by Tom Harper
‘Tactics,’ I muttered through my teeth.
As ever, the Whites had started well; as they came back towards us they led the Reds by a length, and the Blues and Greens by several more. But it was illusory, for the senior teams were biding their time, letting their horses stretch their legs on the opening circuits while their junior partners raced for the stronger position.
‘They’re taking their time.’ Sigurd bit his knuckle, looking anxiously at his team. ‘They don’t want to leave too much to do in the turns.’
‘They won’t have to. Not with that lame mule on the outside.’
But I was speaking from hope rather than reason. I could see the Green and Blue drivers using their whips more freely now, goading their teams into an ever faster rhythm. The leading pair were beginning to tire — the Whites faster than the Reds, I feared — and soon all four would meet. Every man in the hippodrome was tense; some could not keep to their seats in anticipation, but bounced up and down like puppets.
‘There go the Reds. Your Whites have gone too close to the spine. They’ll never take this turn cleanly.’
It seemed Sigurd was right, for the Whites had kept an impossibly straight line coming down the stretch towards us and would need to rein in the horses almost to a standstill if they were to make the turn without crashing. Seeing his chance, the Red driver was fading away to his right, intending to cut inside the White chariot and force him against the far wall so that his allies the Greens could go through.
‘Never mind that your horses can’t run. Now it seems you have a driver who can’t drive either.’ Sigurd did not disguise his glee.
But his crowing was too soon, for the Whites were not slowing their approach to the turn. If anything, they were accelerating. I saw the Red driver look over at his challenger in disbelief, then start frantically lashing his beasts in a belated effort at overhauling the Whites. He heaved on his reins, trying to edge across the Whites, but there was not enough space and his nerve failed him.
With immaculate timing, the White driver leaned back in his chariot and pulled in his team. They seemed to slow almost to a stop, inscribed a gentle arc around the post below us, and began to canter away down the far side while the Reds, held off from turning and forced almost against the wall, watched the Blues and the Greens gallop past them.
‘That won’t help the Greens,’ I shouted in Sigurd’s ear.
‘I thought the Whites were to knock out the Greens, not the Reds. Can’t they tell one team from another?’
The noise of the crowd was overpowering; all were on their feet now, willing their favourites to snatch the lead from the Whites, who were slowing quickly. By the next turning post, if not before, the teams behind would have caught them and their race would be effectively over. I had seen it happen too many times before. But, as Sigurd had said, they still had to trouble the Greens long enough for the Blues to edge in front. In a straight, wheel-to-wheel contest, not a man in that stadium would have gambled against the power of the Greens’ four horses.
The White driver now adopted a defensive strategy, standing almost side-on in the quadriga as he looked back to see his opponent. With every second that passed, he sacrificed speed veering across the track, trying to stop the Greens from passing while not impeding his Blue colleague. It was an awesome display of skill. But when your horses are tiring, and your opponents are nosing at your wheels, skill can be insufficient. They were about three quarters of the way down the eastern stretch, on the fifth circuit, when the Green driver turned his chariot slightly left. The White driver reacted immediately but was too quick: the Green had deceived him, and had just enough time to snake back across the track before throwing his horses into a skidding turn which must have come close to snapping his spokes. The White driver screamed at his horses to run faster, raining his lash down on their backs, and for a moment he and the Greens were galloping in tandem, as if all eight horses pulled a single, two-man chariot. The shouts from the crowd — from the factions, the gamblers, the fruit-sellers, even the morose man whom Sigurd had dislodged — rose in a cauldron of noise; Sigurd and I were bellowing out cheers and abuse like madmen. If the Whites could hold off the Greens until the next turn, I thought, they might have a slender hope of pushing them wide and upsetting their rhythm.
They could not. The Green driver, with almost indifferent ease, snapped his reins and watched the Whites drop ever further behind. By the time he reached the turn they were gone from his sight, and from there the distance only grew. The Blues tried to match his speed, but they had rested their hopes with the Whites and left their own charge too late. The noise subsided, and all around the hippodrome men began to reclaim their seats. Only the Green faction stayed standing: somehow they managed to sustain their cheering unbroken while their team galloped out the two remaining circuits.
‘Not a bad race,’ said Sigurd. ‘We could have done better. He waited too long to attack. But I never doubted he would do it.’
‘That,’ I told him, ‘is why I’ll never support the Greens.’
Some of the Green faction had vaulted over the wall and run onto the track to embrace their champion, to wrap him in the victor’s cloak and carry him on their shoulders in triumph. Down on my right, the palace guards had opened the gate to the Kathisma stairs, where the charioteer would soon ascend to receive the Emperor’s blessing. The Armenians beside me were cackling with glee and swapping piled coins among themselves, while other spectators argued over whether the Blues should find a better driver, or if they should send their horses to pasture and bring in a fresh team.
I was about to search out a fruit-seller when a movement down on the arena floor caught my eye. A spectator had crossed the barrier and was moving down the edge of the track; as I watched, he reached the foot of the stairs, darted past the hesitant guards and began running up towards the Kathisma. Straight towards the Emperor.
I leapt from my bench in a panic. What if this was the moment I had been commanded to prevent, an assassin who would murder the Emperor in full view of a hundred thousand Romans? Could it even be the monk? He was too far away to see, and obscured by the stair wall which also protected him. The lumbering guards were at last giving chase, but he was well ahead of them and climbing ever higher. If he pulled a bow from under his tunic now, I thought, he would have clear sight of the Emperor.
Not knowing what I could do, I ran. Not down, for that was too far and too crowded, but up, towards the long arcade which swept around the rim of the stadium. It was almost empty at this hour, save for a few children who had come to escape the noise and bustle, and I sprinted along it as if driven by Porphyrius himself, around the bend and down the straight to the place where steps fell away towards the Kathisma. So quickly did I take them that I almost tumbled headlong to my doom, but my desperately outflung arms managed to steady me on the shoulders of a passing wine-seller.
I reached a mezzanine, level with the second floor of the Kathisma, and paused. The interloper had stopped on the winner’s dais, an exposed platform before the Kathisma where the garlands were bestowed, and was on his knees. Patzinaks had sprung down from the imperial box to surround him, but they kept a wary distance as he finished his obeisance and rose to his feet.
‘Prince of Peace,’ he declaimed, ‘the least of your subjects begs an audience. Hear my petition, Lord, that you may know the mind of your people.’
He spoke loudly, in a voice well-drilled by some theatre or market. His words carried across the ranked benches, for all about him had fallen silent; further off, I could hear the murmurings as his oration was repeated around the hippodrome.
I could also see the Emperor from my vantage, ensconced on his throne like a statue of Solomon. He neither spoke nor moved, and his guards and courtiers followed his example.
I found the silence ominous, but the orator seemed to draw strength from it. ‘Why, Lord, are your lands ravaged by heretic barbarians, occupying our homes and eating our bread? Why do you tolerate their invasion, and f
eed their appetites for ransom and plunder? Every man in your realm would rather die defending his home from such carrion, than invite them in as wolves to the flock. Lead forth your armies, Lord, and drive them from our shore as once you routed the Normans and the Turks. Will we be snared by their wiles and slaved to their power? No.’
He was not alone in answering his own question — from all directions, voices began to echo his defiance.
‘Will we see the Kelts defiling our daughters, plundering our treasury and sleeping under our roofs? Will we be forced to declare, against all the teachings of the church and of God, that the Spirit proceeds from the Son? That our Patriarch should be the slave of a Norman Pontiff? That, in the manner of the heretics, we should choke on unleavened bread when we feast at Christ’s table? No!’
Now I could hear the ‘No’s’ resounding from the far side of the arena as well. Still, though, the Emperor did not move.
‘These barbarians are an abomination before God and His church, and before all who truly believe.’ The orator had worked himself into a frenzy; his arms swung wildly and his face burned red. ‘We have them in the palm of our hand: we should not stretch it out in friendship, but squeeze them in our fist until their blood runs from our fingers. Prince of Peace, your people beseech you to lead your army into battle and win them a victory to rank with your triumphs at Larissa, at Lebunium. Or, if you will not do so, then let some other member of your family lead them, and rout the barbarians from our homes. Defend the honour of Christ and the empire. Kill the barbarians!’
His words were like a wind on embers: hardly had he spoken them than the cry was taken up by the crowds around him. Quickly, their neighbours joined them, and then their neighbours’ neighbours, until all the stadium shook with the chant. It was louder than any cheer I ever heard for a charioteer, louder even than the acclamation when the Emperor was crowned. ‘Kill the barbarians! Kill the barbarians! Kill the barbarians!’
In all this the speaker was forgotten. Looking back, I saw Patzinaks surrounding him, dragging him from the platform, but he had worked his mischief. Whichever party or faction had employed him — and no doubt that information would be worked out of him in the dungeons — they had made their point. Whether the Emperor was wise to put his faith in the barbarians, to entrust the recovery of Asia to them, I could not know and did not care, but it was clear now that he had spoken truthfully in his garden. If he died, there would be war. And though the chanting, hate-filled faces around me seemed confident enough, I feared that in that battle there would be no victors.
23
It was a long season, the Great Lent that year, but more from fear than penitence. A black mood hung over the city, the anger of ten hundred thousand people against the barbarians who starved and mocked them. It seemed they had stolen even the sanctity of our fast, for what was praiseworthy in fasting when there was nothing to eat anyway? Every day Helena went to the markets, and every day she was gone longer, trying to find what scraps were to be had. Most stall-holders had little to do but gossip, and even at the far end of the Mesi the ivory-carvers and silversmiths sat by their doors and watched their hands grow smooth. Only the churches kept their custom — increased it, even, as their incensed domes resounded with the prayers of a city begging God for food, deliverance or vengeance.
And all this while the smoke of the barbarian camp rose from across the Golden Horn, from behind the walls of Galata. More of them arrived, of all their tribes and races, and it took great purpose from the Emperor and the unbending Patzinaks to keep them quartered in distant villages, prevented from joining with their compatriots in Galata. In the city, the scuffles between Romans and visiting Franks escalated: one day a watchman was almost blinded when he intervened to stop some young squire being stabbed by the mob. None of the barbarians passed our gates after that, and my duties receded even more into the confines of the palaces.
It was wearing, lonely work, for there was little for me to do save watch. Once, early in March, I actually went to Krysaphios and asked to be released, but he would not allow it: the Emperor, he said, was adamant that every risk should be countered. So I continued my uncomfortable vigil, well rewarded but ill satisfied.
In those grim days, as the bastions of winter held out against spring, the one consolation was the friendship of Anna. Though she would not forgive me my gamble with Thomas, she had accepted my invitation to dinner before Great Lent, and many more in the weeks which followed until the invitation was scarcely needed. She became a welcome guest in our home, sitting with us in the evenings and sharing our meals, and if her monks or my neighbours disapproved, they did not show it. Those who knew my family best, indeed, declared that it was a blessing for my daughters to have a woman in the house, instead of the faltering attentions of a father too much preoccupied with his own affairs. And they were probably right, for my daughters found the season a great burden, and I think Anna was some comfort to them. Helena was particularly morose in those weeks, and even lost interest in hectoring me to arrange a marriage. Which was useful, as there were few respectable families who would countenance a union in those uncertain times.
For it was as if we lived the eight weeks of Great Lent amid a pile of tinder and kindling, while sparks showered down over us. There were skirmishes against the newly-arrived barbarians in an effort to keep them hemmed in at Sosthenium on the Marble sea, and it was rumoured that the Emperor had assembled an army at Philea, a single day’s march away. Then there was the gossip, which I had on my own account from several merchants, that the cargoes they supplied to the barbarians were now much reduced by order of the Eparch, that the Emperor was trying to starve the men and beasts of the barbarian army into submission. None of these sparks set the city aflame, but all knew that it would not smoulder forever. And still the stream of envoys who visited the barbarian captains returned unanswered.
It was on the Wednesday of the Great Week of Easter, the last week of the fast, that the web which the Emperor had spun around the barbarians began to unravel. Anna was at my house, drinking soup with us after attending the evening liturgy, and we were — as so often in those weeks — discussing the possibility of ridding ourselves of the barbarians.
‘You work all your days in the palace, father,’ Helena said, ‘what do you hear there?’ She was far more reasoned and thoughtful in her conversation when Anna was present.
‘Little more than what I hear on the streets, and in the markets,’ I told her. ‘Either the grocers are particularly well-informed, or the secretaries in the palace are equally ignorant.’ It was true — there was barely a single piece of news I had heard in the palace which was not common rumour in the forum. ‘But I saw a grain merchant I know today, and he told me — in confidence, naturally — that this morning he was ordered to keep back all his supplies from the barbarians. Unless they have started growing their own wheat and cattle, they are going hungry. Nor have they had any fodder for their horses in two weeks, that I know of.’
Anna drained the last of her soup. ‘Is that wise? I have a cousin in Pikridiou who says the Franks are growing bolder. Yesterday they left their camp to plunder her village. Only the strength of the Patzinaks checked them.’
‘Why don’t they just go away?’ Zoe demanded. ‘Our walls are too high for them, and our armies are too strong — why do they stay here making us miserable?’
I put my hand over her small clenched fist. ‘Because they and the Emperor both desire the same thing, the lost lands of Asia, and neither will forfeit it. They cannot reach those lands without the Emperor’s permission, and he will not give it unless they surrender their claim. He cannot dislodge them save by force, but if he uses force he will break the alliance and lose all chance of invading Asia. We are like two serpents, so tightly coiled together that neither can bite the other.’
‘They’re both barbarous.’ Helena, as ever, saw the problem with the clarity of conviction. ‘Why should great men squabble and sulk, like Achilles before the walls of Troy? The
true purpose should be to liberate the Romans — the Christians — who live under the Turkish yoke. What does it matter which army frees them?’
‘It matters greatly.’ I looked at her firmly. ‘Ask Sigurd what the Normans did to his country when they conquered it. Every man became a slave, and the kingdom was booty for their lords to plunder. They are murderous and cruel, these barbarians; their rule would be just as bad as the Turks’. Perhaps worse. That is why the Emperor resists them.’
‘Then why. .’ Anna broke off as a furious thumping erupted from the bottom of the stairs. She eyed me inquisitively. ‘Did you expect others to join us?’
‘None that I invited.’ The sudden noise had jolted me with shock, spilling my soup across the table, but now I steadied myself. ‘I will see.’
I crossed to my bedroom and pulled out my knife from the chest where I kept it. Then I descended the stairs.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Sigurd. The eunuch commands you to the palace.’
I groaned — it seemed there was no hour of day or night when Krysaphios could not summon me. ‘Can he wait until dawn, at least, when I will return there anyway?’
He could not.
I ran back up the stairs to the three expectant faces. ‘I am called to the palace,’ I said briefly. ‘I cannot say when I will be back. Will you stay with the girls, Anna? You can sleep in my bed. I. . I will take the floor when I return.’
Helena seemed about to complain that she could watch herself and Zoe well enough, but stilled her protest at a glance from Anna.
‘Of course,’ Anna said. ‘Though I must be back in the monastery in the morning.’
‘I hope even the chamberlain cannot keep me that long.’
