Richard Blake - The Terror of Constantinople

‘She was brought to bed at the end of September,’ I said, trying to keep my voice level. ‘Marcella had her lawyer there at the confinement, and made sure to free Gretel as the child began to emerge. Mother and child were freed together. It was a boy.

‘The trouble started the following day. Gretel took some kind of fever. She rallied. Then the child stopped breathing. Then she too died. She died early in the morning on the last Sunday of September.’

Martin thought back. ‘That was the night the assassin broke into your room.’

‘Yes,’ I said. I’d just come away from my daily visit to the grave. Marcella had paid for the funeral and had commissioned a stone of surprising elegance. Three times a day, she was assuring me that the child had been baptised before it was cold.

I’d been crying again, and I didn’t want anyone to see that. I might let myself go with Martin, but I’d rather not.

‘I’m told you will go back East,’ Martin said. ‘I don’t suppose you have any choice in the matter, bearing in mind your appointment.’

‘Not so, Martin,’ I said, glad of the changed subject. I’d been on the point of telling him about my dream on the night of the attempted assassination. Best I didn’t, though – it would only have provoked his superstition.

‘I can go where and when I please. If I want to go back to Constantinople, I will. If I want to stay here, I will. No one can command me at this distance. My will is free.’

I looked again down to the Forum. The great houses and other buildings that had once lined the Sacred Way were all without roofs and had fallen into further decay since my first arrival in Rome. Through the misty rain, I could see down to the silent waters of the Tiber. Or I could look the other away across the whole desolation of what had once been the Capital of the World.

The Forum remained, impressive even in decay. Now the golden statue of Phocas had been toppled from its column, the one last splash of colour down there had gone. But the Forum remained. It was – and will remain – the noblest sight that ever moved the imagination of men.

‘I will go back,’ I said. There could be no doubt of that. For all that can be said of Rome, it has nothing to compare with Constantinople. When I’d first come here with Father Maximin, I’d been overpowered by the amenities of Rome. Now I’d seen Constantinople, and Rome seemed a dull, ruinous place – bereft of wealth and of learning. It was no place for me or for the baby Maximin.

I’d been granted the nice palace Theophanes had owned, together with all his other non-monetary goods. Set beside that, the house I’d been offered in Rome was a decidedly low-class place.

A chill wind was blowing up. Martin and I huddled closer together on the steps of the temple for warmth.

‘Yes,’ I repeated, ‘I’m going back. I expect my business here will be over by the New Year. Then it’s south again. There’s that business Heraclius wants me to oversee in Catania. That should keep me busy until the weather allows a sea crossing from Syracuse. I might even see Athens this time.’

‘Can I come with you?’ Martin asked with sudden intensity.

I looked at him.

‘If you think Maximin can manage the sea voyage,’ he added. ‘I see no reason why my own family should fear for anything. Surely the Lord Senator Alaric will be in need of a confidential secretary?’

He did have a point there. I’d not find anyone in the city more trustworthy. And, of course, I wanted him with me. But I had wanted the offer to come from him, rather than having to suggest it myself.

‘And’, he concluded, ‘you may be assured that Sveta will keep me from walking the streets at night.’

For the first time since the awful day of my homecoming, I laughed…

I did go back to Constantinople after leaving Rome. I went back with Maximin and Martin and his family. I went back to Heraclius and Sergius. And, yes – I went back to Priscus. I went back, and all that happened between then and my eventual return to Jarrow you can read about in the histories.

Alexius and his colleagues are long since departed from Jarrow but I have stayed behind. If the Empire is under threat again, it must be without my advice and direction that it fights off the Saracens or the Slavs or whatever other race has lit fires outside the city walls.

In a moment, Bede will come in for one of his Greek lessons. After that, we shall go out for our afternoon walk. Summer has come at last, even to Jarrow. The sun shines bright outside the walls of this monastery. The fruit ripens on the trees. My hand in Maximin’s, I shall pick my slow, unsteady way down to the great river that empties into the sea. And the boy will press me with his endless questions, any one of which is a joy to answer.

He’s got his way. I shall die among my own.

I will not go back again. But I have only to look away from the dark, shrivelled paw that holds my pen and I see myself again in all the strength and glory of manhood – and feel again some ghost of what I have been.

Death alone can rob me of the memories that now, like the waters of the Mediterranean, warmly lap the fringes of my mind.