The Ghosts of Athens (6 page)

He gave me another of his ceremonious bows, and waved me towards a couple of chairs and a small table in the far corner of the room. As he passed it, he took up the sheet of parchment.

‘Since His Grace is overcome once more by tiredness,’ I said, ‘I must look to you for an explanation of his reason for calling me here. I hope it is a good one. Jarrow is not an easy journey at my age.’ I had thought of announcing that I was tired. One look at Sophronius, though, and I had given up at once on that.

He smiled and arranged himself into the chair opposite mine. It creaked horribly, and I hoped for a moment that it would give way under his vast bulk. But he leaned forward on to the table, and the careful distribution of his weight allowed him to sit with all the dignity of a gloating toad.

‘I must inform you,’ he opened as soon as I could describe myself as comfortable, ‘that His Holiness of Rome is being challenged to the point where he will have no choice but to issue a formal reprimand to the Emperor. Shortly before Christmas, a letter arrived in Rome from Constantinople. The claim that Pope Honorius, at your urging, may long ago have endorsed the Monothelite heresy is one that we have dealt with. His Holiness was deceived as to the issues, and treated them, in the manner of your presentation, as a question of Latin grammar. There is, however, a further claim that is not so easily answered. This is that, nearly eighty years ago, Pope Benedict of blessed memory knowingly subscribed to that heresy.’

I shrugged and wondered if I could ask for what remained of the wine to be brought over. But Sophronius didn’t look the sort of man who could be deflected by any show of aged helplessness. There might not be a decent bath on this entire island. Not even a full century, though, since Augustine had first set foot in England, and we’d grown up our own race of Imperial churchmen. Sophronius might occasionally dream in English. That aside, there was nothing to distinguish him from the snootiest cleric in the Lateran. Little wonder these people had rolled straight over the Celtic Church a few years earlier at Whitby.

‘The Holy Father is Universal Bishop,’ he continued. ‘Except where he has been misled, or is obviously suffering the infirmities that are natural to the human condition, he is inerrant in all matters of Church doctrine. The other four Patriarchs are due the utmost respect, but do not have the same standing before God as the successor of Saint Peter. It is therefore impossible that Benedict of sainted memory could have subscribed to the Monothelite or any other heresy. Yet the Imperial Government has had the effrontery to claim it has written testimony that he did so subscribe through his representatives.’

I was in no need of lectures on that
Thou art Peter
text. I’d spent the better part of a lifetime trying neither to endorse nor deny the meaning put on it by Rome. But I’d already guessed what was coming, and kept a polite look on my face as I inspected my dirty fingernails. I’ve said there was no decent bath in England. There was, however, a kind of bathing establishment close by the Monastery of Saint Anastasius. If I could get young Jeremy to overlook that it was also a brothel . . .

‘Whatever the authorities in Constantinople claim to have found in their archives,’ Sophronius went on as expected, ‘His Grace Theodore and you both know the truth of the matter. After all,
you were both there
!’

I looked again at the ceiling and then back at Sophronius. It might be worth trying for an attack of tiredness. No one thought ill of Theodore if he kept dropping off. But I clicked my false teeth together and put the thought finally out of mind. Some refusals, after all, are best for not being delayed. ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘if you want me to set my name to an attack on the Imperial Government, you’re asking a year too late. I’m not a refugee any more. The position now is that the Church in England is looking after me on behalf of the Emperor. There’s been a grant of money for my upkeep, and I rather think I’m being written back into the official histories. In any dispute between Pope and Emperor, my duty is to remain neutral. Besides, I’m so old, no one would take me seriously. If you want an authoritative account of the Council of Athens, you should write one up yourself and get Theodore to sign it. After all, he is a bishop – and he also was there.’

‘If I might be so bold, Brother Aelric,’ the man pressed on, ‘your rehabilitation within the Empire has given much weight to your own testimony. And no one can claim that your memory of the proceedings at Athens might be at fault.’

I gripped the table and pulled myself to my feet. ‘Be that as it may, Sophronius,’ I said, ‘you must accept my refusal to get involved. Now, if you would be so kind as to find Brother Jeremy, I will return to my lodgings and get ready to go back to Jarrow. My life as an actor in the world is well and truly over. I can only apologise that you had to come all the way from Rome to hear this.’

Sophronius looked up at me. Slowly, he got to his own feet. Then he bowed. If he was trying for a show of respect, it was spoiled by his delay in getting up, and by his gloating smile. For the first time in our conversation, I felt a slight pricking on the back of my neck. ‘You are, of course, a free agent,’ he said. ‘If you will not help us, Holy Mother Church can do no more than seek the best means of assisting you back to the monastery in Jarrow.’

‘My dear Sophronius,’ I said, keeping any appearance of strain out of my voice, ‘I was brought here by young Brother Jeremy. I have the fullest confidence in his ability to take me back.’ Forcing a smile on to my face, I stared back at him very hard. Though as yet with no facts to organise, my mind was beginning to work faster.

Sophronius broadened his own smile. He reached inside his robe and took out a small object. With another bow, he placed it on the table. I looked at it and sat down again. I sat down because the conversation was nowhere near ended – and to hide the trembling of my aged legs.

‘Oh, Brother Aelric,’ he said, in a mournful tone that fitted ill with the wolfish look now spreading over his face, ‘do please examine this object, and try to recall if it might be your property.’ Still on his feet, he bent forward and pushed it across the table. He watched closely as I stared at it. ‘This was recovered four days ago from the eye of one of His Majesty’s dearest servants,’ he explained.

Not bothering to touch it where it lay before me on the table, I stared at my bronze pin. No one had bothered cleaning it. Getting the dried gore off it would take a good soaking in vinegar.

‘The tollman on London Bridge was not able to say very much before he died,’ Sophronius went on. ‘The facts, however, may speak for themselves.’ He stopped and sat down. He reached forward and pointed at the elaborate, gilded head of the pin. ‘This is surely of Eastern workmanship, is it not, Brother Aelric?’ he asked with a close inspection of my face. ‘Are these not the Greek letters
AL
? Might they perhaps represent the name
Alaric
?’

Oh, sod, bugger, damn! I could have kicked myself. I’ll grant that it’s hard, in the most settled places, to tell the difference between tax-collectors and bandits. But I, of all people, should have known that you never leave a wounded enemy alive. I sat back and leaned against the chair. A mouthful of Theodore’s French red would have been very welcome. I had to make do with yet another stare up at the ceiling.

‘If, with the palsied hand of age,’ I said quietly, ‘I lost an object that should have been of great worth to me, please do accept my thanks for its safe recovery. But do also explain how its finding could disarrange the plans for my return to Jarrow?’ How Sophronius kept himself from peals of triumphant laughter would normally have been worth considering. For the moment, I noted the fact and waited for the inevitable.

It wasn’t long in coming. ‘His Majesty, of course, is outraged at the insult to his dignity. There is no possibility that a man of the Church could be handed over to any secular authority. The agreement negotiated many years ago with King Ethelbert the Saint will stand for ever. But the young man’s crime will be treated by the Church as a sin of the utmost gravity.’ Sophronius paused and allowed himself an ecstatic roll of his engorged frame. ‘You will surely agree that it is fitting for any who would serve God and the Church of God to maintain at all times a spirit of the utmost humility. When that spirit is lacking within, there are penances to instil it from without.’ He stopped and put both hands on the table. He leaned forward and stared into my eyes. ‘The nail that sticks out,’ he said with quiet relish, ‘must be hammered flat.’

I looked stonily back. I thought of that poor sod in the square before the big church.

‘It seems, my dear Brother in Christ,’ I said, ‘that there were no witnesses to what may have been a sad misunderstanding. But I can assure you that Brother Jeremy was in no manner to blame for whatever may have happened on London Bridge. Though not admitting to anything at all, I do take full responsibility.’

Sophronius stopped me with a sad shake of his jowls. ‘Oh, Brother Aelric, your supreme goodness of heart is famed throughout the world. Even otherwise, though, do not imagine that a man of your venerable years could possibly be credited with the blame for so dastardly a crime as the one committed on London Bridge. If any must suffer for the crime, it shall be young Brother Jeremy.’

Till now forgotten in his chair, Theodore cried out weakly in Syriac:

Abun d-bashmayo

nithqadash shmokh

tithe malkuthokh

nehwe sebyonokh

aykano d-bashmayo oph bar`o . . .

‘It’s the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer,’ I explained helpfully. Sophronius bowed. Obviously, the old dear was fast asleep, though, and this was the limit of any distraction I could expect from him. Sure enough, Theodore drifted into a stream of gibberish about his ‘mother’ before trailing off altogether. Sophronius was looking hard at me again. I sighed and took the pin from his hand. ‘Your fluency in Latin is most admirable,’ I said. ‘I therefore assume that your statement about suffering was deliberately in the conditional.’ His mouth fell ever so slightly open, showing the neat brown of his teeth. ‘Bearing in mind the absence of witnesses within the desolation of London to what may or may not have taken place there, I might suggest that the matter should be regarded as the mystery that it surely is.

‘After all, if I am to set forth in writing that Pope Benedict – neither by himself, nor by his servants or agents or any of them – never embraced the Monothelite or any other heresy, I cannot be in any sense perturbed by external considerations.’ I looked yet again at the ceiling. It saved me the vexation of looking at Sophronius. Not a decent bath in England, I reminded myself. Instead, we’d raised up men like this. Since I’d been partly responsible for the origins of the system, I should have felt at least some pride.

When I looked back at him, he’d managed to contain his triumph. ‘My Lord Alaric,’ he said with all the softness of one who gives absolution, ‘it shall, I promise, ever be our own little secret.’ He breathed out softly and rested more of his weight upon the table.

Two can keep a secret, if one be dead, I thought, recalling another old Kentish song. But I’d given in to the man. He had no reason to grass me to the King.

He beamed and sat back again. ‘I have taken the liberty of having your possessions moved from the Monastery of Saint Anastasius,’ he said, now briskly. ‘There is a suite of reasonably decent rooms upstairs in this building. I hope that you and Brother Jeremy can be made entirely comfortable during your stay. I understand that your preference for extended composition is to write in Greek on papyrus. I have commandeered every sheet of papyrus in Canterbury. More can be obtained in France. As for Greek, we can bring in scholars of sufficient learning. I am sure that, if questions of translation should arise, you will be ready to assist. In any event, as your account is to be summarised for publication to an Imperial audience, Greek will be the most convenient language.’

I moistened a finger and rubbed some of the sticky mess from the gold head of my pin. The boy who’d commissioned this for me still had no idea of my plans for him when he’d given it to me. But it can’t have been by accident that he’d had its bronze body sharpened to that nasty and convenient needlepoint. I clutched the whole pin in a hand that trembled very slightly. Over in his chair, Theodore shifted again and babbled in Syriac that he’d lost his pen case. As if by agreement, we paid him no further attention.

That was yesterday. You will not believe, dear reader, how angry I’ve been on and off since then. If I’d but crawled down and slit that tax-gathering bastard’s throat, I’d have got my pin back, and none of this would have been required. But I didn’t, and it’s all my fault if I’m now stuck here like some fly in a web spun by Sophronius.

Or is it really that bad? ‘Since I have none of the materials I’d normally use for checking external facts,’ I said earlier today when Sophronius visited me in this room, ‘you will forgive me if I only describe what I personally witnessed, or can reasonably infer. Other things may not be clearly explained. Indeed, I may not give you exactly what you want.’ His answer was a nod and the beginnings of another gloat. He then fussed about with a crate of papyrus and enough French red to keep a man drunk till Christmas.