followed him on to the stones. But, injured as he was, he darted away with more speed than I thought I’d manage.
Keeping my sword up, I looked round. Within a ten-foot radius, all the paving stones were red and slippery. The monks had bolted. Far along the road, I could see their dark blur as they made for the safety of Athens. Towards us, coming from both directions, I saw the approach of other travellers, the sun glinting on their drawn swords. There was a distant sound of shouting. Close by was the sound of the Dispensator’s loud breathing and Martin’s return to frantic prayer. No birds sang. In place of the merry chirping of insects was the buzzing of flies as they gathered to feast on the blood that I’d shed. Probably cowering behind some of the larger stones, the children had vanished.
I forced myself into a calm I didn’t feel. ‘You are hurt, My Lord?’ I asked.
The Dispensator shook his head. One of his sleeves had been ripped all the way down, but the sword hadn’t touched his arm. He bent and picked up the remaining length of his walking staff and tested it.
Farting and sobbing, Martin sat like a man who’d been stunned. His own worst injury was where he’d ripped his hands on the brambles. As I watched, he clutched at his stomach and began rocking back and forth. As the excitement faded like the echo of a voice in church, I could feel a shaking fit coming on. I willed myself not to give way to it.
‘Alaric,’ the Dispensator cried sharply, ‘this one is still alive.’
I made myself look round. Still dazed, the man the Dispensator had got with his staff was sitting with his back against the tomb. I tightened my hold on a sword now slippery with blood and sweat and stood over the man. His masked face turned up in my direction, he pulled a small knife from his belt.
‘That won’t do you any good,’ I said through chattering teeth. I could hear the rapid approach of the other travellers. I stepped back and transferred my sword to my left hand. I wiped my right on my tunic and took the sword back into it. I pulled myself together. The man had now scrambled forward on to his knees and was looking at me through his mask. I lowered my sword. ‘Punishment in Athens,’ I said with desperate control. ‘But questions first.’
He turned his face up to the sky and laughed. It was the mad, exultant laugh of a gambler who, given up by all as broken, has managed a sudden lucky throw. Cautious of a sudden rush at me, I stepped back further. The man said something I couldn’t catch and, taking it in both hands, raised his knife above his head. With a shrill cry I’d normally have taken for sexual pleasure, he brought it suddenly down into his belly. Still holding it hard, he ripped the knife upward all the way to his breast bone. With a babble of ecstasy, he tore the knife out and threw it aside. Somehow, he got to his feet. I heard the ripping of cloth as he pulled the gash wide open and pulled at his entrails. There was a scream of horror from behind me. I may have cried out myself as, holding out those bloody things in both hands, he stepped heavily towards me. I stepped back again — but not fast enough. With a final, extreme effort, the man threw himself at me. I overbalanced as he hit me and fell back on to the road. For a long instant before they dulled, two eyes blazed triumph and hate from behind the mask.
But now many hands were pulling the body off me, and were lifting me back to my feet. Someone put a wet cloth to my face. I watched it come away red. I looked down at my sopping, red tunic. I wanted to sit down again. But I was hurried instead over to a wooden box that had been unloaded from one of the carrying slaves. Someone shoved the bone spout of a wineskin into my mouth. I sucked on it till I thought I’d be sick. Looking through the jostling, admiring crowd, I saw the Dispensator. He had his back to me, and was reaching down to help Martin to his feet.
Chapter 34
Priscus lifted the sheet again off one of the bodies and smacked his lips. ‘If you can stomach a little more praise, dear boy,’ he said without turning, ‘consider me impressed.’ He bent for a closer inspection. ‘You killed three of these, and disabled another, with just Martin and an old priest for help? Well, I suppose you’ll make a soldier yet.’ He pulled the sheet right off the body and nearly overbalanced. He gave up trying to laugh and sat down with a groan, and went back to nursing his left arm. He’d got back here slightly before me. About the time I was fighting for my life outside the walls, he’d been jumped on his way back from an apothecary. There could be no doubt of the main facts: they’d been seen, if at a distance, by the Bishop of Athens.
‘Of course, my little darling,’ he went on with forced brightness, ‘yours was more a glorified street brawl than a battle. If you look at the harvest from the attack made on
I ignored the obvious reply, that I’d come through my own ambush without so much as a scratch, and took another sip of beer fortified with a half opium pill. We were sitting in one of the larger abandoned offices in the residency. The tables had been cleared of writing materials and other old clutter, and now supported six variously carved-up bodies. Though the windows were all closed, the still air was filled with the smell of ingrained human dirt and with the buzz of those ever-present flies.
Priscus got up again and chased the flies away from one of the cleaner kills. He sniggered and pointed at the crotch. ‘No wonder that one of yours was so pleased to do himself in. Just imagine how you’d feel if you’d cut off the organ of pleasure, but left the organs of desire untouched.’
I forced myself to look once more at the tangle of black hairs. Where the shaft had once emerged, a gold ring was half-buried in the hair. The hairy ballbag hung between parted legs. The mutilation — rather, the
Priscus laughed. ‘It’s all a bit like that wog Brotherhood we smashed up in Egypt — don’t you think?’ He cupped the ballbag in the hand of his good arm and went into a coughing fit.
There was no denying that these weren’t your ordinary bandits. If I hadn’t known better, I might have put them down as Christian; there’s no limit, after all, to what some of the wilder heretics can read into Scripture. I thought of the text about those ‘which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake’. But I’d seen them, or colleagues of theirs, with Balthazar in that invocation of ‘the Goddess’. These were all debased remnants of the Old Faith. I’ve said Athens had come late to the Established Faith. It had also come rather imperfectly.
‘Now, it might be relevant to ask,’ Priscus added in the tone of one who’s desperately at war with the need to go and lie down, ‘not just who these buggers were, but who sent them, and for what purpose.’ He tried for a sweet smile, but failed. ‘Any thoughts of your own, My Lord Senator?’
‘How about your good friends Nicephorus and Balthazar?’ I asked. As his face turned blank, it was my turn to laugh. ‘I should hope by now you’ve finished writing my funeral oration. Any chance of reciting its exordium? You can dispense with the onion.’
He played with his wine cup and gave me a long and thoughtful look. Then he smiled. He put his cup down and stretched. He leaned forward for another look at the nearest body, and clucked happily as he pulled at the gold ring. He pulled harder and fought to suppress another cough as a peak of dead flesh poked through the hair. He let go of the ring and turned back to me. ‘I really must be getting old,’ he said with a sorry shake of his head. ‘I knew that old fraud Balthazar was spying on me the other night. But I didn’t even consider you might have been there too. Oh dear!’
He paused and thought. He brightened and lifted his cup. ‘But you surely know all about my often odd sense of humour. Come, dearest Alaric, we’re two very old and very dear friends!’ he cried with a wave of his cup so expansive that wine splashed over the floor tiles. He leaned forward and smiled. ‘You surely know that I’d never lift a finger against you — not after all we’ve been through. Haven’t I often said that we stand or fall together?’
Not blinking, I stared back at him. Should I give him a list of the times he
Priscus sat back and gave me a sly look. ‘Besides, dear boy,’ he went on with smooth charm, ‘there’s fuck all you can do about whatever you may have seen the other night. Let’s admit that Nicephorus hasn’t just made
