The Terror of Constantinople a-2

by Richard Blake

  There was an impressed murmur at this, and several members of the crowd stepped back from the slab.

  I would have said more. With my dramatic gesture, though, I’d caught sight of flabby old Nicias in one of the gibbets. Still dressed in the robe he’d worn in the Imperial Box, false teeth rammed upside down in his mouth, his horribly twisted body swayed in the breeze.

  ‘And so,’ I ended lamely, ‘it is the duty of all good citizens to utter no words that may contribute to demoralisation of the people. Come, Martin,’ I said, eager to get away. ‘We have work of the highest importance.’

  The wine shops were still open for business. All other trading was at an end. The University was closed. Even the bookshops were shuttered and barred.

  ‘No exit from the City, after all,’ said Martin. He was quietly pleased with himself. I ignored him.

  Going back past the Great Church, for the first time I was required to prove my identity.

  The funeral was over. We’d managed a good showing in the church. There had been all my people – and these now included the Legation staff. Theophanes had turned up in time for the interment. Even Priscus had sent flowers.

  Overawed by the crowd, Gutrune had confined herself to silent weeping beside Martin. A dab of opium juice on his lead comforter, Maximin had sat quietly in her arms.

  Now – the gate securely fastened – we were back in the Legation. I sat at the Permanent Legate’s desk, going through his papers again. On the third day of the investigation, I was no longer put off by the volume of papyrus and parchment. It was no longer a question of examining each document, but of what nuggets of information could be extracted from the whole.

  ‘It’s the accounts from February onwards that are missing,’ Martin said, looking up from his own pile of boxes.

  I pushed the documents into a pile and reached for my cup. ‘There’s no point in going through all this again at the moment,’ I said. ‘I need to sit down alone for a while and think it into a pattern.’

  No such luck!

  ‘Pardon me for intruding, My Lord.’

  It was Antony. Now that I’d given him the routine business of the Legation to direct, he was looking almost cheerful.

  There was an Imperial messenger downstairs. Should he show the man in?

  51

  Phocas sat down heavily and waved me into another chair placed opposite his own. I was back in his private office. As if he found its mockery too great in his current situation, he sat with the map of the Empire behind him.

  ‘I came as soon as I received the message, Your Majesty,’ I explained. ‘It was the strip searches that held me up.’

  The Emperor threw me a bleary scowl. ‘That’ll be my eunuchs,’ he muttered. ‘They must have something to do to justify their salaries.’

  He straightened up and pointed at the secretary who was hovering over by the desk.

  ‘Get out of here!’ he snarled. ‘I’ll sign the death warrants later. The victims won’t complain at the delay. And shut both doors.’

  We were alone. I took up the wine cup set before me and drank. Phocas took up another of his parchment sheets.

  ‘You were shopped late yesterday evening to Priscus,’ he began. ‘Some bookseller says you were buying blasphemous writings.’

  I nearly choked on my wine. I thought of Nicias in that gibbet.

  Phocas squinted at the writing on the sheet. It was a very big sheet, and the writing was very small. Someone had been busy, it seemed.

  ‘I have better things to do than fuss about the contents of your library,’ said Phocas, looking up. ‘But Priscus can be very persuasive in the matter of my duties.’

  He dropped the sheet on the floor and looked at me.

  ‘Sir,’ I began, trying to look and sound untroubled, ‘I am, as you know, here on Church business that requires me to consult a wide range of writings. Many of these are heretical, as they will allow us more effectively to counter heresy in the West. Some are atheistical writings from ancient times. Some are defences of the Old Faith. They are deeply shocking to anyone of delicate sensibilities. But it is my sorrowful duty to read them, in the hope that I may help steer others from the path of deception.’

  I would have said more along those lines. It usually went down well. But I could see that Phocas wasn’t really interested. Even so, I’d see that fucking bookseller hung from the city walls at the first opportunity. And I’d bribe the pick of his books out of the Black Agents.

  ‘I’m told all these books mean more to you than just the service of Holy Mother Church,’ said Phocas, pulling out another sheet from the box beside his chair. ‘Let me see-’ He raised the sheet close to his face but the tiny writing was too much for him in his present condition. That too landed up on the floor.

  His voice now took on an edge that was alarming.

  ‘Priscus has got hold of a list of all the books you’ve been consulting in the University Library,’ he said. ‘My son-in-law tells me you’ve been having many of them copied. These can’t all be for Church business. I’m told some of them shouldn’t exist, let alone be available for any barbarian to march into the city and inspect.

  ‘I suppose I should ask what your game is. Have you been sent here as a spy?’ He leaned forward and looked me close in the face.

  ‘As you know, Caesar, I am from a province currently under barbarian rule,’ I said. I was trying desperately hard not to shit myself on the spot.

  Espionage accusations – and from Phocas!

  ‘My people are fast accepting the light of Holy Mother Church,’ I said. ‘Nevertheless, they are an unlearned race, and our ancestors took no care of the libraries that once flourished in the cities of Britain. Those cities are all passed away, and we live in mud huts roofed with straw.

  ‘It is my ambition to help my people to a perfect understanding of the Imperial languages of Latin and Greek, so that they can more perfectly understand the doctrines of our Most Holy Faith. Perhaps it will also bring them to an acceptance that True Religion means obedience to God’s Political Representative here in the City.’

  Phocas tipped his head back and roared with laughter. ‘If I’m still Emperor when all this is over,’ he jeered, ‘I’ll certainly make you an ambassador. You’d do better with the Persians than some of the morons I’ve sent out.’

  That was a promise I didn’t fancy having remembered. I thought of what had happened to the envoy he’d sent to the Great One. But I made sure to look flattered.

  Phocas leaned forward again. As the laughing fit passed, his face sagged back into semi-drunken blankness. ‘Do you know what I want most in the world?’ he asked. ‘And how you might be able to help me get it?’

  I’d been wondering when he’d get round to this. I’d been turning responses over in my mind for three days.

  ‘I suppose, sir,’ I answered, ‘it has to do with a formal denunci ation of Heraclius.’

  ‘It might,’ he said, a faint sneer on his face. He leaned back to reach for his cup. ‘I’ve made you Acting Permanent Legate. That means you have all the powers of His Holiness in Rome. You could sign an excommunication here and now. I could send it outside the walls under a flag of truce, and then sit back while all hell broke loose around Heraclius.’

  ‘Indeed, sir, I could,’ I said. ‘If you put the document before me, it would be my undoubted duty as a citizen of the Empire to sign it. However, would it be in your present interest to ask such of me?’ I paused.

  ‘Well, get on with it,’ said Phocas with a slight, though not wholly genuine, impatience. ‘Let’s see how you too can wriggle out of paying back all the favours I’ve done those shitbag clerics in Rome. Let’s see just how good your diplomatic skills are.’

  I thought again of Nicias. No reply was plainly the wrong reply.

  ‘Sir,’ I began, ‘if I were to sign a formal excommunication of Heraclius, it would serve no useful purpose in your present circumstances. It might cause problems for Heraclius in Africa and in the West as a
whole. But this would take months to have any effect – even if we could get it out of the City.

  ‘It might tip the Eastern Churches solidly behind Heraclius – and it is Easterners who are presently with him outside the walls. So far as I can tell, his main army out there is Syrian and Egyptian. They don’t like Rome at the best of times. Their reasonable inference would be that a deal had been done, under which you would declare His Holiness to be Universal Bishop.

  ‘I repeat – I will sign anything you put in front of me. I suppose it would be accepted in Rome, bearing in mind my present status. But would it be of any immediate use?’

  Phocas gave me another of his terrifyingly blank looks. Then he laughed again. He began softly, but soon, in his drunken state, ran out of control. He was now laughing so hard that tears ran down his face. He drained his cup and refilled it.

  ‘No,’ he said – ‘No, you aren’t anywhere near so stupid as my dearest Priscus assures me. Well said, my pretty boy. And do have another drink.’

  I said a prayer of thanks as he turned to discussing the Greek Patriarch. Had I, as representative of the Pope, any recommendations as to a successor, should poor Thomas not come back to life?

  ‘I may not be the most authoritative source on these matters,’ I answered with another stab at diplomacy. ‘The only person I can think of who is both holy and learned enough for such preferment is one Sergius, who is an associate of the Professor of Theology.’

  Phocas grunted and wrote the name on the back of one of his death warrants.

  ‘I’ll have to think about that,’ he said. ‘I suppose you are aware that Sergius has been nagging me to have you killed? He hates all Westerners and didn’t welcome your presence at all. Still, turn the other cheek and all that!

  ‘Do you suppose you’ll ever see Rome again?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘I have a woman there,’ I said, a renewed cold tingle in my guts. ‘I have a woman there with child. I may already be a father by now. It is my wish to return to Rome at some point. But I am a citizen of the Empire and a servant of the Church. My duty is to go where I’m sent and do there as I’m told.’

  ‘And my present wish’, said Phocas, ‘is that you should be here, and that you should continue investigating the death of the Permanent Legate.’

  He stretched in a manner that indicated he’d had enough of my company. As I rose and began the perfunctory bow he said he didn’t want, but always seemed to enjoy, he leaned forward again and caught my sleeve.

  ‘What did you find out at the Monastery of St John?’ he asked. For all his other problems, the man knew my movements pretty well.

  ‘I have some reason to believe the place is harbouring Demetrius,’ I explained. I added that the Abbot had refused my dispensation from his vow of silence.

  ‘Well, that’s as it should be,’ Phocas said, giving me another of his blank looks. ‘The Fathers of St John are good friends of His Holiness in Rome. They have his full confidence. That, of course, means they have my full confidence. Don’t go back there ever again.’

  ‘No, Caesar,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve already ordered Priscus to get those men withdrawn,’ he said after a long belch. ‘It’s a fucking insult to the Church, wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Without any possible doubt, Caesar,’ I said.

  I was back in my own office with Martin and with Maximin. A light dinner had been served and cleared away. The sky outside the window was darkening. To the best of my knowledge, we were alone. For the moment, we spoke softly in Latin.

  ‘Oh, what can this mean? What can it mean?’ Martin asked in a stunned voice, going back to the main point.

  ‘It means’, I said, ‘that something is going on far beyond our guessing. Demetrius and Agathius seem to have killed the Permanent Legate. Agathius was almost certainly working for Heraclius. Theophanes helped set it up. Now Phocas is protecting Demetrius.

  ‘It’s possible that Heraclius wanted the Permanent Legate dead to prevent any deal between Pope and Emperor. Then again, it’s possible he wanted such a deal so the East would rise against Phocas.

  ‘Theophanes, we can be sure, is up to something that secures his own interest. But I don’t think he’d act without at least the knowledge and tacit consent of Phocas or Heraclius.

  ‘What Phocas is up to is beyond me. If he really wanted an excommunication, getting rid of the Permanent Legate and re placing him with me was a step in the right direction. But he wasn’t that keen this afternoon to ask anything beyond my advice on clerical appointments.’

  I explained the denunciation Priscus had made of me to Phocas. ‘I can’t begin to imagine what his interests could be beyond succeeding Phocas. But it’s quite obvious that he wants me dead. That, or he wants me as a friend. Or perhaps he wants both. They seem interchangeable in his mind.’

  We lapsed into silence.

  ‘I prayed hard this afternoon while you were at the palace,’ said Martin. ‘I prayed for your safe return. And I prayed for understanding of the mystery.’

  ‘“Half only he granted, half he denied him,”’ I said, now in Greek, quoting Homer. ‘I got safely back from the Most Sacred Presence. But we’re neither of us any closer to the answer we want. We still have the mystery to solve.’

  I looked over at Maximin. So long as they get regular feeding and changing, it doesn’t take much to keep a baby happy.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Martin, ‘we are labouring under one of those false assumptions you always warn against?’

  I looked at Martin. It could be that praying had sharpened his wits.

  ‘Perhaps Theophanes killed the Permanent Legate,’ he suggested.

  ‘That might explain the murder itself,’ I said. ‘But where’s the motive? Also, we know the Permanent Legate’s papers were sifted. That must have been done before the body was found. I can’t comment on the intelligence of His Late Excellency Silas. But I think most people would notice a fat eunuch pawing over their private files.

  ‘Now’ – I checked Martin’s reply – ‘now, it is possible that the Permanent Legate was already a corpse when the papers were sifted. We’re no longer committed to believing in a murder shortly before dawn. That body might have been lying there half a day at least. Theophanes could have murdered the Permanent Legate even while we were all in the Circus.

  ‘But this stretches the timing until it undermines the only hypothesis that appears to make sense. We’ve decided that Agathius and perhaps Demetrius killed the Permanent Legate shortly before Agathius came looking for me. Of course, if proven facts demand it, we must reject the hypothesis. Even so…’

  I trailed off. We sat a while in glum silence.

  ‘If it weren’t for Authari,’ I said flatly, ‘I’d suggest going slow on the investigation, and waiting to see what happens with the siege. You don’t investigate murders when an Emperor crops up among the suspects.’

  ‘But we must avenge Authari,’ Martin said with sudden insistence. ‘His soul won’t rest easy until we know the truth and act on it.’

  I didn’t recall reading that in any of the Scriptures. The sentiment had more to do with my own people or even with the Old Faith. But I wasn’t inclined to disagree. I’d put the poor bugger in danger. It was up to me to make the blood sacrifice.

  ‘We have our duty to Authari,’ I agreed. ‘That means we press on to the end – wherever that may be and wherever the path may lie.’

  As I got up, Antony knocked on the door again. Another messenger – this time from ‘His Magnificence, the Lord Eunuch’, he sniffed, with a comment on the late hour. The man had left a note, then gone off again.

  I broke the seal and scanned the familiar wording.

  ‘Here’s a change of direction,’ I said eagerly. ‘He’s arrested Demetrius, and is effectively inviting me to help turn the rack before anyone can intervene.’

  52

  Antony’s point about lateness had been worth making. Even in the City, there comes a time for business to wind down. I wal
ked out of the Legation into almost empty streets. No moon shone down from the now clouded sky. All was silent. Were Heraclius to break in by night, the presently unmanned barricades might still slow his progress. No one seemed to worry, though. And probably Heraclius too was abed.

  From my first visit, I recalled that Theophanes had his palace about fifty yards down a side street that curled past a church built in some Oriental style. It was all just outside the zone of street lighting, but I could see the church looming ahead, a greater darkness against the dark sky.

  ‘Would that be Your Honour, come to see the eunuch?’ a voice called out of the darkness in the whining Greek of an Easterner.

  A cloth came off a lantern about a dozen feet away.

  ‘What might that be to you?’ I asked in a voice steadier than my insides. The message had said to come alone. For once, no chair was provided. Bearing in mind the need for secrecy, that had made sense back in the Legation. It was the first time I had been invited to visit Theophanes at his palace rather than his office in the Ministry. That also had made sense in the safety of the Legation.

  In its general form, the message had looked genuine. I now kicked myself. If only the message hadn’t told me what I so wanted to be told, I might have waited till morning.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ I asked again.

  The lantern shook slightly as a whispered conversation began. I strained to see who was there but whoever was holding it was dressed in dark clothes, and the dim light was all thrown in my direction.

  ‘Did you bring any money with you?’ another voice called out of the darkness. It had a greedy edge, but also sounded pleasantly surprised.

  ‘That depends on how much you want, and on what you might care to give me in exchange for it,’ I answered, reaching inside my cloak for the reassuring feel of my sword.