Terror of Constantinople (8 page)

    As we entered the suite, a few slaves and even officials were running frantically about with dusters and aired linen. Demetrius fawned around me, trying to divert my attention from the obvious change of accommodation.

    ‘We trust the young citizen will not be overcome by the splendour of these rooms,’ he said in his poor Latin. ‘We is told that Old Rome has not a single working bath in these last days of the world. Here, the young citizen has his own all for himself.’

    I sniffed, and asked to see the toilet. Very important things are toilets. Forget beds and chairs, which can always be found at short notice. The toilets tell you exactly how civilised a house is, and your own position within it. I had to admit these ones did me proud. The fittings were of marble with four seats of polished ebony. A channel ran under the seats, for water to carry away the waste. Another channel ran in front to give continual water for the wiping sponges that were set on sticks of elegant design.

    The glazed tiles that covered the floor and the lower walls were of a variegated blue. The plaster that ran above these was a dark and luxurious red. There had once been a fresco on the wall opposite the window, but this was now painted over in the same red, and I was unable to see what images or designs it had once had. The only evidence for it was a few patches of colour that had leached through the red.

    Demetrius had to grope about to find the handle that turned on the water. With a gurgle that sounded like a belch from the depths of the Legation building, and then a hiss that died to a gentle splashing, the water burst up in a slightly higher point of the latrine. At once, as the water flowed through its appointed channels, the room came to life. The little tiles of the channels turned from dull to various shades of sparkling blue. The glazed tiles of the lower walls bounced back the shimmering light thrown up from them.

    Come the winter months, ducts set beneath the floor would carry heated air from a central boiler to keep the latrine warm. For the moment, the gentle but continuous trickling of the water would keep it cool on the hottest days. This was a room appointed both for practical use and for mental reflection. I felt I’d be spending a fair bit of time in here.

    I smiled inwardly as I realised Demetrius had pulled a muscle by reaching about for the lever, and his hands were covered with dust. He stood facing me, a suppressed wince on his face and evidently resisting the urge to hop from one foot to the other in agitation. So I sent him off with orders that Martin’s bed should also have clean linen and that the slave quarters should be provided with all that fitted my status as a halfway guest of the Emperor.

    Walking backwards, he bowed out of my presence. I had a most gratifying sight of the confusion on his face as he bumped into Authari. Our kitchen cupboards might be bare. It was plain, though, Authari had found the wine store.

    Back upstairs, while Martin supervised the unpacking and disposal of our baggage, I went into the main office and sat at a great ebony desk inlaid with gold and ivory. On this, a leather bag marked for my attention contained letters from Rome. Some were impressively recent. The roads hadn’t been so impassable after all. At least the post was now getting through again.

    There was something about the Cornish tin business. As it was in code, it would be interesting. But it could wait. I rummaged in the bag and pulled out a thick letter from the Dispensator. I went over by the window for a better look at the microscopic writing.

    Apparently, the Bishop of Ravenna had found a whole nest of heresy under his own nose. His most senior deacons were dissenting from the true position on the Trinity anciently settled at the Council of Chalcedon. They accepted that there was but one Person in Christ, but further inferred that there was but one Will and one Operation – thereby denying the true position, that there were two Natures, Divine and Human, which were hypostatically united in Christ, not mingled  ...

    My eyes glazed over as I read sentence after sentence of denunciation of this most horrid innovation. My job, I gathered, was to procure a formal refutation of all this in Greek – the longer the better. It would be the penance of the offending deacons, who knew only Latin, somehow to understand this and then to memorise it by heart, so they could preach against their heresy in every church in Ravenna.

    As I looked down from the window, one of the monkish gardeners stared up at me from the main central courtyard, an oddly intelligent look on his face.

    Back at my desk, I called for a jug of iced wine, and reached for another letter. This was from Gretel. The secretary who’d taken her dictation had faithfully copied her style of speech. She prattled on about her morning sickness and her longing to see me again, and her profound gratitude for all I was doing on her behalf. She was no longer confined to the house, though had no cause to go out. She emphasised that Marcella was now treating her as one of the guests.

    In Rome, I’d always found Gretel’s conversation something to be endured. Now, I felt tears coming to my eyes as I read about Marcella’s vexation at the theft of linen by one of her less salubrious lodgers.

    There were other letters – from an agent who was handling the sale of some land on the Aventine Hill, and reporting movements in prices that I could relay to traders here in Constantinople. There was another, dated last Easter from Canterbury, thanking me for a complete Virgil I’d sent over from Rome and asking for another
City of God
, the one I’d sent previously having been spoiled by the sea voyage.

    I’d deal with all these in due course. The light was beginning to fade, and I didn’t feel up to writing or dictating late into the evening. For the moment, I kept going back to the letter from Gretel. I kissed the mark she’d written at the foot of the papyrus sheet, telling myself I’d done right to announce marriage to her rather than concubinage.

    Martin knocked and entered. The baggage we’d managed to bring with us was now arranged, he said, but there was no sign of our main luggage from Rome. Also, the lack of any food was now pressing. Should he try to rouse the Legation slaves? Or should he send out for a takeaway? Our own slaves were famished.

    Now that I thought about it, so was I.

    ‘Do arrange for a takeaway,’ I said. ‘I’ll eat here alone. Do also try to get some better wine than this stuff. It smells of pine needles. Something red and rich, if you can get it.’

    I reached across the desk. ‘Here’s a letter for you,’ I added. ‘I imagine it’s from Sveta. Do send her my greetings in your reply.’

    Martin’s face paled as he looked at the scrawled writing on the outside.

    ‘Do cheer up,’ I said with an attempt at jollity. ‘She can’t go at you with a knife at this distance!’

    Outside the room, I heard Martin try again at giving orders to Authari. It was only a matter of time before he made a right fool of himself. I took up the jug and went on to the balcony. For what seemed an age, I stood and watched the flowers turn pale against the gloom that gathered round them.

7

‘Thank you, but I have washed already,’ said Martin, peering dubiously into the water.

    It was late the next morning, and a bath and quite a passable wank had done for my hangover.

    ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘I thought you said there was a steam room and all.’

    ‘Well, it’s all bleedin’ broke, innit?’ Authari rasped at him from the other side of the lead tub he’d eventually managed to find enough hot water to fill. You could have opened a wine shop with the fumes from what else he’d managed to find. Another moment, and he’d forget who was slave and who freedman.

    ‘Indeed,’ I said, rising hastily from the water. ‘Authari assures me that any attempt to light the furnace would cause an explosion. This will be a temporary arrangement. I have no doubt His Excellency will advise on how to proceed with engineers.’

    Once he’d patted me dry, I sent Authari to sit on the other side of the bathhouse door.

    ‘Oh, come on, Martin,’ I urged, now we were alone. ‘Those streets must be baking.’

    I looked away as he undressed. It was hardly his fault he’d once been a slave. But it was his business if he didn’t care to show off the white scars on his back.

    ‘I didn’t think to go far from the Legation,’ he said, easing himself into the now cool water. ‘Since we haven’t any papers yet, I thought it was best to keep to the market before the Great Church. I managed to get nearly everything on your list.’

    I sat down beside him and asked what he’d found out from the stallholders. As I pumiced at my legs, he spoke in a whispered and very slow Celtic I could just understand from my days among the bandits on the Wessex borders.

    He hadn’t that much to say. No one in the streets had been inclined to pour out his innermost thoughts to strangers – not at a time like this. The mood out there, he said, was ugly beyond anything he’d ever known. All business was winding down, and the loss of Egypt to Heraclius meant questions over the free distribution of bread to the poor.

    ‘Have you managed to pick up any information about our Most Noble Host?’ I asked, stretching my legs.

    Martin looked away from me and over to some mosaics of life in an Eastern city. He reached into the water to scrub his feet.

    ‘I bumped into one of those officials as I came back into the Legation.’

    ‘You mean Demetrius?’ I asked.

    ‘No,’ said Martin. ‘That’s the Armenian – or so I think he must be. The one I met is called Antony. He at least is a Greek, though from Nicaea across the Straits. I believe he’s some kind of lawyer. Even so, he was quite friendly.

    ‘He told me that he and the entire household, slaves and all, were brought in last month after the regulars were sent off to Ephesus. The only one of the regulars the Permanent Legate kept on was Demetrius, and Demetrius is the only one he’ll see. Absolutely everything goes through Demetrius.’

    Martin swallowed and shifted to wipe some splashed water off his face. ‘His Excellency, I am told, takes offence at the alleged need for an unordained barbarian too young for a beard to come all the way from Rome for a mission he believes himself quite capable of doing by himself.

    ‘Besides, all correct procedure has been set aside in this case. The Dispensator has sent us over here without consulting with the Permanent Legate. The only formal notification, apparently, was a letter sent through the Master of the Offices.’

    I stared at Martin. There was no point in trying to look surprised. The Dispensator never made mistakes. I doubted if he broke wind without a stratagem.

    ‘The further instructions I’ve had from Rome’, I said flatly, ‘will keep us here a month at least. Whatever point we could have made about the Spanish stuff is now redundant.’

    Martin’s face sagged as I explained about the heresy in Ravenna. He looked down again at the water. Then, in a slow voice:

    ‘My letter from home you gave me last night – the seal was lifted and replaced. There were scorch marks on the back. Had all your stuff been read and checked for secret writing?’

    ‘Yes,’ I said. We sat a while in silence.

    ‘Tell me about the old eunuch,’ I said. ‘Who is Theophanes?’ I spoke more to break the silence. I didn’t want Martin to think I had no control at all over our circumstances.

    He wiped what little remained of his fringe from his eyes and leaned forward, dropping his voice even lower.

    ‘Since he’s with the Master of the Offices, he may be head of the security services. For people of his rank, though, formal status is only a matter of convenience. If he doesn’t report directly to the Emperor, I’ll be surprised.’

    Martin’s voice took on a quoting tone: ‘The only settled passions in the eunuch heart are avarice and revenge.’ He paused, then in a more natural tone: ‘Whatever he wants, we give him. But we don’t fall for any of his charming ways.’

    We fell silent again. Once dressed, I’d go through the motions of paying my respects to the Permanent Legate.

    ‘All right,’ I said at last. There was no point in pretending. ‘It’s Pavia all over again. And I suppose it’s my fault, at least indirectly, for getting you here.’

    ‘Forget Pavia!’ said Martin with a failed attempt at lightness. ‘We had clear instructions for that. This is wholly different. Your Spanish instructions were an obvious ruse. The Ravenna business came up after we’d left. We’ve been sent here for reasons unspecified. We are now stuck here as pieces in a diplomatic game played far above our heads. His Excellency has withdrawn from all official business so long as we remain in the city. The Emperor’s messengers call every other day. They go back unreceived.’