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perhaps, or a Sicilian?
        I turned back to Authari, whose babble of explanations was now descending into his native Lombardic.
        ‘I am entirely satisfied you did your best,’ I said firmly, trying to shut him up. ‘Indeed, you may have done me quite a favour. Had you been with me, they might have gone for me some other time and with more success. As it is, forewarned is forearmed.’
        Unconvinced, Authari fell silent, his face still dark with shame and the fear of a slave who has slipped up in his duty. I leaned back against the still cool bricks of the wall behind me and gathered my thoughts.
        ‘Tell me, Authari,’ I said, sipping what he’d left me of the wine, ‘do you know which side it was that grabbed you? And do put your sword away. The only trouble we might have now is from those monks over there.’
        He gave me a look of rather vexing stupidity and replied that the men had been talking about His Holiness.
        I sighed, but kept my temper. ‘You do know’, I prompted, ‘there’s a civil war in the Empire?’
        He didn’t.
        ‘It doesn’t normally affect us here,’ I continued. ‘Since your people turned up in Italy, the Emperor’s Exarch doesn’t control much more than Ravenna. Under His Holiness, Rome is effectively an independent city-state.
        ‘Yes, a city-state,’ I mused. ‘After fifteen hundred years, Rome ends its experience of empire more of less where it began.’
        But I pulled myself back to present matters. I didn’t want to lose Authari.
        ‘It’s a revolt got up by the Exarch of Africa. And he’s winning. Because of that, Emperor Phocas is piling on the pressure in Rome. He needs His Holiness to excommunicate Heraclius the father and Heraclius the son and Nicetas the nephew. That won’t count for much in the East. But Africa is part of the West. A formal denunciation from Rome would cut the rebels off from their base.
        ‘The problem is’, I went on, summarising what I’d picked up on the Exchange, ‘that the only thing Rome wants of Phocas as the price is something the Eastern Churches wouldn’t allow. The Pope must be made “Universal Bishop”. There must be an irrevocable statement that he stands above the other Four Patriarchs of the Universal Church. Constantinople and Antioch and Alexandria and Jerusalem must all bow down before Rome.
        ‘That needs a sealed patent for advertising in the East, and shoving under the nose of every bishop and king in the West.
        ‘There is a further problem. Even if the Eastern Churches could be bullied into assenting to such a patent, neither Pope nor Emperor trusts the other. Neither will make the first move. And it may now be too late. Heraclius, the son, or his cousin will soon show up outside Constantinople. Whoever gets there first will be Emperor himself before Christmas. That means all Rome needs do is wait, while extracting whatever concessions it can from both sides.
        ‘That brings us to the petitioning mobs. Were the people who stopped you for or against the Emperor? I’d like to know who wants me dead.’
        But I had lost him. I might as well have asked him about forward contracts on the price of tin for all the sense I could get out of him.
        I dropped the matter. Had I been more with it, I’d have skipped the lecture and stuck to questioning. Even so, I might have all the information that I reasonably needed for what I now had in mind.
        Looking back across the square, I could see that the body had now disappeared. It would never do for pilgrims to have that in their first view of the Lateran. In its place stood a huddle of clerical monks. Behind them, on the Lateran steps, stood the Dispensator himself. He had the sun in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if he could see me. But I could just make out the abstracted look on his face.
        ‘Heresy in Spain?’ I muttered – ‘my arse!’ Well before the close of business that