I’d come back to her later. Five dead intruders didn’t mean the residency was clear.
Priscus had already crossed to the other side of the main courtyard and was pulling at the locked door to the slave quarters. The door had been locked from the outside. So too the shutters. Using the apology for a sword Priscus had carried away from the pool, I smashed the lock and stood back for the scared and angry slaves to hurry out. Two of them had drunk poisoned beer, and might not get through the night. The others had their own swords at the ready, and were sent off, in groups of three, for a systematic hunt through every room in the residency.
Now recovered, Priscus rattled the lock on the main gate. ‘I don’t see how they could have got through this,’ he said. ‘Do you know of any other way in?’
I hadn’t found one. Nor had anyone else. But it was unlikely the attackers had managed to creep in during the day — not with the kind of security Irene had now set up. ‘Some hidden entrance?’ I suggested weakly. As I thought of something more useful, one of the slaves hurried into the darkness of the arched gateway.
‘Come and look at this, Master!’ he barked like an excited dog.
Even before stepping into the dark cupboard, I could feel from the cool breeze that I’d no longer be reaching out to set hands on a sheet of rock. I stepped back out and took a wax candle from the slave. Cupping this in my hand against the breeze, I went in again. It was as if there never had been any rock there. I looked through the doorway into perfect blackness.
‘Who or what is within?’ I called in Latin to test the echo. Except for a slight deadness of the echo, it was like shouting into a deep well. I moved closer to the doorway. After a momentary pause, I stepped through.
As in my dream of four nights earlier, I found myself on a flight of steps. But these weren’t straight or neatly cut. I held my candle up. Before it went out, I counted five crumbled and irregular steps down. After that, the shaft veered steadily to the left, and I saw no further.
‘Many thanks,’ I said to the slave who now handed me a lamp with a horn windshield. I stepped fully into the shaft and looked about. Again in my dream, the roof had been high enough for me not to notice it. Here, it was low enough for me to have to bend my head forward. Further evidence, I told myself, that dreams can suggest new trains of thought, but don’t provide new information about the world. ‘Here it is!’ I said, again in Latin, pointing at — though making sure not to touch — a bronze lever that projected about a yard from one of the walls of roughly cut rock. ‘There’s some kind of balancing mechanism that allows a plug of apparently solid rock to slide in and out of place.’
I stepped out again and turned to look at the pale and frightened faces. Behind them, I could see Priscus. He’d gone back to his rooms and had returned with a small box. He somehow managed to combine a knowing smile with sniffing the entire contents of the box up his nose.
I fixed my attention on the nearest slave, and went into his own language. ‘I want the top of that big table from down the corridor pushed into this gap,’ I said. ‘I don’t want anyone to go through for any reason. But I want this cupboard, and all about it, searched for whatever can be used to open and close this entrance from our side.’
The slave bowed.
I gave him a curt nod and walked past him into the corridor. ‘You will, of course, keep up your guard,’ I added. ‘You never know who might still be down there. You never know who might still be waiting to get back in there.’
We’d had one evening of proper lighting. Now, the corridors were back in darkness. This time, however, they were clean. Without looking round to see if Priscus was following, I hurried, shielded lamp still in hand, up to the library, and sat down in the most comfortable chair. I reached out for the wine jug that had been left on the nearest table. I had a sudden thought and sniffed doubtfully at the contents.
‘It’s all right, My Lord,’ I heard Euphemia say behind me. ‘I’ve just brought it in myself.’
I got up and turned. Though still looking scared and oddly aged, she’d managed to dry her eyes, and she was talking with reasonable firmness.
I pushed her into where I’d been sitting and pulled up another chair. ‘Do tell me everything you can,’ I said with gentle urgency. ‘I need to know everything.’
Even down to her reticence about what she’d just finished doing with Irene when those dark figures had burst into the room, there was an inherent probability in all that she said. It didn’t take me an inch, though, beyond what I’d already guessed. Irene had picked up a sword and forced the men down into the courtyard. Then they’d regrouped and gone on the attack. It explained all that I’d found and no more.
I offered her a cup of wine, then recalled that she had no taste for it. I put her cup on the tray and drained mine.
I heard Martin behind me. ‘The big slave with the scar on his face begs to inform you that they can’t find another lever,’ he said.
I shrugged without turning. Doubtless, there had been a thorough search. That didn’t mean there was nothing to be found. I’d go back down myself in a while and see what I could find. Unlike a few barbarian slaves, fresh from their first sale at market, I’d had plenty of experience of how cunning engineers could be. The Imperial Palace in Constantinople was riddled with secret passages, and some of the machinery that worked the doors was concealed with astonishing skill.
I heard a knowing and unpleasant laugh as Priscus came into the library. ‘Any chance of sharing some of that wine?’ he asked. Face flushed very dark from his drug, he hurried over to the window and threw himself into one of the chairs that had been placed there in the great reordering. He waited for Martin to go over, cup in hand, and settled himself to look out into the darkness. I watched as his body began to shake with silent laughter. I thought at first — no, I hoped at first — this was some reaction to all the killing and general excitement. But this was Priscus. He might double up every so often with the agony of whatever was consuming his flesh. But anything approaching normal human shock was as much beyond him as normal human pity or fear. He finished his wine and twisted round, a happy sneer on his face.
‘I suppose, Euphemia, dearest, you’ve definitely found your means of exit from this God-forsaken hole,’ he said, ending with a faint chuckle. ‘You’ll adore Constantinople,’ he went on once his voice was steady again. ‘I must say, though, that our young friend would really be better off if he stuck to boys.’
Euphemia’s answer was to get up and go towards the far door that led to her own quarters. I did think to follow her out. But Priscus was now turned fully round to face me.
‘It may be for the first time ever,’ he said as the door closed, ‘but do you suppose we should try to be honest with each other?’
I got up and pulled my under tunic into place. It was still slightly wet, and this had left a stain on the old leather of the chair. I went over to look at the mural of Athens. One of the more enthusiastic slaves had tried cleaning a few centuries of dirt off this. In places, he’d rubbed far too hard, and patches of bright freshness now contrasted with others of dull smudging.
‘When I was a boy,’ I began without bothering to turn, ‘I was told how a fox gets rid of fleas. He hunts about until he finds a lock of wool, and then he takes it to the river, and holds it in his mouth. He now goes slowly into the water, and the fleas climb higher and higher up his body. At last they all run over the creature’s nose into the wool, and then he dips his nose under and lets the wool go off with the stream.’
I did now turn round. My first sight was of a very puzzled Martin. I would have smiled at him, but Priscus put his head back and laughed.
‘You really aren’t as stupid as you look, dear boy,’ he said. ‘But would you forgive me if I said that I did see you in here the other night?’ He pointed to the now cleared area of floor where I’d been crouching with Martin. Then he put both hands together and cracked his knuckles. ‘You didn’t get that pretty golden hair of yours sufficiently out of sight.’ He sniggered softly and looked into what I hoped was a blank face. ‘I do say this, dear boy, to demonstrate that whatever I may have said to Nicephorus was just my own little joke.’