by Tom Harper
‘You cannot expect to shoot your bow at the parakoimomenos and see me laugh it off as a jest.’ He may have subdued the violence in his voice, but it still burned in his face.
I smiled a grim smile. ‘Believe me, eunuch – if I had shot my bow at you, you would have breath neither to laugh nor curse.’ I lifted a hand to quell his retort. ‘And nor would I, I know. I do not threaten you; I merely comment on the miraculous accuracy of this foreign weapon, this tzangra. And its awesome strength.’
Krysaphios looked to the shards of statue on the floor by his feet. ‘That was the Emperor’s mother,’ he chided me. ‘Carved from a relic of antiquity. He will be displeased.’
‘He would be more displeased if it had been his head the arrow struck.’
I walked forward to Krysaphios and held the bow out for his inspection. It was an extraordinary weapon, much as the Genoese merchant had described it in the tavern, yet somehow more elegant and more lethal in form. Curved horns arced out like wings from the end of a shaft, which was carved at its butt to fit snug in a man’s shoulder. There was a channel routed down the middle to grip the short arrow, and a levered hook behind it to hold the string taut. As I had discovered with my gourds that afternoon, it was wondrously easy to learn to aim it, but a wrench on the shoulders to nock the bowstring. No wonder the assassin had only been able to loose one shot.
‘And you found this with the boy?’ Krysaphios plucked at the string, but could scarcely move it. ‘Sigurd did not tell me that.’
‘The boy had hidden it near the harbour. He told me where it was and I retrieved it.’ What he had really told me, at least at first, was that he had thrown it into the sea, but I refused to accept that he would discard so priceless a weapon. ‘He calls it an arbalest.’
‘And how did he come by it?’ Krysaphios’ tone was urgent now; he paced the tiled floor restlessly, kicking at bits of the broken statue with his toe.
‘The boy spoke only Frankish; I had his story through an interpreter. There were many things she did not understand, or could not make understood, but I think I have the bones of his story. He came here as a pilgrim some time ago; with his parents, I think, though they are dead now. After their death he survived in the slums by thieving and begging as he could. Then, a month back, a man found him and offered gold to accompany him. He was led to a meeting with a monk, who took him with four Bulgar mercenaries to a villa deep in the forest. For two weeks there the monk trained him in the use of the arbalest – as you have seen, it takes to men’s hands with miraculous ease. When they returned, he was told to climb atop a building on the Mesi and murder the Emperor as he passed. Yesterday he received a message that he should collect his payment by a certain fountain, but as he arrived he was attacked by a Bulgar and almost killed. There we found him.’
‘Why the boy? Why use him for this task when four stout mercenaries were at hand? Surely they would have been more suited to wielding this weapon?’
I had pondered the same question through the afternoon. ‘There are places a boy can go unnoticed where full-grown men would be challenged. Many children played on the roof of the carver’s house – one other making his way there would have aroused no suspicion. And after the event, he would have been easier to be rid of.’
Krysaphios seemed satisfied with my theory, though he said nothing. Instead, he raised a finger on his right hand and a slave appeared from behind a column.
‘Send word to the gaoler. Tell him to extract from the Bulgar prisoner everything he knows of the boy; also the location of this villa in the forest where he was trained. It may be that this foreign monk still has business there.’ The slave bowed low and ran off, and Krysaphios turned back to me. ‘Did the boy describe the monk?’
‘He said he had dark hair, like mine, but tonsured. His nose was crooked, as if he had once brawled, but the rest of his features were square and harsh. He said they spoke the same tongue. I did not press him more, for he was still weak from his wounds. I thought there would be time for that later.’
‘Less time than you think.’ Krysaphios folded his arms. ‘A great danger is approaching our city, Demetrios, and when it breaks over us we will need all our strength to defy it. If we do not find this monk within the fortnight, he may work a mischief that will ruin us all. The Emperor is the head atop the body of our nation, and if he is gone we are merely a carcass before carrion.’
‘What danger?’ Krysaphios had spoken almost as though the seven angels had sounded their trumpets, and the ten-horned beast was risen to engulf us. ‘Are the Normans coming again? I have not heard the armies assembled on the Hebdomon, nor seen the Emperor ride out to war. Surely if such a terrible danger was near, he would go to meet it, not invite it upon us?’
‘The nature of the threat, and how the Emperor forestalls it, are not your concern,’ said Krysaphios darkly. ‘You should address yourself to finding those who would kill him.’
‘I have.’ No eunuch was going to unsettle me with dire mutterings, and I have ever bridled at being told I am unworthy of knowing tantalising secrets. That, perhaps, is why I took up my profession. ‘I have found the boy who would have played the assassin, and the weapon he used in the attempt. By doing it so promptly, I have even saved your purse a little.’
‘My purse is deep enough. And do you really think you have succeeded, by finding a frightened boy and his barbarian plaything? What of the monk? Do you think this was a mere whim of his, and that having failed he will now trudge back to Frankia? He had money enough to buy four bodyguards, a villa and this marvellous weapon – did he collect that from alms-givers? And what would he profit from the death of the Emperor? Someone must have supplied him the money – someone who would gain much if the throne was empty. Someone who is unlikely to change his mind because his first attempt failed.’ He snorted. ‘You have not discovered anything, Demetrios: you have but picked up the first link in a long and tangled chain. Will your pride allow you to drop it so soon?’
He may have had a woman’s voice and a cripple’s body, but his mind and tongue were those of a serpent. And he knew men’s hearts: I would not give up his commission, for I saw as well as he that it was barely started. To claim success now would be to mimic the physician who removed the leper’s arm and declared him cured. But I would not concede that too easily.
‘If I am to continue, I will need certain accommodations. The Varangians must obey me when they accompany me. The boy must be left in the care of the doctor at the monastery where he currently lies: our chain may be twisted, but he is the only link we hold and it is a fragile link. And you must confide in me . . .’
I broke off as a slave came running out of the shadows, the same slave whom Krysaphios had sent to the dungeon. He did not defer or hesitate, but fell to his knees immediately before the eunuch.
‘Mercy, Lord,’ he stammered, before even given leave to speak. ‘The gaoler has opened the Bulgar’s cell. He is dead.’
The Bulgar still hung by his wrists, as I had seen him the day before, but now his chin was slumped on his chest and his legs sagged under him. The front of his tunic was washed through with blood, almost as far down as his waist, and when I tipped back his head I saw why. Someone had taken a blade to his throat and opened his neck across almost its entire width. No air bubbled from the hanging flaps of skin, and my hand came away dry.
‘The blood is hard,’ I said. ‘This was done some hours ago, maybe even last night. Has no-one been in here since then?’
‘He was to go without food all day. To spur his appetite for answering questions.’ Not even this horror could take the sting completely from Krysaphios’ voice.
‘No-one entered after your lordship left him,’ said the gaoler. And the Varangians guarded him all night.
I turned to Krysaphios. ‘It seems you were the last one to see him alive, then. After Sigurd and I had left for the monastery.’
‘Not the last, Demetrios.’ The eunuch’s eyes were cold. ‘Surely a man of your powers can see tha
t unless he was a most accomplished acrobat, the Bulgar did not do this to himself. And the weapon which did this is gone. Whatever you say to the contrary, gaoler, someone has been in here.’
‘Someone who wanted to ensure that the Bulgar could betray no more secrets,’ I agreed. ‘And someone who wanted to send us a message.’
‘A message? Other than that he wanted the Bulgar’s silence?’ Krysaphios was impatient.
‘A message that the palace is no defence, that he – whoever he is – can strike wherever he pleases. If he had wanted to do it in stealth, he could have taken the Bulgar down from his chains and left the knife beside him, to make it seem he had killed himself. Whoever did this walked in under the eyes of the guards. And wants us to know he can do so again.’
Krysaphios turned to the Varangian who stood in the doorway. ‘Find your captain and have him double the Emperor’s guard tonight. Then search the palace grounds – it may be that this assassin is still hiding in our midst.’
I had my doubts, but kept them silent. ‘What about the boy?’ I prompted. ‘If our enemies feared for what the Bulgar might reveal, how much more must they worry about the boy?’
‘Sigurd is keeping the watch at the monastery, and has more men than he needs for the task. You may join him if you wish.’ Krysaphios moved towards the low-arched door. ‘I must tend to the Emperor.’
‘I will go home.’ It had been two days since I had seen my daughters, and though there had been other nights when I did not return, it always troubled them. And me. ‘Tomorrow I will see what further mysteries the boy can reveal.’
‘If he lives. Remember, Demetrios, we do not have much time to untangle this conspiracy. Two weeks before the danger is upon us.’ Krysaphios gave the dangling body a final, searching look. ‘Perhaps even less.’
Still I did not know what looming evil might force this urgency. But if it could draw such a tremor into the voice of Krysaphios, the eunuch who slept beside Emperors and guided nations, then I knew that I, too, feared it.
θ
My daughters were uncommonly restrained when I returned home: Helena was in her bed and would only mumble when I looked in on her, while Zoe prepared me some cold vegetables with inconsequential chatter. At breakfast the next morning, however, I felt the full force of Helena’s censure.
‘You neglect your duties as a father,’ she complained. ‘What if a Norman marauder had come in the night and snatched me away? What if I had used your absence to elope with the blacksmith’s son?’
‘What of it? You didn’t. And my first duty is to put bread in our bellies.’ I chewed noisily on my breakfast to emphasise how seriously I took my obligations.
‘If you are never here to protect me, you could at least trouble yourself to find me a man who will.’
‘I’d rather have the bread.’ Zoe bit into her own slice, and winked at me across the table. I tried to force a stern look, to rebuke her for antagonising her sister, but I fear I lacked conviction.
‘The spice-seller’s aunt came to visit yesterday, to discuss her nephew,’ continued Helena imperiously. ‘And the day before. I think she despairs of ever finding you.’
‘She may never come again,’ Zoe added. Her face was solemn. ‘Then you’ll be a spinster forever, Helena, condemned all your life to sit at your loom and weave. Like Penelope.’
I swallowed the crumbs in my throat. I knew that the spice-seller’s family had been making enquiries after Helena, and that I should have approached his mother to bargain for her dowry, but there rarely seemed to be the time for it. ‘If the spice-seller’s aunt comes again and I am away, you have my permission to agree a dowry with her.’
‘And what if I agree something extravagant? What if she claims her nephew to be the most expensive gold can buy, and I acquiesce?’
‘Then,’ I said, wiping my mouth, ‘you will be grateful that I worked so hard I could afford it.’
There are men I know who eat separately from their womenfolk; many authorities, indeed, damn the practice of commingled meals as an invitation to strife and discord. If I heeded them I would be lonely indeed, but there are times when I wonder if I would benefit from a greater respect for tradition.
At the very least, though, it prepares me for encounters with argumentative women. Such as I found when I reached the courtyard of the monastery of Saint Andrew.
‘You cannot see the boy, and you certainly cannot remove him.’ Anna, the doctor, stood with her hands folded across her chest and her feet set apart. Her hair was tied back under a plain linen scarf – more modest than I had seen before – but she still wore her green dress. The silken belt rode high on her hips and plunged in a ‘v’ between them, drawing my eye immoderately low, and it was that which unsettled me as much as her uncompromising tone.
‘Is he near death?’ That did not bear contemplation.
She tossed her head. ‘Do you have so little faith in my skills, Demetrios? Do you think a woman cannot – or should not – exercise the gift of healing?’
‘Women hold the gift of life; I should think healing is a paltry business to master after that.’
‘Your Keltic friend does not think so.’ She gestured to Sigurd, who stood with three of his men by the door glaring at every monk and novice who passed. ‘I have heard him talking.’
‘He’s a barbarian. But if you have healed the boy, I need to speak with him.’ I had determined that I would seek out the villa in the forest, where the monk had trained the boy. ‘Is he fit to ride a horse?’
Anna stared at me with open scorn. ‘Two days ago he was almost hacked to pieces; today you want to know if he can ride a horse? If he tries hard, he can just drink a little thin soup. There is only one being who could heal him as quickly as you want – and I have the monks in the chapel begging His intervention.’
‘Then at least let me talk to the boy.’
‘You can talk to him when he’s recovered.’
I swung round. It was not Anna who had spoken, but Sigurd; he had ambled down from his station by the door and was eyeing me with disapproval.
‘Sigurd?’ His intervention caught me unguarded. ‘Yesterday you threatened to drag Anna to the dungeons because she would not let us see the boy. I thought you were as eager as I to finish this business.’
Sigurd conceded nothing, did not even blush. ‘Thomas is too valuable to be pushed beyond himself, Demetrios. Our task is urgent – so urgent that we cannot risk losing him.’
I scowled, for I did not think he had decided on all this for himself. And I did not like the thought of Anna and he conspiring together against me. It made me feel betrayed. And, unjustifiably, jealous.
It would have been hard enough to haggle my way past Anna, for there was something in her manner which deterred all argument; against her and Sigurd I was impotent.
‘I will return tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you will have managed to work your cure. Maybe even as well as a man,’ I added, spitefully.
I regretted those final words – and the furious anger in Anna’s face that had met them – all the way to the docks. Of course I cared not an iota that she was a woman and a doctor: I had only wanted to sting her, as her alliance with Sigurd had stung me, just as Zoe used to poke Helena until she screamed when they were babies. My motives were just as childish.
With my foul mood thus firmly set, I passed my morning with merchants and factors, with stevedores, foremen and pilots, in a far-fetched attempt to discover when and how the tzangra had entered the city. The smells of fish and sewage which infested the wharves soured my humour still further, as did my predictable failure to turn up any new information. Whores propositioned me – perhaps, even after so many years, there was something of the soldier still in my stride – and peddlers begged a moment of my attention for their wares: perfumes just arrived from India; honey from the bees of Epirus; relics of the saints found in the desert, preserved so immaculately that they might have lived yesterday. I came perilously close to breaking the fast with a man
furtively carrying a wineskin under his cloak, but I resisted. I had no need for more reasons to rebuke myself.
The clamour and hassle battered me all morning, until at last I broke. I dredged Krysaphios’ list of dignitaries from the corner of my mind where I had ignored it, and considered the names it held. Another lesson of my time in the army: if you make no progress with the task appointed, do it precisely the way your superior commands. Half the time at least, he will care far more for obedience than success.
Earlier in the week, I had tried to start with the lowest rank on the list and been resoundingly shunned; this time I would go to the opposite extreme. The name rose easily from my memory, and my peevish temper found grim delight in the prospect of an afternoon wallowing in righteous frustration. Nor did I need to ask where he lived: on a day when my every question drew a negative, even I could probably find the Emperor’s elder brother.
He did not live humbly, of course, but in a palace built out on terraces over the wooded hillside above the harbour. It had once belonged to a man named Botaniates, who had had the misfortune of being Emperor when the Komnenos brothers – Isaak and Alexios – decided the imperial diadem would suit one of them better. Alexios took the throne; Isaak got the house, though from the size of it you might have thought he had won both.
To my surprise, my name alone took me past the first gate, and into an atrium where dozens of hopeful supplicants played at dice on the flagstones. Many of the games looked well advanced, and I feared I would lose more than a few obols before my time arrived, but almost immediately a slave in an ochre tunic ushered me through a narrow door and into an inner courtyard, beyond the envying glances of the less favoured.
‘I will tell the Sebastokrator you have come,’ he said, excusing himself.
I paced around the courtyard, waiting. A two-tiered arcade ran around its edge, but I saw no-one in the galleries. The only light came from a square of grey sky high above me, distant and remote, but a little sun must have crept in at times, for a vine had managed to climb some way up the northern side. Its thick stem coiled around the marble pillars, branching and spreading across the face of the wall as if desperate to escape into the air above, while the withered leaves it had shed were left unswept on the cracked tiles below. I doubted the Sebastokrator spent much time here. It was a mournful place, silent and sombre.