The Curse of Babylon Read Online Free PDF Page A

strength. ‘Whatever chicanery you dare to employ in this world,’ he went on in Syriac, ‘can you not imagine the torments that await you in the next for the murder you have committed?’
    I’d been made to leave my sandals at the door. I looked sadly at my feet. They’d benefit from the attentions of a pumice stone. But – such the indignities of age – I could barely reach nowadays to wash them. ‘Sophronius got what he deserved,’ I said. ‘If there is a Hell, he’s already burning there in your favourite lake of black fire. Besides, you just try proving that I did him in. That jailor you put up against me today made a right dickhead of himself. And Gebmund must have told you that his hands are tied. Don’t assume you can scare me into doing your dirty work. I’m the Emperor’s man till I die. That’s one oath I won’t ever break.’
    We glared at each other until Wulfric returned, jug in hand. If that was a pint the boy was carrying, King Swaefheard had been playing with the Kentish weights and measures. But I smiled and nodded, and pushed my teeth back into place. I left him with the cup and took the jug. One of the few blessings of my advanced age is that it takes very little wine to get me tipsy. In the glory days of my youth, I could knock it back like beer and drink anyone under the table. Now, I sipped with moderate delicacy and waited for the delicious warmth to radiate from the pit of my stomach. Oh, but rotten luck – I’d been given some kind of heated slop that tasted of lentils! I resisted the urge to spit and tried to look grateful.
    Theodore closed his eyes and settled back into his pillows. ‘Don’t you understand the enormity of your crime, Alaric?’ he whined. ‘You have murdered a deacon of the Church. You have committed a crime that cries aloud to Heaven for punishment. Are you not willing to make some atonement for this unspeakable sin?’
    ‘Oh shut up, Theodore!’ I answered. I turned to Wulfric. ‘If you don’t bring me something drinkable,’ I said in my chilliest voice, ‘I’ll find someone in Canterbury to take you by the scruff of the neck and smash your teeth out against a shithouse wall. Now, wipe that insolent smile off your face and get out of my sight!’
    I looked back to Theodore and smiled. ‘Listen, my boy,’ I said slowly and in Syriac, ‘we both know very well that, seventy-six years ago, I got the Pope of that time to agree, by his servants and agents, that the Will of Christ might be an aspect of His Person, and therefore singular. This means that he also agreed that any claim that His Will was an aspect of His Nature, and therefore dual, might be a misunderstanding of the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon. It doesn’t matter what side deals attended this agreement. What does matter is that, if the Monothelite position is heretical, Pope bloody Benedict of Blessed Memory was willing not to anathematise heresy. You allowed that bag of shite now rotting before our eyes to pressure me into lying my head off about what happened at the Closed Council of Athens. You people would then use this to embarrass the Emperor in his dealings with the Syrian Church. Well, I gave in last spring, because I was pressed, and because I hoped you’d snuff it before I needed to deliver. But you’re still alive – sort of – and so I’ve had to remove the pressure by other means; and there’s bugger all you can do put it back on me. If you try to push things any further, I’ll raise a stink that will poison dealings between the Church and the Kentish Crown for generations to come. After a lifetime of knowing me, you should be aware that I can and will do that.’
    He managed to raise his good hand for silence. ‘Alaric,’ he sobbed, ‘you committed both blasphemy and treason this morning. I beg you to reconsider your remarks.’
    ‘Tough titty, My Lord High Bishop!’ I laughed. ‘All I did today was let slip a dirty little secret your sort have kept from my