The Belt of Gold (14 page)

He sat there in his gorgeous coat, his scribes beside him scribbling, his ministers behind him murmuring his praises, his clients before him praying for his purposes, and who seeing him would not know that he was truly emperor—in all but the diadem?

While halfway across the City, she who wore the diadem went on, hour by hour, moment by moment, using his place, spending his treasure, wasting his power.

In the middle of an oration, in fact in the middle of an elaborate period so contrived that John had lost track of the subject, a servant hurried up to him, knelt down beside his chair, and said a name to him.

He sat bolt upright. What a fool she was, the whore, to put herself again in his power.

The rhetorician before him was decorating his speech with gestures as stylized as the figures on his coat. By the force and variety of these ornaments, John Cerulis guessed the man was near the summit of his discourse, and he made himself wait (smiling, smiling) until the end should come, when he might cut short the reception without any undue excitement or conjecture. Yet his hands itched, his legs shivery, thinking of his sure revenge.

The speech ended in a pile of phrases. He did not grant the request, because, at the last, the orator lost control, and mixed his metaphors so atrociously that the scribes all sighed over their scribblings and the ministers all sniggered.

At a gesture from their master, the heralds marched forward and dismissed the gathering, in the name of God and John Cerulis. A page lifted up the master's cloak from the chair, so that he could rise without its weight upon his shoulders; another page went ahead of him with the rods of office. They went back through the palace and into his private apartments.

In a room carpeted with rugs from Persia, where icons framed in silver hung on the walls, there stood Theophano.

He stopped when he saw her, arrested by her beauty; he loved beauty, although not as much as he despised people who betrayed him.

“So,” he said, and went forward into the center of the room. A snap of his fingers brought his servants leaping to divest him of the embroidered coat and belt of links of gold. Under it he wore a long white tunic, which they embellished with a vest and several necklaces of garnets and lapis lazuli, and a page brought him his chair and held his clothing straight so that he could sit down without wrinkling it. Theophano watched all this calmly. She was pale as candle wax. Her hair was so black it shone blue in the daylight.

Once he had held her in his arms, and fulfilled that passion which in him was so sensitive a taste that he had believed it doomed forever to disappointment. For that alone he let her live a while.

He said, “As the huntress Artemis goes forth upon the mountains of Taygetus, Theophano, so you have come among us here, outshining all my handmaids.”

She turned her head slightly, her eyes upon him, and for a moment was silent; he began to be disappointed in her, but then she spoke, and her words were both apt and Homeric.

“Alas,” she said, “what kind of people have I come among? Are they cruel, savage, and uncivilized, or hospitable and humane?”

He stretched out his hand to her and took her fingers in his, smiling in delight at her knowledge of Homer, her lovely voice, her excellent form and figure. “At any rate,” he said, “you are among a race of men and women, Theophano.”

“Then I need not break off a branch to hide my nakedness,” she said, and smiled, and tried to free her hand from his, but John Cerulis held her tight.

“Yes,” he said, “Nausicaa herself was not as lovely as you, laughter-loving Theophano. Now tell me why you so foolishly put yourself in my power again, after betraying me as you did.”

“I never betrayed you,” she said. “It was Shimon and Targa who betrayed you—they forced me to go away with them, when I would have cleaved to you, my only Emperor.”

He lifted his head at that, his spirit elevated by her words, although he believed nothing she said. He regarded her from head to foot, charmed by her perfection of taste. Her dress of white silk, decorated across the breast and down the sleeve with gammadions of gold thread, was of an elegance so restrained and pure a man of lesser refinement would have thought it plain. He said, “And now you have brought yourself to me, to suffer for your sins against me, hmm?”

In his hand her hand was cold as the fire in the heart of a jewel. She said, “I have brought you that which you most desire, John Cerulis.”

“Ah?”

“I will give you the gift of purple boots, if you will harken to me, and let me live.”

His grip tightened, almost a spasm of the fingers. He drew her close against his knee. “Yes? What trick is this, laughter-loving one?”

“No trick, sir. The Basileus hates me, suspecting me of what is the truth, that in the weighing out of hearts I have found more value in your cause than in hers. My life's thread lies in the shears now, and every breath may be my last. Yet I will breathe my last among those who serve the true Emperor.”

He laughed at this, at this dissembling innocence, moved to a rare affection, although he believed it no more than he believed anything else. She was here now, in his power. He would keep her alive as long as she amused him, and if she did indeed have some hidden knowledge of the usurping whore Irene, he would extract it from her as he chose. He had ever yearned for an ear inside the inner circle of the Empress, her women, and Theophano, willing or not, would give him what she knew.

“Tell me, then,” he said, “what you believe to be of value to me.”

“You know of the holy man in the desert,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, disappointed; the holy man was old news.

“You must convince him of the justice of your cause.” Her cheeks suddenly bloomed with a subtle delicious color, more perfect than any jewel to complement her clothes. “He will preach your cause to the people, and the people of Rome will rise up and make you emperor.”

“I see little hope of that, divine beauty.”

“I can tell you this, John Cerulis, that the Basileus dreads more than any other course you might pursue that action which I have described to you.”

He sat silent a moment, letting this suggestion mature in his understanding. The holy man was out in the desert, somewhere off to the east. It was tedious to leave Constantinople; nor did he believe that any serious advantage could be achieved outside the walls of the City, and the holy man would be dirty and probably obnoxious of manner. Rome was full of holy men, a new one every month.

He smiled at her. Relaxing his fingers, he let his hand fall to his knee, and she stood before him, unfettered, yet bound to his merest whim. He meant to see her die. Unfortunately, once she was dead, the pleasure would be over, and so he would prolong the anticipation a while, whetting his enjoyment.

He said, “We shall see, my lovely one. We shall see.”

She bowed to him. “I await the moment when the diadem is on your head, beloved of God.”

“I should think,” said the City Prefect nervously, “that the honor of competing would be enough.”

“Do you,” Ishmael said. “God, what gives you that notion? When do I get the money, then, if not today?”

The Prefect looked around him, his mouth twisted. “Can't we talk about this someplace else?” He waved his hands at Ishmael as if the charioteer were shouting at him, and looked around for some escape, but Ishmael would not be put off. He knew the ways of the Imperial officers, and he needed money desperately, now, the landlord threatening to put him and his wife and babies out, the bakers refusing to sell them more bread on credit. He glared at the City Prefect.

“I need at least some of it now. Today, this afternoon, now, here.”

The Prefect shook his head. “Everybody wants money, everybody thinks I have control of the purse. Why don't you talk to Nicephoros?” His voice was bitter. He nodded across the terrace.

Ishmael looked where he was indicating. The whole court was gathered here, on the pavement before the Chalke gateway into the Palace, where the Caliph's emissary would soon be received. Already a hundred people crowded the semicircular area between the gate and the scaffolding, which was supported at the back by the wall of Saint Stephen. The Basileus would appear on the scaffold, now shrouded by heavy purple curtains. Ishmael sighed.

“Take me to Nicephoros.”

“Can't this wait?” The Prefect wrung his long soft hands. “Heavens, if you only knew how many people are in your position—”

Ishmael got him by the arm and applied force. “I don't care about them. I'm tired of being hounded by tradesmen.”

The Prefect fell still and with an air of limp resignation he let himself to be maneuvered through the crowd. The Treasurer Nicephoros stood among a little circle of courtiers, listening to a joke being told; as Ishmael and the Prefect reached him, he was venting a mechanical, uninterested laugh. The Prefect touched his arm, and the tall Syrian turned.

“Ishmael.” Nicephoros put out his hands, smiling, and grasped the driver's hands in a firm warm welcome. “How wonderful to see you again. You've heard, I'm sure, of the wonderful news?”

The Prefect opened his mouth, his eyes sliding from Ishmael to the Treasurer and back again, but before he could warn Nicephoros, Ishmael stepped down hard on his foot. “Has the Basileus assigned the next race, then?”

“Saint Helena's day. Truly auspicious, isn't it? You're sure to win.”

Ishmael smiled at that, triumphant, the power in his hands. “Well, then, you'll have to give me some money.”

The Treasurer's smile slipped an inch. The Prefect said, “He wants to be paid, Nicephoros.”

“Does he really,” Nicephoros said, his lips quivering. “What a novel idea.”

“And if I am not paid,” Ishmael said, “I will not race. How does that feel in your money bag?”

“Aaaah.” Nicephoros shot a bitter look at the City Prefect. “What do you wear the belt for, anyway? Can't you do your job?”

“He made me bring him here to you.” Nervously the Prefect's hands tapped on his belt of office.

Nicephoros faced Ishmael again, his smile quite gone, his eyes narrow, and the great wedge of his nose like a prow before him. “How much do we owe you?”

“Eight hundred irenes.”

It would barely pay his debts. The Prefect muttered in surprise at the amount, but Nicephoros only stared at him a moment longer, his thick lips pressed firmly together. Ishmael met his eyes, struggling for patience. They would not please the crowds without his team; there would be trouble if he did not race. He hoped the trouble would be worth eight hundred irenes.

Behind him abruptly a ram's horn blasted, and he jumped, his nerves wound tight. Nicephoros grunted. “Well, not now, anyway,” he said, and swiftly he turned to his position in the ranks of officials waiting for the Caliph's ambassador. Ishmael pushed back into the thick of the crowd. He was not supposed to be here and had no place assigned and he was wearing ordinary clothes; he stooped a little to conceal himself behind the people around him.

Swiftly the others were reaching their appointed spots on the pavement. They straightened up like statues, a dense-packed crescent of glittering coats facing the Chalke gate. The horns blasted again, their round soft notes rising like curlicues of sound that echoed off the high walls of the gate before and the chapel behind the crowd. Drums began to throb an even beat. Unconsciously Ishmael stiffened to attention, his arms at his sides, his head high, conforming to the posture of those around him.

The gate flew open, and with an ascending flourish of the horns, a thunder of the drums, rank on rank of foreigners marched through.

There seemed to be hundreds of them. In rows of eight, they marched through the gate, snapping their knees high with each step, and divided into fours and swung to either side, making room for the next row. Their robes were bright green; the hilts of their curved swords sparkled with jewels and gold. On their heads they wore soft folded cloth hats topped by ostrich plumes. Steadily they filled up the pavement, and when at last they were so packed in that only a narrow path was left, they stopped, turned their heads toward the gate, and in one great voice shouted something in their uncouth language.

Borne on the shoulders of six huge, naked slaves, the Caliph's ambassador entered, sitting cross-legged on a pile of carpets. The slaves carried him forward to the foot of the draped scaffold and stopped. The Caliph's man stood up. He wore jewels and silks worth a small kingdom; his hat carried an emerald the size of Ishmael's fist.

The drums paused. The horns rang silent. Everybody waited, breathless, while the music faded from the air.

There was an instant of perfect silence, and then the drums beat out again, the horns blasted. Fluttering like wings, the silk curtains swept to either side, and all across the packed terrace, gasping, the people fell to their knees.

On top of the scaffold the Basileus stood, a blaze of gold in the afternoon sun. Supported by her women on either side, great wings of gold extended ten feet from her, and behind her, fans of gold rose up above her head, catching and reflecting the sunlight, until she was so bright the eye hurt to see her. Ishmael, with all the others, fell on his face on the paving stones.

“Augustus, Chosen of God, Equal to the Apostles!”

She blessed them. Ishmael received it thankfully, knowing it would transform his life. His heart grew great with delight and gratitude that she was his Basileus, overwhelming these simple barbarians. Turning his head, he saw the Caliph's emissary gaping at her, and now even he sank down on his knees as if dazed, and like a great tower falling before a conqueror, he went down on his face at her feet.

Then from the scaffolding beneath her came a thunder of voices, giving forth praise of God and the Basileus, and glorifying Heaven with a hundred tongues. Ishmael's spine tingled. He thought that God Himself must sit upon the clouds to view this spectacle.