‘Simeon,’ I continued in more earnest tone, ‘I will assume Priscus has told you what you may already have suspected. This being so, please do consider that nothing in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, nor officially declared since by way of explanation, rules out the possibility of a Singularity of Will for Christ. If you can agree with the Westerners that this is not ruled out, we may bring the Eastern Churches, little by little, to full orthodoxy. The main council may still be several years off. But do consider that you have been spoken about as the next Patriarch.’ I paused and waited for that lie to sink in. ‘We know that Sergius has weak lungs, and that the smoke of last winter in Constantinople was a sore trial for him. Who knows what advice the doctors may give him this winter? Who knows what gratitude Caesar will feel for a man who has done more than any other senior Greek churchman to enable a reconciliation with our separated brethren in the East?’
I got up and stretched out a hand for Simeon. Silent and thoughtful, he took my hand. I led him from the library and down to the main body of the residency. I put him with my own hands into his carrying chair, and followed him into the street.
Back in my office, I sat down and unlocked the sliding compartment under my desk. I took out twelve of the better coins and transferred them to a leather purse. When it came to shopping, Athens plainly didn’t compare with Constantinople. It didn’t even compare with Rome. But, if none of the silk factories I’d seen from the Acropolis existed for any purpose of tax or regulation, I might see what they could do for me. I smiled and thought how, by doing nothing at all, Nicephorus might unwittingly have done this place quite a favour. If you could only find the right mix of neglect with a dash of civil justice, the whole Empire might be saved yet.
That brought me back to thoughts of my duty here. Unless Nicephorus was far more effective than he’d so far appeared, and Priscus did get to deliver my funeral oration, I could handle things in Athens. As for Constantinople, that was out of my present control. So long as there was no overpowering emergency in Church or state, Heraclius would remain irresolute in all things. If only I could get back home before Christmas, and give him that provisional settlement on a plate, he might well forget all the poison Ludinus had been dripping into his ear. At the least, it would remove any excuse for turning openly nasty. Give me that, and I could give another few months to sorting out the Imperial finances. Give me that, and he might persuade himself that I was irreplaceable. I might even find myself basking again in the sun of Imperial favour.
I stared at the scroll of Dexippus that Martin had carried down from the library and left on my desk. Even if the single lamp he’d set out for me had been enough, this wasn’t a book I now fancied. What it described had been the greatest crisis Athens had faced since the end of its long war with Sparta. The ruin it left had closed one chapter in the city’s history and opened another that wasn’t yet ended. Given the lack of any Imperial assistance, Dexippus had managed the best defence possible in the circumstances. It was a shame he’d written it all up so badly. A month of carefully walking over the ground might illuminate the story as he’d told it. Or it might only deepen the confusion of his text.
Since there was nothing else to read, I decided, I might as well change out of these clothes. I took up the lamp and made for the door. Though it was covered with a thick cloth, there was a smell of unemptied chamber pot in the outer room. If I could have trusted for it to be collected, and not simply kicked over, the next morning, I’d have put it out in the corridor. Instead, I put it on the window seat. Still half pleased with myself, half nervous about what might be happening seven hundred miles away in Constantinople, I opened the door into my bedroom.
There was a sudden smell of beeswax. I heard the creak of leather bed straps. I looked at the dim but smooth shape on the uncovered bed. ‘Your secretary’s wife was most pleased to accept Theodore’s offer of help in the nursery,’ Euphemia said with a slightly nervous giggle. ‘He will sleep there until further notice.’
‘He’s a good boy,’ I said. My fingers shook slightly as I untied the cords that held my outer tunic in place. It couldn’t be seen in this light, but I reached up automatically to tap the much reduced swelling on my nose. ‘You must let Martin direct his reading. He can be a most excellent schoolmaster. His father was the best in Constantinople.’
She giggled again as I pulled my inner tunic over my head. ‘You must think me a most abandoned woman,’ she said.
‘I’ve been hoping no less all day,’ I replied. I turned the lamp full up and stood beside the bed.
Chapter 29
I looked up from my prostration into the blackest face imaginable.
‘You failed me in Alexandria,’ Heraclius whined. ‘All I then asked was that you should get Greek and Latin Churches to agree that probably manifest heresy might be orthodox. And you failed me again.’
I tried to speak, but no voice came as the Emperor got up from his throne and stepped over me. Court protocol didn’t allow me to get up yet. Instead, I crouched on all fours, looking at a mass of purple cushions.
The gong struck, and I could finally get up. Heraclius now sat on the far side of the Great Hall of Audience, every bishop he’d called to Athens ranged about him. I felt the blockage clear from my throat and was able to speak. ‘If I was never meant to succeed, how can you blame me for failure?’ I shouted.
My answer was a burst of laughter that went on as if without end.
Acquittal was beyond hoping. Perhaps I could beg for mercy — if not for myself, then at least for mine. I hurried over and fell down for another prostration, and tried to think of the best form of plea. Should I be the manly young Alaric? Or should I just squeal and babble? What was most likely to move these bastards?
I heard the grind of machinery as I raised my face from the carpet. The throne had now been raised about six feet, and all I could see when I finally stood up again was purple flesh bulging over the red leather boots.
‘Who are you to question the workings of power?’ Heraclius asked from aloft. ‘If I command you to do something, I expect it to be done — even if I command others to frustrate you.’
There was more laughter. The bishops had now been joined by the whole of the Imperial Council and what may have been the whole of the Senatorial Order. Already large, the Great Hall of Audience had expanded somehow to the size of the Great Church. The laughter came in massed bursts, and echoed from the impossibly high ceiling.
I put aside all thoughts of protocol. The hall had expanded still further, and contained everyone in Constantinople above the lowest class. It even managed to contain people who’d died years before. Every one of these was dressed in white, and had a nimbus about his head. I stepped forward to approach the distant throne. As I came close, I saw the bishops shrink back as if I’d carried a sword. I looked up at Heraclius.
‘I could have you shut away in a monastery,’ he sobbed. ‘I could have you blinded. I could have your tongue slit in two to make you resemble the serpent that you truly are. Behold, however, the Mercy of Caesar!’ He looked down at two heralds. There was a sheet of parchment held out for them by one of the black eunuchs.
‘It is the judgement of our Great Augustus,’ they read in unison, not trying to keep the laughter from their voices, ‘that you be taken to the topmost roof of your palace, there to look down for the space of one hour at the manifold glories of the Imperial City; and that you be taken thence to the land of endless night and of endless cold that was once the fruitful Province of Britain; and that you there be turned loose among the filthy and unlettered savages who are your rightful people; and that infamy attend your name in the Empire, and that death attend your return to the Empire.’