But my attention was pulled back to the main area before my palace. Big men of the usual type were pushing and threatening to clear two spaces within the crowd about fifty feet apart. In these spaces, high stepladders were being set up.
I stretched forward still more to see what more was happening. With a slight jolt, the wall moved outwards a little. Scared, I threw myself back and knocked all my breath out on the tiles. I shut my eyes, trying not to remember the terrors of that roof in the poor district. I slid down on to the bubbled lead. I looked at the parapet wall. There was a horizontal crack halfway up its rendering. I pushed gently against it. No more movement. All else forgotten, I looked up at the lovely blue of the afternoon sky. It didn’t matter how rich I’d made myself: the money I spent on maintenance alone for this palace would have made me the richest man in Rome. That took my mind off the sudden death I may just have avoided. I looked again at the wall. Beyond it, all was now silent.
I picked up the chair I’d brought up with me and carried it along to another part of the wall. Making sure this time not to lean forward, I stood on the chair and looked down. Both ladders were occupied. At the top of each stood a man dressed in white. Their heads looked swollen far beyond any normal variation. I blinked and looked harder. Up here, the sunshine was still pitilessly bright. Far below, it was dappled by increasingly long shadows. One of the men was in shadow, the other half in shadow. Before I could focus properly, though, I had my answer. The man nearest me let out a loud and inarticulate buzzing. He reached up and tapped at his head. Leaning forward so he didn’t lose balance, he put up his other hand and pushed at his face. They were wearing the masks actors used in the Circus when they had to stand away from the permanent amplifying walls.
‘Will you now share my own judgement, Alexius?’ one of those bastard seditionaries cried in a voice that boomed and echoed about the confined space. He took both hands from the rail at the top of his ladder and stretched them cautiously in the direction of my palace. The movement pushed his amplifying mask out of its correct position against his face, and what he said next was a muffled shout. Buggery things to use, these masks. Worn properly, they could project a voice to the back rows in the Circus. You could sometimes hear the voices if you looked out from the top windows in the Great Church. But it was a matter of getting exactly the right distance between a wearer’s face and the mask’s inner wall. I think that’s one reason why, even without masks, actors don’t look round by turning their necks, but twist their whole upper bodies — it’s the long training, you see, to keep a mask in the right place.
Alexius was having better luck. Then again, the natural sound of his own voice indicated some prior training. A failed actor, perhaps? ‘Oh, my oldest and dearest friend, Constans,’ he cried with perfect clarity, ‘I freely admit that I was too indulgent in my opinion of the young barbarian. I never supposed he would go so far as to abduct the pure and beauteous daughter of our most beloved Commander of the East.’
That, and the resulting shouts of anger from the crowd, gave Constans time to put his mask right. ‘I freely pardon you,’ he said, no longer needing to raise his voice above the conversational. ‘How could a man of your inborn goodness imagine the depths of infamy to which Alaric the Degraded has finally sunk? Indeed, who could imagine that the sweet and virginal daughter of the Lord Nicetas could be snatched, even by the Persians, from her monastery, and be carried off to shriek and twist in such lascivious embraces?’ He stopped for breath, then: ‘Oh, but I can shut my eyes and see her now. I see her penetrated again and again by the stinking meat that swings between those barbarian thighs. I see a tongue that is filthy from lies and blasphemies, thrust into secret places that the very angels in Heaven do not permit themselves to see.’
His mask went out of position again and his voice trailed off into more buzzing. ‘Daddy always did have a theatrical touch,’ Antonia said behind me. I turned and stepped down beside her. She was back in men’s clothing, a short sword strapped about her waist. Sword in hand, Rado stood beside her, looking fierce and protective.
‘Is everyone armed downstairs?’ I asked in a voice that was just too high to be commanding. Looking more relaxed than I was feeling, she nodded. I waited for another roar of anger to gather force and die away. ‘It’s about the worst choice your father could have made,’ I said, trying to match her lack of concern. ‘In his place, I’d have used my powers as Regent to deprive Alaric the Degraded of his offices. I’d then have sent the Prefect with a unit of the city guard to demand entry. Better still, I’d have made a better try at negotiating. Instead, we have an apparently spontaneous riot in the making that may easily run out of control. Whether or not this hails Nicetas as Emperor, it won’t break in here, and I imagine every property owner in the City is cursing his name.’
As if he’d read my thoughts, Alexius was back in action. ‘Why does the Lord Nicetas not take action against this enemy of God and man?’ he asked in a rising tone of question. ‘Why does he not declare Alaric a traitor and an outlaw? Why is it for us, the Roman People, to cry aloud for justice.’
‘You surely forget, Alexius,’ Constans replied, ‘that Nicetas has no power to remove from office those appointed by the Emperor. Whom an emperor has appointed only an emperor can remove.’ That was an odd view of the law but it got a predictable if ragged cry of ‘Nicetas to the Purple! Down with Heraclius!’ I got on the chair again and looked over the wall. Someone at the bottom of his ladder was waving frantically up at Constans. He’d gone beyond his brief. Not caring how he wobbled, he raised his arms for silence. ‘The very furniture in that palace is of gold and silver,’ he improvised. ‘Every room is stuffed with silk and other precious fabrics. The slaves Alaric has about him are of surpassing beauty and all are gagging for the touch of our clean-limbed Romans. Everything within those walls has been taken from our mouths and the mouths of our children. Why do we wait outside this house of our treasures?’
That got everyone off the subject of who should be Emperor. I watched the great, enraged mass of the poor surge forward. Every gate was protected by its portcullis. The beating of many wooden clubs against the bronze sheeting of the normal gates was loud but ineffectual. The gap about his ladder closed up, Alexius swayed and wobbled. He slid to the ground just in time for his ladder to go over and be swallowed in the swirling crowd. I didn’t need to walk round to see what was happening against the other walls of the palace. The noise alone told me we were under attack on every side.
‘All is in order up here,’ I said to Rado. ‘I appoint you commander of everyone not guarding the balconies. Form them into a mobile force, ready to give support wherever needed.’ He puffed his chest out and gave a lovely smile. Antonia nodded her agreement, and he hurried from the roof.
She watched him go. ‘I’m not marrying you for them,’ she said, leaning close to me. ‘But I was wrong about your slaves. I do like them a lot. I’m surprised Daddy wasn’t murdered by his long ago.’
I thought of the look on Rado’s face. ‘They like you as well,’ I said. I was glad at once there was too much noise for me to be heard. I was jealous of poor Theodore. I was jealous of my slaves. If I wasn’t careful — and if I survived — I’d turn into a proper bastard.