The Ghosts of Athens (60 page)

I heard a voice behind me in Latin. ‘Alaric,’ the Dispensator said, ‘I have prayed all night before the relic of Saint George. I am perfectly assured that God will bless our efforts.’

I leaned closer to Sveta. ‘Get enough water into that cellar to last five days,’ I whispered. ‘Take a couple of picks too. If you can make anyone go down there again, have the slaves dig out the blocked exit through the tomb.’

She nodded, then looked steadily back at me.

Before hurrying away, I glanced quickly about. A couple of the slaves had continued clearing rubbish off one of the old lawns. It had no grass, of course, but looked as it if might by the next spring.

The midday hour had come and gone, and still I stood beside Martin, looking in silence from the walls of Athens. One at a time, we’d been joined by what must have been the whole surviving militia, and then by a multitude of grim and hooded monks. At first, the wooden platform had shaken as every new arrival had stepped from the rickety ladder that led up from the cleared ground behind us. By now, there were so many of us that the platform had the deceptive solidity of something that might give way at any moment.

Before the sun was fully up, the nearest gate had opened, and out, all alone, had walked the Dispensator. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Alaric,’ he’d snapped at me before then. ‘Do you suppose your presence will add an ounce of persuasive force? At the very best, you’ll only upset the man.’ And so, with one of his thinnest smiles yet, he’d looked upwards for a guidance that I, of course, didn’t see, and had stepped firmly on to the long Piraeus road. He’d been greeted by a little monk, and, I supposed, by Kollo who’d finally been sobered up to interpret between Greek and Latin and between Latin and whatever the Great Chief might choose to speak for this conference. Ludinus had been nowhere in sight. Perhaps he was somewhere in the dense crowd from which Kutbayan had stepped to greet the Dispensator.

That had been hours before, and the Dispensator was still deep in conversation with Kutbayan, who sat opposite him at a small table that had been brought out and set with wine cups. They sat just out of arrow shot. I could have given orders for one of our working pieces of artillery to be brought over. A volley of six-foot arrows might have got the old monster, and rid the Empire of its most deadly enemy after the Great King of Persia himself. Oh, I might have given these orders and more. But no one would have obeyed me. Without the Dispensator to give them, everyone beside me was taking orders now from the Bishop of Athens. He stood a few yards from my left and looked on without moving. I might be the Emperor’s Legate. Up here, I was just another spectator. Though I’d put on a thin tunic, the clouds were gone, and, with every shift of the breeze, I could feel the chill of sweaty silk as often as it brushed against the small of my back.

There was another burst of laughter from the armed men behind Kutbayan, and another clashing of swords on shields. I squinted to look harder into the sun. Kutbayan himself hadn’t moved, though the Dispensator now stood up and walked a few yards in our direction. He turned back to Kutbayan and raised a hand behind him to point at something above our own heads. There was more clashing of arms. But now Kutbayan was on his feet. I saw him walk forward to the Dispensator and lead him back to the table.

I felt Martin shift slightly. He ran his tongue over very dry lips. ‘Do you remember,’ he whispered, ‘how Pope Leo of sainted memory went out of Rome in ancient times to a conference with King Attila?’ he asked.

I nodded. I could have observed that a century and a half wasn’t quite ancient times. But, with the Emperor safe behind the marshes that stretched far about Ravenna, and the few soldiers left in Italy there to guard him, it had, sure enough, been the Pope who’d gone out to plead with the Huns when nothing else could have stopped them from smashing down the walls of Rome. Whether Saints Peter and Paul really had hovered a few feet above his head, whether it had been threats of hellfire – or whether it had been the mass of gold he’d squeezed out of the Senators – Leo had performed the saving miracle of turning Attila back from Rome. And, since Kutbayan still hadn’t lost his temper and called an end to this conference, it looked pretty much as if the Dispensator was about to repeat the miracle for Athens.

‘At least someone’s had a good time in Athens,’ I sighed when I could think of any reply. Martin looked quizzically at me, and then turned to where something was now definitely happening.

I’d been looking miserably down at what had been the ditch, so had missed the dramatic moment when Kutbayan threw both arms about the Dispensator. But I did look up in time to see the immense crowd part and the pair of them step within it. Arm-in-arm, they walked slowly back towards the now visible tent, and a great roar went up on all sides and spread with gathering volume through the whole of the multitude that surrounded Athens. You can forget the triumphant cheers of a packed Circus in Constantinople. This was far greater. It went on and on – a steady roar of approbation, and little eddies here and there of ecstatic battle cries.

As the two men stepped together into the tent, the noise gradually faded away, and there was a renewed and very long silence. On each side of the wall, we waited and held our silence. For all I could tell of what was going on inside that tent, they might have been eating lunch together. Then, just as I was about to think the tension could last no longer, the tent flaps rose again and they stepped back out. Now, Kutbayan had put off his armour and was dressed in a robe of shimmering purple. He turned back to his nobles and said something that I was too far away to catch. Then a herald appeared beside him and shouted out in Avar. The Dispensator leading him by the hand, Kutbayan took a step towards Athens.

I stood back from the wall and stretched. ‘It’s all agreed,’ I said flatly. I turned to one of the militia leaders. ‘Have the gate opened.’ Without looking in any direction, I raised my voice. ‘Any man who so much as shows a sword,’ I cried, ‘I’ll kill with my own hands.’ I did think of reminding everyone what horrors had now been avoided. But my voice was now lost in another roar that was joined from within the walls of Athens.

‘If she wants to pray in the big church on the hill, that is where she
will
pray.’ Though on his best behaviour, there was an edge in Kutbayan’s voice that didn’t ask for continued objection.

I nodded, and the Dispensator gave another respectful bow.

It was all over now. The grain would be carried out in sacks to the waiting carriages. In the meantime, I was, as agreed, giving Kutbayan a more informative tour of Athens than Nicephorus had managed for me. Keeping him as far as I could from any inspection of the walls, I’d shown him the dye works and the Church of a Thousand Relics. I’d presented every bishop to him who could stand without voiding his bowels. We’d drunk wine in the residency, and I’d let him try the now cleaned-out latrines. At last, we were standing in the shade of what may once have been another memorial to victory in the Persian War.

Kutbayan reached up and touched the lower part of a relief in which some youths were leading a couple of bulls to sacrifice. ‘You seriously tell me,’ he sneered, ‘that a race of naked boys fought off the Great King of Persia?’

‘United under the Great Alexander, the Greeks as a whole conquered the Persians,’ I said, not bothering to keep the pride out of my voice.

His answer was a sniff. Keeping silent, he stood on tiptoe and touched one of the perfectly shaped thighs. Then he turned and looked up at the Acropolis.

‘The priest you sent out did a good job,’ he said at length. ‘But I’d already promised to spare the big church on the hill.’ He looked down at the dark patch in the dust where one of his men had fallen in the attack. He laughed unpleasantly and pushed his face close to mine. ‘I’m given to understand that my men were turned back yesterday by an elderly priest and a stupid boy from a place called England.’

I smiled back nervously. His face was turning an ugly colour, and I hoped desperately Priscus had been wrong about his sense of propriety.

But he laughed a little less unpleasantly, and he looked again at the Acropolis. ‘You know that I was supposed to
take
the food you’ve been good enough to promise?’ he asked, now looking hard into my face.

I resisted the urge to step back. ‘This way, we’ve agreed, we all get something of what we want,’ I said evenly. Of course, we were speaking in Slavic, and the crowd about us could only guess from the tone what was being said. I noticed a few scared looks, but put everyone back at ease by joining in the man’s renewed laughter.

Kutbayan wiped his sweaty brow and looked at the hushed and respectful crowd. These were mostly the militia men, and I hoped they were keeping to the agreement and had left their weapons beside the walls. ‘I suppose we all do get something of what we want,’ he agreed. ‘Even you, Aelric of England, shan’t miss out on the blessings of peace.’ He showed his blackened teeth as I couldn’t resist stiffening at the mention of my real name. The man did have a good memory. I thought he’d had much else on his mind when I’d let the truth slip out in his tent. ‘I’ve sent your fat friend back to King Heraclius,’ he added. He’ll be home long before you get there.’ He stepped out of the sun that had now moved from where it was hiding behind the monument. He blinked for a moment and looked closer still into my face.

Then he relaxed and laughed, now almost pleasantly. ‘Most of him will be back before you,’ he added. He reached into a leather pouch that hung from his neck and pulled out a bundle of stained silk.

I took it from him. The moment I had it in the palm of my hand, I’d guessed what it had to be. But I undid it and stared for a long time at the podgy blue finger. The ring of a Grand Chamberlain was still set into the flesh.

‘If you are at all the man your priest says you are,’ he said, ‘this will put you back into the favour of the worthless effeminate the Greeks have set up as their King.’

And it would. Whatever he might have ordered in private, Heraclius would never admit to sanctioning what, even for an Emperor, amounted to treason and blasphemy. Ludinus couldn’t wriggle free from the blame of having set the Avars on a city that, even now, was holy to every civilised man – a city, mind you, stuffed with bishops, and Western bishops too. I wrapped the finger very carefully and bowed.

He looked up again at the Acropolis. ‘Women always take their time,’ he sighed. ‘But I think I can trust your people to keep her safe. If you want me to lift the siege before this day is out, I have things to do. I’ve had my fill of a city filled at best with worn-out glories. There really is nothing here to burn, and hardly anyone worth killing.’

Just before passing back through the wide-open gate, he stopped for the customary embrace. As was only proper, I had mine after the Dispensator, and mine was considerably less warm. ‘Aelric of England,’ he said, ‘you may think you had the better of me in my tent.’ He smiled and took one of my hands between his own. He stroked the smooth and very soft flesh of my palm. ‘I was aware that you had been taken,’ he said with another smile. ‘I guessed who you were before you even opened your mouth. No Greekling would ever have done anything so utterly mad for his people. You really are wasted among them. Come and see me if you ever get sick of your Great Augustus.’

Just beyond the gate, he stopped again and turned back. ‘And do give my best wishes to Priscus. I was hoping to see him, but appreciate that he’s still feeling poorly. Tell him even he can’t imagine the death I’ll give him when he’s finally brought before me as a prisoner.’

I watched as Kutbayan walked briskly out to his waiting people. The gate still wide open, I turned and went back inside Athens. A few of the lower classes were shambling about from wherever they’d been driven under cover for the visit. They capered in front of me, uttering cheerful obscenities and making still more obscene gestures with their hands. I paid them no attention. They’d be smiling on the other sides of their horrid faces when it sank in that bugger all of the food Kutbayan had left inside the walls would be doled out to them. It would be a long and deservedly cheerless winter for them.

The light was fading as I got back to the residency. There was still a mountain of work to be scaled before I could give the orders to pack. There was the final vote of the council to be managed. I didn’t suppose this would be more than a formality. But it would take the better part of the next morning, with all the praying and formal acclamations that I’d have to sit through. Then there was the matter of how we were all to get back to Constantinople. I’d assumed that our Imperial galley was still waiting in Corinth. Even if it was there, I might have trouble with the Governor of Corinth. The only matter now settled was that we weren’t to have the barbarian multitudes roll over us.

But that, let’s face it, seemed quite enough to me. The tension that had been only briefly lifted on my journey up from Piraeus, and then come back with still more crushing weight, was now lifted. Beside that, the further business that I’ve mentioned was nothing. Even the still doubtful reception I could face in Constantinople was something I’d think about when I had to, and not until then. I felt like a boy at the beginning of a school holiday.