The room was silent again. Every face was turned in my direction. I saw that Martin had taken young Theodore by the shoulder, and got him safe behind the water clock. The bishops remained mostly in their places.
‘No others,’ the Dispensator said in a voice that even he couldn’t keep from shaking. He’d kept enough presence of mind to hurry over to the door and look out into the entrance hall. ‘It looks as if they were strays.’
Not answering, I pushed past him and we went together out into the hot sunshine. He was right. I could see that the tide of battle had rolled forward through Athens, all the way to the foot of the Areopagus. Now, it had receded, leaving a few bloody corpses. Apart from those still heaps, it might now have been business as usual. I looked around carefully. Somewhere, behind the shabby buildings that blocked my view, the battle was still raging with terrible intensity, and I felt a stab of shame that I’d left its conduct to others. I looked briefly at my bloody sword, and then at the Dispensator’s drawn face, and hurried back into the main hall.
The shock had now passed, and men were on their feet. A crowd of bishops had gathered about the fallen barbarian, and they were doing their best to kick him to death. Everyone fell back as I approached.
I stared down at the man. He’d landed badly on the floor, and looked as if he’d broken his left arm. His right shoulder I’d smashed beyond healing with my inkstand. ‘You can get outside and die like the others,’ I snarled in Slavic. ‘Show some respect for your betters!’ I gave the fallen man a vicious kick of my own, and watched as he began to push himself obediently towards the door. I glanced down at my velvet shoe. The man was leaving a trail of blood as he moved. But there was no stain on the bright yellow of my shoes.
I looked up at the high ceiling and tried to think if there was anything still to be said about the relationship between Nature and Substance. There must have been plenty. But none of it came to mind, and there were no questions from my little senate. I bowed to Simeon, who was clutching the back of his chair, and returned to my own place. The sounds of battle really had receded, and we could try to go back to our own work. The main sound in the hall was the clatter of wood as the minute clerk finished covering one of his waxed tablets and reached behind him for another. Now, almost as if it had been no more than notice of refreshments that had interrupted the proceedings, Martin even managed to interpret the last part of my previous sentence.
We might actually have gone back to work. Since I hadn’t run off in search of the battle, I could think of nothing else to do. I looked away from the corpse that no one had thought to clear away, and thought of a point arising from one of my earlier definitions. But, as I leaned forward to clear my throat and start another speech, the door opened again, and one of the militia leaders ran in.
He bowed to me and then to the assembly. He realised he was standing in the pool of blood that had oozed from the smaller barbarian, and stepped back with another bow. ‘My Lord,’ he cried in a strangled voice, ‘I must inform you that Priscus is dying, and he asks that you and the Lord Fortunatus of Rome should take over the defence of Athens.’
I got up and swallowed. I raised my hands again for silence. This time, no one paid attention. Everyone was on his feet and running about as if the building were on fire.
A grim look on his face, the Dispensator was beside me. ‘I think I got the meaning of that,’ he whispered into my ear. I nodded. ‘If it hasn’t been done already, we really must get the western gate closed. The plan is to concentrate forces where the main street is narrowed by the big statue of Hadrian. If we can hold the line there, the rooftop archers should be able to. .’
He trailed off as the Bishop of Iconium pushed his way between us and screamed something about getting ourselves over to the Acropolis. I reached forward and slapped his face twice. He stopped screaming, and it gave me time to get my own thoughts properly in order. I took the Dispensator by the sleeve and began to shove people out of the way as we made for the door.
‘It may already be too late,’ he shouted. ‘But we can still do our best.’ I waited by the door while he pushed his way back into the wild panic to get the little barbarian’s sword.
As I waited, I saw Martin and Theodore at the far end of the room. The Bishop of Athens was beside them. If I’d known more about the barbarian thrust into Athens, I’d have sent them back to the residency. As it was, I’d have to trust in the judgement of His Grace of Athens.
Chapter 58
Priscus opened his eyes and focused dreamily on my face. The doctor had now taken a candle to both his arms, and the room was filled with the smell of scorched flesh as well as vomit and other bodily excretions. I watched as, from both wrists right up to the elbow, the doctor set about scraping away the blistered skin and painting on still more opium juice to quell the pain in that drug-hardened body. It needed a double coat of the dark and oily liquid before Priscus came out of his latest spasm and was able to look up at me. I stared back into the now tiny black dots within his eyes.
‘So, you repelled the attack?’ he was finally able to gasp.
‘Yes,’ I said. I fell silent again.
And we had got through it. Somehow, with me to lead men into the actual fighting, and the Dispensator to direct movement of our catapult from one part of the fray to another, we’d held the city. Without him there to manage it, the plan that Priscus had laid a few days earlier had almost gone wrong. As thousands of men were thrown against the wall, the weakest gate had been opened, and, as expected, the main attack was then diverted. It was now, though, that Priscus had gone down — not wounded by the enemy, mind you, but floored by a fit of internal spasms that not even his iron will had been able to bring under control. It had been almost too late to tighten the noose — thousands more than expected had swarmed through the opened gate, and their assault had reached even to where we debated on the Areopagus. But almost too late wasn’t the same as too late. The Dispensator and I had been just in time to close the gate and seal off the multitude in the streets, and then stamp on the trapped men as if they’d been ants. We’d done it, and the main attack had collapsed into a chaotic retreat from the walls that our own archers were able to make still more utterly humiliating to the enemy.
Priscus was still looking up at me. I suppose he expected a better explanation of what we’d managed than ‘Yes.’ At the least, he was probably expecting me to tell him whether any of the blood that was still splashed all over me was my own. But I said nothing. He drew his tongue over parched lips and tried for a laugh. ‘Don’t try telling me otherwise, dearest Alaric,’ he now said in a distant, vastly weary Latin. ‘But I know that you’ve got her hidden away in this building. And don’t tell me that you still deny the evidence of your senses.’ He looked past me at the lamp that hung over his bed and swallowed a few times.
I looked at the doctor, who shook his head and moved the water jug out of sight.
Priscus managed a weak smile. ‘Oh, but you do deny it, don’t you?’ he went on. ‘If you want to believe that she’s just barking mad from having to share this place with Nicephorus, you really are a fool. Even I gave up on seducing her once I realised what she really was.’ He now did manage a wheezing laugh and fell silent.
‘And I suppose everyone else believes this?’ I asked.
He shut his eyes and his breathing became slow but regular. I thought he’d drifted into unconsciousness. But he opened his eyes again and, though without success, tried to focus.
‘You know she came here just a few years ago with Theodore,’ I said. ‘She’s no more a witch than I am. You’re the fool if you believe other than that.’