I went back to my chair. I bowed to the Dispensator. He bowed to me. He dumped a thick pile of very pale and uncurled papyrus on to the lectern and cleared his throat. Holding their own texts, the interpreters stood with their backs to him. I smiled and leaned forward in my place.
‘If My Lord pleases,’ I said. .
Chapter 47
I got back to the residency as the sun was lengthening all its shadows. As I’d commanded, the swimming pool placed in one of the secondary courtyards had been cleaned out and refilled. The bathhouse, I’d again been assured, would never do service in its present state of repair. But this would do in its place. I sent my guards off for beer with the other slaves and made my way to the pool. All alone, I threw my clothes off and jumped into the cool water. I swam fifty lengths and tried not to think of anything connected with Church or state. I climbed out and jumped back in. I swam down to the deepest point and tried to pick up what I’d thought was a coin. It was only a chip in the green tiles. I came up and did a back somersault. I let the air out of my lungs and sank back into the depths. The pool was about twelve feet deep in the centre, and I sank slowly. I felt the growing pressure of the water on my ears. I was aware of the cold silence about me. I felt my knees make contact with the bottom, and could feel my whole body settle slowly on the smooth tiles.
I opened my eyes and looked up at the shimmering surface. It wasn’t quite the wildness and infinity of the sea off Richborough. But it was enough, so long as I kept my thoughts out of reach, to let me pretend for just a moment that I was still a boy in Kent — a boy with no other problem than how to fill his belly for dinner, and how to parse the Latin old Auxilius had earlier recited, clause by clause, into my head.
One look, as I resurfaced, at the still dazzling blue of the afternoon sky brought me out of that fantasy. But I did another back somersault and thought of something obscene from Aristophanes. That made me laugh so much, I breathed in a half lungful of water. I coughed it all out and took another deep breath. I went under again and swam over to the shaded end of the pool without coming up. I turned and kicked against the smooth wall and swam back. I’d have made it to the other end. But I was alone and had nothing to prove, and my head was beginning to feel light from the shortage of air.
As I came up, I realised I wasn’t alone.
‘Aelric,’ a voice quavered from the far end of the pool.
I turned over on my back and watched Martin pick his way carefully along the age-pitted marble. He stopped at the nearest point to me and waited for me to swim the last few yards that separated us. As I looked up at him, the sun dipped behind his head.
‘Do you suppose,’ he asked, dropping his voice, ‘the Dispensator noticed what you did with the Greek translation of his speech?’
I pulled a face at him and, with a great splash, kicked myself away from the side. Martin jumped back just a little too late to avoid getting soaked up to his knees. I laughed and did three back somersaults without stopping or bothering to draw breath. I came to rest floating on my back. I thought of asking what he’d found among those fragments of recovered papyrus.
But I took a deep breath and thought of the Dispensator’s speech. It had gone exactly as planned. None of the Latins had followed a word of the Greek version I’d dictated to Martin. As for the Greeks, they’d scratched their heads a few times, but had followed my lead in the shouted approbations. The Dispensator — probably in sure and certain knowledge of what I’d done — had gone back to the chair in a blaze of self-congratulation and the cheers of everyone in the room. If they’d understood anything of what was really said, of course, every Greek in the room would have had a fit from the stark assertion of Papal supremacy over every priest and every communicant of the Eastern churches. Instead, they’d been treated to a discourse, cribbed from Gregory of Nyassa, on how the separate but incorporeal Persons of the Trinity did not need to occupy distinct positions in space, but could be both separate and distinct according to the requirements of the observer. What light this could shed on the wretched Hilary — who hadn’t dissolved into stinking slime a day too soon in my view — was beside the point. And why should anyone ask for relevance? Apart from my own speeches, the nearest approach in two days to actual relevancy had come from that sodding deacon. The less of that we had, the better for everyone.
I swam back to the side. ‘I’ll take the Dispensator’s actual speech as the playful warning he surely intended it to be,’ I said. ‘I think the Emperor’s commission gives me power to clarify the Universal Bishop title. If it doesn’t, we’ll simply have to put our faith in general success. It’s far too late for worrying about little details. If you can draw up a new patent in absolutely clear form, I’ll seal it at the start of tomorrow’s first session.’
He nodded uncertainly. He knew as well as I did that this would be wildly beyond the hardest stretching of my real authority. But letting the Dispensator wreck everything was a bigger risk than the possibility of a few strangled cries of outrage from Heraclius. Besides, if I won the argument here, there would be no outraged cry. If I lost, it hardly mattered what more that eunuch Ludinus could throw in my face.
I put both arms on the side of the pool and rested my chin on them. ‘But Martin,’ I said earnestly, ‘I do apologise for splashing you. I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m very sorry if I caused you any humiliation.’
He sat down before me and nodded. Just because you are able, when of my exalted status, to do anything you like with someone like Martin, is every reason in the world for not doing it.
‘And, Martin,’ I said, still very earnest, ‘I now command you to take off those fine clothes and join me in the water. It is my command as your former master, and my urgent wish as a friend who has your health and fitness ever in his thoughts.’ I put up a hand to silence his protest. ‘There’s no one else here to look at you. Come on in — I’ll swim five lengths with you. Just five lengths — they will take away all the cares that surround you, and set you up for dinner.’
Martin looked dubiously about. I was right that we were alone. No one else would have to see the shameful thing he’d made of his body. With a stern look on my face, I watched as he took off his outer cloak, and then his over tunic. He tried for another protest, but failed to shake my look of command. He squeezed himself out of his short under tunic. He fiddled a while with the knotted cord of his leggings, and soon stood in all his woeful glory in just a pair of absurd linen knickers. A few more words of playful nagging, and those came off as well. As the sun dipped finally below one of the corner towers of the palace, Martin stood, with low, saggy buttocks and wobbling belly, naked by the side of the pool. He leaned slowly down and put a toe into the water. He pulled it straight out and gave me the sort of look a dog gives when you take off your belt and promise a beating.
‘Take a deep breath and pinch your nose,’ I ordered. ‘You know that it’s better if you jump straight in.’
He shook his head and clutched desperately at his flabby breasts.
‘Oh, Martin!’ I laughed. ‘Look up at the sky and think of all the martyrs whose blood has been the seed of the Church. Do you suppose they would have been scared of a little water?’ As he looked involuntarily up, I lunged forward and got one of his arms. He hadn’t time even to scream before I’d claimed him for the pool. I pulled him to the surface and waited for him to stop coughing and spluttering. More words of apology and a friendly hug. Then we were off on our first slow length.