The Ghosts of Athens (44 page)

‘She’s lying through her teeth!’ Priscus snarled once she was out of the door. ‘If your brains weren’t so obviously in your ballbag, you’d see that.’

‘I know that,’ I said. ‘But since I can’t guess what the truth may be, I see no reason yet for more questioning.’ I took a sip of the good wine Martin had laid in and rubbed my nose. At last, the spots really were going, and there might not be a third. For that much I could be grateful. I waited for Priscus to finish snuffing up some aromatic powder from a small box, and for the resulting spasm of groans and beating of head on the table to moderate. Then: ‘Can we turn to the matter of defence?’ I asked.

Martin cleared his throat and shuffled with his heap of papyrus. ‘The Lord Priscus asked me to investigate the city granaries,’ he began. ‘Because these are supervised by the Bishop of Athens, they have not been looted by the Count. The grain stored in them is of the lowest quality, and all seems to be very old. But I counted sixty thousand bushels.’ He stopped and looked at me.

I ignored him and looked at Priscus, who’d come abruptly out of his fit and was now sitting with his mouth open. I put my stylus down and stared at the smooth yellow wax on the tablet before me. I’d been about to calculate, on the basis of a pound a day of grain per head, and an estimated population of twelve thousand, how long we might have. But sixty thousand bushels! Even if these might be bushels of some local standard, the grain ship Ludinus had sent had obviously been full. And the monasteries probably had their own stores – as might all but the lowest class of citizens.

‘Can you enlighten us, Master Secretary, how Athens came to be so well-endowed with food?’ Priscus asked heavily. He snatched at the notes. With shaking hand, he took up the nearest lamp on the table and squinted at the careful tabulations.

I listened as Martin explained how every monk in the city had been pressed into carrying the sacks up from Piraeus.

‘A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence,’ I said when I could trust my voice not to shake all over the place. ‘It’s enough to say that we’re in better shape here than we were in Alexandria during the summer.’

Martin gave me a puzzled look. I smiled nervously back. Priscus had now sat up and was tracing letters on the table with a finger dipped in wine.

‘Yes,’ Martin said at last. ‘But there isn’t enough firewood to bake bread. That means milled grain only for the poor to make into porridge.’

I shrugged and came back to the matter in hand. Bread or porridge, we’d not be starved out. I’d seen a whole flock of sheep driven by farmers as they streamed in from the country. Add to this that the cisterns were full to overflowing, and we were better off than the barbarians must be.

‘Alaric will need to sign a rationing order,’ Priscus said. ‘Given that the citizens are the garrison, we can dole it out free of charge.’ He frowned at the random series of letters he’d now traced, then rubbed them all out carefully with the flat of his left hand. ‘I left the militia in excellent cheer,’ he went on in a more positive tone. ‘The women will sit up all night, cutting off their hair to plait into bowstrings. We have one catapult that can be put into working order by noon tomorrow, and another piece of artillery that might fire metal bolts if it doesn’t fall apart.’

‘You are confident we can hold the walls?’ I asked, trying not to sound anxious. I failed.

Priscus laughed and stretched lazily. ‘So long as those fuckers don’t find the one big weakness, and we aren’t reduced to fighting inside the walls,’ he said easily, ‘I’d say it was a piece of piss. Barbarians don’t know siege warfare. If they want to make a rush for the walls, we’ll open the northern gate and hit them with a rain of arrows when they hurry forward. A few days of that – oh, and let’s pray for more rain, and the onset of pestilence in those famished bodies – and I think you can lie as easy in your bed as our mutual friend will let you.’

‘Then I think we can close this meeting,’ I said hurriedly. From the laboured scratching of his pen, Martin was getting ready for an attack of the jitters. So, bearing in mind the laughter that had greeted my suggestion that help might eventually be sent over from Corinth, was I.

But Priscus hadn’t finished. Now flushed and energetic from his drug, he grinned and reached for his water cup. ‘When I speak about the militia,’ he said, ‘you will appreciate that this doesn’t include the rabble. We’ll keep them fed just enough to keep them quiet. But I don’t fancy trusting them with arms – not after this afternoon’s performance.’

I nodded. The militia had finally drawn proper blood that afternoon, and this may have explained the warm reception Priscus had got. But I’d come away from the council surrounded by another hundred of those dirty, chattering creatures. Turning their backs to me as I approached, they hadn’t turned violent. But I had been more struck than before by their curious indifference to the growing mass of humanity outside the walls. Had they no conception of what would happen if the walls gave way? I’d been wondering if it wouldn’t be a good idea to trick them close by one of the gates, and then push them all out. I was glad Priscus wouldn’t be arming any of them.

‘There is a further matter,’ he said with a cold smile. ‘I think your assumption is that the barbarians waited until the passes were clear. But this doesn’t add up. The rains finished three days ago. From the reports I’ve had of the rain that fell, the passes must still be awash. This means that the people outside our walls must have been here all along. I’d like to know where they could have been in Attica without being noticed – and why they’ve now decided to turn up outside Athens.’

This was definitely unwelcome news. I dropped my stylus and, my own hands shaking, watched as it rolled across the table out of reach. I pushed my chair back and got to my feet. Trying not to rush like a frightened child, I walked down the room to stand before the bust of Polybius. The broken nose did give him a supercilious look. If I’d gone to him for guidance, I got none whatever. I’d never confess to anything but perfect self-control – not to Priscus, at least. And I saw no value in setting Martin off. But all this was getting to me, and I was ready to allow long chains of any nonsense to stand in place of reasoned hypothesis.

I turned and found Priscus standing behind me. ‘If you go on to the roof of this building,’ he said with false brightness, ‘you can see right over the city walls. You may have other plans for the night. But I think I’ll go and have a look at what we can expect for tomorrow.’

I did have other plans, and these did include Euphemia. At the same time, now that Corinth was off the agenda for the next day, there were some notes I needed to look over for the next session of the council. Instead, I found myself following Priscus over to the far door of the library.

‘You do have the most awful taste in women,’ Priscus said with another chuckle.

I stood beside him and looked miserably down to the city wall. Beyond it, almost as far as the eye could see, the campfires glimmered like the reflections of lamplight on polished marble. Far above us, the stars looked down. The moon was low behind us. Athens itself was in darkness.

I looked at the eastern horizon. Was that a little finger of cloud that might show a return of bad weather? Or was it smoke from the campfires? Hard to tell – though the slight breeze had shifted direction again, and I could smell the damp brushwood that had been set alight out there.

Priscus burped so loudly, it might have been heard by anyone beyond the walls who was still awake. Without bothering to look at him, I heard the opening of a lead box and was aware of a faintly aromatic smell. It didn’t matter if he was listening to me, or focusing on the rush of whatever he’d chosen to alter his mood. If I went on, it was for my own benefit alone. ‘If there are five hundred men we can rely on to hold the walls,’ I said, ‘I suppose we can rely on the monks for all ancillary parts of the defence. Even so, an attack at more than one spot . . .’

‘My dearest Alaric,’ came the smothered reply, ‘if these animals
do
attack in more than one place, we’ll be fucked. It’s as simple as that. Our job is to make it look as if we have an adequate force inside the walls. That’s why it’s so essential to know where Nicephorus has gone. When I was last here, Balthazar was living in a cave near Eleusis. We can hope they’ve both taken refuge there.’ He blew his nose and laughed bleakly. ‘Isn’t there something in Homer about campfires at night?’ he asked with a shift of tone.

I looked out again over the constellation of flickering lights, and drew breath to recite:

. . . Fires round about them shined.

As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind.

And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the brows

Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows.

And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight,

When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,

And all the signs in heaven are seen that glad the shepherd’s heart;

So many fires disclosed their beams, made by the Trojan part,

Before the face of Ilion, and her bright turrets showed.

A thousand courts of guard kept fires, and every guard allowed

Fifty stout men, by whom their horse ate oats and hard white corn.

And all did wilfully expect the silver-throned morn.

‘Oh, well said!’ he cried. ‘Such memory – such careful distinction of long and short syllables! I never did get the whole of it flogged into me as a boy. Still, I suppose you had no choice but to memorise it all when you decided to pass yourself off as one of us.’

Any need for reply was cut off by a low murmuring from somewhere behind us. I turned and saw the glimmer of lights. I thought for a moment that someone had let the barbarians in, and that they’d set fire to Athens. But the low murmuring was the sound of a purely civil disturbance. I helped Priscus down from the raised part of the roof on which we were standing, and we hurried along another of those leaded passageways to the front portico of the residency. Even before I pulled myself up to lean on my elbows and look down into the big Forum of Hadrian, I’d seen that the light was only the glow of many torches. ‘A couple of hundred men down there,’ I said to Priscus, who was sitting on a stack of unused tiles.

‘Well, dear boy,’ he drawled, ‘do you fancy shimmying up properly to ask what it is they want this time? I absolutely promise not to push you from behind.’

How many promises the man had broken in his sixty-odd years wasn’t a subject I fancied considering. But I’d have to rely on his perception of his own interests and take the risk. I took hold of the smooth marble and pulled myself on to the apex of the portico. Just below me on a ledge that projected out was a mass of statuary that copied the old front pediment of the Temple of Athena. If I did pitch forward, I could trust in that to hold me until I could be recovered.

Testing my balance, I stood carefully up. I looked over the gathering crowd. As yet, no one had looked up to see me, though the moon must be shining on my white tunic as it did on the uncoloured marble of the statues. I clapped my hands loudly together and waited for every head to turn upward.

‘Who dares disturb the counsels of their betters?’ I shouted.

There was a long pause, broken only by a continued low muttering and a shaking of torches. Then someone shouted from the middle of the crowd: ‘Give us back Nicephorus!’ There was a ragged chorus of the name, and a rising babble of many other things that mixed together so I couldn’t follow them.

Keeping my balance, I raised my arms again for silence. ‘You produce Nicephorus if you can,’ I shouted as loudly as I could. ‘He has deserted all of us. As of this evening, Athens is under direct rule by the Emperor’s Legate. And I tell you all again: there is an enemy at the gates of Athens that will make no distinction of rank or opinion if it manages to break in among us. I do not ask you to join in the defence of your lives and your homes. But I do suggest that you refrain from disturbing the counsels of those who are to defend you.’

I was drawing breath to bid them good night, when there was a sudden scream of horror, and the forest of torches moved sharply back to the middle of the big square. It was impossible to see past those flaring lights into the crowd beneath. But I could see that those nearest the residency were no longer looking up at me. Their heads were now turned to somewhere below me on the right. I wiped sweaty hands on my tunic and stretched carefully forward. Just before I thought I’d overbalance, I caught sight of Euphemia. She’d got herself on to a balcony that looked over the square, and was leaning forward to see all that was happening.