Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

‘This leaves us with the Home Provinces — that is, Thrace and Asia Minor. These are both Greek and Orthodox. They form a natural and defensible unit as the hinterland of Constantinople. They have not suffered a catastrophic decline of population and are potentially as rich as they were before the Empire fell on evil times. So long as they are not called on to pay for the maintenance of a world empire, there is no need to subject them to massive and destructive fiscal oppression. We have the makings about us of a wealthy and powerful nation — mistress of the seas and in control of every trade route by land. Everything else should be quietly abandoned. Our new neighbours can be loosely controlled by diplomacy and an occasional show of force. All that we hope to get as tribute we can get by trade.’

I waited for the enormity of what I was suggesting to sink in. ‘So you do want to break the Empire up,’ he said softly. ‘Father Macarius says that’s what everyone believes. Are you also planning another land confiscation?’

‘I wouldn’t call it confiscation ,’ I said, making a note to get rid of that bastard priest at the earliest opportunity. ‘The redistribution law Heraclius made four years ago has done much to stabilise the Home Provinces. Giving untaxed and inalienable plots of land to those who work on the land is rapidly turning bondsmen into citizens and — bearing in mind the consequent militia duties — even into soldiers.

‘But it has so far been a limited scheme. It has barely touched the larger estates. Except in the maritime provinces, the new landowners have retained significant legal obligations to their former landlords.’ I paused and darted a glance into Theodore’s face. Was that hostility I saw? I blinked. I looked at my polished fingernails.

‘Injustice aside,’ I said firmly, ‘we can’t afford to let two thirds of the useful land in the Home Provinces be owned by families that render no tangible service to the Empire. A nobility is useful as a repository of culture and as a higher administrative and military class. But we need to reduce the size and wealth of the nobility we have. Smaller amounts of landed wealth should be held on the understanding that they have public duties attached. Everything else should be handed over to a much-enlarged class of independent and armed farmers.’

There — I’d said it all in surprisingly few words. Perhaps Theodore was worried about it as a native of Syria, and because of what it meant for the gigantic landholdings of the Church. But he dropped the matter. ‘I’ve had a letter from Lesbos,’ he said. ‘Martin says he misses us, but feels increasingly purified by his vigils at the shrine of Saint Deborah.’ I looked solemn. The reason I’d given in so easily to his request for leave was that Saint Deborah had been martyred three thousand feet up a mountain. So long as it didn’t kill him, the daily climb would certainly shake some of the weight off him.

Theodore’s courage now returned. ‘My Lord — I mean, Father — I believe you are to attend a poetry recital this evening.’ I nodded. I’d sat down on my garden bench determined to cry off that ordeal. The first new letter my clerks had opened, though, was an undeniably genuine note from Nicetas. Dripping concern for my safety, he’d renewed his invitation in terms it would have been insulting to refuse. Theodore got up and walked jerkily inside. When I caught up with him, he was staring at the map coordinates on my desk. ‘I was wondering if it might be possible to come with you to the recital,’ he whispered. ‘You have often said I should acquaint myself with the secular arts.’ He ended with a pleading look into my eyes.

‘I’d be delighted if you were to come,’ I said. That wasn’t quite true. But getting him home to bed would be an excuse for leaving before Nicetas and his poet became too unbearable. ‘Of course, you’ll need a bath and your finest clothes. It’s to be a late event, and will go on till midnight. My own chair will be waiting downstairs at the second hour of darkness. Speak to Samo, and he’ll arrange a place beside me.’

‘Thank you, Father!’ he cried. I told Antony you’d let us go along with you.’

Us? My smile faded like colours left out in the sun. I’d assumed Antonia would still be asleep. What was she doing up and about? ‘Young Antony will be staying with us for a while,’ I said smoothly. ‘Though he will be joining us for meals, he does have duties that will keep him largely to his own quarters, or with me. I’m not sure if he has any time for poetry recitals.’

‘Oh, but he said he’d love to hear the works of a poet attached to someone as important as the Emperor’s cousin,’ Theodore cried with desperate enthusiasm. ‘After I bumped into him in the main garden, we spoke of little else.’ I watched his face brighten and go though as many colours as my map. Anyone else of his age I’d long since have taken to a brothel and given over to slaves who would tease out exactly what it was he fancied. With Theodore, I still hadn’t got round to discussing the mechanics of the fleshly sins his favourite authors denounced so roundly.

I could have said no. I was lord and master of all I surveyed. I should have said no. Every hypothesis I formed about the previous day somehow involved Nicetas. He’d done nothing to contradict that. I’d never yet had a note in his own hand, nor in his native Latin, and there had been more than a hint of the slimy beneath its tone of gushing friendship. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d said anything to please the boy. I remembered the promise I’d made before all my clerks. ‘Very well,’ I said — and I regretted the words at once. ‘We’ll all travel together in the big chair.’ He was beginning to tremble with excitement. Taking Antonia about in public hadn’t been on my list of things to do. She’d probably spend the evening gawping at Eunapius of bloody Pylae — I set aside the ultimate horror that she’d ply for business. But the Lord Senator had spoken and wouldn’t go back on his word. I led the boy to the door. ‘Do ask Samo to step in and see me at his convenience,’ I added, not exactly pushing the boy from the office but making it clear that I had other business that wouldn’t wait.

Alone, I picked up the sheet of map coordinates. They described various landmarks and villages in relation to their distance and direction from Laodicea. After so long living with all this, I had only to scan the neat tables of numerals and fractions, and then shut my eyes to see the map take shape. Instead, I dropped the sheet and closed my eyes to think of Antonia. Theodore had said she was up and about. If I hurried down to the garden, she might still be there. I was getting up from my desk — and finding that my own hands were beginning to tremble — when there was another knock on the door.

Either Theodore had run all the way down to the main hall or Samo had been coming up on business of his own.

After that promising northern breeze of the morning, the afternoon air was still as inside a church. I emerged from the Treasury archive where Lucas had his office into the baking and mostly empty semicircle that lay at the southern end of the Circus. My next appointment lay within a district of narrow streets that was a survival from the ancient Byzantium. The quickest route was a turn to the right and a walk past a junction of many sewers that was presently unroofed. I shaded my eyes and looked across at a sundial. I’d spent less time with Lucas than expected. I turned left and made my way towards a long covered passageway that would take me under the building that connected the Circus to the Imperial Palace. From here it would be a longer walk, but through streets that nearly always picked up some breath of air from the sea.