Anyone else who’d dared say that would already have been picking his teeth off the pavement. But this was the Lord Fortunatus, Dispensator of the Universal Bishop. No – forget the title and office – this was Fortunatus. The Emperor himself would have shrunk before that withering stare. I set my face into a smile and suggested that we might care to make a start.
‘My own very words,’ he replied. He stared at the scowling, dark little men who’d followed him out of Athens. He frowned and looked back at me. ‘You will forgive my lateness,’ he said with icy control. ‘The one person in the monastery where I have been lodged who speaks Latin was absent. On his return, he answered my request with an impertinence that has caused both him and my secretary to retire to bed for the day.’
No answer needed to that, nor possible. His walking staff clicking on the stones as he kept pace with me, we set out along the road.
It was undeniably a cheerful day. Birds twittered. A breeze sighed gently in the bushes. I could feel the sun making its way through my clothing. There weren’t many others on the road. But these were all monks or from the better classes, who had largely avoided the degeneration of the rabble. Some of these latter, it was pretty clear, were of barbarian stock. Still, no one recognised me. A few took note of the Dispensator, and bowed to him. Our previous journey along a silent, fog-bound road might have been in a different world. Even if Martin weren’t dragging his own personal cloud a few yards behind us, it would have been nice to walk the whole distance to Piraeus and back. The monuments had much to commend them. It might also have been interesting to sit on the old docks, looking across the bay to Salamis.
But it wasn’t for a stroll in the sun that we’d left the walls of Athens far behind. In bright sunshine, the tomb of Hierocles was much closer than it had seemed two days before. With a muttered apology to the Dispensator, I hurried over the last few dozen yards towards it. Everyone else could follow along at his own pace. Bearing in mind the ghastly, rotting thing that awaited us, it was worth getting this whole business out of the way as quickly as possible.
I heard his faint panting as Martin caught up with me. ‘Priscus was with us when she must have been killed,’ he said. ‘How do you suppose he can be an accomplice to murder?’
I sighed and kicked a stone along the road. This time, there was no mournful echo of its skipping. It made a bright, cheerful sound and sent up a little cloud of dust. ‘Oh, Martin,’ I said, ‘let’s go through this. Priscus knows Nicephorus from his previous visit here. Balthazar spoke of “outrages”. I’ll guess that Priscus tried his own hand at magic in the past. He had nothing to do with this particular outrage. But we may get an accusation out of Nicephorus that allows an arrest. At the worst, I can induce Priscus to a greater prudence in his dealing with our clerical friends.’ I looked at him. He’d not taken off hat or cloak, and was sweating with heat and exertion. His face was taking on the strained look that suggested he was about to be taken short again by those horrid frogs. ‘The body may be still less pretty than it was,’ I said. ‘Can I tempt you to some of my oil of roses?’ I reached into a leather pouch that hung from my sword belt and took out a stoppered glass bottle. ‘It cost its weight in gold in Alexandria. Let’s see if it was worth it.’
The Dispensator now came up beside us. ‘I have been thinking further about the possibly defective grant to His Holiness that you purported to confirm,’ he said.
Anyone who didn’t know the man already might have assumed that this had just happened to cross his mind. For myself, it was a surprise he’d taken so long to come out with it. I doubted he could have entirely lost sight of it even when giving comfort to poor old Felix.
He actually swallowed and had to wet his lips before continuing. ‘I took the trouble, when he came to see me yesterday evening, of questioning Martin about the precise nature of your authority in Athens.’ He paused and licked very dry lips again. ‘As chance would have it, I did bring a fresh grant out with me from Rome. You will see that it is drawn in exactly the right form according to law. It needs only your own seal—’
I smiled and broke in: ‘Naturally, I shall have to take my own legal advice before I can do anything at all.’ I looked at him from the corner of my eyes. He was now sweating very slightly – and not from the heat. ‘Martin’s opinion is always to be respected. But I do remain a little unsure of my authority. All else aside, if the grant made two years ago should turn out to be valid, we need to consider whether a second grant would not simply confuse matters. Can I suggest we wait until the council is over before sitting down to discuss the matter properly?’
I glared Martin into silence and commented on how cheerful the day had turned out. Indeed, it was much improved. I’d walked out of Athens still unsure of myself. Now I was committed to a double arrest, I could appreciate the desperate need for my seal on that very clean sheet of parchment the Dispensator must have been fretting over three times every day since he’d set out from Rome. No one but a fool would have sealed it before the council began. I’d need excellent reason to lift a finger till after the council had finished. I looked up at the sky – still not a cloud in sight.
‘I might add,’ the Dispensator went on, strain evident in his voice, ‘that my summons from the Grand Chamberlain himself did touch on a possible resolution by you in Athens.’
It was my turn to fight for control. I stopped and covered my shock by looking at all that remained of a very old funerary statue. ‘Are you telling me,’ I asked with an unnaturally steady voice, ‘that your summons was sent by His Excellency Ludinus?’ Anyone else would have thought nothing of the fact. It is the job of the Grand Chamberlain to correspond with foreign powers on behalf of the Emperor. But Heraclius was the Emperor. Though he’d devolved them straight to me and Sergius, he had taken all religious matters into his own hands on coming to power. Unless there had been a total revolution in Constantinople since I’d left in the spring, it was unthinkable that a eunuch could be summoning delegates to any sort of Church council.
‘I believe the man’s name is Ludinus,’ came the reply in a tone that showed my own mood had been noted. ‘His communication was most gracious, and even friendly. He said more than once that nothing less than my own attendance in person would be satisfactory to the Emperor.’
We covered the last few yards that separated us from the tomb of Hierocles. In proper light, it looked shabby as well as derelict. The Euripides monument looked more recent, though was a good seven centuries older. That’s what you get when money is saved on a funeral. I turned and waved at the monks, who’d been drifting along far behind. I hid every doubt that had crowded suddenly back into my mind – every doubt, and every new prickling fear. ‘Come, dear brothers,’ I cried cheerfully in Greek. ‘There’s sad work to be done. The sooner it’s over, the better.’
As the monks put on leather gloves that reached all the way up to their shoulders, I opened my perfume bottle. I shook it over a napkin and stood where I could take what advantage might come of the very gentle breeze. The Dispensator ignored my offer and looked down in quiet prayer. Martin was already on his knees and had his arms raised in a prayer of his own. I took my thoughts off Constantinople – they brought no profit – and wondered again what funeral rites Hierocles had been given. The Old Faith wouldn’t have been made illegal till about fifty years after his probable death. Enforcement in a place like Athens would have come perhaps a century after that. The absence of anything specifically religious probably meant, then, that he’d been a Christian. A Christian burial here – or one so prominent – would, until quite recently, have risked immediate violation. Even now, the rabble gave no appearance of more than formulaic devotion.
I looked up at the commotion from the monks.
‘My Lord,’ one of them cried, ‘the tomb is empty!’
Chapter 33
‘It was surely wild animals,’ I said again. ‘Didn’t you hear the wolves last night? They came right up to the walls.’
Martin shut up an
d looked ready to start crying again. A disappointed look on his face, the Dispensator had taken off his hat and was fanning his face. Now they realised what we’d had in mind for them, the monks had cheered up mightily where they sat with their cheese and bread, pleased they’d got off so lightly. I looked away from the scrap of black cloth that hung on a strand of the flattened brambles. No body meant no excuse for an arrest – rather, it meant an excuse for no arrest. Sooner or later, justice would have to be done. The balance of convenience, though, had just swung decisively against any action. If Ludinus was even in part behind this council, it was plain that Simeon was right. I’d been set up to fail. My only salvation was in not failing. Arresting the Count of Athens, and getting everyone into a sweat about sorcery charges, had suddenly become a luxury I couldn’t possibly afford.
I stepped forward and planted a booted foot over the scrap of cloth. ‘Since it has been taken away,’ I said, trying not to sound as relieved as I felt, ‘we’ll have to reconsider our plan.’
‘My experience of wolves,’ the Dispensator said with a close look at the flattened brambles, ‘is that they devour their food where they find it. Also, they fight over it.’ He looked at the odd position of my right foot, and watched as I shuffled forward to stand more naturally. ‘I see no evidence here of wolves or any other wild animal. I am surprised, Alaric, that you – of all people – should come so quickly to your conclusion.’
I shrugged and ground my foot hard through the brambles to the stony soil beneath. I stepped forward again, and kicked gently at one of the bricks that had been pulled again from the hole in the back of the tomb. The body had been taken away by some person or persons unknown. That much was plain. Also plain was that it had been taken not long before – that strong a smell of corruption shouldn’t have lasted beyond the clearing of the morning mist. I looked about. Once off the road, and past the straggle of tombs and other monuments that lined both sides, it was an endless wilderness of green and of jagged white rocks that may have been put there for some human purpose, or that might just always have been there. So it was as far as the eye could see. Nicephorus had mentioned farmers who’d carried away all the stones of the Long Walls. There was no evidence of agriculture that I could see. There was, however, any number of places where a body might be hidden. The real question was who had taken it, and why? If I could fob the Dispensator off with talk of wild animals, I’d be back later for a proper look round.
I was drenched in the oil of roses Martin had jogged over me in his first shock. I raised a sleeve to my nose and breathed in slowly. I looked up at the sun and sneezed. ‘The body has gone,’ I said firmly. ‘This being so, I can only suggest that we return to Athens and consider our next move.’ If this meant having to dangle the Universal Bishop title much earlier than I’d intended, it might be worth the loss of pressure in the actual council. Then again—
My thoughts had been interrupted by a squeal from one of the monks.
‘O Jesus!’ Martin breathed with a tight clutch at my arm. ‘The barbarians.’
And this time, he was right. It was indeed barbarians. How none of us had seen them did little credit to our watchfulness. But we had been focused on the tomb and its expected contents, and then on its lack of contents. And this was anything but the unstoppable flood of humanity everyone was shitting himself over. These were three children. The eldest was a boy of perhaps fourteen. With the shambling movements you read about in the reanimated dead, he and his sisters were picking their way through the brambles on the other side of the road.
‘Eat! Eat!’ the boy was croaking in Slavic as he stepped forward and almost fell on to the road. I looked over the expanse of stones from where they’d come. They were alone. I put my sword back into its scabbard and stepped towards the boy. He fell on his knees and raised outstretched arms. The girls had flopped down on the paving stones of the road and were beginning to cry weakly. If they’d eaten in days, it would have surprised me.
‘Where are the others?’ I asked in the Slavic dialect I thought the boy had used. I looked about again. But for the chirping of cicadas and Martin’s renewed urgency of praying, we were gathered in silence. Unless there was an army of dwarves hidden out there behind the stones, they really were alone. I wondered how they’d got here.
‘In the name of Christ, we starve,’ was the only reply I got from the boy. ‘Food, I beg – food, if only for the girls.’ He spread himself on the paving stones in a kind of prostration.
Priscus was right about my knowledge of the military arts. One thing I did know, however, was that you don’t feed your enemy. I gave a ferocious look at no one in particular and stood back. ‘These unfortunates,’ I’d once said of the poor in Constantinople, ‘are numbered among those for whom no place has been set at the feast of Nature’s plenty.’ That had got me a murmur of applause in the Imperial Council when I nagged Heraclius to cut the bread distribution. But I caught the look on the Dispensator’s face. ‘These savages have no proper business on Imperial soil,’ I answered him. ‘Their wasting is to our benefit. Give food to any of them, and you feed the enemies who would kill us in our beds.’
‘Even if they beg in the name of Christ?’ the Dispensator now said. ‘These are children. They can do no harm at all.’ He leaned on his walking staff and frowned at me. ‘Does your concern about the young extend only to the dead?’ he asked with a slight look round at the empty tomb.
I was thinking of a suitably firm negative. The Dispensator might have some religious duty to feed the starving. I had an empire to think about. But I looked again at the barbarians. The boy hadn’t moved. I looked over at his sisters. I found myself staring into a pair of very big and pleading eyes. Ten? Twelve? You really couldn’t tell – certainly not with that degree of emaciation. I told myself to ignore her. It doesn’t matter how few of them there are, or how weak they look: you don’t feed barbarians. Give food even to that girl, and her first thought would be to ask how and when to get a knife into my back.
I drew a deep breath. ‘Be off with you!’ I was intending to shout. I found myself looking again into those eyes. I looked away. I gritted my teeth. I turned to face Martin. ‘Put what’s left down there,’ I muttered. ‘I’ve no doubt there is plenty left over.’
I avoided looking at anyone as Martin dropped a still bulging satchel on the ground and danced back. The boy ripped it open and pulled at its contents. He paused in the act of shoving half a loaf into his mouth and called the girls forward. The Dispensator now had another of the satchels open and was distributing cheese. He’d come out to pray over the dead. Now, he was feeding the starving. That, plus comforting the bereaved, and someone at least was having a good day.
I watched them gorge themselves. There is something unpleasant about watching the hungry eat. It may be in itself the rapid, suspicious movement of food to the mouth. It may simply be the pity of it all. I was getting ready to question the boy properly, when I heard a scrape of stones behind me.
I looked round just in time to get out of the way. Dressed in black, the small, darting figure missed me and stabbed viciously into thin air. He landed noiselessly and wheeled about to face me. I had my sword back out and went into a fighting pose. From the far left, I saw another dark blur. I lunged forward and then round in a wide, cutting move. Even in broad daylight, you don’t stop and count your attackers. But I was aware of five of those dark, rapid creatures. I stepped back against the tomb and raised my sword again. Almost too late, I heard the scrape of clothing on weathered stone, as someone jumped on to the roof of the tomb and tried to get me from behind. I leapt forward at the nearest of the attackers before me. I felt the point of my sword make contact with something solid, and heard a high squeal of pain. But there was no kill – not even some disabling injury.
I turned again and lunged with another cutting movement at the man still on the tomb. This one I did get. I took him by surprise, and felt the reassuring crunch of expensive steel on the flesh and bone of the man’s neck. He
went backwards off the tomb with a bubbling scream. I turned and stared at the four who were left. Now together, they hung back. I could see they were dressed wholly in black, even down to the masks on their faces. Each had a short sword in one hand and a knife in the other. In a moment, they’d fan out again and close in like flies round a drop of spilled honey.
‘Run for it!’ I shouted in Latin. I had a momentary glimpse of Martin, who’d pulled out a length of dead bramble and was trying for a weak flourish. ‘Martin, fuck off!’ I shouted again. ‘Run and get help.’ This was no place for him. I slashed at someone who jumped at me from the left, and then at someone who tried getting at me from the right.
‘Look out – behind you!’ I heard the Dispensator cry.
I looked round in time to see him hurry forward, his walking staff raised as a weapon. One of the attackers had climbed on to the bloody roof of the tomb. The other three were closing in. I heard the whizz of the Dispensator’s staff as he knocked the man from the tomb. With a rapid lunge, I struck out at the attacker who was trying to get him from the side. I missed, but he and the others fell back again. I felt the Dispensator’s back press into mine, and we moved into the middle of the road. So long as no one managed a lucky slice against that walking staff, we now had some advantage. The attackers shouted rapidly at each other. One of them made a dash at me, sword arm fully extended. Stupid move! I stood head and shoulders and part of my chest above any of them. I had another six inches at the least in my own sword arm. I had him skewered far short of where he could have done me any harm. As the dying man fell to his knees, I kicked him back into the path of one of the two survivors.
The Ghosts of Athens (Aelric) Page 24