But, as I write, I have the Horn of Babylon beside me on the table. It reminds me of an obligation freely assumed and still not discharged. I may have reached the end of the story I promised to tell you. I haven’t touched the beginning. If I’m to do that, it means going back further than I have — very much further. You can forget last Monday, when I started these jottings. You can forget the Monday before that, and many thousands of other Mondays before that one. You can also forget the decrepit old thing scribbling away on his many sheets of papyrus, a jug of red before him and a quarter opium pill dissolving in his belly. If I really want to explain what’s been happening these past few days, I’ll have to go back seventy-three years, to Monday the 28th April 615. Put Aelfwine beside me then, and no one would have had eyes for him.
Yes, the proper start is that petitioning Monday in Constantinople, so very long ago. .
Chapter 5
The last owner of my palace had been unashamed in his taste for the violently obscene, and the mosaics of Tiberius on Capri could normally be trusted to keep me awake through the longest and dullest ceremony. But this wasn’t a normal day. With no one to keep them under control, the eunuchs were running wild. Without missing a step, the Master of the Timings came back to the same square on the patterned marble and bowed low before my chair. He let out a sigh that verged on a squeal of joy, and spun round to face the assembled mass of clients and petitioning agents. Then he brought his staff down three times. As the echo faded of the last crash, he drew breath, once more defying the fog of incense smoke.
‘Let all be silent and hold his tongue,’ he cried in mellifluous, if oddly accented, Latin, ‘for His Magnificence the Lord Senator Alaric, beloved friend of Heraclius, our great and ever-triumphant Augustus.’ I may have been the only man there who knew the old language of the Empire. Back in those days, however, there were still solemnities of utterance in Constantinople for which Greek just wouldn’t do. After a long and dramatic pause, he turned and bowed to me. From a high gallery behind me, one of his underlings rang a golden bell.
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.