He nodded gratefully and took the hint. With a small bow to Priscus, who paid him no attention, he was off. I felt him close the door and the heavy thud of his feet as he scampered down to the Palace roof. Priscus had no right to be upset. But I knew he was, and it was probably for the best if I didn’t stand on my own rights in front of Martin and tell him to get stuffed.
‘I’ve just seen Nicetas seal the general amnesty,’ he said accusingly.
‘Good,’ I said firmly. My arms loosely folded, I turned back to look over Lake Mareotis. The distant line of Egypt was beginning to loom into view, now the mist was clearing. I’d done it, I thought. And it was a job well done. Dragging Nicetas from his bed, and waiting for the stimulants and painkillers I’d fed him to have effect, had been the hardest part of the night’s business. But having two patriarchs with me to explain the deal had kept him from the usual dithering fit. Still, there was always some doubt where Nicetas was concerned whether he would take the smallest action required of him. Though I’d have preferred it from someone else, Priscus had brought me good news. ‘Did he tell you what’s been agreed?’ I asked.
‘He was busy fixing up the surrender meeting,’ Priscus said, now bitter. ‘But I did gather that you’ve brokered a complete sellout.’
‘Not a sellout, Priscus,’ I said, now mildly. ‘It was a compromise.’
Taking care not to crack the film of white lead, he twisted his face into a sneer. ‘You don’t hold an empire together by compromise,’ he snapped. ‘At least, if you do compromise, you do it from a position of strength. You then don’t call it compromise, but clemency. Compromise from weakness, as we did in the West – give to your enemies in the hope they’ll be appeased – and you’ll soon find it would have been better to stand and fight. You were with me yesterday. You saw what weakness brought about. I meant what I said last night. Hit these shitbags with concentrated force, and-’
‘We haven’t the forces to concentrate,’ I said, interrupting the steady rise of his voice. ‘Whatever Nicetas cares to believe, you know as well as I do that there are no tides in the Red Sea – nor many storms at this time of year. Assuming the Persians can hire ships on the Saracen side, they can land at any one of a dozen points. You said yourself that, if Alexandria goes up in smoke, the Persians will certainly try for a landing. There was no choice but to compromise. Without the landowners to glue the mob together with silver, there’ll be no rising. Without that, and without loss of Alexandria, there’ll be no Persian attack.
‘And there will be no massacre.’ I paused. ‘That’s what you really came here to arrange, isn’t it?’ I asked of Priscus.
He sniffed and looked out of the window.
‘I knew there was something odd about your turning up here, and latching straight on to that cock and bull story about the piss pot. You might as well admit that you picked up something on the Cappadocian front about an attempt on Egypt. You hurried here to try to stop it. Well, I’ve stopped it for you – and without the cataract of blood you had in mind!
‘And your presence here was useful for the avoidance of more force. It’s only because you are here that we could make any agreement at all.’ I clamped a moderately friendly smile on my face and waited for the irony to sink in. I thought of reaching out to pat Priscus on the shoulder. But that was more than I could manage. ‘With you around, there was no doubt that we could eventually restore order. This being so, we could have a full investigation, followed by trials and exemplary punishments and confiscations. The opposition leaders knew this, and were as eager for a compromise as we were. Their change of heart, we agreed last night, was the news of Persian involvement. But it was your presence that made everyone think again.
‘The deal is that the rioting is called off while it still can be. In return for this, we pardon everyone in sight. There will be special church services both sides of the Wall, and the bread distribution will go ahead as planned, if a few days late.’
‘And the new law – what about that?’ Priscus asked. ‘Have you given up at last? Will you go back and tell Heraclius that you’ve failed?’ So far as he dared through the paint, he’d twisted his lips into a bitter smile.
I smiled back and thought fast about how little I needed to say to take from him even that consolation.
‘The opposition has capitulated,’ I said. ‘Calling off the rioters wasn’t enough for the amnesty I was offering. The warrants will be sealed later today.’ This was the minimum I needed to say – and the minimum I wanted to say. What we’d agreed was more than the repeated suggestion by His Heretical Holiness of warrants that would never be executed. But it was the barest scheme of implementation I’d prepared with Martin. Leaving the landowners with more than half their best land, it had been a scheme we’d prepared as an absolute last resort. It hadn’t been a defeat. Still less had it been a victory. Yes, Priscus had helped terrify the landowners into a better view of their interests. And if I’d never confess it to anyone – not even to Martin – what I’d seen of Priscus in action under the Prefecture had robbed me of all desire to press on through perhaps still more blood for total victory.
A slave was making his way up the stairs. We composed our features and moved to stand arm-in-arm as he opened the door. We read the message together. Not bothering to hide our confusion, we looked at each other.
‘Not your suggestion?’ Priscus breathed. ‘It certainly wouldn’t have been mine. If I didn’t know him better by now, I’d say he’d gone mad.’
‘My place is by your side,’ Martin said when I’d shown him the message. It probably was, and he could be insistent when all his loyalty required was letting himself be dragged into passive danger. But I had other ideas for him.
‘No,’ he said firmly when I’d shut up. ‘We both know the Palace is the safest place anyone can be in Alexandria. Sveta will look after the children. My place is by your side.’
And so it was the pair of us who, as the trumpeter sounded the hour, joined the silent and apprehensive crowd in the main hall of the Palace. They’d all been dressed for the Council meeting, and getting them assembled at short notice for what Nicetas had now planned instead of the meeting had been easy enough. Getting them into a better mood hadn’t been thought worth the trying. Priscus alone was looking cheerful. He seemed to have got over the lost chance of a massacre, and now had his cat with him. He was showing it the statue of Domitian beside which his own chair was being made ready.
‘From the unusual lack of grace about your movements, dear boy,’ he said as I came up beside him, ‘do I gather you’ve had the forethought to put on protection? For myself, I’d never dream of going to these events without.’
Back in my dressing room, Martin had bullied the slaves into getting all my clothes off again so he could pack me into a mailed shirt. He’d then stood for an age, breathing in with his hands above his head, while they’d strained to get another one around him. It was a deadweight on me. Just from walking downstairs to the hall, I’d sweated so much the silk lining was soaked.
‘But how will you protect Pussy?’ I asked with a nod at the cat. It gave me a hateful look, then nestled closer to Priscus as he stroked the fur.
‘Oh, Margarita will stay behind,’ he said carelessly. ‘She’s had such a disturbed few nights,’ he added. ‘Have you never marvelled at the places these creatures can squeeze themselves behind and shit?
‘Will Maximin be putting in an appearance down here?’
I shook my head. There was much I wanted to discuss with Priscus. But Nicetas had now arrived in his internal chair, and was being carefully transferred into his outgoing chair. I thought of trying again to speak with him. By the time I’d decided it wasn’t worth the risk of a public rebuff, the twittering eunuchs were thick about him. I turned back to Priscus, but he was now strolling off to look at another of the more worthless emperors.
My own chair was ready, and it was a matter of squeezing Martin in beside me. Hard luck on the carrying slaves, I thought. But the instructions were one chair only per member of the Council. Mine wasn’t the only chair sagging below the usual height of eighteen inches above the ground. In one or two cases, secretaries had actually to be left behind. No doubt, their masters would have preferred to swap. Tempers were short in that hall.
At last, though, we were all carried out into the courtyard. There, a couple of eunuchs arranged our chairs into a short cluster, two abreast. The curtains twitched on the single chair right at the front, and a greyish, Viceregal hand gave the signal. With a loud crash of bolts and the pulling back of armoured wood, the gates swung open, and we moved out into the square.
‘Make way for His Imperial Highness the Viceroy!’ the herald cried in a loud voice. What effect his words might have had on the crowd now packed into the square wasn’t something we had to find out. First through the gate were about a hundred heavily mailed guards, all with drawn swords. The crowd backed away before them. With a shouted command in Latin – whatever else could be held against him, at least Nicetas was using the Slavs –
