‘It may be for the first time ever,’ he said as the door closed, ‘but do you suppose we should try to be honest with each other?’
I got up and pulled my under tunic into place. It was still slightly wet, and this had left a stain on the old leather of the chair. I went over to look at the mural of Athens. One of the more enthusiastic slaves had tried cleaning a few centuries of dirt off this. In places, he’d rubbed far too hard, and patches of bright freshness now contrasted with others of dull smudging.
‘When I was a boy,’ I began without bothering to turn, ‘I was told how a fox gets rid of fleas. He hunts about until he finds a lock of wool, and then he takes it to the river, and holds it in his mouth. He now goes slowly into the water, and the fleas climb higher and higher up his body. At last they all run over the creature’s nose into the wool, and then he dips his nose under and lets the wool go off with the stream.’
I did now turn round. My first sight was of a very puzzled Martin. I would have smiled at him, but Priscus put his head back and laughed.
‘You really aren’t as stupid as you look, dear boy,’ he said. ‘But would you forgive me if I said that I did see you in here the other night?’ He pointed to the now cleared area of floor where I’d been crouching with Martin. Then he put both hands together and cracked his knuckles. ‘You didn’t get that pretty golden hair of yours sufficiently out of sight.’ He sniggered softly and looked into what I hoped was a blank face. ‘I do say this, dear boy, to demonstrate that whatever I may have said to Nicephorus was just my own little joke.’
This was something I’d mope over when I had the time. What I did now was to glare Priscus into silence and continue. ‘Let’s accept that Heraclius is fed up with the pair of us,’ I said. ‘Or let’s accept that tubby Ludinus had told him to be fed up with us — it amounts to much the same thing. It may have been his own incompetence that lost us Cappadocia, but you were formally in charge of the army. My land reforms have already done something to steady our hold of the Asiatic provinces, and will do much eventually for the whole Empire. At the same time, I’ll grant I’ve pissed off every rich nobleman in Constantinople. The cast of churchmen assembled here are nuisances in their own right. The Dispensator, to be sure, has been an annoyingly persistent suitor on behalf of the Pope.
‘All this being so, why not have Ludinus call everyone to a city in the middle of nowhere, stuff it with food, and then draw the barbarians away from Thessalonica with fair promises of filled bellies? It would avoid all the fuss of striking us down as individuals. There wouldn’t be any hard looks from friends and relatives — no chance of complaints from any branch of the Church.’ I stopped and allowed myself a bitter laugh.
Priscus raised his cup in a mocking toast. Martin fell into a chair and covered his eyes with the horror of it all. And, if a little far-fetched for anyone but Ludinus, it did make sense in itself. Heraclius had never shown any interest in the ancient classics. If he thought at all of Athens, it must have been of a city that consumed rather than yielded revenue. The men in black remained outside this explanation. The only question outstanding was whether Nicephorus had been in the know. I had no doubt he’d be happy to take off and leave his family behind. After all, he’d probably killed a very pretty girl just after fucking her — or let her be killed. It didn’t matter that he’d been having spells cast to keep the pair of us away from Athens. He’d probably assumed he could otherwise have passed out the whole food surplus and pleaded with the barbarians to go away.
‘Talk of killing
On and off, I’d been racking my brains all day for an answer to that one. I’d still come up with nothing. ‘We can try holding the walls,’ I said uncertainly. ‘If we can then avoid being murdered inside them, I really do think I can get the council to go along with the Single Will compromise. You know the Great Augustus is easily swayed. We could try turning up unannounced. A few bribes might get us past Ludinus. Alone with him, we could try telling Heraclius. .’
Even as I spoke, I realised how unlikely it all was. We’d have enough trouble getting out of Athens alive. Getting past someone like Ludinus into the Emperor’s presence wouldn’t be easy if we made ourselves invisible. I looked at the stain on my chair and walked over to one of the more populated bookracks. I pulled out one of the unsheathed books at random and tried to keep my hands from shaking as I unrolled the brittle papyrus. I squinted to make sense of the unfamiliar script. It was the work in which Anaxagoras had argued that the sun was a mass of blazing matter larger than the whole Peloponnese. Bad luck I still hadn’t found anything in the room that was actually rare. I let it roll shut again and pushed it back into place.
Priscus got up and came over to stand beside me. ‘Looks as if we’re both fucked, dear boy,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think we should have a look in that tunnel? When the walls come down, we’ll fall back and hold the Acropolis as long as possible. But, given our own numbers, I doubt it will be longer than a couple of days. We need to find
‘Then let’s have dinner first,’ I said. I’d already thought of the tunnel as the best hiding place we’d found. We’d see where the other end came out. Given luck, that also might be hidden. If so, we might have found at least a hideaway for the entire household. Once that lever was pushed back into place, whoever broke into the residency with murder in his heart would never find the entrance. Put enough food and water down there, and everyone might be able to shelter there until long after the barbarian horde had run out of food and vicious entertainment and gone off again. Doubtless, Nicephorus knew about the tunnel. But, if he’d been willing enough to abandon his family, would he make a positive effort to betray Euphemia and the boy?
‘Of course,’ Priscus said, now thoughtful, ‘we have no duty to anyone in Athens. We could take shelter there ourselves. I’ve never given her much time. Now I think of it, though, dear Euphemia might have her uses in Constantinople. It would just need the right management.’
‘And what is the meaning of that?’ I asked stiffly. If he was planning to use her charms as a key to get past the Imperial Guard, it would be over my dead body.
The only answer I got was another chuckle and a suggestion that dinner would need to be specifically ordered, given the late hour and all other circumstances.
Chapter 50
‘You’ll keep that table top where it is!’ Sveta insisted in her own dialect of Slavic. The slaves dropped the sheet of wood and stood back. She glowered at me. ‘If you’re mad enough to go down there,’ she said, now in Latin, ‘you might as well have some way back out.’
I looked to Martin for support. Still tearful from my refusal to let him come along and ‘stand’ at my side, he said nothing. I could have tried a direct order to the wife of my freedman but, considering her likely response, I’d not risk humiliation in front of the slaves.
Trembling as he looked into the blackness, one of the slaves held out the crowbar and length of rope I’d asked for. I grunted and allowed Sveta to give me the lamp she’d carried over from the nursery. It had a windshield and a very large oil reservoir. We could walk to Piraeus and back before that gave out, I told myself.
I looked at Priscus. ‘Do you really think you’re up to this?’ I whispered. Light as he was, if he fell down at the bottom of those steps, it would be a bugger of a job to get him out again. But his face turned grim. If I tried another argument, it would only end as it had in the library. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘We stand or fall together.’ That got me the ghost of a smile. ‘But you’ll not object if I go first,’ I declared.
He arched his eyebrows, and stood out of my way.
‘Get back from him!’ Sveta hissed in Greek. ‘No one can hear you now coming down those steps. But you see if I’m frightened of you.’
I looked round and saw Euphemia stand back from the cupboard. I smiled at her and blew a kiss. We’d already spoken. There was nothing more to say.
‘Alaric, it’s dangerous down there,’ she whispered in a more complete terror than I’d yet seen her. ‘Please, don’t go down.’ She turned to Sveta. ‘Look, I don’t care what you think about me,’ she pleaded. ‘But can’t you talk sense into him? Down there is nothing but an ancient and terrible evil.’
Sveta glared back in silence. I got myself between them and gave what I hoped was a nonchalant laugh. Back in the nursery, I’d just had one of those occasional moments in which I could wonder how much I was actually hated by Martin’s wife. I’d not put up with another in public.
