himself scarce — he’s scarpered. Without him to bully into a confession, it’s your word against mine in any trial before Caesar. Even with Martin to back you up, Heraclius will have to pretend not to believe you. Bear in mind, he does need
‘Oh, Priscus, my dearest friend,’ I cried satirically, ‘how could I doubt your word?’ And the pity was it didn’t suit me to doubt his word. I’d not tell him about Ludinus and my now desperate need to get the right answer out of that council. Without having to make any actual promises, I’d managed to swear the Dispensator to inaction. There’d be no wave of arrests — no superstition-crazed monks combing Athens for Nicephorus and Balthazar. I’d take whatever risk that entailed and keep an unwavering gaze on the main action of this particular story.
There was a soft scraping on the door. Priscus looked up, a bright smile on his face. He pulled down the one blind that had been left to let in the sunlight and wiped off a rivulet of hair dye that had run down his face. ‘Come in, my dearest,’ he called.
The door opened and Euphemia walked in. Wearing a hooded cloak that must have been sweltering, she bowed modestly in my direction and began fussing with a bowl of hot water. She didn’t acknowledge that I’d stood up for her, and I sat down again.
‘A most splendid woman is the Count’s sister-in-law, don’t you agree?’ he said, holding up his bandaged arm for her attention. ‘We can rely on her not to miss Nicephorus.’
She looked sharply over at me.
Priscus laughed happily. ‘Yes, my dear, he’s buggered off at last,’ he said to her. ‘That means you can go now where you will — so long as Alaric makes it possible.’ He gasped as she undid the bandage and began sponging at the long wound on his arm. There was a long pause as she finished her work and tied on a clean bandage. Priscus twisted his face into another smile and opened his mouth to speak. Instead, he went into another coughing fit. By the time this was over, Euphemia was halfway to the door. ‘But, my dear young woman,’ he finally managed to cry in his jolliest tone, ‘have you got him yet between your legs?’ He suddenly turned and looked into my face. He laughed again. ‘So, it’s all as good as agreed,’ he said to Euphemia, now softly. ‘If it ever comes to pass, I’m sure you’ll find much to amuse you in the Capital. You might even be useful to young Alaric.’
As the door closed, and we were alone, Priscus got up and went back to the bodies. He tugged again on one of the gold rings. This time, he took out a knife and cut it free. He went over to a window and pulled up the blind to inspect the ring in a shaft of sunlight. He bit the gold to test its fineness and held it up again to look at the tooth marks. ‘You can believe what you please about my instructions to Nicephorus,’ he said. ‘You can be sure, however, I didn’t commission my own death. And, now our bird has flown, don’t expect me to call him and Balthazar off.’
No answer to that. I’d get the Dispensator to order a discreet search of Athens, though didn’t expect his monks to find anything. ‘Do tell me, Priscus,’ I said, ‘what Balthazar could have meant when I heard him refer to your previous “outrages” in Athens.’
He slid the ring on to the little finger of his left hand and sat down. He raised his hand and looked at it from several directions. ‘Since I wasn’t a party to that conversation,’ he said, ‘don’t expect me to interpret anything said by Balthazar. But it may have referred to a certain attempt I made — an attempt soon called off, let me add — to obtain a blessing that you now seem to have taken for yourself.’ He giggled and went back to admiring his ring.
There were other questions I wanted answered. But these could wait until I could get them fully clear in my own mind. Priscus got up again in the silence that followed and stroked one of the dead chests. I haven’t said that the nipples also had been cut away, leaving jagged pits in the dark, hairy flesh. He poked at the square of stained cloth stuck just over the heart.
‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked with another snigger.
‘I’d say it was part of the cloth a woman has used to contain her menstrual discharge,’ I answered. I got up and yawned in the heat. I stretched. I picked up the knife Priscus had used and pried the cloth loose. Using it to hold the cloth, I lifted it into the sunlight. ‘Since it’s old blood, we can assume it had some magical purpose — a talisman against danger perhaps.’ I ignored the reply about its effectiveness. ‘It’s the same with all the bodies.’ I took a long sip of drugged beer and thought. In all investigations, the enemy is less often lack of evidence than settled but false assumptions about the evidence you have. But there was no doubt of a connection between theatrical sorcery and a gang of desperate assassins. For the moment, I wouldn’t ask myself what Nicephorus had done with all the money he’d embezzled. Nor would I assume anything of the town assemblymen beyond complicity in tax fraud. Something I did need to know, however, was how anyone had known I’d be going off in search of that girl’s body. It might well have been moved because of me. It can’t have been by chance that those men had jumped me right beside the tomb. It was important to know exactly when Nicephorus had last been seen in the residency. The slaves I’d questioned had been utterly useless. He might have disappeared when I set out for the house of Felix. Or it might have been while I was outside Athens.
But I was now feeling lazy from the opium. I tried to glare at Priscus. ‘You will, of course, stop trying to make trouble for me in Athens,’ I said.
He smiled and patted his bandage.
I grunted and looked into his cold and glittering eyes. I’d have got more from staring at an icon of the Risen Christ. I looked at my hands. A hasty scrub in cold water had cleaned all the gore off my body. But I’d need to get a scraper under my fingernails before dinner. That reminded me of other business. ‘You’ll be glad to know that I’ve had no choice — unless Nicephorus shows up for dinner — but to place you beside Simeon,’ I said.
Priscus grinned. He even kissed his new ring.
‘I hope you can restrain yourself from any further discussion of the Trinity.’
‘So our friendship remains unscathed?’ he asked with mock eagerness. He flashed his ring at me, then groaned with the sudden pain of the movement.
‘I have business elsewhere in the residency,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you can find your own way to bed for a couple of hours.’
He was still laughing softly as I walked from the room.
Chapter 35
‘What’s in that box over there?’ I asked, pointing at the far corner of the office.
Martin looked up from a set of accounts that even he could see were crooked. ‘I think they are the Count’s ceremonial clothes,’ he said. ‘They’ve been left to get wet, so all the colours have run on the silk, and everything is creased.’ I looked down again at the only two documents Nicephorus had left behind that had any relevance to me. Martin had already been more than once through a place as dirty and chaotic as I’d expected. If this was all he’d found, there might still be more — but it wouldn’t be easily found.
‘Well, this one,’ I said, holding up a sheet of folded papyrus, ‘mostly explains itself. The names listed correspond with my understanding of who was included in the main writ of summons. There’s no mention of me or Priscus. Instead, Sergius is named as convenor.’ I looked again at the date. It had been sent out from Constantinople just days after my departure for Alexandria. Ludinus couldn’t possibly have got himself so quickly into the sort of favour that would let him take over religious affairs. At the same time, why hadn’t I been told about this before I left — or at least notified in one of the endless messages of regard Heraclius had been sending me? Since the letter carried the Patriarchal as well as the Imperial seal, why hadn’t Sergius sent me news of the council?
I put the letter down and turned to the other one. This had been sealed by Ludinus. From the unpractised formation of the characters, and one substantial crossing out and marginal correction, he may have written it in his own hand. ‘I can understand that some
