I looked again at the message and blinked until my eyes had adjusted. Though possible, convincing forgery of a seal is difficult and therefore uncommon. But I held it closer and looked carefully at the wax. Was it my dazzled eyes? Or was there a slight variation of colour? I tried to reconstruct how the seal had been pressed into the wax. Shouldn’t it have left a full rather than a partial impression?
Put me before some commission of inquiry and I’d have persuaded everyone of how reasonably I’d acted throughout – how any other reasonable man would have found himself standing just outside the jaws of a trap. I might even have got away with a commendation for how I’d spotted things just in time. In the private turnings of my mind, however, there was no denying I’d been a dickhead – a total and culpable dickhead.
I turned to Antonia, who seemed to have picked up on my mood. ‘Listen,’ I said, keeping all urgency out of my voice. ‘I want you to get yourself as quickly and quietly as you can back to the road.’ I slipped off my signet ring. ‘Stop the first carrying chair that comes past with more than a dozen armed guards and give this to the owner. Tell him I need immediate support.’ I stared her into silence. ‘I may not need help,’ I went on. ‘You may find that you get to the road with me only a dozen yards behind you. But I do implore you to go.’
I turned away from her and took my sword out. Now I was looking, I could see where a stream of blood had run down from above to my right. If I stepped up to a narrow ledge on the rock, I could pull myself level with the top of the ridge. As I considered whether I should take off my cloak and outer tunic, I realised that Antonia was still behind me.
‘Go!’ I said, jerking my sword in her direction. ‘If I need to use this, having you about will only complicate things.’
She screwed her face up as if to start another of her objections. Suddenly, she pointed. ‘Look out – behind you!’ she hissed.
I’d already heard the scrape of shoe leather on rock. All clerical dithering over, I pushed her close against the ridge and got a fighting grip on my sword. The armed man didn’t have time to call out. He didn’t have time to stop. I braced myself as we made contact. I think he was dead before his breastbone had crunched against the pommel of my sword. Certainly, I had my sword back out of him and cleaned on his padded tunic before he was fully down. Unspotted by his blood, I was ready to fight again.
There was no need to fight again. He’d been alone. The brief sight I’d had of his face told me street thug. His clothing and the cheap sword he’d been carrying said much the same. He hadn’t been the sort who attacked without cover of darkness or plenty of support. I could guess he’d been running away and had found me in his path.
‘Did you see where he came from?’ I asked, very calm. There’s nothing like a quick and almost elegant kill to settle your nerves. Whatever my internal commission of inquiry might eventually decide, we’d reached the point of emergency. I managed a smile as I asked again. He must have jumped down from the shore side. Everything suggested that. But I needed to know beyond doubt. Not speaking, Antonia pointed at the shore side. She looked scared, but not on the point of collapsing in tears. I was casting about for the right form of words to get her scampering back in the direction of safety, when I heard a distant clash of weapons and a cry of what may have been pain. I now heard a much shriller cry, though also from a distance. There was a fight down on the beach.
Antonia found her voice. ‘Alaric – My Lord,’ she said with quiet intensity – ‘can’t you see this is a trap? Let’s both get out of here.’
She was no fool. That much was clear. I frowned as if to let her know she’d spoken out of place. I turned and looked up again. If I went carefully, I could stop at a point from where I could bob my head up very briefly. There was a chance that Lucas and his men were waiting on the other side. They might have had trouble with some smugglers. The man I’d killed might have been running away. Or they might be in trouble. I had a plain duty to have a look. As for Antonia, I’d given her the chance to get away. There’s a limit to the consideration you give women. I took off my outer clothes and arranged them where they wouldn’t be blown down by the breeze. Keeping my sword in hand, I climbed noiselessly up a ten-foot incline of jagged rock. The plan was to put my head up and then straight down. I took a deep breath and held it. I pushed my head up.
I was looking down a long incline towards a rocky beach. Thirty yards out from the shore, there was a small ship at anchor. The message had told me there was a ship – though this one wasn’t beached, and was plainly not a trading vessel. The beach itself was covered with a few dozen men who lay very still. I didn’t bother wondering if they were dead. I could see the dark splashes on their clothes. Here and there, I could see the shafts of arrows. I could see at least one man still alive near the water. He was held down by a small man who sat on his chest, and was twisting with pain as another man did something to his feet. He let out a long scream and what may have been a claim of ignorance. It could have been a cord twisting tighter about a couple of toes with a stone between them. It could have been a knife point into the sole. Sensitive things, feet – you can carry a most effective torture chamber about with you if you know what to do with feet. There was a dead man to my right. He was the one whose blood had run down. There was another six feet away from him, this one with an arrow in his throat. So far as I could tell, none of the dead was from customs enforcement.
For someone who was planning to pull his head straight down, I’d seen rather a lot. But it hadn’t been a quick look. I’d put my head up and found myself staring into the face of a man who was standing not a yard away. It was a dark and bearded face. Its owner was carrying a sword of his own. A couple of yards further down the incline, there were three other men. All were carrying bows. One of them had an arrow already in place. I stared into a face that passed quickly through blankness, to surprise, to recognition, to relief, and then to a final glow of something between cunning and triumph.
‘Oh, Alaric,’ he said in Persian, ‘you won’t believe how pleased I am to see you! We thought these wretches had already killed you, and were about to go looking for your body.’ Shahin, son of Cavad, gave me a flash of teeth dyed red, and went into Greek. ‘Will you come on board as my guest? Or must I have you clubbed into submission?’
Chapter 13
‘It gets chilly at sea, I’ll grant. But, following your last escape, I’d be mad to leave you with even a scrap of clothing to cover your nakedness.’ Shahin smiled and leaned back in his chair. The ship was pitching very gently and we both watched as a wine cup moved a few inches on the table. When all was still again, he got up and bowed to Antonia, who had sat through our meal in silence. He spoke again in Greek. ‘It is against our customs to strip women – even when they drift into our clutches on the arm of Alaric the Faithless.’ He managed to scowl and smile at the same time. He put his face so close that his beard seemed to tickle her nose – at any rate, she blinked and shrank back. ‘But I promise you this – one move out of place from you and I’ll give you to the crew to be gang-raped. After that, I’ll cut your throat with my own hands. Do you understand?’ Antonia swallowed and nodded. That wasn’t good enough. ‘I said,
do you understand?
’
‘Oh, come now, Shahin dearest,’ I drawled in Persian, ‘the girl is worthless. I picked her up this morning in one of the poor districts. Instead of threatening to pollute yourself with her murder, just put her ashore. You might then explain what you want with me.’ When you’re in the charge of a man like Shahin, the best reaction to being stark bollock naked is to carry on as if fully dressed. I cleaned my fingers on a napkin and reached lazily for the wine jug. ‘Go on,’ I urged – ‘this is a very little boat for carrying even the pair of us to Beirut. Three’s a proper crowd.’ I put my face downward and looked up at him. I thought about simpering but decided that could wait.
‘Get on your feet, Alaric,’ he snarled. ‘I want to look on your naked body.’ I raised my arms to wave them about, as you must when speaking Persian. But he rapped out an order in Syriac and one of his men stepped forward to put a knife against Antonia’s throat. ‘Not her throat,’ he said with silky menace. ‘Get ready to cut off the little finger of her left hand.’ He smiled at me. ‘Would you care to watch this, Alaric?’ I looked briefly at the wine jug. It had been a meal without cutlery. But you can do a lot of damage with a two-pound weight of ceramic – or you could, so long as you didn’t worry what Shahin’s men would do next. I got up and stood away from the chair. Shahin waved at his man to wait before cutting. He kicked his own chair away from the table and stood up.
‘Arms and legs outstretched, Alaric,’ he said. He looked quickly at Antonia, who had squeezed her eyes shut and was biting lips that were as pale as her face. ‘Look at him,’ he said. Another order in Syriac, and her head was forced round so she had no choice but to look. Another of his men came over and ran his hands lightly over my body. I let myself grimace at his stinking breath, but tried otherwise not to look as close to shitting myself as I was.
‘Isn’t he lovely?’ Shahin gloated. ‘Did you ever conceive such beauty could exist in the male form? Is it not a beauty that the eyes can behold without ever being slaked? Have you yet known the force and passion of his embraces? I’m sure you thought your luck had changed when he chose you above other women.’ He laughed softly and walked forward to kiss me on the lips. I tried not to gag as he forced my teeth apart with his tongue and licked the roof of my mouth. He took hold of my buttocks and ground his hips against mine. He pulled back and stared into my eyes. Then, as if understanding from the look in my eyes the consideration of risk and benefit that was running through my head, he darted back. He nodded and his man let go of Antonia’s wrist.
He smiled again. ‘You heard the promise I made to your slag,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll extend it to you, Alaric. If you don’t do as I tell you, I’ll do more than cut her throat. She’ll die cursing the day you turned your lying charm on her.’ The ship moved slightly in a combination of breeze and current and he sat down heavily. He turned an ill-natured stare on Antonia, who was still looking at me. So far, she’d taken things pretty well – crying out with fear now and again but not completely breaking down in tears. But I could see in her eyes the expression of a condemned criminal who’s managed to smile and even banter with the crowd that has followed him through the streets and who now stands before the execution stake and sees the glowing brazier and the irons and knives and other implements of death. It didn’t help that she must have seen the same in my own eyes. Shahin looked on complacently. He giggled in his eastern manner and reached for the wine jug. ‘You may sit down, Alaric,’ he said with a return to fake jollity.
I allowed myself one sip of wine and smiled easily. ‘You know, Shahin,’ I said, back in Persian, ‘you always did have a taste for the dramatic. But don’t you think it would save time if you simply told me what you wanted?’
Shahin drained his cup and stared at the ceiling. ‘Do you know what His Majesty did to my uncle after you’d given him the slip in Ctesiphon?’ he asked, still in Greek. I raised my eyebrows. Knowing Chosroes in general, and knowing how eager he’d been to pay me back for wrecking a whole year of his war effort, I could imagine poor Bahram had been put to considerable discomfort. I hoped the exact manner would be left unsaid, or at least explained in Persian. But Shahin had settled into his excellent Greek and was in talkative mood.
‘My uncle was taken into the Shaft of Oblivion. You know that place, don’t you, My Lord Alaric?’ I did. Two years back inside the Empire and I still sometimes woke in a panic when I took opium in the wrong mood. I kept my face expressionless.
‘He was taken to the lowest dungeon. There, Chosroes himself was waiting, with his own hands to geld and blind the Lord Bahram’s two sons – and with a delicacy that ensured their survival. This done, a coat of silk mesh was wrapped tight about his body. It was wrapped so tight that one-inch squares of his bare flesh projected through. Every day, the Great King returned to slice off more squares with a razor . . .’
‘Oh, Shahin, Shahin,’ I cried as he stopped for a very dark scowl at me, ‘but I never realised Chosroes would miss me so!’ I smiled brightly and pushed my chair back so he could see more of me again. It made sense for Shahin to take no chances with me. Even so, stripping me naked plainly served more than one purpose. He still fancied the arse off me and, even before his latest demonstration of interest, had been drooling over me all though dinner like a voluptuary in a slave market. Of course, he’d have to be mad to get alone into bed with me. Come to think of it, I’d rather have got into bed with the toothless boy – and you could forget about the bath. Still, it was worth trying to divide his thoughts. Shahin was no fool. He’d not mess up like poor old Bahram had. But lust had finally topped intelligence in Ctesiphon. So it might do here. Sooner or later, I’d find means of escape. In the meantime, I could try to find out how he’d come to be operating as a pirate within sight of Constantinople – and how he’d known when to lift His Magnificence Alaric straight off that beach.
But Shahin paid me no attention and finished his account of how the two ruined sons had screamed reproaches at their father until the blood poisoning got to them, and how Bahram had lived another month as a bag of screaming, maggoty slime. I felt sorry for the poor man, and wondered how many days it might be from here to Ctesiphon. No – I put that straight out of mind. I needed a clear head. I couldn’t afford to think of that grinning fiend, slavering and scratching himself on a mountain of yellow silk cushions.