“Augustus.”
“He has been avoiding me. Something is wrong, Nicephoros. He’s taking bribes, or subverting the government, or plotting my overthrow —what is it?”
The Treasurer’s face, saturnine by habit, was rigid as a mask. “Augustus,” he said, his voice off-key, and cleared his throat. The Prefect was a friend of his. Everyone befriended the Prefect, even the Empress, who liked his handsome looks and his splendid taste in jewels and clothes. Nicephoros gave a little shake of his head, putting off the concerns of friendship, and his gaze met hers.
“Yes, Augustus. I marked it myself. There is something gone wrong.”
“Very well.” She sat back. The Parakoimomenos was rapidly returning, his long legs striding through the door from the terrace, his coat sinuous around his knees. She said to Nicephoros, “Find out what it is.”
“Augustus, I wish the burden of spying on this man could fall on other shoulders—”
“Nicephoros, do it.”
The Parakoimomenos reached them, overhearing this, and with many bows to her and to the Treasurer he overflowed with protests.
“Augustus, Nicephoros already is so heavily overworked—allow me the honor of taking whatever of his tasks I can.”
Nicephoros stood up, his face flushing, his eyes sharp. “I will do as my Basileus orders.”
She nodded. “You will indeed. And soon, Nicephoros.” Her unsmiling gaze turned sharp on the eunuch. “Did I not send you on some errand, my angel?”
“Basileus, the cook refuses to serve the meal in this room, because of the dust.”
Helena was coming into the room now, and overheard this; she nodded, her hands clasped, her mouth pursed as if her lips clasped one another also.
“God’s True Nature.” Irene plucked at the huge pile of the petition. It would take her hours to read it, and she already knew what it said; her spies in the Guilds had been relaying her news of this for months. One of the pots of nail paint had tipped and was spilling purple onto a red cushion and she threw it irritably onto a pile of rubbish near the door. “Who rules here, the cook or me?” The chandelier was up; now the men would begin to hang the new draperies on the walls, and there would be a lot of dust. She knew the cook was right. With no grace she yielded, getting up, pushing aside the men who leapt to help her as if she were an old lady. Helena bustled around her straightening the long gauze oversleeves and the embroidered skirt of her dress. “Come on, then, I’m hungry,” Irene said, and went out on to the terrace.
“I shall have to see Nicephoros after the reception,” Irene said; she was crossing the courtyard of the Daphne toward the Octagon, the robing room, to be dressed for the meeting with the presidents of the Guilds, and half her court hurried along with her, receiving orders and obeying them. “No, no, Helena, not that one, the green one. Where is that damned Frank?”
At top speed she strode at the door in the brick wall of the Octagon, and a page leapt to open it for her. She burst into the Octagon without even faltering in her step; a volley of orders sent her people radiating into all parts of the building to fetch her ceremonials. In the center of everything, she stood with her arms outstretched and let Helena peel off her coat and robe.
“There he is.” Off by the wall in the midst of other men she saw a white head. “Bring me the Frank.” She stooped slightly, to let the women slip the robe of purple onto her arms; Helena knelt down before her to fasten the clips.
A page led the tall barbarian up before her; he lowered himself down on one knee in deference to her. Someday she meant to see him on his face at her feet, but not now.
She said, “My dear Hagen, are you enjoying the hospitality of Rome?”
“Augustus,” he said, “you are most generous to me. I hope now you are ready to let me have the men who killed my brother.”
“Well, we are proceeding in that direction, in any case. You know that John Cerulis is behind it all.”
“So you told me.”
“I want you to go to his palace—he lives near the Forum of Theodosius, on the Mesê, that’s the central street leading north—and keep watch on him, and see if he leaves the City, and if he does, you will come back and tell me.”
On her left, Ida, on her right, Helena raised up the robe of golden net above the Empress’s head, and she moved backward to let them put it on her; when she emerged from the center of the dress, Hagen was frowning at her.
“Augustus, I don’t see why—”
“You aren’t being asked to understand,” she said, exasperated; her people always did exactly as she told them, with no questions, and it was annoying to have to train him now. “If you wish my help in achieving your revenge, you will yield up control of the matter to me. I see everything, you see only your small place in everything. Now do as I say. Cerulis may be getting ready to leave the City, after all, and it’s he you must destroy, which you cannot do if he is off in the countryside somewhere. Now, go.”
Forward to her now came the six noblemen whose ritual task it was to put on her purple slippers. They knelt in rows before her, and Hagen got up and backed away. She watched him go, her heart perturbed. He had no respect of place. She wondered how the barbarians managed to survive if their social order were so chaotic. Still, he was going. She had shown him good reason to keep watch over Cerulis, and if he lost patience and attacked her rival, that might have its advantages as well.
They put the slippers on her feet, and now, accompanied by the chanting of monks, the chief officers of her court advanced with the Imperial diadem. Irene fastened her eyes on it. This was the chief emblem of her power, the only thing save God that she knelt down to, and she put her hands together as if in prayer and went down on her knees on the cushion that Helena had laid before her and bowed her head.
The diadem was formed all of jewels and pearls in the shape of a flat cap, from which flaps of pearls and garnets, emeralds and blue diamonds hung down over her hair and her cheeks. When she raised her head under its weight, she was Basileus, and all the people in the room around her went down on their faces before her.
She rose, smiling. The monks began their chants again, this time at a higher pitch, and swiftly the court formed up ranks at the door, each hurrying to his appointed place. In step, as one body, they marched out the door, and Irene followed them, surrounded by her women and her guards.
They walked up the hill to the Magnaura Palace, where all such receptions were held. On the far side of the building from the door through which Irene entered, she knew the presidents of the Guilds of Constantinople were waiting, each in his official dress, in his place in line. They could not enter until she was ready, and she marched after her court into the huge empty room.
The Magnaura was drafty as a barn. Its walls stood up high as a church, the ceiling vaulting over like a replica of Heaven, the floor of green and white veined marble giving off a clammy chill. The walls were hung with tapestries from all over the world, and busts and statues of the great emperors of the past lined the two long walls. The throne took up the entire west end of the room, two seats side by side, encrusted with gold and cushioned with velvet. From one seat Irene would give audience. On the other seat lay an open Book of Gospels.
Beside this emblem of Christ, the real ruler of Constantinople, Irene took her place, her hands in her lap. The rest of her court arranged themselves around her. On her left, three rows of men with long coats stood, each with his rod of office laid in the crook of his arm, and on her right, her guards formed up in three rows, each man standing with his feet exactly one arm’s length apart, his left fist clasped to his armored breast, his right hand, gripping his axe, swung up to hold the great curved blade over his right shoulder.
Before these, the lesser officials ranged themselves, their posts prescribed by half a thousand years of tradition. All averted their eyes in deference, faces turned at the proper angle to the ground, and wai
ted.
Now here came the presidents of the Guilds, come to ask her for what would help them little enough in the short view of things, and ruin them all in the long.
The Guild presidents shuffled in through the doors in worse order than the courtiers, having less practice at it. Most of them walked with their heads bowed down between their shoulders. They wore rich coats, past knee-length, aping the style of court dress, which was called the Hun coat, from a time when barbarians had dominated the Imperial service. Their feet were shod in velvet boots. These clothes were passed down from each president to his successor and some were as old as Irene’s own ceremonials. They advanced into the center of the hall and formed up their ranks and in a ragged sort of timing they went down on their hands and knees before her and pressed their faces to the icy marble floor.
Irene looked out over them a moment, letting them feel the power of the Basileus. She knew that most of the City’s trades were suffering through a series of poor years, this latest being the worst. Nicephoros, gifted as he was at these things, had explained why to her, and made her see that the problem was not one that needed her interference. But the Guilds, which controlled industry in the Empire, wanted her to let them raise the prices they charged for their goods, reduce the wages they paid to their workingmen, and lower their standards of manufacture, and they claimed that otherwise they would lose so much money that they would be unable to continue their trade.
She lifted her hand and made the Sign of the Cross over them, and they responded with the words that centuries had hallowed, the words that had greeted Constantine and Justinian and Heraclius.
“Hail, O Basileus, Beloved of God, Augustus, Equal of the Apostles, from whom comes all, in whose name all is done, Hail, Hail, Hail.”
She answered, as Constantine had, in a voice made louder by the hollow of the great room around them.
“Welcome, Romans, and give tongue to your thoughts, advise me and request of me, in the name of Christ our Lord, amen.”
Their orator crept forward a little on his hands and knees.
“O Basileus, Augustus, Chosen of God, we beg of you that you give us the grace of a hearing.”
There began the long summary of their tribulations. Too many people, not enough money, no place for them all; the Arabs, the Jews, the Italians competed unfairly—
The litany of complaints went on and on. The orator had a gift for rhetoric, and couched his speech in terms as fanciful and elegant as poetry, but even so the matter began to beat on her like a rain of stones. Why could they not be content with what they had? They never once mentioned salvation, the priceless treasure they received by virtue of their birth, which the Arabs, for all their gold and myrrh and zealous overwork, could not aspire to.
That reminded her of the holy man, whose name she knew now: Daniel. He was coming toward Constantinople, and he was preaching very disagreeable ideas, such as the perfect union of the soul with God, and the superfluity of the Church and the City and the law, when the soul belonged utterly to God.
She knew that John Cerulis had sent men to observe this dangerous ecstatic. If John Cerulis could manage to find an interpreter of God’s will who would proclaim him emperor, then his lies could cloud the minds of men and lead them into a terrible crisis.
She was true emperor. She knew that. More than for herself, she trembled to think of the consequences for her people and the Empire, should they desert God and Irene, and follow John Cerulis. Therefore she had sent Hagen the Frank to spy on John Cerulis, and she meant to plant Theophano there as well.
In the meantime, the presidents of the Guilds were huddled before her waiting for her answer. The orator had done. Silence filled up the Magnaura Palace. The Basileus sat absolutely still for a long while, letting them all wait for her.
They knew what she would say. Had she not said it before, over and over—did they not come here to be told again what the truth was? And the truth did not change with the price of gold and silk and wax and wood. The sinner did not go to mass to hear that for his sake sin would now be virtue.
She said, “My people have come before me, and I have heard them. My heart is moved to pity by their lamentations. Yet I must deny them the swift and easy ameliorations that they seek.”
Crouched before her, they kept their faces to the floor, but from some of them, rising above their bowed backs, came a tremulous sigh.
“We belong to the Empire,” she said, and saw again, as if in the air some vision formed, the wonderful image of salvation that was Constantinople. “We belong to our Empire, whose order was set down by God, and made manifest by the laws of Constantine and Theodosius and Justinian. They gave us the perfect City. If now God chooses to test our hearts, we must prove our hearts worthy, and not change the order of God. To change is to fail. To keep faith is to survive. So be it. I have spoken, Basileus, Irene, Augustus, Equal of the Apostles.”
For a moment, in the cold echoing chamber, there was silence. She trembled with the intensity of her vision. It was true, and unfaltering she would serve that truth, though she be the last, the only one to do so. Now from the people crouching at her feet came their own assent to the truth.
“We hear, and we shall obey, O Basileus.”
The Chamberlain came forward with his staff and rapped the butt hard on the floor. “Blessed be the name of the Lord our God!”
“Blessed be the name of God, and long life and salvation to our Basileus.” And one by one they inched forward on their knees to kiss her shoe and the hem of her robe.
The Guild presidents, in their antique coats, walked in formal steps from the throne room, their heads bowed, their hands together; as soon as they crossed the threshold their sedate and orderly lines broke and they rushed in a yammering mob on the Prefect of the City, standing in the antechamber.
“She denied us!”
“We can’t go on like this—you must do something—”
They swarmed around him—he was at the end of the anteroom opposite the guards—and drove him backwards to the wall; and there, shouting and furious, they held him fast and screamed their problems in his ears.
“Please—please—”
His voice was drowned in theirs. “We need help! There is no work —no money—” “I have not paid my workmen in more than six months—” “I have not taken a nomisma of profit in over a year!”
“Please,” he cried, and smiled, trying to look each furious red face in the eyes. This placid kindly look and his smile usually won people over to him, but the Guild presidents, old men all of them, were caught up in the full fury of their own little crisis. They were actually leaning on him, and his back, pushing to the marble wall, was beginning to throb. Then, to his incalculable relief, he saw Nicephoros coming across the antechamber.
“There,” he cried, and thrust his arm out in a gesture as noble as any statue’s. “Here comes the Treasurer of the Empire to deal with your questions.”
They all turned, their voices falling silent for an instant, to see the angular figure of the Treasurer marching into their midst. Three of his secretakoi accompanied him. The Prefect used this lull to abandon the wall and make for the refuge of Nicephoros’s side, where he caught his friend’s hand in a hard grateful grip.
“My God,” he murmured, “you’ve been my own redeemer, Nicephoros. I hope you have something to say to these people.”
The Treasurer shrugged, a gesture he had from his Syrian ancestors. His dark face showed no light or easy humor. In the Prefect’s grasp his hand was cold and limp as a day-old fish. His eyes swept the mob of the presidents, now facing him with the hostility and expectation by which they had pinned the Prefect to the wall.
“Now, hear me,” Nicephoros said. “The Basileus has spoken, and has made clear what our duties are to the Empire and to God.”
The mass of old men cast up a single groan.
“However,”
Nicephoros said, in a ringing voice, and paused. Beside him, the Prefect looked swiftly down the antechamber. The Imperial Guard was filing out of the throne room, their axes shining in their hands; one or two looked curiously in this direction. A servant with an iron lamp standard came quietly up the long room and put the lamp down and swiftly lit it. “The Empress,” Nicephoros said, “cannot hear the pleas of her people without ears of pity. Therefore she has commanded that your burdens be eased somewhat by the following.”
The Prefect relaxed, smiling. He took a moment to admire Nicephoros’s statecraft. It was the Basileus who had insisted on duty to the state; it was the Empress whose heart went out to them. A nice touch; the Prefect knew he would use that sometime in his own work. Nicephoros turned to take a slip of paper from one of his underlings. The lace collar of his coat had etched a line of red across the back of his neck.
He said, “We shall allow the complete remission of your taxes, those owed from previous years and those owed for this year. In addition the Prefect shall issue you licenses to buy bread at a special rate. And finally the Empress will guarantee that you receive the materials for your crafts and industries whether or not you can sell the finished product.”
The presidents murmured, their faces raised toward Nicephoros’s; was it relief that made them pale, or merely the light from the lamp standard?
“In return,” Nicephoros said, “we shall expect that you will distribute your available resources even-handedly, care for those among you who are suffering the most, and keep all your workmen at their benches and looms and in their shops, busy.”
A necessary corollary: busy people did not collect in mobs in the streets and riot against the state.
“If we all give whatever we can to one another,” Nicephoros said, “and take only what we must to live, then we shall survive this trial. When God sees how we uphold His Word, He shall be moved in our favor, and surely will bestow on us again those favors by which He has distinguished us above any other men. Go, now, and keep the Word of God and the commands of your Basileus.”
The Belt of Gold Page 13