‘Master,’ Wilfred whispered in my ear, ‘I’ve often heard them talking about you. They are all convinced you are a wizard of great power. They really believe you can help them. And I also want you to go ashore. If we must die together now, I am prepared to watch your own ascent to Heaven. But you might be able to save us both. All else aside, why should both of us die when one of us has the chance of escape?’
‘Don’t be stupid, boy!’ I snapped. Evidently, he’d been too impressed by stories of my past life to realise how long ago all that had been. ‘Give me another moment, and I’m sure I can think of something else to offer these animals. Perhaps they could deliver us to one of the bishops in France before negotiating our ransom with Theodore…’
But if they were still sufficiently collected not to commit any actual violence, nothing I offered was enough to stand them down. I did think of putting the eminently reasonable argument that if I had magical powers sufficient to get their men back, I’d hardly have been their helpless prisoner since Christmas. But there’s no reasoning with the barbarian mind. You’ll get more sense out of women or idiot children. One way or another, at least one of us was going over that side. I took off my hat and scratched my scalp. My thoughts raced as, like a failing litigant in court, I tried to think of some other argument that would turn things in my favour. But nothing came.
‘Wilfred,’ I asked, ‘can you tell me what is going on ashore?’
‘There is a boatload of armed men setting out,’ he said.
Interesting, I thought, and potentially useful. I’d said that something always turned up. Perhaps it just had. Without being able to see more than a blur at this distance, I couldn’t tell how many armed men there were. From the manner of the crew, however, I could guess they weren’t enough to raise any alarm here. I thought hard again. I shrugged. I turned and pointed at the more presently alarming crew members.
‘I want you all below,’ I said firmly. ‘I want just three of you on deck when that thing comes in hailing distance. You will treat me with exaggerated respect.’
‘The boy stays with us,’ the man at the front said. ‘We give you until dusk.’
‘You are under arrest,’ the senior official rasped at me in Latin as the little boat docked. ‘You will order your crew to surrender.’
‘On the contrary,’ I replied in Greek, as smoothly as my remaining teeth would allow, ‘you will send news to His Excellency the Prefect that I should be received with all respect due to the Emperor’s servant.’
He looked down at the shrivelled creature swathed in dirty rags who’d addressed him from the boat. His mouth fell open.
‘You will also provide me with a covered carrying chair. I don’t at all fancy those stairs up to the main square.’
As I’d half expected, Cartenna was largely derelict. With the decline of population, it’s much the same everywhere in Africa. All the buildings on the west side of the main square were already in ruins. On the other three sides, they were, so far as I could tell, mostly empty. There were a few stalls set out to sell food, and there was a weak apology for a slave market in progress. I could see a couple of naked, half-dead blacks prodded into dancing by the Berbers who’d brought them in for sale. No one was bidding for them. No one seemed to notice they were for sale. About a dozen children played in the dust. There were a few looks in my direction as I was carried past. No doubt, the big and decidedly odd ship moored outside the harbour had been the main talking point in town. There didn’t seem to be enough people for a mob of the curious to gather round me. But there were curious looks. I sat in my chair, trying to pretend I looked other than an old beggar. The smells were comforting, though – the familiar mix of early flowering shrubs and of broken sewers.
‘Who are you, that you presume to dirty our waters with your presence?’ the Prefect asked in laboured Greek. ‘This is a peaceful place. We’ll have no trouble here.’
From his accent and his faintly Germanic appearance, I guessed he was a local man. He was also very young. If he was twenty, I’d have been surprised. This had its advantages. A sharp little Greek seconded from somewhere that mattered might have been more sceptical. The hall of audience had been piled high with smashed furniture, so I was being received in the man’s office. I pointed at the water jug and sat myself unbidden on the other side of his desk. A dark slave looked at the Prefect. There was a moment of uncertainty. Then he nodded. I drained the cup and put my hands together on the stained wood.
‘I am on a mission from the Emperor himself,’ I opened. ‘It brooks no delay.’ I stared into the man’s confused face. Keeping a strongly Greek accent, I switched into Latin and repeated myself. ‘I think you have the Captain of my ship. If so, I need him back at once.’ While the Prefect took this in, I glanced about the room. Plaster had come off the upper reaches of the wall behind him, showing the remains of a mosaic. Over on my left was a filing rack that contained perhaps a dozen dust-covered circular letters. With a little shock, I found myself looking at the icon of the Emperor. This wasn’t in its proper place on an easel beside him. It was instead propped against the far wall.
So, Constantine is out! I thought. Imperial images are never true to life, and the face that looked stiffly back at me might have been of almost anyone. But it wasn’t of Constantine: I’d commissioned that portrait myself. Most likely, this one was of his boy, Justinian. He must now be only seventeen, I calculated. Still, he was no fool. More to the point, unless all his tutors had been changed after my fall, he’d not be so hostile as his father had been to finishing off the old nobility and handing out their land to the people who actually defended the Empire.
‘The Augustus Justinian is not a man who tolerates interference in his business,’ I said with more confidence. ‘You have held me up outside your harbour for an entire day. Do therefore release my men and ensure that we have the supplies needed for an immediate departure.’
The Prefect glanced uncertainly at his secretary, who pulled a face and shrugged. I didn’t like the look of him. He was probably a Greek. Though not bloated, he might have been a eunuch. His face streamed suspicion. There was a long silence as they looked at each other. While I drank again, the secretary scribbled a note and brushed it in front of the Prefect. He read it and sat in silence a while longer.
‘Your orders,’ he said eventually. ‘I shall need to see your orders.’ I could feel the tremor going out of my hands. Whatever else he’d been made to say, at least Edward hadn’t shared anything material in Cartenna.
‘My orders are here,’ I said haughtily, tapping my head. ‘Your orders are to follow my instructions without further question.’
There was another long silence. I sat placidly while the Prefect stared at nothing in particular and his secretary scratched away at another note.
‘Your name at any rate,’ he stammered.
‘There is no need for you to know that,’ I said. I had turned over various possibilities. Leontius of Smyrna had seemed a good idea before I’d seen the Imperial icon. But when a new emperor comes in, you never know what names might have found their way on to the list of the purged. I’d been out of things too long. Who could tell if some Leontius wasn’t on the list that would have been transmitted to every provincial authority? I glanced again at the filing rack. If any of those circular letters had been consulted in a year, I’d have been surprised. I looked up at the tatty, smoke-darkened ceiling. I gave a bored yawn and looked at my fingernails. I’d forgotten how shameful they were and put my hands hurriedly down.
‘Look, my dear young fellow,’ I drawled, ‘there really are just two possibilities. One is that I’m a pirate chief masquerading as a rather aged Greek of the higher classes. The other is that I’m telling the truth. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is the case. But please don’t spend too long about it. The Saracens are planning a raid on your city. Only I can stop this.’