‘Oh, yes. The young man’ – he squinted at my name on the report – ‘Alaric, is it not? Is that a Gothic name?’
I didn’t correct the error. So began my life as Alaric rather than as Aelric.
‘Alaric,’ the dispensator continued with another look at the spelling of my name, ‘will need a team of copyists for our library. In many cases, our books exist in only a single copy, and we cannot possibly spare these. They will need to be copied. Anicius is poor, and may doubtless be brought to an arrangement for the surrender of originals. Martin has very kindly volunteered to guide young Alaric in the obtaining of books and in supervising the copyists.
‘Now,’ the dispensator stopped for a moment and looked up at a filing rack beside the little window of his office, ‘I understand that the pair of you, in the course of your journey here, have acquired a considerable sum of money.’ He pressed his fingers together, a hard look now coming into his eyes.
Fucking bankers! I swore to myself. They’d so far shown themselves about as discreet as a drunken old woman.
‘Holy Mother Church, therefore,’ the dispensator continued, ‘will look to you to bear the whole cost of acquiring and arranging for the transport of books. This is, you will agree, very much to your advantage. We had in mind a fairly small gift in the first instance for the Canterbury library. Now, of course, you may gather as you please. Martin will help in the matter of the books. He is also fluent in Greek. This is nowadays an unusual accomplishment in our Church – indeed, Saint Gregory spent many years in Constantinople before becoming pope, and returned with not a word of Greek. We find Latin sufficient for our modern purposes.
‘Yet it is our intention that the English should, when the time is right, study Greek as well as Latin. It may not presently be useful, but it would make sense to take advantage of your opportunity and to form the basis of a Greek library in Canterbury. Martin will assist in the selection of the appropriate texts.’
At last, we came to the relic. Maximin reached into his satchel and handed this over. The dispensator assured himself all was in order and looked up, now smiling. ‘Holy Mother Church is in debt to both of you,’ he said. ‘This precious relic of Saint Vexilla was stolen not ten days ago. It was an audacious robbery – in the very church where I sometimes pray.’
Another clerk entered, this one in the rough, dark robe of a monk. He bowed silently and placed a sealed letter on the desk. The dispensator gave it a brief glance. ‘I will read this later,’ he said to the monk, ‘when I have time and am alone. No reply for the moment.’
The clerk opened his mouth for what looked a protest, but checked himself. He bowed again and left. I saw Maximin stare at this letter, a curious look on his face. As if he’d noticed this look, the dispensator neatly covered the letter with a sheet of papyrus.
‘You did well,’ he continued, looking back to the relic, ‘not to hand it over to the prefect. You know how these Greeks like to set their paws on the holiest things of the Faith.’ He turned to me. ‘You know, young man, these Greeks have no sense of the holy. I can’t call them heretics, but there is something not altogether right about them.
‘Many years ago, when Saint Gregory was newly our pope, some Greek monks turned up in Rome. They were caught digging for the bodies of ancient martyrs by the Church of St Paul. When we examined them, they said they wanted relics to take back to Constantinople. They were proposing to touch relics that must be handled – if at all – only wearing gloves. They even said it was their national custom to wash the bones of saints. Did you ever hear such grossness? You’ll be relieved to hear they were struck dead as they left the city! Some while later, the empress wrote from Constantinople, asking for the head of Saint Paul. She probably wanted it on her dressing table. It took all our diplomacy to say no without giving offence.’
Back to Maximin: ‘You need fear nothing of the prefect. He will do as we tell him.’
Martin came back with us to Marcella’s. It was convenient that we should put him up while he showed me round the libraries, and so we took a small room for him on the ground floor. He’d be close by the toilets – but this was more than one step up from the slaves of the other guests: they were bedded down all together in the second stable building.
Gretel passed me as I loitered by the glass table. I thought of giving her a quick grope, but Marcella was about, screaming over an egg someone had smashed on one of her limestone floors. Worse, I found on the table an invite for Maximin and me to have dinner at some noble house near the Baths of Diocletian. Unless we rode, that would mean a walk through half the city, and I’d be back too shattered to enjoy myself. Already, I was feeling the effect of not sleeping much the night before, and was beginning to wilt in every sense.
‘Is there some way of getting out of this?’ I asked Maximin, showing him the pompous invite that covered half a regular sheet of papyrus.
‘Dear me, no,’ said Maximin. ‘You really do need to mingle with these people. Some of them still have their family libraries, and you never know what you might find there. Go and enjoy yourself, and make some useful friends.’
All very well for him. He had an excuse for crying off the dinner. There was to be a meeting of Italian bishops the day after next. He’d been asked to address them on the English mission. Now, he was hard at work on another of his speeches.
14
I set out with Martin just as night was coming on. It had clouded over in the late afternoon and was looking set for rain. I put on a nice travelling cloak I’d bought earlier in the day. Maximin lent his own tatty cloak to Martin, who was assigned to guide me and supply some force of numbers should there be trouble in the street.
As yesterday and earlier in that day, I heard the soft patter of feet as we walked down the empty, darkening streets. It seemed that whoever wanted the relic hadn’t noticed we had given it back. But there was much else now. Rome comes to life at night. There are more people – shifty, dirty wretches obviously out for mischief of various kinds. But mostly there are the rats.
There could be millions of these in Rome. Certainly, there are more rats than people. So far as I can tell, they live during the day in the old sewers and in the deeper stretches of the ruins. At night, they all come out to gorge themselves on whatever rubbish has been deposited in the streets. They scuttled out of our path, but swarmed all around with a muted cacophony of squeaks and scratching. In the remains of the light, I could see the tide of brown bodies streaming around our feet. I pulled my sword out and skewered one that was moving slower than the others. I tossed it over against the wall. At once, in a little frenzy, the others were upon its twitching body, three deep, tearing at it and each other.
‘They have their uses,’ Martin said. ‘They eat dead animals, which keeps the streets a little cleaner. In Constantinople I was told that, when their coats turn black, you can expect the plague.’
Interesting. I’ve heard that one many times since, and it is true, so far as I can tell. I think there is some power in the contagion that changes them. I do know that they often die first.
I thought to start a conversation with Martin, but couldn’t think of an opening that wasn’t horribly contrived. In truth, I’ve never been very comfortable with slaves. They’re fine for sleeping with, but I find conversation embarrassing. I think the reason is that I grew up without them.
Yes, we have our churls in England. But they are so low as to be almost different beings. Excepting a few barked orders, there is no communication with them. It is the same elsewhere. I’ve come across whole races in my time, fit for nothing else but enslavement.
Unlike some of the old philosophers I’ve read, and some of the less worldly Christians, I’ve no objection to slavery in principle. There are some jobs so shitty – digging the fields, working the mines, rowing in galleys, and so forth – that they can only be got done under compulsion. And so there is an economy in nature that supplies certain answers to certain problems. But I’ve never got used to the idea of owning rational beings and setting them to work in areas where paid labour would be more humane and less costly. Secretaries come right into that category. I rather think even the higher household servants do.