Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

He took it and tried to read the writing in the advancing gloom. It was very small and covered both sides of the slat. ‘It’s letters and numbers and fractions,’ he said defensively. He brightened a little. ‘Astrological incantations,’ he added. ‘They must have been put there when Heraclius ordered a box for the cup. You know what he’s like.’

I raised a hand to silence him. ‘Look again, dear Priscus,’ I said. This latest drug was one of his happier discoveries. It abolished tiredness and had left me with a clear and even moderately serene mind. Priscus could see nothing, so I took the slat away from him and carried it across to the window and squinted at what I’d been able to reveal of the underlying script. You can ask why I hadn’t thought of this earlier. The scraped underside of the box must have shown something, had I only turned my attention away from what it contained. Knowing what really mattered would have simplified everything. Too late for that, however. I thought of the bleak sentence in Thucydides: ‘When error is irreparable, repentance is useless.’

Unmoving in his chair, Priscus looked down at the floor. I stood over him. ‘The names of towns and places are given in a substitution cipher,’ I took up again. ‘I’m sure you can break it in your head. The coordinates are given in plain text, and refer to a map that may be indicated, though not drawn, on another part of the box. The numbers after that ought to be clear to someone of your experience.’ I stopped and pointed at random. ‘So what do you suppose this means: “Hilltop fort”; such and such coordinates; “two hundred and thirty”? Or look at this: “Cordyle” — a city, you may be aware, on the far south-eastern coast of the Black Sea — no coordinates needed or given; “three hundred”. Could the whole box possibly contain a listing of the location and numbers of every military unit engaged in defending the Home Provinces from invasion? Don’t ask me why Heraclius chose to have his cup surrounded by a listing that every officer in the Persian army would give his right hand to see. But he did. And ten sides of that listing are currently on a Persian ship sailing east. I don’t doubt the cup itself means something to our Lord and Master — I might guess it was meant to give protection to the named forces he wanted to enclose it. The cup may have some meaning to Chosroes. But do you really think a man like Shahin would risk himself in our home waters — and inside the City — for a lump of silver?

‘If it was you whispering in Theodore’s ear, how does it feel to be the man who may have done for Shahrbaraz what Ariadne’s ball of string did for Theseus? With that listing in their hands, they can pick off every defensive position in the Home Provinces. Or they can bypass them and, within three months, be looking across the straits at the City walls. You don’t need me to tell you how fast an offensive army can move — or how slowly defence plans can be changed and communicated in an orderly fashion. Would you say, Priscus, we were very fucked, or only fucked? Are you still proud of yourself, O former Commander of the East?’

There was a knock on the door. I stepped away from Priscus so he could hurry behind his usual screen. It was Samo — drunker than usual and more glowering — together with the Deputy Head of the Intelligence Bureau and one of his junior subordinates. The Deputy Head gave me a perfunctory bow, before sliming his way towards the chair that Priscus had just vacated. He was a large man and plainly looking forward to a rest after the long climb to my office. I continued standing.

I picked up a sheet of papyrus and spent long enough reading it for the man to begin fidgeting. The subordinate stared impassively at a painting of Demosthenes. I decided on the tone to adopt and put the sheet face down on my desk. ‘In the past few days,’ I began coldly to the Deputy Head, ‘three facts have come to my attention. The first is a conspiracy, led by the City Prefect and involving several dozen members of the Senate, against Our Lord the Emperor. The second is the unopposed presence within the City of the admiral appointed by the Great King to defend the coastal regions of his Syrian conquests. The third is your own total inaction in the face of these connected threats to the security of the Empire. A fourth, and possibly more serious, fact is your apparent failure to maintain our espionage links in Ctesiphon and the alienated provinces. Have you anything to say in your own defence?’

What he made was a piss-poor defence. Leave aside the misprision of treason charge he deserved — anyone in his office with an ounce of competence would already have known that Nicetas was in the clear. I’d stood over him all through lunch, dictating the terms of our continuing deal. Blaming him was as useless as blaming one of the victory columns. A better defence would have involved full disclosure of what information the Bureau had gathered. It could have at least supplemented my own sources.

I put up a hand for silence. ‘You are convicted out of your own mouth,’ I said with calm menace. ‘I could order your execution on the spot as an accessory to treason. Instead, I find you guilty only of gross negligence. I dismiss you from your position and cancel your pension. I exile you to Ragusa on the Adriatic coast. There, if the barbarians do not take the city and kill or enslave you, I appoint you to the lowest grade in the tax inspectorate. You may rejoice in your continued possession of life and in the employment of your talents in a position to which they may be better suited.’

And that was the end of a man who’d been getting on my tits for two years. I glared him into silence and turned to his subordinate. ‘You, John of Salerno,’ I said in his native Latin, ‘are now Deputy Head of the Intelligence Bureau.’ To add to the drama and the show of absolute power, I picked up his sealed notice of appointment and handed it to him. ‘I have been made aware of your abilities and your zeal, and have no doubt you will justify your unprecedented advancement through five grades.’ His answer was to fall to his knees and kiss my ring. An Italian among Greeks, a closet devotee of the Old Faith, promoted wildly out of turn, and by another outsider whose fall would put an end to his own career — yes, I could reasonably trust John of Salerno to remember who’d put the olive paste on his bread. I’d missed those daily reports from the Bureau. I’d now made sure not to be without them again.

I turned back to the disgraced Deputy Head. ‘Don’t blubber about the Emperor,’ I said with chilly contempt. ‘For all practical purposes, I currently am the Emperor. There is no appeal from what I have decided. Be grateful I’ve booked you a place on the dispatch galley to Syracuse that leaves tomorrow morning. If you aren’t on it, your replacement will take such action as he may think appropriate.’

There was nothing else to be said. I waved both men out of my presence and walked over to the window. I looked down to the Triumphal Way. Now the last daylight had faded, it was again a sea of torches — this time, though, the torches of those whose job it was to scrub and sweep for as long as it took to remove all trace of the recent disorders. As promised, the bodies were all laid out for identification and collection in the Prefecture. With named exceptions, my amnesty was in place and no further enquiries would be made of what the dead had been doing outside my palace. I was no Creon by nature. My policy was to avoid any chance of a modern Antigone. Heraclius would come home to a City cleaned up and at peace.

I closed the office door and went back to my desk. ‘If you don’t mind an old man’s judgement,’ Priscus called uncertainly from behind his screen, ‘that was a masterful stroke. You’ve put yourself straight back on top of the pecking order.’ I said nothing. He shuffled over to his chair and poured himself a cup of wine. ‘It wasn’t just the fucking, was it?’ he asked with a sudden firming of tone. ‘Nor was it the chance of getting into the Imperial Family. Does the girl really mean something to you?’