Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

‘Is that Theodore?’ I asked.

It was.

‘Don’t let big Rado kill me, Father,’ he cried in Greek, as he was tossed on to the path before me.

‘Don’t kill him unless you have to,’ I said. I thought quickly. ‘Take him back to the camp and wait for me there,’ I added. I turned my own horse off the path and cantered into the darkness. ‘Priscus!’ I cried softly. ‘Priscus! I know you’re out here. Why won’t you show yourself??’

I fell silent. I bit my lip. I waited. I thought of riding back to the path. Then I heard the gentle stamp of a hoof behind me on the right. ‘So eager for my company, dear boy!’ he called mockingly. ‘If only that had marked our friendship from the beginning, how much better things would now be for all of us.’ He laughed. ‘Still, it’s never too late to mend.’ He laughed louder. ‘Any chance of a drink? That boy of yours is a rotten thief.’

‘The order was for dimmed lamps only,’ I said. From the illumination showing through the walls of our tent, Antonia had inherited something from her father.

She ignored the rebuke. ‘Who’s that man with you?’ she asked in Latin, nodding towards the open flap of the tent.

‘That’s the demon I told you was living with us,’ Eboric said, crossing himself. He went placidly back to letting Antonia comb his hair.

Priscus stepped fully inside. ‘I am delighted, Madam, finally to have made your acquaintance,’ Priscus said in Latin. How bowed. ‘I am Priscus, former Commander of the East, among much else.’

Antonia raised her eyebrows. ‘I was under the impression you’d been dead for a year. Are you the swine who was spying on me in Alaric’s palace?’

‘It’s our palace,’ he replied with a smile — ‘ our palace, please be aware.’ He sat on the ground and reached for a jug of the local red.

I scowled at the pathetic dribble he’d left for me. He laughed and finished that as well. ‘Am I right in my suspicion, dear boy,’ he asked, ‘that you are proposing to lead an army of shepherds and beekeepers into action against the main Persian army? If so, you’ve gone fucking mad.’ He smiled at Antonia. ‘The young lady will, of course, pardon my Syriac.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that, My Lord,’ Eboric said helpfully. ‘Rado’s in charge of everything.’ Antonia nodded and pushed him down again, to continue with the bow she was tying in his hair.

Priscus grunted and put the jug down. He looked about for another. I hoped there was none. ‘Well,’ he finally said, ‘Alaric’s not as completely stupid as he often looks. If he’s let Rado take over, you’ve some chance of being alive and at liberty this time tomorrow.’ He reached into his sleeve and took out a lead pill box. ‘But where is the young hero?’

‘If you’re speaking of me, My Lord, I’m here.’ Rado stood in the doorway of the tent. ‘How long have you been following us?’

Priscus got up and bowed again. ‘Not long at all,’ he said. ‘When I discovered that Shahin’s reception party was somewhat larger than we’d expected, I had the same idea as Alaric to snuff out the top man. Sadly, I’ve had no more success.’

‘That’s all very well,’ I broke in. ‘The idea now is to scare them into a retreat. Rado will give you a listing of our forces. If you want to inspect them for yourself, we’ll get everyone out of his tent.’

Still on his feet, Priscus looked at Rado. ‘I don’t think we need to disturb men on the eve of battle,’ he said. He walked across the tent. ‘Let’s go for a walk. We can discuss everything in private.’

I made to get up. ‘I wasn’t speaking to you, my fine and pretty bean counter,’ he sneered. ‘You just wait in turn for your hair to be done. We’ll be back when we’re ready.’

I broke the long silence that resulted. ‘I didn’t realise Priscus bothered much with the household slaves,’ I said.

‘Rado was always his favourite,’ Eboric explained. ‘They used to spend hours together when you were working or having sex.’ He twisted round and smiled shyly at Antonia. ‘My Lady will forgive me?’ She patted him on the shoulder and took up a mirror to show him with his finished red bow. He spent an age admiring himself, while I tried not to fidget. But he did finally put the mirror down. He kissed Antonia’s hand. ‘Yes, they always got on ever so well,’ he took up again. ‘They’d sometimes talk all night about war and fighting. It was Priscus who gave him the idea of building his muscles up until you would think of letting him go into the army.’

I tried my best not to notice how Antonia shook with laughter.

It seemed like half the night, though it probably wasn’t that long, before I heard them walking back together. They shared a quiet joke in Slavic outside the tent, before the flap was opened wide and Priscus poked his head in. ‘Come out, Alaric,’ he said in Greek. ‘It’s time we had an honest word in private.’

The moon was out once more from behind the clouds and its dim light shone over the quiet stillness of the plain where we’d set our camp. Priscus led me up a small hill and sat down on the grass. I sat beside him and refused the pill he offered — for what was to come in just a few hours, I needed my natural wits about me. Together, we looked for a while at the distant glow of the fires in the pass.

‘Rado’s plan is sound,’ he said abruptly. ‘That’s not to say it will work. But what he’s cobbled together to meet your strategic requirements is the best one for the circumstances. I suggested one change in a matter of detail — an important detail, I’ll grant — but you’ve no need to outrage the boy by asking me to take charge. Believe me that he’s the best man to do the job you’ve set him.’

I said nothing. My earlier panic was over and I now felt ashamed. I patted the short grass, and thought of the hills in Kent. There was nothing for me to say. Priscus had brought me here for him to do the talking. It was for me to listen.

‘Do you recall how, when I was banged up in that monastery, I wondered if I hadn’t been reserved for some final achievement?’

I nodded. ‘Something that would get you a better place in the histories than you were likely to get,’ I said.

He sniffed. ‘On second thoughts, I think the histories can look after themselves. But I did spend a lot of time in the attic you gave me, thinking about one last thing I could do with myself. The trick with the silver cup seemed exactly the thing. I heard about it on one of my night wanderings. That was a while after I’d discovered that Shahin was sniffing about with Eunapius and Nicetas. I approached the old loons who had it and told them I had a commission from Heraclius himself. I got the box made, covered it with lies and got word to Shahin about its wondrous qualities. After that, it was largely a matter of letting events unfold without further intervention. I stole the cup and dumped it with you when something you don’t need to know about went wrong. It was somewhat ungrateful of me. But, so long as you keep telling yourself that the end justifies the means, you can’t deny that everything went absolutely swimmingly. By the time he took sail with the thing, Shahin had no reason to believe other than that we were desperate to keep it out of Persian hands. I could hug myself, thinking that I’d saved the Home Provinces and sent the Persian elephant charging at Egypt instead.

‘Then it all began to unravel. I should have expected you’d work out part of the truth about the box. I was hoping Eunapius didn’t know quite as much as he did. When you left earlier than I expected, I had to come after you and stop you from interfering with Shahin.