Constantine’s forehead prickled and his stomach roiled. How had his nephew fooled him for so long? Or, perhaps, why had he for so long dismissed his nephew’s obvious symptoms as mere impetuosity or youthful caprice? But he should have known, he should have been alarmed, he should have slowed things down. But Michael could be so brilliant, so able. Was it a family curse, or was it in the nature of the Imperial Office to drive men mad? Perhaps the man supplied the madness, but the office supplied the form of that madness. The endless enactment of the Pantocrator’s life in the ritual at court, with each journey through the city a restaging of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, with each state banquet a repetition of the symbolism of the Last Supper; the implication, by the very breadth of the Imperial Throne, that the Pantocrator himself sat next to the Emperor. Little wonder that Michael had come to believe he knew the Pantocrator intimately; it was perhaps a tribute to Michael’s qualities that he did not yet believe he
was
the Pantocrator. Perhaps it was Christian Rome itself that suffered from the delusion, and Michael was only afflicted with the contagion of that hubris. Or perhaps it was true that Satan himself did dispense the keys to the kingdoms of the world.
‘Majesty,’ said Constantine delicately, ‘I fear that the Pantocrator is ... testing us with yet another travail in this enterprise of ours. I am informed that both the Tauro-Scythian Haraldr Nordbrikt and the woman Maria have escaped from their respective confinements.’
Michael’s eyes widened for a moment. He tilted his head slightly, listening. ‘My mistake was in choosing a Magdalen who was both sullied and unrepentant. That is why my White Mary has now been sent to me.’ His gaze was distant, as if he looked off towards the vast, shimmering golden domes of new Jerusalem. ‘My mother must be a virgin. I know that now.’
‘Nephew!’ snapped Constantine in desperation. ‘If Haraldr Nordbrikt has escaped to lead the citizen rabble, the consequences could be grave. You, yourself, have said never to bet against a man who has won so many times that it seems he cannot possibly win again. Haraldr Nordbrikt has cheated destiny so often, I am most reluctant to wager against him now.’
‘Mar Hunrodarson is also a man favoured by fortune. I rather think that the good fortunes of both brutes will quite cancel each other.’
Constantine nodded, grateful that the Pantocrator’s companion still enjoyed moments of lucidity. ‘Still, Nephew, even if the Tauro-Scythians neutralize each other, we are confronted with the unabated wrath of the rabble.’ Constantine steeled himself and offered the only counsel that a man of reason and ability could in a situation like this. ‘Majesty, I think we should call the Empress back from the convent at Principio. We merely need have her read a proclamation to the citizen rabble, and then maintain her under house arrest, as your predecessor did. I am certain she will be amenable. They say she was entirely undone with the prospect of leaving her city when she was taken aboard ship.’
Michael paused and waved his hand airily. ‘Oh, that, Uncle. Yes, quite. I have already dispatched four of my fastest galleys of the
ousiai
class towards Principio, with extra complements of rowers and relays waiting for the return voyage. The Empress will be here shortly before cock-crow. And after the Tauro-Scythians have successfully eliminated each other in the morning’s combat, I will produce her to quiet the rabble.’
Constantine bowed. ‘Majesty,’ he whispered with relief, ‘I believe you are indeed inspired.’
‘So I will place my linen weavers and bakers and grocers here,’ said John, a thick-armed, short-haired leather cutter who had emerged as the leader of the guildsmen. He knelt and pointed at the rough map Halldor had sketched in the sand of the Hippodrome track. Halldor forced himself to concentrate, as he had all evening.
He was certain now that Haraldr was dead, and his implacable shell was beginning to crack. But he had to hold himself together until tomorrow. Until the day of vengeance. He prodded the indicated place in the sand with the point of his sword. ‘Yes. Tell them that the diversionary attack at the Chalke Gate is of crucial importance. And if they can force the gate, all the better. Our success here depends on the vigour of their assault there.’ Halldor turned to the Blue Star’s son, who leaned over the scrawls in the sand and studied them so intently that it seemed his jutting beard would erase the plan. ‘Nicetas,’ said Halldor, ‘your . . . associates will be the first to strike. Just before dawn, at the Bucoleon gates. That is the last quarter from which they expect an attack. You will probably achieve initial success and then meet strong resistance. Remember that holding your ground is just as important to us as an advance.’ Halldor looked at the Blue Star, who stood with her arms folded and a keen, steely look in her eyes, as if she heard the echoes of her earlier triumphs on this track. ‘Your attack is the most important, Madame. Especially since we know that Mar Hunrodarson’s Varangians are coming against us tomorrow. I am certain that they will defend the Imperial Box. It is imperative that the Imperial Taghmata is not permitted to come down into the stadium and encircle my Varangians while we assault the Imperial Box.’
‘Tomorrow the high and mighty will reap the whirlwind of the Studion,’ said the Blue Star. ‘There are accounts to be settled.’
Halldor dismissed his curious assortment of officers and looked up to the Imperial Box. ‘Mar will have the advantage of high ground and numbers,’ he told Ulfr. ‘When Odin sends me a Valkyrja, I hope she is tight and wicked.’
‘The web of man is now being woven,’ said Ulfr sombrely. ‘The Valkyrja will cross it with their blood-red weft.’ He looked at the stars, only faintly visible through the pall from the fires and torches. ‘We have an account to settle as well. I hope Odin will spare me long enough for that.’
‘Yes,’ said Halldor, his voice breaking for the first time in Ulfr’s memory. ‘We will never see our comrade again in the middle realm. But tomorrow we will see him in the Valhol. If there is joy in this, it is that I will drain Odin’s mead trenches with Haraldr tomorrow.’ Halldor’s voice firmed again. ‘And bring him a thousand souls as a gesture of my love and respect.’
Ulfr manfully grimaced to stop his tears and pointed down the track where a contingent of guildsmen were practising their spear assault. ‘We will bring many souls with us. Your idea of forming units according to profession was a good one. These guildsmen are already becoming an adequate army. And what the folk of the Studion lack in tactics they will make up for in ferocity and courage.’
‘And I have never seen Varangians so thirsty for the eagle’s brew. It is as if every man has Odin’s Rage.’ Halldor nodded to the groups of Varangians, many already in full armour -they would sleep tonight with their helmets as pillows - as they worked over their blades or assembled siege ladders. Halldor turned and observed a Varangian in a ridiculously undersize rough wool tunic stagger through the ranks of the drilling guildsmen. ‘All eager except this sot,’ said Halldor with mild derision. ‘He must have found the only inn open in the city. Tomorrow he will think that someone is pounding his helm with a broad-axe before he even sees Mar’s men.’ Halldor squinted into the flickering light provided by hundreds of torches. ‘Who is that? Erlend?’
Ulfr lurched forward as if drawn by a stunning vision. He stopped after a few steps and an incoherent sound came from his throat. Then he dashed towards the stumblebum Varangian and almost knocked him down with a frantic embrace. He sobbed like a woman. The drunken Varangian pulled Ulfr to his feet and virtually carried him over to Halldor.
Halldor grinned broadly in spite of his effort not to. ‘Haraldr,’ he said, his impassive voice betrayed by the tears in his eyes, ‘I thought that was you. You look like something a gull has dropped. No wonder the black-bitch Valkyrja sent you back to us.’
The quiet seemed supernatural, a thick, soundless ether that lay over the great city, disturbed only by an occasional haunting animal sound, a distant cock-crow, or dog’s bark quickly muted by the grey pre-dawn haze. It was as if the human inhabitants of the city obeyed a single collective fear, that in speaking or moving they would set in motion the terrible day that lay ahead.
In the Imperial Gynaeceum, Michael, Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of Rome, clutched the hands of the Empress Zoe, a communion as silent as the city. He could not confront her haggard, black-rimmed eyes and shorn hair, and so his bare head slumped in apology. The darkness of Zoe’s bedchamber hid his tear-coursed face. Finally Zoe separated her fingers from his. She reached out and stroked his dark curls. ‘I forgive you, my little boy,’ she whispered. And with those words the huge engines of destiny began the new day.
Mar Hunrodarson stood on the catwalk atop the roof of the Imperial Box, a living titan among the immortal statues that ringed the highest level of the Hippodrome. Mar’s Varangians were a dull grey shield wall surrounding the Imperial Box. Archers and javelin throwers of the Imperial Taghmata, also a wall of faint pewter in their steel breastplates and helmets, had crept over the highest tiers on the north side of the Imperial Box and waited for the slaughter that would fill the scores of rows of empty seats below. On the track directly beneath them, the ragtag army of the Studion had assembled; they wore almost uniform brown tunics and were armed with wicker shields and an assortment of clubs, tools, spears and knives. The women among them could be identified by the coarse linen veils that concealed their hair. Haraldr’s Varangians stood in full armoured formation in front of the stadium’s central
spina;
wooden siege ladders threaded their ranks.
Haraldr knew that the question between himself and Mar would be settled before this day was ended, and yet the imminence of death did not concern him. Where was Maria? Had she and Symeon been caught, and was she even now undergoing the tortures she had spared him? That excruciating doubt made him consider the certain death or re-entering the palace alone, and yet what if she was safe now, only unable to come to him? How would his death then reward her courage? Destiny commanded the day, he realized. Whoever would leave the middle realm before this day was over, the fates had already condemned.
The clearly audible chorus of shouts from the vicinity of the Bucoleon ripped the batting of silence off the vast stadium.
A chant rose from the ranks of the Studion army. ‘Michael, Michael, upside down! We’ll hang you from a column and crown your arse!’ High above, Mar’s Varangians answered with the chilling pounding of axes on shields. Haraldr strode through the ranks of his men and stepped up onto the stadium seats to face them. ‘Varangians! What you hear is the breast-beating of the men who cowered in their own slime while our comrades died in the fight against the Bulgars. For our comrades who now wassail in the Valhol, let us bring them those’ - he thrust his hand upwards towards the Imperial Box - ‘to bow before their courage tonight!’ The Varangians erupted into shouts of ‘Haraldr, Haraldr!’ and began a drumbeat on their own shields.
An arrow clattered on the stone at Haraldr’s feet. He turned and defied the archers, waiting for the signal that the diversion at the Chalke Gate had begun. Another arrow clattered. Haraldr watched the backdrop of brightening sky behind the archers at the top of the stadium. A moment later the dragon-shaped red kite wriggled up into the lightly pinked sky. Even before Haraldr turned to give the command to his own forces, he could see that archers of the Imperial Taghmata were being taken off the stadium wall to counter what seemed to be the much more imminent threat of the well-armed guildsmen at the Chalke Gate. Haraldr signalled the Blue Star to begin her assault. Then he pointed his sword upward. ‘Vengeance!’
Ducked beneath his shield, his men grunting at his back, Haraldr quickly climbed the tiers of seats; the ends of the siege ladders jutted out ahead of him. ‘Set the ladders!’ he shouted as he neared the top of the stadium. Javelins thudded against shields and sparked against the stone benches; Mar’s men hurled down obscenities along with their spears. Haraldr looked at the red, bawling faces on the balcony above and marked the men who would precede him to the Valhol.
The five heavy wooden ladders rose almost in unison and then tilted towards the marble balustrade of the Imperial Box. As soon as the ends of the ladders made contact. Haraldr’s men leapt on the lower rungs, their weight resisting attempts to throw the ladders off. The boldest began the climb. Mar’s men waited, swords poised, red-rimmed eyes glaring, teeth bared; some of them beckoned with bearish, pawing motions. They had every reason to expect a slaughter; Haraldr’s men advanced in curious echelons, each climbing file led by a man with a spear followed by an archer - both virtually useless in the close combat in which they would engage at the top. The spears prodded forward and Mar’s men swiped at them playfully; one of them actually captured a shaft, jerked it violently, and sent the man who had wielded it plunging to the steps. Almost as if by that signal, Haraldr’s archers rose and fired. Mar’s men had been too distracted by their game to guard their faces with their shields. Virtually every shot struck home, and the entire rank at the balustrade toppled or flailed wildly at the feathered shafts sprouting from jaws and eyes.
The momentary advantage was quickly seized. Haraldr and his men spilled over the marble balustrade and hammered back the surprisingly thin second line of defence. As he clambered over the corpses Haraldr wondered with profound apprehension why Mar had posted so few men at the most critical point of defence. He pushed Mar’s token resistance back towards the terrace behind the Imperial seating pavilion. He wheeled to his right, looked down the long, narrow terrace, and saw what Mar had held in reserve. Mar’s men barred the narrow platform, five men wide, almost a hundred men deep, a plug of seemingly solid steel. The infrangible steel seal to the Imperial Palace.
For the moment the two Varangian forces hesitated and the metal music stilled. Haraldr looked into the fierce blue eyes of Mar’s men and for a moment wished he could offer them something less bitter than the ferric draught of blood and steel. But the Bulgar war had settled that. He studied the man with a thin blond moustache opposite him; he had seen him in the palace but did not know his name. With a lightning-quick motion he raised his sword and brought it down; the man’s clavicle collapsed, his mouth contorted, and he pitched to his knees.