But it was in Constantinople that such things really mattered and there too they had taken a less than encouraging turn. Conflict at court between the soldiers of empire, who had to fight its battles, set against civilian courtiers who had as their prime concern the costs of doing so, was endemic. Military campaigns against powerful enemies required the hiring and feeding of mercenaries, the empire having centuries ago lost the ability to man its forces with its own citizens. The preferred method of the palace officials, seen as a cheaper one, was to buy peace in ingots of gold where a threat could be considered serious; outside that parameter, as on the northern border at Dorostorum, trouble was ignored.
The military had acquired increased influence recently, thanks to their victories in the recent war with the Persians, and in the febrile politics of the Byzantine Court that had brought several of the commanders into positions of increased weight. If the conflict had ended, there was an uneasy peace on the eastern border and a major fort being constructed at Dara, meaning the soldiers, being still needed, constituted a substantial body of power.
Fighting men being no more upright than their civilian counterparts, the senator’s cousin had assiduously sought to find out whom he could bribe and whom he could either sideline or diminish by the kind of base rumour that swirled around such a shifting polity. Yet the admission was open: there were those who might be beyond such attempts, and a further concern came from the fact that the centurion Belisarius, having served so long and in so many campaigns, could have a bond with some of these soldiers that might be unbreakable by any means.
This was then fuelled by the rumours of secret communications. Uncertainty created anxiety and with good reason; to fall from favour in the empire was not just to lose land, wealth and power – it just as often meant a loss of your very life and if not that, a public blinding that would leave the victim a begging imbecile with nothing but a gutter in which to exist.
The thought of such a fate, added to the notion of his children being rendered destitute, so terrified Senuthius that Blastos was subjected to a stream of sorrowful self-indulgence as his host went from listing what he saw as his virtues, through a paean to his qualities, followed by a lament as to what he would forfeit.
The bishop had been subjected to such tirades before and so he knew what was coming; Senuthius was working himself up to a pitch in which he could justify whatever action he deemed necessary to protect himself. It had been the same when the hint first came of some kind of unknown imperial communication with the centurion, culminating in the only safe course of action, which was to eliminate that part of the threat within his reach.
The voice went from whining through to firm resolve and then rose as it had on previous occasions to a solution. Senuthius always started quietly until anger began to take over, to go through growling then protestation before rising to what was a spitting crescendo of bile. He would not be brought down, would not see everything for which he had striven eaten up by imperial wolves on the word of a man like Belisarius, consumed with nothing but malice and jealousy for his position.
It ended with him screaming imprecations on that name, one fist thumping into his other hand with increasing force as he worked himself into a frenzy that had the imperial centurion lambasted as a traitor and an ingrate, a liar and a thief, quite missing the paradox as he damned with equal vehemence his public probity. Finally red of face and perspiring, Senuthius stopped, took several deep breaths and coming close, addressed the bishop in a soft voice, though not one without a degree of tension.
‘The Belisarius villa must be torn apart, stone by stone if need be, and that brat who survived can be racked and his flesh charred until he reveals what he must know. You must go to your pulpit and damn the whole family as heretics. Use that stupid pyre the boy built as a sign of their sacrilege, Blastos. Tell your flock of the rituals carried out in secret within the walls of that house, of blood sacrifices to pagan gods and the desecration of the symbols of Christ our Saviour. We know, do we not, how they will react?’
‘You wish to engineer a riot of the faithful?’
The question was posed without passion; if the notion of what was being proposed troubled the bishop he made no mention of it, just as he had so recently acquiesced in the plan Senuthius had hatched to rid himself of the imperial centurion. Desperate times required remedies to match.
‘Led by men I will provide,’ Senuthius replied, gesturing to his domesticus, a witness to the entire exchange. ‘But we must ensure that, in any confusion, they and only they get within the walls.’
‘To search?’
‘To find! Let that brat wish he had died along with his father and brothers if he does not lead them to it.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Having turned to give instructions, ordering that the requisite men be gathered from his outlying farms, Senuthius allowed Bishop Gregory time to think – really the first since he had arrived, so passionate had been the mood of his host – a short break in which the bishop could begin to calculate the outcome of what was being proposed, so that once the senator was done and the domesticus had departed, he could point up some possible difficulties.
‘It will ill serve our cause if we leave the Belisarius boy a gibbering wreck.’
Senuthius could not resist the barbed response. ‘Perhaps we should hand him over to you to do as you wish.’
‘Tempting,’ the bishop replied calmly, deliberately declining to rise to the slur, while being sure that the storm of abuse had subsided and he could address Senuthius as an equal. ‘But that will not serve either.’
That got him a questioning look; traduce him as he might, and often did, Senuthius knew that the cleric had a devious mind, added to a peasant cunning which came from his low birth and impoverished childhood. He also knew that the memory of that straitened past was both the spark that animated the ambition of the priest as well as the cause of his anxieties; having ascended so far in the only institution, outside soldiering, that permitted such an elevation, he had a deep fear of loss.
‘Whatever has happened in Constantinople it would be unwise to heighten the risks, which the broken body of the centurion’s son must most certainly do.’
‘If they hear of it, Blastos,’ Senuthius barked. ‘Remember, there is no swine sending grievances any more.’
‘If Flavius is alive …’ The bishop paused and spread his hands; he had no need to elaborate on that. Even with his tongue cut out and his eyes gouged the boy could write. ‘But to just kill him might be worse, and since we are unaware of the nature of what we face, it may make matters more difficult.’
‘While you are busy creating difficulties, I hope your mind is working on a solution.’
‘Why would I need to, when your outstanding genius has already provided one?’
Senuthius brightened at that: he loved flattery and in Blastos he had a man well versed in the art of sycophancy.
‘If we brand the boy as a heretic and so inflame the righteous against him, how could anyone be expected to prevent, say, a crucifixion?’
‘He must speak before that!’
‘Perhaps he will do so to avoid such a fate and you will have no need to take hot irons to his flesh to get him to talk. I will promise him the protection of the Church if he confides the whereabouts of what was sent to his father from the capital.’
‘And when he has divulged what he knows?’