Richard Blake - Conspiracies of Rome

I tried to explain that I’d been in perfectly safe company. But I couldn’t think of anything convincing to say that wasn’t other than an admission of what he’d accused me of doing, or a confession of truth that might kill him from shock.

He calmed down a little. ‘Listen, my son, you may think I want you to live like a monk. I don’t. But I must warn you – Rome is a dangerous city. You know we’re being followed everywhere. You know our rooms have been searched. Don’t you ask yourself why?’ He didn’t pause for an answer, but continued, ‘There are things here that you can’t begin to understand – wickedness upon wickedness upon wickedness. It is the home of our Holy Mother Church. Before then, it was the home of all vileness and sin, and this is with it still. Rome is evil. Rome is dangerous. I want us out of here in the time given by the prefect. Between now and then, I don’t want you to go out alone.’

I tried to tell him about my walk though the city with Lucius, and how safe we’d been. Maximin wasn’t interested.

‘The dangers of which I speak are not to be repelled by a few armed slaves. There are evils outside this house that will swallow you whole. I don’t want you ever to go out alone at night again. You go with me. You go with Martin. Or you stay in this house.’

The lecture was over. Maximin went back to his big speech. I slunk off to bed, wondering what he could have meant by his ‘full report’ – hadn’t he given that the day before? How many of these meetings were there to be?

Martin had disappeared. Slaves can always make themselves scarce when they need to. Gretel was nowhere to be seen. In any event, I was shattered. I’d felt quite full of myself as I threw stones over the outer gate of the house to get the attention of Marcella’s watchman. I’d felt good groping my way upstairs. Then I’d tripped over Maximin’s boots, put out for cleaning, and his door had flown open. Now, all I wanted was to get some sleep. I pulled up the bedclothes, barely noticing how some smell of Gretel still clung to them.

When I woke, the sun was pouring into the room. No one had disturbed me, and I’d lost much of the morning. Previous lack of sleep and a bellyful of wine had given me a ferocious headache. I looked out into the corridor and stopped a slave. Soon, a couple of them were carrying water up for a bath.

I eased myself into the cold water. It did seem colder than at Richborough. But cleanliness has a price that must usually be paid. After a while, I got used to the chill, and sat there scrubbing myself. And I began to feel more human. I started to think of Edwina – not the Edwina of untutored passion, but an Edwina who knew all the wicked things Gretel had introduced me to the night before last. That really perked me up.

Better still, as I was drying myself, there was a knock at the door. The tailors had finished some of the clothes I had ordered. Some things still needed a few touches to be perfect. But the suit of blue I’d ordered fitted exactly. It was in the mixed Roman and barbarian style then the fashion in Italy – both trousers and tunic. I’d specified it should follow the shape of my body without being tight.

The tailors had done an excellent job. I looked down at my reflection in the bath water and loved what I saw.

I went downstairs and showed myself to Marcella and the slaves. They agreed. I saw Gretel’s mouth fall open with wonder and with lust. That night, I’d not disappoint either of us, I told myself. Marcella was so pleased she had me go out into the street to show off to the neighbours and passers-by what manner of guests she was able to attract. Sure enough, every head turned as I walked up and down in the hot Roman sun. This was our first hot day in Italy. Until then, the days had been like the best days of a Kentish summer. Now the sun burned with a wondrously pleasing heat.

I thought I could order a little cap to go with the suit: it would really set off those golden curls. Or would it? I was considering whether to imitate Lucius and have it all cut short but for a fringe. It was a very neat style. And it was the fashion. On the other hand, those curls were part of my charm. I pondered the question as others in the street nodded and smiled at me.

As we prepared for an early lunch, Maximin seemed a little recovered from the morning. He glanced at the fine clothing and grunted, making no comment otherwise. He was at his writing table, looking up a reference in one of Marcella’s books. He closed this, marking his place with a piece of scrap. He looked at me and sighed.

‘It is your intention, I take it, to visit one of the libraries today?’

‘Oh yes,’ said I brightly, still thinking about caps. ‘I asked Martin yesterday to find some copying secretaries. We’ll soon be turning out as many books for Canterbury as we can ship there.’

As we were about to go downstairs, a messenger was shown in. He was the monkish clerk we’d seen yesterday. The dispensator was calling Maximin to an unscheduled meeting in his office.

‘At your earliest convenience,’ the clerk emphasised.

Maximin looked unusually troubled as we ate lunch. Silent, he ate little, instead drinking much.

‘Shall we go together down to the Lateran?’ I asked.

Maximin gave me a bleary look. ‘I don’t think you have time for waiting around any longer,’ he said with a glance at my white boots. ‘You’d better get moving. I’ll follow you down to the Lateran when I’ve sorted some papers.’

Down at the Lateran, Martin had indeed found and assembled the copying secretaries. There were twenty of them. There was little demand for their services in Rome, and so we had got the hire of them all for much less than the bill that would follow from the tailor.

I think they had been there much of the day when I finally arrived. All solid, respectable slaves in early middle age, they had the inky hands and crabbed posture of their occupation. All rose to greet me as I was shown into the room. Good slaves never show impatience or disappointment. I might have kept them waiting all day and all night before seeing them: still they’d have stood before me with the same polite looks.

I motioned them to sit, and began the little speech I’d prepared. Turning the phrases over in my head, it had seemed an easy matter to give the thing. I’d imagined how the sound of my balanced, melodious Latin would fill the room, and leave my audience crying out for more. But this was my first ever speech, and, even if it was to slaves, I found my mouth was dry. Worse, I began to shake.

The slaves continued to stand, their looks still mechanically polite. I opened my mouth again, now desperate for the constriction in my throat to clear and for some sound to issue.

‘You may find this useful,’ Martin whispered, passing a cup of wine.

I drained the cup. I pulled myself together. I opened my mouth and spoke. ‘We have been brought together during the next month for a work of the highest importance,’ I said. ‘As you know, Holy Mother Church expects much of its mission to the English. Churches are rising all over the land. Schools are opening. Soon, there will be English priests to send on missions deeper into the island. All of England is to be reclaimed from the darkness of heathen superstition.

‘I have come here to gather and to return with books for the libraries of England. The youth of England are hungry for knowledge of every kind. The books already there are insufficient to satisfy this hunger. If I can send back two hundred books on this first visit, I shall be content.

‘I will select the books. Under the direction of Martin, you will copy all that I give you. I want the best copies you can produce. I will provide you with the finest parchment and the best inks. I will feed you all that you can eat and drink. I will have what you produce bound in rich and heavy leather that will protect your work for ages to come, and will let it be used for making further copies. In return, I want copies that the finest Church dignitary here in Rome would not be ashamed to have on his shelves.