‘Your nose is a proper sight!’ Priscus said as his drugs brought him to a semblance of his old self. ‘Still, I think I did tell you that wanking was bad for the complexion.’ He managed an unpleasant laugh.
I looked up at the sail. It was obvious the galley wouldn’t be staying in Piraeus longer than it would take to dump the pair of us into custody. So far as I could tell, Corinth had the only shipyard in the whole region capable of putting the galley back into order. The Captain would doubtless make for there. After that, he could go about whatever else he’d been ordered. Whatever that might be didn’t affect us.
The galley gave a determined pitch, and there was a renewed burst of shouting overhead. Sailors ran up and down the netting and did things with ropes. I gave Priscus a cold stare. ‘Time, I think, to get ourselves ready to go ashore,’ I said.
‘Then you can lead the way, my big, blond stunner,’ he sniggered. ‘You know it takes me an age to get up and down that ladder.’
Chapter 10
In ages past, Piraeus had been the greatest port in the civilised world. In those days, Athens was Mistress of the Seas and a centre of all trade. Its port was every day crowded with ships of war and with trading vessels. For all I could see through the grey mist, it might have been crowded still. But I knew it wasn’t. As on everything else in this forsaken borderland of a reduced Empire, time had set its hand on Athens and smoothed away both glory and prosperity. If more than a couple of fishing vessels were lashed against the docks, I’d have been surprised.
I sat ready in my chair, Priscus sat beside me. Martin perched behind with both hands clamped on the back of the chair. From the faint smell of wood smoke and rotten fish, I guessed we couldn’t now be more than a hundred yards from shore. There was a tension in the cries of the Eastern crew that told me the long voyage really was coming to its end. The white canopy that had been raised above us was already soaked by the rain. Every time I shifted position on the wet cushions, I could feel it brushing against the top of my official hat. If I hadn’t felt so utterly dispirited, I’d have marvelled at the skill with which the pilot was getting us into the right docking position. I heard an eager shout and a babble of something triumphant as a scattering of beacons came faintly in sight. There was another long grinding of timbers, and now a repeated splashing of water, as the whole galley turned about and its left length bumped gently against the dock.
‘Welcome to Athens, my dearest Alaric,’ Priscus whispered into my ear. ‘If I’m not mistaken, the city of Aeschylus and Thucydides has turned out in force to greet the Emperor’s most beauteous and learned adviser. It won’t be a private arrest.’
Whatever drugs he’d consumed had given his breath the smell of baked dog shit. I bent forward and squinted through the mist to try to see the figures who were gathered on the docks. Look as I might, they drifted in and out of visibility, and I was left no wiser about who or how many they were. A slave helped Martin across the plank that joined us to the docks, and he vanished within one of the thicker fingers of the mist. Then he was back to stand very carefully on a stepladder that had been placed right on the edge of the docks. I caught a look of confusion on his face. I thought of the line of armed guards ready to take us into custody, and felt my stomach turn over and over. It was exactly like the moment you get, when, riding into battle, you lose control of your horse, and realise that there’s nothing you can do to avoid crashing straight into the waiting enemy.
But, though his body shook, and he had to grip hard on his stepladder to avoid falling back into the water, Martin was now going through all the correct motions. ‘You will greet His Magnificence Alaric, Senator, Count of the Most Sacred University, Legate Extraordinary of His Imperial Majesty,’ he cried in his grandest voice as I helped Priscus to his feet and led him on to the plank. If I had much else to think about, I was surprised at how light the man had become in the month or so since I’d last nerved myself for physical contact with him.
But Martin had drawn breath, and, with a very slight tremor in his voice, was continuing: ‘And you will greet His Magnificence Priscus, Senator, Commander of the East.’
On to the carpet that had been placed there long enough to be soaked, the Count of Athens and all the other persons of secular quality who’d travelled down to receive us fell as one for a full prostration. I looked nervously at Priscus. He looked back and pulled a face. He may have been trying to look carefree and amused. He only managed to look as baffled as I felt. I looked about for a glint of steel. I saw nothing. Instead, the little gong was sounded as etiquette required, and a dozen heads splashed three times on the ruined silk. They got up, as bedraggled after their wait in the rain as if they’d been pulled from a shipwreck, and waited on my instructions.
‘Gentlemen,’ I said, stepping on to the odd firmness of the land, ‘I do most humbly thank you for your goodness in coming down from Athens. I bring with me every assurance from the Great Augustus of his love and regard for your city and for all its people.’
No one laughed. There was even a general bowing of heads. It was now that the slaves who’d followed me across with another canopy to hold off the rain jumped back on board the galley. Their duties were at an end, and they didn’t look in the slightest unhappy to be rid of us. I felt a gust of chilly rain on my face. Then, other slaves came out from behind the still bowed officials and draped some wet canvas about my official clothes.
I took the Count’s hand. It was cold and slippery. There was a trickle of water from the lowest point of his black beard. ‘You are Nicephorus?’ I asked with an attempt at the authoritative.
He nodded and stared impassively back at me. There was no hint of welcome in his face – or of any coming arrest.
My heart was beating very fast. With every beat, though, the moment for the words of arrest was passing. ‘Then, my dear Nicephorus,’ I added, ‘I rejoice in having made your acquaintance, and look forward to our harmonious working together.’
I stood in the rain as he hurried through his formulaic greeting in the flat Greek of a Syrian. It was all so far as it should be – and not at all as I’d been so convinced it would be. There were no other officials about Nicephorus. Instead, he’d been waiting with what may, by their manner and the look of their clothing, have been well-to-do tradesmen. These, I supposed, were the town assembly. A few of them were armed with sharpened broom handles. One of them had a tarnished sword that may have been of bronze, and might have fetched a good price in the antiques market back in Constantinople. So far as armed men were concerned, this was it.
If this was a trap, it was a good one – and pointless too. Though armed, the two of us were hardly likely to try cutting our way to freedom. The mist wasn’t so thick on land as out in the bay. I could see fifty yards all about. Not one gleam of armour and drawn sword – just more of the usual formalities. I took a deep breath and made myself smile. I made as short a second speech as decency allowed. I then stood back to let Martin read out my commission, putting the Emperor’s Latin a phrase at a time into Greek.
I could smell that awful breath again as Priscus leaned close. ‘Isn’t that my cousin Simeon over there?’ he muttered.
I nodded. I’d been aware of that blaze of clerical finery from the moment I’d stepped on shore. But the dozen or so bishops had been taking shelter against the wall of a ruined warehouse, and there had been thoughts of arrest, and then the shock of our actual greeting to take all my attention. Martin, though, was now finished with his reading, and Nicephorus had turned to prod some life into the slaves, who were still grovelling on the wet stones.
‘My Lord Simeon,’ I cried as we hurried over the slippery, uneven paving blocks, ‘I am delighted – though also a little puzzled – to see you so far from home.’
His Grace the Bishop of Nicaea gave me the sort of look that might have soured milk. ‘I was told you were dead,’ he grated. ‘The devil himself couldn’t have survived those storms.’
‘But, Simeon, my dearest love,’ Priscus
broke in beside me, ‘we did survive – and here we are, to keep you safe in Athens.’ He reached up and wiped a rivulet of black dye the rain had carried from his hair to the beak of his nose.
Simeon arranged his face into a gloating frown and stared a while at Priscus. ‘He forgave you the loss of Cappadocia last spring,’ he sneered. ‘But, when the Emperor heard you had abandoned your post, and gone off to join this barbarian child in Egypt, he shut himself in with his confessor for three whole days. He’ll need more than your usual pack of lies if you aren’t to be degraded to baggage carrier.’
‘And a very full report he will have,’ came the reply in the voice of a man reprieved at the last moment. ‘It isn’t just on the field of battle that the enemy is defeated. Isn’t that so, Alaric?’
Simeon shrugged contemptuously. ‘You can save your lies, the pair of you, for those more gullible than me,’ he said. He turned his bearded face up at what should have been the sky, but was simply a brightness of grey mist. ‘I’m getting myself back into my chair before I catch my death of cold.’ Without looking at either of us, he stepped past. He was followed by the other bishops. I recognised the Bishop of Ephesus. He cut off my greeting with a haughty sniff. The others did make some effort to look charming – then again, being Asiatic Greeks, they all had the dark looks and oily manner of Syrians: if the pair of us had just been sentenced to row in a ferry boat across the Bosporus, they’d have still managed those smiles and fluttering hands.
But this wasn’t the end of the matter. After a few paces, Simeon stopped and looked back at us. ‘I hear, My Lord Alaric,’ he chuckled, ‘that you never did get your land law published in Alexandria. Such a pity, everyone in Constantinople agrees, you let Priscus burn the city down instead.’
His Grace of Ephesus gave a spluttering laugh.
Simeon raised a hand to silence him. ‘You may think His Holiness the Patriarch will protect you again,’ he sneered. ‘The question back home, I can tell you, is who will protect the Patriarch? If Ludinus gets his way, Constantinople will soon have a new and very different Patriarch.’
‘Yes, a new and very different Patriarch!’ His Grace of Ephesus repeated in a high-pitched snigger. They looked at each other and laughed. Then they were hurrying over to their covered chairs.
Not caring who might be watching, Priscus leaned with both hands against the wall. ‘So Ludinus is back in favour,’ he whispered, going back to one of our more panicky on-board conversations. ‘I could smell the old eunuch’s breath all over that commission of yours.’
I looked round again. Mention of that awful name had set my insides churning again. This was just the sort of joke Ludinus would play: give us time to frighten ourselves silly – and then pounce once we’d had a moment’s relief. And if he really was back in the ascendant, neither of us could expect anything better than his best ever joke. It would seal his victory and his revenge. But I could still see no glint of armour under any of the cloaks on the wet docks. Nor could I believe the whole assembled company – not in a place like Athens – was up to playing along so well. I glanced over at Martin, who was getting things ready for the journey to Athens. Since I hadn’t yet been arrested, he was assuming that my orders to get everyone safely away had lapsed.
‘Not quite in the clear, I’ll grant,’ I said to Priscus. ‘But I hope you’ll agree it could be worse.’ I bit my lip and wondered how to get word to tell Martin at least to stay in Piraeus. Perhaps his judgement was sound, however. Perhaps I was right in what I’d just said. There could be no fatted calf awaiting us in Constantinople. Even getting to the Emperor would be a matter of sneaking past an army of court eunuchs. But that was looking too far ahead. For the moment, we weren’t under arrest. It could have been worse.
Priscus gave me one of his blankest looks. ‘We stand or fall together,’ he whispered so low I could barely hear him. ‘Let’s not forget that.’
It was now that I saw the common people of Athens. Rather, it was now that I saw about a hundred of them. Obviously sick of grovelling on their bellies, they were clambering to their feet. My heart should have sunk as I looked at them. Even making allowances for the rain, you’d have had to go to one of the lowest districts of Constantinople to find an uglier, dirtier rabble than this. If these were a fair sample of its common people, Athens was well and truly fallen below its ancient glory. One of them shambled forward, a sly look on his face. What he said must have been a kind of Greek, but I’d hardly have guessed.
I forced a gracious smile and accepted a bunch of ruined flowers that someone had produced. Speaking very slowly, and in Greek that a barbarian slave just brought to market couldn’t have failed to understand, I made a little speech of thanks. I got a subdued cheer that would have pleased me more if some toothless creature hadn’t started a long cackle and pointed at me. Someone else to his left was grinning and repeatedly dabbing the tip of his nose. Deeper in the crowd, I saw a couple of men dressed in the sort of dark clothing I’d seen the desert people wear in Egypt. They may have been a little cleaner than the others, but were no taller. One of them had his right hand outstretched in my direction. Normally, I’d have seen nothing through the piece of cloth he’d put over his hand. The rain, though, had soaked this along with everything else. I could see the gesture, in which middle and ring fingers were held down by the thumb, and index and little fingers were extended outward like horns.
‘Since you have no wife to cheat on you, dear boy,’ Priscus called from behind me, ‘I’d say the locals were scared of your evil eye.’
‘A shame we can’t see his face,’ I replied. ‘But I rather think he’s looking at you!’
Leaving Priscus to stare back, or pull faces – or just wish there had been a few properly armed guards he could send into the crowd – I turned away, and picked my way back to where Nicephorus and everyone else were standing in the full drizzle of the rain. I lifted both arms to stop them from going down for another prostration. Too late! All I managed was to dislodge the canvas from my shoulders. By the time I’d got it back in place to save my fine clothes from a proper soaking, everyone was up again. With a bow that might have looked graceful in better weather, Nicephorus stared just a while too long at Priscus. Then he pointed at two covered chairs that had appeared from somewhere.
As I parted its curtain with my own hands and fell into the dryish if rather putrid interior, I heard Sveta shouting in her native Slavic at a couple of slaves who’d dropped some of our luggage. I heard their bored excuses. Close by was the shrill crying of her child and then of my own. Now, I heard the cries of sailors and the steady splash of water as the Imperial galley that had carried us in such pomp from Alexandria set off to make its appointment in the dry docks of Corinth.
I did mention my first sight of Athens. So far, I hadn’t seen much of Piraeus. But who could care about that? I looked at my shaking hands. There wasn’t the hint of a manacle on either wrist. I was about to see whatever had become of Athens. And, unless my greeting really had been the cruellest trick even Ludinus could play, I’d see it as a free man of considerable status.
Chapter 11
I leaned out of my carrying chair and looked at the little mounds of rubble that lined each side of the road. ‘I’d have thought some effort might go into keeping the Long Walls in repair,’ I said. I tried not to sound as displeased as I felt. If the rain had let up and the mist was clearing away, the sun still hadn’t broken through the solid mass of grey far above us. ‘Without them, Athens must surely be reduced to an inland settlement whenever the barbarians are on the prowl.’
‘They were damaged, My Lord, in an earthquake during the time of Emperor Maurice,’ came the airy reply from Nicephorus.
He still hadn’t arrested us. But I was beginning to find something decidedly offhand about his manner. It didn’t help that the common people seemed to adore him almost as much as the town assembly did not. Before getting into his own chair, he’d passed a very long time among that dirty, chattering mob. They’d swa
rmed about him, stroking his official robe – even kissing his hands. With a few disapproving looks at each other, the assemblymen had stood away from him. They now trudged along behind the chairs, separating us from the common people.
‘The stones have all since then been carried away by farmers to fortify their homes,’ Nicephorus said, finishing his explanation with a complacent leer.
I nodded and let the damp curtains fall back into place. Once the weather was improved and I had time, I made a note to walk the four miles separating Athens from its port. There were still broken inscriptions scattered all over the ground. It would be interesting to see how Greek had been carved on to stone in the best ages of the language. Who could tell what little gems of verse and eloquence might lie there unregarded?
‘Pausanias says they were demolished in ancient times,’ Martin whispered as he pushed his head inside the curtains. ‘The walls built by Themistocles were taken down during the time of the thirty Tyrants. They were restored by Conon, but had fallen down by the time Sulla laid siege to Athens.’
‘My Lord’s secretary is, of course, correct,’ Nicephorus interrupted from within his own chair. The man had excellent hearing – more likely, he’d been listening in on our conversation. ‘But new walls were raised about three hundred years ago, after the first barbarian incursion. These were, in turn, repaired when Alaric – the King Alaric of the Goths,’ he added as if remembering my own official name – ‘invaded Greece. There were walls to shelter the road between Athens and Piraeus within living memory. I believe the earthquake was about twenty years ago.’ He twisted his face into a look of polite helplessness. ‘I simply regret that they fell down before I was appointed, and I have lacked the resources to rebuild them.’
The Ghosts of Athens (Aelric) Page 7