‘I’ve just seen Nicetas seal the general amnesty,’ he said accusingly.
‘Good,’ I said firmly. My arms loosely folded, I turned back to look over Lake Mareotis. The distant line of Egypt was beginning to loom into view, now the mist was clearing. I’d done it, I thought. And it was a job well done. Dragging Nicetas from his bed, and waiting for the stimulants and painkillers I’d fed him to have effect, had been the hardest part of the night’s business. But having two patriarchs with me to explain the deal had kept him from the usual dithering fit. Still, there was always some doubt where Nicetas was concerned whether he would take the smallest action required of him. Though I’d have preferred it from someone else, Priscus had brought me good news. ‘Did he tell you what’s been agreed?’ I asked.
‘He was busy fixing up the surrender meeting,’ Priscus said, now bitter. ‘But I did gather that you’ve brokered a complete sellout.’
‘Not a sellout, Priscus,’ I said, now mildly. ‘It was a compromise.’
Taking care not to crack the film of white lead, he twisted his face into a sneer. ‘You don’t hold an empire together by compromise,’ he snapped. ‘At least, if you do compromise, you do it from a position of strength. You then don’t call it compromise, but clemency. Compromise from weakness, as we did in the West – give to your enemies in the hope they’ll be appeased – and you’ll soon find it would have been better to stand and fight. You were with me yesterday. You saw what weakness brought about. I meant what I said last night. Hit these shitbags with concentrated force, and—’
‘We haven’t the forces to concentrate,’ I said, interrupting the steady rise of his voice. ‘Whatever Nicetas cares to believe, you know as well as I do that there are no tides in the Red Sea – nor many storms at this time of year. Assuming the Persians can hire ships on the Saracen side, they can land at any one of a dozen points. You said yourself that, if Alexandria goes up in smoke, the Persians will certainly try for a landing. There was no choice but to compromise. Without the landowners to glue the mob together with silver, there’ll be no rising. Without that, and without loss of Alexandria, there’ll be no Persian attack.
‘And there will be no massacre.’ I paused. ‘That’s what you really came here to arrange, isn’t it?’ I asked of Priscus.
He sniffed and looked out of the window.
‘I knew there was something odd about your turning up here, and latching straight on to that cock and bull story about the piss pot. You might as well admit that you picked up something on the Cappadocian front about an attempt on Egypt. You hurried here to try to stop it. Well, I’ve stopped it for you – and without the cataract of blood you had in mind!
‘And your presence here was useful for the avoidance of more force. It’s only because you are here that we could make any agreement at all.’ I clamped a moderately friendly smile on my face and waited for the irony to sink in. I thought of reaching out to pat Priscus on the shoulder. But that was more than I could manage. ‘With you around, there was no doubt that we could eventually restore order. This being so, we could have a full investigation, followed by trials and exemplary punishments and confiscations. The opposition leaders knew this, and were as eager for a compromise as we were. Their change of heart, we agreed last night, was the news of Persian involvement. But it was your presence that made everyone think again.
‘The deal is that the rioting is called off while it still can be. In return for this, we pardon everyone in sight. There will be special church services both sides of the Wall, and the bread distribution will go ahead as planned, if a few days late.’
‘And the new law – what about that?’ Priscus asked. ‘Have you given up at last? Will you go back and tell Heraclius that you’ve failed?’ So far as he dared through the paint, he’d twisted his lips into a bitter smile.
I smiled back and thought fast about how little I needed to say to take from him even that consolation.
‘The opposition has capitulated,’ I said. ‘Calling off the rioters wasn’t enough for the amnesty I was offering. The warrants will be sealed later today.’ This was the minimum I needed to say – and the minimum I wanted to say. What we’d agreed was more than the repeated suggestion by His Heretical Holiness of warrants that would never be executed. But it was the barest scheme of implementation I’d prepared with Martin. Leaving the landowners with more than half their best land, it had been a scheme we’d prepared as an absolute last resort. It hadn’t been a defeat. Still less had it been a victory. Yes, Priscus had helped terrify the landowners into a better view of their interests. And if I’d never confess it to anyone – not even to Martin – what I’d seen of Priscus in action under the Prefecture had robbed me of all desire to press on through perhaps still more blood for total victory.
A slave was making his way up the stairs. We composed our features and moved to stand arm-in-arm as he opened the door. We read the message together. Not bothering to hide our confusion, we looked at each other.
‘Not your suggestion?’ Priscus breathed. ‘It certainly wouldn’t have been mine. If I didn’t know him better by now, I’d say he’d gone mad.’
‘My place is by your side,’ Martin said when I’d shown him the message. It probably was, and he could be insistent when all his loyalty required was letting himself be dragged into passive danger. But I had other ideas for him.
‘No,’ he said firmly when I’d shut up. ‘We both know the Palace is the safest place anyone can be in Alexandria. Sveta will look after the children. My place is by your side.’
And so it was the pair of us who, as the trumpeter sounded the hour, joined the silent and apprehensive crowd in the main hall of the Palace. They’d all been dressed for the Council meeting, and getting them assembled at short notice for what Nicetas had now planned instead of the meeting had been easy enough. Getting them into a better mood hadn’t been thought worth the trying. Priscus alone was looking cheerful. He seemed to have got over the lost chance of a massacre, and now had his cat with him. He was showing it the statue of Domitian beside which his own chair was being made ready.
‘From the unusual lack of grace about your movements, dear boy,’ he said as I came up beside him, ‘do I gather you’ve had the forethought to put on protection? For myself, I’d never dream of going to these events without.’
Back in my dressing room, Martin had bullied the slaves into getting all my clothes off again so he could pack me into a mailed shirt. He’d then stood for an age, breathing in with his hands above his head, while they’d strained to get another one around him. It was a deadweight on me. Just from walking downstairs to the hall, I’d sweated so much the silk lining was soaked.
‘But how will you protect Pussy?’ I asked with a nod at the cat. It gave me a hateful look, then nestled closer to Priscus as he stroked the fur.
‘Oh, Margarita will stay behind,’ he said carelessly. ‘She’s had such a disturbed few nights,’ he added. ‘Have you never marvelled at the places these creatures can squeeze themselves behind and shit?
‘Will Maximin be putting in an appearance down here?’
I shook my head. There was much I wanted to discuss with Priscus. But Nicetas had now arrived in his internal chair, and was being carefully transferred into his outgoing chair. I thought of trying again to speak with him. By the time I’d decided it wasn’t worth the risk of a public rebuff, the twittering eunuchs were thick about him. I turned back to Priscus, but he was now strolling off to look at another of the more worthless emperors.
My own chair was ready, and it was a matter of squeezing Martin in beside me. Hard luck on the carrying slaves, I thought. But the instructions were one chair only per member of the Council. Mine wasn’t the only chair sagging below the usual height of eighteen inches above the ground. In one or two cases, secretaries had actually to be left behind. No doubt, their masters would have preferred to swap. Tempers were short in that hall.
At last, though, we were all carried out into the courtyard. There,
a couple of eunuchs arranged our chairs into a short cluster, two abreast. The curtains twitched on the single chair right at the front, and a greyish, Viceregal hand gave the signal. With a loud crash of bolts and the pulling back of armoured wood, the gates swung open, and we moved out into the square.
‘Make way for His Imperial Highness the Viceroy!’ the herald cried in a loud voice. What effect his words might have had on the crowd now packed into the square wasn’t something we had to find out. First through the gate were about a hundred heavily mailed guards, all with drawn swords. The crowd backed away before them. With a shouted command in Latin – whatever else could be held against him, at least Nicetas was using the Slavs – they formed into a hollow square within which the chairs now huddled, and we were off.
Though the heat was headed again towards the sweltering, Martin insisted on keeping the curtains pulled. With those plumed helmets all around at eye height, there wouldn’t have been much to see in any event. But, from the steady crunch of their boots on broken glass, and muttering of the slaves as they skirted the larger debris of the night’s rioting, I had the impression of moderate to considerable damage. All around was the smell of stale wood smoke. From beyond the steel square that encased us, I could hear the continual but low murmuring of the crowd. It was a resentful, short-tempered sound, coming from throats that must have been numbered in the tens of thousands. But it was only a crowd, I kept telling Martin and myself. It wasn’t yet worth calling a mob.
In the chair beside us was one of the Council members who dealt with finance. He was complaining – I think to his secretary – that the Patriarch wasn’t with us.
‘Where is John?’ he asked peevishly over and again. ‘With His Holiness among us, we’d be in no danger at all. Where is John?’
‘Isn’t the crowd coming with us?’ Martin asked nervously. ‘If there’s to be a native delegation allowed on to our side of the Wall, what’s to keep everyone apart?’
‘I imagine that has already been considered,’ I said. There was no point even trying to sound reassuring. Martin was right. Even if it wasn’t moving with us, the crowd was immense enough to stretch far in the streets beyond the Palace square. We must have covered half a mile, and still that murmur wasn’t letting up.
‘Make way for His Imperial Highness the Viceroy!’ the herald continued crying. And it wasn’t just for show. Once or twice, our chair wobbled as the guard was unable to push its way through at uniform speed, and the carrying slaves had to vary our own speed. My hand trembled as I squeezed quietly on my sword. I had a knife in my belt. Neither would be of much use if our outer steel casing were breached. But if not so much as the cruciform relic box Martin was clutching and unclutching, it gave a little comfort.
Chapter 41
One of the larger churches in Alexandria, the Church of the Apostles was in the early style of ecclesiastical building. With not a dome in sight, nor any elaborate patterning of brickwork, it had the plain look of a courthouse. There was a wide flight of steps leading up to an unadorned portico. A large door, plated with bronze, led into the church. The only variation from its overall plainness was two large bronze torch brackets set equidistant between the door and each end of the portico. They were so incongruous, it would have taken a want of taste not visible in any other feature of his design for the original architect to have put them there. More likely, they’d been transferred at some time following the closure and demolition of the temples. I’d seen the church often enough from the outside, though had never thought it worth the effort of looking inside.
I hadn’t missed anything, I realised as I got out of the chair and looked around. We’d all been carried inside the church and set down before the altar. There was the usual jumble of paintings on the wall, and the usual memorial plaques. There was the usual smell of incense, and the usual smell of unwashed bodies that lingers in these places even when the active cause is absent. And there was the usual morose, bearded priest. I grunted and turned back to the chair to help untangle Martin from the curtains.
‘This is a most auspicious choice of His Highness,’ Martin said in his first normal tone of voice since we’d left the Palace. He stepped forward and fell heavily into my arms. With the extra weight of his armour, he almost had the pair of us on the floor. But I recovered my balance. Martin waved at the priest, who was beginning to look alarmed at the number and quality of the persons invading his church.
‘Do you realise,’ Martin asked, ‘that this building contains the chastity belt with which Saint Eulalia held off the forty thousand soldiers commanded to take her virginity?’
‘My compliments to the locksmith,’ I said. But I dropped the matter. This wasn’t the time or the place for entertainment. Directed by one of the eunuchs we’d brought along, the slaves were getting everything as ready for the audience as it could be made at this notice. This was a matter of getting the paint touched up on our faces and our clothes rearranged. We’d managed to pack only one chair, and this would be for Nicetas. After endless fussing arguments between the eunuch and the slaves, it was placed on the far right of the portico outside. Once he was lifted on to it, Nicetas would be looking down the side flight of steps. This, I gathered, would be convenient, if not so completely dignified in its effect as the eunuch had at first wanted.
‘Any trouble,’ I whispered to Martin as I let myself be arranged in my place behind Nicetas, a foot or so to the left, ‘not, of course, that there will be any, and I want you in the topmost gallery. If the doors swing shut, you don’t argue for them to be opened. Those are my instructions as Imperial Legate,’ I added. Despite this, Martin would have answered. But Priscus was now standing beside me, and was drifting in a snarling row with the eunuch, who wanted him to twist slightly on his hips and lean in my direction. By swivelling my eyes right from where I’d been placed, I could just see the church door. Once Martin was back inside, I gave up on the strain and looked forward again.
Once we were all in position, the makeshift curtains were pulled aside and I stood blinking in the sun. I looked around as well as could be done without moving my head. The church had sat originally on the central island of a vast circular junction. Then the Wall had been built to keep Greeks and Egyptians apart, and the junction was now more or less bisected. The back side of the church formed part of the Wall. The front of the church looked over what was now the semicircular confluence of three wide streets that led back to the absolute centre of Alexandria. Still impressive, if dilapidated, the buildings that stared back at the church had once been palaces of the commercial aristocracy. Most of them, I think, were now monasteries.
I could see most of this if I turned my eyes sharp left. In front of me and to my right, the Wall stretched high and blank. Looming over it from the other side was the weather-beaten façade of what had once been the Baths of Hadrian. What else, if anything, was still there I couldn’t see.
The police and the guards had cleared the hundred yards in front of the church. Beyond that, though, it was an unbroken sea of faces that filled the semicircle and stretched as far back along the three streets as I could strain to see. They were all the usual urban trash. I was too far away and standing at the wrong angle to see the directors this time, but had no doubt they were lurking somewhere in that mass of gawping, unwashed humanity.
With a few grunts and hisses of pain, the Viceroy shifted ever so slightly on his chair. Otherwise, it was the statue act again for us all. Our clothes fluttered freely in the breeze. Our bodies were locked into poses of careless elegance.
There was a shouted command over on our right, and the gate to the Egyptian quarter opened a couple of feet. The police officers squeezed wedges under the gate, and stood ready to push it shut again. The herald went forward and called out in a stiffly ceremonious Egyptian. His words seemed to stick in his throat, and he stood a moment looking through the partly opened gate. Then, with a scared look in our direction, he was moving quickly back to stand on the church steps a few feet below Nic
etas.
I’d not been able to speak with him. But the impression Nicetas had given me in his message was that he’d arranged a conference with the leaders of the Egyptian mob. These would be allowed through to state their case and then make their submission. Otherwise, the Egyptians would be kept to their own side of the Wall. If that was what had been arranged, it wasn’t going to plan.
Even as the herald took his place, the first Egyptians began pouring through the gate. They came at first in their dozens. For all they pushed to cut off the flow of bodies, the police officers might as well not have been there. The wedges scraped on the hard granite of the pavements and gave way. The gate now swung fully open, and – the police scattering with a sudden panic – the pouring of dozens became a flood of hundreds and then of thousands. The slight difference of their smell aside, they were mostly the same refuse as on our side of the Wall. Perhaps a quarter of them, though, had the smaller – often much darker – appearance of recent arrivals from the south. Between them and the Greeks, the guards formed a thin but, I hoped, an impenetrable line. Between us and the Egyptians, who’d flowed forward right to the foot of the steps up to the portico, there wasn’t so much as a eunuch with a cane. Keeping still, we looked uneasily back at those hungry, desperate faces.
‘Ask for their spokesmen to come forward,’ Nicetas said without moving his lips.
The herald climbed on to a lectern that had been brought out of the church. He was perhaps two yards away from Nicetas, and stood a yard higher. He gripped hard on the rail of the lectern to steady his hands.
‘No,’ Nicetas said again, ‘start with the recitation of titles and promise of redress.’ He broke off and quickly pulled a fold of his robe over the still swollen bulk of his leg. ‘Oh, and do you have the promise of amnesty rehearsed?’
The Blood of Alexandria Page 30