‘Where are you going?’ she whispered. She slowed and tried to pull me back. ‘I said we had to go this way.’
I put a hand over her mouth again. ‘So you think the plan is for us to go down that corridor,’ I whispered as softly as I could, ‘and knock on every door until Simon or Eunapius calls us in for light refreshments?’ I stepped forward again, quickly passing across the entrance to the corridor. ‘I don’t want to hear from you again until I tell you it’s safe to speak.’ Of course, I’d been stupid to give in to the girl. I should have taken her home and waited for Baruch to report back in the morning. Even if not at first hand, he’d surely have found everything worth knowing. If there was something to be learned here, it couldn’t be worth the risk.
But there was now the faintest sound of voices, and of a big door quietly opened and closed. And there was a flicker of light in the corridor leading in from the main entrance. My heart skipped a beat and everything in the surrounding gloom seemed to become sharper. No longer angry, nor scared, nor beset by guilt for letting her tag along — no longer even dog tired and longing for my bed — I pulled Antonia closer against the wall. ‘Keep still,’ I said, ‘and try not to make any sound at all.’
Approaching along the wide access corridor, the voice of Shahin was unmistakable. ‘Oh, but what splendid buildings you have in this great city of Constantinople,’ he called out in Greek. ‘I had quite forgotten how little we have in Ctesiphon to compare with these glories.’ I pulled the hood closer over my face and looked across the two hundred yards that separated us. Two lamp-bearers were first into the hall. They separated and stood each side of the doorway, bowing as Shahin strode confidently past them. Perhaps half a dozen men filed in behind him — hard to tell exactly how many, given the light available, or the distance. Once inside the ring of columns that supported the arches that held the dome, he stopped and clapped his hands. He listened to the echo and clapped again. He moved towards the central statuary. He put his hand on one of the buttocks and, looking upward, recited:
O Goddess sing what woe the discontent
Of Thetis’ son brought to the Greeks; what souls
Of heroes down to Erebus it sent,
Leaving their bodies unto dogs and fowls.
The laugh he brought out was the verbal equivalent of slapping himself on the back. And I had to admit he’d done a fine job on Homer. Leander could have taken lessons from Shahin with obvious profit. Even Nicetas might have heard the distinction between long and short syllables. ‘But can’t you bring in more lamps, Simon?’ he barked. ‘I’d love to see how high the ceiling is in here.’ Simon’s reply was an anxious groan. Shahin snorted, then laughed again. ‘But I’ve no doubt I’ll see this place again in daylight — this and many other places!’ He stepped away from the bronze group and followed the lamp-bearers across the hall.
The procession passed by us not ten feet away. I’d been wondering if we’d be spotted from the lack of reflection where we stood against the polished walls. But Shahin, breathing hard, had stopped again, and was looking away from us at an oversize statue of Antinous. Simon hovered visibly between the nervous and depressed. Everyone else was muffled in his cloak.
‘Is that you, Shahin?’ Eunapius called from within the darkness of the corridor. ‘Did you come alone?’ He uncovered the lamp he was holding and took a heavy step forward.
‘As nearly alone as a man can be when going about an enemy capital,’ Shahin said with a contemptuous laugh. He straightened up from an inspection of the perfect thighs of Antinous — he’d always enjoyed rubbing himself off against mine. ‘Are you so distrustful of your own slaves that Simon has to arrange meetings in public?’
‘My Lord’s palace may be watched,’ Simon said, trying for an emollient tone.
Shahin sniffed loudly. ‘Oh, let’s get on with it,’ he sighed. He stepped through the doorway and was followed by everyone else.
Antonia pressed herself against me. She put a cold and trembling hand on my arm. ‘Will they really kill us if they find us?’ she asked. I nearly jumped. I’d forgotten I wasn’t alone. I suppressed the returning guilt and fear. I tried for a reassuring squeeze of her hand. It was the only answer I could give. Taking extra care not to scrape my feet on the floor, I continued moving towards the little access stairway.
Leaded roofs in the dark are treacherous things. There’s a risk you won’t notice until it’s too late that you aren’t standing on the level. I had to keep a tight hold on Antonia and make sure we both kept close by the line of glazed ceiling windows. Beyond this, it was easy enough to know which window we wanted. Ours was the only one in which every piece of glass shone bright. Ours was the one that was abruptly pushed open from below as we approached it, and secured with a two-inch gap. Hoping not to spoil my toga, I lay down flat about a foot away. In a kind of press-up that made no sound, I moved my face close to the gap. I pulled back as something with wings settled on my nose. I brushed it away and tried to get into the same comfortable position that I’d now lost. From out here, the lamps had seemed to fill the room with as much light as Nicetas had laid on for his recital. Looking in, I could see that the one lamp left burning sent out a pool of light that barely showed anything beyond the table on which it was set. I pushed my face closer and bobbed up and down and from side to side. I could dimly make out a blackboard on which someone had drawn and half-erased a demonstration from Apollonius. Except for the unattractively large feet joined to the ends of Shahin’s short legs, there was nothing human to be seen.
No problem, however, with listening. I might as well have been inside the room. ‘Greetings, Eunapius of Pylae,’ Shahin said in a voice that mixed politeness with a dash of contempt. ‘I generally like to see men before I deal with them. These are, to be sure, unusual circumstances. But I rejoice in finally making your acquaintance.’
Simon broke in with a reminder of how short the time was till dawn. ‘We’ll be out of here long before then,’ came Shahin’s easy reply. ‘So long as your people keep the dock secured, my people are waiting out in the strait.’ His feet moved forward and I heard a creaking of wood that reminded me of our times together in Ctesiphon, when he’d rock back in his chair and stretch out his arms. With a sudden bump, his chair was properly on the floor and his legs were pulled back. ‘My dear Eunapius,’ he said with a turn to the businesslike. ‘I’ve heard much from Simon of your motivations and of what you are able to offer in return for our help. But let me ask you directly what it is that drives you and your associates to make an approach to the Empire’s most deadly enemy. Why have you turned traitor?’
There was a long silence. But I finally heard someone get up and walk over to the door. It opened for a moment, then was pushed shut again. ‘My Lord Shahin,’ Eunapius began in an attempt at firmness, ‘we do not regard ourselves as the traitors. We make this approach only as a last resort and in response to an Emperor who is himself subverting the Empire’s most fundamental laws.’ His voice trailed off and died. It was barely into this opening statement when it had lost all the unpleasant bounce of earlier in the evening. Eunapius coughed, cleared his throat and started again. ‘We, the nobility of the Empire, are the true representatives of the Roman people. We are the living embodiment of their glory and guardians of their Constitution.’ He stopped again. This time, when he started, he spoke quickly and made no effort at measured grandeur of utterance. Heraclius was taking his order’s land away, he whined. By closing down, one at a time, every historic department in the state, Heraclius was abolishing every office of dignity and every subordinate office that should be filled by the clients of the dignified. Heraclius was proposing to empty out the cities. Heraclius was raising the cultivators of the soil to an unnatural eminence and was even arming these men, and talking about raising an army from them that would be officered by men without birth and leisured education. Heraclius was listening to Jews and Armenians. Heraclius was giving inexplicable rights to merchants to arrange their own affairs and set their own prices. In short, Heraclius was turning the Empire upside down, and making it into a country as alien to its rightful governing class as the lost provinces of the West.