Chapter 22
‘My Lord Fortunatus!’ I cried. I hurried across the room, hardly noticing that the towel Martin had tried to wrap about me fell off after two paces. ‘This is a most unexpected honour.’
He raised his arms for an official embrace. Our lips met without touching in a way that might have impressed a geometry teacher. As soon as decency allowed, I took my hands from his stiff, bony shoulders and helped him into the only chair in the room.
He’d aged a little in the two years since our last meeting. The parchment of his face was paler and more withered. He might have been a touch smaller. But it was the Dispensator, sure enough — chief servant of the Servant of the Servants of Christ. He was the man, that is, who, formally charged with handling the Papal charity, was in fact governor of the Roman Church. So long as he took the trouble to get addled old Boniface to stamp his seal on whatever writing surface embodied it, his word was law in spiritual matters over the whole of those vast regions, mostly now unknown to Constantinople, that looked to Rome.
‘My Lord will forgive me,’ I said with all the smoothness I could find, ‘if I am overcome for the moment by the joy of an acquaintance that I never thought would be renewed.’
He stared back at me while Martin made a better job of getting the towel tied about my waist. It had its convenient side that he’d chosen to come out as head of the Western delegates. No one would ever dare question what agreement we might eventually reach about the questions for a future council. At the same time, someone more junior — and more pliable — would have been more immediately convenient.
The Dispensator settled into his chair beside the leaden bath. ‘The Lord Count did assure me,’ he said, with a hint of what might have been quiet pleasure or disapproval, ‘that you had been drowned on your journey from Constantinople. I rejoice in the knowledge that rumours of your death were an exaggeration.’ He fell silent and looked down to where I’d sat before him on the floor. He managed a chilly smile. ‘But please do accept my congratulations on your rise to such eminence as you have achieved. I did not imagine, when I asked you to represent us in Constantinople, that your career would so blossom — and at so young an age.’
There was a slight emphasis on the word ‘blossom’ that I could have taken for insolence. But the man had put up with far worse from me in Rome when our positions were reversed, and I contented myself with a smile.
‘Still, God does move in mysterious ways. Even you might appreciate the Divine Providence when it is so plainly displayed.’
I smiled again and reached forward to pour two cups of wine from a tray that the idiot slave had now found the initiative to carry in. The Dispensator tasted it and put his cup on the floor with a finality that indicated I’d have to share the ginger cordial.
‘But I must also rejoice,’ he went on with a look at Martin, ‘to see your secretary in such good health.’ Probably, he was looking at the gap where Martin’s left ear had been. Priscus had eventually apologised for the ‘untoward circumstances’ that had compelled him to slice this off. He’d even promised a replacement in red leather just as soon as we were all back in Constantinople. For the moment, Martin was hiding the gap as best he could by combing his few remaining locks of red hair over it. He blushed and covered his embarrassment with a polite bow.
‘If you can have that translation ready before lunch, I’ll be grateful,’ I said to Martin. He took the hint and bowed again. He was followed out by the Dispensator’s secretary. As the idiot slave danced after them, I got up and closed the door. I emptied both cups back into the jug, then pulled the napkin off the ginger cordial and refilled the cups. The Dispensator sniffed at his and tasted. He nodded and put it down, this time within easy reach. I sat down.
‘I must protest — and I am aware of your status as the Emperor’s representative — at the shocking treatment I have been subjected to during the ten days since my arrival in Athens.’ He scowled and looked across at the wall behind me. ‘I must remind you,’ he added, ‘that any offence given to me is an offence given to His Holiness the Universal Bishop.’
I got up again. It had been a mistake to sit on the floor where he could look down at me as if at a boy in class. I perched carefully on the edge of the bath. The lead bent slightly under my weight, but didn’t buckle and send a flood of cold water over the pair of us.
‘In particular,’ he said with as dark a scowl as I’d ever seen cross his face, ‘I take exception to my not having been informed of your arrival yesterday morning. I had given appropriate orders to all the Latin bishops to mourn your loss at sea. I am most provoked at having not been told that, even as we were tearing our second best robes in lamentation, the Count and all the Greek bishops were welcoming you in Piraeus.’ He stopped and turned his mouth down. I put the image he’d suggested straight out of mind. If I didn’t, I knew I’d not resist the urge to dissolve in helpless laughter. I might even fall backwards into the water.
He leaned down and recovered his cup. ‘Please accept, on behalf of the Universal Bishop, my formal complaint against the Lord Count and against Their Graces the Bishops of Nicaea and of Ephesus. Their joint behaviour, since my arrival in Athens, has been a disgrace. I have no doubt there would be still graver reason for complaint if they were able to speak a word of Latin, or I of Greek.’
He finished his cup and held it out for a refill. ‘But let me turn to the matter of interpreters,’ he carried on, with a move from the chilly to the frigid. ‘The only one of them who is not utterly deficient in Latin showed every appearance, four days ago, of having gone mad. Since then, he has displayed a progressively smaller regard for our comparative positions in the world. This morning, he did not even see fit to attend on me at dawn. The other interpreters are both insolent and incompetent. One of them was caught yesterday examining the contents of my writing box. When my secretary put a knife to his throat, he had the effrontery to plead direct orders from the Lord Nicephorus.
‘I see no point in addressing myself further to the Lord Count. I now see that, when I spoke to him yesterday, he was already preparing to hurry off without me to the port. I therefore ask you, My Lord Alaric, to take such steps as may be required to assert and maintain the dignity of His Holiness of Rome.’
I slid down from the side of my bath and walked over to where I’d let the mirror fall. I picked it up and put it on a ledge. I turned back and tried for a reassuring smile. I caught the look on his face and thought better of the attempt. ‘My Lord Fortunatus,’ I said very smoothly, ‘do be assured that, as representative of the Emperor, I regard any affront given to His Holiness of Rome as an affront to the Great Augustus himself. It would have pleased me more than I can say to see you on the dock yesterday morning. I am certainly pleased to see you now, and do believe that I look forward to a return, in this consultative meeting, of all the harmony and friendship of our old dealings.’
I nodded solemnly and managed a second time not to burst out laughing. An ecumenical council, indeed! When did Rome ever stand up for Church democracy unless it thought there was some benefit to be had for Rome? Within its own branch of the Church, it had long since allowed less consultation than a drill sergeant does with new recruits. If it was now demanding full consultation, it would only be so Greeks and Syrians and Egyptians could be set against each other and still more concessions of primacy could be extracted for Rome.
‘My Lord is surely mistaken,’ I said smoothly, ‘if His Holiness the Patriarch of Rome is required to subscribe to anything.’
The Dispensator scowled at the implied demotion of Boniface to equality with the other heads of the Church.
I smiled and pressed on. ‘The function of this present meeting is merely to explore the possibilities for what may be discussed in future at some wider and more formal gathering.’ There was no point wondering how he’d
