by Tom Harper
I turned my attention back to Thomas. ‘Try and evoke pity with your story, and find a kind knight or soldier who will take you as his servant or groom. Then try and discover if the monk is in the camp, and where we can catch him. As soon as you know that, make for the house of Domenico the merchant. You remember where I showed you on the map?’
Thomas nodded, though perhaps only because I had stopped speaking.
A sentry ambled out of the guardhouse, his cloak pulled tight around his shoulders. The briefest glance at the pass I carried from Krysaphios satisfied him, and he started drawing back the bolts on the heavy door. I hoped that with the rain in his eyes he would be unable to see much of Thomas, for I did not want anyone to remember him leaving the city.
‘I do not like this course,’ Anna told me. There was sadness in her face. ‘But Thomas has agreed it, and you think it necessary, so I cannot argue.’
The last bolt came free, and the sentry pushed the door open. It took the full weight of his shoulder to force it. In the night beyond, I could see only driving rain and darkness.
‘Go, Thomas.’ I gave him a little push to hasten him forward. He stooped to hug Anna, who held him tight for a moment, then turned his back on me and stepped out into the night. Long before the gate was drawn shut, he had vanished.
I returned home to my bed, but my broken night had upset my soul and it would not permit sleep. I lay there for hours, sometimes rolling onto one side or another, sometimes trying to lie very still, but even with my eyes shut the visions of my mind continued unblinking. A grim daylight and the hustled noises of the street pricked at my senses, and even when I could forget my concerns for Thomas, and keep from revisiting the memories of his departure, I found no solace.
Eventually, I surrendered and threw off the covers. A glance out of the window revealed nothing of the hour, for there would be little change between dawn and dusk that day, but it must have been near the middle of the morning.
I pushed through the curtains, ambled across to the stone basin and splashed some water on my face. It was as cold as the floor, though it did little to wake me.
‘You’ve slept even later than Helena.’ Zoe was sitting at the table stitching a tear in her camisia. ‘She doesn’t approve. She says a father should wake before dawn to provide for his daughters.’
‘She can save her indignation – I couldn’t sleep.’ I found the end of a loaf of bread, spread it with honey, and chewed on it without enthusiasm.
Zoe looked up from her needlework. ‘Did you leave us in the night? Helena thought she heard the door.’
I winced as a shard of crust scraped the roof of my mouth. ‘I did. Sometimes the dark hours are the best time for dark secrets.’
‘And dark fates,’ Zoe admonished me.
I heard a door shut below, and light footsteps on the stairs. It seemed to take longer than usual, but at length the inner door swung open.
‘You’ve risen.’ Helena surveyed me reprovingly. She carried a basket of bread and vegetables under her arm, and her palla was streaked with mud. ‘I thought you might have become the eighth sleeper of Ephesus.’
‘And my heart rejoices to see you too.’ A hammering pain was beginning behind my eyes and I did not welcome Helena’s contempt, but I tried to remain calm. ‘What have you brought for my lunch? Mutton?’
‘There was no mutton.’ Helena dropped the basket on the table with a bang. ‘Only this.’
I peered at what she had brought. ‘The fast doesn’t start for another week and more,’ I told her. ‘Couldn’t you have found some fish, or some gamebirds?’
‘The righteous need no priest to tell them when to fast and when to feast,’ said Helena stonily.
‘Was he not there, then?’ asked Zoe.
I looked between my daughters. ‘Was who not there?’
‘The butcher,’ answered Helena quickly. ‘No, he was not. He had sold his meat and gone home. The rest of this city must be as gluttonous as you, father – and they at least leave their beds at a decent hour.’
‘Well, I want some stewed lamb. If my own daughter cannot provide for me, I will have to go to the tavern.’ I pulled a heavy dalmatica over my head and tugged on my boots, then added: ‘Perhaps in the afternoon we can go to see the spice-seller’s aunt, and her nephew.’
I had meant it as conciliation, but at the sound of my words Helena stamped her foot, glared at me and swept into her bedroom.
I threw up my hands and looked at Zoe. ‘Why should she do that?’
But Zoe was suddenly much preoccupied with her sewing. She stared at her needle and gave no answer, as inscrutable, in her own way, as her sister.
I abandoned my attempt at being the dutiful father. ‘I will be in the tavern along the road,’ I told Zoe. ‘Eating lamb stew.’
But it seemed I was fated not to eat my meat that day: I emerged from my house to meet a quartet of Patzinaks. Three were mounted; the fourth, just moving away from his horse, was approaching my door. Another held the reins of a fifth horse.
‘You are summoned to the palace,’ announced the man who had dismounted. ‘Immediately.’
I rubbed my temples. ‘Has the monk been found? If not, I am going to eat my lunch. Tell Krysaphios he can wait.’
The Patzinak stepped closer, bristling. ‘Your orders do not come from the eunuch. They are from a power you cannot defer. Come.’
I went.
There were many reasons I regretted the exile of the Varangians to the walls, and not least was their company. Coarse and erratic though they were, they had welcomed me into their conversations; the Patzinaks showed no such warmth. They rode two ahead of me and two behind, at a pace which allowed little more than an occasional grunted direction. I even found myself grateful to the horses for hastening the journey, though their jarring progress added a fresh dimension to my headache.
The Patzinaks’ route was as direct as their manners: we rode straight up the Mesi, past the milion and the tetrapylon, and into the Augusteion, under the gazes of our ancient rulers. As soon as we halted the guards were off their mounts and on their feet, pushing away the candle-sellers and relic-merchants who flocked to the forecourt of Ayia Sophia. They barged a path to the great Chalke gate, thrust the horses’ bridles into the hands of a waiting groom, and pushed past the petitioners and tourists who streamed into the first courtyard of the palace. In all this, I was their helpless obedient. I lost count of the turns we took, the corridors and courtyards we navigated, for with two Patzinaks at my back I had never a second to orient myself. The endless marble halls and golden mosaics made it hard to distinguish one part of the palace from another, and everything we passed seemed at once both strange and familiar. Only the ever-diminishing number of people around us suggested we were moving into more private quarters.
We stopped at a door flanked by two enormous urns, each taller than a man. The leading Patzinak turned to face me, and extended an arm towards the green courtyard beyond.
‘In there.’
I paused a second, to draw a breath and to imply my independence. Then I stepped out of the long passage, and into a different world.
It was not a courtyard, as I had thought: it was a garden. But a garden the like of which I had never seen, nor ever imagined. Outside, in the city, it was a rainy day in the depths of winter, but here I seemed suddenly transported to the height of summer. The trees around me were not bare but laden with fruit and blossom, and a golden light suffused the air so brightly it seemed to shine through the very leaves themselves. The ground was soft, silent beneath my feet, as though I walked on cushions, though the grass seemed real enough. It was wet, but it must have been a dew for when I looked up through the tangled leaves and branches above I could see only profound depths of blue. And somewhere in the trees, birds were singing.
I began to feel giddy, dazed; I had taken a few steps forward into this orchard, and when I turned back there was no longer any sign of the way I had entered. Then I heard a sound behind me, a gentle
rustling as of leaves or silk, though there was no wind, and I spun about again to see what marvellous creature might appear.
My fancy had almost convinced me to expect a centaur, or a griffin or a unicorn, but in fact it was a man. A man, though, whose magnificence could have graced any legend. The crown on his head gleamed like the sun, as though it alone was the fount of the mysterious light. His robe was dyed purple all the way to its hem, and woven through with gold, while the lorum which crossed his broad chest could have served as the armour of a god, so thick were the gems which crusted it.
Even before I had seen the red toes of his boots I was falling to the ground. The earth seemed to sink under me, absorbing me, and I had to reach out my arms to balance myself as I chanted the acclamation. Though the settings where I had seen him before – the great church, the golden hall and the hippodrome – were all magnificent in their own fashion, it was in that garden that I first believed that a man might indeed be a living daystar, might endure a thousand years.
‘Get up, Demetrios Askiates.’
With some effort, I pushed myself away from the spongelike ground and stood, keeping my eyes downcast. There was something reassuring in his voice, something unrefined which seemed out of place in the fantasy of our surroundings.
‘Do you like my garden?’
‘Your . . . your garden? Indeed, Lord,’ I stammered.
‘I did not mean to unsettle you with it. I find it soothes me: a world apart from the world I rule.’
‘Yes, Lord.’
He scratched the rough hair of his beard, and looked me in the eye. ‘I have called you here to thank you, Demetrios. If not for you, I would have no need of craftsmen’s tricks to believe I was in the gardens of heaven.’
I had never received the gratitude of an Emperor before, and I was unsure how to accept it. I opted for mimicry. ‘Tricks, Lord?’
‘Surely you do not believe that even I can bend the seasons and the weather to my will. Feel the leaves on that tree, those buds which are bursting to break into flower.’
I reached up and rubbed one of the leaves between my finger and thumb. It had the waxy sheen of a fresh oak-leaf, and I could see the dark lines of veins running through it. But to touch . . .
‘It feels like silk,’ I marvelled.
‘Exactly so.’ The Emperor Alexios swept his hand around him. ‘All these trees – the grass and sky as well – all silk. Fires and mirrors make the sun, and if you were to pick yourself one of those plump apples and bite into it, you would break your teeth. Thus we maintain a world which is always on the cusp of summer, which never decays in the drear of autumn. Unlike my own realm.’
‘Are there rooms for all the seasons?’ I wondered aloud.
Alexios laughed, a throaty, peasant’s laugh. ‘Perhaps, but I have yet to find them. I lived five years in the palace before I discovered this room, and it took as long again for the workshops to restore its full splendour.’ He coughed. ‘But I did not summon you to talk about my garden, Demetrios. As I said, I want to thank you for guiding the traitor’s axe past my neck.’
‘I would have done the same for any man.’
‘No doubt. But not every man could reward you as I will.’
‘Your chamberlain already pays me more than I am worth to protect you. I was merely . . .’
Alexios smiled. ‘It does not matter what you are worth: my chamberlain pays for what I am worth. And I pay for what I value. I have instructed the secretaries to make the necessary payments, in due course. I believe you will be satisfied.’
‘Thank you, Lord. The gifts of your bounty flow from your hand like water from . . .’
The Emperor jerked his head. ‘I do not need your flattery. I leave that to those who have no greater talents. If you must protest loyalty, do so with your deeds.’
‘Always, Lord.’
‘Krysaphios tells me you think it was the barbarians who tried to kill me. The men who are camped in Galata, consuming my harvest and refusing my envoys.’
‘There are obvious reasons to think so.’
The Emperor pulled a leaf from the bough and twisted it in his hand. ‘My brother, Isaak, believes we should fall on them at once and massacre them in the streets of Galata, then send the survivors back across the sea in chains. There are many in the court and the city who think likewise.’
‘It would offend the laws of God,’ I offered, having nothing better to suggest.
Alexios discarded his crumpled leaf. ‘It would offend against the laws of reason. Those barbarians are there because I begged them to come, and if they have come in greater numbers than I hoped, and with their own purposes in their hearts, that does not reduce my need. Not if I am to rescue the lands of Asia which my predecessors squandered.’
‘There are those who say that the barbarians have not come to rescue those lands, but to take them for themselves.’ I could not believe that I was speaking thus with the Emperor, on matters of the most exalted importance, but against all expectation he seemed to welcome it.
‘Of course the barbarians have come to take lands for themselves. Why else would they journey halfway across the world to fight for me? That is why I must keep them here until they have sworn to return what is rightfully mine. If, after that, they can carve out kingdoms of their own, beyond our ancient frontiers, then let them. I would rather have Christians bound with oaths on my border than Turks and Fatimids.’
‘Do you trust the barbarians so?’
‘I trust them as far as they keep their swords from me – which, it seems, is not nearly far enough. But they have their uses. When the Normans invaded, I fought them in a dozen battles and lost each one, yet still I drove them from our lands. Why? Because they will not trust each other for long: they are more prone to faction and jealousy even than the Saracens. Gold and ambition will divide them from each other, will keep them weak against us, while all that will unite them is their hatred of the Ishmaelites. They will gain gold and kingdoms; we will have our lands restored, and we will live together in uneasy dependence.’
‘Will it work?’
Alexios snorted, in a way most unbefitting an Emperor. ‘Perhaps. If the barbarians are not massacred by the Turks, and if they do not fall out with themselves before they even reach Nicaea, and if their priests do not discover that in fact the Lord God intends some wholly different purpose for their army. But none of it will happen if I do not squeeze those oaths from their captains.’ He took my arm. ‘Which is why you must ensure that nothing is allowed to destroy our alliance with them. If they succeed in murdering me, or are even known to have tried, then there will be war between our peoples and the only victors will be the Turks.’
The audience was finished. I left that enchanted garden of perpetual spring, and returned to the world I knew. Where the rain was still falling.
κ β
The rain fell for most of the following fortnight, splashing at my heels as I roamed the city. I spent many hours at the gates, watching as small parties of barbarians were admitted to admire the sights of the city and our civilisation. Most were content to gape in silence, though some felt compelled to mask their awe with belittling jokes and snide insults. Occasionally these would spark scuffles with Romans, but the Watch were always there, always ready to draw the combatants apart without violence. Clearly they too had had their orders from the Emperor. And all the while I wondered about Thomas.
The first two days after he left I had thought of little else, though I knew it would be weeks before I had news of him. His life was on my conscience, and I ached to ask those passing merchants who dealt with the Franks whether they had heard anything of him, but for the sake of his safety I could not dare. At least there was no news of his death, and as the days drew on my thoughts returned to more immediate concerns. Always, though, it was a weight on my heart, an itch worrying at my mind. Often it haunted my dreams.
There were also long days at the palace, when I wandered its corridors like a ghost, interviewing guards and
functionaries, probing for any sign of trouble, and – as Krysaphios instructed me – keeping my eyes open. It seemed little enough to do for the gold he was paying me, but the strain of it told, for every hour I spent in those halls I lived in the terror that a slave would approach and announce that the Emperor was dead. I did not see him after that day in the unnatural garden, except once at a great distance: a gilded statue in the midst of an endless train of monks, guards and nobles, processing past a far door to the strains of music and incense. Otherwise, it was as if he inhabited a different world.
But I did see his brother, a week or so after my audience. A morning on the walls had left me too tired to face clerks who prided themselves on the time they could take telling me nothing, and I was walking down some empty, forgotten arcade when I heard the sound of voices. Not the gaiety of courtiers, nor the grumbling of servants, but the hushed murmur of men who do not wish their words to be heard. It seemed to come from behind a small door recessed between two columns, open just enough to be ajar but not so much that you would guess anyone was within.
I walked towards it, but at the sound of my footsteps the voices paused. With a nervous glance at the solitude around me, I pressed my boot against the door and pushed.
‘Demetrios.’ The Sebastokrator’s head jerked up as I fell to my knees, but I kept my eyes raised enough to see that he had been talking very closely with another man, who shrank back into the corner of the tiny room as Isaak stepped forward. He seemed flustered, but the time it took me to perform the full proskynesis allowed him to compose himself.
‘Get up,’ he told me. ‘What are you doing in this corner of the palace?’
‘I was lost,’ I said humbly. ‘I heard voices and thought I might find a guide to lead me out of here.’
Isaak scowled. ‘Count Hugh, have you had presented to you Demetrios Askiates? He works for us to thwart our enemies.’