The Judgement

14

In the gloom of the convent chapel, there was a priest intoning the ancient litany, and, kneeling before him, a woman in white, veiled in keeping with the teachings of the Church, and, either side of her, two veiled handmaidens. The priest looked up, his expression angry.

‘The sacraments have been administered?’ demanded Aetius.

‘Who are you, and how dare you interrupt the holy mass?’

‘I see they have. Shut up your gospel, Father. The service is finished. It’s time for the empress to leave.’

Immediately one of the handmaidens stood before him. ‘Night is falling, and the empress is in no fit state to leave.’

Aetius frowned. Two other of her handmaidens helped her to her feet. She turned. Through the dim gauze he saw a woman who looked old but once beautiful, her eyes still large and luminous. In truth, she was only in her middle forties. She looked at him and clutched one of her maids.

Aetius’ heart sank. ‘Take her to the hospital,’ he ordered.

There was a moment of hesitation, then the empress bowed her head and her handmaidens led her away.

Athenais lay in a fever, very pale, her broad brow damp with perspiration. Gamaliel sent out for some fresh willow leaves. He said an infusion would help, but it would take time, and she must drink boiled water. His cures struck those around him as mad. Heat should be used to drive out heat, surely? The empress should be laden with blankets, and given strong spiced wine. But they did his bidding, under the stern eye of Master-General Aetius, who seemed to have some connection with this bearded and peculiar ancient.

The general was hovering in the door of the hospital, about to leave, when the empress summoned him over. For a moment, her fever seemed to clear. She gave him a sad smile.

‘What kept you?’ she said. She might have been referring to his whole life.

He looked at the ground. ‘I was needed elsewhere.’

‘And still are?’

He looked troubled. ‘We must leave when we can. There isn’t much time.’

‘Do not leave,’ she said, misunderstanding. She reached out a trembling hand. ‘Stay.’

A nurse lit a candle for her bedside. After a moment, Aetius called for a chair to be brought.

In the night she was feverish again, talking in her delirium, repeating an old rhyme: ‘Many a couple love one another, Though they never come together, Nor shall know each other’s name ever.’

Suddenly she half sat up and stared at him. ‘Let us ride away.’

‘We will,’ he said quietly, ‘once you are well.’

One of her handmaidens eased her gently down again.

‘Far away,’ murmured the empress. ‘Do not let the angel of history harry us to the bitter end.’

The handmaiden looked awkwardly, questioningly, at the general. He nodded her away.

‘Somewhere there is escape from it,’ Athenais murmured, barely audible, her dark hair streaked with grey and plastered to her face.

‘You should rest now,’ he said. And then very carefully, with gross presumption by all the rules of court etiquette, he reached out his big scarred hand and stroked the hair back from her cheek. He took up the damp cloth on the edge of the bowl beside her and pressed it to her brow. She breathed in deeply, seemed calmer again.

‘Somewhere there is escape from it,’ she repeated softly. ‘Somewhere we might awake one morning out of the clutches of this nightmare.’

He did not want to hear her words, but he could not leave her.

‘In two or three generations’ time, all this will be at an end.’ She was looking intently at him again, and he could see she knew who he was. She was not so delirious. ‘Rome and her empire… These things are at an end. Can you not see, Aetius? In two or three generations’ time, these things will be only glorious memories in the minds of old men, monks and scholars in their chilly skylit cells, dreaming of the Golden Antique Past, and of the Kingdom to Come, and of Christos Pantocrator who will descend from heaven and spirit their souls away to a far, far better world than this. And why should they not dream? For the present will be nothing but dust and darkness and ashes. The lights are going out all over Europe, the darkness is coming. Only in a few isolated places will the flickering candles be kept burning. But the strong, brave dream that was Rome in her might and youth’ – she clutched his wrist with one hand – ‘and her centuries of confidence and pride… They are gone. It is done, and only darkness and ignorance remain.’

Gently he released her grip and laid her arm back beside her. In the corner, in the gloom, her handmaidens were watching.

‘The barbarians pour over the borders,’ she murmured, falling into oblivion again. ‘Or else they invest the empire from within, and in a dream people stagger on, the living dead, their civilisation long since finished, believing in nothing. A ghost culture kept going only by comfort and illusion and wealth.’

They said the prophecies of the dying were the most powerful of all.

When Gamaliel returned, Aetius leapt to his feet and went to him. They spoke quietly in the shadows for a while, then the old physician mixed up more of his willow-leaf infusion, and added other ingredients from two more vessels. One of her handmaidens held up the empress’s head and she drank and then she slept.

Aetius would not leave, though he looked worn out.

‘You want me to assure you that she will live,’ said Gamaliel.

Aetius said nothing.

‘Well,’ said the old man. ‘You know the cynical old saying: “Ubi tres physici, duo athei – where there are three doctors, there are two atheists.” But I am the third of them. God is with us, in ways we cannot even imagine.’ He laid his hand on Aetius’ arm. ‘A leader of men needs sharp wits, which means good sleep.’

Against his will, Aetius followed someone else’s advice for the first time in decades.