by Tom Harper
‘What else?’ Though doubtless important for ecclesiastical history, I could see little reason why that should win the saint an assassin’s devotion.
The archivist looked at me severely, as if my impatience were a slight on his scholarship. ‘There is nothing else. He was made a bishop, and died at a venerable age. His shrine is in the Frankish town of Rheims, where the barbarians keep one of their few centres of learning. It is written that there he effects many miracles.’
I could not tell whether he considered the education of barbarians to be one such miracle, but it was obvious that he drew little pleasure dispensing from his hoard of knowledge to an ignorant supplicant like me. I gave my thanks and left, unsure whether I had gained anything of importance. It was another link which tied the monk to the barbarian west, but I sought ties with Romans, with men who stood ready to assume the imperial throne if the Emperor fell. Whichever saints the monk prayed to, and whether he worshipped in Latin or Greek, I needed to find his masters.
That morning, however, I had little idea where I might seek them. I could try to talk further with Thomas, but I was impatient and could not find the enthusiasm for it. There were still many eminent names on the list to interview, but I feared a shared language would not make them any more forthcoming than the boy. And walking the streets hoping to glimpse a monk with a crooked nose would avail even less.
I fished out the paper that I had found under my door the night before and re-read it. ‘The merchant Domenico wishes to see you at his house in Galata.’
It would be a change to speak to someone who wished to see me. I turned onto the steeply sloping stairs, and made my way down to the harbour.
A boatman rowed me across the Golden Horn, wending his way between the dolmans and biremes, skiffs and dhows which choked the wide bay. I have ever wondered that they called the Horn ‘golden’, for though enough of it was loaded on the decks and wharves – in specie and in kind – the water itself was rank with flotsam: the splintered wood of discarded crates, dead fish fallen from the nets, and the floating effluence of the sewers. None of which, thankfully, I could dwell on, for the boatman had constant need of my eyes to look over his shoulder and guide him between the crushing hulls of the larger vessels.
‘Fleet’s come in,’ he said, nodding to his right. ‘Came up last night.’
I risked a quick glance where he indicated, and saw the huge sterns of imperial triremes moored further up the channel. The flag of the High Admiral himself flew from the largest, and all their decks were thronged with men.
‘Why is that?’
‘Barbarians.’ The boatman sucked in his cheeks as he navigated the bow of a Levantine trader. ‘They say the Normans will come again. Three days’ march away, they say.’
‘That seems unlikely. The Emperor would have fought them on the shores of the Adriatic before they ever got this far.’
The boatman shrugged. ‘I repeat what I hear. I’ll believe when I see.’
We pulled in towards the high walls ringing the colony of Galata on the far shore.
‘Which gate do you want?’ asked the boatman.
‘I’m looking for the merchant Domenico. Does he keep his own wharf?’
‘I’ve never heard his name. A Venetian?’
‘Or a Genoese.’ I scanned the pilings, and the ships moored against them, for any hint of their owner’s identity.
The boatman hailed a stevedore on one of the quays, and shouted the name Domenico at him. The man frowned, then shook his head and gestured along the shore to the next landing stage.
‘Most of the Genoese have their houses in the city,’ the boatman told me, unhelpfully.
We had to ask at three more wharves before at last the name Domenico drew a response. A burly foreman waved us in, took the rope we threw him, and helped me up the ladder.
‘Do you want me to wait?’ asked the boatman, looking up from the base of the wall. He seemed anxious to leave, for the sky was darkening, and I sensed a squall might be coming from the Asian shore.
‘I’ll find another.’
As the boatman splashed his way back across the Horn, I took my directions from the foreman and began to mount the hill. The land near the shore was cluttered with warehouses and the narrow lanes between them, but as I rose higher they quickly gave way to generous houses projected on terraces, built to see over the commercial sprawl beneath to the hump of the city across the bay. The mansions grew in proportion with their elevation, though it seemed to me that that lofty magnificence would afford their owners only sore knees and tired lungs. And solitude, for the bustle of the docks below was far behind now.
The house of the merchant Domenico was not at the crest of the hill, but it was nearer there than the foot. One day he would live in considerable splendour, for it was a vast, imposing property, but for the moment the platoon of builders, plasterers, carpenters and masons he employed disrupted its elegance. The air in the outer courtyard was thick with dust, and rang with the noise of hammers chiselling stone. Plaster was caked onto the trunks of orange trees planted in fresh earth, and a pair of trestles had turned the nymphaeum into a sawpit.
I sought out the steward and showed him my letter, trying to make myself understood over the din. It must have meant something, for he ushered me into a broad room which, while in the throes of reconstruction, was at least temporarily empty. Originally the floor had held images of fish and sea monsters, snaking through the blue-green tiles, but half of the mosaic was now overlaid with wide slabs of marble, surrounded at its borders with narrow ribbons of pink and green and black. Beyond it, through three wide arches, I could see the domes of the city cascading down from the pinnacle of Ayia Sophia to the small churches by the sea walls; the pines and cypresses spread over the eastern slopes; the heroic columns of the Emperors spiking above the skyline, and the high bulk of the pharos, the beacon, towering over the city.
‘Demetrios Askiates. Thank you for coming.’
I turned to meet my unknown host. His voice was warm and eager, though marred by a note of insincerity from the too-perfect way he formed his words. He was about my age, or perhaps a little older, and had a figure which suggested he did not make the ascent to his house very often. His cheeks glowed red, perhaps from the effort of carrying the immaculate silk finery he wore, but his round eyes danced with energy.
‘Were you admiring my new floor? The workmen were supposed to finish it a week ago.’ He chuckled. ‘I can know to within two days when my ships will arrive from Pisa, for all that they must travel hundreds of miles at the mercy of winds and currents and storms. But ask a builder when he will finish, and he is as vague as an astrologer casting his horoscope.’
‘I preferred the old floor better.’
‘So do I, Demetrios, so do I. May I call you Demetrios? Good. But fashion dictates that the floors must be simple – clean lines of pure marble – and so I must follow her demands.’ He rubbed his toe on the stone. ‘Apparently it will focus the eye on the splendour of the walls – when the bastard painters have done their work, of course.’
I took a breath to speak, but he forestalled me.
‘But you did not come to discuss aesthetics. You came because I, Domenico, invited you. And why? Because, my friend, I think we both trade in the same market.’
‘Do we?’ Experience had taught that any man who proclaimed himself my friend was usually either lying, or a hopeless optimist. ‘Do I sell anything that you would load onto your ships for Pisa?’
Domenico laughed as though it was the greatest witticism. ‘Not unless you dabble in fine cloths, or spices from the east, or miniature ivories. But the wind that drives my ships brings other commodities too, besides those I can sell in the forum. News, for example. Some wine?’
He pulled a clay bottle and a pair of chalices from an alcove in the wall.
‘Not in the fasting season.’
‘A pity. This I had from Monemvasia, in the Peloponnese. Very sweet.’ He filled his goblet almost to th
e brim and sipped enthusiastically.
I paced over to the window and looked out, seeing the great warships of our navy moored in the bay below. ‘You speak of news. What news? News that would interest me?’
‘Almost certainly.’ Domenico put down his glass with an ungainly bang. ‘If we could agree its worth.’
Now it was my turn to laugh. I met many such men in my profession, worms and leeches who learned some trivia and tried to turn it into gold through dark hints and extravagant promises.
‘No thank you,’ I said. ‘I have no need of quayside gossip, and certainly not the money to pay for it.’
Domenico looked affronted. ‘Quayside gossip? Demetrios my friend, this is more than quayside gossip. And as for the price . . . I am told you have influence in the palace?’
Who told you that, I wondered? ‘I sometimes have business at the palace. So do many men. But no more influence than a sailor on one of your boats has over your affairs.’
Domenico looked crestfallen. ‘I had heard otherwise. But irrespective,’ he persisted, ‘you can take word into the palace, and let those in command choose how to reward it.’
‘I can take word into the palace. But I would not trust too much on the generosity of my masters.’
‘Not even for information regarding a plot to murder the Emperor?’
Domenico slurped at his wine and turned to gaze innocently at the panorama below, though he must have seen my eyes jerk open.
‘What of a plot to murder the Emperor?’
‘Demetrios, my friend, I am a new arrival in this city, come to establish a business and to earn an honest fortune for my dear father in Pisa. But the life of a merchant is hard here – many men before me have invested themselves with rank and position and privilege, and they do not surrender it easily. You see how I am exiled from the commercial quarters within the city, forced to trade in this remote, unfashionable suburb. How can I forge alliances, Demetrios, when none of those whose ear I seek will venture across the harbour to meet me?’
He took my arms in his hands. ‘If my seed is to flourish here, and not wither and die, I must find powerful friends. Men who will unlock the doors which are barred to me, who will ensure that I am not the last to the market with my wares. I need influence, Demetrios.’
‘You spoke of a plot to murder the Emperor.’
‘If I tell you, will you see that the palace knows of the service I performed? Can I trust that the eparch will look favourably on me if I petition him?’ He sounded almost desperate.
‘You can trust the palace as much as they may be trusted.’
He wrung his hands together, then sighed. ‘Very well, Demetrios. As a sign of my faith, I will tell you what I have to say, and leave it to your conscience to see that I am rewarded as I deserve.’
‘None of us are rewarded as we deserve, certainly not in this life. But I will do what I can, if you warrant it.’
That seemed to satisfy him. ‘Then know this. A man has approached me, a monk, though he was no man of God. He offered me an investment. He told me that, like Christ, he would tear down the temple of your empire and build it anew. He said the old order would be swept away, that there would be opportunities for the downtrodden and meek to claim their inheritance, that those who aided him now would not be forgotten later – after the Emperor was dead, and his throne occupied by another.’
Somewhere outside the window a seagull uttered its wheedling cry, but inside all was silent. I could hardly move for the shock of what the man had told me, the disbelief that he actually had something to offer. As for him, his restless energy spent, he watched me closely.
‘Can you describe this monk?’ I asked at last.
‘Sadly not. He wore a hood over his face and would not remove it. All I saw was his chin: bony, and creased with age.’
‘And did he explain how he was to accomplish this regicide?’
‘He said he had agents close to the Emperor, against whom he would be defenceless. All he needed, he said, was gold to make the final arrangements.’
‘Did you give it to him?’
Domenico looked wounded. ‘Certainly not, Demetrios. I am a friend of your people; I know that it is my own countrymen who conspire to bar me, not yours. My loyalty is unswerving. I told him he would have nothing of me, and that he should depart in haste if he did not want me to turn him over to the Watch.’
‘He said nothing more?’
‘He departed, as I suggested.’ Domenico licked his lips. ‘Perhaps I could have pressed him for closer detail, but I was afraid. I know the Emperor has many ears – even in this corner of his realm – and I would be mortified if it were thought I had any time for such treachery.’
I thought a moment as my pulse slowed again. Though the information was useful – and though I would probably send word to the eparch commending the merchant to him – it took me no further. It confirmed the monk’s ambitions, certainly, but those I knew. It suggested he might have spies in the palace, but that too I had long suspected. Beyond that, nothing.
‘And this would have been about three weeks ago?’ I asked, thinking back. Presumably before the monk found the money elsewhere, and hired the Bulgars and journeyed into the forest.
But Domenico was shaking his head vigorously. ‘Three weeks ago? Indeed not. Do you think I would hide such information for three weeks, when the very life of the Emperor might be in jeopardy? Not for three weeks, no – not even for three days.’ He swallowed. ‘This was the day before yesterday.’
ι γ
Through the next week the city grew ever more oppressive, as if the very walls themselves squeezed in on us. Each day the crowds in the streets were thicker, and each night the colonnades along the great roads brimmed with those who could find no shelter. The churches were thrown open, and when they were filled the hippodrome became a vast, open hostel. Prices rose, and food became scarce.
Nor was the weather kind. A bitter wind came down from the north – a Rus wind, as we called it, after the wild men who followed it – and even the wealthiest of citizens covered their finery with heavy cloaks. By night the streets danced with the candle-flames of priests and nuns who worked tirelessly to keep the poor and the homeless from freezing, while the smell of wood smoke lingered on every corner. Never were the bakers more popular.
Through all this, the rumours spread. There was a barbarian army coming, some said; yes, but to offer their lives to the Emperor against the Turks and Saracens, argued others. No, the despondent insisted: they would finish the work that Bohemond the Norman had begun once before, devouring our lands and putting our cities to the sword. And why did the Emperor Alexios not go out to fight, they demanded? There was no hour when the streets did not echo with the tramp of soldiers, when a squadron of cavalry magnificently attired did not thunder past – why did he not use them? Had he betrayed us, or been petrified by a fit of panic? Why could he not show himself to reassure his people?
Many sought my opinion, for they knew I had dealings with the palace, but in truth I knew as little as they. Krysaphios had barely acknowledged my report that another assassination might be imminent, and I had not seen him since I delivered it. Nor Sigurd: Aelric told me that he worked every hour to get the walls into good defence, and had not even returned to the barracks for three days. Aelric stayed with me guarding Thomas, but otherwise I was forgotten, left to spend my days asking unwanted questions of distracted nobles. The fact of the villa in the forest belonging to the Sebastokrator’s wife inevitably drew my attentions in his direction, but however many of his servants I discreetly questioned, I could find none who had ever heard of him having dealings with a foreign monk. With reluctance, at least until I could find greater proof, I had to allow that perhaps the monk had used the house unbeknownst to the Sebastokrator.
Every other day Anna came to my house, to examine Thomas’s wounds and change his bandages. Her visits were a rare source of pleasure in those nervous days, and on the third occasion I invited her for dinne
r.
‘The moralist Kekaumenos tells us that we should be wary of dining with friends, lest we be suspected of plotting treason and betrayal,’ she said, smiling as she tucked away the loose ends of Thomas’s dressing.
‘The old misanthrope also tells me that you’ll mock my servants and seduce my daughters. But I have no servants, and I will trust you with my daughters. If you will trust their cooking.’
She brushed back a loose strand of hair that had fallen from her hood. ‘Very well. Tomorrow night?’
I had hoped she could come that same evening, when the Sunday break in the fast would allow me to serve her a finer meal, but I mastered my disappointment and agreed. So, on a cold Monday before the feast of the Nativity, Anna, Thomas, Aelric and my daughters and I sat down for supper together.
‘You’ve made a virtue out of the church’s proscriptions,’ Anna told the girls, spooning another steaming portion of the meatless stew onto her plate. ‘Some day you’ll make your husbands fat.’
I rubbed a hand over my temples. It was the wrong thing to say, and Helena took her opening ruthlessly.
‘Not if my father has any sway. The spice-seller’s aunt wishes to make a bargain for her son, but my father will not even meet her. He would rather I tended him until he was dead and I was shrivelled, than that I should find happiness with another man.’
‘You shouldn’t cook so well then,’ suggested Zoe. ‘You should spit in the pots and serve nothing but beans.’
I noticed Aelric and Thomas watching their plates intently, both now taking smaller portions in each mouthful, as if trying to eke out their meals.
‘When I have earned enough dowry to find you a man who deserves you, then I will look for him,’ I tried. ‘You don’t want to squander yourself on some unworthy wretch who stinks of garlic.’
‘You wouldn’t want me to squander myself on a prince in the palace, even if his estates stretched from Arcadia to Trebizond.’ Helena’s face was red now. ‘And how am I to know what a worthy man should be, if the only people I see are the women in the market?’
