‘I’ve just heard you were back here,’ a voice called in good Latin from the far end of the hall. ‘I must say you have a nerve polluting my Legation with your blasphemous and now treasonable pres ence.’
I strained in the gloom of the lamps to see who it was. He was standing by the main gate and had evidently been talking to the doorkeepers.
Was I surprised? Was I shocked? Not really.
‘Welcome back, Demetrius,’ I replied – ‘or rather, welcome back, Your Excellency Silas. As I’m now of senatorial rank, and still haven’t been formally relieved of my command, you’ll surely not complain if I neglect to bow to you.’
61
Silas the Permanent Legate didn’t look at all pleased as he inspected the wreckage of his private office.
‘Four days out of the building’, he sniffed, ‘and I come back to find it looking worse than the chaos in the streets outside.’
He picked up an overturned chair and sat down. Somehow, he’d dug out one of his official robes from the chaos of his wardrobe. This was the less grand of the two he’d had for public occasions. The grander one I’d sent off as a model to the tailors.
Now that he’d cast off the stooping, arrogant servility that had been Demetrius, he looked every inch a senior dignitary of the Roman Church. And note my adjective – Roman. Compared with the officials of the Greek Church, he was like a senator among clerks. Silas wasn’t some trash who’d done well through penances or fake miracles, or even hard learning. He was old Roman nobility. He knew it, and he expected everyone else to know it without being told.
I perched on the edge of his desk and looked at my fingernails. I’d managed to get most of the blood out from under them, but they’d need a good polishing before I could be seen again in polite company.
‘I never did manage to explain’, I said, speaking slowly, ‘why there was no one but Demetrius here who’d seen the Permanent Legate – why the whole staff of the Legation was replaced before I arrived. It never crossed my mind that you and Demetrius were one and the same person.
‘Of course,’ I went on, ‘now I know that you and Demetrius are one, I think I can explain everything – or nearly everything.’
‘Go on then.’ Silas gave me a haughty look. ‘Let us see if you are really as bright as they say – and not only renowned for violence and low debauchery.’
I ignored the jibe and continued: ‘I discovered a long time ago that you and Phocas were in this together. You were working together through Theophanes. You didn’t arrange with Rome to get me here as an excuse for withdrawing from contact with the Imperial Court. It was arranged between the three of you as an excuse for getting you out of public sight.
‘You weren’t avoiding Phocas. You were scared of Heraclius – that he’d have you murdered before you could broker a deal between Phocas and the Pope. It was just made to look as if you were out of sorts with Rome.
‘Things changed when Theophanes arrived back in the city. He knew Priscus had been ordered to have you killed one way or the other. He couldn’t stop an attempt on your life but he did arrange things to make the attempt look successful.
‘He intercepted the killer that Priscus sent after you and directed him to my rooms. He did so knowing I’d finish the killer off and probably keep quiet about it. At the same time, you and Theophanes arranged your own fake murder. I was racking my brains about the double coincidence of murder attempts in the Legation. But all Heraclius and Priscus knew was that someone had been sent to kill the Permanent Legate, and the Permanent Legate was now dead.
‘By the way,’ I asked suddenly, ‘whose body was that in your bedroom? It wasn’t yours.’
Silas wrinkled his nose. ‘How should I know?’ he said. ‘Why should I care? It was provided by Theophanes – and a creature in his position can always lay hands on a body when it’s needed. This whole plot was his idea. I thought it was all far too elaborate. But I suppose that’s what you get from Oriental eunuchs.’
He shrugged. ‘Theophanes came up with the idea of the locked-room mystery,’ he went on. ‘He expected Priscus would be appointed chief investigator of the “death”. That would keep him busy, but utterly in the dark. It was also useful to cast a certain ambiguity over the time of the murder. The body wasn’t that fresh, you see. We covered it in pig’s blood to disguise this but a medical inspection would have raised awkward questions.
‘The Emperor put you in charge of the investigation because he didn’t think we could get rid of the body before Priscus arrived. Priscus, you see, knew me well enough to see at once that the body wasn’t mine. That would have split everything wide open. The old eunuch said you were dangerously competent and suggested removing the head, but Phocas and I agreed otherwise.
‘Having you appointed to my own position and wearing my robe was the Emperor’s idea as well. He said you would provide a convenient target for Priscus and Heraclius. If they were hard at work on trying to get you, they might not bother looking for holes in the account of my own alleged murder.’
‘And that’s why you killed Authari, isn’t it?’ I asked quietly. ‘Priscus arrived before you expected he’d be out of bed. You had to move quickly. Authari was guarding the body. So you killed him. Did you do it with your own hands?’
‘Most certainly!’ Silas said with pride. He got up and stood before me, his neck pushed out, a leer on his face. Without cosmetics or wig or any change of costume, he was Demetrius again. An artist would have seen through the pretence immediately. Most other people, who are more concerned with the endless small accidentals of expression, would never have noticed the unchanged substance of underlying features.
‘The Master sends word that you’ll be needed here a while yet,’ he rasped in the common Latin of Demetrius. ‘But he also sends a cup of wine to keep you company – good red wine, thickened with something special.’ He held out an imaginary cup to an imaginary figure sitting against the wall, then turned back with a complacent smile and sat down again. It was a fascinating if repulsive transformation.
I wanted to kill the bastard on the spot. More than that, though, I wanted the truth.
‘Who helped you remove the body?’ I asked. I already knew the answer but it might be useful to have it confirmed.
‘Wouldn’t you just like to know?’ Silas answered with another gloat. ‘I’d like to see you try bringing him to justice.’ He rearranged his features and became the Permanent Legate again.
‘Oh, and a word of advice, my little Alaric – I hear you’ve been unlucky these past few days with your attempts at freeing slaves. Well, if you put honey on shit, it’s still shit. You really should bear in mind that God Almighty made us all and set each in his place. It doesn’t do to try altering His Dispositions.’
I’d have the truth out of him before we were finished. For the moment, I chose to ignore a vulgarity of expression unbecoming his station. I moved on to another question, one he was willing to answer.
‘I know you got out of the Legation dressed as a monk,’ I said. ‘I guessed the Emperor had you put up in the Monastery of St John Chrysostom.’
‘Theophanes told me you and Priscus were pressing for a search warrant,’ Silas answered. He stood up and began digging through his leather bag. He pulled out various items of toiletry. One of these was a little bronze mirror I’d bought back in July and lost almost immediately. afterwards – that was before Authari had closed my suite to outsiders. Was he doing this to annoy? Or did he just assume that anything in the Legation was his property?
‘That was why Phocas tried to have me done away with the other night, wasn’t it?’ I asked, pulling myself back to the subject in hand. ‘But can you tell me why he didn’t just have me killed when he still had the power? Why go through the farce of appointing me head of the city defences?’