Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

I had my story ready for when I stepped out through the gap on the walls but no one paid the slightest attention. Dressed in the finery of a Persian noble, two naked boys beside me, another sobbing boy across my shoulder, I stepped right through a circle of men screaming orders at each other. We hurried across what remained of a wooden causeway. We nearly bumped into a party of armed men who were hurrying forward. I waved them aside and watched them step down into the water. I stopped by the dark wall of the pass and turned to look back at the stricken night palace. I’d been hoping it was on fire. All I saw was an irregular mass of darkness, framed by the lesser dark of the cloudy sky. I couldn’t see anyone. But there was a rising babble of shouts that indicated someone would finally see a personal interest in going in to spring Chosroes from his trap. It was best not to be anywhere close when he was carried out into the cold air of the night, bellowing for vengeance.

‘We tethered the horses in a sort of cave a hundred yards up on the left,’ Rado whispered in my ear.

I nodded in the darkness. He couldn’t have seen. I cleared my throat and laughed. ‘Those weren’t the orders I gave you,’ was what I wanted to say. It would have been ironic and nonchalant, and fairly memorable, and worth quoting in the biographies. But I was beginning to tremble with delayed shock and I didn’t trust my voice to sound as I wanted. I shifted Theodore to my other shoulder and patted Rado on the back. ‘Good work, my son,’ I said quietly in Slavic.

The rain had passed away and, although the clouds were still a leaden mass in the sky, it didn’t seem likely to return. Happy in my riding clothes, I sat on a stone and watched Eboric scrub the last of the gold paint from his body under a cascade of water from a high outcrop of rocks. He was astonishingly pretty, I thought again. Little wonder Chosroes had been taken off guard. Adoption brings certain paternal duties that must be taken seriously. The avoidance of incest, on the other hand, is one of those technicalities to be observed only in public. Such a shame the circumstances of our getaway would keep my increasingly lustful hands off him for the foreseeable future.

I sighed and turned my attention to Rado. ‘I have told you,’ I said in an interval of the snarled questioning, ‘that knocking him about won’t get us anywhere.’ Long before morning, Theodore had turned pious again and was crying out in Syriac for punishment. The savage beating that might actually have broken one of his ribs was no more than he was calling out for. Still, he deserved it, and it was improving Rado’s mood from moment to moment. Who was I to interfere? But for this shitty little God-botherer, Chosroes would now be dead and the invasion would be over — and possibly the war as well. And we could be riding off to snatch Antonia at our leisure. Indeed, Shahin would probably hand her over in exchange for my promise of asylum. As it was, the whole upland plain behind us was crawling with mountain cavalry. It was only because the horses were worn out that we were having even this break from our desperate climb out of their reach.

I stood up and stretched. I walked over to where Theodore was trying to pull out one of his wobbly front teeth. I bent down to him. ‘Listen,’ I said in Syriac, ‘I want you to tell me where you left Priscus. I need to speak with him.’

He opened his eyes. He burped and more bloody froth covered his mouth. ‘Tell your disgusting catamite,’ he whispered, ‘that I’ve had a vision of him writhing in the lake of black fire. It is a sin to show parts that none should ever see but God. It is a sin to take pleasure in their filthy perfection.’ He tried to spit at me, but knocked his head on a stone, and closed his eyes again.’

I stood up. ‘No more beating,’ I said firmly. ‘You’ll get nothing out of him when he’s in this state of mind.’ I pressed myself against a big rock and crept along till I could see the army of pursuit that had been set on us. They were all a very long way off.

‘We need to sleep,’ I said to Rado. ‘Do you suppose we’ll be safe here until it’s dark again?’ He nodded slowly. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll take the first watch.’

‘You sleep first,’ Eboric said behind me. ‘Leave everything to us.’ I frowned. ‘Sleep, Alaric,’ he said, now very firm. ‘We’ll wake you if anything happens. We need you rested for when there’s more talking to be done.’

I sat up in the light of a rising moon. ‘I said we’d take turns with the watch,’ I croaked.

Eboric pushed a water canteen into my hand. ‘There was no reason to wake you,’ Rado said. He patted one of the horses and whispered something in its ear.

I got up stiffly and looked about. ‘Where is Theodore?’ I asked.

‘He ran away just before the sun set,’ Eboric answered.

I pursed my lips. ‘If you’ve killed him, I’d like to be told the truth,’ I said.

‘Eboric’s telling the truth,’ Rado broke in. ‘Theodore said he was hurting all over, so we untied him. While I was getting him some water, he pushed Eboric over and ran towards the grove of trees down there. He was singing a very queer song. He turned round once and shouted back that his master was calling him and that we’d all be punished for our crimes against him.’

I walked carefully to the beginning of the steep incline. The moon was past its brightest but I already knew which patch of deeper blackness was the grove. ‘You could have gone after him,’ I said to Rado. ‘It’s not a very big grove.’ He and Eboric looked at each other. I sighed. No point in talking about duty. It was only words they couldn’t read, in a language they barely understood, that made him their brother and me his father. As for me, I’d never felt comfortable with Theodore. We’d never shared real confidences or relied on each other. I’d never thought to fall asleep with him close by. I felt a small stab of pity for the boy. But he’d gone off of his own will. Let that be an end of the matter.

‘Well, he won’t be able to slow us down,’ I admitted when I finally spoke. It was better than that. If the Persians caught him, they might take him back to Chosroes. That would mean some diminution in the search party for us.

I sat down beside Rado. I watched Eboric pull out some food they must have stolen in the pass. I looked up at the sky. Some time while I was asleep, the cloud cover had broken into harmless patches. Bright and unwinking, the stars looked down from the clear darkness between the patches. It would be a while before the wolves came out. Until then, the wind was setting up its familiar moan.

I took a sip of very sweet wine — the sort that’s made for eunuchs. ‘Do you remember how, when you first came to me,’ I began, ‘I said something about instruction in Greek?’ They both nodded. ‘What I then had in mind was enough Greek for boy slaves to make themselves useful. Now that your status is entirely changed, you must learn Greek properly. You must also learn to read and write.’ I reached forward and stroked Eboric’s cheek. ‘None of these things is very hard once you put your mind to it. These modern Greeks are decayed far beyond the level of our own peoples and they can manage a basic literacy when money is there for schooling. You are both young gentlemen now of an exalted status. You mustn’t do anything to let me down in Constantinople.’

Far behind us, on the wide plain, someone blew a trumpet. He was answered by a chorus of other trumpet sounds. ‘Do you think they’re being called back?’ I asked.

‘More like calling everyone together for a conference,’ Rado answered. ‘I’ve heard the Greek armies do this when they’re hunting for slaves. I think they’ll be up here before midnight.’