‘And how would my barren loins perpetuate the dynasty of Macedon? If ever I was fertile, I am now too withered to bear fruit.’
‘You are not the last of the Bulgar-Slayer’s line.’
Theodora’s eyes could not deny the shock of this jugular attack. ‘You . . . have known?’
‘Yes. For many years. I know the circumstances. Your sister, Eudocia, gave birth to the child at the convent on the Isle of Prote. I do not know the child, or even its sex. But I know that it was not stillborn.’
Theodora drew her tall, slender torso erect. Her pale eyes were steely and her tongue newly sharpened. ‘Then we will not discuss the child. I am in passing health, and when the Christ calls me to my Golgotha, I believe I can offer you ten good years of my life, years in which you can with all your resources wage your battle against the Bishop of Old Rome. Then if we are both still alive, we will discuss the child.’
Alexius inclined his head slightly and smiled; the bargain was acceptable.
Theodora flushed, aware of how easily the Father had led her to this precipice of fate but now far less concerned for the consequences of that leap than she ever could have imagined she would be. The child. The child had to be protected. And so, ultimately, did her sister; they were her family. ‘Father, do you intend to employ the Hetairarch Mar Hunrodarson to hasten the moment when the people of the city cry out for their deliverance from my sister’s lust? If so, I must have your assurance she will not be harmed.’
‘My child, I have not even met Mar Hunrodarson. What would I have had to discuss with him, until I knew your wishes in this matter? Now that I understand your requirements, I will accede to Mar Hunrodarson’s request for an audience and listen to what he has to offer. But first I must place a crown of thorns upon the head of our Caesar.’
V
Standards, observed the Parakoimomenos - Lord Chamberlain - of the Imperial Palace. What is missing today are standards. Rome has been built on the rigorous observance of protocol and the unwavering preservation of dignities. Today this is all changed. Today would long be remembered as the nadir of the Imperial dignity. But what was one to do? Abandon the legacy of Rome entirely to the whims of these lowborn parvenues? No. One held one’s head high and tried to preserve what one could.
The Parakoimomenos was a strikingly youthful-appearing man for his sixty years; castration had made him callow and plump for most of life, but his late maturity had finally brought out classic Thracian features. He had been born the same year the Bulgar-Slayer had ascended to the Imperial Dignity, had entered the Imperial household as a mere chamberlain-in-waiting when he was only sixteen years old, and his aptitude for the astonishing minutiae of Imperial protocol had advanced him inexorably through the various eunuch grades. Nine years ago he had realized his dream: Parakoimomenos, the highest of all eunuch offices, the official responsible for every aspect of public and private ceremony in the Imperial Palace, the man who presented the face of glorious Rome to an awestruck world. Then, three months after this apotheosis, Rome had fallen to the cruellest fate; the Pantocrator had asked the Bulgar-Slayer to set his throne beside those of the rulers of Heaven. At first the deterioration of standards had been gradual. The Bulgar-Slayer’s brother, Constantine, had been a profligate, a petty tyrant and a sloven, yet he had not simply discarded the prescribed Imperial protocols. His successor, Romanus, had been an even lesser man, but his efforts to transform his pygmy-like stature into a giant reputation had at least provided the solidi to maintain some semblance of Imperial dignity and decorum. But the lot who had purloined the throne from Romanus! The Emperor was a good man, in spite of everything, but utterly devoid of culture, as one might expect of the station from which he had risen. Still, he desired, in his simple, uninformed fashion, to observe proprieties. But the Orphanotrophus Joannes! There was the source of this veritable river of ignominy that now polluted the memory of glorious Rome!
The Parakoimomenos looked out from the arcade of the church of St Mary Chalkoprateia, confident that all was in order on the street. The facades of the buildings were cloaked with silk tapestries embroidered with the Imperial Eagles, and the enormous crowd, held at bay by the batons of the cursores, stood in their best wool-and-silk tunics, clutching armfuls of laurel, myrtle and olive branches. Two hundred Tauro-Scythians of the Grand Hetairia, gold helms and breastplates explosions of light in the sun, waited at rigid attention. Arrayed behind them was the sublime vision of the Court of Imperial Rome, ranked as the Pantocrator Himself commanded. The first two rows were Magisters, in their white silk tunics spotted with gold medallions, and behind them the Proconsular Patricians, also in shimmering white silk but without medallions, arms cradling the porphyry tablets that proclaimed their rank. And then the Patricians, in light rose-coloured robes, with their tablets of white ivory, and behind them the other fifteen ranks, each with its different colour silk and particular insignia of dignity. Behind the court were the bands; already a few booms of the kettledrums and blaring notes on the trumpets rose above the anticipatory murmuring of the crowd.
The Parakoimomenos noted that the ranks were in good order, that no witless Patrician had, in a desire to see what was going on, wandered up with the Proconsular Patricians. He turned and faced the bronze doors of St Mary Chalkoprateia. The Manglavite and Hetairarch flanked the portal of the ancient basilica. The Bulgar- Slayer would have been proud of the two Varangians, thought the Parakoimomenos, the Hetairarch with his axe motionless on his chest, red plumes rising from his gold helmet so that it seemed he would scrape the sky. The Manglavite was new, of course, but he learned quickly and had a noble bearing. Look how stately he holds the fasces, symbol of the centuries of Rome’s uninterrupted hegemony; hopefully he will not fall to his knees like some unwashed pilgrim when he sees the interior of the Mother Church for the first time.
The Parakoimomenos reluctantly abandoned his reverie and stared at the bronze doors as if his imperious gaze could somehow keep what was inside for ever incarcerated. Yes, in a few moments they would emerge and shatter this marvellous illusion of elegance and dominion.
As if to spite the Parakoimomenos, the doors flew open. The Caesar-to-be stepped into the shaded illumination of the arcade, wearing the long white silk tunic symbolic of Christ, crowned with a simple pearl tiara, and shod in purple boots. Behind this impromptu heir, this centurion in the ill-gotten cloak of the Christ, was the debaucher of every known canon of politesse in Holy Rome, the Orphanotrophus Joannes.
The chants began immediately; the political officers had rehearsed the crowd well. ‘Welcome, Caesar of the Romans! Welcome, strong arm of our Father! Welcome new luminary in the firmament of Imperial Rome!’ The Manglavite stepped in front of the Caesar and led him across the church porch and into the street; the Hetairarch walked at his side. The Parakoimomenos watched with horror as the Orphanotrophus Joannes took his place ahead of the Magisters. He had known that the man intended to do it, had even forced his reeling mind to visualize it, but actually to see it!
The blaring, thumping band seemed to mock the Parakoimomenos as he took his place between the Manglavite and the Caesar. The Manglavite began to lead the multicoloured army of splendour south to the avenue of the Mese, his long, powerful legs snapping in a ceremonial goose step that was impressive and intimidating. The glittering caravan wended slowly through the city, amid the huge, thunderously chanting, petal-throwing crowds, backed up for blocks on either side of the route. Eventually the procession transited the vast Augustaion square, passing beneath the towering equestrian statue of the Emperor Justinian, and exited into the garden in front of the Hagia Sophia. The Manglavite turned directly opposite the western entrance of the Mother Church and began the final leg of the journey. As the massive domes rose before him, the Parakoimomenos armoured his spirit against what he would see within. Within? That in itself was an outrage that might indeed bring the great dome down on their heads this very morning. In all the centuries of Rome’s greatness, had anyone other than the s
upreme authority on earth ever been crowned in the Hagia Sophia? Indeed not! Until today, when a ship-tarrer’s son would receive his crown directly from the hands of the Patriarch himself - not, as was prescribed by all that was holy, from the hands of the Emperor. Well, this entire scenario could have perhaps been even more devastating to civilised sensibilities; at least the Orphanotrophus Joannes hadn’t insisted that the Imperial Diadem be placed directly on his own monstrous head! Standards. Today the word was meaningless.
The central dome of the great church rose like a mountain peak above the sheer massif of the Hagia Sophia’s west facade. Haraldr concentrated on the relentless cadence of his steps and ignored the other rhythms, the chants of the crowd, the pounding of the kettledrums. The last hour had been perhaps the most powerful experience of his life, except for Stiklestad. Today, on the streets, he had understood the fundamental awe that overwhelmed this crowd, their sense that a god walked among them. It did not matter to them who this new deity was or where he had come from; the simple fact that he walked in the purple boots of Imperial Rome was enough to evoke an inexpressible, virtually paralysing wonder. And beneath this wonder was another current of emotion that swept through the crowd, a current so powerful that Haraldr had felt it swirl treacherously about him on every step of the procession: fear.
The Patriarch Alexius waited on the porch of the Hagia Sophia, flanked by the hundreds of priests and deacons who attended the great church. Wrapped in layers of tunics, stoles, robes and scarfs of embroidered, bejewelled and enamelled silk, the assembled clerics seemed like nothing less than a many-headed treasure trove. Unlike his priests, who were bareheaded, Alexius wore a towering crown of pearls, gems and granulated gold; beneath this miniature cathedral dome his black, tiny eyes were so fierce that they actually seemed to disturb the air in front of his face, creating a vortex that no man could enter without trembling. Michael shuddered visibly as he bent to kiss the jewelled reliquary suspended from a gold-and-ruby chain around the Patriarch’s neck.
Alexius led the entire procession into the Mother Church. If I had been brought here my first day in the city, Haraldr thought as he entered, I would have lost my reason. The structure, which seemed as solid as a great mountain from the outside, was constructed of pure light and diaphanous colour on the inside. To either side of the nave were two levels of massive columns transfigured by light into floating bands of mossy green and rose and carnelian. Where the columns should have spread to receive the weight of the structures above them, they dissolved into a lacy embroidery of vines and leaves; the vaults that floated on this sculptured foam were glimmering mosaic halos. Above the two towering arcades were walls pierced so extensively with windows that they seemed like great sheets of sunlight, and above these walls, suspended so loftily that its presence could only be felt, not seen in its entirety, was a dome as vast as the sky, a pure golden canopy that seemed to float above the rest of the colossal interior. For a moment Haraldr had the vertiginous sense that he, along with the rest of the church and everyone within, was being lifted into the heavens by the dazzling light of Christ’s being.
Alexius walked towards the eastern terminus of the nave, where an oval-shaped, colonnaded tower, a small cathedral in itself, rose beneath the great dome like a peak surmounted by a golden sky; from the vault within the tower, a white-robed boys’ choir filled the great church with high, sonorous melodies. Alexius ascended the purple-tinted marble steps to the platform atop the tower; this lofty pulpit, called an ambo, was encircled with a balustrade of solid silver embossed with twining ivy and flowers set with sapphire stamens. In the middle of the platform was a golden table upon which had been placed several folded, gold-embroidered, scarlet silk garments. Alexius, his voluminous sleeves billowing like clouds of powdered gems, blessed the clothing in a deep, chanting polyphony. The Parakoimomenos escorted Michael to the golden table and assisted the Caesar-designate into the garments: first the eagle-medallioned robe, then a mantle, and finally a long scarf-like pallium, stiff with jewelled and cloisonne plaques. During the ritual Michael recited the prescribed prayers in a noticeably quavering voice.
The choir lifted a final, soaring note that seemed to ascend directly to golden light above, then fell silent. There was a brief rustling as the ranks of assembled dignitaries composed themselves. Then the vast space became completely, supernaturally silent, as if all sound had been banished from the entire universe. The sound of eternity, Haraldr told himself.
Alexius moved as slowly as a dream, his swathing of silk and gold coruscating like liquid light as he moved. He lifted his own immense crown, revealing thin matted silver hair; placed the miniature jewelled dome on the altar table; and took up a diamond-and-pearl diadem. He stepped forward with the same unearthly deliberation and held the diadem high for all to see. He glared over the massed courtiers, almost as if he taunted them with his power over this symbol. ‘By the authority vested in me by Christ crowned in heaven,’ he chanted in extended, harmonic syllables, ‘I bestow this crown on earth.’ The ringing tones echoed and vanished in the light.
Michael stepped forward, his head bowed and his hands clasped in front of his breast. Alexius looked down upon Michael’s bare, humbled head with a gaze so furious that Haraldr wondered if he was about to strike the young man. Alexius held the diadem high above over Michael’s head, motionless, hovering, a cluster of light waiting to raise the head beneath it to heaven above or throw him down into the fiery depths. Michael’s shoulders began to tremble, and the crowd’s tension became audible, the cumulative sigh of hundreds of anxious inhalations.
The diadem plunged like an executioner’s blade, almost miraculously halting a scant thumb’s width above Michael’s unsteady head. The Patriarch gently placed the jewelled cap over Michael’s dark curls. Before Michael had even raised his head, organ music rolled through the vaults as if the dome of heaven had split open and unleashed the music of creation. The audience thundered in response. ‘Holy, Holy, Holy! Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to all men! May the Caesar live long!’
Haraldr looked at Michael Kalaphates, remembering the young man he had jested with at Argyrus’s. That man was dead, resurrected as Caesar of Imperial Rome. Already his face had been transfigured by the light perched above it; it was as if the bones had somehow been realigned to give his face a sharpness, a more powerful sense of structure. His neck erect, his entire body seeming to swell and rise with the deafening acclamations, Michael Kalaphates, Caesar of the Romans, made the sign of the cross over Rome’s glittering elite, most of whom, only a month ago, had not even known his name.
Alexius allowed the acclamations to fade and die before commencing the final ritual. The silence was not so absolute as before, the tension eased, and somehow the Patriarch seemed reduced in stature and vehemence. Almost wearily, Alexius returned to the altar table and with tentative fingers picked up a small sack fashioned from plain white silk. He returned to Michael’s side and displayed the insignificant parcel to the court. ‘The Lord marshals the armies of high heaven!’ he chanted. ‘But all men are dust and ashes!’ The silk sack was filled, as mandated by custom passed down through the centuries of Rome’s greatness, with the ashes of a nameless pauper.
Michael accepted this token of his mortality with steady hands. He turned to descend and receive the homage of his court, and as Haraldr moved towards the new Caesar to lead him down the steps, their eyes met. For a moment too long, too piercing to be chance, the Caesar and the Manglavite remained locked in some ineffable communication that their terrified souls would not permit them to understand.
‘It is a humiliation,’ said Mar angrily.
The men are looking forward to it.’ Haraldr shrugged. ‘It gives them an opportunity to go out into the city and make contact with the people. I am certain they will have enough young, winsome customers to make the effort worth their while, even if they don’t want the money.’
‘Look at them,’ said Mar, pointing to the Varangians who roamed th
e Augustaion, collecting the sanctified boughs, branches, and twigs that had ornamented the Imperial coronation procession. They alone had the franchise to sell these remarkably valuable relics in the city, a custom established by the Bulgar-Slayer. ‘First they are janitors, then pedlars. Is this worthy for warriors?’
‘It is simply a custom the men enjoy. There are many ceremonial duties performed by the Varangian Guard that are not really warriors’ work. I don’t hear you object about those.’
Mar’s handsome mouth distorted and his nostrils flared. ‘Perhaps it is time we do object. When Rome wishes to flaunt it’s might, who marches ahead of all? We do. But when the Senators and Magisters and Sacrum Consistorum are dividing the proceeds of that power we in great part provide, where are we? We are picking up firewood like peasant women!’
Haraldr sighed inwardly, steeling himself for another argument. He and Mar had for weeks now disagreed, increasingly strenuously, about how to deal with Joannes. In Haraldr’s opinion their alliance should be strictly defensive until the Emperor’s true condition had been ascertained; even Mar hadn’t seen the Emperor for more than a month. In spite of the rumours, or perhaps because of them, Haraldr was certain that the powerful-looking man he had met could best any illness, unless it was some sort of plague that would have long ago carried him off. Mar did not disagree with Haraldr’s prognosis of the Emperor’s health, but he wanted to confront the Emperor when the coup against Joannes had already been virtually completed. But of course they had no plans for this coup, because their accomplices so far consisted of only a few disgruntled minor officials. To strike at Joannes now would mean that a thousand Varangians would have to go to war with virtually the entire Roman Empire.
Haraldr looked around and lowered his voice. ‘I don’t think it is wise to be discussing your discontent with the Dhynatoi and their accomplices in a public square. Why draw attention--’
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