Laughter was the least rude of the responses; several times he was told where to go and none of the proposed destinations were pleasant, most being blasphemous. One soul, when he seemed to persist by blocking his passage, looked set to fetch him a blow until an assessment of the risks changed his mind. Impatience was the common denominator with the citizens of the capital; everyone seemed to be in a hurry, obviously on some business that did not allow for courtesy to an outsider.
In the end, as he passed the Milion stone, from which all imperial distances were measured, he was constrained to ask a blind beggar, sat in ragged clothes by the roadside, if he had any knowledge of the layout of the Great Palace, which got a rattle of his cup before any answer was forthcoming. Having proffered a coin and noisily dropped it in, that was checked for value by fingers obviously sensitive enough to tell how much had been gifted and the answers were forthcoming.
‘Each party has their own gate,’ he rasped. ‘Who is it you seek, young sir?’
How does he know I’m young, Flavius was thinking? But he explained, not using the word ‘count’, but just the unit he led.
‘Then you want the Gate of the Excubitors, which is the entry to their barracks. That you will find by passing the baths, which surely you cannot go by without noticing, for you will smell them.’
The cup came up again and that got the fellow another nummi from the purse, again felt for value, followed by a nod that indicated it was just reward.
‘I thank you, kind sir.’
‘Kind?’ he wheezed. ‘Sir? Where you from, the moon?’
Flavius went on his way and the beggar began to chant his mantra, asking for alms for the love of God, the tin rattling endlessly. If he went awry once he eventually came to a gateway guarded by two men in highly decorated uniforms, breastplates with filigree silver decoration, galea helmets again picked out with silver, topped with black plumes, the whole over tunics of the same sombre hue.
Their square shields were black too, marked out with imperial eagles and metal edged. Not an eye moved or flickered as he approached, until he got what was obviously too close, at which point one of the guards dropped his spear, thrust one foot out to steady himself and told him to halt.
‘My name is Flavius Belisarius and I have come to see your commander Justinus.’
The look that got somehow told Flavius he had caused a shock, this underlined when the guard responded with a confused, ‘What!’
The request was repeated, which led to a pause before the other guard, who had not moved, began to shake, his lips compressed and his face sort of puffed up, an indication that he was seeking to suppress his hilarity. The man who had first spoken was not amused and he barked at Flavius.
‘Be on your way, you witless dolt.’
‘I am not witless, the count was a friend to my father and if you give him my name I am sure he will see me.’
‘I’ll give you the toe of my boot if you don’t shove off.’
‘I insist-’
He got no further; the tip of the spear was thrust forward to stop a finger width from his chest. ‘Get out of here before I fillet you.’
Flavius had taken a step back and the guard did likewise, adopting once more the stoical pose that went with the duty.
‘Can I pay you to carry the message?’ he asked, his tone slightly desperate. ‘I will write my name down and if you take it to Justinus he will be grateful.’
‘Get on your way, you idiot. The likes of the comes does not want to talk to a bumpkin peasant.’
‘I am the son of the centurion Decimus Belisarius!’
‘You’re the son of a whore, laddie, and if you do not get those feet moving I will have you thrown into the dungeons, where the rats will no doubt enjoy you as a meal. Now move.’
There had to be another way, Flavius reckoned, so he began to walk off, mind racing at possible avenues, the most outlandish being to break into the Great Palace and find Justinus, which was quickly abandoned as the road to a certain death. He could take station outside the requisite entrance and, like the blind beggar, use supplication with those passing in and out to get his message through, yet how would he know whom to ask?
The bustling crowds, still paying no attention to his progress, were beginning to grate, yet it was looking along the Triumphal Way that alerted him to how steeply angled were the shadows. Night was coming and it would descend quickly, plunging the city into darkness. He had to find somewhere to lay his head and that became the most pressing need. Tomorrow was another day and surely he would find an opportunity to advance his aims.
Constantinople was not short on wine shops, the most obvious place to gain information about somewhere to sleep – they often doubled as hostelries, even in Dorostorum. The capital being a much-visited metropolis, it took only two attempts to find the right kind of place. Flavius got a bed, but in the process he also discovered how limited were his means; the cost of a cup of wine, necessary before he could enquire for a bed, shocked him, but not as much as what he was asked for a cot in a room to be shared with three other souls, the same to be paid in advance.
Once in the upstairs hovel, for it was not clean and stank of too much human occupation and too little vinegar used to clean it, he had to calculate how long his limited funds would last and the conclusion was not reassuring; he had little time to get to Justinus before he ran out of money and found himself sleeping in the gutter, for he had no notion that Constantinople was home to much in the way of charity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sleep was not easy; if the snoring of those who shared his space was bad enough, it had been hard to get to sleep in the first place, one of them having brought a whore up from the wine shop to engage in noisy and prolonged rutting, which Flavius could not help compare to his own sweet couplings with Apollonia. His nightly prayers were delivered when lying down, he being sure that to kneel by his cot would only lead to derision, added to which, aware that every time he spoke he identified himself as a stranger, he made no effort to communicate.
There was a stinking privy on the ground floor and in there, when he had been alone and hoping no one was coming, he had taken his purse and jammed it in the instep of his boot. In his cot the other foot was pressed against that and he hoped he would be able to get through the night without moving and subsequently not risk being robbed. There was more than a moment of self-chastisement; was it Christian to assume his room-mates to be dishonest? Set against that was the sure knowledge of what would happen to him if he were left bereft of funds.
When dawn came he was up and using a street trough to wash, not an activity that apparently appeared necessary to anyone else. The city was already busy and, suspecting that he would be charged more to eat in the wine shop than elsewhere, he set off to look first for a bakery, and then perhaps a shop selling cheese, another for sausages. These he found in the colonnades that lined the Triumphal Way and with his purchases sharing the sacking of his breastplate he set off for the Forum of Constantine, where there was public seating as well as a fountain with water to drink.
Resting there, munching his breakfast, Flavius felt very alone. The population streamed by in all directions and he could have been one of the statues that lined the forum for all anyone cared. It came to him that in leaving the host of Vitalian, he was on his own for the very first time; he had no one to consult. Ohannes was on his way to Illyricum, he hoped, and those with whom he had shared a tent were marching back to Marcianopolis; if they had not necessarily been friends they had been human company. Added to that, Apollonia was with them and suddenly he ached for her presence and not just with carnal intent.