The Ghosts of Athens (9 page)

‘Great minds think alike,’ Priscus said with a bitter laugh. ‘I’m the last survivor from before the revolution. Everyone’s been wondering how long the son-in-law of Phocas the Unmentionable could last in the new order of things. You might say that I’m the Empire’s only half-decent general. But it’s obvious I’ve been living on borrowed time ever since Heraclius rolled up in Constantinople and got himself crowned Emperor.’ He laughed again. ‘You were set up because the old nobility finally got through to Heraclius that your scheme of land reallocation would be the greatest revolution in the Empire since Constantine turned Christian. Once it was known I’d joined you in Alexandria, it was just a matter of two birds with one stone.

‘Do you suppose he’ll have us blinded before we’re stuffed into a monastery?’ he asked. ‘Do you suppose we’ll share a monastery? I hope you’ll not take it ill. But I’d rather not have to share a prison with you. Besides, I can tell you from my own experience that there’s no shortage of ghastly places of confinement in this part of the Empire. There’s a particularly nasty monastery halfway up Mount—’

Martin had made one of his polite coughs behind us. ‘The Captain apologises for his oversight when you spoke with him,’ he said. ‘But he came back from shore with a letter for you.’

Priscus and I looked at each other. I swallowed and took the unrolled sheet of papyrus in a hand that I willed not to shake.

‘Apparently, the Governor is detained in Corinth by ill health,’ I said without glancing up from the letter. ‘We’ll be met by a certain Nicephorus. He describes himself as Count of Athens.’ I looked at Priscus.

His answer was a long and disgusted clear of his throat. He turned and spat again into the sea. ‘Let’s face it, dear boy,’ he said. ‘You are, when all is said and done, just a barbarian and hardly older than a schoolboy. But I am a descendant of the Great Constantine himself, and not far off three times your age. I’d have thought I was worth being arrested by the Governor.’ He took the letter from me and stared at the scruffy writing. ‘I had dealings with Nicephorus when I was last here,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing he’ll enjoy more than loading me with chains. If blinding really is on the menu, he’ll hold the white-hot metal himself in front of my eyes.’

I didn’t care if I was seen to grip the rail and steady myself. ‘When exactly were you in Athens?’ I asked weakly.

He pulled himself gradually back together. ‘It was in the ninth year of Phocas the Tyrant,’ he said just as weakly. He stopped and scowled and repeated the hated words of kinship to the fallen Emperor. He tried to clear his throat again, but failed. He bent forward as far as his armour allowed and tried again. This time, he managed a long and thunderous burp. Then he did clear his throat. Without bothering to turn, he spat on to the deck. ‘It was two years ago – just before everything went really bad for the Tyrant,’ he added when he’d recovered his composure, ‘and the barbarians were pushing closer and closer to the ruined fort at Thermopylae. I was sent out to see what defence could be made of the Greek cities. Unlike everywhere else north of Corinth, Athens did have a wall in nearly decent shape.’ He stopped and cleared his throat again. This time, he swallowed and looked about for his box of drugs.

‘I wasn’t aware that Athens had a Count,’ I said. I might as well go through the motions of interest. ‘I thought it was under direct rule from Corinth.’

Priscus looked up from fussing with his powders and smiled bleakly. ‘Because, even today, the place has a certain prestige,’ he explained with a hint of the didactic, ‘Athens has its own administration. Since Heraclius didn’t see fit, after the revolution, to recall Timothy the Utterly Idle from Corinth, it would normally be a favour to Athens. But you haven’t met Nicephorus.’ He sniffed in a pinch of something dark. He laughed and leaned back against the rail as tears ran down his green paint.

‘You’d better go and get everyone ready,’ I said to Martin. I looked closely at him. His own eyes were heavy with tears. ‘Please remember everything I told you,’ I repeated.

He bowed and went below.

Priscus sniffed and coughed. He closed his eyes for a long groan of ecstasy. Then he was back with me. ‘Have you told our obese friend that this galley will dump us in Piraeus before going straight off to Corinth? Does he know there won’t be so much as a slave getting off with us?’ His face now creased into a smile so broad, the lead underlay on his face cracked and a few specks of white and green fell on to his breastplate.

I shook my head. ‘It’s enough that he’s ready to make a dash once we’re ashore,’ I said. Poor Martin, I thought sadly. Until Cyprus, he’d been counting off the days to when he and his family could settle back into my snug palace in Constantinople. Safe inside the impenetrable walls of the City, he could regard the simultaneous collapse of every frontier with an almost philosophic calm. It was now a question of whether he could avoid being swept up in a double arrest in Piraeus and, without a single slave to carry baggage, get everyone out of the Empire. Poor Martin – I felt almost lucky by comparison. But Sveta would get them all to safety. With her glowering looks and vicious temper, she might be proof of the more acetic denunciations of marriage. But if anyone could ward off a general arrest on the docks, it would be Sveta. The Emperor himself might look away from her Medusa-like stare.

‘Your nose is a proper sight!’ Priscus said as his drugs brought him to a semblance of his old self. ‘Still, I think I did tell you that wanking was bad for the complexion.’ He managed an unpleasant laugh.

I looked up at the sail. It was obvious the galley wouldn’t be staying in Piraeus longer than it would take to dump the pair of us into custody. So far as I could tell, Corinth had the only shipyard in the whole region capable of putting the galley back into order. The Captain would doubtless make for there. After that, he could go about whatever else he’d been ordered. Whatever that might be didn’t affect us.

The galley gave a determined pitch, and there was a renewed burst of shouting overhead. Sailors ran up and down the netting and did things with ropes. I gave Priscus a cold stare. ‘Time, I think, to get ourselves ready to go ashore,’ I said.

‘Then you can lead the way, my big, blond stunner,’ he sniggered. ‘You know it takes me an age to get up and down that ladder.’

In ages past, Piraeus had been the greatest port in the civilised world. In those days, Athens was Mistress of the Seas and a centre of all trade. Its port was every day crowded with ships of war and with trading vessels. For all I could see through the grey mist, it might have been crowded still. But I knew it wasn’t. As on everything else in this forsaken borderland of a reduced Empire, time had set its hand on Athens and smoothed away both glory and prosperity. If more than a couple of fishing vessels were lashed against the docks, I’d have been surprised.

I sat ready in my chair, Priscus sat beside me. Martin perched behind with both hands clamped on the back of the chair. From the faint smell of wood smoke and rotten fish, I guessed we couldn’t now be more than a hundred yards from shore. There was a tension in the cries of the Eastern crew that told me the long voyage really was coming to its end. The white canopy that had been raised above us was already soaked by the rain. Every time I shifted position on the wet cushions, I could feel it brushing against the top of my official hat. If I hadn’t felt so utterly dispirited, I’d have marvelled at the skill with which the pilot was getting us into the right docking position. I heard an eager shout and a babble of something triumphant as a scattering of beacons came faintly in sight. There was another long grinding of timbers, and now a repeated splashing of water, as the whole galley turned about and its left length bumped gently against the dock.

‘Welcome to Athens, my dearest Alaric,’ Priscus whispered into my ear. ‘If I’m not mistaken, the city of Aeschylus and Thucydides has turned out in force to greet the Emperor’s most beauteous and learned adviser. It won’t be a private arrest.’

Whatever drugs he’d consumed had given his breath the smell of baked dog shit. I bent forward and squinted through the mist to try to see the figures who were gathered on the docks. Look as I might, they drifted in and out of visibility, and I was left no wiser about who or how many they were. A slave helped Martin across the plank that joined us to the docks, and he vanished within one of the thicker fingers of the mist. Then he was back to stand very carefully on a stepladder that had been placed right on the edge of the docks. I caught a look of confusion on his face. I thought of the line of armed guards ready to take us into custody, and felt my stomach turn over and over. It was exactly like the moment you get, when, riding into battle, you lose control of your horse, and realise that there’s nothing you can do to avoid crashing straight into the waiting enemy.

But, though his body shook, and he had to grip hard on his stepladder to avoid falling back into the water, Martin was now going through all the correct motions. ‘You will greet His Magnificence Alaric, Senator, Count of the Most Sacred University, Legate Extraordinary of His Imperial Majesty,’ he cried in his grandest voice as I helped Priscus to his feet and led him on to the plank. If I had much else to think about, I was surprised at how light the man had become in the month or so since I’d last nerved myself for physical contact with him.

But Martin had drawn breath, and, with a very slight tremor in his voice, was continuing: ‘And you will greet His Magnificence Priscus, Senator, Commander of the East.’

On to the carpet that had been placed there long enough to be soaked, the Count of Athens and all the other persons of secular quality who’d travelled down to receive us fell as one for a full prostration. I looked nervously at Priscus. He looked back and pulled a face. He may have been trying to look carefree and amused. He only managed to look as baffled as I felt. I looked about for a glint of steel. I saw nothing. Instead, the little gong was sounded as etiquette required, and a dozen heads splashed three times on the ruined silk. They got up, as bedraggled after their wait in the rain as if they’d been pulled from a shipwreck, and waited on my instructions.

‘Gentlemen,’ I said, stepping on to the odd firmness of the land, ‘I do most humbly thank you for your goodness in coming down from Athens. I bring with me every assurance from the Great Augustus of his love and regard for your city and for all its people.’

No one laughed. There was even a general bowing of heads. It was now that the slaves who’d followed me across with another canopy to hold off the rain jumped back on board the galley. Their duties were at an end, and they didn’t look in the slightest unhappy to be rid of us. I felt a gust of chilly rain on my face. Then, other slaves came out from behind the still bowed officials and draped some wet canvas about my official clothes.

I took the Count’s hand. It was cold and slippery. There was a trickle of water from the lowest point of his black beard. ‘You are Nicephorus?’ I asked with an attempt at the authoritative.

He nodded and stared impassively back at me. There was no hint of welcome in his face – or of any coming arrest.

My heart was beating very fast. With every beat, though, the moment for the words of arrest was passing. ‘Then, my dear Nicephorus,’ I added, ‘I rejoice in having made your acquaintance, and look forward to our harmonious working together.’

I stood in the rain as he hurried through his formulaic greeting in the flat Greek of a Syrian. It was all so far as it should be – and not at all as I’d been so convinced it would be. There were no other officials about Nicephorus. Instead, he’d been waiting with what may, by their manner and the look of their clothing, have been well-to-do tradesmen. These, I supposed, were the town assembly. A few of them were armed with sharpened broom handles. One of them had a tarnished sword that may have been of bronze, and might have fetched a good price in the antiques market back in Constantinople. So far as armed men were concerned, this was it.

If this was a trap, it was a good one – and pointless too. Though armed, the two of us were hardly likely to try cutting our way to freedom. The mist wasn’t so thick on land as out in the bay. I could see fifty yards all about. Not one gleam of armour and drawn sword – just more of the usual formalities. I took a deep breath and made myself smile. I made as short a second speech as decency allowed. I then stood back to let Martin read out my commission, putting the Emperor’s Latin a phrase at a time into Greek.

I could smell that awful breath again as Priscus leaned close. ‘Isn’t that my cousin Simeon over there?’ he muttered.

I nodded. I’d been aware of that blaze of clerical finery from the moment I’d stepped on shore. But the dozen or so bishops had been taking shelter against the wall of a ruined warehouse, and there had been thoughts of arrest, and then the shock of our actual greeting to take all my attention. Martin, though, was now finished with his reading, and Nicephorus had turned to prod some life into the slaves, who were still grovelling on the wet stones.

‘My Lord Simeon,’ I cried as we hurried over the slippery, uneven paving blocks, ‘I am delighted – though also a little puzzled – to see you so far from home.’