Richard Blake - The Terror of Constantinople

But I pulled myself back to present matters. I didn’t want to lose Authari.

‘It’s a revolt got up by the Exarch of Africa. And he’s winning. Because of that, Emperor Phocas is piling on the pressure in Rome. He needs His Holiness to excommunicate Heraclius the father and Heraclius the son and Nicetas the nephew. That won’t count for much in the East. But Africa is part of the West. A formal denunciation from Rome would cut the rebels off from their base.

‘The problem is’, I went on, summarising what I’d picked up on the Exchange, ‘that the only thing Rome wants of Phocas as the price is something the Eastern Churches wouldn’t allow. The Pope must be made “Universal Bishop”. There must be an irrevocable statement that he stands above the other Four Patriarchs of the Universal Church. Constantinople and Antioch and Alexandria and Jerusalem must all bow down before Rome.

‘That needs a sealed patent for advertising in the East, and shoving under the nose of every bishop and king in the West.

‘There is a further problem. Even if the Eastern Churches could be bullied into assenting to such a patent, neither Pope nor Emperor trusts the other. Neither will make the first move. And it may now be too late. Heraclius, the son, or his cousin will soon show up outside Constantinople. Whoever gets there first will be Emperor himself before Christmas. That means all Rome needs do is wait, while extracting whatever concessions it can from both sides.

‘That brings us to the petitioning mobs. Were the people who stopped you for or against the Emperor? I’d like to know who wants me dead.’

But I had lost him. I might as well have asked him about forward contracts on the price of tin for all the sense I could get out of him.

I dropped the matter. Had I been more with it, I’d have skipped the lecture and stuck to questioning. Even so, I might have all the information that I reasonably needed for what I now had in mind.

Looking back across the square, I could see that the body had now disappeared. It would never do for pilgrims to have that in their first view of the Lateran. In its place stood a huddle of clerical monks. Behind them, on the Lateran steps, stood the Dispensator himself. He had the sun in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if he could see me. But I could just make out the abstracted look on his face.

‘Heresy in Spain?’ I muttered – ‘my arse!’ Well before the close of business that day, I swore to myself, I’d have this out with His Excellency the sodding Dispensator. This time, I’d be in control of the exchanges.

For the moment, though, I had some urgent preliminary business.

‘Authari,’ I said in my firm, master’s voice, ‘go back home and get some rest. No more to drink this morning. I want you washed and looking respectable for when I send you to fetch the Lady Gretel for her inspection of those Cretan tablecloths.

‘No,’ I said still more firmly, ‘I’ll face no more trouble this morning. And it’s probably for the best if you aren’t with me where I now have to go.’

Sveta took me into the kitchen of the little house and poured me a cup of wine.

‘But you’re bleeding!’ she said with a still more suspicious look at my forearm.

‘Do forgive me,’ I said as she called her woman for hot water, ‘but I didn’t notice.’ I really should have gone home first for a bandage – that, or something with longer sleeves.

It was a surprisingly deep cut, and I winced as the slave woman massaged in the salted pork fat.

‘I believe your husband is teaching?’ I asked.

Ignoring my pleasant smile, Sveta pulled her eyes away from the trickle of blood on to the kitchen table and nodded.

‘Martin will come as soon as he can end the lesson. I went to tell him as soon as I saw you at the door. But it is his best student – he’s the natural son of the Lord Bishop Servilianus, you know.’

I didn’t mind waiting. Servilianus was as influential as his bastard was thick. Martin needed more pupils like that if he was to keep up this go at being independent. I drained the cup with my good arm and held up the other so the slave could do a proper job with her bandage.

‘So, Martin,’ I asked with an attempt at cheerfulness, ‘I take it you don’t fancy Constantinople at the moment?’

He looked up from the letter of instruction. ‘Not now. Not ever,’ he said, his voice most emphatic for a man who’d just nearly shat himself. ‘You know what happened to me when I lived there. Now there’s a civil war about to reach the place, you can’t imagine how it will be.

‘Rather than go back to the City, I’d sooner be taken by the Lombards, and kept this time. I’d sooner go back to Ireland, passing through every village in your own land while speaking in Celtic. Either would be death. But the City would be death as well – death, and before that…’

I waited for him to finish. The baby began crying in an upstairs room. I felt a pang of envy as I heard Sveta go up the external staircase.

I waved at the letter of instruction. ‘Well, I don’t want to go there either,’ I said. ‘So you just save your complaints for the Dispensator. He’s the one who says you know Constantinople. He’s the one who says I need an assistant I can trust absolutely. He’s the one we need to get round if we aren’t to go anywhere at all.’

Martin smiled sadly. ‘After all we’ve been through,’ he asked, ‘you still think you can negotiate with the Dispensator? You can no more talk your way out of these instructions than you can reason with the tides on Dover Beach.’

‘There’s every chance we can get out of this,’ I said in a reassuring tone that was as much for me as for him. ‘Either we can get out of it altogether, or we can get it put off till later in the year. At least we can go in better circumstances than seem presently intended.’

I pushed my cup towards him for a refill. Martin poured to the halfway mark. I took it back before he could reach for the water jug.

‘I’m seeing His Excellency again this afternoon,’ I said. ‘I’ll need you with me for support.’

Martin ignored me. ‘I did pray’, he said, self-pity now replacing alarm, ‘that I might live to see my child grow up. But happiness was never my fate. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”’

He looked upwards – possibly for God, more likely worried that Sveta might be listening through the floorboards. There were degrees of martyrdom beyond even his present mood.

But this was getting us nowhere. I changed the subject.

‘I bumped into your landlord as I came down the street,’ I said, dropping my voice still further. ‘I took the liberty of settling your rent arrears. Next time you can’t pay the wretch, do come and tell me. I think the two men with him were baliliffs.’

Martin looked up again. There was a heavy tramp on the upper floor, and the muted sound of a baby being comforted.

‘Thank you, Aelric,’ he said, a burden plainly coming off his mind. ‘I’ll tell Sveta when you’ve gone. She does respect you greatly. And she’s as grateful as I am for all you’ve done already to help. Sadly, I can’t persuade her to trust you. She says you only ever get me into trouble. She thinks – she thinks that you might be an atheist

…’

‘Think it a token of the great affection I bear you and your family,’ I said quickly. No fool was Sveta. She deserved better than Martin.

I pushed the cup forward again. Martin looked around.

‘You came alone?’ he asked. ‘Does that mean…?’

‘Does it mean’, I answered, quoting his own words back at him, ‘that I’ve got rid of that “drink-sodden oaf” I won at dice? No.’ I laughed. ‘Authari is presently at home opening boxes. He remains my best and most trusted slave. If we must go to Constantinople, he goes too. This time, be assured, he’ll be reminded of your station. Even you’d not deny, though, he can be very handy with a meat cleaver.’