I continued in my place, hands upstretched to Heaven, listening to the increasingly faint tramp of boots and the shouting of orders. Only when the outer gate slammed shut, and the house fell into a deep silence, did I let myself drop forward to rest on the little cot. I felt Jacob’s hands close around my chest. He pulled me to my feet and guided me back to the chair. He refilled the cup and held it to my lips. Nothing in it now but wine, I drained the contents with a single, chattering gulp.
‘That was a close one,’ Jacob said with a ghastly smile. ‘Still, I think we managed to deceive a pretty senior Greek.’ He relaxed and sat heavily in his own chair.
I didn’t feel up to explaining what had happened. I didn’t know what had happened. My hands and wrists on full view – Wilfred stretched out before him – and Joseph had contented himself with an oddly helpful warning before going off again into the night. I’d need to think a good deal harder than I’d yet managed before I could tell even myself what was happening. If only I’d been able to tell myself this was another product of the opium. But it wasn’t. Joseph really had stood behind me.
‘Tell me, Jacob,’ I asked once my voice was reliably in order. ‘Tell me what was that Greek official wearing?’
Black with a hat that may have had a purple trimming, came the answer – the light made colours hard to tell. I nodded. I knew it was purple. I’d helped choose the design when, after the death of the tyrant Phocas, Heraclius had put me in charge of reordering the Intelligence Bureau. Over the three generations that followed, abuses had crept into my original scheme. One of the most annoying of these had been the custom for everyone to put on the uniform of the grade immediately above. But, even assuming he’d been dressed two or three grades above his own position, there was no doubting that Joseph was at least – to use the Latin title – a Magister Scholarum. He was, that is, one of the departmental heads of the External Ministry. No wonder he’d been close enough to see my every move on the walls of Constantinople as I’d unleashed that irresistible tide of destruction on the Saracen fleets. Not for him to risk it in the killing zones I’d created.
And he’d been sent all the way to Jarrow to watch me. Every day for months, he’d been my chosen companion. And I’d never once suspected he could be other than just another refugee from the world of civilisation. Perhaps age had caught up with me. Alaric in his prime would never have been taken in as old Brother Aelric had been.
‘Moses and all the prophets!’ Ezra cried as he bustled into the room. He looked at Wilfred and dropped his voice. ‘We certainly deceived the Empire then. The tax collectors were nothing compared with this!’ Beneath his tone of relieved cheerfulness, there was something more complex. I looked closely at him. He turned away.
‘Where is Edward?’ I asked to change the subject. If Joseph had, for his own reasons, overlooked me and Wilfred, his men would have spotted those northern looks in less than a single heartbeat. Even if, after a few centuries, the remaining Vandal blood in Africa hadn’t been darkened by local mixture, there would still have been the obvious question of what he was doing in a company of Jews. But he’d been spirited straight off, Ezra assured me, into the women’s quarters. He’d be safe enough there. I nodded, trying to ignore the obvious further question about his safety there. It was enough for the moment that the Empire, in a majesty that no one else had been able to notice, had come into the house, and had gone out again.
‘It would be for the best if we left this house as soon as possible,’ I said. As one, all three of us turned and looked at Wilfred. His lips had now drawn back in a snarl that it required no doctor to interpret. Sooner than I’d expected, the shock of the search was wearing away the delicious yet conscious oblivion of the opium, and I could feel the return of guilt. The more I speculated on the meaning of this approaching death, the more crushing the burden of guilt became.
‘We’re safe enough for the moment,’ Jacob assured me.
And, if what judgement I’d so far been able to make was correct, he was right to a degree he’d never understand. Yes, we were safe for the moment.
Jacob took up his half-empty measure. ‘No one will disturb us more this evening. And I do assure you, the boy will continue at least till morning. If there is any change, I will wake you. For now, I will, as your physician for the day, prescribe for a peaceful night.’
Chapter 25
Waking was like the beginning of consciousness in the very young. It was gradual, and was unmarked by any sense of its own arrival. Tucked in bed, I lay for an indefinite time without moving or opening my eyes. Two men beside me had been talking forever in Aramaic. I knew, in some instinctive way, that they were servants. I knew they were there to watch over me. What they were saying had, until just moments before, been unintelligible and without importance. Those five additional drops from Jacob into my wine cup had struck me like the blow to a slaughtered animal. Almost before I’d noticed how soft the pillows were, I was swallowed into a serene and infinite blackness. There had been no visits that night from the many dead I’d known, nor from the yet unborn; no visions of my own grave; no severed hands feeling their way over my face – the opium had brought me sleep and nothing more.
But now I was awake. And, if not willing to show that I was awake, I was fully aware of my surroundings.
‘I told you, Reuben – I told you many times – the Master’s going soft in the head,’ one of the servants was saying. The words aside, I had the impression this was more than his first repetition. ‘He turns up yesterday with three goys, all of them wanted by the Empire. He’s now got another one hidden away in his counting house, and we’re under orders to say bugger all about them. This here old bag of bones is the guest of honour. One of the boys is dying. The other one – well, you’ve heard it for yourself from Miriam. We’re two inches from all being dragged off to Carthage and pulled apart with hot pincers. If you ask me, the Master’s gone fucking mad.’
‘He was up till dawn with Doctor Jacob,’ I heard Reuben say defensively. ‘They was talking and talking. I didn’t hear much of what was said. But trust me – the Master ain’t no fool. He’s done right by the whole house. Just you keep your mouth shut and do as you’re told. You’ll see a Passover yet without no bastard Greeks to tell us our ways.’
‘ Another one hidden away in his counting house,’ I’d heard. It would have been worth hearing more on that. To hear more, I’d gladly have lain there, my face conveniently half buried under the coverings, till evening. But I heard the door open and a heavy tread on the boards. Both servants were on their feet.
‘Isn’t he awake yet?’ Jacob asked. There was a silence that I guessed was a reply of shaking heads. He clicked his tongue impatiently, then went into Greek. ‘Not another overdose!’ he said in the quiet tone of a man who knows he is speaking only to himself. ‘I really must cut down on things.’ I heard him approach the bed. I felt his hand brush lightly on the unshaven stubble above my ears. In a moment, he’d probably have one of my wrists out to see how close to death he’d really dosed me. Nothing else for it. I groaned and moved slightly. I felt him draw back and I went through the motions of opening my eyes and looking confused.
‘You’re among friends,’ Jacob said.
A priest – no, make that a toadying courtier, or, better still, some diplomat sent out to make trouble among the barbarians – would have had trouble matching the absolute conviction in his voice. Then again, he was a doctor and a Jew. One of the servants helped me as I struggled to sit up. I looked about the room. The bed set up for Edward was as neatly made as it had been the night before. I could tell nothing from that, mind you. Everyone else had been up and about for ages. There was no direct sunlight in this room. But the light that came in from the garden had an afternoon quality. I drank from a cup of honeyed wine diluted with fruit juice and asked about Wilfred. Jacob pulled a long face and took on a more openly professional appearance. He didn’t need to say much. It hadn’t been to get my lunch orders that he’d come to see if I was awake. On a chair by the window, there was a newish robe set out for me. Unlike the one I’d been given in Cartenna, it was neither faded tat nor too big. The colour was too light for what I had in mind. But it would do.
‘I think we’ll have to skip the confession,’ I said in Aramaic. Jacob nodded. I wondered if he hadn’t been a little enthusiastic with the belladonna. But Wilfred, I’d been told, had woken in considerable pain while I slept, and a doctor’s recognised duty is to his patient’s body. Now, he lay before me, semi-conscious but rigid from the administration of this and the other drugs.
