At last the Master of Offices was beginning to catch some of the younger man’s enthusiasm. “The Virgin protect me, you may be right after all! I can see how this invention could prove a great boon for government. Imperial rescripts would become much easier to produce. And—oh, think of it! We could make endless copies of the same standard forms and send them throughout the Empire. And it might not even be too much labor to have other forms, on which we could keep track of whether the first ones had been properly dispatched. I can fairly see the scheme now, can’t you?”
Argyros could, only too well. He wondered if he would be able to change his boss’s mind back again.
VI
Etos Kosmou 6826
Had he not decided to pray at the church of St. Mouamet, Basil Argyros would never have got caught in the riot.
The church was in a poor part of Constantinople, not far from the Theodosian harbor on the Sea of Marmara. It held only about twenty people. As a magistrianos, Argyros could have chosen a more splendid holy place. He had prayed in Hagia Sophia often enough.
But St. Mouamet was one of Argyros’s favorites. He had a fine church in distant New Carthage much grander than the little shrine dedicated to him here in the capital. Argyros had seen it a couple of years ago, when he was in Ispania to ferret out the secret of the Franco-Saxons’ hellpowder. Come to think of it, he had also prayed to St. Mouamet before he set out for Syria last year to see what mischief the Persians were stirring up in the border fortress of Daras. He wondered idly if this visit to Mouamet’s church portended another voyage.
He picked his way through the winding alleys of the harbor district toward the Mese. Once or twice, toughs eyed him speculatively, but decided it wiser to leave him alone. He might wear a gold ring on one finger, but he also slung a smallsword on his belt. Moreover, he was a tall, solidly built man, still strong though close to forty.
Unlike the back alleys, the Mese was paved with blocks of stone; Argyros scraped mud from his sandals. Colonnades on either side of the street supported roofs that gave shelter from sun and rain. When it had been showery the night before, as was true now, they also dripped. Argyros walked in the middle of the street, dodging mules, small carts, and heavily laden porters.
The Mese widened out into the Forum of Arkadios. The other squares in the city were named for great Emperors: Augustus, Constantine, Theodosios. Theodosios’s halfwit son, Argyros thought, hardly belonged in such exalted company.
A crowd had gathered at the base of the tall column in the center of the square. Once a statue of Arkadios had topped the pillar, but an earthquake had sent it crashing down about a hundred years after Mouamet’s time. Only a colossal hand and forearm survived, set up next to the column. Standing balanced on two man-sized fingertips, a monk was haranguing the crowd.
The fellow was scrawny, swarthy, and not very clean. He wore a ragged black robe and let his hair grow long, so that it fell in a tangled mat past his shoulders. A fanatical light burned in his eyes as he shouted out his message, whatever it was.
His Greek, Argyros noticed as he approached, had a strong Egyptian accent. That sent the first trickle of alarm through the magistrianos. Egyptians were volatile and still reckoned themselves a folk apart despite having been part of the Roman Empire since before the Incarnation. As if to emphasize their separateness, many still clung to the Monophysite heresy; even those nominally orthodox had strange notions about the relationship between Christ’s human and divine natures.
The monk came to his peroration just as Argyros reached the back edge of the crowd. “And so,” he cried, “you can see how these icons are a desecration and an abomination, a snare of Satan to deceive us into circumscribing the uncircumscribable.” He drew an image of Christ from within his robe, held it over his head so his audience could see what it was, then dashed it with all his strength against the column beside him.
Cheers rang out; so did shouts of “Blasphemy!” Someone flung a large melon at the monk. He ducked, only to be caught in the side of the head by a stone. He toppled to the ground. The stone-thrower’s triumphant bellow turned to a howl of pain and fury when someone punched him in the face.
Crying, “Down with the icons!” several young men dashed for the first church they could find, hot to match action to word. An old woman hit one of them over the head with her basket of figs, then kicked him as he sprawled on the cobbles.
The Egyptian monk was on his feet again, laying about him with a stick. Argyros heard it thud into someone’s ribs. Then his interest in the broil abruptly went from professional to personal. Without bothering to find out which side he was on, a fat man ran up and kicked him in the shin.
His yelp was reflexive. So was his counterpunch. The fat man reeled away, a hand clapped to his bleeding nose. But he had friends. One of them seized Argyros’s arms from behind. Another hit him in the stomach. Before they could do him worse damage, a ferret-faced man neatly bludgeoned the rioter who had hit the magistrianos. He fell with a groan.
Argyros stomped on the foot of the man behind him. As his sandals had hobnails, the fellow shrieked and let go. By the time the magistrianos whirled around, his smallsword drawn, the rioter was retreating at a limping run.
“Thanks,” Argyros said to the chap who was so handy with a cudgel.
That worthy was on his knees next to the man he had felled, busily rifling his beltpouch. He looked up for a moment, grinning. “Don’t mention it. Down with the icons!”
Like most educated Constantinopolitans, Argyros fancied himself a theologian, but it had never occurred to him to wonder if religious images were wrong. They were simply there: the iconostasis in front of the altar, the mosaics and paintings on the walls and ceilings of churches. At the moment, however, he lacked the leisure to meditate on their propriety.
As riots have a way of doing, this one was rapidly outgrowing the incident that had spawned it. Already several merchants’ stalls had been overturned and looted, and another went over with a crash as Argyros watched. A woman ran past him with her arms full of cheap sea-shell jewelry. A man struggled to drag away a chair and was set upon and robbed in his turn before he had got it thirty feet. The magistrianos sniffed fearfully for smoke; a maniac with a torch or the burning oil from a broken lamp could set half the city ablaze.
Through the shouts and screams that filled the square, through the sound of splintering boards, Argyros heard a deep, rhythmic tramping coming down the Mese from the east, getting closer fast. Nor was he the only one. “The excubitores!” The warning cry came from three throats at once.
A company of the imperial bodyguards burst into the square. A barrage of rocks, vegetables, and crockery greeted them. They ducked behind their brightly painted shields, each of which was inscribed with the labarum——Christ’s monogram. One excubitor went down. The rest surged forward, swinging long hardwood clubs.
The rioters stood no chance against their grimly disciplined efficiency. Here and there a man, or even two and three together, would stand and fight. They got broken heads for their trouble. The excubitores rolled across the Forum of Arkadios like a wave traveling up a beach.
Argyros fled with most of the rest of the people in the square. Approaching an excubitor and explaining that he too was an imperial official struck him as an exercise in futility—and a good way to get hurt.
As it happened, he got hurt anyway. The alley down which he and several other people ran proved blocked by a mulecart that did not have room to turn around. A squad of excubitores came pounding after. The magistrianos’s cry of protest and fear was drowned by everyone else’s, and by the triumphant shouts of the guardsmen. He felt a burst of pain. His vision flared white, then plunged into darkness.
It was nearly sunset when he groaned and rolled over. His fingers went to the knot of anguish at the back of his head. They came away sticky with blood. He groaned again, managed to sit up, and, on the second try, staggered to his feet.
As he shakily walked back toward the Forum of Ark
adios, he discovered someone had stolen his smallsword and slit his purse. Maybe, he thought, pleased with his deductive powers, it was the same ruffian who had sapped the man in the plaza and then robbed him. And maybe it wasn’t. Trying to decide which only made his headache worse.
The Forum of Arkadios, usually crowded, was empty now except for a couple of dozen excubitores. “On your way, you,” one of them growled at Argyros. He did his best to hurry.
There were excubitores on the Mese down toward the Forum of the Ox, and more in that square. Constantinople was buttoned up tight, trying to keep trouble from breaking free again. Another soldier approached the magistrianos. “Move along, fellow. Where are you supposed to be?”
“Mother of God!” Argyros exclaimed. “I’m supposed to dine with the Master of Offices tonight!” The engagement had been beaten out of his memory.
Seeing his bedraggled state, the excubitor set hands on hips and laughed. “Sure you are, pal, and I’m playing dice with the Emperor tomorrow.”
Waving vaguely to the trooper, Argyros hurried down the Mese toward George Lakhanodrakon’s residence. The Master of Offices lived in a fashionable quarter in the eastern part of the city, not far from the great church of Hagia Sophia and the imperial palaces.
The magistrianos hurried through the Forum of Theodosios and that of Constantine, with its tall porphyry column and its waterclock. He passed the Praitorion, the government building where he worked when he was in Constantinople. Darkness was falling as he lurched into the Augusteion, the main square of the city, which was flanked by Hagia Sophia, the palace district, and the hippodrome. Dinner was set for sunset. He was going to be late.
George Lakhanodrakon’s doorman, a Syrian named Zacharias, knew Argyros well. He exclaimed in polite horror as the magistrianos came up. “By the Thrice-Holy One, sir! What happened?”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Argyros said indignantly. “I know I’m not quite on time, and I’m sorry, but—”
The doorman was gaping at him. “On time? Sir, your face, your clothes—”
“Huh?” His wits muddled by the blow he had taken, the magistrianos had been so intent on getting to Lakhanodrakon’s house that he had not even thought about his appearance. Now he looked down at himself. His tunic was torn, filthy, and bloodstained. A swipe of his hand across his face brought away more dirt and dried blood.
“Sir, you’d better come with me.” Calling for other servants to help him, Zacharias took Argyros’s arm and half led, half carried him through the doorway. Like the houses of most wealthy men, Lakhanodrakon’s was built in a square pattern around a court, with blank, marble-faced walls fronting the street. On a fine, mild evening like this one, the dinner party would be held in the court, amid the fountains and trees.
Argyros did not get that far. Lakhanodrakon’s servants took him to a guestroom and laid him on a couch. One ran for a physician while others washed his face and the ugly wound on the back of his head. They fetched him wine, stripped him of his tunic, and dressed him in one belonging to the Master of Offices.
He was beginning to feel human, in a sorrowful way, when Lakhanodrakon himself hurried into the room, concern on his strong, fleshy features. “St. Andreas preserve us!” he burst out, swearing by Constantinople’s patron. “Don’t tell me the ruffians waylaid you this afternoon, Basil!”
“Well, actually, no, your illustriousness,” Argyros said ruefully. “As a matter of fact, it was an excubitor.” He added, “I think he hit me with Arkadios’s column.” Despite the wine, his head was still splitting.
“You stay here until the doctor has had a look at you,” Lakhanodrakon commanded. “Then if you’d sooner go home, I’ll have Zacharias send for a linkbearer for you. Or if you’re well enough to join us outside, of course we’ll be delighted to have you.”
“Thank you, sir; you’re very kind.”
The physician arrived a few minutes later; anyone summoned to the Master of Offices’ residence hurried. The man shaved the back of Argyros’s scalp, applied an ointment that smelled of pitch and stung ferociously, and bandaged his head with a long strip of linen. Then he held a lamp to the magistrianos’s face and peered into each of his eyes in turn.
“I don’t believe there is a concussion,” he said at last. “Your pupils are both the same size.” He gave Argyros a small jar. “This will reduce the pain; it has poppy juice in it. Drink half now, the rest in the morning.” Business-like to the end, he waved aside Argyros’s thanks and departed as quickly as he had come.
The magistrianos would have recognized the odd scent and flavor of the poppy without the doctor’s explanation. They brought back grim memories of the time when his infant son died of smallpox. As he forced himself to, he shoved the memories aside.
Though he still felt slow and stupid, he went out to the courtyard. Having come this far, he was not about to miss the dinner party, no matter what Lakhanodrakon said.
The Master of Offices’ other guests, naturally, swarmed around him and made much of him, when he would rather have taken his quiet place on a couch and drunk more wine. Not everyone knew what had touched off the riot. There was a thoughtful silence after Argyros told them. Then the imperial grandees began arguing the propriety of images among themselves.
Normally, the magistrianos would have played a vigorous part in the debate. Now, though, he was content merely to seize the opportunity to recline. Servants offered him fried squid, tuna cooked with leeks, roast kid in a sauce of fermented fish. He turned everything down. The smell of food made him queasy.
He slapped at a mosquito; the torches and lanterns that made Lakhanodrakon’s courtyard bright as day drew swarms of them. He wondered why the Master of Offices had so many lights set out. Half the number, he thought, would have been plenty.
Then a servant passed among the guests, handing each one a papyrus folio. Argyros caught Lakhanodrakon’s eye. “You didn’t tell me you would be reading your poetry tonight,” he called.
“I was not sure I would finish the fourth book of my Italiad in time for this evening,” the Master of Offices said. “I’m distributing book three here, to bring everyone up to date in the story. Thanks to you,” he went on, bowing politely, “the company is already familiar with books one and two.” If this was a printed version of book three—and Argyros saw it was—it seemed Lakhanodrakon had taken the clay archetypes to heart after all.
Along with his fellow guests, the magistrianos skimmed through the folio. Lakhanodrakon had tried lines on him, and he had even contributed a suggestion or two himself, so he knew the poem fairly well.
“Now that you’ve been refreshed as to the background, my friends, I shall commence,” the Master of Offices declared. To read, he held his manuscript at arm’s length; he was growing more farsighted year by year.
Some of the verses were quite good, and Lakhanodrakon read well. His faint Armenian accent suited the martial tale he was telling. The magistrianos wished he could pay closer attention. The poppy juice and the lingering effects of the blow combined to make him feel detached, almost floating above his couch.…
A polite patter of applause woke him. He guiltily joined in, hoping no one had seen him doze off. The dinner party began to break up. When he went over to the Master of Offices to say his good-byes, Lakhanodrakon would not listen to them. “You spend the night here, Basil. You’re in no shape to go home alone.”
“Thank you, sir,” the magistrianos said, though he wished Lakhanodrakon had not been so insistent. It only made him certain his boss had noticed him asleep.
Argyros’s secretary unceremoniously dumped a handful of rolled-up papyri on his desk. “Thank you, Anthimos,” the magistrianos said.
Anthimos grunted. He always reminded Argyros of a mournful crane. Capable but without enthusiasm or real talent, he would never be anything more than a secretary, and knew it. When he returned to his own work, Argyros forgot about him the moment his back was turned.
The magistrianos read rapidly over the interroga
tion reports taken from the men and women the excubitores had captured during the riot. They showed him little he had not learned from his own brief encounter. The rabblerousing monk’s name, he found out, was Sasopis, which confirmed the fellow’s Egyptian origin. Accounts of just what he had preached varied, depending on how each witness felt about icons.
Sasopis himself had escaped. As would any Constantinopolitan official, Argyros thought that a shame. Ever since the Nika uprising, its specter haunted the city. Anyone who thought to bring back such chaos deserved whatever he got.
For the next couple of weeks, the city stayed calm. The magistrianos accepted that with gratitude but no great trust, as he might have welcomed one of the last fine days before the autumn storms began. He used the respite to try to track down Sasopis, but to no avail. The miserable monk might have vanished off the face of the earth, though that, Argyros thought sourly, was too much to hope for.
When the trouble broke out again, Sasopis had nothing to do with it. Yet still it sprang from Egypt: as the plague had in Justinian’s day, strife came now via grain ship from Alexandria. Sailors went off to wench and drink and roister, and took with them the exciting tales of the turmoil they had left behind. Up and down the Nile, it seemed, men were at each other’s throats over the question of the icons.
Argyros could imagine what happened next, in some dockside tavern or brothel lounge. Someone would have said scornfully, “What foolishness! My grandfather venerated images, and that’s enough for me.” And someone else would have answered, “Because your grandfather burns in hell, do you want to join him?” That would have been plenty to bring out the knives.
The second round of rioting was not confined to the Forum of Arkadios, and took the excubitores, the scholae, and the other palace regiments four days to put down. Several churches had their icons defaced with whitewash or scraped from the walls, while one was put to the torch. Luckily, it stood alone in a little park, and the fire did not spread.
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