The Curse of Babylon (6 page)

I stood up. Anyone looking at me must have thought I’d got it made. Five years earlier, I’d rolled into the Imperial City on a very dodgy mission. But just look at me now. The gold brocade I had on was heavier than plate armour. Its colour exactly matched my hair, and the bluish-gold paint that covered my face was a tasteful contrast to both. My chair was of ebony, inlaid with ivory and more gold. Standing on a carpet of blue silk, on a platform six feet above the floor of the hall, I was the centre of attention – the earth around which all lesser objects were in orbit. Looking back across the seventy-three years that separate me from that last Monday in the April of 615, I really should have made some effort not to be pissed off.

Instead, I came as close as my paint allowed to glowering. I suppressed the urge to go into a choking cough and looked stiffly ahead. ‘The request is excessive,’ I said in a Greek from which all foreign trace had been carefully removed. I paused and tried to see without moving if the agent was looking crestfallen. He was – served the bugger right for puffing a two-line petition into a speech. I held the pause until my words began to sound final. ‘However,’ I went on, ‘let his parish priest certify that he has indeed begotten twelve sons who are all alive, and I will grant Isidore of Zigana a
two
-year rebate of land tax, and a further ten-year
exemption
.’ I sat down. The Listings Clerk scribbled a comment that would later be worked into a formal reply for carrying back to the farmer.

That should have been it. The Master of the Timings was already getting his staff ready. I couldn’t turn and look, but I could hear the water clock gurgling in a manner that suggested a break from petitions. So why was that bloody agent still on his knees? He’d had my answer. His duty now was to get up and bow, and scuttle back to his own appointed square on the marble. Everyone else could then hop discreetly from foot to foot in the place he’d been occupying since dawn and wait for the bell to ring. Yet there he still was – not moving, arms folded across his chest. ‘Will the rebate be in hard money?’ he asked in a voice that still hadn’t quite broken. There was a gasp of horror from the other agents. I thought the Master of the Timings would faint. I stared at the agent. Someone had just shovelled more incense into a brazier and it was impossible to see his expression. I’d already seen he was young for an agent. From my first glance about the hall, he’d stood out from the usual run of dyed beards and hard, glittering eyes. But, if his face was currently out of sight, his voice alone raised questions about what he was doing here.

I leaned back in my chair. I looked at my polished fingernails. ‘From the second day of the second week of next month,’ I said in a tone of polite menace, ‘all silver payments to and from the Treasury are to be made in the new standard coins. Until then, the old coinage, of whatever quality, remains the legal standard. Had your client wanted to benefit from the decree, it was your duty to suggest delaying his petition.’

And that was him told. A couple of eunuchs appeared from nowhere and shoved him back into the crowd. Without waiting for the bell to ring, the Master of the Timings came forward and bowed. He turned and lifted his staff again. One deafening crash of wood on stone and a hundred men stretched out their right arms in my direction.

‘
Long life to His Magnificence the Lord Senator Alaric
!’ they chanted in their own attempt at Latin. ‘
Life, health, happiness, good fortune ever may he know – wise and generous-hearted, gentle, compassionate; most noble lord of all finances; benefactor; learned, beauteous, heroic
 . . .’

Oh, forget that silly boy of an agent – this whole morning was like watching paint set. Normal petitioning days were over by now. Normally, we had an abbreviated opening ritual and then I withdrew to change into plain clothing. Upstairs in my office, I could read through all the petitions and see the agents one at a time. I could ask questions. I could explain myself. I could strike deals. Unless a matter needed further consideration, an agent could step out into the street with a sealed letter already in his satchel.

But I’ve said this wasn’t a normal petitioning day. The Monday before had been Easter and there was a double load of work. Far worse, this was my first day of public business without Martin to hurry things along. He must by now be halfway up a mountain on Lesbos, and he’d be praying there till June. Today, so far as I could gather, while prancing in from their usual place in the Treasury Building, the eunuchs had spotted a dozen petitioners in their own right. Martin would have put them at the head of the list. They could have been dazzled by the opening spectacle, and sent on their way, preferably with whatever justice or favour they’d come to beg. No hope of that with the bloody eunuchs in charge of things. They’d jumped at the chance to lay on the full ceremonial. By the time I was carried into the hall, I could grin and bear it or cause a scene. I’d stood for the opening prostration and hoped the day’s list wouldn’t be too heavy. It had been, and was, very heavy . . .

The Master of the Timings was back in action. Next item was a break from petitions. ‘A gift for His Magnificence!’ he cried with slow jollity. He held up a box of painted wood that seemed to have been badly scratched along its underside. ‘Behold the love and respect in which the Lord Senator Alaric is held by the entire universe!’ he intoned. The response was a long monosyllable. It is best described as the sort of appreciative sigh you let out when something tasty is pushed under your nose. It began on the left side of the hall and moved, as etiquette prescribed, in stages to the right. Meanwhile, it was for the old eunuch to try, with decreasing elegance of movement, to get the box open.

Oh, bugger!
I thought –
not a birthday present. And not in public!
My birthday had been the day before and I was hoping no one had noticed. Rotten luck I had to sit here now, getting ready to smile and nod at greetings that would soon be repeated across the City. Telling myself not to sneeze, and trying to ignore the tears that must be ruining my paint, I watched as elegance was abandoned and a penknife was used to prise the box open. I heard the groan of long nails levered out of wood. Leaning forward an inch, I caught a flash of coiled and polished silver. It could have been worse, I thought. If you must admit to a birthday, the presents might as well be worth having. I leaned forward another inch. Now fully open, the box was on the little table set before my chair.

I found myself looking into the old eunuch’s glowering face. ‘Can people not write messages in a
civilised
language?’ he whispered. ‘It shows such
disrespect
for My Lord.’ He waved the lid under my nose. I glanced at the slip of parchment that was coming loose from where it had been stuck. I looked harder.

‘I know your secret,’ it said in Latin.

Though I kept my face steady, the shock was instant and overpowering. I turned cold all over. My heart beat faster and faster, and there seemed no limit to how hard it would eventually beat. There were dark spots before my eyes. A colder chill was radiating from the pit of my stomach. I looked again at the message and struggled to keep my legs from giving way.

‘I know your
secret
,’ it said.

Desperately, I fought for control. But cold panic now seemed to have spread through my entire body. In its suddenness and intensity, the attack was best compared to an orgasm – or, leaving aside any talk of pleasure, with the shock you feel between getting a possibly fatal stab wound and its actual pain. It can’t have been more than a few moments that I stood there, looking at the little, stained slip of parchment. But I could have sworn at the time it was an age.

I barely noticed the muffled squeal the Master of the Timings gave as he pitched head over heels down the steps, or the bump of metal on carpet, and then its clatter across the marble. But, as if through a mist as thick as anything produced by incense, I did notice that the eunuch had collapsed and was lying, still on his back, with his mouth wide open.

Chapter 6

That was enough to free me from the worst of the attack. I glanced up from the fallen eunuch. No one else had stepped from his appointed place. On every face I could see the kind of look that goes round at an execution, when the victim hasn’t cried out for a while and it will soon be time for lunch. Someone stoked the brazier again and a cloud of yellow smoke blotted out the petitioning agents. Someone else in the gallery behind me began another rendition of all my titles and supposed attributes.

But the Master of the Timings wasn’t dead. Before I could trust myself to end the audience and call for a doctor, he opened his eyes. With a soft moan and the writhing motion of a bug that’s fallen on its back, he sat up and frowned. ‘It must be something I ate!’ he said firmly. He looked about and frowned again. ‘Has nobody
any
respect in this modern age?’ He pointed at the silver object where it had fallen.

The Listings Clerk hopped down the steps to retrieve it. He held it up and rubbed hard with his sleeve at the scratch it had taken from the floor. ‘It
will
polish off,’ he said with a desperate smile into my blank face. He buried it in a soft area of his robe and rubbed it furiously all over. ‘It really will be as good as new.’ I ignored him. I ignored the sweat that was still trickling into the small of my back. The break in proceedings had given me time to pull myself together. I said nothing and had my first proper look at the Horn of Babylon. It was untarnished then. Except for the scratch on its rim, it was still a fine thing to behold – no dent yet halfway down its length, nor any scratches deep inside its bowl.

Using his staff for support, the Master of the Timings got to his feet. ‘Better give it back to me,’ he said faintly. He took it into his trembling hands and looked for a moment as if he’d go over again. No problem this time, however. He cuddled it against his flabby chest and bowed to me.

‘Who brought this?’ I asked in a voice too quiet to show its tremor. I got nothing from the Master of the Timings. The Listings Clerk broke in with a kind of snivelled yawn. I let my eyes dart about the hall. The crowd had reappeared through the fog of incense and was showing its first sign that morning of active interest. But no one looked shiftier than usual.

I stood up and took the silver cup into my own hands. My legs were shaking and I had to steady them against the seat of my chair. But, as quickly as it had come over me, the attack was gone. Its afterglow was rapidly fading. It no longer felt as if I had a pint of vinegar swilling about in my stomach. My heart was steady again. With every heartbeat, my legs were shaking a little less. Everyone stepped one pace forward and went into a three-quarter bow. This was followed by another long blast of Latin. In hands that didn’t tremble, I held the cup at chest height for everyone to see.

It’s a birthday joke, you idiot!
I told myself. And what else could it be? Though the Emperor hadn’t chosen to notice, let alone object, I had been four years now on the Imperial Council, and I’d been Lord Treasurer for two years. All this and I was currently a day past my twenty-fifth – that is, I was one day into my manhood, as these things are counted under the laws of the Empire. Of course, it had been a quiet joke throughout the City. But, if an emperor doesn’t notice or object, why should anyone else – in public, that is? I was only now eligible for the increasingly exalted offices I’d been occupying these past few years. Someone was having a laugh at me.

I looked for support at the bizarre and probably impossible act Tiberius was committing on the far wall with a dolphin. No support there today. I looked again at the cup. It screamed every possible expense, tinged with an odd sense of humour. Who could have sent it? Heraclius? This
was
the sort of joke Emperors played on their friends. But it couldn’t be Heraclius. He had no visible sense of humour. Besides, he was a hundred miles away in Cyzicus, consulting some smelly old monks on pillars about how to beat the Persians. Even granting he’d discovered a playful side to his nature, he had other things on his mind. I gave up on questions. Doubtless, someone important would come up to me later in the day and give me a knowing slap on the back.

I felt a returning trickle of moisture into my mouth and was able to stand forward. By now, the adoration of my gift had run its course. I gave my present back to the Master of the Timings and sat down. I closed my eyes for a moment. When you have a Secret, of course, any mention of
secrets
will set you off. This was hardly the first panic attack I’d had in the past year. But it was the oddest. None other had faded so fast without opium or cannabis to knock it on the head. If only I could think what to do about their cause . . .