Byzantium - A Novel

by Michael Ennis

  Constantine clutched Haraldr’s arm, his grip firm and his face now resolute. ‘You!’ he commanded Haraldr. ‘Please order these people to stand back. I will show you how a man of ability bears his calamity!’ Haraldr pushed the labourers away and cleared a space for Constantine to lie down. Constantine sat on the scoured, dusty turf. Haraldr signalled to Halldor and Ulfr to lay him down flat and hold his arms and legs securely; if he moved about, he might be wounded even more severely. Constantine looked up at Haraldr, his eyes spitting their final rage. ‘Look, you! If you see me so much as budge, then you may nail me down!’ Haraldr motioned Halldor and Ulfr away, and Constantine reclined with trembling determination. Haraldr begged the forgiveness of the gods as he straddled him, kneeling. Constantine convulsed, then became still. He made no appeal for mercy. The Emperor beside him bellowed incoherently like a sacrificial calf, pounded his fists together, and then began to strike himself in the face.

  Haraldr worked quickly. He pressed the right eyeball to one side of the socket, jabbed it firmly with the sharpened spike, and the sight flowed out in a glutinous serum. He took the left eye and stood up. Constantine rose with him and Psellus helped hold the blind man up. ‘I do not fear the darkness,’ said Constantine to that darkness.

  ‘Please spare me, Nordbrikt! Satan lied to me! He said he was the Pantocrator! I let them live! He wanted me to kill them but I let them live!’ Michael spat as he screamed. ‘Satan has fouled me! The true Pantocrator will have to cleanse me!’ Michael threw his arms around Haraldr’s knees and clung to him, trembling with spastic fury. ‘Father! The Pantocrator must cleanse me. I must live to be cleansed. My mothers must cleanse me. Mother, oh Mother, oh Mother, oh Holy Father! Let me live so that I may be cleansed.’

  Michael’s pleas only inflamed the surging lust of the crowd, and Haraldr forced him to the ground in the tiny space cleared by Halldor and Ulfr. He pressed heavily on Michael’s chest, compressing his lungs so that he could no longer cry out. Michael’s legs and arms continued to twitch madly. Haraldr lowered his face to the already unseeing eyes. ‘I will let you live,’ he said, ‘if you will tell me where Maria is.’

  Reason flew over Michael’s face like the shadow of a passing bird. ‘Oh, Holy Father, let me live,’ he said raspily. ‘I do not need my sight to repent in the pure light of Your Being.’ He blinked again, and his dark eyes saw for the last time. ‘I did not harm her. She is with Zoe.’ Michael strained forward and focused on Haraldr. ‘This was arranged for us, was it not? In the Mother Church that day.’

  Haraldr nodded. ‘Yes. I, too, felt . . . it.’

  Michael’s head fell back and he awaited fate. ‘Some day a king will show you mercy,’ he whispered. Haraldr brought the spike down twice, swiftly but carefully, to destroy the raven’s reflection in the dying sight of Michael Kalaphates.

  Haraldr helped Michael to his feet and Constantine reached out for his nephew. The former rulers of Rome were guided to each other’s arms and they embraced in a darkness they alone could share. The noise of the crowd receded outwards from the vortex, fading like the denouement of some vast orchestration. The wind was audible again, a harsh, scouring sound, as it buried the twilight in a shroud of dust. Silently the great crush of people fell away, recoiling more with fear than satiation from the evidence of destiny’s implacable hand; they retreated through the shadowed borders of the park and left Michael and Constantine to the soughing empty night. Yet no sooner had the crowd vanished than a new chant began a haunting ascent from the surrounding city, rising to confront the swirling wind. ‘Theodora! Theodora!’

  ‘Children! Children!’ pleaded Alexius. ‘The weight of all of you will collapse your Mother Church! As many of your brothers and sisters as this sacred roof can shelter have been admitted! Let them be your eyes! And the purple-born daughters of the Pantocrator will appear to you soon to bless you for your forbearance!’

  The crowd let loose a thunderous acclamation and halted its menacing surge against the west facade of the Hagia Sophia. Haraldr looked out from beneath the arches of the narthex; he stood just behind the Patriarch. The area encompassing the porch, portico and garden in front of the church was a black-and-gold tapestry of flaming tapers; the gradually diminishing pinpoints of light filled the Augustaion and ascended the Mese towards the Forum of Constantine. The entire city had come to welcome its Mothers.

  Alexius turned to Haraldr and asked him to precede him through the mob that had squeezed into the narthex. The faces that blocked the way were a cross section of the great city: dirty-haired labourers; a puffy-faced, silk-garbed merchant; scented bureaucrats; even a beggar crawling with lice. These heads lowered deferentially and the bodies tried to move respectfully back, but the crowd was so dense that they could scarcely move, and Haraldr had to bull through with the Patriarch tucked in behind him.

  The immense circular candelabra floated with galactic splendour beneath the light-wreathed dome. Glowing stringcourses of candles and oil lamps ran along every cornice and ledge. The floor was a solid mass of people, and the towering second-level arcades were filled with entire populations. The carved balustrades of the narrow walkways above the arcades seemed on the verge of giving way beneath the weight of the people squeezed behind them; the slender stone ledges in front of the railings were perches for hundreds who clung precariously to the intricate grills. The people had even found their way to the catwalk that encircled the base of the hemispherical central dome, and hung in even more perilous positions more than a dozen storeys above the heads of their fellow citizens. It was only a matter of time before someone plunged into the crowd.

  Theodora, flanked by her chamberlains, stood on the silver roof of the ambo, directly beneath the central dome. She was attired in the same purple-and-gold robes and ponderous diadem she had worn throughout the afternoon. Haraldr pushed through the crowd and after an arduous journey delivered Alexius to the marble staircase of the ambo. Alexius motioned for Haraldr to come up the steps behind him.

  Theodora’s lips puckered with fatigue and fear. She looked gratefully at Alexius and then Haraldr as they stepped onto the roof beside her. Alexius stood next to her and motioned to Haraldr to stand directly behind the Empress, so close that he could have embraced her. The glittering pearl-and-diamond lappets that coursed over Theodora’s ears trembled slightly, reflecting the agitation of their wearer.

  ‘I must acclaim you,’ said Alexius. ‘They are growing impatient.’

  ‘No,’ said Theodora, her voice slightly tremulous. ‘Wait another half hour. I know she will come.’

  Alexius looked out at the sea of expectant faces. ‘I will delay for a half hour,’ he said. ‘Then I must, and pray that our Holy Father’s sanction can overcome your sister’s enmity.’ He steeped back from Theodora and pulled Haraldr aside. ‘You have been through the city and dealt with the factions. What is your assessment?’

  ‘The poor folk will accept Theodora alone. The guild and trade factions expect to acclaim both Empresses,’ said Haraldr grimly. ‘If they are not both presented here tonight, the factions will turn on one another. The guildsmen are already rumbling their threats.’ Haraldr pointed to the Varangians who ringed the base of the ambo. ‘I am certain my men can escort the Empress safely to your apartments, but we will have to stain our swords with the blood of this morning’s comrades and profane the floors of this holy place. And by tomorrow morning there will be a full-scale civil war in the streets of the city. Even my men and the Taghmata will not be able to quell the violence. Rome will be destroyed.’

  Alexius blanched slightly, but his eyes did not flinch from Haraldr’s forecast. ‘Yes’ - he nodded gravely - ‘you are quite astute. You will be an able king.’ His eyes slowly swept the huge church. ‘I will wait as long as I can. Then I must acclaim her. Better that we please half of these than no one at all.’

  The half hour passed beneath the blazing lights. ‘Where is Zoe?’ shouted a guildsman near the ambo. The cry was taken up briefly. ‘Zoe! Zoe!’ The poor
folk countered with ‘Theodora! Theodora! Give us our Empress!’ A fight broke out just beneath the ambo, and Halldor’s shoulders cleaved the crowd as he waded in to separate the combatants. At the back of the church another scuffle erupted and began to spread. Soon there was a twenty-person brawl just in front of the narthex. The shouting became general, and many of the people on the catwalks and arcades leaned over and shook their fists.

  ‘We are losing the moment God has given us,’ said Alexius. He stepped forward. ‘Children of God!’ the Patriarch’s voice ran through the domes. He made the sign of the cross and the crowd quieted. ‘Where is Zoe!’ shouted someone defiantly. The shoving near the narthex resumed.

  A roar came from within the narthex. Haraldr realized that the violence was probably much more ferocious outside the church; now the mob outside was forcing its way in. He sickened at the thought of killing these people. The pressure of the crowd outside surged against those inside, and they began to fall to the marble floor in successive waves. Haraldr shouted to Halldor to ready a boar to carry Theodora to safety. The roaring from outside continued. ‘Forget the acclamation! We only have time to save her!’ shouted Haraldr to Alexius. Haraldr took Theodora’s bony elbow and urged her towards the steps.

  ‘No!’ Theodora shook her arm loose and stood stiffly, her head erect. ‘They will have to carry me from this place.’ Haraldr looked desperately at Alexius. The cost of the Empress’s safety was rising with every oath the crowd uttered. Alexius shook his head helplessly.

  Haraldr turned towards the narthex. The crowd had quieted, and those who had fallen remained prone without struggling to rise. The Imperial Diadem and purple-and-gold robes glittered beneath the massive pediment of the church’s main door. The Empress and Augusta Zoe stepped through the prostrate forms of her subjects with the grace of a dancer. Behind Zoe walked the Mistress of the Robes in a celestial white-and-gold scaramangium. Maria’s blue eyes were visible even across half the vast nave. Her pearl-wreathed head never dipped to observe her feet despite the awkward path. She always looked directly at the ambo. Theodora’s slender shoulders heaved once, and she gasped with relief and joy. Alexius made the sign of the cross and his terrible eyes enjoyed an instant of triumph before they focused on the unseen foe he was now girded to meet.

  Zoe ascended the stairs of the ambo in a silence so absolute that Haraldr could hear the click of her pearled hem against the marble steps. Her face was heavily masked with paint and powder, but her reddened, shrouded eyes betrayed both the terror of the last few days and the emotion of the moment. Her gaze swept quickly past her sister and Alexius as she mounted the ambo and turned to her people. Maria looked steadily at Haraldr as she came to the top of the steps, and there was much as passion in her glistening eyes and faintly twitching lips as he had ever known when he had held her naked in his arms. Then she turned, bowed to Theodora and the Patriarch, and stood between the two sisters.

  Zoe looked down on her still-prostrate subjects. ‘Augusta Theodora,’ she said without looking at her sister, ‘I offer you the equal share of my office and my throne.’

  ‘Not equal, Augusta Zoe,’ said Theodora, her face brilliant with emotion. ‘You have precedence. I acknowledge that. And you are free to marry if you wish, and place an Emperor above us both. I owe you that much.’

  Zoe’s breast surged and she blinked rapidly. Her sensual lips trembled, naked with emotion. ‘I have missed you,’ she whispered.

  Theodora turned to Zoe with abrupt, artless sincerity; for a moment it seemed her precarious crown would topple. Tears moistened her dry, red cheeks. ‘Sister,’ she whispered. Zoe turned. ‘Sister,’ she said, her eyes welling. They confronted each other for a moment, and then stepped forward and embraced.

  Maria came to Haraldr’s side. The last time he had seen her she had been disguised as a hideous crone; now he had never seen her more beautiful, her eyes more supernaturally radiant. She grazed his sleeve with her finger; he thought his knees would buckle with the intoxication of that mere contact. ‘I love you,’ she whispered as the sisters continued to exchange caresses and their own intimacies. ‘I could not send word to you. Symeon and I hid all night. We were able to get Zoe away from Michael and have spent the rest of the day persuading her. We knew that everything depended on it.’

  ‘It did,’ whispered Haraldr. ‘It seems that today you and I, with considerable help, have given Rome a new fate.’

  ‘Yes. I wonder if that is the destiny we have so often felt in each other’s arms.’

  ‘Perhaps. The only destiny I am concerned with now is the one that places you in my arms tonight.’

  Tears beaded Maria’s fine dark lashes, and she touched Haraldr’s sleeve again.

  ‘Rise up, Rome!’ Alexius’s voice resounded through the domes and the crowd seemed to stand as one. ‘Rise up and welcome the Light of the World! Rise up and welcome the purple-born Majesties the Empress and Augusta Zoe and the Empress and Augusta Theodora!’

  ‘Long life to Zoe and Theodora!’ thundered the crowd over and over again, an acclamation of such pounding resonance that Haraldr actually looked up to make certain that the groaning walls still supported the immense domes. Alexius made the sign of the cross and held his hands over the heads of the Empresses to symbolize that they had both received the crown from the Hands of the Pantocrator. The chants continued for some time. After a while Theodora beckoned Maria, embraced her, and bade her stay at her side. The three women looked from one to the other, their faces jubilant.

  Haraldr studied the three faces with his own joy. There seemed to be a magic about them; not just the beauty of two of the women, or the spectacle of the Imperial raiment, but something much more familiar; the charmed way their pearl-like teeth flashed as they smiled and whispered close to each other’s ears, the sense that something more profound than even fate had brought them together. He remembered how Maria had said that Zoe and Theodora were both her mothers. That thought prompted a strange shift in his vision, almost as if he had removed a distorting glass from his eyes; suddenly he could see something he had not noticed before because he had never thought to notice it. He had long since forgotten how much alike Maria and Zoe had appeared to him the first time he had seen them together, and yet now with Zoe’s very different sister present, he was struck by the subtle similarities between all three of them, a certain line to the mouth, the structure of the bones around the eyes. They were as much alike as a daughter and . . . Haraldr felt a cold finger trace up his back and he realized that destiny had not yet finished its game with him. Maria’s parents, he was now certain, had not merely been friends of Zoe and Theodora. One of them, most likely Maria’s mother, had shared the same purple blood.

  X

  ‘Duck!’ Halldor gestured to the Imperial Chamberlain. ‘The Varangians are eating the duck,’ he explained to the desperate-looking eunuch. He pointed to the other end of the long table. ‘The Senators are dining on pork.’ The harried chamberlain hissed a flurry of new directions to the servants. The suckling pig that the servants had tried to serve Halldor was hurriedly transported directly in front of the ever-regenerate Senator and Proconsular Patrician Romanus Scylitzes. Large grilled ducks were placed on silver platters in front of Halldor, Ulfr and Hord Stefnirson. Halldor politely told the hovering eunuch that the Varangians would carve their own meat. The tablecloth fluttered in the strong, dry September wind; the weight of the Imperial Eagles embroidered in gold thread kept the fabric from being whipped away in the occasional gusts. The sun was brilliant and the sky as clear as blue porcelain.

  ‘Where is Haraldr?’ asked Ulfr, nodding to the empty place setting next to Halldor.

  ‘He is working on another petition,’ said Halldor.

  Ulfr rolled his eyes. ‘I hope this one works. In another month it will be too late to start out. We will have to wait until next spring. And by then we may be too fat to move.’

  Senator Scylitzes stood and began a celebration of the ‘demi-deified Achillean virtues’ of
the new Emperor Constantine Monomachus, whom Zoe had taken as her husband only two months after the deposition of Michael Kalaphates. (According to court gossip, Constantine Monomachus had been one of Zoe’s lovers during her first marriage, to the Emperor Romanus.) The Monomach, as he was known, was virtually everything the Imperial Court valued in an Emperor; he was handsome, graceful in his movements, charming and adept in his speech, and an able military commander. But the august Imperial dignitaries had quickly discovered one particularly egregious flaw in their new Emperor. The Monomach preferred coarse companions: innkeepers, merchants and professional loungers, many of whom he had promoted to Senatorial rank immediately after receiving the diadem and sceptre of his office. And many of whom were now seated at the end of table, utterly ignoring Scylitzes’s endless discourse as they played with their food, knives and a wooden court ball that they casually lobbed across the table in curious concert to the rhythm of Scylitzes’s sentences.

  ‘Does that man ever shut up?’ asked Hord in disbelief.

  ‘Senator Scylitzes has received a suitable reward for his remarkable adaptability,’ said Halldor. ‘He succeeded in rescuing his fortune from the mob, in which he was more fortunate than many of his Dhynatoi comrades. But Scylitzes, who once would not have deigned to walk on the same side of the street as an honest merchant, must now acknowledge as his colleagues some of the foremost rascals of the lower Mese. Notice how they appreciate the Senator’s Attic eloquence.’

  A group of masons walked by, pallets of thin clay bricks loaded on their backs. ‘Does the Emperor usually go to these lengths to inspect a building project?’ asked Hord.

  Halldor laughed. The table at which they sat had been set up in a large open yard behind a fairly modest town house just northeast of the Forum of Constantine. The busy masons were laying a foundation for a considerable annex to the house, an expansion twice as big as the original structure. ‘For this particular building he does,’ said Halldor. ‘The Emperor is particularly interested in inspecting some equipment in the existing house.’