He followed my astonished look over the walls and smiled. ‘I am reliably informed that the Great Chief will make another appearance tomorrow morning. This time, he will call a parley. I will go out and meet him and negotiate his withdrawal. You know that I have negotiated an end to five sieges of Rome by the Lombards.’
Even to Priscus, I might have suggested that a personal meeting with Kutbayan didn’t sound advisable. But this was the Dispensator. I nodded and made a note to myself that everyone would need to be informed of the further adjournment. I’d reconvene the day after next. That would bring us to Saturday — which was about what I’d imagined in the first place. I was hovering between thoughts of my closing speech to the council, and whether I’d wear the green or the yellow, when I heard the thud of another arrow, this time into the other side of the wooden screen. I stepped hurriedly back behind its cover again, and watched as the Dispensator set off on his continued inspection of the city defences.
He turned back after a few yards and smiled. ‘I believe the Lord Priscus will eventually take over the defence again,’ he said.
If he really believed that, he hadn’t just come from the man. But I said nothing.
‘However, I do think it appropriate if I am the one who negotiates the withdrawal. Several wives of the Great Chief are of the Faith, and I am confident that he will be more easily persuaded by me than by a Greek whose warlike skill and personal courage are more than compensated by his reputation for double-dealing. Our garrison is exhausted. We cannot rely on keeping the ordinary people quiet. A second attack — this time with all the Great Chief’s force — will not be so easily repelled.’
‘So, you’ll empty the granaries into his lap?’ I asked.
The Dispensator smiled again. ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days,’ was his only response.
Chapter 59
Simeon waited till Martin had finished interpreting before snorting with disgust. But the Dispensator had made his intention plain from the beginning. After a long preparatory stage, in which their main symptoms had been palpitations and sweating attacks, my drugs had now settled down to a steady glow. I sprawled on the biggest couch in the library, and looked complacently at my slippered right foot. I heard Simeon put his wine cup down with a sound of scraping on the surface of our one decent table.
‘If you believe you can make any sort of deal with that creature, you’re absolutely mad,’ he said. ‘Open those gates, and it will be the end for all of us.’ Sooner or later, he’d go back to being as scared as he had been when the barbarians broke in on the council — or as he’d been once everyone the Dispensator and I had left behind were exposed to the taunts and petty thieving of the urban mob. For the moment, he was just angry.
‘My Lord Bishop,’ I said, keeping as diplomatic as anyone might have managed at the end of this ghastly day, ‘we didn’t ask you here this evening to discuss the military situation. That is now in the hands of His Excellency the Dispensator. I need your undertaking that you will ensure the unanimous assent of the Greek bishops the day after tomorrow, and that you will countersign my report to Caesar as I have explained it to you.’
No good. The man was now on his feet and walking towards the bust of Polybius. Between stuffing food and weapons through the reopened door within the cupboard, the slaves had found time to bring in enough lamps and candles to light the room almost as well as it was by day. There was none of the gloom here you’d associate with the midnight hour. He stepped sideways to avoid a heap of books that hadn’t fitted into any of the racks. Then I saw him stop and put his face close to the damaged bust. There was another snort, and he was coming back.
He stopped beside one of the larger tables that covered the worst patch of the ruined floor, and took up the casualty list. I’d prepared this in Latin for the Dispensator. But its meaning was clear enough. ‘How did you manage to lose so many men beside the gate?’ he asked with an ill-natured look in my direction. ‘Priscus did tell me he was planning to avoid a direct encounter. From what I hear, you fought with all the skill of a drunken savage. Little wonder you’ve persuaded yourself that opening the gate is our only choice.’ He pulled a very sour face and sat down again in his chair.
I swung my legs off the couch and sat up. ‘Simeon,’ I began again, still smooth, ‘we did have an agreement. .’
‘Agreement, eh?’ came the sneered reply. ‘You buggered up everything in Egypt good and proper. Don’t suppose bullying us into admitting that black may, after all, be white will make up for that. Don’t ever suppose letting this tonsured barbarian risk getting all our throats cut will put everything right with Heraclius.
‘As for these vicious accusations you and Priscus made the other evening — oh, do me a favour!’ He trailed off for a long and bitter laugh of triumph. ‘My dear and soon to be late cousin might have got somewhere with those. Even supposing they are true, a piece of dirt like you will never get close enough to the Emperor to repeat them. So you go ahead, and get your savages to stand up in their clerical finery and agree that black is white. It’s the Greek bishops who really matter in Constantinople. And you’ll get nothing out of us!’
I pretended to ignore this last burst of ill-humour, and got up and went over to look at the mural. I could see I’d missed a fine chance earlier in the day. I should have waited till Simeon had been skewered by that barbarian before going into action. But that’s life for you — it’s often a catalogue of missed opportunities. Still, I’d not miss out on this one. Behind me, the Dispensator breathed out impatiently, and I heard him whisper to Martin for an explanation of what was being said.
Still looking at the wall painting of Athens, I told myself that it must show the city as it had been in the time of Demosthenes. According to what I’d read in Dexippus, the colonnade that fringed the whole of the main market place was decisive evidence. As if for the first time, I saw how so much of what was shown here was now just heaps of rubble beyond the modern wall.
‘I suggest we should check that they really have withdrawn before we send anyone down to Piraeus to see if the Corinth ferry will come,’ I said in Latin.
The Dispensator said nothing, and I took this as a provisional assent. If possible, I’d seen more barbarians than ever outside the walls. I’d stood there with the Dispensator until long after darkness had come. Until the light went altogether, we’d seen the irregular columns of men as they came over from the main camp north of Decelea. Even after that, we’d seen the flaring torches as others beyond counting had joined them. More than ever, we were as surrounded as one of those artificial mounds in Egypt that rise above the Nile flood. But the mere knowledge of the coming parley with Kutbayan was turning every mind in the room but one to the matter of how and when we’d be leaving Athens.
‘Simeon, has it ever crossed your mind,’ I asked, switching back into Greek, ‘how desperately short we are of money in Constantinople? You can’t fight off the Persians without soldiers, and you can’t employ soldiers unless you have the money to pay them. Now, His Holiness the Universal Bishop has decided to present the Great Augustus with a gift of twelve hundred pounds of gold. The former Western Provinces are not notable for their riches — but the Western Church is very rich. As is proper in these cases, it will be a free gift. There will be no conditions attached. However. .’ I stepped closer to the painting and didn’t care if anyone watching me might guess that I was smiling. I’d suddenly realised that the mural showed the Temple of Athena with two extra columns on its front portico. I leaned forward and stared at the carefully depicted inaccuracy.