I blinked and looked at Gebmund. Had he really just fallen into that half-hearted trap? I rather thought he had. I relaxed. No need to unleash the biggest scandal in England since the last one. ‘Help me forward,’ I cried in English. ‘I will address the court.’ Half a dozen very big men came forward. Two of them lifted me from my chair, and carried me gently to the speaking place before Gebmund. It hardly mattered whether they believed I was innocent, or that Sophronius had only got what he deserved. They sat down at my feet, giving moral support with their presence.
I faced Gebmund. ‘My Lord Bishop has stated,’ I opened softly, though not too softly to be heard through the church, ‘that I have been ordained into Holy Mother Church. Such might be my dearest wish. However, it is not yet the case. Anyone who wishes confirmation of this may write to Benedict, the Lord Abbot of the monastery in Jarrow. He will answer that my sole duties are to teach the civilised languages, and such other subjects as may be required, to the boys and novices committed to his care.’
Gebmund’s face set like mosaic tiles in concrete. ‘This being so,’ I went on, ‘I retain my secular status, which is as a Senator of the Empire and a Member of the Imperial Council. I may have come home to England a few years ago on the basis of a slight misunderstanding that involved His Late Imperial Majesty. But this has been set aside by His Present Imperial Majesty. I am, therefore, exactly what I was before my sad but temporary eclipse within the Empire. Without the Emperor’s express consent, I cannot be required to plead before any judicial authority of the Church. I certainly cannot be required to answer to questions set at the behest of a ruler who is subordinate to His Imperial Majesty in Constantinople. Indeed, since I may be regarded, for all practical purposes, as the Emperor’s Legate in England, I possess full immunity in any civil or criminal matter. My immunity can only be lifted by a sealed decree of the Emperor himself.’
Among those who could follow me, there were cries of outrage. But these were heavily outweighed by more contemptuous laughter at poor Gebmund. It was coming in rather handy that so many foreign clerics were gathered for the moment in Canterbury. This would have to go by the book.
Aelfwine was on his feet. ‘This is ridiculous!’ he shouted. He ignored Gebmund’s desperate banging of his staff. ‘No, I won’t be silenced! The Old One is lying.’ He frowned and looked about the church. No less than Gebmund, he’d tried everything possible with Theodore to get this called off. Now, far less than Gebmund, he understood what I was about to pull on them all.
‘What is this Empire he talks about?’ he asked defiantly. ‘There was a time when the Romans were supreme in the world. Their territory included all of England and more, and Spain and France and Italy, and Greece and Thrace, and Syria and Egypt, and Africa even to its interior. You still see in these places the statues of their emperors, in marble as well as in bronze. But Rome is now fallen and humiliated. Its western provinces are taken by men like ourselves. Its eastern provinces are taken by the Saracen unbelievers. The little Greek who calls himself Roman Emperor rules from Constantinople over the Asiatic provinces and Greece and Thrace and fragments of Italy and Africa. He has no authority here.’
He sat down. Still on my feet, I suppressed a smile. If this were a script for a play I’d written, it could hardly go better. ‘I cannot fault the young man’s geography,’ I said. ‘Such a pity about his law and his history. The Empire may, for the moment, be mostly confined within what are called its Home Provinces. It is still, nevertheless, the richest and most powerful kingdom in the known world. Even the Saracens are compelled, from time to time, to pay tribute to the Emperor, if they do not want their shipping swept from the sea, or the realms they have stolen from him troubled by internal strife. As for those of us who are Christians, the position, in both secular and canon law, is plain. The Emperor is ordained by God as the Head of Christendom. He may not choose to exercise his prerogatives over the kings whose people have been allowed to settle in his provinces. These prerogatives exist, however, and cannot be abolished. Kent itself remains part of the Universal Empire. Is there any man here of sanctity or learning who will dispute my words?’
I sat wearily on the steps to Gebmund’s chair. I was annoyed at how weak my voice had sounded towards the end. Still, I’d said my piece. Little as they’d understood me, my Englishmen stuck their jaws out and looked proud. The foreign clerics were doing their best not to laugh again.
Gebmund finally broke the long silence. ‘This inquiry is adjourned until further notice,’ he groaned.
Chapter 3
Theodore, Lord High Bishop of Canterbury, managed a look of what, all considered, was impressive hate. ‘I suppose My Lord Alaric may be seated,’ he snarled softly in Greek. The room was bleak as ever – though, defying all medical opinion, the window was still unshuttered. It let in a breeze from the garden and a sound of birdsong. In the months since our last meeting, time had consumed the remaining flesh of Theodore’s middle years, and his hooked Syrian nose was as prominent again as when he was a boy. I could see that Theodore was in no mood for pleasantry. The civility that had tinged our two earlier meetings would not be repeated.
‘Sorry to hear about the latest seizure,’ I said, also in Greek. I put on a look that might, by anyone who didn’t know me, be taken as sympathetic. ‘But I can’t help reminding you of those little lectures I used to give on the benefits of regular exercise and clean living. Why, just look at us, Theodore. No one would ever think I was twelve years your senior.’ I hobbled forward and sat in a chair that had been placed for maximum discomfort and general subordination. My walking stick fell on the floor with a high smack. The sound made Ambrose look round the door from where he was lurking. I ignored it and him. ‘Any chance of a drink?’ I asked in English.
Brother Wulfric looked at me, then at Theodore for instructions. But odd things, these seizures. This was poor Theodore’s second. If the first had deprived him of movement in his right side, this one had taken all his English. I could wish it had taken his Latin too. Theodore opened and shut his mouth a few times. ‘Oh, but don’t trouble yourself,’ I said, now showing off in Syriac. I turned to Wulfric. ‘He says to get me a pint of that French red you brought me last spring,’ I said brightly.
We were alone – perhaps, bearing in mind the snoring sound coming from Theodore’s mouth, I was alone. But, no – Theodore opened his eyes again and focused on me. ‘Where is the report you were instructed to prepare?’ he asked with laboured menace. His head sagged to the left and he fought for breath. He shut his eyes and seemed to pray for strength. ‘Whatever chicanery you dare to employ in this world,’ he went on in Syriac, ‘can you not imagine the torments that await you in the next for the murder you have committed?’
I’d been made to leave my sandals at the door. I looked sadly at my feet. They’d benefit from the attentions of a pumice stone. But – such the indignities of age – I could barely reach nowadays to wash them. ‘Sophronius got what he deserved,’ I said. ‘If there is a Hell, he’s already burning there in your favourite lake of black fire. Besides, you just try proving that I did him in. That jailor you put up against me today made a right dickhead of himself. And Gebmund must have told you that his hands are tied. Don’t assume you can scare me into doing your dirty work. I’m the Emperor’s man till I die. That’s one oath I won’t ever break.’
We glared at each other until Wulfric returned, jug in hand. If that was a pint the boy was carrying, King Swaefheard had been playing with the Kentish weights and measures. But I smiled and nodded, and pushed my teeth back into place. I left him with the cup and took the jug. One of the few blessings of my advanced age is that it takes very little wine to get me tipsy. In the glory days of my youth, I could knock it back like beer and drink anyone under the table. Now, I sipped with moderate delicacy and waited for the delicious warmth to radiate from the pit of my stomach. Oh, but rotten luck – I’d been given some kind of heated slop that tasted of lentils! I resisted the urge to spit and tried to
look grateful.
Theodore closed his eyes and settled back into his pillows. ‘Don’t you understand the enormity of your crime, Alaric?’ he whined. ‘You have murdered a deacon of the Church. You have committed a crime that cries aloud to Heaven for punishment. Are you not willing to make some atonement for this unspeakable sin?’
‘Oh shut up, Theodore!’ I answered. I turned to Wulfric. ‘If you don’t bring me something drinkable,’ I said in my chilliest voice, ‘I’ll find someone in Canterbury to take you by the scruff of the neck and smash your teeth out against a shithouse wall. Now, wipe that insolent smile off your face and get out of my sight!’
I looked back to Theodore and smiled. ‘Listen, my boy,’ I said slowly and in Syriac, ‘we both know very well that, seventy-six years ago, I got the Pope of that time to agree, by his servants and agents, that the Will of Christ might be an aspect of His Person, and therefore singular. This means that he also agreed that any claim that His Will was an aspect of His Nature, and therefore dual, might be a misunderstanding of the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon. It doesn’t matter what side deals attended this agreement. What does matter is that, if the Monothelite position is heretical, Pope bloody Benedict of Blessed Memory was willing not to anathematise heresy. You allowed that bag of shite now rotting before our eyes to pressure me into lying my head off about what happened at the Closed Council of Athens. You people would then use this to embarrass the Emperor in his dealings with the Syrian Church. Well, I gave in last spring, because I was pressed, and because I hoped you’d snuff it before I needed to deliver. But you’re still alive – sort of – and so I’ve had to remove the pressure by other means; and there’s bugger all you can do put it back on me. If you try to push things any further, I’ll raise a stink that will poison dealings between the Church and the Kentish Crown for generations to come. After a lifetime of knowing me, you should be aware that I can and will do that.’
He managed to raise his good hand for silence. ‘Alaric,’ he sobbed, ‘you committed both blasphemy and treason this morning. I beg you to reconsider your remarks.’
‘Tough titty, My Lord High Bishop!’ I laughed. ‘All I did today was let slip a dirty little secret your sort have kept from my people for a hundred years. When my royal kinsman Ethelbert was baptised all those years ago, he was told it was a step up in the world. He could get rid of his tribal witchdoctors and steal a march on his neighbours. No one told him, or any of his successors, he was putting himself under a theoretical jurisdiction from Constantinople that might one day be used to drive a wedge between him and his pious subjects. The next time you allow Gebmund to convene that fiddled inquiry of his, I will stand up and recite the relevant passages from Agapetus and a dozen of the Church Fathers, both Greek and Latin, until no one is in any doubt of the position held in Rome as well as in Constantinople. And I’ll do it in English too!’
Wulfric came in with another jug, this one filled with rich, red wine. I thought of getting the boy to taste it. But I doubted if any of these scared old women would join poisoning to blackmail – murder was my speciality. I slobbered in one mouthful, and then another. So what if much of it ran out again? There’s nothing so heady as wine drunk in triumph.
‘Drop the whole matter,’ I said with final emphasis. ‘Give up on toadying to the Pope’s advisers – they’ll be humming a different tune next year in any event. Send me back to Jarrow. I’ll shut up, and you can find someone here with a dash of learning ready to lie about the true relationship between King and Emperor.’
‘Never!’ Theodore whispered.
I got up, still holding my jug. ‘Then I dare you to make Gebmund reconvene his inquiry,’ I said. I pointed at Wulfric, then at my stick, and waited for him to make the obvious connection. I held my stick in one hand, and my jug in the other, and took a step towards the door. ‘You know where to find me.’
But Theodore wasn’t finished. Incredibly, he struggled and sat up. ‘I curse the day I let you persuade me to give you refuge in England,’ he cried loudly in Latin. ‘It’s only because you were born here that I didn’t send you straight back to the Emperor – and – and – because of what we used to be to each other. Oh what a fool I was!’
‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ I sneered, ‘And don’t give me any of that crap about the “happy days of old”. We both know how those ended. You’re bloody lucky I didn’t have you killed.’
He fell back in a faint that might shut him up for the rest of the day. I jabbed Wulfric in the chest. ‘Show me out,’ I said. ‘He won’t be needing you.’
Chapter 4
Brother Jeremy picked at one of his spots and tried to think. ‘But why did you have to kill him?’ he asked. He looked at the blood under his fingernails. ‘Also, I can’t hide your report forever. Everyone knows how you used up every sheet of papyrus in Canterbury, and how more had to be brought over from France.’ I pulled a face and carried on looking out of the window at the moon. No sneeze resulted, worse luck. I’d have to give him an answer.
‘Because, dear Jeremy,’ I said, leaving slight gaps between my words, ‘Sophronius told me that, if I didn’t finish his report, he’d have you flogged to death for that customs officer he said you killed in London.’ I stopped his reply. ‘It’s a minor detail that I killed him as well as Sophronius. All that counts is that, since the Deacon couldn’t have his report, it was him or you. Can I have some thanks for choosing as I did?
‘As for storing the report, I trust you put it where I told you. It’ll be safe enough there.’ I looked out of the window again. I finished my wine and let out a long and subdued burp of happiness. If only wine jugs were made of glass, the world would look such a fine place through their bottoms.
Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut and made a supreme effort at rational thought. ‘Can I ask, Brother Aelric, why we need to store the report? Why not destroy it? No one would ever see it then.’
I put my jug down. It spared me the temptation of hitting him with it. ‘Can’t do that,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s a very fine piece of writing – yes, very fine: important source material for historians, and all that.’ I changed the subject. ‘But, Jeremy, you’ve taken my dictation in English. It really is time for you to climb down that ivy and run off to spread my news of today’s proceedings. You can start in the alehouse beside the western gate.’
Oh, shit! Someone was coming up the stairs. ‘Get under the bed,’ I whispered. ‘Try not to breathe.’
Of my three visitors, Ambrose was first through the door. ‘Oh, but it’s the greatest honour that ever was,’ he bawled. ‘To think our monastery’s been chosen above all others in the land.’ He staggered from the drink he’d been soaking up, and nearly fell over. He gave me a look of slow-witted confusion. ‘Why are you burning lamps this time of night?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you know the price of mutton fat?’
‘Sod off, Ambrose!’ I yawned. ‘And shut the door, and let me hear you go downstairs.’
I ignored Gebmund, who was looking utterly crushed, but smiled into the angry though scared face of young Aelfwine. ‘Greetings, My Lord Aelfwine,’ I said. ‘I take it you’re standing in for Cousin Swaefheard. I’ve heard ever so much about him in the months I’ve been stuck in his kingdom. Diplomacy isn’t one of his strengths. But I’m sure you can supply that in his place. Sorry we’re right out of anything to drink – not that I suppose this is a family get-together.’
Aelfwine sat on my bed. Was that a yelp I heard? ‘Why are you fucking us over, Aelric?’ he asked. ‘We’ve done nothing to you. Just confess to keep old Theodore happy. We’ll see you right about the penance. You are family, after all.’
I told my shaking fingers to behave and turned the lamp full up. Aelfwine had a face like thunder. I smiled again. I waved about the bare room. ‘Stop listening to silly old Theodore,’ I said, ‘and I’ll stop making you choose between a massacre of King Swaefheard’s loving subjects and having to explain to His Holiness in Rome why half of Canterbury is a pile of
smouldering ashes.’
Gebmund found his voice ‘Brother Aelric – My Lord Alaric: whatever it most pleases you to be called,’ he cried in gentle panic. ‘It has been brought to His Majesty’s notice that you have information affecting the welfare of his kingdom. In the Church, or out of the Church, I really like to think of us all as one big happy family. We’ve come here in a spirit of loving concern to see how we can resolve any issues that might otherwise draw us into a more confrontational relationship. I – we . . .’ He trailed off and looked miserably at the floor.
I’d been wondering when I’d get the representatives of church and state suing for peace. There’s a time for subtle diplomacy, and a time for bluntness. Time, obviously, for the latter. ‘I can prove,’ I said, ‘that, behind his show of holiness, our late Cousin Sophronius was up to his neck in a scam that could get the two of you run out of Kent.’ I stopped and waited for Gebmund to take his hands from over his ears. ‘For the past three years, he paid regular visits from Rome to Canterbury. Each time, he selected seven of the prettiest boys he could find and promised their parents a life for them in one of the papal choirs. However, he was packing them off to Spain for castration and sale to dealers who’d then sell them on to the Saracens. Instead of singing chaste hymns of praise to Christ and the Virgin, those who didn’t die from the operation and of other causes have been performing lewd dances for the unbelievers, and having their mouths and bottoms used for various modes of sinful gratification.’
I stopped again and waited for the full horror to sink in. ‘I won’t claim that either of you knew about this, or that you were on the take. But it’s a sure thing that you never asked Sophronius for news of the boys he was rounding up. Equally for sure, none of the parents has ever heard from their little ones. I was thinking to blurt all this out in the first sitting of the inquiry. I hope you’ll agree that the submission I did make was far less unhelpful to your continued enjoyment of your cushy places in life.’
The Curse of Babylon Page 3