Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

For some reason, I’d assumed the room was empty. It wasn’t. Once my eyes were adjusted to the gloom, I saw a vastly obese creature, wallowing in straw as he was serviced by a couple of child prostitutes. He struggled to sit up, and the turd one of the children had deposited on his chest slid down, to be squashed beneath a fold of his belly fat.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded. ‘What are you doing here?’

I peered harder at the man. ‘Why, hello, Timothy,’ I said. ‘I didn’t recognise you without the wig.’ I realised I was standing on the outer garment of his Prefect’s uniform, and stepped on to the rough boards. I glanced out of the window. Simon had gone from where I’d last seen him. I thought about asking for the loan of Timothy’s cloak. My leggings were gone below the knees and their backside felt wholly ripped out. He’d probably refuse. I dropped the thought. My boots were sound. All else was secondary. I went for the door. ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ I said without turning.

The only question worth asking about the carrying chair was how long its owner and his slaves had waited before buggering off. I couldn’t blame them in a place like this. I looked both ways along the narrow street before deciding to go left. Far away, I could hear Simon’s voice raised in wild shouting.

I’d rounded a corner when some piece of trash about my own age tried jumping me from above. ‘Oh, ho ho!’ he roared, nearly landing on my shoulders. I stunned him with the pommel of my sword and kicked him out of sight into a doorway. I didn’t check if he was breathing. I didn’t look about to see if he’d had friends. I’d have given more attention to scowling at a dog. Oddly cheered, I hurried forward. Unless I was mistaken, it couldn’t be more than a few hundred yards to the western side of Imperial Square.

It was a shame about the compounder. He’d been dragged into this against his better judgement. If I hadn’t taken my detour the previous day, he’d still be in the drugs market, innocently selling his wares. I tried to feel sorry for the old astrologers but failed. Besides, they might still be calling nonsense at each other from inside their pentagram of safety. I stopped in the silent street and looked at the contents of a chamber pot someone had flung from an upper window.

At whatever cost in frayed nerves, I’d found out something. I didn’t know how or why it had come to me but the cup had been awaiting collection by Heraclius. It had been stolen by Simon. What he had to do with Nicetas, and what Shahin was doing in our home waters, remained unclear. I bent and stared closer at the excrements spread out before me. They were wormy and streaked with blood, and had the squashy look you get from eating porridge rather than bread. How had the compounder come to his misapprehension — the correct misapprehension, I should say — about the cup and me? I hadn’t exactly flown from my hall of audience to the drugs market. Even so, I couldn’t believe word had been carried to him any faster than my own movements. How many other people knew I had the cup? Excepting Simon, those who’d seen it at the audience surely didn’t know what it was. Could I get away with holding on to it till Heraclius came back from Cyzicus, then leaving it in the place set aside in the Imperial Palace for anonymous gifts? Or should I tell everything to Heraclius and hope for the best? He had no one else who could balance the Imperial budget and otherwise tell him what to do.

So many questions. I sighed and straightened up. I skirted the mass of drying filth before me and walked quickly away from the cloud of flies that rose up from it.

No sound of a chase. The sun had moved far from its zenith and I shivered slightly in the shade of the street. The excitement of the escape was gone. What I’d done to that spotty, stinking creature far behind me was fading. I began to worry again about all that might have gone wrong, and about the inexplicable chaos I’d been plunged into by the presenting of a silver cup. With a determined effort I dropped that line of thought. It was replaced at once by thoughts of Antonia. What moisture I had in my mouth appeared to evaporate. I drifted back to the horror of those walkways. I felt no doubt they’d join the Shaft of Oblivion in my worst poppy-fed nightmares.

There really had been no sound of a chase. But I’d been listening for big men, whose boots scraping on the compacted earth would give them away from several hundred yards. A barefoot rabble of the locals was a different matter. I came out of my scared reverie to see that the street was blocked in both directions. If I’d missed the patter of bare feet on earth, I should have smelled the approach of their clothing.

‘He stole the people’s bread!’ a woman shrilled from behind one of the crowds.

‘His head’s weight in gold, we was promised,’ a man called from within the crowd.

‘God bless the Lord Timothy!’ the same woman replied. ‘He’ll see us right.’

Both crowds took a step forward. I looked about for escape. Unless I could jump ten feet and grab hold of a smashed balcony, there was no easy way out. There was another collective step forward, and a wizened youth took aim at me with a stone.

I reached for the purse that still hung from my belt. I held it up for all to see. ‘You want gold?’ I shouted. I undid its laces and emptied the purse into my left hand. I jingled several dozen new-minted solidi , and held one up for inspection. ‘You want gold?’ I turned and made sure everyone could see the value. Timothy could round up a mob and promise what took his fancy. Any one of the coins I had in the palm of my hand would keep all these animals fed for a month. ‘If you want gold, there’s plenty here.’ I threw it as a glittering shower over the crowd that blocked the way from where I’d come. It dissolved at once into a snarling, ravening pack. The other crowd lurched forward, screaming and trampling on the fallen, to get its own share. It was the burrow people all over again, if somewhat more expensive. Not everyone joined the rush, but I’d levelled the odds. I got out my sword and went straight at them.

This killing had neither elegance nor equality. I stabbed. I slashed. I took the top off one man’s head. I got another in the bladder. Someone who came at me with a knife got his head half-sawn off. I took hold of someone else with my left hand and smashed his brains out against a wall. It was over in barely any time at all. So far as I could tell, I was through without a scratch. I didn’t wait for the shout of baffled rage behind me to begin. I didn’t look back at the bloody carnage I was leaving. I held up my sword as if it were torch carried by night before a rich man’s chair and ran for my life.

It was dazzling sunshine in Imperial Square. The mob didn’t dare follow me into this place of civilised order and I passed the continuing ritual of the aged at no more than a brisk pace.

‘You worthless bastard!’ one of the old men shouted in my direction. ‘I hope your suffering hasn’t even begun.’ It might have been Simeon again. This time, I didn’t stop and try reasoning with anyone. The sun was behind me and I could feel a worrying tightness in the skin of my upper back. Watching my shadow go before me, I walked past some boys who were playing with a ball.

‘Is that you, My Lord Alaric?’ a voice called from my right. I made to go for my sword, then realised I was still carrying it. I snorted and put it back into its sheath. Little wonder those boys had kept out of my way.

‘Hello, Ezra,’ I said, trying my best to sound as if I were still arrayed in silk and cotton. I’d been eyeing up the young Jew for the better part of a year and he was a welcome, even a cheerful, sight. I raised my hands in the gesture of greeting usual among his people. I saw in time how bloody they were and the black incrustations under every finger nail. I let my hands drop down and shrugged.