The Ghosts of Athens

by Richard Blake

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

The fifth book in the DEATH OF ROME SAGA is an exhilarating thriller and perfect for readers of Ben Kane and Simon Scarrow. 612 AD. No longer the glorious cradle of all art and science, Athens is a ruined provincial city in one of the Byzantine Empire's less vital provinces. The Emperor has diverted Aelric's ship home from Egypt to send him there, but surely there is more important business in Constantinople. Isn't Aelric needed to save the Empire's finances? Is Aelric on a high level mission to save the Empire or has he been set up to fail? The only certainty is that Aelric finds himself in a derelict palace of dark and endless corridors that Martin, his cowardly secretary, assures him pulse will an ancient evil.

Release date: June 7, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 581

Sample

Chapter 1

Canterbury, Friday, 3 April 688

The present chapter in my story begins five days ago. Oh, Jarrow to Canterbury is a three-hundred-mile journey, and you don’t cover much of that in five days. But I’m not starting with the day we set out from the monastery, with everyone waving us off and holding up his hands in prayer for our safety. Nor am I counting our interminable, though generally smooth, progress along the old military road, nor the changes of guard as we passed from one kingdom to another. I mention five days because it was then that I came, with young Brother Jeremy, to the silent ruins of what had, in the old days, been London, and prepared to step on to the bridge across the Thames.

‘Here, what do you think you’re doing?’ someone cried, popping out as if from nowhere. ‘I own this bridge, and I collect the tolls.’ He was one of those dirty, pot-bellied creatures you see lounging on street corners in any city where barbarians have planted themselves. Without experience of his kind, you might have dismissed him as a flabby loudmouth, sliding fast into the decline of life. But I had enough experience to know trouble when I saw it.

I forced a smile and sat upright in the handcart. ‘Greetings, my son,’ I quavered. ‘May God be with you on this glorious day. But this bridge is surely owned by His Majesty of Kent. And, as I am, you will have noticed, a monk of Holy Mother Church. I travel under King Swaefheard’s protection.’ I got a thoroughly nasty look for that. Ignoring Brother Jeremy, who’d let go of the handles, and who now stood looking down at the uneven stones of the road, the creature shambled over and stood between me and the risen sun. It was a nice day; correction, it had been a nice day.

‘Don’t you come the hoity-toity with me,’ he snarled. ‘I’ll have you know that His Majesty himself has given me the right to collect tolls. No one – not even a bag of bones like you – goes across for free.’ He stepped back and looked at the cart. An unpleasant grin now came over his face. What I’d thought at first was a sword tied to his waist turned out, on closer inspection, to be a wooden club. It made no difference to the trouble he represented. In the proper hands – especially against the unarmed – a club was as horrid as any sword.

‘I assess this cart at five silver pennies,’ he said with a faint sound of the official. ‘Payment before you go across.’

I raised my arms in supplication. ‘Five pennies, my son?’ I whined. ‘Five silver pennies? Can there be so much money in the whole of England? Assuredly, we have none. Now, in the name of God, be merciful. I am an old man of ninety-seven. I am travelling to see the Lord High Bishop of Canterbury. Let us pass freely to the other side.’

That got me another of his unpleasant grins. He set off on a walk about the cart. He made a sudden feint at Jeremy, who shrank back in terror and nearly tripped over one of the stones. Before he could right himself, his hat came off, to show his pink scalp above the ginger tonsure. The man laughed at the slightly absurd sight, and went back to his general inspection. It was a nice cart. It had been fitted out in Jarrow with leather cushions and an awning to keep the rain and sun from spoiling my ride. By the time he got back to me, he barely needed to open his mouth.

‘If you can’t pay the toll, I’ll take the cart,’ he said.

As if had by surprise, I let out a flood of sobbing imprecation. I reminded him of my age, how far it still was to Canterbury, how I’d never walk a half-mile, let alone another seventy, without falling down dead. It was worth trying – and it did amuse him. He leaned into the cart and pressed his face close to mine. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he sneered. ‘You give me the cart, your food, and whatever money you’ve got. You can then have a nice little stroll to Canterbury. There, can I be fairer than that?’

I tried another reference to my great age. It only ended his show of good humour. ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ he snarled, quoting an old Kentish ballad that brought back fond memories of my youth.

‘My heart, my heart!’ I suddenly cried, clutching at my chest. That got me another smile. ‘Oh my son,’ I cried again, ‘I have no money. But I do possess about me something else of great value. If you will but take that, leave the cart with me and the boy.’

‘Well, let’s be looking at it,’ he replied, leaning closer. I could smell his stomach-turning breath. I looked about – as if the escort I’d been promised that King sodding Swaefheard would provide might suddenly ride into sight. But no such luck. They hadn’t been there at the border to replace the men who had turned back. They’d not be here now. Put not your trust in princes, I thought grimly. It might have been the story of my life. I fixed another senile grin on my face and took a deep breath.

Dear me! Ninety-seven is ninety-seven – that much of what I’d told him was true – and I’ll not describe it as an easy, fluid motion. Still, I’ll swear he didn’t have time to wipe the expectant look off his face between the moment I slipped the fastening pin out of my cloak and the moment I rammed four of its six inches into the fucker’s left eye socket.

He let out the contents of both lungs in one scream as he staggered back, blood and the dark fluid of his ruined eye dribbling on to his scruffy beard. I gripped the side of the cart with my left hand and gave him the best shove I could manage with my walking stick. With another wail of horror – and oh, what a stroke of luck that was! – he was straight over the low wall of the bridge. Yes, lucky day, indeed! The first blow was an admirable thing for someone of my age. The second might have been envied by a man of any age. And it saved me the trouble of clambering out to do something inelegant and possibly ineffectual with my walking stick. Given more good luck, the tide might be in, and the river would carry him away.

But I’d had my share of luck for that day. ‘Master, he is still alive,’ young Jeremy babbled as he looked back from his inspection over the wall. ‘Alive, Master – he’s still alive!’ The boy’s talent for redundancy had outdone itself. Even I could hear the feeble cries from perhaps a dozen feet down. I swung stiff legs over the edge of the cart and tottered across the six feet that separated me from the wall. I leaned on the mossy stones and looked over. Sure enough, the creature had landed at a funny angle that suggested a broken back. He was feebly dabbing at the pin still buried in his eye socket and letting out a piteous wail for help.

I straightened up and looked about me. Many years before, in Constantinople, I’d had the old tax records for London dug out of the archive. The last time an undivided and still more or less complete Empire was ruled from the new Rome, London had been the third largest city in the West, behind only Rome itself and Carthage. Its population had been close to a third of a million, and it had been a considerable trading and financial centre. Even now, it was an impressive sight. The smaller buildings were heaps of overgrown rubble. The sun sparkled on a completely silent Thames, and rabbits were scurrying about its grassy banks. But the great basilica from which all the provinces of Britain had been governed still seemed to have its roof, and most of the churches looked solid enough. There was no reason to suppose the place completely abandoned. There might even be a few inhabitants who spoke Latin and tried to think of themselves as Roman. I’d passed through here just a few months before, on my return from the East. Then, the weather had been too unpleasant for thoughts of exploration. I’d now been looking forward to a spot of tourism.

‘Master, I think he will live a while,’ Jeremy said, breaking in on my thoughts. ‘Should we not go down and give divine comfort?’

‘Divine comfort?’ I asked, incredulous. ‘Divine bleeding comfort? You take up these handles and get moving again if you don’t want a good hiding.’ I looked about again. London would normally have been well worth some exploration – though, sad to confess, not now. So far as I could tell, the creature had been alone. Then again, he’d come as if from nowhere. Who could tell what accomplices he might have lurking in these ruins? ‘Come on, boy,’ I added. ‘Put your back into it.’

Divine comfort, indeed! When I was eighteen – accomplices lurking about or none – I’d have been straight down on to that river bank to slit the creature’s throat and dance in the blood. But that’s young people today, I suppose. Some of them just don’t know they’ve been born. I let the boy help me back into the cart and arrange a rug over my legs. As he bent forward to take up the handles again, I managed a nice blow from my stick across his shoulders. Divine comfort – I ask you!

Stopping in London was definitely off my list of things to do. At the same time, if there was nothing ahead for another twenty miles, we’d not be turning back for the monastery where we’d spent the night. We were on a stretch that might allow Jeremy to break into a slow trot. Certainly, it was worth trying for one. The sooner the Thames was vanishing on our left as we pushed along Watling Street, the happier I’d be. Somewhere or other on the road, we’d surely meet those bloody guards. Till then, it was just me and a useless boy. I lashed out again at Jeremy and swore at him to put his back into the work of pulling me to Canterbury.

As we passed out from the last of the southern ruins of London, he slowed to a walk and looked back at me. ‘You are sad, Master,’ he said in a mournful gasp. ‘Are you repenting the blood we have shed this day?’

‘We?’ I felt like asking. What had Jeremy done but stand there, trying not to shit himself with fright? I scowled at the sweating, spotty face and thought of telling him what sort of report I’d make to Benedict once we were back home. The Abbot might well give him the sound whipping I wasn’t up to providing. But the sun had risen higher, and the day was turning out as fine as I’d expected. I laughed and found a softer spot on my travelling cushions. ‘If that two-legged beast lies bleating there till the wolves come and devour him, don’t suppose I’ll lose any sleep over it. But that was a nice pin. I picked it up in Beirut. I doubt I’ll get anything so fine to replace it in Canterbury.’ I hugged myself and let out a long giggle that trailed off into a coughing fit.

Yes, the day had turned out nice again. Indeed, it hadn’t rained once since we’d set out from Jarrow.

Chapter 2

 

Theodore, born in Tarsus, now Lord High Bishop of Canterbury, shifted weakly on the pillows that allowed him to sit upright in bed, and peered uncertainly at me. ‘Greetings, My Lord Alaric,’ he finally said in Greek. ‘I trust the journey was not too troublesome for one of your years.’

I shuffled across the floor and took his right hand in mine. As I lifted it to kiss the episcopal ring, I noticed the deadness that flesh often takes after a seizure. He grunted and let the monk who was attending him fuss with the pillows. I sat myself on the hard chair that had been placed beside the bed and stretched my legs. It was probably best not to excite the poor dear with any narration of our troubles on the road.

‘My Lord Bishop will surely recall that I am no longer His Magnificence the Senator Alaric,’ I replied, joining him in Greek. ‘I am no more than humble Brother Aelric, returned to die in the land of his birth.’ I’d tried for the appropriate tone of humility; difficult, though, when, even three days after disposing of that human offal, you’re still feeling pleased with yourself.

Theodore tried for a cough and made do with a groan. The monk looked anxiously at the pair of us. He was a native, and probably knew only Latin – and that only enough for praying. I turned my smile on him, and gave him a glimpse of the stained ivory that served me nowadays for teeth.

‘You may leave us, Brother Wulfric,’ Theodore croaked in bad English when he was sufficiently recovered to say anything at all. A look on his face of immense tenderness, the monk rose and bowed.

Once the door was shut, Theodore shifted again on his pillows and pointed a weak and trembling finger at a table beside the window. There was a jug on it and one cup. It would mean getting up and walking ten feet there and ten back. But the size of the cup suggested that the jug was filled with neither beer nor water. After three hundred miles, another twenty feet was worth the risk of disappointment.

No disappointment! ‘Is this from the East?’ I asked with an appreciative sniff.

‘It’s French,’ came the whispered reply.

Leaving the cup behind, I carried the jug back to my chair. I took out my teeth and had a long and careful swig. I’d had better, but this would do. I wiped the dribble from my chin and looked about the room. As a boy, Theodore had delighted in flowers. It was a love that had stayed with him through life. I didn’t suppose he was up to turning his head very much since the last seizure. But he’d had himself propped where he could look straight at a mass of spring blossoms arranged on another table near the door. My wine jug aside, it was the only cheer in an otherwise bleak room that smelled of the decay that attends the very old when they have forsworn the use of soap and water. If holiness is not a force that has ever guided my own actions, I can usually take account of it. But what on earth could have possessed Theodore – already an old man – to give up his nice little monastery in Rome and spend twenty-odd years on this grotty island? In the end, I’d had bugger all choice about coming here. He’d had a first-class excuse to stay put.

‘Why do you tell people that I’m senile?’ he asked in a suddenly querulous tone.

That was a hard one to answer, and my response was to pretend I hadn’t heard him.

‘I am dying – there’s no doubt of that,’ he went on. ‘But the reports of what you’ve been saying to your students in Jarrow do hurt me. I am forgetting my Latin. I sometimes find myself thinking in Syriac. But I am not senile.’

I continued looking into the jug. In the months since coming back from the East, my renewed acquaintance with opium had been carried to a certain excess, and I had perhaps been rather garrulous in my class. Then again, dwelling on local matters had been a way of deflecting those endless questions about what I’d been up to after my abduction from the monastery in Jarrow. I could have taken another mouthful of wine and pretended that drunkenness was adding to my deafness. But there was something in Theodore’s voice that reminded me of the old days – the very, very old days before we’d fortified ourselves from each other behind those palisades of words. I could feel a slight pressure of tears. I sighed and bent carefully forward to put the jug on the floor.

‘I am, of course, most grateful for all you’ve done for me,’ I said. ‘When I first arrived here, you’d have been within your rights to send me off to Ravenna for handing over to the Emperor’s agents. Instead, you overlooked all the frequently unfortunate dealings of our middle years and found a place for me at Jarrow.’ I fell silent and stared at the shrivelled creature who lay before me. If he’d been ten when I was twenty-two, he had now to be eighty-five or -six. At his age, I’d still been directing the affairs of a vast, if diminished, empire. A younger man would have found Theodore enviably full of years, despite his infirmity. For me, he was a pitiable sight. I got up and pulled his blanket into place. It was the least I could do. I sat down and played with my teeth. There was a piece of bread compacted into one of the depressions in the upper gold plate. I picked it out with a dirty fingernail and put it into my mouth. I washed it down with more of Theodore’s French red.

‘What you say about me is of no importance,’ he said with a slight show of vigour. ‘In any event, I am no longer your host. The circumstances of your return have made me your keeper, and this has a bearing on the nature of our present dealings.’ His voice suddenly trailed off and he closed his eyes.

I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. If so, it would be a chance for me to slope off and find what manner of quarters his people had arranged for me. A bath was probably out of the question. But I’d come to him straight from my journey, and I could do with a rest. However, as I was thinking to get up and take my leave, his eyes opened again.

‘I have summoned you to Canterbury,’ he said, ‘to ask a favour of you. It is a matter of some delicacy, and we thought it best at this stage to avoid putting things in writing.’ His good hand twitched under the blanket, and I thought for a moment he’d pull something out. But his eyes closed again, and he went limp on the bed. I waited for his strength to come back. This time, though, he had drifted away. His breathing settled into a faint but regular gasp.

There was a gentle knock on the door and the monk Wulfric entered. He looked at the sleeping Bishop, and hurried across to rearrange the pillows. The wine jug was still half full. It was too much nowadays to finish in one go. On the other hand, taking it with me might not create the best impression. I groaned softly as I got up and made for the door.

‘I’ll make my own way out,’ I said in English without looking back. It was a pointless utterance. If Wulfric bothered watching me leave, it was only to see when he could shut the door.

 

‘If this is the best you’ve seen,’ I said with what I hoped was a dismissive wave, ‘it is a very fine city.’

Brother Jeremy nodded and went back to his eager inspection of Canterbury. Of course, when you’re bumping along in a wheelbarrow, three feet above the ground, you’d think little enough of Constantinople itself. Here, I was most aware of the refuse that was the street’s only paving, and the shouting of the three churls who walked ahead of us to push everyone else out of our way. I had my back to these, and was looking instead at the scrawny churl who was making a right mess of pushing me in the direction of our lodgings.

‘But I never thought I’d see the like,’ Jeremy cried again with all the astonishment of youth. He pointed at the leather goods hanging before one of the shops we were passing. A youngish man of darker hue than England ever produces put on an expectant smile and stepped out of the shop. I sent him packing with a scowl and looked back at Jeremy, who was now staring up at one of the tiled roofs. Like most other building materials here, the tiles had the weathered look that told me they were reused from London, or even my own Richborough.

‘I never thought I’d see the like,’ he repeated yet again, delight and wonder in his voice.

I might not think much of this place. So far as Jeremy was concerned, though, the narrow, twisting street that led from the Bishop’s residence might as well have been one of the main thoroughfares in the great City that sits upon the two waters.

‘I was told that the Monastery of Saint Anastasius was on the left in the square containing the Great Church,’ he said, pulling himself back to the matter in hand.

I nodded vaguely. Canterbury had been my first proper stop the previous winter after I’d been dumped back in Richborough. Even I had to own that the church was a big one by Western standards. But I’d not have dignified the clearing in front of it with the word ‘square’. That gave far too grand an impression of this dreadful hole on the far edge of civilisation. I was thinking of that French red, when the wheelbarrow came to a sudden stop, and I was almost pitched backwards into the waiting filth.

‘Not more pigs in the way?’ I muttered. No, it was people – a whole crowd of them who’d resisted every effort to be pushed. They blocked the exit from the narrow street into what Jeremy had called the square, and stood mostly still and, but for a faint buzz of conversation I couldn’t follow, silent.

‘Make room for the guest of His Grace the Bishop,’ young Jeremy cried. He might have addressed them in Greek for all the sense he made in his Northumbrian dialect.

‘Get out of my bloody way,’ I snarled in the Kentish dialect, ‘or I’ll have my churls set about you with clubs.’

‘Eat shit and die,’ someone called cheerfully down at me. But the churls had taken the hint and were looking fierce. With a few protests and the dropping of something wet and foul between my feet, the crowd parted, and we moved straight into the square.

‘Strike harder! Strike harder!’ I heard someone cry in Latin over on my right. ‘Let him suffer in this world for his sins, that he may avoid damnation in the next.’ He’d called this out in a Roman accent too affected to be real. He was repeating himself, when there was the crack of a whip, and his voice was drowned out by a loud and enthusiastic cheer from the crowd. I gripped the right edge of my wheelbarrow and twisted round to see what was happening.

The voice was of an obese churchman in high middle age. Dressed in dazzling white, he was leaning forward from a raised chair as he continued his Latin harangue. There was bugger all I could make of it, though, for the cheers of the crowd. I climbed slowly out of the wheelbarrow and pushed my way to the front of the crowd. Though much decayed, I still have the remains about me of bigness. More important, I’ve still the air of power, long exercised, that people of this quality don’t even think to question.

From the front of the crowd, I could see the naked wretch tied to a stake, his wrists pulled up so high that his feet barely touched the ground. I’ve never been a connoisseur of these things, but it was a most impressive beating. With all the slow deliberation you see in a church service, two monks walked round and round the beaten man. At every one and a quarter circuit, keeping opposite each other, they’d stop and land two simultaneous blows with what looked like slave scourges. Except for the regular stops and the beating, it might well have been a service – that or a demonstration of astronomical movements.

‘Behold the mercy of Holy Mother Church,’ someone now called out in English from beside the chair. ‘Behold the penance, freely begged and lovingly given. Behold and wonder!’

There wasn’t that much for me to behold in detail – not with my blurry vision, at least. But even I could see that the scourges had the iron tips left on them. To be flogged with just one of these was to be tortured. Even the first blow, laid on with the right firmness, would get a scream out of most victims. Six would tear the flesh most horribly. A dozen would lay the back open like so much putrefied liver. This poor sod must be well past the dozen. By now, his bones would be showing through, and blood, expelled from his lungs, would be dribbling through his nostrils and ears. A master with any sense of propriety would normally offer an offending slave the choice of being hanged. For a flogging of this sort always smashed a man, and I’d never seen any who survived make a full recovery. But this was a Church matter, and, once the formalities of ‘choice’ had been rattled through, there would be no mercy. It couldn’t last much longer. The penitent’s body was dark with his own blood, and there were dark splashes all over the white robes of the two monks. And this was certainly a display that pleased the crowd. Between those bursts of cheering, there was a continual murmuring of approval.

‘You there,’ I said, tapping someone on the shoulder who’d had the nerve to stand in front of me. ‘I want to know what all this is about.’

‘He baptised a dead infant,’ someone else whispered into my good ear. It might have been a churl, or one of the lower tradesmen – hard to tell the difference, really: the broken nose and missing front teeth told me nothing either way. ‘Now Deacon Sophronius is over from Rome,’ he added, ‘there ain’t no more laxity.’ He stopped and giggled, then repeated: ‘No more laxity.’ He looked away to see if there was anything he was missing.

Sophronius was now out of his chair, and was holding up his arms in an exaggerated prayer. Scourges still in hand, the monks had stopped their endless wheeling, and were bent forward in obvious exhaustion.

‘No, you don’t baptise the dead,’ the man beside me went on. ‘If the magic water don’t touch you when you’re alive, it’s the everlasting fire for you.’ He pressed his nasty face into a broader smile. ‘Oh yes, the black fires that ain’t never put out, and the full view, miles above, of the blessed ones in Paradise.’

‘Too right!’ someone joined in from behind me. ‘If a child comes out dead, it was always marked out by God for the fires of Hell. Not the Pope himself can change that. The priest shouldn’t never have let the mother think otherwise.’

There was a hum of agreement all about, though I did see one or two grim faces in the crowd. Sophronius was now beginning a recital of one of Pope Gregory’s more inhuman letters. I could almost hear the smacking of his lips at every pause for the translation into English. I’ll not bother commenting on its inhumanity; besides, you have to accept there’s a certain lawyerly neatness about the doctrine. If you want everyone to believe there is no salvation except through the Church, you can’t go making exceptions for a stillbirth.

Though the penitent himself might well have been dead now, Sophronius was going at a very leisurely pace through what I knew was a letter of immense elaboration. I looked up as the dark and ominous clouds that I’d seen gathering ever since I was wheeled out of Theodore’s residence now blotted out the sun, and I felt the chill of an approaching storm.

‘Let’s get under cover,’ I said to Jeremy, who’d got himself beside me. ‘If you think this spectacle is worth a soaking, I don’t.’

Chapter 3

 

I dreamed that I was young again. I was having dinner with King Chosroes. The Persians hadn’t yet begun their row of shattering defeats that cleared us for what seemed like good out of Syria and Egypt. Unless you had access to the military and tax reports given monthly to the Imperial Council, this could still be seen as a disastrous war. The Persians might be mopping up the Asiatic provinces a battle at a time. They might just have been thrown back with tremendous effort from a stab at Constantinople itself. But most people out of the know expected either a military recovery on our part, or a treaty that would leave us nursing a grudge until the next war. But, as a member of the Council, I’d been fully in the know. When the Persians spoke of reversing the victories of Alexander, a thousand years before, and of recreating the hegemony that had nearly gobbled up the Greek city states, it was more than wishful thinking. The Empire was on the verge of collapse.

I saw Ctesiphon twice. The last time I was there, the Persian capital was much diminished. And the victorious army, of which I was effectively the head, left it a heap of smouldering ruins. But my dream had set me back there for my first visit – when it looked as if the Persians really would be the winners in this great struggle for mastery of the known world. How I’d managed to get there unmolested – let alone worm my way into the Royal Court at Ctesiphon – is too long a story to give as an aside. But I was there, got up as an heretical bishop, and I was having dinner again with His Majesty the Great King.

It was a jolly enough time, if you can find anything good to say about watching gory executions most days, and every single night having to shaft a pretty and inventive, but maniacally demanding, third royal wife. No, it was a jolly time in its own way. The Great King was tired of being nagged by his fire-worshipping priests, and, once he realised I shared his taste for opium, we’d struck up an odd sort of friendship. So, every three evenings, we’d sit in his bedroom, feasting on wild figs and cabbage he’d gathered with his own hands, and then sniffing lumps of resin wrapped in gold foil and dropped into bowls of glowing charcoal.

I’d finished a recitation of some of the lighter anecdotes in Herodotus about the King’s forebears – the disappearance of their own literature always left the Persians dependent on the Greeks for their history – and was waiting for a gong to sound in one of the outer rooms. This would be notice that some eunuchs were coming in to entertain us with their efforts at wanking each other. No gong tonight, though. Instead, it was one of the royal secretaries with another list of family members accused of treason. While Chosroes listened intently to each name and mumbled punishments it needed a diseased mind to conceive let alone pronounce, I made my excuses and went out through the private door.

The Great King had just fathered something that, for the first time in twenty years, had turned out not to have three legs or a cleft palate. So the whole palace was under orders to drink itself blotto. This was my chance for another look through the Secret Archive. There had been a whole delegation of Avars in Ctesiphon. So Roxana the Lustful had whispered in my ear the night before. The generality of what had been discussed was obvious. But i