I passed through crowds of the starving. They held up imploring but weak hands as I pushed my way through. I passed by trains of well-guarded pack animals, all loaded with what must have been food. As the sun reached towards its noonday zenith, I passed by what had been the ruins of Decelea. There were fires here and there that were still burning from the fast and overpowering attack. Every gust of breeze carried over the stomach-turning smell of corruption. If I listened hard, I could just make out the buzzing of a million flies. But you’d never have guessed otherwise from the heaps of stone that began fifty yards from the road that this had only recently been a place of civilised habitation.
I was approaching the first of the tombs that began to line every road to Athens from a few miles out, when I heard the first sound of violence. I’d come to another stream. Even in spring, this one was too small to be worth a formal bridge. Instead, the stream where it cut the road had been filled with big stones that let water pass through underneath, while allowing men and beasts to cross with reasonable care. I thought at first the noise I’d heard was just an effect of water as it rushed through the stones. But, as I reached the crossing, there was the definite sound of a cry.
I reached nervously for my little knife as someone dressed in black reeled out and stood before me, sword in hand. The horse was tired, and it hadn’t been fed. But I was ready to try making a dash forward.
‘Well, dearie me,’ the man cried in Greek. ‘But who’s been the luckiest little bugger that ever was?’
I steadied myself on the horse and tried to glare at Priscus. I thought of getting down and beating him to a mound of red pulp. Then I thought of telling him he was under arrest for treason, or whatever else would most conveniently justify sticking his head on a spike somewhere inside Athens. But he was the one with a sword, and I just wanted to get back inside the walls. ‘Nicephorus tried to betray us all,’ I said quietly. ‘I got him killed outside Kutbayan’s tent.’
Priscus lowered his bloody sword. ‘And Ludinus?’ he asked.
I shook my head. He might have been butchered like Nicephorus. More likely, he’d crawled out from under a dozen armed barbarians and stayed alive long enough for Kutbayan to call everyone back to order.
Priscus smiled and sheathed his sword. ‘I, of course, would have got him as well — and the Great Chief into the bargain. Did I ever tell you how I got out of Trampolinea alive?’
‘I don’t suppose the real truth does you any credit,’ I answered.
He laughed and helped me down from the horse. He laughed again as my legs gave way and I ended on my back.
‘You still can’t ride to save your life,’ he sneered. He reached down and pulled me to my feet.
‘Your friend over there — he is dead?’ I asked with a nod to where I’d heard the scream.
Priscus gave a sniff of tired scorn and sat down on a stone beside the road. ‘You may think yourself entitled to say otherwise, dear boy,’ he said with a trace of embarrassment. ‘But there really is much to be said for our previous agreement about standing or falling together.’
I did look about for the appropriate reply. But, as I arranged myself on another big stone, I yawned and stretched — and, then, without any feeling of what was about to happen, began to cry. I tried to stop. I put up my hands and tried to pretend I was wiping sweat off my face. I could tell myself with perfect internal calm that this was as disastrous in its own way as it would have been if Ludinus had found a couple of words in Slavic. It had no effect. My body shook with bigger and bigger sobs, and I found myself rocking back and forth on that stone as if I’d been poor Martin after any of the bigger frights I’d led him into.
I felt something hit me in the lap. I opened my eyes and looked down at a small satchel.
‘If you can forget about the smell, my fine, young barbarian,’ Priscus said, ‘there’s about half a pound of dried beef in this. It’s putrid stuff, but you’ll feel better with something to weigh your stomach down.’ He got up and went over to the horse, which had been edging slowly away from us. He took its reins and led it back to where he’d been sitting. ‘Oh, come on, cry-baby Alaric,’ he said with mock impatience. ‘When I was your age, Imperial Legates had much less mobile upper lips.’
I looked up again at the sun. This time, I sneezed. By the time I’d finished blowing my nose, the sobbing fit was over as quickly as it had come on. I looked back along the road. There might have been a very distant column of dust. It might have been the afternoon heat haze. It was hard to say — though I could feel the start of another jittery turn.
Priscus watched me and gave a pitying laugh. ‘Just noticed, I see, that we shan’t be alone,’ he said. ‘Did your barbarian ancestors really kick us out of Britain? Or did they just creep in behind those who did the fighting?’ He pulled me to my feet again, and laughed as I found myself unable to move. He sat down beside me. ‘Do explain, dear boy,’ he asked in a conversational tone, ‘why you responded so harshly to our fat friend’s scheme of increasing the coinage. We really are short of cash, you know.’
My legs were beginning to shake, and I thought I’d start crying again. But I put my thoughts into order and looked away from the distant but now unmistakable cloud of dust. ‘You can take in one hundred solidi,’ I said, ‘mix in a quarter of base metal, and reissue a hundred and twenty-five. It doesn’t actually increase the number of things you can buy with them.’
Priscus smiled. ‘Ah, but surely whoever issues them can buy more of what is available?’ he asked.
I thought again, trying to remember what I’d said in my long memorandum to Heraclius. ‘I’ll grant that whoever spends them first has an advantage,’ I said. ‘In the short term, though, you simply rob the last people to receive the debased coins, as they pay higher prices for things — and these are usually the poorest. In the longer term, you disorder all the exchanges, and destroy confidence in the Imperial money. It’s better to spend more on the military by cutting all other expenses.’
But Priscus had got me back in order, and was no longer interested in the finer points of coin debasement. He was instead looking at the approaching cloud of dust. ‘I hope you’ll not object to sitting behind me on your horse. To be sure, it’s the only way you’ll ever see Athens again from inside its walls.’ He grinned and gave the horse a comforting pat. He pulled me once more to my feet. This time, I could move.
I shivered again in the dank, underground chill, and looked at the fresh brickwork. ‘Martin begged me not to have the opening sealed up,’ the Dispensator explained. ‘However, I felt I had no choice.’
I nodded.
‘We can be relieved that you ensured the death of the Count of Athens before he could betray us all. At the same time, the man called Balthazar remains at large, and we cannot afford the danger of even a hidden entrance into the city.’
I nodded again. There was no need to go on about the bricking up of the opening in the tomb, or the mass of earth and rubble packed behind this wall that sealed the opening from the big tunnel. I turned away and looked along the tunnel. In the dark, it had, the night before last, seemed endless in itself, and part of something much larger. The lamps carried down with us showed that, whatever function it once had served — and I was no wiser about this — it was no labyrinth at all. Between the opening forced from the residency to the opening forced from the tomb of Hierocles, it was very long indeed. But it was only a single tunnel, with one sharp turn and with a few chambers leading off. Now I’d been from one end to the other, I could see there was no other means of access. Had it been an ancient tomb? In the absence of any inscription or other evidence, it was worthless to speculate.