I looked up at the commotion from the monks.
‘My Lord,’ one of them cried, ‘the tomb is empty!’
Chapter 33
‘It was surely wild animals,’ I said again. ‘Didn’t you hear the wolves last night? They came right up to the walls.’
Martin shut up and looked ready to start crying again. A disappointed look on his face, the Dispensator had taken off his hat and was fanning his face. Now they realised what we’d had in mind for them, the monks had cheered up mightily where they sat with their cheese and bread, pleased they’d got off so lightly. I looked away from the scrap of black cloth that hung on a strand of the flattened brambles. No body meant no excuse for an arrest — rather, it meant an excuse for no arrest. Sooner or later, justice would have to be done. The balance of convenience, though, had just swung decisively against any action. If Ludinus was even in part behind this council, it was plain that Simeon was right. I’d been set up to fail. My only salvation was in not failing. Arresting the Count of Athens, and getting everyone into a sweat about sorcery charges, had suddenly become a luxury I couldn’t possibly afford.
I stepped forward and planted a booted foot over the scrap of cloth. ‘Since it has been taken away,’ I said, trying not to sound as relieved as I felt, ‘we’ll have to reconsider our plan.’
‘My experience of wolves,’ the Dispensator said with a close look at the flattened brambles, ‘is that they devour their food where they find it. Also, they fight over it.’ He looked at the odd position of my right foot, and watched as I shuffled forward to stand more naturally. ‘I see no evidence here of wolves or any other wild animal. I am surprised, Alaric, that you — of all people — should come so quickly to your conclusion.’
I shrugged and ground my foot hard through the brambles to the stony soil beneath. I stepped forward again, and kicked gently at one of the bricks that had been pulled again from the hole in the back of the tomb. The body had been taken away by some person or persons unknown. That much was plain. Also plain was that it had been taken not long before — that strong a smell of corruption shouldn’t have lasted beyond the clearing of the morning mist. I looked about. Once off the road, and past the straggle of tombs and other monuments that lined both sides, it was an endless wilderness of green and of jagged white rocks that may have been put there for some human purpose, or that might just always have been there. So it was as far as the eye could see. Nicephorus had mentioned farmers who’d carried away all the stones of the Long Walls. There was no evidence of agriculture that I could see. There was, however, any number of places where a body might be hidden. The real question was who had taken it, and why? If I could fob the Dispensator off with talk of wild animals, I’d be back later for a proper look round.
I was drenched in the oil of roses Martin had jogged over me in his first shock. I raised a sleeve to my nose and breathed in slowly. I looked up at the sun and sneezed. ‘The body has gone,’ I said firmly. ‘This being so, I can only suggest that we return to Athens and consider our next move.’ If this meant having to dangle the Universal Bishop title much earlier than I’d intended, it might be worth the loss of pressure in the actual council. Then again-
My thoughts had been interrupted by a squeal from one of the monks.
‘O Jesus!’ Martin breathed with a tight clutch at my arm. ‘The barbarians.’
And this time, he was right. It was indeed barbarians. How none of us had seen them did little credit to our watchfulness. But we had been focused on the tomb and its expected contents, and then on its lack of contents. And this was anything but the unstoppable flood of humanity everyone was shitting himself over. These were three children. The eldest was a boy of perhaps fourteen. With the shambling movements you read about in the reanimated dead, he and his sisters were picking their way through the brambles on the other side of the road.
‘Eat! Eat!’ the boy was croaking in Slavic as he stepped forward and almost fell on to the road. I looked over the expanse of stones from where they’d come. They were alone. I put my sword back into its scabbard and stepped towards the boy. He fell on his knees and raised outstretched arms. The girls had flopped down on the paving stones of the road and were beginning to cry weakly. If they’d eaten in days, it would have surprised me.
‘Where are the others?’ I asked in the Slavic dialect I thought the boy had used. I looked about again. But for the chirping of cicadas and Martin’s renewed urgency of praying, we were gathered in silence. Unless there was an army of dwarves hidden out there behind the stones, they really were alone. I wondered how they’d got here.
‘In the name of Christ, we starve,’ was the only reply I got from the boy. ‘Food, I beg — food, if only for the girls.’ He spread himself on the paving stones in a kind of prostration.
Priscus was right about my knowledge of the military arts. One thing I did know, however, was that you don’t feed your enemy. I gave a ferocious look at no one in particular and stood back. ‘These unfortunates,’ I’d once said of the poor in Constantinople, ‘are numbered among those for whom no place has been set at the feast of Nature’s plenty.’ That had got me a murmur of applause in the Imperial Council when I nagged Heraclius to cut the bread distribution. But I caught the look on the Dispensator’s face. ‘These savages have no proper business on Imperial soil,’ I answered him. ‘Their wasting is to our benefit. Give food to any of them, and you feed the enemies who would kill us in our beds.’
‘Even if they beg in the name of Christ?’ the Dispensator now said. ‘These are children. They can do no harm at all.’ He leaned on his walking staff and frowned at me. ‘Does your concern about the young extend only to the dead?’ he asked with a slight look round at the empty tomb.
I was thinking of a suitably firm negative. The Dispensator might have some religious duty to feed the starving. I had an empire to think about. But I looked again at the barbarians. The boy hadn’t moved. I looked over at his sisters. I found myself staring into a pair of very big and pleading eyes. Ten? Twelve? You really couldn’t tell — certainly not with that degree of emaciation. I told myself to ignore her. It doesn’t matter how few of them there are, or how weak they look: you don’t feed barbarians. Give food even to that girl, and her first thought would be to ask how and when to get a knife into my back.
I drew a deep breath. ‘Be off with you!’ I was intending to shout. I found myself looking again into those eyes. I looked away. I gritted my teeth. I turned to face Martin. ‘Put what’s left down there,’ I muttered. ‘I’ve no doubt there is plenty left over.’
I avoided looking at anyone as Martin dropped a still bulging satchel on the ground and danced back. The boy ripped it open and pulled at its contents. He paused in the act of shoving half a loaf into his mouth and called the girls forward. The Dispensator now had another of the satchels open and was distributing cheese. He’d come out to pray over the dead. Now, he was feeding the starving. That, plus comforting the bereaved, and someone at least was having a good day.
I watched them gorge themselves. There is something unpleasant about watching the hungry eat. It may be in itself the rapid, suspicious movement of food to the mouth. It may simply be the pity of it all. I was getting ready to question the boy properly, when I heard a scrape of stones behind me.