‘Perhaps not,’ said Zoe. ‘Your uncle the Nobilissimus is a very shrewd man, and his tactic here is quite astute. He simply encourages Joannes to manifest the very intentions that Joannes is bent on to begin with. Clever.’
‘But . . . Mother, what if he is encouraged ... too much?
Joannes could have me struck down at any moment. He might . . . do it himself.’
‘He will not as long as the Hetairarch is attendant upon you.’
Michael sniffled deeply. ‘Do you think the Hetairarch is that . . . loyal? He and Joannes have come to some sort of understanding, due to all the work Joannes has done in the Studion.’
‘He has no love for Joannes. Do not presume that his loyalty is limitless, but you can be absolutely certain that he will intercept any attack made on you in his presence. It is a Tauro-Scythian thing about honour. I should think you would already have enough evidence of his reckless devotion to the purple.’
‘You are right, of course. Securely placed between the Hetairarch and the Nobilissimus, I have nothing to fear.’
‘And your mother will always be here as well.’ Zoe pressed her thighs more tightly against Michael. ‘Now, can we imagine just for tonight that you are a big enough boy to be your mother’s husband?’ Zoe’s hand slid across the lap of Michael’s purple scaramangium, her slender white fingers marching across the gold-thread Imperial Eagles. When her fingers had completed their reconnaissance, Zoe put blood-red lips to Michael’s neck. ‘Yes,’ she whispered hoarsely, ‘I can see that you have become quite a big boy.’
The Monastery of Kauleas was one of the largest of scores of such establishments in Constantinople. The entire complex took up two city blocks. Four multistorey wings contained monks’ cells, storerooms, refectory, infirmary, kitchens, library and bath; these enclosed a large central court, in the middle of which was a substantial pale red-brick church topped with several large domes. This palace of worldly denial had been built a century and half earlier, during a period of fervent religious construction, commissioned by a Dhynatoi family as their private spiritual retreat. The original owners had been forced to sell the monastery more than a century ago, shortly after a great famine (not because their finances had suffered due to the poor harvest but because they had soon thereafter proved incapable of managing the vastly expanded estates they had patched together by buying up, for next to nothing, the freeholds of starving peasant farmers). The purchasers were another Dhynatoi family, and they maintained the establishment in great splendour for decades. But a succession of increasingly dissolute scions had neglected and gradually plundered the establishment, selling off the marble revetments and ivory-bound books and gold fixtures, and allowing the population of monks, which had once numbered in the hundreds, to dwindle to less than a dozen. The family had finally given up the property three years ago; the typicon had been signed over in the Neorion as a penitential act. The current owner was the Orphanotrophus Joannes. In three years Joannes had neither visited the establishment nor allowed anyone else to enter its gates, except to have the remaining monks cleared out and new locks installed on all the doors.
But this evening the venerable Monastery of Kauleas once again teemed with activity. More than a hundred armoured Thracian guardsmen bustled about in the weed-choked courtyard, assembling the new brotherhood in orderly rows just in front of an arcaded, three-storey wing of monks’ cells. The new brotherhood numbered in the hundreds. They wore the dyed linen or wool tunics of the city’s small merchants and tradesmen, and indeed they were: grocers, butchers, shoemakers, fish sellers, silk weavers, soap makers, curds vendors, pepper grinders, silversmiths. All of them responsible guilds-men whose greatest indulgences were several glasses of wine one night a week in their local tavern, and attendance whenever possible at the races in the Hippodrome; they were family men who ordinarily would not be expected to abandon their wives and children for a life of contemplation.
But something was wrong with this group. Most of the brothers’ tunics were spotted with blood, and some of them were torn. All of the brothers kept their feet precisely together and held their hands rigidly behind their backs, but often their knees swayed and their heads lolled, and they would not straighten up until the Thracian guardsmen prodded them with their spears. The brothers’ faces seemed like hideous painted masks, with huge, bruised eyes. On closer inspection, none of them had noses. Only freshly carved slits crusted with dried black blood.
The rows were finally assembled. The one man present who wore actual monastic garb stood in front of these new brothers, his novitiates. Strangely enough, Joannes’s deeply socketed eyes, glimmering with reflected torchlight, were the only distinct features of his huge, shadowed face. Joannes studied his unfortunate novitiates for some time before he addressed them.
‘I grew up in Amastris, on the Black Sea. In circumstances, no doubt less auspicious than many of you enjoyed in your childhood; certainly no better. I was castrated at the age of six and educated by monks here in Constantinople.’ Joannes was speaking in a curious, conversational tone, as if these men were his intimates. ‘When I was thirteen, my tutors obligated me to become a monk like themselves, and I spent the next eight years in a monastery much like this, though not so grand. Not nearly so grand. When I left the monastery, I began work as a secretary in the office of the Sacellarius. By dint of unrelenting effort I have achieved the position of your Orphanotrophus. I like to think that my office in the Magnara basement, where I serve Rome, is much like the monk’s cell where as a boy I served . . . God.’ Joannes paused and seemed to reflect. ‘I will share with you a most curious particular about myself. Since I left the monastery where I spent my boyhood, I have not set foot in a monastic establishment of any kind. Until this evening. Until you forced me to take this step.’
Joannes shook his head sadly. His glimmering eyes fixed on the arcaded tiers of monks’ cells that rose behind his audience. ‘It was in a cell like these you see here, though hardly as splendid, that I first learned that numbers were my friends.’ There was now something quite strange, quite irregular about Joannes’s voice, even his choice of words; despite the low, mournful rumble, he seemed to be a small boy offering an exegesis. ‘I surrounded myself with these new friends, numbers that I chalked on my tablet and the floor of my cell, numbers that I conversed with in the refectory as I chewed my bread. Numbers filled me with delight. They explained to me that the burdens of each day, the unending sequence of fasts and prayers and sermons and chants, had meaning to them, and that they were pleased. And as I pleased my new friends I pleased myself. I knew a sinful joy, brothers, as my friends and I gratified one another.’
A smile flickered horribly. ‘I took my friends with me to the Magnara when I went to serve Rome. And there they explained to me the meaning of Rome, as they had explained the meaning of my previous service. But Rome was not as my friends wanted it to be. Rome was like this place you see here, abandoned and neglected, as random and disorderly as a brothel. So my friends and I set to work to make Rome a thing of order and beauty. And the harder we worked, the more Rome became a place of delight to us. But there were those who envied the beauty of what we had constructed, and these delinquents began to deface the perfection of our edifice. This vandalism distracted from the symmetry and grace of our creation, so that others could not enjoy the beauty of what we had done. So that we ourselves were distracted by their depredations.’
Joannes suddenly seemed twice as huge as his arms flew up, his great black shroud like the wings of a monstrous bird. ‘You are those vandals!’ he shrieked. ‘You are those delinquents who have brought the serpent of your chaos into the garden of my Rome! And your serpent’s name is Michael! Michael! Michael the gambler, Michael the speculator, Michael the idolator of unclean chance! Michael who has known the harlot who fouls all Rome!’
Joannes’s arms were at his side again, and his voice fell to its original, curiously familiar rumble. ‘I have brought you here, brothers, so that you may understand what it is my friends and I are building here in Rome. So that you may know that beauty, and become part of its perfection.’
Joannes signed to the Thracian guards, turned, and stalked swiftly towards the gate, his black frock billowing; it was as if he were the one desperate to escape the demon of this place.
‘Conservat Deus imperium vestrum,’
chanted the five white-robed
voukaloi,
the language of the ancient ‘Romans lifting with a clarion resonance into the golden dome of the Hall of Nineteen Couches. The
voukaloi
were eunuchs, and after the first few extended notes their smooth, pale cheeks puffed out and glowed like lanterns flickering on.
‘Bona tua semper,’
chanted the last
voukalos
in the line, his solo voice ringing out to challenge the echoes of the chorus.
‘Victor sis semplar,’
rang out the next.
‘Multos annos vitae.’
‘Victor facia semper.’
‘Deus praestet.’
Michael, Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of the Romans, reclined on his couch at the head of the Imperial table. To the Emperor’s left was the Orphanotrophus, his ungainly, extended form a sleeping black beast perched on the crimson silk-upholstered dining couch. To the Emperor’s right reclined the Nobilissimus Constantine, resplendent in the purple pallium and scaramangium of his office. Next to the Orphanotrophus Joannes reclined the Hetairarch Haraldr Nordbrikt, placed there against the dictates of protocol at the request of the Emperor. Also at the request of the Emperor, the Hetairarch wore a dagger concealed within his scarlet scaramangium. The rest of the Emperor’s long, narrow table, as well as the eponymous Nineteen Couches arrayed beneath the great dome and in the abutting apses, were filled with the dignitaries of the Imperial Court, all attired as prescribed by protocol. Gold plates lit by the candelabra glittered at every setting.
The Imperial Chamberlains moved among the guests, pouring the wine into goblets fashioned of gold leaf set between layers of glass.
Bibite, Domini Imperatores, in multos annos, Deus Omnipotens praestet,’
chanted the
voukaloi
in unison. ‘May ye lead a happy life, my lords,’ chanted the second
voukalos
in Greek.
‘Deus praestet,’
the first
voukalos
chanted in counterpoint; he inhaled deeply, and then, as the chamberlains began to water the wine from silver ewers, began again.
‘In gaudio prandete, Domini’
‘May ye be joyful while ye feast, master,’ concluded the second
voukalos.’
Michael rose and gave the ceremonial toasts, and then more chants accompanied the presentation of the delicacies. Michael’s hand shook as he tried to spoon black caviar out of a silver dish; the eggs dribbled onto the gold-embroidered tablecloth in front of him. A eunuch whisked the little black pellets away, leaving an oily smear. The lesser dignitaries at the far end of the hall quickly grew raucous with the wine, but the Senators seated at the Emperor’s and nearby tables limited their conversation to nervous whispers. At the head of the table, the Emperor, the Nobilissimus and the Orphanotrophus made no attempt to converse with one another. After the serving of the fish course the Nobilissimus asked the Hetairarch if this particular type of flounder was found in Thule; Haraldr replied that he was not familiar with it, though it was hard to compare tastes when the fish was smothered in the omnipresent garos sauce. Three acrobats performed between the fish and meat courses - a burly man who balanced a long pole on his head and two boys who executed handstands and swings atop the pole, far up among the dazzling light clusters.
The Orphanotrophus seemed concerned only with ensuring that his goblet was filled as quickly as it was emptied, which was quickly indeed. Haraldr was soon certain, despite the fears Michael had professed to him earlier in the day, that Joannes was too drunk to be an effective assassin, and that his attack would take the more subtle form he had described at his town palace. Perhaps the dinner would pass without incident. Perhaps the differences between the Emperor and the Orphanotrophus could even be mediated at some point, in private. And Haraldr himself had not given up on coming to some agreement with the Orphanotrophus.
After dinner enormous gold bowls - large enough for a man to bathe in - filled with figs, apples, grapes, melons and oranges, were brought into the hall on trolleys covered with purple cloth. One of the trolleys was halted at the centre of the Imperial table; directly above it three gilded cables with thick gold rings on the ends descended from the ceiling like golden snakes gliding out of the night. Eunuchs attached the rings to hooks on the sides of the bowl; a mechanism in the ceiling lifted the bowl, swung it over the heads of the Senators, and lowered it into place in the centre of the table. The rings were removed and the ropes slithered back into the dome.
The Nobilissimus Constantine appraised an apple thoughtfully, almost as if he could see his reflection in it. ‘I note,’ he said, his first words since he had spoken to Haraldr about the fish, ‘that the Pretender to the Caliphate is enjoying the hospitality of Rome yet again.’ Constantine nodded at the Saracen prince seated at a nearby table, one of several such exiled leaders maintained at the Imperial Court, in sumptuous style, as potential instruments of diplomacy. ‘How long has this noble son of Hagar been a guest here in Rome?’ Constantine looked directly at Joannes. ‘You would know, wouldn’t you, Brother, since you have been the principal distributor of the largesse he enjoys.’
Joannes’s ponderous head lifted and seemed to yaw very slightly as he stared back at Constantine. He said nothing in reply.
‘Consider the policy, Majesty,’ said Constantine, now addressing Michael. ‘The Orphanotrophus aspires to reclaim Tripoli from the Caliphate by the presence of a gilded camel driver at the court of Rome. He supports this rather oblique pursuit of our interests with the argument that the Imperial Taghmata is unavailable to offer more vigorous diplomacy, because the so recently humbled Bulgars are eternally restive.’ By the time he had completed these words, Constantine had an astonished audience of hushed Senators staring down the table at him; Senator Scylitzes, who had paused in his own discourses to sample a fig, set the half-eaten piece of fruit down as carefully as if it were a delicate piece of blown glass. ‘Majesty,’ Constantine continued, ‘I was rather more impressed by the policy
you
proposed concerning the governance of Bulgaria, one that would concurrently address the problem of the reduced strength and effectiveness of the Imperial Taghmata in other areas of strategic import.’