Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

‘Antonia!’ I bellowed in a voice as terrifying as my strong right arm. ‘Antonia, where are you?’ I felt a sudden pricking against my right side and turned in time to rake my attacker across his throat. Spraying blood, he fell back against a monk, whose arms were raised in terror and in prayer. Clutched at by the dying man, the monk went down, and his warning cries to those stepping on him were lost among the general clamour. Swept sideways by a collective shudder within the crowd, I tried and failed to reach out to him. I saw him get to his knees and go down again. My heart beat still faster and black spots came in front of my eyes. I tried to work out where I’d last seen Antonia tangled up with Theodore. It must have been somewhere now behind me. But I could no longer turn. As if held in the arms of a dancing giant, I was moving further and further away from where I wanted to be.

The crowd thinned out as I came in sight of the catapult. I stumbled forward. ‘Where is she?’ I shouted at its scared operator. He opened his mouth to scream and tripped forward over the tightened bowstring. I had enough sense to throw myself forward as it finally snapped. I heard its high singing tone a few feet overhead and its return, and the dull thud of wooden arms into the dense crowd of fools who’d thought there was safety beside those stretched torsion springs. Ignoring the shrieks of the injured and dying, I scrambled back to my feet and killed a man who might simply have tripped over me. I killed another man who came at me with a length of wood. I killed yet another who was standing in my way. Like a man who cuts his way through brambles, I pushed forward to where I was sure I’d heard a woman screaming. I must have passed through the oncoming city guard, but have no recollection of doing so.

It was Simon who was driving the wagon. He looked round at my bawled challenge. Laughing like a madman, he turned back to raise his whip. I lifted my sword and darted forward. One of his men squealed something and scrambled backward in the wagon. Laughing as madly as Simon, the other man lifted something dark and very large and swung it over the tail of the wagon. Once again, I can’t remember the exact sequence of events. Thrown at me like that, the dead Treasury clerk should not only have thrown me backwards, but also dashed my brains out on the paving stones. Instead, I somehow landed on top of the squelching body and was back on my feet almost at once. I had to unhook my sword from where it had gone into the chest cavity. But I was soon racing forward again and wondering how I could best jump on to its tail. Though the rest of her was out of sight behind a crate, I’d seen Antonia’s legs kicking away like a hanged man.

I ignored the hail of correspondence scrolls and leather satchels thrown out at me. I ignored how, bouncing up and down with joy, the man who’d heaved the body at me now reached out, showing the wooden box and the cup within it. ‘Stop, or I’ll have you flayed alive!’ I roared. I was running continually faster to keep up with the quickening pace of the horses. But I was just a few feet away from leaping on to the tail of the wagon, sword in hand to hack at anyone who tried to stop me. Simon looked round again. He shouted an order in Syriac and box and cup were pulled out of sight. Straight after, both men set hands on the big crate and pitched that at me.

I had to throw myself sharp right to get out of its way. The crate bounced once past me on the hard paving stones, and again. On its third landing, it burst, sending papyrus sheets in every direction. I looked against my will at the slithering, disarranging heap of Treasury correspondence. I was far from the screaming mob outside my palace and, my breathing aside and the pounding of my heart, the main sound on a completely empty Triumphal Way was Simon’s continued and maniacal laughter as he plied the whip and the horses picked up more speed.

Now the crate was gone, I could see everything. ‘Don’t follow us, dear boy!’ Timothy called back at me. He clutched Antonia harder against his vast front, a knife at her throat. ‘Stay where you are — that is, if you don’t want me to saw the little tart’s head off her shoulders.’ He laughed theatrically and was joined by a chorus of laughs and obscenities in Greek and Syriac.

My heart was pounding now like a brothel drum. I couldn’t move. But I put what little strength I could find into my voice. ‘You can’t get away with this,’ I shouted.

‘I can and will, my fine young savage,’ Timothy called happily across the increasing distance between us. He put his knee into Antonia’s back so she reared up again and screamed. ‘Lady Fate has slipped me a better deal than you had in mind. If you ever want to see her again in one piece, the whore is our passport out of the City.’ He watched me raise my sword and take a step forward. ‘I’ve warned you,’ he shouted with another pull at Antonia. ‘Don’t follow us.’

The wagon was thirty yards away and still picking up speed. It was moving almost as fast as I could run. Another few moments and it would vanish behind the Belisarius Memorial. Someone plucked at my sleeve. I pulled away and spun round, sword raised to strike.

Leander fell down and clutched at my ankles. ‘My Lord,’ he babbled, ‘please, My Lord, don’t kill me.’ I turned back to see what I could of the wagon. It had now gone out of sight. Faint sounds of rejoicing drifted back. They merged in with the continuing riot and probable slaughter far behind me. My domestics weren’t up to producing that volume of noise. The city guard must have weighed into the chaos. When in doubt, massacre had ever been their maxim. My legs gave way and I sat heavily in the middle of the road. The sun still slanted from the east, leaving tall shadows all about and a faint chill in the air. It couldn’t have been a quarter of a summer’s hour from when I was looking complacently down from my roof, to the completion of a horror that hadn’t yet impressed itself fully on my mind. I fought off the urge to bury my face in my hands and looked stupidly round. The Treasury clerks who must have been following me along the road, had caught up. Some of them were lamenting over the murdered body of their colleague. Others were hard at work, gathering up scrolls and loose sheets for heaping up before the statue of Cicero.

I looked up at Leander. One sight of his twitching face, and I pulled myself together. ‘Can you tell me where they’ve gone?’ I asked. Covered in blood, a man ran past me. Another, who seemed to have limped his way out of the massacre, fell against the colonnade. He slid down, leaving bloody trails from his hands on the marble, and was still. I got Leander’s attention by raking my sword on the paving stones. ‘Where have they gone?’ I asked in a voice that I couldn’t stop from trailing off in despair.

‘I overheard someone say there was a Persian ship in the Kontoskalion Harbour,’ he answered after as great an effort as my own to keep his voice steady. ‘How can there be Persian ships anywhere . Are they besieging us?’

I silenced him with an impatient wave. I thought. The Kontoskalion was the smallest of the harbours facing south. It opened on to the juncture of the straits and the Propontis. It made sense that Shahin had put in there. It was naturally sheltered and needed no bar to protect it — or to be shut against outgoing vessels. Driving his stolen wagon, Simon would need to turn off long before the Central Milestone and go past the law courts, down a bumpy incline. From there, it would be a quick ride through a road that bisected another poor district. He and his could be onboard with Shahin before I could get there with help. Even starting now, I’d have to run to get there in time.

I got up slowly and leaned for support on Leander. I put all active thoughts of Antonia firmly out of mind. Giving way to horror and despair wouldn’t make me run any faster. I pointed back along the road. ‘Go and tell any captain of the guard you can find where I’ve gone,’ I said. I shook my head at his scared face. ‘I want as many armed men down there as can be spared.’ I pushed him in the chest. ‘Go!’ I shouted. I controlled my voice. ‘Explain yourself to anyone in uniform,’ I added. ‘He won’t hurt you.’