‘What are they saying?’ Kutbayan asked with a look into my face that nearly brought on a fart of terror. He got up again from his chair. He glanced over to where Ludinus was still trying to smile and gesticulate for attention. He raised a hand for silence, and the knife pressed harder into the eunuch’s throat. When all was silent, he turned back to me.
I stared into what might have been the eyes of a snake. The problem with these remote barbarians is that you can never guess what they are thinking. At any moment, Kutbayan might have me dragged out for execution. Just as likely, he might embrace me. ‘The fat one is blaming the other for talking in front of me about their plans,’ I explained.
Kutbayan looked away for a moment to glare once more at Ludinus until he’d stopped trying to wave his arms for attention. He turned to me again. ‘And what will you tell me of these “plans”?’ he asked very softly.
‘They were talking to each other, O Great Chief,’ I whispered with faint horror, ‘about how King Heraclius has sent orders for you to depart from his realms — to depart or face the wrath of his soldiers.’ That was all I’d have dared say. But Nicephorus now came back into the conversation with an unstoppable flood of denunciations of me. I turned this neatly into a threat of what Heraclius would do if the ‘worthless old fool’ Kutbayan didn’t head back at once into the zone of starvation. I even used the endless pointing at me to advantage by talking of the Western barbarians — all as big as me — who were marching towards us with the Exarch of Ravenna at their head.
Kutbayan really wasn’t at all as Priscus had let me think him. He didn’t lose his temper. He didn’t reach for the nearest weapon or set about the grovelling Count or the now silent Ludinus with a whip. He wasn’t in any sense your normal barbarian. He certainly was no fool. He waited as I ran out of inspiration and fell silent. He listened to the continuing babble of Nicephorus and looked at a desperately thoughtful Ludinus. He also was no fool. Unless I could bring this to a rapid end, he’d find some way of getting his point across; that, or Kollo would stumble in with enough Greek to push me out of the conversation.
I tried another wild throw of the dice. ‘O Lord,’ I cried out indignantly, ‘the bearded one is saying that the treasures brought to you by the fat one were washed in the blood of slaughtered prisoners, and cursed by the great priest of the cross-worshippers so that whoever touches them becomes as unmanly as the fat one.’ I dropped my voice to a scared whisper. ‘The other unballed one who speaks Slavic is even now passing this about the camp.’
There was a murmur of outrage from the assistants. Kutbayan didn’t so much as blink. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. He stared once more into my face, now seeming to look straight through its covering of dirt, now fixing himself on my eyes. ‘What is your name? Who are your people?’
‘I am Aelric,’ I blurted out. ‘I’m from a place in the furthermost west called England.’
‘Well, I don’t think I trust you,’ he said, not once taking his eyes off mine. He gave a thin and very suspicious smile.
He and Priscus would have got on with each other no end. My stomach turned over a dozen times in the space of a single heartbeat, and I pulled my eyes free and looked silently down. How much longer could I keep this going?
‘Go and find Kollo,’ he said, still facing me. Someone behind him bowed and made for the exit. ‘You,’ he said to me, ‘go and stand beside the fat one.’
I looked back at him. ‘I speak truly, O Great Chief,’ I said firmly. ‘But let me question the bearded one again.’ Without waiting for a repeat of his order to join Ludinus, I went and stood over Nicephorus, who’d now fallen on to his belly and was rubbing his face in the dirt. ‘Listen, you bag of shit,’ I said in a questioning tone. ‘His Nibs will give you both a fair chance. Whichever one of you gets first to the nearest set of bodies outside this tent can stay alive. If you don’t want to be rolled about in a nail-studded barrel, I suggest you get moving.’
Ignoring the knife that was still pressed against his throat, Ludinus now pushed forward. ‘Don’t move, you bloody fool!’ he urged Nicephorus. He sidled away from the armed assistant with a move that showed his origins as a dancing boy, and stepped suddenly forward. He knocked me aside and stood again before Kutbayan. He pointed at me and put a hand over his mouth. He made a quick gesture of a throat being cut and shook his head. He smiled and pointed at me again.
But I’d judged Nicephorus right. Even as Ludinus seemed about to bring everything back to order, the Count got up with a strangled scream and made a dash for the exit. I heard the rasp of a sword outside and a brief and bubbling scream. As Kutbayan swore loudly and hurried out of the tent, I let my shoulders sag.
I turned to Ludinus. ‘I’ll bet he didn’t trust you with the details of the secret way into Athens,’ I whispered.
‘Then it must be you to give those details,’ came the snarled reply. He gave me another big push in the chest, and made for the tent flaps.
I’ll say again that suicide was no part of this admittedly mad plan. Even as Ludinus was beside Kutbayan, who was now frigid with anger, and going into a speech so emollient no Greek was needed to understand that something had gone wrong, I took a very deep breath. ‘The fat one has a knife!’ I shouted. ‘He’s gone out to strike the Great Chief from behind!’ I pushed past the scrum of barbarians who’d got out before me and were piling on to Ludinus, and managing to fall on top of Kutbayan in their eagerness. I raised my voice and bellowed for assistance. I darted away from the tent, and tripped straight over Nicephorus. I landed with both knees on his belly, and his mouth opened and a loud burp came out. I thought for a moment he was only wounded. But wide, staring eyes that didn’t move told me he was dead. I scrambled up and shouted a call of alarm at the man who was coming at me with a sword. I pointed back at the tent and got out of his way. There were other men hurrying forward, all with drawn swords. But these weren’t interested in me. Without another look back, I ran as if I were trying to win some ancient foot race towards where I’d found the horses.
Chapter 56
I’ll pass over the details of my escape from the camp. I may have got to the horses in a state of advanced terror. The dead and naked barbarian may already have been found. But I was able to start a cry that Kutbayan had been killed, and that Greek soldiers were already fighting their way into the camp. I got on to the first horse I could touch once everyone was hurrying off to get armed, and didn’t look round till I must have covered a mile on the road back to Athens.
When I did look back, it was in the sure and certain knowledge that a hundred barbarians were riding me down — all of them mad with anger, and with Kutbayan in front. In fact, I was the only man in sight with a horse. I forced myself to slow from the irregular canter that was the best I’d been able to get from the horse over these worn paving stones and tried to look important as I was carried slowly past the unordered crowds who seemed to be wandering without purpose up and down the road.
I stopped at the second of the rain-swollen streams that I passed. I watered the horse and scrubbed all the dirt I could from my face and hands. I hadn’t eaten in over a day. But I drank until I thought my stomach would burst. As I passed over another little bridge that kept the road going without break across the flat plain of Attica, I found myself among a few dozen men of my own colouring. They shouted cheerfully up at me in one of the most northerly dialects of Lombardic. Not fancying a long conversation, I answered in English, and managed to get away with a halting exchange about the weather. I did overhear a few comments suggesting that this gigantic raid south had taken all pressure off Thessalonica and the remaining walled cities that guarded the approaches to Constantinople itself. But that much I’d already guessed for myself. The next crowd I passed all had the squat, yellow appearance of barbarians from the furthest reaches of Scythia. They parted in silence as I approached them from behind and let me ride through.