‘No,’ Nicetas said again, ‘start with the recitation of titles and promise of redress.’ He broke off and quickly pulled a fold of his robe over the still swollen bulk of his leg. ‘Oh, and do you have the promise of amnesty rehearsed?’
‘Yes, My Lord,’ the herald said softly without turning his eyes. With a muttered prayer and then a great sucking of air into his lungs, he opened his mouth to call the meeting to order. Except it was now in a language I didn’t understand, it followed the same pattern as the meeting in the Hall of Audience. Our clothes billowed or hung loose as the breeze took them. Otherwise, we were still and silent as the custom required. All communication was through the herald, who, now his nerves were under control, was managing the same sonorous rhythms in Egyptian as he had in Greek.
It was as he fell silent – I suppose having asked about the spokesmen – that the pattern took its next variation from the intended. There was a ripple of giggling through the crowd, followed by silence. It was a silence that seemed prolonged beyond the few moments it must have lasted. I heard Priscus breathe in sharply. I darted a look at the now impassive faces at the front of the crowd. What were they waiting for? I asked myself. It was worse than if they’d been shouting and edging forward. At least that wouldn’t have involved this dreadful wait.
‘Ask their spokesmen to come forward,’ Nicetas whispered again. ‘Tell them they can stand before us on the lower steps. But stop them if they come too far up towards me.’
The herald got as far as another intake of breath, when we had our answer. Here and there in what was now the mob, long poles were suddenly pushed upright. On each one of them was a severed head. It isn’t easy to recognise heads – not separated from their bodies, nor at a distance, nor when their features are still contorted with their dying agonies. But I did think I could make out the speaker at the demonstration I’d seen the previous Sunday. There too might well have been that scum landowner. I stared harder, and my stomach did a little jump. Undeniably, that was a priest’s head on the pole nearest the Wall. I could see it clearly against the smooth background of the rendering.
‘I think we can take it as read, my darling,’ Priscus drawled without moving his lips, ‘that the wog lower orders haven’t accepted your settlement. They’ve dismissed the leaders who brought them together and appointed new ones. I don’t suppose my rack nor your concessions will mean much now. I hope that sword so clumsily hidden under your clothes is your favourite one.’
‘I take it you have a plan of escape?’ I muttered back.
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘A word of advice, though. Don’t try getting into the church. You won’t believe how these places can be made to burn with a little effort. I don’t see any shame in running away.’
‘Flight from this lot?’ I hissed. ‘We’d never outrun them.’ I might also have asked where to run. The wall was in front of us, and the mob between us and it. To the left was the mob. Turn right, and there was a long wedge, bounded by the wall of the church and the Wall of Separation as it joined the back of the church. Behind didn’t seem much better.
Priscus laughed gently. ‘No experience of retreat!’ he said, now obviously enjoying himself. ‘Such a warlike race of barbarians, your people must be. To stay alive, you only need to outrun Nicetas and these toads who advise him.
‘But – oh, for a brigade of cavalry. With these tight-packed masses, it would be like scything corn. And oh, for another of my red powders!’
I ignored him. The herald was now interpreting what I took to be the less chaotic shouts from the mob.
‘They ask, My Lord,’ he said with a growing tremor, ‘when you are planning to evacuate Egypt.’
There was a long pause while Nicetas digested this question and cast round for some kind of answer. Standing a few steps down from me, the Master of the Works didn’t seem to move so much as a hair, while somehow getting himself visibly ready for a dash inside the church.
‘Tell them that bit about my leg,’ Nicetas finally said. ‘Tell them it’s my birthday. Also, remind them of the bread distribution that was supposed to be today, and still might be. Yes, promise the amnesty if they’ll all go peacefully home.’
The herald did a fine job on the leg. Even without understanding the words, the tragic tone and gestures carried all the meaning anyone could have needed. He paused for a response. The mob looked up at us in stony silence. He might have suppressed the birthday notice. If so, his next comment about the bread was followed by a burst of satiric laughter. Whatever he said next was drowned out in a massive roar of displeasure. It sounded like the Circus protests in Constantinople over the cut in the bread ration. Then, we’d had to face the mob from an Imperial Box thirty feet above anyone else, and with an escape behind straight back into a fortified palace. Here, the screaming and shaking of fists and waving of severed heads began three paces in front of us.
It was a massive roar. As yet, though, it was the overall effect of individual cries. Then, imperceptibly – as gusting breezes give way to a settled wind – the shouting resolved itself into an orderly and repeated chanting. What this was at first I didn’t know, and the herald had given up on interpreting. But I did recognise the Tears of Alexander chant. As ever, it was the mob’s favourite. Again and again, it rolled towards us, like thunder across water. It was deafening. It flattened all intention of reply with its massive loudness. The mob – and it was now worth regarding it as that – rippled forward, pushing its closest members up the first couple of steps towards us. Those shining, hate-contorted faces now almost within touching distance, I reached slowly under my cloak and gripped my sword.
They had ignored their part of the agenda. It was now our turn. With a cry of pain and annoyance and a clutching at his walking stick, it was now that Nicetas stood up. He heaved himself to his feet, and, his stick wobbling as it held him up, he looked out over the sea of faces.
All of a sudden, there was silence. Every movement ceased. If Christ Himself, surrounded by Angels, had stepped out of the sky, I’m not sure if the effect would have been greater than Nicetas produced by standing up. He raised his arms for a hearing. There was a collective gasp of shock. It rippled back through the Egyptians, and was taken up by the Greeks. It wouldn’t have surprised me if it was fifty thousand jaws that fell open and a hundred thousand eyes that widened. The Viceroy had moved. Worse, the Viceroy had stood up and was now continuing to move. From far out in the hush came the occasional cry of astonishment and even horror. For the first time in living memory – for the first time, perhaps, in centuries – the people were seeing their ruler move in the execution of his duties. Someone a few yards along from me sat hurriedly down on the steps. Someone else appeared to be struggling with a fainting attack.
‘This has all gone too far,’ Nicetas shouted in Latin. ‘Tell these people that the Empire is ordained of God, and will never – not until the Last Day – evacuate Egypt or anywhere else. The Empire will – and must – last until the end of time. Tell them to go home before God smites them all with a pestilence to add to the other sufferings their disloyalty has brought upon them.’
The herald looked back confused. He knew Greek, and he knew Egyptian. Latin wasn’t a language he’d been taken on to handle. From some parts of the mob, there was what sounded like an attempt at interpreting what had just been said. I relayed the words to the herald in Greek, pausing at each phrase so he could shout them in Egyptian in the appropriate form.
‘Alexander cannot weep,’ Nicetas went on, his voice cracking with the unaccustomed strain. ‘To say otherwise is treason against the Emperor, and blasphemy against the Decrees of God – who will never work a miracle through any object dear to the Old Faith.
‘Behold! I will show you these “Tears of Alexander”.’ Again taking care not to move his bad leg, he wheeled round to face the open door of the church. He beckoned wildly. From somewhere far inside the darkness of the church there was a scraping and then the banging of something heavy that had been dropped.
Chapter 42
‘Oh fuck!’ I said, realising what he was about. Nicetas hadn’t just moved – he’d also planned ahead. And as the horror grew within me of what he’d planned, I nearly shat myself.
Since the Viceroy himself had given up on playing at statues, I saw no reason why I should stand rooted to my spot under the portico. I’d turned sharp right and was watching the wooden box as it was carried out into the light. Like the moon against the darkest night sky, Martin’s face peered out from the interior of the church. To say it looked scared gives no fresh information. I pulled a face at him, mouthing that he should get back inside. He ignored
