Shahrbaraz swallowed too quickly and went into a coughing fit. ‘Not for days!’ he eventually managed to splutter. He drank from his water cup. ‘Everything is soaked. Everyone is out of sorts. Getting the march under way again before we’ve got over the storm may bring on a mutiny – especially since we still haven’t paid the bounties promised when we set out. I won’t mention the state of the food supplies.’ He stopped and narrowed his eyes. He turned a very grim stare on me. ‘If that beast you haven’t yet crucified is up to his usual tricks, I swear we’re marching right into a trap. One sight of a Greek army with the state we’re in, and my advice for the next five days at least will be immediate withdrawal along the pass. Reject that advice and you might as well keep a couple of good horses ready for a dash back to Ctesiphon.’
‘Oh, Shahrbaraz, Shahrbaraz,’ Chosroes laughed, ‘are you really about to break all security in front of Alaric?’ He turned to me. ‘The good General here wants us to invade Egypt. Because we have Syria, it’s easy for us to attack, and hard for the Greeks to defend. It’s also rich enough to let us pay a few bills.’ He turned back to Shahrbaraz. ‘Well, unless you can show me your Greek army of resistance, we march for Constantinople.’ He took a long drink and stared happily at the glittering cloth that hung down from the ceiling.
Shahrbaraz had already gone into another coughing fit. This time, I thought he’d burst a blood vessel on his forehead. I wondered if he was about to speak – as said, he was one of those people even Chosroes didn’t dare murder. But a gust of wind now hit the palace at the wrong angle. With a long and alarming groan, it tilted enough to knock over a pot of earthworms in fish sauce. In silence, we watched it tip over on one of the rugs, and continue an irregular progress towards one of the cloth of gold hangings. Chosroes giggled and lolled back on his cushions. Shahrbaraz said nothing but attacked a dish of something that looked as if it had been squeezed from both ends of an overfed cat. I stuck a piece of bread into a dish of ground chickpeas and olive oil. Chosroes had never complained in the past about my disinclination to share his vile tastes in food. Anything richer than this at the moment and I’d only puke it up again.
In the extended silence of the dinner, I gave way and thought about Priscus. I could take it as read that Theodore wasn’t up to finding his way outside the walls of the City by himself. He’d been brought along as general skivvy for Priscus. Even so, the two of them must have grown wings to get here so quickly. There was no chance Priscus could have known about the invasion. That meant he’d broken all his normal rules of life and come out to make sure I didn’t mess things up. I should have been a little more open with him in Constantinople. Too late for regrets now – that was for sure. I thought of the best Persian for ‘When error is irreparable, repentance is useless.’ If all else failed, I could impress Chosroes with it – I could put it into his father’s mouth when the executioners took out their bowstrings. Or perhaps not – it had too much smell in that context of a rhetorical excess. The Great King could be a harsh critic where historical writing was concerned. I repeated the sentence to myself in Latin and then in English and in every other language in which I was proficient. It kept me from reflecting too obviously on the square painted in red about the Royal eating place. So far as it could be, this room was an imitation of the summer palace.
Before I could figure out the best translation into English, Chosroes got up and clapped his hands. ‘I’ve had enough to eat,’ he announced. ‘The dinner is over. I want everyone out of here except Alaric and one guard.’ I couldn’t say Shahrbaraz had even tried for jollity through the meal. I’d not miss his glowering presence.
You can be sure that, when he’d said alone with me, Chosroes hadn’t meant that Urvaksha could unhook his collar and shimmy down the ladder with Shahrbaraz and the eunuchs and other flunkies – or that Theodore could be carried out like a sack of mildewed grain. It certainly didn’t mean that my guard could go off duty for the night. With those exceptions, though, we were alone. The wind was rising, and the swaying and groaning of several tons of woodwork on its inadequate support was joined by the harsh beating of more rain against the walls.
Chosroes wheeled about again on his favourite rug. ‘Alaric,’ he whispered, ‘I will grant you the boon of letting you ask me any question you please.’ He tripped daintily across the floor and stood over me. I could go through the motions of getting my writing materials ready but I’d already seen that the eunuchs had left me with a heap of waxed tablets. Since I still wasn’t to be trusted with anything that had a point on it, I might as well leave that part of the game aside.
‘Ask, and you shall know,’ he repeated. I got up and went for a chair for him to sit on. Staggering slightly as if from too much wine, I put it down so one of the faint red lines on the floor passed directly beneath it. The guard was watching me with eyes that didn’t seem to blink. Though sitting down, his unsheathed sword rested on his knees. There was one cushion beside the general mass that hadn’t been moved all evening. I could suppose the shock I had in mind would keep the guard in his place long enough for me to go for one of the curtains. Even with a sword, he’d not stand much of a chance against me.
I waited for Chosroes to sit down and made him a reasonably solemn bow. ‘You spoke earlier, Great King,’ I began, ‘of something that is the stuff of dreams to all Christians, and that this would cause the gates of Constantinople to swing open for you. I take it, from the inflexions of your voice, that you were talking about the True Cross. Any chance of letting me see it in the morning?’
He looked back at me. Had I gone too far? No – he put a hand up to his mouth and giggled softly. ‘You don’t miss anything, do you, Alaric?’ he said. ‘I probably should have you crucified as a spy. I might still do that, if Shahin confirms what everyone else believes – that you’re a barefaced liar and are only here to divert me from the approach of a Greek army.’ He looked about for his cup. I got up and carried it to him. I filled it from a jug and sat down close to the unmoved cushion. I had the guard behind me and could hear him settling back after my sudden movement.
Chosroes drank deeply. ‘Getting into Jerusalem last year was hard enough,’ he said. ‘Getting into the Holy Sepulchre Church took three days of fighting. The oldest monks – even the bishops – took up swords and fought like the Spartans at Thermopylae. But Shahrbaraz got there in the end. With his own hands, he ripped the curtain aside and exposed what turned out to be a thirty-pound piece of shrivelled wood – thirty pounds of wood encased in two hundred pounds of gold studded with jewels of inestimable value. I’m glad he didn’t burn it along with the church. My own Christian minority loved me beyond describing when I had it carried through the streets of Ctesiphon. I won’t bore you with the accounts of the miracles worked by it as I rode before it. I don’t imagine you believe it ever formed part of the cross of which the Jewish Carpenter was put to death.’
I got up again and bowed drunkenly. ‘The story is that, when Constantine established the Faith, he let his mother demolish much of Jerusalem in search of relics. Apparently, she found all three crosses and was told in a dream which had been used on Christ and which on the two thieves. The Emperor then had the True Cross broken up, so fragments could be sent to every main church throughout the Empire. I’m told that if you were to reassemble all the fragments they would make enough lumber to fill a ship. Not bad for something that one man was able to carry up to Golgotha. But I’m also told this is in itself another miracle.’
I put up both hands and burped gently into one of my sleeves. ‘So you’re planning to turn up outside Constantinople and show the True Cross to the people?’ I asked. ‘I suppose, if you handle things properly, that should open the gates for you. But what then?’
‘Oh,’ came the airy reply, ‘I’ll allow a three-day sack of the City. Anyone my people find will be fair game. But I won’t allow the buildings to be harmed. I’ve got a Persian bishop with me who’ll be the next Patriarch. Minus the gold, he can have the relic to put
on show in the Great Church. I think I’ll preside at the presentation. I once saw Maurice leading a ceremony there. It was most impressive. When I get up and speak, it can form the culmination of the first decade of your History. You’ll need to instruct me on the differences between the Monophysite heresy and Imperial orthodoxy. They make bugger all sense to me.’ He finished his wine and stuck his chin out again so his beard jutted forward.
I got unsteadily up. ‘If Your Majesty will pardon me,’ I slurred, ‘I need to vomit.’ I heard the guard snigger with polite contempt. All I had to do was stumble as I went by the cushion.
‘Stop!’ Theodore called in Syriac from the far end of the room. I looked at him. ‘Stop, Alaric,’ he said, now clutching despite his bound wrists at the wall hangings. He pulled himself to his knees and laughed bitterly. For the first time since he’d been found howling in the mountains, he switched into Greek. ‘I know your secret,’ he sneered. ‘You’ve come here with Priscus to murder the Great King. But know ye not the words of Saint Paul:
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.’
He fell down again in hysterical laughter.
Chosroes was on his feet and racing across the room. ‘Priscus is dead!’ he wailed. ‘How can a man kill me when he’s dead?’He reached Theodore and kicked him in the stomach. He turned him over and slapped his face. He kicked him in already ruined balls. He was wasting his time. For several years, I’d been aware of Theodore’s belief in the purifying nature of pain. He really was now ready to receive the violet crown of martyrdom – he’d have gloried amid the flames. Chosroes stopped and turned in my direction. ‘What are you up to, Alaric?’ he asked. ‘I welcomed you back. I trusted you. How were you planning to kill me?’ The guard was on his feet, sword at the ready. His chain trailing behind, Urvaksha crawled in the vague direction of his master’s voice.
‘Kill him, O Great King!’ he shrilled yet again. ‘The knots never deceive. He came with murder in his heart. Kill him now!’
Chosroes looked at me. He looked at Theodore. He looked at the guard. From a sheath I’d already guessed was up his sleeve, he pulled out a steel blade of his own. He opened his mouth to speak, but was silent.
The silence was broken by a sudden pattering of hands on a drum. It came from behind a curtain on my right. Angry, the Great King turned to see who’d disobeyed his direct order to be left alone with me. The drumming settled down into a brisk and flowing rhythm that I well remembered, and the curtain was pulled aside.
Naked, covered all over in gold paint, Eboric stamped hard three times on the floor and raised lightly muscled arms in the opening moves of his orgasm dance.
Chapter 61
I don’t believe there was a man alive who could resist Eboric’s charms. Even with a sword at my throat again, I could see that the boy was outdoing himself tonight. You can search me how he and Rado had got up here undiscovered. Ditto how they’d got themselves kitted out for the dance. But here they were and Chosroes was hurrying across to stop the guard from sawing my head off. ‘We’ll go on with our conversation after the end of what may be a delightful surprise,’ he snarled. ‘If it really is delightful and if you can prove any involvement at all in it, you may get a flash of my merciful side.’ He sat down a few feet from me, and turned his attention back to the perfect unfolding of complexity.
I looked on, rigid with shock. Slowly, as the pattering of Rado’s hands on the drum took on a firmer rhythm, I found myself able to think again. I’d taken a sudden and gigantic risk, and I’d got so close to solving every problem we faced. Right up to the last moment, the plan had unfolded as if someone had been directing things in a play. Now, for the second time in a month, that worthless shit Theodore had ruined everything. I should have listened to Priscus and left him to beg his bread in Athens. Failing that, I should have taken a proper look at him when he got to twelve, and dumped him in one of the more ascetic monasteries. By now, he could have been sticking skewers through his nipples and making everyone miserable with his visions of hellfire. If I ever got out alive of this latest catastrophe he’d arranged, I’d see to it that Theodore got a whole lifetime of moral suffering. I took a quick glance in his direction. Sure enough, he was on his knees again, peeping out from behind raised hands at the controlled indecency of Eboric’s dance.
What I’d do if I ever got out alive! Looked at realistically, it was all up for me. I’d gambled and I’d lost. The question was should I make a deliberately futile gesture and get my throat cut? It would be an easier way out than Chosroes was doubtless considering. Or should I try insisting that the boys were strangers and that the plot was wholly mine and Theodore’s? I didn’t think he’d believe that – two Western barbarians whose working language was Latin: I might as well have claimed black was white. But it seemed wrong of me to take the easy way out and leave two boys who’d risked everything for my sake to carry the main punishment.
Rado was beating out a more complex rhythm and the dance was reaching its climax. Chosroes already had both hands inside his robe, and was fondling himself. He didn’t risk penetrative sex nowadays, I knew – not since one of his wives had tried to do for him with a toxic pessary. But he might contain himself till he’d walked round and round Eboric, poking and fondling as the mood took him.
Slowly, now darting forward, now back, not seeming to notice who I was, Eboric came closer. I could feel a slight tremor in the sword still held against my throat and could hear a change in the guard’s breathing. The boy raised his arms and lowered them, and the iron bracelets he had on each arm moved up and down the gold of his skin. He stretched out his arms in a gesture of endlessly wanton enticement.
Chosroes waved his own sword at me. ‘Go and stand against that wall, Alaric,’ he said evenly. ‘Stretch out your arms as if you were already on a cross. Try not to move.’ To the guard: ‘Go and dance with the boy,’ he said. ‘Keep hold of the sword. Disembowel the boy if Alaric moves so much as an inch.’ He looked at me and twisted his face into a snarling and triumphant smile. ‘Your plot is discovered, Alaric,’ he cried. ‘Whatever you and these boys had planned won’t happen now. When this dance is over, you’re going down that ladder bound hand and foot. We’ll see how much of your democratic manner is left this time tomorrow!’ He lay back against a mound of cushions and pulled at his clothes until his scab-covered belly and crotch were exposed. He clenched both fists and arched his back. He looked again at me and let out a high giggle. ‘You just stand there, Alaric, and watch me bring myself off without hands. I may see how well you can do it tomorrow – without hands!’ He pointed at the guard. ‘Dance with the boy, I command!’ he giggled.
Drawn sword in hand, the guard lurched forward at Eboric and was left clutching at air. He spun round and tried again. Once more, Eboric shifted position almost without seeming to move. On his third attempt, the guard laid hold of the boy’s left shoulder. He pulled him forward into a rough embrace. The drumbeat was rising to its fluttering climax. Chosroes steadied his voice. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said. ‘When I sit up, ‘I want you to bring the boy forward and cut his throat. I want his blood splashing over me when I go off. Do you understand?’
Grunting over his throbbing stiffy, the power-crazed bastard had overreached himself. I could see this with the chilly calm that sometimes comes with despair. It was as if I’d stepped from the jostling crowds and the heat of the Triumphal Way into the entrance hall of my own palace. I knew what had to be done and I was free to act. Eboric was effectively dead. I was twelve feet away from Chosroes. I could break his neck before the guard could try to stop me, and before he could squirm to safety. So what if Chosroes ran me through first? I was only choosing a quick death over a slow one. More to the point, unless he got something vital, I’d have enough strength left in me to see to him. Ebo
ric would be dead whatever happened. Rado would have the chance to make a run for it, or die fighting. What I’d had in mind earlier involved my own escape. Well, that was now out of the question. But I could still do the rest of the world a favour.
The guard held Eboric tighter and moved him slowly towards Chosroes, whose eyes flickered between me and the approaching treat. It was a matter of choosing the right moment. I needed to go for Chosroes when his normal reflexes were at their slowest. Carefully, I tensed every muscle. I watched for him to open his mouth to let out a groan of ecstasy.
Because I was too busy watching Chosroes, I missed the absolute precision of what Eboric did next. I saw from just inside my field of vision how he twisted round to face the guard and how he kissed him on the lips. I saw how he raised both arms aloft and flicked both iron bracelets to his wrists. I saw only in part how he smashed both bracelets at once against the guard’s temples. I did clearly see the creature go down like something stunned in a pagan sacrifice. Still more clearly, I saw Eboric take up the dead man’s sword and make a dash at Chosroes.
‘No!’ I shouted. I threw myself forward, grabbing the boy just in time. Even so, his oddly powerful momentum nearly carried the pair of us into the killing zone. I rolled on top of him and pulled him on top of me. We ended with the sword pressed between us. In all this, I’d barely heard the click of machinery as Chosroes tipped the hidden lever and then the deafening crash of his safety cage.
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