‘I was much inspired,’ I said, ‘by your description of how the Lord Nicetas plunged without armour into the fray at the Battle of Antioch. His single combat with Shahrbaraz was perfectly Homeric. So too your opening account of the debate of the Saints in Heaven.’ He grinned complacently and bowed to Nicetas, who was lost for the moment to everything but the manipulations of a foot that was looking the colour of an overripe fig. Someone in the crowd sneezed. Someone else laughed. ‘But are you unaware of the conventions of hexameter poetry in Latin?’ I added. Since he was a Greek of sorts, that was less a question than a provocation. I smiled and pressed on with explaining how the Roman poets had observed the rules of quantity in a language that may never have allowed it to dominate the ear, but had maintained a spoken rhythm by making accent and quantity coincide in the two last feet. It gave me the chance to insult him and every Senator in the room by quoting Vergil at length without interpreting its sonorities. Sooner or later, Nicetas would come out of his spasm of gasping moans and be glad of my kiss goodnight. He didn’t like to hear Leander mocked — and tiredness and wine and the accumulated horror of the past two days were putting me into an irreverent mood.
I looked round again at Antonia. Still caught fast by Theodore, she was trying not to notice how Timothy was bouncing about her like a bubble of lard and making obscene gestures. By listening hard, and filtering out Leander’s wooden praise for a poet he could understand no more than I could read the inscription on that cup, I managed to catch some of the whispered conversation Eunapius had begun with a Senator whose name I couldn’t recall but whose face, sharp as a hatchet, was turned steadily in my direction. He’d set everything up, he was explaining. It would be a deciding moment no one could ignore. The nature of this moment I didn’t follow. I looked about for Antonia. She was trying to keep Theodore from falling off his chair. Timothy had now given up on gestures and retired behind one of the columns, where he seemed to be surreptitiously wanking under cover of his toga. Time, I thought, to gather me and mine together and make for the blessings of the night air. I turned towards Nicetas, ready to bring out a stream of fair words.
But Eunapius was finished with Lord Hatchet-Face. Standing between me and Nicetas, he stretched his arms wide for attention. ‘My Lord Alaric,’ he called in a voice that shook from some inner tension, ‘it is the will of your betters that you should reopen the School of Rhetorical Studies. It must be reopened at once and Leander of Memphis appointed its Rector.’ He wheeled round and bowed to Nicetas. He’d been expecting approval. He got a blank stare.
Ignoring Eunapius, I made a bow of my own to the mass of festering sores who’d been appointed to stand between us and a total Persian victory. ‘My Lord Nicetas,’ I said, speaking very smooth, ‘If this is a suggestion from you, I must discuss its details with the Emperor when he returns from Cyzicus. So notable an exception to the Austerity Decree must be carefully prepared.’ Blunt words, no doubt. What else to say, though? A private approach — not through sodding Eunapius — and I’d have had my seal, before the hour was out, on a snug little pension for Leander. I’d not have Eunapius puff himself up in public as the Voice of Nicetas. Made as it was, the request could only be a power game in which I was supposed to lose. I looked at Nicetas. The monk was doing things to his ankles that Chosroes himself might have admired. But his face remained a total blank.
Eunapius swallowed and stood forward. He looked again at Nicetas and then about him for moral support. ‘You insult every man of taste in the Empire,’ he croaked in a voice that said double or quits, ‘when you sneer at the verses of our modern Callimachus.’ He looked about once more. A few of the Senators were frowning. One was forcing his way to the back of the crowd.
I smiled at Eunapius. ‘I think our poet has a mastery of the language that all must agree is remarkable,’ I said in the maddening tone I’d used with Leander. ‘I look forward to publication of tonight’s performance. The novelty of his verses will be discussed wherever Greek is spoken — and perhaps beyond.’ That got a snigger from someone lost in the crowd.
Eunapius twisted his face into a mask of outrage too extreme to fool anyone. Somebody else was making for the exit. ‘Leander doesn’t write his poetry in advance,’ he shouted. ‘It’s all a work of the moment. You wouldn’t appreciate that, of course’ Plainly hoping for support, he looked again at Nicetas. Was the response a faint stirring of distaste?
I shrugged and took a step towards the thinnest part of the crowd. But it was now Leander’s turn to make trouble. He bared his teeth in a smile that did his appearance no favours. ‘Poetry that is written in advance, the Lord Nicetas agrees, has too much smell of the lamp,’ he explained in the voice of one who speaks to an idiot child. ‘I have always made it my custom not to write any of my verses. Much has thereby been lost and I can lament that my future reputation will not be all that it might have been. But the Lord Nicetas has provided me with a secretary to take my dictation. Tonight’s poem will surely not be lost.’
I could say I’d learned something. I had an explanation for the repetitions and the unequal length of the books and the loose grammar, and particularly the lines that didn’t scan even according to Leander’s corrupt rules. If the resulting poetry had been any good, I might have been tempted to stay to discuss the merits of oral composition. I might.
I was given no choice. ‘Isn’t that how you barbarians do it?’ Eunapius asked with yet another look at an increasingly displeased Nicetas. ‘Aren’t you from a race of illiterate savages? Do your people have poetry? Or do you simply howl and beat your chests when you rise above grunting at each other?’ This jewel of repartee got a few muffled laughs. I noticed that the Lord Senator Hatchet-Face was now at the front of the crowd, his face impassive. Behind the crowd, Theodore cried out in terror, and I heard him fall off his chair. I bowed politely to Eunapius and didn’t ask why my people should be denounced for a custom that he was praising in Leander. Talk about women’s logic! Of course, there was more to this than women’s logic.
‘I bet you couldn’t do better in any language!’ Eunapius shouted. He struck an aggressive pose and laughed bitterly. ‘Alaric, barbarian from the back of beyond,’ he went on, ‘I challenge you to improvise for us.’ He stopped and cleared his throat. There was no spittoon in sight, and he was forced to swallow rather than spit. ‘I challenge you to improvise on the excellencies of the poet Leander.’ Someone in the crowd sniggered a repetition about howling and breast beating. Then, from near the front, a voice rang out in fair imitation of Leander’s Egyptian accent:
Alaric, Alaric,
Only good for sucking dick!
That set off a ripple of embarrassed laughter. Without seeming to move, Lord Hatchet-Face melted backwards into the crowd. For some reason, the scared look went out of Leander’s eyes. A fresh smirk on his face, he held up both hands to show no stain of ink on them.
‘Poem, poem!’ a few slurred voices began to chant. I fought off the urge to head-butt Eunapius in the face. ‘Poem, poem!’ the drunken crowd was chanting louder and faster. Smiling like a man who’s just won a bet on his entire estate, Eunapius was clapping in time to the chant. Leander showed his hands again, this time to the whole crowd. He raised a cheer. I stared at Eunapius. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. Tough luck Nicetas was now looking thoroughly pissed off.