‘And don’t forget, dear boy – I did save your life.’
I shifted position to steady myself as the ship moved slightly. Overhead, the sailors were now padding about on the masts. Far below, there was a tightening of the drum beat to keep the slaves rowing in time. I heard the lash used a few times and a muffled scream. I stared down at the shivering wreck that Priscus had become the moment Alexandria dropped below the horizon.
‘My own recollection, dear friend, is that you got me out of one scrape that you wholly engineered, and chose not to murder me in Soteropolis when you’d decided I might be more useful alive than dead. Unless there are facts about our doings in the south that still haven’t come to my attention, saving my life is the last description I could make of your behaviour.’ I stared pitilessly down at Priscus.
Of course, none of this was relevant. We’d feed Heraclius a version of the truth so tarted up, it would amount in places to a pack of lies. But however incredible it might sound in places, none of it could be properly shaken so long as we both swore to its truth and didn’t try bitching behind each other’s back. Because he was the Emperor’s cousin, there was a limit to what we could say openly about him. But we’d left Nicetas behind in Alexandria. It therefore stood to reason that everything was his fault. He was the one who’d let the mob get out of hand. He was the one who’d ensured there had to be twenty thousand bodies rotting in mass graves outside Alexandria, and a heap of burned-out ruins in much of the centre. He was the one who’d abandoned Upper Egypt to the Brotherhood, and who’d failed to stop the Persians from coming close to stealing the whole country from us. Certainly, he was the one who’d blocked the land reform law all the time I’d been there to get it implemented; and it was he who’d cancelled the implementation warrants Priscus had sealed in his own moment of power. We’d get the man recalled in well-merited disgrace – though not before we’d done a thorough job of shuffling our own failures on to his shoulders.
I was searching for something friendly to say when Martin came on deck. Like Priscus, he wasn’t taking the voyage particularly well. He clutched at the doorway that led into the cavernous depths of the ship and, with a look up at what he plainly still thought the blistering sun, adjusted the two-foot brim of his hat.
‘The cook is asking if you’d like boiled chicken for lunch,’ he said. ‘Since we’ll be putting into Cyprus before long, he suggests we might as well finish the Alexandrian supplies.’
I nodded. Now the subject was mentioned, I was feeling rather peckish. Ducking and diving to avoid the motions of fifty heavy oars was all the exercise a man could need. And it had set me up nicely for lunch. Priscus forgotten, I looked round for the cup bearer. Priscus, though, wasn’t to be forgotten. He dragged himself upright and took a tight grip on the rail.
‘Ah, little Martin,’ he cried with an attempt at jollity, ‘I see the bandage is off.’
Martin put up a hand to where his left ear had been before it suited Priscus to have it sliced off. ‘I thank My Lord for his concern,’ he said stiffly. ‘And I am most grateful for the recommendation of the man in Constantinople who can fit a leather prosthesis.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ Priscus said, now almost cheerful. ‘Indeed, you could go for a ginger wig as well. That would hide the baldness as well as the retaining straps.’ He took a step forward. But there was another slight pitch as the wind shifted direction, and he was back with both hands clamped on the rail. ‘How did you manage the sea crossing from Ireland?’ he asked.
I looked at the sorry couple and sniffed at the smell that was drifting up from the kitchens. It was a question I’d thought of asking – but, in deference to Martin’s reluctance to talk about his past, hadn’t. There was a feeble mutter about how he’d been too young to be troubled by the mountainous waves of the ocean that swelled and raged at the ‘edges of the world’. But Priscus wasn’t listening.
‘Is it true,’ he asked, with a change of tone, ‘that the Irish are the Britons who could swim when young Alaric’s ancestors turned up to steal their country? If so, could we describe the remaining Britons as the Irish who couldn’t swim?’
Under the comical brim of his hat, I could see Martin’s face flush so that the freckles all but disappeared. I had the first few words out of a sneer at the modern Greeks, when there was a shout from overhead.
‘Ship on the starboard bow!’
By the time we’d worked out which way to look, it was above our own horizon.
‘A trading ship,’ I ventured.
‘Too small,’ said Priscus. ‘Pirates more likely.’ He took both hands off the rail for a moment and looked almost cheerful.
Martin sat heavily on the vacated coil of ropes and looked set to cry. But the Captain was now at hand.
‘I think My Lords will find that it is an Imperial dispatch vessel,’ he said.
I squinted and looked hard across the bright waters. How anyone could tell what it was at this distance defeated me. But I was willing to take the Captain’s word.
‘It’s coming our way,’ he added.
Priscus looked again at the seal on the letter – as if the thing weren’t unquestionably genuine.
‘What I’d like to know,’ I said, replying to his own question, ‘is how Heraclius could have known we were travelling together by sea. We must surely have outrun the fastest messenger from Alexandria. And then there’s the matter of getting an intercept from Constantinople to Cyprus.’
Priscus scowled. ‘That’s the fucking least of it,’ he said bitterly. ‘You really should know by now never to ask how an emperor gets his information.’ He dropped his voice and led me away from the stiff Syrian who’d presented the document written all over in purple and gold. It may be one of those irrelevant details that stick in the memory, but I’d noticed how well it went with my official robes. ‘What I can’t handle is the substance of the orders. Where civilians like you get sent is of no importance. No – the further you are from Constantinople, the less alarming are the “reform” laws Heraclius publishes. But I do have a war to fight. I’ve business in Constantinople that can’t wait. It may please you to be sent there – though I do assure you, it’s a shitty little town far below its reputation. But I’ve better uses of my time than inspecting the defences of Ath…’
Chapter 6
Jarrow, Friday, 10th January 688
Well, my dear Reader, where do I start again? It’s over a year since I last handled the thin pile of manuscript on which I must now again set to work. My writing table has an unfamiliar feel about it. The chair seems to be at the wrong height. The candle smells fatty. Do I overlook all that has happened this year, and go back to the comfortable, if not always creditable, certainties of my youth? Or do I set out on what may be the still open issues of the present?
But come now – put in these terms, what choice is there? Interesting as it is, the story of heresy and perhaps ghostly blood-drinking in the Athens of my youth can wait. In its place, let us have the reasons why what, last year, were my most familiar things have become strangers to me. And so, let me close my eyes and wait for the quarter opium pill I’ve taken to have its effect. When I open them again, let me guide my pen over the wondrously smooth papyrus, boxes of which fill this room; and let me put aside the little matter of the oath of silence that all concerned have been required to swear on the Gospels.
I begin around noon on the day that follows my last entry. My first recollection is of lying slumped over my writing table. My pen, still clamped between chilled fingers, had poked a hole in the papyrus.