‘However, because of the love he bears us all – those who remain loyal and those who through weakness or folly have strayed from their proper loyalty – the Great Augustus is eager to see how this almost insignificant revolt can be brought sooner rather than later to its end. There are certain services His Holiness in Rome can render. In return, there is something that we can give.
‘The longer you stay in Constantinople, the more our discussions with His Excellency the Permanent Legate are disrupted.’
I looked back at him, the whole tangled knot of the previous few months seeming to unravel around us.
‘I am indebted to His Magnificence for such clarification and advice,’ I said. I leaned forward and dropped my own voice to a whisper. ‘Though surely you might have told me all this over dinner.’
‘I regret that I am unable to enjoy the pleasure of your company this evening,’ came the reply. ‘You cannot imagine how I shall miss our little repast in the usual place. But urgent business elsewhere in the City calls me away.’ He stood up. ‘You will appreciate, however, that my concern for your safety is ever uppermost in my thoughts, and you will forgive my disturbing you in work that is, I cannot but suppose, of the highest value to the Faith.
‘You may suppose yourself a little old to be advised not to speak to strangers who accost you in the street. It may, nevertheless, be advice worth considering.’
‘We can be sure, then,’ I said later on to Martin, ‘we were sent here to freeze negotiations. I’m ready to believe His Excellency in Rome does want materials for his Spanish council. And he probably is annoyed about the heresy in Ravenna. But all that is really just a cover. Our true purpose here is to put a brake on the diplomatic wheels. That explains why we weren’t told anything. We aren’t here to act, but to provide others with an excuse not to act.’
We were walking alone on the City walls. A strong breeze cooled us and carried our hushed voices out over the narrow sea beyond. For additional safety, we spoke in Celtic, replacing names and untranslatable titles with circumlocutions.
‘Right from the start,’ I added, ‘I knew it was all connected with the Universal Bishop business. The Dispensator wants it sorted – but not if the price is calling down anathema on the rebels. I imagine the Permanent Legate was under pressure here to make a deal. Then we turned up, and gave him cause to shut himself away.
‘I did think it was the rebels who’d tried to murder me in Rome. I now see it was the Emperor.’
Martin turned and looked straight at me. Oh dear – I hadn’t meant to tell him about that. As I filled him in, it mixed with the roof-tile incident and got him into a right panic.
‘For God’s sake, Martin,’ I had to hiss, ‘can’t you keep a stiff upper lip, at least in public? Gibbering away like this, and in a foreign language, is the quickest way into one of those cages.’ I nodded at a cluster of freshly gibbeted corpses further along the wall.
It didn’t help that I could feel my own legs starting to shake.
But Martin controlled himself. ‘Might there be anything else you’ve neglected to tell me about this sojourn in Hell?’ he asked, a dash of bitterness now in his voice. ‘You may be the primary target. But you have nearly got me killed once already; and our families have been in protective custody on and off since we left Rome. You surely have some duty of openness with me.’
My apology and reassurance fell oddly flat. We looked awhile in silence out to the boundless freedom of the waters. If there had been a sensible falling off in numbers, the wind still brought ships from every trading port of the world.
‘So what if His Excellency has locked himself into his rooms?’ Martin asked with a return to the original subject. ‘There’s not a door in this city the Emperor can’t kick open.’
‘Oh yes there is.’ I smiled. ‘The Permanent Legate represents the Pope in the fullest possible sense. An attack on him is an attack on His Holiness. If he refuses to see anyone, he must be cajoled. If he won’t continue negotiations, they come to a halt.’
‘So why are we still alive?’ Martin asked again. ‘If we disappeared, the Dispensator might not even bother with a letter of formal complaint. And if it were an accident…’
‘Good question,’ I said, trying to sound less queasy than I felt. ‘It may be what Epicurus called a “rescue hypothesis”’ – I ignored the look on Martin’s face – ‘but let us suppose that the Imperial Government is not a monolithic structure. Let us suppose it is a group of more or less ordinary people, riven by faction. One faction might want us dead. That would explain Rome and what happened here today. It might also explain what nearly happened under the Ministry.
‘Another faction seems to want us alive. That would be led by the old eunuch. He certainly wants us gone – but his preferred means of getting his way seems to involve playing the Dispensator’s game. This means keeping us hard at work and ransacking every library in the loyal parts of the Empire to give me whatever I ask for.’
‘And you find that convincing?’ Martin asked, his voice incredu lous.
‘Every hypothesis stands or falls according to the facts it is supposed to explain,’ I said with a shrug. This one didn’t explain everything, but sounded likely otherwise.
‘Can you conceive how it feels to be forsaken by God?’ Martin asked suddenly.
‘Er, not really,’ I said without thinking. I’d been watching some sea birds as they flew out from the walls to dive for rubbish tossed from the ships. It was a good moment before I realised Martin was going into one of his funny turns.
I thought about some heart-warming sermon culled from the Book of Job. But it was too late for that. In any event, Martin was now calm again. We’d come up level with the corpses and could see they were still fresh enough for the birds not to have had the eyes. Martin stood awhile in silence, looking into the dead faces. ‘In the midst of life, we are in death,’ he said mournfully.
‘No, Martin,’ I said, trying to pull him back to the present. ‘In the midst of death, we try to keep our wits about us and stay alive.’
‘How long do you suppose this will continue?’ Martin asked. ‘How long must we linger at these Gates of Death?’
‘Search me,’ I answered. ‘It could be right to the time when Heraclius is sitting in the Imperial Box in the Circus – or being looked at from there.’
‘Until then, we stay?’ Martin asked. He was staring again into the dead faces, a look of horrified fascination on his own. ‘We stay and do whatever duty may be required of us?’
‘I’m afraid so, Martin,’ I said, putting my arm in his as we continued our stroll along the walls.
‘And is waiting to be murdered among those duties?’ he asked.
‘I wish I had a more comforting answer than I have,’ I said. ‘So far as possible, we don’t go out of the Legation. When we do go to the libraries, we stick to the main routes where we shall be watched and reasonably protected.’
‘Why did the eunuch tell you all this in public?’ he asked with a change of tone, turning back on the conversation. ‘It will be all over the place by now.’
That was the one fact my hypothesis didn’t explain. I’d been chewing it over ever since Theophanes had left me. Was he trying to persuade some other faction to leave me to him? That didn’t sound likely.
‘I can’t answer that one,’ I said, abandoning all attempt at reassurance. ‘The man has a reason for everything he does. Sadly, it’s hardly ever apparent to people like us.’
‘God have mercy! God have mercy!’ Martin cried softly, crossing himself.
14
It was late evening of the same day. I was back in the Legation. His afternoon terrors settled by a light dinner and extended prayers, Martin had gone out for another of his walks. Authari had then come back from the brothel empty-handed – some problem of licensing had closed it without warning.