The Belt of Gold (33 page)

“I sometimes wonder,” Irene said, in a voice that trembled, “why I choose to lead these people.”

John Cerulis smirked at her. “The problem will be yours no longer, after this day, lady.”

“Will it? Even now, deluded one, my cursores are confiscating your palaces and fortress and all your wealth, because you have dared plot against me.”

“Dared to plot,” he said, unperturbed, “and dared to succeed, whore. On this day all the great offices of your power are in the hands of men sworn to uphold me.”

“Really? I think not.” She leaned toward him, fierce. Unlike this unruly crowd, now sinking into a sensuous somnolent murmur like a fed cat, she struck but one blow, and that one final. She said, “Ah, no, beguiled one. You thought that by slaying those on Theophano's list, you removed from my administration all those who supported me against you. But you were wrong, as ever you are wrong, murderer of women and babies. Theophano's list was not of your enemies, but of mine. I meant you to find it and use it as you did. You killed your own men in that purge. You rid me of all those I feared in my government. You destroyed yourself.”

His face quivered, his lips colorless, his eyes shining suddenly wide and fearful. She leaned back, smiling at him. At that moment, a move on the ledge above him caught her eye, and she jerked her gaze that way.

It was Hagen, crouching there among the broken statues. Hagen, who glared at her now with eyes as hot and bright as molten gold. Hagen, who had overheard, and worse, had understood, that she had always intended Theophano to die.

She straightened up, tearing her gaze from him. After all, he was only a barbarian.

But her flesh crawled now. This was going wrong. Down there the Hippodrome attendants were picking up what was left of Daniel and laying it on a cart, and shoveling in on top the heaps of debris with which the crowd had slain him. Soon the race would start again. Beside her, at least, John Cerulis sat limp and white, a ruined man. She gripped her fists in her lap, her breath short. The race was about to start. Her temples pounded; she fixed her eyes on the golden oval of the track.

For the first time, Michael found himself missing Prince Constantine. When he realized that, he thrust the feeling roughly down again below the surface of his thoughts.

He was the champion. He might lose a heat, but he would not lose the race. The crowd was howling out there, whooping and screaming in a frenzy; he would bring them to their feet again, when he beat Ishmael.

Swiftly he went to his horses, whose grooms were leading them up and down the aisle. Esad was waiting for him and called him over.

“Look at him,” Esad said. “He's gone lame again.”

Michael's heart contracted. He went to Folly's head, and gripped the bridle, to keep the excited horse from biting him, and led him off a few steps, watching his legs. He seemed sound enough to Michael, although he stepped a little short, but then when Michael let him stop again, the horse shifted his weight on to three legs, and held his off foreleg slightly ahead of him, the toe pointing.

“He can't race again,” Esad said. “Not like that.”

“He'll race,” Michael said.

He stooped to run his hand down the slender foreleg. At his touch, Folly leapt sideways, and he spoke to the horse in a soothing voice.

“He's not sound,” Esad said. “You'll ruin him.”

“He'll race. Two more heats, that's all.”

“You can't—”

Michael whirled up; he thrust his face into Esad's, and the groom shut up. Michael glared at him until the other man looked away. Straightening, the Prince set his hands on his hips.

“Harness him.”

Esad's lips trembled. He said nothing, but he made no move to obey.

“Harness him, Esad, or by God's Word, I'll do it myself.”

The groom's shoulders slumped; he went away with the horse to the racks of harness. Michael walked forward, into the front of the stable.

The team had not given him what he needed, when he asked for it, in the first heat. In that drive down the stretch, with Ishmael's horses surging alongside, he had asked them for more speed and they had tried to find it for him but nothing had come. This time he would not let that happen. This time he would hoard their strength until the moment when he put Ishmael forever in his dust.

He would have the inside track of his rival, this heat, since he had finished behind him in the last. If he took the lead, he could control the pace. Ishmael had great hands, but Michael had the experience and skill to outwit him.

Behind him the grooms worked madly on the horses, rubbing their bodies clean and dry, picking up their feet to check for stones, inspecting the harness. Ishmael's grooms were doing the same thing, in the next aisle, and as Michael stood there, deep in his thoughts, Ishmael himself walked swiftly by with a pail of water.

Michael tore his gaze away from his rival. He could not bear to look at him—if Ishmael met his eyes, would he see there some contempt, some triumph—worse, some pity? Michael fixed his gaze on the ground.

He had demanded perfection from everybody else, from all who wished to serve him; he had tolerated no flaw. Now he had to meet that test himself.

From the track a man ran into the stable, shouting.

“They've stoned the holy man to death!”

“What?”

“That holy man! He came out and tried to preach to them, and the crowd stoned him.”

“Haaaa.”

Michael went a little toward the gate, to look out, and stopped himself. There was really nothing unusual in that—often there were public executions in the Hippodrome, between heats, and the holy man was surely a criminal, because this was the City of God. That did not matter anyway. What mattered was the race.

He saw it as a sacrament, this race. As Christ died for the sins of the multitude, so he raced with the hopes and dreams of the multitude on his shoulders. They could not win, so he won for them. That was why they loved him, and he meant to win for them today. It was simple enough. This was the real world, the track, the race. Everything else was merely an apparatus for moving souls through time into eternity.

Now the horns were blowing, calling him out to his epiphany. His horses were walking out toward him, each in its harness, the reins leading back into the chariot. He went to them, patted each one, spoke to it, and told it how they would win. Folly snapped at him, his old self again, wild-eyed. Michael climbed into the chariot and drove out on to the track, into the deafening cheers of the crowd.

29

Hagen watched from the statue tier; he saw the chariots line up for the start, and saw them burst forward down the track; but his mind was a wild whirl, and he cared nothing for the race.

He knew now why she had not let him kill John Cerulis and end the purge. He knew why she had sent him after Theophano, not to rescue her, but to die trying. She had known he had the list; she had thought he would die at the hands of John Cerulis's men, and the list would be found on his body.

To authenticate her false list, she had laid down his life, and Theophano's, and further back, Rogerius's too, indirectly.

John Cerulis was nothing, a poor clown, her dupe, her excuse for this game. It was she who was the stench of evil in this place.

Now slowly the screams of the crowd penetrated his fierce inward concentration, and he raised his head.

Down there on the track, the chariots hurtled along around the oval, spinning up the sand with their wheels. Michael was leading, with Ishmael close beside him, and the other teams in his wake. They reached the curve, and raced around it, Michael and Ishmael, dead even, because while Michael saved ground through the turn, he also slowed his team down.

The crowd knew it. They were not cheering now. They were screaming for speed, for a real race, and their roars were ugly and outraged. The champion was falling; a new champion was rising from the field; but they had already tasted blood this day, and now they were dissatisfied with anything less. They wanted a real fight; they wanted a war.

Michael heard it. As the teams rounded the curve at the far end of the track, he urged his horses on, picking up the pace, responding to the crowd; he gathered speed, and Ishmael stayed beside him, matching his team stride for stride.

Now the crowd approved. Their screams of anger changed to cheers and whistles. The horses flew down the straightaway. Rapidly the two leaders pulled away from the third- and fourth-place teams, and as they whirled into the turn, Michael on the inside pulled out in front of Ishmael by half a length and more.

Ishmael's blacks and greys leveled to their work. Spinning around the turn, they rocked the car behind them up on the inside wheel, and Ishmael leaned out to hold it on the track. He lost more ground, bearing out into the center of the track, and when the car bounced down on both wheels again the horses set out after Michael on legs that skimmed the sand like wings.

Michael heard them coming; he looked back over his shoulder, and he went to the whip. His horses were straining into the harness. At the touch of the whip they flattened out still more. Yet Ishmael was gaining on them. Sweeping into the next turn, Michael glanced over his shoulder again, and again he plied the whip, and Ishmael surged up on the outside, drawing even with him through the curve.

As the track straightened out, the two teams raced together like one great eight-horse hitch. For three strides, they ran like one another's shadows; the challenge of the team coming up from behind them drove Michael's horses to one last surge of speed. The crowd leapt to its feet, swaying, screaming, a thousand thousand arms fluttering in the air, a thousand thousand voices thundering up to Heaven.

For a painful stride, Michael's horses answered; they won back a yard of the track, they thrust their heads in front, and held off Ishmael's blacks and greys. Then the smooth flow of the horses' strides broke and jerked; Michael's inside wheeler changed leads twice in two strides and went down headlong onto the sand.

The horse's body somersaulted, slamming into its team-mates, and those animals fell too. The car spun around. Michael sailed out of it and struck the track among his thrashing team.

The horses behind him veered across the sand to keep from hitting the wreck. Ishmael's horses bolted nearly to the far wall. Still trapped in their harness, Michael's horses fought to rise and fell again and again into one another and onto their driver.

The crowd shrieked. Drawn by the smell of blood, the whole mass of the mob rushed down toward the track. Hagen stood up, his heart pounding, his palms slick with sweat. The grooms had run out to the wreck, and were cutting the maddened horses free; one horse ran dragging its traces the length of the track, met Ishmael coming around the far curve, and spun around and galloped along ahead of him. Ishmael stopped for nothing; he was making for the Golden Belt. He swerved out to avoid the broken car and the bodies on the track, and loped his team over the finish line.

From the momentary stunned silence of the crowd arose a mounting roar. The whole Hippodrome began to move. The people in the lower seats shoved forward, and the ones along the rail climbed over and rushed out on to the sand, toward the charioteers, the victor, and the dead. The whole great grandstand cleared; within moments, the whole racecourse was filled with people, fighting one another, screaming, struggling, a boiling cauldron of bodies. As if with Michael's death their order had failed them, the whole great mob ran wild.

Hagen held himself fast where he was. In the balcony below him, Irene sat in her chair, and John Cerulis still sat beside her. Whatever she had planned, surely she had not foreseen this riot, and it occurred to Hagen that chance, or God, or some laughing devil somewhere had just given John Cerulis one more run at the purple boots. If he could seize Irene now, in this tumult, he could take it all.

Even as Hagen realized that, the people in the Imperial box realized it also. The Empress's women rushed in to surround her, and John stood up and beckoned to his bodyguard, the huge barbarian with the axe in his hands.

This man lumbered forward, raising his weapon over his shoulder. Hagen shouted, but his voice was lost in the din of the riot. He saw the axe heaved up, and the Empress shrink back from it, and then from among the women the child Philomela sprang forward, her arms out, defending her mistress.

The axe struck her where her neck joined her shoulder and swept her to one side. Blood spurted across the balcony. The giant axeman strode on, his blade swinging, going at the Empress; and another of her women, and another, leapt forward bare-handed and with cushions to defend her, and was cut down.

Hagen roared. He drew his sword from its scabbard with both hands and leapt down into space, falling the five yards that separated him from the balcony. He landed on the balls of his feet on the rail and for a dizzy moment swayed, off balance, behind him a sheer drop into the boiling mass of the riot. Before him the axeman turned.

Above the curly black beard, little pig-eyes squinted at him. The axeman opened his mouth and let out a shrill yell and charged.

Hagen bounded into the balcony. The axe whistled at his head, and he dropped to one knee and let the blade pass by him. In the corner, the women packed themselves against Irene, a living wall protecting her, and Irene shouted his name.

“Hagen! Hagen!”

The black-bearded giant gripped his axe with both hands and cocked it back. His eyes blazed. With lumbering steps he bore down on Hagen, and again Hagen dodged the hissing sweep of the curved blade past his face.

He struck back, aiming for the giant's knees, and the big man dropped the axe neatly down and parried off the blow. The impact numbed Hagen's hands. He bounded backward and came up against the wall, with no place left to dodge, and this man, unlike the other Greeks, knew how to fight. A worm of fear gnawed at Hagen's heart.

Huge, leisurely in his confidence, the black-bearded man paced forward toward him. Blood dappled the blue-black metal of his axe blade. He lifted it up over his shoulder and struck again at Hagen.

Hagen saw the blade coming, and began to dodge, and even as he moved he read the feint. He dropped to his knees and the giant whirled the blade around in the counter blow. Hagen flung his sword up and the axe glanced off it and struck the marble wall behind him, and the giant yelled, startled. Hagen launched himself forward in a desperate dive for the big man's midsection.

He got inside the giant's arms, drove his knee into the big belly, and got his elbow around and slammed it into the unprotected throat. The giant grunted. The axe clattered to the floor, and both men fell heavily among the carpets and cushions.

Hagen twisted, trying to get his sword up; the blade tangled in a fold of the rucked carpet. The giant swatted at him, backhanded, and knocked him sideways up against the railing.

Out of breath, Hagen wheeled around. The giant had found his axe again and was coming up to his feet. They faced each other across the width of the balcony, Irene and her women to Hagen's right, John Cerulis to his left. The giant lowered his head and charged.

Hagen wheeled around, trying to get out of the way, and swung his sword up. Through the corner of his eye, he saw John Cerulis move around behind him, and he flinched. The giant bore down on him. Behind him he knew John Cerulis was preparing to strike, but he could not turn to see; he faced the giant and swung his sword in a level two-handed blow, as hard as he could, his back itching, waiting for the knife from behind.

It never came. From the side of the balcony, shouting like a true warrior, Irene ran headlong, her hands out before her. With both outstretched hands she struck John Cerulis in the chest as he lifted his arm against Hagen, and she flung him backwards, over the rail of the balcony, down into the crowd below.

Hagen shrieked, triumphant; the axe hissed at his face, and he yanked his head back out of the way, and his counterstroke split the air like a bolt of lightning, cleaved through the giant's armor where the leather straps joined breastplate to back, and bit deep, deep into the flesh below.

The giant gasped. He went down on one knee, as the blood fountained up, and rolling his eyes back into his skull, he fell forward on his face at Hagen's feet.

Hagen dragged in a breath, his arms sagging; the sweat stung his eyes. He backed away from the great body at his feet and raised his arms to the Empress.

She said, “Once again you have proven yourself to me, Hagen.”

“Hah,” he said. He looked into the basilisk glitter of her eyes. “It is you who have proven yourself, lady. I know you now for what you are.

“Do you? And what am I to you?”

“You killed her. You sent her out to die.”

“Theophano died for the Empire. No greater glory—”

“No,” he cried; out of pain and grief, he sobbed. “No, she died for nothing—she died so that you could kill more—she died for the sake of a game you played with John Cerulis.”

“You are a barbarian, Hagen. You do not understand.”

“I understand,” he said. “I understand that you have wasted the best and most noble of your Empire, and you will go on no more.”

“Hagen, I will make you rich—”

He started toward her, determined to kill her, although his soul shrank from it. She screamed once, “Hagen!” and flung up her arm between them, and then with a thunderous pounding, the door to the balcony flew open and Nicephoros rushed into their midst, wearing a helmet and breastplate.

Nicephoros looked from her to Hagen, frowning, and reached up and took the helmet from his head. Doing so, he moved a little, putting distance between himself and his Basileus. Hagen lowered his sword, waiting.

“Basileus,” the Treasurer said, in a neutral voice, “I have to report that the
cursores
have the mob contained, and the City is in order; all of John Cerulis's possessions have been seized to the throne.”

“Excellent,” said Irene. “Nicephoros, you have ever done my bidding, better than any other. Only—seize this man here, and I shall make you powerful before all but me!”

“Seize Hagen?” Nicephoros asked.

Hagen stirred. “Nicephoros, she betrayed us. She has betrayed us all. The list—the murders—that was her doing. She tricked John Cerulis into it. She caused it all.”

Nicephoros's head swiveled toward the Empress, who stood there, fingering the brooch that fastened her cloak, her gaze hard and glittering on Hagen.

“You did this?” Nicephoros said, in a low voice.

“Nicephoros, seize him.”

In a louder voice: “Did you do it?”

“I—”

“Answer me,” he shouted. “In the Name of God.”

She flinched from him. Her hand pulled on the brooch. “I am Basileus, Nicephoros—I can do what I choose!”

The Treasurer straightened out of his habitual slouch. Now suddenly he was taller than she, as tall as Hagen himself. His gaze was fastened on her with a new fierce energy. He said, “Then you are the hands on the throat of the Empire.”

“Nicephoros,” she said, in a voice that trembled. “Seize this barbarian.”

“Not at your order, lady—you are Basileus no more.” Nicephoros strode forward, reaching for the door into the stairway.

“Who, then?” she cried. “Him? This fumbling barbarian with his bloody sword—”

“I shall be Basileus,” Nicephoros said. “For weeks I have felt the Empire calling to me, and have struggled against it, like Jonah in the whale, but now I understand, and I will obey.”

He opened the door. “Guards! Come seize this woman.”

“Good,” Hagen said. “So be it,” and he lowered his sword.

Irene screamed. As the blade dropped, she lunged, past Nicephoros, coming at Hagen so fast he could only recoil from her. Her full weight struck him. She had the great brooch in her hand, open, the pin between her knuckles. Shouting, he thrust at her, and the pin stabbed deep, deep into his eye.

The shock and the pain drove him down on one knee. He crossed his arms before him, to hold her off, but now the guards were there, rushing into the box, obeying Nicephoros's crisp loud orders. A tide of blood and the liquor from his eye swept down his cheek. Squatting there, he breathed deep, struggling against pain, and covered his eye with his hand.

She was shrieking; the guards held her nearly horizontal among them, while they unlaced the purple boots from her feet. She fought like a wild animal, scratching, kicking, biting at them. At last they wrenched the boots from her feet, and with the symbol of her power gone, her spirit left her also. She sank down, weeping, limp in the grasp of many arms. Hagen got up; his legs were shaking violently. His eye was destroyed. He watched them take her away, out of the Imperial box, into the Palace.