Byzantium - A Novel

by Michael Ennis

  Mar looked at the conflagrations along the city’s affluent spine. From the vantage of the Marmara coast, the huge tongues of flames seemed painted in eerie, brightly enamelled miniature against the darkness. The palaces of the Dhynatoi were coming down. ‘There is some trouble in the city tonight, precious,’ said Mar. ‘But it will be over tomorrow, and then you will be able to see everything.’

  The massive galley turned larboard to head into the Bucoleon Harbour. The lights of the palace burned with their usual brilliance. ‘That is where the Emperor lives,’ said Bianca Maria with rapt self-confidence.

  ‘Yes. Remember what I told you about the proper way to greet him.’

  Khazar guards waited at the jetty when the dhromon docked. Only Mar, Gris Knutson and Bianca Maria disembarked. They were escorted up the statue-lined terraces, around the soaring apses of the Imperial Baths, and then into the Chrysotriklinos. The trio performed the prescribed prostrations and then stood before the Emperor Michael.

  ‘What a lovely child,’ said Michael. ‘What is your name?’ He leaned towards Mar’s adolescent companion.

  ‘Bianca Maria, Majesty.’

  ‘Well, Hetairarch, if I may reinstate you with your former title,’ said Michael quickly, ‘your return is so provident that I quite believe you are moved by the Holy Spirit.’

  ‘I am moved by a desire to preserve the office of Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of the Romans,’ said Mar.

  Michael shifted uneasily in his throne. Mar had said office, not person. ‘Well, Hetairarch, I am grateful to hear that your former respect for the Imperial dignity has not been compromised by your tenure in the provinces. However, much has happened to alter the value of the Imperial Diadem since you and I last speculated on its worth. My uncle, the Nobilissimus Constantine, and I placed a considerable investment at risk, and have been duly rewarded. But you would not know of that, because due to your misbegotten fortunes in the Bulgarian campaign, you have been away from the vital centre of our Empire.’

  ‘You have done well in aggrandizing your investment, Majesty. But I fear that the value of your commodity has once again plummeted. It seems to me that the vital centre of Rome is now the Hippodrome, where the Varangians who so recently served as your guard are preparing to lead an assault by the wretches of the Studion and their new allies, the tradesmen and merchants. Only the Dhynatoi and the Taghmata stand with you now, and I question how vigorously the men of the Taghmata will enlist in the slaughter of the women of Rome, who have risen against you as vehemently as their husbands, fathers and sons.’

  Michael seemed to regard the threat as a minor negotiating point. He smiled at Bianca Maria. ‘I have developed a special relationship with the Pantocrator, Hunrodarson. He will not permit me to surrender the troth that links us.’ Michael bowed his head for a while. ‘What? What?’ he whispered. Then his voice seemed to buzz, very low, like an insistent insect. ‘So it would be the three-in-one, as it was in your mind in the beginning, because in the light all souls will hear the word . . .’ The buzz trailed off. Michael lifted his head and clapped his hands three times. ‘He has no objection to a trinity! Here is how we will have it. You shall be Basileus, Lord of the Entire World. I shall be Autocrator, Lord of the Universe! And He shall rule for us in Heaven until we come to share His throne! Indeed! Kiss my hand, come forward and kiss my hand, Basileus, Lord of the World!’

  Mar’s pale eyebrows twitched as he came forward, ascended the golden dais, and knelt at the purple boots of the new Lord of the Universe.

  ‘Are you ready to lead our seraphim against the thrice-damned rabble, Basileus?’ whispered Michael.

  ‘I will send for my men and be in position to slaughter every living soul in the Hippodrome by first dawn, Autocrator.’ Mar rose warily, afraid that the slightest tremor on his part might bring the fantastic, wondrous edifice of Michael’s madness tumbling down. He backed away with his arms crossed, took Bianca Maria’s warm little hand, and prepared to take his leave.

  ‘Basileus! I forgot to mention that your friend, Nordbrikt, will be unavailable to oppose you. You can visit him this evening if you have time. In the Neorion. I’m quite afraid you will not find him with his usual vigour, however. He is ... changed.’

  Mar’s spirit ebbed slightly; he had so often dreamed of being the architect of Haraldr Sigurdarson’s demise, perhaps even himself cleaving Norway’s skull and seeing the last instant of terror in his eyes. He bowed to Michael. ‘Perhaps I will console Nordbrikt later, Autocrator. I have told Bianca Maria that the Emperor of Rome has a golden lion that roars, and she wants very much to see it tonight.’

  ‘Get out, you gelded swine!’ Maria plucked the dish from the hands of the appalled chamberlain and hurled it at the Pecheneg guard who had escorted him into her ante-chamber. As the guard cowered from the hurtling silver disk spraying garos sauce, she bounced a goblet off his breastplate. ‘Get out!’ she screamed at the chamberlain; she kicked him in the seat of his white robe and shoved him out of the door, on the heels of his retreating Pecheneg escort.

  Maria returned to her bedchamber, leaned against the ponderous sleeping couch, and grunted as she slid it across the smooth marble floor. She hiked up her scaramangium and knelt beside the knife that had been concealed beneath the bed. Still on her knees, she ran the point of the knife along the fine seam between two sections of marble flooring. She popped up the slab of purple Docimian marble - it was no thicker than an ivory bookcover - and slide it aside. She lifted several more of these thin revetments before she finally exposed the underlying, fathom-wide masonry flooring tile she had been working on all day. She knocked out the few remaining chinks of mortar and arduously pried up the limestone slab, which was as thick as a bound Psalter. Once she had a handhold, she was able to slide the slab out of the way. She reached into the hypocaust heating duct and felt the oak slats of the ceiling below. She took a deep breath and slid into the duct.

  She could not lift her head enough to see even in front of her. She wriggled along in the dark, choking on the fine layer of dust. She wondered vaguely what it would be like to become stuck and die like this.

  Finally her outstretched hands grasped dead air. The heating closet, she thought with relief. She squirmed along until most of her torso projected into the dark cubicle. She could feel the opposite wall almost against her nose, and she panicked. No matter how she contorted herself, she would not have enough room to manoeuvre her legs out of the duct. She reached down and felt the round bronze lid of the furnace just below her. She prayed that it was not sealed. She pulled with desperate fingers and got the lid loose, then slid it off; it clattered to the floor of the closet. She realized she might have alerted the guards, and she put her arms out and dropped headfirst into the bronze belly of the furnace. There was not even a layer of ashes at the bottom. She thanked the Theotokos that this terrible day was at least not a cold one, and that the Empress’s servants were made to keep the furnaces clean.

  She was still stuck like a circus buffoon head first in a barrel. She lowered herself onto her elbows and pushed at the furnace’s fire door. It opened with a metallic scraping sound. She extended her arm and felt the wooden door of the surrounding closet. She prayed that it would not be locked. She pushed. It was. How long would it take to cut out the lock? She would have to right herself and somehow get the furnace out of the way. Was that possible? She thumped the door in frustration.

  The door flew open, and light burst like flame through the fire door. A face loomed, a demon waiting at the gates of Hell. A ghost, a spectre of the damned. Symeon.

  ‘Mistress,’ whispered the ancient eunuch. ‘Let me help you.’ He gave her his fragile yet surprisingly powerful hands and pulled. Like a serpent in dirty red silk, Maria slid head first into the storage room adjacent to the heating closet.

  ‘Symeon. You are truly the angel of my deliverance. Is it true about our Mother?’

  ‘Yes.’ Symeon seemed concerned but not desperate. ‘They have shorn her and sent her
away. But I expect her return shortly. The city has risen to defend her.’ Now Symeon was troubled. ‘Mistress, your Tauro-Scythian has been taken to Neorion. I am afraid his execution has already taken place.’

  ‘That cannot be. It cannot be. It simply . . .’ No, she told herself. His light has not gone out. No. Maria looked around the storeroom. Zoe had stockpiled hundreds of jars of her skin emollients and beauty unguents and face paints. ‘Symeon,’ whispered Maria, ‘I have to make myself presentable. And I am going to need your help.’ Symeon nodded with timeless grace.

  Haraldr moved his fingers. The pain shot through his arms. He moved his toes. It was a start. The poison had left his entire body without feeling. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious. When he had first awakened, he had not been able to see or hear. He still could not see. But he could hear now, though he wished he could not, and so he knew where he was. Neorion. His eyes felt as if daggers were piercing them, but he could not move his arms to touch his bloody sockets. He could not feel his arms, actually, but his fingers had moved. He still had a tongue, though, but so dry and swollen that he could hardly breathe. Let me live, Odin, let me live to destroy Rome. Like blind Samson, I will pull down the pillars. Maria had warned him. God the Father, if only he could touch her, he would live on the memories of her vision and her living touch.

  It was as if the halls were trumpets that amplified every noise, every scream. The Neorion was a vast conch, and the scream that started at the top would wind its way down and enter the ears and shatter inside the head so that the screamer died in one’s brain, clawing for life in a stranger’s skull. Things crawled out of the sludge and onto his legs and chest, and he could not pick them off. They bit him often; were they also chewing his shoulders? He prayed they would kill that man.

  The fire exploded in his face, and when they jerked him to his feet, he thought they had ripped his arms off. He tried to see them and butt with his head, but they kept the flame in his face and he could smell his hair burn. Demons! This was the Hell of Satan! Demons ripping his arms off! He slammed into the wall, trying to crush the creature beside him. They screamed in their demon tongue. Pechenegs! Haraldr slammed again and again against the wall and they beat him about the head, and the flames seared his face and dozens of arms grappled around him. He knew now that he was not blind. He could see them screaming. Then a flash and he could see nothing.

  When he awoke, he wondered if knives had been stuck in his neck and shoulders. He could see the interrogation chamber clearly, as if pain were a glass that distorted his thoughts but placed his vision in sharp focus. Four smooth-faced Pecheneg guards stood by while the two Pecheneg interrogators prepared their instruments. He cursed the gods who had lured him to this ignoble death and did not ask for their help. Then he remembered the wretch from the Studion he had seen butchered in this very room, and he felt the man’s soul still lingering, offering him courage.

  The shorter of the two Pechenegs, a man with brown chancre scars on his face and wide-set black eyes, picked up a steel brazier full of glowing coals and held it beneath Haraldr’s face. The heat seared his nostrils and baked his forehead. Haraldr tried to swat the fire away, and he realized that he was hanging off the ground, suspended by his bound hands; his arms were pulled up behind his back in an excruciating posture. He jerked his feet up, but they were held fast by chains and his ankles burned. He glared futilely at the instruments of darkness. Two irons the width of a woman’s little finger rested in the coals; the brands were white-orange at the sharpened tips. The second, taller Pecheneg put on thick leather smith’s gloves and rotated one of the irons. Embers flew up into Haraldr’s face. In some corner of his mind he observed the senseless humour of that; the last thing a man who is about to be blinded sees is flying sparks. No visions of golden cities, no final sunset.

  The door slid open and the Pechenegs turned. A fifth guard brought in a fowl on a spit and a basket of fruit. The two interrogators set the brazier at Haraldr’s feet and descended on the food with the rest; they placed the plucked bird on their table and sliced the nearly raw meat with the blades of their trade. One of them turned and made some joke about Haraldr in his guttural tongue. The rest began to eat noisily.

  ‘That is not enough.’ The commander of the Neorion’s Pecheneg garrison was a tall, ugly Asian, probably of mixed Saracen blood; his broad nostrils were in grotesque opposition to the sinister verticality of his long, hooked nose and dour, drooping chin. He pointed to the three gold solidi the elderly priest had placed on the table. ‘This prisoner is ... was an important man. Wealthy. Wealthy friends. You can pay more for the privilege of providing him spiritual succour. And I have to collect for both of you. A double toll, so to speak.’ He grinned, exposing rotten front teeth, and pointed to the black-swaddled and veiled nun, a stooped crone with some kind of skin disease; her wrinkled eyes were almost crusted shut.

  The priest, who wore the gold-embroidered shawl of a deacon of the Mother Church, emptied his purse with frail, trembling hands. Three more solidi spilled onto the table. The garrison commander grinned again. ‘Very well. But you don’t have much time. They have already gone to work on him.’ The priest and nun crossed themselves quickly.

  A single Pecheneg led the priest and nun up the dismal, mysteriously cold, endless flights. The wolf-shaped oil lamps seemed to struggle against the damp and darkness, the flames pitiful and stunted. At the tenth landing the Pecheneg knocked on the steel door, the security grate slid, and finally the door screeched open and offered up the reek of death. The priest and the nun were admitted to an ante-chamber a short distance down the icy hall. The black steel double doors of the interrogation chamber faced them. The five Pecheneg guards played a game on the floor with knucklebones. The priest gave each Pecheneg a copper nomismata. Two of them got up and slid the immense double doors open.

  The two interrogators were sharpening their blades again, having dulled them on their dinner. Haraldr lolled his head towards the new arrivals. A priest. His eyes teared with gratitude. The Pantocrator would also be with him in the end. Haraldr thought he had never seen anything more beautiful than the golden crosses embroidered on the priest’s shawl. The priest moved excruciatingly slowly. He gave coins to each of the interrogators and brandished his jewelled cross at them. They bowed and retreated; as part of their indoctrination they had been shown the Hagia Sophia, and subsequently they had no wish to offend any of the wizards who could bring the sun inside at night and bridge the sky with molten gold.

  The old crone came forward, too, her veiled, crusted, hideous face lowered to spare her the sight of Haraldr’s bloodied head and filthy, almost naked body. The priest chanted and knelt at Haraldr’s feet. Haraldr could not understand why the priest was tugging on one of the thick hide ankle collars, looped through chains, that restrained his legs. He looked absently to his feet. The priest, now furiously chanting, clutched a dagger in his withered, corpselike hands. He was sawing away at the collars. Haraldr looked up in horror at the two Pechenegs. They busied themselves shining their new coins, then held them up to the oil lamps and played with the reflections. Who was this unlikely saviour? If he could just get his legs loose before the Pechenegs lost interest in their newfound wealth! The old crone was looking at him; she had forced her crusted eyes open. . . .

  Holy Father. Just to see them again, even if he died now. They were two sapphires with fires behind them. He mouthed her name in spite of his swollen tongue. Maria’s shoulders heaved and her eyes teared, but she steadied herself. She looked over at the Pechenegs and came around Haraldr’s back. The priest had cut one of the collars loose. Haraldr’s wrists were bound but not chained, and Maria hacked at the ropes. One of the Pechenegs was distracted from his coin, focused his black eyes for a moment, and barked at his companion. They stepped forward, not yet alarmed, and peered curiously at the priest. Haraldr whipped his free leg up and cracked the short Pecheneg on the side of the head with his foot; the man fell like a drunk. The second interrogator r
an for the steel doors, and Maria dashed after him and plunged her knife in his back; the Pecheneg’s arms shot out sideways and he turned and looked at her in amazement. He shouted as he fell. Haraldr pulled desperately and the bonds at his wrist loosened as the doors slid open. One of the guards looked in. Maria stabbed at him but her knife clattered off his breastplate. Haraldr pitched forward on his face as his wrist came loose; the priest, who had been working all the time on the second ankle collar, crumpled beneath him. The muscles in Haraldr’s shoulders seemed to rip as he pulled his arms free, but he had the strength of Odin now. He rolled to his feet and whacked the guard with his still-numb arm and sent him sprawling. The priest struggled to his feet and Haraldr realized he was Zoe’s eunuch, Symeon. Haraldr’s head roared with the howling winds of the spirit world. Another guard peered into the interrogation chamber and Haraldr slammed the steel doors shut on his head; the Pecheneg’s face seemed to blow up with blood, and his nose and eyes spurted. Haraldr let the limp body slump inside, removed the sword from the belt, threw the doors open, and faced the remaining four men; the guard in the hall had joined the three Pechenegs. Haraldr was not even conscious of how he killed them, but the strange sword sang to him in the same melody as his own.

  Haraldr came back into the interrogation chamber and methodically slit the throats of the men he had left unconscious. He looked at Maria, who had retrieved her bloody knife, and with some removed consciousness contemplated the terrible spectacle of their reunion. Then he embraced her. ‘Father, I am glad I did not die before this moment,’ he told her.

  ‘Oh, Mother of God!’ she gasped cathartically. She broke down at last and tried to rub the blood off his face.

  Haraldr turned gratefully to the determined-looking eunuch Symeon and wondered how courage had ever come to be associated with a man’s testicles. ‘Symeon, you and Maria must go down now, before someone discovers this.’