He coughed again. More blood. His face turned an ashen colour as his lips described the word ‘right’. I took hold of him and held him during his last violent spasm.
Martin pulled the robe over his face as I drained the water jug.
‘I should have been here,’ I said flatly. ‘I could have kept Priscus out.’ I imagined Priscus holding up Maximin to see the work of butchery against the only family he’d known. I could see the look on the man’s face and hear the triumph in his voice as he took possession of his alienated property.
He hadn’t killed Maximin. That much was certain. If the child’s body wasn’t here, it was repossession that Priscus had in mind. He’d thrown Maximin out before changing sides. Once he had changed sides, he’d needed another son and heir.
I shook my head to try and get it to focus on the immediate present.
‘I could have instructed the officials not to open up,’ I said in elaboration.
‘No,’ said Martin. ‘You’d have ended like Radogast. If Priscus hadn’t been let in, he’d only have broken in. Whatever else you may have done or not done today, you couldn’t have prevented this.’
He stood up. He put his hands on my shoulders and steadied me as I began to shake again. Another moment, and I’d have lost control.
‘Aelric, we’ve got to see if anyone is alive in the main Legation, and get the place secured. Come on. We need to find the others.’
We went back into the main hall just as a couple of soldiers Priscus had left behind as guards were returning from the Permanent Legate’s side of the building. One was straining under the weight of the silver crucifix they’d taken from the chapel. Another carried a pile of jewelled icons.
‘Fucking good stuff here, mate,’ one of them began with a drunken wave of his booty. Then he remembered who and where he was, and felt for his sword.
I made short and brutal work of him. Once you’re into a rhythm of killing, it doesn’t greatly matter how tired you are. With the sword-thrust I made into his unprotected throat, he must have been dead before he hit the pavement.
I turned to deal with his colleague, but Martin had got there already. The soldier lay gurgling at his feet, a bronze pen straight through his windpipe. With the look of an avenging angel on his face, Martin stared grimly down at his work. How he had managed to get the better of an armed soldier was as far beyond me as how he’d managed to stand by me throughout the battle without being recognised or killed.
We found the Legation officials and slaves locked in one of the storage houses near the pigsties. We had no keys, but the lock was easy enough to smash from the outside. As they emerged blinking into the light, they confirmed what we had already guessed. Priscus had arrived on regular form but once in the Legation he had gone wild. The fact that he’d locked them up rather than killed them showed that he hadn’t forgotten everything about Papal immunity, even under the influence of those shitty drugs.
Another reason to suppose Maximin was safe.
Martin took control of the Legation staff. He ordered the gates to be secured and had the bodies taken away to be prepared for a decent burial. He even set some of the slaves about cleaning the blood off the floors of our suite and righting the furniture. I could hear him scolding them as I sat in the lead bath and had warm water splashed over me.
‘We’ll get out of here once it’s dark and you’ve had something like a rest,’ he’d snapped before pushing me into the bath. ‘For the moment, I’m assuming Heraclius has more to do than come looking for you here. We both need to get clean and change into different clothes. Stay here until I come for you. I’ll get as much money as I can lay hands on. I don’t suppose your parchment money will be worth anything after today. I can’t say any good has ever come of it,’ he’d added with a glance that managed to express his contempt of the financial world.
By the time we were dressed in clean but inconspicuous clothes, it was turning dark. Against my will, I’d dozed a long while in the bath which the Legation slaves had kept topped up with warm water. I emerged from the bath less exhausted than when I’d gone in, but was now beginning to ache all over from the strain of of the day’s fighting.
After we’d eaten with the Legation staff – not a cheerful meal, but a good solid dish of pork sausage and stale bread, all washed down with beer – I was beginning to feel more like my usual self.
‘I have to kill Priscus,’ I said to Martin as we went back upstairs to my office. ‘I can’t save Maximin from him in any other way. I need to get close enough to him to get a knife into his throat.’
I looked round the office. Order had been restored. It was as if nothing had happened. I could almost imagine that I heard Gutrune’s heavy tread on the boards outside as she went to attend to Maximin.
The Legation officials and slaves continued to act as if there had been no change in my status because they had no leadership to tell them otherwise. They were even sending up trays of wine and warm fruit juice for us.
But everything had changed irrevocably. Whatever I might be doing tomorrow evening, I would not be sitting here. I could no longer regard any of these things as mine.
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Martin told me. ‘You’ll remember that you have a natural child and a woman waiting for you in Rome. If you’ve lost Maximin, you must take it as the Will of God – “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away”,’ he quoted piously.
‘I’ve been thinking hard about what must be done. I think I can get Maximin back in my own way. Don’t ask me how. I will get the child back or die in the attempt. But, remember – God is with us.’
I looked at him, but said nothing.
‘I’m going out shortly,’ he continued. ‘I want you to sleep for a while. I’ll have you woken later this evening. Then I want you to make your way to that monastery Theophanes told you about. If we don’t meet there, I’m sure you know how to get yourself out of the City. Prayers aren’t your thing, I know. But do speak well of me in the Lateran when you see the Dispensator. Do tell him I did my duty in the end. And do please talk to my wife. Sveta really does like you.’
He stood and walked quickly from the room. Before I could call after him, he was already pulling to the shattered door at the bottom of the stairs.
If Martin thought I could just lie placidly back and sleep, he was a proper fool. At the very least, I was staying here on borrowed time. How long before there was a price on my head and people came looking in the most obvious place? Perhaps because it was the most obvious I’d so far been left alone. But every additional moment here brought the danger closer of an official knock on the main gate.
I was no longer Acting Permanent Legate. Whatever residual immunity I might have had as a servant of the Church had gone when Phocas put me in charge of the City’s defence. Having been hailed as Emperor by some of the Blues had surely put the lid on things.
It was time to make a getaway. I’d go and see if there was any safety to be had in the monastery by the Pantocrator Church. If there was, I’d consider what might be the best way to get even with Priscus.
Before leaving, I changed my clothing again and took a couple of the stimulants that Theophanes had left with me the day before yesterday for just such a moment. After the bath, I wasn’t feeling as tired as I knew I ought to be, but that might change. Theophanes had told me the pills would have a gradual effect – nothing like the drugs Priscus used.
Then I took one last tour of my suite. Every inhabited room had its memories. Here was where I’d first set eyes on Maximin. Here was where Authari and I had got Martin so drunk that he’d consented to show us a Celtic dance and tripped over a chair. Here was where I’d entertained my whores. Here was where I’d sat long into the evening talking in English to Maximin about the life he’d have as my son.
No one was watching me so it hardly mattered if I blubbed uncontrollably as I took my leave of a home that had been so sweet to me. I gently forced the door back into its closed position at the bottom of the stairs. I kissed it reverently, then I turned and stepped alone into the main hall.