I tried at first to take note of the turns we made and the secondary corridors we passed. But I noticed the complex stretched under the whole Ministry building – even under the surrounding streets and squares. It was immense. But for Theophanes leading the way with the unthinking assurance of a native, I’d soon have been lost.
As we turned into another corridor, I saw two dark figures standing in the gloom of the far end. One was gigantically tall. The other stooped. There was something furtive about their appearance. It was as if they’d been caught in some malevolent act.
We stopped. I fingered my knife. Theophanes smoothed his robe in a gesture of confusion.
‘Fancy meeting you here,’ a voice rasped loudly. ‘As ever, we can dispense with prostrations. With these floors, you’d never get the muck off your clothes.’
56
Phocas inspected himself in the long mirror Theophanes kept in his office.
‘I don’t suppose the blood shows too much against the purple – not in this light, anyway,’ he said.
‘If you please, Your Majesty.’ Theophanes handed him a large cup of wine. Phocas drained it and let out a long sigh of contentment. He handed it back for a refill.
‘Do I need explain myself to you?’ he asked me.
‘No, Caesar,’ I said, trying not to look at the red smear that ran from his trailing robe to the door of the office.
‘Then if you’ll take advice from an older and wiser man,’ he said, ‘let me give you one of the main secrets of effective leadership. As an officer on the Danube, I never believed in giving orders I wasn’t prepared to follow myself.’
‘Clearing my accounts’ is what he’d called it when stopping halfway up the spiral steps for a tipsy giggle. I didn’t see what business it was of mine to ask how many prisoners had been held down there. It was enough to know that he’d gone down and ordered the dungeon guards to kill all of them. He and the huge black slave he’d brought in tow had then turned on the exhausted guards. It was my business that some of the prisoners had been mine. But there’s nothing in the books of etiquette to cover protests to an Emperor for this sort of thing.
I was glad I’d taken care to put on common leather boots before coming out. Anything else would have been ruined by all the blood I hadn’t seen on the floors.
‘I see that fucker Priscus has shat on me,’ said Phocas, still looking at himself in the mirror.
‘Your Majesty will surely agree’, Theophanes said, ‘that Priscus has served his purpose remarkably well since we discovered his intentions. Everything we told him was passed back, and was implicitly believed by Heraclius.’
‘I suppose he’ll be more of a danger to Heraclius outside the City than he was to me inside,’ Phocas said. He sank heavily into a chair covered in white kid leather. I could almost hear the squelching of his robe. I could certainly see the dark stain on the chair-back when he leaned forward.
He looked at me. ‘Now, I find a vacancy has emerged at the head of the City defences. Bearing in mind the defection of almost all the qualified candidates – and the unreliability of those remaining – I am minded to appoint you to the position.’
‘Sir,’ I cried, aghast, ‘I – I…’
I trailed off. I was too young. I was a barbarian. I was the Pope’s representative. I knew fuck all about the military. I didn’t want to die. All I wanted was to go home.
‘If I might be so bold as to suggest-’
Phocas cut Theophanes off. ‘You suggest nothing,’ he snarled in sudden anger. ‘I’m Emperor yet. I still say what goes in this City. I’m keeping to my side of the bargain. You will therefore keep your mouth shut.’
A strange look on his face, Theophanes did as he was told. He turned back to me.
‘I remove you from the post of Acting Permanent Legate,’ he said. ‘I now appoint you Count of the Palace Guard, which includes the newish post of Duke of the Sacred Defence.’
As he spoke, he splashed wine from his cup over the black slave who was nodding off on the floor beside him. He too was sodden with blood. Like water from a squeezed sponge, it oozed from his clothing on to the floorboards. The man jerked into life and handed up the leather satchel he’d been cuddling. From this, Phocas produced yet another of his parchment sheets.
‘This gives formal effect to my wishes,’ he said. He tried to wipe a spot of blood from the sheet. Instead, his finger only made a broader dark smear over the writing. ‘I brought this along on the off-chance I’d catch you. How lucky we ran into each other downstairs.
‘With immediate effect, you are transferred to duties of equal rank to those from which I relieve you. I appoint you Count of the Palace Guard and so forth, with supreme power over all life and property for the purpose of your commission,’ he intoned. ‘You will see there is no mention of appeals to me from any decision you make. You have the same rank and powers as dear Priscus.’
I struggled to find the words to extricate myself from this latest horror.
Phocas flashed me a thoroughly evil smile. ‘Oh no, my lad,’ he said, ‘you don’t get out of this at all. You get yourself off to the palace where you’ll be kitted out in armour of gold and silver, and then greet your men. If you refuse my order, I’ll have you impaled before morning.
‘If you lose the battle on the streets, you either die or make whatever submission you can to Heraclius and Priscus. But let’s be reasonable – that means you die. If you win, you become my champion. Play things right, and I’ll think of chucking in my daughter and the succession. Since there’s no one else left, it might as well be you.
‘With hindsight, I can see that Priscus wasn’t the right man for Domentia. He didn’t use her well. You, on the other hand, will make an ideal husband. She might even fancy you. Certainly, you’ll need to give her another son. I can’t have a son of Priscus continuing my line.’
Unable to think of anything remotely better, I stood in front of the Emperor, bowing my obedience to his will.
‘Go, my boy,’ Phocas called, with a return to full good humour. ‘You’ve a busy night ahead of you. I expect to find everything up to scratch on the streets tomorrow when – or if – I decide on my eve-of-battle inspection.’
As I bowed out of the room, I threw a final glance at Theophanes. He looked ninety if he was a day.
‘It suits you better than the clerical robes,’ Martin agreed. ‘It’s a shame they’ve finally arrived.’
Radogast untied the golden breastplate and I let out my first natural breath since leaving the Imperial Palace. Martin hadn’t missed the scale of this latest disaster. Given any choice in the matter, he’d have had the Legation gates locked, with us on the inside and the keys dropped into a sewer. On the other hand, I could sense some relief that the blasphemy of my position as Acting Permanent Legislator was at an end.
But my new appointment – and I can’t sufficiently emphasise the fact – was a fucking disaster. All else aside, I knew as much about military tactics as I did about the laying of mosaics. Whatever plans of defence I might take over would have been already betrayed by Priscus. And that was assuming his plans were any good in the first place.
On the other hand, the shock of the appointment had wondrously settled me after that horrid time with Priscus. Men often dull the pain of torture by biting their tongues. One pain cancels the other. So it was with me. Back in the Legation earlier, I’d thought the pain of that truth about Maximin would never pass. Now, it was almost forgotten with this latest turn of the page.
And I looked absolutely lush in the suit of armour that had been waiting for me at the palace. It had been so skilfully adapted that it might have been made specially for me.
I scooped Maximin out of the cot from where he’d been solemnly regarding me, and carried him triumphantly about the room. I’d taken many things from Priscus – his job, his armour, his son. None of them might do me much good, but I might as well try to enjoy them.