But John has someone with him, a youth whom he is pushing towards her. Zoe has been talking to the patriarch, making a small wager on the next race. She glances up. “Empress,” John says, forcing his thin eunuch’s voice down to its lowest register, as he always does, “may I present to you Michael, my youngest brother, just up from the country, from our village in Paphlagonia, so anxious to see the races. He is hoping for a place at court. Bow to the Empress.” He pinches the boy’s arm. The youth ducks his head at her and smiles—a bold, confident smile, almost insolent. And, for a moment, her breath catches. His hair is black and oiled, his skin white as milk, his cheeks rosy, his clothes decently cut, though cheap; his boots are scuffed, he wears a ring on his finger with a vulgarly large stone, surely fake. His chin is smooth. She holds out her hand for him to kiss. He doesn’t merely brush it with his lips and release it. He holds her fingers tightly, longer than he should, and presses his lips hard to her plump, unwrinkled flesh. She is momentarily flustered.
“Are you a eunuch, Michael?”
“No, Lady.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen, a sweet age. What a good-looking boy you are, and you know it too, don’t you? I’m sure you have many conquests among the village girls.” She’s flirting with him, she realizes with a shock. A boy young enough to be her son.
Michael lowers his eyes becomingly, his cheeks flush. And then again that bold smile.
“Oh, he has the looks in the family, he has,” John interposes, attempting a laugh. John’s laughter is blood-chilling.
Zoe ignores the Guardian of Orphans. “Michael, what would you like to do in the palace? What education have you had?”
For the first time the boy looks unsure of himself. “I can read.”
“And what do you like to read?”
Michael is silent.
“He’s a very bright young man,” John breaks in hastily. “Writes a good hand, he’ll make an excellent clerk. He can work for me for a start. I’m overwhelmed with work, as you must know, Empress. The accounts, the tax registers—”
“Michael,” she interrupts John without looking at him, “I am sure the Emperor will find something suitable for you and, in the meantime, you may come and visit me in my chambers, if you like.”
“In her Chamber of Stinks, if you can stand it, I swear I can’t.” Her husband’s harsh laugh startles her. She didn’t think he was listening. His cackle subsides into a phlegmy cough.
And now the crowd roars as the next four chariots approach the starting gate. John bows himself away, pulling his young brother with him. She follows them with her eyes. Just that morning she had taken out her little figurine of Christ to pray to it, and it had turned from silver to gold in her hand! A good omen, she was sure of it. And now this beautiful boy kisses her hand as if he would devour it. She pulls her attention back to the chariots, but her heart is beating fast.
Good Friday, A.D. 1034 Aged fifty-six
It is still early morning and already the Golden Hall is jammed with officials, senators, clerks, messengers, guards; the women of the court fill the rotunda above. The proclamation went out at dawn in the Empress’s name. Psellus and his friend, another young clerk in the Logothete’s office, elbow their way as close to the dais as they can. (Rude, but Psellus has only been in the palace a month and everything excites him. Whatever this is about, he’s determined not to miss a thing.) Snatches of hushed conversation echo from the glittering walls. He stands close to two officials, senior men judging from their jeweled collars, and strains his ears.
Romanus dead? Yes, some time yesterday. Went for his bath, I heard, and they drowned him. Well, tried to. They pulled him out, half-dead, he lasted a little while, couldn’t speak, coughing up blood, and then he died.
Who? Who tried to drown him?
Michael’s friends, who else? Well, I mean, everyone knows they’ve been poisoning him for months now, Michael and Zoe. Finally got tired of waiting for the old codger to die.
Careful, keep your voice down, you want some Varangian to overhear you?
Those brutes, they don’t know what we’re saying. Anyway, everyone’s saying it.
Well, he has looked like a walking corpse these past months. Face swollen like a blood sausage, hair and beard all fallen out. Where is he now?
On his bier in the chapel, already forgotten, like a piece of rotten fruit, which is what he looks like.
Shocking, the way they’ve carried on, the two of them. Kissing and petting and making love right under the old man’s nose, what was the stupid bitch thinking of? Sex-mad is what she is, and at her age!
And Romanus, well either he didn’t know or didn’t want to; more likely the latter, because didn’t people try to warn him?
Of course, there was no love lost between him and Zoe, so what did he expect?
Hush! What’s happening now?
The organ thunders. The golden doors swing open. A troop of the Emperor’s Wineskins race in and form up on either side of the dais, holding their long-handled axes across their chests. Other Guards regiments follow them, driving the crowd back. Psellus is elbowed in the chest, his foot is trodden on, but he manages to hold his place near the front.
The Empress Zoe appears in the doorway, seeming tiny in that huge space. On her head is the diadem with its ropes of pearls hanging down either side, and in her hand, the scepter. Over her shoulders, she wears the brocaded robe crusted with gems, and one step behind her comes her lover, young Michael Paphlagon. Psellus listens to the whispers.
A nobody, from a family of nobodies.
Good-looking boy, though, give him that.
Yes, but not quite right in the head. You’ve heard the talk. Has fits, falls down in a faint, foams at the mouth, they try to keep it quiet.
Shush!
Zoe has seated Michael on the throne next to her. They wait. The crowd waits. Some delay. What is it now? His Holiness Alexius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, is coming in. His robes are askew, he looks like his legs won’t hold him up. The poor man is frightened to death. Two of his deacons half-carry him to the foot of the dais. Psellus presses closer to see. The patriarch is shaking his head, saying something. And now Zoe is saying something, but Psellus can’t make out the words. Zoe stands. One of her people holds out a diadem, she takes it, holds it high for all to see, and places it on the head of Michael, her child lover. The organ pours out its thunderous sound. The Guardsmen clash their weapons on their shields. The courtiers, who know their parts well, begin to chant, “Worthy, worthy. Many years, many years.” The echoes bouncing back and forth until it is all one roar. The Roman Empire has a new master: Michael the Fourth, may Christ protect him. Now the patriarch joins Zoe’s and Michael’s hands together in holy—or is it unholy?—matrimony.
And now the senior courtiers, the Grand Chamberlain, the Logothete, the Master of the Wardrobe, the Grand Domestic, dozens of others, are being brought forward one by one to fall on their faces before Zoe and to kiss Michael’s right hand. This will go on for an hour, and finally even Psellus, near the end of the line, will have his turn. Psellus risks a long look; he has never been this close to royalty before. Their new Emperor is no more than a boy, younger than himself. His face is expressionless, a mask—what thoughts are swirling behind it? But Zoe’s face is radiant, supremely happy. Hard to believe she is old enough to be her husband’s mother. But what a brief time that happiness will last. Poor Zoe, so unlucky in her men.
†Reader, some of what Odd told me—stories that he heard from Psellus and others that do not fit neatly into his narrative—I have thought to present in these separate ‘tales,’ the better to help you understand certain things that Odd learned only later, sometimes much later. Previously I have been a mere grudging recorder of Odd’s story but somehow, during the weeks and months of our acquaintance, my feelings toward him have undergone a change and I want to contribute my own small effort toward making this a better book. - Teit the D
eacon
8
Games
[Odd resumes his narrative]
Three days had passed since my interview with Zoe. Since then, there had been no new summons from the palace, nor had Harald tried to contact me. I was bored and restless; the novelty of the city beginning to pall. I was finding Piotr’s company irritating, too, and Stavko’s even more so. I spent much of my time simply walking by myself, trying to work things out in my mind. Thoughts of Harald and Zoe occupied my every waking moment and even invaded my dreams. What did they want with me? How would I fend off the Mistress of Perfumes, who seemed to have her sights set on me? How would I defend myself against Halldor and Bolli, who surely were planning to kill me before I killed them? How would I strike Harald down—if I still meant to? I was troubled by the feeling that I might be here much longer than I had intended and that these people were playing at games of which I did not even begin to grasp the rules. How long could this go on?
Towards sunset on a soft afternoon, I found myself walking on the quayside that stretched along the Horn between the sea-wall and the water, smelling the sharp, salt air that reminded me of home and listening to the foreign babble of the sailors whose ships were moored here. I wore plain clothes and no jewelry, not wanting to look conspicuously rich in this quarter of the city and, obedient to the law, carried no sword. I felt naked without it; but I did have a knife in my boot, Rus fashion. I decided to stop for a bite of dinner at a waterside taverna where I had been once or twice before. The food wasn’t anything special but it made a change from the stew that was served up every day at the hostel, and at night it was a lively place with sailors and girls dancing to the flute and tambourine and clapping of hands. And I’d spent a pleasant half-hour there in the upstairs room with one of the serving girls. Maybe I would again—I was feeling the urge.
Abgar the host, a genial, fat Armenian, seated me on a bench at one end of the long table and set before me a jug of retsina, (I was starting to like its sharp, pine sap taste). I ordered a plate of grilled mackerel with beans and black bread. It was early yet. The last rays of the sun slanted through the open door and the place wasn’t crowded. At the far end of the table sat four sailors, swarthy and black-bearded, drinking deeply and talking in a language I didn’t understand, with a lot of laughter and slapping of shoulders. I supposed they’d just gotten paid off from their ship. And then, as I waited for my food to come, a young man came through the door, carrying under his arm a narrow box of lacquered wood with brass hinges and clasps. He was slightly built with close-cropped black hair and a pale, triangular, beardless face. An intelligent face, I thought, and yet intentionally blank. A face that was hiding something? He wore a blowsy tunic of plain, dark linen and baggy trousers of the same fabric. Abgar gave him a smile and called him Andreas.
Andreas sat at the table, about half way between me and the sailors, asked for a cup of wine, and unlatched his box. The two halves of it opened out on their hinges and I saw that it contained two leather dice cups with some dice and a heap of round, flat stones, some black and some white. The bottom of the box, clearly the playing board, was decorated with two rows of alternating black and white triangles that met together at their points. It wasn’t chess or our Norse hnefatafl. I’d never seen anything like it.
The youth looked in my direction as if inviting me to play. I shook my head no. I’d just been cogitating that only a fool plays a game whose rules he doesn’t understand. This was, no doubt, a harmless way to lose a few pennies, but even so. First, I would watch. Then one of the sailors, with encouraging grunts from his mates, slid over on the bench until he was facing the boy and said, “I play you, kid.”
“Twenty folles a game,” the boy replied without looking up, busying himself arranging the pieces on the triangles. His voice was rough as though he were trying to force it into a lower register.
“Lemme see you money. You gonna lose it.”
Andreas unhooked a purse from his belt and spilled out a mixture of copper and small silver coins. “And yours?” The sailor slapped a fistful of coins on the table. I was beginning not to like his manners. But the boy seemed unperturbed. The other sailors came over and stood behind their friend. One of them handed him the wine bottle and he took a long pull at it. They began to play, shaking a pair of dice in the cup, and throwing them on the board. I can only give a hint of the play, not understanding it myself. They played very fast, the boy especially, his slender fingers hovering and darting like dragonflies over the board, moving his black pieces around, pursuing the white ones. The corners of his mouth turned down in concentration, he never took his eyes from the board, and he allowed himself only small sips from his wine cup. In a few minutes the first game was over. The sailor laughed, belched, and slid some of Andreas’s coins over to his side. His mates slapped him on the back.
“We go again,” he said. “Forty folles, yeah?”
The boy smiled and nodded.
But the next game didn’t go so well for the sailor, or the one after that. As the dice rattled and clattered, the boy kept sending his opponents pieces back to their starting place while, one by one, he removed his own pieces from the board and stacked them neatly beside it. And the money began to go the other way. And every time the boy scooped up his winnings there was a flash of fire in his slanting green eyes. It’s not just the money, I thought, it’s the winning. He loves this. Meanwhile, the sailor’s color thickened and his jaw muscles bulged. He drank off the bottle and demanded another one. Abgar, who had been watching without seeming to, shook his head. “Time to move on, my friends.”
“The little shit’s cheating!” the sailor yelled. He swept the board off the table and threw a vicious punch at Andreas, striking him square in the face, knocking him off the bench. Instantly, Abgar was in the middle of them, swinging a belaying pin, and I at the same moment jerked my knife from my boot. (I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I’d been longing to get into a fight with somebody.) But it was all over in a second and no blood was shed. The sailor’s friends dragged him away and Abgar hustled them all out the door.
We turned back to Andreas, who was sitting on the floor, holding a bloody sleeve to his nose. While Abgar gathered up the board and pieces, I helped the boy to stand and steadied him on his feet with one arm around his back and my other hand on his chest and made the interesting discovery that ‘Andreas’ was quite unmistakably a young woman.
With a sudden jerk she broke away from me, snatched her game box from Apgar’s hands, and ran out the door. I followed her, running half way down the street, but she vanished in the gathering dusk. I returned to the taverna where Abgar greeted me with an expressive shrug. “The boy comes around once or twice a week. I think he circulates around all the waterfront places.”
“And he always wins?” I asked. I was careful to say ‘he’; obviously, the girl wanted her secret kept.
“Usually.”
“And it ends in a fight?”
“Not often. Customers know I won’t put up with that. Those fellows were new here.”
“But who is he, where does he live?”
Abgar allowed that he had no idea, had never asked and didn’t think it any of his business.
I sat down and finished my meal and soon the place was full of neighborhood characters and girls who were passably attractive. One of them filled my wine cup, asked me to dance, kissed me, named her price, and for the next few hours I was happy to think of nothing.
9
Too Many Questions
“Churillo Igorevich, a pleasure to see you again.”
“And you, Constantine Psellus.”
“I trust you will enjoy the evening’s festivities,” he said in his serious, stilted fashion. We lay side by side on gilded dining couches, linen napkins tied around our necks. Behind us hovered carvers and cupbearers in scarlet livery. “And what have you been doing with yourself?” he asked.
“Nothing. Waiting and wondering.” Which was true enough but somethin
g told me not to mention my conversation with Harald or my brawl with the Varangians, Halldor and Bolli.
“You must understand that nothing happens here quickly. Are you comfortable in the hostel.”
“Not very.”
“Dear me, I seem to find you in a bad mood. Well, let us hope it won’t be much longer.”
One set of platters with the remains of a saddle of venison were being taken away while other plates were set before us laden with lamb laced with cloves and cardamom, a grilled turbot, loaves of white bread. Our long-stemmed goblets were filled again. The golden plates, the glassware, the jewels and gold thread of the costumes, the mosaics of flowers and birds that covered the walls, all gleamed and twinkled in the light of massed candelabra. The music of lutes and woodwinds from a small orchestra competed with the clatter of plates and the hum of conversation. I found that eating while lying on my side was uncomfortable—it is a custom that the Romans themselves seldom practice any more—but in the Hall of Nineteen Couches, where state dinners are held, it is obligatory for a few of the most favored guests, of which I was one. All the others in the vast high-ceilinged hall sat on chairs around small tables. The occasion this evening was to honor the ambassadors, most of whom, their missions accomplished, would soon be going home. But not me.
A herald had come to the hostel that morning with our invitations. I left Piotr to his own devices and went among the Rus shops in Saint Mamas looking for something to freshen my wardrobe. I looked at boots and bought myself a pair of yellow leather ones; looked at caps and bought a tall one with a turned-up brim of marten fur and a spray of pheasant plumes pinned to the front. I looked quite handsome in it, or so the shopkeeper assured me. Along the way I asked after Stavko, but no one seemed to know where he was. After that, I spent a couple of hours just loafing along the waterfront, gazing across the wind-ruffled water to the Galata shore and watching the fishermen unload their catch. A powerful yearning to be at sea again came over me, and my heart felt heavy in my breast. How many more days must I idle away in this alien city? Where would I be a year from now? What fate had the Norns in store for me? Too many questions with too few answers.
The Varangian Page 6