The walkway had no upper ropes for holding on. Using it was a matter of acquired balance. On instinct, I’d spread my arms and legs as I hit. Now, fighting for the breath that had been knocked out of me on impact, I joined my hands underneath the slats and got my feet together. More shocked than scared, I held on grimly and waited for the whole slender things of rope and rotting wood to stop swaying like a branch in the wind. ‘Stiff upper lip – stiff upper lip!’ I kept telling myself, for some reason in English. It didn’t work. I wasn’t as high up as the windows of my sleeping quarters. But there’s a difference between standing on a rising sequence of brick arches that have survived a century of earthquakes, and looking through the two-inch spacings between wooden slats that are only eighteen inches long and half as much wide. I clutched harder and was aware of the still-dancing image, so very far below, of men who ran about, shouting and pointing up at me.
But I heard more shouting behind me, and I forced myself up on hands and knees to crawl across the void that separated me from the far building. Other slats disintegrated as I passed over them. I thought, the whole way, I’d tip over or go through. I focused on the slats a foot in front of my nose and did my best not to see the impossible distance they kept me from falling. Men shouted from the building I’d left. Because no one dared follow me, the cries grew fainter as I made my way steadily forward. Below in the yard Simon was in sight again and was ordering men into the far building.
I’d not be staying in the far building. I pushed past a couple of curious boys and an old woman, who’d woken from their siesta, and made for the next walkway. I was already a quarter across it and wondering if the next building would allow a choice of further escapes, when on the far side two men with the dark beards of Syrians stepped forward from the shade and raised their swords in silent warning.
I turned back. I was still on the last slats when another man appeared in front of me. ‘You’re going nowhere, my lad!’ he snarled. He spoke to an accompaniment of approaching feet on the stairs. ‘You’ll come quietly if you know what’s good for you.’ He would have spoken more. But I now had my sword out. As he went for his own, I lunged forward and ran him through in the lower belly. I got up unsteadily, grabbed him by his beard and kicked him downstairs. Screaming and tumbling head over heels as he went, he crashed into more men who’d been hurrying up to join him. I was having a good day with the body on the staircase blocking move!
I turned back to the walkway. One of the men at the far end had a better sense of balance than I had and was already halfway towards me. I wheeled about and looked frantically for some other escape. I could go up the last flight of stairs to the roof but I didn’t expect there to be any way off that. I could hear more men coming upstairs to join the two who were untangling themselves from the dying man I’d thrown at them. I went down a step and slashed at them with my sword. They fell back and looked round for the approaching support. I put my sword away and jumped back to the entrance to the walkway. I bent down and took hold of the two ropes that secured all the slats. I lifted and pulled them, and watched the Syrian I’d surprised throw himself forward to catch hold of the walkway. I pulled again and sent an undulating motion towards him. He missed his hold and fell headfirst, screaming all the way. He landed in a mass of filth and, alive though injured, cried piteously for help. His colleague stepped back to safety and waved his sword again.
‘Simon wants me alive,’ I said softly in a voice that shook like sobs. ‘He wants me alive.’ I waited for the swaying walkway to stabilise, then made myself get down again on all fours and crawl carefully forward. The seam of my inner tunic had split and its silk was slithering down my forearms. If only I’d been brave enough to lift my hands off the ropes, I’d have pulled it free and sent it billowing towards the ground – even in the state I’d put it, it was another windfall for some lucky pauper.
I was ten feet away from the building I’d left, when I heard Simon’s voice behind me. ‘And does My Lord think he’ll get very far?’ he sneered.
Chapter 29
I stopped and sat astride the walkway. As Simon barked an order at the man far behind me, I swung my legs until no one with any sense in his head would have dared follow. The ropes creaked alarmingly and there was a sound of snapping wood far behind me. I pretended not to hear this. ‘Hello, Simon,’ I said with a bright smile. ‘Do you fancy joining me? You get a lovely view from out here.’
He looked at the swaying walkway and moved back a step. ‘You can’t stay on that thing forever,’ he said with a nasty smile of his own. ‘You might as well make it easy for all of us. You have the power to make this a very civilised transaction. If you come over and take my hand, you can seal a note to your secretary telling him where the object is and directing him to bring it to us. You can then go free. If you want to make it hard for yourself, I can send a message of my own – wrapped about your left hand.’ He brought out a villainous laugh and looked round to make sure his men had heard him.
‘Either way, you’d have to wait for a reply,’ I said. ‘You see, my secretary’s on Lesbos at the moment. I doubt he’ll be back till June at the earliest.’ I pulled off the rags of my inner tunic and used it to wipe my sweaty face. I looked at the dirt and another man’s blood that I left on it. I found a cleaner patch of silk and wiped again. Like a spider at the centre of its web, I felt the walkway shake slightly behind me. I kicked my legs and leaned sideways and back. There was a cry of alarm but no horrified wail. More to the point, the shaking stopped. I looked at Simon. I could have sworn he’d gone up the night before like a bundle of rags soaked in pitch. Such a pity he’d been put out in time! Then again, his beard was singed right out of shape and there was none of it left under his chin. He wasn’t dead or even seriously injured. But I could hope he was in roaring pain under his robe.
‘Tell me, Simon,’ I asked, ‘how you forged that note from my own people so quickly and so convincingly. I’ll grant I was stupid not to have had a closer look. But it really was an impressive production.’
‘You don’t owe Heraclius your life,’ he said. ‘You don’t owe him anything. Come off that thing before it collapses.’ I smiled at him and set the walkway swaying again. He scowled, then rearranged his face into a smile of his own. ‘See reason, Alaric,’ he pleaded. ‘Once he’s back from Cyzicus, do you think the Emperor will be grateful for any of this? You know things you have no business to know. Consult your own best interest, and join us.’
At last the man had come out with something worth listening to. What was I supposed to do with the cup? ‘Here you are, Caesar,’ I was supposed to say when Heraclius got home. ‘Here’s evidence of the one crime that could get you deposed. And, by the by, I think Nicetas has been plotting to get the Purple for himself.’ At best, that might get me a room of my own in the Fortified Monastery. At the worst – well, if he was no Phocas, Heraclius did order summary executions now and again. And who would dare put in a good word for me? Who’d want to?
On the other hand, why shouldn’t Simon go back to Plan A once I’d given him the cup? The only doubt would be whether he or one of him men would put a knife into my back. But I did listen while he explained the obvious. I glanced down at the yard, and found myself begin very gently to waver.
Bloody fool Simon, though – he’d not seen the effect of his words. While I still sat looking down, and feeling progressively more queasy at the distance between me and the ground, he went and spoiled the effect. ‘I saw you touch the Horn of Babylon yesterday,’ he said with an upward stab of both arms. ‘Did the old ones tell you what that means?’ He laughed and stared away from me. ‘I’ll tell you what it means. You have six days before the full horror descends upon you. Give it to me while you still have time. You can’t wait for Heraclius to come back. You must pass it to someone else before the seven days’ grace is up.’
‘Oh, fuck off, Simon!’ I laughed. ‘I’d be more touched by your concern for me if you didn’t so plainly want the horror for yourself.’ Was th
at another faint tremor behind me? Just in case, I bounced up and down. I focused on the bearded faces that looked nastily out from behind Simon and hoped he didn’t notice the terrified fart that my innards managed despite the lack of breakfast and lunch.
Simon let his arms fall back to his side. ‘You can’t sit there all day,’ he sneered. ‘Yes, even barbarians must eventually understand when they’re trapped.’ I shrugged and looked once more into the yard. Except for the man I’d knocked off the walkway, and who still had enough strength in his shattered body to wave at the dogs who were quietly closing in on him, everyone was up here and waiting at each end of the walkway. The sun was beating down on my bare back. Forget spiders and webs – much longer out here and I’d dry up like a slug in the afternoon sun.
I took my sword out and waved it, with a look on my face of careless happiness. ‘I may only be a barbarian,’ I said. ‘But you’re a bloody traitor. One of these days, I’ll finish the job of burning you to death. You’ll be tied to a stake in the Circus and whoever lights the pitch barrels heaped beneath you will be cheered on by a mob of seventy thousand. If you’ve heard about the law I persuaded Caesar to issue last year, about strangling victims before the flames reach them, be assured you’ll get the full old-fashioned service.’ I raised my voice. ‘You’ll all burn as traitors.’ I smiled at the nervous rustle of clothing behind Simon. ‘You’ll never spend a clipped penny of whatever the Persians have promised you.’ I repeated myself in Syriac.
‘My Lord Alaric assumes he will somehow remain influential in the counsels of the Empire,’ Simon replied with gloating ill humour. ‘You’ll find the Emperor himself isn’t that steady on the throne. I can see no place for a meddling barbarian in a government committed to peace and a restoration of the proper order of things.’
Ah – something else worth hearing. This was turning out, all considered, a most productive afternoon. ‘Do you really think Nicetas will be grateful for any of this?’ I asked. This time, though, Simon kept his mouth shut. I smiled again. Now everyone was looking at me, I might as well put on a proper show. I got unsteadily to my feet and braced myself against the renewed swaying of the walkway. I looked along its length and up and down the wall of the far building. I looked at another walkway that passed underneath mine at a right angle twenty feet down. I shut my eyes and thought. I turned and walked six feet closer to where Simon was standing. So long as I kept telling myself I was only six inches off the ground, I was surprisingly steady.
‘I thought you’d see reason,’ he gloated. Without turning, he ordered one of his men to reach forward and take my hand. But he’d broken too soon into his triumphant smile. I sat down again and waited for the renewed swaying to stop. I leaned forward and, paying no attention to arms that fully outstretched could pull my hair, sawed halfway through one of the supporting ropes, then halfway through the other.
‘What are you doing, you fool?’ Simon cried. ‘You’ll kill yourself.’
I looked up and smiled again. ‘Oh, I’m conducting an experiment that will leave one of us very disappointed,’ I said with fair success at a nonchalant tone. ‘Since I think mathematically and have a good eye for distance, I rather think it’s you who’ll be disappointed.’ I slashed quickly at both ropes and twisted about to hold fast on to one of the bigger and more solid slats.
The terrifying sense of having stepped off a cliff ended when my severed walkway hit the one below in a sudden change of direction that almost shook me loose. It buckled and arched, and picked up speed again as I saw the darkness of the first-floor window come closer and closer. With a burst of exhilaration, I realised I’d be spot on. I reached a low point about six feet from the ground, before swinging slightly upwards and slowing. I let go and, not so much as scraping myself on the window frame, landed on my feet inside the room. I steadied myself and sheathed my sword. It had been a perfect escape. Even if he’d been up to dashing straight after me, Simon would take ages to get down here. The one man on the top floor would be taking his life in his hands if he came downstairs at more than a crawl.
I went through the motions of brushing dust from what little clothing I still had on. ‘Perfect, my dear boy – perfect!’ I said aloud in Latin. I went into Greek: ‘Sometimes, I amaze even myself!’ I bowed to a wall of mud bricks. The thought then hit me of everything that might have gone wrong. And, from the moment I’d been approached by the compounder, anything could have gone wrong. It had been a continuing miracle that I wasn’t the poor sod, bleating out his last on that dung heap. Having no audience now to think less of me, I wondered if I’d fall down and vomit. But I heard a whimper, and reached for my sword.
For some reason, I’d assumed the room was empty. It wasn’t. Once my eyes were adjusted to the gloom, I saw a vastly obese creature, wallowing in straw as he was serviced by a couple of child prostitutes. He struggled to sit up, and the turd one of the children had deposited on his chest slid down, to be squashed beneath a fold of his belly fat.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded. ‘What are you doing here?’
I peered harder at the man. ‘Why, hello, Timothy,’ I said. ‘I didn’t recognise you without the wig.’ I realised I was standing on the outer garment of his Prefect’s uniform, and stepped on to the rough boards. I glanced out of the window. Simon had gone from where I’d last seen him. I thought about asking for the loan of Timothy’s cloak. My leggings were gone below the knees and their backside felt wholly ripped out. He’d probably refuse. I dropped the thought. My boots were sound. All else was secondary. I went for the door. ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ I said without turning.
Chapter 30
The only question worth asking about the carrying chair was how long its owner and his slaves had waited before buggering off. I couldn’t blame them in a place like this. I looked both ways along the narrow street before deciding to go left. Far away, I could hear Simon’s voice raised in wild shouting.
I’d rounded a corner when some piece of trash about my own age tried jumping me from above. ‘Oh, ho ho!’ he roared, nearly landing on my shoulders. I stunned him with the pommel of my sword and kicked him out of sight into a doorway. I didn’t check if he was breathing. I didn’t look about to see if he’d had friends. I’d have given more attention to scowling at a dog. Oddly cheered, I hurried forward. Unless I was mistaken, it couldn’t be more than a few hundred yards to the western side of Imperial Square.
It was a shame about the compounder. He’d been dragged into this against his better judgement. If I hadn’t taken my detour the previous day, he’d still be in the drugs market, innocently selling his wares. I tried to feel sorry for the old astrologers but failed. Besides, they might still be calling nonsense at each other from inside their pentagram of safety. I stopped in the silent street and looked at the contents of a chamber pot someone had flung from an upper window.
At whatever cost in frayed nerves, I’d found out something. I didn’t know how or why it had come to me but the cup had been awaiting collection by Heraclius. It had been stolen by Simon. What he had to do with Nicetas, and what Shahin was doing in our home waters, remained unclear. I bent and stared closer at the excrements spread out before me. They were wormy and streaked with blood, and had the squashy look you get from eating porridge rather than bread. How had the compounder come to his misapprehension – the correct misapprehension, I should say – about the cup and me? I hadn’t exactly flown from my hall of audience to the drugs market. Even so, I couldn’t believe word had been carried to him any faster than my own movements. How many other people knew I had the cup? Excepting Simon, those who’d seen it at the audience surely didn’t know what it was. Could I get away with holding on to it till Heraclius came back from Cyzicus, then leaving it in the place set aside in the Imperial Palace for anonymous gifts? Or should I tell everything to Heraclius and hope for the best? He had no one else who could balance the Imperial budget and otherwise tell him what to do.
So many questions. I sighed and st
raightened up. I skirted the mass of drying filth before me and walked quickly away from the cloud of flies that rose up from it.
No sound of a chase. The sun had moved far from its zenith and I shivered slightly in the shade of the street. The excitement of the escape was gone. What I’d done to that spotty, stinking creature far behind me was fading. I began to worry again about all that might have gone wrong, and about the inexplicable chaos I’d been plunged into by the presenting of a silver cup. With a determined effort I dropped that line of thought. It was replaced at once by thoughts of Antonia. What moisture I had in my mouth appeared to evaporate. I drifted back to the horror of those walkways. I felt no doubt they’d join the Shaft of Oblivion in my worst poppy-fed nightmares.
There really had been no sound of a chase. But I’d been listening for big men, whose boots scraping on the compacted earth would give them away from several hundred yards. A barefoot rabble of the locals was a different matter. I came out of my scared reverie to see that the street was blocked in both directions. If I’d missed the patter of bare feet on earth, I should have smelled the approach of their clothing.
‘He stole the people’s bread!’ a woman shrilled from behind one of the crowds.
The Curse of Babylon Page 21