By trial and error, he found out how big a draught of superwine he could swallow without choking. The tip of his nose began to turn numb. Usually that was a sign he was getting drunk, but that could hardly be possible, not when he was just finishing his second cup. He could drink all night in a tavern and still handle himself well. Indignant at himself and at his nose, he waved to the innkeeper again.
He had not gone far into the third cup when he realized how tight he was. By then it was too late. He prided himself on being a moderate man, but the superwine had snuck up on him. The more he drank, too, the easier the stuff was to drink. Feeling most expansive, he ordered a fresh round for everyone in the place, the taverner included. Cheers rang out. He had never, he thought, drunk with such a splendid lot of fellows.
He fell asleep with a finger’s width of drink still in the bottom of his cup.
Anthimos stuck his head into Argyros’s office. “His illustriousness is here to see you,” the secretary declared, and seemed to take mordant pleasure at his boss’s groan. Mordant pleasure, Argyros sometimes thought, was the only kind Anthimos really enjoyed.
George Lakhanodrakon came in while the magistrianos was still pulling himself together. “A fine morning to you, Basil,” the Master of Offices said cheerfully; only the slightest eastern accent flavored his Greek. Then he got a good look at Argyros and at once went from superior to concerned friend. “Good heavens, man! Are you well?”
“I feel exactly like death,” Argyros replied. He spoke quietly, but his voice hurt his ears; his eyes were vein-tracked and found the sun oppressively bright. His mouth tasted as if the sewers had drained through it and, judging by the state of his digestion, maybe they had. He said, “I slept in a tavern last night.”
Lakanodrakon’s jaw fell. “You did what?”
“I know what you’re thinking.” Argyros shook his head and wished he hadn’t. “Aii! I haven’t had a hangover like this since—” He paused, trying to recall the last time he’d hurt himself so badly. The memory brought sudden sharp pain, though it was a dozen years old now: not since he drank with Riario the Italian doctor after his wife and infant son died of smallpox. He forced his mind away from that. “Do you want to hear something truly absurd? I had only four cups.”
Concern returned to the Master of Offices’s face. “And you’re in this state? You ought to see a physician.”
“No, no,” Argyros said impatiently. “The innkeeper told me it was something new and strong.” His eyes went to the icon on the wall, an image of the patron saint of changes. “By St. Mouamet, he wasn’t wrong, either.” He dipped his head and crossed himself, showing respect for the image of the saint.
Lakhanodrakon was eyeing the image, too. He was a pious man, but one who also turned his piety to practical ends. “Just as they were in Mouamet’s time, the Persians are stirring again.”
That was plenty to alarm Argyros, decrepit though he felt. “Troops on the move?” he demanded. The Roman Empire and Persia, Christ and Ormazd, were ancient rivals, dueling every generation, it seemed, for mastery in the near east. Few wars were waged on the scale of the one that had forced Mouamet to Constantinople, but any attack would lay provinces waste.
“Nothing quite so bad, praise God,” Lakhanodrakon answered, following Argyros’s thought perfectly. “There’s trouble in the Caucasus, though.”
“When isn’t there?” Argyros replied and drew a cynical chuckle from the Master of Offices. Precisely because all-out war between them could be so ruinous, Rome and Persia often dueled for advantage on the fringes of their empires, intriguing among the client kings of the mountains between the Black and Caspian seas and the tribal chieftains of the Arabian peninsula. “What have you heard now?” the magistrianos asked.
“It’s Alania,” Lakhanodrakon said; Argyros abruptly realized this was what the Master of Offices had come to see him about. He wished Lakhanodrakon had named a different principality. Alania really mattered to both Rome and Persia, because the most important passes from the Caucasus up into the steppe were there. A prince of Alania who went bad could let the nomads in and channel them toward one empire or the other.
The magistrianos asked, “Is Prince Goarios thinking of going over to sun-worship, then?”
“God may know what Goar is thinking, but I doubt if anyone else does, Goar himself included.” Lakhanodrakon betrayed his eastern origin by leaving the Greek suffix off the prince’s name. After a moment, the Master of Offices went on, “Truth to tell, I have very little information of any sort coming out of Alania, less than I should. I thought I would send you to find out how things are there.”
“Alania, eh? I’ve never been in the Caucasus,” Argyros murmured. He glanced again at the image of St. Mouamet. His life, it seemed, was about to see one more change.
That thought led to another, as yet only half-formed. “I suppose I’ll go in as a merchant.”
“Whatever you like, of course, Basil.” George Lakhanodrakon valued results more than methods, which made him a good man to work for.
Still thinking out loud, Argyros mused, “I ought to have something new and interesting to sell too, to get me noticed at Goarios’s court.” The magistrianos rubbed his temples; it was hard to make his wits work, with his head pounding the way it was. He snapped his fingers. “I have it! What better than this popskull drink that has me cringing at my own shadow?”
“Is it really as vicious as that?” Lakhanodrakon waved the question aside. “Never mind. I think you have a good idea there, Basil. Nothing would make Goar happier than a new way to get drunk, unless you could figure out how to bottle a woman’s cleft.”
“If I knew that one, I’d be too rich to work here.” But Argyros, headache or no, focused too quickly and thoroughly on the problem he had been set to leave much room for jokes. “Superwine ought to be a good way to pry answers out of people too; they’re drunk before they know it—I certainly was, anyhow. The more anyone wants to talk or sing or carry on, the more I’ll learn.”
“Yes, of course. I knew in my heart you were the proper man to whom to give this task, Basil. Now my head also sees why that’s so.” It was Lakhanodrakon’s turn to glance again at the icon of St. Mouamet. “When something new comes up, you know what it’s good for.”
“Thank you, sir.” Argyros knew the Master of Offices was thinking of such things as hellpowder and the archetypes. He did not believe Lakhanodrakon knew of his role in showing that a dose of cowpox could prevent smallpox. He claimed no credit there; losing his family was too high a price for glory.
As he had so often before, he shoved that thought down and returned to the business at hand. “I’m off to Priskos’s wineshop, then.”
“Excellent, excellent.” Lakhanodrakon hesitated, added, “Bring back a bottle for me, will you?”
Argyros rode east down the Mese from the Praitorion to the imperial palaces. There he picked up a squad of excubitores, reasoning that Priskos might need persuading to part with the secret of his new drink. Having a few large, muscular persuaders along seemed a good idea.
For their part, the imperial bodyguards had trouble believing the assignment that had fallen into their laps. “You’re taking us to a tavern, sir? On duty?” one trooper said, scrambling to his feet as if afraid Argyros might change his mind. “I thought I’d get orders like that in heaven, but no place else.”
The magistrianos led his little band north through the Augusteion. The morning sun turned the light-brown sandstone exterior of Hagia Sophia to gold. Still, that exterior was plain when compared to the glories within.
The church of St. Mary Hodegetria lay a few furlongs east and north of Hagia Sophia. It was close by the seawall; as he approached, Argyros heard the waves of the Sea of Marmara slap against stone. None of Constantinople was more than a couple of miles from the sea, so that sound pervaded the city, but here it was foreground rather than background.
Argyros had to use the church as a base from which to cast about a bit to find Priskos�
��s tavern. It was not one of his usual pothouses; he’d stopped in more or less by accident while on his way back to the Praitorion from the seawall gate of St. Barbara. He got no help finding the place from the locals, who had a tendency to disappear as soon as they spotted the gilded shields and long spears the excubitores carried.
The magistrianos spotted an apothecary’s shop and grunted in satisfaction—Priskos’s was only a couple of doors down. Argyros turned to the excubitores. “Follow me in. I’ll stand you all to a couple of drinks. Back me if you need to, but St. Andreas help you if you break the place apart for the sport of it.”
The soldiers loudly promised good behavior. Knowing the breed, Argyros also knew how little promises meant. He hoped for the best and hoped Priskos would cooperate.
The taverner was sweeping the floor when Argyros came in. So early in the day, only a couple of customers were in the place, nodding over winecups. Looking up from his work, Priskos recognized the magistrianos. “Good morning to you, sir,” he said, smiling. “How are you tod—” He stopped abruptly, the smile freezing on his face, as the excubitores tramped in and plunked themselves down at a pair of tables.
“Fetch my friends a jar of good Cypriot, if you’d be so kind,” Argyros said. To remove any possible misunderstanding, he handed Priskos a tremissis, a thin gold coin worth a third of a nomisma. “I expect this will even pay for two jars, since they’ll likely empty the first.”
“I think it should,” Priskos said dryly; for a man still in his twenties, he did not show much of what he was thinking. He brought the jar and eight cups on a large tray; while he was serving the excubitores, one of his other customers took the opportunity to sidle out the door.
Once the soldiers were attended to, Priskos turned back to Argyros. “And now, sir, what can I do for you?” His tone was wary, no longer professionally jolly.
Argyros gave his name and title. Priskos looked warier yet; no one, no matter how innocent, wanted a magistrianos prying into his affairs. Argyros said, “I’d be grateful if you showed me how you make your yperoinos.”
“I knew it! I knew it!” Try as he would, the innkeeper could no longer keep frustrated rage from his voice. “Just when I begin to work my trade up to where I can feed my family and me with it, somebody with a fancy rank comes to steal it from me.”
The excubitores started to get up from their seats. Argyros waved them down. “You misunderstand. What stock of yours I buy, I will pay for,” he told Priskos. “If you use some process only you know (as I daresay you do, for I’ve had nothing like your superwine, and I’ve traveled from Ispania to Mesopotamia), the fisc will pay, and pay well, I promise. Can’t you see, man, what a boon such a strong drink could be to those in my service?”
“Pay, you say? How much?” Priskos still sounded scornful, but calculation had returned to this eyes. “By St. Andreas, sir, I’d not sell my secret to another taverner for a copper follis less than two pounds of gold.”
“A hundred forty-four nomismata, eh? You’d only get so much once or twice, I think; after that, people who wanted to learn would be able to pit those who knew against one another and lower the price. Still—” Argyros paused and asked, “Do you read and write?”
Priskos nodded.
“Good. Fetch me a pen and a scrap of parchment, aye, and a candle too, for wax.” When Argyros had the implements, he scrawled a few lines, then held the candle over the bottom of the parchment until several drops of wax fell. He thrust the signet ring he wore on his right index finger into the little puddle. “Here. It’s no imperial chrysobull with a golden seal, but the staff at the offices of the Count of the Sacred Largesses, in whose charge the mint is, should accept it. Ask especially for Philip Kantakouzenos; he will recognize my hand.”
The taverner’s lips moved as he worked his way through the document. Argyros knew when he got to the key phrase, for he stopped reading. “Four pounds of gold!” he exclaimed. He studied the magistrianos with narrowed eyes. “You swear this is no fraud to deceive me?”
“By the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, by the Virgin, by St. Andreas who watches over the city, by St. Mouamet whom I have come to recognize as my own patron, I swear it. May they damn me to hell if I lie,” Argyros said solemnly. He crossed himself. So did Priskos and a couple of the excubitores.
The innkeeper tugged at his beard for a moment, then tucked the document inside his tunic. “I’m your man. You deal fairly with me, and I will with you.” He held out his hand.
Argyros shook it. “Good enough. Maybe you’ll fetch these good fellows that second jar of Cypriot, then, and show me what there is to see.”
Priskos set the wine before the soldiers, then went to a door at the back of the taproom. It had, Argyros saw, a stouter lock than the one that let out to the street. Priskos took a key from his belt. The lock clicked open. “Right this way, sir.”
Argyros felt his head start to swim as he stepped in. A small fire burned in a stone hearth sunk in the center of the floor. Above it hung a cauldron that, by the smell, was full of hot wine. The combination of heat and wine fumes was over-powering.
Over and around the cauldron was a copper contraption, a large cone of thin metal. The hearth’s high walls shielded most of it from direct exposure to the fire. The bottom of the cone had a lip that curved inward and lay in a basin of water shaped to match it.
Priskos put out the fire. “I would have had to do that soon anyway,” he told Argyros. He stuck his finger in the basin and nodded to himself. “The cooling bath is getting too warm.” He undid a plug; water from the basin ran into a groove in the floor and out under a door that led, Argyros supposed, to the alley behind the tavern. The innkeeper put the plug back, lifted a bucket, and poured fresh and presumably cool water into the basin till it was full again. The water level was just below the edge of the inner lip.
“I hope you’ll explain all this,” Argyros said.
“Yes, yes, of course.” Priskos splashed water on the copper cone till it was cool enough to touch. Then he picked it up. That inner lip also had a cork. He held a cup under it, pulled it out. An almost clear liquid flowed into the cup. “Taste,” he invited.
Argyros did. The way the stuff heated the inside of his mouth told him it was superwine.
Priskos said, “I got the idea from my brother Theodore, who makes medicines.”
“Is he the one with the apothecary’s store a few doors down?”
“You saw it, eh? Yes, that’s him. One of the things he does is boil down honey to make it thicker and stronger.” Priskos paused. Argyros nodded; he knew druggists did that sort of thing. The innkeeper went on, “I thought what worked with honey might do the same with wine.”
The magistrianos waved at the curious equipment. “So why all this folderol?”
“Because it turned out I was wrong, sir, dead wrong. The more I boiled wine, the less kick whatever was left in the pot had. I was boiling out what makes wine strong, not—what word do I want?—concentrating it, you might say.”
Argyros ran his hands through his neat, graying beard. He thought for a moment, then said slowly, “What you’re doing here, then, is getting back what you were boiling away, is that right?”
The taverner eyed him with respect. “That’s just it, sir, just it exactly. Have you ever seen how, when you blow your warm breath on a cold window, the glass will steam over?”
Again he waited for Argyros to nod before resuming, “That’s what I do here. The wine fumes steam on the cool copper, and I collect them as they run down.”
“No wonder you charge so much,” the magistrianos observed. “You have the fuel for the fire to think about, and the work of tending this thing, and I don’t suppose one jug of wine yields anything like a jug’s worth of yperoinos.”
“Not even close,” Priskos agreed. “It’s more like ten to one. Besides the fumes that get away, if you boil the stuff too long, you see, then it starts weakening again. You have to be careful of that. One way to up your yield
a little is to keep sprinkling cold water on the outside of the cone. But you have to keep doing that, though, or pay someone to. I don’t pay anyone—he’d just sell the secret out from under me.”
“You sound as though you have all the answers.” Argyros rubbed his chin again. “How long have you been playing around with this scheme, if I may ask?”
“I guess it’s about five years now, if you count a couple of years fooling about with things that turned out not to work,” the taverner answered after a moment’s thought. “Once I figured out what I had to do, though, I spent a lot of time building up my stock; I wanted to make yperoinos a regular part of my business, not just a passing thing I’d brew up now and again. I still have hundreds of jars down in the cellar.”
“Well, God be praised!” Argyros exclaimed. He was normally a taciturn, even a dour man, but that was better news than he had dared hope for. “What do you charge for each jar?”
“Two nomismata,” Priskos said. “You have to remember, it’s not like Cypriot. Two jars would have your bully boys out there asleep under their tables, not just happy.”
“I’m quite aware of that, I assure you.” Remembering how he had felt the day before made the magistrianos shudder. But the strength of the stuff was the reason he wanted it. “I’ll give you three a jar, on top of what I’ve already paid you, if I can buy out every jar you have.”
“Yes, on two conditions,” Priskos said at once.
Argyros liked the way the younger man made up his mind. “Name them.”
“First, I have to get my gold from the Count of the Sacred Largesses. Second, let me keep half a dozen jars for myself and my friends. Out of so many, that won’t matter to you.”
“Yes to the first, of course. As for the second, keep three. You’ll be able to afford to make more later.”
“I will at that, won’t I? All right, I’d say we have ourselves a bargain.” Priskos stuck out his hand. Argyros clasped it.
Agent of Byzantium Page 26
