Byzantium - A Novel

by Michael Ennis

  That is remarkable, Halldor,’ said Haraldr with genuine respect. It had never occurred to him that one needed to deal as hard with a woman he hoped to clutch gently to his breast as he did with a man with whom he was doing business. The wise trader indeed. The next time he saw Maria, he would not offer so much as a sideways glance at the wares in her booth.

  ‘Haraldr Nordbrikt! Of course! Haraldr Nordbrikt!’

  Constantine, the Strategus of Antioch, virtually leapt from behind his ivory-surfaced writing table. Haraldr observed that Constantine was a beardless eunuch like his brother, Joannes, though he had been spared the grotesque giantism of his brother’s features. In fact, there was more of the Emperor himself in Constantine’s look. As he came closer, though, Haraldr noticed the glaze of nervous perspiration on the Strategus’s forehead and upper lip, and he wondered if this man was so daunted by his brother that he grew anxious in the presence of someone merely bearing a letter from him.

  ‘Welcome, welcome, welcome. My brother, Joannes, has not only told me to expect you, but word of your fame has already begun to buzz about my city. We are verily beneath the blade of the Saracens here, so your proficiency in exterminating heretics is particularly well valued in fair Antioch.’ Constantine fluttered his hands and hated himself for it. Mother of God, what a monstrous thug, he thought, albeit splendidly formed. The scar over his eye gives him the sinister aspect. Certainly the type of delinquent my brother would enlist in his employ.

  ‘Thank you, Strategus,’ said Haraldr in Greek; he had specially prepared this address. ‘I wish ... I hope I may serve you well ... as well as I am devoted ... to serve your brother, Orphanotrophus Joannes, and . . . our father. And may I ... present this.’ Haraldr handed the rolled and sealed letter to Constantine.

  Constantine thanked Haraldr and returned to his seat behind his writing table before unsealing the document. I wonder if my omniscient brother knows that his pet brute is acquiring the power of speech, he thought as he nervously peeled the embossed lead from the string. Is Joannes’s ambition making him careless? And if he plots an errant course, to what end will the rest of us be led? Constantine unrolled the letter, apprehension already lurking in his stomach.

  Haraldr watched carefully as Constantine read. Kristr! For a moment Haraldr wondered if someone hiding beneath the table had just knifed Constantine in the groin; he was suddenly virtually chalk-faced. Haraldr’s own skin crawled. Had his patron, Joannes, been entirely sincere? This could not be simply a friendly letter of introduction. And wasn’t it considerably longer than it would need to be for that purpose? On the other hand, perhaps Joannes sensibly appended other news to the letter, and perhaps not all of it was good. But the reaction was most curious, and Constantine did not seem to be recovering well. This was doing nothing to allay Haraldr’s doubts about Joannes’s credibility.

  Constantine put the letter down with trembling hands; he had not needed to finish it to be virtually numb with shock, and he certainly could not read on in front of this brute. He grinned forcibly, sweat beading his brow. ‘Well, Haraldr Nordbrikt, I am afraid official duties beckon me to return to them. But I understand that I will see you this evening. We are both seated at the Imperial Table.’

  When Haraldr had left, Constantine picked up the letter again and studied it for almost an hour, forcing himself to consider carefully all of the details. The plan was astonishing in concept and would be exceedingly taxing to execute; it was certainly more than just another of Joannes’s elaborate schemes. And yet Joannes promised far more reward than he had ever offered before the complicity he now desired. It was incredible, but yes, it could be done. And, of course, now there was no question. It would have to be done.

  ‘Get your face away, swine-breath!’ shouted Grettir, though he knew these beetle-faces could not understand Norse. At every street they swarmed around him, touching his tunic and the white skin of his arms with their filth-blackened fingers, then abandoning him to the rabble that assumed the chase at the next block. This was a mistake, Grettir told himself, in every way. Haraldr Nordbrikt was no longer his enemy. After months of a woman’s scullery work, Grettir now rode with the skalds again; few other masters would have been as generous, particularly not Grettir’s former patron, Hakon. Grettir cursed the impulse that had led him, those long months ago, to contact the Hetamark, or whatever they called that Icelandic devil. Well, the ogre had him by the belly purse now, and he would have to ransom his own soul to shake him loose. If these nut-faced demons did not take him first.

  The beggars crawled from their rag nests, set against the scum-coated walls. Empty eyes, legless torsos, lipless mouths, jabbing stumps. The sores, the stench, the pall of fat, lazy flies. Grettir swatted the attacking human miasma around him and looked for the landmark, as he had been instructed. There. Odin be praised. The blue tiles, the tower rising. How he had found the place through this rat’s warren in this vast, strange city, he did not know. Perhaps fortune was still with him.

  It was the place indeed; as he turned the corner Grettir saw the golden-tipped spires rising above the blue dome. The street in front was blocked with every damned soul Kristr had cast into Hel. They wailed and beseeched like screeching birds and chattering rodents, rags hanging off their scabrous, desiccated limbs. Men with cloud-white eyes, a woman with ragged black hair pulled out in angry red patches, children with pox-eaten faces. They saw him, and they came after him.

  Instinct took over, and Grettir struggled for his knife against the probing of skeletal, slimy fingers. He waved the blade, and the man in front of him pressed his hands to his bleeding chest. The rest hesitated, a wolf pack deciding if hunger or fear would command their guts. Grettir wheeled, crouched, let them all see the blade. They stood dull-eyed and sightless, moaning and jabbering.

  Grettir took one step. No one moved. He thrust ahead with the knife. A man with a huge, swollen, oozing leg stepped back. Another step. The pack responded. Slowly, step by thrusting step, Grettir passed beneath the blue-tiled dome. Suddenly they were gone, vanished like malignant fylgya returning to the spirit world. Grettir looked down the dark, narrow alley ahead with tears in his eyes.

  The absence of traffic was as disconcerting as the mob. The crumbling mud walls almost met overhead, and a dank smell pervaded the chilly air. A rat scurried across the narrow dirt path. He listened to the faint cries of the mob; the once hideous wails were seemingly sponged from the air by the ancient earthen walls. He squinted into the darkness.

  A man. Bent over a sort of crude stone table. He worked at something; edging closer, Grettir saw a boot, a few scraps of hide. He gasped; the man was huge! But the enormous figure did not turn from his table. He was filing something, slowly, wearily, as if for the rest of his life he would file away in this strange dungeon.

  Grettir fought the gorge in his throat and nostrils as the man looked up. No nose, only gaping, wheezing slits. Yet the eyes were light blue, and the filth-encrusted hair had once been golden. Odin, what caprice of yours condemned this Norseman to this Hel? The giant’s tunic hung in greasy tatters.

  The man spoke. ‘You have business here?’ The language was Norse, the accent Icelandic.

  ‘Wh-what?’ mumbled Grettir.

  The eyes burned in the darkness, ice beneath a haunted moon. ‘You have business here?’ The voice was strangely passive, yet Grettir’s tuned ear detected the strong current of menace beneath the calm surface. Quickly reveal your errand, he told himself. ‘I am told to give you this.’ Grettir dug the ring from the lining of his belt and cautiously placed it on the stone table. The next thing he knew, he was on his back, the dankness suffocating, the pale luminescence of the eyes above him, the sharp point at his throat. ‘What does Mar Hunrodarson want?’ The voice was the wolf’s.

  Grettir whimpered but fought to find words; his tongue had always been his livelihood but now it was his life. ‘He said you would not need to ask that.’

  The knife vanished and Grettir was jerked to his feet. ‘You live, the
n,’ growled the beast, ‘as Mar once let me live.’ The noseless giant said nothing else, only stared at Grettir for a long, horrifying minute, as if he could pull from Grettir’s terrified gaze the memories of a homeland so far away. Finally he spoke again, with calm finality. ‘The name of the man?’

  ‘He is called Haraldr Nordbrikt.’ Grettir gulped the dry rock in his throat. ‘His real name is Haraldr Sigurdarson, Prince of Norway.’

  ‘I cannot bear to look,’ said Gregory. He shut his eyes I and would have buried his head in his hands if he had not thought he would be immediately flogged - or worse - for such a violation of protocol. ‘You don’t know how many of them fall. I’ve seen it before in the Hippodrome.’

  ‘I can’t take my eyes from her,’ said Haraldr as he raptly watched the acrobat. The rope had been strung taut between the far ends of the two half domes that thrust up the gilded central dome of the Strategus’s palace. The acrobat stood on one pointed toe, just beneath the balustraded rim of the central dome. Her arms stretched wide like a bird’s, and her breasts, covered only by tiny golden leaves placed over the nipples, were pulled firm against her sculpted rib cage. Her bare buttocks were tensed; a third leaf between her legs was all that concealed what little modesty she had left. She pirouetted and waved, then leapt almost weightlessly to the safety of the stone-railed balcony. The Strategus’s guests, several hundred of them at more than a dozen large tables covered with white brocade cloths and silver settings, roared in acclamation.

  ‘He wonders if you would like to speak to the acrobat.’ Gregory translated for Constantine. ‘Her name is Citron. A very private conversation, he assures you.’

  Haraldr looked at Constantine, who reclined across from him, next to the head of the T-shaped table. ‘Yes,’ he answered in Greek. Then turned to Gregory, who stood in attendance directly behind him. ‘Tell him I do not intend the shroud of night to conceal from me the beauties of Antioch.’

  Constantine smiled obsequiously. Haraldr noticed that the Strategus of Antioch was in an active sweat; a bead dripped from his eyelash and darkened the carnelian silk upholstery of the dining couch on which he reclined. Haraldr settled comfortably on his left elbow; Constantine had called this dining ‘in the Roman fashion’, and Gregory had reported that this was considered the height of elegance. One of Constantine’s eunuchs scurried over to arrange the silken pillows to support Haraldr’s back. He studied the gleaming silver knives and forks set before him; after practising for months with the absurd instruments, he could use them as well as axe and sword. And after all, he reminded himself, these are in a sense the weapons of Rome.

  The young man who came to stand beside Constantine at first seemed to be the Emperor. Another moment’s scrutiny revealed a less robust torso and more delicate features, but he was a very handsome young man. Constantine gestured between the new arrival and Haraldr. ‘This is my nephew, Michael Kalaphates. Michael, you are privileged to meet the renowned slayer of Saracens, Haraldr Nordbrikt.’

  Haraldr stood and bowed. Michael seemed genuinely enthusiastic, his dark eyes lively. ‘Sir, I am your servant,’ he said in an elegant but slightly quavering voice. ‘The smallest thing you wish, or if you wish the greatest thing of your admirers here in Antioch, I would find any request an honour to fulfil. And even if there is nothing I can do for a man as resourceful as your feats prove you to be, I hope I will have the good fortune to converse with you before you leave our city.’ He bowed and took his seat. Haraldr remembered that Joannes had remarked on his nephew’s lack of ambition. But Haraldr also observed that the same had been said of him not too long ago, and he felt an instinctive affinity for this lesser Michael.

  Meanwhile Constantine had begun to dither with the eunuch he called Basil; something about his anxiety as to when the Empress and her ladies would appear. Haraldr counted the empty places; the Empress would clearly take the purple-upholstered couch at the head of the table; two guests would be seated between him and the Empress, another directly across from him. Haraldr worried that Maria would take the seat one removed from him; then he would not be able to pass her booth conspicuously without so much as a single glance at her wares.

  Constantine frowned involuntarily and then brightened into a clearly extorted greeting. He stood, grinning and perspiring. ‘Strategus Meletius Attalietes, you do us honour!’

  Attalietes waved as if he were fanning a slow, stupid fly. He settled languidly onto the couch opposite Constantine’s. Haraldr was astounded to observe that Attalietes’s gold-hemmed tunic was almost as berry-purple as an Imperial blood relationship; was it effrontery? Attalietes made the merest inclination of his head in Haraldr’s direction; the small nostrils that pierced Attalietes’s snub nose flared slightly and then compressed, as if expunging a disagreeable odour. He turned back to Constantine and spoke in a scrolling tongue more imperious, more florid, than even Symeon’s. Haraldr heard barbaroi clearly, of course, and something about vulgarity, bad taste. Constantine seemed flustered; his forehead was covered with huge beads and his bare cheeks flushed.

  ‘The Dhynatoi wants to know why you are seated at his table,’ whispered Gregory. ‘He also says it is vulgar to entertain before dinner. He says that out of deference to Her Imperial Majesty he will suffer these affronts to propriety and remain at the table.’

  The music of the organ was the signal for all to rise; like a huge flock of white birds, the snowy-robed guests stood and waited. The large bronze doors at the end of the room slid aside, signalling the prescribed chants. ‘Come forth, Empress of the Romans!’ The dome echoed with the reverent words and Haraldr calmed himself with the reminder that he had dined at a king’s table for most of his life. ‘Come forth, God-protected splendour of the crown! Come forth, purple-born glory! Shed light on your slaves!’ The white-robed chamberlains, led by the frail Symeon, preceded the glittering ladies-in-waiting through the door. Haraldr saw Maria, sheathed in tight white silk, just before the Empress appeared in a burst of brilliant purple. Every head in the enormous hall bowed deeply.

  Eunuchs fluttered about the couches. More white-robed figures took up positions behind the head of the table. Silk rustled, and Haraldr, head still bowed, saw a gold-threaded white hem a few ells from his feet; the erotically tiny white slippers were studded with little pearls. He thought of Halldor’s lesson and relaxed. The wise trader. The white-robed figures at the head of the table began to chant, one after the other, in a tongue Haraldr could not understand. When the chants were done, it was permissible to look up.

  Zoe reclined at the head of the table; a young woman bearing a golden wand stood motionless directly behind her. The Empress turned to her right and said, ‘Constantine, Strategus of Antioch.’ Constantine removed the long white sash he wore over his shoulder, then reclined on his couch. Zoe turned to her left. ‘Meletius Attalietes, Strategus of Cilicia.’ Attalietes removed his sash as floridly as a dancer discarding her robe and reclined in a single effortless motion, as if he dined in this position each night. Still facing left, Zoe addressed the woman next to Haraldr. ‘Maria, Mistress of the Robes,’ said Zoe in her voluptuous, slightly sibilant voice. Maria settled on her couch; Haraldr could not restrain a glance at her white slippers and a flash of bare ankle. ‘Anna Dalassena, Silentarias.’ The girl who removed her sash and reclined just opposite Haraldr was like a gorgeous bird; her lips bright red, her black hair coiled and set with pearls, her cheeks blazing. She was smaller than the Empress and Maria, with a delicate silk-sheathed neck, and probably not any older than Elisevett.

  ‘Haraldr Nordbrikt, Slayer of Saracens and Komes of Her Imperial Majesty’s Varangian Guard.’ Haraldr could not suppress his excitement and vanity as he removed his sash and settled back on his couch. As the rest of the guests at the Imperial table were announced and seated, he noticed that the Empress gave Michael Kalaphates a wry, meaningful look.

  The five white-robed chanters, or voukaloi, began their sonorous, rhythmic exchanges again; the eunuchs fluttered forward and began to mi
x the wine with water. Haraldr looked across at Anna. He nodded and her brilliant cheeks grew darker. Her dark eyelashes dipped, but her lips quivered with a faint smile. Haraldr decided he would praise these wares with a tongue that would make Odin blush.

  ‘She wants to address you,’ said Gregory in a panic that almost tied his tongue. Haraldr put his goblet down and looked at the Empress.

  ‘Have you ever dined in the Roman fashion before?’ asked Zoe. Haraldr could hear Attalietes snort.

  ‘The position is familiar to me, as we do not have seats on our longships. The comfort, of course, is quite superior, and this I attribute to the glory of the Roman Empire and the divine offices of your Imperial Majesty.’ Haraldr thanked Odin for his words.

  The voukaloi again droned their chants and the servants brought the first course: miniature olives in silver bowls; boiled artichokes; eggs, cooked and shelled, and cradled in shells of blue enamel set on individual silver trays and served with a long silver spoon. Haraldr thought better of tackling the egg and instead scooped fish roe from a silver bowl onto a biscuit.

  ‘Anna Dalassena.’ Haraldr was surprised at the civility of Attalietes’s address; somewhat condescending but spoken as if the girl were human. ‘Your father is well?’

  Anna blushed. ‘Oh, yes, very well, thank you, Strategus.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Zoe, pausing to press one of the miniature olives to her erotically puckered lips, as if kissing the tiny morsel. Gregory quickly poised himself to translate, as Haraldr had asked him to do whenever she spoke. ‘The Grand Domestic has to be magnificently . . . robust. He has so many masters to serve that his errands are endless, and it is a pity that those for whom he so diligently labours are never satisfied. I pray for him often, don’t I, Anna dear?’