So many questions. I sighed and straightened up. I skirted the mass of drying filth before me and walked quickly away from the cloud of flies that rose up from it.
No sound of a chase. The sun had moved far from its zenith and I shivered slightly in the shade of the street. The excitement of the escape was gone. What I’d done to that spotty, stinking creature far behind me was fading. I began to worry again about all that might have gone wrong, and about the inexplicable chaos I’d been plunged into by the presenting of a silver cup. With a determined effort I dropped that line of thought. It was replaced at once by thoughts of Antonia. What moisture I had in my mouth appeared to evaporate. I drifted back to the horror of those walkways. I felt no doubt they’d join the Shaft of Oblivion in my worst poppy-fed nightmares.
There really had been no sound of a chase. But I’d been listening for big men, whose boots scraping on the compacted earth would give them away from several hundred yards. A barefoot rabble of the locals was a different matter. I came out of my scared reverie to see that the street was blocked in both directions. If I’d missed the patter of bare feet on earth, I should have smelled the approach of their clothing.
‘He stole the people’s bread!’ a woman shrilled from behind one of the crowds.
‘His head’s weight in gold, we was promised,’ a man called from within the crowd.
‘God bless the Lord Timothy!’ the same woman replied. ‘He’ll see us right.’
Both crowds took a step forward. I looked about for escape. Unless I could jump ten feet and grab hold of a smashed balcony, there was no easy way out. There was another collective step forward, and a wizened youth took aim at me with a stone.
I reached for the purse that still hung from my belt. I held it up for all to see. ‘You want gold?’ I shouted. I undid its laces and emptied the purse into my left hand. I jingled several dozen new-minted solidi, and held one up for inspection. ‘You want gold?’ I turned and made sure everyone could see the value. Timothy could round up a mob and promise what took his fancy. Any one of the coins I had in the palm of my hand would keep all these animals fed for a month. ‘If you want gold, there’s plenty here.’ I threw it as a glittering shower over the crowd that blocked the way from where I’d come. It dissolved at once into a snarling, ravening pack. The other crowd lurched forward, screaming and trampling on the fallen, to get its own share. It was the burrow people all over again, if somewhat more expensive. Not everyone joined the rush, but I’d levelled the odds. I got out my sword and went straight at them.
This killing had neither elegance nor equality. I stabbed. I slashed. I took the top off one man’s head. I got another in the bladder. Someone who came at me with a knife got his head half-sawn off. I took hold of someone else with my left hand and smashed his brains out against a wall. It was over in barely any time at all. So far as I could tell, I was through without a scratch. I didn’t wait for the shout of baffled rage behind me to begin. I didn’t look back at the bloody carnage I was leaving. I held up my sword as if it were torch carried by night before a rich man’s chair and ran for my life.
It was dazzling sunshine in Imperial Square. The mob didn’t dare follow me into this place of civilised order and I passed the continuing ritual of the aged at no more than a brisk pace.
‘You worthless bastard!’ one of the old men shouted in my direction. ‘I hope your suffering hasn’t even begun.’ It might have been Simeon again. This time, I didn’t stop and try reasoning with anyone. The sun was behind me and I could feel a worrying tightness in the skin of my upper back. Watching my shadow go before me, I walked past some boys who were playing with a ball.
‘Is that you, My Lord Alaric?’ a voice called from my right. I made to go for my sword, then realised I was still carrying it. I snorted and put it back into its sheath. Little wonder those boys had kept out of my way.
‘Hello, Ezra,’ I said, trying my best to sound as if I were still arrayed in silk and cotton. I’d been eyeing up the young Jew for the better part of a year and he was a welcome, even a cheerful, sight. I raised my hands in the gesture of greeting usual among his people. I saw in time how bloody they were and the black incrustations under every finger nail. I let my hands drop down and shrugged.
‘Your chest is looking very red, My Lord,’ he said after a long pause. ‘Should you be walking round with so few clothes?’
‘Slight trouble in one of the poor districts,’ I explained with a vague wave. Suddenly struck by the thought of dark, stinking bodies creeping along behind me, I turned round. It was just boys kicking their ball at each other. Beyond them, a dozen of the aged staggered in the sun about their endless circuit. ‘I might ask, my boy,’ I added in my best patronising voice, ‘what brings you so far from the Jewish quarter and alone.’ I stared into his face. I was sure he fancied me but had never tried anything. You can’t tell with Jews — they gave us all our modern ideas of sexual propriety but have many others they haven’t shared.
He looked away. ‘My uncle sent me with a message to your palace,’ he said. ‘I believe it was about the rent collections near the Saint Andrew Monastery.’
The Saint Andrew district? Did I own properties there? I wondered. I’d bought up patches of the poor district facing the Golden Horn. I owned five blocks that were rented out to the better sort of artisan, but these were almost in sight of my office windows. Then I remembered. I’d lately won some property from an old fool who believed praying over his dice was better than reasoning from the frequency with which any combination of numbers was likely to come up. This had to be one of them. Since I already must have looked out of my head, I’d not make a total fool of myself by arguing with a Jew about what I owned.
I smiled at Ezra and led him towards the big flight of steps. ‘Any chance you could pay for a chair to take me along the Triumphal Way?’ I asked. He stopped, his face gone suddenly pale. I thought I’d shocked him by asking for the loan. But I followed his horrified look into the shadowy space between the steps and the embankment. Head smashed in by the impact, the naked boy I’d seen the day before was draped over the rim of the disused fountain. Except there was nothing left of his face, you’d not have thought he was dead. He might have been resting in the sun. Far above, his owner was looking down with arms raised in lamentation.
It wouldn’t do to sit down and vomit — not here, not looking like this, not in front of a Jew. I swallowed hard and turned back for another look at the Imperial statues. ‘Do be a love, Ezra,’ I whispered. ‘You’re wearing far too many clothes for a day like this. You could lend your uncle’s protector that grey cloak you have on.’
I watched the boy step back and unfasten his cloak pin. There was nothing athletic or otherwise attractive about his posture. Another year at the most and he’d be trying for a silly beard and probably filling out from the ghastly food Jews think it their duty to eat. But he was a pretty lad for the time being and he had the makings of considerable beauty. If only he’d put himself in my hands. .
But he wouldn’t. Just in time, I stopped myself from repeating how little beauty there was in the world.
There’s nothing like the privacy of a closed carrying chair for getting over a long fit of the terrors. By the time I pulled the curtains aside and set foot on the steps at the main entrance to my palace, I was looking almost carefree.