Free Terror of Constantinople by Richard Blake Page A

official had apparently committed suicide while awaiting arrest and questioning. But his statue remained, though with much of the inscription on its base chiselled out.
        Around the neck of this statue, someone had managed to tie a wooden placard. There were public slaves fussing about with ladders and knives to remove the thing. It was too far away to read the words. No one else was stopping to read them. Theophanes gave the placard a brief glance as we passed by, and added a mild comment about the need for greater vigilance in these days of tribulation.
        Once in the restaurant, we were shown directly into a private room on the upper floor. Slaves there bowed silently to us, and waited on us with a deft and practised ease. It was a very decent lunch – fresh bread, light fish and uncooked vegetables, and a couple of pleasant wines.
        ‘I have taken the liberty of drawing up your permit myself,’ Theophanes said, putting down his goblet of crushed ice and fruit juice. He beckoned to his assistant, who came forward with a folded sheet of parchment. It bore a large seal. With it was a gold medallion that would save me the trouble of carrying the document about with me.
        ‘As befits one of your status, it is an open permit with no restrictions, so long as you keep within the safely of the walls. I have decided that, as you may wish to visit an unknown number of libraries and other places of scholarly interest, there is no point in placing any limits on your movement within the City. You will doubtless find the streets of Constantinople far safer than those of Rome. Even so, I advise you to take reasonable care if you choose to go out at night. You should at least inform the doorman at the Legation of your probable movements. I will speak with him myself. I think you will find him a useful point of contact in my absence.’
        ‘I have yet to meet the Permanent Legate,’ I said, ‘but I’m sure he will wish to thank you for your invaluable kindness in these matters.’
        Theophanes looked at me. His face creased in a benevolent smile, his eyes seemed to look straight inside me. ‘If His Excellency should decide to call you to his office,’ he said, ‘you will be in my debt for passing on my best wishes and my reminder that we have much routine business to transact.’
        He changed the subject, asking me about England. He knew the Great Constantine had been declared Emperor there, back in the days before my people had gone in and smashed everything up. Since then, it had dropped out of the literature. The best information he’d been able to find was of a place without sunshine and inhabited by black dwarves and Germanic barbarians.
        Could that be true? he asked in a voice that sounded just a little naïve.
        ‘Your Magnificence will surely—’
        ‘Do please call me Theophanes,’ he broke in with a confidential smile. ‘I would not have one of my dearest friends stand on ceremony in private.’
        ‘Then Theophanes,’ I took up, ‘you will surely know that England is divided into a number of kingdoms, all with shifting frontiers. My own part, Kent, is presently blessed with King Ethelbert, who is a firm convert to the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. He rejoices in the friendship of the Church mission to his realm, and is untinged by the faintest trace of heresy.’
        And untinged, I thought to myself, by the faintest tinge of anything else beyond a taste for other men’s wives and generally for getting his own way. My strongest memory was of a drunken savage, leering up at me with a gelding knife in hand. It was only because dear old Maximin had turned up at the last moment that I had been packed off to Rome.
        Doubtless, he found Bishop Lawrence and the other missionaries useful when it came to lording it over the other kings. Without that – and without Queen Berthe to nag him into church come Sunday – he’d have had the whole mission