Free The Curse of Babylon by Richard Blake

combined land and sea operation to recover Africa from the Vandals. I’d given Nicetas the best-equipped army we’d sent out in a generation – and to hold a perfectly defensible province. The duffer had fallen into a trap an idiot child might have spotted and, a thousand years after Alexander had brought it under Greek dominion, the Persians were again masters of Syria.
    One way or another, I’d have Nicetas for this. If I got any say in the matter, serving in a public toilet would be a soft option for the useless, blame-shifting bastard. For a moment, I thought of pulling my hat off and giving these flecks of stinking gutter scum a lecture on how to save an empire run down by a century of misgovernment. You can imagine this didn’t involve piling still more taxes on those who grew food for the Empire and provided it with soldiers. But I kept my mouth shut. Someone in the crowd now began bleating how I’d used the whole Imperial budget to make solid gold statues of myself in the nude. If true, that would still have been a better use of the taxpayers’ money than spending it on food to shove down his worthless throat.
    Constans struck up again, now suggesting a petition to the Emperor when he finally decided to come back from consulting the ‘holy fathers’ in Cyzicus. They could ask for me to be dragged from my ‘demon-haunted’ palace and blinded and stuffed away in a monastery. There was a long groan of agreement from the crowd and a woman began shrieking as if about to give birth. Alexius disagreed, merely suggesting I should be taken back to whatever northern forest was my true home. There, I could be let loose to run about with the other howling savages. That got him a raucous laugh. I didn’t like the repeated talk of demons. I’d speak with Samo, when I got home, about another change of the locks. I watched the two seditionaries smile at each other. You couldn’t deny they were earning their fee for the day.
    They now decided they’d finished earning it. As the crowd drifted in the direction of the food wagons, I walked slowly across to the wide steps that led down to Imperial Square. This journey was already taking longer than it should. I needed a short cut to the city walls.
     
    Dignity almost recovered, I stood on the topmost step and took my hat off. I fanned myself and put it back on. The breeze was settling into a regular wind and the afternoon might not be quite so sweltering as I’d thought it would be. I looked at my boots. They could do with a light brushing but I’d avoided stepping in any of the filth that drops from the bodies of the poor. I’ll not say my spirits were rising but it was a fine day for being out of doors. Nicetas was trying to do me over. Good seditionaries don’t come cheap. He’d spent a fortune on a cup that would be an excuse for one of Leander’s leaden epigrams. But I’d more than match that. I’d send the cup off to the mint and put notice of this into The Gazette . That would put a sour look on his face.
    But all that could wait. Lucas was waiting outside the walls, and with evidence that might let me save still more of the taxpayers’ money on salaries and pensions. I prepared to hurry down into Imperial Square.
    ‘Might Your Honour be a gambling man?’ someone asked in the wheedling tone of the poor. I paid no attention and looked up at the sky – not a cloud in sight, but the gathering shift to a northern wind would soon justify my blue woollen cloak. ‘Go on, Sir – I can see it’s your lucky day!’ I looked round at someone with the thin and wiry build of the working lower classes. He looked under the brim of my hat and laughed. ‘For you, Sir, I’ll lay special odds,’ he said. ‘You drop any coin you like in that bowl down there.’ I didn’t follow his pointed finger. I’d already seen the disused fountain thirty feet below in Imperial Square. He put his face into a snarling grin. ‘Even a gold coin you can drop, Sir. The ten foot of