The Varangian

by Bruce Macbain

But Zoe shrank back under the covers. “You’re lying, it’s a trick. Get out.”—her voice rose to a screech—“I won’t go anywhere with you. Guards—guards—!”

  Olympia looked around in wild fear but Selene clapped her hand over Zoe’s mouth and pushed her down on the pillows. Zoe thrashed and then lay still. For a moment, Selene was terrified that she had suffocated the old woman. “If I let you up, you won’t scream?” She took her hand away. “Here,” she said, “here’s the document, read it.”

  Zoe gasped for air, her eyes big with fear. She clutched the parchment to her chest. “My husband wants to see me? Truly?” Such pleading in those old eyes. It was heartbreaking.

  “Yes, Empress, he’s asking for you.”

  A lie, but there was no other way. If they could just get Zoe as far as the monastery—well, and then what? All they could do was pray that Michael, in his final moments on earth, with his soul shriven, this man who owed her everything and had used her so cruelly, would be overcome by remorse, would heed her plea. That was the sum total of their plan. And, just maybe it would work.

  Zoe, vain as always, dithered over what to wear, how to do her hair. Selene and Olympia flung warm clothes at her and urged her to hurry. Then she must pray. They all knelt in front of the altar. Olympia knew the words; Selene moved her lips. Then she must take her little statue of Christ and whisper to it. The minutes crept by. What if Michael were already dead? Why had they waited so long?

  The female warders let them pass. They raced out into the night, down the snow-covered garden paths, under the looming shadows of buildings. At the Brazen Gate, where the doors had stood open an hour earlier, now a dozen Varangians barred the way. One of them approached. Ulf Ospaksson. He’d seen Selene on the parade ground and in the barracks a few times. Would he know her? She pulled her veil closer to her face. Olympia spoke to him—“The Emperor’s order, we’re bringing the Empress to see him”—and held out the parchment. Ulf called another Guardsman over with a lantern. Neither of them could read the Greek but they were persuaded by the look of the thing.

  “This is her here?” Ulf gaped. “Really?” He lifted the edge of her hood and peered into her face. “Well, I’ll be damned. It’s no night to be out in, Empress.”

  “It’s urgent,” Olympia pleaded.

  Ulf shrugged. “Go on with you, then. Goodnight, Sisters.”

  Four men pulled the great bronze gate open. The coach was waiting in the street, one of Psellus’s servants at the reins. They had wanted their husbands to go with them, but no, Psellus said. Zoe knew him by sight, she might even remember Odd’s face. If she were made to talk—too dangerous. It was snowing heavily now, the wheels left deep tracks as they made their way slowly up the embankment along the Horn toward the Blachernae Quarter.

  “What shall I say to him?” Zoe asked them again and again. She was losing her nerve.

  “God will give you the words, Empress,” they assured her. “Trust in God.”

  The Monastery of Cosmas and Damien, the Healing Saints, built by Michael in a vain bid to win their favor, was a sprawling collection of buildings—a chapel, a rectory, an infirmary, a dormitory of cells—surrounded by a high stone wall. They stopped the coach before the nail-studded oaken door and helped Zoe down. The three of them stood together, freezing and pulling on the bell cord, for what seemed like minutes before a monk in hooded cassock opened the door a crack and held up his lamp.

  Inside the refectory, the Guardian of Orphans confronted them. In his black cassock belted with a rope, only his smooth eunuch’s cheeks distinguished him from the real monks, who were bearded to the waist; that, and the malice in his eyes. “Zoe! How in the name of God did you get here? Leave at once, or I warn you—”

  “Take me to my husband.” For a moment her voice was firm, commanding, a queen’s voice; somewhere she was finding the strength. “Do as I say.”

  They weren’t alone in the room. Three or four monks and their abbot looked on in dismay. And there were others too, not monks but several hard-looking young men in dark clothes. John’s orphan thugs.

  It was almost the hour of vespers and the monks were anxious to begin the service. “Surely, Guardian,” the Abbot began, “the Emperor must…”

  “I speak for the Emperor.” John rounded on him. “Michael hates this woman. Now get her out of here, goddammit.”

  Zoe faltered and shrank back in the face of his fury, her little bit of courage seeped away.

  “You heartless man!” Selene, eyes blazing, her hands balled into fists, stepped between them.

  “What?” cried John. He came toward her, peering into her face. “You talk mighty bold for a nun. Who are you?”

  “Only a humble Sister, Guardian,”

  “Not humble enough. You need to learn meekness, Sister.” He snatched the rope from around his waist and raised it to strike at her face. Olympia tried to pull her back but Selene didn’t flinch. The rope struck hard across her head, ripping aside her cap and veil so that her long hair tumbled loose.

  “You’re no nuns. Who sent you?” John raised his hand for another blow…

  “He’s dead, God save his soul!” A young monk burst into the room.

  “What?” John whirled around.

  “The Emperor, sir … in his cell, just this moment.”

  “Michael? My brother?” In John’s eye something flickered for an instant that might have been genuine emotion. “I must see him. Abbot, don’t let these women leave.” John rushed from the room, leaving the monks and the orphans behind.

  “Empress,” the Abbott pushed them toward the door, “take your women and go. Quickly! You can do nothing here. Christ’s love goes with you.”

  Monks and orphans pushed and shoved at each other while the women escaped. Outside, in the black night, they stumbled through the snow beyond the monastery gate, searching for the carriage. They couldn’t see a foot in front of them.

  “Where is he?” Olympia cried. “He can’t have left us.”

  Then Zoe fell and couldn’t get up. Selene ran back and struggled to pull the old woman to her feet just as the orphans shouldered the monks aside and burst through the refectory door.

  “Selene,” Olympia screamed, “Selene, hurry!”

  A horse’s whinny somewhere ahead. A dark shape moving slowly toward them.

  “Petrus, help us.”

  The coachman jumped down from his box and ran to where Selene, on her knees in the snow, was trying to lift Zoe. The old woman looked half-dead. The orphans were almost upon them.

  “Selene,” Olympia cried again. “Leave her!”

  But Petrus, who was a strong young man, hauled them both to their feet and dragged them to the coach, shoving Selene and Zoe inside just as the orphans grabbed at their cloaks.

  He leapt onto the box and cracked his whip and the coach lurched forward. Inside the three women, wet and freezing, huddled together, Selene and Olympia with their arms around the sobbing Empress.

  It was late at night when the coach returned, letting Selene off at our doorstep, then going on to take Olympia home. I’d been in a frenzy of worry all evening, cursing myself for letting her go. And when she told me how close they’d come to being captured—all I could do was hold her tight, speechless with relief.

  “We failed,” was all she could say at first. “I’m so sorry. I feel for Zoe, it took courage for her to face John—that man is a demon. And afterwards, coming back in the coach, I thought she would be angry at us for dragging her out on this hopeless venture, risking her dignity, her life even, but instead she thanked us, she kissed my hands and Olympia’s. I want to help her, Odd.”

  “I know, I know,” I told her. “It will come right in the end. And you’ll have a story to tell our children. I’ll write a poem about you, as I would for a warrior.”

  Chloris and I gave her warmed wine to drink and put her to bed. She smiled, and was almost instantly asleep.

  And that, I thought, was the end of it.

  Of course, I wa
s wrong.

  36

  Death of an Emperor

  The Emperor, so rumor told, had hobbled barefoot from his cell into the monastery chapel, leaning on two monks. He had refused to put on his red Imperial shoes and there were no other sandals that fit his swollen feet. But the effort was too much; gasping for breath, he was carried back and laid upon his straw pallet, where an hour or two later, he died. He had reigned eight years and seven months, most of that time as an invalid. He was only about thirty but he looked like an old man. As Psellus had recounted, he started badly, conniving at the murder of Zoe’s first husband, and then turning against her, perhaps out of remorse, but he grew into the role of Emperor and, despite his failing health, he played his part with fortitude. He spoke no last words and he was buried without ceremony in the chapel, beside the altar.

  Before putting Michael in the ground, one small precaution had to be observed. His signet ring must not fall into the wrong hands. But Michael’s fingers were the size of sausages.

  “Cut it off,” said his loving brother John.

  “What, the finger?” an incredulous monk replied.

  “Yes, you idiot, the finger.”

  They would place that ring on the thumb of young Michael the Fifth Calaphates: because now nothing could keep that boy from the throne.

  But three days would pass before that happened. Three days during which John stayed shut up in the Monastery of the Healing Saints, weeping—if one could believe it—at his brother’s graveside. Three days in which rumors raced through the city and the churches filled with people praying for the Emperor’s soul. Three days in which Varangians kicked in doors and dragged enemies of the Paphlagonian faction off to prison. In the palace, where I was stationed, fear was as suffocating as a fog at sea. Bureaucrats hid their papers, broke their signet seals, spoke in whispers. I don’t know where the Logothete was, but I saw Psellus once, scurrying down a corridor. He avoided my eyes. We hadn’t spoken since the night we planned the escapade with Zoe. My bandon and Bolli’s were on alert day and night, patrolling the palace grounds, watching everyone who went in or out. I didn’t go home for three days.

  And then, at last, John returned. The scene was extraordinary. When the Guardian of Orphans passed the gate, his brothers and young Calaphates approached him with their hands outstretched, as if they were about to meet God himself. They gathered around him, smothering him with kisses. Calaphates even stretched out his right hand for his uncle to lean on. John announced the Emperor’s death and then proclaimed in a loud voice that nothing now could be done without the consent of the Empress Zoe. And so off they went to the Purple Chamber. What happened there, I have heard from the lips of Zoe herself. The young Caesar flung himself at her feet, promising that he would be her slave. This was seconded by the uncles, who called down God’s wrath if they were lying. They needed her, you see, to play her part, to issue a proclamation blessing the new Emperor and asking the people to return peacefully to their homes because by now large crowds had gathered in the streets. Was Zoe fooled by this? She later claimed they had bewitched her. Who can say? The fact is, she simply had no choice.

  And that same day, the empire of the Romans gained a new ruler, His Holy Majesty Michael the Fifth, God’s Vice-regent on Earth, the seventeen-year-old son of a ship’s caulker, ignorant, untested, and to all appearances under the thumb of his Uncle John.

  A Roman coronation is a spectacle worth seeing—although this one was hastily put together. Trumpeters, drummers, flute players, massed flags and standards. Calaphates rode a white horse from the palace to the great central door of the cathedral. Flanking him was my bandon of the Guards. Behind us marched units of the other household regiments and, following them, all the senior officials—at least those who weren’t languishing in jail cells.

  The choruses of the Blue and Green circus factions lined the way, chanting “Axios, axios!—Worthy, worthy!” to this boy who was worthy of nothing. And the common people of Constantinople cheered wildly, happy, I think, to see anyone take the throne without blood running in the streets.

  Patriarch Alexius met the new emperor at the cathedral door and escorted him inside. He blessed the imperial cape and tiara and placed them on the boy. I never saw a priest less eager to perform his office—he hated these Paphlagonians. After that, a solemn Mass was performed, and then we marched back to the palace. Along the way, we Varangians halted and attempted to raise our new ruler up on a shield for all the people to see. It nearly ended in disaster. I and Gorm and two others had Calaphates at shoulder height when his eyeballs rolled up in his head and his knees buckled. Only my reaching up to grab his hand kept him from tumbling into the street.

  The Emperor’s first audience should have been held in the Golden Hall. But, no. Calaphates wanted desperately to soar up to the ceiling on the Throne of Solomon, and so we gathered instead in the Magnaura throne room. Zoe was brought in and made to sit next to her adopted son on the throne’s broad seat. Incredibly, another throne was placed next to them for John. And there he sat, in his simple monk’s robe, looking like he could scarcely keep from laughing. From where I stood, I could see his brothers Constantine and George standing farther back in the press of courtiers. They were not laughing.

  Calaphates was a pale, gangly, pinch-faced, youth, unmuscular and awkward in his movements. This could have made him appealing in a way, except for the eyes which were cold as death. In a faltering voice, he attempted a speech from the throne and was heard to say, “… the Empress … my mistress … I am her servant …” And he called John “my master.” The voice trailed off in a whisper. Then, at a hurried signal from the Master of Ceremonies, all the court flattened themselves in obeisance and our new ruler got his heart’s desire: the golden lions roared, the jeweled birds chirruped, and he and Zoe rose high above our heads.

  The next morning things turned ugly between Harald and me. I was still on duty in the palace when he summoned me to his quarters. I brought Gorm along with me—some small voice warned me not to go in there alone. I found him and Halldor waiting for me. Harald waved me to a chair and ordered Gorm to wait outside. Gorm went as far as the doorway and stood there, filling it with his shoulders.

  “John told me a curious story last night,” Harald began, in a quiet voice that stirred the hairs on the back of my neck. “Halldor here translated it for me—his Greek’s getting better, you know. It seems that two women posing as nuns spirited Zoe out of her quarters and took her to see the Emperor. Incredible, isn’t it? Naturally, John had the warders flogged but the stupid women could tell him nothing. Nor could that fool Ulf, who was supposed to be guarding the gate. But one of John’s orphans thought he heard one of the women call the other one ‘Serena’, or was it ‘Selene’?Your wife’s name.” Suddenly his fist came down hard on the table. “What was your wife doing there?”

  “My wife was at home with our children,” I said, looking him straight in the eye.

  “The Emperor’s whereabouts was not common knowledge, Tangle-Hair. In fact, it was only mentioned at our meeting with Constantine and George. Now, Halldor here swears he didn’t tell anyone. That leaves you.”

  “Hardly. The palace is a hotbed of rumors, probably a dozen people knew where Michael was.”

  “Funny, I don’t believe you.”

  I saw Halldor’s fist tighten on the pommel of his sword. I moved my hand towards mine and called to Gorm. If we were going to fight, it would be even odds. Harald and Halldor were on their feet. The four of us stood nose to nose for a long moment with no one speaking. Then Harald drew a deep breath and forced a smile.

  “Now, now, there’s no call for swordplay. The escapade came to nothing anyway. But I warn you, Tangle-Hair, we’ve come a long way together, and I wouldn’t like things to end badly for you. I mean, with your head on a stake.”

  I kept my eyes on him and said nothing.

  “You’ve gotten an exaggerated sense of your importance here, Tangle-Hair. You need to learn a lesson. I’m t
aking away your captaincy. I never approved of the appointment and there’s no reason to prolong it now that the Emperor is dead. And”—he thrust his chin out at me—“you give me one more reason to suspect you, and you’ll be out of the Guard and out of the city. You understand me?”

  Gorm was usually the mildest of men, unless he was aroused. He was aroused now. He growled something deep in his throat and, for a thrilling instant, I heard an echo there of his brother Glum—the man-wolf.

  Harald blinked.

  “You remove Odd,” Gorm said in his husky voice, “and the Second Bandon will mutiny. I will go to their rooms this minute and call them out. Odd has friends here.”

  “Bloody treason,” Halldor snarled, and drew his sword half from its scabbard. But Harald stopped him. I could sense his thoughts: with a new Emperor only one day on the throne and the Guard overstretched to control the city, a mutiny was the last thing he could afford. And it would ruin his credit with John. He raised his hands in a gesture of peace.

  “It’s been a long few days, my friends. We’re all a bit touchy, aren’t we? Perhaps I was hasty. We’ll let it pass.”

  Gorm and I left them to themselves and went off to have a drink together.

  “Would the men have mutinied, Gorm?”

  “Don’t know,” he shrugged his big shoulders. “Hope we don’t find out. I’d be careful of Harald, though, if I were you.”

  “That, friend Gorm, is something I learned a long time ago.”

  That night I went home, kissed my children, and talked late into the night with Selene.

  37

  A Secret Revealed

  January, 1042

  It was evening and I had just come off guard duty. I had changed my uniform for a warm robe and fur hat and was walking down the promenade from the Magnaura to the Brazen Gate when I heard voices approaching and looked up to see our new Emperor coming in my direction. With him was a pretty young girl, one of the dancers who entertained at banquets, and an elderly official in court dress with a bunch of keys at his belt. I recognized this man by sight as the Papias, the majordomo of the palace, who was responsible for its maintenance and all its operations. Behind them walked a burly slave wearing a leather cap and a thick leather belt. They swept by me without a glance, and I thought I caught the word ‘throne’ as they passed through the tall, silver-shod doors and disappeared within.