Richard Blake - Conspiracies of Rome

Lucius smiled. He took the hand from my brow and kissed it. ‘Phocas and I hatched the plan together in Constantinople. That’s how I got the gold and the letters in Persian and Greek. But the plan grew and altered as I made the sea journey between Constantinople and Ravenna. By the time I’d had dinner with Smaragdus, certain important details were – ah – changed.

‘The letters were still to be intercepted and carried to Smaragdus. There were still to be arrests in Rome. But once we’d got our hands on the money of the Church, Smaragdus was to get himself declared emperor of the West. He has all the right qualifications, you know: birth, education, sufficient ability. He would denounce Phocas as a tyrant and an incompetent. He’d have stolen a march on the exarch of Africa, whose son and nephew still haven’t worked out which is to be the rival emperor. An emperor in being is worth a dozen possible claimants. At worst, we could do a deal. Africa is expendable, now the corn supplies from Sicily are adequate.

‘Most people in Italy would accept a Western emperor – someone at hand with the means and ability to throw out the Lombards. Though Smaragdus is a Greek, he’d govern through Latin ministers. Neither Phocas nor anyone else who might take over from him would be able to lift a finger to dislodge him.’

‘And the Church?’ I asked. ‘Where does the Church come into this? Orders from Constantinople are one thing. No one in Italy can get at the emperor there. But how long could Smaragdus last in Ravenna as the man who plundered the Roman Church?’

Lucius shifted his position and looked wistfully up at the ceiling. ‘My dearest Alaric,’ he said, ‘Smaragdus is an old man. As emperor, he might have at best a few years of power. From the start, he’d need a colleague. This colleague would be in all reasonable likelihood his successor. That colleague will be me.

‘And that answers your question about the Church. Plundered by Smaragdus, disestablished by me, it would be in no position to make serious trouble.

‘So, Phocas offered me some estates. Smaragdus has given me a future claim to all Italy.

‘And I don’t think I have to persuade you that I don’t want this for myself. I am the right man to throw out the barbarians, keep out the Greeks, restore the Old Religion, and generally give Italy back to itself. Just imagine that: all Italy united, and without all the imperial entanglements that got my ancestors distracted from the real prize. We could start again. A united Italy, Rome its capital.’

‘How did you get Martin to help in this?’ I asked.

‘The man is a slave of the Church,’ Lucius answered with a sneer. ‘He hates the Greeks who ruined his father and had him enslaved. He hates the Roman Church for something to do with doctrine or your people or whatever. He’s got some woman with child. He wanted freedom and money. The Gods led me to him, and I offered him what he wanted.

‘He did a good job on that papal letter. I watched your face closely as you read it. I don’t know when you stopped believing. But you certainly believed then. He also stole the relic. He was on the dispensator’s staff, and had easy access to the Church of the Apostles-’

‘It was your slaves,’ I interrupted, ‘who attacked me that night in Rome. You got yourself called away on some fake appointment with your lawyer – and I wondered how that slave found you so easily. You relied on me to refuse the escort you offered. Those were your slaves in the street. And that’s why you couldn’t get the wood for the bathhouse boiler. After I’d killed three of them, you were short of slaves.’

Lucius spoke sharply: ‘Alaric, I want you to know that those slaves had strict orders only to frighten you and then run away. I had to get your mind focused on those letters. You must understand how I needed them back, and how only you could lead me to them.

‘When I heard your story, I had the survivor beaten to death – him and one other who stood in the main street. I would never, under any circumstances, have had you harmed.’

So that was what the beaten slave had meant when he called out about ‘the others’. Was this fifth slave the one who saved me? I didn’t ask. Instead, I asked about Silas of Edessa.

That, Lucius explained, had been a mistake. He’d grown alarmed at what I’d heard in the Exchange about the Column of Phocas, so ordered the death of the old man. Unfortunately, the slaves had come across Silas boasting about the money I’d given him, and had killed him instead.

At last – and I’d dreaded this – I turned to Maximin. Why kill him?

Lucius looked away from me and spoke softly.

‘I was waiting all night and much of the next day on the Aurelian Way. The plan was that I’d intercept the prefect’s men as they rode back with the captured articles and have them taken straight off to Ravenna. I’d bought one of the officers.

‘Instead, the men rode by with just you and Maximin. There had been no interception, he said, nor battle, nor frustrated exchange. There had just been the rescue of a priest and his barbarian assistant from an attempted robbery. The priest had the relic. There was no mention of anything else.

‘I nearly panicked. I thought of riding right off there and then to Ravenna. Instead, I went back to Rome, to see what would happen, and what opportunities might still be available. I sacrificed to the Gods outside the city walls. They gave me a favourable answer.

‘In Rome, I had Martin check your movements. You didn’t tell the prefect about the letters. You didn’t give them to the dispensator. Either you were holding on to them for some reason of your own, or you hadn’t bothered to read them. Martin soon guessed it was the latter.

‘Martin got himself assigned to you so he could watch you, and perhaps steal the letters back. When he learnt that the dispensator had called Maximin to an unexpected meeting, we knew he’d got wind of something, and would soon have the letters in his hand. That would have ruined everything. He already knew I was up to something. This would give him all the proof he needed. He’d dig and dig. Eventually, he’d come up with enough of the truth to get me and Smaragdus had up ourselves for treason. We had to get those letters back.

‘I arranged for the messenger who cancelled the meeting. I killed the monk Ambrose. Martin then wrote the letter that got Maximin out just as dark was falling.’

‘Did you kill Maximin?’ I asked.

‘No!’ Lucius spoke firmly. ‘Look Alaric, I’m telling you the whole truth. You must believe me that I didn’t kill your friend.

‘The plan was to jump him and grab the letters. I’d be home in time to arrange dinner for you. He’d get up the next day with a sore head. There was no need to kill him. You came into the plot without realising. You’d have been out before you realised.

‘But it all went wrong. First, Maximin put up the most tremendous fight. It took two big men and one smaller to get him off the street into the shade of that portico. Even then, he fought like a maniac.

‘Then, we ourselves were attacked from behind. It must have been the dispensator’s men. It can only have been them. If so, your One-Eye is one of them. But we were attacked, and there was a general fight. From those bloody footprints, you might think it was a premeditated killing. But it was much more confused than that. I just don’t know who struck the killing blow. It might not even have been one of us.

‘Maximin was down. We had no time to search him. We ran off. The next morning, I heard about the killing. I heard how the body had been carefully placed beside the Column of Phocas – a warning to us, I took this, from the dispensator. I heard from Martin about the search of your lodgings. I grew more and more convinced that the dispensator’s men hadn’t got the letters either.’