Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

I paused and continued looking at the boy. The agent knew my instructions. Despite the unpromising snarl on the boy’s face, he probably hadn’t failed me. ‘You are my slave,’ I said softly. ‘I haven’t had you broken to slavery. But a slave is what you are. You are a two-legged beast as much in my absolute and unaccountable power as a pig bought in from the market to serve at my dinner table.’ I smiled again and waited for my words to register in his head. ‘Here is the deal, Rado. You can be trained as a dancer for my guests and perform such other duties as are assigned to you. You will be taught the rudiments of Greek and be baptised into the Christian Faith. It goes without saying that I expect obedience at all times. I also expect personal cleanliness. In return, you will not be beaten. You will not be chained up at night. You will, moreover, train in the use of that sword and you will keep it sharp and within reach; and you will use it as required in my defence or in defence of this palace. You will receive my absolute trust. Most of the time, you will be holding that sword when my back is turned on you. On the Emperor’s birthday, I free one fourteenth of my slaves, and send them into the world with my blessing and a gift of money.

‘You can accept this deal. Or I can send you to one of the slave markets in Constantinople, where you can hope for — and almost certainly not find — a better master. How do you choose, Rado?’

‘Do you give me any choice?’ he asked bitterly.

I smiled again. ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘But I always like to ask.’ I stood up and took the sword from him. ‘So do untie that tunic, Rado. It’s filthy as well as torn. It can help feed the boiler that provides water for your first-ever bath.’

I flashed a happy smile at Martin. He might think this palace accursed and claim there were shadows moving just out of his direct view. There were upwards of a hundred other people here who counted it their lucky day when they were brought through the gates. And every night because of that, I slept soundly in an unlocked room.

‘Alaric, I’d like to ask you a question,’ Priscus announced one late afternoon. Outside, it was raining and the barred window had no glazing to keep out the chill. After a fair beginning, the conversation had languished. All Priscus could bring out was another of those ghastly anecdotes that showed what a good idea it had been in general to lock him into this cage. As for me, I was depressed by news of another campaign mishandled by Nicetas — this one had let a Persian army deep into the Home Provinces and, only after much loss of life and property, had a confederation of my local militias eventually forced a retreat.

I looked away from a stain on the table cloth that reminded me of a map of Britain. ‘By all means,’ I said, trying for an interest I didn’t feel. I was thinking of an excuse to make a dash back inside the City before the rain came down in the volume that, before it darkened, the sky had seemed to be threatening.

‘The philosophers and priests teach that it doesn’t,’ he said after fumbling with his wine cup. ‘But do you think the end ever justifies the means?’

I put my own cup down. ‘Yes,’ I said. By tacit agreement, we’d long since given up on trying to deceive each other. If we were lurching into a symposium, we might as well both be honest in ways that would have shocked Plato. ‘The end does justify the means if a number of conditions are satisfied. First, the end must be worth achieving as reasonably understood. Second, the means chosen must be reasonably likely to achieve the end. Third, they must be the most economic means available. Fourth, they mustn’t involve reasonably foreseeable costs that outweigh the expected benefits of the end. Answer yes to all of these, and the means are justified.’

Priscus smiled. ‘A good philosophy for a saint or a villain,’ he said. ‘In Persia, you lied and killed and betrayed. Because you then kept telling yourself how it would keep your beloved farmers digging their fields in peace, I don’t suppose you have any trouble, now you’re back, in thinking yourself an honest man. I’m sure you still think yourself a better man than me.’

‘Fewer bodies,’ I answered, ‘even allowing for age. Less enjoyment, too, in producing them.’

He arched his eyebrows. ‘Dear me, Alaric — so little understanding of your truest friend!’ He stood up and, as if from habit, went over to put his ear close to the door. ‘Listen,’ he went on, ‘if I’ve usually killed with pleasure, I’d like you to tell me when I’ve ever been known to kill from pleasure.’ He stopped and sat down with a sudden loss of energy. ‘What I did outside Simonopolis got me black looks from all and sundry in the Imperial Council. But I lifted the siege with fifty dead on our own side. The Avar horde I sent streaming back towards the Danube left ten thousand of their own dead to be fought over by the crows. Compare that with the irreplaceable armies Nicetas is about to piss away in Syria.’ He poured himself more wine.

‘If you’re wondering what’s put me in the mood for moral philosophy, be aware that today is my sixty-eighth birthday. You may think this a very advanced age. I never believed I’d make it so far. But you’ll pardon me for wondering how I shall be seen a hundred years from now. That I ended up in this place will be less important to the historians than what else I did.’ He got up again and beat his chest. The response was a dry cough that terminated in itself. He laughed. ‘I also can’t help wondering if I haven’t been reserved for some final achievement.’

He laughed again. Visiting time would soon be over. I’d have to hurry if I wanted to get back before the guards I’d bribed at the Military Gate went off duty.

It was Good Friday in 614. I’d spent all afternoon with Heraclius and everyone else of importance in the Great Church, listening to a mournful sermon from the Patriarch. The sufferings of Christ had been his overt subject. Every mind, though, had been on the news, drifting in with every post, of the catastrophic defeat Nicetas had managed for us in Syria. After that it had been a gambling party, where I’d stripped a couple of young heirs so naked their fathers would have to come begging my indulgence the next morning. Then it was home for a nightcap of triumphant sex with pretty young Eboric and his brother. All was as it should be when, at some time in the deepest part of the night, I was woken by a cold and bony hand clamped over my mouth.

‘Not sleeping with a knife under your pillow,’ Priscus wheezed. ‘is an affectation I beg you to reconsider.’ He took his hand away. I sat up and blinked in the light of the dimmed lamps. I looked about, trying to make sense of things. I was in my own bed. The boys must have gone back to the slave quarters.

I got out of bed and stood facing Priscus. ‘What the fuck are you doing in my bedroom?’ I demanded.

‘Dearest Alaric, it did used to be my bedroom,’ he said. ‘I see there are ways about this building you still don’t know. You evidently don’t know about the very secret entrance. It’s as dusty as when I last used it.’

I began to feel panicky. Visiting a traitor in his place of confinement was something you promised not to do again if it came to the Emperor’s attention and he chose not to be pleased. Harbouring one at home was treason. Priscus reached for one of the darker bed covers and threw it at me. ‘Come over here and look,’ he said. We went together to the balcony window. Even before he’d got the door open, I could see the glow of fires that blazed from a dozen points beyond the land walls of the City. I leaned over the balcony and looked right. It seemed the abandoned suburbs were a sea of flames.