Not the Basileus. He raised his eyes to the ceiling, pierced with skylights, from which the light fell in sheets through the tendrils of the steam.
Nicephoros’s voice rolled through another fierce sarcastic question, rhetorical rather than interrogatory, and launched itself on another. The Prefect began to feel physically assaulted; his flesh trembled, and he wished he could leave. Abruptly he realized that everything Nicephoros was saying was true: he had committed a terrible crime against his City, his Basileus, his God, and his family, and he lowered his face to his hands and wept.
Nicephoros stopped talking. They sat side by side, the Prefect struggling for mastery, and the Treasurer giving him the silence to do so.
“The races,” said the Prefect finally, lifting his head. His eyes burned.
“I beg your pardon, Peter.”
“I lost it on the races, Nicephoros. I never meant it to be so much. I lost a little at first, and then I thought I saw a sure winner, so I bet enough to recover my losses, and I lost that too. And on and on—I couldn’t stop, Nicephoros—I meant to repay it—”
“Then repay it.” The Treasurer leaned toward him, urgent, his dark eyes full of Oriental fire. “Pay back what you’ve taken from the service, and I will go to the Basileus and say you are blameless.”
“I can’t, Nicephoros—it’s thousands and thousands of irenes.”
Nicephoros’s blazing black eyes remained on him a moment longer, before the Treasurer swayed away, gripping the bench on either side of him with his hands, and shifting his bulk on the bench. “God, these seats are hard.”
“Nicephoros, if I could!”
“You can,” said the Treasurer. “You can sell something. What about your villa in Blachernae?”
“The villa is not mine, it belongs to my wife.”
“Get her to sell it, then.”
He could not tell his wife. He could not begin to explain something like this to his wife.
“Nicephoros, you could loan me the money, couldn’t you? Everybody knows you have millions.”
Nicephoros gave off a rough burst of laughter, his gaze elsewhere. “Don’t ask me for that, Peter. I didn’t embezzle funds and bet it all away.”
“I’ll pay you back. I promise.”
The Treasurer swung toward him. “You will pay back the City treasury. Within the month. When you have done so, you will come to me and tell me, and I shall go to the Basileus and exonerate you.”
“Oh, Nicephoros, please—”
The other man was getting up. With a motion of his hand he cut off further speech. “Do it, Peter.”
“Oh, now, Nicephoros, you really—where are you going? Please! Can’t we talk about this a little more?”
“I will not speak with you again, Peter, until you come to me with that which I have already required of you. Good day.”
The Prefect licked his lips. Nicephoros was moving past him, lumbering, his skin shining with sweat; he fumbled with his towel and dropped it and, groaning, bent to pick it up. The Treasurer’s body was a ruin. How then could his mind be whole? How could he inflict something like this on a friend? The towel bunched around his loins, Nicephoros went away down the long side of the pool, splashing through puddles. The steam veiled him. His dark head disappeared through the door at the far end, into the frigidarium. Lowering his eyes, the Prefect stared at the dancing green water of the bath for a long, long time.
Abdul-Hassan ibn-Ziad, the Caliph’s emissary to the Roumis, knew his hosts well. He did not intend, this time, to fall prey to their tricks and duplicities, and therefore, one hour after his entry into Constantinople, he took himself, alone, and with a heavy purse, to the chambers in the Daphne where lived the Grand Domestic, the Parakoimomenos, John Melissenes.
Ibn-Ziad amused himself with the truism that his subject was certainly doubly corrupt, first by virtue of being shaved, and second by virtue of being Greek.
The Parakoimomenos, naturally, kept him waiting—not long, only a few moments, just long enough to imbue him with the understanding of who was attending whom. Ibn-Ziad kept his temper, which was the key to dealing with these people. Restlessly he paced through the antechamber in which he was confined, and pleased himself with his own patience.
He had never been in this part of the Daphne before. It reminded him of a harem, of his grandfather’s harems, in fact, although his grandfather, who in the name of the Caliph had ruled Islam from the Indus to Gibraltar, had never lived quite as well as this; it was the lavish use of satins and silks, the gleam of gold and the clutter of small objects on every flat surface that made him think of the seraglio. He walked slowly by the shelf of books along the windowless wall, where a collection of miniature figures absorbed his attention. Just toys, they were. He had seen Persian chessmen as elegantly made. Yet he could not keep his hands off them; he picked up a tiny gold cock, only an inch high, captured in the act of crowing up the dawn.
When he touched it, it moved. Startled, he dropped the thing onto the carpet. Feeling like a fool, he stooped and recovered it, and found its head was loose, and at a touch came off: inside was some sort of scent.
He laughed at himself. Tricked again.
“Most excellent messenger,” a voice said, behind him, and he wheeled. In the doorway was the tall supple form of the eunuch, bowing to him.
“Hail, Parakoimomenos,” said ibn-Ziad, and advanced to meet the Empress’s officer. In the middle of the room, facing each other, they bowed several times, exchanging ceremonial courtesies in the Greek language.
“I am ravished by the divine opportunity to serve the most excellent grandson of the great Vizier Yahya. Permit me to express my most abject apologies that you were made to wait on this undeserving personage.”
“Yet my few moments here in this room have reawakened my delight at the treasures of Constantinople.”
“Words cannot express the joy with which I receive your kind praises. We exist merely to make you familiar with the ways of civilization.”
Ibn-Ziad’s smile stiffened at that; words leapt to his tongue assuring this ball-less epicene that in Baghdad too men lived as well as God allowed them, but before he could speak, the eunuch was ushering him on through the antechamber into a small sunlit room beyond, where a marble table stood, strewn with papers and books. This room was as lavishly appointed as the one he had just left; the walls were painted with a frieze of dancing women, trimmed with gold and carnelian. Through the window behind the table, veiled by diaphanous silks, the breeze from the garden entered, perfumed with flowers, and made musical by an occasional ripple of laughter: some child played out there.
The Parakoimomenos handed him to a chair. “My dear sir, I am impatient to know in what way I may fulfill you. However my services may help you, please, inform me now.”
Ibn-Ziad, in this elegant room, felt his confidence slipping. Had he brought enough money to bribe this creature whose very walls were made of gold? Gathering himself up, he took his purse and set it on the table.
“And what is this?” said the Parakoimomenos, pressing his hands to his clothing, as if to restrain a snatch at the money.
“That,” said ibn-Ziad, “is to insure that I have your help in my endeavor here.”
“My help.” The Parakoimomenos took his chair on the far side of the table, leaned forward, clasped his hands together, and fixed his eyes on the Caliph’s man. “Please. Explain further.”
“I am here to advance my master’s purposes—to take home the tribute to which he is by treaty entitled, and to incline the policies of the Basileus in his favor.”
“Ah. And you expect my help in this?”
“I am prepared to make it very lucrative for you to do so.”
“Ah.”
The eunuch’s long white hands came unclasped, and the fingers pattered busily over the clutter of papers before him. In the back of his
mind ibn-Ziad noticed, with satisfaction, that they used Baghdadi paper here.
“My dear fellow,” said the Parakoimomenos softly. “I am afraid you misunderstand us here. First of all, your objectives, if I may be so bold as to characterize them, fall in the realm of the Basileus’s barbarian policy. I am merely the keeper of her household, nothing more, and therefore of no use to you in your efforts to sway her in your favor.” The long flexible fingers swatted suddenly, contemptuously, at the purse. “Even if I were so deluded as to accept a bribe.”
“Ummm.” Taken aback, ibn-Ziad sank deeper into his chair.
“But let me put your mind at rest, my dear friend. You need not resort to such methods here. We are men of good will here. We desire what you yourself no doubt desire—the honorable and just relationship between our two powers.”
“Unnh,” said ibn-Ziad.
He felt his face glowing with embarrassment; he wondered where he had gotten the notion that a man as rich as this one would succumb to an offer of money.
“However, my good man, while I have you here, allow me to read with you the schedule of your visit with us.”
“Very well,” said ibn-Ziad loftily.
“I have the list here.” In all that welter of paper the Parakoimomenos put his hand immediately on the slip he wanted. He cleared his throat.
“This afternoon we hope to amuse you with a reading of poetry in the rose garden. Afterward, a tour of the sacred relics in the Chapel of the Virgin—”
Ibn-Ziad picked up his purse and restored it to its place under his robes. “Excellent,” he said. His head buzzed.
“And we shall have the honor of your presence at a state dinner in the Triclinium. Tomorrow—”
There followed a calendar of entertainments and events at which he would be expected to appear: an accessory to the glory of the Basileus; a witness to the power of those whom he had come here to dominate. He felt Constantinople closing in around him, slick and smooth as a golden cage.
We have conquered you, he thought. Beaten your armies, seized your provinces—some of them, anyway. You should fall down on your faces and beg our mercy. Instead—
The Parakoimomenos was still rumbling on through his schedule. “And then you will attend the service at the Church of the Holy Wisdom, where the Basileus will—”
“Wait,” said ibn-Ziad, trying to catch hold of this slick surface of protocol. “When shall I have the honor of speaking candidly with the Empress?”
The eunuch drew back, his eyes widening. “I speak your pardon, my dear prince.”
“I require deep speech with the Empress, at once. Concerning the payment of the tribute which she owes us.”
“Concerning the tribute, you shall speak this very day to the Treasurer of the Empire, the great Nicephoros.” The Parakoimomenos lifted his piece of paper again. “After the ceremony in the Holy Wisdom—”
“No,” said ibn-Ziad stubbornly. “I must speak face to face with the Empress. My lord the Caliph—”
“Well, of course,” the eunuch said, and put his paper carefully to one side. “You are expected to attend on the Empress at the Hippodrome, for the races. A very great honor, I can assure you, and one at which, surely, the moment may very well arise during which you might exchange a few words of relaxed conversation with the Basileus.”
“The races,” said ibn-Ziad. He remembered the Hippodrome from a previous visit, the excitement, and the thrill of competition. “Very good. Is it to be a championship race?” He remembered, belatedly, what they called it. “A race for the Golden Belt?”
“Alas, no.” The eunuch spread his hands. His face, pale and smooth, with the noble sweep of brow like a cliff above the mild kindly eyes, was grave with regret. “Unfortunately in the course of your visit with us only part of the challenge series will be run. But we expect an excellent race. Besides the divine Ishmael—”
“Ishmael. Is there an Arab driver?”
“Ah, no, a devout Christian, I fear. Although of Syrian and Arabian ancestry, I believe. You know that Constantinople attracts to her bosom men from all over the world who desire the challenges and rewards of civilization.” The Parakoimomenos’s hands began to move, busily sorting through the papers and small objects on his table. “There is an Arab team in this series, however.”
“Really,” said ibn-Ziad.
If he was to spend his days touring churches and viewing relics and listening to foreign poetry read, the horse-race at least would be something to look forward to. And if one of the teams were Arab—
“Yes, there is a new team coming in from Caesarea.” The eunuch lowered his already mild voice. “It’s widely known although not officially accepted that the driver is of the persuasion of Islam.” The eunuch’s eyes darted toward the corner of the table where the heavy purse had lain. “If I were you, my dear, I would take your money and bet it all on this Caesarean team. I understand they are certain to win.”
“Hunh.” Ibn-Ziad sat back.
They would use him to glorify themselves; he would have to stand there and watch the Basileus proclaimed master of the cosmos, and have his presence seem a testimony to her power. But a horse-race was something else, something he could understand, something he could use. He smiled at the Parakoimomenos, and the eunuch smiled in answer, rather too warmly, as if he saw into ibn-Ziad’s mind.
“Thank you,” said ibn-Ziad. “You have served your Basileus and me with honor, and I am grateful to you for your help.”
“I am overwhelmed by your generous praises.” The Parakoimomenos bowed over his table. Ibn-Ziad left.
From the window the Parakoimomenos watched him go. It amused him that ibn-Ziad, wanting to bribe him, should have been so straightforward about it; a Roman would have made a gift of the money, or a challenge. The Arabs were children, after all.
And being a child, ibn-Ziad would be easily guided by knowing hands. It was unfortunate that the Basileus, the adored one, had chosen to place him into the hands of Nicephoros, who would not make use of the opportunity, save for the most pedestrian and obvious purposes.
He needed another guide, did ibn-Ziad, one who would introduce him to Constantinople in ways deeper than mere words. One through whom the Parakoimomenos could achieve purposes of his own. The eunuch slipped his tongue between his teeth, considering his possibilities, and called for a page.
“Most noble Parakoimomenos.” The page bowed to him.
“Send Prince Constantine to me,” said the eunuch.
Irene woke in the deep of the night, her bed shaking all around her. She sat up, her arms out to support herself. The bed quivered a moment longer, the hangings trembling, and from the darkness of the room came the wails of a frightened page; beneath the cries of the child and the shushings of another woman the rumbling voice of the earthquake died away.
“Ah.” Irene swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Helena! My robe.” She enjoyed earthquakes; this one left her with a residual excitement trembling in her veins; she knew she witnessed an arcane detail of the divine purpose. Helena came up to her, a robe extended in her hands, and swirled the gauze around her mistress’s shoulders.
“Come,” Irene said. “We’ll go up to the Kathismus—see what damage has been done.”
Helena yawned. “Mistress—it was only a little tremble. Nothing will have fallen, except a few tenements—” The page-boy, still shrieking, clung to the woman’s nightdress with both hands, and now Helena bent down suddenly and caught the little boy’s wrists and gave him a sound shaking of her own, more ferocious than the earthquake. “Be still! Stop thinking of yourself, little brute—you are of the Empress’s train, comport yourself accordingly.”
The boy screeched. Irene, gathering the robe around her, made for the door.
The guard was gone from the door into the Kathismus, the stair-tower that led to the Imperial box of the Hippodrome. Trailin
g her maids, Irene went swiftly up the stairs into the open air. The silk curtains had been removed until the next race; the moonlight poured down into the open box, bleaching the marble blue-white. The guard was there at the front of the box, looking out, and when the Empress burst in through the door from the stair, he wheeled, dropping to his hands and knees.
“Ah!” She walked straight past him, ignoring him. “See what the Hand of God has brought upon us, to warn us of the fragility of life, and His awful power over us!”
The women crowded around her. They leaned out into the warm summer night. Out there, beyond the great dark curve of the Hippodrome wall, the City spread away from them, the Mesê a white river along the spine of the ridge, and on either side of this white stream, great golden flowers bloomed in the night, tossing heads of flame. The earthquake, as usual, had started fires in half the crumbling tenements of Constantinople.
Beside Irene, her tiring woman Ida began to pray. Helena was grumbling again about being pulled from her warm bed; the others were silent, or weeping. Irene raised her arms out. The scene exhilarated her. The leaping flames tinged the sky a sultry red, and fired volleys of sparks into the wind; from the deep stirring darkness out there came the faint wails and cries of people trapped in catastrophe. She pressed herself against the cold marble rail, her heart pounding. Out there, the only real truth was manifesting itself once again, the ordinary lives of ordinary people were dissolving in the rhythmless, irresistible tides of the cosmos.
Beside her something pressed against her; she lowered her hand, unwilling to take her eyes from the death and life flaring in the dark before her. It was Philomela beside her. The child laid her cheek against the Empress’s hand, and Irene stroked her face quickly, reassuring her.
The fires would burn all night; at this time of the year, with the overheated winds from the east, and the water level falling in every fountain in Constantinople, there would be little anyone could do to put them out. Irene beckoned to the guard, still prostrated beside her feet.
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