There really was no point in wondering about the administration of Athens, nor in the internal geography of what was obviously its actual heart. As with parts of the residency, the interior of this building had been divided into a labyrinth of offices and narrow corridors. As in the residency, most of the offices appeared to be unused. But, unlike in the residency, some were still in use, and this was now the headquarters of such resistance Athens was likely to make in the event of any storming of the city wall.
Darkness hadn’t yet fallen. But the sky was beginning to glow red through the single high window as I stepped into what may once have been the temple sanctuary. A hundred or so men, all dressed in various kinds of military clothing – most showing unmistakable Germanic or Slavic ancestry – got up from where they’d been sitting on the floor and bowed. I jumped lightly on to a platform that still had the remains of a few statue bases to make it irregular, and waited for Priscus to climb up beside me. He was now dressed in the full regalia of a Commander of the East, and was, I had to admit, a gorgeous and a reassuring sight.
‘Gentlemen, this will not be a long meeting,’ I began. ‘My purpose in calling you together is to announce that, as Legate of the Emperor, clothed in full authority, I have formally dismissed Nicephorus as Count of Athens. I dismiss him on the grounds of desertion in the face of the enemy, and declare him an outlaw.’ I looked about the room. If the lower classes had liked the man enough to riot in his defence, no one here seemed put out in the slightest. Their tight faces made perfect sense in terms of the immeasurable horde that had finally arrived, and was now held back by a wall that, every time I tried to imagine it, seemed more and more inadequate.
‘Anyone who can give information that may lead to the former Count’s arrest – or his conviction in any trial that I may allow him – is assured of full immunity, no matter what offence such information may indicate.’ I stopped again. No one looked as if he’d step forward. I’d see if anyone made a private approach later on.
I chose my words carefully and tried for a neutral tone. ‘I am aware that the former Count has, for the past several years, treasonably failed to collect taxes lawfully due to the Emperor.’ I stopped yet again. This had got everyone looking at me. But I smiled. ‘I have decided to absolve everyone but the former Count of blame for this treason. In due course, assessors will arrive here from Corinth. By the authority of my commission, however, I remit all arrears of tax up to and including the day when the barbarians shall be repulsed from our walls.’
I pretended not to notice the relieved looks and sagging of shoulders this concession had brought on. Barbarians prowling outside the walls were one horror. A mob inside the walls that had no visible inclination to do other than stab us all in the back was another. But at least there would be no third army of ravening tax-gatherers. And, if both mob and barbarians could be handled, given reasonable luck and reasonable judgement, tax-gatherers – everyone knew – could never be appeased.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ I started again, ‘you and your sons and servants, and such other free persons as may be dependent upon you and whom you believe to be trustworthy, are the defenders of Athens. His Magnificence the Lord Senator Priscus, Commander of the East, I appoint as leader of the defence, giving him all such authority over life and property as may be required for an effective defence.’
And that was it. I’d assumed supreme authority, and straightway handed its substance over to Priscus. My job was now to seal the stack of proclamations Martin had been working like a slave to produce in appropriate form, and otherwise keep my council moving in the right direction. Without looking again at the gathered men of Athens, I jumped down from the table and walked quickly from the room. I stood a few moments outside the door. Priscus had gone straight into his plan of defence. Whether it had any chance of success was beyond me. But he sounded happy enough. As I’d got a few yards along the corridor, and had a hand on the door that led into the tiny room where wine had been set out, I even heard a little cheer.
I brought both fists crashing down on the table. Martin jumped several inches, and his tightened grip on the pen sent several drops of ink on to the papyrus sheet. I glared at Priscus, whose face was shining with sweat in the light of the single overhead lamp. This was an unplanned interrogation, and he was making a right mess of it. Since there was no question of threatening Euphemia with anything at all, I wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
‘Let me say at once,’ I grated, ‘that, when they are in short supply, there is a natural tendency to join facts into chains that are unusual and generally useless. However’ – I looked at Euphemia, who was still dabbing at her eyes – ‘however,’ I continued when she was looking properly in my direction, ‘I must emphasise that Nicephorus and his present whereabouts are of double importance.’
I paused again and looked about the library. Irene had overseen heroic efforts of cleaning. It would still be days – possibly months – before the smell of damp and ancient dirt would disperse into the main courtyard from all the lower rooms. But everything smashed and otherwise ruined had been cleared out of the library. The remaining bookracks had been put back in place. There were even about a hundred book rolls shoved at random into the compartments. Replacement furniture had been rescued from other parts of the residency and arranged with some appearance of taste and comfort. Whole areas of mosaic had been swept away, or scraped away with shovels, and the floor was now firm, if mostly uneven concrete. It would never again look as I’d imagined it in my dream. But it was easily the best room we had.
I waited for Euphemia to stop snivelling, and gathered my thoughts to restate things in the clearest terms I could manage. I went over the importance of knowing anything at all about Nicephorus.
‘I will leave aside the question of murder,’ I continued after pausing for another burst of sobbing. ‘The girl we found along the Piraeus road may no longer be of any importance in herself.’ I stopped and looked carefully at Priscus. He stared back with an innocence so exaggerated, it set me wondering again. ‘What does matter is that, this morning, Nicephorus was seen by a trustworthy witness forcing his way through a stream of incomers to get out of the city. The hooded man may have been a man called Balthazar. It is possible that the bag they were carrying contained a large sum of gold. If these surmises are also of no present importance, we do have reason to fear that the Lord Count will – deliberately or by misfortune – find himself in barbarian hands. We must also fear that the barbarians will soon be aware of certain facts about the condition of the walls.’
I now looked at Euphemia, who was wiping her nose and giving hurt looks at no one in particular. ‘You must, then, appreciate the urgency of our questions about your late husband’s brother,’ I said, now gently. ‘It seems that, before he took off yesterday morning, he burned or scraped clean nearly all his correspondence. What remains is of no importance.’ I stopped again, and thought with a suppressed tremor of what those two letters might indicate.
‘Because we have no further leads,’ I ended, ‘we have no choice but to look to you.’ I smiled at Euphemia – not the smile of a lover, of course, but the smile of one who is trying to settle a crying child and find out something of desperate urgency. ‘Is there anything you can tell me – anything at all – about his dealings with a man called Balthazar? We know they were partners in a scheme of at least double illegality. But did you see or hear anything of these dealings? Did you see Nicephorus in the company of men dressed all over in black?’
Euphemia wiped her eyes again, but didn’t this time dissolve in tears. Nevertheless, I’d had no impact on her story: that she’d kept to her own part of the residency, seeing Nicephorus only for daily prayers and a trip every Sunday to the church inside the old Temple of Hephaestus. Her own life with Theodore had been entirely self-contained.
I stopped the nasty sentence Priscus was forming and leaned forward. I must say she was looking decidedly fetching. But this had to be set aside.
Euphemia sat
up straight and stopped my own next question. ‘What you claim to know is all very well,’ she cried. ‘But I tell you that Nicephorus is a good man. I’ve known him for three years. In all this time, I never had reason to suspect treason or sorcery or any other impropriety. He was always very correct in his behaviour.’ She fell back in her chair. No longer verging on tears, she looked defiantly back at me.
I shrugged. She wasn’t telling the truth – I could be sure of that. But I’d get nothing out of her in company. She might be more forthcoming in bed. I turned to Martin. ‘Please speak to Irene,’ I said. ‘I want her to go through this whole building with a measuring rod. I want every room opened up. If it’s been opened already, I want it opened again. I want a full search for any cellar that might be large enough to hold everyone in an emergency, and deep enough not to become an oven if the residency is set alight. I also want its entrance hidden again from even a thorough search.’
I waited for Martin to finish his note, and took a deep breath. ‘I do apologise, Euphemia,’ I said, now in a tone of finality, ‘for any unpleasantness that you have suffered. But I do appreciate your frankness in answering our questions. Please do feel free to return to your quarters. I am sure you wish to speak with Theodore until he goes back into the library or off to sleep in the nursery.’
‘She’s lying through her teeth!’ Priscus snarled once she was out of the door. ‘If your brains weren’t so obviously in your ballbag, you’d see that.’
‘I know that,’ I said. ‘But since I can’t guess what the truth may be, I see no reason yet for more questioning.’ I took a sip of the good wine Martin had laid in and rubbed my nose. At last, the spots really were going, and there might not be a third. For that much I could be grateful. I waited for Priscus to finish snuffing up some aromatic powder from a small box, and for the resulting spasm of groans and beating of head on the table to moderate. Then: ‘Can we turn to the matter of defence?’ I asked.
Martin cleared his throat and shuffled with his heap of papyrus. ‘The Lord Priscus asked me to investigate the city granaries,’ he began. ‘Because these are supervised by the Bishop of Athens, they have not been looted by the Count. The grain stored in them is of the lowest quality, and all seems to be very old. But I counted sixty thousand bushels.’ He stopped and looked at me.
I ignored him and looked at Priscus, who’d come abruptly out of his fit and was now sitting with his mouth open. I put my stylus down and stared at the smooth yellow wax on the tablet before me. I’d been about to calculate, on the basis of a pound a day of grain per head, and an estimated population of twelve thousand, how long we might have. But sixty thousand bushels! Even if these might be bushels of some local standard, the grain ship Ludinus had sent had obviously been full. And the monasteries probably had their own stores – as might all but the lowest class of citizens.
‘Can you enlighten us, Master Secretary, how Athens came to be so well-endowed with food?’ Priscus asked heavily. He snatched at the notes. With shaking hand, he took up the nearest lamp on the table and squinted at the careful tabulations.
I listened as Martin explained how every monk in the city had been pressed into carrying the sacks up from Piraeus.
‘A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence,’ I said when I could trust my voice not to shake all over the place. ‘It’s enough to say that we’re in better shape here than we were in Alexandria during the summer.’
Martin gave me a puzzled look. I smiled nervously back. Priscus had now sat up and was tracing letters on the table with a finger dipped in wine.
‘Yes,’ Martin said at last. ‘But there isn’t enough firewood to bake bread. That means milled grain only for the poor to make into porridge.’
I shrugged and came back to the matter in hand. Bread or porridge, we’d not be starved out. I’d seen a whole flock of sheep driven by farmers as they streamed in from the country. Add to this that the cisterns were full to overflowing, and we were better off than the barbarians must be.
‘Alaric will need to sign a rationing order,’ Priscus said. ‘Given that the citizens are the garrison, we can dole it out free of charge.’ He frowned at the random series of letters he’d now traced, then rubbed them all out carefully with the flat of his left hand. ‘I left the militia in excellent cheer,’ he went on in a more positive tone. ‘The women will sit up all night, cutting off their hair to plait into bowstrings. We have one catapult that can be put into working order by noon tomorrow, and another piece of artillery that might fire metal bolts if it doesn’t fall apart.’
‘You are confident we can hold the walls?’ I asked, trying not to sound anxious. I failed.
Priscus laughed and stretched lazily. ‘So long as those fuckers don’t find the one big weakness, and we aren’t reduced to fighting inside the walls,’ he said easily, ‘I’d say it was a piece of piss. Barbarians don’t know siege warfare. If they want to make a rush for the walls, we’ll open the northern gate and hit them with a rain of arrows when they hurry forward. A few days of that – oh, and let’s pray for more rain, and the onset of pestilence in those famished bodies – and I think you can lie as easy in your bed as our mutual friend will let you.’
‘Then I think we can close this meeting,’ I said hurriedly. From the laboured scratching of his pen, Martin was getting ready for an attack of the jitters. So, bearing in mind the laughter that had greeted my suggestion that help might eventually be sent over from Corinth, was I.
But Priscus hadn’t finished. Now flushed and energetic from his drug, he grinned and reached for his water cup. ‘When I speak about the militia,’ he said, ‘you will appreciate that this doesn’t include the rabble. We’ll keep them fed just enough to keep them quiet. But I don’t fancy trusting them with arms – not after this afternoon’s performance.’
I nodded. The militia had finally drawn proper blood that afternoon, and this may have explained the warm reception Priscus had got. But I’d come away from the council surrounded by another hundred of those dirty, chattering creatures. Turning their backs to me as I approached, they hadn’t turned violent. But I had been more struck than before by their curious indifference to the growing mass of humanity outside the walls. Had they no conception of what would happen if the walls gave way? I’d been wondering if it wouldn’t be a good idea to trick them close by one of the gates, and then push them all out. I was glad Priscus wouldn’t be arming any of them.
‘There is a further matter,’ he said with a cold smile. ‘I think your assumption is that the barbarians waited until the passes were clear. But this doesn’t add up. The rains finished three days ago. From the reports I’ve had of the rain that fell, the passes must still be awash. This means that the people outside our walls must have been here all along. I’d like to know where they could have been in Attica without being noticed – and why they’ve now decided to turn up outside Athens.’
This was definitely unwelcome news. I dropped my stylus and, my own hands shaking, watched as it rolled across the table out of reach. I pushed my chair back and got to my feet. Trying not to rush like a frightened child, I walked down the room to stand before the bust of Polybius. The broken nose did give him a supercilious look. If I’d gone to him for guidance, I got none whatever. I’d never confess to anything but perfect self-control – not to Priscus, at least. And I saw no value in setting Martin off. But all this was getting to me, and I was ready to allow long chains of any nonsense to stand in place of reasoned hypothesis.
I turned and found Priscus standing behind me. ‘If you go on to the roof of this building,’ he said with false brightness, ‘you can see right over the city walls. You may have other plans for the night. But I think I’ll go and have a look at what we can expect for tomorrow.’
I did have other plans, and these did include Euphemia. At the same time, now that Corinth was off the agenda for the next day, there were some notes I needed to look over for the next session of the council. Instead, I found myself following Priscus ove
r to the far door of the library.
Chapter 44
‘You do have the most awful taste in women,’ Priscus said with another chuckle.
I stood beside him and looked miserably down to the city wall. Beyond it, almost as far as the eye could see, the campfires glimmered like the reflections of lamplight on polished marble. Far above us, the stars looked down. The moon was low behind us. Athens itself was in darkness.
I looked at the eastern horizon. Was that a little finger of cloud that might show a return of bad weather? Or was it smoke from the campfires? Hard to tell – though the slight breeze had shifted direction again, and I could smell the damp brushwood that had been set alight out there.
Priscus burped so loudly, it might have been heard by anyone beyond the walls who was still awake. Without bothering to look at him, I heard the opening of a lead box and was aware of a faintly aromatic smell. It didn’t matter if he was listening to me, or focusing on the rush of whatever he’d chosen to alter his mood. If I went on, it was for my own benefit alone. ‘If there are five hundred men we can rely on to hold the walls,’ I said, ‘I suppose we can rely on the monks for all ancillary parts of the defence. Even so, an attack at more than one spot . . .’
‘My dearest Alaric,’ came the smothered reply, ‘if these animals do attack in more than one place, we’ll be fucked. It’s as simple as that. Our job is to make it look as if we have an adequate force inside the walls. That’s why it’s so essential to know where Nicephorus has gone. When I was last here, Balthazar was living in a cave near Eleusis. We can hope they’ve both taken refuge there.’ He blew his nose and laughed bleakly. ‘Isn’t there something in Homer about campfires at night?’ he asked with a shift of tone.
The Ghosts of Athens (Aelric) Page 32