Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [80]
Damien paused. 'A payment, for the risks that I take on your behalf, is always much appreciated, centurion. For I am but a simple craftsman earning a poor living amongst the impoverished of this quarter.'
Centurion Crispianus Dolavia sighed deeply, felt into the pocket of his tunic and removed a small bag of coins which he dropped, with a clank, onto the table. ‘I am not an ungrateful man, potter. Unless, of course, my time is wasted in which case my gratitude has been known to extend even unto death.
Speak and quickly, or forever hold your peace...'
So Damien spoke. ‘The next house, whereupon lives Georgiadis the shopkeeper and his fat wife and their mewling brat. I have evidence that they are involved with the schemes of anti-Roman elements and insurrectionists.’
'I am listening,' said the centurion. 'Continue and present your evidence that I may make a decision upon it.'
They have a new arrival,' said Damien. 'A girl.'
À Briton,' interjected Dorothea, coming to her husband's side, her wounded feelings seemingly healed by the money on the table.
'A Briton in Byzantium is certainly strange,' noted the Roman, 'but it is hardly proof conclusive of any wrongdoing by these people. Perhaps I should ask them to their face what is their business...’
He reached out for his bag of coins but Damien's hand stopped him.
`Forgive me, centurion,' he said quickly, as Crispianus Dolavia reached for his sword. ‘But there is more. The girl asks many curious questions. She very seems interested in the activities of the Roman legions. She has been seen in the Jewish quarter.'
‘She is a spy,' Dorothea announced grandly. 'Why else would a Briton be sharing a roof with a Greek family?'
Centurion Crispianus Dolavia considered this for a moment. `This matter would seem to require further investigation. Thank you for betraying the presence of this girl. I bid you both good night. A blessing be upon your house.'
Chapter Twenty-Three
You're History
And he cometh to the house of
the ruler of the synagogue,
and seeeth the tumult, and them
that wept and wailed greatly.
Mark 5:38
Having left the comparative sanctuary of Hieronymous's home, Barbara Wright didn't have the faintest idea of where she would, or could, go next.
Or, wherever that was, whether she would be safe from persecution there, because of her nationality and pale skin.
By the Jews, or the Romans, or the Arabs, or anyone else for that matter.
She wasn't even sure whether, if she looked at someone in a way that they took exception to, whether she would find herself with her throat slashed, bleeding to death and gasping her final breath in the gutter of some Byzantine backstreet, cursing the dark November evening in London that she and Ian Chesterton had decided to investigate their mysterious and unearthly child. Which is a wonderfully paranoid notion to have constantly in the back of your mind, she thought, as you wander through the streets of a strange and glittering metropolis. In a complex political and social landscape where you are a total outsider and with many inexplicable peoples, cultures and creeds. And in a brutal time of troubles and inhumanities.
A time of great sorrows.
And, to think, Barbara had been the one who had been excited by the prospect of coming to Byzantium in the first place.
That was a good idea.
Silly, silly girl, she reproached herself. Next time you want to go exploring the annals of history, stick to the British Library. At least you normally don't get stabbed in the back while in the reading rooms.
Uncertainty was a key word for Barbara just at the moment. More so than usual. The only thing that she knew for certain was that her future lay somewhere other than sharing a house with the old Pharisee, Hieronymous, however painful for both of them that fact was.
As she walked along the cobbled and narrow streets of the Jewish quarter, she began to formulate a plan in her mind that would at least point the way towards whatever the future held in store for her. Firstly, she decided, she would need to return to the market