Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

Even for a pair of monks — monks, at that, with some vicious metalware concealed about their persons, the covered passageway was an unwise choice of route on an evening like this. It would have to be a few more of those packed streets and then a walk along the ascending street where the City Prefect had his offices.

The Prefecture buildings were locked up and in darkness. This much I’d been ready to expect. If he was still up and going about his duties, Timothy would be in his own palace, five blocks away from mine. Keeping in the shadows, we hurried upwards in the direction of the Central Milestone. We passed side streets where at least one attack had been made, but where the occupants were looking to their common defence. The bodies lying in the gutters or swinging from the brackets where torches should normally have been, were warning enough against more predatory attacks in this district. Once or twice, someone stepped out in front of us. But why stop anyone like us? ‘God bless you, Fathers — have a care on a night like this,’ was the most we got.

The general call of bed, and the known risk of injury, had thinned the numbers outside my palace. As on the night I’d got back from my first brush with Shahin, the siege was little more than dark bodies stretched out beside dying bonfires. I looked out from the darkness of the colonnade. In the faint glimmer of moonlight, it wasn’t possible to see the extent of structural damage caused by the catapult ball. But I knew the price of marble facing slabs. Three patches of these had come away. I could be sure every one of these had broken where it landed.

‘There are three guards, Master,’ Rado whispered in my ear. ‘Do you want me to lead them away? Or shall we kill them?’ ‘Guards’ was rather a grand word for the scruffy thugs who were taking their ease about five yards away. But there may have been more of them — the catapult itself was blocked from view unless we stepped out into the moonlight. Even three wouldn’t be so easy to take out at once and without noise. I moved deeper into shadow and waited for the boy to follow.

‘Stay here, but keep an eye on me,’ I said with slow emphasis. ‘Only come if I call you.’ I patted him on the shoulder before he could protest. ‘When did your people ever waste their lives on a frontal assault?’ I asked. ‘Now, wait for me to call you or wait until your own sense tells you otherwise.’

I walked thirty paces back the way we’d come and broke cover a long way from the catapult. Looking neither right not left, and skirting several pools of congealing blood and any place on the pavement where the assembled dregs hadn’t yet fallen asleep, I made myself walk slowly across the wide expanse of the Triumphal Way. I stopped before my main gate and stared at the effects of the bonfires that had been lit there. The iron portcullis was bent in slightly, but should still go smoothly up into its housing. The gate itself was scratched and dented, but could be put right in half a morning. The cracked and smoke-stained marble would need specialised care. So too the chipped stairs. Sixty feet above me, two men were speaking in the rough Latin that barbarians of different races use when speaking together. If they leaned over the office balcony and saw me, they might choose to forget the orders I’d given for reactive force only. But I’d done enough to set up my excuse. I turned and made my way back towards the colonnade.

I slowed to a shuffle as I passed by one of the siege towers and the catapult came in sight. I’d believe Priscus that the siege towers were useless. And, unless it could be got repeatedly up and down the front steps, the battering ram was more likely to injure its users than open any gates. It was the catapult that mattered. I blinked a few times and tried to focus harder in the gloom. For once, I could see, I’d been right and Priscus wrong about something military. This was one of the iron machines we’d lately set up on the land walls. Given the right setting of the angle bars and the right degree of torsion, it could throw a fifty-pound ball to hit a point somewhat lower than any of the balconies. A few dozen of these hitting on one point would bring down at least part of the front wall. Properly handled, a smaller catapult than this could knock through stone like a mason’s hammer. It could turn brick to clouds of choking dust. It could shoot a chain of iron balls at ground level and slice advancing men in half. Even after his army had run away, five of these had almost won the Battle of Antioch for Nicetas. Sad for us they’d fallen into Persian hands. I could laugh and poke my tongue out at anything else. This darkly glittering monster couldn’t be left in place.

I stopped where I could get a proper look at things and lifted my arms in prayer. The most obvious weak point in the catapult was its bowstring — I call it a bowstring, though it wasn’t far off an inch of plaited silk strands. Cut through this and you’d need special machinery to pull the torsion springs back far enough for a replacement to be fitted. This was assuming a replacement could be found. A raking blow with my sword and we could go back to toughing things out till Heraclius chose to grace his capital with his renewed presence.

Now I could be sure there were only three of them, the guards weren’t a problem. The real problem was fleshing out the plan I’d thought over between coughing fits in the Great Sewer. I needed an unhurried go at the bowstring and a safe escape afterwards. How to get that? I glanced under the colonnade. I only saw him because I was looking; but Rado, still as a cat before a mouse hole, was looking back at me. He was expecting something clever.

A voice called out nervously on my left: ‘Has he decided anything yet?’

Leander of Memphis stood with his back to the main source of light. But I could almost hear the cold sweat on his face. ‘I was nearly killed when the night attack went wrong,’ he added, coming forward another step. He lowered his voice. ‘Of course, I’m not scared to die in the service of My Lord.’ He struck a pose and tried for one of his poetic growls. ‘But it’s the lower people, you see — many of them have said they won’t be coming back tomorrow.’

I stared at Leander. Was this a nuisance? Or was it one of those strokes of luck so great and so bizarre that it’s hard to know what use to make of it. I bowed slightly, wondering how best I could play for time. ‘The Lord Nicetas instructs you to continue about your duties,’ I said in my best Syrian accent. It was just the sort of answer you could expect from Nicetas in an emergency. I watched Leander’s shoulders sag and racked my brains for what to do with him. Enticing him under the colonnade for a quick blow on the head seemed the easiest option but might be a waste of a good opportunity. ‘He wishes to be told, however, why the catapult has not been tried again. Treason has been committed in removing it from the walls. It was not carried here to stand as an ornament.’

‘Oh, but nothing can be done till morning!’ Leander groaned. ‘Didn’t His Lordship get my last message?’ I shook my head. No cause for suspicion here. He knew Nicetas. He dropped the question. He hopped lightly across the last few yards that separated us. ‘The man with the instruction book got frightened when people said they’d hang him,’ he explained. ‘He went home ages ago but said he’d try to understand all the hard sums in his book in time for a morning attack.’

I thought quickly. The plan I’d had in mind was dead. Time to make up another. ‘Let me see the catapult,’ I said, putting a note of involuntary interest into my voice. Leander stepped back and bowed.

I’d known one of the guards was listening to us. He’d been watching me from the moment I stepped out of the shadows. ‘You just keep away from that thing,’ he warned us. ‘You heard the orders.’