The Ghosts of Athens (32 page)

He left off his nervous inspection of the few passers-by on the road and nodded.

‘Well,’ I went on with the artificial brightness of a man who needs to jolly someone out of total funk, ‘I tried to play it yesterday on the Acropolis. Then, worse luck, I had Priscus beside me, and it didn’t quite work. Here’s a fine place for the game, though – don’t you agree?’

I got another abstracted nod, and took this as an assent.

‘The monument would have gone up after the Spartans had been eased out and the Long Walls were being rebuilt. So far as I can tell, the city walls then would have been about a hundred yards back along the road, rather than their present quarter mile. If you looked back, you’d surely have seen scaffolding on some of the Acropolis buildings, and their marble, if still unpainted, would have shone much whiter than it does now. The crowd here must have included Plato. Xenophon too might have been here – or would he then have been in exile? I can’t remember the dates.’

Martin opened his mouth, and I waited for some authoritative correction. Instead, he fell back into glumness.

‘Everything back then would have been fresh,’ I pressed on. ‘All the words spoken would have been in a natural and unlaboured Greek – neither the gibberish of the modern locals, nor the stilted and almost paranoid Attic of the educated moderns. Wouldn’t it be a grand thing to speak a civilised language that was also natural? Try to imagine your Celtic or my English, but able to express all the subtleties of Greek. Native fluency in a perfect language: hardly surprising, wouldn’t you agree, that the ancients excel the moderns in all composition – indeed, in all thought?’

No answer.

‘What would have been most different, however, was the
spirit
of those gathered here.’

That got me one of Martin’s pained looks. He turned and, taking care not to trip over one of the ruts left by a thousand years of cartwheels, walked diagonally across the road. He knelt before a very recent shrine and raised both arms in silent prayer. I stood behind him and waited for his devotional fit to pass.

‘I’ve been thinking about the locals,’ I said.

Martin didn’t look round.

‘Let me put this to you. We know that all animals have more young than survive to maturity. This includes human animals. We can suppose that those who do survive are better fitted to their surroundings than those who don’t. We can further suppose random variations in every generation – sometimes deformities and weaknesses, sometimes improvements that mean better chances of survival and reproduction. Granting that people show some resemblance to their parents, we may conclude a gradual adaptation of whole groups to their circumstances.’

Martin did now look round. ‘And how does this fit in with the known story of creation?’ he asked in a low mumble. ‘Every form that God created in the first six days he surely fixed until Judgement Day.’

Another hypothesis, I thought, not for setting down in writing. I smiled reassuringly. ‘It is as you say,’ I replied. ‘However, since the lower classes we’ve seen shuffling about Athens bear no resemblance to the ancients or to any barbarian race we know to have passed by in the past few centuries, it’s worth asking if these people are an adaptation to changed circumstances. Adaptations can surely be degenerations as well as improvements. Let us assume that heavy taxes and a drift of the more able into distant military service or the Church . . .’

I trailed off. Martin had gone back to his long prayer. I heard a dry cough behind me. I turned and looked at the Dispensator. He’d now put on his best robes and a hat with a very wide brim. ‘You really didn’t need to come out with us,’ I said. ‘Once I’d got her inside the walls, it was my intention to give the child over for burial.’ I could have asked what had taken him so long. I must have read every inscription five times as I stood here in the sun. But I didn’t ask.

‘Your voice carries far along this road,’ the Dispensator said in his chilliest, most disapproving voice. ‘It is fortunate you speak in Latin, and there are so few in any event to hear your bold speculations.’

I shrugged.

He looked at the Euripides monument. ‘I take it this is the grave of someone from the famous past?’

I nodded.

‘Well, if I lack your ability to read these men in their own language, I will remind you that their minds were no more “rational” than those of the moderns. They were both bloody and superstitious. Even if you choose to mock it, the Christian Faith is an improvement on what they believed. A single, omnipotent God the Creator is less childish than the ludicrous pantheon of the Old Faith. You know that Plato believed all manner of nonsense, and his preaching of reason only served to promote deliberately muddy thinking among his followers.’

I smiled and suggested that we might start about our business, now we were all together.

But the Dispensator stepped closer to the monument and traced a few words of the inscription with his forefinger. I saw a faint movement of his lips – whether of recognition or disapproval I couldn’t say. But the name Euripides is much the same in Latin and Greek characters, and it was repeated in many grammatical forms. He sniffed and stood back. He now stared thoughtfully at Martin, who had stood up for a respectful bow. ‘Even if they hadn’t rejected Him,’ he said, ‘Christ wasn’t sent for the Jews. He wasn’t sent for the Greeks and Romans. He came as Messenger for a universal faith. And, whether or not you like His message, you are still one of its beneficiaries. You’re a barbarian, Alaric.’ I tried not to frown. ‘A good head and an eye for the main chance have got you further than I’d ever have supposed when you first presented yourself in my office. But you’re a barbarian –
Aelric
,’ he said, relishing the difficulty of sounding my real name. ‘A thousand years ago, neither learning nor intellectual brilliance would have let you cross the line these people drew around themselves. My own ancestors – may God eventually take mercy on their damned souls – might have granted you citizenship, and then forgotten your origins for the sake of your grandsons. So far as
these
ancients were concerned, you would at best have been a beautiful but inferior object of use. It is Christ, and Christ only, who has blurred what otherwise would have been an absolute line.’

Anyone else who’d dared say that would already have been picking his teeth off the pavement. But this was the Lord Fortunatus, Dispensator of the Universal Bishop. No – forget the title and office – this was Fortunatus. The Emperor himself would have shrunk before that withering stare. I set my face into a smile and suggested that we might care to make a start.

‘My own very words,’ he replied. He stared at the scowling, dark little men who’d followed him out of Athens. He frowned and looked back at me. ‘You will forgive my lateness,’ he said with icy control. ‘The one person in the monastery where I have been lodged who speaks Latin was absent. On his return, he answered my request with an impertinence that has caused both him and my secretary to retire to bed for the day.’

No answer needed to that, nor possible. His walking staff clicking on the stones as he kept pace with me, we set out along the road.

It was undeniably a cheerful day. Birds twittered. A breeze sighed gently in the bushes. I could feel the sun making its way through my clothing. There weren’t many others on the road. But these were all monks or from the better classes, who had largely avoided the degeneration of the rabble. Some of these latter, it was pretty clear, were of barbarian stock. Still, no one recognised me. A few took note of the Dispensator, and bowed to him. Our previous journey along a silent, fog-bound road might have been in a different world. Even if Martin weren’t dragging his own personal cloud a few yards behind us, it would have been nice to walk the whole distance to Piraeus and back. The monuments had much to commend them. It might also have been interesting to sit on the old docks, looking across the bay to Salamis.

But it wasn’t for a stroll in the sun that we’d left the walls of Athens far behind. In bright sunshine, the tomb of Hierocles was much closer than it had seemed two days before. With a muttered apology to the Dispensator, I hurried over the last few dozen yards towards it. Everyone else could follow along at his own pace. Bearing in mind the ghastly, rotting thing that awaited us, it was worth getting this whole business out of the way as quickly as possible.

I heard his faint panting as Martin caught up with me. ‘Priscus was with us when she must have been killed,’ he said. ‘How do you suppose he can be an accomplice to murder?’

I sighed and kicked a stone along the road. This time, there was no mournful echo of its skipping. It made a bright, cheerful sound and sent up a little cloud of dust. ‘Oh, Martin,’ I said, ‘let’s go through this. Priscus knows Nicephorus from his previous visit here. Balthazar spoke of “outrages”. I’ll guess that Priscus tried his own hand at magic in the past. He had nothing to do with this particular outrage. But we may get an accusation out of Nicephorus that allows an arrest. At the worst, I can induce Priscus to a greater prudence in his dealing with our clerical friends.’ I looked at him. He’d not taken off hat or cloak, and was sweating with heat and exertion. His face was taking on the strained look that suggested he was about to be taken short again by those horrid frogs. ‘The body may be still less pretty than it was,’ I said. ‘Can I tempt you to some of my oil of roses?’ I reached into a leather pouch that hung from my sword belt and took out a stoppered glass bottle. ‘It cost its weight in gold in Alexandria. Let’s see if it was worth it.’

The Dispensator now came up beside us. ‘I have been thinking further about the possibly defective grant to His Holiness that you purported to confirm,’ he said.

Anyone who didn’t know the man already might have assumed that this had just happened to cross his mind. For myself, it was a surprise he’d taken so long to come out with it. I doubted he could have entirely lost sight of it even when giving comfort to poor old Felix.

He actually swallowed and had to wet his lips before continuing. ‘I took the trouble, when he came to see me yesterday evening, of questioning Martin about the precise nature of your authority in Athens.’ He paused and licked very dry lips again. ‘As chance would have it, I did bring a fresh grant out with me from Rome. You will see that it is drawn in exactly the right form according to law. It needs only your own seal—’

I smiled and broke in: ‘Naturally, I shall have to take my own legal advice before I can do anything at all.’ I looked at him from the corner of my eyes. He was now sweating very slightly – and not from the heat. ‘Martin’s opinion is always to be respected. But I do remain a little unsure of my authority. All else aside, if the grant made two years ago should turn out to be valid, we need to consider whether a
second
grant would not simply confuse matters. Can I suggest we wait until the council is over before sitting down to discuss the matter properly?’

I glared Martin into silence and commented on how cheerful the day had turned out. Indeed, it was much improved. I’d walked out of Athens still unsure of myself. Now I was committed to a double arrest, I could appreciate the desperate need for my seal on that very clean sheet of parchment the Dispensator must have been fretting over three times every day since he’d set out from Rome. No one but a fool would have sealed it before the council began. I’d need excellent reason to lift a finger till after the council had finished. I looked up at the sky – still not a cloud in sight.

‘I might add,’ the Dispensator went on, strain evident in his voice, ‘that my summons from the Grand Chamberlain himself did touch on a possible resolution by you in Athens.’

It was my turn to fight for control. I stopped and covered my shock by looking at all that remained of a very old funerary statue. ‘Are you telling me,’ I asked with an unnaturally steady voice, ‘that your summons was sent by His Excellency
Ludinus
?’ Anyone else would have thought nothing of the fact. It is the job of the Grand Chamberlain to correspond with foreign powers on behalf of the Emperor. But Heraclius was the Emperor. Though he’d devolved them straight to me and Sergius, he had taken all religious matters into his own hands on coming to power. Unless there had been a total revolution in Constantinople since I’d left in the spring, it was unthinkable that a eunuch could be summoning delegates to any sort of Church council.

‘I believe the man’s name is Ludinus,’ came the reply in a tone that showed my own mood had been noted. ‘His communication was most gracious, and even friendly. He said more than once that nothing less than my own attendance in person would be satisfactory to the Emperor.’

We covered the last few yards that separated us from the tomb of Hierocles. In proper light, it looked shabby as well as derelict. The Euripides monument looked more recent, though was a good seven centuries older. That’s what you get when money is saved on a funeral. I turned and waved at the monks, who’d been drifting along far behind. I hid every doubt that had crowded suddenly back into my mind – every doubt, and every new prickling fear. ‘Come, dear brothers,’ I cried cheerfully in Greek. ‘There’s sad work to be done. The sooner it’s over, the better.’