the smashing up of your family.’ When the work was done, he sat heavily down and reached for his drug satchel.
I listened for any sign of disturbance outside. There was a distant sound from the diggers of something churchy. Otherwise, it was quiet. We might have finished another of our dinners and been getting ready to retire to our sleeping tents.
‘We do need to be away from here,’ I said again.
Snot and tears running down his face, Priscus smiled blearily back at me. ‘I’ve told you, dear boy – it’s all in hand.’ He looked at Macarius. ‘Have you given the signal?’ he asked.
Macarius bowed.
Priscus grunted and pulled himself to his feet. He went back over to the body of Siroes and pulled at the clothing. With skilled hands, he felt over every inch of the three layers of cloth. He grunted and reached for a knife. He slit open one of the seams and pulled out a folded sheet of parchment. ‘I guessed it would be here,’ he said, speaking more to himself than anyone else in the tent. He unfolded it and squinted hard before handing the sheet to Macarius.
‘Do oblige us,’ he said. ‘I’ve little doubt your many talents stretch to reading Persian. This, however, is in Greek. I just don’t see too well nowadays after one of my black pills. Do let’s hear these no doubt magic words. Siroes died in the effort to make them effective. The least we can do, I suppose, is intone them over his body.’
‘Would My Lord have me read this?’ Macarius asked, looking directly at me.
I listened again. All was still fine outside – why shouldn’t it be? Martin was now sitting on the carpet and looking up at me, his face ghastly with shock and continuing strain.
‘Is it My Lord’s wish to know the contents of this document?’
‘Yes, it is,’ I said, ignoring the renewed protest I felt sure Martin was trying to form. I might have told him the words only had effect alongside the object. But I didn’t. ‘We might as well know what it says,’ I added. ‘Just be quick about it.’
Macarius took the unfolded sheet over to one of the lamps and looked hard at the faded script. From where I sat, it had an aged look about it.
‘It is a rather corrupt Greek,’ he said. ‘I think it might have been written by a Persian, and may be a translation of something from Egyptian. However, it says that, for the destruction of enemies – their destruction as a last resort – an object that is not described should be taken in sight of the enemy. There, its possessor, who shall have fasted and washed according to detailed instructions, must hold up the object’ – Macarius paused again and squinted – ‘while saying or singing: “ Santi kapupi wayya jaja minti lalakali ”.’
‘I say, isn’t that a dactylic hexameter?’ Priscus broke in. ‘Would you say, Alaric, that was an hexameter?’
‘It might be,’ I said. I looked at Martin, who shrugged.
A big cup of wine, now he accepted it wasn’t poisoned, was bringing him back to what passed for his senses. ‘It would be necessary to know the quantities in the original language,’ he said.
He’d have said more, but I cut in, asking Macarius if he understood the words.
He shook his head. ‘They are words from a language unknown to me,’ he said. ‘But one must recite them three times, and then lie down, looking at the sky with arms and legs outstretched. The enemy will shortly after be annihilated in ways that include burning winds, or fire raining from the sky, or swallowing into the earth, or visitation of demons, or sudden pestilence, or the addition of invincible power to one’s own side. It seems to depend on the time of year.’
‘Sounds fanciful – though also rather interesting,’ said Priscus. He suddenly froze and listened. There was a gentle hubbub of voices outside the tent. He waved at Macarius to go and see what was happening.
‘I don’t know what you think of that crap document,’ he whispered once Macarius was out of the tent, ‘but Siroes was no fool. He’d not have come all this way for nothing. What would you say to a good look round that cavern for his object? If Alexandria is destroyed like the Cities of the Plain, or falls into the sea, or whatever, Heraclius and Nicetas can kiss each other’s arse before I have them beheaded in the Circus.’
‘You as Emperor?’ I sneered softly. ‘If this stuff does anything at all, you’d be another Caligula.’
‘And what of that?’ came the reply. ‘The Empire’s survived more than one demented tyrant. And, with or without that bloody object, I at least could fight off the Persians. If Siroes was right, however, just think what I could do. It wouldn’t then be a question of beating the Persians, or defending what we had with the peasant militias you keep crying up in Council. We could go on the offensive against the barbarians. We could bring back the West. We could do all that Siroes was suggesting for the united powers of the world. We could outdo Alexander and Caesar combined. The Empire would become-’ He fell silent as Macarius came back into the tent.
I’d watched in a kind of fascinated horror as Priscus had loomed over me and appeared to swell ever larger. It was like back in the dockyard. It stirred other thoughts that I fought to suppress.
‘A meeting has been called at the midnight hour for what remains of the Brotherhood Council,’ Macarius said. ‘There are also reports of lights moving about far to the south.’
I pulled myself together. A thought had suddenly occurred to me, and I was eager to share it with Priscus.
‘I presume the signal you mentioned earlier,’ I said, ‘was for the guards you brought up from Alexandria.’
Priscus smiled.
‘The idea was that they’d be lurking out in the desert until the signal was given.’ He smiled again and nodded. ‘They’d then rush in here and see off what was left of the Brotherhood.’
He reached for his drug satchel.
‘A strategy Alexander himself might have praised,’ I said with a mock toast. ‘Did you bother specifying outside which Soteropolis your men should be lurking?’
‘What are you talking about, my dear boy?’ Priscus answered. He frowned slightly, his face sliding visibly from complacency to concern.
‘When you terrorised that map out of poor old Hermogenes,’ I said, looking carefully at his face, ‘I assume you waited around long enough for him to tell you there were two cities called Soteropolis. You did make sure to specify the right one to your guards?’
I know that Priscus wasn’t the only one to have lost out here. But his face was the funniest thing I’d seen in ages. I put my head back and laughed as silently as I could manage. Priscus sat down with a sudden bump and reached for the wine jug.
Chapter 67
‘I don’t suppose we could get away with claiming natural causes?’ I asked when I was recovered enough to speak with just a nervous giggle. We all looked at the twisted body on the floor. The exposed parts of Lucas were now covered in dark blotches. As for the face – I’d seen more peaceful expressions on the impaling stakes. Siroes looked much better. But he didn’t count for present purposes. And there was the matter of the garrotte still embedded in the flesh around his neck and throat.
‘Go and tell them,’ Priscus said to Macarius, ‘that His Majesty is deep in conference with his guests, and will make himself available for other discussions in the morning.’
‘If it really is midnight,’ Martin piped up suddenly, ‘it’s my birthday. I’ve made it to thirty-two.’ He smiled and looked around.
I smiled a weak encouragement. I was coming down with a bump after my laughing fit. Even so, it was worth something that Martin had beaten a prophecy by which he’d set such store – and beaten it in what were not the most favourable circumstances.
Priscus raised his eyebrows. ‘Congratulations,’ he said, ‘though I still wouldn’t touch the eggy tarts.’ To Macarius: ‘Now, go and say whatever’s needed to send those fuckers away.’ When Macarius had gone out again, Priscus turned back to me.
‘I’m serious about another trip to the Underworld. I’m inclined to agree there’s nothing left down there but a few wog bones. The Santi kapupi stuff we can forget. But once we’ve chased the Brotherhood off, I think I will go
