No answer to that. I’d get the Dispensator to order a discreet search of Athens, though didn’t expect his monks to find anything. ‘Do tell me, Priscus,’ I said, ‘what Balthazar could have meant when I heard him refer to your previous “outrages” in Athens.’
He slid the ring on to the little finger of his left hand and sat down. He raised his hand and looked at it from several directions. ‘Since I wasn’t a party to that conversation,’ he said, ‘don’t expect me to interpret anything said by Balthazar. But it may have referred to a certain attempt I made — an attempt soon called off, let me add — to obtain a blessing that you now seem to have taken for yourself.’ He giggled and went back to admiring his ring.
There were other questions I wanted answered. But these could wait until I could get them fully clear in my own mind. Priscus got up again in the silence that followed and stroked one of the dead chests. I haven’t said that the nipples also had been cut away, leaving jagged pits in the dark, hairy flesh. He poked at the square of stained cloth stuck just over the heart.
‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked with another snigger.
‘I’d say it was part of the cloth a woman has used to contain her menstrual discharge,’ I answered. I got up and yawned in the heat. I stretched. I picked up the knife Priscus had used and pried the cloth loose. Using it to hold the cloth, I lifted it into the sunlight. ‘Since it’s old blood, we can assume it had some magical purpose — a talisman against danger perhaps.’ I ignored the reply about its effectiveness. ‘It’s the same with all the bodies.’ I took a long sip of drugged beer and thought. In all investigations, the enemy is less often lack of evidence than settled but false assumptions about the evidence you have. But there was no doubt of a connection between theatrical sorcery and a gang of desperate assassins. For the moment, I wouldn’t ask myself what Nicephorus had done with all the money he’d embezzled. Nor would I assume anything of the town assemblymen beyond complicity in tax fraud. Something I did need to know, however, was how anyone had known I’d be going off in search of that girl’s body. It might well have been moved because of me. It can’t have been by chance that those men had jumped me right beside the tomb. It was important to know exactly when Nicephorus had last been seen in the residency. The slaves I’d questioned had been utterly useless. He might have disappeared when I set out for the house of Felix. Or it might have been while I was outside Athens.
But I was now feeling lazy from the opium. I tried to glare at Priscus. ‘You will, of course, stop trying to make trouble for me in Athens,’ I said.
He smiled and patted his bandage.
I grunted and looked into his cold and glittering eyes. I’d have got more from staring at an icon of the Risen Christ. I looked at my hands. A hasty scrub in cold water had cleaned all the gore off my body. But I’d need to get a scraper under my fingernails before dinner. That reminded me of other business. ‘You’ll be glad to know that I’ve had no choice — unless Nicephorus shows up for dinner — but to place you beside Simeon,’ I said.
Priscus grinned. He even kissed his new ring.
‘I hope you can restrain yourself from any further discussion of the Trinity.’
‘So our friendship remains unscathed?’ he asked with mock eagerness. He flashed his ring at me, then groaned with the sudden pain of the movement.
‘I have business elsewhere in the residency,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you can find your own way to bed for a couple of hours.’
He was still laughing softly as I walked from the room.
Chapter 35
‘What’s in that box over there?’ I asked, pointing at the far corner of the office.
Martin looked up from a set of accounts that even he could see were crooked. ‘I think they are the Count’s ceremonial clothes,’ he said. ‘They’ve been left to get wet, so all the colours have run on the silk, and everything is creased.’ I looked down again at the only two documents Nicephorus had left behind that had any relevance to me. Martin had already been more than once through a place as dirty and chaotic as I’d expected. If this was all he’d found, there might still be more — but it wouldn’t be easily found.
‘Well, this one,’ I said, holding up a sheet of folded papyrus, ‘mostly explains itself. The names listed correspond with my understanding of who was included in the main writ of summons. There’s no mention of me or Priscus. Instead, Sergius is named as convenor.’ I looked again at the date. It had been sent out from Constantinople just days after my departure for Alexandria. Ludinus couldn’t possibly have got himself so quickly into the sort of favour that would let him take over religious affairs. At the same time, why hadn’t I been told about this before I left — or at least notified in one of the endless messages of regard Heraclius had been sending me? Since the letter carried the Patriarchal as well as the Imperial seal, why hadn’t Sergius sent me news of the council?
I put the letter down and turned to the other one. This had been sealed by Ludinus. From the unpractised formation of the characters, and one substantial crossing out and marginal correction, he may have written it in his own hand. ‘I can understand that some financial provision should have been made for a place like Athens to feed all the delegates. But I fail to understand why notice should be sent of a grain ship of the second class to unload at Piraeus. If it was even half-laden, there would be enough grain to keep the entire city through the winter months.’ I wiped more sweat from my forehead. A bright morning had turned to a stifling afternoon, and there wasn’t a breath of air in the whole residency. I shut my eyes and opened them again. I waited for the writing to come back into focus and regretted the opium. Like water on dust, it had settled my nerves. The dose I’d taken, though, was also making me sleepy. It was clouding thought processes that needed to be much clearer than I was able to manage.
I put this letter on to the rickety desk and looked at Martin. ‘How are your hands?’ I asked. Martin had been carried back to Athens in a chair. If I hadn’t needed his immediate help, I’d have left him with Sveta. I felt a slight stab of guilt for having paid so little attention to his own shattered nerves.
‘You could easily have been killed,’ he said quietly. He got up and came over to the desk. He held up the letter that Ludinus had sealed. ‘Look, Aelric,’ he said in Celtic, ‘we aren’t safe in Athens. I’m not even sure about the residency. You’ve admitted you have no idea what’s been happening in Constantinople. Why don’t we just go back to the plan you made before we landed? This time, you could come with us. We can take the ferry to Corinth, and then go west. You could get to England before anyone knew where you’d gone. You could even come back with me to Ireland. My father’s brothers would take you in without questions. You’ve had three good years in the Empire. You must see that it’s time to move on.’
I frowned him into silence. ‘I’ve decided that you will get everyone over to Corinth once the ferry comes in,’ I said very firmly. ‘I am thinking to send you to Rome to wait on further instructions. But, Martin, do you really suppose I could turn up in Corinth without being spotted at once? Let’s agree the Governor there is a prize idiot, but even he wouldn’t just sit on his arse while I obviously made plans to run for cover. I’ll stay here. If I get all these bishops and what-have-you properly on side, we’ll see how it plays with the Emperor. In the meantime, you just get Sveta packing for Monday.’ I leaned forward and picked up a small box that had been puzzling me. It had been lying in the congealed mess of the Count’s inkwell. ‘Pills for a stinking breath,’ it said in faded ink in the underside. I shook the box. It was empty.
But Martin wasn’t finished. ‘Do you remember the story in ancient times of the fall of Seianus?’ he went on, still urgently, though now in Celtic. ‘He could have made a run for it the moment Tiberius got up to make that interminable speech in the Senate. He could have used his still intact power to commandeer post horses and get out of Rome. Instead, he sat there, waiting for his Emperor to wind up with a full denunciation. You’re in a better position. The Emperor’s seven hundred miles away. No one appears to have any instructions to arrest you here. Unlike Seianus, there really is somewhere you can go where you couldn’t be dragged back. Let’s just go. This city isn’t really Athens — it’s a rotten husk. The residency almost throbs with an evil even you must be able to sense. The Empire itself is falling.’ Though still in Celtic, he looked about and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Priscus is the best they’ve got. And you know he’s useless for anything but massacring civilians and stabbing everyone round him in the back. You’ve done everything you could for the Empire, and there’s no one in power who likes it or even understands it. Let’s just go!’