None of it mattered any more. In the resulting silence, I reached down into my leather satchel and pulled out a small cloth bag. Its many coins made a dull chinking sound on the table. I reached down again for a sheet of parchment I’d folded over three times and sealed with my ring. I pushed both towards Martin.
‘The cash is all I bothered bringing with me from Alexandria,’ I said. ‘I thought it would be more than enough for the journey, and it’s still a decent sum.’ Wearily, I lifted a hand to stop the protest. ‘The draft is on the Papal Bank. It will be honoured regardless of any confiscation decree. Your job, once we are separated, is to get yourself and Sveta and your child and my child to Rome, and then wherever may seem appropriate. Go to the Lateran and speak to the Dispensator. He may not give active assistance. But you can rely on him to tell you straight if you will all be safe in Rome — or if you should make a run for where the Lombards rule, or for the lands of the French King. He may even advise you to go back all the way to Ireland. Wouldn’t you like that — to go home at last to Ireland? You could be a man of some consequence there. Whatever the case, you’ll be far outside the Emperor’s reach.’
Martin’s response was to look down at the closed bag and to start crying again. ‘But it’s so unjust, Aelric,’ he sobbed. ‘None of this was your fault. You did everything possible. .’
I smiled and patted him gently on the hand. ‘You know the rule, Martin,’ I said. ‘When things go this wrong,
I smiled again and resisted the urge to reach up and touch my spot. ‘Now, once you’ve gone through the motions of announcing me as I step ashore, and of reading out my commission, I want you to vanish into the crowd. No one will pay attention to a freedman. Get away from me. Don’t look back. Take the first seaworthy vessel out of Piraeus. Go to Corinth. Take whatever ship is going west. Do you understand?’
There was more sobbing and mopping of wet eyes. In the next cabin but one, I heard Maximin start wailing for his father. I told myself not to get up and go to him. It was best not to remind him that I was about. I needed Martin to make a clean getaway on the dockside. I couldn’t have a child in his wife’s arms, screaming and reaching out for me.
There was another knock at the door. This time, it was the wine. I drank two cups straight off, and on an empty stomach. The writing on my commission wavered slightly as I looked at it. But I could feel myself coming into a better mood since the previous night’s opium pill had relinquished its hold on me, and I’d become gradually aware of the clammy bedclothes and of the damp chill beyond them. I was about to give Martin further instructions on the draft; it was too late to explain again how gold could be moved from one place to another without shipping a single piece, but I could remind him of the formalities in the Papal Bank. Just then, though, there was yet another knock on the door. Before I could call out to enter, it opened and the galley’s head slave walked in. He gave what I thought the most perfunctory bow that was decent for a man of my status.
‘The Lord Priscus would have the pleasure of My Lord’s company,’ he said as he finally looked up. Was that the remains of a smirk on his face? I pretended not to notice. I got up and walked over to the little window. This should have looked out towards Piraeus. All I could see was a mass of grey and endlessly shifting fog. There was an unusually loud scraping of timbers as the galley was jolted by a current or some shift in the breeze. Over on the table, my cup moved about an inch, but didn’t tip over. Martin grabbed for safety at the back of an unoccupied chair. I thought for a moment he would start vomiting again. But it was only a single movement of the galley. I couldn’t see it, but I felt a spatter of the rain that was now joining the mist that had slowed our progress through the Saronic Gulf. I pushed the lead shutter into place. Now with just the light of a few lamps, I crossed the room and pulled the door open. Maximin was still crying. It was the settled, disconsolate wail of a child too young to ask questions, but old enough to know that something was terribly wrong.
I looked back at Martin, who was staring at the bag of gold. ‘Go and see if Sveta’s finished packing,’ I said in Latin. ‘Bear in mind that most of the luggage will be impounded on the docks. Make sure that everything important is in the bags that you’ll be carrying.’
Chapter 8
I’ve said I was in an Imperial galley. This gives little notion of the size or magnificence of what the Viceroy had forced on me for my departure from Alexandria. It was perhaps the biggest vessel in the whole Imperial service. Over a hundred yards long, and fitted out with a lavish indifference to cost that went some way to offsetting the utter want of taste, it was as fine a prison as anyone could have desired. When told I’d be taking ship for Constantinople, I had insisted on something small and fast. Nicetas had smiled and nodded and given me his own official galley. I’d seen this many times in the private harbour. For a good thousand years, it, or something like it, had been kept permanently ready for those times when the King, or Governor, or Duke, or Viceroy needed to get away from the Alexandrian mob. Now, thanks to Priscus, there was no mob left, we’d all been politely bundled into it and waved off with fair cries and crocodile tears. I had to admit, though, that, once those storms had blown up near Seriphos, anything lighter would have been torn apart. If drowning would have been a mercy compared with what might be waiting for me in Piraeus, there were others to think about. As it was, we’d lost half our oars, and had been creeping forward ever since, propelled by various arrangements of sails that might, in other circumstances, have claimed my entire interest.
Once out of my own very grand room, I turned left into the wide central corridor and made my way down the length of the galley to where Priscus had his quarters. Already muffled, the sound of crying children soon faded away, and was replaced by the continued mournful sound of that sailor’s shanty. As I came closer to the stern, I heard a sudden scream. I stopped and listened harder. I could just make out the hiss and impact of a whip before there was a second scream.
There was a soft voice behind me. ‘My Lord is disturbed by the flogging?’ the Captain asked. He’d been going up or coming down the ladder that led to the rowing decks. He now clambered easily up beside me and went through the motions of a bow. He’d taken off his boots, but still wore the fussy uniform he must have put on for his trip ashore. ‘It was the black rower with woollen hair,’ he explained with evident relish. ‘His dream of a supernatural origin for the storms has continued to disturb the other men.’
I nodded. Just as the biggest of the storms was hitting us, I’d pulled rank on the Captain and ordered all the rowers to be unchained. Since then, rowing had been impossible, and the men had been lounging about on the lower decks with nothing to do but compete at scaring each other.
I cleared my throat and tried to look haughty. ‘My secretary will need to discuss what slaves will come ashore with us,’ I said.
The Captain arched his eyebrows and somehow managed not to laugh. ‘I must inform Your Lordship,’ he said very softly indeed, ‘that my orders are to put you ashore without slaves. The local authorities will provide such assistance as may be required.’ I stared back without blinking. I’d finally learned something of the Captain’s own orders. Priscus and I had watched him receive these in a sealed packet. For all the questions he’d put, Priscus would have got better answers out of the Sphinx than from this shifty little Egyptian.
‘Very well,’ I said with a forced lightness of tone. ‘Be so good as to inform my secretary of this.’
The Captain bowed again, and asked if it would please me to see the flogging.
Without bothering to answer, I turned and continued along the corridor.
Bearing in mind its natural colour on this voyage, I failed to see why Priscus had taken the trouble to paint his face green. He sat alone in his cabin, looking down at his booted feet. ‘Fucking noise!’ he snarled with a look upwards. Now the flogging was over, the only sound from outside was a third or fourth repeat of the shanty. ‘Can’t these sailors ever keep their mouths shut?’ He pushed a glass cup against his chattering teeth and took a longish sip. He burped and pushed a hand under his ceremonial chain mail for a scratch. ‘So, dear boy, what’s the news?’ he finally asked with the ghost of a smile.
I stared up at the polished timbers of the ceiling and wondered if there was any suitable answer. Unlike Martin, Priscus had lost weight on the voyage. He’d been padded out when put into his uniform. But there was no hiding the bony wrists or the sagging wrinkles under his chin. This was my first sight of him in five days. Though the great storm had finally ended, his reaction to it hadn’t. His groans and the regular bowls of vomit carried from his cabin had told me he was alive. Now, if he was up and about, he still didn’t look more than the shadow of the
