‘I demand an audience.’
‘Which will be denied.’
‘Am I to return to my post without a consultation with the man who commands me?’
‘Be assured he reads your despatches with great care.’
Which was as good a way of any of indicating to him he would indeed be returning to Dara. Was that a slip up from Narses or a pointer to what he was seeking? Would Justinian want a scandal, the same applying to Theodora? It was not impossible to execute Photius secretly, though there would be rumour and gossip, which must include his mother, and her friendship with the Empress being no secret, she might be tarred by it.
Secret retribution was not an outcome that could be applied to him; if he was to be punished it would have to be in full view of the populace and with all the reasons known. This private questioning indicated the imperial couple did not relish the affair becoming public and on that assumption he could give an answer. If he was wrong they could both suffer.
‘I have many times threatened to kill Theodosius with my own hands, but I have spoken in a passion. To proceed from that to the act is a different matter, but I am willing to confess that had I been within striking distance of him I am not sure I could have restrained myself.’
‘And Photius?’
‘Acted as he saw it on my behalf, made as angry as I by the behaviour of his mother, while being equally wounded by the callousness of Theodosius.’
‘So he determined to kill him.’
‘He wished to do so, but he did not. He imprisoned him-’
‘And impoverished him,’ Narses interrupted.
‘Then he came to me.’
‘To ask for your approval of an action he has admitted he wished to carry out.’
‘Approval which I declined to give him. And I say this, Narses. I know Photius. He would not have acted unless I gave him express permission to do so and I daresay when the hot irons were pressed to his flesh that is what he confessed to.’
‘No order?’
‘The reverse, Narses.’
Flavius nearly went on to say that he had instructed Photius to free Theodosius but he stopped himself; he had not and he doubted if his stepson would have invented such a story, even under torture.
‘You accept that your stepson committed a heinous crime?’
‘I accept he acted foolishly but from laudable motives.’
‘Theodosius says that Photius relished telling him that he was about to be killed on your orders.’
‘A lie that would have no trouble passing such treacherous lips.’
The eunuch put a hand to his chin, to worry the flesh, and in doing so he dropped his eyes and remained in contemplation for some time, this while Flavius questioned his motives for being present. Had Justinian instructed him to it or was it an attempt to render the command on the eastern border untenable for a rival? If it was, Narses would be the natural replacement and Flavius knew from past experience he was militarily ambitious.
He was not given a clue; the eunuch stood up abruptly and left the chamber. In the following days no action was taken and finally he was summoned into the presence of Justinian, but not on his own. There were a number of his counsellors present and the subject was confined to the forthcoming campaign against Khusrow, should the Sassanid King invade again, as he was expected to do to both take plunder and put pressure on Constantinople to pay more gold.
Only at the very conclusion could Flavius ask for the release of Photius, and that in a whisper. The response was a sharp head shake and a black look.
There were two factors mitigating against any attempt by Flavius to help Photius: his own public renown and time. In the latter case the kind of delays the bureaucracy imposed on him as he sought equipment was an aid not a hindrance; instead of an immediate return to the east he could move freely in the palace complex as he apparently sought to chivvy various officials into action when, in their presence, he seemed full of understanding for their difficulties.
The former was more troublesome, added to the possibility that Theodora, known to employ spies, was having him watched. Never had fame seemed to him so much of a burden. Flavius had never much cared for the kind of public approbation with which he was regularly assailed in the streets of the city on being recognised.
To walk the Triumphal Way as a successful soldier, a conqueror and newly appointed consul was one thing; in such a circumstance a cheering crowd was to be expected. To be applauded for merely passing by seemed crass, he being unware that it was the very fact of his walking amongst the citizenry without pomp or protection that added lustre to his reputation for humility and probity.
He was at least relieved of the presence of Antonina, who preferred the royal apartments close to the Empress against residence at the seaside villa, not for reasons of comfort but because Theodosius was once more in Constantinople. Her behaviour was once more a standing rebuke to his soft nature, as if the imprisoned stepson was not an even greater running sore.
To do anything himself was impossible; even to plead for clemency was likely to produce an effect directly contrary to that aimed at, and in this he had to face the combination of the Empress and his wife. Antonina in particular was determined that Photius should be punished for his attitude to her over many years. She had openly advocated, he had been told, thankfully to no avail, that the torture he had suffered should be continued.
His only hope was old comrades. The city was full of men who had served with him, the kind of middle-ranking officers that he had always taken care to look after so that they too would attend to the needs of those they led. Anyone of high rank he could not approach, they being inclined to put their career way ahead of any perceived debt they owed to their one-time general, an understandable response, if one he found frustrating.
To meet the men he needed to talk with required the kind of subterfuge at which he might be a master on the battlefield but was anathema in normal life. He was obliged to leave the villa not only in darkness but in a covered wagon, this while the house behind him was fully illuminated by burning oil lamps, with busy servants much in evidence.
Under the canvas canopy Flavius was dressed in a heavy, hooded cloak as a double precaution, his exit swift and taken just as the wagon turned a corner so that anyone following would be unsighted. This found him in a familiar setting, if one he had not visited for a decade.
The streets in the dock area were narrow, dark and stinking, the only light, and a gloomy one at that, coming from the sconces above the various tavern and brothel doorways. His choice of destination had been advised by Solomon, who knew more of the habits of the men Flavius sought than did their one-time commander. His experience of this area had been in the company of the pre-imperial Justinian and the elevated types with whom he associated, their pleasures taken in the most salubrious of the establishments.
Once he had found the basement he was seeking, care had to continue to be exercised. The tavern was crowded, it being a haunt for soldiers, not dock workers or itinerant sailors, and the fug set up by the burning of cheap oil did much to add gloom to the light such lamps were supposed to emit. This made finding a table at which to sit difficult, compounded by the need to examine those who would be his neighbours before he could park his backside on a bench.
Still hooded he was on the receiving end of many a stare, for what was common outside on a winter night was not the same within, which meant the cowl had to be removed, but not before the low-beamed room had been the subject of a ranging examination. The act of throwing it off was a calculated risk, given his face was known to many, but most customers were too engrossed in their own affairs to even look in his direction.
The tavern was small and made to seem more so by the fact of being busy. The tables were packed close and at one end lay a tiny clear area in which there would probably be dancing and maybe more lewd demonstrations. There was a rickety staircase leading, he surmised, to cubicles, for this place would act too as a brothel. It was impossible to avoid reflecting that if both the Empress and his wife had come from a better class of establishment, this was the kind of life they had lived prior to the good fortune brought on by Theodora’s marriage.