Over the next months I watched my family grow. Gunnar was three years old now. I took him fishing, took him with me to the parade ground to watch the men drill, or to watch the polo matches where the cavalry regiments competed for prizes. I introduced him to Gorm, who grinned and tossed him in the air. And to Moses the Hawk, who shook his hand gravely and gave him his bow to hold. I always spoke Norse to him, told him stories about elves and trolls and gods—but not the frightening kind my father had told me. And sometimes I wondered how it might be if I took him to Iceland, to show him the wild, beautiful country of his ancestors. But no, I told myself. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. That thought made me sad. I would not speak of it to Selene.
Much of my time, though, was taken up with the duties of a Guards officer. I divided my days between home and barracks. I drilled and inspected my men every day, praising one man for his swordsmanship and another for his aim with a spear. I drank with them, swapped stories with them, welded them into a band of loyal brothers. Once a month, our bandon drew sentry duty in the palace. Michael held no audiences or banquets—he was far too ill for that—so at least we were spared the tedium of standing at attention during those interminable affairs. But we were called to attend wild beast hunts and occasional chariot races in the hippodrome to control the crowds who would get completely out of hand otherwise. And then on Sundays and feast days we accompanied Zoe and others of the Imperial family to the cathedral. These were the only occasions when the people saw their Empress and they knelt in silence as she passed by as though to a living saint. Not a reassuring sight for John, I imagined.
I must say more about this cathedral (which in Greek is called Hagia Sophia). It was a place soaked with magic. Each of the columns that supported the galleries was made of a different colored marble and each had healing powers when rubbed by a sick person. One cured kidney ailments, another headache, and so on. And attached to the great door by a ring was a silver tube which, if you put your lips to it, would suck the sickness out of your body.
I spent countless hours watching from the upper gallery the solemn rituals that were enacted below. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t swept up by the music and the incense, the color, the voices swelling under that huge dome, the priests in their jeweled robes, making their mystic gestures under the unblinking eyes of Christ Pantokrator—of course I was. But, as much as I had come to feel that this city was my city, still something, a single taut strand of a spider’s web, attached me to my home, my past. As slender as that thread was, it had not snapped. It was still there and always would be. I am still Black Thorvald’s child, I thought, still Odin’s child, even if I no longer know where he is or how to worship him.
And one day, as I patrolled the upper gallery, it occurred to me that, just as this magic place has left its mark upon me, I might leave my mark on it. Looking around to make sure that no one was watching, I drew my dagger and scratched runes on the marble balustrade: Odd Tangle-Hair an Icelander carved these runes. And who knows? Maybe centuries from now some idle fellow, peering closely at a dark corner of the gallery will read them and will know that I existed.
When I wasn’t on duty or with my family, I resumed my conversations with Psellus. We dined with him and his wife Olympia, a charming and intelligent young woman of sixteen, once a week, sometimes at our house, sometimes at theirs. Our talk ranged over many subjects—poetry, history, the mysterious workings of nature. But we steered clear of palace politics. Really, there wasn’t much in that area to talk about. It was as if an unnatural calm had descended over everything; as though we were all holding our breath, waiting for Michael to die—which was taking a lot longer than anyone expected.
Harald was displaying his customary restlessness and irritability, already chafing under the dull routine of the capital. He had a succession of girls, beautiful ones, but none of them distracted him for long. He would get drunk and talk to me interminably about his love for the fair Yelisaveta, the poor princess locked away in Kiev. How she must be pining for him, waiting for him to swoop down and rescue her from her dragon of a mother. And soon, soon, he swore—banging his tankard on the table and spilling half his wine—he would do that. Take her by force, if need be, back to Norway to be his queen. By God, he would do it tomorrow!—except that he was raking in so much gold nowadays that he just couldn’t afford to leave yet. He had, as I have described earlier, sent the girl love poems together with gifts of jewels to her father. Now he was ready to send another gift, a bag of choice pearls and other gems together with a letter to Yaroslav, which I had to write for him in Slavonic. It began with wishes for the health of the whole family, expressly including the lovely and gracious Grand Princess Ingigerd (I told him to put this in though it made him grind his teeth). It proudly announced his appointment as Commandant of the Varangian Guard. It described his triumphs in Sicily and boasted of his new wealth. It swore his undying love for Yelisaveta. And, without being precise, hinted that the time would not be long before he arrived to claim her hand in marriage. He entrusted this to a Rus Guardsman named Dmitry to deliver. The trading fleet from Kiev had arrived in the spring as usual and was now ready to depart. I’d gone down to look them over, wondering if I would see Stavko again, but he wasn’t there. One of the traders told me he had drowned in the Dnieper a year ago when his boat capsized in the rapids. Anyway, Dmitry would sail with them, in the guise of a merchant. I wished him luck, and meant it. The sooner Harald left us, the happier I would be.
35
Two Sisters
Earthquakes and violent hailstorms shook the city during the five months that followed our return from the Bulgarian campaign. Comets were seen in the sky over Constantinople and other cities of the empire. Street corner soothsayers muttered darkly that all this portended some great evil. They were right.
On the eighth of December, in the middle of the night, I was roused from my bed and summoned by a messenger to a meeting at the palace. I told Selene to go back to sleep, pulled on my boots, wrapped a fur around me, and went out grumbling into the snowy night. What could possibly be so important? A Varangian met me at the gate and led me to the office of George, the Master of the Wardrobe, adjacent to the rooms where the Imperial regalia are stored. Besides the brothers George and Constantine, there was Harald and, to my surprise, Halldor. He had never come to one of these meetings before.
“Michael is dying,” Constantine began without preamble. “John is with him—”
I cleared my throat to translate but Harald cut me off. “You just listen, Tangle-Hair. Halldor will translate for us tonight. It seems the fellow’s been studying, I want to give him a chance. You’ll help out if we need you.”
He said it so casually, with a wave of the hand, in the slightly mocking tone that he always used when he was about to stick the knife in you. Halldor meanwhile was grim-faced and serious, sitting on the edge of his chair, and not looking at me.
I forced a smile, but my stomach sank and my mind raced. Halldor aims to replace me—he’s turned Harald against me. He’s been working at this for months, surely. And why have they brought me here at all? Just to frighten me, warn me, humiliate me?
“Friend Halldor,” I said, making my voice easy, “Greek is a riddling language, not easily mastered.”
Halldor ignored this. Constantine looked back and forth between us, wondering why the room suddenly crackled with tension. He swallowed his bile and made a sour face: the stomach pains that plagued him were getting worse.
The conversation proceeded painfully. By the end of it Halldor was sweating. He stumbled over his grammar, stammered over his words; when he was met with uncomprehending looks from the Greeks, he shouted. I said nothing. But Harald gave him encouraging looks and seemed satisfied with his poor performance. The essential information did get conveyed—and it was dire.
“His Majesty,” Constantine told us in a mournful voice, brushing an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye, “has withdrawn to his monastery of the Healing Saints to prepar
e his soul for its journey. He has laid aside his diadem, taken the tonsure, and put on the holy mantle of Christ, the robe of a simple monk. We begged him not to, but his thoughts now are fixed on God. John will stay with him until the end.” George, who rarely spoke, sighed wheezily and shook his head. “And so,” Constantine continued—and suddenly the tone changed: it was sharp, peremptory, businesslike—“and so we have brought the Caesar Calaphates to the palace, where we can produce him at a moment’s notice. Nothing must be left to chance. We have enemies everywhere. You understand me, Commandant, your men must be ready. Call your captains together—but quietly, we want no panic. Starting tonight I want double guards on all the palace gates as well as the hippodrome, the Forums of Constantine and Arcadius, the houses of the senior officials and patriarch. And here”—he slid a paper toward us—“is a list of the people you are to…”
At the crucial moment Halldor went blank. Syllambanein, it seemed, was not a word he had learned. I waited. “Well?” Harald demanded finally, shooting me an angry look.
“To arrest,” I murmured.
As the meeting ended, Constantine gave me my orders, ignoring Harald. “Your bandon will guard the throne at the coronation. I want someone there who really speaks our language.” (Halldor winced at this.) “Zoe, of course, must be there: keep her away from everyone except the family. Oh, and give the Caesar your arm if he needs it, he sometimes faints.”
I gave Harald an inquiring look.
“Be where I can reach you,” he snapped. “And talk to no one.”
I went home full of worry and told Selene everything.
We were still awake two hours later—there would be no more sleep for us that night—when a carriage drew up at our door and out stepped Psellus and his young wife, Olympia. We saw them often, but never at so late an hour.
“Odd, what in Christ’s Name is going on? I’ve just come from the Logothete’s…” Psellus started talking as they came through the door, propelled by a gust of icy wind. The words tumbled out of him. We pulled them inside and helped them off with their cloaks. Selene put her arms around Olympia, who was pale and trembling. “There are armed men outside Eustathius’s house—not in uniform, but big men—Varangians, who else could it be? And no one’s seen the Emperor for two days—or John either. You know something, don’t you? Talk to me. Is Michael dead? What have they done with him?”
This was it, then. I’d seen this moment coming a long way off, like a distant sail on the horizon, and now suddenly here it was. Right on top of me. The moment when I would either obey my orders, like a loyal Guardsman, or join the Logothete’s side. That offer had been made a long time ago and I had spurned it, resentful of how he had abandoned me in Sicily. I’d imagined my future lay with Harald. Well, that was over.
“Not dead yet,” I said, “but soon. Sit down, both of you, there’s a lot to tell.” Old Chloris shuffled in from the servants’ room; I told her to bring us hot wine and light the fires. “Eustathius is safe for the moment. I saw the list of people to be arrested, his name wasn’t on it, or yours either, I’m happy to say.”
“Whose then?”
“The Cerularius brothers, Dalassenus”—these were old senatorial families who might lay claim to the throne—“some others I didn’t recognize. They’ll be banished, or executed, as soon as Michael dies.”
While I recited everything I knew, Psellus alternately sat, stood, paced, sat again, rubbed his forehead, wrapped his arms around himself and gripped his elbows, again went to pacing. I’d never seen him so agitated. He cast glances at Olympia, who looked like she was about to cry. Olympia was blond and plump, her manner was shy, but she was smart and had opinions on everything, though she uttered them in a little girl’s voice. And she idolized Selene. Selene now held her hand tight.
“Calaphates is nothing but a vicious, ignorant lout,” Psellus swore, “you must see that, Odd. With Sicily and Italy slipping away, the Bulgars still rebellious, the empire needs a strong man at the helm or it won’t survive. Michael, for all his bad beginning, turned out to be a good Emperor. But this boy? Ask yourself, Odd, do you care who governs us? Who governs you? Or are you only a passing stranger, here to line your purse with gold and then move on? Someone like Harald. I hope we mean more to you than that?”
In that instant I made up my mind. “What can I do, Costas?”
“Eustathius and I have turned over every possibility. If there were only some way to get Zoe out of the palace and take her to the Emperor before he dies—to beg him to rescind the Caesar’s nomination, give the power back to the Empress and a privy council of senior ministers.”
“Why would he listen to her now when he’s treated her as an enemy for years?”
Psellus threw up his hands in despair. “Why? Because he is face to face with his mortality. Because if he doesn’t do the right thing now, he never will. He must know what Calaphates is like.”
Suddenly Selene spoke up. “How would you get her out of the palace? Who’s allowed in to see her?”
“As far as we know,” Psellus replied, “only a few holy women who come to pray with her.”
“Then, they’re the ones to get her out. If you could forge a summons from the Emperor good enough to fool her guards, the nuns could deliver it and take her out.”
Psellus waved the thought away. “Ask nuns to do that? Even if we knew who they were?”
“I didn’t mean real nuns. I meant me and Olympia.”
We all stared at her.
“You’re not serious,” I laughed. “You a nun? What would your father have thought about that?”
“I think he would’ve been delighted; magicians love deception.”
“But you don’t know anything about being a nun.”
“I fooled you into thinking I was a boy. This wouldn’t be any harder.”
“No, it’s too dangerous. If you were caught...? Think of our children.”
She looked at me gravely. “I am thinking of them, Odd. This will be their country.”
Then Psellus sputtered, “The idea’s absurd. I couldn’t possibly allow my wife to…”
“But she knows her way around the palace and I don’t,” Selene argued. “And don’t nuns always travel in pairs?”
“No, I’m sorry—”
“I’ll do it,” said Olympia in a small voice. “Please, husband. My sister and one of my cousins are nuns. I can get habits for us.” She gave him a hard look. “My dear, how often can a woman make a difference in this world? If there’s any chance at all, you must let us go.”
Psellus and I looked at each other helplessly.
The tenth of December
The women’s footsteps echoed along the empty corridors. It was the hour of lamp-lighting; except for servants and ushers and a few late-working officials, the Daphne was deserted.
After much debate, Psellus had decided that the scheme would work best under cover of dark. Selene and Olympia had spent all day trying on their black robes and veils and rehearsing what they would say when they were face to face with Zoe. Meanwhile, in the Logothete’s office, Psellus was forging a letter from Michael, sealing it with a signet that resembled the Imperial one closely enough to fool the guards. As the hour drew near, the whole thing looked more and more hopeless. A thousand things could go wrong, and I was on the point of forbidding it. But Selene and Olympia were determined, and really, we had no better plan.
At the entrance to the Empress’s suite, four women lounged on a bench. Tough and thick-bodied, with the look and accents of the street. Matrons from the orphanage, they were now Zoe’s warders, appointed by John. Selene held out the parchment to the one of them who seemed to be in charge. She broke the seal and squinted at the ornate script, tracing it with her finger. “You’re new here, ain’t you?”
“We’re from the Convent of Holy Mary Pammakaristos,” said Olympia softly, keeping her eyes cast down, the way a nun should. The Emperor is in the monastery nearby, they say he’s close to death. He’s sent for th
e Empress, to make his peace with her. We have a carriage waiting. Please, there isn’t much time.”
The warders exchanged puzzled looks, handed the parchment around, muttering among themselves. Finally, the one in charge said, “She’s taken to living in the Purple Chamber lately. Dunno why, it’s cold as a tomb in there.”
“She likes it there,” said another, “where her mum bore her, she says. Spends hours in there talking to herself. The old thing’s soft in the head if you ask me.”
“Follow me, then,” said the first girl.
Porphyrogenneta: Born in the Purple Chamber. An empress born of an empress. Not all empresses were—but Zoe was. It was all she had left now, just that meaningless shred of dignity.
The walls of the big room were all of purple marble, and purple damask drapes hung over the windows. Zoe was in bed, huddled under a heap of furs in the frigid room, her head wrapped in a turban. She wasn’t ready for sleep, she almost never slept anymore, but only the bed was warm enough. Her guards often forgot to bring coals for the braziers. A lamp on a bronze stand cast a pallid light—that and the candles on her little altar against the wall. The nuns knelt at her bedside. She eyed them suspiciously.
“I don’t know you, do I? Who are you? Who sent you here?”
“Friends who love you, Empress,” Olympia said. It had been decided that no names would be spoken. If Zoe were ever forced to talk, it would be death for all.
“What friends? I have no friends.”
“Please, Empress, your husband is dying, we’re taking you to him. You must plead with him to appoint yourself and a council of ministers to govern—not the Caesar. You understand? Not Calaphates. You must persuade him.”
The Varangian Page 26