Terror of Constantinople (63 page)

    ‘And’, he concluded, ‘you may be assured that Sveta will keep me from walking the streets at night.’

    For the first time since the awful day of my homecoming, I laughed  ...

EPILOGUE

I did go back to Constantinople after leaving Rome. I went back with Maximin and Martin and his family. I went back to Heraclius and Sergius. And, yes – I went back to Priscus. I went back, and all that happened between then and my eventual return to Jarrow you can read about in the histories.

    Alexius and his colleagues are long since departed from Jarrow but I have stayed behind. If the Empire is under threat again, it must be without my advice and direction that it fights off the Saracens or the Slavs or whatever other race has lit fires outside the city walls.

    In a moment, Bede will come in for one of his Greek lessons. After that, we shall go out for our afternoon walk. Summer has come at last, even to Jarrow. The sun shines bright outside the walls of this monastery. The fruit ripens on the trees. My hand in Maximin’s, I shall pick my slow, unsteady way down to the great river that empties into the sea. And the boy will press me with his endless questions, any one of which is a joy to answer.

    He’s got his way. I shall die among my own.

    I will not go back again. But I have only to look away from the dark, shrivelled paw that holds my pen and I see myself again in all the strength and glory of manhood – and feel again some ghost of what I have been.

    Death alone can rob me of the memories that now, like the waters of the Mediterranean, warmly lap the fringes of my mind.