Conspiracies of Rome Read online

  The street was now filled with a dense, white mist. We ran forward and lost each other. I called for Lucius, but heard nothing back. I could now hear nothing except my own breathing.

  I ran towards what I believed was the turning for Marcella’s. I came to the gateway in. Gasping for breath, I pushed on the gate and staggered into what should have been the common entrance. Instead, I found myself back beside the sewer. If I’d turned back on myself, the gateway had somehow expanded into something much larger than we’d found the other side.

  Though all was dark again, I could somehow see around me. I recall seeing the torch where I’d dropped it. Though all was quiet, I knew I was not alone. There was something very big and very powerful behind me. I dared not turn round.

  I cannot describe the terror that I felt. It had been growing from the moment Martin had vanished into the darkness, and now it had overwhelmed me, depriving me of the ability or the will to do other than stand looking forward at the dark gash of the broken sewer.

  I heard a rough scraping behind me, as of something heaving itself over the paving stones. I felt a chilled breath on my neck. There was a smell as of something pulled from a very old grave. And there were words as well.

  I didn’t catch these. As soon as I heard them, the mists closed in around me, and I was lifted suddenly away. Before all went black around me, I could see the rooftops of the Caelian glowing white under the moonless sky.

  Unlike with the similar dreams I’d had back in Richborough, I was too old to wake screaming from this one. But it took some while after I did wake to assure myself completely that none of it had really happened. I lay alone in the darkness, freezing and unfreezing from the terror that still lingered.

  I tried to get back to sleep. But my mind was racing. I lay alone, my thoughts turning again and again to that awful dreamscape.

  I got up and put on some clothes. I did think to go out for a walk. But I’d have to wake the old watchman. Then I’d have the streets of Rome to face all by myself. I didn’t want that. I stirred up the charcoals in the brazier, then lit a lamp from them. Some of the books I’d got from Anicius were piled up next door in my office. But, for all they’d enchanted me in the daylight, there was nothing there now that seemed likely to soothe my ragged nerves.

  I opened the door from my suite into the corridor. All was dark and silent. Walking carefully, so as not to make any noise on the floorboards, I moved down the corridor. With the key I’d got out of Marcella, I let myself into Maximin’s rooms.

  Once the door was closed behind me, I turned up the lamp and looked around. The dispensator’s men had swept it almost clean enough for re-letting. Still uncleaned from when he’d first set them out for me to trip over, Maximin’s boots stood by the bed. A bronze pen I’d seen him use in Canterbury was neatly set beside some waxed tablets. I looked at these. They were new and had never been used. Otherwise, there was nothing to show the room had been occupied by Maximin.

  I sat on a chair and looked at the boots. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about those fucking letters?’ I asked softly. ‘Why did you have to keep them to yourself? At the very worst, we’d have been killed together. Even that would have been better than this. But you know we’d have come up with something. You know we always used to come up with something. We could have burnt the letters. We could have sold them to the highest bidder. We could have . . .’

  I trailed off. I pulled my indoor clothes closer to me against the night chill and sat now in silence, looking at the streaks of uncleaned mud on the boots.

  My thoughts wandered back to happier times. There was our first day of really good weather in Italy. We’d crept round the Alps, hugging the sea on our way in from southern France. At some point along the road, we’d come to a worn boundary stone, showing that we were now within the ancient provinces of Italy.

  These had, Maximin explained, once been uniquely privileged in terms of citizenship and immunity from tribute. Rome had grown from a city state to the head of an Italian federation. And it might have remained the capital of a united Italy, but for a course of rapid conquest that had stretched its limits from the Tees to the Euphrates. Now, the conquests were long since reversed. Even before then, the unique status of Italy had been abolished in a world of universal citizenship and liability to taxes. But the stone remained.

  ‘It makes no difference to me,’ I’d said, looking at the invisible line Maximin had drawn across the road. ‘The trees on each side are the same. The rain is still coming down like it does in Kent, and from skies the same colour.’

  ‘Just wait,’ Maximin had said.

  I had waited. A few days later, I’d crawled from under the trees where we’d dossed for the night, and looked into a morning that reminded me of the lightest and most sparkling cider. It was like that morning I’ve already described on the road – but I was seeing it for the first time.

  I don’t know how long I’d stood wondering at the glory that Nature had strewn unexpectedly all about me. But Maximin at last had come up beside me. ‘Didn’t I tell you Italy was worth a look?’ he’d asked with the pride of a native.

  ‘Why did you ever set out for England?’ I’d enquired, holding up a hand to shield me from the light of the rising sun.

  ‘We all have our reasons for leaving home,’ he’d answered with a faint smile. ‘It’s for each of us to say whether we go to better or to worse.

  ‘Which will it be for you?’

  I hadn’t answered. But the sudden joy and hope of that morning in early spring was all the answer anyone could wish for.

  We’d set out along the road with renewed energy. Maximin had even sung, and I’d croaked along beside him with the closing uncertainties of my late-breaking voice. It had seemed we were advancing into paradise.

  Now, I sat alone, amid the ruins of this city of cities – and perhaps amid the ruins of all hope. ‘I will avenge you,’ I said to the boots.

  The boots said nothing back.

  ‘I will avenge you,’ I said again, speaking up to try and fill the void of silence all about me.

  The problem was that I was no longer clear that I could avenge him. With every step I’d made on the road to knowledge since I’d sworn to Maximin’s body, my conviction that I could grasp the final truth had ebbed further away. Whatever facts Lucius and I could bring to the growing structure of knowledge, who had killed Maximin and why remained mysteries wrapped in the deepest shadows.

  I knew he’d been killed for those bastard letters. But it was plain whoever had killed him hadn’t managed to lay hands on them. It was plain the letters contained important matters of state. The emperor’s agents were after them with frantic determination. The exarch of Africa’s man was promising untold wealth probably for just a sight of them. I had no doubt the Church was after them – why else strip these rooms so bare? Just as plainly, no one had yet found them.

  What had Maximin done with the things?

  As for what they contained, I couldn’t begin to think of an answer. Even Lucius couldn’t tell me that. I knew he was fussing on about not making hypotheses without evidence. But it struck me he was making a virtue of necessity – refusing to speculate on matters that were as much beyond his understanding as mine.

  What I needed, of course, was some solid fact. The letters would certainly help. If I could know what was in them, I’d be able to work out why they were so important and to whom. In the absence of those, I needed something else that would at least point me clearly in the right direction.

  ‘What did you do with the fucking things?’ I asked out loud of the boots.

  No answer.

  It was now that I heard a scratching at the door. It was very gentle, and I thought at first it was a mouse in the room. But it was on the door. I froze, my thoughts wandering stupidly back to that dream. Then I heard a movement of the latch, and the door was pushed cautiously open.

  ‘Oh, it is you, sir,’ Gretel said with relief in her voice. ‘I heard noises from downstairs. I
was frightened thieves might have broken in.’

  Not much of a lie, I thought indulgently. The slave quarters were far distant from the guest areas of the house. I’d have needed to make a great deal more noise than I had for anything to reach her. And what would a lone woman be doing if thieves were a genuine fear?

  ‘Shut the door,’ I said, ‘and get those clothes off your back.’

  She gave me a startled look. ‘But, sir, surely we should first go back to your own rooms.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I . . . I don’t feel comfortable tonight in my own bed tonight. I . . . er . . . think there’s a draught in the room. We’ll use this room.’

  ‘In the Saint’s bed?’ she asked, her shock at my suggestion for the moment overbearing the obsequious consent to whatever the free might command.

  ‘The Saint is with Jesus,’ I said firmly. ‘Undress yourself, and then undress me.’

  The diplomat’s drug had now cleared my head and filled me with a pure, glowing energy. Such was the effect of the diplomat’s kaphkium. Next morning, be assured, I discovered why the man spent so long on the toilet.

  35

  Next morning, as predicted by the diplomat, the pope made his surprise return to Rome. All the bells had finished for the Sunday service by the time Gretel could shake some life back into me. As I staggered out of bed, they began again. I heard the distant sound of trumpets down at the Lateran. I groaned and clutched at my head.

  ‘Good business with the Jews,’ said the diplomat as he came out of the stables and flopped down beside me for a shit. Evidently, he’d been up some while.

  ‘They’re buying futures on silk. But I think prices will drop when Alexandria falls to the exarch’s forces.’

  His voice flattened. ‘When can I have my share of the money from yesterday?’ he asked again.

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ said I, ‘when the bank opens.’

  He grunted and said something about an evident lack of trust where I came from.

  I changed the subject. ‘What do you know about the Column of Phocas?’ I asked. Despite the headache, I was, you’ll observe, more with it this morning.

  ‘I don’t think the statue will be up there much longer,’ the diplomat replied smoothly. ‘I hear there is already a bid for the bronze. The dispensator is just waiting on events in Alexandria. If the city holds, the statue remains in place. If not, it comes down.’

  ‘Not the thing,’ I said, ‘the movement.’

  Either he knew nothing of this, or he was keeping quiet. Almost certainly the latter. He gave me a funny look. Our conversation of last night was over. I’d told him nothing then. He’d tell me nothing now.

  We drifted on to the price of Athenian olive oil. Then, as I finished my own business and got up to leave, he caught me by the sleeve.

  ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘whatever you do find will be shared with me to your considerable advantage. Whatever we did together yesterday was as nothing to what could easily be.’

  Because it was a Sunday, I’d given everyone the day off. There would be no copying or binding at the Lateran. The secretaries could go to church. Martin, doubtless, had other plans.

  I’d been in Rome only six days, I told myself. Was I even the same man who’d entered so exultantly with Maximin through the Pancratian Gate? How short a time before then had it been when Maximin and I camped down for the night on the Aurelian Way between Populonium and Telamon?

  Have you, my Dear Reader, ever drifted in a little boat down a broad, slow river? Have you then ever hit sudden rapids? Have you ever noticed how what before was a short time has extended to equality with the whole previous voyage, as you’ve darted this way and that to keep yourself off the rocks? Such had been my first week in Rome. I felt I had been there longer than my journey took from Canterbury.

  Lucius was sitting down to a late breakfast when I arrived at his house. He’d been exercising outside in the sun, and said I’d soon be able to inspect his tan.

  No bath, however.

  ‘Fucking slaves,’ he snarled. ‘They haven’t gathered enough wood even to cook dinner for tonight.’

  But he recovered his temper. I decided to say nothing about dinner with the diplomat. I wanted first to see if I could fit any of it for myself into a scheme of explanation. If it did fit, or if sharing it would help him, I’d certainly share the information with Lucius. For the moment, though, as with the stranger who’d saved me the night before last, I’d keep silent.

  Lucius wiped his mouth on a napkin. I could see his hands tremble slightly. ‘I wish you every good luck on this, your nineteenth birthday,’ he said with forced brightness.

  He clapped his hands together. A slave appeared in the room with a long, narrow box under a cloth. He bowed to me and held it out for me. I lifted the cloth and opened the plain wooden box beneath.

  I took out the new sword within. I drew it noiselessly from the scabbard of polished black leather. The blade was of dark, shining steel – about two foot six long, and as sharp as a razor. The hilt was of curved bronze, the pommel ridged to give a reliable grip.

  I weighed the sword in my hand. I took up a fighting position and lunged and sliced at the air. It was perfectly balanced.

  ‘You didn’t give me notice enough to commission anything special,’ Lucius said hurriedly. ‘As it is, I had to comb every smith in Rome yesterday to find this. I . . . I hope you like it.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said I, embracing him. ‘It’s lovely.’ I kissed him.

  And it was lovely. You can forget those fancy things all covered over with silver and precious stones. They won’t slice through flesh a jot cleaner. The most they’ll do is get you knifed in the back for the value.

  I had a sentimental attachment to the old sword I’d picked up in France. But this was the one I’d from now on carry with me all over Rome. It would never do for regular warfare, but it was just the thing for cutting someone up in the street.

  Lucius helped me fix the thing to my belt, and stood back to admire the effect. ‘Until you start shaving properly, you’ll look too sweet to terrify on first sight. And that pure and quite virginal robe you’ve put on again only adds to the effect. Even so, I’d not like to find myself on your bad side.’

  We laughed. I sat down and pulled at the bread. A slave filled a cup for me.

  ‘Do you fancy going off to see Boniface this afternoon?’ Lucius asked brightly. ‘The prefect will receive him in state at the Basilica. It’s a custom that goes back to when the bishop of Rome was less important than the representative of the emperor. Even though the positions are reversed, the custom remains. It will be quite a show.’

  I drank more wine to wash down an olive stone I’d swallowed. ‘You mean, we’ll see the prefect do something?’

  ‘Oh, these Greeks are always good for making up speeches. They go through the full rhetorical course in their schools – I often wish I had. He’ll do well enough on his feet, even in Latin.’

  A slave brought in a sealed letter. Lucius tore it open and read the contents. ‘Fuck and damn these bloody lawyers!’ he shouted, throwing the letter back at the slave. ‘They don’t piss, but they charge you for it.’

  To the slave: ‘Tell him to wait another month.’

  ‘Lucius,’ I said, ‘I know this will embarrass you. But I’m very flush at the moment. If I can help with expenses, please do just say.’

  He looked at me. ‘No,’ he said, smiling. ‘I do have money coming – perhaps more than I expected until recently. The man can wait. And he will wait. I used to think debts were a mark of gentle slavery. But when you owe as much as I do, they become almost a source of power. All my creditors, I have no doubt, were hard at work in church this morning, praying for my continued good health.’

  He changed the subject to exercise. ‘Your occasional riding and sword practice have their benefits, I don’t dispute. But there really is nothing like a good session out in an open gymnasium. I must insist on your company tomorrow morning. You won’t be
lieve until then how constricting clothes can be on the movements of a body.’

  ‘Of course, tomorrow,’ I said.

  Another slave came in with a message. Lucius grimaced, muttering something about a day of rest for everyone but himself. Then he smiled and looked up. ‘I’m in luck today,’ he cried. ‘My richest tenant has decided to pay his service charge in full.

  ‘Listen, my golden Alaric, I must go off and thank the man in person. He’s a greasy creature who makes his living from selling blood sausages. But cash is cash. I won’t ask you to see me in humble mood with him. So, until I return, please make free with my house. Have the slaves show you the room I want to offer you. Regard all that is mine as yours.’

  With that, he was off.

  I went again through all the rooms that were still habitable. In daylight, the house was shabbier than it had appeared on that first lamplit inspection. The room Lucius had in mind for me was, however, splendid. It took the full morning sun. The marble on the walls was stained in a few places. But the paintings on the plaster were still vivid, and there were three very beautiful nude statues of the Old Gods. They’d recently been cleaned of the paint the ancients had used to make statues more lifelike. I preferred the honesty of the white marble. The ancients were often rather garish, even to the point of spoiling what they had made perfect.

  I eventually settled myself in the library. As I’ve said, the books Lucius had were mostly worthless. What sensible man could risk the penalties attaching to treason for this mass of childishness? If even a hundredth part of those spells and incantations were effective, I wondered how Christianity could possibly have become the established faith of the Empire. But there were a few volumes of obscene verse there to brighten me. These rivalled the most stupid magical stuff for wear and tear. I sat sniggering to myself at their witty and abusive pornography.

  Outside the door, some slaves were talking. I put the book down and strained to listen. There were two of them. I think one had been with Lucius when we’d met by the Tiber. But it was hard to tell, as slaves hardly ever spoke in his presence.