‘And if it were that I could lay hands on the relic and get there in time,’ I said, ‘and if I were sure I could get away with me and Martin in one piece – would the effective power in Alexandria allow me out through the city gates?’
‘He wouldn’t,’ Priscus said with a bright smile. ‘We can agree among ourselves that I’d sooner have a month’s rations for an army than some piss pot to send before them into battle. But now I’m here, and now that everyone else appears to want it, I do rather fancy having the thing for myself. Certainly, I’d not be keen to know it was in Brotherhood hands. And do bear in mind it would be high treason to give the Brotherhood anything that could make our position in Egypt more uncertain than it already is. The reinforcements you brought in are enough to hold Alexandria. If we send them away too soon, we risk losing Alexandria again. Even given time, there are no other forces available in the Empire to send out here. Here, as elsewhere, we rule by custom and by threats of violence we dare not allow to be tested.’
‘And if I were to go up river alone for the purpose of getting Martin back?’ I asked.
‘Then you’d be mad,’ he said. ‘I’ll not bother arguing about Martin’s actual value as a human being. He’s a good draughtsman, I’ll not deny. But he really is neither your equal nor intrinsically worth the risk of your own life. And I do think you’d be running straight into a trap. Your absence from Alexandria would be noted at once. I’ve had a few names out of the fucking snake Nicetas nursed in the bower of his secretariat. But you can be sure the whole government is riddled with traitors. Order a passport, have horses saddled or a boat readied, and there would be a messenger speeding off to Lucas before you could set eyes on the city walls.
‘We agree you can’t lay hands on the piss pot in the time specified. That means Lucas is using Martin as bait to get you into his hands, when you can be kept alive just long enough to supervise the digging in Soteropolis. For that reason alone, I’ll not allow you out of Alexandria. Besides, I need you here to help manage Nicetas when he eventually does come out from under his bed.’
‘Priscus,’ I said, speaking low. I led him into one of the denser thickets of the dead and dying. I wanted to avoid more of those shocked, silent groups of relatives. If there was anyone here able to pick up my words, he’d be in no position to pass them on. ‘You know that I’ll do whatever I must to get Martin back. You know that I can’t lay hands on the piss pot in anything like the time specified. You also know where it is, and you do have sufficient forces to stop anyone but you from having it dug out.’
‘I know what you’re saying,’ he broke in, savouring the mastery I’d given up trying not to acknowledge. If Lucas had me by the balls, so, in his own way, had Priscus. ‘But why are you saying it? Can’t you see that you’ve won? You’ve got the widest scheme of land reform even you could have wanted. You don’t need to argue with the landowners over every acre of land you want to hand over to the wogs. We’ve just confiscated half the private estates in Egypt. The only landowner you’ll be depriving is Heraclius himself. Are you seriously proposing to risk all this for some fat Celt who doesn’t know when and when not it’s permissible to fart in public?’
‘Supposing I were to die – and die perhaps in disgraceful circumstances,’ I said, ignoring an argument I could answer, though not to Priscus. ‘You wouldn’t get the piss pot, and the Brotherhood might. But my loss would change the whole balance of power in Constantinople. Heraclius, we know, is so short of anything approaching talent, that…’ I trailed off. I could tell from the smile on his face that Priscus had got there first. He’d give me what I wanted. He’d give it to me because, either way, he won.
‘If you do leave Alexandria,’ he said, ‘it will be with the full knowledge of Lucas. I could make Nicetas regard it as desertion of your post. He’ll be looking for scapegoats to cover himself, and I might not stand up for you with him, or with Heraclius. I could then be waiting to arrest you in Soteropolis, assuming you ever got there. And I can be there after the date set by Lucas. If I can’t leave now, I do expect to hand control back to the Prefecture within the next few days. If you didn’t make it there, so much the worse for you. And without you to back Sergius up, I’m sure I could get the True Cross out of the authorities in Jerusalem.
‘On the other hand, I could announce a fever brought on by exertions too soon after your escape from the mob, and I could have prayers laid on in all the churches for your recovery. That might give you a couple of days before the truth leaked out. If you got a move on, that might be enough. I could then wait for you in Soteropolis, though this time not to arrest you. If you rolled in with Martin, you’d be the hero of the day. You know what Heraclius would make of that – one of his key men, willing to risk all for a person of no consequence. That’s exactly the spirit he wants to encourage in his new Empire of Love and Justice.
‘In that case, of course, I’d regard you as duty bound to start digging with your own hands if need be to get my relic out of those sands. Can you object to that?’
We were back at the gates to the Palace. We stood on the steps up to the gate and looked back over that gigantic and level Calvary.
‘We have a deal,’ I said.
‘Then you’re a bigger fool than I ever thought you.’ He laughed. ‘I did once try telling Heraclius you were an atheist. Sadly, though he knows about heresy and apostasy to the Old Faith, he can’t get his head round the idea of belief in nothing. Watching you sweat over that flabby little Celt, anyone would think you believed all those teachings about the absolute value of every life.
‘But if God has made you a fool, who am I not to take advantage?’
It was late evening. Maximin was on my lap. Sveta had heard me out in calm silence.
‘If you are the man he’s always told me you are,’ she said, ‘you’ll get him back.’ She looked at her child and then at Maximin. ‘If you fail, though, what then?’ Good question.
‘What I’ve arranged for your safety isn’t something I’d ever consider in normal circumstances,’ I said bluntly. ‘Patriarch John cannot protect you or the child. Don’t even ask about Nicetas. We need to trust other forces or no one. If I fail in what I’m about to try and then in what I’ve arranged, you and your child will need to face Priscus. Maximin, of course, he’ll take back and corrupt in no time at all into a younger version of himself.’
The boy looked up at me with his big, scared eyes. He couldn’t understand the details of what was happening. But he knew something was wrong.
‘What I need you to tell me is that you are willing to take that risk. If I do nothing, Martin dies for certain. But he may already be dead. If I try and fail, you and the child may die. If I do nothing, we all go back to Constantinople, where you and the child can stay in my household, or from where you can retire to some other place of comfort. I will risk myself for Martin. I must risk having Maximin grow into something evil. But I need to know what you are willing to risk. You also have a child.’
Sveta looked at the severed ear. I hadn’t wanted to show it to her. But she told me that Priscus had already been round waving it under her nose. The only reason, he’d assured her, she wasn’t already among the impaled masses outside was that he took this as evidence I was still alive. She got up and walked about the room. She seemed to be stopping by and touching every stick of furniture and every other object she and Martin had bought for themselves. She paused before the icon of Saint Mark she’d had from his office. She turned back to me.
‘God tells me you are the man Martin says you are,’ she assured me.
At any other time, I’d have laughed in her face. It was obvious that Martin’s lunacies were contagious. But I put on a solemn face and looked back.
‘You will not fail. But if you don’t come back – both of you – with Priscus from Soteropolis, neither I nor the child will be taken alive. Will you resign Maximin to me on the same terms?’
I thought hard. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Whatever Priscus tries to make of him, Maximin stays alive.’
And that was it. No tears. No recriminations. Just a calm exchange of risk assessments. Underneath her ungovernable wife act, I’d always known Sveta was made of steel. Martin had chosen well back in Rome. And I’d done well to spare him and free him and pay for the wedding.
But that wasn’t quite the end of matters. As I was kissing Maximin and preparing to leave, Sveta got up again.
‘Take this,’ she said, holding out a silver medal of Saint Peter. ‘It was blessed by the Pope himself. Martin is sure it saved the pair of you from the Lombards. It may save you now.’
It hadn’t been blessed by anyone. I’d lied about that to Martin when getting him to agree to the Lombard mission. But I took it anyway and put it round my neck. I left her with the two children. They sat silent together in the light of a single lamp.
Chapter 50
