Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

‘You’re going nowhere!’ Simon shouted triumphantly. He stepped towards me, and I saw the glitter of a knife in his raised hand. I think I heard a shouted order from Shahin.

‘Fuck you!’ I snarled. Ignoring his knife, I shoved his left hand hard against his body. That was the hand in which he still carried his lamp. Soaked in oil, his robe caught fire. He jumped back and dabbed at himself, shrieking as yet only with fear.

I hear the rasp of a sword and, in the light cast from Simon’s burning robe, saw a man lunge at me. I went for him with my knife and, with a crunch of iron against teeth, got him through both cheeks. As he fell down in a sobbing scream, Antonia was pulled from my bloody left hand.

‘No killing!’ Shahin bellowed above the babble of shouted Syriac and the screams of those I’d injured. ‘Just keep hold of the girl.’ I turned away from the huddle of armed men who were now retreating from me. Someone had Antonia from behind and was pawing at her breasts. ‘Put the knife down, Alaric,’ Shahin took up again in a loud and desperately calm voice. ‘Put the knife down, or she gets her face carved off.’

Someone had put Simon out and we were down to the light from the sky. But I saw the light reflected in the little knife Antonia had brought with her on deck. She sagged suddenly forward and twisted partly free. I watched as she brought the shining steel up and thrust it with desperate and unerring strength into the man’s right eye. I’d underestimated her in a crisis, I thought approvingly.

Even before the screaming man hit the deck, I had Antonia’s arm again. I threw my knife at someone who was hurrying forward to clutch at me. I took her in both arms and threw myself backwards over the rail. A moment later, she and I were coming up for air in a sea that was like black and liquid ice.

‘Get the boat — the boat!’ I heard Shahin roar above the babble of shrieks from the ship. ‘I want them both alive.’ I caught hold of Antonia’s hair and pulled her close beside me. She’d got herself afloat but was crying out from shock and the cold. She wasn’t up to much directed effort. I looked about for the lights of Constantinople. They seemed much dimmer and more distant at sea level.

Swimming with one arm, I dragged her forward until we had to be out of view from the mirrored lamps that Shahin’s men had now brought up on deck. ‘Get on my back,’ I gasped, taking in a mouthful of salt water. ‘Put your arms about my neck and hold on.’ I stretched my arms into a wide arc and kicked in the direction of the shore. Shahin had seen me swim the Euphrates in July. That’s wholly different from sea swimming at night — sea swimming at night with two arms clamped round your neck. But thoughts of Chosroes were a useful spur. By the time I stopped to see if we were still going in the right direction, the babble of shouts on board the ship was already a few hundred feet away. So far as I could tell, they still hadn’t got Simon’s boat or their own into action. I took a long breath and struck forward again.

Antonia loosened her grip on me. ‘Let me come off you,’ she cried in soft panic. ‘I can swim by myself.’ I slowed again and looked up to tell her not to be so stupid. One look at the shore and I realised what she was getting at. The long strait past Constantinople has a top current and an undercurrent. Their relative strength varies according to the time of day. No one with any sense ever tries to swim there. The currents are too dangerous. Even as I made for the shore, I could see it moving further and further to my right. If we didn’t get a move on, we’d be swept into the wide Propontis.

‘Keep hold of me,’ I said in a voice that shook with cold and a fear I couldn’t control. ‘One big effort and I can do this.’ I wasn’t sure I could. But it seemed a fair guess that she couldn’t and that she’d vanish the moment she let go of me. I looked again at the now fast-moving lights on the wall and pointed myself right. Leaving Antonia to hold on as best she could, I strained every muscle as I darted forward. Now I was swimming diagonally with the current, low waves kept sweeping over me. I thought once I’d have to stop to cough out a whole lungful of water. But I kept thinking of a boat rowed by terrorised Syrians, hurrying to get in front of us. I thought of Shahrbaraz and the very stiff bow he’d give me as I was shoved forward into his presence. I thought again of Chosroes. And I thought of the swirling, limitless waters of a Propontis that might begin only a hundred yards to my left. Antonia moving her own body in time with mine, I called on every reserve of strength and swam toward the lights.

I was still swimming when Antonia slid off me and stood up to her waist. I felt cold where she’d been against my back and tipped myself upright. After a boyhood spent swimming in the Channel off Richborough, it was no surprise how warm the sea now felt on the rest of my body — nor how cold I felt out of the water. I crouched down, with my head out of the water and my feet bouncing on the smooth boulders placed all about the sea walls to stop any ship from landing. From what I could see of the wall, we weren’t far from the Golden Gate. When I did finally stand up properly, I should be able to see the night beacon on top of the Marble Tower.

Antonia splashed down beside me. ‘I think they’re coming after us,’ she breathed through chilled lips. I nodded. I’d expected no less. I turned and looked out to sea. The light that was coming closer might be from one of our own patrols. But I didn’t think it was. I shook more water from my ears and tried to listen. The voices were too deliberately low for me to hear other than they weren’t Greek. I felt Antonia take me by the wrist and pull me behind a large boulder. I slipped lower into the water and stared at the crescent moon. We’d got away! There was now the matter of getting back inside the City. I was knocked out. Now I’d stopped moving, the sea was feeling cold again. The wind would make us colder. It would be at least half a mile to the nearest gate and that would be barefoot over ground that some very clever engineers had made difficult to cross in shoes. But sod all this — we’d got away.

‘Alaric!’ I heard Shahin call from perhaps a dozen yards away. I froze with the shock of his voice and sank in up to my neck. He went on in Persian: ‘Alaric! I know you didn’t drown. You’re here somewhere and listening to me. There are matters we need to discuss. I have a deal I should have put to you over dinner. You must believe I am your safest option. Come out and join me in this boat. Bring the girl or leave her. She’s no longer important.’

He drew breath to say more. But I didn’t hear. As he’d been calling out to me in a language she didn’t understand, Antonia was pulling me behind a clump of boulders where the water shelved to about nine inches. At once, her cold lips were pressed against mine, and her body was joined to mine. If I’ve suggested I was wholly worn out from that wild dash through the sea, I’d be exaggerating. I had energy enough to go with Antonia into a world of intense and sustained pleasure, and to stay there for what seemed a very long time.

I moved away from her for the last time and realised we were both up to our waists again in the cold sea. Her face drained of expression, Antonia was staring up at the moon and the wide carpet of stars. ‘You didn’t leave me,’ she said in a wondering voice. ‘You’re the first man I’ve known who didn’t betray me.’

I thought what reply to make. Even then, I was a man who could speak and write to effect in many languages. I might have told her things that a poet would have envied. But the time for words was drifting by. What to say, though? Women are strange creatures. When you aren’t completely certain what to tell them, it’s best to say nothing at all.