‘My dear Silas, if I can’t bring you to sympathise, you might at least take into account the problems we face.’
It was Theophanes, though it took me a moment to recognise the voice. His Latin had none of the ceremonious courtesy that it usually had with me. Instead, it was rapid and colloquial. He was standing by the window directly beneath me. He was so close, I could have reached down and touched his elaborately styled hair.
Another voice spoke indistinctly from deep inside the room. I couldn’t catch the words, but the voice was one of those affected noble drawls you still occasionally heard in Rome when I was young.
This was His Excellency Silas, the Permanent Legate to the Emperor of His Holiness in Rome. I badly wanted to twist down and get a look at him, but with Theophanes walking about the room, it was best to stay fully on the ledge and listen as well as I could to the conversation.
‘Can you imagine what it’s like to collect taxes when there are no taxpayers? To direct armies and ships that have their only existence on a sheet of papyrus? To govern cities that are for the most part become heaps of stinking ruins?
‘The revolt got up by the Exarch of Africa has brought on a crisis. Even if it can be handled, it has forced us to an awareness that we cannot continue indefinitely to act on the assumption that the plague of seventy years ago was a problem no worse than the barbarian invasions of the West.
‘We now have a solution to the problem. For the first time since we deposed Silverius, it is a solution that involves the Roman Church. You will soon not be tacking in your usual manner between increasingly ludicrous definitions of the Creed that only involve us in endless difficulties.’
There was more mumbling from inside the room. I could catch something like one word in three. But it brought an explosion of rage from Theophanes that left its meaning as plain as if I’d heard it all.
‘In private, Silas, let us be plain. Heresy is whatever your man in Rome declares it to be when the Greek and Eastern Churches disagree. And you support one side or the other exactly as suits your temporal interests. At least when there was an Emperor in the West, he only intervened in our affairs with some regard for the Empire as a whole. I increasingly think you people will only be happy when there is no Empire at all, and you can lay down your law among the successor kingdoms of the East as you are doing in the West.
‘But’ – his voice fell – ‘we now have an agreement that gives you what you want and safeguards every legitimate interest of our own.’
His voice rose suddenly to a strangled shout from deeper in the room: ‘So why are you doing your personal best to ruin everything? Aren’t we giving you enough?’
Delivered in a faint whine, there was more from Silas.
‘There is nothing more to discuss,’ Theophanes snapped. ‘The matter is fully agreed.’
Another reply, then Theophanes spoke again:
‘So far as they can be, the Lombards are squared. The Franks will not intervene. I have done what I can here to ease matters. For the rest, I look to you and yours.’
Outside on that ledge, I fought to control my breathing. There was no doubt I’d stumbled across something important. The question was what?
But that’s the problem with eavesdropping. If you don’t hear the beginning, you probably won’t understand all of it. What I did hear, though, knocked out every theory based on what I’d been told earlier. That was a lie for public consumption. Theophanes wanted people to think there was some difficulty with the Perman ent Legate, and that I was its cause. So far as I could now tell, there was an underlying agreement. The two of them, plus the Dispensator, were all in this together.
But what was this? If I’d been able to catch more than the occasional word in reply, it might all have made more sense. But the Permanent Legate was stationary on the far side of the room, and mumbling away like an adulterer at confession.
Why was he pretending to have withdrawn? Why had he let Theophanes in to lecture him? What was this deal? And where did I come into it? If I wasn’t needed to negotiate anything or to be an excuse for others not to negotiate, why had I been sent here? Why was I in so much danger?
I checked my thoughts. Did I now hear a mention of my name?
‘You will leave him also in my hands,’ Theophanes replied, a very hard tone in his voice.
Something now from Silas in a nasty voice, and an affected laugh.
‘I don’t care if he is!’ Theophanes said. I could almost hear the impatient wave. He moved back to the window. ‘Like most others of his sort, he was brought up a beer drinker, and he still drinks wine as if it were beer. As for what you call orgies, I have no doubt this Legation has seen worse.
‘Whatever the case, he’s no fool. I saw straight through your Dispensator on that point, and I’ve now had over a month of personal observation. If he is to be of any use at all, he will need careful management – and that must come entirely from me.’
Theophanes moved deep inside the room. I think he stood opposite the Permanent Legate, but his voice came up to me clear though faint.
‘I grow tired of the repetition,’ he said, impatience now mingling with contempt. ‘Justinus told him nothing. The boy didn’t even touch the letter. As for Justinus, he was in a coma when he arrived at the Ministry. I left him dead in his cell. Had he spoken, it would be different. But his letter said nothing to the uninitiated.
‘So long as you stay locked in here, Silas,’ Theophanes said with finality, ‘your safety is guaranteed. But withdrawal means total seclusion. You will not receive anyone but me. You will not receive the Master of the Offices. You will not receive Phocas himself, should he come calling. You will certainly have no dealings with that lunatic Priscus. If he comes knocking, you will send at once for me.
‘You will remain out of sight. You will also ensure that Dem etrius does not leave the Legation. If I see him in public, I will have him taken in and flogged.’
‘You’ll do no such bloody thing!’ The Permanent Legate’s outburst came clearly through the window. Theophanes brushed him aside.
‘I do not want any repetition of the game you tried with such idiocy to play in Ephesus,’ he said flatly. ‘If the report of the investigating magistrates hadn’t landed first on my desk, you and I might have found ourselves swinging side by side from the City walls.’
Theophanes must now have been standing opposite the Permanent Legate. Whatever the case, his voice was low and fast, and I couldn’t hear the burst of conversation that followed. The next thing I clearly heard was about the younger Heraclius.
‘He’s stuck in Cyprus,’ Theophanes said with a laugh. ‘Remember the deal brokered by old Heraclius in Carthage between son and nephew – whichever gets here first to depose Phocas and become Emperor? That is a weakness in the whole scheme. Heraclius and Nicetas have been racing each other from the West like drunken charioteers.
‘Nicetas has Egypt, and virtually the whole Army of the East is now in his hands. But he can’t get here soon without ships, and Heraclius can’t easily move from Cyprus without military support. If either of them does arrive between now and Christmas, everything will be in place.’
Theophanes began another sentence that might have gone some way towards explaining things. But he broke off suddenly.
‘Did you hear that noise?’ he hissed, his voice a mixture of malevolence and alarm.
It was me. I’d lain so long in one place, you see, that sweat had dissolved the bird shit under my body. At first, it had been as hard and rough as concrete. Then, without warning, it had turned into a rather gritty lubricant. I’d slid forward and to the left. My left leg was trailing over with no support.
Again, I’d looked into the darkness. Then my hands had closed over the edges of the gutter. This time, though, it wasn’t a matter of restoring equilibrium. I had to hold myself continually in position. If I relaxed, I’d slide again. With a loud creak, the lead of the guttering bent outward. I’d moved my hands sharply left, to grab at it. The gutter held, but I couldn’t say how much noise I’d made.
Theophanes was back at the window. He pushed his head out, looking furiously to right and left. He ignored the dog that had started barking again in the distance. It was obvious he was looking for something much closer.
Thank God he didn’t look up. He’d have seen straight into my terrified face!
By the time he did think to look upwards – and I could hear his panicky breathing barely inches away – I’d managed to pull my head back. My fingers were still clamped hard on the outer edge of the gutter. But although Theophanes must have been too dazzled by the lamps inside the room to see those two tight lumps, he knew there was someone above.
‘I want you over here, Silas,’ he said softly. ‘I’m going for Alypius. If you see or hear anything, call out at once.’
I heard the quiet turning of a key in its lock. In a moment, Theophanes would be making his way along the right arm of the Legation, to see what he could from one of the far windows. And I could then expect Alypius underneath me, poking up with a sword as his master directed him.
I’d learned little enough from listening in to the conversation. But the fact that I knew of it must have made it worth putting me out of the way. A soft heart doesn’t get you far if you want to run an Empire.
It was lucky for me there was no balcony on this side of the dome. The only windows I could see from my position on the ledge were at the end of the right arm. By standing, of course, I’d see more, but I would be equally visible to anyone able to look in my direction. But if keys were needed – and there was always the need for secrecy – discovery was still some way off.
I slithered back along the ledge until I was on dry lead again. Too frightened of discovery even to think about falling, I got up as carelessly as if the drop had been only a few inches. In the same way, I turned and walked quickly back to the dome. There was a momentary rush of fear as I felt my heels projecting over the narrower ledge. But, body arched forward, I was shuffling quickly to the right.
The moon was now fully up. Unlike on my way out, I didn’t continually stop to feel my way, but kept moving further and further to the right – that is, increasingly out of view. As I moved, the patterns of light and shadow on the brickwork of the dome seemed to race past an inch from my nose.
As the furthermost windows of the Legation’s right arm disappeared behind the bulk of the dome, I heard the outward swing of shutters and a hissed command in the language Theophanes had spoken in the library.
If I jumped straight down to the balcony at the first safe point and dodged inside, I might not be seen.