Byzantium - A Novel

by Michael Ennis

  ‘Yes, yes,’ whispered Tzintzuluces, his own dark eyes glazed with adoration and rapture. ‘David and Symeon. The former a dendrite; the latter, as you have certainly heard, the stylite from Adrianopolis, the very Symeon whose fame has begun to spread throughout Christendom. They have left their perches to succour the holiest of all their brethren.’ Tzintzuluces looked aside briefly as a priest in silk vestments set a silver bucket, a sponge and a towel beside the Emperor.

  The Emperor spread his arms wide and his eyes swept from one Holy Man to the other like a drunken reveller forced to choose between two equally desirable courtesans. Finally he settled on the shorter, cloaked man. David the dendrite’s tunic, hair and bare legs were soiled with the droppings of the birds that had shared his home of the last four years, a solitary tree on the outskirts of a small Anatolian village; already the dendrite’s virtuous self-denial had been credited with bringing widespread prosperity to the entire Charsianon theme. The Emperor reached almost reflexively for the pail and began to sponge the filth and bird excrement from the feet and legs of David the dendrite. He caressed the man’s rough brown ankles and worked the sponge in between gnarled toes. The Emperor’s eyes were stricken, tender, above all grateful.

  After he had carefully towelled David’s feet the Emperor turned to Symeon. The stylite had lived atop a single stone column for thirteen years now - the Emperor reflected on the holiness of this number, that of the twelve apostles plus their Lord. That Symeon the stylite had blessed the world with healing grace was beyond any doubt; hundreds of miraculous cures had already been attributed to his touch. In exchange Symeon had surrendered his own flesh; his toes, eaten away by the maggots that lived in the filth - his own filth - at his feet, were raw nubs. Delirious with joy at beholding the evidence of this sacred act of mortification, racked with guilt over the crimes his own flesh had lured him to - yea, even to the very fires of perdition - the Emperor fell upon Symeon’s grotesque, filth-encrusted feet; he kissed these feet, he bathed them with his tears, he salved them with the golden oil of St Demetrius.

  Finally the Emperor turned his tear-stained face to Tzintzuluces. He fought to control his sobs. ‘You know why the Pantocrator has struck me down with the lightning bolts of this madness that visits me, ever more frequently, do you not?’

  ‘Why, Brother?’ asked Tzintzuluces softly.

  ‘I engaged in adulterous intercourse with her, even as I served her husband Romanus, the same Romanus who preceded me beneath the Imperial Diadem, even as I served him in the capacity of servant and friend.’ The Emperor snorted and struggled for air. ‘Suspicious of the rumours that attended our flagrant and unlawful - yea, unholy - dalliance, her husband and my Emperor questioned me of these matters and’ - here the Emperor began to wail - ‘upon the Holy Relics I denied my crimes! If not damned before, there I threw my immortal soul into the fiery lake!’

  Tzintzuluces crossed himself with a quick, frantic gesture.

  ‘There is more,’ said the Emperor, his eyes now fixed with an expression of utter horror, as if he saw before him the demons who attended the gates of Hell. ‘They murdered him. It was not my hands that forced his head beneath the waters of his bath, but those hands acted in my interest. I know now the foul crime upon which my throne was raised. I will never escape the torment of that knowing!’ The crypt echoed with the Emperor’s shattered voice, as if the gates of Hell had now opened and the damned shouted forth, begging for release.

  Tzintzuluces’s face mirrored the terrible fear that racked his Imperial disciple. His lips parted with a curious slurping sound but he could say nothing. The Emperor stared at him, a drowning man who had just realized that his saviour on the shore had no rope, no bit of flotsam to throw to him. And then Symeon spoke. His voice was shockingly elegant, as if he were an actor rather than a self-mutilated hermit. ‘Because you have listened to your wife and eaten from the tree which I forbade you, accursed shall be the ground on your account.’

  The Emperor, still on his knees, looked with shadowy, pleading eyes at Symeon. Symeon answered with barking syllables that echoed against the gleaming plaster vaults of the crypt. ‘And Cain sayeth to the Lord, “Thy punishment is heavier than I can bear; thou hast driven me today from the ground and banished me from thy presence. I shall be a vagrant and wanderer on the earth and anyone who meets me can kill me.” And the Lord answered: “No.” ‘ Here Symeon’s voice boomed mightily. ‘ “If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold.” So the Lord put a mark on Cain.’

  The Emperor pressed his hands into his eyes. ‘I bear the mark,’ he whispered, his horror barely audible.

  Symeon torturously bent his withered, arthritic legs and dropped to his knees beside his Emperor. ‘Though your sins are scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they are dyed crimson, they may yet be like new wool.’ He finished in a low, wondrous tone.

  Tzintzuluces gave silent praise to the Pantocrator for the wisdom of the stylite. ‘The sight of a woman is like the venom affixed to a poison arrow,’ he whispered to the Emperor. ‘The longer the venomed barb remains in the flesh, the greater the infection of the corruption it carries.’

  Symeon’s voice rose again, a booming concert to Tzintzuluces’s note of caution. ‘And the angel of retribution sayeth this of the whore of Babylon, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication. “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her plagues. For her sins are piled high as Heaven, and God has not forgotten her deeds. Pay her back in her own coin, repay her twice over for her deeds!” ‘

  Tzintzuluces realized that with the help of the thrice-blessed Symeon he had now found a voice of his own, a wonderful palliative for his Imperial novitiate’s terrible distress. ‘If your right eye is your undoing,’ he intoned richly, ‘tear it out and fling it away; it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for the whole of it to be thrown into Hell. If your right hand is your undoing, cut it off and fling it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for the whole of it to be cast into perdition!’

  ‘You have fornicated with the harlot clothed in purple and scarlet!’ boomed Symeon. ‘Now heed the warning of Jehovah’s messenger and come out of her!’

  ‘Cast the woman out!’ thundered Tzintzuluces in a voice he had scarcely known he commanded. ‘Let not even the sight of her poison your immortal soul.’

  ‘Cast the woman out!’ David the dendrite added his chorus to his colleagues’ ringing admonitions.

  To the Lord of the Entire World, the Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of the Romans, even the massive brick walls of the holy crypt seemed to tremble with the echoes of the righteous yet ultimately merciful wrath of the Pantocrator. ‘Cast the woman out,’ the Emperor said weakly, his agreement lost amid the clamouring oaths of the Holy Men.

  Nicetas Gabras lifted the lid of the exquisitely granulated gold box and studied the seal on the rolled parchment tucked inside. ‘No,’ he said. He opened the second box, this of silver chased with what appeared to be, from Haraldr’s vantage (seated behind his writing table) a hunt scene. ‘No,’ Gabras pronounced even more emphatically. The last box was blue enamel with red floral patterns. ‘No!’ Eustratius, Haraldr’s newly appointed chamberlain, turned to his master. He almost imperceptibly raised the silver tray that held the three boxes and bowed slightly. Haraldr looked at Gabras and raised his unscarred right eyebrow. Gabras ran the tip of his tongue very quickly between his lips and pulled reflexively at each long, silver-hemmed, silken sleeve of his tunic, as if he weren’t certain that the garment fitted properly. ‘The eidikos, rank disputor,’ said Gabras briskly. ‘Actuarius, rank protostrator. A vestitore. None of them men of immediate consequence. I will defer indefinitely their urgent requests for interviews with the Manglavite Haraldr Nordbrikt.’

  Haraldr nodded at Gregory to indicate that he understood the Greek. Then he nodded at Gabras, who tipped his bulbous head, draped with long thin blond hair, at the chamberlain Eustratius; the willowy eunuch turn
ed and walked out the door with curious, toe-bouncing strides. Haraldr dully praised Odin and Christ for the endless distractions of his new office, household and fame, an opiate of details that were meaningful only because they momentarily contained the pain and fear. He focused on the words, the bewildering ‘Roman system of titles and dignities’. Eidikos, disputor, actuarias, vestitore, eidikos, disputor, actuarias. . . . The words rattled over and over again in his head like an absurd ditty, briefly confusing the only thought he really had had for ten days now.

  She had used him, of course, to an end so hideous that the memory of the words still froze his flesh to his bones: sever the head of the Imperial Eagle. He had fled from her bed like a man fleeing a demon in a dream, hoping that as much as his night with her had been an incorporeal vision, so, too, would its nightmare conclusion. He had not seen either Maria or the Empress in the week and a half since they had tried to make him the agent of their treason; mercifully protocol had shielded him on the road, and since the arrival of the Empress’s huge caravan in Constantinople, neither woman had left the Imperial Gynaeceum. But what madness had kept him from going to Joannes as soon as he had returned? The intent of the two Valkyrja had been clear enough: the head of the Imperial Eagle was the Emperor, and how many times had Haraldr heard it implied that this Empress had already murdered one husband, as well as the rumours that she had been neglected by her new spouse? And yet he had been unable to accuse the Empress of such a conspiracy, much less sentence Maria to the inevitable ‘interrogation’ in Neorion. Now it was quite likely that the plot had been uncovered - why else would the Emperor have been absent on his wife’s return, and why were the two women virtual prisoners in their own apartments? And how soon would it be before the two silk-sheathed Valkyrja implicated him with the length of time he had concealed their terrible intentions? He had been mad to spare Maria, even for a moment, even after an eternity of her seduction. When the Emperor returned, Haraldr could only throw himself before the mercy of his Father and beg that his pledge-men be spared. But she had doomed him. And she had known that when she had led his soul into the depths. The pain of her betrayal was almost suffocating. Every word, every thought, was a struggle.

  ‘Manglavite,’ said Gabras; he looked anxiously at the large bronze water clock near Haraldr’s writing table. ‘Might I suggest that Eustratius inform your groom that one of your horses be saddled? You have a meeting at the third hour, in the palace, with the Grand Eunuch. Do you have a preference as to the horse, or perhaps merely the colour? And would you--’

  A shout came from downstairs. Gabras turned towards the door and pursed his lips in alarm. Surely the servants aren’t quarrelling, thought Haraldr distantly; Gabras has already got them working together as smoothly as the gears of this water clock. The shouts ascended the stairs and became an angry chorus, then a moment later crescendoed. In a blur of colours and cacophony of rattling armour, a lean, ruddy-faced blond in the full gold-and-red ceremonial regalia of the Grand Hetairia lurched into Haraldr’s office; he shook off Eustratius and two of his eunuch assistants like a wrathful bear shedding hunting dogs. Gabras’s scarcely whiskered little chin dropped. Haraldr rose to his feet, stunned, uncertain whether to defend himself or to submit meekly to this emissary of the Emperor’s justice.

  ‘Manglavite Haraldr,’ said the Norseman apologetically. He made no effort to advance; instead he threw back his red satin cape and smoothed it behind his leather-kilted hips. His next words were in Norse with a slightly rustic Icelandic inflection, but with the perfect diction of a man who could read and write the runes as well as a skald. ‘I am Thorvald Ostenson, Centurion of the Grand Hetairia. I beg you not to regard the manner of my coming before you as an insult. I petitioned to see you in the accepted fashion, and your servant’ - he gestured at Eustratius, who still glared at the Norseman with small black eyes - ‘simply placed my request with all the rest, even though I assured him that life and death were at stake in this matter.’ Ostenson held out a small rolled and sealed document. ‘The Hetairarch Mar Hunrodarson asked me to make certain that you have read and destroyed this message.’

  Haraldr broke the seal and unrolled the paper. The message was in runic symbols, a hand he had not seen before. ‘Sir,’ it read, ‘heed the warning of one Norseman to another. You are in grave danger in that house. You must meet me tonight at the Forum of Constantine at the seventh hour. I will wait for you beside the great statue. Make certain you are not followed. Your life depends on that.’

  ‘You understand?’ asked Ostenson when Haraldr finally lifted his eyes from the message. Haraldr nodded, almost relieved at the simplicity of this ending. If Mar was in the city, then the Emperor had returned, and his mighty sword was now already poised above the necks of the traitors. The Forum of Constantine was to be the place of Haraldr’s execution. Haraldr looked grimly into Ostenson’s acute, cold blue eyes. Is it that simple? he asked himself. Is Mar acting as the Emperor’s agent, or to his own ends?

  Ostenson removed the paper from Haraldr’s fingers and looked up at the ring-shaped candelabra that bathed the room in soft golden light; the grey and foreboding sky, visible through the three arched windows, offered little natural illumination. Ostenson placed the message against one of the flames, then turned the paper until it had been consumed to a brittle, curled leaf. He crushed the hot ashes in his hands and let the remains fall to the floor. The centurion bowed deeply to Haraldr and turned quickly. Before he left the room, he paused and caught Gabras’s eye. Gabras turned away immediately, faced Haraldr, and pulled on his sleeves.

  ‘I thought you would never come to me again,’ she told him, and he kissed the tears on her cheeks. ‘I love you,’ she said, his tenderness like a weight on her aching heart, forcing her to think. ‘I loved you for love of her,’ she explained very slowly, each word tearing out a fibre of her heart, ‘but our love was greater.’ The grief came over her like a wave, and she cried until it seemed she were actually screaming under water, unable to make herself heard, choking. But he held her and touched her hair, his fingers stroking her as if they were made of light. When he entered her, the light flowed through her veins and she arched her neck and cried. It was difficult to tell how long they made love. When he had finished, he rose above her and the light from the window made a halo around his golden hair. He smiled at her and then turned slightly, and his neck gushed blood. Once, twice, then spurting with every pulse, spilling down his shoulders and chest, she watched dumbly as tiny droplets bounced crazily against the silk sheets, and when she looked at his face again, the flesh had fallen away from it, rotting before her eyes, and his bare white teeth parted and he laughed. ‘I’m dead,’ he said matter-of-factly, laughing after the terrible, words. ‘You have killed me.’

  ‘Away, away, oh, wicked thing,’ murmured Zoe, cradling Maria’s head and brushing at the tears that coursed down her cheeks. Maria’s eyes shot open, startled, sapphire blue against her flushed face. ‘You have gone through an entire life on that couch, little daughter. Remorse, a most . . . profound ecstasy, and then a horror that chilled me as if death--’ Zoe broke off, having conjured an image she did not want to see.

  Maria suddenly remembered the nightmare she was awakening to and she sat straight up. She quickly emptied the silver goblet she had left on a small ivory table beside her couch; she hoped that the wine would wash the taste from her mouth, a bitter bouquet of fear and death. She looked at Zoe. ‘Is there news?’

  Zoe nodded, her blue eyes as hot and unrelenting as a midsummer sky. I don’t understand her any more, thought Maria for an instant before the observation was engulfed by general anxiety. ‘He is back,’ said the Empress.

  ‘It is over, then,’ said Maria, clutching at her silk-sheathed shoulders.

  ‘It has begun!’ snapped Zoe, her blood-red lips cruel and scowling. ‘Because you did not persuade your Komes Haraldr to kill for you does not mean that he has betrayed our intent!’

  ‘We have been made captives.’ Maria pressed her
hands to her thighs. The tips of her fingers trembled.

  ‘A relative condition,’ said Zoe; her eyes shot about her apartment as if she were a general surveying a battlefield. ‘We are not allowed to go out. Otherwise we are at our liberty. We may summon whom ever we please and send them out again with whatever we please. My husband is loath to see me because of his own guilt, which has clearly become a chronic disorder in our absence. He has no need to aggrandise that guilt, or contribute to the already unsteady tilt of the Imperial Diadem upon his head, by punishing me further.’ Zoe sliced the air with her delicate hand. ‘I believe the Komes Haraldr, or rather the Manglavite Haraldr, as he has now been so generously designated, is still considering our request.’

  Maria pressed her chin towards her snowy neck like a frightened swan. ‘I will not ask him to dance that closely with death again, Mother,’ she said in a small girlish voice. ‘You did not see the look of horror in his eyes, the betrayal, the wound, the outrage.’

  Zoe stared at Maria for a moment. ‘Oh, I am quite cognizant of your feelings,’ she said bitingly. ‘Our peril has somehow made this giant from Thule as precious to you as a little pet. I only hope you will not besiege me with your tears when I endeavour to slip my collar about his neck.’ Zoe narrowed her pitiless eyes. ‘I think your little pet can yet be goaded into devouring some of the palace vermin.’

  ‘But, Mother,’ pleaded Maria, ‘you have heard of the honours Joannes has showered on him. The wealth, the palace, the servants. Even if he was not Joannes’s property before, surely his price has now been met.’

  ‘It only means that he is in a position to consider wages of vastly greater currency.’