken banker.’
