The pain returned to Michael’s eyes and he shut them as if the light pierced them with awls. ‘Lord God, help me. I cannot . . . oh, Lord.’ He opened his eyes again. ‘She must remember me ... as I was. Tell her it is not her shame . . . but my own.’ Haraldr let go of Michael’s hand and rose from his knees. Let him die in peace, he decided, let her have the beauty of her memories. He turned and walked outside.
Haraldr took Zoe in his arms and whispered in her ear. ‘He says it is not your shame but his own. Can you understand why he cannot--’ Zoe slumped, her head fell back, and a terrible cry seemed to emerge from her distended neck rather than from her distorted mouth. Haraldr cupped her head and brought her face next to his. ‘Try to understand. Remember the man you loved.’ Zoe’s neck went limp and she collapsed. Haraldr left her in Halldor’s arms and rushed back into the church.
Joannes knelt at his brother’s cot, his huge head on Michael’s chest, his entire body heaving with sobs. Michael’s head lay to the side, motionless. The monk Cosmas Tzintzuluces turned to Haraldr, his dark eyes transformed with an ineffable joy.’ ‘Brother Michael has been accepted into the arms of the Pantocrator,’ whispered the monk.
The rainbow colours of the assembled dignitaries of the Imperial Court had been replaced by robes of black sackcloth. Even the vast octagonal dome of the Hall of Nineteen Couches, wreathed in golden vines, was dulled by a mourning sky that pounded the clerestory windows with cold rain. Only one man was privileged to wear colour at this ceremony. The Emperor, stretched out on a gilded bier, was for the last time attired in the purple-and-gold robes of the Autocrator, the gold-and-pearl Imperial Diadem on his head. Michael had lain in state for three days, and in the chill of the hall his features had settled into a pale, claret effigy of the man who had once held hegemony over the entire World. The Orphanotrophus Joannes kneeled beside the bier, as he had without motion, without sustenance, for the entire three days.
The Patriarch Alexius signed over the body and nodded to the Parakoimomenos. The Parakoimomenos lifted his shrouded face slowly, as if the gravity of his task had turned his head into a ponderous granite effigy. The rain tapped faintly at the windows far above, and the great, still hall seemed suddenly colder. The Parakoimomenos’s thundering voice rent the stillness with icy, knifing blows. ‘Arise, O King of the World, and obey the summons of the King of Kings!’ The Parakoimomenos’s words pealed through the huge dome and returned just as he began again. ‘Arise, O King of the World, and obey the summons of the King of Kings!’ After the third repetition of the grim summons it seemed as if the dome would split from the shattering force of the resounding commands.
As the Emperor had wished, the procession to his final resting place in the Church of the Anargyroi was a simple one. Michael was borne from his bier as the Christ had been from Calvary, in the arms of those who loved him and had served him. Haraldr stood between the entranced Orphanotrophus and the steely-eyed Grand Domestic Isaac Camytzes; the body, drained of fluid, seemed so light that Haraldr was not conscious of a burden.
The people waited along the Mese, silent, wet, a colourless mosaic of tens of thousands of pale, stunned faces against the light-consuming backdrop of their coarse black robes and capes. Yet as he passed, Haraldr felt and heard an unmistakable undercurrent, a murmuring like a cascade of snow from a distant peak, and he realized how dangerous Joannes’s immobilizing grief had become. Why had Joannes refused to allow the Caesar to appear in the procession? It was evident that the people who had come to bid their Emperor farewell were confused, even angry. And understandably so. Who would lead them? Did the Orphanotrophus now propose to have himself crowned against all laws of state, God and nature?
Cosmas Tzintzuiuces stood by the simple porphyry sarcophagus that waited to the left of the Church of the Anargyroi’s golden altar. The blazing candelabra proclaimed the resurrection. The pallbearers lowered the body into the crypt. The Parakoimomenos stepped forward again and called out, ‘Enter, King of the World, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords calls you!’ He paused until the church was still again, and even the candies could be heard sputtering beside the altar. ‘Remove your crown.’
The Patriarch Alexius stepped forward and removed the gold-and-pearl diadem from Michael’s head. He placed the helmet-like crown on a silk pillow presented by a priest and accepted a simple purple silk band from another pillow. He slipped the purple band around Michael’s brow and signed three times over the corpse’s chalky forehead. Then he stepped back and the marble lid was lowered. As soon as the face of the Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of Rome had vanished for ever from the world he had once ruled, Joannes turned and fixed his dark, barely discernible gaze on the Imperial Diadem.
‘Better stay back, boy. If they see us together, they’ll want us to take them to the Chalke Gate tonight.’
The Blue Star tugged on Haraldr’s heavy woollen cloak, pulling him back into the narrow, refuse-glutted alley. Her towering, bearded son stood protectively behind her.
Haraldr moved back but stuck his head around the ragged brick corner of the tenement. At the street corner to his left a bonfire sputtered against the cold drizzle. A crowd of as many as several hundred, anonymous and virtually asexual in their tattered brown tunics, had gathered around the blaze, but not for warmth. The sound was a continuous murmur of discussion punctuated by periodic outbursts. They were asking themselves one question: who would rule them? And they were offering themselves the answer that had brought them into the streets: Joannes. The name was a staccato epithet spat forth in harsh punctuation to the general anxiety. Occasionally wooden staffs jutted into the air.
‘It’s building, boy,’ said the Blue Star. ‘Joannes bought himself three days’ grace with that hospital. But if another night goes by without the purple-born proclaiming her husband’s successor, these people are going to know that Joannes intends to keep the Imperial Diadem for himself. When they realize that, one hospital isn’t going to keep them from going up on those hills. And then it won’t be just the Studion that will burn.’
Haraldr drew his head back and turned to the Blue Star. He had seen at least two dozen street-corner gatherings like this on his way into the Studion; he wasn’t certain these people would wait until tomorrow night. His own internal debate continued. Why not let loose this collective rage, use his Grand Hetairia to hold the Imperial Taghmata in check, and purge Rome of Joannes and his Dhynatoi accomplices? But there were several reasons why not. Foremost, with the traitor Mar and his men in exile and the terrible attrition of his own pledge-men in the Bulgarian campaign, he had one third the strength he had been able to count on the last time he had considered this equation. And the last time he had not had an opportunity to see his ally mustered for battle. He looked at the pathetic wretches with their staves and stones and realized how many of these innocents would be slaughtered.
‘What will you do, boy?’
Haraldr gave fate a fool’s reply, but to honour the only answer he could. ‘If Joannes crowns himself Emperor, the Grand Hetairia under my command will besiege him in the Hagia Sophia and demand that he relinquish the Imperial Diadem. I think we will be joined by many factions of the Imperial administration.’ And we will eventually be defeated and massacred by the Imperial Taghmata, he silently concluded. ‘It is possible,’ he offered with more hope than proof, ‘that Joannes’s delay is due to genuine grief. I had never believed Joannes capable of any love except power, and yet I believe he truly loved his brother. In some strange way his brother seems to have been the repository of all the love and kindness that had otherwise been driven from Joannes’s breast.’
‘That love is now buried,’ said the Blue Star, her irony ominous. She made a smacking sound with her lips. ‘But it is possible he will offer this Caesar up to conceal his own ambitions. Will you swear your loyalty to this Caesar?’
‘Yes, presuming that the Empress will endorse him.’ That, too, was in doubt. Zoe herself had told Haraldr that she considered the Caesar to be too we
ak to challenge Joannes. ‘I think it is to the benefit of both Rome and the Studion to give this Caesar an opportunity to oppose his uncle, and to serve his purple-born Empress and her people. I have followed the Caesar’s rise more closely than many, and I see a much more capable man than others credit him.’ Haraldr again was struck by the parallel between himself and Michael Kalaphates, how they had both been accused of lacking ambition, and how fate had given them both an opportunity to prove otherwise.
‘Capable, perhaps. But capable of good or ill, boy?’
That was the question Haraldr had, with no little foreboding, just asked himself. What was it? That day on the ambo in the Hagia Sophia, when their eyes had met? ‘If he is capable of good, I will serve him until he can serve the people of the Studion. And then I will return to my people. If he is capable only of evil, I will consider him another account I must settle before I can leave Rome.’
The Blue Star nodded approvingly. ‘If Joannes crowns the Caesar, we will wait and see what he is prepared to render unto the Studion. But look for yourself, boy. Their patience is growing short.’ The Blue Star stuck her pudgy face round the corner. Her breathing fogged the cold, misty air. She turned back to Haraldr and looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with the power of the other Rome, the Rome that did not stroll silk-frocked through marble palaces. ‘These people have accounts to be settled, too, boy.’
‘This is not tolerable!’ shouted Michael Kalaphates, Caesar of Rome. ‘I am led to understand that the burial has already taken place and that my uncle and I have not even been granted the courtesy of viewing the mortal container of our relative and sovereign! I don’t think you understand the position you find yourself in, Chamberlain! You are inflaming the brow that will soon be illuminated by the Imperial Diadem!’ The chamberlain bowed smoothly. ‘I am to tell you that the Orphanotrophus Joannes will shortly join you. He is on his way.’ He crossed his hands over his breast and withdrew.
‘The Orphanotrophus will now deign to join us, now that he has concluded the affairs of state!’ Michael’s face was brilliant red, his eyes like glass. ‘Who is the heir here, Uncle? Who will soon receive the crown that rules over humankind?’
Constantine grasped Michael’s shoulders in his surprisingly powerful hands. ‘Nephew! Nephew! Master yourself!’ Michael seemed jolted by his uncle’s admonishment, and his eyes snapped back into focus as if he had just emerged from one of Abelas’s trances. ‘I am sorry, Uncle. I quite forgot myself.’
‘Listen to me, Nephew,’ said Constantine with a firmness and authority that his voice had never had before; it was as if the Imperial Diadem had in fact been passed from the late Emperor’s head to his. ‘We haven’t much time. Remember this when Joannes arrives: he is the Emperor now. If you let that thought leave your head, you will find your head leaving your body.’
‘But what of our secret, Uncle? Isn’t this the time--’
‘Right now our secret is but an ingot awaiting the goldsmith’s hammer. We have many laborious steps ahead of us before that lump of metal can be shaped to glorious effect. This is the first step in that process of transformation.’
Michael looked at his uncle, his face as stricken with confusion as that of a schoolboy who understands nothing of what his master has told him but who also knows that the lash will be at his back if he does not commit it to memory. ‘Yes, Uncle, I trust you. You know that I will follow in your steps as obediently as if the Christ himself were walking before me.’ He embraced Constantine. ‘Thank you for saving me, Uncle. I will find some way to reward you.’
The chamberlain arrived a moment later. ‘The Orphanotrophus,’ he announced. Joannes swept into the room, his distorted features inscrutable. Michael watched in rapt astonishment as Constantine dived to his knees before his brother and clutched his legs and smothered his thighs with kisses. He took the cue and himself fell to his knees and held out his hands to Joannes. The Orphanotrophus’s eyes seemed to devour this adulation; it was as if fires were slowly kindling within the dark sockets.
‘Brother. Nephew.’ Joannes gestured for them to rise.
‘Rome is now vested in our hands, and yet we cannot rule her without the generous endowment of our bereaved purple-born Empress.’ He turned to Michael. ‘Nephew, go to her, succour her in her grief. Remind her of the pledges she has made to her adoptive son, and pledge yourself to her again with your hand upon the Holy Relics. Beg her to sponsor you in your coronation as Emperor. And ask her to proclaim immediately her sponsorship to her people.’
Constantine cleared his throat. ‘My esteemed brother, am I to understand that there is a threat of rebellion in the streets?’
Joannes glared at Constantine and did not answer. He turned to Michael. ‘Nephew, you must console our purple-born Mother before grief overcomes her. And the proclamation must be delivered before the people can gather tomorrow.’
‘Yes, my master,’ said Michael without even a hint of irony. He bowed and departed on his errand.
‘Keleusate.’ The eunuch, cloaked in black, bowed and withdrew as Michael rose to his feet. He hardly recognized Zoe. Her face was swathed in a black veil; only her eyes and the few rudely shorn strands of blonde hair that fell onto her forehead were visible. And the eyes were those of an ancient woman. Michael had known that she was perhaps old enough to be his mother; now her eyes might be those of his grandmother. He had never been shocked at the notion of bedding his uncle’s wife, but now he could not imagine how he had slept with this crone.
‘My little boy,’ Zoe croaked in a voice as weary as her visible soul. Michael wanted to cringe as she came towards him. He watched her black-gloved hands reach out and for a fleeting instant wondered if the hands beneath them had become dry, cracked, spotted with age. And then he could only think, Better these hands than those that would handle me in the Neorion. To his enormous relief Zoe only maternally stroked the hair at his temples. ‘My little boy,’ she said again.
Zoe indicated for Michael to sit on the couch opposite hers; again he was flooded with relief. ‘I know what you have come for, my child.’ Now her eyes seemed powerful, alert, even slightly sensual. ‘Of course you will have my endorsement as our new Emperor. You are, after all, my son - if not of my loins, then of my heart.’
Michael steeled himself for the proposal he knew he had to make. ‘I know it is monstrously audacious for me to presume, and an inexcusable transgression upon the sanctity of your grief, but my soul begs me to ask. Will you take me as your husband?’
Zoe’s laugh, coming from behind her veil, was gentle and yet also slightly evil. ‘I would soon weary of the role of Jocasta to your Oedipus, my son.’ Zoe clasped her gloved hands and set them in her lap. ‘No, I do not want you as my husband. But I will endorse your Imperial pretensions, for a price that carries no carnal obligations. What I must have from you in exchange for my endorsement is a guarantee.’ Michael nodded, ready to offer anything in return for her somewhat unexpected and wholly welcome refusal of his offer. ‘You must promise to shield me from even the slightest hint of a threat from Joannes. Remember, you will not be protected by the status of husband to the purple-born. Remember that I have my own considerable resources in this court. If I even suspect an intrigue involving the Orphanotrophus, I will withdraw my acquiescence in your sovereignty and unleash the fury of my people upon you.’
Michael was jolted by his sudden realization of what her refusal of his troth had cost him, even if only temporarily. Damn! She was still not one to challenge. But it was as Constantine had said. There were many steps to their goal. ‘You have my guarantee, and the devotion that even a son could not offer you, my Mistress, my Mother.’
‘Very well, my little boy. Now kiss your Mother’s hand and leave her. The Empress must compose a proclamation to the people of her city.’
‘I grieve for her,’ said the purple-born Augusta Theodora. She seemed more thoughtful than mournful, her blue eyes focused on the ice-slick marble floor. Theodora wore a purple silk cape lined with sa
ble; the single brazier in her apartment provided little heat. Except in extreme cold, she rarely fired the huge hypocaust furnaces that circulated warm air under the floor. ‘I cannot grieve for him. Not after the pain he caused her.’
‘He will be judged at the tribunal at which all souls are judged, my child.’ Alexius, Patriarch of the One True Oecumenical, Orthodox and Catholic Faith, waved his beringed, lithely powerful fingers as if absolving the dead Emperor himself. He sat on a silk couch and was swaddled in a huge ermine cloak dotted with gold velour crucifixes. ‘I pray that in death the Pantocrator who has sat at his side will take him to His bosom. He was a good man, used to bad ends.’
‘To what ends will his successor be used, Father?’
Alexius smiled wryly. ‘I am pleased to see that your contemplation of the Lord’s Mansions has not deterred you from occasionally giving thought to the Imperial Palace.’
Theodora’s eyes snapped up from the floor. For that moment they seemed every bit as quick and potentially lethal as the Patriarch’s prowling irises. ‘From time to time I remember the cross we have discussed, Father. However, I do not think it is time for me to carry that burden to my Golgotha.’
‘Nor do I, child. It might surprise you to know that when I crown this Caesar for the second time tomorrow, I intend to do so with vastly more enthusiasm than I was able to summon on the previous occasion.’
‘That you are crowning him is no surprise, Father,’ said Theodora, a taunt in her inflection. She had become comfortable enough with Alexius, and had seen his own temporal needs clearly enough, that she no longer restrained the sharp tongue with which she dissected almost everyone else. ‘Your eagerness to do so does surprise me.’
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