‘Oh, there you are, dearie.’
I turned and looked at Irene.
She made a sort of bow and stepped away from what had turned out to be a soft patch of ground. ‘This cleaning doesn’t have no end,’ she said. She swore and snatched at a bee that had flown too close by her. She held it between forefinger and thumb of her right hand. With her left she pulled off its wings and legs. She popped it in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. ‘It does the rheumatics a power of good,’ she explained with a smile that showed pieces of black on her teeth.
I patted a lock of hair back into place that had fallen down when I nearly tripped over a bush. I frowned. ‘I thought we had agreed,’ I said, ‘only to clean the places that will definitely be used. I am most grateful that you have chosen to move in and supervise the slaves. But there is a limit to how many more of your slaves I wish to buy.’
She came over beside me and looked up at the window. ‘She’s a right peach of a girl, don’t you think?’ she asked. ‘I’ve given meself a room near to hers — in case she gets lonely, like.’ She pursed her lips and only just managed to stop herself from nudging me with her elbow.
I coughed to hide a smile I didn’t think I could suppress. Loneliness would be the least of Euphemia’s problems. ‘But Irene,’ I asked, ‘surely your husband will be missing you?’
Her reply was a disapproving sniff.
I had a sudden thought. ‘You told me the other day you didn’t believe any of the stories about this place,’ I said. ‘Any chance of a few details?’
I waited for her to take the bait. But all I got was another sniff and a comment about the overriding importance of business. Without any pretence of a bow, she walked off to continue her shouted instructions. There was an answering cry from one of the upper windows and another shower of dirt. I looked up again at Euphemia’s window. I heard Sveta’s voice raised in another shrill rebuke.
I turned and made my way towards the happy couple. Sveta had run out of insults, or at least of breath to voice them, and was contenting herself with a vicious look in my direction. I walked past her in the direction of one of the secondary courtyards where I might have a carrying chair waiting for me.
I was about to round the corner, when Priscus stuck his ghastly face out of a window. ‘Ah, young Alaric,’ he croaked with better cheer than I might have expected, ‘if you can spare the time, I’ve something wonderful to show you!’
‘We thought it was a door leading to some storage rooms,’ the slave explained in one of the more northerly Slavic dialects. ‘It was only when we got it open and found the other door that we realised it was something else.’ He stood back and motioned at the blackness within the opened door. We were on the ground floor of the left block. The library was directly above us. I’ve said that the glass dome was supported by four columns. The combined weight, plus that of the floor and its bookracks, I could now see, was supported by a set of brick arches. Every other of the arches was just a storeroom. This one really was different. I walked towards the far door that had now been opened and sniffed at the stale air. There was a smell of damp brick dust and of undisturbed cold. I stood back and examined the door. It was of heavy wood, reinforced with bands of rusted iron. The heavy bolts that had secured it from the outside were also rusted, and must have required the strength of two men to force them back. How many other doors concealed by doors might there be within this building?
‘Needless to say, the lazy bastards wouldn’t go in,’ Priscus added in Latin. He grinned and leaned on a broomstick he was using to get himself about. ‘It takes someone of proper nerve to explore those hidden delights.’ He switched into Slavic and called for pitch torches. He turned back to me. ‘Shall I go down first?’ he crooned. ‘It will, after all, be my second visit. Or would the Lord Alaric take his turn to show he wasn’t afraid?’
How I avoided sliding straight down those crumbled steps isn’t worth narrating. But I stepped at the bottom into a six-inch depth of cobwebs and nearly sprained an ankle on what felt like a brick floor. Priscus barked another order, and two slaves moved reluctantly past me. They stood each side of the little chamber and held up flaring torches.
‘Every palace has one, wouldn’t you agree?’ Priscus asked, now back in Latin. ‘Doesn’t even your dear nest in Constantinople have one for those slaves who don’t pay attention to your words of gentle admonition?’
I ignored the laugh that turned into an attempt to clear his throat. I ignored the splatter of doubtless bloody phlegm on to the cobwebs, and looked about.
Just because nearly everyone of importance has endorsed it, and just because I’ve never deprived myself of its practical advantages, doesn’t make slavery other than a disgusting institution. Yes, I hadn’t made use of such a place as this. I can say that I’ve never done this to a slave. But there’s no denying that the good behaviour of your own slaves rests ultimately on the knowledge that these places do exist, and are sanctioned by the laws and customs of every civilised race.
This end of the dungeon was so low that I had to stoop to avoid knocking my head. Its other dimensions were about eight feet by twelve. Still in their manacles, two of the skeletons lay where death had overtaken them. The others had been pulled apart, and it was only from the manacles that I could tell there had been another three. I bit my lip and stared at the closest of them. Half concealed in the mass of filth that lay over the cobwebs, the skull might have been of a child or a small woman. I looked further along the wall, at one of the skeletons that held together. It still nursed what looked like a gnawed wooden pitcher.
‘What bastard could just have left them here?’ I breathed as if to myself.
Priscus heard me and laughed, now with more success. ‘Why ask questions that can’t be answered?’ he said in a firm and mocking voice. ‘How often have you used these very words?’ He suppressed a cough and stepped forward. I heard the dull tread of his velvet shoes as he hurried over to the skeleton in good order.
I followed him into the overpowering smell of must. All dead matter had long since decayed into its constituent atoms. Even so, I made sure to breathe in through my mouth.
‘Just look at this, dear boy,’ he cried. He twisted round to see me and beckoned me eagerly forward. ‘Come and see what refinements the ancients knew and we have forgotten.’
I took a deep breath and took another step. I tried not to think of my ruined shoes. I did manage to avoid looking at the two slaves, who stood unmoving with bowed heads, torches held out before them.
Priscus tugged one of the manacles free of the wrist it had enclosed for what may have been centuries. He tossed the bones into the dirt and stood up. ‘This really is lovely, don’t you think?’ he asked.