The Curse of Babylon by Richard Blake Page B

new boots, I went over for a look at the body. All I could see of the face was that it had been bearded. The rest was smashed in. The clothing suggested a vagrant. So, unless it had been taken, did the lack of any weapon. I bent forward and sniffed at the vomit. No smell of wine. I’d gone off to sleep the previous night to a distant sound of brawling. The most likely explanation was that some young men of quality had got fighting drunk and found a sleeping beggar to kill. It was coincidence they’d finished him off outside my palace. I hoped the bastards had got themselves covered in gore – that, after all, would be their only punishment.
    I stood back from the body. Samo would be out here later for his daily check on how clean the palace and its surrounds were being kept. He could deal with this. I looked down at my boots. They were still unspotted. I lifted the front of my outer tunic. My leggings were as white as my boots and showed my calves to nice effect. Once that brocade had been lifted off me, I’d put on some lovely clothes. I couldn’t see it but my cloak pin alone would get me the envy of anyone I passed. I looked up at the dark blue of the sky. Not long to go and the sun would be fully overhead. For the moment, I stood in the shade of my own palace wall and, after so much gloom and smoke, the sky was of the deepest and most astonishing blue. It was the colour I’d demanded – with moderate success – for my cloak.
    I looked at the body again. If this was an impulse killing, why had someone broken all the fingers on the right hand? My spirits sank back to where they’d started. But I tried to lift them again. In even a well-policed city this size, you could expect a few dozen bodies most nights. These had to be left somewhere. Why not here now and again? I could have rolled the body over and had a proper sight at the clothing. But that would have spoiled my own. I’d seen enough. I stood upright and smoothed the front of my outer tunic. I had official duties, and was already late for them. I stood forward and crushed an engorged fly that had crawled a little too close by my left boot.
    I turned and walked towards the archway that led into the Triumphal Way. I stopped in the shade and pulled the wide brim of my hat down another inch. Just a well-dressed man about his business, I slipped though the archway and turned right into the road that cut through the vast ceremonial district of Constantinople.
     
    When barbarian kings or ambassadors are honoured with a tour of the City, they always start with the view along the Triumphal Way. This isn’t the main street on Constantinople, or the longest. It is simply what its name suggests – a street that, deviating neither to right nor left, and cutting through two hills, and crossing one valley on brick arches, runs for a mile through the centre. That mile really is the most astonishing vista of glittering porticos and colonnades, triumphal arches and colossal statues and gilded inscriptions. Whether you look at magnificence that goes on seemingly without end, or at the swarming, chattering multitudes of the well-dressed as they go about their business, you’ll think you’re in the capital of an empire at the height of its glory. But that’s always been the intention. You don’t call a street the Triumphal Way and line it with monasteries and sewers. It was laid out so the Emperor himself could ride along it in his chariot of state.
    Truth was, the Empire was on its uppers. The Persian War I’ve already mentioned had been going on for a decade. With Nicetas now in charge of the defence, we’d just lost Syria. Egypt would surely be next. The magnificence on view was all about the past – sometimes the distant past.
    Grim thoughts to keep me company! Still, they kept me from visible impatience. The sun was about to turn beastly overhead and we were in the last rush before siesta time. There was no chance yet of a decent speed. Come the siesta, I’d be