by Tom Harper
‘Demetrios Askiates. Thank you for coming.’
I turned to meet my unknown host. His voice was warm and eager, though marred by a note of insincerity from the too-perfect way he formed his words. He was about my age, or perhaps a little older, and had a figure which suggested he did not make the ascent to his house very often. His cheeks glowed red, perhaps from the effort of carrying the immaculate silk finery he wore, but his round eyes danced with energy.
‘Were you admiring my new floor? The workmen were supposed to finish it a week ago.’ He chuckled. ‘I can know to within two days when my ships will arrive from Pisa, for all that they must travel hundreds of miles at the mercy of winds and currents and storms. But ask a builder when he will finish, and he is as vague as an astrologer casting his horoscope.’
‘I preferred the old floor better.’
‘So do I, Demetrios, so do I. May I call you Demetrios? Good. But fashion dictates that the floors must be simple — clean lines of pure marble — and so I must follow her demands.’ He rubbed his toe on the stone. ‘Apparently it will focus the eye on the splendour of the walls — when the bastard painters have done their work, of course.’
I took a breath to speak, but he forestalled me.
‘But you did not come to discuss aesthetics. You came because I, Domenico, invited you. And why? Because, my friend, I think we both trade in the same market.’
‘Do we?’ Experience had taught that any man who proclaimed himself my friend was usually either lying, or a hopeless optimist. ‘Do I sell anything that you would load onto your ships for Pisa?’
Domenico laughed as though it was the greatest witticism. ‘Not unless you dabble in fine cloths, or spices from the east, or miniature ivories. But the wind that drives my ships brings other commodities too, besides those I can sell in the forum. News, for example. Some wine?’
He pulled a clay bottle and a pair of chalices from an alcove in the wall.
‘Not in the fasting season.’
‘A pity. This I had from Monemvasia, in the Peloponnese. Very sweet.’ He filled his goblet almost to the brim and sipped enthusiastically.
I paced over to the window and looked out, seeing the great warships of our navy moored in the bay below. ‘You speak of news. What news? News that would interest me?’
‘Almost certainly.’ Domenico put down his glass with an ungainly bang. ‘If we could agree its worth.’
Now it was my turn to laugh. I met many such men in my profession, worms and leeches who learned some trivia and tried to turn it into gold through dark hints and extravagant promises.
‘No thank you,’ I said. ‘I have no need of quayside gossip, and certainly not the money to pay for it.’
Domenico looked affronted. ‘Quayside gossip? Demetrios my friend, this is more than quayside gossip. And as for the price. . I am told you have influence in the palace?’
Who told you that, I wondered? ‘I sometimes have business at the palace. So do many men. But no more influence than a sailor on one of your boats has over your affairs.’
Domenico looked crestfallen. ‘I had heard otherwise. But irrespective,’ he persisted, ‘you can take word into the palace, and let those in command choose how to reward it.’
‘I can take word into the palace. But I would not trust too much on the generosity of my masters.’
‘Not even for information regarding a plot to murder the Emperor?’
Domenico slurped at his wine and turned to gaze innocently at the panorama below, though he must have seen my eyes jerk open.
‘What of a plot to murder the Emperor?’
‘Demetrios, my friend, I am a new arrival in this city, come to establish a business and to earn an honest fortune for my dear father in Pisa. But the life of a merchant is hard here — many men before me have invested themselves with rank and position and privilege, and they do not surrender it easily. You see how I am exiled from the commercial quarters within the city, forced to trade in this remote, unfashionable suburb. How can I forge alliances, Demetrios, when none of those whose ear I seek will venture across the harbour to meet me?’
He took my arms in his hands. ‘If my seed is to flourish here, and not wither and die, I must find powerful friends. Men who will unlock the doors which are barred to me, who will ensure that I am not the last to the market with my wares. I need influence, Demetrios.’
‘You spoke of a plot to murder the Emperor.’
‘If I tell you, will you see that the palace knows of the service I performed? Can I trust that the eparch will look favourably on me if I petition him?’ He sounded almost desperate.
‘You can trust the palace as much as they may be trusted.’
He wrung his hands together, then sighed. ‘Very well, Demetrios. As a sign of my faith, I will tell you what I have to say, and leave it to your conscience to see that I am rewarded as I deserve.’
‘None of us are rewarded as we deserve, certainly not in this life. But I will do what I can, if you warrant it.’
That seemed to satisfy him. ‘Then know this. A man has approached me, a monk, though he was no man of God. He offered me an investment. He told me that, like Christ, he would tear down the temple of your empire and build it anew. He said the old order would be swept away, that there would be opportunities for the downtrodden and meek to claim their inheritance, that those who aided him now would not be forgotten later — after the Emperor was dead, and his throne occupied by another.’
Somewhere outside the window a seagull uttered its wheedling cry, but inside all was silent. I could hardly move for the shock of what the man had told me, the disbelief that he actually had something to offer. As for him, his restless energy spent, he watched me closely.
‘Can you describe this monk?’ I asked at last.
‘Sadly not. He wore a hood over his face and would not remove it. All I saw was his chin: bony, and creased with age.’
‘And did he explain how he was to accomplish this regicide?’
‘He said he had agents close to the Emperor, against whom he would be defenceless. All he needed, he said, was gold to make the final arrangements.’
‘Did you give it to him?’
Domenico looked wounded. ‘Certainly not, Demetrios. I am a friend of your people; I know that it is my own countrymen who conspire to bar me, not yours. My loyalty is unswerving. I told him he would have nothing of me, and that he should depart in haste if he did not want me to turn him over to the Watch.’
‘He said nothing more?’
‘He departed, as I suggested.’ Domenico licked his lips. ‘Perhaps I could have pressed him for closer detail, but I was afraid. I know the Emperor has many ears — even in this corner of his realm — and I would be mortified if it were thought I had any time for such treachery.’
I thought a moment as my pulse slowed again. Though the information was useful — and though I would probably send word to the eparch commending the merchant to him — it took me no further. It confirmed the monk’s ambitions, certainly, but those I knew. It suggested he might have spies in the palace, but that too I had long suspected. Beyond that, nothing.
‘And this would have been about three weeks ago?’ I asked, thinking back. Presumably before the monk found the money elsewhere, and hired the Bulgars and journeyed into the forest.
But Domenico was shaking his head vigorously. ‘Three weeks ago? Indeed not. Do you think I would hide such information for three weeks, when the very life of the Emperor might be in jeopardy? Not for three weeks, no — not even for three days.’ He swallowed. ‘This was the day before yesterday.’
13
Through the next week the city grew ever more oppressive, as if the very walls themselves squeezed in on us. Each day the crowds in the streets were thicker, and each night the colonnades along the great roads brimmed with those who could find no shelter. The churches were thrown open, and when they were filled the hippodrome became a vast, open hostel. Prices rose, and food became scarce.
Through all this, the rumours spread. There was a barbarian army coming, some said; yes, but to offer their lives to the Emperor against the Turks and Saracens, argued others. No, the despondent insisted: they would finish the work that Bohemond the Norman had begun once before, devouring our lands and putting our cities to the sword. And why did the Emperor Alexios not go out to fight, they demanded? There was no hour when the streets did not echo with the tramp of soldiers, when a squadron of cavalry magnificently attired did not thunder past — why did he not use them? Had he betrayed us, or been petrified by a fit of panic? Why could he not show himself to reassure his people?
Many sought my opinion, for they knew I had dealings with the palace, but in truth I knew as little as they. Krysaphios had barely acknowledged my report that another assassination might be imminent, and I had not seen him since I delivered it. Nor Sigurd: Aelric told me that he worked every hour to get the walls into good defence, and had not even returned to the barracks for three days. Aelric stayed with me guarding Thomas, but otherwise I was forgotten, left to spend my days asking unwanted questions of distracted nobles. The fact of the villa in the forest belonging to the Sebastokrator’s wife inevitably drew my attentions in his direction, but however many of his servants I discreetly questioned, I could find none who had ever heard of him having dealings with a foreign monk. With reluctance, at least until I could find greater proof, I had to allow that perhaps the monk had used the house unbeknownst to the Sebastokrator.
Every other day Anna came to my house, to examine Thomas’s wounds and change his bandages. Her visits were a rare source of pleasure in those nervous days, and on the third occasion I invited her for dinner.
‘The moralist Kekaumenos tells us that we should be wary of dining with friends, lest we be suspected of plotting treason and betrayal,’ she said, smiling as she tucked away the loose ends of Thomas’s dressing.
‘The old misanthrope also tells me that you’ll mock my servants and seduce my daughters. But I have no servants, and I will trust you with my daughters. If you will trust their cooking.’
She brushed back a loose strand of hair that had fallen from her hood. ‘Very well. Tomorrow night?’
I had hoped she could come that same evening, when the Sunday break in the fast would allow me to serve her a finer meal, but I mastered my disappointment and agreed. So, on a cold Monday before the feast of the Nativity, Anna, Thomas, Aelric and my daughters and I sat down for supper together.
‘You’ve made a virtue out of the church’s proscriptions,’ Anna told the girls, spooning another steaming portion of the meatless stew onto her plate. ‘Some day you’ll make your husbands fat.’
I rubbed a hand over my temples. It was the wrong thing to say, and Helena took her opening ruthlessly.
‘Not if my father has any sway. The spice-seller’s aunt wishes to make a bargain for her son, but my father will not even meet her. He would rather I tended him until he was dead and I was shrivelled, than that I should find happiness with another man.’
‘You shouldn’t cook so well then,’ suggested Zoe. ‘You should spit in the pots and serve nothing but beans.’
I noticed Aelric and Thomas watching their plates intently, both now taking smaller portions in each mouthful, as if trying to eke out their meals.
‘When I have earned enough dowry to find you a man who deserves you, then I will look for him,’ I tried. ‘You don’t want to squander yourself on some unworthy wretch who stinks of garlic.’
‘You wouldn’t want me to squander myself on a prince in the palace, even if his estates stretched from Arcadia to Trebizond.’ Helena’s face was red now. ‘And how am I to know what a worthy man should be, if the only people I see are the women in the market?’
‘A husband is not everything,’ said Anna gently. ‘I have survived without one.’
‘But you chose that it would be so. You did not have a father who would rather see you married, like Persephone, in Hell, than in this life. And you had a noble calling to sustain you — I merely buy vegetables, and prepare them for this table.’
‘Very successfully,’ offered Aelric.
I turned to Anna, desperate to change the tone of the conversation. ‘Talking of your calling, I must congratulate you on the healing you have given Thomas. It seems nearly miraculous. When I found him bleeding to death in that fountain, I thought he would barely survive the afternoon.’
Anna smiled, her skin golden in the candlelight. ‘Wounds like his are straightforward, and whether he lived or died was more in God’s hands than mine. I simply staunched the bleeding and cleaned away the evil humours which might have grown there. It was as important that you brought him to me so readily. And that you took him into your home afterwards. Few recover in prison air.’
I shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I acted from selfish motives. I needed him for my work. But. . I am glad to have helped him. He needed some kindness.’
‘Hah.’ Helena had her arms folded, and was glaring at her empty plate.
I frowned. ‘You disagree? Perhaps, now that I think on it, locking him up with you for company was less of a kindness than I intended.’
‘Hah. He was lucky I was here. He needed attention, and understanding. You could not care what he felt, or how he fared in his soul, so long as he stayed tethered here like a sheep. You were barely here to notice.’
‘And you have succoured him like a Samaritan, I assume?’
‘Like a baby?’ suggested Zoe, giggling.
Helena tossed her head. ‘Enough to know that he deserves far more sympathy than you would ever show him.’
I looked angrily at Aelric, uncomfortable with what she implied. ‘You were supposed to be here to ensure that nothing untoward happened between my daughters and the boy. How else could I have conscienced leaving him alone in my house with them?’
The Varangian lifted his arms in innocence. ‘I watched him every hour of every day, or Sweyn did. Nothing could have happened. Although,’ he added, ‘my task was to guard against anything that might befall him, not safeguard your children’s virtue.’
Helena hissed like a cat. ‘My virtue is better defended than any walls that Constantine and Theodosius and Severus together could have built. All I did was talk to the boy. Even that, it seems, displeases my father.’
‘Talk?’ Now I was quite incredulous. ‘Have you also learned Frankish, then? Or did you hire a priest to come and translate for you?’
‘If you had ever bothered to try, you would have discovered that the boy can understand Greek far better than you think. And, with some encouragement, speak it.’
For a moment I was silent, agape at this revelation and digging desperately through my memories to think what I might have said in front of the boy; searching for confidences revealed or insults unwittingly given. But Helena was not finished.
‘And if you had spoken with him, and heard his story, you might genuinely feel for his plight.’
‘And what story is that?’
‘Do you really care to hear it?’
‘Yes,’ I said tersely.
Anna touched Helena’s arm. ‘And even if your father does not, I certainly do. He was, after all, my patient.’
Helena settled back, triumph written across her young face. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so miserable. His parents were seduced by some charlatan back in their homeland, and as if under a spell left their fields to travel across the world. Their patriarch had preached that every Christian should fight the Ishmaelites, and this mountebank persuaded them that even unarmed, the hand of God w
ould protect them and scatter their enemies.’ She shook her head. ‘I have never heard such stupidity.’
‘I have. Go on.’
‘They passed through our city last August, two weeks before the feast of the Dormition. Our Emperor gave them food, and ferried them to the far shore of the Bosphorus.’
‘I saw them,’ I interrupted. ‘A rabble of peasants and slaves, mostly, with little more than ploughshares and pruning-hooks to fight with. They marched into the Turkish lands in Bithynia, and did not — so far as I know — return. Though I heard rumours that they slaughtered whole villages of our own people in their quest.’
‘Thomas did not say that. But his people began to quarrel among themselves. Some went off in search of plunder, while others waited for their leaders to decide what to do. They heard that their vanguard had advanced, even that it had taken Nicaea, and they rejoiced, but then word came that the Turks had slaughtered their expeditions and were camped not ten miles away. Some of the knights rode out to meet them, but they were ambushed and driven back. The Turks followed, and routed their camp in a frenzy of murder. Thomas saw his own parents hacked apart, his sister consumed in the chaos.’
I saw Helena reach under the table and touch Thomas’s hand, but I did not rebuke her.
‘Thomas, and a few others of their company, retreated to an abandoned castle near the coast. Between the mountains and the sea, he said, there was not one inch of land that was not deep with the dead, but he and his companions managed to improvise a defence — using the bones of their kinsmen for masonry — and withstood the Turkish siege. At last the Emperor heard of their peril, and sent a fleet and rescued them, and brought them back to our city. Not one in ten of the original host survived.’
