It was broken by Alexius: ‘I think, dearest Constans, that we speak as one when I say that we have never wished anything for His Magnificence the Lord Senator Alaric but the greatest and most unending continuation of good fortune. Moreover, the Lord Nicetas is himself blessed when he blesses. .’
Alexius had been waving his arms about to show how he was warming to his theme. A sudden scraping sound from far beneath where I stood had him clutching the top of his ladder. Ignoring the remains of my sunburn, and the possibility of another break in the wall, I leaned forward as far as I could. I managed to catch sight of Timothy’s sideways scuttle.
Rado saved me the trouble of speaking. ‘Someone’s opened the main gate, Master,’ he cried.
With the reading of the proclamation, the crowd had parted like the Red Sea, leaving a wide space between the front steps of my palace and the colonnade on the other side of the Triumphal Way. Both wings of the crowd now edged further back and I saw some of the men in better clothing turn and push their way out of it.
Oh, fuck me — it was Theodore! ‘Behold the Horn of Babylon!’ he called out in his highest and most demented voice. ‘Behold and fear the earthly symbol of all satanic power!’ Before I could draw back and dash for the stairs, he came in sight. Dressed in a white gown too long for him, a withered olive wreath on his head, he stumbled forward, holding up the box, within which the silver cup glittered in the reflected light of the sun.
‘Go from this place, my people, lest you too be accursed — lest your souls too be lost to the powers of darkness.’
Still unseen, Antonia’s voice rang out: ‘Come back, you bloody fool. Can’t you see, you’re spoiling everything?’ She rushed forward into sight. She stepped on to the long trail of Theodore’s robe and put her arms about him. They went down together.
With a long roar of terror and rage, both sides of the crowd streamed forward. They came together again, and Antonia and Theodore were lost within its joining.
Chapter 49
Sitting here in Canterbury, I can tell you the route I must have taken. I’d have hurried along the central well of the roof to the doorway and the stairs down. These led to an unlit corridor lined with closed doors, each of which gave access to its own labyrinth of attic rooms. From here, it was more stairs — not the grand staircases, with side ramps for carrying chairs, for the use of persons of quality, but dozens of narrow flights, designed to get slaves up and down with the least delay. From the bottom of the flight painted red, it was another long corridor, past the domestic administration of the palace, to a heavy door, wooden on my side, sheathed with bronze on the side of the entrance hall.
I can describe the likely journey from the roof. But I can’t remember taking it. The first I do recall is hacking the raised arm off one of the intruders who’d seen his chance of loot once through the wide open main gate. His screams added to the general pandemonium of noise and fighting all about me. It looked — and smelled — as if a whole army of the rotting, reanimated dead had streamed in through the gate. And more were trying to get in. The gate was blocked by them. Though pushed from behind, those in front were held back for the moment by Samo. Just inside the gate, he was bawling war songs and laying madly about with his broadsword. There were already bodies and body parts piling up at his feet.
Eyes blazing, bloody sword in hand, Rado crashed into me. ‘We can’t get to her, Master,’ he shouted. He pointed at the blocked gate, then turned to slash at someone who was trying to pull the gilt scroll from one of the statues. I tried to shake some sense into my drugged mind. How had Rado and everyone else got down here so fast? I was sure I’d left him behind on the roof. I gripped hard on my sword and prepared to charge at the gate and cut my way through.
From behind me, there was a sudden scream of many voices. I turned to see the kitchen women and maidservants stream into the hall. All of them armed, all of them probably thinking of their dead menfolk from when they were taken as slaves, they hurled themselves into battle with the Greek intruders. It was less a battle than a slaughter. With them advancing down the hall like a phalanx of harpies, there was no chance the palace would be taken by storm.
I stabbed someone in the guts when he ran at me. I got someone else in the bladder. I jumped on to a statue plinth that I think had been kept vacant for Priscus when he died, and slapped the blade of my sword three times against a bronze torch bracket. ‘All able-bodied men in formation behind me,’ I shouted in the comparative silence that followed. ‘We’re going outside!’ I stepped down and waved my sword threateningly at those in the gateway who were still turned in my direction.
I gave a quick inspection to my little army. You’d never have thought they were slaves — no, not even the epicene youth who spent much of his time shrilling over mixtures of depilation wax. Every one of us a marauding barbarian again, we raised our swords and let out the battle roars of our various races.
I heard a discordantly high voice among the shouting. I looked for and pointed at Eboric. ‘Not you!’ I barked. ‘You’re far too young.’ Rado gave him a rough push away from the group. He sat down cross-legged beside a man I’d seen him kill and began to cry.
I took a step forward. ‘Kill only if you have to,’ I remembered to shout as we picked up speed. Of course, I’d heard similar exhortations from the Church, when handing over heretics to the civil authorities. Mine had exactly the same effect on the blood-frenzied mob that followed me against the wall of trapped and terrified humanity. We hit with something like the impact of a drunkard deflowering a virgin.
Trying not to slip in the blood I was shedding, I forced my way to the foot of the steps. I looked about for the last place I’d seen Antonia and pushed on alone into the crowd. I pushed and punched and kicked and prodded. I could guess that the city guard was pressing forward from both directions. Everyone intent on loot was already inside the palace. Those I was now pushing through were, for the most part, more frightened than hostile. A gap opened before me. I don’t know if it closed behind.
‘Antonia!’ I bellowed in a voice as terrifying as my strong right arm. ‘Antonia, where are you?’ I felt a sudden pricking against my right side and turned in time to rake my attacker across his throat. Spraying blood, he fell back against a monk, whose arms were raised in terror and in prayer. Clutched at by the dying man, the monk went down, and his warning cries to those stepping on him were lost among the general clamour. Swept sideways by a collective shudder within the crowd, I tried and failed to reach out to him. I saw him get to his knees and go down again. My heart beat still faster and black spots came in front of my eyes. I tried to work out where I’d last seen Antonia tangled up with Theodore. It must have been somewhere now behind me. But I could no longer turn. As if held in the arms of a dancing giant, I was moving further and further away from where I wanted to be.
The crowd thinned out as I came in sight of the catapult. I stumbled forward. ‘Where is she?’ I shouted at its scared operator. He opened his mouth to scream and tripped forward over the tightened bowstring. I had enough sense to throw myself forward as it finally snapped. I heard its high singing tone a few feet overhead and its return, and the dull thud of wooden arms into the dense crowd of fools who’d thought there was safety beside those stretched torsion springs. Ignoring the shrieks of the injured and dying, I scrambled back to my feet and killed a man who might simply have tripped over me. I killed another man who came at me with a length of wood. I killed yet another who was standing in my way. Like a man who cuts his way through brambles, I pushed forward to where I was sure I’d heard a woman screaming. I must have passed through the oncoming city guard, but have no recollection of doing so.