‘It was fucking brill – the way you all but took his head off! I haven’t seen better since my fighting days.’
His regalia stripped off and piled on the floor, Phocas spoke in Latin. He refilled my cup and took another draught from his own.
‘Fucking brill!’ he repeated. ‘Just like the good old days, I’d say.’
It was later in the evening. We sat in the palace together with Theophanes. Martin had been carried home under armed guard. I’d insisted the slaves should double-bar the door to my suite and sit with him while he tried to sleep.
None of the guards nor any other outsiders were to be admitted.
I’d again resisted the offer of drugs from Priscus, but Theophanes had fixed me up with something nice from his own box of potions and berries. I don’t think anything could have wholly refreshed me this far into what seemed the longest two days of my life, but I was able for the moment to sit drinking and taking a coherent part in the discussion.
Now in jolly mood again, the Emperor had told Theophanes to investigate what had happened in the Great Church. That was a hard one. The Greek Patriarch had suffered a stroke during the disturbance.
It was hoped he would recover his speech by the morning. In the meantime, the other clerics were running about like a flock of terrified sheep.
‘The deacon’, said Theophanes, ‘was one Dioscorides, an Alexandrian of rising fame as a preacher. His life till tonight had, so far as I can tell, been blameless. His only eccentricity seems to have been a prejudice against the male use of cosmetics.’
‘A little too much premeditation there’, Phocas broke in, ‘for the gold leaf to have sent the fucker mad – we’d all have overlooked the Latin.’
‘I agree,’ Theophanes replied. ‘The knife was steeped in something highly toxic. One of the slaves who helped young Alaric out of his robe managed to smear some of it on his forearm. He’s already in a sweating fever. The doctors say he is unlikely to survive the night.
‘As for Dioscorides, I believe he was high on a drug called ganjika. This is used in Egypt as a harmless sleeping preparation. In high doses, though, it can cause delusions and wild excitement. I would say that he was a lone assassin, prompted by a dislike of the Western Church. But there are certain attendant circumstances that do not incline me to that view.’
There was a slight pause after the words ‘attendant circumstances’ and Theophanes shot me the briefest glance, before continuing:
‘Your Majesty has already remarked on the degree of prepar ation. There is also the question of how Dioscorides knew he would be able to get close to Alaric. Had we not changed the order of service at the last moment, he would have observed the proceedings as a member of the Imperial Party. How could Dioscorides have known that Alaric would be alone and exposed?’
‘I ordered the change,’ said Phocas. ‘You took the orders and passed them on in the church. Who else could have known?’
‘That, sir,’ said Theophanes, ‘is something I will investigate in the morning.’
Phocas nodded.
We moved on to the question of the Permanent Legate’s murder and what I’d been able to find out since our meeting earlier in the day. Phocas also showed much interest in the death of Authari. He’d already had a brief report from Priscus and wanted amplification of the main points.
There was little to report on either front. I’d now interviewed everyone in the Legation I could lay hands on. The mass of notes Martin had taken added to what I knew already, but nothing likely to transform the investigation. It would have been useful to know where Demetrius had got himself to. I’d had the Legation combed by the Black Agents once it was clear that he was missing. No one without a permit from me or Theophanes had entered or left the Legation and certainly no one matching any reasonable description of Demetrius.
As for the Permanent Legate, the bloody robe he was wearing had been discovered in an out-of-the-way latrine. But the body had vanished.
The Black Agents had taken my instructions literally. They’d spent the day ripping the Permanent Legate’s room apart. The whole corridor looked like a demolition site.
But no hiding place had been found. No weapon of murder. Even the poison cup was a mystery. It matched nothing in the kitchens or elsewhere in the Legation. It had probably been brought in from outside.
And what about those silent monks who tended the garden? Someone claimed to have seen one or two of them around even though they never worked on Sundays. I needed to see their abbot about this.
‘As for the Permanent Legate’s last known movements,’ I concluded, ‘I only know that he was visited on his last afternoon by His Excellency the Illustrious Theophanes.’
‘That was while everyone else was enjoying the races,’ Theophanes hurriedly explained. He flashed me a brief but intense glare to keep me in careful limits. ‘I was on business for the Master of the Offices, trying to tempt His Excellency the Permanent Legate to attend dinner at the palace.’
‘You did meet the Permanent Legate?’ I asked, playing along. ‘Or did you only deal with him through Demetrius?’
‘Of course I met him,’ Theophanes said with a careless wave. ‘A low creature like Demetrius might keep you away, and even senior messengers from the Ministry. No one – the Augustus excepted – is indisposed when I grace him with a visit!’
‘How did he seem when you spoke with him?’ I asked, deciding not to gratify him with an apology.
‘He was polite but distant,’ Theophanes said. ‘He spoke of you – I regret to say in rather slighting tones, for all I insisted on your many excellences. He called you, if you’ll pardon the words, a drunken, tow-headed barbarian promoted out of place.’
With a temporary loss of control, I flushed red with anger. The fucking cheek of it! Here was a dirty old priest, with a really low taste in porn – and he dared to sneer at a person of my quality? If any incentive remained to find the killer, it was only so that I might shake him by the hand.
Phocas saw my discomfiture and laughed. ‘I’m told’, he said with a stretch of his arms, ‘there is no wine in England. Can this be true?’
‘Vines do grow in Kent, sir,’ I answered with a forced recovery of composure. ‘I believe the Province of Britain did export wine in its final days. But my people prefer beer.’
‘Well,’ said Phocas with a flourish of his cup, ‘drink deep while you can.’
Irrespective of any letter to Ethelbert, I had no intention of ever going back to the place. For all I cared, Richborough itself could fall into the sea. But I drank up as I was told and accepted the offered refill.
I turned back to Theophanes. ‘Did the Permanent Legate show any fear for his safety?’ I asked.
‘None whatever,’ said Theophanes.
He turned the question: ‘Had you any reason to think the Legation unsafe?’
Was that a smile lurking behind the lead paste?
‘The doorkeepers were drugged,’ I answered. ‘There was a dinner last night at the Legation. My own people shared in the pork, but kept mostly to the beer. This being said, the wine served at the feast doesn’t seem to have been contaminated. I’ve had all the opened wine there sent off for testing by an apoth ecary of my own choice. He’ll report back sooner than your own people at the Ministry,’ I added hastily to Theophanes. The tiredness was coming back and I was beginning to wander in my speech.
Phocas saved me. ‘You’ve had a long day,’ he said. ‘Go home to bed. Continue with your investigation tomorrow. See me again the day after next.
‘Theophanes has already had the crowds cleared from the square outside the Legation. With guards posted inside and out, you’ll sleep more secure than I shall here in the palace.’
O sleep! What a glorious thing it can be. I’d been looking forward to the moment when I could slide safe and warm into my own bed. There was a brief interval of joy as I sank into the mattress and felt the smooth silk of the sheets. Then the soft blackness swept over me, and I was gone from the world.