The mosaic of shadows da-1

by Tom Harper

The night was cold outside, though during the day I had begun to think that winter was relenting its grasp and making way for spring. Sigurd was waiting for me in the arch under the house opposite; he crossed the street and joined me as I closed my door.

  ‘What is this?’ I asked quietly as we strode up the hill. ‘Have the barbarians moved?’

  Sigurd shrugged. ‘I doubt it — I saw nothing from the walls. A messenger arrived at the gate two hours ago and demanded I take him to the palace. I’d barely introduced him to the guard when some flummeried noble appeared and took him away. I was ordered to wait. Then one of the eunuch’s slaves appeared and told me to fetch you there. Which I’m doing.’ He paused, letting the stamp of his boots fill the silence. ‘Even standing sentry duty on the walls was more honourable than being a eunuch’s go-between.’

  ‘You were doing much the same thing on the first night we met,’ I reminded him.

  ‘That was different.’

  The moon was waning, but with still more than half its face showing it lit our way adequately enough through the pale shadows. We passed by the severe statues of the great squares, through the looming triumphal arches, down empty streets, and so to the palace.

  Sigurd conferred briefly with the guards at the gate, and then at greater length with a clerk who sat at a table just within, scribbling away by the light of an oil lamp.

  The clerk looked up at me. ‘He will take you to the throne room,’ he said, indicating a slave who had appeared noiselessly from behind a pillar.

  ‘And you, Siguard?’

  ‘I will wait here.’

  Without a word, the slave turned and receded into one of the main corridors. I had walked it many times in the past months, and always it had been thriving with all the ranks of palace life, from distant relatives of the imperial family down to the slaves and errand boys. Now it was empty, and the gaps between the pools of light on the floor seemed unnaturally dark. Soon we turned off the thoroughfare, and down a succession of dimly lit passages where the smells of oil and roses were replaced by dust and damp. Some of these areas were familiar, and others seemed so, but without my silent guide I would have been as lost as Theseus in the maze.

  He brought me to an open peristyle and vanished. The arcades around it glowed with the warm light of many lamps, suspended from the roof on thick, golden chains, while in its centre a floor polished like silver reflected back the shaved disc of the moon.

  I drew a sharp breath. It was not a silver floor, I realised, but a lake, a pool spread over the entire square, yet impossibly smooth, unrippled. A marble causeway was built out across it to an island in its centre, where I could see the silhouette of some dark structure rising from the water.

  ‘Demetrios.’

  I turned back to the arcade and looked about. The voice had come from my left, and from some distance, but I could see nothing. The thick columns which obscured my view drew my eyes up, and I gaped again as I saw their vast height, four times higher than a man at least, and far wider. I had seen larger, of course, not least in the great hall of Ayia Sophia, but the stark beauty of these stone trunks towering above the pool held an awe all its own.

  I walked around the arcade to my left, looking down at the speckled images passing under my feet. They seemed to be cameos of bucolic life, or what some urban artist had imagined bucolic life to be: children playing or riding on donkeys, goats grazing, huntsmen chasing a tiger. But amid these idylls were flashes of brutality: a dog being ripped open by a bear, an eagle with a serpent writhing about its body, a griffin feasting on slaughtered hind. Protean faces in blues and greens stared out of the borders, wrapped with fronds and leaves, and from the gentle swaying of the oil lamps high above, one could almost imagine their features twisting and contorting as I passed.

  I turned a corner and saw the origin of the voice which had called me: Krysaphios. He was perhaps half-way along the passage, but I was an uncomfortably long time under his gaze before I reached him.

  ‘The Sebastokrator Isaak has sent me news,’ he said. ‘He has spies in the barbarian camp. They have found the monk there.’

  ‘The monk?’ He had faded in my thoughts over the past weeks. Though there had been every chance that he had not left the city, that he still sought a moment to strike at the Emperor, every day which passed without news of him had lessened that likelihood. He had become a phantom, a ghost who could slip into my thoughts — and sometimes also my dreams — but never assume substance. ‘Where in the barbarian camp?’

  ‘Near the wharves of Galata, in a lodging house by the walls. It is behind the warehouses, apparently, now abandoned by merchants who fear to transact their business in a barbarian camp.’

  ‘Why was I not told that the Sebastokrator had spies there?’ I demanded. ‘How can you ask me to perform my tasks when there are vital factors I am ignorant of?’

  ‘There are many things of which you are ignorant. I would have thought you might have guessed that the Sebastokrator keeps his own spies, as does every member of the imperial household. Did he not once ask you to serve him so?’

  ‘Perhaps. But how will we entice the monk out of Galata? We may be invincible within our walls, but Galata has become almost a Frankish kingdom. Ten thousand of their warriors make a commanding bodyguard.’

  ‘We cannot entice him out. It has taken us weeks to find him, and if he sensed a single whisper of a trap he would disappear again. We must enter Galata and capture him. Or rather, you must enter Galata and capture him.’

  I stared at him. ‘I must enter Galata? How? Will a loyal widow hoist me through her window in a basket?’

  ‘You will go with two hundred Patzinaks — they will protect you. You will be welcomed, because you will be escorting a grain convoy on behalf of the Emperor. While the barbarians are distracted, burying their faces in the trough, you and the guards will slip away and seize the monk before they realise what has happened.’

  I shook my head. ‘If we invade their camp, and forcibly abduct one of their acolytes, there will be war. No-one desires more than I that the monk should be captured, but in Galata his danger is caged. Surely that cannot merit risking all the Emperor’s diplomacy?’

  Krysaphios folded his fingers together and stared at me with the full displeasure of an imperial eunuch. ‘The Emperor desires what I command. The Sebastokrator has agreed that it should be thus, and you will be the instrument of their will. Already the monk has proven that he can penetrate and corrupt our inmost halls and trusted servants: if he were to do so again, as the quarrel with the Franks comes to its crisis, there would be devastation in the empire. And there is not much time — two weeks, at most. Bohemond of Sicily, whom the Emperor defeated at Larissa, is hurrying here with his Norman army to reinforce the Franks. If they join their forces we will be helpless before them.’

  I swallowed. This was news I had not heard in the markets — nor even in the outer wards of the palace. I remembered Sigurd’s tales of the ruin the Normans had wrought on his homeland, and — far nearer my home — the barbarity when the Normans captured Dyrrachium and Avlona ten years earlier.

  ‘When do we go?’

  ‘So that you reach the walls of Galata at dawn, when they are least prepared. You will leave by the Blacherna gate and take the road around the Golden Horn.’

  ‘Boats would be faster — and would make our escape easier if we met resistance,’ I objected.

  ‘But you could not cross the Horn until daylight. Then they would see your approach and prepare for it. By road, you will be hidden from them until you arrive. And I have already ordered the grain carts to meet you by the Blacherna gate.’

  ‘Then it’s as well we have two hundred men and a cloak of darkness,’ I told him. ‘The mob will slaughter us if they see wagons of food being taken from the city granaries to the barbarians.’

  Krysaphios ignored my words. ‘You will sleep in the palace tonight; I have ordered the slaves to prepare you a bed in the guard quarters. There are few enough hours alrea
dy before you must leave.’

  ‘I will sleep at home tonight.’ I bridled against his dictating my least movement. ‘I would rather half a night’s sleep in my own bed than a full night in another’s. I can meet the Patzinaks by the gate.’

  Krysaphios flashed a look of petulance, but waved his hand carelessly. ‘As you will. I had thought you would abhor distractions now that the monk is so near your grasp.’

  ‘There will be no distractions.’ Nor would there be any satisfaction, not until the monk was in chains in the dungeon. Even with two hundred Patzinaks to guard me, entering the barbarian camp would be walking into the jaws of a lion. I could scarcely believe that after this long chase, these many months’ hunting, I might finally trap the monk. But even if I did, would it justify bringing the two great armies of East and West into open war?

  I left Krysaphios under the shadows of those great pillars, beside the moon pool, and hurried out of the palace. The slave who had led me there appeared as soundlessly as before, and took me quickly to the outer courtyard. The scribe was still there, writing in the lamplight, and Sigurd with him, dozing on a bench.

  ‘Is your axe still sharp?’ I asked quietly, nudging his shoulder.

  His eyes opened slowly, and I repeated my question. ‘Or have long days on the rainswept walls rusted it?’

  He growled. ‘The only thing which blunts my blade is bone, and it has felt none of that these last two months. Why?’

  ‘I am going on a dangerous errand tomorrow, and I would welcome a stout axe beside me.’

  ‘What errand?’ Sigurd watched me suspiciously.

  ‘A dangerous one. It would be more dangerous for you to know more, though you can probably guess where the greatest dangers are to be found at the moment. Will you come?’

  ‘I should be on the walls.’

  ‘As you told me once before, the walls have stood seven hundred years without you. They might survive one more morning.’ I spoke light-heartedly, but with Krysaphios’ warning of the Normans ringing in my mind, the jest no longer held so much of its wit.

  Sigurd rubbed his shoulder, then stood up. ‘Very well, Demetrios. You make a habit of needing my help in dangerous places, and my conscience has too much to trouble it already. When do we go?’

  I arranged to meet him at the Blacherna gate at the end of the midnight watch, then slipped out of the palace and hastened home. The night was already old, and I began to doubt my wisdom in refusing Krysaphios’ offer of a bed. I could not afford a tired mistake in the barbarian camp in the morning, for I might pay for it with my life.

  I was now well known to the Watch, after so many weeks walking home from the palace after dark, and I passed through the streets undisturbed. The thought of the Normans still worried me, and the darkness of the shadows preyed on my fears all the way to my own door, so much that I felt a flood of relief when I had locked it behind me, mounted the stairs, and gained the safety of my own bedroom.

  My frugal daughters had not left a light burning, but I knew my home well enough to navigate it blind. I stood there in the dark and pulled off my tunic and cloak, letting them drop unheeded to the floor. The air was cold about me, and I felt my skin pinch at the chill. Thinking I would have to rely on my soldier’s habit of waking when I was needed, I felt for the edge of the bed and pulled myself under the covers.

  Where I was not alone. I almost yelped in terror, a second before remembering my careless folly. Of course — I had asked Anna to stay with my daughters, had offered her the use of my bed while I was gone. How could I have forgotten, even with a hundred images of Franks and Patzinaks and Normans and war consuming my thoughts? And — worse — she was as naked as I, to judge from the smooth warmth of her skin against me. For a moment I could hardly move, paralysed by shock, embarrassment and a desire I had not felt in years. And to my further mortification, I was responding to her presence, firming and stiffening, pressing towards the hollows of her body.

  I tried to pull away, but she mumbled something in her sleep and threw out an arm, crooking it around my shoulders and drawing me closer. Christ forgive me.

  And she was not asleep, for the words she spoke next, though tinged with drowsiness, were perfectly clear. ‘Demetrios? Is this your tactic, to lure unsuspecting women to your bed and then leap in unannounced?’

  ‘I forgot you were here,’ I said, desperately aware how false I sounded. ‘In the dark, and with many worries troubling my mind, I. .’

  She put a hand over my lips. ‘Be quiet, Demetrios. A woman wants a man who desires her. Not one who stumbles on her in the dark by accident as though she were the corner of a table.’

  ‘But this is. .’

  ‘Sinful?’ She laughed. ‘I have spent my life probing the secrets of the flesh: I’ve found blood, bile, bone and sinew, but never anything that looked like sin. You were in the army — did you never seek company when you were far from home?’

  Her plain speaking shocked me, but the way her fingers played over the small of my back beat down my consternation. ‘A young man may find himself a slave to his urges,’ I admitted.

  ‘So may a woman.’

  ‘I confessed it and was absolved. That does not license me to make it a habit.’

  ‘But you have fought men, sometimes killed them. Why do you submit to anger but resist pleasure?’

  Her manner was bewitching, and her persistent arguments inescapable. Nor was the resolve of my spirit constant in my flesh, for I had begun stroking my hand between her breasts, running it up to her throat and down the curve of her neck. I thought of my wife, Maria, and faltered a second, but the memory of her touch redoubled my desire, and I pushed harder against Anna’s yielding body. She wrapped her arms around my head and pulled me towards her chest, dragging my lips over her in a welter of tiny kisses.

  In my body there was now no resistance; every part of me was tugging, kissing or squeezing her, but my mind held out. Was this blasphemy? Did I defile Maria’s memory, our marriage before God? But the Lord had not condemned me to the celibate life of a widower forever. And Maria, who had matched her elder daughter’s pragmatism with her younger daughter’s playfulness, would not, I thought, want me living the life of a monk in her name.

  Perhaps that was true, or perhaps circumstance made me wish it true, but I was in no place for reasoned moral argument. I surrendered and sank into Anna’s embrace, clutching her against me in our silent coupling.

  24

  The Blacherna gate was cold when I reached it, and colder still for the sleep I had lost. Leaving Anna’s caressing warmth behind had been hard enough, but as I plodded through empty streets to the walls, doubt and guilt and shame overtook me. How could I have surrendered to such abandon, and in the most sacred week of the year? What would my confessor say? How would the Lord God treat with me? With a long march through darkness ahead of us, and nothing but ten thousand hostile barbarians at the end of it, I had chosen a poor time to offend His laws.

  Sigurd was already there. He had his axe on his shoulder, his mace by his side, and a short sword in his belt, yet still had the strength to carry two shields and another sword in his arms.

  ‘These are for you,’ he muttered. There was something about the night which hushed all our talk. ‘I dug them out of the armoury.’

  I strapped the shield onto my arm, and buckled the sword around my waist. The distance ahead of us seemed immediately longer.

  ‘They’ve made these heavier since I was in the legions,’ I complained. ‘How can any man fight with this?’

  ‘They’ve made you heavier since you were in the legions, I think.’

  ‘Who is this?’ The Patzinak captain, the same who had led the expedition to the monk’s brother’s house, jabbed a finger at Sigurd. ‘We’ve no need of Varangians.’

  ‘Sigurd is my bodyguard,’ I explained tersely. ‘He must accompany me.’

  The Patzinak looked unimpressed, but shrugged and moved away to the head of his men.

  Sigurd glared at me.
‘Two months ago I was bodyguard to the Emperor. Now it seems I protect only those whom no-one could possibly want to kill.’

  ‘Maybe.’ I hitched the shield further up my arm. ‘Let’s hope that you can still say that in the afternoon.’

  A shout from the front of the line ordered us forward. Two columns of Patzinaks began marching, followed by the squealing rumble of the lumbering grain carts. The oxen pulling them lowed their displeasure; their coats were glossy with the moisture in the air, and breath steamed from their snub-ended noses. Sigurd and I joined the after-guard at the tail of the column. High above us tiny squares of yellow glowed in the windows of the new palace, where perhaps even now the Emperor dreamed of conquests, but they vanished as we passed through the arch and onto the plain ahead. The moon was gone, and clouds had covered the stars, so we travelled almost blind, with only the huffing and squeaking of the ox-carts to break our solitude.

  Those carts might have been a wise idea as a disguise, but they were nothing but a hindrance on that dark journey. One got stuck in a rutted stretch of road, and had to be heaved out by Patzinaks; then their weight forced us to pass by all the bridges, and travel to the very tip of the Horn. The shield dragged on my arm, and when I tried lashing it to my back, as I had in the legions, the straps almost strangled me.

  ‘To think it is Great Thursday,’ I murmured, as much to myself as to Sigurd. ‘We should be at prayer, not warring with our fellow Christians.’

  ‘If they feel likewise, then you can be at your church by noon.’ Sigurd’s strides were, as ever, a foot longer than my own, and I hurried to stay with him. ‘If not, then you might yet find time to talk with God today.’

  We straggled on, and I grew glad of the oxen for they were the only ones of our group whose pace was slower than mine. Now we were heading back along the northern shore of the Horn, following where it curved in to form the harbour. I could see lights across the water here, small fires rising on the crests of the hills, though the greater part of the city still lay in darkness. We should be close to Galata now.