Terror of Constantinople by Richard Blake Read Free Book Online

and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”’
        He looked upwards – possibly for God, more likely worried that Sveta might be listening through the floorboards. There were degrees of martyrdom beyond even his present mood.
        But this was getting us nowhere. I changed the subject.
        ‘I bumped into your landlord as I came down the street,’ I said, dropping my voice still further. ‘I took the liberty of settling your rent arrears. Next time you can’t pay the wretch, do come and tell me. I think the two men with him were baliliffs.’
        Martin looked up again. There was a heavy tramp on the upper floor, and the muted sound of a baby being comforted.
        ‘Thank you, Aelric,’ he said, a burden plainly coming off his mind. ‘I’ll tell Sveta when you’ve gone. She does respect you greatly. And she’s as grateful as I am for all you’ve done already to help. Sadly, I can’t persuade her to trust you. She says you only ever get me into trouble. She thinks – she thinks that you might be an atheist  ...’
        ‘Think it a token of the great affection I bear you and your family,’ I said quickly. No fool was Sveta. She deserved better than Martin.
        I pushed the cup forward again. Martin looked around.
        ‘You came alone?’ he asked. ‘Does that mean  ...?’
        ‘Does it mean’, I answered, quoting his own words back at him, ‘that I’ve got rid of that “drink-sodden oaf” I won at dice? No.’ I laughed. ‘Authari is presently at home opening boxes. He remains my best and most trusted slave. If we must go to Constantinople, he goes too. This time, be assured, he’ll be reminded of your station. Even you’d not deny, though, he can be very handy with a meat cleaver.’
        I waited for the recollection of our escape from King Agilulf’s torture garden to come fully back into his mind. For my current purpose, I needed Martin the terror-prone clerk: all this fatalism was no use to me at all. I looked again at the empty cup. Martin filled it to the brim.
        I returned to the matter in hand. ‘Look, Martin,’ I said, ‘I’m not asking for much this time. All I need is for you to stand for one meeting without your knees giving way while I talk our way out of this lunatic mission. Can I count on you?’
        From the scared look now coming into his eyes, we might just about be in business.
        ‘We need to make His Excellency aware’, I said, ‘that whatever debts we once variously owed him were discharged in full back in Pavia. I don’t imagine he’s asking for a repeat of Pavia – no snooping around this time, no waiting on moonless nights to pass information about warlike intentions. But I don’t like this stuff about consulting libraries there. It smells like a priest’s armpit.
        ‘Have another look at these instructions. How much work do you really think they involve? Three days? Five?’
        As he unrolled it again and looked down the sheet of tiny writing, I took up a handful of dried onion seeds and began crunching on them.
        Martin looked up at length, confusion on his face. ‘I’ll swear most works on his list are here in Rome,’ he said. ‘This one, I know for a fact, is in the Papal Library. This one was condemned a hundred years ago. It may still exist in some private collection, but can’t be anywhere on view in Constantinople. As for this one, Paul of Halicarnassus never wrote on the Council of Nicaea. The work mentioned is mistitled, but is a book of sermons against the Aphthardocetic heresy – that’s the one’, he explained, noting my questioning look, ‘about the incorruptibility of Christ’s physical body after death.’
        ‘So,’ I asked, ‘in your opinion, everything in these instructions can be done right here in Rome?’
        ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Here in Rome. At worst, there might be a trip to Ravenna.’
        I’d already guessed as much. But Martin was the