I re-crossed the Horn and went into Apgar’s taverna, hoping to find ‘Andreas’, but he—she—wasn’t there. I was sorry. Something about her had stirred my feelings. Maybe it was just the fact that we were each, in our own way, imposters, or maybe that I admired her courage. I had a vague feeling that I had dreamt something about her, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I stayed and drank a jug of wine and half-listened while Apgar enlightened me as to the virtues of the Armenian race and how the empire couldn’t exist without it, and pumped me for my own story, about which I told him some lies, until finally it was time to go back and dress for the banquet.
I rode to the palace along with the other ambassadors. As before, we were given horses and a mounted escort of Khazar cavalry. I exchanged smiles with them but that was the limit of our communication. I wondered if they were as anxious to be quit of this place as I was. Piotr rode beside me; my rank required that I have at least one servant in my train. The poor boy was homesick and just as impatient to leave here as I was now that the novelty of the big city had worn off. The difference between us being that Piotr actually had a home and parents to go back to, and I did not. I was homesick for I knew not where. How much longer, gospodin, he kept asking until I lost my temper with him.
It was hot in the Hall despite all the windows being thrown open and the drapes tied back. I dabbed at my chin with my napkin while I studied my fellow guests. Of the ambassadors, only the Saracens in their sheer, white robes and headdresses looked comfortable. The ambassador from Salerno, a Lombard named Arduin, was dressed in northern fashion, with a cloak of lynx skins hanging from one shoulder. I had heard him speaking fluent Greek earlier and we exchanged a few words.
Next to each ambassador was his interpreter from the Office of Barbarians. Psellus, whom I had not seen since the day of the audience, reclined alongside me, ready to translate, although it was clear that my Greek was better than his Slavonic.
The Emperor and Empress were at a separate table together with the Patriarch, the Grand Chamberlain, the Logothete, and a few others, including the only other woman in the room besides Zoe. “The Emperor’s sister, Maria,” Psellus whispered in my ear; a hatchet-faced woman with dead white skin, a red gash of a mouth, and several pounds of jewelry hanging on her. Her laugh was loud and raucous and often, it seemed, directed at Zoe, who never glanced at her. And as for Zoe, how different she looked from when I had last seen her in her linen shift. Now she was cocooned in layers of silk and wore a cloth over her head that hung down to her shoulders, covering her hair and half her face. She looked uncomfortable and unhappy, staring straight ahead of her, not speaking, and spoken to by none. I noticed that she barely touched her food. I had tried to catch her eye but she looked right past me without a sign of recognition.
One other figure at their table was a monk, or so I took him to be. In an unadorned black robe, his very plainness made him stand out from all the others. I watched the Emperor over the rim of my goblet. Having more time to observe him than I had before, I was struck by the puffiness around his eyes, as if he had slept badly, and noticed his hands were swollen making his rings cut into his fingers. He spent most of the evening talking to the monk. It wasn’t possible to overhear their words, but the Emperor looked weary, distracted.
Since no one was talking to me, I let my eyes roam over the room. Standing behind the Emperor’s couch were a squad of Varangians, still as statues, in burnished armor, their axes over their shoulders. Was one of them Halldor or Bolli? With their masked helmets on I couldn’t be sure. I felt their eyes on me and it made me tense. Of the guests there must have been two hundred or more, each in his distinctive regalia. In their midst I saw Harald—who could mistake that great bulk and leonine head? He wore civilian clothes and was sitting at a table with some other yellowhaired men, Scandinavians or Rus, who I assumed were also Guards officers. Did he see me? I was certain he did, yet he gave no sign. This was beginning to bother me: Zoe and now Harald, both so anxious to meet me just a few days ago and now both of them pretending that I didn’t exist? What was it all about? I decided to concentrate on my food, which was delicious. I wiped up the last drop of gravy with my bread.
When the plates had been cleared away, dessert was served in a remarkable fashion. Enormous golden platters, heaped with peaches and apricots and other fruits that I had never tasted before, were wheeled out on carts while, at the same time, gilded chains descended from holes in the ceiling. Servants attached hooks at the ends of these chains to the handles of the platters and some invisible mechanism in the roof hoisted them up and swung them around just over our heads so that we could help ourselves to the fruit. Instantly, I thought of the soaring Throne of Solomon. Was that all it was, then—a pulley? Were my eyes so easily fooled? But no. No. There were no chains attached to the throne, couldn’t have been without my seeing them, just as I saw these now. No, I was still without an explanation for that miracle.
The Logothete, taking the time to have a word with each ambassador in turn, arrived at my couch. “Sir,” I asked, “can you tell me anything about the progress of my mission? May I tell Grand Prince Yaroslav that his prayers have been answered and his daughter will soon be wed?”
Not that I gave a damn about Yelisaveta, you understand. Harald was welcome to her. But, as I have said, I was finding this charade unbearably tiresome. The Logothete looked uncomfortable. Objections had been raised in certain quarters. When pressed, he shook his head. No, he couldn’t say why, only that the matter was still under discussion. I murmured something about not wanting to impose on their hospitality much longer. He smiled noncommittally and passed on.
I turned to Psellus but he only shrugged and claimed to know nothing about it. He seemed uncharacteristically quiet. I made up my mind to press him hard, for I had a great many questions in mind and I was sure that he had, at least, some of the answers. But just then the Master of Ceremonies stood up, tapped the floor with his golden staff, and announced the evening’s entertainment. And so we were treated, in succession, to troupes of acrobats and mimes, dancing girls in tall turbans and swirling skirts, trained apes and dogs, and other amusing nonsense that went on for nearly an hour.
“And finally,” the Master of Ceremonies spoke again, “to round off the night’s festivities and send us to our beds with heavenly voices sounding in our ears, John the Guardian of Orphans has prepared a special treat for us.” He nodded in the direction of the black-robed figure. The man got heavily to his feet and turned an oily smile on us all, showing a gold front tooth. I’d been watching him on-and-off all evening. He hadn’t eaten much, but had drunk a remarkable amount, though he seemed able to hold it. He was very tall, stoop-shouldered, with a bulbous forehead, pouched eyes, and a mouth set crookedly in his face. His cheeks were smooth, moist and oily like slabs of fat—a eunuch, of course, though this was nothing unusual. Half the men in the palace were eunuchs. I remembered Zoe said she feared a certain ‘John’. Could this big, soft-handed, baby-faced capon be him?
He clapped his hands and, at once, a side door opened and in trooped a couple of dozen children, boys and girls in separate lines, in age from about eight to sixteen, dressed all in white cassocks. They bowed to the Imperial couch. Michael smiled at them. “Sweet children,” he said. “They do you credit, brother John. You have lifted them out of wretchedness and taught them to sing with the voices of angels.” John acknowledged this with an unctuous smile. “You, Your Majesties, are their mother and father.” The words dripped from his lips like thick oil dripping from a jar. Michael brightened at this but Zoe, as she had all evening, stared straight ahead, her eyes perfect blanks.
The children began to sing and it was lovely. I noticed Psellus brush away a tear. It did seem to me, however, that these children were not overfed: their faces were white and thin, their hair lusterless. They finished one song, a hymn to the Virgin or some such, and were beginning another when pandemonium broke out. Michael lurched to his feet, knocking over his wine glass, clutchi
ng at his throat and making strangling noises, his eyes wide and staring, foam at the corners of his mouth. The children’s voices faltered but John, looking desperate himself, motioned them to keep it up. The Varangians rushed up and surrounded the Emperor, and from somewhere a purple curtain appeared which two of them held in front of him. The whole room was on its feet now with a great clatter of chairs and a commotion of shocked, anxious voices. The Master of Ceremonies, who was visibly shaking, told us all to leave quickly, assuring us that the Emperor was perfectly well, nothing to fear. The choristers were herded out the side door, followed by Zoe, John, and the others, with the Varangians carrying Michael under his purple sheet. As the hall began to empty I tugged Psellus’s sleeve and held him back.
“What is it? Let go of me.” He looked at me in alarm and tried to pull away.
“I want to talk to you.”
“Hardly the time.”
“No better time. Just give me a few minutes. I’m full of questions. Walk out in the garden with me. Please.”
He shook his round, brown nut of a head and squinted at me under his heavy brows. “What sort of questions?”
I sensed his suspicion, but I thought I knew what would work with him. From the little contact we’d had, when he coached me for the Imperial audience, it was clear that he was a vain young fellow, inordinately proud of his knowledge. I only had to appeal to that. “You’re my mentor. Who else can instruct me?”
Outside, a full moon cast a ghostly light on the statues of gods frozen, like trolls, in mid-step. The torchieres had burned themselves out. The palace, I had learned, was nearly deserted after dark. Almost no one actually slept there. We found a bench in a shadowy corner where the only sound was the splashing of a fountain.
“Has the Emperor been poisoned?”
“What? No, not poisoned. God forbid! He’s ill. He’s been like this for a year, the fits, the fainting. And it’s getting worse. The doctors have done all they can. He’s given a fortune to the shrines of Cosmas and Damian, he washes the sores of holy men, he endows refuges for harlots, but nothing seems to help.”
“So young to be so ill. And that’s another thing that puzzles me, Psellus. Zoe must be three times his age. How in the world did that marriage come about?”
Psellus looked more nervous than usual, and he always looked nervous. “Now, Churillo, you’re treading on dangerous ground. I don’t know you, I don’t know who else you’re talking to. I’m not going to put my head on the chopping block just to entertain you with backstairs gossip.” He made to stand up. “Goodnight to you.”
“I’ve met Zoe, you know.” That stopped him. I couldn’t see his expression, but I heard him inhale. He was silent for a long moment.
“She invited you to her apartment? Well, you wouldn’t be the first good-looking young swain. And what is your impression of her, if I may ask?”
“Extraordinary. The perfume, all of that… I don’t know what to say. Is she crazy, weak-minded?”
He shook his head. “She’s a woman who’s seen much sorrow. Some of it her own fault, some of it not. She wants desperately to be loved, and can’t find anyone to love her. Her father treated her with contempt, so did her first husband, Romanus, and so, it appears now, does Michael. Whether he ever loved her, who can say? But lately he’s made her virtually a prisoner in the Daphne.”
“One thing I know, she’s frightened. I could see that. She mentioned a man called John. Is that the same—”
“The Orphanotrophos, the Guardian of Orphans, yes.”
“Michael called him ‘brother John.’ He’s a monk?”
“He isn’t actually, though it amuses him to dress as one. He is, in fact, Emperor Michael’s brother. An exceedingly clever, enormously powerful, unforgiving man. He is the real head of the family—a family of upstarts, of nobodies from the wilds of Paphlagonia. He introduced young Michael to Zoe, promoted their affair. There are two other brothers, Constantine and George, both eunuchs like John, and a sister Maria, who is married to Stephen, the Droungarios, that is, Admiral of the Fleet. They have a son, an unintelligent young man also named Michael. Altogether, quite a crew. They were all at the head table tonight. Consider yourself lucky if you never meet any of them. The Emperor is the only one of them who’s worth anything. He’s turned out better than anyone had a right to expect, considering how he came to the throne.”
“Which was..?”
“No, no, my friend. Now I’m talking too much, straying onto dangerous ground. Such things are not for your ears. And, if I may offer you some advice,” he gave me a knowing smile, “don’t accept any more invitations from Zoe. There are certainly spies in her apartment, and some people will not be pleased that you are talking to her.”
“Meaning John? Michael?”
“I’ll say no more.”
“All right, then, let me ask a different question. All of this,” I spread my arms wide, “all of this, how does it work?”
He regarded me skeptically. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about this. The palace. All these people, with their different colored costumes and their unpronounceable titles. What do they all do? Teach me, Psellus. I need to know.”
“But why?”
“Because I’m beginning to think that I’m going to be here for a while. Listen, I’ll tell you a story. Some years ago I was a, well, a pirate.”
“You don’t say. How exciting.”
“And my men and I were captured in Finland and held prisoner by a tribe of savages. They cut off the heads of some of us and put them on stakes. The rest of us they treated like slaves. To save us I had to learn their language. I was able to make an ally, a young girl who was also a prisoner—” I thought with a pang of sweet Ainikki and the life we might have had—“and made contact with her people, and finally we got away.”
“But, my dear fellow, you’re not a prisoner here.”
“I’m no better than a prisoner if I’m ignorant. So teach me what I need to know to sail these strange waters.”
He peered into my face as if really seeing me for the first time, and then spoke softly. “You are certainly the strangest barbarian that I have ever met. How does it work, you ask? It works by intimidation and fear, by flattery in the right places, by telling lies when necessary, by trading favors, by having the right friends, and by information, the most precious currency of all. One must collect it, save it, never share it without getting something in return. It has very little to do with neat little boxes on a chart. All the important rules are unwritten ones. I’ve been here nearly three years and I’m still learning them. Is any of this making sense to you?”
This was a subject dear to his heart, as I knew it would be. He was a bureaucrat to his fingertips, and a born teacher to boot. And for the next hour, talking without stop, the words crowding on each other, as he paced back and forth and waved his arms about, he lectured me on his favorite subject. “We’re a bureaucracy of merit, not of birth. Few of us come from great wealth. Most of us are new men who hope to retire as rich ones. Now the protovestiarios is the Master of the Wardrobe, a most important post. The kanikleios, is keeper of the Imperial inkstand, but he does much more than that. There are the kouropalates and spatharokandidatos, those are ranks, not jobs, you mustn’t confuse the two, and the Grand Chamberlain we call parakoimomenos. Para-koi-mo-men-os, accent on the men. It means ‘he who sleeps alongside.’ Say it after me now, that’s right. And he’s always a eunuch … and the Logothetes tou dromou, minister of the post, my boss, who oversees our foreign diplomacy. You’ll find that titles have little to do with the responsibilities of the job. Who would guess that the Guardian of Orphans has taken charge of all the state finances? Anyway, the Logothete is sometimes a eunuch but sometimes isn’t, Eustathius isn’t—”
You may imagine that all this detail was tedious, more than I’d asked for, more than I wanted or needed to know. You would be wrong. I felt as though the corner of a curtain was being lifted to give me just
a peek at a vast and complicated machine, more complex, more subtle in its workings than anything my life had prepared me for. These were things for which there were no words in my language. I began to understand how these courtiers carried in their heads a living map of the ever-shifting terrain through which they moved, just as a steersman knows every shoal and current of his home waters. They had to know hundreds of their fellow-bureaucrats, by name, title, and rank, some of them moving up the ladder, some down, in a complex dance of power and advantage. I felt the same excitement that I had when Stig No-One’s Son explained the mysteries of navigation to me on our voyage to Norway. And it wasn’t only a matter of satisfying idle curiosity. A few days earlier, Harald had boasted of all the power and wealth an ambitious man could put his hands on here. But it was only now that his words fully sank in. With Psellus as my guide through this labyrinth, I saw a path open before me. Other barbarians had done well for themselves here, and not only the Emperor’s Wineskins. Apgar had been telling me of countrymen of his who had become great generals, even emperors. I was clever, brave. Couldn’t I aim as high? Of course, there was one serious stumbling block in my case: I was here under false pretenses. How long could I keep that up and what would happen if I were exposed? Well, I would face that when the time came.
“—there are eighteen ranks of bearded men,” Psellus rattled on, “and eight of eunuchs ...”
“Eunuchs, Psellus,” I broke in on his monologue. “Tell me why must a man give up his balls to serve your Emperor? You aren’t..?”
“Me? Certainly not.” He was offended. “Why eunuchs? I suppose the idea is that a eunuch, having no progeny, will not scheme to advance them. Nonsense, of course. One only has to look at John, who schemes to advance his brothers. Some people claim that eunuchs are like angels, both being sexless. On the other hand, they say that once a viper bit a eunuch and it was the viper that died.”
The Varangian Page 7