Gregory of Nyassa? I hazarded. The references to light and the nature of time were a strong indication. I turned the page — yes, it was Gregory: I’d gone through this with Martin in Constantinople. Though one of the more ranty of the theologians we’d been pressing for the meaning I needed, he had stood out for his attack on slavery. But who the buggery could be reading this stuff for pleasure? And where was he? Even with this grade of oil, you have to be pretty rich to leave all those lamps burning away like a minor lighthouse. Had he sloped off for a pee somewhere? Had he just vanished like the chancery clerks? I stared again at what was — its inherent absurdity always granted — a most able defence of orthodoxy.
But I wasn’t creeping, stark bollock naked, about the residency for a spot of midnight reading. It was worth noting that, if there was a copy here of Ptolemy’s Life of Alexander, the library might not be completely worthless. I ignored the tangle of unrolled books that I could now see beneath one of the overturned racks. I ignored the chaotic heaps of modern books of what might have been more controversial theology or just obsolete law texts. They could all wait till the coming of daylight. The wind shifted again outside, and there was a harsh spatter of rain against every one of the windows. As in my bedroom, water splashed through the gaps in the leadwork and added to the puddles on the floor. I refilled my lamp from a flask of that cheap oil, and moved on.
Chapter 17
The library was on the upper floor of the left block of the palace. To the right of where I’d been sitting was another door that led further into the block. At some time in the past, it had been locked from the other side, and then smashed open. Some effort had then been made to reattach it to the frame. Now, getting it open more than about eighteen inches caused it to grate on the broken mosaics that covered the floor. I forced it wide open and looked into the darkness beyond. There was a loud splashing of the water that made its way down from a hole in the roof. Its echo told me I was in a room of at least the same size as the library.
Time, I think, to explain the geography of the place where I was staying. I’ve said it was built by Herodes Atticus. So far as I could tell, he’d tried for a combination of almost Imperial magnificence with something more homely. The result was something of a muddle. The front block of the palace, where it faced on to the Forum of Hadrian, comprised about a dozen very large and high rooms where he could show off his wealth. These were lit by glazed ceiling windows. They were mostly now abandoned or divided into smaller rooms or offices with little regard to the need for natural lighting. Behind these, and facing out into the main courtyard, was a labyrinth of smaller and much lower rooms, lit by side windows or with ceiling windows, or with both. These I supposed were the living rooms for the household. A careful inspection of partition walls and the telltale pattern of the ceiling mouldings might tell what was original to the plan and what had been adapted in the conversion from palace to administrative building. So far, it had just seemed an impenetrable muddle.
The other three blocks that surrounded the courtyard were all of two storeys. The ground floors had originally been given over to slave quarters and kitchens and offices. The upper floors seemed to be smaller copies of the grand front rooms or of the living rooms. This arrangement may have been intended to match the custom in the wealthy houses in every great city where it isn’t hot all year round. In the summer months, the household would have moved upstairs to catch the sunshine and whatever breeze might blow. In the winter, it would have been downstairs for the heating.
The main difference was that none of the upper rooms seemed to have been divided. On second thoughts, the place did look as if it had been looted. Chairs and other furniture had been ripped apart for their gilding, and left in heaps of dust-covered wood. Busts had been pulled from their niches and left broken on the floor. Even door handles had been cut away where they might have been of some valuable metal. The padding of my feet on marble tiles or what had once been polished wood echoed round the bare rooms that lay beyond the library. Every so often, the lightning illuminated the utter bareness of furnishing, and the sound of thunder on bare walls and ceiling added to the effect. If anyone had lived here in ages, I’d have been surprised. I was here now only because, assuredly, there was someone else up here.
I passed through what might once have been a lavishly arranged dining room, and through various other public rooms. Between the lightning flashes, my lamp threw dim and flickering shadows against the walls. In one room, a lightning flash brought me face to face with a life-size statue of Demosthenes. It was still painted, and gave me more than a momentary shock. I made myself stop and look at this, and laughed to settle my nerves. It was a marble copy of a bronze original. I could tell this from the expansive waving of both arms. One of these had needed support from a rod of painted metal that ran discreetly from hip to wrist. The eyes may once have been set with semi-precious stones. Of course, these had been prised out, and I looked into pale, empty sockets.
In another room, I found myself staring at the remnants of a mural. Most of the plaster had fallen away in sheets that had crumbled on the floor. But the central group remained of a man and woman with a young boy. They stared back at me with the big, mournful eyes of the modern style. The boy held up a waxed tablet and an iron stylus. There might have been other family members. But only these now showed. Once or twice, I was saved only by accident from stepping on heaps of broken glass or ceramic. I’d been silly, I told myself, not to go back to my room at least for a pair of sandals.
It wasn’t on my way, but I let myself stop for a long inspection of a side room that had once been some manner of court. The vaulted ceiling was covered in an elaborate mosaic showing the trial of Socrates. Many of the little tiles had dropped away, and lay on the floor in heaps where someone appeared to have swept them and then failed to gather them up. Though stained now with water leaks from above, the walls had been painted a uniform dark that drew attention to the brightness of the ceiling. On a platform at the far end, the judgement chair was of cracked ebony. There had been inlays of gold or ivory. But these were now missing. The other tables and benches were arranged in the usual manner. On a low table beneath the judgement chair, I saw the faded remains of a transcript. Years of damp and sunlight had wiped the text almost clean. Only individual words and fragments of words remained to suggest that the court had last been used to try a case of testamentary fraud. So far as I could tell, the case had been adjourned so the lower-class witnesses could be tortured. If it had ever been resumed, it wasn’t in here.
The Imperial bust was of the Great Justinian. That suggested things had been interrupted by a sudden appearance in court of the plague that had swept away half the Empire and permanently diminished even Constantinople. I closed my eyes and imagined the terrified scraping of chairs and muttering of the formal adjournment as all must have run from a place where someone had collapsed in the trembling fit that usually announced the arrival of plague. Until then, the palace may have been a living administrative centre, with clerks toiling in every room and a continuity of life unbroken since ancient times. After then, it may never have been the same.