The Ghosts of Athens (Aelric)

by Richard Blake

  I’m sure Nicephorus was impressed. I was too busy trying to creep along at speed to think anything at all. Of course, bearing in mind he’d said there was someone, and that he couldn’t be seen going towards the glow of our own lamp, there was only one direction in which to look. And, if he really had been able to see in the dark, Balthazar would have seen two people, not one.

  But none of this got round the fact that those dark and utterly ruthless assassins were padding after us, and I had no idea where we were heading. I hurried along in the darkness, Priscus thrown over one shoulder, my free arm held out in case we came to another dead end. After some unguessable time of hurrying forward, I nearly sprained my wrist on a wall. I felt about and made off along another tunnel. The air was now increasingly fresh and cold, and, more and more, the smell of death was overpowering.

  Without realising its approach, I found myself running in only near-total darkness. Somewhere ahead, there was a reflected glow of moonlight. It wasn’t enough to see anything clearly. But it was a welcome sign of some possible escape from those approaching footfalls one or two dozen yards behind us.

  Yes, there was an exit. I came to it almost before I could see it. Rather like the tunnel that had brought us from the residency, someone had cut another opening in the smooth stones lining the underground passageway. For all I could tell, the passageway itself continued for ever and ever. But this opening had a flight of more crumbled steps, leading up to a patch of light from a moon that shone directly in. I threw Priscus forward on to the steps and forced him to the top. I nearly vomited at the sudden blast of corruption as he fell forward on to a cold and slimy corpse. I clutched hold of it to avoid falling back down the steps and sent it slithering down to the bottom. I thought at first that the jagged hole through which the moonlight came was too small for me to get through. But it had been narrowed with loose bricks, and these just fell outwards as I shoved at them with both hands. For one horrifying instant, I found myself tangled in my own sword belt. Then, pulling Priscus heavily behind me, I fell out into the full soft glow of the moonlight.

  I lifted Priscus bodily out of the way and dumped him in some brambles. Even as I tried to pull out my sword and take advantage of my position against anyone who tried following us out, I realised without any shock at all that we’d come out beside the tomb of Hierocles.

  Chapter 51

  ‘I don’t think they’ll follow us here,’ Priscus said with a long gasp. ‘Even they aren’t that suicidal.’ He got up slowly and uncertainly and moved towards the road. Just before he got there, he sat down heavily. I thought he’d finally collapsed. But: ‘Don’t go on to the paving stones,’ he said weakly. ‘You’ll show like a louse on white skin.’ He was right.

  Trying not to snag my clothing on the brambles, I sat down beside him. I listened carefully. There was a faint scraping from within the tomb, and a quiet noise of argument. I kept very quiet, sweaty hand clutching spasmodically on my sword grip. But there was no louder scraping – no reason to suppose we were to be followed out into the open.

  We sat there for what may have been a long time. Gradually, Priscus came back to something close to normality. . ‘Did I ever tell you how I got out of Trampolinea alive?’ he wheezed.

  ‘I think you’ve already given me two versions,’ I said. ‘Have you a third that involves an underground chase?’

  His answer was a low wheezing laugh. He took hold of a relief on the front wall of the tomb and used it to help himself to his feet. He stood, still clutching the tomb for support and breathing with forced slowness. ‘Do pull that hood over your head,’ he groaned. ‘We didn’t come out dressed in black for no reason.’

  Twenty yards beyond the far side of the road, there were the remains of a campfire.

  ‘Not fifty men about that,’ he giggled softly, ‘not fifty men awake, at any rate.’ He looked harder. ‘But somewhat more than a thousand fires, we can be perfectly sure.’

  From inside Athens, our wall had seemed ridiculously flimsy. Seen from out here, it seemed quite otherwise. We were, I knew, about a quarter of a mile outside. The moon had gone behind some clouds, and there was nothing to be seen of Athens except a break in the vast mass of dying fires.

  Priscus took me by the shoulder and turned me to the left. ‘Over there,’ he said, ‘we’ll find one of the corner towers. It should have a dozen guards on the night shift. If everyone there can be woken, we’ll get ourselves pulled up on ropes.’

  I didn’t consider trying to go back directly the way we’d come. But there was the possibility of sitting here and waiting for the slaves to come after us. It would soon be morning, and my orders to stay put would lapse. They could cut their way through the men Balthazar had with him. Then, we’d be able to get back into the residency. Come the morning, I’d personally supervise the blocking off of that tomb from within. We really couldn’t afford anyone to find so easy a way into Athens – not straight into the residency.

  But Priscus had already thought ahead. ‘The longer we’re out here,’ he said in a most reasonable tone, ‘the greater the chance we’ll be caught out by the dawn.’

  I nodded and stood up. There was a loud crack as I stepped on a dead branch of something. Priscus muttered something contemptuous and pulled me further away from the road. His own eyes had been useless underground. Now, he seemed able to see everything about us. We set off across the sea of bushes and jagged stones that stretched far away on each side of the road.

  Perhaps I’d trusted too much in Priscus and his night vision. Perhaps the path he’d charted through the wilderness was more circuitous than I’d thought it was. But long after we should, in my view, have stood calling softly up at the sleeping guards, we were still picking our way over broken ground. We hadn’t even come to the ruined bathhouse that had been taken over by the barbarians as a covered position close by the tower Priscus had mentioned. I looked up at the clouded sky. Far over in the east, there was the slightest glow of the light before dawn. Not long now, and we’d be able to see where we were going. If anyone out here was up early, he’d be too busy shaking life back into his stiff and chilly limbs to bother looking at a couple of dark figures flitting about. We’d get ourselves back into Athens, and shock everyone in the residency by our loud banging on its gate . . .

  There was a low and bitter laugh about a dozen feet behind me. ‘Did you really think you could evade the gift of sight the Goddess has made me?’ Balthazar asked. He grunted an order, and I heard the rasp of a drawn sword somewhere on my left.

  I spun round and saw the movement of a darker blackness against the dark of the night. Almost without thinking, I’d got my own sword out and had lunged with it. There was a gasp of pain, and I felt my victim drop to the ground. I stood back and looked hurriedly about. Whoever else was out there had gone very still, and I could see no movement. But there was a faint sound of someone breathing, and it wasn’t Priscus. Trying not to make any sound of boot leather on stone, I moved slowly in the direction of the breathing. At the very last moment, there was another flash of darkness within the dark, and Balthazar was laughing again.

  ‘Don’t think there is any escape,’ he said, now conversational. ‘Those who have done evil must themselves suffer evil.’ I heard him breathe in and then cry out in a loud voice, ‘Come, come, good beasts of the frozen north,’ he shrilled in Greek. ‘Come and see what golden prize I bestow upon your thrice-accursed souls.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ I snarled. Sword raised to strike him down, I rushed at where he must be standing. I crashed straight into Priscus, who was trying for the same. We fell down together in a heap. As we swore at each other and got up, Balthazar skipped out of reach and began more of his shouting. I grabbed at Priscus. There was still no light worth mentioning. But the great darkness of Athens was assuredly before us. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I hissed. But I now felt a hand brush against my face. I dropped Priscus and struck out hard with my right fist into nothingness.

  ‘O Goddess, Goddess,’ B
althazar cried in the great voice he used for impressing the gullible, ‘now is the time to serve thy servant.’ There was a response from a few yards away in a drowsy Slavic, then an angry grunting from somewhere else. Balthazar was far behind me again, and was setting up an old invocation that might have woken the dead.

  O come with rosy fingers, Dawn,

  And gods and mortals show the morn.

  Yes, hither, hither come: reveal

  What evils might the night conceal . . .

  It would have been more dramatic if there had been some gradual fading in of light. But it was enough that just about everyone in hearing distance was coming out of his slumbers and beginning to feel about. I took hold of Priscus by his cloak and began pulling him forward. I stepped straight on to a hand. I silenced the shout of pain with a quick downward stab and carried on forward. I saw the big dark shape before it could see me, and rammed my sword into its middle with all my strength. The man went down without any sound. But there was now blood spurting all over me, and my hand slipped as I tried to pull my sword back out. As I tightened my grip and pulled hard, someone who’d been lying down put his arms about my legs, and I went straight down. I was up in a moment, but my sword was gone. I struck out with both fists at another lumbering shape and felt a giving way of jawbone beneath a great beard.

  All this time, Balthazar hadn’t let up his maniac invocation of a dawn that still hadn’t come. I think I got someone on the nose with my elbow. Not caring how and where I landed, I jumped away from the arms that were trying again to lock about my legs. I did land on my feet. I bounded forward, but now tripped over a stone and fell into a pair of massive arms that tightened about my chest as if I’d been a child. I tried wildly for a head but I only found myself buried in the lower half of a large and stinking beard. Someone else had now thrown himself on to my back, and I was held fast.

  There was a long and blundering shuffle, as the man beneath me got himself free and joined in holding me face down on the rough ground. I heard a shout of triumph and then the hard crack of one stone on another just above my head. I held my breath and went very still.

  ‘Right, let’s be looking at this fucker,’ someone growled in Slavic. There was a tired laugh beside him.

  I waited till there was no one on top of me, then jumped up with all my strength, ready to make a dash for it. But, if I’d been down for what had seemed the tiniest instant, there now was enough light for anyone to see round. I’d broken out of the main huddle. I was picking up speed – when a single massive hand took hold of me by the scruff of the neck and held me without any hope of escape. I was thrown down with force. Even now, I might have got up again. But my cloak was caught in more of those brambles, and I struggled just a moment too long. Before I could get clear, someone new had got me from behind, and was holding a knife hard against my throat.

  ‘One move, you thieving shit, and you’re dead,’ he croaked with ill-natured menace.

  ‘Please, please, good sir,’ I called feebly in Slavic tinged with a Germanic accent, ‘give food for the starving. You can do what you like with me after.’ I stroked his leg with my one free hand. But the light was coming up fast. The time was already gone when I could try playing along with the most obvious suspicions. There was a great shout of rage from another man, and someone ripped the cloak straight off me. I rolled back in the brambles, showing a tunic of torn but very blue silk.

  ‘We’ve got ourselves a fucking Greek!’ came a voice from my right. There was a shouted laughter of three or four big men. I saw a hand reach over and press a knife back to my throat.

  ‘Correction, my dear fellows,’ I heard Priscus laugh from somewhere behind me. ‘You have caught yourselves the top man of King Heraclius himself!’

  All hands were suddenly taken off my body, and I was able to sit up and look about me. The three or four men I’d guessed were in fact over a dozen. They sat, grinning uncertainly at me, knives still at the ready. One man holding a spear at him, Priscus was sitting on a large stone. He rubbed his head and smiled. He looked easily round and raised both hands.

  ‘And I, who have brought him to you, am Priscus – the only general who has ever driven off your Great Chief in open battle.’ He smiled again and nodded encouragement at the man who’d now stood back from him. He got up unsteadily and walked over to where I was still sitting in the brambles. ‘One of us,’ he said to me in Greek, ‘had to shit on the other. The only reason I waited so long was that I was sure it wouldn’t be you.’

  He pointed at the man nearest to me and frowned. ‘Get him bound and gagged,’ he said. ‘You really don’t want to take any further chances with the little squirt.’

  Chapter 52

  Though Athens lies on a wide plain, this itself is watered from three lowish sets of mountains. There is Aegaleos to the west, and Brilessus to the east. To the north is the Parnes chain. Decelea guards – rather, it had guarded – the easiest southern passes through this chain. I’d thought, the previous day, that the Great Chief had finally arrived outside Athens. No one bothered telling me anything at all as, bound and gagged, I was thrown across a small pony and taken north. But it was fair to assume that it would be somewhere close by the smoking ruins of what had been a town of about a thousand people that I’d be ushered into the presence of Kutbayan himself.

  There is, I hope you’ll agree, no such thing as luck. It is a most vulgar concept – much called on to explain facts that would make perfect sense if the long chains of cause and effect by which everything happens could only be made to reveal themselves. At the same time, I’ve never met anyone who failed to act but on the assumption that there is good luck and bad luck. As the sun rose higher in the sky, and I tried to slither into a less uncomfortable position on my pony, I had plenty of time to reflect on the really awful run of luck that had brought me here. I really should have taken one look into that blackness of the open tunnel and set myself to thinking how it could be sealed up again for good. Instead, I’d gone into it with Priscus of all people. Everything since that one choice had followed with an unbreakable run of the most rotten luck.

  Once or twice, I heard Priscus raise his voice in a manly laugh as he discussed another of his interminable battles. It had been a surprise to learn that he’d ever won a single battle, let alone against the Avars. No one had spoken of this in Constantinople. Certainly, Priscus himself had never mentioned it. The impression I’d always had was of a Commander of the East promoted because there was no one else to put in the job, and because he did at least know how to retreat while his enemies wore themselves out.

  We stopped for a while at noon. It was then that someone ungagged me and squirted water into my mouth. I made myself swallow every drop of the dark and brackish stuff, and tried to ignore the omnipresent smell of death. ‘I want to speak with your head man,’ I managed to croak. I didn’t really believe I could talk my way out of the relative positions Priscus had managed to establish between us. But it was worth trying. It failed. The only answer I got was a light punch in my side and a hurried replacement of the gag. I could suppose it was a mercy that this was a proper slave gag – that is, it was one of those things that resemble a short strap-on dildo, and only keep you from speaking without stopping your breath.

  Once we were moving again, and I’d got my tongue into the least awful position against the roll of much-employed leather, I managed to pull my head up long enough for a look round. I’d supposed the dead were human. In fact, it was herd after herd of cattle that had been killed and stripped and left to rot in the sun. I could see shrivelled women and children darting from one heap of bones to another, stuffing their mouths with whatever scraps of stinking offal had been left. I would have looked more. It was a change from looking down at the stones of a very bad road, but hardly pleasant enough to risk choking. I made myself go limp and went back to reflecting on the defects of an enquiring mind.

  Before I could be trussed up like a beast to the slaughter, my tunic had been ripped down to my
waist. I could feel the opening pains of sunburn on my back as the afternoon grew hotter and more oppressive. I had to fight like mad not to scream, and then start blubbering from the pain and horror of it all, when someone slapped me on the back at our next stop. This time, I drank what was given me and didn’t try looking up.

  It was only as I felt the power go out of the sun that the beast carrying me began to slow, and the continuous mumble of laughed conversation from behind me died gradually away. Someone held a knife before my face and giggled. Then he cut the leather straps that had kept me in place, and I slithered off to land on my back in the dust. A grinning red-bearded face looked down at me as I squirmed from the sudden pain and tried once more not to cry out. Still holding his knife, he bent slowly over me. I didn’t suppose that, having been carried all the way here, I was to be done in by someone of such obviously low quality. More likely, he was trying to scare me. I looked steadily up at him as he moved his head to left and right, now blocking and now showing the sun. At last, he pulled a face and put his knife away. He stood up and stretched his arms with a loud cracking of sinews. When he bent forward again, it was to loosen my gag. I still couldn’t speak, but there was no longer that leather stump jammed against my teeth.

  ‘Get him on his feet, and get him washed,’ I heard Priscus call from somewhere out of sight. ‘You can take a comb while you’re at it to that pretty hair of his. It’s thick with dust.’ He laughed and went into Greek. ‘You’ll surely allow,’ he chuckled at me, ‘that you look a proper sight.’

  I don’t know how long I’d been sitting, bent forward with my head on the ground. Because I hadn’t slept in over a day, I might have nodded off for a while. If so, I’d only dreamed that I was sitting all alone in the middle of a wide ring of tents. Every so often, really or in my dream, dirty children came over and stared at me. An old man may have come over for a while and lectured me for a long time in the language of the Avars. What he said seemed full of meaning. But, since I had no Avar, and was in no position to try him in Slavic, his meaning was lost on me.