Martin knocked and entered. The baggage we’d managed to bring with us was now arranged, he said, but there was no sign of our main luggage from Rome. Also, the lack of any food was now pressing. Should he try to rouse the Legation slaves? Or should he send out for a takeaway? Our own slaves were famished.
Now that I thought about it, so was I.
‘Do arrange for a takeaway,’ I said. ‘I’ll eat here alone. Do also try to get some better wine than this stuff. It smells of pine needles. Something red and rich, if you can get it.’
I reached across the desk. ‘Here’s a letter for you,’ I added. ‘I imagine it’s from Sveta. Do send her my greetings in your reply.’
Martin’s face paled as he looked at the scrawled writing on the outside.
‘Do cheer up,’ I said with an attempt at jollity. ‘She can’t go at you with a knife at this distance!’
Outside the room, I heard Martin try again at giving orders to Authari. It was only a matter of time before he made a right fool of himself. I took up the jug and went on to the balcony. For what seemed an age, I stood and watched the flowers turn pale against the gloom that gathered round them.
7
‘Thank you, but I have washed already,’ said Martin, peering dubiously into the water.
It was late the next morning, and a bath and quite a passable wank had done for my hangover.
‘Besides,’ he added, ‘I thought you said there was a steam room and all.’
‘Well, it’s all bleedin’ broke, innit?’ Authari rasped at him from the other side of the lead tub he’d eventually managed to find enough hot water to fill. You could have opened a wine shop with the fumes from what else he’d managed to find. Another moment, and he’d forget who was slave and who freedman.
‘Indeed,’ I said, rising hastily from the water. ‘Authari assures me that any attempt to light the furnace would cause an explosion. This will be a temporary arrangement. I have no doubt His Excellency will advise on how to proceed with engineers.’
Once he’d patted me dry, I sent Authari to sit on the other side of the bathhouse door.
‘Oh, come on, Martin,’ I urged, now we were alone. ‘Those streets must be baking.’
I looked away as he undressed. It was hardly his fault he’d once been a slave. But it was his business if he didn’t care to show off the white scars on his back.
‘I didn’t think to go far from the Legation,’ he said, easing himself into the now cool water. ‘Since we haven’t any papers yet, I thought it was best to keep to the market before the Great Church. I managed to get nearly everything on your list.’
I sat down beside him and asked what he’d found out from the stallholders. As I pumiced at my legs, he spoke in a whispered and very slow Celtic I could just understand from my days among the bandits on the Wessex borders.
He hadn’t that much to say. No one in the streets had been inclined to pour out his innermost thoughts to strangers – not at a time like this. The mood out there, he said, was ugly beyond anything he’d ever known. All business was winding down, and the loss of Egypt to Heraclius meant questions over the free distribution of bread to the poor.
‘Have you managed to pick up any information about our Most Noble Host?’ I asked, stretching my legs.
Martin looked away from me and over to some mosaics of life in an Eastern city. He reached into the water to scrub his feet.
‘I bumped into one of those officials as I came back into the Legation.’
‘You mean Demetrius?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Martin. ‘That’s the Armenian – or so I think he must be. The one I met is called Antony. He at least is a Greek, though from Nicaea across the Straits. I believe he’s some kind of lawyer. Even so, he was quite friendly.
‘He told me that he and the entire household, slaves and all, were brought in last month after the regulars were sent off to Ephesus. The only one of the regulars the Permanent Legate kept on was Demetrius, and Demetrius is the only one he’ll see. Absolutely everything goes through Demetrius.’
Martin swallowed and shifted to wipe some splashed water off his face. ‘His Excellency, I am told, takes offence at the alleged need for an unordained barbarian too young for a beard to come all the way from Rome for a mission he believes himself quite capable of doing by himself.
‘Besides, all correct procedure has been set aside in this case. The Dispensator has sent us over here without consulting with the Permanent Legate. The only formal notification, apparently, was a letter sent through the Master of the Offices.’
I stared at Martin. There was no point in trying to look surprised. The Dispensator never made mistakes. I doubted if he broke wind without a stratagem.
‘The further instructions I’ve had from Rome’, I said flatly, ‘will keep us here a month at least. Whatever point we could have made about the Spanish stuff is now redundant.’
Martin’s face sagged as I explained about the heresy in Ravenna. He looked down again at the water. Then, in a slow voice:
‘My letter from home you gave me last night – the seal was lifted and replaced. There were scorch marks on the back. Had all your stuff been read and checked for secret writing?’
‘Yes,’ I said. We sat a while in silence.
‘Tell me about the old eunuch,’ I said. ‘Who is Theophanes?’ I spoke more to break the silence. I didn’t want Martin to think I had no control at all over our circumstances.
He wiped what little remained of his fringe from his eyes and leaned forward, dropping his voice even lower.
‘Since he’s with the Master of the Offices, he may be head of the security services. For people of his rank, though, formal status is only a matter of convenience. If he doesn’t report directly to the Emperor, I’ll be surprised.’
Martin’s voice took on a quoting tone: ‘The only settled passions in the eunuch heart are avarice and revenge.’ He paused, then in a more natural tone: ‘Whatever he wants, we give him. But we don’t fall for any of his charming ways.’
We fell silent again. Once dressed, I’d go through the motions of paying my respects to the Permanent Legate.
‘All right,’ I said at last. There was no point in pretending. ‘It’s Pavia all over again. And I suppose it’s my fault, at least indirectly, for getting you here.’
‘Forget Pavia!’ said Martin with a failed attempt at lightness. ‘We had clear instructions for that. This is wholly different. Your Spanish instructions were an obvious ruse. The Ravenna business came up after we’d left. We’ve been sent here for reasons unspecified. We are now stuck here as pieces in a diplomatic game played far above our heads. His Excellency has withdrawn from all official business so long as we remain in the city. The Emperor’s messengers call every other day. They go back unreceived.’
‘Then, I suppose we just wait on events,’ I said. ‘What the Dispensator actually wants of us will no doubt be revealed in time. For the moment, we carry on as if we hadn’t noticed anything odd – and look around for means of a quick getaway if things turn horrid.’
‘You can forget thoughts of escape,’ Martin replied with flat bitterness. ‘Getting back from Pavia to Papal territory was nothing compared with this. You can’t get across the city without the right stamp on your permit – let alone get out of it. And you can bet that, long after there’s no bread in the shops, the old eunuch and his police will be grinding away like a watermill.
‘I don’t like this place,’ he whispered, now in Latin. ‘I never asked to be sent back here. I know my duties, but I shan’t rest easy until we see Naples again – if we see Naples again. Let us praise God that our families are safe.’