Terror of Constantinople (60 page)

    In the dim light that showed in the upper windows of most of the houses it was possible to see the hasty messages of devotion and greeting for Heraclius that had been daubed on sheets and hung from each heavy gate.

64

The Jewish district was in uproar when I arrived there. Men were arguing bitterly in the streets. Slaves went about tearing crosses and enamelled icons from the shop signs. Others were fighting to keep them there.

    One old Jew caught the hem of my cloak as I walked past him. ‘In the name of our Common Father,’ he cried in despair, ‘can you say anything about what Heraclius intends for us?’

    I looked back at him from within the folds of my hood. ‘I am perhaps the last person in the city able to answer that one,’ I said with a gentle laugh. ‘But my advice, for what it may be worth, is to gather a big sum in hard cash and go indoors to wait on events. There may be a return to toleration. Or there may not. It depends on whether Heraclius listens more to his priests or to his money people.’

    I turned to go. But someone else came from behind and pulled my hood back. ‘I thought I recognised your voice,’ he said.

    I reached for my sword. But Baruch grinned and touched the blue amulet on his turban.

    I’d been amazed by the display of blue over at the Great Church. It had never occurred to me that even the Jews had joined the Circus Factions.

    ‘This is the one, Rabbi,’ said Baruch. He hugged me and kissed both cheeks in his ebullient, Eastern way. ‘If I hadn’t been there myself, I’d never have believed it. He fought like Samson with his ass’s jawbone. He smote those Green dogs good and proper. They ran like the Philistines at Lechi. I killed three myself.’

    Baruch looked set to drift into a reverie of smiting but the Rabbi dragged him back to the present with a high-pitched reprimand in what I can now say was Aramaic. Jews in the City all speak common Greek on the streets, you see, but many of them can also speak a couple of Eastern languages which they use when they want to talk privately among themselves.

    ‘No,’ said Baruch firmly, pulling the conversation back into Greek. ‘No one grasses on the Hero of the Blues. He led us to a draw with the Imperial Army. Besides, he’s a good customer – well, good on the whole.’

    He turned back to me. ‘See that piece of offal up there?’ he asked.

    ‘Yes?’ I said, giving a polite but hurried look at the torch bracket.

    ‘That was my Chief Clerk, that was,’ he said. ‘I don’t grass on people. People don’t grass on me.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Are you in need of shelter?’ he asked. ‘My bank is safe as any fortress, and I could get you away in the morning. So long as no one looks under your tunic, you can—’

    ‘Thanks, but no,’ I said. ‘I do, however, have something in mind that would benefit from your help.’

    I took him next to a wall and quietly explained what I had in mind. Baruch listened gravely. His eyes widened when I mentioned certain documents that might be of interest. He raised only one objection, and I changed my plan to accommodate this.

    ‘If you want to help your people,’ I ended, ‘that is probably the best way of doing it.’

    ‘I’m in,’ he said as soon as I’d finished. ‘Let me go in for a sword.’

    ‘And get a cloak,’ I hissed after him. I pulled my own hood back on but, noticing a very pretty young woman looking out of a window at me, quickly pulled it half back again and smiled up at her. It may have been the drugs, or it may have been the thought of sodding everything up for several people who deserved no better, but I was feeling in the mood for devilry this evening.

    Sadly, the girl was almost at once jerked back from the window, and the shutters were pulled across.

Over by the shore of the Golden Horn, some of the Greens had broken into a wine depot and were drinking their way through several dozen vats of the best wine in the city. Hundreds of them crowded into the narrow streets that ran down to the water. Blissfully happy, their dirty, often hideous proley faces softened by drink, and the knowledge of a betrayal well made, they pissed and belched where they sat. A few, lying in odd positions, looked dead from over-indulgence. Rather more of them were still up to dancing with each other for support, as they croaked a discordant hymn of triumph over the Blues.

    A detachment of regular troops stood by the shore, just in case of any disturbance.

    Come dawn, whatever trash had survived the celebrations would be cleared off the streets and driven back to their workshops or whatever filthy burrows they inhabited by day. For the moment, they were left to enjoy the fruits of their victory.

    ‘See how the Greens would make an easy target,’ Baruch whispered in my ear. ‘Shall we not cut a few throats?’

    ‘We have other work to do,’ I reminded him.

For away from any of the troubles, the Monastery of St John Chrysostom lay in silence. We took up our positions in the doorway of a derelict shop nearby and waited. Baruch muttered a few times about his rheumatism and breathed garlic in my face every time he moved for a scratch. But, dressed in black, we stood still enough to be invisible.

    Then, just as the dawn was breaking, the main gate opened slightly. A face looked cautiously out and peered right and left. Once it was clear the street was empty, the gate swung half open, and a procession of the younger monks emerged. They strained and grunted as they carried out great containers of the previous day’s excrements for casting into the Golden Horn.

    The Clerk had no time for more than the opening words of his protest as I smashed the pommel of my sword against the side of his head. He went down stunned. I pushed him into a broom cupboard, and we walked straight into the interior of the Monastery.

    ‘This way,’ I hissed to Baruch, pulling him just in time from a turn into the chapel. For the moment, we had the advantage of surprise. We needed to keep it that way.

    The Abbot was rolling up a letter as we walked into his office.

    ‘What in God’s name? ...’ he asked, jumping to his feet.

    ‘Excellent,’ I said in my easiest tone. I shut the door softly. ‘I take it you are now dispensed from your vow of silence?’

    I told him what I wanted. His response was to dash for a window that opened on to the courtyard. How he’d ever have got through it, and then where he’d have gone, were questions Baruch saved him from having to answer. With a single blow of his fist, he had the Abbot floored.

    ‘You can make this easy on us, or hard for yourself,’ I said, looking down, my voice conversational.

    ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ the Abbot spluttered. He gasped in horror as Baruch stepped heavily on his right hand. I could hear the bones cracking.

    ‘You know exactly what I mean,’ I said, pulling him back to his feet. ‘Now  ...’

    There was a banging on the door.

    ‘Reverend Father, Reverend Father,’ a voice called urgently. ‘Are you all right?’

    ‘Oh shit!’ Baruch muttered. He spat on his sword blade for luck and added something about ‘corpse-eating Nazarene dogs’.

    I pulled the door open. For monks, the three men outside were well-armed. I walked towards the doorway, the Abbot now held before me, right arm twisted high up his back, my sword at his throat.

    ‘If you don’t do exactly as I tell you,’ I said, still conversational, ‘I’ll kill your Reverend Father. And then, if you resist me, I’ll kill you. And if you make a noise while trying to avoid being killed by me, you’ll have some soldiers straight from Heraclius banging on the gate.

    ‘Which is it to be?’

    ‘Do as they say,’ the Abbot cried.

    ‘An excellent choice,’ I snarled in his ear. I stepped into the corridor. Still holding their swords, the three monks moved away from us.

    Baruch covered me from behind as I followed the Abbot’s directions and pushed him down the long main corridor of the building. Doors opened before us, and pale, scared faces looked out from the tiny cells. But no one else was armed. As we approached, the faces pulled back and doors were slammed again.

    ‘In there,’ the Abbot gasped, indicating a smaller doorway near the end of the corridor.

    ‘In there – and may God punish your blasphemy.’

    ‘We’ll see about that,’ I said coldly. I held my sword tighter to his throat and stared at the armed monks, who’d followed us closely down the corridor. For a moment, they stared back. Then, with a gesture of submission, they put their swords down. For them, the game was over. What point in wagering now?

    ‘Get me the keys to this door,’ I said to no one in particular. His use as guide and hostage now at an end, I pushed the Abbot so he fell sprawling to the floor.

    ‘Keep your sword up,’ I said to Baruch as keys rattled somewhere in trembling hands. ‘We’ll need to look overpowering.’

    My voice shook as I strained to hear any sound from inside. Was that the rasp of a sword from its scabbard?

    For me, the game wasn’t over at all.

65

Though still hardly into the eastern sky, the sun had risen with almost summer-like heat as we set out upon the Golden Horn.

    ‘That one, over there,’ I said to the boatman, pointing at the largest of the ships that rode at anchor in the narrow bay.

    I emptied a whole vial of perfume on to my sleeve and raised it to my nose as the oars began turning over the filth that lurked just beneath the sparkling water. Common sense told me I should sit in the boat but dignity was more important. I steadied myself against each gentle pitch of the boat and remained standing.

    I’d thrown off my dark cloak and was showing off the dazzling white and purple-fringed robe of a senator. That, plus my golden hair and the general dignity and assurance of my pose, must have fixed every eye on those anchored ships.

    I couldn’t be sure. If the sun shone full on me, it was also in my eyes, and I could see damn all of what might be happening ahead of me.

    ‘Who goes there?’ a voice cried from the flagship as we came within hailing distance.

    I waited until we were close enough for me not to have to strain my voice with shouting.

    ‘I am the Senator Alaric,’ I called back at the second hailing, ‘formerly Acting Permanent Legate of His Holiness the Roman Patriarch, and lately Count of the Palace Guard.’

    There was a long silence. We came alongside the flagship and skirted round the banks of oars to the wide stern. I remained standing, my head held up proudly for anyone to see who was inclined to look.

    A face peered over the stern of the flagship. ‘What do you want?’ a voice asked uncertainly.

    ‘I have come to pay my respects to the Emperor,’ I said mildly.

    The face retreated. There was a subdued conversation several feet above me. Then, instead of the rope ladder I’d expected, there was a clumsy squeaking and a whole wooden staircase swung over the side, its lowest step just above the waterline. I stepped across on to it.

    ‘Wait here,’ I muttered to Baruch. ‘Do exactly as I say.’ He looked at me, suddenly doubtful. His free hand tightened on the leather satchel that contained the promissory notes made out to bearer.

    As I came on deck, it was like stepping into one of the grander mosaics you see in the Great Church. In full dress and all in proper place before me stood what looked like the whole of the new Imperial Court. Here were the generals, the priests and bishops, the scholars, the ministers, and all the other leading men of the New Order of Things. They stood before me grave and silent, glorious in their robes of many colours. I had no idea what they had been about before I came aboard, but they were as fine a reception committee as anyone short of an emperor himself might have wanted.

    Right at the heart of the gathering sat Heraclius. I recognised him from the purple robe, and from the fact that he was sitting while all the others stood. He was just approaching his thirty-fifth birthday when I first saw him. Tall and thin, his light hair cut short, his face close-bearded, he looked barely older than I was. He stared back into my face, confused and perhaps a little annoyed.

    A eunuch just to the left of Heraclius coughed gently and looked meaningfully at the purple carpet that lay between us. I stepped forward into my best ever prostration. Every movement was exactly as it ought to be. I could hear a whisper of admiration around me as I tapped my head a third time on the carpet and then rose in a single movement.