Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

‘Stop!’ Theodore called in Syriac from the far end of the room. I looked at him. ‘Stop, Alaric,’ he said, now clutching despite his bound wrists at the wall hangings. He pulled himself to his knees and laughed bitterly. For the first time since he’d been found howling in the mountains, he switched into Greek. ‘I know your secret,’ he sneered. ‘You’ve come here with Priscus to murder the Great King. But know ye not the words of Saint Paul:

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. ’

He fell down again in hysterical laughter.

Chosroes was on his feet and racing across the room. ‘Priscus is dead!’ he wailed. ‘How can a man kill me when he’s dead?’He reached Theodore and kicked him in the stomach. He turned him over and slapped his face. He kicked him in already ruined balls. He was wasting his time. For several years, I’d been aware of Theodore’s belief in the purifying nature of pain. He really was now ready to receive the violet crown of martyrdom — he’d have gloried amid the flames. Chosroes stopped and turned in my direction. ‘What are you up to, Alaric?’ he asked. ‘I welcomed you back. I trusted you. How were you planning to kill me?’ The guard was on his feet, sword at the ready. His chain trailing behind, Urvaksha crawled in the vague direction of his master’s voice.

‘Kill him, O Great King!’ he shrilled yet again. ‘The knots never deceive. He came with murder in his heart. Kill him now!’

Chosroes looked at me. He looked at Theodore. He looked at the guard. From a sheath I’d already guessed was up his sleeve, he pulled out a steel blade of his own. He opened his mouth to speak, but was silent.

The silence was broken by a sudden pattering of hands on a drum. It came from behind a curtain on my right. Angry, the Great King turned to see who’d disobeyed his direct order to be left alone with me. The drumming settled down into a brisk and flowing rhythm that I well remembered, and the curtain was pulled aside.

Naked, covered all over in gold paint, Eboric stamped hard three times on the floor and raised lightly muscled arms in the opening moves of his orgasm dance.

I don’t believe there was a man alive who could resist Eboric’s charms. Even with a sword at my throat again, I could see that the boy was outdoing himself tonight. You can search me how he and Rado had got up here undiscovered. Ditto how they’d got themselves kitted out for the dance. But here they were and Chosroes was hurrying across to stop the guard from sawing my head off. ‘We’ll go on with our conversation after the end of what may be a delightful surprise,’ he snarled. ‘If it really is delightful and if you can prove any involvement at all in it, you may get a flash of my merciful side.’ He sat down a few feet from me, and turned his attention back to the perfect unfolding of complexity.

I looked on, rigid with shock. Slowly, as the pattering of Rado’s hands on the drum took on a firmer rhythm, I found myself able to think again. I’d taken a sudden and gigantic risk, and I’d got so close to solving every problem we faced. Right up to the last moment, the plan had unfolded as if someone had been directing things in a play. Now, for the second time in a month, that worthless shit Theodore had ruined everything. I should have listened to Priscus and left him to beg his bread in Athens. Failing that, I should have taken a proper look at him when he got to twelve, and dumped him in one of the more ascetic monasteries. By now, he could have been sticking skewers through his nipples and making everyone miserable with his visions of hellfire. If I ever got out alive of this latest catastrophe he’d arranged, I’d see to it that Theodore got a whole lifetime of moral suffering. I took a quick glance in his direction. Sure enough, he was on his knees again, peeping out from behind raised hands at the controlled indecency of Eboric’s dance.

What I’d do if I ever got out alive! Looked at realistically, it was all up for me. I’d gambled and I’d lost. The question was should I make a deliberately futile gesture and get my throat cut? It would be an easier way out than Chosroes was doubtless considering. Or should I try insisting that the boys were strangers and that the plot was wholly mine and Theodore’s? I didn’t think he’d believe that — two Western barbarians whose working language was Latin: I might as well have claimed black was white. But it seemed wrong of me to take the easy way out and leave two boys who’d risked everything for my sake to carry the main punishment.

Rado was beating out a more complex rhythm and the dance was reaching its climax. Chosroes already had both hands inside his robe, and was fondling himself. He didn’t risk penetrative sex nowadays, I knew — not since one of his wives had tried to do for him with a toxic pessary. But he might contain himself till he’d walked round and round Eboric, poking and fondling as the mood took him.

Slowly, now darting forward, now back, not seeming to notice who I was, Eboric came closer. I could feel a slight tremor in the sword still held against my throat and could hear a change in the guard’s breathing. The boy raised his arms and lowered them, and the iron bracelets he had on each arm moved up and down the gold of his skin. He stretched out his arms in a gesture of endlessly wanton enticement.

Chosroes waved his own sword at me. ‘Go and stand against that wall, Alaric,’ he said evenly. ‘Stretch out your arms as if you were already on a cross. Try not to move.’ To the guard: ‘Go and dance with the boy,’ he said. ‘Keep hold of the sword. Disembowel the boy if Alaric moves so much as an inch.’ He looked at me and twisted his face into a snarling and triumphant smile. ‘Your plot is discovered, Alaric,’ he cried. ‘Whatever you and these boys had planned won’t happen now. When this dance is over, you’re going down that ladder bound hand and foot. We’ll see how much of your democratic manner is left this time tomorrow!’ He lay back against a mound of cushions and pulled at his clothes until his scab-covered belly and crotch were exposed. He clenched both fists and arched his back. He looked again at me and let out a high giggle. ‘You just stand there, Alaric, and watch me bring myself off without hands. I may see how well you can do it tomorrow — without hands! ’ He pointed at the guard. ‘Dance with the boy, I command!’ he giggled.

Drawn sword in hand, the guard lurched forward at Eboric and was left clutching at air. He spun round and tried again. Once more, Eboric shifted position almost without seeming to move. On his third attempt, the guard laid hold of the boy’s left shoulder. He pulled him forward into a rough embrace. The drumbeat was rising to its fluttering climax. Chosroes steadied his voice. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said. ‘When I sit up, ‘I want you to bring the boy forward and cut his throat. I want his blood splashing over me when I go off. Do you understand?’

Grunting over his throbbing stiffy, the power-crazed bastard had overreached himself. I could see this with the chilly calm that sometimes comes with despair. It was as if I’d stepped from the jostling crowds and the heat of the Triumphal Way into the entrance hall of my own palace. I knew what had to be done and I was free to act. Eboric was effectively dead. I was twelve feet away from Chosroes. I could break his neck before the guard could try to stop me, and before he could squirm to safety. So what if Chosroes ran me through first? I was only choosing a quick death over a slow one. More to the point, unless he got something vital, I’d have enough strength left in me to see to him. Eboric would be dead whatever happened. Rado would have the chance to make a run for it, or die fighting. What I’d had in mind earlier involved my own escape. Well, that was now out of the question. But I could still do the rest of the world a favour.