Conspiracies of Rome Read online

  ‘Who are you?’ I cried feebly.

  No response.

  I thought to cry out a few words of thanks. But I could think of nothing appropriate. The stranger was gone. There was silence where he’d been. The shadows now were all of the same darkness.

  I pushed the dying man forward. He fell with a crunch onto his face. Still cautious, I knelt down to examine him. I’d got him in the windpipe, sure enough, and he was going fast.

  ‘Who sent you?’ I asked, twisting at the now shattered nose. ‘Give me his name. Did you kill Maximin?’

  The hole in his throat gave a shrill whistle. His lips moved in an obscenity. I reached down and tried to cover the hole, so he could get some air into his lungs. But the damage was too extensive. He was bleeding to death. I’d get nothing from him. No point in further questioning.

  But you don’t respect the dying moments of someone who’s just tried to kill you – and may have killed your best friend in the world. There was no time left for anything elaborate. I thought briefly, then stabbed him short in both eyes. I stood up and watched the bloody tears flow black in the moonlight. I looked on gratified at the bubbling, agonised convulsions in which he finally died.

  ‘Ite feri, ut se sentiat emori,’ I muttered, quoting one of the madder emperors. ‘Strike, but let him know that he’s dying.’

  A shame I hadn’t been able to question him. But I’d got the shitbag too deep into the throat. Annoying for me, if a blessing for him.

  My fit of the shakes had passed. Indeed, I felt rather good. I was alive and uninjured. At least three other men who’d intended to change that state of affairs were dead. Perhaps there was a justice in the world, I thought, as I cast round for my lost sword.

  I found it. I sheathed it. I stepped into the full moonlight. I looked round to get my bearings, then set off in what I supposed to be the right direction home.

  All the while, I was followed down the silent streets. I knew that I was followed behind. Those footsteps were now so familiar, I’d have noticed if they weren’t there. But I could have sworn there was someone in front of me. It was just one person, I thought. I never saw anyone, but I knew someone was there. He’d stop some way past each junction, to see which way I’d go. If I turned left or right, this watcher would go silent awhile, and then be heard quietly walking in front of me again.

  I kept a hand on my sword. But whoever was following me had no present wish to come any closer. Slowly, and with much turning back on myself, I found my way back to Marcella’s house on the Caelian.

  29

  ‘Well, you certainly had a busy night.’ The Ethiopian diplomat smiled broadly and unstoppered another jar of the fizzy water he’d urged on me in place of the normal wine.

  He was right – and I’d only given him the incomplete version. I’d go back to find the house dark and locked up. The old watchman had still been about, however, and he’d let me in. His eyes had opened wide at the bloody mess all over me.

  ‘Sir, you ought to know better by now than to be out alone at night,’ he’d said, clutching at the door handle for support and breathing wine fumes at me.

  I’d agreed. Certainly, Rome was turning out to be heavier on the wardrobe than I’d expected – another suit that would never look the same, even after cleaning. I’d pressed a silver coin into his hand. ‘I don’t think we need to upset your lady,’ I’d explained. ‘These past few days have been hard for her as it is. Just send me up some water, if you can.’

  He could and did. And Gretel had brought it. I don’t know about you, but killing often makes me lustful, and I was wildly inflamed. I’d ripped off my clothes, washed a bit, and then dragged her into bed. I’d worn the little slut out long before rolling off her, and – according to her later description – snored like a pig till well after dawn.

  Now I was having breakfast, as agreed, with the diplomat. I say ‘as agreed’. In truth, I’d clean forgotten. He’d invited me after Maximin’s death, and I’d have agreed to anything at the time without knowing what I was doing. As if that weren’t enough, there were the events of the previous night. But he’d got me out of bed with impeccable manners.

  ‘It’s my lady!’ Gretel had whispered at the first gentle knock. ‘She’ll have me flogged for this. She’ll sell me to the Lombards – er, back to the Lombards . . .’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I’d grunted as I staggered from the bed. ‘I’m virtually the son of the Most Holy Saint Maximin. Besides, my rent is up to date – which probably counts for everything with the old witch.’

  At last, Gretel had opened the door, and the diplomat had not once commented on the fact that she was stark naked, and smeared with some of the blood I hadn’t bothered to wash off myself, and in a hurry to get down to the kitchen before her lateness was observed. His only concern, once I’d taken an age with bathing and dressing, was to have me swear on a nice volume of what I took to be the Gospels in his own language, and a foot-high stack of relics, to absolute silence about whatever I might learn from him.

  Of course, I’d sworn. Why not? It was coming back to me that he’d promised to tell me things concerning the death of Maximin. If this was useful to me, I didn’t think an oath would stand reasonably in the way of using it. Otherwise, I’d keep quiet in any event.

  But he had nothing to say about Maximin beyond repeating his now formulaic regrets.

  The reason why we mostly met on the toilet, I found, was that he took his meals alone in his rooms. These were larger and far more lavish than my own. The dining room was hung with blue and yellow silk. Attached to this were dozens of little icons in gold and silver frames. We sat on new ebony chairs, eating a kind of honeyed porridge, while slaves who knew only his language danced attendance on us.

  ‘Tell me, Aelric,’ he asked – I almost jumped at the use of my proper name: I hadn’t heard it since the murder – ‘tell me, what do you know about myrrh?’

  ‘Not much,’ said I. ‘Isn’t it some kind of spice? Together with gold and frankincense, it was brought by the Three Wise Men to the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’

  Bearing in mind the décor around me, I looked down and crossed myself. The diplomat did likewise, and the conversation ground to a momentary halt.

  He looked up and continued: ‘Myrrh is the basic ingredient of incense, large amounts of which are used by every church. It is a dried, brownish gum that is produced chiefly in Arabia, but also across the Red Sea in my own country. It sells in Constantinople for about its weight in silver. It is cheaper here in Rome, but still expensive.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said I, ‘the Church will be burning a lot of it next month at the consecration.’

  The diplomat smiled. ‘The Church will burn an enormous quantity of incense at the consecration. This will be the biggest event since the funeral of Pope Gregory – that is, the Most Holy Saint Gregory.’

  More crossing.

  ‘And all this incense will be made up here in Rome. It would normally be imported ready-made from Alexandria. But the East is in such chaos, with these Persian and barbarian and civil wars, that it has been decided to import the ingredients directly.

  ‘The Church has awarded the contract for supplying myrrh to a company with offices in Rome and Syracuse. This is owned by a group of Sicilians and normally handles some of the shipments of grain for the papal bread distribution.

  ‘In negotiating this contract, the dispensator was unusually hard. The company must undertake all the risks of buying and shipping the myrrh. Once in Rome, there is no guarantee that any will be bought by the Church. Only so much as is needed, and when it is needed, will be bought. The company must absorb the cost of any delay and dispose of any surplus entirely by itself. The benefit is that the Church has agreed to pay the same rate here in Rome as in Constantinople and Ravenna for whatever quantity it does decide to buy.

  ‘Three days ago, shares in the company were trading at one solidus each. Then –’ he paused, taking a sip of his fizzy water – ‘the
n somebody spread a rumour about an alternative shipment of prepared incense through a trading company based in Athens. The rumour adds that these Athenians have bribed someone in the Lateran into rejecting the myrrh that has already been unloaded in Ravenna, and is on its way to Rome under armed escort. According to my information, the contract is so drawn, that any supposed defect in the myrrh can provide grounds for repudiation.

  ‘Now that these rumours have taken hold on the market, the share price has fallen by around a quarter. In a very short while, another rumour will be set in motion: that His Holiness has died in Naples.’

  I looked quizzically at him. The pope dead? What from?

  ‘Please be assured, young man,’ the diplomat continued, ‘that His Holiness is alive and well, and – according to information that I have and even the dispensator has not – is at this moment hurrying secretly back to Rome. You see, the volcanic mud cure has done wonders for him, and he wants to be back here to get on with preparing for the consecration. He will arrive tomorrow. However, while it is believed that His Holiness has most unfortunately passed away, shares in the company will drop further, perhaps to a third even of their presently deflated value.

  ‘Of course, if the death were to be officially announced, the shares would utterly collapse. It took Caesar nine months to get round to confirming Boniface as pope. Bearing in mind what is currently happening in the East, Rome might easily be years without a confirmed universal bishop, were Boniface to die. No pope, you see, no consecration. The dispensator could stand in for a temporary absence – but not to fill a semi-permanent void.

  ‘But I cannot arrange for such official confirmation.’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘you want me to help you buy some shares while they are low?’ I’d picked up some elements of finance from our lavatorial conversations. This was supplemented by the frequently sharp practice I’d seen from the traders who’d accompanied the missionaries to Canterbury, and by my small but select study of mathematics.

  Of course, I had other things now on my mind beside making money. On the other hand, the comparative little I’d already picked up had transformed my life – perhaps, I’ll grant, not wholly for the better. And I’d need more if I were to go ahead with my ambitions for the English mission. I was willing at least to hear the man out.

  ‘You want me to buy shares?’ I repeated.

  ‘No, Aelric, not shares.’ The diplomat picked up a jewelled relic case and hugged it. ‘I don’t get out of bed to buy shares. We buy options.’

  For those of you who have barely followed the above – and if you’re a monk, that’s probably you – I should explain what the diplomat was after. He didn’t want me to go off with him and buy shares in the company. A share, by the way, is part ownership. Even down from one solidus to a quarter of that, you’d need to tie up a lot of gold to make a real killing. What he wanted to buy was the right to obtain shares on a future date at a certain price. We could have that right per go at a tenth of a quarter of a solidus.

  Now, let me spell out the meaning of this. For one solidus, you can buy the right to acquire forty shares that, when all the depressing rumours have been discovered, will pass again at one solidus each. You can turn one pound of gold into forty. You can turn five pounds into two hundred. You have to deduct from this any costs beside the exercise price; and there may be special bribes to the Exchange authorities. But the only limit to this rigging of the market is how many options you can buy before you get rumbled. Oh yes, and you need to make sure that you don’t entirely bankrupt the poor fool you get to sell you the things: do that and you may lose your payment up front. I suppose it helps also if you can square enforcement with the authorities.

  The diplomat assured me this would be no problem. We weren’t manipulating the price of myrrh – that would have got the Church involved at every possible level to stop our game. We were only manipulating shares in the company that was shipping the stuff in. The Church would be indifferent. The prefect could be trusted to do all that was needed to save himself the trouble of trying any action against us. That, or a straight bribe, would keep matters out of court.

  The diplomat had thought of everything. Today was the Hebrew Sabbath. This meant the Jews would be at home praying and counting their gains from the previous six days of labour. They wouldn’t be around to smell the rats we were planning to loose. The market would be hogged by the Africans and a few Syrians. It would be wide open to our assault.

  ‘Where do I come into this?’ I asked sharply. Was this some elaborate double fraud, with me as the ultimate victim? It was common knowledge in the house that I was in funds.

  ‘You will buy the options,’ came the reply. The diplomat went over to a locked chest. He fiddled with a key around his neck and withdrew five bags of coin. He emptied one onto the table. I looked at the pile of misshapen lumps I’d last seen in France. They were barbarian versions of the solidus. He’d made sure the gold was pure enough, he told me. But this stuff was so clipped and variable, it would pass purely by weight.

  My job was to pose as the son of some rich pilgrim from the barbarian kingdoms. The diplomat would arrive first at the Exchange with a troubled look on his face. He’d ostentatiously buy options on shares at something like their normal value, talking loudly about his invite to the consecration. While he was doing this, his secretary would be got up in hood and gloves to hide his black skin – but not got up well enough – and would be selling actual shares at whatever price he could get. A little into this pantomime, the rumour would pass round that the pope was dead. The market would go into a selling frenzy.

  Just into this frenzy, I’d turn up, gawping at the dealers and speaking a mangled, semi-comprehensible Latin. I’d show a written authority to buy options at four shares to the solidus, which by then should be an attractive price. This being said, I’d have several letters of authority – all with different prices, and I’d select which one to use in the precise circumstances. I’d do the business and leave and the dealers would congratulate each other on covering themselves against the official news of the death. No one would think to connect us until it was too late.

  ‘You have some barbarian clothes?’ the diplomat asked. I shook my head. Those horrid old things I’d worn all the way from Canterbury I’d ceremonially burned outside Rome. Maximin had nagged me that there were poor youths in Rome who’d give their teeth for such finery. Not surprisingly, I’d ignored him. A pity, I now thought.

  ‘No matter. We can get something from one of that Frankish merchant’s slaves.’ He was referring to another of Marcella’s guests. ‘I’ve got some nice Frankish jewellery you can add to it. You’ll pass as shabby rich in the barbarian mode.’

  We turned now to the matter of what was in this for me.

  ‘A twentieth part of the profit,’ he answered suavely.

  ‘Not enough,’ said I. ‘Do you suppose these men will simply smile as they hand over their last coppers? I’ve already just avoided a knife in the back. I want half. And I want this in writing. If you try to cheat me, I’ll take your letter to the prefect or the dispensator or the pope himself.’

  We started an interminable, circular argument. The diplomat cried that he’d done all the preparation work – months of thought and research, planting of rumours, getting a reputation for himself on the market as a shady and incompetent player. All I had to do was look stupid for a while before lunch. Surely he had a right to the main profit? If need be, he could use someone else.

  But I was inflexible. You see, I had time on my side. This morning was the only opportunity, and I’d dawdled much of this already. He’d never get anyone half so reliable in the time that was left. The pope was getting closer to Rome by the hour. How long before this was noticed?

  We settled on two-fifths of the profit. I could have held out for the full half, but the diplomat might come up with other schemes that required my involvement. Why be too greedy? While he wrote in his own hand, I dictated a short letter of confession. Show t
hat to the authorities, and his black and distinctly heretical face wouldn’t be welcome in Rome another day. As it was, his exact status in Rome as a Monophysite with no apparent diplomatic interest to represent was somewhat ambiguous. Since he’d taken to the place at least as much as I had, this would be a disaster for him.

  30

  The financial district of Rome used to be across the river from the main city. Nowadays, the Saracens have destroyed the trade on which the markets relied. Some years ago, a fire took the buildings. When I was first there, however, it was one of those districts of Rome that retained more than a shadow of its former glory. The streets were broad and clean. There was plenty of running water, and this kept the sewers in going order.

  The Great God Mammon places heavy demands on the time of even his humblest devotees. But he also imposes an order on their minds that is often reflected in their surroundings. I could almost see the money behind the blank walls of the houses. At every corner, private armed guards were stationed. There was no need here of the prefect and his haphazard keeping of the peace. The riffraff was kept securely out. Any thief who did get through risked being beaten half to death and tossed in the river.

  Otherwise, there were some magnificent churches. There was even a synagogue. This was the first I’d ever seen – built in the most extravagant oriental style, a Star of David topping each minaret. From within its walls I could hear the strange wails and chanting of the Jews.

  The main Exchange was in a tall, circular building roofed with two domes. It was the most prominent building in a square lined with churches that couldn’t all be for the True Faith of Holy Mother Church. There was another synagogue placed between two of these. So long as nothing was advertised, I think every known faith and variation on it was catered for in that square.

  In this part of Rome, I could see, the only differences men recognised between each other were solvency and insolvency.