The white-haired, immaculately groomed Senator and Magister Romanus Scylitzes spoke up. Owner of huge chunks of the themes Thessalonica and Dyrrachium, his speech reeked with presumed Hellenistic elegance. ‘My esteemed colleague, virtuous mentor and indefatigable paramount. Might I offer a deduction of my own? I declare the Orphanotrophus the inferior source of jeopardy, offering these substantiations. The Orphanotrophus and his egregiously purple-clad sibling suffer from the dilute blood of the plebeian classes. Because they are not conditioned to the obligations required by their station, they will rapidly weary of their lofty occupations. Suffering from languishment and irresolutions due to these exhaustions, the midnight-cloaked will be forced to gesture forth with his own hand, not in augur of our own despoliation, but suppliantly, in reciprocation of the gesture he would have us perform today, though vastly exacerbated against restraint.’ Insufferable, turd-spewing windbag. Joannes hardly needs an hour’s sleep each night and his brother has the endurance of a pack mule. As usual, it was pointless to counsel with these parasites. An old man would decide the way an old man best decides. With his ancient, ulcerous churning gut. And that decision has already been made. ‘Chamberlain. Send my secretary.’ Attalietes raised and shook his bloated fist. ‘The rest of you, get out.’
Children hid behind their mothers’ rough wool tunics. Men stared with wooden fright and then lowered their gaze to the littered paving stones as the man on the black horse came close enough for his swollen, immense face to reach out and mark them. Joannes was on the streets.
The clamouring died in inevitable sequence as the black-cloaked monk ascended the rise to the palace of the Senator and Magister Nicon Attalietes. The great, hollow stillness that preceded the Orphanotrophus Joannes like some force of nature was neither sullen nor reverent but profoundly respectful. Who did not have a friend or neighbour or relative who had received free treatment in one of the Orphanotrophus’s hospitals? And who did not know of someone who had vanished in the night?
As was his custom, Joannes rode alone. He dismounted in front of the brass-ornamented oak gate of the Attalietes palace. Rough hands came tremulously forward to hold gently the halter of Joannes’s horse and stroke the animal’s quivering obsidian flanks, as if in assuaging this great beast they could somehow gain favour with the other.
‘Orphanotrophus.’ Attalietes’s chamberlain bowed deeply. The arcade led through a courtyard in the style of a Moorish palace from Iberia, a glittering fantasy of gold and lapis lazuli and chequered ceramic tiles and azure pools flecked with crimson fish. Joannes enjoyed the irony of his monochrome intrusion in this brilliant setting. He was a moving shroud, his black breast a sepulchre for an old man’s dreams. He would enjoy crushing Nicon Attalietes. There were only two people on earth whose destruction would give him more pleasure.
The silver doors emblazoned with virtually life-size embossed lions slid open. Joannes almost gasped. Unbelievable. Attalietes did not style himself a mere emperor, the chosen hand of God. No, his ambition exceeded even that blasphemy.
Attalietes sat enthroned in the middle of a vast hall; the golden tesserae that covered the dome high above him glittered like the sun. Flanking the gilded throne, which resembled a small chapel in its ornate architecture, were long, gold-tiled pools lined with a carved stone menagerie spouting dazzling sprays of water. As he came forward Joannes marvelled at the mathematical intricacy of the floor, the way the scrolls of rose and white marble created fantastic three-dimensional patterns against a background of gold-serpentined green marble and black onyx.
‘Orphanotrophus.’ Attalietes’s eyes were like stone. The tombs of hope, thought Joannes.
‘Brother.’ Joannes used the greeting that would most offend Attalietes, the salute he would offer any of the rabble outside.
‘At what price do we purchase our lives?’
Joannes slapped his leg with his riding crop. ‘With what would you pay, Brother Attalietes? You borrowed from Nicephorus Argyrus’s arguoprates to buy most of Cilicia and Armenikoi. I understand that the merchant Argyrus instructed his agents to charge you the usurious rate of twelve per cent.’
Attalietes thought he would choke on his welling phlegm. It had been humiliating enough to have to shake hands with a man like Argyrus, a man whose hands were stained so deeply with the filth of commerce that they would never be clean no matter how many silk robes he donned or palaces he built.
‘I have instructed the merchant Argyrus that I will remit the penalty for his usurious exaction if he will immediately bring his promissories due.’ Joannes gleefully watched as the old man’s face coloured to the extent that his skin lesions were hardly noticeable.
Attalietes didn’t know the exact figures and he didn’t need to know. He had rushed to acquire the vast holdings in Teluch and Cilicia when he had learned of the imminent accord with Caliph Moustanir Billah, and then on top of that the office of Strategus of Cilicia had opened and had brought a damnable price - at first in solidi, then in the incalculable loss of his son - and then the untimely demise of the Senator Andronicus Cametus, leaving the old pederast’s estates in Armenikoi available at an enticing discount. Yes, each acquisition had made good sense at the time. But now, with the plunging value of land all along the Saracen frontier, the arithmetic of disaster led to an inevitable solution. He could not meet the damnable merchant’s notes even if he sold everything.
Attalietes lifted his thick fingers from the skulls of the golden lions that snarled at the arms of his throne. ‘Since I cannot pay this debt in solidi, what currency do you ask?’
‘Complicity.’ Joannes lowered his black, wiry brows. ‘You and the entire Attalietes clique in the Senate.’
Attalietes felt cool, soothing air surge into his burning, gasping lungs. Was there a way to work with the Orphanotrophus Joannes? The fact that the huge black capon did not simply let the mob do its work was evidence that he did not consider his own power secure. Might the monk be willing to compromise? Might they eventually arrive at shared goals? ‘How could an old man reduced to penury share your lofty visions, Orphanotrophus?’
‘Obliquity does not suit your delivery, brother Attalietes,’ admonished Joannes in his menacing rumble; he was pleased, however, that the beast he was about to yoke still had enough spirit to be useful. ‘I offer you this, in brief form. You will donate to the offices of the Orphanotrophus two thirds of your entire holdings in Europe and Asia. Nicephorus Argyrus will forgive the debt on your remaining properties in exchange for the monopoly he is about to be granted on trade with Venice, Amalfi and the Rus. And in gratitude for your generous donation to the indigent of our city, taxes on the estates still held in your name will be excused by beneficium for a period of ten years. I believe that when these transactions are completed, I will find myself with an ally who is more fiscally powerful than ever. And wealthier in wisdom as well.’
Attalietes wheezed with relief. Life was still sweet. Tonight he would ask the Khazar girl to take him in her soft lips and let him feel the bursting ecstasy of his youth. He blinked away the tears and saw the monstrous face through a golden haze of hope. ‘I am in your debt, Orphanotrophus.’
‘I will make certain that you remember, Brother.’ Joannes turned and found his way out without escort. The mob hushed again as the gate swung open and the Orphanotrophus reappeared. Joannes quickly mounted and wheeled to face the expectant throng.
‘God has granted me the privilege of announcing to the blessed children of our Sacred Empress news of the most extraordinary miracle. Yesterday, Christian warriors led by the Archangel himself and that dauntless foe of heresy, the Strategus of Antioch, challenged the devil-worshipping hordes and effected the rescue of our Mother! Our Mother returns to us!’
The din of the joyous response made Joannes’s head ache, and he struggled to maintain his concentration as he headed through the wildly cheering, praying and sobbing crowd. Almost by some divine intercession petals began to drift like snow to the pavement before him, strewn by hands that only seconds before had clutched stones and staves.
Remarkable, reflected Joannes, no longer giving thought to the celebration swirling around him like a cyclone. Two very remarkable things. The astonishing rescue of the slut; Joannes had been prepared for a much lengthier period of negotiation. The result was certainly not undesirable, though it had proved quite prudent to have moved quickly to incite the rabble against Attalietes; the scum hardly would have been so vehement if they had known their precious slattern was safe. But who had executed the miraculous deliverance? Of course, not Constantine, though it was reassuring to know that apparently he had not sabotaged the endeavour. Blymmedes? That might be a problem, since Blymmedes was known to disapprove of the Grand Domestic Bardas Dalassena, and now Attalietes’s soldier-stooge belonged to Joannes. Was it possible? Well, the Tauro-Scythian Haraldr Nordbrikt was already celebrated for his martial escapades, and indeed he might be the most likely hero out of all this, though of course Constantine would have to receive official precedence. How incredible that would be. It would be as if fortune had blessed Joannes again, considering the other remarkable discovery of the previous night.
Quite extraordinary. The Logothete of the Dromus had brought him a transcript of the letter the Hetairarch Mar Hunrodarson had dispatched to the unfortunate Senator Attalietes; the Senator’s son, Ignatius, often surrendered such information in exchange for the Logothete’s collusion in the matter of young Attalietes’s appetite for well-formed officers of the Scholae. Hunrodarson’s letter had offered his Varangians to relieve the siege of Attalietes’s palace. A simple mercenary transaction? No, Hunrodarson would have known of Attalietes’s acute shortage of solidi - the
barbaros
was friends with Argyrus - and so he had sought the same medium of exchange that Joannes had just secured. Simply remarkable. The Hetairarch Mar Hunrodarson was announcing his ambitions, apparently for all to see. Hunrodarson was not a foolish man, either; what could possibly have prompted this impudent assurance on his part? Well, no matter. Let Mar Hunrodarson dream. The hero, Haraldr Nordbrikt - and he would be a hero even if he had tried to defect to the Saracens - would now be a formidable rival to the Hetairarch. Yes, Joannes’s instrument would return from Asia more finely honed than ever. And how pleasurable it will be, thought Joannes as the petals flew around him like a blizzard, to see the two overinflated Tauro-Scythian
barbaroi
impale themselves on each other’s blades.
‘Haraldr Nordbrikt, you must know that I am hardly expert in these matters.’ Gregory blushed, almost
restoring the sun-flamed colour that had begun to fade in the last few weeks. ‘That is, I have no practical experience. Of course, one hears many things if one is curious about the subtleties of language. And, well ... I confess that I have read some of the romances in the corrupt vernacular. Only to relieve the stress of studying serious literature, of course.’
Haraldr looked over the misty plain of the River Sangarius, his amber-tinted face a vivid contrast to the fields now dulled with winter. He wrapped his woollen cloak about his shoulders and enjoyed an internal warmth. By tonight he would have memorized every endearment, every anatomically explicit term the Greek language had incorporated in the eons since Alexander had marched east to the land of the Brahmans.
Ahead, the Imperial carriages were gilt and scarlet lamps in the midday gloom. Farther beyond, the bright standards of Constantine’s thematic army were already lost in the leaden pall. Until today the retreat from Antioch had been strangely foreboding, in spite of every reason for celebration. Of course, the pilgrimage had been terminated after the Empress’s harrowing ordeal; clearly the Saracen guarantees of safe passage were worthless. Haraldr had held his guard in constant battle readiness until five days ago, when the Imperial party had come as far west as Ancyra, where Saracens had not penetrated for centuries. And Blymmedes still sent out two reconnaissance vanda well before each dreary dawn. Even Constantine, who had been so dilatory before the abduction, had insisted on contributing his thematic army to Her Imperial Majesty’s safekeeping and now quite obviously intended personally to command the escort all the way to the Empress City. Certainly his principal motive was to reap an undeserved share of the credit for Her Majesty’s deliverance, but nevertheless he had taken his command seriously on the return journey.
Apparently the Empress had suffered greatly from her captivity. She had seemed well enough and at ease when she had received her champions after her rescue; Constantine, Blymmedes, Haraldr and Kalaphates had all been honoured with gifts of robes and solidi and profusely grateful benedictions from the lovely Imperial lips. But then the Empress had plunged into deepest seclusion. Each day she ordered the carriages to begin their creaking advance before dawn and would not command halt until the tinted twilight had begun to char into the smothering blackness of the Anatolian night. Then she would disembark directly into her tent. Symeon had turned into a fierce, ancient reptile, hissing at the merest suggestion of an intrusion on her Majesty’s privacy. Even Kalapahates, who had recovered sufficiently from his mostly superficial wounds to join his uncle’s retinue, had not been permitted to see his Blessed Mother.
And Maria. Since their eyes had met that terrible and beautiful morning, nothing. For six weeks now, no word -not even a glimpse of her silk slippers. Just the memory of what had passed between them in that moment when love and death had embraced over the great abyss of time. They were still together, plunging into a blackness lit only by the torch of their joined souls. That was the truth she could not confront.
Until now. Haraldr put his hand to the message he had placed against his heart. Tonight,’ she had written, ‘I will send for you.’