I didn’t care if I was seen to grip the rail and steady myself. ‘When exactly were you in Athens?’ I asked weakly.
He pulled himself gradually back together. ‘It was in the ninth year of Phocas the Tyrant,’ he said just as weakly. He stopped and scowled and repeated the hated words of kinship to the fallen Emperor. He tried to clear his throat again, but failed. He bent forward as far as his armour allowed and tried again. This time, he managed a long and thunderous burp. Then he did clear his throat. Without bothering to turn, he spat on to the deck. ‘It was two years ago — just before everything went really bad for the Tyrant,’ he added when he’d recovered his composure, ‘and the barbarians were pushing closer and closer to the ruined fort at Thermopylae. I was sent out to see what defence could be made of the Greek cities. Unlike everywhere else north of Corinth, Athens did have a wall in nearly decent shape.’ He stopped and cleared his throat again. This time, he swallowed and looked about for his box of drugs.
‘I wasn’t aware that Athens had a Count,’ I said. I might as well go through the motions of interest. ‘I thought it was under direct rule from Corinth.’
Priscus looked up from fussing with his powders and smiled bleakly. ‘Because, even today, the place has a certain prestige,’ he explained with a hint of the didactic, ‘Athens has its own administration. Since Heraclius didn’t see fit, after the revolution, to recall Timothy the Utterly Idle from Corinth, it would normally be a favour to Athens. But you haven’t met Nicephorus.’ He sniffed in a pinch of something dark. He laughed and leaned back against the rail as tears ran down his green paint.
‘You’d better go and get everyone ready,’ I said to Martin. I looked closely at him. His own eyes were heavy with tears. ‘Please remember everything I told you,’ I repeated.
He bowed and went below.
Priscus sniffed and coughed. He closed his eyes for a long groan of ecstasy. Then he was back with me. ‘Have you told our obese friend that this galley will dump us in Piraeus before going straight off to Corinth? Does he know there won’t be so much as a slave getting off with us?’ His face now creased into a smile so broad, the lead underlay on his face cracked and a few specks of white and green fell on to his breastplate.
I shook my head. ‘It’s enough that he’s ready to make a dash once we’re ashore,’ I said. Poor Martin, I thought sadly. Until Cyprus, he’d been counting off the days to when he and his family could settle back into my snug palace in Constantinople. Safe inside the impenetrable walls of the City, he could regard the simultaneous collapse of every frontier with an almost philosophic calm. It was now a question of whether he could avoid being swept up in a double arrest in Piraeus and, without a single slave to carry baggage, get everyone out of the Empire. Poor Martin — I felt almost lucky by comparison. But Sveta would get them all to safety. With her glowering looks and vicious temper, she might be proof of the more acetic denunciations of marriage. But if anyone could ward off a general arrest on the docks, it would be Sveta. The Emperor himself might look away from her Medusa-like stare.
‘Your nose is a proper sight!’ Priscus said as his drugs brought him to a semblance of his old self. ‘Still, I think I did tell you that wanking was bad for the complexion.’ He managed an unpleasant laugh.
I looked up at the sail. It was obvious the galley wouldn’t be staying in Piraeus longer than it would take to dump the pair of us into custody. So far as I could tell, Corinth had the only shipyard in the whole region capable of putting the galley back into order. The Captain would doubtless make for there. After that, he could go about whatever else he’d been ordered. Whatever that might be didn’t affect us.
The galley gave a determined pitch, and there was a renewed burst of shouting overhead. Sailors ran up and down the netting and did things with ropes. I gave Priscus a cold stare. ‘Time, I think, to get ourselves ready to go ashore,’ I said.
‘Then you can lead the way, my big, blond stunner,’ he sniggered. ‘You know it takes me an age to get up and down that ladder.’
Chapter 10
In ages past, Piraeus had been the greatest port in the civilised world. In those days, Athens was Mistress of the Seas and a centre of all trade. Its port was every day crowded with ships of war and with trading vessels. For all I could see through the grey mist, it might have been crowded still. But I knew it wasn’t. As on everything else in this forsaken borderland of a reduced Empire, time had set its hand on Athens and smoothed away both glory and prosperity. If more than a couple of fishing vessels were lashed against the docks, I’d have been surprised.
I sat ready in my chair, Priscus sat beside me. Martin perched behind with both hands clamped on the back of the chair. From the faint smell of wood smoke and rotten fish, I guessed we couldn’t now be more than a hundred yards from shore. There was a tension in the cries of the Eastern crew that told me the long voyage really was coming to its end. The white canopy that had been raised above us was already soaked by the rain. Every time I shifted position on the wet cushions, I could feel it brushing against the top of my official hat. If I hadn’t felt so utterly dispirited, I’d have marvelled at the skill with which the pilot was getting us into the right docking position. I heard an eager shout and a babble of something triumphant as a scattering of beacons came faintly in sight. There was another long grinding of timbers, and now a repeated splashing of water, as the whole galley turned about and its left length bumped gently against the dock.
‘Welcome to Athens, my dearest Alaric,’ Priscus whispered into my ear. ‘If I’m not mistaken, the city of Aeschylus and Thucydides has turned out in force to greet the Emperor’s most beauteous and learned adviser. It won’t be a private arrest.’
Whatever drugs he’d consumed had given his breath the smell of baked dog shit. I bent forward and squinted through the mist to try to see the figures who were gathered on the docks. Look as I might, they drifted in and out of visibility, and I was left no wiser about who or how many they were. A slave helped Martin across the plank that joined us to the docks, and he vanished within one of the thicker fingers of the mist. Then he was back to stand very carefully on a stepladder that had been placed right on the edge of the docks. I caught a look of confusion on his face. I thought of the line of armed guards ready to take us into custody, and felt my stomach turn over and over. It was exactly like the moment you get, when, riding into battle, you lose control of your horse, and realise that there’s nothing you can do to avoid crashing straight into the waiting enemy.
But, though his body shook, and he had to grip hard on his stepladder to avoid falling back into the water, Martin was now going through all the correct motions. ‘You will greet His Magnificence Alaric, Senator, Count of the Most Sacred University, Legate Extraordinary of His Imperial Majesty,’ he cried in his grandest voice as I helped Priscus to his feet and led him on to the plank. If I had much else to think about, I was surprised at how light the man had become in the month or so since I’d last nerved myself for physical contact with him.
But Martin had drawn breath, and, with a very slight tremor in his voice, was continuing: ‘And you will greet His Magnificence Priscus, Senator, Commander of the East.’