“My congratulations. Fiery, Gilpractus tells me. Did you know when the gods gave gifts to Pandora, Hermes gave her lies, seductive words, and a dubious character? Outside a doll, inside the plague. Well, if the wife doesn’t behave, there is always the red-hot iron. That would quench the light of those stormy eyes forever! That’s why you don’t see the empress,” he added conspiratorially, “and conversely, why she doesn’t see you!”
Botulfr remained stiff and ill at ease. “High and mighty Basileus, I will speak plainly. You greeted me as the best of friends, but I fear you are mistaken. An old enemy can’t become a friend.”
Gregoras stood and pondered his ornate throne for a few moments, wistful, even remorseful. Botulfr stayed respectfully silent.
“Do you play games, young Prince?”
“Of course, as all gods do in their golden halls and meadows.”
Botulfr was proud of the self-assured answer. Gregoras walked over to a table and patted his arm affectionately as he passed. The prince felt himself swell with pride, then immediately felt guilty for it. He was here to honour his mother’s memory. If the truth could be found, he would ask for it plainly and directly.
The emperor sat and invited his guest to do the same. He clapped his hands and two liveried servants hurried over with a circular board.
“Zatrikion? The Persians call it shatranj.”
“My people call it skáktafl, but we use a square board.”
“When you sit at the crossroads of the world, you are obliged to reshape the flotsam and jetsam that wash up on your shores. Fashion it in your own image. Now, the rules are the broadly the same as your version. Shall we? A god will master it in minutes.”
Gregoras smiled good-naturedly at the prince. Botulfr studied the pieces and tried to plan his moves around the unfamiliar circle.
Gregoras motioned to the board and explained.
“With the Persian square board, you must try to force the defending king into the corner. Impossible here, there are no corners in which to cower, or to be caught. Most games end in stalemate, but I think that is closer to real war. We play games for inspiration, don’t we? To solve intractable problems. But some problems have no solution, and war is generally protracted. With Zatrikion, you may play on in a position which might give the Persians cause for resignation. In one of the endgames, however, my board favours the bold: with king and pawn against king, unless the defender can capture the pawn before it can be promoted or protected, the game is always won.”
He pushed a pawn forward and looked steadily at his guest. He lifted the hem of his cloak and held it across the table.
“This purple cloak, you see? The signifier of emperors. Did you know the dye is made from sea snails that live in the Inland Sea?”
“I did not. Not woad? That’s what my people would use.”
“Ah, the Asp of Jerusalem. If only, but not the right shade. It must be like blood, black, clotted blood. And that means snails, decomposing in the dyers’ workshops. The smell is enough to make the angels weep. Imagine that. All those snails, crushed, just to elevate a man to the heavens. What colour will you wear when you are emperor?”
“If I am emperor,” Botulfr corrected.
“What? Nonsense! Because your own family seeks to make worm’s meat of you? Yes, yes, I have my apparatus, my spies. An emperor must see clearly. Tell me, do you think that blood cannot turn to water?”
“We Northmen keep our oaths.”
“And what oaths has your brother sworn to you? None. Let me tell you about these thrones of ours. I am a grandson of the great Antiochus, but to claim the purple, the purple I was born to, I had to march an army to the Charisian Gate. How the people rejoiced to proclaim me Basileus! The whole world longed to see the true pilot of imperial dignity. The army loved me; I had shared their salt, sweated across mountains and plains with them, knew them as a body and as men.”
Botulfr was having a hard time following the meandering mind of the emperor, but he was charmed despite himself. Botulfr slid a pawn across the board. The basileus immediately countered with a knight.
“Where was I? Ah, I was telling you about my throne. My own family, the House of Chrysaphes is an old one, and trust me when I say it is as murderous as it is ancient. Antiochus had marched my pawn forward—like so—and bequeathed me his empire. I shouldn’t have been surprised when my small-minded cousin Zenon wrested the purple from me. Palace coups were common enough; any fool with a belly full of wine and envy can claim a throne. But I had forgotten the centuries circle each other. I did not learn the lessons of Herodotus or Procopius.”
Botulfr took his move, and the emperor continued without looking up.
“I escaped into the country and went north, to my homelands, where I pondered on the game ahead. The solution seemed to me to be the same as before, so I called for my captains, and I marched my army again, like so.”
He pushed a second pawn into play. “The jubilation of the crowds was all the sweeter the second time. They opened the gates for me before the first cock-crow.”
“And your rival?” Botulfr wasn’t very familiar with the game, so he mirrored his opponent’s move with the knight, hoping that a frown would mask his inexperience.
“Zenon? He managed to escape capture, just as I had done. He put to sea. You and I could be at full sail in less than ten minutes from now. The prefect’s men found him three weeks later, just across the Horn, visited by the bloody flux for his sins. He was shitting out his last with the Devil at his side. He got off lightly. The Arabs do revenge well—one rebel prince was recently gibbeted alive and sewn into a cow’s skin, the horns were arranged at ear level to gradually crush the prisoner’s head as the carcass dried out. I should have handed Zenon to them, but he stank worse than the snails.”
The basileus edged another pawn forward. Botulfr shifted in his seat.
“My people have a punishment called the blood eagle, reserved for very special oath-breakers.”
“Yes, I’ve heard. Never let your own guards get raucous and reckless in the halls of another nation. It puts you at as much a disadvantage as imitating your opponent in a game you have never played. Perhaps your wife had Hermes whisper in your ear too?”
The emperor hadn’t stopped smiling, but Botulfr was finding it impossible to keep his resolve from buckling.
Gregoras continued. “Do you know why I adopted a double-headed eagle as my emblem? It is because I claimed the imperial diadem not once, but twice. I am an emperor who sees past and future. I play the long game.”
Botulfr had contained himself as long as he could. He picked up his queen and twirled it between his finger and thumb until the emperor paused.
“Why was my mother murdered?”
Gregoras seemed taken aback. “I could not say. Your people do not take oaths lightly, but I give you mine that I had no hand in your mother’s death. I have no guilty mind, as God is my witness and judge. I shall pray for her soul. So we all have our demons, and now I know yours. Would you care to know mine?”
The prince nodded. The emperor didn’t seem perturbed or offended. Botulfr was relieved and felt a burden lifted from him.
“You might wonder if I have been successful. My empire is resurgent, and the old enemies of my youth have withered and faded away. The wolves of Arabia, the Saracen Caliphs and Emirs, have turned their fangs on each other; the Hashimids, Umayyads, and Rassids who used to banquet here and challenge me to shatranj now war with each other over who is the best custodian of a heap of sand. In Persia, the Red Khurramites rose in revolt against their Muslim masters, fomented by my coin and supported by my armies of course. They are a much more amenable neighbour, content to rule in a stupor. The Turkish tribes have wandered south, down along the Caspian Sea, first into Azerbaijan, the Land of Holy Fire, and then south to the Tigris and Euphrates where they now pitch their yurts and graze their sheep. The Danube forms a natural border to the north, secured with new forts; the Bulgars are beaten and integrated into
my armies; the Kurgan of the Pecheneg’s paid off, too, until I have time or inclination to catch him. There, I have named my demons, and I have bested them.”
“All of them except for my father.”
The emperor smiled. “Your father? Your father and his father before him, all your forefathers in fact, are guilty only of plucking thorns from my paw. They are St. Jerome to my lion. They have routed the heirs of Charlemagne and their bastard empire in the West. Around the time you were born, your father’s longships sailed up the Tiber and carried off Gelasius, the Bishop of Rome, still clinging to the verdict of Chalcedon. We share no borders and manage a healthy trade. Your father and I have no quarrel, beyond my lands in Sicily perhaps.”
“My advisors tell me otherwise.”
“An open enemy is better than a false friend. Prince Botulfr, everyone receives advice. Only the wise profit from it. The larger your realm grows, the more voices you will hear. Will you have some wine?”
The servants appeared again with crystal decanters and goblets. Botulfr put down the queen and picked up the king from the board.
“Well, then, as my enemy in plain sight: my wife asked me once, what I thought were the essential qualities for a great king.”
“What did you answer?”
“What would you answer?”
“I determined early in my reign that, where force of arms failed, Christian meekness might overcome. I have sought to reconcile with your malevolent North. I have sent my spies into the lands of the Rus, into old Britannia and even to that log-pile that passes for a court at Uppsala. Not to preach and proselytize, though; that has only hardened heathen hearts.”
“Your minions seem to think all the Norse want is wealth,” said Botulfr. “Silks and silver can be as much weapons as swords and spears.”
“Gilpractus is my treasurer, a financier. He thinks everyone is as obsessed with gold as he is.”
“So kindness is your answer? I was taught a king’s son should be thoughtful, thorough, and silent, and brave in battle.”
“I am also known as Gregoras the Gregarious; I wouldn’t council the same. Industry, rather. I am the rule and the measure for all men. I spend the greater part of each night in singing hymns, yet, even when worn out with continual prayer and want of sleep, I rise at dawn. I find the will to apply myself to state business, deciding about the election of magistrates and the requests of petitioners. How to care for the pawns—because they will win you the game. If your wife were to gauge the art of ruling as a science, then I strive to be the highest of philosophers. Do you hunt?”
“My father does.”
“Of course he does. His reputation precedes him. Does he breed his dogs and coursers?”
“Dogs. He has a pack of moosehounds who follow his every move.”
“And does he have dogs for herding cattle and sheep?”
“Yes, yes, Vallhunds and all kinds.”
“And does he feed even the lame dogs and the mongrels?”
“Yes, scraps from his own table.”
“Then your father is a good king. An empire is a hybrid, a mutt born from the conquest of a dozen fathers. In my army, I march with Saracens, Indians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Vandals, Alans, and Armenians. Not just Greek and Roman soldiers. Sooner or later, every empire is a misbegotten mongrel. Did you know I am Bulgarian by birth? Treat your poor and your debased with kindness. They will anoint you with the purple, birthright or no.”
“My skald said the same. That I should listen to all manner of men. My father barely notices the poor and debased because he is hunting so much.”
“Then I mourn for you, having lost both a mother and father so young.”
Botulfr melted at that comment and blushed profusely. There was an intimacy to the conversation that he hadn’t expected, that he hadn’t experienced with his own father. This great emperor was talking to him, if not as an equal, then as a favoured son. He decided to change the subject.
“I didn’t understand your comment earlier. Who are Gog and Magog?”
“A small joke. There is a book called the Apocalypse, written during the Arab invasions, to remind us they were just a sandstorm and that the real end of days, predicted by Christ, was still ahead. The true harbingers of our doom are the unclean nations, led by the giants I mentioned, Gog and Magog. They will issue from the North and devastate the whole world.”
“So, it was a joke at my expense?”
“Yes, but a learned one. I offer my apologies. I am afraid the worst of it is that Gog and Magog were so ugly and so foul that Alexander of Macedon prayed to the Lord to draw mountains together to wall them in. They ate the dead. Decomposing snails, too, in all likelihood. I shudder to think.”
“Jötnar then? Not men. They sound like the foes of all men and gods. Askr, my skald, will tell you that the Jötnar have the power of oncoming storms, roaring volcanoes, and the clamorous oceans. I had come to believe you and your Kristins were that self-same doom.”
“That I was a giant?”
“A Jötunn can be as huge as a mountain or as beguiling as the changing seasons. This Great City and its churches seem to swallow people whole.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose,” said the emperor. “God does not swallow souls, he saves them. You sound less convinced now? Perhaps your Jötunn and my giants are the same. Our sins returned to haunt us. Christian sins are nightmares that suffocate your sleep, serpents that strangle reason, burning envies that grow into a mighty fire. They are forces we cannot control, the passions that enslave us, and God helps us in that struggle.”
“Either that,” said Botulfr, “or the North and the East are each the doom of the other, and our gods will meet in battle.”
“A pact then! To avert disaster for our people and to show proper respect to Heaven. We need not hasten to our demise. The longer we hold to our oaths, the more righteous our path, the better the world in our charge, is that not so?”
“And that is why you spoke of Væringjar, of faithful companions?”
“Perhaps. Tell me, who do you trust? You are suckled by a she-wolf and you run with a loyal pack, like a latter-day Romulus. Perhaps you are a son of Troy after all. You are blessed with your mother’s fierce loyalty, but cursed, like me, with a fickle family. There are many men who think this pretty purple thing would suit them well.”
The emperor patted the hem of his cloak, then stopped smiling and abruptly turned solemn.
“Not far from these walls is a harbour, constructed long ago from native stone and marbles. The buildings there, and the harbour itself, are named Boucoleon for the sculptured lion that sits seizing a bull. He clings to the bull’s horn, pulling his head back, fixing his teeth in the bull’s throat. Return home now, and you will be the bull, brave and resilient but also torn and savaged. In that harbour is also a fleet in need of a commander. Stay with me now, and I will return you home a lion.”
“BIKKJU-SONR!” SON OF A BITCH!
All of Boucoleon resounded with the curse, the gulls answering with shrieks and cries as they winged their way to safety. Botulfr stayed calm and listened to the waves lap the harbour wall. He was accustomed now to arguing on a rolling deck and kept his feet firmly planted.
The hird were all idling around the Roman ship, except for Gest, who was resting his forehead on the mast, partly for support and partly because he was then out of reach of Harald, who was stomping around the deck.
“Just to be clear, we march into the palace of Surtr the Black, the destroyer of worlds, and you come out with a commission and a fleet?”
“More!” said Botulfr. “A Golden Bull decreeing me the captain of his faithful guard. Look, a seal of three gold coins!”
“I’m not sure what you expected,” said Olaf, examining the forecastle and the pavesade where the crew would hang their shields. “The last time we left him alone, he got married.”
Gest gently rocked backwards and tapped his head on the mast. “Old button-arse has given us permission
to wage his private wars for him? How kind.”
Botulfr thought about Gregoras, and how he projected himself. The emperor was always calm, always methodical.
“We will be seizing the emperor’s enemies at sea in return for our share. For our part, we lend him our axes and our wits.”
Harald turned suddenly, thought for a second, and then slapped Gest hard on the back, which in turn, knocked his head hard against the mast.
“Well, then, my only question is, how big is the share?”
“Exactly. We wanted to raise men to raid the coasts and make our fortune. We wanted to hide in plain sight, safe from assassins and treachery. This way, we have everything we need—” Botulfr insisted, spreading his arms wide, “—weapons, dromons, soldiers, and a license to plunder.”
“What will she carry?” asked Olaf. “One hundred and fifty men? Two decks, two masts—I bet she flies.”
Askr had been silent and still throughout. When he spoke, he sounded resigned and weary.
“You’ve made us thralls to the Kristins. Their god is not to be worshiped but mocked.”
“Or just ignored,” said Botulfr. “We are still free men, Askr, just sworn to Gregoras. He’ll make us rich, and even if we are his puppets, well, the art of being a slave is to rule one’s master. You wanted us to cut the strings? At least we hold them in our grasp.”
Ellisif was the last to offer her opinion. She was watching Olaf prowl towards the captain’s tent and peek inside.
“The Austman looks like the cat who got the cream, while the skald is lost for words. Even if this Gregoras is mulling civil war, like so much communion wine, the path ends with my husband on the throne. The end justifies the means.”
She exuded authority as if she were already a queen.
“In the meantime, my husband needs a father. This Gregoras is a man like any other, and he fears us as much as we fear him. I followed him in his hall. Most of all, he fears death and tries to save himself with prayer. It is a foolish man thinks he will live forever if he keeps away from fighting; old age won’t grant him a truce, even if the spears do.”
The All Father Paradox Page 10