Byzantium - A Novel

by Michael Ennis

  ‘Those are the visions of the prophets.’ Maria paused and reflected, as if she gave partial credence to these visions. ‘What do you think?

  Haraldr remembered the words of the Christian skalds at Olaf’s court. ‘We believe that . . . that after Ragnarok, Christ will raise up a hall more fair than the sun, thatched with gold, at a place called Gimle. Perhaps that is this New Jerusalem you speak of. It is said that the gods shall dwell there in innocence and bliss.’

  ‘How extraordinary! That you fair-hairs would also know of the Holy City of God.’

  ‘That is not the end of the tale.’ Haraldr felt as if he could see beyond sun-flecked Daphne to the dark border of creation. Maria clutched his arm tightly. Odin spoke, death dark on his own tongue. ‘Now comes the last black dragon flying, the glittering serpent from Nidafell. He is a blackness that will consume all flesh, all life, all light, even his own being. When he soars in the darkness, all creation will cease to be.’

  ‘Then no one will judge you in the end, and bring the just to everlasting life?’

  ‘No one, man or god, will be left to judge. A man will judge himself, by the courage with which he stands before the last dragon.’

  Maria looked down for a long while. Finally she blinked, and a tiny tear hung on a painted lash. ‘Your tale is better than mine,’ she whispered. ‘It is so brave, and so sad.’

  The wind fluttered the leaves in the grove behind. Gregory spoke in Greek; someone was approaching. Maria turned and waved. She let go of Haraldr’s arm and advanced a few paces to wait for Leo, who attacked a flight of stone steps with red-faced vigour. Leo whispered breathlessly into Maria’s ear, then held out his arm to her. She placed her white fingers on Leo’s silk sleeve and turned to Haraldr. ‘Thank you for your lovely tale. Anna is coming for you.’ Then, with dancing white slippers, Maria descended the golden steps of Daphne.

  ‘That ass has more sense than the man who beats him,’ muttered the Keeper of the Imperial Beacon at Toulon; he plucked at his short black beard with consternation. ‘You be careful with those!’ The Keeper quickly steadied the stumbling pack mule and made certain that the load - two large terracotta canisters - was secure. ‘Fool!’ he shouted to the batman, a small Cilician whose weathered dark skin was the same colour as his sweat-stained brown burlap tunic. ‘You break one of these and your own piss could set it off so quickly that you would wish for Hell-fires to save you from the flames.’

  The batman grabbed the mule’s harness to steady himself and looked back at the narrow, rocky path he had just ascended; it led from the main road which threaded through the Cilician gates. ‘Well, your Sirship, accustomed as I am to the loads of faggots we bring up here, and that is no worry to me, for my children would not go fatherless. But you want the Devil’s spittle, and for good reason I do not know, and you pay only what the load of faggots is, to boot.’ The batman pulled the long-suffering mule over the last steep step-up. A small stone-walled fort stood at the flat top of the crest. The batman slapped the mule’s rump; the beast trudged towards the fort’s heavy wooden gate. ‘It’s me that should protest, Sirship.’

  ‘It’s you that should protest,’ mumbled the exasperated Keeper as he followed the delivery through the gate. They stepped into a deserted court; a rectangular, three-storey stone tower rose at the northwest corner of the walls. Atop the tower was a flat bronze ellipse twice as tall as a man, surrounded by four workers who busily polished the shimmering surface. I should protest, thought the Keeper; I am asked to maintain Toulon with one assistant and five lice-eaten guards. When the sainted Bulgar-Slayer was alive, the frontiers were important and we would sometimes have an entire vanda posted up here. Now the corvee that would provide us with even temporary reserves from the thematic army has been eliminated by the offices of the Strategus Attalietes. Fine, he will one day learn his lesson when the sons of Hagar pour through the Cilician gates and darken his own fields and there is no thematic army to resist them, and the Imperial Taghmata cannot be summoned because the Imperial Beacon at Toulon has been destroyed by the heretics! The Keeper hitched up his belt and strode to the tower.

  He ascended the grey stone steps and stopped in the clock room. His young assistant, the Superintendent of the Imperial Dial, maintained the room spotlessly; the afternoon sun through the grilled glass windows lit scoured stone. The brass tank of the water clock gleamed, the gears and pulleys beneath it clicked like busy beetles. With a habitual reflex the Keeper checked the time on the large engraved bronze disc. He looked for the coin-size gold pin that signified the sun and then plotted it against the overlying grid of arcing wires that indicated the hours. Tenth hour of the day; four hours past the red-enamelled vertical wire that marked the meridian, two hours above the red arc that indicated sunset. It was the hours after sunset that mattered to the Keeper. ‘Let’s check the beacon,’ he said to the Superintendent, a studious young graduate of the Quadrivium in Dorylaeum, whose once-sallow cheeks had taken on a healthier brightness from his mountain posting.

  The pair climbed through the small circular stone stairwell to the roof of the tower. A charred stone tub three arm spans wide took up most of the roof space. Towering above the tub was the elliptical copper mirror; the guards had just finished their meticulous polishing and the slight concavity captured a compressed, distorted image of the mountain landscape. The Keeper looked north, imagining that he could see the summit of Mount Arghaios a dozen leagues across the dull, olive-grey expanse of the Taurus plateau. May the clouds stay away and your watchmen stay awake, he thought, silently invoking the beacon keepers’ prayer for his counterpart atop the distant mountain. And for you also at Mount Samos and Kastron Aiylon and Mount Mamas and Kyrizos and Mokilos and St Afxendios and of course the Grand Superintendent of the Imperial Dial in the great Magnara in the Empress City. The Keeper sighed, thinking of the distance that separated him and his ambitions from the Queen of Cities; he attempted to assuage his melancholy with the thought that he was the most important of the Keepers, for he started it all. And he would at least not have to worry about his watchmen sneaking wine to their posts and drifting off; his message would come by swift courier from Antioch by way of Adana.

  The Keeper inspected the improvised crane that would lift the terracotta canisters to the roof of the tower. ‘Yes!’ he shouted down, signalling the guard to attach the clay jars to the hoist.

  ‘I’m not comfortable with the idea of using liquid fire,’ said the Superintendent. ‘I really think it might melt the mirror and burn through the roof.’

  ‘I guess when you studied the Quadrivium they didn’t teach you that a wood fire can actually burn hotter than that stuff,’ said the Keeper good-naturedly. ‘The advantage to liquid fire is that it ignites instantly and the flames leap more vigorously. When Basil the Bulgar-Slayer - may Christ the King preserve and keep his immortal soul - was alive, we used it all the time. Look, you can figure it before I can say it. Even when the flame is up to maximum visibility in four minutes . . .’

  ‘True. Four minutes for each beacon, times eight beacons in all, totals more than half an hour. And given the usual delays, it is quite possible that a message sent from here in one hour could be received at the Imperial Palace in the next. Hasn’t it happened before?’

  ‘Indeed it did, the year before you came here. We were told of the capture of Edessa by the Saracens. At that time the schedule called for the beacon to be lit at the fifth hour of the night to signal that particular event. But the light finally arrived at the Magnara in the sixth hour of the night, signalling that Edessa had resisted the siege. By the time it was all straightened out, the relief force was two weeks late. The problem was traced to Mokilos, where the Keeper had allowed two women of a nearby village to inspect his “facilities” that night. Needless to say, that particular Keeper no longer has that particular equipment to display. Nor does he have eyes with which to miss beacons shining brightly in the night.’

  ‘So why do they give us liquid fire but cut a watchma
n from our roster every month, it seems?’

  ‘Well, something big is afoot down there in Antioch.’ He pointed south. ‘They want to make sure this message is not delayed. And you and I are going to have to share in the watch duty.’ The Superintendent groaned. ‘Let’s look at the new schedule,’ said the Keeper; he genially slapped the bony shoulders of his assistant.

  They descended to the clock room and the Keeper went to the polished wooden cabinet in the corner opposite the water tank. He unlocked a shiny brass padlock, removed the sealed document, and displayed it to the Superintendent. The Superintendent examined the seal. ‘The Orphanotrophus Joannes,’ he said with youthful awe. ‘Usually it is the Grand Domestic who sends us the schedule.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Keeper, ‘I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if someday the Orphanotrophus Joannes appeared at our gate to set your clock. They say his seal is on everything these days. Perhaps I should petition him to find me a posting in the Empress City. Well, let us see what the new schedule is.’ The Keeper peeled apart the seal; the Superintendent crowded in so that he could read the paper as soon as it had been unfolded.

  After a moment the Keeper and the Superintendent looked at each other in shock. The most important messages were always scheduled for the second and third hours of the night, while the evening winds still whipped clouds and fogs from the peaks. For years now the message reserved for the second hour had been ‘Antioch besieged’, and for the third hour it had been ‘Antioch has fallen’. Now there was a change. The message for the second hour was ‘The Empress has been attacked’. And for the third hour, ‘The Empress is dead’.

  ‘So this Plutarch was a Greek ruled by the old Romans and he wrote of both the Greeks and the Romans. But before Plutarch, in the time of Alexander, the Greeks ruled the world.’

  ‘Yes, Har-aldr,’ said Anna happily.

  Haraldr leaned against the stone seat and watched a shaft of sun project a vivid aquamarine stripe over the darkening waters of the semicircular, stone-lined pool. A column, toppled from the row behind him, lay across the seats nearby like a huge recumbent figure. The temple to Jupiter, the old god the Greeks called Zeus, stood ravaged at the far end of the pool; only four delicately fluted columns remained to glow in the dying day. Behind the temple a much larger reservoir sat deep and still; water from the limestone springs beneath Daphne was collected here and sent to Antioch via the soaring-arched aqueducts that sloped away from the far end of the reservoir and disappeared into the distance. All this had been built by the old Romans, yet much of it, according to Anna, in imitation of the style of the ancient Greeks. Haraldr marvelled at these dense, intricate layers of time. The world he had grown up in was so new; in Norway wooden shrines to Thor that could not have been more than two hundred years old were all that could inspire memories of the ancients. Here, amid these giant stone relics, he could reach across time and touch the world of the old gods.

  ‘It is said that Hadrian, the Emperor of Rome who built this place, also built a wall somewhere near your home in Thule. Is that possible?’

  ‘Perhaps so. I remember once when my brother returned from Angle-Land, someone talked of a wall.’ Haraldr shook his head in wonder. In Norse the terms for fool and stay-at-home were the same. Yet as far as he had now come from home, he felt like the fool next to this bright, beautiful girl. He studied Anna’s vivid, almost unreal colour; her face was like a painted statue, her skin so white and her lips so intensely red. And yet, Haraldr reflected, her enchantment was not simply beauty. If the Empress was beauty enhanced by power, and Maria was beauty enhanced by carnal invitation, then Anna was beauty enhanced by knowledge. She had said it was her mother who had insisted she learn of ancient texts that revealed the thoughts and breasts of men who had lived long ago, when the old gods walked the earth and Daphne was new. Incredible. The more he observed them, the more bewildering and beguiling these Roman women became.

  ‘We must go.’ Anna sighed. The shadows had dissolved into a lustrous twilight and the pillars of Daphne were transforming into towering ghosts. ‘Maria says that every sunset is a tragedy. She does not like the night. And yet . . .’ Anna trailed off with an enigmatic smile.

  Maria. A witch who shunned the darkness that Haraldr had seen deep in her own eyes. In spite of Anna, he could not rid her from his mind. He would have to talk to Halldor; what did the wise trader do when the merchant gave him gifts from his competitor’s booths? If he and Maria no longer gamed, what was this?

  ‘There is one thing I must show you,’ said Anna as they descended from the reservoir. A moment later she turned off the path and entered a small grove thick with vines; here night had already settled. She took his hand and he marvelled at the impossible smoothness and delicacy of her flesh. The vines arched over them. Haraldr peered into the miasma ahead. ‘Wait for your eyes to become more adept,’ said Anna confidently. ‘There.’

  The stone architrave, supported by two columns, materialised from deep shadow. Soon Haraldr could even distinguish the Greek letters chiselled onto the crumbling architrave. H-E-C-A-T-E.

  ‘The Temple of Hecate,’ whispered Anna. ‘The Greeks worshipped her as the goddess of diabolic magic. She could raise the dead and make them appear to the living.’

  ‘Fylgya,’ said Haraldr with genuine respect. ‘Spirits that wander among men.’

  ‘You know them,’ whispered Anna. ‘Come. I want to tell Maria we went down there. She will be terrified that we even speak of it.’

  ‘Down?’ Haraldr’s neck and shoulders tingled.

  ‘Yes.’ Anna’s whisper had become a mysteriously urgent hiss. ‘Hecate lives in the Underworld. Look. You can see the steps.’

  Barely. The narrow stone steps faded into the murk after a few ells.

  Gregory crossed himself. ‘Haraldr Nordbrikt, I do not see well in the dark.’

  ‘Stay here,’ said Haraldr mercifully, ‘in case we become lost.’ Anna clutched Haraldr’s hand tightly and led him down step by step. Behind him, Haraldr could hear Gregory reciting one of the poems, called psalms, that the warrior David had long ago composed for Christ’s Father.

  Soon there was an utter stillness, broken only in the instants that foot touched stone. The dampness made Haraldr think of Neorion, the Hell that rose in the sky. Ever down, the smell of ancient stone more and more suffocating. Haraldr counted over a hundred steps, and still they descended. Anna bumped against him and gave a little cry. Haraldr fought the reflex to grip his dagger; he had been the fool once already today. ‘O sky!’ whined Anna. Haraldr heard her hand slap stone. She said something to the effect that they could go no farther.

  Haraldr reached out and felt the cold, grainy stone. ‘No farther,’ he said hopefully, in Greek.

  ‘No farther,’ whispered Anna. ‘Can you see me?’

  ‘Not well. No.’

  Anna lifted Haraldr’s hand and slowly took it to her warm, marble-smooth face. Then she took his fingers away from her cheek and brought them down until he felt the lightest touch of silk. She pressed his hand towards her, and he could feel her hard nipple and small soft breast. She exhaled once, took his hand away, and pulled him behind her as she scampered back up the steps.

  Anna smiled impishly in the relative light at the surface and said to Gregory with a sigh, ‘We did not get to see the shrine.’

  ‘We did not go all the way?’ asked Haraldr in Greek.

  Anna smirked. ‘No. The shrine has a step for every day of the year. We only took one hundred and seventy-two steps. The stairs have been blocked. But we will still tell Maria we saw the shrine.’ Anna wrapped both hands around Haraldr’s arm and led him away from the Temple of Hecate.

  ‘Certainly you may have your leave, Brother.’ Zoe sat in her gilded, portable throne, the rounded back piled high with cushions of scarlet and sky-blue silk. She curled her gold-flecked slippers beneath her. ‘You have provided us with all splendid Daphne has to offer.’ Zoe raised her hand to indicate the marble-revetted hall her throne had been set i
n; beyond the melon-coloured columns that ringed the courtyard, lanterns played off the waters of a chiming fountain. ‘And our nephew has graciously consented to ... attend to myself and my ladies until we are safe in Tripoli. So go, Brother, defend the trust my husband and your brother has given you. And be assured that the convivial and benign reception accorded by your Antioch will remain a cherished memento in my grateful heart.’

  ‘Your words are my solace,’ answered Constantine, his brow gushing. ‘For tomorrow I will awake in a city that has lost its sun. Farewell, sister, Mother, Light of the Roman world, chosen of God.’ Constantine crossed his arms over his chest and backed out of the room like a dog sneaking a stolen morsel.

  Haraldr stood rigid beside his Mother, wondering if he was able to conceal his shock and dismay. Now it was as plain as the nose on a face. Joannes, through his surrogate, Constantine, was behind a plot against the Empress, one that would surely take place before sun dappled Daphne again, and one that played Haraldr as a dull-witted accomplice in the usurpation of his Empress. But why did his Mother do nothing? She had just permitted Constantine to withdraw his thematic army to Antioch, citing some clearly contrived Saracen threat to the city. And Blymmedes’s Taghmatic forces and Haraldr’s Varangians could not, as the Domestic had warned, defend the entire perimeter of Daphne. They had had to rely on Attalietes’s utterly incompetent, and most likely disloyal, thematic army to complete the cordon. On the road from Antioch that morning Haraldr had had the opportunity to inspect Attalietes’s troops, and he had been astonished to find that most of them were baggage handlers and batmen for the pack mules, and that many of those who were armed did not have proper weapons or healthy mounts. It was a disgrace. How could they all be so blind?