The Mosaic of Shadows (43 page)

The last words of his sentence seemed unnaturally loud, but it was only as he stopped that I realised it was because the rest of the room had fallen silent.

‘And who sent my physician away this morning?’ Though slowed with exhaustion, and more strained than before, the voice was undeniable. I forgot Krysaphios, and turned in wonder to the bronze doors. They were flung open, and between their mighty posts, leaning on a stick and with a bandage for a crown, there stood the Emperor Alexios.

All in the room fell to their knees, then scrambled from his path as he advanced on the throne. He walked stiffly, and his eyes were clenched with pain, but his words rang clear as ever. ‘Who ordered the hipparch to send a hundred men when my brother ordered ten? Who ordered the Immortals to massacre the barbarians when they had surrendered the field? Who now stands beside my throne and schemes to fill it with his puppets?’ He reached us, and I saw a phalanx of Varangians drawn up beyond the doors behind.

‘You are recovered, Lord.’ Krysaphios alone had not bowed to the Emperor, and he did not do so now. ‘Thanks be to God. But your mind is clouded. The daze left by the assassin’s blow cannot be bound up with linen.’

‘Nor can his spear-thrust, if there is no physician to call on. If the chamberlain has ordered him to count herbs in the Bucoleon while the Emperor lies bleeding. Thank God indeed that I found another in my palace.’

At last I understood how the Emperor had outlasted the innumerable reverses of his reign, why his armies’ loyalty had never wavered in defeats which would have ruined his predecessors. Even now, limping and gasping, there was a power in his face which was more than mere authority: perfect certainty, the unanswerable knowledge that he would prevail.

Even so, Krysaphios resisted it, flicking his eyes over the room in a search for allies. None showed themselves. ‘Lord,’ he pleaded, ‘let us not quarrel in victory. If I have erred, it was in the service of the empire. Surely such sins can be forgiven.’

‘You conspired with the barbarians to murder me,’ said Alexios. ‘You of all my counsellors. What did they promise you? That when they had sacked our city, and ravaged our women, and carried off our treasure, you would be left as their regent? Or did you think you could . . .’

‘No!’ Krysaphios almost screeched the denial. ‘How can you call me a traitor, when you yourself would have given half the empire to those demons?’ He crouched down, as if to perform homage or kiss the hem of the Emperor’s robe, but instead he lifted his own garments high over his waist. There was a gasp of disgust from the crowd, and many hid their eyes, but many more stared in ghoulish fascination at the eunuch’s exposed loins. His organs were entirely absent, as a carzimasian, but the horror of his unnatural flesh was magnified still further by the brutal mesh of scars which covered it.

‘Do you see this?’ he screamed, pointing crudely. ‘This disfigurement? This is what the barbarians do to their enemies – for
sport
! Give them a captive and their evil minds turn only to cruelty and torture.’ Mercifully, he let his robes drop back to the floor. ‘I would give my last breath of life to save the empire from their violence – and yours also, if you would not heed my warnings.’

‘You tried to kill me.’ Alexios’ voice faltered with pain. ‘You would have unleashed civil war, and opened the empire to the worst depredations of all our enemies.’

‘If I conspired with the barbarians, it was only to lure them into revealing the black truth of their hearts, so you could witness their evil. But you would not see it. Your love of conquest blinded you, for you would rather rule a despoiled empire than protect your people. And now, because I guarded the people you would have forgotten, I will be sacrificed.’

‘As you never tired of telling me, I am merciful – too merciful – to my defeated enemies.’

‘You lie.’ All this time Krysaphios had been edging back through the crowd, retreating from the Emperor’s gaze; now he found himself at the brink of the room under the windows. ‘You will cast me into the dungeon for your torturers to unleash their craft upon.’ He snapped his head up and met the Emperor’s eyes. ‘But I have been a prisoner before, and I will not submit to that
mercy
again. Let the barbarians come, and let them tear the flesh from your empire: I will not see it.’

With a final, sobbing sneer, he bowed his head and stepped off the parapet. Alexios started forward, one arm half raised, but Krysaphios would have hit the ground before he had covered half the distance and he went no further. A great sadness shrouded his face.

I ran to the window and looked down. The walls were high here, and sheer, dropping unbroken to the rocks below. The ground was blurred in the fading light, its details indistinct, but amid the muted stones I could still see the eunuch’s body. It lay stretched out like a fallen angel, a fragment of gold against the darkness.

κ θ

A web of incense hung under the great dome of Ayia Sophia, its curling tendrils caught in the sunlight which fell through the windows. One shaft struck just behind the Emperor’s head, shining off the back of his throne and illuminating the hazy air like a nimbus. On his right sat the patriarch Nikolas, on his left his brother Isaak, a triumvirate of unyielding glory. Elsewhere in the city they would be ringing bells and singing songs for the great feast of Easter, but here the vast crowd was silent, watching the ceremony unfold.

At the front of the hall, the barbarian captains sat in a line on chairs inlaid with silver. Duke Godfrey was there with his brother Baldwin, and the three ambassadors I recognised from the day of Aelric’s treachery; others whom I had not seen before were there also, and, at the far end of the row, Count Hugh. He was apparently reconciled now with the kinsmen who had mocked and despised him, though he seemed uncomfortable in their company. His companions looked no happier, every one of them sour-faced with suspicion.

Trumpets sounded, and as the heralds recited Duke Godfrey’s name and titles, he rose and approached the throne. From my position in the western aisle I could not see his face, but the silence of the congregation left his words perfectly audible in that cavernous hall. Prompted by the interpreter, he spoke the words of the oath that had been agreed the night before: he swore to respect the ancient boundaries of the Romans, to serve the Emperor faithfully in battle and to restore to him all lands which his ancestors rightfully held. Seven scribes sat at a table recording every word, and when the oath was taken the Emperor’s son-in-law, Bryennios, stepped forward to present a golden garland. There would be much more gold to follow, I knew, for the Emperor was ever generous to his defeated enemies.

Duke Godfrey retook his seat gracelessly, wearing the garland like a crown of throns. Then the heralds called his brother and I tensed, while across the hall seven pens sat poised in the air to see what he would say. For a second I thought he had stepped too close to the throne, that he would bring the Varangians rushing down on him, but now he was on one knee mumbling indistinct allegiance. He did not wait for Bryennios when he was done, but marched back to his seat stiff with shame. A rash of pink scarred his cheeks like plague-spots.

The oaths took almost an hour, followed by anthems of acclamation and the liturgy of Easter. When the patriarch put the cup of Christ to Baldwin’s lips I feared he would spit it back, but he managed to choke it down under the stern eyes of his brother. Then there were more hymns of praise and unity – the message doubtless lost on the barbarians – and at last the long procession into the cheering crowds of the Augusteion. A double line of Varangians had parted the mob, forming a human corridor between church and palace, and as I emerged into the sunlight I saw the last of the Emperor’s retinue disappearing within. The Emperor might be generous to his enemies, I reflected, but not kind: three hours in church followed by the rigours of an imperial banquet would reduce the Franks to the utmost misery. Doubtless they would find compensations.

‘Weren’t you summoned to feast at the Emperor’s table?’

I looked up. Sigurd was standing by a pillar beside me, surveying his men with quiet pride. ‘I’ve spoken enough with barbarians,’ I told him. ‘And not nearly enough with my daughters.’

Sigurd nodded. ‘There’ll be more barbarians soon enough. The logothete reports that the Normans will be here in a week.’

‘They won’t cause trouble.’ Weariness spurred my hope, but reason agreed. ‘Word of the Franks’ humiliation will spread to them; they will think again before defying the Emperor openly.’

‘And this time there’ll be no mad eunuch urging them on. Though if there is,’ Sigurd added, ‘he’ll know better than to draw Demetrios Askiates into his schemes.’

I smiled at the compliment, though I did not deserve it. ‘I served Krysaphios’ purposes all too well – he could have no complaint of me. He wished me to discover that the monk was in league with the barbarians, that they plotted to usurp the Emperor, so that he might have a pretext for insisting on their destruction. He judged me perfectly – it was the Emperor’s stubbornness he underestimated.’

Sigurd bridled with mock temper. ‘It was the Varangians he underestimated,’ he told me, waving an arm at the burnished cohorts before him. ‘If not for my sword in that throne-room, Demetrios, your head would now be raised on a Frankish spear. And the Emperor’s beside it.’

I laughed. ‘You are restored to favour now. And the eunuch is gone.’ In my heart I could still find pity for Krysaphios, for the terrible wounds he had suffered and the treachery they had driven him to, but I could not forgive him for balancing the empire on a sword edge.

‘Krysaphios had not learned the lesson of the past,’ I mused aloud. ‘He was of a generation who believed that the imperial office was their tool, to be filled, used or discarded as they saw fit. A generation who turned all-conquering glory to invasion and rebellion in fifty meagre years. They never saw that the throne is too much like a serpent’s egg – most dangerous when it is empty.’

To my chagrin, the Varangian laughed at my melancholy reflections. ‘Will you use the Emperor’s reward to retire and write epigrams? And can this be the same Demetrios Askiates who four months ago was so reluctant to tie his fortunes to those of the Emperor?’

‘Now I have no choice. I am marked as the Emperor’s man, with all the advantage and prejudice that brings.’ When you save a man’s life, I thought, you buy it with a small piece of your own.

In the sky above, a breeze pushed away the scrap of cloud which had covered the sun and I smiled. ‘And you, Sigurd? Are you invited to the Emperor’s banquet, or will you join me for the Easter meal?’

Sigurd swelled. ‘Do you believe that the Emperor would allow himself into a roomful of his enemies without due precaution? I will be in the Hall of Nineteen Couches, watching for any Frank who waves so much as a quail-bone at him.’

I left Sigurd shouting orders at his company, and pushed my way gradually out of the Augusteion towards the Mesi. It felt strange to be watching the Emperor from a distance again, the untouchable statue I had always known; those few days when I had fought and argued and battled with the greatest men in the empire already seemed far removed. Now the crisis was past and his orbit would draw apart from mine, into the rarefied circles where even the most magnificent moved with caution. He would be locked behind a hundred doors, every one watched jealously by an army of functionaries, and his words would come from the mouths of others. Through every tribulation he would maintain a perfect stillness, for he was the keystone of the empire, locking in the vaulting ambition of his nobles and keeping it off the shoulders of the people below. Though a single gem from his robes would have supplied a year of my needs, I did not envy him it.

I turned off the Mesi and followed the road towards my house. The streets were filled with families and children and roasting lambs fresh from the market. The smell made me hungry after long hours standing in the church, and I was glad to see my own family already had the coals dutifully glowing under the meat.

‘Did the barbarians behave?’ Anna stepped away from the spit, leaving Zoe to turn it. ‘Or am I called to the palace to bandage the Emperor again?’

‘Sigurd should see to it that you aren’t needed. Except perhaps to sew up some barbarian skulls. I fear your career at the palace may be finished.’

Anna lifted her eyebrows. ‘For a man who claims to be a master of unveiling mysteries, you can be unduly ignorant, Demetrios. My career at the palace is barely begun, for the empress herself has sent word that she requires a physician to attend her. I think the Emperor will be keen to keep me near, now that he has found me.’

‘I thought
you
found
him
.’ The smoke of lemon and rosemary played in my nose, stirring new hunger in my stomach. ‘Bleeding and dying in the corridors of the palace, while his attendants fluttered helplessly.’

Anna poked a knife into the lamb, and watched the oily juices dribble down its side. They spat and popped in the fire. ‘I think this is cooked. Helena is just fetching some bread from the house.’