Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

‘Your chest is looking very red, My Lord,’ he said after a long pause. ‘Should you be walking round with so few clothes?’

‘Slight trouble in one of the poor districts,’ I explained with a vague wave. Suddenly struck by the thought of dark, stinking bodies creeping along behind me, I turned round. It was just boys kicking their ball at each other. Beyond them, a dozen of the aged staggered in the sun about their endless circuit. ‘I might ask, my boy,’ I added in my best patronising voice, ‘what brings you so far from the Jewish quarter and alone.’ I stared into his face. I was sure he fancied me but had never tried anything. You can’t tell with Jews — they gave us all our modern ideas of sexual propriety but have many others they haven’t shared.

He looked away. ‘My uncle sent me with a message to your palace,’ he said. ‘I believe it was about the rent collections near the Saint Andrew Monastery.’

The Saint Andrew district? Did I own properties there? I wondered. I’d bought up patches of the poor district facing the Golden Horn. I owned five blocks that were rented out to the better sort of artisan, but these were almost in sight of my office windows. Then I remembered. I’d lately won some property from an old fool who believed praying over his dice was better than reasoning from the frequency with which any combination of numbers was likely to come up. This had to be one of them. Since I already must have looked out of my head, I’d not make a total fool of myself by arguing with a Jew about what I owned.

I smiled at Ezra and led him towards the big flight of steps. ‘Any chance you could pay for a chair to take me along the Triumphal Way?’ I asked. He stopped, his face gone suddenly pale. I thought I’d shocked him by asking for the loan. But I followed his horrified look into the shadowy space between the steps and the embankment. Head smashed in by the impact, the naked boy I’d seen the day before was draped over the rim of the disused fountain. Except there was nothing left of his face, you’d not have thought he was dead. He might have been resting in the sun. Far above, his owner was looking down with arms raised in lamentation.

It wouldn’t do to sit down and vomit — not here, not looking like this, not in front of a Jew. I swallowed hard and turned back for another look at the Imperial statues. ‘Do be a love, Ezra,’ I whispered. ‘You’re wearing far too many clothes for a day like this. You could lend your uncle’s protector that grey cloak you have on.’

I watched the boy step back and unfasten his cloak pin. There was nothing athletic or otherwise attractive about his posture. Another year at the most and he’d be trying for a silly beard and probably filling out from the ghastly food Jews think it their duty to eat. But he was a pretty lad for the time being and he had the makings of considerable beauty. If only he’d put himself in my hands. .

But he wouldn’t. Just in time, I stopped myself from repeating how little beauty there was in the world.

There’s nothing like the privacy of a closed carrying chair for getting over a long fit of the terrors. By the time I pulled the curtains aside and set foot on the steps at the main entrance to my palace, I was looking almost carefree.

The slaves who were hurrying down towards their filthy, bloodstained master wouldn’t have expected any less of His Magnificence.

I looked up at the bathhouse ceiling and counted slowly to twelve. That should give Antonia time to dry the tears she was squeezing out. I looked down again. ‘There is no taxpayer in Zigana called Isidore,’ I repeated, this time with an implacable frown. ‘Your alleged father, Laonicus,’ I went on, ‘left a wife and two sons. The wife is in receipt of a small pension bought from the Treasury by Laonicus before he died. This is still being paid. Both sons continue their father’s practice but concentrate on laying petitions before the Master of the Offices.

‘Almost everything you told me yesterday is a lie. I won’t press you for the full truth all at once. But I’d like at least to know your real name.’

She looked at the waxed tablet where I’d let it fall. Giving up on tears, she smiled shyly. ‘You say almost everything I told you is a lie?’ she asked.

‘Yes!’ I snarled. I stopped and controlled my voice. Eboric couldn’t follow what we were saying but was watching the argument unfold with shy interest. ‘The agent I sent to their lodgings told me your “clients” vacated this morning. Their unpaid rent was settled to the end of the month by someone who didn’t give his name but whose description matches Simon. I should imagine they’re on the road back to Pontus and that you told me the truth about their complaint.

‘Now, what is your real name? You might also tell me something of your real business.’

She sat down on one of the stone benches lining the wall and smiled at me again. Trying not to show exactly how angry I was, I finished towelling off the excess oil from my chest and loins. Pretending to ignore her openly approving look, I dropped the used towel into a basket. On getting back, I’d measured myself just enough opium to settle my nerves from the fright Simon had given me. I should have taken a great deal more.

‘My name really is Antonia,’ she said at last in a voice that no longer tried to be other than aristocratic. The faint tinge of something else had also vanished. ‘And I did spend a while in Trebizond. But please don’t ask anything more. It’s all become such a mess and I need to think about it first.’ She leaned against the damp wall. ‘You are a very beautiful man, Alaric,’ she said suddenly. She stopped herself and sat forward. ‘Look, I can imagine what you’re thinking. But I have nothing to do with Shahin or Simon or whatever happened to you today. I got myself past your eunuchs yesterday on a whim. Among other things, I wanted to see how well I could pass as a man. I then got a little carried away with the success.’ She smiled yet again. ‘You could try thanking me, though,’ she said.

I sat down on a stool opposite her. ‘Thanking you for what?’ I asked with a flattening of my voice. Her answer to this would determine whether I put her into a closed chair and turned my back as she was carried off only she would know where.

‘For slowing you down, of course,’ she said. I relaxed but covered this by picking up a small mirror and looking at my face. ‘Without me, you’d have fallen straight into Simon’s hands. I imagine getting away from Shahin was much easier.’ Before I could break in, the smile went from her face. ‘Where is your wife?’ she suddenly asked.

‘I don’t have one,’ I said. Confused, I looked harder at my face. I’d never seen it alternate like this between pale and red. ‘Both my sons are adopted,’ I explained. ‘Maximin’s father is — er, was — someone who used to be fairly important. You should have guessed, from his age and appearance, that Theodore wasn’t mine.’ I stood up and walked about the room. I was supposed to be asking the questions. Perhaps I should have taken less opium rather than more. I turned back to Antonia. ‘Why were you walking about the garden?’ I asked in a voice that nearly sounded accusing. ‘I did tell you to keep out of sight.’

‘I should keep out of sight?’ she said with what may have been a genuine loss of temper. ‘Have you seen the eyes on one of the disgusting pictures in the rooms you’ve given me? They’re holes that someone can use for looking in. Are you going to tell me I imagined the footsteps I heard behind the wall?’ She dropped her voice. ‘So I shouldn’t go into the garden to get out of this labyrinth of corridors and rooms bigger than a church? The maids you’ve given me don’t know any Greek. Your steward is a drunk who couldn’t take his eyes off me when he found me having a bath. And you tell me I should avoid Theodore. He’s the only normal person I’ve met in this place.’