Byzantium (3 page)

The Hound’s chest heaved and the air wheezed through his gaping nostrils. ‘I struck him on the helm. There was blood all over his face. Then two men attacked me. When I finished with them, I saw him still lying there. I don’t see how he could have got away.’

‘But some men were able to flee?’

‘No more than two or three. Cowards.’

‘Or men intent on saving their Prince.’ The man from Denmark removed a bulging leather wallet from his expensive Frisian wool cloak and shook out four gold bezants. ‘My King said he would pay you the bounty for the King of Norway and his heir. I give you partial payment as the task has yet to be completed. But consider how much easier your errand has become.’ The man from Denmark hefted the wallet. ‘Before today, you had to kill a King and a Prince to earn this. Now you only have to kill a fugitive boy.’

The Hound held the gold coins in his flat palm and gently prodded them with his scarred, blood-smeared fingers, almost as if they were small, delicate creatures of a species he had never imagined existed. ‘Haraldr Sigurdarson,’ he said quietly, and then he closed his huge fist.

Isle of Prote, Sea of Marmara September 1030

‘ “Learning is but foliage compared to the fruits of a holy life, and the tree that bears nothing but
foliage must be cut down and burned. But the finest result is when the fruit is set amongst its foliage.” ‘ Father Katalakon permitted himself the vanity of a slight smile as he finished his impromptu recitation. He was a tall man, his long but neatly combed hair and beard the colour of the grey sea mist that on this bright day was, blessedly, still only a dreary memory of winters past and a foreboding of the cold months ahead. Indeed, all of the fruits the Pantocrator had delivered to his Holy Brethren on the Isle of Prote were on this day brightly lit by the brilliant candle of Our Lord’s glorious vault. The September sun gleamed off the floor of rose-veined Proconesian marble and burnished the gold acanthus-leaf pattern that bordered the lacquered, coffered ceiling of the library. Father Katalakon turned to the man next to him. ‘Of course I do not intend to convey that your intimacy with the words of Theodore the Studite requires a restorative from my lips, Brother Symeon.’

‘Wisdom is never disgraced by repetition, Father Abbot, as holiness is only cultured by our efforts to emulate it.’ Brother Symeon, the new Chartophylax, or archivist, of the Monastery at Prote, was content to allow the Father Abbot to meander towards their objective. After all, Brother Symeon reminded himself, he would not have been summoned here to Prote had he not long ago achieved the state of
apathia
that bridled impetuous, worldly desires. He looked about the library with admiration; the sumptuous marble revetments and gilded scriptoria attested to the material abundance of Prote, while the shelves stacked with books - some bound in oak, many sheathed in carved ivory, cloisonne or gems - revealed spiritual wealth. Brother Symeon peered through the clear glass panes of the gracefully arched windows; beneath him, sun-washed rocks fell away to the gem-blue Sea of Marmara. So what I have been told of Prote was no exaggeration, reflected Brother Symeon. The island scarcely has enough arable soil to support a herb garden, and yet the splendours of the establishment rival those of the monasteries at Bithynia and Chios. Ah, well, Christ the Pantocrator will no doubt soon reveal the identity of Prote’s benefactor. All things according to His immutable plan.

Father Katalakon appraised his new archivist; like the Father Abbot, Brother Symeon wore the long black wool frock and high round cap common to all the monastic orders of the One True Oecumenical, Orthodox and Catholic Faith. Yes, Father Katalakon was satisfied that his careful inquiries had indeed been rewarded. The aged Brother Symeon had manifested no impatience on this deliberately circumlocutional tour of the facilities, nor had he evidenced any curiosity as to the source of this magnificence. Of course, Brother Symeon had become noticeably weary of the walking, his thin shoulders slumping and his lips purpling against his snowy beard. Hopefully the new Chartophylax would live long enough to finish his archival research here on Prote; most certainly he would not live long enough to speak of those labours elsewhere even if his worldly passions were somehow revived by what he might find amid the late Father Abbot Giorgios’s voluminous archives.

Well, it was time. ‘One could linger here in contemplation of these glories until the Trumpet of Judgement sounded.’ Father Katalakon graciously extended his hand to Brother Symeon. ‘But I am sure you are curious to see the documents of which I have written to you.’

The carved wooden door slid noiselessly to reveal a chamber lit by an ornate glass-and-gold candelabra and a single window looking onto an enclosed, private court. Brother Symeon virtually gasped in astonishment. The floor, paved with moss-coloured Thessalian marble, was almost entirely obscured by dozens of stacks of unbound parchments; some of the bundles, wrapped in silk cords, rose almost to Father Katalakon’s lofty chin. Surrounded by these thousands upon thousands of documents was a marvellous little writing cabinet with an ivory and niello top and gold fittings on the lacquered wooden drawers.

‘Yes, you see that I did not embellish fact when I wrote to you that Father Abbot Giorgios, may Christ the Pantocrator bless and sanctify his soul, was an extraordinarily prodigious correspondent. And certainly you can see why a Chartophylax of your eminent repute was required.’ Father Katalakon slid the door closed. His hazel eyes took on a flinty texture in the light from the window; his voice lowered and lost its unctuous buoyancy. ‘Father Abbot Giorgios was a man of unusual energies and occupations. Not only did he correspond copiously with other Holy Men from places as distant as Cappadocia and Rome, but he also exchanged letters with many eminent persons in the world our Lord has inveighed us to turn our backs upon. No doubt he diverted many souls from the foul paths of perdition to less errant if more arduously inclined avenues of righteousness.’

Father Katalakon looked out on the courtyard. A blue-and-gold-tiled fountain lofted pearly spray. ‘Father Abbot Giorgios gave these weary souls the accumulation of his own holy wisdom, and they in turn gave to his holy establishment at Prote from their wordly accumulations.’ Father Katalakon looked directly into Brother Symeon’s eyes. If he saw any retreat there, he would send the man away.

‘The foremost patron of Prote was the purple-born Eudocia,’ resumed Father Katalakon after his searching pause. ‘Niece of the late Emperor and Autocrator Basil called the Bulgar-Slayer, daughter of the late Emperor and Autocrator Constantine, sister of the Empress and Basilissa Zoe the purple-born, and sister of the Augusta Theodora. Under the blessed Eudocia’s generous auspices, the
typicon
granting our establishment its current rights and privileges was signed by the Emperor and Autocrator Basil the Bulgar-Slayer. Father Abbot Giorgios was Eudocia’s friend and counsellor; it was he who persuaded her to renounce her temporal ambitions and their concomitant woes and join the Sisters of the Convent of the Theotokos in Protovestiary.’ Father Katalakon paused again and lowered his steel-coloured eyebrows. ‘Father Abbot Giorgios was also the purple-born Eudocia’s confessor.’

The fountain in the little courtyard faintly gurgled over the long pause. ‘I am not a
hesychaste,
a silent monk,’ Brother Symeon finally offered in a soft yet implacable voice. ‘But in the matter of the archives that Christ the Pantocrator has placed in my keeping, my silence has been vowed for many, many years.’

‘Yes,’ said Father Katalakon as he slid the door open and prepared to leave his new Chartophylax to his holy duties. ‘I knew that when I asked the Pantocrator to send you to us.’

Father Katalakon quickly left the library and walked past the towering domed apse of Prote’s splendid Church of the Holy Apostles, through the colonnaded arcade that fronted the barrel-vaulted cells of the monks, and entered the lovely cypress grove that carried the procession of the arcade out along the wooded green spine of the little island. He walked swiftly, savouring the rich sea air, his step lifted by the conviction that he had acted both decisively and prudently. If the Sisters of Theotokos in Protovestiary were not overly apprehensive - and he had never known them to be so - then the purple-born Eudocia would soon escape the miseries and blandishments of the flesh and take her place at the feet of Christ the Pantocrator. And then who would prevent Prote’s generous
typicon
from being redrafted by the new Emperor? Unless, of course, there was an heir to whom the rights to the Holy Establishment at Prote might be transferred.

The tiny convent at Prote lay just beneath the point where the verdant spine of the island again dipped a rocky flank into the sea. The chapel had three small domes, and the cells, refectory and larder were wrapped round the landward-pointing apse like a bent elbow. The mouldy stone complex was deserted, having been occupied only once, for less than a year, and that seventeen years ago. Father Katalakon had been on Prote then, though he had only been cellarer at that time. As such, he had not been privileged to visit the little convent. Still, he had heard the play of promiscuous lips among some of the Brethren.

Father Katalakon descended to the flagstone path in front of the stark, empty cells. The plaster had begun to chip from the walls, and here and there weeds prised apart the underlying courses of bricks. The wind came from the north; in the woods behind the empty convent, leaves rattled. The wooden doors to the cells were rotting and the Father Abbot decided not to open one.

I am certain it was the purple-born Eudocia who resided here,
thought Father Katalakon.
As to the rumours of the child born here, I am certain of that as well, and I expect Brother Symeon to provide me proof. But that will not be enough to save our establishment. What Brother Symeon must uncover are the names. Who was the father? And yet more important - vastly so - where is the child?

The wind gusted and eddied, swirling leaves against the doors of the cells. Father Katalakon looked north, towards the unseen but profoundly felt presence of mighty Constantinople. He shuddered despite the dazzling silver light on the heaving sea. Having taken this step, he now had to admit to himself that it was not simply the fate of their Holy Enterprise on Prote that was at stake. If Father Katalakon succeeded in finding this child, the fate of the Empire was in his hands.

Kiev, Rus Land, AD 1034

‘I am condemned to spend my life looking out of windows.’ Elisevett sighed, trying to sound as weary of life as possible for a fifteen-year-old virgin. She settled into the embroidered cushion she had placed in the deeply recessed window seat; her scarlet silk robe was varnished with the candlelight diffusing from the adjacent clerestory. She pressed the tip of her long-bridged nose to the glass and looked out into the night, past the dim outlines of the domed and peaked palace roofs and down the pine-shrouded bluffs of the Citadel of Kiev. The Dnieper River looked like ink striated with gold, the shimmering reflections of the hundreds of torches that flared along the sandy beaches. The pounding of the shipwrights’ hammers and the shouted commands to the porters were a muffled, distant din. If she were the merest fur-trader or
strug-
poler
,
Elisevett reflected, or even a reeking Tork slave girl, she would be able to journey down that river. But of course the Princess of Rus would not be permitted to go. No. She would spend her life in
terems
and churches, first waiting upon her father’s bidding, then upon whomever he chose for her. Elisevett thought of her mother, so dry and wasted, like a tree with the sap drained. That would be her fate as well, to look out of windows while the life ran out of her.

But on this night she would escape that fate. On this night she would journey, go away for ever, right here in the very cathedral where they had so often paraded her, dressed like a jewelled, silk-wrapped little
rusalka
doll, for every gaping
miuzhi
and
liudi
in the entire world to stare at in slack-jawed wonder. No, tonight would not be at all like that. Tonight she would kill the little doll.

‘Come here’ she said. ‘You can see the lights by the river.’ She turned. ‘Come here.’

Haraldr looked back through the low, arched entrance of the tiny storage room on the third floor of the Church of the Tithe, praying that the cathedral was indeed empty. He squeezed awkwardly into the window seat. He had never been this close to her before. Her sandy hair, pulled back and tightly coiled on either side of her head in the Greek fashion, seemed streaked with gold. He could smell her rose-water scent and hear her breathe. He tried to suck air into his constricting lungs. He could not imagine what the touch of her would do.

‘Look at them.’

Haraldr watched the points of light swirl like fireflies as the workers moved among the blunt prows of the beached river ships. The dark forests beyond the left bank of the Dnieper stretched off to an eerily orange-fringed horizon, the corona of thousands of camp-fires. Haraldr shuddered. The Pechenegs were on the land.

‘Jarl Rognvald told my father you are not going down the river with him. My father was
not
pleased. Why are you staying?’ Elisevett leaned away from Haraldr and ran her fingers over the luminous pearls that studded her high silk collar, taunting her earnest Nordic swain to answer the question she knew he would not. While she observed his torment she considered how extraordinary it was that Christ - she doubted that the Lord’s sinless Mother would have interceded on her behalf in this matter - had answered her prayers by providing the hapless
detskii,
Haraldr Nordbrikt. He was a suitable vision, of course, tall and silky golden and so broad in the chest and shoulders, with those dazzling blue eyes and that interesting scar that pulled his right eyebrow up slightly. But then rakish Nordic giants were a plague in Rus these days, due to her father’s relentless ambitions. No, what was truly wonderful and extraordinary was the manner in which Haraldr Nordbrikt affected her mother and father. She saw the way her father glared and gasped; if this mere
detskii
in his Lesser Druzhina offended him so much, why didn’t the Great Prince just send him off against the Pechenegs and be done with him, instead of keeping him around Kiev to collect tolls? And her mother.
She
all but reached out and caressed Haraldr with her eyes, not in a leering fashion as an older woman might but with this strange glimmering ember deep within. But if Haraldr were her mother’s lover, then her father would also send him off against the Pechenegs. Or could he? How mysterious. And how wonderful it would be if Haraldr Nordbrikt were her mother’s lover.