‘Martin?’ I asked next day over breakfast.
He looked up from his beer, bleary and unshaven. He should have been glad he was awake at all. I’d got back to my suite, only to find him and Authari huddled together on my office floor, knocked out on wine and opium. I’d thought at first that Martin had killed himself with the so far untasted fruits of the poppy. But he’d still been breathing, a look of rapture on his face I’ll bet he’d never got from praying.
Now he was paying for it.
I smiled brightly, pretending not to notice what a wreck he looked. If I said I was cheerful, I’d be exaggerating. Nevertheless, if I was stuck in Constantinople, still without a guess of why and for how long, I’d got myself out of what might have been a thoroughly nasty scrape. All I had to do was rip off the Jews and I was back in favour with Theophanes – or so it appeared.
‘Yes, Martin,’ I said, ‘you realise we shall have to invite Theophanes to the baptism.’
He looked down again and grunted. He began another of his unflattering comments about eunuchs.
‘I don’t think there’s any question of not inviting him,’ I said, cutting him off. I looked again at the note of elaborate congratulation I’d found on bouncing out of bed. Theophanes was promising – I read – ‘a cot of polished ebony, trimmed, of course, with ivory and with gold’.
Not bad, that, and at short notice. With Martin, I’d combed every shop in Middle Street the day before looking for almost the same thing. We’d been told in five establishments that ebony was out of the question for at least a month. Theophanes, it seemed, had far greater powers of persuasion than I with a mere purse full of gold. He was assuring me he could have it made ready in a day.
‘I’ll leave it to you’, I went on, ‘to draft the invite. I have urgent business coming up that will keep me busy all day. But I’d like something in the most pompous and flowery Greek style.’
Martin scowled and went back to his beer. Then he switched into a Celtic that he appeared suddenly to know less well than I did myself.
‘I’ve heard the rumour from Antony’, he said, ‘that the Emperor has offered the Persians all of Syria east of Jerusalem and the Avars all they’ve already taken south of the Danube, if only they’ll leave him a free hand with the revolt.’
‘None of our business now, Martin,’ I said briskly in Latin. ‘We obey whatever instructions come from Rome. We accept whatever protection Theophanes sees fit to give. In short, we wait on events.’
I called him back as he reached for the door handle.
‘Can you remind me what happened with Pope Silverius?’ I asked.
‘Why,’ said Martin, ‘wasn’t he the one who was deposed by Justinian for being in the pay of the Goths?’
‘That’s the one,’ I said. ‘I think we can agree that politics can be dangerous.
‘By the way, if you bump into Gutrune, do remind her to clean her nipples before she feeds Maximin. I once read that the seeds of pestilence can gather in those little folds of skin.’
Though I’d told him nothing, Authari now doubled his precautions. He found another, heavier bar for the door of my suite. He also took to locking every room not immediately in use. He put all the keys on an iron ring and carried it about on his waist. No other slave was now allowed to leave without his permission.
He even took to searching the copying secretaries when they came to work in my suite. He confined them to one room, and had them followed as they went off to the slave latrines. Crabbed little creatures who knew only how to wield a pen, they were no danger. But Authari was taking no chances now we had Maximin.
He took the wet nurse, Gutrune, into his own charge. To be honest, he took her into his own bed. Both facts were a relief to me. I had excellent reason, beside her looks, to keep my hands off her. And I didn’t have to worry about giving directions for the care of Maximin.
I still found myself strangely drawn to the child. After those first couple of days, the fascination grew even stronger. I’d spend as much time as I could working in the nursery. Sometimes, when alone with him, I’d put my things aside and pull my chair over to the cot. There I’d sit talking endlessly to the child in English.
I didn’t fail to notice that time was passing. I knew that Marcella would, in her usual way, be haggling with the midwives and doctors in preparation for Gretel’s confinement and that I had, sooner rather than later, to be away. But now we were settled in and its rules were accepted, the Legation had become our home. Once Authari had barred the door to my suite, we were inside our own world. It was as if we were again on the ship that had brought us here. I passed through the world outside the Legation as often as I travelled to the libraries but I was never part of it.
So day followed day. The endless chatter in those baking-hot streets of high summer often reminded me of the sound of bees as they swarm together and begin to turn angry, but the people never did turn constructively angry; they were held in check by the Terror. The flow of events was smooth and predictable on the surface and I made no further efforts to look beneath it.
20
‘Such is the Word of God and of the Universal Church,’ the Professor of Theology intoned for the third time that afternoon. Martin scratched madly on his waxed tablet, his shorthand barely keeping pace with the complexity of the answer.
‘In the name of His Holiness the Universal Bishop in Rome, I thank you,’ I said, recalled from a reverie on nothing at all. It beat the exposition on some polemicist who’d found a way of reading one word in different ways, depending on the orthodoxy of the writer.
But I’d slipped up there. I’d used the hated title. With a barely suppressed intake of breath, the Professor and half his panel of experts glared pure hatred at me. Leaving aside that I hadn’t been paying attention, the slip was pardonable. I’d been baptised six months in Canterbury before I discovered the title everyone around me used was of dubious propriety.
Still, even if I’d got up and begun a defence of the Arian heresy, I’d not have given so much offence to the conclave of hunched, bearded clerics gathered there to answer my questions. I thought for a moment that the Professor would get up and set about me with his stick.
It was the last Saturday in September. We were well past any time for leaving that would get us back to Rome in time for the baby’s arrival, and there was still no end in sight. Every time the posts came in, there would be another letter from the Dispensator. It always began with curt thanks for work already done, before getting down to an immense list of briefs for new research.
I’d sit with Martin, telling him to get a grip on himself and fighting back my own despair. It swept over me in black waves. I wanted to be in Rome. I needed to be in Rome. I was sick of these meetings. I was sick of Constantinople and my regular dinners with Theophanes. I was even sick of the libraries. I wanted to go home.
Under different circumstances, of course, I’d have loved the place. I’ve spoken already of the University Library. The Patriarchal Library, where most of our research was done, was less exciting in its contents. But there was the same convenience and even luxury of accommodation. Even so, we were exhausting its resources in technical theology. We were finding that – as with the heresy uncovered in Ravenna, which was turning out more serious than expected – there were no comprehensive refutations from the past. It was then that I had to approach the Professor of Theology at the University. I’d send over written summaries of the points to be covered. A day later, I’d go in person with Martin to take down authoritative answers culled or interpreted from the Church Fathers.
What the Dispensator chose to make of all this I left to him. Now I knew my presence in the city was a cover for something else, I’d given up on much more than a token effort. We were there for a particular period of time, and the amount of work required would expand to fill that time. So, while Martin still worked himself and the copyists at breakneck speed – and it did seem to keep his mind from giving way entirely – I’d gone back to spending every morning in the University Library. I might as well get something out of this visit. And it kept me from that dreadful counting of days and from moping over the stream of optimistic chatter Gretel was issuing from Rome.