previous night’s opium pill had relinquished its hold on me, and I’d become gradually aware of the clammy bedclothes and of the damp chill beyond them. I was about to give Martin further instructions on the draft; it was too late to explain again how gold could be moved from one place to another without shipping a single piece, but I could remind him of the formalities in the Papal Bank. Just then, though, there was yet another knock on the door. Before I could call out to enter, it opened and the galley’s head slave walked in. He gave what I thought the most perfunctory bow that was decent for a man of my status.
‘The Lord Priscus would have the pleasure of My Lord’s company,’ he said as he finally looked up. Was that the remains of a smirk on his face? I pretended not to notice. I got up and walked over to the little window. This should have looked out towards Piraeus. All I could see was a mass of grey and endlessly shifting fog. There was an unusually loud scraping of timbers as the galley was jolted by a current or some shift in the breeze. Over on the table, my cup moved about an inch, but didn’t tip over. Martin grabbed for safety at the back of an unoccupied chair. I thought for a moment he would start vomiting again. But it was only a single movement of the galley. I couldn’t see it, but I felt a spatter of the rain that was now joining the mist that had slowed our progress through the Saronic Gulf. I pushed the lead shutter into place. Now with just the light of a few lamps, I crossed the room and pulled the door open. Maximin was still crying. It was the settled, disconsolate wail of a child too young to ask questions, but old enough to know that something was terribly wrong.
I looked back at Martin, who was staring at the bag of gold. ‘Go and see if Sveta’s finished packing,’ I said in Latin. ‘Bear in mind that most of the luggage will be impounded on the docks. Make sure that everything important is in the bags that you’ll be carrying.’
Chapter 8
I’ve said I was in an Imperial galley. This gives little notion of the size or magnificence of what the Viceroy had forced on me for my departure from Alexandria. It was perhaps the biggest vessel in the whole Imperial service. Over a hundred yards long, and fitted out with a lavish indifference to cost that went some way to offsetting the utter want of taste, it was as fine a prison as anyone could have desired. When told I’d be taking ship for Constantinople, I had insisted on something small and fast. Nicetas had smiled and nodded and given me his own official galley. I’d seen this many times in the private harbour. For a good thousand years, it, or something like it, had been kept permanently ready for those times when the King, or Governor, or Duke, or Viceroy needed to get away from the Alexandrian mob. Now, thanks to Priscus, there was no mob left, we’d all been politely bundled into it and waved off with fair cries and crocodile tears. I had to admit, though, that, once those storms had blown up near Seriphos, anything lighter would have been torn apart. If drowning would have been a mercy compared with what might be waiting for me in Piraeus, there were others to think about. As it was, we’d lost half our oars, and had been creeping forward ever since, propelled by various arrangements of sails that might, in other circumstances, have claimed my entire interest.
Once out of my own very grand room, I turned left into the wide central corridor and made my way down the length of the galley to where Priscus had his quarters. Already muffled, the sound of crying children soon faded away, and was replaced by the continued mournful sound of that sailor’s shanty. As I came closer to the stern, I heard a sudden scream. I stopped and listened harder. I could just make out the hiss and impact of a whip before there was a second scream.
There was a soft voice behind me. ‘My Lord is disturbed by the flogging?’ the Captain
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