Maria inhaled audibly, announcing that she was about to shatter the peace of the morning. ‘Do you think any have remained?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Haraldr. He pointed to a large retinue of silk-clad eunuchs entering the intersection of the Mese and the Perama street two blocks to the south and west of Haraldr’s town palace. ‘Look. That is the standard of Tziporoles. He is one of the most moderate men in the Senate. One of the last I would have expected to follow Joannes.’ But follow him he had, like all the other Senators and most of the dignitaries above Spathar rank who were marching - accompanied by their obligatory retinues - out of the City to join Joannes at his country palace north of Galatea. Some were headed out of the gates for a long overland passage round the Golden Horn; most were wending their way through the streets to the Platea Harbour where the masts of their galleys had begun to blossom with signal flags.
‘Is there hope for the Emperor? For us?’ asked Maria.
‘Yes. I have already sent Halldor to seek out the Grand Domestic Camytzes and discuss the situation with him. Camytzes is an honourable man. There is a good chance he will use force, if necessary, to defend his Emperor against Joannes.’
‘And if he does not?’
‘There is still hope that Joannes will consider his display of strength sufficient warning and allow the Emperor to resign his office peacefully.’
‘And if the abdication is not peaceful?’ There was dread in Maria’s voice, and Haraldr remembered the look in Joannes’s eyes. That was why Camytzes was so important.
‘If the abdication is not peaceful, I will fight to protect the Emperor’s life. I am sworn to it.’ Haraldr’s voice was mechanical; he was describing a strategy already arrived at. ‘There is a good chance we can rescue the Emperor and escape with him. As reduced as our strength is, however, I cannot expect the Grand Hetairia to sit and trade blows with the Imperial Taghmata. Before the day is over, I will have arranged for you and the Empress to be escorted to the Bucoleon Harbour and taken to your villa. That is where we will meet you. And then we will sail north.’
‘The Empress will not give up her people to Joannes. And I cannot leave her to face Joannes alone. It is what I have sworn, not on my sword but in my heart.’
Haraldr held Maria tightly. "We should wait until we hear from Halldor before we sing the Valkyrja song. This may all end well.’ They turned to watch the procession again. After a moment they were interrupted by Haraldr’s Chamberlain, John.
The eunuch bowed. ‘I thought it important, sir. You have received a parcel from the Orphanotrophus Joannes.’
Haraldr and Maria looked at each other in surprise. ‘If he is sending me gifts,’ said Haraldr, ‘he may be more amenable to negotiation today than he seemed to be last night.’ He held Maria’s hand and followed the eunuch down the spiral staircase to the ground floor.
‘Where is it, John?’
‘In the ante-chamber - if you please, sir. It is quite a large clock.’
Haraldr followed John across the big hall. The water clock stood on the floor of the colonnaded chamber, a substantial piece of architecture in its own right, with brass columns as tall as a man’s waist and an intricate, temple-like facade.
‘It seems he does regret his impetuosity,’ said Haraldr. ‘Or perhaps this is merely his way of saying that time is running out for me to accept his offer.’ Haraldr sniffed curiously. ‘Smell that. Does it run on perfume or water?’ The clock smelled like a garden.
‘See if it has a message,’ said Maria. She pointed to the doors that seemed to open into the miniature temple. Haraldr stooped and pulled on the ornate little knobs. The doors opened.
‘Get the Mistress out of here!’ Haraldr shouted to John. ‘What is it?’ said Maria, her voice high and anxious. ‘Just leave!’ screamed Haraldr. Her face flushed; Maria allowed John to escort her out of the chamber.
Haraldr reached inside the little temple and removed the perfume-drenched contents. The features were intact. As he had feared, the head had once belonged to the Grand Domestic Isaac Camytzes.
‘Excellency!’ The Emperor’s voice echoed through the heavy gilded coffers of the Senate Chamber. ‘Sit still and listen to what others tell you, to those who are better men than you, you skulker and coward and thing of no account whatever in battle or counsel. Surely not all of us Achaians can be as kings here! Lordship for many is no good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king, to whom the son of devious-devising Kronos gives the sceptre and right of judgement, to watch over his people!’
Michael looked around at the empty Senatorial benches.
He wore the robes of his office as well as the Imperial Diadem. ‘A rather denotative selection from the Bard, is it not, you skulkers and cowards! Or should I say, my precious children.’ He stepped down from the Imperial Dais and strolled alongside the benches as if he were still haranguing his imaginary audience. ‘Yes, good sirs, in a few hours you will assemble here to learn of the new destiny I have modelled for our Empire! You will hear how the Orphanotrophus Joannes, who has mocked and reviled the architect of that destiny, and has afforded that noble Emperor the unprecedented affront of stalking unbidden from his Imperial dinner table, is no longer permitted to share the rewards of that destiny. Scurry now from your palaces, sirs, because the whirlwind of history and the sweet lyres of immortality await you!’ Michael’s face was as red as the blood-coloured streaks in the columns of Iasian marble that surrounded him. ‘Come forth, Rome, and greet your Father and worship your Deity!’
Michael breathed heavily and surged his loins so that his growing erection might be stroked by the heavy weight of his Imperial robes. His head snapped round when he heard footsteps at the end of the chamber. ‘Nobilissimus!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have extracted a passage from the Bard that shall place this day in both the annals of the chronologists and the rhetoricians!’ Michael set himself in a stance with one leg forward, pallium over his left arm, right arm gesturing heroically forth, much like the great statue of Constantine in the Forum. The stance collapsed when he observed his uncle’s grim, ash-grey countenance. ‘What ... is it, Uncle?’
‘They are gone,’ said Constantine flatly. ‘All of them. The entire Senate, as well as the Logothete of the Dromus, the Quaestor, and of course the Sacellarius, have followed my brother into his self-imposed exile. They have taken many of their bureaux with them. The government has been eviscerated.’
Michael dropped slowly to his knees and then collapsed almost gracefully onto his side. When he revived a few moments later, he looked up at his uncle with glazed eyes for a long while. Finally he spoke in a scarcely audible whisper. ‘Uncle . . . what ... do ... we ... do?’
‘Our response is quite basic,’ said Constantine, his face set like stone. ‘We draft a letter to the Orphanotrophus, begging him to return and rule Rome on our behalf.’
Michael fell back into his faint, and this time the Imperial Diadem clinked against the marble floor and almost slipped off his head.
‘You are certain the Empress could not be persuaded?’
Maria stood with her arms folded, her face pale and her eyes red but her posture resolute. She had just returned from an urgent interview with the Empress Zoe. ‘You of all people should understand why she cannot abandon her people to Joannes. Even at the cost of her life.’
Haraldr nodded. ‘My brother died to preserve the honour of Norway’s kings. I do not think his death was meaningless.’ He took Maria in his arms again. ‘I will remain and fight to protect you and the Empress. I will release my men from their pledges in that case, but their honour will almost certainly compel them to stay with me. We will give meat to the eagles in the east. And this, then, is where our bones will stay.’
Maria clutched so hard that Haraldr’s breath was constricted. ‘If you fall, I will not let them take me. I will put the dagger in my own breast. You know I am strong enough.’
‘Don’t make me think of that,’ said Haraldr. He caressed her hair and nuzzled her forehead.
‘I simply want you to know that I will not die in Neorion. I have promised myself, and I promise you.’ Maria’s hands were like powerful claws. ‘This is so abrupt,’ she said, suddenly relaxing, her voice breaking slightly. ‘But then, that is how dreams end.’
‘Our dreams have not ended. A dream is not truly ended until the dreamer dies. And who is to say we do not dream in the Valhol or in Paradise? Only the dragon of Nidafell can swallow all dreams.’
Maria blinked away her tears. ‘When this dragon flies, I will be content to surrender the memory of us. Until then, wherever my soul is--’ Maria broke down for a moment and pressed her wet face to his chest. ‘You must know what that memory is to me.’ She threw her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear, her cheek blazing against his. ‘These last months with you have been my life. All of it. To hold you in the dark, to see the light of morning in your eyes, this closeness we have shared ... it has given life to a dead soul. Do you remember the Empress’s tale of Daphne, how she traded that moment in Apollo’s withering arms for an eternity of virginal repose? I would not trade our moment, however short it may be, for any kind of eternity.’
Haraldr held her as desperately as life and let his own tears answer the eloquence of her love. And in his heart he prayed to all the gods to deal with him as they would but mercifully to leave him not a single breath in a world without Maria.
‘What divine efflatus has been brought forth unto your coruscating resplendence by the offices of swift-footed Hermes, hence to your Olympios of fair-girded columns, O Zeus!’ The Senator and Proconsular Patrician Romanus Scylitzes flourished his arm at the black-frocked Orphanotrophus. Joannes was too pleased with the enormous outpouring of - if it was not love, then what was it? Yes, love that his constituents had displayed to him, to bother swatting away the otherwise unbearable Scylitzes.
Joannes had set up his court in the great hall of his country residence, a dwelling similar in Hellenic majesty to the palace he had so graciously lent to the former Caesar (soon to be former Emperor, he reminded himself). His throne was a massive ivory-and-gold dining chair; the concentric rings of dignitaries surrounding the throne were the same who yesterday had attended the Emperor. However, one of the dignitaries who might ordinarily have attended him was missing; having learned from his woeful experience with the Caesar, Joannes had banished the new Magister Constantine to a position of responsibility in the stables. Once this Constantine’s docility had been irrefutably established, he would be permitted to kick the horse dung from his boots and don the Imperial buskins.
The Orphanotrophus contemptuously ripped the gold seal from the purple-tinted document. ‘Our Emperor’s hand seems unsteady,’ said Joannes to the Logothete of the Dromus as he began to read the crimson script. ‘Touching sentiments indeed,’ said Joannes when he had finished his quick scan. ‘The boy has begged for his life.’ Joannes mused for a moment; the heavy reptilian lids of his eyes slipped shut. Scylitzes stood by anxiously; the attendant arcs of dignitaries were utterly silent. ‘The Nobilissimus Constantine, of course, will never achieve perfection. We will strive mightily on his behalf, we will labour over him unceasingly, and yet he will never become an object of our pleasure. We shall be forced to discard him. But the boy might be the culmination of my arts, the vehicle through which fair Calliope will articulate the concentric harmonies of the Roman universe. The boy will stand before the Heavenly Tribunal and proclaim in a voice that shall silence the cherubim that the thousand years of mankind’s perfection are at hand, and their name is Rome. And then our boy Emperor shall gratefully offer his soul to that millennium.’ Joannes’s eyes had been closed throughout this vision. He opened them and looked over at the Logothete and showed his repulsive teeth. The boy Emperor is sending a galley to transport me back to my palace. The thousand years begin.’
‘O Son of Kronos,’ spouted Scylitzes, ‘O Olympian who has with the unparagoned industry of an arm both cogent and omnipotent hurled forth the lightning of his imperium, unto the egregious usurper--’
‘Shut up, Scylitzes,’ growled the Logothete of the Dromus, his feral eyes sparking. ‘Orphanotrophus.’ Joannes nodded for the Logothete to speak. ‘Permit me to caution you. This galley the Emperor has so humbly dispatched may have a Ulysses at the tiller. I would suggest you order him to send a vessel under the command of an officer trusted by you. We have already requested the Droungarios of the Imperial Fleet to remain in Neorion Harbour should we have need of him. Since we clearly do not need to be concerned about a military challenge, I think a more immediate utility of the Droungarios would be to command this craft, along with a crew of his choosing. It would be a gesture of appropriate significance. The Imperial Galley under the command of your officers. And we would have no treachery to fear.’
‘Well noted, Logothete,’ said Joannes, his thoughts already on the Empress City. The black-frocked monk rose and turned his back on his glittering, aristocratic supplicants. ‘Please arrange the details with my secretary, to be forwarded with my acceptance of our Emperor’s gracious gesture. And now I must prepare myself to return to the inevitable and unrelenting duties of state.’ The assembled dignitaries erupted into spontaneous applause.
‘Accept the condition.’ Constantine stared up at the soaring dome of the Chrysotriklinos.
‘But, Uncle, this was our last opportunity. We had three well-trained men among the crew, any one of whom--’
‘Accept it. You are a sportsman, are you not?’ Michael nodded numbly. ‘Accept that the wager has been increased. Now, I have ordered the gates closed early this evening. There is no point in maintaining the charade of government. Compose your acceptance to the Orphanotrophus’s gracious conditions and then dismiss your secretaries and go to your baths. You must try to find some comfort and rest this evening. I am going to try to raise our own stake in this matter.’
‘Uncle . . .’