Imperial Vengence, page 27
‘Be calm, dominus,’ he said with a twisted smile. ‘I mean no violence.’ He was rolling up the sleeve of the boy’s tunic and stretching his bare arm across the table, over the bowl of oil. ‘This is merely a small sacrifice, to propitiate the dark spirits so they will allow me to part the veils of the future…’
He lifted the knife and made an incision on the boy’s forearm. Blood welled from the cut, black in the lamplight, and dripped down into the bowl. The boy’s faced remained glazed, his eyes unblinking. Castus watched it all, perched on the stool with his hand on his sword hilt.
Three drops fell, then Tryphonius dismissed the boy, who crawled away to bind the wound with a dirty rag. Now the sorcerer was bent once more over the bowl, the fumes wreathing his head as he muttered and made popping, kissing sounds with his lips. Castus noticed that Crispus was also leaning forward, watching with his lips drawn back from his teeth. He was conscious of the silence and darkness of the city outside, the empty streets. At any moment he expected the bang on the door, the demands for entry.
Tryphonius fell silent, rocking back on his haunches and drawing in breath. Coughing slightly, he took a wetted pad of cloth and stifled the two incense burners.
‘Well?’ Crispus said as the smoke cleared. ‘Do you have an answer?’
‘Oh yes,’ Tryphonius said, and gave a weary smile. ‘I congratulate you, dominus! Your father will live and be healthy for many years. At least another decade. He will die shortly after that, though, perhaps in connection with water. A drowning? Perhaps shipwreck?’
‘Ten years?’ Crispus whispered. His shoulders sagged, and he stared at the dirty floor. Castus exhaled. Now it was done, he was desperate to be gone.
‘Is there… something else that could be done?’ Crispus said suddenly. ‘Something to… shorten the time?’
‘No!’ Castus yelled, standing up. The sorcerer already wore a crafty smile, but his face fell slack at once.
Castus grabbed Crispus by the arm and hauled him to his feet. ‘You got what you came here for,’ he growled. ‘And so we’re leaving – now!’
He shot a glance at the sorcerer, who was quailing behind his table, and dragged Crispus to the door. For a moment the young man tried to struggle, but then the strength left him and he followed without resistance. Throwing the bar across and twisting the key, Castus opened the door and bundled Crispus into the street. For a moment he looked back at the boy – should he take him too? But he knew nothing of the child; he could be the sorcerer’s own son as far as he knew.
Out in the street, Castus sucked down clean air in heaving gasps. Crispus was walking fast at his side, and though Castus still gripped him by the arm he seemed just as eager to put the house far behind him. Castus glanced around; no sign of Felix, nor anybody else. They had reached the end of the curving street and the first flight of steps before Crispus halted suddenly and threw himself back against the wall.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a pained voice. ‘I shouldn’t have taken you there. I shouldn’t have gone at all… But if my father will live for ten more years what am I to do?’
Castus turned to him. Now that they were out of the sorcerer’s house his dread and nausea had turned to furious disgust. He seized Crispus by the shoulder, pressing him back against the bricks.
‘Nothing!’ he hissed between his teeth. ‘Otherwise you endanger us all! Don’t you see that? I’ve supported you because I believed you were better than your father. But now I see you’re just as reckless, just as ambitious. You’d risk anything for power. Anything, and anybody! Do you deny it?’
‘Yes!’ Crispus spat back. He tried to struggle, but Castus kept him gripped tight. ‘You promised me before the Hellespont battle that you’d back me. If we don’t take risks what chance do we have of success?’
‘None either way. Unless you want to declare war on your father. Throw the whole empire back into bloodshed. I’ve seen enough of that to last me!’
Abruptly the fight died in Crispus and he slumped in Castus’s grip. He let out a low groan. ‘There must be another way,’ he said quietly. ‘Maybe not now, not yet. But soon. Before the Vicennalia. I can talk to my father again, make him see sense…’
But Castus had been struck by another thought. His brow chilled. They could keep the night’s events secret, but if anyone thought to enquire, the truth would soon emerge. The slaves in the baths precinct had seen them, the sentry who had opened the side gate, the guide who had led them to the house, then the magician himself – in a matter of hours it could all be pieced together. In his mind Castus saw the smirking face of Flavius Innocentius, the imperial agent. The seeker of truth. The torturer.
‘That man Tryphonius,’ he said quietly. ‘We can’t let him live.’
For a moment Crispus looked appalled. ‘But… he had no idea who I was!’
‘He knew exactly who you were. And now he has to die for it. You should have thought of that before.’
Castus drew the blade from beneath his cloak and stepped back into the alleyway. ‘Wait here,’ he said coldly. ‘I’ll do it myself.’
A shout came from down the street, the clash of a door and the sound of running feet. Castus pressed himself back against the wall, weapon ready. Out of the dimness came the shape of a man in a cloak. Felix.
‘Dominus! Three of them – at the house.’
Castus turned to the young man beside him. ‘Get back to the palace, quick as you can. Stop for nothing and nobody. Go!’
Crispus paused only a moment, open-mouthed in shock. Then he whirled and ran. Castus was already following Felix.
Back down the street, running hard, Castus saw the open door of the sorcerer’s house, the three men dragging a huddled figure between them. Tryphonius still had the blanket wrapped around him, and was letting out high breathy cries. One of the men smacked him over the head with the pommel of a short sword.
Outpacing Castus, Felix slammed into the group as they cleared the doorway. His arm lashed out, and one of the three screamed and reeled back, colliding with the wall before he fell. The other two men were gripping Tryphonius between them. As Castus closed in, one of them grabbed the sorcerer by the hair, hauled back his head and cut his throat with one slash. Then they ran.
Two bodies on the ground, spilling blood. Felix quickly silenced the man he had wounded; Castus knelt beside Tryphonius, but the sorcerer was already dead.
‘Not such a good fortune-teller,’ Felix said, ‘if he didn’t see that coming!’
The fugitives had separated at the fork in the street, but Castus and Felix were close behind him. The sound of their footsteps was loud between the blank walls and shutters to either side. As they reached the fork, Castus pointed to the left. ‘Catch that one,’ he gasped, ‘I’ll get the other!’
Felix nodded, and was gone.
Breath heaving, his chest burning, Castus pounded along the alleyway. He could see the fugitive only a dozen paces ahead of him, but already the chase was lengthening. Castus had no idea where he was – somewhere in the lower slums of Nicomedia – nor where the street was taking him. He was forty-eight years old, heavy and wearied, and the man ahead of him was gaining fast. Teeth clenched, feet hammering the worn paving, Castus willed himself onwards.
The man turned sharply, into a narrower alley. Castus threw himself around the corner in pursuit, and the blackness closed around him. Even through the fury of the chase he felt the chill of danger; at any moment the man ahead could pause, wait in some dark corner until Castus ran onto his outstretched blade… Another corner, the glimpse of a man’s form vanishing ahead, the whip of a cloak in the darkness. There was no doubt in Castus’s mind who this man must be, or who had sent him on his mission. Snarling, he ran on down the narrow funnel of the alleyway.
Then the buildings fell away to either side, and in the bright sudden moonlight Castus saw an open yard, walled at the rear. A stench in the dusty air, like the spill from a tannery. He paused, heart thumping fast, and gazed around him. Wooden pens to his left. To his right a row of brick arches. Something moved in the shadows, and Castus turned on his heel, raising his sword. The man was over by the arches and trying to edge back around his flank.
He stepped out into the moonlight, and Castus saw him clearly. He had been expecting Innocentius, but this was somebody else, a stranger. The man had flung away his cloak, and wore the sleeveless tunic of a labourer. His flat face was clear in the pale light, and his crooked teeth as he tried to smile. He was still holding the short blade low at his side, in a fighter’s grip.
‘We don’t need to do this,’ the man said.
‘You know we do,’ Castus told him quietly.
For a long moment they stood facing each other. Somewhere a dog whined. All Castus’s fatigue was gone now, burned off by the familiar energy of confrontation. Almost without conscious thought he made the slightest feint to his right, then pure instinct took over. His body flowed forward into the strike, a single swift movement. The man tried to raise his sword and parry, too late; Castus smacked it aside, then swung his own blade up and punched it through his opponent’s body.
He felt the sigh of breath as the man slumped against him, the wet heat of blood pouring across his hand. The man died without another sound, and Castus eased him down into the dirt and dragged his sword free.
*
The first light was in the eastern sky by the time Castus found his way back to the palace. He slipped in through the gate to the baths precinct, past the idle sentry and the slaves. Felix was close behind him; he too had got his man, and Castus had already brushed away his apologies for letting the three killers slip past him. ‘They knew where we were going,’ he said. ‘They were probably already waiting for us.’
He left Felix at the bottom of the stairs and climbed through the darkness to the imperial quarters on the upper floor. The soldier in the vestibule recognised him, and Castus returned to his chambers. He was achingly tired, his legs still pulsing from the chase, and his right hand was sticky with congealing blood. Flinging off his cloak and throwing the sword on the bed, he called for Glycon to bring him a basin of water and a cloth.
Sitting on the bed, Castus plunged his hands into the basin, scrubbing at the bloodstains. Gore was spattered all up his right arm as well, dirty brown now as it dried. He rubbed at his hand and arm fiercely until his skin was clean, then he stared down into the murky copper-coloured water. Who was the man he had killed that night? An imperial agent, maybe a soldier, maybe just a hired tough. A man with a duty, ordered to do a job, like Castus himself. Who had sent him, and his two comrades? Was it Innocentius, or the emperor? Perhaps even Fausta – Castus had still not rid himself of the suspicion that she wanted to destroy Crispus. It did not matter. The man was dead; they were all dead.
Suddenly he felt sickened to his core. Sick of war, of blood and killing. He thought again of all the thousands of dead at the Hellespont, all the thousands more at Chrysopolis, and knew that he had had enough of it.
Constantine was emperor; it was the will of the gods. Even if he denied them, it was impossible to deny reality. Madness for Crispus to oppose him now; to do so would only breed new conflicts, fresh battles. And if the plot were exposed, Castus himself would pay with his life. He, and probably his family as well. It was too much to risk, just to further one young man’s ambitions.
He lifted his hands from the water and wiped them on the cloth, then screwed it into a ball in his fists. No, he thought, I cannot go on with this. Whatever Crispus intended to do, he wanted no further part of it. He would have to tell him – and if that meant resigning his position in the Caesar’s retinue, so be it. Even if it meant leaving the army altogether. All he wanted now was peace, his wife, his family. An end to death and slaughter.
Throwing down the cloth, he put on his embroidered officer’s tunic and cloak, changed his shoes, then marched from the chamber. Only a couple more hours remained until dawn, and already the rooms and porticoes of the palace were filled with a dim grey light. He walked fast, past the sentries and along the broad painted corridor that led to Crispus’s own chambers. He must tell him now, before the dawn, before the palace awoke.
The guard at the inlaid doors, one of the Protectores, was half-asleep, sitting on a stool, and leaped up blearily at the sound of Castus’s approaching steps. He blinked, baffled.
‘I need to speak to the Caesar,’ Castus declared.
‘Excellency, the Caesar is… sleeping.’
Castus caught the hesitancy in the man’s voice. His brow furrowed.
‘Then I’ll wake him. Let me through.’
Jutting his jaw, he leaned forward on his toes. The Protector flicked a nervous glance towards the doors, then back to Castus. Then he stepped aside.
The antechamber beyond was dim, but lamplight filtered through the drapes from the inner room, illuminating the shapes of peacocks embroidered on the cloth. As Castus approached the far doorway a figure rose from one of the couches. He glanced for just a moment, then stared back again.
‘Niobe?’ he whispered almost silently.
The Aethiopian girl had been lying on the couch. Now she gazed at Castus, wide-eyed. She raised an open palm – a gesture of warning, or of denial. ‘Don’t…’ she managed to say.
Castus’s confused indecision lasted only a heartbeat. Then he marched forward again, sweeping aside the peacock drapes.
A lamp on a tall brass stand illuminated the centre of the chamber, but the margins were in deep shadow and it took a moment for Castus’s eyes to pick out the details. He saw a low table set with cups, a pair of couches. On one of the couches, a pair of figures intertwined.
Standing in the doorway, he blinked slowly. He had looked away at once, embarrassed, but now he forced himself to look again. The couple on the couch had stopped moving at the sound of his steps. Amid the rucked clothing, naked flesh gleamed in the lamplight. Crispus had raised an arm to cover his face; the woman with him had pressed herself down between the pillows.
Castus gazed for only a moment; then he stepped back through the drapes into the outer chamber. Niobe was kneeling on the floor beside the couch. She gazed up at him, trembling, and raised a finger to her lips. Castus nodded, stunned, open-mouthed. There was nothing to say.
His mind reeling with shock and confusion, he paced quietly to the door.
He had only had the briefest glimpse of the woman on the couch with Crispus, but he had known her at once.
It was Fausta.
Part 3
Eighteen Months Later
22
Constantinople, March AD 326
‘It’s going to be beautiful,’ Helena said. ‘Don’t you think, my dear? When it’s finished – the most beautiful city on earth!’
Fausta gave only the slightest nod, unwilling to encourage the old woman’s enthusiasm further. A cold wind was blowing from the Bosphorus, stirring the dust from around the construction sites and charging the air with powdered brick and ground marble. Stacks of columns and heaps of cut stone lay beside the roads, and the noise of hammering and chipping was a steady percussive assault on her ears. She pulled her fur-trimmed cloak tighter beneath her chin.
In the middle distance, her husband Constantine was talking to his architects and engineers, making wide sweeping gestures with his hands. Behind them, a tall crane of angled wooden beams was lifting pillars into place. This would be a forum one day, or an assembly hall. Maybe a church – Fausta was not sure. For now the whole scene resembled an architectural salvage yard, or the aftermath of an earthquake. The ancient city of Byzantium had been abolished, the walls that had defied Constantine for months dismantled, and most of the other buildings with them. Now a new and far greater city was rising on its foundations. A city named, of course, after the emperor himself. Constantinople.
‘One day soon, I feel sure,’ Helena went on, ‘this city could surpass Rome itself in grandeur!’
Fausta hid her smile. She doubted that. Rome was the city of her birth, the place she still thought of as home, although she had not been there in over a decade. The mother city. Mistress of the world. No tawdry new creation on the shores of the Thracian Bosphorus could rival that, however much her husband plundered the monuments of the eastern cities to build it. But she knew how to feign the correct levels of excitement about the project.
‘Can we see the new wall from here, do you think?’ Helena asked, gazing westwards. The breeze whipped her white silk mantle around her head, but she appeared not to feel the cold. ‘I do so want to see it – they’ve made tremendous progress already. Forty thousand Gothic slaves have been put to work on it, you know! I expect it will be the most beautiful wall in creation!’
‘I expect so too,’ Fausta said. The new wall stood more than a mile further west than the old defences of Byzantium. She sincerely hoped that Constantine would not insist on dragging them all off to look at it.
‘So wonderful that they’re putting the barbarians to honest labour,’ Helena was saying. ‘Turning their hands to the works of peace, rather than war… I must remind myself to show you my new copy of the gospels!’
Fausta frowned, looking at her mother-in-law. What was she talking about now? A brief hope rose in her that Helena might finally have lost her reason; but no, the old woman was still far too sharp.
‘I’m having them written out by slaves, you see. Purple ink on gilded vellum! A suitable vehicle for the Word of God, don’t you think?’
‘I’d love to see them,’ Fausta said, with a smile that she hoped appeared genuine. Helena glared back at her, and Fausta sensed the slow relentless blaze of fury behind her eyes.
‘Domina,’ another voice said. Fausta turned and saw Niobe a short distance away, shivering in her light cloak. ‘Domina – the children.’
