Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

I had my back to the window. That meant I had a better view of Leander than he had of me. When I still said nothing, he smiled nervously. ‘After she rejected the wholesome discipline of her father’s household, she was sent to be instructed in the ways of humility by the nuns of Saint Tomalina in Trebizond. Even so, she escaped and returned to the scene of her old debaucheries in Constantinople. She was apprehended and brought home. Before she could be returned to the holy sisters, there to await an introduction to her future husband, she escaped again. That was the night before last. It was feared that she might be preparing a complete change of identity. My Lord wishes me to assure you that, now you have returned her, she will be more closely watched until she can be locked into the female quarters of some other house.’

A dozen yards to my right, I heard Theodore carried out. The change of air must have revived him. Still speaking Syriac, he called loudly on God to blind him, so he could look no more on the perfect beauty of Antony. He was cut off in mid-flow by a slap to his face. Samo grated at him in Latin to shut up if he didn’t want a stick taken to his bare arse. The boy gave way to moaning sobs of ‘Antony, Antony — how I love you, and how I sin!’ Luckily, that too was in Syriac.

I nodded at Leander. There was an intellectual neatness in what he’d said. I no longer needed to revive an exploded hypothesis. And Theodore had given me time to ignore the chill spreading out from my chest. ‘I am always the most devoted friend and servant of the Lord Nicetas,’ I managed to say in a voice that didn’t waver. ‘I am also much in your debt for the goodness you have shown in bringing me news that the girl is now reunited with her loving father.’

Leander bowed again and smirked. Inside, there was a burst of applause, and the musicians turned to one of the slow dance tunes popular back then in the brothels of Syria. ‘Does he ever go to bed?’ I asked, allowing myself one flash of temper. Played out to its last variation, the dance tune could last all night.

Leander shook his head. ‘The Lord Nicetas has been assured that, if he lies down to sleep, he will stop breathing,’ he explained. ‘It is his custom, therefore, to sit upright in chair through the night, sleeping and waking as the holy fathers who surround him direct.’

I controlled a sudden urge to burst out laughing. I bowed to Leander. As a poet of sorts, he was partly outside the usual hierarchies. ‘Your conversation is always a delight,’ I said, ‘However, I feel obliged to take my leave of His Magnificence the Commander of the East.’

I stepped back from kissing Nicetas on the lips. ‘You really are my dearest friend,’ he replied without moving his lips. ‘But, if it can’t be the rectorship, Leander must have a job that will give him official status and a salary. You know that only you can seal that manner of appointment.’

I bowed low before the man who, in his cousin’s absence, was supposed to be Regent. ‘There was a time when the Treasury had a department of correspondence,’ I said quietly. ‘That was when Latin was still the official language and the clerks needed to be trained in the appropriate phraseologies. I could revive the post of director for Leander. The salary isn’t much, but would give him the right to present birthday wishes to the Emperor. We could interpret that as the right to present birthday odes.’

Looking relieved, Nicetas signalled to his eunuchs. They got him from each side and pulled him to his feet. ‘Let it be known,’ he cried weakly, ‘that our most beloved friend Alaric has opened poetic hostilities this night with Leander. At our next recital, Leander will make his reply.’ He leaned on me in what might pass for an embrace. I smiled at Timothy and pretended not to notice the scared, apprehensive faces of those who hadn’t already gone home. Nicetas sat heavily back in his chair and nodded at Leander, who went into a long and reverential bow in my direction. That got me more nervous looks. There were even angry murmurs when Nicetas stayed on his feet while I backed out of the room. One of the black girls who’d been playing with each other in the recital space broke into an exaggerated orgasm. I don’t think anyone paid attention.

The wind had made another of its endless shifts of direction. Inside, with all the candles burning away like houses in a city taken by storm, it had continued sweltering till the end. Out here, in the quiet and increasingly unlit streets, I was glad of the cloak I’d put on over my toga. I was tired. Two days running, I’d been scared half out of my wits. I’d uncovered a web of treason the nature and extent of which remained unclear. Where was bloody Priscus? Why come out in that absurd disguise, only to vanish like a ghost?

Except I was tired, none of this mattered. Even before getting my people to check her story, I’d known Antonia was lying. I’d asked, only that afternoon, who her father was. Did it matter if her father turned out to be Nicetas? It did, of course. Anyone else I could have called straight into my office to present with a bill for unpaid taxes. Everyone owed something. No one was ever expected to pay unless he upset someone like me. I could have bought Antonia fair and square. Not so Nicetas. Save by the Emperor himself, he was untouchable. Whenever he wanted, he could have his daughter tied hand and foot and stuffed into a wagon rumbling east. I couldn’t denounce him for treason. Beyond a hint from some scabby old fool who might already have been put out of the way by Simon, I had bugger all evidence of his complicity in anything. Heraclius wasn’t Chosroes: especially against his own blood, he’d expect some grounds of probability. I could go after his creature Eunapius, but the Lord Commander of the East would only throw his hands in the air and plead ignorance. He’d be believed, because no one could doubt someone as thick as Nicetas was telling the truth.

But I could drop the whole line of thought. Heraclius was away. In his place, Nicetas was the supreme power. Antonia would be back scrubbing floors in Trebizond before that changed. And what of that? We’d met. We’d fucked. We’d argued. Theodore might be getting ready to offer up his soul in exchange for what he thought she was. I was His Magnificence Alaric — now of age. The girl dripped trouble from every pore. It was pure accident she’d kept me out of Simon’s hands. Everything else about her was a complication. She’d now overreached herself — no doubt thinking her own father wouldn’t recognise her got up as a man. Who was I to hurry to the rescue? If I tried, I was sure, I could put her and everything concerning her out of mind. Let silly Theodore sob his heart out when Antony didn’t show for breakfast the next morning. If I never saw Antonia again, I was the Magnificent Alaric. I’d know how to keep a stiff upper lip.

There was a faint noise behind me. Priscus? No, not Priscus. However faint, he’d never have made a noise. ‘Might our young lord be lost?’ someone grated in a voice straight out of one of the lower poor districts. ‘Aren’t we a bit tipsy, to be out on our own so late and all?’ Someone else added.

I turned and looked at the half dozen footpads. The closest of them had his cudgel already raised. Doubtless, there were a few knives tucked out of sight. I’d been passing the Central Milestone on my slow walk from Nicetas to the Triumphal Way. Slowly, I turned and went over to sit on the lowest step. ‘Do you know who I am?’ I asked.

‘We might soon find out,’ the man with the club said with a laugh. As I’d expected, sitting down had unnerved them. They stopped edging forward.

For once, I had no money with me. No chance of my usual dealings with the city trash. I flicked my cloak aside to show that I was armed. ‘If you don’t fuck off out of my sight,’ I said mildly, ‘I’ll carve you up so fast, you won’t have time to shit yourselves.’ I’d left my favourite sword with Shahin. This one, though, had served me well that afternoon. When being got ready to leave Nicetas, I’d taken it from the doorman and held it up, so the lamplight could glitter on the many-folded steel of its blade. Bearing in mind the clothes I had on, I hoped I’d not have to use it tonight. One good look at me and the night vermin were slinking off in search of easier pickings.