Conspiracies of Rome a-1

by Richard Blake

  ‘Where does this lead?’ I cried, looking round.

  Someone told me it led down to the river, but that it might also connect to the great main drain that led underneath the city.

  ‘Stay here!’ I shouted to the barbarian. ‘If he comes out, grab him. There’s a price on his head.’

  I raced back down to the river. I looked at the series of holes issuing from the embankment. Some were choked with weeds and filth, and were probably backed up solid. Others still ran clear into the Tiber, just as they had in the old days. Which one had Martin used for his exit? Had he come out?

  I asked some fishermen who were washing their nets over the side of their little boat. They had seen no one come out. I offered them a price for catching whoever did come out.

  I ran back to the broken grating. The barbarian had seen and heard nothing. Martin might be cowering just a few inches underneath our feet. He might be sinking slowly into a swamp of semi-liquid filth. He might have got clear away. Whatever, we’d lost him.

  I pulled my right arm back from the hole. I’d been poking a long broken spar in all directions that I could reach. In all directions, I felt nothing.

  ‘Fucking little shitbag,’ I snarled as I thanked the barbarian and gave him some silver for his trouble. ‘I’ll get the fucker yet. I’ll have all the gates watched. I’ll post notice of reward. You can’t hide long in this city. I’ll have him in these two hands – and he’ll beg for death before I’m finished with him.

  ‘Fucking Celtic shit-eating motherfucker,’ I added to no one in particular as I walked off, trying not to show how baffled I was by the man’s sudden escape.

  I came face to face with two men dressed in clerical garb.

  ‘You must come with us,’ one of them said in a tone that didn’t permit argument or delay. ‘The dispensator will want to see you.’

  39

  I sat in the dispensator’s office. He was on his feet, pacing about in a white anger.

  ‘You have been in Rome one week,’ he hissed malevolently at me. ‘In this time, you have been associated with three murders. You have been a principal in a serious fraud on several of the Church’s most useful financial intermediaries. You have assaulted a valuable – indeed, currently irreplaceable – Church slave in the street, and caused him to run away. You have been brawling in the street and, according to my account, killed three men.

  ‘You have also associated yourself with a man of the most shocking reputation – a man with whom I am ashamed to be connected by ties of common blood. You have committed one unspeakable crime with him in the Colosseum. And, from the reports I have of your movements last night, you have almost certainly committed another at his house.’

  He might have added – and doubtless he did in his mind – that I’d come close to wrecking his most important public appearance that year. But he contented himself with my less arguable derelictions in Rome.

  ‘I’ve told you,’ I said back to him, ‘I will do whatever I must to find Maximin’s killers.’

  The dispensator stopped and looked down at me, a sneer on his face. ‘So, Father Maximin – soon perhaps to be Saint Maximin – would have found blasphemy, fraud and sodomy perfectly acceptable instruments of law enforcement? I think not. And what have you found for all this? Have you found the killers? Have you even found the letters that you and my nephew seem to think so important?’

  ‘I haven’t found the killers yet,’ I answered, looking away from that nasty, cold face. ‘But I know who they were.’ I told him about the Column of Phocas. I told him that Martin was connected with it.

  His face contorted into a thin smile. ‘So you know about the Column of Phocas. And you think Martin was connected with it. But you can’t lead me to it, or to Martin, or to those letters. For all your frantic hoeing and trenching, you have not reaped a great harvest of fact.

  ‘All you have been able to establish is that those letters are lost to everyone who might want them. This may not be an ideal answer to the question of where they are. I think, however, it is an answer with which all should be satisfied. Yes, perhaps all should be satisfied.’

  He sat down behind his desk and straightened his tunic. ‘The matter now remains of what I am to do with you. Whatever he may think, young Basilius is not untouchable. But I shall need a better case for proceeding against him than I presently have. Your Ethiopian partner is also lucky in his circumstances. It is not for you to know why a heretic from beyond the frontiers of the Empire is welcome in Rome. It is enough for you to know that I must for the moment overlook his speculative manipulations and those of his other accomplices.

  ‘You, however, are an altogether less important irritation.’ He pressed the fingers of both hands together, now beginning to enjoy himself.

  ‘I am informed that Father Maximin wanted to use the gold that you both took outside Populonium for the endowment of a monastery in Rome. In your barbarian lust for gain, you argued with him. You suborned a Church slave to assist you in his murder. You both murdered Brother Ambrose. For reasons as yet unknown, you both murdered the dealer Silas of Edessa. The slave then blackmailed you into handing over a larger than agreed share of your unlawful gains, and you tried to kill him in broad daylight.

  ‘I think the facts are reasonably consistent with this explanation. You are a vain, greedy, stupid barbarian. If I put all this in writing to the prefect-’

  ‘But you can’t do that,’ I cried. I was outraged at the sheer effrontery of the lies he was proposing to tell. I struggled to fight back the tears of rage and self-pity.

  The dispensator slanted his eyes and looked at me as if I were some leprous beggar in the square outside. ‘Young man,’ he said with quiet menace, ‘you have no conception of what I can do in this city – or of what I will do to protect the interests of the Church. If I write to the prefect, believe me that he will take action. He will act with a speed and thoroughness that will be the talk of Rome until he has finished his term of office.’

  He rustled some loose sheets on his desk. ‘However, I am not inclined to harshness over the indiscretions of youth. I fail to see what benefit would follow from the painful execution of a man whose abilities may still be of use to the Church. I will offer you an escape from the justice of the civil authorities.

  ‘You have three days from now to arrange your affairs. I then want you out of Rome.’

  ‘But…’ I wanted to ask where I’d go. But the dispensator already had his answer.

  ‘Where you go is not my concern. If it is your concern, it is one that you should have borne in mind before interfering in matters that are beyond your knowledge or control.

  ‘Let me see.’ He pulled out a sheet of papyrus. ‘I am told you have a business connection in Marseilles.’ I looked at him. Did he have spies everywhere? He continued: ‘You will know from your studies that Marseilles was in ancient days a refuge for those who had failed in Rome. Let it be so again. I am told it has a most healthy climate, and is not too greatly troubled by the Frankish authorities in its internal ordering. You may appoint an agent here in Rome to oversee the copying of the books. You may oversee his work from Marseilles. You can be a modern – ah – Gaius Verres.’ He paused and gave himself an almost visible hug at the supposed aptness of his allusion.

  ‘But I do not ultimately care to which other place you take yourself,’ he continued. ‘I only warn you that if I find you are still in Rome once your three days have elapsed, I will see to it that the prefect sets light personally to the fire on which you are to be roasted to death in front of his Basilica. Do I make myself clear, young man?’

  I nodded, swallowing with a dry throat.

  ‘Then get out of my office!’

  As I left, he repeated ominously: ‘Three days,’ and held up three fingers as if I didn’t already understand.

  Before I was completely out of his office, he was back to work on his files.

  As I described the whole calamitous series of events to him, Lucius had his slaves pl
y me with strong wine and set an iced poultice to my forehead. I reclined on his bed while he stroked my hand soothingly.

  ‘Now, now, my beautiful, golden boy, stop the crying,’ he crooned. ‘You should see how the swelling spoils those lovely eyes.’

  I’d burst into tears long before getting through my account of the day. It was such a short while since I’d been walking confidently about Rome, almost like a native. I’d been counting my gains and looking forward to a resolution of our enquiry into Maximin’s death. Now, I was about to become an exile for the second time in a year. And being kicked out of Rome was far worse than having to leave horrid old Kent. I had to fight hard against dissolving into another fit of the sobs.

  ‘I never did like that Church slave,’ Lucius said, turning to seal a letter and handing it to a slave who stood beside him. ‘He was always too full of himself. He never showed proper respect to his betters.

  ‘I can’t take you to the Column of Phocas. But I can issue instructions for the arrest on sight of Martin. We’ll have him brought back here. I have cellars so deep, no one will ever notice his cries as I have the truth extracted from his miserable body.

  ‘Now…’ He turned to another slave and issued his instruction.

  I’d held back nothing of what the dispensator had said to me. I’d also finally got round to telling him about my dealings with the diplomat and the full truth of what had happened with those street thugs. I’d expected Lucius at least to give me a hard look. In the event, he’d contented himself with a few questions to clarify my broken, tear-stained account of things.

  The stuff about the diplomat did have one effect. Lucius ordered his library to be packed up and hidden in ‘the safe place’ and replaced by a copy of the Gospels he had somewhere, together with some of the devotional literature he’d managed to inherit from his grandfather and had neglected to burn. He also ordered the main altar to be taken outside for use as a support for potted plants. ‘Icons in every room,’ he added. ‘There’s a stack of them by the slave toilets.’

  The house would soon look properly devout, should anyone come looking. There was a limit, even Lucius acknowledged, to his noble immunity. ‘There’s an undeniable smell now of politics,’ he said. ‘You don’t take any chances when that miasma rises.

  ‘As for you, my golden, beautiful object of adoration,’ he said, turning back to me, ‘we must part a while – perhaps just for a few days – but we must part. The dispensator is right. There is no human power that can for the moment stand against him in Rome. But I have friends in Ravenna who will keep you safe.

  ‘I’ll send the letter of introduction by fast courier tonight. The exarch is of much sterner stuff than this broken-down fool of a prefect. Though also a Greek, he’s very nearly a gentleman – and, in the religious sense, is quietly one of us.’

  Lucius paused and chose his words before continuing. ‘I’ll warn you for when you meet him, he’s a touch over the wrong side of madness. So don’t try saying anything too clever. But he’s undoubtedly one of us. You can rely on his protection. You can stay in Ravenna, while I press on here with what I can of the investigation. At the very least, I can have that slave caught, and I will gladly send you the various parts that I cut with my own hands from his twisted, still living body.’

  Lucius went back to issuing the necessary instructions. I was to leave the day after next. He could have his lawyer recommend an overseer for the copying. I was to load as much as I could fit on two packhorses. Whatever else I had could be left with him. I was to be provided with all supplemental letters of introduction. I’d be in Ravenna for a while – though I might like it so much, he said, I’d never want to leave; then he would try to settle matters for my return to Rome to claim the justice that was rightly mine.

  ‘There is one more matter to be discussed, my glorious Alaric,’ he said as the last slave left the room. ‘I said on the first day of our investigation that there are two sources of knowledge. We have tried a patient collection and judgement of facts. We have found much, but not enough. And time is now running out. We need therefore to take the more direct approach, of an appeal to the Gods. They have never failed me – not, that is, when I’ve asked with a pure heart. They will not fail me now.

  ‘Go back to your lodgings, Alaric. Arrange your affairs with Marcella. Whatever now may happen, you must take advantage of my protection here in my house. I will send for you at nightfall. Tell no one where you are going. Do exactly as my slaves require of you. I promise we shall have some kind of answer before dawn.

  ‘Just in case, though, do start packing for Ravenna.’

  The diplomat had already had his interview in the Lateran by the time I sat down beside him in Marcella’s latrines.

  ‘Such harsh and undiplomatic language from this Chalcedonite heretic,’ he said mournfully, referring doubtless to what the dispensator had told him. ‘I really thought to remind the dog of the kings whose blood runs in my body.’

  But he hadn’t, and I couldn’t blame him. He explained at length how hurt he was by the accusations made against his honour and his alleged abuse of diplomatic status.

  ‘I hear you will be leaving us,’ he said at length, untensing his abdominal muscles. I waited for the continuation. It came: ‘Do you think we can settle any matters outstanding before then?’

  I reached into my cloak and pulled out the draft I’d earlier arranged at the Lateran. He gave it a close inspection, looking up with a benign smile. ‘The God Who Reigns in Supreme Majesty – always allowing for the status of His Son, which precise status is best not discussed with those who accept the formulations of Chalcedon – will surely bless your honesty.’

  He looked over at the sun, now coming low through the toilet window. ‘Do you know when the bank closes?’ he asked.

  ‘Late, I think,’ I replied.

  He rapped an order to his slave that sounded halfway between a gargle and a vomit. There followed a frenzy of wiping. The diplomat stood up. ‘I do hope this is not to be the end of a wonderful and productive friendship,’ he said. ‘But you will forgive me if I neglect the formalities, bearing in mind how urgently I feel drawn to the Lateran.’

  He stopped and looked back at me. ‘Do not on any account try writing to me,’ he said, coming back to speak in a low voice. ‘However, if anything regarding those letters should come to your knowledge, I shall be happy to receive a messenger from you.’

  We briefly shook hands. Then he stopped again and looked back. ‘Remember, Aelric,’ he said, ‘the Evil One takes many forms. This has not always been the city of God. Take care to put yourself in God’s hands.’

  He went off towards the stables. Some advice he’d picked up from Maximin? Who could tell? I shook my head.

  I sat alone, trousers around my ankles, and wondered what was to become of me.

  40

  Just as the last rays of the sun faded and the sky turned to purple, the slave escort arrived from Lucius. I received them in my rooms, where I’d been hard at work packing. In just a week, I’d managed to accumulate about ten times as much as I’d brought through the walls on that first morning. Nearly all of this I’d have to leave for the moment. I’d paid Marcella a month up front for the rooms, and she agreed to keep them free in case I should make a sudden return. Lucius could arrange at his leisure for the collection of whatever I left.

  Gretel had folded and packed the best clothes. Then we’d had a long parting fuck. She’d come close to ruining this with a sobbing fit over my departure, as if she’d not be hopping into another bed the moment my back was turned. But it did somewhat recover me from the stresses of the day. Still, I felt decidedly low as I looked over the rooms that I’d entered in so different a mood and in so much happier circumstances.

  The biggest slave bowed low before me. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘my orders are to dress in your own most distinctive clothes. I will then walk with three other slaves down towards the financial district, where I will spend the evening examining the illumin
ated frescoes in the church of St Diabathrarius. I will then make a very slow return here by way of a brothel run by a reliable associate of the master.’

  He repressed a lecherous smile and handed me a bag. ‘You, sir, must put on these miserable but clean rags of the master’s household. Together with Antony, you will carry two of your bags back to the master’s house. Antony will know if you are followed, and will advise you on the necessary evasion.’

  Antony led me to the house of Lucius by a route I’d not yet taken, down very long, quite empty streets. The building was apparently still sound, but looked abandoned. But for the joyous squealing of the rats, we walked together in complete silence. Every so often, Antony stopped to listen for any sounds, however faint. Each time, he shook his head. Only once did he look worried. But there was no other sound.

  For my first time in Rome, I could be sure I wasn’t followed.

  The house when we arrived looked empty. We entered though a small door at the back, and passed along a musty corridor to the main living quarters. I could see hardly anything, but I felt the wood flooring crumble beneath my feet.

  Dressed in black, Lucius received me in his library. The books had already been replaced. On the far wall hung an icon of Saint Peter, a silver crucifix placed on a table beneath it. All was now as any priest might have wished.

  He darted a look at Antony, who shook his head. ‘We came alone, master,’ he said. Lucius waved him out of the room so just he and I remained.

  ‘Look, Alaric,’ he began, omitting the usual epithets, ‘you know that I’m counting on your total cooperation in this matter. You know the usual pattern of a sacrifice to the True Gods. But this one will be slightly varied from the norm. We shall be opening a direct communication with beings of unimaginable power. They can give you whatever you seek, or can blast you dead on the spot.

  ‘You must promise me you will not step out of the sanctified zone of protection, and that you will say nothing unless called on to speak. Have I your assurance?’