‘I wanted you and your friends to know the truth before the Dhynatoi begin to shovel their lies about the city,’ said Joannes. ‘A terrible tragedy has occurred due to the negligence of the powerful who have so much while you have so little. The powerful who impede every effort your Imperial Administration makes to ease your suffering.’
‘No one has done more for us than yourself, who we worship as the blessed hand of Christ the King, Orphanotrophus,’ said the man in a brutishly obsequious voice, the growl of a bear paying sincere homage to a lion. He clutched his broad, scabbed fists to his tunic as he spoke in a gesture of humility and anxiety. ‘You know how much we folk are beholden to what you have done.’
Joannes studied the clutching, ham-hock fists with satisfaction. The Butcher - he did not know the man’s real name, nor did he care to know - had in fact been a real pork butcher once. He had run afoul of the Prefect for buying his swine outside the city at prices below the officially mandated wholesale rates, then charging an exorbitant mark-up at his shop in the city. Of course it was not that crime that had condemned him; his fate had been sealed by his refusal to share the requisite portion of the illicit profit with the Prefect. Joannes had found the Butcher in the Neorion Tower, where he often browsed for suitable instruments of his myriad policies. And now the Butcher was still a butcher of sorts.
Joannes stepped forward and enveloped the Butcher’s powerful shoulders in his grotesque fingers. ‘I prayed all afternoon to the Holy Veil, begging the Holy Mother for the strength to convey my sorrow to my friends in the city, who should know first of this calamitous event.’ Joannes stroked the Butcher’s shoulder paternally and lowered his voice to an awkward, rasping whisper. ‘Our purple-born Mother has been raped by the Saracens.’
The Butcher’s bleary eyes froze with shock and then thawed with flowing tears. Theotokos, Theotokos, Theotokos,’ he wailed frantically, ‘oh, beseech we, Holy Mother, spare our Mother, spare our Mother. . . . Oh, Theotokos, Theotokos ... my Mother, my Mother.’ The Butcher thundered his chest with his rock-hard fists, slumped to his knees, and began to rip the front of his tunic to shreds. Joannes watched, incredulous as always at the devotion of the rabble to the painted harlot they called their Mother. In Zoe’s case it was not simply the centuries-old association of the Empress of the Romans and the Mother of her people with the Empress of Heaven and the Mother of God; Zoe also had the legacy of the Bulgar-Slayer dyed into the weft of her purple-born being, the Bulgar-Slayer who had diligently and, when necessary, ruthlessly protected the people of his city and his empire from the merciless depredations of the Dhynatoi. Seeing the wailing Butcher before him, Joannes again reminded himself that the Macedonian Dynasty would have to be excised from the hearts of the clamouring mob with the greatest of surgical precision.
Joannes knelt beside the slobbering Butcher and cradled the greasy rough-fleshed head. ‘Brother, Brother,’ he said in a low rumble, like a distant shaking of the earth. ‘Fear not for our Mother. I have already dispatched the Grand Domestic and our Imperial Taghmata to effect the rescue of her sacred person.’ The brutish eyes turned to Joannes gratefully. ‘Yes, Brother. Let us now think to transform our tears into a righteous vengeance. There has been fault here.’ The Butcher stiffened. ‘Yes. It was the Dhynatoi Meletius Attalietes who cravenly abandoned our Blessed Mother to the unclean heretics. That vile recreant is beyond our reach now, but the father, the demon-sire who engineered this plot against our Mother, is well within your grasp.’
The Butcher bolted to his feet, his fingers strangling the air. His chest heaved with rage.
‘There!’ boomed Joannes. ‘Do you see him!’ Joannes extended his vast arm span to a dark corner of the antechamber. ‘The Archangel Michael! He appears to lead you in vengeance against those who, having deprived you of everything save the love of your Mother, now wish to deprive you of your Empress! Go to your friends in the City and tell them what the Archangel has commanded you to do!’
‘Archangel Michael, messenger of God!’ roared the Butcher, his rapt eyes fixed on the empty corner.
The Augusta Theodora wrapped her long arms around her slender torso, her limbs tense and her expression pained, as if she were trying to crush her own ribs. Her eyes welled with tears; for some reason grief made her look much younger, almost boyish. ‘Thank you for telling me yourself, Father. You know your guidance is the balm for all my disquietudes.’
Alexius, Patriarch of the One True Oecumenical, Orthodox and Catholic Faith, smiled gently. He had come to Theodora’s country palace as soon as his informants in the Magnara had brought him the news of her sister’s abduction. The Patriarch showed no sign of fatigue from his long night on the road. He had a powerful yet elegant face; his nose was long and jutting, with a craglike tip poised above thin, almost feminine lips. His heavy, somewhat brutish eyebrows were streaked with black, and they ended at his temples in wiry tufts; his beard was like an extrusion of fine, pure silver wires. His small black eyes were fierce but controlled, like leashed hunting cats.
‘I was frightened for her,’ said Theodora. ‘May the Pantocrator forgive me for not setting my pride aside and going to her with my fears. I will never forgive myself.’
‘There was no reason to be apprehensive about this pilgrimage, at least within the Saracen territories. I myself made inquiries.’ Alexius’s voice was a heavy tenor; like his eyes, seemingly capable of vastly more powerful effects than the Patriarch cared to display at this moment. ‘I will probably be unable to confirm my suspicions. But I believe this abduction to be the work of heretics who call themselves Christians, and not the Sons of Hagar.’
Theodora immediately understood to whom Alexius was referring. ‘Father, I cannot believe that even Joannes could consider this. Father, he could not keep his brother on the throne without my sister. Why?’
‘If it is he, he would not be acting against your sister, and indeed I believe she will not be harmed. I suspect some fashion of manoeuvre against the Dhynatoi. Your sister is merely in a jeopardy we all share. In his demonic pursuit of his personal ambitions, in his persistent and diabolical attacks upon my person and the One True Faith under my stewardship, Joannes threatens every soul born into the world from now until the trumpet of judgement sounds. It is not Joannes the murderer of men I fear. It is Joannes the murderer of souls. Do you understand the true seriousness of his crimes, my child?’
Theodora stared thoughtfully at the floor. ‘I know that he is trying to redraft the typica of hundreds of monastic establishments to withdraw them from your jurisdiction.’ Alexius ruled a virtual empire within the Empire, consisting of thousands of churches, vast landholdings, an entire system of patriarchal courts, and a huge bureaucracy to manage it. One of the principal sources of revenues was the income from monasteries granted their typica, or charters, by the Patriarch; by issuing typica under Imperial sanction, Joannes could divert those revenues from Alexius’s empire to his own.
Alexius placed his long, elegant fingers together just beneath his chin; his golden rings caught the light from the single brass candelabrum. He wore a thickly embroidered white robe and a white shawl emblazoned with gold crosses. His eyes were unleashed now, stalking a prey. ‘Joannes weakens the One True Faith at the moment that it requires every resource to combat a far more malignant infection. The Bishop of Old Rome is a wily servant of the fallen Archangel, and what Satan himself could not accomplish, these so-called Roman pontiffs may succeed in achieving with this filioque they are demon-bent on inserting into the Holy Creed. Their insistence that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, rather than from the Father through the Son, denies the operation of that Spirit in our souls. Indeed, it denies the Pantocrator Himself His divine patrimony from God the Father. If the Latin creed is allowed to become standardized throughout the Christian sees, then every soul receiving the sacraments under that doctrine is in jeopardy. With that single unholy word the infidel will have defeated us, and the Gates of Hell will receive all the descendant
s of Adam. But I cannot combat this infection until I have extirpated Joannes.’
Theodora crossed herself. ‘I have always despised Joannes. But before tonight I had not fully understood the urgency of opposing him. I will help you in any way I can, Father.’
Alexius looked away and his eyes finally pounced on some invisible quarry. ‘Yes, my child. I am certain you will.’
‘I order a halt,’ said the Strategus Constantine.
The Domestic Nicon Blymmedes turned to him; Blymmedes seemed to have aged a decade in a single night.
‘This pursuit is useless self-excoriation,’ continued Constantine. ‘We will be too exhausted to fight when we get there. And that presumes that we are even taking the proper route. After all, your so-called intelligence is responsible for this catastrophe, that and the foolishness of Attalietes, may the Pantocrator have mercy on his soul. Had I known we were dealing with Seljuks, I certainly would have stayed with the Empress and taken command myself. This never would have happened.’
Haraldr listened, already hating that name. Seljuks. They were believers in Maumet, or Muhammad as he was known to the Romans, who was either the son of, or wizard to, a god named Allah. The Seljuks had many of the characteristics of the Pechenegs: they migrated in great hordes on veritable herds of fast horses, which they rode expertly; they were heedless of their lives in combat; and they even had the same beetle faces. But the Seljuks were wealthier and more organized than the Pechenegs, because they already had begun to conquer less warlike Saracens in a rich place far to the northeast called Persia. Blymmedes said that the Seljuks had never been this far west before, and that this was probably a renegade tribe hired out to the Emir of Aleppo. However, the Domestic had also told Haraldr that he considered the Seljuks a ‘plague’ that would someday spread west and make the Romans forget all other foes.
But right now these Seljuks were retreating east at an astonishing pace, and despite the gut-jarring evening and night in the saddle, the swift, light cavalry units of the Imperial Excubitores and the thematic army of Antioch - there were virtually no surviving horses or men from the thematic army of Cilicia - could not bring them in sight. The pursuit through the plains of the Orontes River Valley had been especially brutal for the Varangians, who simply couldn’t ride with the Romans but had maintained the pace through sheer endurance and tenacity. And now they were going up again, back into the rocky foothills that would soon rise to even more torturous heights.
Blymmedes heard approaching hoofbeats and hailed the rider, one of an endless relay of akrites who had ridden ahead of and behind the column all night long. He turned to Constantine. ‘If we do not intercept them before they make Aleppo, I am certain we will not see our Empress for some time. And the ransom could be insuperable.’
‘I assure you our Father will bear any demands to obtain the safety of his wife,’ said Constantine indignantly. He did not add that the price had already been fixed and in any event would come from a contingency fund that Joannes had amassed with a triple surcharge to the window tax, levied a year ago in all eighteen Asian themes.
‘The Emir of Aleppo has made an alliance he will soon regret,’ said Blymmedes. ‘He may not be able to control his Seljuk servants. And I assure you they are nowhere near as cognizant of Imperial protocol as the good Emir is.’
Constantine straightened in his saddle, the alarms clanging in his road-assaulted skull. That would be the end of them all. Why hadn’t Joannes thought of this? Then the alarms were replaced by sweeter music. Well, perhaps the august Orphanotrophus Joannes simply could not dictate everything to ‘Brother’ out here in far-flung Antioch. Perhaps ‘Brother’ would have to rescue this perhaps not-so-thoroughly planned enterprise with his own astute initiative. Ah, but ‘Brother’ must be careful; he was reaching high, and he should provide a bed of straw to cushion his fall if he did not attain his objective. ‘What is your plan, Domestic?’ growled Constantine with feigned uninterest.
‘I believe they will stop, water and fodder their horses, and rest for a few hours. Then they will send half their force in one direction to mislead or even harass us, while the rest will proceed directly to Aleppo. I believe they will make this stop at a fortified place.’
‘Between here and Aleppo?’ asked Constantine irritably; Blymmedes was falling to pieces. He was a typical career military man, Constantine reflected, crowing lustily atop his own dung heap but at an utter loss in true adversity. ‘The closest fortification is only eight leagues from Aleppo. Why would they pause there?’
‘Have you ever sent a reconnaissance as far as Harim?’ Blymmedes was astonished. The Saracens exerted control of the countryside only several leagues east of Antioch; wasn’t Constantine concerned as to what the infidels might be up to right on his own threshold?
‘Our tax collectors don’t go out that way any more,’ answered Constantine. ‘We don’t need those revenues, and not many peasants are willing to farm out there, what with nothing to protect them save the ruins of the kastron near Harim.’ A kastron was a fortified town. ‘I suppose you would suggest I rebuild the kastron? The cost would hardly be offset by the increase in tax revenues. You should focus on military matters, Domestic, with which you seem to have ample difficulty as it is. Leave civil administration to those with the requisite expertise.’
‘You would not need to rebuild the kastron, Strategus. My akrites have seen it recently. The Saracens have rebuilt it for you.’
For a moment Constantine refused to believe Blymmedes. Very well, he then conceded to himself, perhaps one did become contemptuous of Saracen threats within the walls of Antioch. ‘So you think they will pause at the kastron. If it is such a threatening fortification, how do you expect to besiege it with several exhausted droungos of light cavalry?’
‘I think if we appear, we will bottle them up. Then we can bring up siege machinery and go to work on the walls.’
Constantine frowned, trying to make sense of this new music. It was becoming increasingly titillating to his ear. Yes, most pleasant. With the siege engines in place, the leader of the Seljuks might be compelled to negotiate independently of his agreement with the Emir of Aleppo. He might be convinced to surrender his prize at a significant discount. And the Emir could hardly grumble, because he had already received partial payment and would be relieved of having to compensate his Seljuk hirelings. And the enormous sum left in difference, well of course that would be returned to Joannes’s special treasury - minus a suitably ample reward for the extraordinarily illustrious engineer of this successful conclusion. Ah, very sweet music indeed. But what if the Seljuk beasts are not so reasonable? Well, that was the risk one had to take, or else remain in Antioch for ever. Besides, there was an easy way to indemnify himself.
Constantine pulled himself erect. ‘I concur with your judgement, Domestic. But since your intent for the moment is merely to frighten the infidels into remaining at the kastron, I reason that it would make sense for me to withdraw my forces to Antioch and begin requisitioning the appropriate siege equipment.’ Constantine tugged his horse’s reins and rode off without waiting for a reply.
‘What a filthy man,’ Zoe pulled her veil more tightly around her face. Her blue eyes shone like gems in the dismal room. The eunuch, who spoke only the local Arabic dialect, set the silver tray down, then bowed and retreated as if he had been addressed with appropriate decorum.
Maria sat crossed-legged on a stained linen cushion, balefully studying the four Saracen women who sat against the wall opposite her; the plaster was new, but the tapestry that covered much of it was moth-eaten and faded.
‘Can you imagine?’ said Zoe airily. ‘I had heard that their women were veritable chattels, but the emirs and ambassadors we have dealt with were always so civilized. Apparently, here they are rather less gracious. I’m certain that their stables are cleaner than their women’s quarters. Of course, given the choice, the brutes who have absconded with us might prefer the enchantments of their steeds to these greased piglets the
y call their wives.’
The Saracen women - three chubby, barely pubescent children and one darkly pretty young woman - tittered shyly at the Empress’s dismissive gesture and then resumed their entranced study of the silk-draped woman they understood to be the mother of the prophet Christ. Maria caressed the back of her hand with the fingers of the other and avoided Zoe’s inquiring look.
‘Little daughter,’ admonished Zoe, ‘you are making far too much of this. Tomorrow we shall be in Aleppo, we shall have our Leo back, and no doubt the Emir will immediately regale us with tales of his exotic land. You know that their literature is so much more . . . forthright than ours, don’t you dear? I suppose that explains why all the sons of Hagar are so frightened of women that they must keep them locked away. After all, they have heard so many epics of these . . . temptations. Pity that the reality is so artless. Have you noticed the coarseness of their complexions?’
‘We will never see Aleppo.’ Maria’s voice was so deep and soughing that it scarcely seemed to be her own.
‘Little daughter! Don’t tell me the Prophet who haunts the Orient has taken you as his deputy. You are as gloomy as a Bogomil. From wherever have you received this . . . intimation?’
‘He told me.’ Suddenly Maria whipped her head, her eyes fired, and she spat the words out. ‘He told me while he loved me!’
Zoe pursed her lips in deliberation. ‘My darling,’ she said with paired concern and anticipation, ‘would you like to elaborate on that?’
Maria’s eyes were almost phosphorescent. ‘I had intended to kill him. As I had in my dream. I even had the knife.’
Zoe shut her eyes and leaned against the wall. ‘Oh, darling, I had hoped that was all done with. That was so long ago. You mustn’t go on reliving that . . . accident with every other man. Everyone knows you are not at fault.’
Byzantium - A Novel Page 33