Terror of Constantinople

by Richard Blake

  But the sun was shining in my eyes, and my mind wandered over everything but the events on the racecourse. I almost nodded off a few times.

  As the Patriarch gave his final benediction of the day and Authari kicked and punched our way through the crowd into the street outside, Martin confessed that this was only his second visit to the Circus. His father had always regarded the games as sinful, and they’d normally spent Circus days at home in quiet prayer.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’ll surely make a point of going in future. Just think what you’ve been missing.’

  ‘You forget, sir,’ came the obvious reply, ‘there are no games in Rome nowadays – not since Pope Gregory cut off funding for the Circus there. This will be our last view of the races.’ Martin caught hold of my sleeve, as if I were about to lose my footing.

  He was right. It was homeward bound for us – back to boring but safe Rome. There, under the rule of those old womanly clerics, all we had to fear was the Lombards and the occasional fleck of gutter scum that didn’t know its place.

  I gave him the basic details of lunch in the Imperial Box. Martin didn’t seem impressed by the stuff about Priscus.

  ‘The first meeting was accidental,’ he said, ‘the second unavoidable. Let us pray there will be no third. When I was last here, he was permanently away at the front. In those days, he was only a general with a good background. Even then, though, his name stank.’

  Back at the Legation, Demetrius was preparing a surprise dinner.

  ‘We hear the young citizen is not much more to be with us,’ he leered as I walked through the main hall. ‘In celebration of which we shall kill a pig and feast our full this night.’

  Well, this was a better mood than I’d seen from the man in months. We never had got round to the meeting he’d demanded over Maximin’s crying, instead of which he had received a soft kicking from Authari and threats of worse if he didn’t piss off. Now he was inviting me as guest of honour – even if that did mean sitting beside him.

  ‘We regret that the citizen Alaric is indisposed,’ Martin surprised me by saying. Before I could protest, he and Authari had shoved me through the door into my suite. Even more surprisingly, while Authari propelled me up the stairs Martin turned back and accepted the invitation for himself and the rest of my household.

  ‘You’re going to bed, Master,’ said Authari as he pulled me out of my fine clothes. ‘You look awful.’

  I tried to disagree but was overcome by a fit of the shivers as my sweat-soaked undergarments fell to the floor.

  ‘I’ll sleep until the dinner starts,’ I said as Martin drew the bedclothes over me. ‘Make sure to get me up.’

  That’s the last I recall before crashing out. I hadn’t done much all day. But the adulation I had received at the Circus had taken its toll. I was shattered. I sank backwards into a bottomless slumber. Was that Alypius, I thought as the blackness closed over me, talking in a low but urgent voice? If it was, it would have to wait.

  After some unmeasurable period of mist, it was night-time. I was standing somewhere in the outer suburbs of Rome outside a small public park, which now doubled as a churchyard. I must have been there earlier in the day for I had left my bag on one of the benches that surrounded a monument in the centre. I’m not sure what the bag was supposed to contain, but it was plainly of some value to me.

  There was no moonlight in the street where I was standing, and the high terraced houses behind me were also dark. Like most buildings on the edge of Rome, they must have been abandoned. In daylight, I’d have seen them in ruins.

  There was, however, a brightness in the clouded sky, and I could see the monument about a hundred yards beyond the locked entry gate. It stood out oddly white in the surrounding gloom. My bag, I felt, should still be there.

  I could also see that the park was not empty. I can’t recall how many of the creatures stood looking back at me, but I do recall their appearance. Smooth and covered with scales that glinted in a light that shone from nowhere, each was about the size and shape of a ten-year-old child. They had about them the strange stillness combined with rapid, darting motions that one sees in certain reptiles. Most striking about their appearance, though, was the eyes. These glowed a bright green. It was a strange brightness, having great intensity but no power.

  The creatures looked at me over the top of the gate, pointing and whispering to each other in a low, sinister gibberish.

  I was frightened, but I wanted my bag, so I climbed the gate and jumped down among them. They scattered from me as if frightened, but as I moved deeper into the park towards the monument, they seemed to recover their nerve and clustered round me, plucking at my clothes and whispering excitedly.

  By now I was terrified. My heart was beating wildly and I could feel my hair standing on end. My mouth was dry and I bit my tongue in an effort to control my chattering teeth. I wanted desperately to turn and run, but I also wanted my bag so I forced myself to carry on.

  When I reached the bench by the monument, all I could find was a white cloth bag filled with scraps of papyrus. I grabbed it and turned to run back to the safety of the street.

  But the street had vanished. I found myself no longer in an enclosed park but at the top of a low hill. As far as I could see in the now bright moonlight, there was only neatly cut grass, and in the distance a copse of trees that cast shadows of indescribable blackness. Though I could see for miles, there were no lights or any other sign of human habitation.

  The low whispering took on a triumphant note, and the creatures moved closer, now wholly surrounding me. I could feel their sharp little hands brushing cold against mine as they tried to pull me to the ground ...

  I woke with a start. I was still in my bedroom. Outside, the light had long since faded and stars were shining through the window. On the beside table, a lamp was turned down low.

  I reached for the jug of melon pulp Martin had thoughtfully left for me in place of the usual wine. A bad dream, I told myself – just the sort of thing to round off a day of repeated excitements.

  ‘Authari?’ I croaked. Then I remembered the dinner. Everyone would be with Demetrius. Straining, I could just hear the sound of merriment. It must have been coming from the public areas of the Legation. These were beyond the dome, just under or close by the Permanent Legate’s quarters.

  Good luck to the old sod, I thought, wondering how His Excellency was taking the noise from dinner. If his hearing was sensitive enough to be upset by Maximin’s crying, this must be driving him out of his wits.

  Laid neatly out over by the door, my clothes were ready for the morning.

  Could I tie the leggings on for myself? I wondered.

  35

  In the central districts, Constantinople by night is lit up almost like the day. Here, the function of dusk is only to mark the tipping point of activity between business and pleasure.

  I had thought of visiting the usual brothel. But the excitements of the Circus had filled these places already to bursting, and I wasn’t in the mood for being some whore’s second or third helpings. Indeed, I wasn’t in much of a mood for sex. As I pushed my way through those chill, crowded streets, I found myself shuddering with a nervous energy that made me game for anything – except whatever I turned my mind to.

  Why had I gone out? I’d gone out because I could, and because I had no wish to show myself in any company led by Demetrius. Back to bed was out of the question so I paced the streets, unfocused and discontented.

  Beggars huddled together for warmth under the flaring torches. Someone must have been busy with paint during the Circus performances. The street walls were covered in graffiti – most of it for Heraclius. No one had bothered yet to clean it off.

  For the first time, I saw men stop to read the competing libels. Stood in little groups, not looking at each other, they blocked the colonnades outside the Covered Market as they followed the crudities of the debate. Taking all this in, my eyes had the super-sharp focus you normally get only i
n the bitter cold – or in certain kinds of dream.

  I was stopped as I tried to enter the Senatorial Dock. There was a wine shop just inside where Baruch transacted his evening business. He hadn’t really blamed me for my part in the shake-down. And there was a refinement on the tin business that I wanted to put his way.

  ‘Halt and show your papers,’ I was told. ‘You are entering a controlled military zone.’

  I looked at the guard. A pile of lard squeezed into a semblance of order by armour that, even so, only fitted because of leather gussets down both sides. He might have been seventy, but wrinkles never show properly on fat.

  ‘I am Alaric,’ I said. ‘You might have seen me earlier today with the Emperor.’

  The Aged Guard grinned back at me. ‘Of course I know who you are,’ he said. ‘But orders are orders. If you don’t have no papers, I must arrest you on suspicion of treason.’

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ a voice drawled behind me. The Aged Guard stood stiffly to attention, his arm raised in a good military salute.

  I turned. It was Priscus, got up in some very fine golden armour.

  ‘My dear young friend!’ he said, taking me by the shoulder. ‘I really did think I had been deprived of your company for tonight. Now, it seems Saint Victorinus smiles on us both.’

  I looked at him. In a huge place like Constantinople, how could I have run almost at once into Priscus? Could I still be dreaming after all?

  ‘Think nothing of it, my sweet and dearest Alaric,’ he replied, brushing aside my thanks. ‘I might wish you hadn’t been there once. Very few go twice under the Ministry.’

  Phocas, he told me, had armed the Circus Factions and called up everyone in the city who had ever done military service. Priscus had been put at their head and told to come up with a plan of defence, should Heraclius get through the gates.

  ‘Do you suppose there will be an attack?’ I asked at length to break the long silence of our walk. I wondered if he, too, had seen Alypius behind us. I’d spotted him earlier when inspecting myself in the reflection from a shop window. Now he was following us, dodging round corners or into the crowds whenever I looked round.

  ‘There can be no doubt of an attack,’ said Priscus. ‘Do you see that?’

  He waved his hand over the battlements of the sea wall. The moon was not yet bright enough to reveal the flotilla that was ferrying in the main part of the rebel army. But there was no need of illumination. The ships were as brightly lit as the better class of shops in Middle Street. They were guided by further lights on the Asiatic and Galatan shores.

  ‘No one can get through these walls,’ he added. ‘Even if the Persians and every barbarian race known to man joined forces with Heraclius, they still couldn’t get in. But no one believes the gates will stay closed. Heraclius has his people all over the city. My job is to go through the motions of leading an army of trash into battle against some of the best fighting units in the provincial armies.’

  Priscus paused and lowered his voice. ‘Fat lot of good to give me any command now,’ he spat. ‘If Our All-Wise and All-Conquering Augustus had trusted me with an army two years ago, we’d by now be laying siege to Ctesiphon, or at least be dictating terms to the Persians. As for Heraclius and his father’ – he broke off. Then: ‘Instead, he gave me his daughter and a few promises.’

  I looked nervously over my shoulder. There was a respectful void around us. But probably tens of thousands of people were lining the sea walls to watch in silence as the siege preparations were completed.

  Priscus laughed. ‘You’ll not need to worry about spies in my company,’ he said. ‘Everyone else you saw at lunch may be wondering when and how to change sides. It’s like the last days of Maurice. All things considered, though, my loyalty is above suspicion. And, I might add, all the spies in the street report to me. When it comes to snooping indoors and lifting seals, your friend of the third sex reigns supreme. But the streets are mine.’

  Priscus had now crouched down for shelter against the breeze. He reached inside his cloak and pulled out a leather pouch. Opening it, he carefully shook about a spoonful of powder on to the blade of his dagger.

  ‘Can I possibly tempt you, my dear boy?’ he asked, motioning the pouch in my direction. ‘It comes from the regions beyond the outermost East and has the most glorious effect on the faculties.’

  ‘If you please, My Lord,’ I said, ‘I must for the moment refuse your kind offer.’

  The sea beyond the walls was crowded with vessels but I knew I was seeing double the real number of lights and that they couldn’t be dancing as my eyes told me they were. I pressed clammy hands into my cloak and willed myself not to sway.

  ‘As you will,’ said Priscus. He carefully lifted the blade to his nose and sniffed in sharply. Then he leaned against the battlements, waiting for the drug to take effect.

  It did, with a contorting of features and a rush of darkness into his normally sallow cheeks. With the gagging and the bulging eyes, I thought at first he had brought on some kind of seizure. But his knees didn’t buckle and his hands didn’t lose their grip on the mortared stone.

  I took the chance to give Priscus a close examination. Months before, as the Tall Man in the restaurant, he’d been an instrument of state, more interesting for what he represented and was doing than for the kind of person he might be. It had been almost the same earlier in the day.

  He must have been about fifty. But he had the sort of wiry build that doesn’t change much between youth and old age. His hair was carefully dyed, his face painted – we stood beside one of the lighted torches – with a careful understatement that Theophanes might have done well to study.

  Most striking about him, I suppose, was the sharp glitter of his eyes and the almost continual twitching of his facial muscles. Even without his drug he was a man driven hard by internal demons, the power of which was evident in his every movement and utterance.

  The seizure over, the ecstatic look fading from his face, Priscus leaned forward with renewed concentration. ‘I do think, my sweetest boy,’ he said, ‘you were one of the last people to see Justinus alive.’

  My eyes suddenly gave up on their tendency to see Priscus as two people. I looked hard at his now unified face.

  ‘You will appreciate, My Lord Priscus,’ I said, choosing my words carefully, ‘that I had other things on my mind while we travelled to the Ministry. In any event, I suspect he was dead on arrival.’

  ‘You suspect wrongly,’ said Priscus with a smile. ‘But I was unable to question him as I wanted.’

  ‘But you have his letter,’ I said, cold sweat running down my back – ‘his sealed letter that you took up?’

  ‘I have it still,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, it seems to be nothing more than a statement of account from a bank in Syracuse. That is no more than I’d expect of a shipowner handling trade with the West.’

  ‘With all respect to My Lord Caesar,’ a voice trilled behind me, ‘your presence is urgently desired by the Great Augustus.’

  I looked round. It was another of the eunuch clerks I’d seen around Theophanes. He stood overshadowed by two armed guards.

  ‘The clerk Alaric is to be escorted back to his bed,’ he added.

  Priscus scowled. I was sufficiently alert myself to glower at being called a mere clerk.

  ‘I suppose I’m expected to report on how many bricks I’ve made without straw,’ Priscus said, speaking loud. ‘Still’ – he dropped his voice – ‘you can give my best wishes to His Excellency the Permanent Legate. Do tell him how greatly I miss his company.’

  He smiled. ‘But please, don’t say I miss him that greatly.

  ‘Now, you run along home like the good little boy you surely are. I’ll get your nice Uncle Theophanes to come and tuck you in.’

  36

  Once more in the Legation, I managed to light the portable stove in my room. It wasn’t yet cold enough to justify firing up the main heating. I dragged it to stand between my bed
and the unshuttered window.

  Now somewhat muted, the sounds of merriment still floated through the window. I dropped my clothes on to the floor and climbed back into bed. With an effort of will, I drifted into a gentle doze. I should have gone looking for the opium pills, I thought, but finally decided it was too much trouble.

  Despite the chilly air that drifted over from the window, I felt too hot in bed so I threw back the covers. I tossed from side to side, rolling the undercovers into a ball. I was glad of the draught from the open window. Closed in with that stove, I’d have felt stifled.

  I finally found some comfort lying naked on the cool, polished boards of the floor beside my bed. There was no moon visible. Instead, there was a dim light from the sea of glittering stars that shone through the window from a clear autumnal sky. Another month, and the sky would be overcast by the smoke of a hundred thousand charcoal burners. For the moment, the stars glittered beyond the window like diamonds on black silk.

  Looking deep into the square of starry blackness, I thought of those beautiful lines written so long ago by Sappho, the only woman poet of any genius:

  The moon has set. The many stars

  Have passed beyond the midnight hour.

  And, here in bed, I lie alone.

  It must have been twelve hundred years since those words were first uttered. Since then, nearly fifty generations had come and gone. Empires had risen, had blazed at their zenith as bright and apparently permanent as the stars in that sky, but had eventually fallen into decline.

  The Old Faith that had so comforted Sappho had also grown decadent and passed away. The New Faith of the Jewish carpenter had taken its place. It was impossible to know how these words had sounded amid the fountains and perfect buildings of ancient Mytilene when they were first written. But they could still be appreciated by those prepared to make the effort.