I looked at the water clock. This session had been prolonged far beyond what I’d expected. But I pulled my thoughts together and continued: ‘If I may return to the main issue, a man can be a heretic either from ignorance or by act of the will — that is, he may be a material or a formal heretic. So far as material heresy is not an act of the will, it cannot be regarded as a sin. Therefore, the fanciful theology of women or of the lower classes should be corrected whenever encountered, but not punished. However, any person of intelligence and learning, who is made cognisant of his deviation from orthodoxy, and who persists in his deviation — he is rightly considered a formal heretic, and may anathema fall upon his head. .’
So I spoke on in the still and heated air, to a rising chorus of shouting and screams from the street outside. There was a trumpet blast, and now the clatter of what may have been a single horse. From the intense look on his face, the Dispensator might never have been out of the room. Certainly, he’d not be followed by a hundred enraged and stinking beggars, come to beat us all to death. Even so, the Greeks, who now had not the smallest notion of what I was saying, sat looking nervously at each other. A few twisted their beards with the strain of all that had happened and was still happening. Others fell into various modes of silent prayer. But I had little doubt the militia was winning. If Priscus was right, and the barbarians wouldn’t attack until at least the following day, this was just the right excuse for imposing order on the city. Once the barbarians did move against us, we couldn’t afford a rising of the urban trash behind us. As I reached a dramatic pause in my discourse on the various meanings of ‘Person’, I looked again at the Dispensator. He caught my look, and stopped scratching away on his oversized wax tablet. He stared briefly back, one of those thin and mildly triumphant smiles on his face.
Someone at least was enjoying himself.
Chapter 43
In its best age, I’ve already noted, the Athenian taste ran to buildings small but perfectly formed. The great Temple of Jupiter was an exception. Though not big at all by the standards of Rome or Constantinople, it was vast in Athenian terms. Its bulk loomed high over the wall that it nearly joined. Then again, it had been started by the tyrant Pisistratus as a symbol of his might. It had then been left unfinished by the democracy that followed the downfall of his son — too expensive and now too old-fashioned, I could suppose. After seven hundred years, it had been completed by Hadrian on his celebrated visit. No expense had been spared, I’d once read, and the archaic design had been followed as if all the improvements in construction of the intervening centuries hadn’t taken place. Now, its outer colonnade had been bricked up on its conversion to some other use, and it was surrounded by other low buildings that made the original plan hard to follow.
‘Oh, there is a sort of administration here that’s independent of Nicephorus,’ Priscus said with an airy wave. ‘Don’t ask me what it actually does. But we can be glad that, in the chaotic administration of the Empire, not every city council has been abolished.’
I nodded and bowed to avoid knocking my head on a low point in the ceiling. Normally, after four days in a city, I’d have made a full inspection of how it was administered. If I was still pretty much in the dark about Athens, this was the natural effect of having concentrated on religious affairs — and on staying alive.
There really was no point in wondering about the administration of Athens, nor in the internal geography of what was obviously its actual heart. As with parts of the residency, the interior of this building had been divided into a labyrinth of offices and narrow corridors. As in the residency, most of the offices appeared to be unused. But, unlike in the residency, some were still in use, and this was now the headquarters of such resistance Athens was likely to make in the event of any storming of the city wall.
Darkness hadn’t yet fallen. But the sky was beginning to glow red through the single high window as I stepped into what may once have been the temple sanctuary. A hundred or so men, all dressed in various kinds of military clothing — most showing unmistakable Germanic or Slavic ancestry — got up from where they’d been sitting on the floor and bowed. I jumped lightly on to a platform that still had the remains of a few statue bases to make it irregular, and waited for Priscus to climb up beside me. He was now dressed in the full regalia of a Commander of the East, and was, I had to admit, a gorgeous and a reassuring sight.
‘Gentlemen, this will not be a long meeting,’ I began. ‘My purpose in calling you together is to announce that, as Legate of the Emperor, clothed in full authority, I have formally dismissed Nicephorus as Count of Athens. I dismiss him on the grounds of desertion in the face of the enemy, and declare him an outlaw.’ I looked about the room. If the lower classes had liked the man enough to riot in his defence, no one here seemed put out in the slightest. Their tight faces made perfect sense in terms of the immeasurable horde that had finally arrived, and was now held back by a wall that, every time I tried to imagine it, seemed more and more inadequate.
‘Anyone who can give information that may lead to the former Count’s arrest — or his conviction in any trial that I may allow him — is assured of full immunity, no matter what offence such information may indicate.’ I stopped again. No one looked as if he’d step forward. I’d see if anyone made a private approach later on.
I chose my words carefully and tried for a neutral tone. ‘I am aware that the former Count has, for the past several years, treasonably failed to collect taxes lawfully due to the Emperor.’ I stopped yet again. This had got everyone looking at me. But I smiled. ‘I have decided to absolve everyone but the former Count of blame for this treason. In due course, assessors will arrive here from Corinth. By the authority of my commission, however, I remit all arrears of tax up to and including the day when the barbarians shall be repulsed from our walls.’
I pretended not to notice the relieved looks and sagging of shoulders this concession had brought on. Barbarians prowling outside the walls were one horror. A mob inside the walls that had no visible inclination to do other than stab us all in the back was another. But at least there would be no third army of ravening tax-gatherers. And, if both mob and barbarians could be handled, given reasonable luck and reasonable judgement, tax-gatherers — everyone knew — could never be appeased.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ I started again, ‘you and your sons and servants, and such other free persons as may be dependent upon you and whom you believe to be trustworthy, are the defenders of Athens. His Magnificence the Lord Senator Priscus, Commander of the East, I appoint as leader of the defence, giving him all such authority over life and property as may be required for an effective defence.’
And that was it. I’d assumed supreme authority, and straightway handed its substance over to Priscus. My job was now to seal the stack of proclamations Martin had been working like a slave to produce in appropriate form, and otherwise keep my council moving in the right direction. Without looking again at the gathered men of Athens, I jumped down from the table and walked quickly from the room. I stood a few moments outside the door. Priscus had gone straight into his plan of defence. Whether it had any chance of success was beyond me. But he sounded happy enough. As I’d got a few yards along the corridor, and had a hand on the door that led into the tiny room where wine had been set out, I even heard a little cheer.