‘Yes.’ For the first time in weeks Haraldr thought of the debt he must pay to the kings in whose footsteps he followed. And yet how could he leave her now?
‘Do you remember the stadium in Daphne?’
‘Yes. I remember everything at Daphne.’
Perhaps her cheeks became more deeply tinted, perhaps it was the play of the braziers on her usual glow. ‘Together we heard the echoes, the acclamations to the heroes of ancient Hellas and old Rome. When we return to the Empress City, you will be the hero of new Rome. In the streets they will sing your name.’ She looked up at him for the first time. The intense blue of her eyes was always a fresh marvel. ‘Who will one day walk in those ruins, to listen for your name? Will they be as we were, lovers in search of their own fate?’
Haraldr felt the surging in his breast and the stirring in his loins. She acknowledged . . . them. Or was it no longer them but a single being, a new soul born in that terrible instant? ‘I know my fate,’ he told her softly.
‘Yes. So do I.’ She stood suddenly. ‘Come to my bed.’
Haraldr struggled to his feet and reached out with a trembling hand.
Maria stepped away. ‘No. You must promise not to touch me except where I touch you. You cannot ask me except what I ask you.’ Then she touched his hand with the hot brands of her fingers.
The partitioned chamber in the Imperial Pavilion had room for little more than a large wooden bed frame covered with thick down quilts. There was no light from lamps or braziers but the room was quite warm. Maria stood and held Haraldr’s hand in the darkness for several minutes. He could hear her breathe occasionally, but the silence was otherwise absolute. It was as if they were alone in the vastness of Asia Minor. Her touch seemed to fill him with a warm liquor that quickly dissolved his bones.
She dropped his hand, and he could see the motion and hear the sigh of silk as she removed her coat. He could sense that she was naked. Her vague form vanished and the quilts were ruffled by a breeze. From the bed she said, ‘Come to me like Heracles.’
Haraldr stripped as naked as the statue and found his way to the bed. He lay down carefully, unwilling to break the strange spell she was casting. After a few minutes she took his hand again. She sighed, or perhaps it was a muffled, tiny sob. Then she began to explore his arm.
Time became suspended. She traced every vein, every indentation, the outline of every muscle, and he in turn claimed the same territory from her. How long did they float through black oblivion before she stroked his nipple and pressed her satin palm against his huge pectoral? How long before her fingers crept to his belly and his to her wet fur? And then the ritual repeated, this time with lips instead of fingers. They had long ago passed the stars; there was no heat except their own. Finally she held over him, just as she had in Hecate, but this time she lowered her nose to his, the fine-tipped nose he now knew like his own flesh. Perhaps it was a freak of the shadows, perhaps not, but her eyes seemed to light from within and he could see the lapis gleam. ‘You are my angel,’ she whispered. ‘My avenger and my destroyer. I love you.’ Then she settled and brought him inside her.
How long they rocked on that warm, impossibly brilliant sea, he also did not know. This time it was slow, endless, a complete dissolution of the flesh. At the end they shuddered only slightly but in perfect concert, and ceased to be. They were utterly exhausted.
‘Who are you?’
Haraldr started: he must have dozed off. Had it been a dream?
‘Who are you? You are no land man from Rus.’
Haraldr felt her eyes on him, and reality reconstituting his body, if only because for a moment he had actually considered telling her everything, not merely the cryptic affinity he had offered Serah. But the oaths he had taken to that secret were too strong, the risk too great even for love. And then he realized a stunning new truth, that this new love, Maria, also commanded his silence: in Maria’s arms he wanted to remain Haraldr Nordbrikt. In her arms he wanted to end the flight that he had begun at Stiklestad, to stay here among the Romans, to become civilized, to serve his Mother and Father. And to love her, here, for ever. He knew that he could not indefinitely share both these loves, Norway and Maria, yet he would lose them both if he told her now. So for now he would offer her the only truth he could. ‘I cannot tell you who I am.’
She wrapped her arms tightly around his back and pressed her lips softly to his neck. He nuzzled her lustrous hair and whispered in her ear. ‘Who are you?’
Maria kissed Haraldr on the lips and then released him and rolled away from his body. ‘I do not know,’ she said.
Her voice was so plaintive that Haraldr reached out for her with pain in his heart. What sorrow was hidden so deeply? But Maria sat on the edge of her bed and draped her coat over her shoulders. ‘It is almost time to prepare for our day’s journey,’ she said wearily. ‘You must leave.’ She turned to face him. ‘My last question is for our Mother. To it you can reply only yes or no.’
Haraldr sat up and stroked the raven’s plumage. She threw her arms around him and kissed him fiercely, as if it were her last. And then she pushed him away and stood up, her arms wrapped against some inner cold. ‘Our Mother asks if you will, when she commands, sever the head of the Imperial Eagle.’
IV
‘Keleusate.’ The eunuch’s voice clattered like broken porcelain on the bare marble floor. Mar Hunrodarson lifted himself to his knees in response to the invitation but did not rise to his feet. This was a calculated act of protracted obeisance; the purple-born Augusta Theodora could still look down on him as they spoke. Theodora’s thin lips, drawn like a string across her small face, flattened into a wry suggestion of a smile. The pale blue eyes sparkled like ice in the cold room, as if the giant Hetairarch were merely a callow suitor whose attentions Theodora found too fervent and clumsy.
‘Hetairarch.’ Theodora held her arms out and extended her long pale fingers towards the Hetairarch’s shoulders, as if she were a conjurer commanding him to rise. Again the eyes flashed, droll and challenging. Theodora turned swiftly and reclined on her couch. ‘Keleusate,’ offered the eunuch again; he gestured for Mar to sit on the blue silk couch opposite the Augusta.
‘You are accompanying our Father to Thessalonica?’ Theodora’s question was rhetorical. ‘How unseemly that he did not greet my sister or her rescuers on their return, leaving their reception to the offices of his brother, Joannes. I understand that he has not even sent her a message of welcome. And now it seems that my sister embarrasses his piety to such a degree that he must flee to the arms of his saint before he can even look upon her again.’
‘St Demetrius has issued our Father an urgent summons,’ said Mar. He tried to imagine the pain and frustration cloaked behind Theodora’s chalky, impassive features. With her reddish-blonde hair drawn back into a single tight braid, the Augusta not only looked older than her sister but also, curiously, more innocent; the rumour, widely bandied about by the satirists and street gossips, was that Theodora was still a virgin.
‘And while he obeys the summons of his patron he permits his Hetairarch to make his own pilgrimages.’ Her inflection was acid. ‘Perhaps customs have changed since I ... left the palace. I had always assumed that the Hetairarch kept a relentless vigil at His Majesty’s side.’
‘I will rejoin the Imperial procession this evening,’ said Mar without a hint of apology. ‘It is often my habit to depute the care of his Imperial Majesty to my lieutenants.’
‘I see.’ Theodora’s grim lips pursed as they resisted a mocking grin. ‘You are so often occupied with more important errands.’ The Augusta looked straight at Mar and then laughed, the throaty, masculine laugh of a woman too clever really to care about her sexuality. ‘Such an ambitious man. Indeed, haven’t I heard of your ambitions . . . somewhere . . . wherever? You know I do not go out much.’ She fluttered her hand in a gesture of mock femininity. The voice that followed cut like a newly honed blade. ‘Why do you think I would wish to further your desires?’
Theodora smiled at Mar as if she were indulging a small child in some elaborate masquerade. ‘But of course you must know that out here I have no enemies. Only water bugs. And servants who prefer gossip to work.’
Mar leaned forward slightly. ‘Have your tongue-wagging servants told you of the Orphanotrophus Joannes’s most recent success?’
Theodora snapped back: ‘What do you mean, Hetairarch?’
‘I know that Joannes engineered the abduction of your sister.’
‘There are many of us who suspect that.’
‘I can offer proof.’
Theodora considered what use such proof might be to her sister or her mentor, Alexius. Very little, without command of the Imperial Taghmata. But any knowledge of Joannes was a potentially deadly weapon. ‘Can you produce this evidence?’
‘Shall I have Ignatius Attalietes sent to you? He and I had a brief . . . misunderstanding, but I assure you that now his greatest delight is to do what I bid him.’
‘It will be sufficient for you to speak in his stead, Hetairarch. I am well aware of your reputation for thorough interrogation.’
Mar went on to describe the plot as revealed in an antechamber of the Numera by the virtually hysterical Ignatius; a few seconds of listening to the screams of some of the other guests had turned the Attalietes scion into a pop-eyed, desperately rambling geyser of information. Enough information to expose the handprints of Joannes all over the entire scheme.
Theodora absorbed Mar’s account impassively. When he had finished, she rose quickly and lithely. She walked half a circuit of her apartment’s bare, dull marble walls, then stopped to look out of an arched window towards the distant city; Constantinople was invisible in the mist. When she turned back to Mar, her faced seemed pinched, even smaller than usual. ‘How would you check Joannes, Hetairarch? You acknowledge his freshly wrought alliance with the Attalietes clique, but you did not mention that Joannes, now equipped with the resources of the Dhynatoi, is sponsoring a rival to you, the Tauro-Scythian who effected the rescue of my sister. This Haraldr whose name is on everyone’s lips. He has been named Manglavite, and the Middle Hetairia has been expanded to receive his band of cutthroats. Joannes has given him a palace near the Forum of Constantine.’ She looked at Mar piercingly. ‘As I told you, my servants have time for nothing but idle chatter.’ Theodora wondered again if the rumours she had received about Maria’s liaison with this Haraldr were true. Of course, it was only one of Maria’s caprices, but this one seemed more reckless than usual.
‘This Haraldr will soon turn on his patron, Majesty. At my command.’ Mar reflected the good fortune that had thwarted his own efforts to have Haraldr Sigurdarson eliminated. When he had learned that Joannes was Haraldr’s sponsor - the meeting in Neorion had left no doubt - he had considered the princeling to be far more of a liability than an asset. But in that impetuous decision, Mar now realized, he had behaved like a Norseman, which was not the way to deal with these Romans. Now he could see that Haraldr Sigurdarson was more useful than ever. Vastly so.
‘Indeed,’ said Theodora. ‘You have persuaded this Haraldr as you did Ignatius Attalietes? I would think one of your kind far more resistant to such blandishments than a pathetic Dhynatoi sodomite.’
‘Even the gods could not save Achilleus once his peculiar vulnerability became known.’
‘Well. Between your abilities and those of this new Tauro-Scythian Achilleus, whom you alone command, it would seem that we Romans are already as helpless as Isaac upon Abraham’s altar. Why offer an alliance to a scorned, indeed discarded, Augusta, when you fair-hairs have merely to let the sword fall? Do you pity me so much? Strange that I never suspected you of charity, Hetairarch.’ Theodora’s mouth worked in minute contractions, and her eyes glistened.
Mar ignored the taunts, as well aware as the purple-born Theodora of the power a Norseman could never acquire no matter how keen his blade or intellect; he would not insult either of them by mentioning it. Instead he would propose a more subtle form of patronage. ‘Would I be too bold to admit that I envy the friendship you share with the Patriarch of the One True Oecumenical, Orthodox and Catholic Faith?’
Theodora showed small, uneven teeth. ‘You have become so much more interesting than when I was previously acquainted with you, Hetairarch. You have become so much more . . . Roman.’ The corners of her eyes crinkled as she mused on the proposition. Fortunately the Hetairarch had been clever enough not to propose making an Empress of her; Theodora had no intention of challenging her sister, even if Joannes’s carefully seeded lies had convinced Zoe otherwise. But consider how profoundly the defence of the One True Faith might be enhanced if the Patriarch Alexius’s mighty spiritual sword were joined by the Hetairarch’s mighty secular sword.
Theodora signalled her eunuch, Emmanuel. ‘Keleusate,’ intoned the tall, important-looking chamberlain. Mar rose and Theodora walked directly up to him, her face vivid, almost girlish. ‘I shall ask our Patriarch to instruct you in the One True Oecumenical, Orthodox and Catholic Faith, Hetairarch. Strange that I had always thought you an irretrievable pagan.’
‘He is present,’ whispered the monk, Cosmas Tzintzuluces. ‘He is waiting for you in the ciborium.’
Michael, Lord of the Entire World, Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of the Romans, stepped into the nave of the Church of St Demetrius in Thessalonica. From the aisle vaults the brilliant, frescoed presences of the saints, the Holy Virgin and the Pantocrator glimmered like welcoming friends. The Emperor was profoundly grateful for the familiar splendour of what was becoming if not his home, then his sanctuary. He did not come here for renewal - he never could expect that much - but for relief. It was a place of temporary sustenance, where he could arrest but not reverse the inexorable starvation of his immortal soul.
To the Emperor’s left, midway down the nave, stood the ciborium, a miniature hexagonal temple, sheathed entirely in beautiful chased silver, the canopy topped with a large silver sphere and cross. The Emperor proceeded towards the ciborium, the thickly bearded monk Cosmas Tzintzuluces gently at his arm; both men seemed to glide over the marble floor as if drawn by some supernatural force. The monk paused and opened the silver door to the little chamber.
The Emperor entered and fell to his knees before the small silver couch. He did not need to see the physical presence of St Demetrius to know that the holiest of martyrs and most potent of saints was spiritually present. St Demetrius’s parreshia, access to the Heavenly Father, was proven beyond all doubt. How many times had he saved Thessalonica from the Bulgars? How many torments of the flesh had he eased with his healing oil, how many carnal sins had he absolved with his cleansing waters? Heal me, absolve me, begged the Lord of the Entire World in silent, desperate prayer. I know you have approached the Throne of Heaven so many times on my behalf, beloved Martyr. You have presented my case to the Divine Trinity with such graciousness and conviction that my heart bursts with gratitude for your Holy offices. And yet I still suffer. And yet I am not forgiven.
Tzintzuluces knelt beside the Emperor, crossed himself, and bowed deeply in prayer. He took the Emperor’s powerful hands in his own spindly fingers. He gently urged the Emperor’s hands towards the empty silver couch. ‘Let him touch you,’ whispered the monk. ‘His one hand has now taken that of Our Father Almighty. His other seeks your mortal grasp. Reach out to him.’
The Emperor’s hands trembled slightly as he reached out. He sighed; it was as if his fingers had vanished into a warm ether, and the pain - the terrible strangling torment - flowed from his entire body, through his fingers, into this all-accepting void. It flowed joyously, cathartically, for a moment, and then the pain was suddenly excruciating, as if his skull had turned to hot iron and crushed in upon his brain. The effluence of pain trickled and ceased, obstructed by a sin too great to pass through any medium.
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The monk looked anxiously at this suffering human being next to him. Yes, Tzintzuluces reflected, he could, without blasphemy - indeed it redounded to the glory of God -consider the Autocrator a far more humble man, indeed a mere novitiate in a universal monastic order. For when Christ the King summoned him, the King of the World would have to appear before the Heavenly Tribunal as naked as any man.
And like any man, even the Pantocrator’s Viceregent on earth had to prepare for that time. For men, Tzintzuluces reminded himself, are like oxen whose life cannot last; they are like cattle whose time is short. ‘Let him guide you, whispered the monk.
The Emperor choked back the searing, vision-blackening pain. The Holy Martyr spoke, soothed, guided. His voice, transmitted through the spiritual ether within which he resided, seeped through the hard shell of pain that crushed upon the Emperor’s brain. ‘Confess,’ whispered St Demetrius in a wonderful melody that was more music than voice. ‘Confess.’
Dazed, the Emperor allowed Tzintzuluces to raise him to his feet and lead him to the vaulted crypt beside the altar, the very spot where St Demetrius had accepted Holy Martyrdom. They stopped before the sunken marble font; the saint’s holy oil shimmered, a fragrant, faintly golden pool. The Emperor fell to his knees again. When he looked up, two holy men stood before him. Both of these living saints were maned with voluminous beards and unshorn, lice-crawling hair but otherwise were as withered and desiccated as desert lizards; the taller of the pair wore a soiled loincloth, the other stood in a coarse, tattered tunic. If the Emperor noticed their unwashed stench, he gave no indication. Instead he turned to Tzintzuluces, hands clenched before his breast, the tears welling in his eyes. ‘These are new treasures,’ the Emperor whispered hoarsely, and began to weep.
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