The cross was once more in the priestly hand, as if by holding it he could be absolved of any sin he might commit. ‘Try as I might, I cannot protect him from the anger of those who would burn any heretic they could find …’
‘Perfect.’
‘And then,’ Blastos added, ‘I can write to the patriarch, who knows me to be a loyal Monophysite, and tell him I have found and contained a dangerous spread of something much worse than Chalcedonian heresy, that I have uncovered pagan worship, which being on the border with barbarians, we must most assiduously guard against. I am sure such a thing will please him.’
‘Don’t go seeking higher elevation, Bishop Gregory,’ Senuthius said in a piping voice, the eyebrows lowered over a penetrating gaze.
‘Would I desert you after all you have done for me and my church?’
That got a nod, even if the man giving it was unconvinced; Senuthius had paid to repair damage done to the basilica of Dorostorum by an earthquake, one that had occurred decades before and rendered the city a diocese that was not one to which many men of the cloth aspired. Far from rich, and in a ramshackle condition, Blastos, lacking influence to get a prized appointment, had taken it as the bishopric he could get, rather than the kind for which he craved, a see in which money flowed easily into his coffers without the need for underhand appropriation.
‘Be assured I will do more, much more,’ Senuthius responded.
This statement was at total odds with his thoughts, those being that even an ally can be a danger. Was he reposing too much trust and therefore his fate into the hands of this man? Since arriving, Blastos had held under one arm the ledger of the imperial centurion and this he now held out to Senuthius, who took it and ran an eye practised in figures over the columns.
‘The monies left over?’
‘In my saddlebag, which if you wish, you can send someone to fetch.’
‘No need, you may keep it,’ the senator replied, holding the book open and out. ‘But this I will have my scribes go over and they will make some changes, even compose a complete new set of accounts. Let us ensure that, if examined, Decimus Belisarius is seen to be nothing but a liar and a thief, seeking to lay the blame for his own crimes at the door of others.’
‘It is necessary to allude to the man’s wife, who may at some time in the future be on her way here, almost certainly if her only surviving son comes to any harm.’
Senuthius did not seem to see that as a problem. ‘If her husband and her sons were heretics, how can she be anything but the same? It will be perceived that what happened in that raid was nothing but divine retribution for their family apostasy. Perhaps, once we have dealt with that which needs to be seen to, we should send to her a message that says it would be unwise to return to Dorostorum. Why would she want to anyway, just to gaze on the rotting skeleton of her youngest on a cross and perhaps face a similar fate?’
‘If we are done, Senuthius, I should return to the city.’
‘It is near dark, Bishop Gregory, stay and dine with me and together we can compose the sermon by which you are going to damn the Belisarius name.’
Flavius never knew the identity of the person who gave him warning of what was about to be visited upon his house, only that it came through the narrow slats of a shuttered window, the voice was male and it spoke heavily accented Greek. When he offered to open the shutter and light an oil lamp the suggestion was vehemently dismissed.
‘I don’t want you knowing who I am.’
Having been awakened from another set of troubling dreams he was far from being in the best frame of mind to react. ‘Then how can I trust what you say if I cannot see you?’
‘You can believe me and happen to live or think I am a liar and die.’
‘At whose hand?’
‘You know who and if he does not do the deed himself, it will be his need behind it.’
The tale told was not strictly coherent; the person giving it was breathless, either from exertion or fear of discovery, yet it did not lack for verisimilitude. If what Flavius suspected regarding the deaths of his family was true, added to his suspicions of what Bishop Gregory had been seeking, then what he was hearing made perfect sense. It also induced a degree of real terror.
‘And how do you know all this?’
‘Man has ears. Some, not many, have a sense of right and wrong.’
‘What am I supposed to do?’ Flavius demanded.
‘Flee, if you have any sense, for by this time tomorrow you will be nailed to a cross if you don’t.’
‘Flee to where?’
There was no reply, just the sound of scrabbling and heavy breath. Flavius flung open the shutters to reveal nothing but a dark and hooded shape heading away from the villa, his hissed call to stop going unanswered. The clouds that had partially obscured the moon parted to show an eerie view of trees and bushes, as well as the roofs of other houses that lay beyond the walls of the garden. When he looked straight down he saw, lying on the ground, the outline of the ladder his messenger had used to get up to his window.
He needed to talk to Ohannes, but one of the people left behind by the bishop was, on the cleric’s instructions, sleeping across the outside of his chamber door; others, he suspected, were placed at the villa exits like the atrium and the kitchens. It had been years since the mischievous child had clambered out of that very window to avoid the parental constraints but Flavius knew well it could be done, knew that it was possible to drop down onto soft ground close to the wall, where his mother planted vegetables that required the warmth of the afternoon sun to prosper and grow. In her absence it had been tended and watered by one of the servants.
He had one leg over the sill when he paused, reprising what he had been told. If even half was true, it was obvious that whatever happened subsequently would oblige him to vacate the family home if not forever, certainly for the succeeding days. Where to go and for how long was a problem that would need to be solved, but not at this exact moment.
Going back into his room and using what moonlight filtered through the open window, Flavius dressed slowly, silently and not without pain, in his military garb, breast and backplate, knowing his sling would have to be discarded. He strapped on his sword, gathered up his shield, his spear plus his helmet and cast them out to land on the ground, taking care to spread out the places where they made contact so they did not clash and cause a noise.
Lastly he gathered everything that had been given to him by Gregory Blastos, his father’s testament, papers and most importantly the family money. The rolled-up document he loaded in a canvas satchel and put over his good shoulder, the twin sack of coins he tied tightly to his belt, and once sure there was nothing left he could safely take with him, he went back over the sill and slowly, relying on his good arm, let himself down until it was at a full stretch.
There is always an odd feeling in dropping, doubly so in the dark, for the clouds had once more cut off the moonlight, and unlike in his past escapades, he could not see where he would land. As he hung there, Flavius was assailed by a deep fear, not just that a fall of twice his own height might land him on a rock and cause him to sprain or break an ankle, but of that which awaited him even should he succeed without mishap.
The sob that came from his throat he had to suppress but he was a boy again, near to fifteen summers now, no longer pretending to be a man, as he had been before the Hun raid, and the feeling was uncomfortable. What kind of fate was it that left him to care for himself and what kind of destiny was it that put him in such imminent danger when just days before he had lived a normal life?
Flavius opened the hand that was holding on to the sill and fell to the ground, giving with his knees and mouthing a prayer to what seemed an indifferent God as he did so, for he had landed on soft ground.
Weapons, helmet and the canvas sack he left under a tree halfway between the villa and the servants’ quarters, these being set in a low building that adjoined and ran at right angles from the kitchens of the main house. No ladder was required to get in but it was necessary to maintain silence, not easy with a shutter inclined to creak, even less so when, once inside and away from that opening, very little light penetrated to aid him. That he should have only a sketchy notion of who slept where in this part of the villa was hardly surprising: he had not wandered into this area since being a curious toddler.