and stared for a long time at the podgy blue finger. The ring of a Grand Chamberlain was still set into the flesh.
‘If you are at all the man your priest says you are,’ he said, ‘this will put you back into the favour of the worthless effeminate the Greeks have set up as their King.’
And it would. Whatever he might have ordered in private, Heraclius would never admit to sanctioning what, even for an Emperor, amounted to treason and blasphemy. Ludinus couldn’t wriggle free from the blame of having set the Avars on a city that, even now, was holy to every civilised man — a city, mind you, stuffed with bishops, and Western bishops too. I wrapped the finger very carefully and bowed.
He looked up again at the Acropolis. ‘Women always take their time,’ he sighed. ‘But I think I can trust your people to keep her safe. If you want me to lift the siege before this day is out, I have things to do. I’ve had my fill of a city filled at best with worn-out glories. There really is nothing here to burn, and hardly anyone worth killing.’
Just before passing back through the wide-open gate, he stopped for the customary embrace. As was only proper, I had mine after the Dispensator, and mine was considerably less warm. ‘Aelric of England,’ he said, ‘you may think you had the better of me in my tent.’ He smiled and took one of my hands between his own. He stroked the smooth and very soft flesh of my palm. ‘I was aware that you had been taken,’ he said with another smile. ‘I guessed who you were before you even opened your mouth. No Greekling would ever have done anything so utterly mad for his people. You really are wasted among them. Come and see me if you ever get sick of your Great Augustus.’
Just beyond the gate, he stopped again and turned back. ‘And do give my best wishes to Priscus. I was hoping to see him, but appreciate that he’s still feeling poorly. Tell him even he can’t imagine the death I’ll give him when he’s finally brought before me as a prisoner.’
I watched as Kutbayan walked briskly out to his waiting people. The gate still wide open, I turned and went back inside Athens. A few of the lower classes were shambling about from wherever they’d been driven under cover for the visit. They capered in front of me, uttering cheerful obscenities and making still more obscene gestures with their hands. I paid them no attention. They’d be smiling on the other sides of their horrid faces when it sank in that bugger all of the food Kutbayan had left inside the walls would be doled out to them. It would be a long and deservedly cheerless winter for them.
Chapter 61
The light was fading as I got back to the residency. There was still a mountain of work to be scaled before I could give the orders to pack. There was the final vote of the council to be managed. I didn’t suppose this would be more than a formality. But it would take the better part of the next morning, with all the praying and formal acclamations that I’d have to sit through. Then there was the matter of how we were all to get back to Constantinople. I’d assumed that our Imperial galley was still waiting in Corinth. Even if it was there, I might have trouble with the Governor of Corinth. The only matter now settled was that we weren’t to have the barbarian multitudes roll over us.
But that, let’s face it, seemed quite enough to me. The tension that had been only briefly lifted on my journey up from Piraeus, and then come back with still more crushing weight, was now lifted. Beside that, the further business that I’ve mentioned was nothing. Even the still doubtful reception I could face in Constantinople was something I’d think about when I had to, and not until then. I felt like a boy at the beginning of a school holiday.
I knocked hard on the big wooden gate of the residency, and smiled at the grim slave who observed that I’d been going about unguarded. I peeled off my sweaty outer robe and dumped it into his arms. Martin, I was sure, would still be praying in the chapel — that, or Sveta would have carried him off to dinner in the nursery. I thought briefly of joining them. But I looked about the bare entrance hall, and wondered at how a change in my own mood could brighten what I’d come to think an oppressively dark and unwelcoming place. I passed quickly through it and passed through what had once been other grand rooms — rooms that also now seemed nearly as grand as in the old days. Even the labyrinth of dank corridors that stretched beyond seemed lighter and more airy.
I bounded up the spotlessly clean steps and into the library. I hurried through it, not stopping, but still noticing how cheerful it seemed. I passed along the neatly swept corridors, and nodded a greeting to the silent statue of Demosthenes. Just before reaching the silent courtroom, I took a left into a small sitting room that had once been where the judge rested between sessions, and stepped behind the bookrack that obscured the far wall. I knocked three times on the door that no one else had so far managed to notice. ‘You can come out now,’ I said happily. ‘Everything is sorted.’
I paused and knocked again. Now, I snorted and pushed the door open. I looked about the empty room that had no windows. Even in the darkness, I knew it was empty. There was no smell of a lamp that had gone out. For all I could tell, it had been empty all day. ‘Back in her own rooms,’ I muttered.
But she wasn’t there — not, at least, unless she’d managed to turn herself to mist and seep under the door that was still closed with the Dispensator’s seal on its lock. I shrugged and thought of my own bedroom. I brightened again. Yes, I thought — where else could be more appropriate?
As I was taking the steps down from the library, two at a time, I heard a muffled shout, as if of fear or pain. As I stopped, it stopped, and I stood for a moment, not breathing in, but wondering if I’d been mistaken. I was at the foot of the steps when I heard a babble of distant voices, and now another shrill and horrified scream. Even on my ninth day since first stepping through the gate, noises in the residency could still confuse me. Had these come from the corridors leading to my own rooms? Had they come from the grand room? Had they even come from behind the far door in the library?
But there was now a loud crash of something falling, or being broken apart, and this noise definitely came from the ground floor of the library block. It was beside or past those big arched supports I’d seen only once. I took a left at the bottom of the library steps. The door leading to the row of arched supports was ajar. As I pushed it open and stepped into one of the many areas that I’d left off the cleaning schedule, I heard yet another scream, this one much closer. I could have sworn it came from the slave dungeon where I’d stood with Priscus. I stood still and listened. Then I heard another crash as if of breaking wood, and, in a familiar voice, the cry: ‘Back, spawn of Satan! Who will save you now?’
Most scenes can be described with very few words. Even moments of high drama normally take place against a background familiar enough to be alluded to and not closely described. What I’d now stumbled across, however, has no familiar elements, and I must struggle to avoid the prolixity of a submission at law.
I was halfway down the stairs into that room filled with skeletons. These were now completely disarranged in what looked like some vague effort at clearing the place. Or there might have been a long struggle. The room was brightly lit from the flames of two torches set into the wall brackets. But I could give only a passing look at the evidence of past atrocities. All my attention was focused on the here and now.
Her clothing smeared with dark gobbets of what could only be congealed blood, Euphemia had one of those manacles about her left wrist. She’d pressed herself against the wall, and was holding up a severed head in both hands. As I looked on in silence, she took it away from her face. She saw me, and spat out a mouthful of dark jelly. It fell on to her breast, then continued on to the floor with a quiet splash.
‘Alaric,’ she cried in a choking voice, ‘help me!’
Balthazar wheeled round and gave me a stare of utter madness. ‘Don’t go near her!’ he shrieked. ‘This is her time of weakness! The Goddess is strong within me!’
I saw the bloody knife that he held in his right hand. I saw the smashed wooden box at his feet, about the size of a coffin. I saw the naked body from which the head had just been cut. I looked back at the head that Euphemia now threw into the middle of the room. It was the blond boy that old Gundovald had been fussing about for the past four days. I forced myself not to look into the dull eyes and looked back at Euphemia.
‘Thank God it’s you, Alaric,’ she cried, now with a smile that sent another gobbet of dark jelly on to her chin. ‘He was trying to kill me.’
I hurried down the crumbling steps and moved towards her.
‘Oh, please, Alaric,’ she implored, holding out both arms, ‘please, get me out of here. It’s
