Maria said nothing, but her eyes glimmered with the ineffable confusion of her feelings: anticipation, dread, bitter longing, carnal heat. Would she see him?
Zoe cupped Maria’s chin in her hand. ‘I know what you are thinking, little daughter. But you must be careful. If you encounter your Tauro-Scythian, you may be forced to decide if what you feel for him is love, or merely desire.’
Maria looked quickly away. There was no answer to that dilemma that would not cause her pain.
‘Uncle . . .’Michael Kalaphates turned to his Uncle Constantine and shrugged expressively. Constantine looked at his nephew with momentary exasperation and then reached into his cloak and pilfered his purse for half a dozen silver nomismata. Michael greedily accepted the donation and leaned back over the massive ivory gaming table. ‘I’ll win it back double, Uncle,’ he said eagerly.
At last the boy needs me, thought Constantine bitterly, even if only to fill his perpetually exhausted purse. Constantine looked around at the jostling, garrulous patrons of Nicephorus Argyrus’s new establishment; a Magister in a silk robe had just bumped into a Venetian merchant wearing an entire shipload of gold around his neck, the sotted Quaestor was somewhere - over there, taking bets on a pentathlon contest - and the puffed-up, pigeon-breasted Proconsular Patrician Digenes Ducas, whose voice so often stirred the Senate, whispered in the ear of the elegant whore on the arm of a young Topoteretes of the Imperial Excubitores. A sharp-nosed Patrician - what was his name? Evagrius? - with a precisely trimmed short grey beard nodded curtly at Constantine and turned away. Constantine imagined himself shaking the arrogant fop and shouting, ‘I am Constantine, to whom you virtually prostrated yourself in the Senate chambers last month! Constantine, the former Strategus of Antioch, Vanquisher of Seljuks, and Saviour of your Mother, celebrated by the mob in the Hippodrome, and, not the least, brother of the Emperor Michael and the Orphanotrophus Joannes in the presence of whom even your silk-and-scent Magisters tremble!’ Ah, but there, of course, was the thorn that so clearly kept Constantine from plucking the rose of Rome’s adoration. Brother Joannes. A month ago such as these had indeed been ready to throw their faces to the floor before him. But a month ago Joannes had not yet made it entirely evident to the entire court that he regarded his brother Constantine as a temporary accoutrement, a discarded trumpet of his own power. Joannes had not sent for him once since the ceremony in the Hippodrome and the reception at the Senate, had not even inquired of him or their nephew. Such signals did not go unapprehended by the viciously acute eyes and ears of the Imperial Court. If Joannes had no further use for his brother, Constantine, then neither did these swaggering dignitaries.
Michael Kalaphates whooped at a successful toss of the dice. ‘Give me the trinity!’ he crowed; three was his number. At least the hoy has use for me, Constantine told himself again, his gloom deepening as he thought of the other Michael, his brother, too, his Father as well. Even Joannes had received them, appeared with them, if only briefly. Ah, well, Michael was so far away; it was as if the Imperial Sceptre had finally severed the already tenuous blood ties as savagely as a Varangian’s axe. They would go to their graves as strangers.
‘Holy Trinity!’ Michael Kalaphates leapt up from the table and embraced his uncle, showering him with silver. ‘Five times over, including what I had lost!’ He danced around his uncle, his fashionable silk bonnet beginning to slide towards his right ear. ‘Let me keep it, Uncle. I have learned of a winning team of four that can be had for a pig’s ear! We’ll buy a trainer and a driver and rule the Hippodrome!’
Constantine smiled. ‘Keep it, of course. You are my family, you know.’ Constantine shook his head in amazement. The boy was as impetuous as a thundercloud, but half his schemes seemed to come to something. The others . . . well they were best forgotten. Michael Kalaphates was his family now.
‘Uncle, our friend the Manglavite has come in. With the Hetairarch.’
Bile burned in Constantine’s chest. The boy needed to choose his friends more carefully, that was certain. Thugs like that would buy him more trouble than even he could scheme his way out of. ‘Yes,’ said Constantine, his voice acerbic, ‘the Hetairarch and Manglavite are virtually without employment these days. It is difficult to go out at night without encountering one or the other, and sometimes the two together, arm in arm like Herod and Pilate.’
‘They are always courteous to us.’
Constantine’s brow furrowed. ‘They are both so ... agile. When a beast learns its master’s tricks too easily, the master should wonder if the beast doesn’t intend some day to teach him a few tricks.’
‘Well, as we are not their masters, I intend to greet them.’ Michael held his arm up. ‘Manglavite!’
The two Norsemen worked through the crowd; some of the dignitaries greeted them eagerly, while others discreetly turned away as they passed.
‘Manglavite. Hetairarch.’ Michael, joined perfunctorily by Constantine, bowed in greeting. ‘Now I know we have picked an auspicious destination for our evening’s adventure. Do you intend to stay for the theatre? They say this new drama is quite, one might say, transparent.’
‘So we have heard,’ said Mar, his manner genial. Then he grinned. ‘Look for us before you find your seats. And if your cup runs dry before then, tell your serving boy that the Manglavite is buying your draughts. You must relieve him of some of his gold before his vaults sink into the earth.’ Haraldr nodded his agreement. He had spent enough time working with Mar to be comfortable with him, if still wary. And while Mar’s Roman duplicity required a Norseman’s caution, Haraldr had found Mar’s Roman urbanity engaging, even beguiling. He had to admit he enjoyed going with him to a place like Argyrus’s.
Haraldr and Mar bowed and went off into the crowd. ‘What does Nordbrikt do with all his money?’ asked Constantine when they had left.
‘Women,’ said Michael. ‘He has taken a whore, a girl from Alania who is said to rival fair Helen, and it is said that his mistresses include several ladies at court. Apparently there is also something to be made of his relationship with the daughter of the Grand Domestic. You have met her. Perhaps there is a match there.’
‘I thought he was quite set upon Maria, the Empress’s dear companion. Don’t I recall some mention of their liaison during our recent journey?’
‘That ended some time ago. And were it to resume, I can assure that such a liaison would never be allowed to come to fruition.’
Constantine laughed and squeezed Michael’s arm playfully. ‘You have won a purse full of nomismata, so now you imagine yourself privy to the secrets of the Empress’s apartments.’
Michael smiled and put his arm across his uncle’s shoulders. ‘I have certain . . . contacts, dearest Uncle.’
‘They interest me.’ Mar spoke in Norse as he and Haraldr walked away from Michael Kalaphates and Constantine.
‘True, Joannes has shown them little favour,’ replied Haraldr. ‘But that is a far reach from saying that they might be inclined to conspire against him.’
‘You saw them in Antioch. What is your estimate of their abilities?’
‘The uncle could not be expected to figure out how to dump shit from a chamber pot. Michael Kalaphates, however, I believe to be far more able than he is given credit for. A bit of the praise-tongue, but all in all a very worthy young man. Certainly very keen.’
‘And perhaps keen enough to realize that his uncle is not rewarding his talents in near the measure that his qualities deserve.’
‘Possibly. We should deliberate this matter before we proceed, though, and then proceed very cautiously.’
Mar pursed his lips. ‘I am worried that we will not always have the luxury of caution. Joannes has made no move against us for weeks now. You know how a camp is always the quietest when there is to be an attack in the morning.’
‘Hetairarch! Manglavite! Esteemed Dignitaries!’ Nicephorus Argyrus’s leathery face beamed with its usual effusion of genuine affection, moderate inebriation and irrepres
sible self-interest. He swept the two Norsemen into the main dining hall, a miniature palace lined with sumptuously carved, emerald-shaded Carystos marble columns; the lofty, coffered ceiling had been painted a celestial blue.
‘I insist that you join us!’ boomed Argyrus. He guided the Norsemen to a large table set in the apse at the end of the room. The table was littered with goblets of fine glass, silver and burnished stone, silver plates and utensils, and the savaged remains of a suckling pig.
‘It appears you have finished eating,’ said Mar drily.
‘Gentlemen. Dignitaries. Esteemed colleagues!’ The fourteen or fifteen guests at the table continued tearing at bits of pig, arguing, and shouting at the ceiling. Haraldr recognized a komes of the Imperial Fleet, who licked his fingers with a look of grave deliberation, two senators, and a Genoese admiral said to keep a Saracen mistress in a town house only two blocks from Haraldr’s palace. A small man raised his oversize head from the wine-soaked white tablecloth and tilted it slowly as he appraised the new arrivals with glazed grey eyes. The Logothete of the Symponus, Haraldr observed, the official responsible for the financial administration of Constantinople. They are also drinking tonight in the Studion, thought Haraldr. Would the Logothete sleep as well, he wondered, if he could hear the oaths the cutthroats of Studion were growling into their cups?
Argyrus put his arm around Haraldr and addressed no one in particular. ‘I gave our worthy Manglavite his first employment when he came among us. You might say he learned his lessons at the foot of the master. My name means silver, but when I touch a man, he turns to gold!’ Argyrus rapped Haraldr’s massive shoulder as if he expected it to clink like a golden statue. ‘I’m proud of him; he took his advice from me and made himself a rival to Croesus. Of course I was generous when I dealt with him, and the only gratitude I asked was that he remember his mentor, Nicephorus Argyrus!’
Serving boys quickly cleared and set places before Mar and Haraldr could escape from Nicephorus Argyrus. They sat and looked about the room. With the current moratorium on Imperial banquets due to the Emperor’s illness, Argyrus had drawn half the Imperial Court. Everyone seemed to enjoy the relative absence of decorum; the noise required Haraldr and Mar to raise their voices in order to pursue ordinary conversation.
‘Let us forgo supper and ask the servants to bring us dessert.’ Mar smiled salaciously and looked around the room. ‘The Curator of the Magnara is here, so I imagine his wife has accompanied him to give the proper public display of their mutual infidelity.’ Haraldr noted this with interest, since he had slept with the Curator’s wife, Danielis, half a dozen times. ‘And I do not see the Grand Domestic Bardas Dalassena - no doubt he is home wringing his hands over his dispatches - so we can assume that Anna has probably come.’
Haraldr nodded and signalled the servant. He had at first been taken aback by the protocol of the Imperial Court, which was quite different from that practised in the more liberal-minded private homes - like Argyrus’s - or in a notoriously permissive environment like Antioch. Among dignitaries, it was considered scandalous for women to dine side by side with men; they instead dined in a separate chamber. But when dessert was served, the women were invited to join the men.
At court, the suffocating protocol constrained this contact to elaborate formality. Here, however, the interaction frequently exceeded propriety - thus the popularity of Argyrus’s venture.
The women had already begun to trickle into the dining hall, generally in groups of two or three. Here and there a man would stand and invite a lady to sit; she might accept, or she might pretend that she had not seen the gesture (even if the desperate gallant was flapping his arms in her face like a frantic bird) and hold out for a more desirable opportunity. Haraldr had come to enjoy the flirtatious ritual, the nods, the gestures, the raised eyebrows, the subtle communications and often quite complex strategies that the participants had evolved.
Haraldr sensed someone hovering at his shoulder. He turned and rose immediately. ‘Anna,’ he said, and bowed deeply.
Anna fixed her intense agate eyes on his and nodded. A servant brought her a chair. She and Mar greeted one another before she sat.
Each week she is more beautiful, thought Haraldr. Her colouring was still fresh, virginal, her cheeks and lips flushed brilliantly. But her eyes had become heavier, darker, more sensual, and full woman’s breasts now swelled against her dark blue scaramangium. ‘You will make Eros weary of his errands tonight,’ he told her. ‘You are the most lovely woman here.’
She put her hand lightly on his. ‘Tonight I only hope to dispatch Eros to one breast.’
Mar coughed dramatically and jerked his head to the right. Haraldr wished he had a wizard’s incantation that would turn him into a fly. But it was too late. She had seen him.
Danielis, wife of the Curator of the Magnara, walked among the tables, her long, swan-like neck erect, her arms relaxed, her fingers slightly poised as if she cradled some fragile, invisible object. Her husband, the dignitary responsible for not only overseeing but also financing all of the official diplomatic receptions at the Magnara Palace, was seated several tables away and had already deposited his decorum head first in the lap of an actress reputed to be the mistress of a famous polo player. That circumstance was hardly to Danielis’s discredit - far more humiliating to have been invited to sit by her own husband. But with Haraldr, her widely acknowledged paramour, also occupied, she was in an awkward situation. As was he.
Mar stood, his face regal, his eyes waiting to make contact with Danielis’s. She looked at him and the entire room seemed to hush for an instant. She then raised a sharp, dark eyebrow in a gesture that was at once almost imperceptibly delicate and wildly erotic. As Danielis moved to take her seat beside Mar, Haraldr nodded at him gratefully.
Haraldr had seen men’s eyes in combat - even Berserks -more pacific than Anna’s when she saw her rival seated only a place removed from hers. Danielis leaned forward and inclined her head slightly towards Haraldr. She had large, greyish-blue eyes that contrasted vividly with her dark hair, and a long, chiselled nose that seemed to pull her face down slightly, giving her beauty a hint of sadness that Haraldr found appealing. ‘Manglavite,’ she said in her demure, almost soothing voice. ‘Anna.’
‘Lady,’ said Anna as if she were an executioner addressing a client. She placed her hand on Haraldr’s thigh. But Haraldr could not help thinking of Danielis. Unlike most women of fashion who now wore only the long, sheath-like scaramangium robe in imitation of their Empress, Danielis persisted in wearing both a dalmatic, a short, sleeveless tunic; and a pallium, a long, shawl-like garment with an opening for the head - over her robe, a swathing of radiantly patterned silk that concealed her up to her chin. But once unwrapped, Danielis would insist that Haraldr perform as her ‘stallion’; he was never certain which role she enjoyed most for herself, the mare or the bareback rider.
Anna pressed her breast against Haraldr’s arm. Anna, he reflected, for all her sparkling eyes and busy hands, was the opposite of Danielis. Anna had lost her maidenhood somewhere on the road to Antioch, apparently to some clumsy lecher who had made the experience painful. She was still wary, so Haraldr had not pressed her. They had twice been alone in his chambers and merely had stayed awake, conversing, occasionally caressing, almost until cockcrow, when he had ordered guards and carriage to take her home. She had been very good for his Greek, and she made him happy.
‘Anna, have you heard of the new drama?’ asked Danielis as the servants brought out stuffed pastries, shaped like little churches, on silver plates.
‘No. Oh, I see, I believe you have confused the genres. This is a mime, or rather a comedy in the form of mime.’
‘Yes. I think you are correct. How wise of you to know that.’ Danielis plunged her fork deep into her little pastry church. ‘The content is considered improper. I have been told that the actress will lay aside her cloak and bare her bosom in emulation of Aphrodite.’
‘No. She will remove her cloak
and appear before us quite entirely naked, as the ancients have shown us in their statuary.’
Danielis made a sharp, quick little inhalation, her public expression of shock. Hah, thought Haraldr, when Danielis is as naked as Aphrodite, she gasps like a post-horse. ‘Anna,’ Danielis asked, ‘do you think that viewing this spectacle will inflame the passions of the gentlemen present? How wicked it would be if this emulation of Aphrodite encouraged our gallants to an emulation of Hephaestus.’
‘But, Lady,’ said Anna, her pupils like needles, ‘Hephaestus was the lame husband of Aphrodite, cuckolded by the warlike and altogether more desirable Ares. Do we not see that emulation right here, even before our Aphrodite has yet appeared?’
Mar choked on his pastry. Danielis’s nostrils flared and a vein stood out beneath her ear. ‘Indeed,’ said Danielis, her voice uninflected by the accusation and insult. ‘We have other emulations as well. I am certain that we also have an Athena among us.’
Anna’s nails clawed Haraldr’s arm. Athena was a virgin goddess. ‘But where?’ Anna’s voice was faintly tremulous. ‘A maiden would hardly have the temerity to enter this company. Perhaps the error in your understanding is one of terminology. If I were, for example, to call a woman who squanders her . . . assets a spendthrift - and perhaps some would call her worse - I would not then be correct in considering a woman who merely prudently budgets her assets a miser.’
Byzantium - A Novel Page 44