Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

Eboric and his brother had been glorious finds after the repulse of a Lombard attack on Naples. Leaving aside their own dignity, I’d be buggered if I so much as considered sharing either of them with anyone — certainly not the tub of rancid fat that was His Magnificence Timothy. I gave my empty cup to the boy. ‘Tell Cook you’ve earned a very big spoonful of honey,’ I said in his own language.

The same thought in our minds, Timothy and I watched him scamper up the last flight of steps to the entrance. He’d outgrown his tunic again and it barely covered his upper thighs. My attention was pulled away from those endless bedtime romps by a low groan of horror from the street behind me. It was followed by a faint babble of insults.

‘Some of your Jewish friends, I think,’ Timothy said, now in accusing tone. ‘If you can bear another friendly word of advice, they’re all Persians at heart. Your good nature was surely misled when you persuaded the Council to advise Heraclius against enforcement of the conversion law.’ I nodded vaguely. I could have asked what use there was in making things worse than they already were. But we’d had that argument already. It was a nice morning, and my Jews were here. I stared at the three uncovered chairs that were making their way past the big statue of Poseidon. There are many reasons for employing Jewish financial agents. One is that they don’t waste time when you call them to an emergency meeting.

I watched ben Baruch and his cousins carried towards the lesser entrance to my palace. ‘I imagine there’s something they want,’ I said dismissively. Not quite truthful, that. I was about to call in some favours. Another reason Jews are worth employing is that they’re often a good substitute for the Intelligence Bureau. If there was anything I needed that morning, it was a bit of intelligence.

I took off my hat and smiled my thanks at the slave who was setting about me again with his fan. ‘Withdraw five baskets of the new coin from the consignment for the Lord Exarch of Ravenna,’ I said. ‘Exchange it for gold at the bank of ben Baruch and give it to the envoys of the Chagan. Give them also three pieces of purple cloth and an appropriately altered copy of the letter written earlier this year to the Grand Chieftain of the Malakioi. The oral message to give them is that the Emperor would look benevolently on their crossing the Danube, so long as it was for an attack on the Avar encampment outside Sirmium. A further payment will be made in copper on the standard scale for every Avar scalp presented by the next embassy sent to Constantinople.’

I waited for the clerk to finish making notes on wax that was probably melting in the heat of my official garden. ‘Send notice of my decision to the Lord Caesar Nicetas,’ I went on with a sigh. ‘Draw attention to my compliance with the Emperor’s Standing Order made on the Feast of Stephen in the second year of his reign. Make sure to get a receipt from the Lord Caesar’s secretary.’ A useful requirement, that, as the notice wouldn’t be read by His Magnificence the Lazy Turd. I thought about the depleted shipment of silver to Ravenna. I hadn’t made any definite promise to the Exarch of how much subsidy he’d get. But the shipment I was now making was barely more than a token of our continued interest in Italy. ‘Tell the Lord Exarch,’ I added, ‘that he is at liberty to approach His Holiness of Rome for another contribution to Imperial defence. He is permitted, in return, to overlook the Pope’s dealings with the Lombards in respect of their withdrawal from the Septenna district of Etruria.’ I put my hat beside me on the stone bench and closed my eyes. The sun was turning hot enough for August. ‘Bring me the draft of the letter to the Exarch. I will expand on it in my own hand.’

Another clerk stepped forward with his own load of correspondence. An earthquake had damaged the running track in Aphrodisias. Would the Emperor pay for its repair? ‘No,’ I said. ‘The general remission of taxes to the Home Provinces is the only help we can presently give. Diverting money from the war effort is out of the question. Find the letter I wrote last month to the town council at Nicomedia on a similar request. Adapt it and bring it to me for checking.’ There was a new paragraph I had in mind about the joys of voluntary effort in an age of lower taxes.

‘Your son, Theodore, craves a moment of your time,’ one of the clerks suddenly intoned.

I opened my eyes and focused on the boy. ‘At your age,’ I said, going into Syriac for privacy, ‘you should be wearing no clothes at all on a day like this. But you might at least take off that bloody cloak. Do you want to be ill again?’ He bowed and said nothing. I gave up on the next sentence I was forming. If overdressed, Theodore had put on cleanish clothes. He’d even washed and combed his hair. I wondered if I could manage a paternal smile. Best not, I thought. I had a dozen clerks watching me with close attention. ‘What is it?’ I asked, trying instead to sound friendly.

‘I have a favour to ask of you,’ he mumbled in Greek.

I got up and put my hands on his shoulders. Even through four layers of wool, I could feel how bony they were. Why would the boy not give himself to Glaucus? There were limits to what could be done with a body so naturally unpromising but daily training would put something on those bones. It might also open out his lungs. I smiled into his sallow face, and felt the usual wave sweep over me of pity mingled with guilt. I should have sent him home to Tarsus. I could easily have paid for one of his dead father’s neighbours to take him on. But I’d felt so sorry for him in Athens, once his stepmother was gone.

‘Ask your favour,’ I said loudly. ‘The answer must surely be yes.’ There was an approving murmur from the clerks. Theodore opened and closed his mouth. He turned a shade of pink. He looked round at the clerks.

‘My Lord,’ a new voice called behind me, ‘the map is ready for your inspection.’

I looked away from Theodore. ‘Ready so soon?’ I asked. The drafting office must have been working night shifts to get that ready. I looked again at Theodore. He was no closer to making his request. ‘I’ll be up in my office,’ I said generally. ‘Join me after a half-hour break by the sun dial.’ I took Theodore by the arm. ‘Come on, I said. ‘We’ll talk indoors.’

After so long in bright sunshine, it was a matter of feeling my way to the foot of the backstairs or waiting for my eyes to adjust. I chose the latter. Even this far, a brisk walk had left Theodore wheezing slightly. ‘How is that eunuch who was taken poorly yesterday?’ I asked.

‘Father Macarius was with him at the end,’ came the answer in Theodore’s mournful voice. ‘His skin turned the colour of lead and he cried out that the Devil had taken his soul.’

‘Oh, surely not!’ I said in a voice of what I hoped was firm piety. Obviously, I thought about my cup. Unlike ceramic or wood, you can’t impregnate metal with poison. Both eunuchs had pawed all over the cup. One of them had polished it on his robe. That would have removed anything nasty smeared over the surface. There had been nothing left for me. I made a note to have a proper look at the thing once I was completely alone.

I looked up from the squares of starched linen that covered half the floor in my office. ‘My compliments to the entire drafting office,’ I said. The young clerk nodded and tried not to look as pleased with himself as he deserved to feel. I took another step back to admire the neatness with which numbers had been turned into blocks of colour. If the basic idea was mine, the Treasury officials had eventually taken it up with an enthusiasm that made its final shape their own achievement. I took a step left and wondered if there had been some defect of scale in showing the Italian provinces. Also, was Syracuse really so far south of Corinth? It didn’t matter. It might even be useful to give Heraclius something he could then correct in some unimportant detail from his own knowledge. What did matter was the correspondence of numbers with colour. That, I could see, was wholly correct.