I’d nearly vomited at my first smell of the place: it was like an unwashed abattoir – all stale blood and rotted offal which almost overpowered the smell of damp.
The creatures running this imitation of Hell kept up the resemblance to an abattoir. They wheeled silently about us in the stained leather aprons you normally see in a butcher’s market. As one whispered with the Tall Man, another darted a hand inside my robe. He squeezed hard on a nipple, all the time looking up at me with the bright, panting smile of a mad dog.
‘Tomorrow!’ he whispered triumphantly – ‘And tomorrow and tomorrow, and all for us!’
I cut him short with a smart head-butt to the face. ‘Fuck you!’ I snarled. The others danced back out of my reach.
I was in the Ministry where I’d earlier visited Theophanes. No – I was in the basement that ran far beneath the Ministry. Once unloaded from the carriage, we had been dragged in through a small side entrance, and then taken down worn steps that had twisted round and round and round on their course into a subterranean world of endless corridors lined every few yards with iron doors.
At first, all down there had seemed quiet. As my ears began to adjust, though, I could hear a chorus of low, despairing moans. They came from behind the closed doors of the cells. They came from all directions. They came from as far as the ears could reach, and from further than the eyes could see in the dim glow of the lamps hung at every junction in that labyrinth of horror.
As the one I’d butted lay grovelling on the floor, the Tall Man pushed his own face close to mine. ‘Tomorrow, indeed, my fine young barbarian,’ he crooned, ‘but not for these trash. You belong to me.’
He stood back and took a deep breath to savour the endless despair of our surroundings before continuing in a tone of eager intensity: ‘I will show you how pain is very like pleasure. It too has its rituals and instruments. It too has its orgasms. It too can be prolonged by those who have studied the responses of the body.’
‘Fuck you!’ I snarled again, though I’d not felt inclined to try anything physical with this living image of Satan. He was on his home territory, and had seemed to grow taller and more substantial with every breath of that foul air.
‘We shall see how long your courage holds up under my personal ministrations,’ he said, turning to rap a few orders to his minions. ‘You will give me the answers to my questions, and much else before the end.’
Still cuffed, we were pushed into separate cells spaced far apart. I don’t know how long I sat in darkness on that damp, stinking floor once the door had swung shut on me.
Few definite sounds now reached me through those stone walls and the heavy door. But I felt aware of continual movement outside, and perhaps the occasional low moan.
‘I’m a guest of the Emperor,’ I shouted in the darkness. ‘I demand immediate release.’
No answer. Instead, the sound of my voice within the invisible walls of that blackness chilled me more than the dank air. The wine fumes that had so far buoyed me up were now dispersing like a morning fog, and I was beginning to realise the full horror of my situation.
Once I did hear voices. Though muffled by the close-fitting iron door, they’d come from just outside my cell.
‘So is this one Justinus?’ one had asked.
‘Nah!’ another had replied. ‘That’s the one back there. We’ll see what we can get out of him come the morning. I don’t think, though, there’s much left for us to do. He’s all smashed up now.’
‘Shame,’ had come the answer. ‘I suppose it is the right Justinus this time. I said the other one was telling us the truth.’
The voices had drifted away, leaving me in a silence broken only by a steady dripping of water somewhere in the dark.
I’ve seen people go mad in prisons. Even a short stay is unnerving. The blackness and the silence are bad enough. Far worse is the uncertainty of how long the stay there will be. Will you be taken out and tortured or killed? Or will you just be left there to rot to death?
I kept my nerve in that cell by refusing to think about what might happen next, and by instead reciting in my head the whole of the Creed, first in Latin then in Greek. Yes, it may be a mass of words made up to torment the devout. But it can also at times have a certain anaesthetic value.
So, for what seemed an age, I sat huddled on the floor, every so often muttering like some novice monk, and willing my teeth not to chatter with fear and the sudden cold of that place.
Then, at last, with a jingling of keys and the creak of unoiled hinges, the door swung open, and I saw Theophanes standing in a pool of light.
‘My dear young fellow, you cannot imagine how embarrassing this is to all of us.’ Speaking in Latin, Theophanes sat behind the desk of his office in the Ministry. He still wore his bedgown under his cloak. The single lamp his assistant had lit for us showed the lines on his unpainted face.
‘I came as soon as Alypius could inform me of the situation.’ He waved with a feeble effort of cheerfulness at his assistant. ‘Alypius’, I thought. I filed the name carefully into my memory.
I took another mouthful of the wine Alypius had poured for me. I tried to think of something ornately suitable for the occasion, but I gave up on the effort, instead asking: ‘Where is Martin?’
‘I took the liberty’, Theophanes said, now in a more businesslike tone, ‘of having your secretary sent back directly to the Legation. Being a person of only middling status, he was given a roughness of treatment on his arrival that might not have been yours until morning.’
He raised his arm to silence me, continuing rapidly: ‘Please be assured, he came to no harm. I was able to prevent that. But I found him somewhat overcome. I thought it best to have a sedative administered and to send him straight off to the Legation.
‘Now, Aelric,’ he continued – he used my proper name. Was it a slip? Was it an intended slip? In any case, how could he have known it? I wanted to break in and ask, but didn’t dare – ‘Now, Aelric, it would not be an act of friendship or convenient to any of us if I were compelled to vary the terms of your residency permit. But I must urge you never again to interfere in the work of the Black Agents. It is of the highest importance to the Empire, and they do not report to me. Do I have your assurance?’ he asked. ‘Next time, I may not be so easily found to help you.’
For the first time since we’d met, he spoke naturally, a look of tired strain on his face. His lank, undressed hair fell around his eyes.
‘Have I your assurance?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Theophanes,’ I repeated, avoiding all the usual circumlocutory courtesy.
He nodded.
Back in the Legation, I went straight to Martin’s room. He was sleeping heavily. He looked unhurt. I asked to be called as soon as he woke. In the meantime, I fell into bed for some sleep of my own. I can’t say it contributed to settling my nerves.
I dreamed of empty shops under empty colonnades and empty streets in the sunlight, and of a shadowy creature that flitted about me forever only in the corner of my eyes. Dressed in black, it smelt of death.
My first sight on drifting back into wakefulness was of the wine cup placed on my bedside table. I drained it with a single gulp, and called loudly to Authari to bring me more as I reached for my clothes.
Martin hadn’t been tortured, he told me from his bed. He’d been tied to the rack, but Theophanes had appeared before any of the gears could be set in motion. Of course, he’d gone hysterical. Sedation was probably the only answer.
Now he was calm enough. The sun streamed into the room. Birds twittered on the balcony outside his room. Below in the courtyard garden, one of my slaves sang quietly to himself. This wasn’t Rome, but it was pretty close to safe normality.
Once I’d sent the slave out of the room, Martin sat up in bed and clutched at my arm.
‘Aelric,’ he said firmly in Celtic, ‘you must never do anything like that again. Even when I was last here, when Maurice was Emperor, the Black Agents frightened everyone, high or low. Now, they’re out of control. You didn’t see how Theophanes had to bargain with them to get me off that rack. If you see another arrest like last night, you must look the other way. Whoever they come to take is already one with the dead! He does not exist. Soon, he will never have existed.’
I patted his arm. ‘I’m sorry, Martin,’ I said. ‘I will be more careful. Perhaps, in future, we might be a little quicker to produce that permit from Theophanes.’
Martin fixed me in the eye. ‘Aelric,’ he said, ‘I want you to know that they tied me to the rack after they had seen the permit. And they were joking about what to do with you when the old eunuch arrived. He had to keep on and on repeating that, contrary to any other orders they might be issued, we were under the Highest Protection.’
I kept a look of renewed jitters off my face and told Martin he should get some more natural rest. As I turned to leave, he tugged gently at my sleeve.
‘And please don’t carry that knife with you,’ he said. ‘It’s treason to go armed in the city without a permit.’
I did now make an attempt to see the Permanent Legate. His own rooms, I’d guessed, could be approached from a door in the main hall of the Legation opposite the entrance to my own suite.
My hand almost on the door to the Permanent Legate’s suite, I was stopped by Demetrius.
‘And where might Sir be going?’ he asked in an obsequious but firm tone.
‘Oh,’ I said, trying to sound nonchalant, ‘I’m just going to pay my respects to His Excellency.’
‘I don’t think, sir, that would be appropriate,’ Demetrius answered, positioning himself between me and the door. ‘His Excellency is a busy man, and will call those to him only such as is needed, and when they be needed.’
‘I have messages from His Holiness in Rome,’ I lied.
I got in response only a nasty squint. Demetrius then produced a key from his robe to pull back and forth in the door lock until a click told me that whatever lay beyond was off-limits.
‘His Excellency,’ he sniffed before walking off about his business, ‘will call on such as he wants and when he wants.’
So much for that.
I sat behind my desk and looked at the icons of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew that hung on the wall opposite. I thought for a moment of writing to the Dispensator, but immediately decided otherwise. If all my incoming post was read, Theophanes – I supposed he was in charge of this – would be neglecting his duties if he allowed outgoing post not to be similarly inspected.
Instead, I began a long letter back to Gretel in Rome.
I told her about the shops and the crowds and the great buildings. She’d understand all this when it was read out to her. I could even see her in my mind’s eye, clapping her hands and having the description of the shops read over and over again. She’d love the idea of glazed windows lit with lamps. She’d then dictate a long letter of her own that was little more than a shopping list.
I didn’t think it a shame that I’d be on my way home before it arrived.
I said nothing about the arrest. As I finished, the sky outside was turning dull with the approach of evening, and a draught from the window gently rustled the sheets of papyrus. Made almost happy by their less than truthful content, I rolled them up and sealed them into a small leather bag that would protect them on whatever voyage they eventually took back to Rome. I made sure to mark the attached tag for the attention of Marcella.
‘Authari,’ I called loudly. ‘Ah, there you are, Authari,’ I said, pretending not to notice how close he’d been. ‘Is everything in order for you and the other slaves to have a good dinner this evening?’
‘Yes, Master,’ he replied with a forced steadiness of voice. He looked away from me so I’d not smell his breath. Our kitchen had only been stocked with bread and cheese the night before. Now, there was goat stew on the boil.
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Don’t stint yourselves on the food. I want everyone to have good, solid chunks of meat every evening. We might as well make the best of things.’
Authari bowed. He’d nagged me earlier to the borders of respect about my having left him behind the day before. I’d ignored this and passed on Martin’s advice that he should not go armed about the city. He’d scowled back at me and gone noisily about his duties. But he was evidently taking no chances in the Legation. He’d rigged up a long bar on the only door into our suite, and set up a rota of the other slaves to keep watch there.
So long as the door held, we were secure in our fortress.
As he left the room, I added: ‘And please do see if Martin is recovered from his ordeal. I’ll be dining out again this evening. He might care to accompany me.’