I heard a determined shuffling behind me. The Great One broke eye contact with me and looked over my shoulder. His face took on a look of slightly annoyed bafflement.
I looked round. Theophanes and Martin had moved apart and now stood facing each other at each side of the tent.
‘We are honoured,’ cried Martin in a bright voice, ‘after hearing so many stories of his might and nobility, to be called at last into the presence of the Great One. We wish to perform for him as we have so often performed in the presence of Caesar himself.’
With that, the pair of them launched into song. It was a lyric popular at the time – ‘Watchman at the Gates of Love’, it was called. They sang together while Martin clapped his hands to keep time.
As they moved from one verse of cloying sentimentality to another, Martin sang in a pleasant light baritone. But the obvious star was Theophanes. Powerful, yet clear, the eunuch voice can carry every note from higher bass to soprano.
Theophanes was somewhat past his best for singing, and his voice cracked on some of the higher notes. But he covered this with a superb artistry, moving the more daring trills into a lower register.
During one note that he seemed to hold for ever without wavering, I glanced back to the Great One. He sat entranced. The two girls looked on, their mouths open with astonishment.
As they moved into the final long refrain, Theophanes broke off and began to dance about the tent, stamping his feet rhythmically and waving his arms in time to the music. Keeping his shoulders still, its angle never changing, he moved his head from side to side.
When, at last, the song ended, he took up three of those shrunken heads and, still dancing, started to juggle them. As he did so, Martin began one of those crooning, throbbing songs you hear in the better class of brothel. It’s the sort that begins slowly and builds gradually to a clashing of metres that, handled properly, can imitate the sexual act.
Keeping time with the huge, undulating mass of his body, Theophanes threw the heads higher and higher, so I thought they would hit the roof of the tent and he’d lose them all. Yet, even at the climax of the song, when the dance movements must grow increasingly rapid and abandoned, he dropped not one. He began with three. He ended with three.
It was, all considered, a most remarkable performance. Perhaps, on balance, the world had been the poorer when Theophanes progressed from dancing boy to police state functionary.
As it finished, Theophanes and Martin threw themselves down in a perfectly timed and most elegant prostration.
The Great One squealed with joy, bobbing up and down as he clapped. He hauled himself up and lurched forward to pull Theophanes to his feet. He stretched up to plant a slobbering kiss on the eunuch’s cheek. Then he reached into his robe and pulled out a red amulet to hang round Theophanes’ neck. After a momentary hesitation, he added one of the shrunken heads. The Yellow Linguist interpreted the stream of appreciation that followed.
Puffing very slightly from the exertion, Theophanes acknowledged all this with a respectful bow. He added something about treasuring the gifts all the days of his life. If this was a discreet enquiry as to how many days this might be allowed to be, he got no definite answer.
But he had gained for the moment at least high praise where it seemed to matter.
Then it was back to business as usual. Rearranging himself on those nasty cushions, the Great One settled into place, and the audience continued.
‘The one without stones in his pouch will go outside to recover himself in the dawn air,’ said the Yellow Linguist. ‘You’ – he pointed at me – ‘will also perform for the Great One.’
I wondered what on earth I could do to match what had just been offered. I thought of some of the more tuneful ballads I’d used to bawl in taverns on the Wessex borders.
But it wasn’t my voice the Great One had in mind. As Theophanes went out of the tent and half a dozen of the other Yellow Barbarians filed in, he kicked at one of the girls who sat at his feet. Toying with one of his shrunken heads, he hissed a stream of orders. When she remained squatting at his feet, with no apparent inclination to obey, he kicked her again. She landed about a yard before me and looked up into my face with a cold fury that made me want to sit down and fan myself.
At last, she got silently to her feet and began tugging at the laces that held the tunic to her body. In an instant, she stood before me stark naked, a closed, sullen look on her yellow face.
The servant who’d sounded the gong pulled out some more of those cushions and began scattering them on the ground.
I didn’t need that poke in the back to tell me what kind of performance was expected of me. Clothes off and folded neatly beside the cushions, I was soon hard at work with the girl, making the beast with two backs while everyone else looked on.
You may ask how I was up to anything in that dreadful place. My answer is that I was young. I was also quite aware that this was not an occasion for polite excuses. And if I was about to die, I might as well take the chance of a good last fuck.
And if you’ve never tried it for yourself, I’ll assure you that fear can be a tremendous aphrodisiac.
I might add that the girl was remarkably fetching. She stank like a dead fox – but I was no scented flower myself. And though very young, she was no virgin. After a few moments of hesitancy, she threw herself into the task appointed. She knew what she wanted, and I made very sure to give it to her – heart and soul, and all the usual graces.
After a while, it quite escaped me that everyone around me was cheering and wanking as I slowly brought the girl to a huge, shuddering orgasm. As she slid from underneath me and reached for her clothes, she looked decidedly more cheerful. Then her fingers probed her black hair and she pulled something out which she offered me in a closed fist. She opened it close to my face. The mass of crawling blackness on her palm was lice. With a gesture I took as intended to be friendly, she popped the things straight into her mouth and crunched. As she drew her lips back for a smile, I could see the still moving black specks all over her filed teeth.
Wheezing and drooling, the Great One lay back on his mountain of cushions. I stole a look at the curtain behind him. It hung still.
‘You have obliged the curiosity of the Great One with his eldest daughter,’ the Yellow Linguist explained in a halting voice. ‘It is an honour that few are permitted.’
His daughter! Well, some of these more distant barbarians can have odd ways. But who was I to judge of these?
I glanced at the other daughter. Scared as I was, it was mildly flattering to see the jealous look on her face. It wouldn’t be all sisterly love when they finally retired to the privacy of their tent.
That was the end of my part in the entertainment. Sitting up again, the Great One clapped his hands. Our audience filed out and Theophanes was brought back in.
No particular surprise on his face, he gave me an abstracted look before turning his attention to another long prostration.
As Martin helped me back into my clothes, I could feel a certain reserve in his manner. But it was only for a moment. It was prostration time again all round.
‘You may leave us,’ the Yellow Linguist said once we were back on our feet. ‘We will accompany you to the place from where you may find your own way back to the camp of the Others. If the Great One desires your presence again, He will send for you.’
Cheering words! Two good fucks that night – and another chance to bolt for the City walls.
Outside, the drizzle had stopped. The sun was coming up and the mist had retreated to a chill whiteness around our feet. The fires had burned down to smoking embers.
Those children were still hard at play with their victim. But the wretch had now fallen down. Not even poking him with hot embers could raise more than an exhausted groan.
‘He brought tidings from Caesar,’ the Yellow Linguist explained, following my glance. ‘They showed insufficient respect for the Great One.’
So that was the reason. I’d thought this was the Stylite hermit – getting his crown of martyrdom somewhat earlier than he’d had in mind. Instead, he was one of the envoys from Phocas that I’d heard the Germanics discussing.
As we passed out of the camp, I looked far over to my left. A dog had caught a rabbit which he carried in his mouth, his tail up, eyes shining. For us, too, it looked set to be a glorious day. I eased the stiffness from my back and took in a breath of the fresh morning air.
The Yellow Linguist walked in front. Behind us walked two armed guards. At the far end of the street we had entered, the only unruined building was a fortified church. Its heavy door had been scorched in a recent attempt on the place, but was unbreached.
Was that a movement I’d seen from the window of its tower? Hard to say.
I suddenly remembered my sword back in the camp. I hadn’t thought to ask for its return. Nor had it been offered. No point in suggesting I should go back for it.
Then I heard Theophanes beside me. He spoke in a bright conversational Greek, pointing at the dog.
‘Aelric,’ he said, ‘I must regret to inform you of a change in our circumstances. Do not plague me with questions – now or ever – about my sources of information. But it seems that our positions are reversed. I am safe. It is now you who are in danger.
‘Ten paces after I finish talking to you, I will cry out and fall to the ground. I shall give every appearance of having had a stroke. Because my life has become of considerable value to them, these barbarians will turn all their attention on me.
‘When that happens, you and Martin will run. The City must be to your left – perhaps only a half-mile away. You will outrun our guards because they are more accustomed to riding. Do not stop, do not look round. Do you understand?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said with a cheerful wave.
‘Yes,’ said Martin, his nerve surprisingly steady.
Would I ever learn what these ‘sources of information’ had been? I looked down at my heavy, ill-fitting boots that had been made for everything but speed.
But we’d underestimated the Yellow Linguist. It wasn’t only Latin he understood. He turned and barked an order at which he and the two guards drew their swords with a menacing rasp of steel, glinting in the early sunlight.
Having passed the church, we were now in a narrow street, one sword in front of us, two behind. All three were too close to be tackled one at a time.
I pushed Theophanes back against a broken wall and felt for my knife. Martin stood like a man turned to stone.
I might get one of them if I were lucky.
‘Take this, you yellow fuckers,’ a harsh voice cried out from above in Latin.
I think I shall be forgiven if I say I was long since past any degree of surprise. If it had been Saint Victorinus himself dropping down from that wall, his flowers tumbling behind him, I’d not have raised an eyebrow.
But it was Authari. Like me, he was dressed in the clothing of one of those Germanics. His sword glinted dull in the morning light.
So that’s what had become of Hermann, I thought as I lunged at the Yellow Linguist while he was still in shock. But he recovered too fast. It was only the leather tunic that saved me from his raking sword-blow. I danced back, wrapping my cloak around my left arm and lashing out again with the knife.
No luck with that. Though largely useless for fighting on foot, a sword was still better than a knife.
I glanced round. My eyes lit on a spar that might be useful as a club. Before going for it, I threw the knife at his face. I was in luck this time. I got him straight in one of his eye-sockets. The knife went in and dropped out again as he fell down squealing and writhing on the broken cobbles like a worm that has just had salt poured over it. Through hands clamped tight over his eye came a stream of black fluid. It was the sort of wound that doesn’t kill at once, but can fester for days in an agony that doesn’t abate.
Feeling a surge of joy I hadn’t felt in months – not, indeed, since I’d skewered that killer outside the Lateran – I left the knife where it lay and bent down for his sword. Then, hearing a loud clashing behind me, I turned round to join in the action.
No need. Authari had made short work of the Yellows. He’d had that massive Germanic sword and had taken them too much by surprise. They lay at his feet in two crumpled heaps.
I saw Theophanes relax his grip on the knife in his hand. No more killing for him at the moment. The work was already done.
My legs went from under me in a sudden fit of the shakes. I flopped to the ground beside the Yellow Linguist. Everything about me went dark, with little flashes of light at the corners of my eyes.
‘Not this one,’ I whispered to Authari as he raised his sword in both hands above the Yellow Linguist. ‘I want to finish him myself – with the knife.’
The beast had another eye, and much else that he might do before drawing his last breath.
But Authari ignored me. With a crunch, that heavy sword had smashed through quilted tunic and ribs, and the Yellow Linguist lay as silent as the other two.
He stood over me, breathing heavily. He put his hand down to me as I struggled to regain control over my little nervous fit.
‘Get up, my Golden Aelric,’ said Theophanes. ‘Get up. Just one more effort before we can be safe.’
‘Come along, Master,’ Authari added, pulling me up with one arm. ‘I want meat for my breakfast.’