Zoe crept back onto the bed beside Maria and put her arm around her shoulders. Maria’s breasts heaved with sobs, and tears flooded her eyes. ‘Little Daughter,’ Zoe whispered, ‘I wish I had told you the truth when I first held your little head to my breast. We are not meant to be happy here. Only to serve our people. If I could offer you any caution derived from my bitter experience, it is that when we follow our hearts instead of our true destiny, we end up punishing both ourselves and those we must serve.’
‘You, yes,’ said Maria, wiping at her tears. ‘Perhaps that has been your lot. But I have my life to live. I have a separate destiny now. It is to be with him.’
‘It is not to be with him. Don’t you understand? He is not your destiny.’
Maria pressed her eyes with her palms and straightened her back. ‘Mother, I will leave with him whether or not you bless and permit it. This is our farewell. Please let my heart go without the weight of your censure.’
Zoe let go of Maria’s shoulder. ‘This is a farewell only to the innocence I have so long sought for you.’ Her voice was hollow and haunted. ‘I realize now I have spared you nothing by not telling you.’ Maria turned to Zoe and could not stifle her shocked gasp. It was as if in the few moments of Maria’s tears Zoe had become an old woman, her face more sunken and drained of life than when she had imagined the prophecy of her statue.
‘It was as simple as the seduction of a whore,’ said Halldor. ‘Here’s how it worked. Theodocranus went along with the rest to Sclerena’s house. As you know, Theodocranus is permitted to enter the Emperor’s presence at any time he wishes now, without prostrations or even ‘Good afternoon, Majesty’. So instead of waiting the requisite five courses while the Monomach sated his own appetites, Theodocranus left the banquet table and bounded into the Emperor’s presence while his Majesty was presenting himself - all of it - to Sclerena; apparently the Monomach’s virtuous niece is as skilled as some of the sword swallowers we find in the Forum. Which is what Theodocranus told the Emperor, who proceeded to laugh like a goat without interrupting Sclerena, whom I presume was also tickled, though perhaps not by mirth. In the midst of this good cheer Theodocranus blurted out, ‘Majesty, the Grand Hetairia is required to inspect the outer perimeter of the Great Land Wall this evening. May I order the Komes of the Walls to permit their exit later this afternoon?’ The Emperor, who at this point seemed on the verge of plucking delicate Sclerena’s hair out by the roots, shouted his assent in a voice so commanding that the state messengers were already conveying his order to the Komes of the Walls before Theodocranus had even left the room.’
Ulfr shook his head. ‘Incredible. But it did indeed work. Is everyone checked off?’ Ulfr nodded towards the hundreds of Varangians milling on the dock and climbing through the open-decked hulls of the three light galleys. They moved in darkness; Haraldr had ordered that no torches be lit on the docks.
‘Every last man,’ said Halldor, ‘except the four from Hedeby who are staying to command a private guard. Haraldr released them from their pledges. Most of the rest are eager. A few are nursing aching breasts. I am still burning for the wife . . . well, that is all behind me. Norway. There probably isn’t a woman there who has even heard of me.’
Ulfr laughed. ‘Have you forgotten that in the north, adultery is not so casually regarded as it is here? You don’t want to become known as a husband killer.’
‘I know. I will probably have to wed some precious, silky little virgin and make discreet calls on widows.’
‘I am certain you will find a bride lovely enough to keep you in your own hall for at least a month.’ Ulfr stamped his feet on the dock, as if expecting an icy north wind. ‘Haraldr should be here soon to tell us one way or another.’
‘Yes,’ said Halldor. ‘But I don’t think we will have to steal out of here in the night. Haraldr is confident that Maria will obtain the Empress’s leave. We will be able to sail leisurely out of the harbour in the morning. With a suitable escort as well.’
Ulfr walked over to the nearest galley and kicked the hull with a resounding thump. ‘Good. Because I don’t agree with the two of you on your plan for getting past the harbour boom. These hulls aren’t as sturdy as you think.’
Maria’s eyes were engorged with tears. She fell into Theodora’s arms and cried for a long while. Finally Theodora placed her long, slender fingers beneath Maria’s chin and gently tilted her head up. ‘She told you.’
Maria nodded and sobbed. ‘Is it true?’
‘It is true,’ whispered Theodora.
Maria lifted her head up to the light and her eyes seemed to be glazed with ice. ‘Why did you wait? And why did you tell me now?’
‘We loved you. We wanted it to be different for you. Both of us. You must believe that. And now ... we truly thought your Haraldr was just another plaything. We thought we were indulging another of your wild romances. I think until this very evening we did not believe that you really intended to marry him and leave Rome. That was our folly. But would it have been fair to you, or to him, to let you leave without knowing?’
‘Yes! You knew how much I loved him.’
‘There is a greater love we are bidden to. It is far less comforting and far more painful than the love of a man. But it is a greater love.’
‘No. I will not live your lives!’
‘Maria, we are not like other people. Our lives are given us by the Pantocrator. They are His to dispose of.’
‘My soul is mine to dispose of. And it is going to Norway!’
Theodora cupped Maria’s chin. ‘Wait. Decide nothing for now. You have not had time to consider what all this means. If after reflection, in the light of what you now know, you still love this man in the way you think you do now, we will think of something. Customs can be changed. You might ... I don’t know. He could certainly stay as your lover.’
Maria put her hands to her ears and screamed. ‘No! His dreams are in Norway. To keep him here would destroy the light that is my life! No! I am going with him! I am going
now!
He is my destiny!’
Zoe appeared in the doorway of Theodora’s chamber, her face weary, the faded mother of the beautiful woman who had greeted Maria an hour earlier. ‘Maria,’ she snapped, ‘it is impossible. Your legacy is too great. Go to your Haraldr and tell him that he has my leave to depart our City and Empire tomorrow morning, with all the gold he and his band can carry. But you will never leave Rome.’
Maria ran from the room, her face distorted and lantern-red. ‘I am going with him!’ she said, sobbing.
Zoe turned and called after her, ‘Maria! I will not permit you to leave! And if he tries to assist in your flight, I will have him destroyed!’
Haraldr listened to the water clock ring the third hour of the night; he was grateful that Norway did not have such sophisticated mechanical devices. The relentless timekeepers were the clarions of anxiety. Why had she not returned? He never should have let her go. Zoe, like every person condemned to that diabolic purple cloth, had gone mad. Haraldr paced a moment and then decided to make one last sweep through the house to ensure that he had left nothing of value. Value? Everything that could possibly matter would soon be on three ships. The future of Norway. And nothing Zoe could do could stop it.
To the flickering light of his taper, Haraldr descended the marble staircase for the last time. If he felt any nostalgia on leaving this oversize, empty shell, it was only because of the nights he and Maria had held each other there. He stopped in the large entrance hall and thought of the first time he would make love to Maria as his wife and queen. Odin, your skalds will spend the next ten centuries singing of her beauty--. He was startled by the noise. You are welcome to the water clock, he wanted to tell the thief. He poked the taper in the direction of the rustling.
‘Darling!’ he cried out, his joy visceral. ‘I thought you were some . . .’ His voice fell off as the light revealed her agony. He rushed to her and held her. She sobbed for a painfully long while. The unforgiving clock racheted in accompaniment. ‘I am so sorry,’ he finally told her. ‘Oh, I did not want this. Darling, darling,’ he said, trying to lift her stubborn, leaden chin, ‘I will have my men return to the Numera and we will wait for another day. We will both go and talk to her. I won’t let you leave your home like this.’
Maria looked up. The colour of her eyes was a shimmering blue fjord in the darkness of a shadowed gorge. ‘I have made my farewells,’ she said fiercely. ‘I want nothing more in this life than to sail with you to Norway tonight.’
‘Who is at the Blachernae Gate?’ asked Halldor.
‘Erling,’ said Ulfr.
‘I think I will ride up there and wait for another hour. Then I’m afraid our “inspection” of the walls will have to be concluded. I’ll ride into the city after that and find out what happened to Haraldr. Hopefully he has been detained because he and Maria are celebrating a successful petition to the Empress. I’m worried about leaving too late in the evening. Even the Monomach is going to be suspicious if he finds that his entire guard has been gone half the night.’
Halldor had saddled his horse when he heard horseshoes clatter on the pavement near the dock. He reached for his purse; he intended to pay off the cursore. Then he noticed that the horse was transport for both a man and a woman. ‘Ulfr!’ he shouted. ‘Haraldr!’
Haraldr dismounted, swept Maria into his arms, and carried her onto the dock. She was pale and hollow-eyed. Halldor looked at her with concern. ‘It appears that Zoe did not give her consent,’ he said to Haraldr. He looked off towards the distant mouth of the Golden Horn, a vague aperture between the hills of light. ‘Haraldr,’ he said firmly, ‘I propose that we return to our barracks. I am certain that suspicion has already been aroused by our absence. And now Maria looks ill. Let us wait. We can go tomorrow. Or in a week.’
‘Put me down,’ said Maria to Haraldr, as annoyed as if she had been abducted. ‘I am not sick. I am . . .’ She breathed deeply and arranged her robe nervously, then looked searchingly at the three men, her head held high. ‘There is something I must tell all of you before you take me on your ship.’ She turned to Haraldr and put her hand on his arm. ‘I was going to wait to tell you until we had seen the last lights of the city disappear. But on the ride through the city I thought about what I, myself, have said about selfish love, and now I realize that I am guilty of that.’ She looked again between Halldor and Ulfr and her lips quivered. ‘You are all in grave danger if you take me with you tonight.’ Maria clutched Haraldr’s arm tightly. She faltered and blinked away new tears. ‘I have just learned that my ... mother . . . was the purple-born Eudocia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine, niece of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, and sister of their Majesties Zoe and Theodora. I ... I am the last Macedonian heir to the throne of Imperial Rome.’
The night was infinite in its vast hush. The whispered conversations of the Varangians on the docks created a cathedral-like murmur. A hull groaned slightly. Finally Haraldr very slowly took Maria’s face in his hands. ‘Oh, my love.’ The pain in his voice was for both of them. ‘Oh, my love,’ he repeated numbly. He stared at the city for a long moment and then returned to her with tears in his eyes. ‘I ... I will understand if you must . . . remain with your people. I ... of all here I should understand what you feel now. Your obligation. But if you still ... If your fate and mine can still be joined . . .’ He trailed off hopelessly and shook his head in shock and bewilderment, a man confronted by a catastrophe for which he had no solution. Finally he could only take her in his arms. ‘I ... it doesn’t matter. I cannot ask these men to take that risk. I will stay here with you.’
‘No, that is not what I want,’ she said, her voice soft and high and her eyes like starlight. ‘I want to go with you more than ever. To forge a new fate with your people. We could never have a life here now. An Augusta could never marry a’ - she looked down at her feet and then into the eyes of the Norseman -
‘barbaros’.
She inhaled deeply. ‘Zoe will do everything she can to keep me here. She has returned in her emptiness to her oldest passion, the House of Macedon. She has already warned me that she will kill you to preserve that legacy. It is as if her dead uncle the Bulgar-Slayer has ruled her heart all these years, and she only now realizes the terrible implications of that overweening love.’ Maria sobbed quickly and regained control. ‘All of you may be destroyed because of me.’
‘That is a risk I am willing to undertake,’ said Halldor.
‘For once I have no words to add to Halldor’s.’ Ulfr nodded.
‘May I put the question before your pledge-men?’ Halldor asked.
Haraldr looked at Maria before nodding assent. Halldor hurried down to the end of the dock and stopped at each ship in turn. He left the crew of the first ship to a low, fevered buzz of activity. The second and third vessels followed Halldor’s hurried inquiries with their own murmured choruses. Men leapt into motion, pulling oars up from the hold and scrambling to loosen mooring lines. Halldor came running back. He looked directly at Maria. ‘They are all willing to risk whatever Norway’s queen is willing to risk.’ Tears streamed down Maria’s cheeks. Halldor turned to Haraldr. ‘But we must leave immediately.’
The ships were pushed slowly past the dock, and then oars dipped and turned the prows east. The first full surge of all sixty oars buckled Haraldr’s knees momentarily, then seemed to free the enormous weight on his chest. He could not conceivably assimilate the full import of what Maria had told him, but his heart thrummed with the stunning testament of her love. He paced the catwalk between the rowing benches, making certain that the chests and gear bags were arranged as he had intended. The first of many obstacles lay directly ahead in the night. But now there was only a single destination in his mind and in his heart.
The wind rustled in his ears as the brilliant city floated past in the night. He looked at Maria, seated at the stern, wrapped in her fur cape, gazing at the brilliant lights of Blachernae, the ancillary palace at the northwest corner of the city, where the Great Land Wall and seawall met. He would never miss these lights as long as he had her blue fires to dazzle him. He had given much to Rome, but now Rome had given him her greatest treasure.