I sat down at the desk and looked over at Simeon. His face had now turned pale in the lamplight. If he didn’t know any Slavic, he knew Priscus well enough to follow his tone of voice in any language.
‘Very well, My Lord,’ I went on. ‘I thought we had reached agreement when we sat here together yesterday evening. Perhaps, as a foreigner who only learned Greek when already mature, I was mistaken as to the extent of our agreement. I do hope you will forgive me if I must now speak with a bluntness that I never thought would be required.’
I paused and waited for Simeon’s face to change to a paler shade of white. ‘Allow me to enquire, My Lord Bishop, if that patch of rough skin on the inside of your throat is giving you pain tonight?’
As I’d expected, his face sagged as if I’d killed him with a single blow to the back of his head. He swallowed and gave a scared look over at the mural behind me. I was still smiling as feet sounded on the stairs and Martin came in with cups and a jug of wine. I nodded for him to leave at once, and poured three cups. I waited for the footsteps to die away and sipped at my own cup.
‘The Baths of Anthemius are very big,’ I said with a friendly smile. ‘You can get ten — sometimes fifteen — thousand people in them at the right time of day. That may be why so many people think they are anonymous. Whatever the case, that feeling of anonymity is something the Intelligence Bureau does everything to foster. The days are gone when your dear cousin Priscus could send his Black Agents into private homes to arrest people and drag them off for arbitrary torture and killing in one of his dungeons.’ I turned to Priscus.
He grinned at us and even gave a little bow.
You can be sure I’d kept him well away from my reorganisation of the security services. If Heraclius could turn as nasty, given the right provocation, as Phocas had ever been, I’d got my way about purging every last agent of the Terror, and a return to some kind of due process.
I turned back to Simeon and waited for his choking fit to pass. ‘But the Intelligence Bureau still keeps a careful watch on persons of quality as they disport themselves in ways that a reasonable third party might not think entirely dignified.’
Simeon turned his eyes upward. He glanced back at my polite but implacable face, and put up both hands to cover his own face.
‘What would you say,’ I asked softly, ‘if I mentioned sworn statements about a certain person of the very highest quality who was in the habit of offering his lips, even to the lowest bathhouse attendant, every Sunday afternoon? Is it necessary to add how this certain person has a peculiarity about his throat that a doctor — or even the Emperor, should he be made to feel inclined — could easily investigate for himself?’
Hands still clamped over his face, Simeon began swaying from side to side.
It was now time for Priscus to have his turn. ‘We’re all men of the world in here,’ he said with his broadest smile. ‘And none of us is entirely without sin. But you do know how the Great Augustus feels about what he insists on calling “male vice”. With anyone else in charge, you’d be tried by a committee of the Imperial Council. Its members would surely accept that sucking wasn’t the same as fucking, and the penalty would be only degradation and confinement on relatively easy terms in some local monastery until your friends could work on Caesar. But Heraclius will certainly try you himself, and his ignorance of legal procedure is famous all over the Empire. Having established the lesser offence of sucking, he’d take the greater offence for granted. It would then be a matter of having you paraded round the Circus, with sharp reeds inserted into the pores and tubes of most exquisite sensibility, followed by amputation of the sinful instrument. If that doesn’t kill, there is always burning, or the teeth and claws of wild animals.’
I took over again. I leaned forward and patted Simeon gently on the shoulder.
He whined and pressed hands harder to his face.
‘But, My Lord Bishop,’ I said, ‘none of this is necessary. You know that Priscus would never wish for a scandal in his family. You know my own regard for the honour of the Church. Let us suppose that the Emperor may have allowed one or two ambiguous comments to pass his lips regarding a supposed resolution of the Monophysite controversy. But Emperors say many things. Don’t imagine that anything Ludinus may have whispered at you through those gold teeth of his amounts to an authoritative clarification. The great difference between us and the Persians is that we take notice only of what our Lord and Master has expressed in the appropriate form. Heraclius the Person may speak now and then without full thought or proper advice. That is why we give our fullest attention to what Heraclius the Emperor says on a sheet of parchment bearing the Imperial Seal, or from the Imperial Throne in words that can be given clear legal effect.’
I got up and walked round to where Simeon was sitting like a cornered hedgehog. I bent down and embraced him. Priscus came round and helped get the man to his feet.
‘Come, dearest friend,’ I said. ‘Your chair awaits you, together with torchbearers and guards. It will never do to keep them waiting. It would never do to keep you up when tomorrow must be such a long and responsible day. As I said in our last conversation here, this will be a council where arguments must be judged purely on their theological merits. I have no doubt that, when I explain the provisional thoughts of His Holiness our Patriarch, you will give them the fullest and most unbiased consideration.’
I looked up at the glass bricks of the dome. The red flickering was more pronounced up here than it had been in the dining hall. It gave a pleasantly warm glow to the library, smoothing out the worst of its desolation.
I walked back with Priscus through the darkness of the residency. The new slaves hadn’t been instructed yet on the need to place lamps in all the corridors likely to be frequented at night. We passed in silence through what had once been the proper dining room, right up to the threshold of the old audience hall that I’d had cleaned and perfumed for the dinner, and made to give some impression of Imperial wealth and power. Here I stopped. Irene was hard at work with getting the slaves to clear up the mess that had been left behind.
‘I wish Your Grace Godspeed through the streets of Athens,’ I’d said to Simeon as we finally bundled him into his chair. I’d drawn breath and continued in oratorical tone: ‘I think we can both agree on desiring a homeward voyage before the sea lanes become really impassable. Can I therefore count on your assistance in getting this council over and done with before the month is out? My enquiries suggest that you have a certain closeness with His Grace of Ephesus. I will leave you to arrange matters with him as you see fit — with him and with the other Eastern bishops. You know the council will begin tomorrow, after Sunday service. If our next Sunday service can celebrate a smooth consensus of opinion between Greek and Latin Patriarchates, you may be assured that neither I nor the Commander of the East will forget your own part in bringing this about.’
Priscus had confirmed this with a great slobbering kiss, and then a parting kick at the biggest of the carrying slaves. ‘If there is a “next” Sunday service,’ he’d giggled into my ear, ‘even you might join in the prayers of thanks.’
We’d watched as the flaring procession made its way through the Forum of Hadrian. Then we’d watched as slaves had closed and barred the only gate into the residency. Now, in darkness, we were walking through its dark interior.
‘They might have been strays,’ Priscus now said, referring to the children I’d seen out by the tomb. ‘But, if you saw one family of them, it does mean the passes are open. It’s a matter of time.’ He stopped suddenly and doubled over for a long coughing attack. We’d moved into a shaft of moonlight from one of the overhead windows. In this, I saw the dark streak on his bandage.