The Belt of Gold (19 page)

Hagen leaned against the rail, still directing his full attention to the paper. Ishmael picked his nose. Up in the stands, a movement caught his eye, and he looked that way to see a little group of men walking along the upper level. One was Constantine, Michael's uncle, who had been assigned to escort the Caliph's ambassador and his party around the City.

Hagen was folding up the list; he slid it away into his clothes. “I have to go away for a while,” he said. “Can you watch over my other horse for me? He has to be taken out and run, or he'll break the stall down.”

“I'll do it.”

“It's not too much trouble? I hear you are to race again soon.”

“Yes, in a week or so.”

“Good luck, then. I hope I am here to see it.”

Hagen put out his hand, and Ishmael took it; the barbarian's strong grip reminded him, oddly, of Prince Michael. He thought, They are much the same, Michael and this man, and that is why they contend together. At once, perversely, he found himself wishing that the barbarian contended with him.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Away.” Hagen smiled at him and started off toward the stable.

Ishmael rushed along beside him. “Damn it, Hagen, don't you owe me more of an explanation than that?”

Hagen made a sound in his throat, half-laugh and half a groan of despair. He shook his head. “If I understood the least of what is going on, Ishmael, I would talk to you the night through over it.” He stopped abruptly and stared at Ishmael, his face fretted. “Your Greek women—do they ever tell the truth?”

“My wife is Arab, like me,” Ishmael said. “I never let her out of the house, she has nothing to lie about. What women do you mean?”

“This Empress. And there is another—”

He broke off, looking away, and as suddenly as he had stopped he was walking off into the stable again. Ishmael followed him, his curiosity like a maddening itch.

“The Empress is a Jezebel,” he said. “Everybody knows that. About this other woman—”

“I don't care about her,” Hagen said, his back to Ishmael, and went fast away into the gloom.

17

Theophano waited for a chance to kill John Cerulis, but it did not come. She was never alone with him anymore. Whenever she was in his company, one or another of his guards was always nearby, usually the despicable Karros. When she was away from John, one of his aunts, an elderly chatterbox, attended her, and every move Theophano made was watched.

In the morning after she saw Hagen, while she was still brooding over her stupidity in falling in love with a barbarian who hated her, John Cerulis with a modest retinue of three hundred people set out from Constantinople. By barge, they crossed over the narrows into Asia, and there took the road toward Sinop. Theophano rode in a chair with the aunt, Eusebia, who was embroidering silk in an oval frame, and maintained a constant level of incidental gossip. Clearly she was not there to draw Theophano into idle revelations, but simply to keep watch over her.

They spent the night on the shore of the Euxine. The great mass of servants threw up tents, lit fires, set tables out and with them chairs; over a hearth of clay bricks, John Cerulis's cooks made them a meal that was a mockery of those to which he was accustomed.

In the largest of the tents, Theophano sat on his left at the high table, which was placed up on a wooden dais covered with brocades and Persian carpets. The dinner was elegantly served, and she liked the meats, which, simply roasted on spits, had an unexpectedly delightful robust flavor; but the bread was a crime against humanity, and there was no fish at all.

John Cerulis sat there with his smile white-lipped, his eyes glassy. A fine wheaten pancake, stuffed with a terrine of wild game and garnished with a tart cherry sauce, revived his color somewhat. Then, when the wine for the fifth course was poured out full of sediment, he wheeled around toward Theophano and snarled, “You look like an urchin, you know—fading away into a shade of yourself. You could at least mind your appearance for my sake.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. She knew how she looked. Resigned to death, she had no fear, and her hatred made her vicious.

In an idle voice, she said, “Really, Patrician, I wish you would send for some of your bully boys, and have me torn limb from limb, or boiled in oil, or otherwise performed on, to provide me with that much entertainment at least. I vow I have seldom been so bored.”

“This was your idea, laughter-loving Theophano!”

“My idea!” She eyed him, leisurely, looking down her nose at him, in the way she had often seen Prince Michael wither people. “I merely suggested that you enlist this holy man in your cause. It was your idea, if the decision can be glorified as an act of mind, to leave Constantinople.”

“Oh? And what would you have done, in my place?”

She considered that. She meant to kill him, anyway, so it did not matter if she told him anything useful.

She said, “I would have accepted the invitation. The Imperial box is the only place Irene goes where she is not surrounded by her guards. You could have planned your assault on the government for the beginning of the race, when most of Rome would be interested only in what was going on on the racetrack, and then at the proper moment, seized her person, and forced her to resign the throne in your favor, and the whole of the City would be gathered there in the Hippodrome to hear her do it.”

John Cerulis's mouth formed a reflective pout. He thought a while before he spoke, and when he did, he gave her a slight bow of his head.

“An excellent scheme. You should have been born a man, Theophano.”

“My God,” she said, suddenly close to tears. “Do you mean a compliment? What a fool you are, Patrician. To be a
man
—you think you mean, to have everything; don't you? But what is a man in this world but a tool—God uses him for His Glory; the City uses him to maintain itself. A woman may at least have love—she may bear children—but a man! Pagh!”

She spat on the plate in front of him. A gasp went up from every throat in the room.

“Give me no such insults, John Cerulis. I will be only, and ever, what I am.”

She stood up, even as John Cerulis with a jerk of his arm summoned his guards forward. “Stand aside.” She put out her hand to stop them. “I shall be happy to leave. Never have I been so abominably served.”

She marched straight toward the door, moving fast, so that the guards had to break into a trot to keep pace with her. That night she slept in a storage tent on the ground.

All the next day, she rode in the chair beside the aunt. The dust of the road and the heat and boredom rubbed over her nerves; she felt flayed. The aunt's empty chatter was maddening.

All this was John Cerulis's doing, torturing her. The only way to escape from him was to destroy him. She longed to kill him in some slow and painful way, but she knew that would be impossible—she would have to be swift, and certainly she would die, too. Resigned to that, she slumped on the cushions dully considering ways to end his life.

Beside her, the aunt said, “Oh!” and twitched.

“What's the matter?”

“Ah—I am clumsy.” The aunt had stuck herself with one of her embroidery needles; she put her bleeding finger into her mouth. Intrigued, Theophano watched as the needle, fallen onto the old woman's black silk skirt, slid like a silver streak down into the cushions. Eusebia fussed to herself; she had gotten blood on her work, and with many recriminations and laments she unhitched it from the hoop and packed it away.

Theophano slid her hand down into the cushions, shifting her weight, as if trying to get comfortable, and found the needle. Carefully she hid it away in the cuff of her sleeve.

Hagen took his bay horse and rode after John Cerulis, not in the caravan's track but on the hillside above it, out of the dust. Once or twice, his way took him down out of sight of the great train, but he found it again each time without difficulty.

The road led along the shore of the sea, between the pebble beach and the round dun shapes of the hills. There were no trees, only twisted, wind-curried shrubs and stretches of blowing grass. On the high peaks, stone towers stood, and once, in the far distance, he saw a village or a small town, but the only natives were a few sheep and goats, grazing on the rocky hillsides, and rushed off into hiding by boys with sticks when they saw the caravan coming.

Hagen saw Theophano in her chair, some crone beside her; he followed as close to her as he could, for a long time, watching her.

That night he slept by himself, on the hillside above the camp. In the morning he went down to the road, which was curving inland now, away from the sea. The road was choked with horses and carts, servants on foot and others leading donkeys; Hagen worked his way through this pack until he found Karros, riding a big chestnut gelding with a blaze face.

Karros did not see him until Hagen was almost stirrup to stirrup with him, and for an instant the fat Greek's face went pale as a ghost's. Quickly his welcoming smile jerked up into place. “Ah, my friend Hagen! Good to see you, man—good to see you.” He leaned out to clap Hagen on the arm, as if they were the oldest of friends.

Hagen hitched himself around slightly in his saddle, scanning the people around them. Theophano rode just ahead of them in the chair, the curtains drawn now against the dust. As they went farther from the sea, the sun burned hotter, and he guessed in a little while the dust would seem less a problem than the heat inside the curtains. He faced Karros again.

“I've come to take up your offer, Karros.”

“My offer,” the Greek said blankly.

“You said your master would make me one of his guards.”

“I did? Oh. Yes, of course, I forgot. Well, certainly, he can always use a good fighting man.” Karros's eyes fell to Hagen's sword, hanging in its leather scabbard on his hip. “I'll take you to him when he stops.”

He produced another of his jovial grins and hearty backslaps, and turning to the men around him called them closer and said their names, and Hagen's name. None of the others seemed as pleased as Karros was with Hagen's sudden appearance in their midst. They were an ugly bunch, Hagen's age and younger, awkward on their horses, in their leather armor. Karros wore the red rosettes on his shoulders, his insignia of rank, perhaps. Hagen found his eye drawn again and again to the red patches on Karros's shoulders. They reminded him of Rogerius.

In among this band of soldiers were the men who had killed Rogerius. Even if Theophano had killed his brother, some of these men had wounded him.

He kept his eyes away from them. He was afraid if he looked too closely he would recognize the men who had stood there with Karros on the porch of the church on the Chalcedon road, and if he recognized them, he would strike.

He dared not attack them now. There were too many of them, too many other people around them. Had he been sure of taking Rogerius's killers with him, he might have taken the chance anyway, but there were too many questions unanswered.

He could feel the suspicion of him in the men around him. He could feel that Karros meant him no good. Now he was riding in among them, alone, vulnerable. But he had to see Theophano again.

They picked up their companionable chatter around him, these Greeks in John Cerulis's guard, talking about women, horse-races, fighting, getting drunk, whom they hated and whom they feared. Hagen said nothing. He rode in their midst inside a well of silence, his eyes straight ahead, avoiding their looks. He had been long in the City, confused by the ways of the City. Now he was coming to a fight, and he understood fighting. Impatiently he wished the time away until the moment when he took his sword in his hands again.

When they stopped for the night, he went off by himself, and hid the Greek paper under a rock in the desert.

The embroidery needle was three inches long. Theophano poked it through a piece of leather, to make a grip, so that she could hold it well. Throughout the afternoon, as they rode in the heat and the dust toward the eastern horizon, she thought how to strike, to kill John Cerulis.

If she pushed it through his chest, she might not get it deep enough to kill him. Yet the spot in the throat was so small, she could miss that entirely, and yield her life for nothing.

She felt her own throat, hunting for the pulse. There, just below the jawbone, a little in front of the ear. She wished she had a knife.

At sundown, when the caravan stopped to camp, and her bearers carried her chair up to John Cerulis, she found Hagen there.

Karros had brought him, the pig. While John sat in his opulently cushioned travelling chair, Karros bowed double before him and indicated the tall Frank, standing silent at his heels.

“Patrician, I present to you, again, my good friend Hagen the barbarian, who seeks to enter your service.”

“Does he,” said John Cerulis. He leaned his head on his fist, his gaze wandering to the woman at his side. “I believe you have the acquaintance of this fellow, laughter-loving Theophano?”

Hagen was ignoring her. She could not take her eyes from him. From the instant she saw he was there, all the other people in the world disappeared for her. The minutest detail of his appearance—the curls of his hair, the arch of his collarbone visible through the neck of his shirt—absorbed all her attention; the effort necessary to keep her head brought a fine sweat to her hands.

She gave a brittle little laugh. “Tut, Patrician. I do not make the acquaintance, as you put it, of the lesser orders. I have had use of him.” She smirked at Hagen; nervously in her lap she drew the fingers of one hand over and over through the grasp of the other. “Bought any splinters lately, pilgrim?” If John Cerulis ever guessed how she felt about him, Hagen would surely die.

There were a number of people within earshot, and all laughed, even John Cerulis, at her silly jibe. Hagen stabbed a nasty look at her. Against her will, her hand rose a little toward him, palm up, an appeal she swiftly suppressed.

“You, barbarian,” John said; a servant was bringing him water in a silver bowl, to refresh his face and hands, and he leaned over it, his hands raised before him in a sort of parody of prayer. “What brings you to me?”

“Your man Karros tells me that you are a worthy master, Patrician.”

“I repay faithful service with a lavish hand. I am also swift to punish failure.” While he spoke, a servant bathed his hands and dried each finger with a scented towel. “You would look well in the uniform,” he went on, inspecting Hagen from head to foot, “but what knowledge can you have of Homer? There's good and bad in everything.”

He allowed the washing of his face. Karros said, “I can vouch for him, sir—a valiant fellow. We crossed swords once on the Chalcedon road.”

Theophano laughed at that. John Cerulis lifted his face from the towel with an inquiring look, and she said, “That's not how I remember it.” Her eyes on Hagen, she said, “Patrician, you should dispose at once of this Frank, who is surely the agent of the Empress.”

Hagen's eyes opened wide, a blue fire, and the look he gave her was murderous. It did not matter that he hated her, so long as he was safe from the curse of a connection with her. John Cerulis's face was lively with interest in this game. He leaned over the railing of his chair, his gaze going from the one to the other of them.

“Obviously you know this lady, barbarian.”

“In any language,” Hagen said, “I know a cunt when I see one.”

From all those listening, a titillated gasp went up; Aunt Eusebia fell backward into the cushions in a swoon, and John Cerulis twitched as if he had been struck. Hastily Karros said, “Here, here, the Patrician abhors coarse language.”

Theophano said, between her teeth, “Kill him, my lord.” She could see that everything she said inspired John to do the opposite.

“Now, now,” said John smoothly, “we are in the country, after all, where standards are somewhat different. Let us not be hasty.” He smiled at her. He carried a slender rod of wood in his chair, to direct his bearers, and picking it up he poked gently at Theophano's bosom. “He frightens you, doesn't he.”