The Curse of Babylon

by Richard Blake

  I stared up at the moon. It was about an hour after midnight. Assuming Antonia had heard right about the eighth hour we had another hour to go – bearing in mind we were now a month beyond the spring equinox, it wouldn’t be a very long hour.

  ‘Any chance they discussed where this meeting was to be?’ I asked.

  She smiled uncertainly. ‘They might have,’ she said.

  ‘Either they did or they didn’t,’ I said evenly. ‘If not, we might as well go home and wait on events.’

  She reached out and took my hand. ‘If I tell you where the meeting will be,’ she asked, ‘will you promise to take me there?’

  I got up and stepped down to the street. ‘No,’ I said with a firmness I should have used earlier in the day. This was why she’d waited so long before ‘catching up’ with me. I was in the shadow of the Milestone, so put the scowl into my voice. ‘You will tell me what you know. I will then take you home before coming out again with Samo. You should know that this matter isn’t a game. I suggest you should stop treating it as one.’

  ‘If I tell you, you’ll have to take me with you,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘I’ll take you home!’ I said. I had an hour at most to get wherever the meeting was to be. She knew Constantinople. Had she already made it impossible to get her to safety and get to the meeting? ‘Look, Antonia, it’s dangerous,’ I said, now trying for a reasonable tone. ‘If you insist on coming with me, you’ll put me in danger as well as yourself. If there’s fighting to be done, or running away, I need to move quickly. Did you learn nothing yesterday?’

  She said nothing. Her face was in shadow. I could almost hear the time gurgling away through one of my expensive water clocks. I sighed. Boys want money, or freedom. Quite often, if you have looks or charm, girls want nothing at all. Women always make you choose. The choice Antonia was putting to me was outrageous. For all I knew, Eunapius and Simon would soon be making everything as plain as day and within a few hundred paces of where I now stood. All else aside, she might be throwing away her only chance of never setting foot again in that Trebizond nunnery.

  I reached out with my right hand. ‘We’ll go home,’ I said calmly. ‘My Jews will be with me late tomorrow morning. They will tell me all I need to know.’

  She took my hand and jumped down. She put her arms about me and kissed my cheek. I put my own arms about her and felt suddenly clumsy. ‘Alaric,’ she whispered, ‘Simon said the meeting would be in one of the lecture halls in the Baths of Anthemius. I know a secret way in that the poor use now you’ve put all the prices up.’

  Chapter 36

  Built in more prosperous and leisured days, the Baths of Anthemius still counted as a world in itself. Except I’d recently ordered it to be closed between sunset and dawn, you could spend your whole time in that vast complex and never see need to go outside. It had shops, restaurants, and a church, and a library and brothels. Once you’d paid your entrance money, there were free lectures on mathematics and history, and poetry recitals and performances of comic plays, and readings of such news as the government thought fit for public consumption. There was also the biggest heated pool in the known world and a gymnasium that, fitted out with the best nude statues taken from Olympia before the earthquake, doubled as an art gallery. Just providing marble for the vast central hall had left every former temple in Ephesus a shell of exposed and crumbling brick.

  Now I’d taken the Empire’s finances properly in hand though, the Baths were locked up and in darkness. Before noon the next day, the disused drainage tunnel Antonia had shown me would be bricked off and rendered at both ends. If they wanted a bath, the poor could stick to the cold pool outside. No wonder raising the entry charges hadn’t so far reduced the number of times we had to change the hot water.

  As we stepped into the central hall, I put a hand over Antonia’s mouth. ‘If you must speak, do it softly and into your clothing.’ I said, covering my own mouth to avoid an echo. The tunnel had been completely dark and I’d had to trust her assurances that it was safe to pass along. Here, the windows in the dome far above let in enough light from the moon and stars to give bearings. There were four arched doorways, three of them leading to different areas of the sprawling complex. I looked hard at the bronze group of Hercules and Antaeus. If she’d heard right, the exit we needed was the one to which Antaeus was pointing with his right leg. ‘Either lift your feet properly, or take your shoes off,’ I breathed. I took Antonia by the hand and led her away from the worn limestone paths along which visitors were made to keep by day. Within our dark outer clothes, we’d show in this light as black on black against the porphyry cladding of the lower walls. We made our way towards the memorial Heraclius had set up to the unfortunate Emperor Maurice and his five murdered sons.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she whispered. She slowed and tried to pull me back. ‘I said we had to go this way.’

  I put a hand over her mouth again. ‘So you think the plan is for us to go down that corridor,’ I whispered as softly as I could, ‘and knock on every door until Simon or Eunapius calls us in for light refreshments?’ I stepped forward again, quickly passing across the entrance to the corridor. ‘I don’t want to hear from you again until I tell you it’s safe to speak.’ Of course, I’d been stupid to give in to the girl. I should have taken her home and waited for Baruch to report back in the morning. Even if not at first hand, he’d surely have found everything worth knowing. If there was something to be learned here, it couldn’t be worth the risk.

  But there was now the faintest sound of voices, and of a big door quietly opened and closed. And there was a flicker of light in the corridor leading in from the main entrance. My heart skipped a beat and everything in the surrounding gloom seemed to become sharper. No longer angry, nor scared, nor beset by guilt for letting her tag along – no longer even dog tired and longing for my bed – I pulled Antonia closer against the wall. ‘Keep still,’ I said, ‘and try not to make any sound at all.’

  Approaching along the wide access corridor, the voice of Shahin was unmistakable. ‘Oh, but what splendid buildings you have in this great city of Constantinople,’ he called out in Greek. ‘I had quite forgotten how little we have in Ctesiphon to compare with these glories.’ I pulled the hood closer over my face and looked across the two hundred yards that separated us. Two lamp-bearers were first into the hall. They separated and stood each side of the doorway, bowing as Shahin strode confidently past them. Perhaps half a dozen men filed in behind him – hard to tell exactly how many, given the light available, or the distance. Once inside the ring of columns that supported the arches that held the dome, he stopped and clapped his hands. He listened to the echo and clapped again. He moved towards the central statuary. He put his hand on one of the buttocks and, looking upward, recited:

  O Goddess sing what woe the discontent

  Of Thetis’ son brought to the Greeks; what souls

  Of heroes down to Erebus it sent,

  Leaving their bodies unto dogs and fowls.

  The laugh he brought out was the verbal equivalent of slapping himself on the back. And I had to admit he’d done a fine job on Homer. Leander could have taken lessons from Shahin with obvious profit. Even Nicetas might have heard the distinction between long and short syllables. ‘But can’t you bring in more lamps, Simon?’ he barked. ‘I’d love to see how high the ceiling is in here.’ Simon’s reply was an anxious groan. Shahin snorted, then laughed again. ‘But I’ve no doubt I’ll see this place again in daylight – this and many other places!’ He stepped away from the bronze group and followed the lamp-bearers across the hall.

  The procession passed by us not ten feet away. I’d been wondering if we’d be spotted from the lack of reflection where we stood against the polished walls. But Shahin, breathing hard, had stopped again, and was looking away from us at an oversize statue of Antinous. Simon hovered visibly between the nervous and depressed. Everyone else was muffled in his cloak.

  ‘Is that you, Shahin?’ Eunapius
called from within the darkness of the corridor. ‘Did you come alone?’ He uncovered the lamp he was holding and took a heavy step forward.

  ‘As nearly alone as a man can be when going about an enemy capital,’ Shahin said with a contemptuous laugh. He straightened up from an inspection of the perfect thighs of Antinous – he’d always enjoyed rubbing himself off against mine. ‘Are you so distrustful of your own slaves that Simon has to arrange meetings in public?’

  ‘My Lord’s palace may be watched,’ Simon said, trying for an emollient tone.

  Shahin sniffed loudly. ‘Oh, let’s get on with it,’ he sighed. He stepped through the doorway and was followed by everyone else.

  Antonia pressed herself against me. She put a cold and trembling hand on my arm. ‘Will they really kill us if they find us?’ she asked. I nearly jumped. I’d forgotten I wasn’t alone. I suppressed the returning guilt and fear. I tried for a reassuring squeeze of her hand. It was the only answer I could give. Taking extra care not to scrape my feet on the floor, I continued moving towards the little access stairway.

  Leaded roofs in the dark are treacherous things. There’s a risk you won’t notice until it’s too late that you aren’t standing on the level. I had to keep a tight hold on Antonia and make sure we both kept close by the line of glazed ceiling windows. Beyond this, it was easy enough to know which window we wanted. Ours was the only one in which every piece of glass shone bright. Ours was the one that was abruptly pushed open from below as we approached it, and secured with a two-inch gap. Hoping not to spoil my toga, I lay down flat about a foot away. In a kind of press-up that made no sound, I moved my face close to the gap. I pulled back as something with wings settled on my nose. I brushed it away and tried to get into the same comfortable position that I’d now lost. From out here, the lamps had seemed to fill the room with as much light as Nicetas had laid on for his recital. Looking in, I could see that the one lamp left burning sent out a pool of light that barely showed anything beyond the table on which it was set. I pushed my face closer and bobbed up and down and from side to side. I could dimly make out a blackboard on which someone had drawn and half-erased a demonstration from Apollonius. Except for the unattractively large feet joined to the ends of Shahin’s short legs, there was nothing human to be seen.

  No problem, however, with listening. I might as well have been inside the room. ‘Greetings, Eunapius of Pylae,’ Shahin said in a voice that mixed politeness with a dash of contempt. ‘I generally like to see men before I deal with them. These are, to be sure, unusual circumstances. But I rejoice in finally making your acquaintance.’

  Simon broke in with a reminder of how short the time was till dawn. ‘We’ll be out of here long before then,’ came Shahin’s easy reply. ‘So long as your people keep the dock secured, my people are waiting out in the strait.’ His feet moved forward and I heard a creaking of wood that reminded me of our times together in Ctesiphon, when he’d rock back in his chair and stretch out his arms. With a sudden bump, his chair was properly on the floor and his legs were pulled back. ‘My dear Eunapius,’ he said with a turn to the businesslike. ‘I’ve heard much from Simon of your motivations and of what you are able to offer in return for our help. But let me ask you directly what it is that drives you and your associates to make an approach to the Empire’s most deadly enemy. Why have you turned traitor?’

  There was a long silence. But I finally heard someone get up and walk over to the door. It opened for a moment, then was pushed shut again. ‘My Lord Shahin,’ Eunapius began in an attempt at firmness, ‘we do not regard ourselves as the traitors. We make this approach only as a last resort and in response to an Emperor who is himself subverting the Empire’s most fundamental laws.’ His voice trailed off and died. It was barely into this opening statement when it had lost all the unpleasant bounce of earlier in the evening. Eunapius coughed, cleared his throat and started again. ‘We, the nobility of the Empire, are the true representatives of the Roman people. We are the living embodiment of their glory and guardians of their Constitution.’ He stopped again. This time, when he started, he spoke quickly and made no effort at measured grandeur of utterance. Heraclius was taking his order’s land away, he whined. By closing down, one at a time, every historic department in the state, Heraclius was abolishing every office of dignity and every subordinate office that should be filled by the clients of the dignified. Heraclius was proposing to empty out the cities. Heraclius was raising the cultivators of the soil to an unnatural eminence and was even arming these men, and talking about raising an army from them that would be officered by men without birth and leisured education. Heraclius was listening to Jews and Armenians. Heraclius was giving inexplicable rights to merchants to arrange their own affairs and set their own prices. In short, Heraclius was turning the Empire upside down, and making it into a country as alien to its rightful governing class as the lost provinces of the West.

  What Eunapius had brought out, in one tangled thread of rage and bitterness, was a fair summary of all that I’d already impressed on the Emperor, or was nudging him, a step at a time, to consider. With a bit of rearrangement and softening, I could easily have worked a transcript of all he said into a manifesto.

  ‘So it’s pretty young Alaric who’s pissed your people off!’ Shahin said in a voice of grave mockery that I doubted Eunapius was calm enough to notice. ‘We had our own taste of his reforms last spring, when a mob of farmers stopped our advance into the Home Provinces. We certainly shan’t forget the time he spent with us in Ctesiphon.’ He sniffed and stretched again.

  Eunapius stopped walking up and down the room. ‘I’m told you had the piece of barbarian shit in your power all yesterday afternoon,’ he did his best not to shout. ‘Can I ask why you didn’t kill him on the spot?’

  Shahin gave way to openly mocking laughter. ‘If I’d done that,’ he sneered, ‘can I suppose you and your friends would still be so keen to do business with me?’

  The room was silent. At last, Simon struck up in his role as mediator. ‘If you please, My Lords, I will outline the agreement that has been made. The best people in Constantinople will convene an extraordinary meeting of the Senate and declare Heraclius a public enemy. Those ministers who do not recognise the Senate’s decree will be removed from office. The people will be promised the full return of their ancient privileges. The new Emperor will be Nicetas. The army will obey his order to arrest Heraclius. He will then open frank and open negotiations with the Great King for a fair settlement of what all agree has been a long and exhausting war. This settlement will include an acknowledgement of those conquests of Imperial territory already made by Chosroes, and a granting of such other territories as may be requested. At the same time, the Lord General Shahrbaraz and his deputy Shahin will provide whatever armed support the new Emperor may require.

  ‘Can I ask My Lords to confirm that this is an accurate overview of what has been agreed?’

  ‘Absolutely!’ Shahin said with what may have been a slapping of his thigh. ‘I couldn’t have said better myself. Peace and a renewal of friendly cooperation between the two Shining Eyes of the World. What more could any man want?’

  I’d again forgotten that Antonia was beside me. ‘What about Cappadocia and Syria?’ she whispered. I dug my elbow in her side, and she was quiet again. So many silly questions – and hadn’t this one just been answered? I may not have had much regard for their value but I was buggered if I’d let the Persians keep Syria and have Egypt handed over on a plate. Certainly not Cappadocia. That was undeniably ours, even on my map of a remodelled Empire.

  ‘Then why are we waiting?’ Eunapius asked in a low mutter. ‘Heraclius has been out of the City a month. We were ready to make our move on Easter Monday. Delay has got Alaric sniffing round. Much longer, and support will drain away. I’m already having problems with some of the key people we need.’

  ‘But, Eunapius,’ Shahin said, still in jolly voice, ‘have you forgotten a certain object that is much desired by the
Great King? My orders are to do nothing until I have that in my own hands.’

  ‘My Lord is aware that Alaric has possession of the Horn of Babylon,’ Simon said. ‘He beat us to it a few nights ago and we have not so far been able to take it from him. However, once Nicetas has control of the City, it will be a simple matter to break into his palace . . .’

  I could almost hear Shahin wag his finger. ‘Oh no, my dear but shifty Greeklings!’ he cried. ‘You produce my silver horn and my ships will sail into your Golden Horn. If you think this a harsh condition, please bear in mind what our experience of the Empire has been in the three centuries since the weakening began of its Latin element. I wouldn’t trust you people to tell me it was dark outside.’ He laughed coldly and pushed his chair forward. Now fully in view, he got up and pointed at the window. I got Antonia back just in time to keep her pale face out of view. ‘I must have the Horn of Babylon,’ he said. He sat down again and rocked on his chair. ‘No Horn of Babylon, no Persian support.’

  There was another long silence. It was broken by a muffled argument in the corridor outside. Below me, Shahin swore viciously in Persian and his legs disappeared. I heard the rasp of a drawn sword. ‘Peace, My Lords, peace!’ Simon cried, trying to keep alarm from wholly taking over his voice. I think it was he who pulled the door open. It was his voice that did now give way to alarm. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. ‘How did you find us?’

  ‘I am the City Prefect!’ Timothy answered in his plumiest, nastiest voice. ‘It would be a sad dereliction of my duties if I weren’t aware of your dastardly plot against the Empire.’ He laughed and stepped through the door. ‘Your men can take their hands off me,’ he said with a turn to the menacing. ‘They have already searched me.’ He moved almost directly under my window. ‘Ah, Cousin Shahin!’ he boomed. ‘I thought you’d be here. Delighted, of course, to see you again after so many years.’