clearer than I was able to manage.
I put this letter on to the rickety desk and looked at Martin. ‘How are your hands?’ I asked. Martin had been carried back to Athens in a chair. If I hadn’t needed his immediate help, I’d have left him with Sveta. I felt a slight stab of guilt for having paid so little attention to his own shattered nerves.
‘You could easily have been killed,’ he said quietly. He got up and came over to the desk. He held up the letter that Ludinus had sealed. ‘Look, Aelric,’ he said in Celtic, ‘we aren’t safe in Athens. I’m not even sure about the residency. You’ve admitted you have no idea what’s been happening in Constantinople. Why don’t we just go back to the plan you made before we landed? This time, you could come with us. We can take the ferry to Corinth, and then go west. You could get to England before anyone knew where you’d gone. You could even come back with me to Ireland. My father’s brothers would take you in without questions. You’ve had three good years in the Empire. You must see that it’s time to move on.’
I frowned him into silence. ‘I’ve decided that you will get everyone over to Corinth once the ferry comes in,’ I said very firmly. ‘I am thinking to send you to Rome to wait on further instructions. But, Martin, do you really suppose I could turn up in Corinth without being spotted at once? Let’s agree the Governor there is a prize idiot, but even he wouldn’t just sit on his arse while I obviously made plans to run for cover. I’ll stay here. If I get all these bishops and what-have-you properly on side, we’ll see how it plays with the Emperor. In the meantime, you just get Sveta packing for Monday.’ I leaned forward and picked up a small box that had been puzzling me. It had been lying in the congealed mess of the Count’s inkwell. ‘Pills for a stinking breath,’ it said in faded ink in the underside. I shook the box. It was empty.
But Martin wasn’t finished. ‘Do you remember the story in ancient times of the fall of Seianus?’ he went on, still urgently, though now in Celtic. ‘He could have made a run for it the moment Tiberius got up to make that interminable speech in the Senate. He could have used his still intact power to commandeer post horses and get out of Rome. Instead, he sat there, waiting for his Emperor to wind up with a full denunciation. You’re in a better position. The Emperor’s seven hundred miles away. No one appears to have any instructions to arrest you here. Unlike Seianus, there really is somewhere you can go where you couldn’t be dragged back. Let’s just go. This city isn’t really Athens — it’s a rotten husk. The residency almost throbs with an evil even you must be able to sense. The Empire itself is falling.’ Though still in Celtic, he looked about and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Priscus is the best they’ve got. And you know he’s useless for anything but massacring civilians and stabbing everyone round him in the back. You’ve done everything you could for the Empire, and there’s no one in power who likes it or even understands it.
There was a sudden rattle on the door handle, and I was saved the trouble of further argument.
‘I heard you was round abouts here, my love,’ said Irene. She kicked the door wide open, scattering a pile of old reports, and walked in. She was now wearing a much taken-in military tunic. She might even have had a sword under her cloak.
I scowled at her. ‘I did specify slaves before noon,’ I said harshly. I looked out of the window. ‘That was some while ago.’
She smiled and gave a dismissive wave. ‘Oh, don’t you worry yourself, dearie,’ she said. ‘There was problems with the lady’s maids — I had to flog a couple into a proper view of their station in this life. But they’re all ready and waiting for you. If you’d like to follow me into that big room with the statue of Sappho — lovely girl she was, too, if you’ll pardon the digression. .’
I sat on a raised chair in one of the less tatty halls of audience, and looked at the huddle of slaves who stood before me, their heads turned down in misery and respect. I took another long draught of beer and handed the mug to Martin. I burped into my sleeve and got slowly to my feet. Perhaps I had overdone the opium, I thought yet again. But I took a deep breath and put myself into a semblance of order.
‘If you were born to be warriors,’ I opened in what I hoped was the right dialect of Slavic, ‘it is by the fortune of war that you stand before me. I will not have you chained up at night, nor made to wear iron collars by day. I will not beat you, or subject you to other humiliations. In return, I expect total obedience to my commands and total devotion to my interests.’
I paused and steadied myself. All who could understand me were now looking up at me. Their pale, slab-like faces showed no emotion. I suppressed another burp and went on: ‘You may be aware that I have bought you outright from the Lady Irene, your former mistress. Unless detained here by the onset of winter, or by some other untoward circumstances, I do not expect to be long in Athens. But I promise that those of you who serve me well I will free before I leave. You can then return to your homes or go where else you may please. Those of you with whom I am not satisfied I will sell back to the Lady Irene, who will dispose of you at market as may suit her convenience.
‘Can I expect the devotion I seek?’
You can put that choice to any rational being and get exactly the same answer. I’d paid ready cash for these creatures, and they knew they were mine as absolutely as the clothes I was wearing. But I stood with right arm held out as each took his turn to come forward and take my hand between both his own. It did no harm to add the semblance of fealty to a freely chosen lord to the duties prescribed by law. And it wasn’t just heavy cleaning and other household work I had in mind for them. If Priscus might have the good sense not to try poisoning me as we sat together at meat, Nicephorus and Balthazar were still on the loose. I might well have need of those big men for much else beside.
‘Do make the same offer to the female slaves,’ I whispered to Martin as I stepped past him. I turned to Irene, who’d thrown her cloak off and was indeed wearing a sword. ‘If you can get everything ready for dinner, I’ll be in your debt,’ I said.
She gave another flash of brown teeth and turned to clap her hands at the slaves for attention.
I was now aware of a newcomer to the room. I took him by the shoulder over to the main door. ‘Any luck?’ I asked in whispered Latin. The Dispensator’s secretary shook his head. As ordered, a few dozen monks were unobtrusively combing the city for Nicephorus or anyone dressed all over in black. A dozen more were lounging by the two gates that were opened by day. Nothing so far to report.
‘Then I want you to keep looking,’ I said. ‘If it means pulling me out of bed before dawn, I want to be told the moment anyone is found or even seen. Do you understand?’
He bowed and confirmed that the Dispensator had given no reason for his orders.
‘Excellent,’ I said. The opium was pressing hard on me, but I smiled. ‘I look forward to seeing His Lordship your master at dinner.’
‘I’m going for a lie down,’ I said to Martin. ‘Since you’ll need a good voice for the readings, I advise the same of you.’ I looked at his torn hands. ‘No, Martin,’ I said with soft insistence. ‘After what you’ve had to go through already today, I command you to go and lie down.’ I might have patted him on the shoulder. A Greek would have kissed him in recognition of his attempted defence. But there is much to be said — in public at least — for a stiff upper lip.
Chapter 36
Naked, I stood in the library. This wasn’t the shattered wreck that I knew. It was instead the luxurious, well-stocked house of books that it must have been in ancient times. Elegant in blue silk, her toenails shining with gold leaf, a young woman reclined on one of the window seats. She’d fallen asleep in the sun, a scroll open on her lap. I stared down at my hairy nakedness, and was ashamed. I wanted to step forward and see what the young woman had been reading. I wanted to stand closer to her and see her face, which was turned away from me. There were no loose tiles or other debris on the floor. It would be simply a matter of walking forward a dozen feet and looking down. But that disembodied voice was speaking again from behind me.
‘Do you want to know what happened in this room?’ it asked in English.
I smiled and turned round. There was an old man fussing over what may have been the library catalogue. I stood just a few feet from the desk where he muttered over an open scroll of listings. I looked at the wall painting of Athens. Its colours fresh and vivid, it showed the city in much greater detail. Though I could see no captions above any of the buildings, I now recognised what everything was. There was the Garden of Epicurus, and there the
