The Ghosts of Athens

The reply now was a long and contemptuous chuckle. ‘The Senator Alaric,’ he added, ‘is the current apple of Caesar’s eye. If I didn’t know the fool better, I’d have said he fancied the boy. But Alaric really is just a eunuch with balls. He’s one of those men without deep connections, who do as they’re told and can’t raise any challenge, no matter how they’re promoted, nor how they’re pulled back down. Yes, he’s the current apple of Caesar’s eye — and the fly in my own ointment. He’s some barbarian from God knows where in the West. He rolled into the City two years back, and has stuck about ever since like a bad smell.’

There was another long pause, during which I took a chance and looked up again. I put my head back down at once. Priscus was turned away from me. But I could see Balthazar looking up from behind his own cover. One look right, and he’d need to be blind not to see me.

I think Priscus swung his feet on to the table. ‘But let’s not be so dismissive about dear little Alaric,’ he said gloatingly. ‘He’s not so bright as he thinks himself. But don’t be deceived by those pretty boy looks. Neither is he a fool. He’s been pissing in my bathwater these past two years, and I still haven’t managed to bump him off. That, you’ll appreciate, needs either great skill or great luck — let’s just say it needs both. If you think he isn’t already suspicious about your accounting, you’re a bigger fool than you look. Tomorrow, he’ll get hold of you and start asking questions about the use of that direct grant you’ve been thieving. Give him one look at your accounts, and he’ll turn very nasty. And you’ll be bleeding lucky if he stops his enquiries there — yes, bleeding lucky, I can tell you.’

‘And what, pray, do you mean by that?’ Nicephorus asked with a failed attempt at sharpness.

There was a long moment of silence, broken finally by a low and menacing chuckle from Priscus. ‘You don’t need me to tell you he’s a tow-headed barbarian,’ he said. ‘Well, my darling little Syrian, jumped-up clerk that you are, you look hard enough past that fancy diction and those finicky ways, and you’ll see barbarian right the way down. He has a very strong moral sense, that young lad. He’ll do you for bloody murder, and hand you straight over to me for execution. Don’t expect me to put in any pleas for clemency.’

Was that my name I heard from Nicephorus? He’d broken down rather fast, and was now reduced to faint whispers of protest and supplication.

Priscus gave one of his more villainous laughs, and I heard a loud scrape and a creaking of wood as he got up from the chair. ‘And you give me one reason why I should even try saving your worthless hide,’ he sneered. I heard what may have been the thud of knees on the floor, and then the muffled voice of what may have been a face buried in clothing. Now, I heard a yelp and the sound of scattered mosaic tiles.

I couldn’t resist the urge. I tried, but couldn’t resist. I held my breath and darted my head up for another look. There, in the moonlight and the glow from the lamps, I saw Nicephorus grovelling on his belly a few yards from where Priscus stood with his chin jutted forward. Looking straight forward, Balthazar wasn’t even trying to keep his head down.

‘Did you ever see a man crucified?’ Priscus asked.

The answer was a terrified squeal and a babble of pleading that trailed off into Syriac.

‘Let’s ignore the details,’ Priscus went on in a conversational tone. ‘But I was crucified for half a morning when I was a cadet. It was a good lesson. Pain in itself can be handled. It’s the fear of lasting and even fatal damage that breaks you. Once he’s finished his inexorable questioning — and it’s amazing what he can learn without even the threat of racking — that blond boy will condemn you for false accounting and sorcery. He’ll not come and watch when I have you nailed to a shithouse door in this place. But he’ll get pissy drunk with me after it’s all done.’ I was looking again. Priscus threw his head right back and laughed softly. He laughed so much, he staggered slightly. He steadied himself against one of the overturned tables and sat down again. ‘It was a shame, let me tell you, when the Great Constantine banned crucifixion after he converted to the Faith — such a fine penalty withdrawn from the arsenal of the state!’

He paused in mid-laugh. ‘But have you been playing with yourself in this chair?’ he asked accusingly. ‘Look’ — he lifted his right arm — ‘there’s wank all over my sleeve.’ Like some reptile, he shot out his tongue and licked at the crumpled silk he was wearing. ‘Yes, that’s wank,’ he sneered. ‘You disgust me!’

Beside me, Martin suddenly let out a long fart. It was too gentle to be heard above the loud babbling, now in Syriac, from Nicephorus, who was back on his knees. But the frogs had definitely made their way to the relevant area of Martin’s insides, and the smell would have startled a dead fox. If I had to suppress a coughing fit, though, the smell didn’t seem to reach across the room to where Nicephorus had caught Priscus by the lower legs and was now trying to kiss his feet. Priscus sneered something also in Syriac that sounded awful. He kicked out, and laughed at the no longer subdued cry of pain.

He got up and followed Nicephorus as he tried to crawl under a broken table. He stood over him and gloried in his power. ‘But, my dear, dear Nicephorus,’ he said, now at his most charming. ‘There really is no need for unpleasantness. We parted as friends. It is as a friend that I return to Athens. Of course, I’ll stand by you when Alaric gets round to questioning you. I’ll take him off any path that leads to suspicions of a capital offence. I’ll not ask what you’ve done with all the Emperor’s money. But I can see the deal you made two years ago is holding. You keep reporting back to Governor Timothy that Athens is too poor to tax. The locals don’t complain about your total filching of the budget. So long as Timothy remains too lazy to get himself over here, you can spend your ill-gotten gains as you please.’ He laughed, and I heard what may have been the scrape of a hand on dust-covered wood. This may have been followed by the rubbing together of dirty hands. ‘Oh, Nicephorus, Nicephorus.’ He laughed. ‘I said I’d not ask what’s become of the money. But I can wonder about the lack of slaves even to keep this place habitable.’

‘What do you want?’ Nicephorus asked pleadingly. ‘Just say what you want — I’ll do it.’

There was another long creak as Priscus sat down again and made himself comfortable. ‘Don’t ask me why the Great Augustus has called this bloody council together in Athens,’ he drawled. ‘The man’s a right fool — you can take that from someone who knows him very well. But why Athens, when all his reports tell him the place is a heap of ruins? No point, though, trying to understand the workings of a mind far below even yours. It doesn’t suit your convenience to have the place crawling with nosy priests. It certainly doesn’t suit mine to have them reach agreement with Alaric at their head.

‘So do be a love, Nicephorus, and have the boy killed for me.’

There was an explosion of horrified protest. I heard the scrape of more loose mosaic tiles as Nicephorus got to his feet, and another creak as Priscus got up.

‘Oh shut up, you fuckwit Syrian!’ he snapped. ‘I’m not asking for much. Just kill the little shit. I imagine that loser Balthazar is still leeching money out of you? Well, it’s about time he and his friends did something tangible to earn their keep. Just make sure that, when it is done, there is nothing that a full commission of enquiry can pin on me.

‘Do that, dearest heart, and you can shuffle, unaudited, round this glorified cowshed till you retire — or your “researches” reach some triumphant conclusion and I have to grovel to you.’ Priscus laughed. He may have picked up another of the fallen book rolls.

I pulled my head right down as he turned and walked in my direction. I didn’t breathe — Martin didn’t breathe — as he hovered just inches from where we cowered. I heard the crackle of papyrus and a snort of contempt. I heard the book hit the floor and unravel. Then, Priscus was walking quickly back to the door. I heard him stop just beyond it.

‘I’m doing you a mighty favour, Nicephorus,’ he said. ‘Do as I ask, and I’ll stand by you all the way to Hell and back. Fail me, and I’ll put you there myself.

‘Yes, my dear little man,’ he said after more whining from Nicephorus, ‘I’ll get myself to sleep by composing his funeral speech. It’ll be the finest thing Athens has heard since Demosthenes topped himself. I’ll deliver it with a ripe onion cupped in my hand.’ He paused again and sniggered. ‘I really am counting on you, Nicephorus — don’t let me down!’

I heard the sound of his feet on the beads as I counted him down the stairs. There was a loud sobbing over by the desk. For the first time, I noticed the loud splattering of water from a broken downpipe outside the window. But Balthazar was now clambering out from behind his hiding place, and he was trying to jolly some appearance of manhood back into Nicephorus.

‘Those were most ungracious comments,’ he said when Nicephorus had finally unclamped both hands from his face, ‘particularly, I might observe, as they applied to me! Nevertheless, you can be sure that I looked fully upon His Magnificence the Senator Priscus, and I saw the Hand of Death on his shoulder. Did you not see how old he has