The Curse of Babylon

by Richard Blake

  I’ll tell you now, Dear Reader, in strictest confidence, I wasn’t able to prove any of this. But I’d picked up a few stray facts from Jeremy’s nightly reports, and had put an easy two and two together. I think I’d made them into neither five nor three.

  ‘Have you told this to anyone?’ Aelfwine asked. He looked thoughtfully at the pillow on my bed.

  ‘No, my pretty young cousin,’ I said at once. ‘But, if you’re thinking to bump me off, it will inevitably spread once I’m not here to control the flow of information. So why don’t we agree, as members of one big happy family, on the findings and recommendations that Gebmund will announce in the next – and closing – session of his inquiry? And the less attention you both pay to Theodore from now on, the better I think it will be for all of us.’

  I won’t bore you with how things continued. You can fill in the gaps for yourself.

  I couldn’t know it, but Theodore had another seizure that night. According to what I got out of Wulfric, it came on about the same time as Aelfwine was sending Ambrose off in search of something for us to drink to happy families. You can’t fault his attention to duty, however. Soon after lunch the following day, he sent for me again.

  Worn out from the excitements of my own life, I limped into the room and sat beside him. ‘Oh, this is awful, Theodore,’ I cried, feeling almost as saddened as I was trying to sound. ‘Not another one, and so soon after the last! If there’s anything I can do to help, just say the word. You’re all I have left from the old days. We’ve had our differences, I know. Perhaps I have myself not been wholly without fault in our dealings. But let’s put these behind us and try to think of the good things that remain in our lives.’

  He opened his eyes. I thought for a moment he didn’t recognise me. But he was only gathering what he had left of his strength. ‘Gebmund came to see me this morning,’ he said faintly in Latin. ‘He explained that you’ve beaten me. You’ve always beaten me. You’ve always taken what was mine. You only let me win the Monothelite dispute when you no longer found it politically convenient to keep the Empire immured in the darkness of heresy. You have been the cloud that darkened my life.’

  I snorted so loudly, I had to struggle with my teeth. Of all the passions, resentment is the most enduring. Love – even hatred – will often fade with time. Not so resentment. If his face hadn’t been twisted into a snarl that reminded me of dead Sophronius, I’d have felt sorry for him. As it was, I gave up on the mockery.

  ‘Theodore,’ I said, leaning forward and speaking into his ear, ‘you made yourself unhappy. Worse than that, you’ve spent a lifetime trying to make everyone else unhappy.’ I thought myself into the distant past. Yes, it was still in my head. I quoted:

  O God of Love, who governs all

  With unimagined power;

  Who sets the autumn leaves to fall

  And wither every flower –

  Dear Lord, this humble praise accept,

  By us, Thy children, given,

  And, in return, bless all – except

  Who lack a place in Heaven.

  Let in everlasting torments

  Suffer, Lord, who give offence,

  And us, Thy chosen instruments,

  Give ever, Lord, thy preference.

  ‘You wrote that for me when you were twelve,’ I said. ‘There’s more of it, and it gets worse. I should have seen then what a rotter you’d turn out. Don’t blame me for the long shipwreck of your life. You chose your path. Don’t blame me if it didn’t lead to a bed of roses.’

  ‘You lie, Alaric!’ he sobbed. ‘I was happy till you took hold of me, and tempted me with the filthiness of your corruptions. I know you think you’ve beaten me. But you’ll see that I win at last.’

  He closed his eyes for another rest. As ever, I thought he’d nodded off. But just as I was about to get up and leave, he came back to life. ‘Bring it here, Wulfric,’ he whispered in English. I perked up. This was interesting. I’d always assumed that what was lost in a seizure was destroyed. I now realised that the human mind was rather like a library. All that a seizure might do was to alter the catalogue – wiping, and sometimes restoring, entries and groups of entries.

  I was still thinking that one over, when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. It was Wulfric with a bag of something heavy. I took it from him, and stared at the elaborate knots securing it.

  ‘No, Alaric,’ Theodore urged. ‘Don’t look now. It’s a present for you. Call it a reminder from the old days when we were together.’ He tried to laugh. ‘Thanks to you, I’ve had not a single day of happiness since I was thirteen. Now it’s your turn to suffer. You know that you can’t give it back to me. The rules don’t allow that.’ He looked away from me and focused on the stained ceiling. ‘Leave me, Alaric. I won’t let you come here again. But enjoy the rest of your life. You deserve it.’ He did now manage to laugh – a grating, wheezing sound that shook even those parts of his body that no longer moved at his command.

  One thing I’ve learned to recognise over the years is when I’m really not welcome. I was out of that room as quickly as I could put one foot in front of the other. I didn’t open the bag until Ambrose had locked me into my room.

  And that’s the end of the story. I’m now in the Saint Anastasius Monastery. I can go where I will, when I will. Brother Ambrose died the night after I’d finally moved out of his care. Even at a distance of two hundred yards, and through several walls, he kept me awake with his dying shrieks. I didn’t attend the funeral. I’m told his replacement as clerical jailor is a man from Ireland who believes in reforming his charges though prayer and exercise.

  But, as I write, I have the Horn of Babylon beside me on the table. It reminds me of an obligation freely assumed and still not discharged. I may have reached the end of the story I promised to tell you. I haven’t touched the beginning. If I’m to do that, it means going back further than I have – very much further. You can forget last Monday, when I started these jottings. You can forget the Monday before that, and many thousands of other Mondays before that one. You can also forget the decrepit old thing scribbling away on his many sheets of papyrus, a jug of red before him and a quarter opium pill dissolving in his belly. If I really want to explain what’s been happening these past few days, I’ll have to go back seventy-three years, to Monday the 28th April 615. Put Aelfwine beside me then, and no one would have had eyes for him.

  Yes, the proper start is that petitioning Monday in Constantinople, so very long ago . . .

  Chapter 5

  The last owner of my palace had been unashamed in his taste for the violently obscene, and the mosaics of Tiberius on Capri could normally be trusted to keep me awake through the longest and dullest ceremony. But this wasn’t a normal day. With no one to keep them under control, the eunuchs were running wild. Without missing a step, the Master of the Timings came back to the same square on the patterned marble and bowed low before my chair. He let out a sigh that verged on a squeal of joy, and spun round to face the assembled mass of clients and petitioning agents. Then he brought his staff down three times. As the echo faded of the last crash, he drew breath, once more defying the fog of incense smoke.

  ‘Let all be silent and hold his tongue,’ he cried in mellifluous, if oddly accented, Latin, ‘for His Magnificence the Lord Senator Alaric, beloved friend of Heraclius, our great and ever-triumphant Augustus.’ I may have been the only man there who knew the old language of the Empire. Back in those days, however, there were still solemnities of utterance in Constantinople for which Greek just wouldn’t do. After a long and dramatic pause, he turned and bowed to me. From a high gallery behind me, one of his underlings rang a golden bell.

  I stood up. Anyone looking at me must have thought I’d got it made. Five years earlier, I’d rolled into the Imperial City on a very dodgy mission. But just look at me now. The gold brocade I had on was heavier than plate armour. Its colour exactly matched my hair, and the bluish-gold paint that covered my face was a tasteful contrast
to both. My chair was of ebony, inlaid with ivory and more gold. Standing on a carpet of blue silk, on a platform six feet above the floor of the hall, I was the centre of attention – the earth around which all lesser objects were in orbit. Looking back across the seventy-three years that separate me from that last Monday in the April of 615, I really should have made some effort not to be pissed off.

  Instead, I came as close as my paint allowed to glowering. I suppressed the urge to go into a choking cough and looked stiffly ahead. ‘The request is excessive,’ I said in a Greek from which all foreign trace had been carefully removed. I paused and tried to see without moving if the agent was looking crestfallen. He was – served the bugger right for puffing a two-line petition into a speech. I held the pause until my words began to sound final. ‘However,’ I went on, ‘let his parish priest certify that he has indeed begotten twelve sons who are all alive, and I will grant Isidore of Zigana a two-year rebate of land tax, and a further ten-year exemption.’ I sat down. The Listings Clerk scribbled a comment that would later be worked into a formal reply for carrying back to the farmer.

  That should have been it. The Master of the Timings was already getting his staff ready. I couldn’t turn and look, but I could hear the water clock gurgling in a manner that suggested a break from petitions. So why was that bloody agent still on his knees? He’d had my answer. His duty now was to get up and bow, and scuttle back to his own appointed square on the marble. Everyone else could then hop discreetly from foot to foot in the place he’d been occupying since dawn and wait for the bell to ring. Yet there he still was – not moving, arms folded across his chest. ‘Will the rebate be in hard money?’ he asked in a voice that still hadn’t quite broken. There was a gasp of horror from the other agents. I thought the Master of the Timings would faint. I stared at the agent. Someone had just shovelled more incense into a brazier and it was impossible to see his expression. I’d already seen he was young for an agent. From my first glance about the hall, he’d stood out from the usual run of dyed beards and hard, glittering eyes. But, if his face was currently out of sight, his voice alone raised questions about what he was doing here.

  I leaned back in my chair. I looked at my polished fingernails. ‘From the second day of the second week of next month,’ I said in a tone of polite menace, ‘all silver payments to and from the Treasury are to be made in the new standard coins. Until then, the old coinage, of whatever quality, remains the legal standard. Had your client wanted to benefit from the decree, it was your duty to suggest delaying his petition.’

  And that was him told. A couple of eunuchs appeared from nowhere and shoved him back into the crowd. Without waiting for the bell to ring, the Master of the Timings came forward and bowed. He turned and lifted his staff again. One deafening crash of wood on stone and a hundred men stretched out their right arms in my direction.

  ‘Long life to His Magnificence the Lord Senator Alaric!’ they chanted in their own attempt at Latin. ‘Life, health, happiness, good fortune ever may he know – wise and generous-hearted, gentle, compassionate; most noble lord of all finances; benefactor; learned, beauteous, heroic . . .’

  Oh, forget that silly boy of an agent – this whole morning was like watching paint set. Normal petitioning days were over by now. Normally, we had an abbreviated opening ritual and then I withdrew to change into plain clothing. Upstairs in my office, I could read through all the petitions and see the agents one at a time. I could ask questions. I could explain myself. I could strike deals. Unless a matter needed further consideration, an agent could step out into the street with a sealed letter already in his satchel.

  But I’ve said this wasn’t a normal petitioning day. The Monday before had been Easter and there was a double load of work. Far worse, this was my first day of public business without Martin to hurry things along. He must by now be halfway up a mountain on Lesbos, and he’d be praying there till June. Today, so far as I could gather, while prancing in from their usual place in the Treasury Building, the eunuchs had spotted a dozen petitioners in their own right. Martin would have put them at the head of the list. They could have been dazzled by the opening spectacle, and sent on their way, preferably with whatever justice or favour they’d come to beg. No hope of that with the bloody eunuchs in charge of things. They’d jumped at the chance to lay on the full ceremonial. By the time I was carried into the hall, I could grin and bear it or cause a scene. I’d stood for the opening prostration and hoped the day’s list wouldn’t be too heavy. It had been, and was, very heavy . . .

  The Master of the Timings was back in action. Next item was a break from petitions. ‘A gift for His Magnificence!’ he cried with slow jollity. He held up a box of painted wood that seemed to have been badly scratched along its underside. ‘Behold the love and respect in which the Lord Senator Alaric is held by the entire universe!’ he intoned. The response was a long monosyllable. It is best described as the sort of appreciative sigh you let out when something tasty is pushed under your nose. It began on the left side of the hall and moved, as etiquette prescribed, in stages to the right. Meanwhile, it was for the old eunuch to try, with decreasing elegance of movement, to get the box open.

  Oh, bugger! I thought – not a birthday present. And not in public! My birthday had been the day before and I was hoping no one had noticed. Rotten luck I had to sit here now, getting ready to smile and nod at greetings that would soon be repeated across the City. Telling myself not to sneeze, and trying to ignore the tears that must be ruining my paint, I watched as elegance was abandoned and a penknife was used to prise the box open. I heard the groan of long nails levered out of wood. Leaning forward an inch, I caught a flash of coiled and polished silver. It could have been worse, I thought. If you must admit to a birthday, the presents might as well be worth having. I leaned forward another inch. Now fully open, the box was on the little table set before my chair.

  I found myself looking into the old eunuch’s glowering face. ‘Can people not write messages in a civilised language?’ he whispered. ‘It shows such disrespect for My Lord.’ He waved the lid under my nose. I glanced at the slip of parchment that was coming loose from where it had been stuck. I looked harder.

  ‘I know your secret,’ it said in Latin.

  Though I kept my face steady, the shock was instant and overpowering. I turned cold all over. My heart beat faster and faster, and there seemed no limit to how hard it would eventually beat. There were dark spots before my eyes. A colder chill was radiating from the pit of my stomach. I looked again at the message and struggled to keep my legs from giving way.

  ‘I know your secret,’ it said.

  Desperately, I fought for control. But cold panic now seemed to have spread through my entire body. In its suddenness and intensity, the attack was best compared to an orgasm – or, leaving aside any talk of pleasure, with the shock you feel between getting a possibly fatal stab wound and its actual pain. It can’t have been more than a few moments that I stood there, looking at the little, stained slip of parchment. But I could have sworn at the time it was an age.

  I barely noticed the muffled squeal the Master of the Timings gave as he pitched head over heels down the steps, or the bump of metal on carpet, and then its clatter across the marble. But, as if through a mist as thick as anything produced by incense, I did notice that the eunuch had collapsed and was lying, still on his back, with his mouth wide open.

  Chapter 6

  That was enough to free me from the worst of the attack. I glanced up from the fallen eunuch. No one else had stepped from his appointed place. On every face I could see the kind of look that goes round at an execution, when the victim hasn’t cried out for a while and it will soon be time for lunch. Someone stoked the brazier again and a cloud of yellow smoke blotted out the petitioning agents. Someone else in the gallery behind me began another rendition of all my titles and supposed attributes.

  But the Master of the Timings wasn’t dead. Before I could trust myself to end the audience and
call for a doctor, he opened his eyes. With a soft moan and the writhing motion of a bug that’s fallen on its back, he sat up and frowned. ‘It must be something I ate!’ he said firmly. He looked about and frowned again. ‘Has nobody any respect in this modern age?’ He pointed at the silver object where it had fallen.

  The Listings Clerk hopped down the steps to retrieve it. He held it up and rubbed hard with his sleeve at the scratch it had taken from the floor. ‘It will polish off,’ he said with a desperate smile into my blank face. He buried it in a soft area of his robe and rubbed it furiously all over. ‘It really will be as good as new.’ I ignored him. I ignored the sweat that was still trickling into the small of my back. The break in proceedings had given me time to pull myself together. I said nothing and had my first proper look at the Horn of Babylon. It was untarnished then. Except for the scratch on its rim, it was still a fine thing to behold – no dent yet halfway down its length, nor any scratches deep inside its bowl.

  Using his staff for support, the Master of the Timings got to his feet. ‘Better give it back to me,’ he said faintly. He took it into his trembling hands and looked for a moment as if he’d go over again. No problem this time, however. He cuddled it against his flabby chest and bowed to me.

  ‘Who brought this?’ I asked in a voice too quiet to show its tremor. I got nothing from the Master of the Timings. The Listings Clerk broke in with a kind of snivelled yawn. I let my eyes dart about the hall. The crowd had reappeared through the fog of incense and was showing its first sign that morning of active interest. But no one looked shiftier than usual.