He handed the message to Alypius, then turned back to regard me with the same cold expression. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. A moment before, Theophanes had been at his charming best. Now, was he trying to fit me up for murder? It would get me out of the way for what I might have overheard the night before.
Should I just confess everything? Should I tell him all I’d overheard and assure him I knew nothing more? I could promise silence. I could plead for expulsion from the City.
Yes, I could certainly plead for that!
If my throat hadn’t been so dry of a sudden, I’d have opened my mouth there and then and started babbling. That stare was terrifying in its blankness.
Just then, it shifted back to eunuchy softness.
‘But my dearest Alaric,’ he said, ‘you have nothing to fear. The poor man was quite elderly and much given to seeking the friendship of strangers in the quiet places of our great City. I cannot imagine that you would ever find yourself in such danger. And we do now have a suspect. That message’ – he nodded towards the sheet Alypius was still holding – ‘is notice of the arrest.’
‘Your efficiency is surely an inspiration to the whole universe,’ I said, trying to keep my voice from a croak. Had I been able to trust my hands, I’d have grabbed at my wine cup.
‘But you flatter me,’ said Theophanes with one of his most benevolent smiles. ‘It was my intention to make my apologies and to leave you to finish dinner with none but the serving slaves for company. However, your kind words, and the recollection of an interest you have more than once expressed in my work for the common good of the Empire, suggest you might welcome an invitation to come with me, even at this late hour, to the Ministry, where the suspect awaits my interrogation.’
If I’d been able to think of a polite way of saying ‘No thank you’, I’d have come out with it on the spot. Go with him to the Ministry? And what on earth was someone of his seniority doing in charge of some petty murder investigation? The victim had been a retired minor functionary of a dead and disgraced Emperor.
Besides, I wanted to go home and join Martin and Authari in looking at Maximin. I wanted to send them to bed so I could continue looking at him by myself.
I realised Theophanes was staring at me again. To people like him you refuse nothing.
‘I’d be honoured,’ I said, now finishing my wine.
Was that a smile I saw as Alypius coughed into his sleeve?
As we rounded the corner into the Ministry square, I could hear a chatter of voices. The demonstrators were praying together before breaking up and going home for the night. The voices fell silent as we came into view. The sight of Theophanes and a police guard appeared to subdue even these desperate souls. One old woman, however, still came forward. She clutched at Theophanes, catching his right sleeve.
‘Where is he?’ she pleaded in the cracked voice of the very old or slightly mad. ‘When will he come home?’
Theophanes gently prised her hand loose and patted it.
‘Go home, my poor woman,’ he said gently. ‘Your son is not inside. You have no son. You never had a son. Please accept my deepest sympathies. Go home before you take chill. The evenings are not as they were.’
She fell back with a deathly look. Her mouth opened to speak again, but no words issued. We turned from her and walked into the Ministry.
Though all was quiet outside but for the demonstrators, the clerks in the Ministry were still hard at work. There was the same rush of activity in the main hall that I’d seen on my first visit. One of the clerks was waiting for us. He bowed low before Theophanes.
‘The young man is with me,’ Theophanes said in answer to the unspoken question.
We passed by the staircase leading up to his office. Instead, Theophanes led me to the far end of the main hall and into a corridor of closed doors. Carefully dimmed lamps were fixed beside each door. On each was screwed a small brass plate, giving one or more names, though no functions. At the far end, bright light streamed from an open door.
The first thing I noticed as I walked into the windowless room was an icon, high on the wall, of Christ in His most forbidding Majesty. Otherwise, the walls were of bare plaster. The only furniture in the room was a small table with three chairs. The light came from a tight array of lamps hanging from the ceiling.
Theophanes had motioned me in before him while he spoke to one of the hushed attendants outside. Alypius settled me into one of the chairs and then sat himself across the table from me.
So when, and of whom, was this interrogation to be? I tried not to ask myself. Because I could think of no reason for subterfuge from Theophanes, I willed myself not to speculate on what I was doing in this room.
Alypius looking fixedly at nothing in particular behind my left shoulder, we sat for what seemed an age without speaking. At last, the door widened and Theophanes came into the room.
‘My dear young friend,’ he began with easy charm, ‘I do so regret having brought you here for nothing. But I am now in no doubt that the interrogation would be distressing to one of your youth and sensitivity. It is sad how much moral, and even physical, harshness these matters often require.’
So it wasn’t just the basement they used for torturing people.
In a fair imitation of his own manner, I thanked Theophanes for his great consideration and assured him of how comfortably I was seated.
‘I would release you now from my invitation,’ he said with a smile, ‘and allow you to go home to your bed. But the streets are less safe at night than I might wish. And it will take me a few moments to deal with outstanding business before I can arrange for an armed guard to escort you back to the Legation.’
‘I wouldn’t hear of it!’ he said, in reply to my suggestion that I could make my own way back. ‘While you remain my personal guest, you must accept my personal concern for your safety. I really do not think I shall be more than a few beats of the heart about my business. I am sure you will find Alypius excellent company.’
How long we sat there in stony silence was beyond my reckoning. It may have been half the night. It may not have been so long at all. But with no diversion, nor any means of marking time, I sat there in a kind of numb apprehension.
Once, and only once, there was a sound. It was a gentle scraping that came from behind me, as if a mouse were running along the top of the icon.
And was that a muffled gasp?
I wanted to look round but Alypius had shifted his glance and now stared me straight in the face. Whatever it had been, the noise was over in a moment. All was silent again until, eventually, the door opened again and Theophanes was back in the room.
‘You cannot conceive how embarrassed I am to have wasted your evening,’ he said, trying to suppress a look of the most immense self-satisfaction. ‘You must come to dinner with me again tomorrow. Then, I promise, things will go more as you have the right to expect.’
I got up. I could have asked what the Devil had been going on – why had I been brought here for nothing at all? But you don’t ask a spider’s business in the middle of its web. And whatever had happened, it was over. The tension falling sweetly away, I turned on the charm myself.
‘For me, and for the good of the Empire, yes,’ he said, answering my question, ‘it was a most productive interview, and I guarantee that you can go about your business in renewed safety. Such are the fruits of civilisation.’
‘Can I go home now?’ I asked. I just wanted to get away.
‘But of course, young Alaric.’ Theophanes beamed at me. ‘Only we who are of full years can bear the strains of governing this great Empire. At your age, lateness to bed must ever be attended by dangers that may shorten life itself.’
I lurched forward into his outstretched arms.
19
‘This isn’t the way to the Legation,’ I said to Alypius.
We were alone in the dark, silent streets. Now the nights would be so much safer, Theophanes had said, I’d have no need of the armed escort he�
��d had in mind. It would be enough to have Alypius with me. He was armed, and that would be sufficient protection.
‘It is the way I am instructed to take you,’ he said coldly as we turned into the street that was one of the approaches to the square containing the University.
Light or dark, I’d never seen the streets of Constantinople so empty. The sound of our feet on the pavements echoed from the blank walls or shuttered faµades of the buildings. I knew them well enough by day but they were very different at this late hour.
Alypius led me into a side street, and then into a clearing that was neither a square nor a park. We stopped by a low brick building. He stepped forward and stroked the polished wood of the little door.
‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. It was about the size and shape of a rich man’s tomb from the days of the Old Faith.
‘Behind this door’, he explained, ‘lies a flight of steps. They lead up from the basements that run beneath the Ministry.’
Dear God! Theophanes had kissed me goodbye in the main hall a quarter of a mile back. And every step I’d been taking since had still been just feet above that vaulted labyrinth of horror. How big was the place?
I looked at Alypius. If he was armed, it was at best a small sword he was keeping out of sight. Even unarmed, I might be able....
I dropped the thought. Behind Alypius stood the whole power of the Empire. I was as much in its power now as if tied to one of the racks under the Ministry.
He smiled, no doubt appreciating the look of dull fear I couldn’t be bothered to keep off my face. ‘I did say’, he added, ‘that the stairs lead up from the basements. You have already seen the place that invariable custom has made the entrance. At the first light of dawn, the heavy bolts that secure this door on the inside will be drawn and the door will swing outward. Twenty-three bodies will then be carried out. It will be neither more nor fewer than twenty-three. I checked the release forms that His Magnificence signed before dinner.
‘According to their station, some will be put into gibbets for display from the City walls. Some will be scattered in the main streets, there to be stepped over and shunned by shopkeepers and by those who toil in the manufactories. They will be reclaimed or cleared away before people like you are accustomed to fall out of bed.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked. Alypius was evidently trying to keep me scared. But for all he strained to imitate his master, he was no equal of Theophanes. Whatever else happened tonight, I was realising, the Empire would not be disposing of twenty-four corpses.
‘Why did you bring me here?’ I asked again. ‘No – since your sort never act but on orders, why did Theophanes have me brought here?’
‘Why do you suppose we do this, day after day?’ he asked in return.
‘The official answer’, I said, my nerve returning, ‘is that they are traitors. Really, of course, none may be guilty of anything at all. It’s really a matter of keeping control, isn’t it?’
If I’d annoyed Alypius by draining the surprise out of his answer, his face said nothing.
‘Back in the days when Maurice was Emperor,’ he continued, ‘we were victorious on all fronts, or holding our own. It was nothing to the scum who inhabit this City. Once when he returned from a victory over the Slavs, he was screamed at in the street because he’d put up taxes. The Ministers and even His Magnificence were mobbed in their chairs.
‘The function of Terror is to break up all the guilds and clubs and professional groupings of the City into an agglomeration of individuals, each looking over his shoulder to see what the others might be saying about him. If no one speaks his mind, no one joins forces. This means Heraclius can come here whenever he likes, and he’ll beat his head against the city gates until pestilence and famine have thinned the ranks of his followers.
‘How anyone gets on our death-lists is left to chance. The use of those lists, though, is wholly deliberate. Kill enough people and you can announce that the sun rises at dusk and wait for the applause. It also helps compensate for the falling off of tax revenue.’
‘I’ll ask again,’ I said. ‘Why are you telling me this? Why has Theophanes sent you here with me?’
Alypius moved away from the door and reached within his cloak. He pulled out his leather satchel.
‘While you were at dinner,’ he said, ‘there should have been a small riot in the Jewish quarter. A priest who was active in policing the conversion of the Jews will have been seriously injured. In view of this, His Magnificence will suggest to the Most Noble Caesar Priscus the need for making an example. A number of prominent persons will be arrested. Among these will be your banker, Solomon ben Baruch.’
This was the last thing I’d expected to hear. All thought of the Ministry dungeons was swept aside by the realisation that I was holding at least a dozen notes from Baruch. If he were taken in for treason or whatever, they’d be worthless.
But Alypius was continuing: ‘As you know, the Great Augustus has seen fit to command all the Jews of the Empire to embrace the True Faith of Jesus Christ.’
‘Yes,’ I said jeeringly, ‘and it’s set off wild rioting in every Eastern city still controlled by him. Haven’t the Jews of Antioch lynched the Patriarch there? Certainly, you’ll find no business with the Syrian traders.’
‘They have indeed murdered His Holiness of Antioch,’ came the stiff reply, ‘and the Jews will be punished just as soon as we have any spare forces in Syria. The word of Phocas is law, and he has been assured by a monk of the highest orthodoxy that the Empire will only fall to a circumcised race. He has therefore seen fit to accomplish what Saint Paul on his various missions failed to do.’
Well, that was an interesting prophecy – and it was made before the event. A shame, I suppose, the drunken fool hit on the wrong circumcised race.
Still Alypius hadn’t finished. ‘The Jew Baruch will be allowed’, he said, ‘to pay off some of the Caesar’s more embarrassing debts. In return for this, he will be released unharmed at nightfall. He will be free to give thanks the day after tomorrow in whatever Sunday service takes his fancy.’
‘I see,’ I sneered. ‘I suppose you’ll want paying for this information.’
Without bothering to reply, Alypius pushed his satchel into my hands.
‘This contains a number of drafts on a bank run by two Saracen brothers,’ he said. ‘You will pass these on the Exchange at whatever time and in whatever manner you see fit. The drafts are made out in your name. When you eventually see the Jew Baruch, the proceeds will be made payable to bearer. You will hand the new drafts to His Magnificence when you see him in a sealed packet. You will not discuss them with him.’
The moon came out from behind a cloud and lit up the space in which we were standing.
‘I don’t think’, I said to Alypius, ‘I need detain you any longer. I can probably make my own way safely back to the Legation. And, let’s face it, whoever tried to murder me yesterday will be snoring like a dog this time of night.’
‘There is one more matter,’ he said. ‘Though he has not yet had an opportunity to offer his congratulations, His Magnificence is aware that you became a father last night.
‘Of course, now you have been blessed with fatherhood, you will need to be still more prudent in your conduct. You have seen that Constantinople can be a dangerous place for those who do not look at all times to their safety. It can be dangerous for them – and, I feel it worth saying, for those around them.’
‘Martin?’ I asked next day over breakfast.
He looked up from his beer, bleary and unshaven. He should have been glad he was awake at all. I’d got back to my suite, only to find him and Authari huddled together on my office floor, knocked out on wine and opium. I’d thought at first that Martin had killed himself with the so far untasted fruits of the poppy. But he’d still been breathing, a look of rapture on his face I’ll bet he’d never got from praying.
Now he was paying for it.
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I smiled brightly, pretending not to notice what a wreck he looked. If I said I was cheerful, I’d be exaggerating. Nevertheless, if I was stuck in Constantinople, still without a guess of why and for how long, I’d got myself out of what might have been a thoroughly nasty scrape. All I had to do was rip off the Jews and I was back in favour with Theophanes – or so it appeared.
‘Yes, Martin,’ I said, ‘you realise we shall have to invite Theophanes to the baptism.’
He looked down again and grunted. He began another of his unflattering comments about eunuchs.
‘I don’t think there’s any question of not inviting him,’ I said, cutting him off. I looked again at the note of elaborate congratulation I’d found on bouncing out of bed. Theophanes was promising – I read – ‘a cot of polished ebony, trimmed, of course, with ivory and with gold’.
Not bad, that, and at short notice. With Martin, I’d combed every shop in Middle Street the day before looking for almost the same thing. We’d been told in five establishments that ebony was out of the question for at least a month. Theophanes, it seemed, had far greater powers of persuasion than I with a mere purse full of gold. He was assuring me he could have it made ready in a day.
‘I’ll leave it to you’, I went on, ‘to draft the invite. I have urgent business coming up that will keep me busy all day. But I’d like something in the most pompous and flowery Greek style.’
Martin scowled and went back to his beer. Then he switched into a Celtic that he appeared suddenly to know less well than I did myself.
‘I’ve heard the rumour from Antony’, he said, ‘that the Emperor has offered the Persians all of Syria east of Jerusalem and the Avars all they’ve already taken south of the Danube, if only they’ll leave him a free hand with the revolt.’
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