Theophanes sat in my office. The little sofa creaked beneath his bulk as he shifted around for comfort. He beamed with genuine pleasure as he looked at the ebony cot from where Maximin stared back with solemn interest.
‘No wine for me, as you know,’ he said, ‘but I have a supply of my kava berries. Let us have boiling water brought up, together with a silver jug, and join together in a cup of the brew that cheers but does not inebriate.’
When the slaves had withdrawn, I bolted the door. Then I went out on to the balcony and into my bedroom and bolted the door to that. Just to be thorough, I looked along the ledge.
‘I can promise you’, I said, coming back into the office, ‘we are alone. So long as we keep our voices down – and I speak from experience here – we can’t be heard from the corridor. If anyone tries to creep up from the garden, we’ll hear the steps creak.’
I sat behind my desk. Martin sat on a low stool to my left. Alypius stood close by the door to the balcony. If a bird so much as landed on the steps, it would be noticed at once.
‘A fine set of precautions,’ Theophanes observed. ‘Persons of our quality should always take advantage of such privacy as can be obtained. I do not think, however, we have much to say that requires total security.’
I smiled, but said nothing.
He called Alypius over to pour two cups of the steaming dark liquid – Martin having excused himself from the novelty with a cup of apple juice.
This done, Alypius went to his bag and drew out a sheaf of documents. One of these, I could see from across the room, carried the seal of the Greek Patriarch.
‘The office of His Holiness remains in some disorder,’ Theophanes explained, ‘but I have managed to procure the personal file of Dioscorides. Combined with his security file, held in the Ministry, a most interesting picture emerges.’
It was an interesting picture. As said, the man was an Egyptian. But, after completing his studies in Alexandria, he’d been attached to the small permanent mission which the Alexandrian Patriarch kept up in Carthage. There, he’d learned Punic – reasonably similar to Coptic – and made a nuisance of himself as a preacher to the common people of the country districts. By his endless and heated denunciations, he had revived past heresies and re awakened people’s fears of them. From there he’d been sent packing by the Exarch, and had turned up in Constantinople about eighteen months earlier. You can imagine for yourself his maniac solicitation of the rabble here.
What Theophanes had also discovered was that Dioscorides had an elder brother who had attached himself to the Heraclian side in Egypt. He was now a bishop in some out-of-the-way town in Upper Egypt that he would never have to visit, and was, so far as could be known, with Heraclius himself just down the Straits at Abydos.
‘Well,’ said I, leaning back in my chair for a stretch, ‘let us proceed to the matter of Demetrius. Since he’s nowhere to be found, I think it most likely he was involved in the Permanent Legate’s murder. If so, he also helped remove the body. If so, he also murdered Authari. We have learned already that he has a talent for serving doctored wine.’
I leaned forward again to ease the pressure on my sore back. Martin had assured me there was nothing unpleasant to worry about, and the kava berries were quickening my wits very nicely.
‘Is there anything on him in the Ministry files?’ I asked. ‘The drugs aside, what motivated Dioscorides is easily guessed. But Demetrius? He was the Permanent Legate’s personal secretary in all senses. It now seems he was also working for Heraclius. I imagine his file must be as fat as a Syrian whore.’
‘Not really,’ said Alypius, speaking in place of Theophanes and looking rather nervous. ‘He is an Armenian, taken directly into the service of His Excellency.’
‘An Armenian?’ I said, with a bright smile. ‘That would explain the weak Latin, yet also the poverty of his Greek. Can you say when he arrived in Constantinople?’
‘He appeared shortly after His Excellency had sent all the regular officials and slaves out of the city,’ Alypius replied.
‘I’ve had Priscus circulate his description to everyone it may concern,’ I said. ‘Let’s hope that he is found soon – and preferably brought to me in one piece. I think my instructions were reasonably clear, even to the Black Agents.
‘Every mystery involving the Permanent Legate seems to begin with Demetrius. With or without the help of Priscus, I’m sure I shall find much to discuss with him when he does reappear. Such a shame, though, don’t you think, that there is so much on file about a relative nobody like Dioscorides, and so little on a man who has for months now been Number Two to the Pope’s representative?’
‘Have you not considered’, Theophanes answered, with a look at Alypius, ‘that there might be a supernatural element to the killing?’
I smiled again and chose my words. ‘Theophanes,’ I said, ‘there are undoubtedly miracles on the record. Most undoubtedly, there are those recorded in the Holy Scriptures of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of His Apostles.’ I thought for a moment to stop and cross myself. But it might have spoiled the cool sarcasm of my tone. I continued: ‘But in our own corrupted age, we cannot accept that a miracle has occurred until we have exhausted all other natural possibilities.
‘Let me assure you,’ I finished, ‘that the Permanent Legate was killed by a natural person. I don’t yet know why he did it. But I think I know how it was done and who did it. And I’ll further assure you that – unless I’m stopped by naked force – I’ll know within the next few days why it was done.’
Theophanes looked again at Alypius. His face had taken on the stiff tension of a gambler at the races. Looking out of his depth, Martin sat very still.
I turned to the boxes of confidential files piled up on the far side of the room from Maximin.
‘Martin went properly through these this morning,’ I said. ‘We’ve both since had another look. As Martin thought yesterday, the Permanent Legate’s papers have been carefully sorted. Many things are missing that we reasonably believe ought to be there. We are missing all correspondence for this year with the Dispensator in Rome. Also all correspondence whatever between you and His Late Excellency since his arrival in the city the year before last. We are certain of this last correspondence because the empty filing racks still carry the inked labels of description. This gives us further reason to believe that the sifting of papers was both hurried and unpremeditated. Given luck and boldness, murder is easy. It’s the attendant circumstances that are harder to control.’
As I spoke, I could see that Theophanes was beginning to sweat under the paint. For the first time ever, I’d broken his composure.
‘What I have, though’ – I held up my hand for silence – ‘what I have is this.’
I took a small sheet of papyrus from the file that Martin held open for me. The pattern of folds and weakening in one of the corners told that it had once been pinned to other sheets. Now, sliced in half down the middle, it had been reused on the back.
‘This is interesting for what it says on both sides,’ I announced to Theophanes. ‘The reverse of the sheet carries a list written, I think, by His Excellency himself. If so, he was dealing with some very large sums of money – far more than the Legation accounts indicate were at his disposal.
‘You will see references to my own banking house. I may visit Baruch in the next few days, but will not trouble him with this. He’s a banker and – until recently, at least – a Jew. I am convinced that even three days with Priscus under the Ministry would not reveal what services he provides his other customers. And such is as it ought to be.
‘The sheet was used originally, however, for the draft minutes of a meeting in Ephesus. You will see that this took place in April. I wonder why His Excellency might have made a spring visit to Ephesus? And who else might have attended?’
I asked the question with a lightness that no other face in the room reflected. Theophanes was on his feet. He snatched furiously at the sheet as I stood over him with it. He looked at the list. He turned to Alypius. Eyes blazing, he launched into a flood of blame in their own bleak language.
Alypius defended himself as best he could. But Theophanes was almost out of control with rage. He even forgot to keep his voice down and every so often his gaze wandered to the open door to the balcony. It was only with extreme effort that he pulled himself together and turned back to face me.
He looked at the upper side of the sheet and I could see traces of anger on his face under the paint give way to relief.
‘But my dear Alaric,’ he said with a return to Greek, ‘you have only the right-hand side of the sheet. There are no names here. As for the date, this could be any April – the regnal year is missing.’
He spoke now with forced lightness, but his hands shook as he dropped the sheet on to my desk.
‘Of course, you are right,’ I said, enjoying myself. ‘I really should have seen that for myself. As for what I can read of the minutes, they do seem to concern matters of doctrine that were quite within His Excellency’s competence. I cannot see why he had to travel to Ephesus to discuss whether the Lombard King might be won over to Orthodoxy. But what I can see of his probable comments is most uplifting. Perhaps the sheet is useless after all. Shall I throw it away?’
‘Do allow me to take that duty from you,’ said Theophanes with the glimmering return of his charm. ‘It would never do to disturb the serene tidiness of your office.’
He took the sheet back and buried it in his robe. Then he sat down and, with still shaking hands, sipped at his kava juice. Martin gave me an even more scared and uncomprehending look.
At that moment Maximin began to cry. I turned to Martin with a sigh. ‘Can you see if Gutrune is yet up to changing some shitty clothes?’
But as Martin rose, so too did Theophanes.
‘In one of my numerous pasts,’ he said, ‘I was an acting nursemaid. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to bring comfort to your most beautiful son. If Martin would be so kind as to fetch fresh clothes and hot scented water for my hands…’