Lest Darkness Fall Read Online Free PDF Page A

lot of customs and
features different from those of Rome. Now, if you could back me in the
manufacture of some of our commodities that are not known here —"
     
                "Ai!" yelped
Thomasus, throwing up his hands. "Did You hear that, God? He doesn't want me
to back him in some well-known business. Oh, no. He wants me to start some
newfangled line that nobody ever heard of! I couldn't think of such a thing,
Martinus. What was it you had in mind?"
     
                "Well, we have a drink
made from wine, called brandy, that ought to go well."
     
                "No, I couldn't
consider it. Though I admit that Rome needs manufacturing establishments badly.
When the capital was moved to Ravenna all revenue from Imperial salaries was
cut off, which is why the population has shrunk so the last century. The town
is badly located, and hasn't any real reason for being any more. But you can't
get anybody to do anything about it. King Thiudahad spends his time writing
Latin verse. Poetry! But no, young man, I couldn't put money into a wild
project for making some weird barbarian drink."
     
                Padway's knowledge of
sixth-century history was beginning to come back to him. He said:
"Speaking of Thiudahad, has Queen Amalaswentha been murdered yet?"
     
                "Why" — Thomasus
looked sharply at Padway with his good eye — "yes, she has." That
meant that Justinian, the "Roman" emperor of Constantinople, would
soon begin his disastrously successful effort to reconquer Italy for the
Empire. "But why did you put your question that way?"
     
                Padway asked. "Do-do
you mind if I sit down?"
     
                Thomasus said he didn't.
Padway almost collapsed into a chair. His knees were weak. Up to now his
adventure had seemed like a complicated and difficult masquerade party. His own
question about the murder of Queen Amalaswentha had brought home to him all at
once the fearful hazards of life in this world.
     
                Thomasus repeated: "I
asked why, young sir, you put your question that way?"
     
                "What way?" asked
Padway innocently. He saw where he'd made a slip.
     
                "You asked whether she
had been murdered yet. That sounds as though you had known ahead of time that
she would be killed. Are you a soothsayer?"
     
                There were no flies on
Thomasus. Padway remembered Nevitta's advice to keep his eyes open.
     
                He shrugged. "Not
exactly. I heard before I came here that there had been trouble between the two
Gothic sovereigns, and that Thiudahad would put his co-ruler out of the way if
he had a chance. I — uh — just wondered how it came out, that's all."
     
                "Yes," said the
Syrian. "It was a shame. She was quite a woman. Good-looking, too, though
she was in her forties. They caught her in her bath last summer and held her
head under. Personally I think Thiudahad's wife Gudelinda put the old
jelly-fish up to it. He wouldn't have nerve enough by himself."
     
                "Maybe she was
jealous," said Padway. "Now, about the manufacture of that barbarian
drink, as you call it —"
     
                "What? You are a
stubborn fellow. It's absolutely out of the question, though. You have to be
careful, doing business here in Rome. It's not like a growing town. Now, if
this were Constantinople —" He sighed. "You can really make money in
the East. But I don't care to live there, with Justinian making life exciting
for the heretics, as he calls them. What's your religion, by the way?"
     
                "What's yours? Not that
it makes any difference to me."
     
                "Nestorian."
     
                "Well," said
Padway carefully, "I'm what we call a Congregationalist." (It was not
really true, but he guessed an agnostic would hardly be popular in