Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

‘Then what’s the problem?’ she asked.

‘The problem,’ I explained, ‘is that your clients have come up against Eunapius of Pylae. He’s in thick with Nicetas, who is the Emperor’s cousin. Anyone else and I could write one letter ‘asking’ for the law to be obeyed. Writing to Eunapius would be a waste of papyrus. He wouldn’t be scared by the implied threat of a tax audit. And you can forget about formal proceedings. He’d go straight to Nicetas, who’d run to the Emperor with a cloud of accusations against me and your clients. No, it’s worse than that. While the Emperor’s away, Nicetas might try his luck and directly order me to desist. He’d also go public. Set up that manner of dispute and there’s no chance Heraclius would side against his own blood.’

‘So, what will you do?’ she asked. ‘The men who walked here aren’t the only victims. There are dozens of other families who have had their land taken back. There are also accusations of rape and murder against some of his men.’

Now I had the relevant facts, this was getting better and better. And I’d been under the impression that Antonia was an assassin hired by Nicetas to supplement his seditionaries! I’d said I’d have him for the trick he’d pulled on the Triumphal Way — and I would!

I stuck my chin out. Doing that, I’d been told, made me look older and more authoritative. ‘Your clients must wait until the new currency law comes into operation,’ I said. ‘On that day, Heraclius is due to come back from his pilgrimage and I have a long private meeting booked with him. If I use the right approach, he’ll issue a formal rebuke against Eunapius. There will be no going back on that. Until then, I want your clients to keep out of sight. If they’re short of money, I’ll give help through an intermediary. But they must stay out of sight. I don’t want anything that will prod Nicetas into action.’

Now I’d got the whole story, I could finally be glad that we’d met. Here was an open breach of the law — probably documented, if I got someone to dig round the local archive — by a known agent and possible nominee of Nicetas. If I used this right, I could get the Emperor to slap his cousin down good and hard. I might not be able to stop his general campaign against me but I could shut off the stream of collusive actions in which Eunapius of Pylae always managed to be a first- or second-hand party.

‘So, we’ll have to see the Emperor’ — she squeezed her eyes shut, evidently thinking back to what I’d said in my hall of audience — ‘on the second day of the second week. Will I need special clothes to see him?’

I stepped off the road to let a wide cart rumble by. I frowned at Antonia. ‘What makes you think you are coming with me to see the Great Augustus?’ I asked with a lordly toss of my head. All I needed to do was get Heraclius on side, and then produce those rough-handed farmers to look noble and put-upon. I didn’t need a woman there to babble away like a drunken litigant in person.

‘Because it’s the custom,’ she answered. ‘When a Minister needs special clearance to do something, the petitioning agent always goes with him.’

‘Don’t be silly!’ I said with another lordly toss, this time nearly dislodging my hat. ‘All else aside, you don’t even look like a man. I won’t ask how you got this far. But there will be no more of this ludicrous attempt at a petitioning career.’ I paused and made myself look very firm. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, I’m having you put on a fast carriage back to Trebizond.’ I paused again for dramatic effect and found I was growing more out of love with myself with every moment I allowed to slip by. ‘However,’ I said, softening my voice, ‘the lowest clerical grade in the tax administration is sometimes open to women. Since I assume you can read and write, I will provide you with a letter of appointment to the office in Trebizond.’

I couldn’t say fairer than that. Even if unwittingly, Antonia had done me a favour. I’d return it by keeping her and her mother from going hungry. She’d had her big adventure in life, and could look forward to telling her children and grandchildren how, for one day, she’d laid petitions before Alaric the Magnificent.

That wasn’t how she saw it. ‘It’s not fair!’ she cried. She stamped her foot. ‘I don’t want to go back to Trebizond — and you can’t make me!’ She sat down in the road and drew her knees up to her chin. I looked at her. Couldn’t make her — eh? I was a member of the Imperial Council. If I wanted, I could drag her aside and rape her in full view of everyone else on the road. If she didn’t know that, her father must have done a crap job of bringing her up. I smiled and said nothing as she repeated and varied herself on the matter of fairness. Now I’d got used to the short hair, I couldn’t deny she was a pretty girl. But that only made it more important to get her out of a place like Constantinople. I really was doing her a favour.

I kicked another stone, this time making sure it skipped into the brambles lining the road. ‘I could make you an inspector of taxes,’ I said, trying not to think of the scandal that would cause in the Trebizond office. ‘You couldn’t appear in court yourself as a prosecutor. But you could employ a clerk for that. The other duties would make you a woman of some consequence.’

‘I’ve told you, I’m not going back to Trebizond!’ she snapped. ‘I’d rather die than see that dreadful place again.’ Someone on a donkey who’d just overtaken us looked back at this. I fell silent and thought about my silver cup. I wouldn’t send it to the mint, I decided. I’d write a poem of thanks that would annoy Nicetas by outshining anything his own Leander could make up.

At last, we were at the second milestone beyond the walls. It was here that the road veered right to avoid some very hard rock that lay along the shore. This left about a half mile of shoreline invisible from the crowded road. This was where I should have been before the sun was high enough to be warm. Serves me right if Lucas was stamping up and down on the beach like an enraged bull, and if the desk in my office had already vanished under a burial mound of unanswered correspondence. I looked at the expanse of low crags. I’d heard — and I may have heard wrong — that this was the mouth of a river long since diverted to feeding the City water supply. What remained was an alternation of dark and jagged rock and low points between that ranged between smelly puddles and salt marshes. Beyond that, Lucas should still be waiting. I glanced at the first of the puddles, and wished I hadn’t come out in such lovely boots. But I could be glad of my cloak. If the sun was just lately over its zenith, the northerly breeze had settled into a chilly blast. I let my sleeves down and pulled my cloak forward.

‘Smugglers put in here at night,’ I said for the sake of conversation. ‘It’s the final link in a chain of evasion that begins at the Red Sea. You land small high-value items here — incense or pepper, for instance. You then carry them under your clothing into Constantinople. It’s the same with contraband like heretical books or magical paraphernalia.’ Antonia nodded vaguely. I’d got her back to her feet by offering an illegal appointment to clerk of the fourth grade. Since then, she hadn’t spoken.

I stepped off the road. ‘Give me your hand,’ I said. ‘You’ll tear your clothes if you fall.’ She ignored me. I shrugged. We scrambled without another word over the first series of crags. I tore my leggings and put a deep scratch into my left boot.

‘Is Tanais in Egypt?’ Antonia asked as we finished climbing down. The road was now out of sight. We’d soon be looking down at the sea. I was glad she was out of breath. I reached my hand out again. This time, she took it. She came down beside me in a little shower of stones.