‘He’s a spy for Caesar!’ Urvaksha spat. ‘Everything you tell him will go straight to Constantinople. You’re a fool to keep him alive.’
‘If I might suggest, Your Majesty,’ Shahrbaraz took up in his deep voice, ‘the blond Westerner has betrayed you once already. Should you be so willing to trust him again? And so soon?’
Chosroes got up and watched the food tasters at work. ‘You can hold your tongues, the pair of you,’ he said in his silky, menacing voice. ‘Each one of you is useful to me in his own way. That’s all you need to consider.’ He pointed one of the tasters at a lead pot of something that still bubbled over an oil burner. ‘Once Shahin’s confirmed his story, I’ll ease his terms of confinement. Until then, he stays beside me and takes notes of all I say and order.’
Shahrbaraz bowed. ‘It is as you command, O Great King,’ he said with a nasty look in my direction. ‘Shahin is, however, very late. None of the scouting parties we’ve sent ahead has seen him or his people. Until then, our only assurance that Heraclius has fallen is Alaric — a man whose lies delayed our conquest of Syria by a year. It is my duty to ask how we can know that he isn’t here to encourage us into a trap?’
Chosroes pursed his lips, reminding me of a scorpion that can’t decide whether or not to sting the frog that’s carrying him across a pond. He smiled and turned his attention back to watching a man pat silently through the cushions on which we were to sit for dinner. He looked up suddenly at a slobbering sound in the corner. I followed his look. Hands tied behind him, Theodore was drifting out of the drugged sleep I’d procured for him, and trying to sit up. So far away, and in poor light, he gave an impression of recovering sanity. I willed him still to be off his head. I couldn’t afford him to be worth torturing into any version of the truth.
‘I know your secret, Alaric the Damned!’ he called out in Syriac — a language neither of the Persians showed any sign of understanding. ‘You have corrupted everything pure in the service of your Dark Lord. I renounce all bonds with you.’ He trailed off into more of the nonsense language he’d spoken for most of his time in captivity. I managed a nervous smile in his direction. It couldn’t be long before the Great King noticed the lack of affection in our relationship. It would have been for the best not to have him around — as ever, bloody Priscus had a lot to answer for: and what was he up to, I might ask? But it wasn’t time for that question. I could sweat over it in bed. For the moment, I’d keep up the effort of concern for the idiotic boy’s welfare.
‘I’m not sure my son is hungry,’ I said. ‘But I do suggest another dose of opium to ease the pain. The last time I looked, his ballbag was swollen like a pomegranate. Yes — perhaps a few grains of opium, and on a heated spoon to quicken its effect.’
Chosroes flopped on to a mound of cushions and waved his vague assent. One of the eunuchs went over to a box and began fiddling with bottles. Chosroes reached out for a piece of unleavened bread. ‘Come and join me, dear friends,’ he commanded in a tone that indicated anything but generosity of heart. He watched Shahrbaraz stuff a piece of honeyed mutton into his mouth. He smiled. ‘Tell me, General,’ he asked, ‘when can the army resume its march along the pass?’
Shahrbaraz swallowed too quickly and went into a coughing fit. ‘Not for days!’ he eventually managed to splutter. He drank from his water cup. ‘Everything is soaked. Everyone is out of sorts. Getting the march under way again before we’ve got over the storm may bring on a mutiny — especially since we still haven’t paid the bounties promised when we set out. I won’t mention the state of the food supplies.’ He stopped and narrowed his eyes. He turned a very grim stare on me. ‘If that beast you haven’t yet crucified is up to his usual tricks, I swear we’re marching right into a trap. One sight of a Greek army with the state we’re in, and my advice for the next five days at least will be immediate withdrawal along the pass. Reject that advice and you might as well keep a couple of good horses ready for a dash back to Ctesiphon.’
‘Oh, Shahrbaraz, Shahrbaraz,’ Chosroes laughed, ‘are you really about to break all security in front of Alaric?’ He turned to me. ‘The good General here wants us to invade Egypt. Because we have Syria, it’s easy for us to attack, and hard for the Greeks to defend. It’s also rich enough to let us pay a few bills.’ He turned back to Shahrbaraz. ‘Well, unless you can show me your Greek army of resistance, we march for Constantinople.’ He took a long drink and stared happily at the glittering cloth that hung down from the ceiling.
Shahrbaraz had already gone into another coughing fit. This time, I thought he’d burst a blood vessel on his forehead. I wondered if he was about to speak — as said, he was one of those people even Chosroes didn’t dare murder. But a gust of wind now hit the palace at the wrong angle. With a long and alarming groan, it tilted enough to knock over a pot of earthworms in fish sauce. In silence, we watched it tip over on one of the rugs, and continue an irregular progress towards one of the cloth of gold hangings. Chosroes giggled and lolled back on his cushions. Shahrbaraz said nothing but attacked a dish of something that looked as if it had been squeezed from both ends of an overfed cat. I stuck a piece of bread into a dish of ground chickpeas and olive oil. Chosroes had never complained in the past about my disinclination to share his vile tastes in food. Anything richer than this at the moment and I’d only puke it up again.
In the extended silence of the dinner, I gave way and thought about Priscus. I could take it as read that Theodore wasn’t up to finding his way outside the walls of the City by himself. He’d been brought along as general skivvy for Priscus. Even so, the two of them must have grown wings to get here so quickly. There was no chance Priscus could have known about the invasion. That meant he’d broken all his normal rules of life and come out to make sure I didn’t mess things up. I should have been a little more open with him in Constantinople. Too late for regrets now — that was for sure. I thought of the best Persian for ‘When error is irreparable, repentance is useless.’ If all else failed, I could impress Chosroes with it — I could put it into his father’s mouth when the executioners took out their bowstrings. Or perhaps not — it had too much smell in that context of a rhetorical excess. The Great King could be a harsh critic where historical writing was concerned. I repeated the sentence to myself in Latin and then in English and in every other language in which I was proficient. It kept me from reflecting too obviously on the square painted in red about the Royal eating place. So far as it could be, this room was an imitation of the summer palace.
Before I could figure out the best translation into English, Chosroes got up and clapped his hands. ‘I’ve had enough to eat,’ he announced. ‘The dinner is over. I want everyone out of here except Alaric and one guard.’ I couldn’t say Shahrbaraz had even tried for jollity through the meal. I’d not miss his glowering presence.
You can be sure that, when he’d said alone with me, Chosroes hadn’t meant that Urvaksha could unhook his collar and shimmy down the ladder with Shahrbaraz and the eunuchs and other flunkies — or that Theodore could be carried out like a sack of mildewed grain. It certainly didn’t mean that my guard could go off duty for the night. With those exceptions, though, we were alone. The wind was rising, and the swaying and groaning of several tons of woodwork on its inadequate support was joined by the harsh beating of more rain against the walls.
Chosroes wheeled about again on his favourite rug. ‘Alaric,’ he whispered, ‘I will grant you the boon of letting you ask me any question you please.’ He tripped daintily across the floor and stood over me. I could go through the motions of getting my writing materials ready but I’d already seen that the eunuchs had left me with a heap of waxed tablets. Since I still wasn’t to be trusted with anything that had a point on it, I might as well leave that part of the game aside.