The Varangian

by Bruce Macbain

  “Harald Sigurdsson,” I answered, keeping my voice steady, “tell your men to throw down their weapons. I am the Commandant now. Take whoever wants to follow you and sail away. It’s time for you to go.”

  “Make me!” He yelled his war cry and charged.

  And might have killed me.

  But Gorm thrust the long pole of our standard between his legs and tripped him as he rushed past. Harald flew forward—that great bulk—and landed head first on the stone floor. He lay there like a felled tree, senseless. I lifted my ax to strike him.

  “Hold, Tangle-Hair,” cried one of his Norwegians. “God forbid you slay the brother of Saint Olaf! Let him live, if it’s God’s will. Let us take him away.”

  “You are the Commandant,” said another. “Don’t begin by killing one of us for the sake of these Greeks.”

  Slowly, I lowered my ax. They were right. Harald dead would be a blot against my name and the regiment’s. No Varangian had ever killed another. But then what to do with him? A wild idea flashed through my mind. Who can say where such inspirations come from?

  “Gorm,” I cried, “help me lift him. You others stand clear of the throne.”

  With me at Harald’s head and Gorm at his feet, we half carried and half dragged him up the steps of the podium and dumped him on the sacred Throne of Solomon. He sprawled there, glassy eyed. There was a gasp from the onlookers, Greeks and Varangians both. Gorm shot me an astonished look. What was I thinking?

  Before anyone could make a move to stop me, I darted behind the throne, through the divided curtain and down the steps, and—just as I had seen it done—took the big wheel, the one that opens the sluice, in my hands and spun it as fast and as far as it would go. I heard the groan of machinery far below, felt the vibration of water surging beneath my feet, and saw the great piston shake itself and then, with a whoosh, shoot upward--not with stately grace but like a bolt shot from a bow, shuddering to a stop just short of the ceiling. I went back and peered through the curtain. Every face was tilted upwards. The Greeks were dumbstruck, shocked to silence by this sacrilege. My only thought had been to keep Harald out of my way until we’d secured the palace. I hadn’t meant to humiliate him. But my Varangians, first a few and then more and more, began to point and laugh—because Harald was conscious now, gripping the arms of the throne with white knuckles, his eyes wide, his mouth twisted in a silent scream, twenty-five feet in the air with no way to get down and plainly scared out of his wits.

  I ran back to the front and joined my men. They made way for me as though I were a sorcerer or a god, the possessor of some undreamed of, inexplicable magic. Harald must have thought so too.

  “Prince,” I cupped my hands and shouted up to him, “you’ve always wanted to sit on a throne, how does it feel?” There was more laughter from my men.

  He found his voice and answered me with a string of curses. “I’ll have your balls for this, Tangle-Hair! All of you, goddamn you, I’ll kill you all! Let me down!” Spittle flew from his lips, he writhed on the seat, twisting this way and that, looking wildly around him.

  “I’ll let you down when I have your promise to leave Miklagard forever. Meanwhile, enjoy the view. Now everyone out,” I ordered. We still have work to do.”

  It must have looked a long way down to Harald but rage and desperation gave him courage. With a cry he flung himself from the throne. I crouched ready to meet his attack. But his legs buckled and he rolled on the floor, clutching his right knee, gasping with pain.

  Halldor, Bolli and Ulf ran up to help him.

  “Get him out of here,” I said, “and don’t let me see his face again. As for the boy Emperor—” I began.

  It was then I noticed that Calaphates and his uncle had slipped away in the confusion.

  Wednesday, April 21

  In the morning, Katakalon came out under a flag of truce to parlay with us. I had known him slightly in Sicily and knew he was a good soldier. He informed us that Calaphates and his Uncle Constantine had fled by boat, dressed in monk’s clothes, to the monastery of Studion, which lies on the coast where the outer ring wall comes down to the sea. There was nothing more for his soldiers to defend. We let them march out with their standards and weapons.

  I led my men into the palace, where a haggard Psellus greeted me. His first words were of Olympia. I told him she and Selene were safe in the cathedral with—guess who?—a sister of Zoe’s who was now co-Empress.

  “But this is a disaster,” he moaned. “Zoe would rather see a stable boy share her throne than Theodora.”

  The city mob, which had been disciplined during the battle, went completely out of control once it was over. Neither I nor any force on earth could stop them from racing through the grounds and buildings, looting and smashing; there were just too many of them. I set my men to defend Zoe’s apartments in the Daphne, as well as the Magnaura with its throne room, and the treasury, and let the rest go.

  Hours later, when a semblance of order was finally restored, the Patriarch came over from the cathedral, escorting Theodora. Selene and Olympia were in the crowd that followed them. Zoe received them in the throne room and, contrary to Psellus’s worst fears, she embraced her sister and they exchanged dry-lipped kisses. And so these two elderly ladies—Theodora who had lived fifteen years as a virtual prisoner in a convent, and Zoe the one who had put her there—sat stiffly side by side on the Throne of Solomon while the Patriarch smiled beatifically and we all shouted, “Many years, many years!” Though, in truth, it seemed unlikely that they had many years left between them.

  While this touching ceremony was being enacted, the mob was surging along the Mese toward the monastery where Calaphates and his uncle had taken sanctuary. One of my men burst into the throne room with the news. The people would certainly tear them apart. Psellus, who, as acting Logothete, was the most senior official there, and I with him, approached the throne and asked for orders. Should we try to rescue them? Arrest them? There was a long moment of silence. Zoe said nothing. Then Theodora in a clear high voice, said “Blind them.”

  Psellus and I could hardly hide our astonishment. We would have expected this from Zoe, who had every reason to hate these men. But from Theodora, who had never laid eyes on them? I think she must have feared that Zoe, if left to herself, would weaken and put Calaphates back on the throne rather than allow her despised sister to rule with her. But Theodora, once there, was not going to leave. Plainly, this elderly nun was a woman to be reckoned with. Zoe gave her a long, hard look, then nodded agreement.

  Psellus and I, with a detachment of my men, set off down the Mese, a distance of about a mile, to Studion. That sprawling collection of buildings on the water’s edge is one of the largest and richest monasteries in all Anatolia. At its center is the church Saint John the Baptist. By the time we reached it, the mob was howling around the place, while hundreds of monks, clearly terrified, did their best to bar the doors. We pushed them aside and entered the chapel.

  Calaphates and Constantine, in monk’s cassocks, their heads shorn, clung to the pillars of the altar. They recognized Psellus and thought they saw a spark of sympathy in his mild young face. What they got instead was a stern lecture—Psellus at his most schoolteacherish. He actually shook his finger at them. What had Zoe ever done to them that they should have mistreated her so shamefully? What right had they to mercy?

  “What could I do?” Constantine pleaded. “I knew nothing about the plot against her. The Emperor is headstrong. If I had tried to restrain him it would have cost me my life.”

  Psellus brushed this obvious lie aside.

  Calaphates, his face streaked with tears, moaned, “I was wrong, sir, but I’ve paid my penalty, haven’t I? Punish me no more.” A bad boy begging not to be whipped. “What are these soldiers doing here? Send them away, they frighten me.”

  I looked to Psellus to take the lead. “We can’t do it here,” he said, “not in this holy place. Take them outside.”

  Constantine, seeing that there was
no hope, came without a struggle. As for Calaphates, I had to pry his hands from the altar and carry him, screaming and blubbering out of the church. Outside, the mob jeered and mocked him. We took them a little ways back up the Mese, the crowd following behind us. Psellus cast his eye about and said, “This is far enough. We’ll do it here.”

  There was a sidewalk vendor of what the Greeks call souvlaki, chunks of lamb turning on spits over a bed of coals. Psellus went over to the man. “Take the meat off one of those spits and heat the point of it.”

  Psellus handed the cool end of the spit to me, wrapped in a rag. “Do it,” he said, “before the iron cools.”

  Blinding was nothing unusual to Psellus. It is what these Greeks do to enemies of the State. People say we Norsemen are cruel, barbarous and savage, and I will not deny it. But it takes a Greek to think of this. Even as mild a soul as Psellus, could order it without a qualm.

  My stomach clenched. “Isn’t banishment enough?”

  “A blind man can never sit upon the Throne of Solomon. Do it, Odd. Harald wouldn’t hesitate.”

  “I’m not Harald.”

  “You are the Commandant. You wanted the job. Did you think it would always be pleasant? Now, do it.”

  This was the first time I ever saw Psellus angry. I took the spit from his hand.

  “Take me first,” said Constantine. “Make the people stand back and you will see how bravely I bear my calamity.”

  “Someone tie him down,” Psellus ordered, but Constantine waved him away. “If you see me flinch, you can nail me down.” He got down on his knees and then stretched out on his back, taking care that his legs were decently covered. I plunged the spit into his eyes, first one, then the other. The flesh melted and hissed. It’s a sound you never forget.

  Calaphates shrieked all the louder. His screams could be heard all the way to the palace. “Mother, help me!”

  I don’t know which mother he was calling on, Maria or Zoe, but neither could help him now. This poor, ignorant, thoughtlessly wicked child. At the end, it was impossible not to pity him. It took four men to hold him down. The bile rose in my throat. The crowd fell silent. Some people crossed themselves. He had sat on the throne for only four months, but still he was an Emperor.

  He and his uncle would live out their lives—not many years for either of them—on the charity of the Church. Years afterward, I happened to learn that Harald, boasting of his days in Miklagard, took credit for this blinding—as if anyone should want bragging rights for such an atrocity.

  Thursday, April 22

  Psellus paid a visit to my office in the guardhouse of the Brazen Gate to tell me that old Eustathius, the Logothete, had died during the night. “I was with him. His last words were, ‘I’ve lived long enough to see the end of these Paphlagonians.’”

  “And you’re the Logothete now? Congratulations. It’s a big job—embassies, espionage, the public post, the Office of Barbarians.”

  “I shall do my best. And you, Odd—you seem comfortably installed as Commandant. What are you working at?” He peered at the papers that covered my desk. “What is that scrawl?”

  “Names written in runic,” I answered. “I’m going over the enlistment rolls that Harald kept. There are men listed here who I know for a fact died in Sicily and he was still drawing their salaries from the treasury, with John’s knowledge, of course

  Psellus shook his head. “And Harald is—?”

  “Dead, I hope. Or else licking his wounds somewhere. Halldor, Bolli and a few others have disappeared too.”

  “That doesn’t worry you?”

  “I’ve too much to think about at the moment.”

  “The vicissitudes of life,” Psellus exclaimed. “You know this morning we caught Maria and George at the harbor, trying to buy passage on a merchant ship to the Black Sea. She was wearing four purple silk gowns and a sable cape—in April. And had a chest of golden plates and spoons and knives so heavy it took two men to lift it. We took it all away from her. Quite a scene—cursing, screaming, scratching. Well, what can you expect from peasants.” He smiled wearily. “I hope I never see another three days like these as long as I live. Olympia talks of nothing else but how the women passed the word in church, how they gathered, marched. She was out in that mob. She could’ve been killed. I’m still trembling. I scolded her but she won’t listen. What is happening to our women? How will we keep them at home again after this? I suppose Selene is the same?”

  I smiled. “Selene has never been content to stay home.”

  “And now two women on the throne. How will it end?”

  “We were lucky. If the army—”

  “Ah, that. Cost us a fortune in bribes, you know, to keep them out of it.”

  “You had something to do with that?”

  “I played a part,” he answered modestly. “It was only Katakalon, just arrived from Sicily, whom we couldn’t negotiate with. But there’s more to it than that. We also made them a promise. Not one I’m happy with, but we had no choice. Perhaps you can guess.”

  I looked a question.

  “Have you forgotten the name of George Maniakes? Their old commander? The terror of the Saracens?”

  “And all this time in prison.”

  “No more. A free man now. And, I fear, a bitter, dangerous and unpredictable one.”

  42

  The Perfumery Again

  Now that the ‘Paphlagonian scum’ were gone, the Empress Zoe lost no time in restarting her perfumery. Once again the copper cauldrons bubbled in the big, high-ceilinged room next to her bedchamber, and the heavy aroma of attar and aloes and sandalwood seeped into every corner of the Daphne palace. The first guests whom she invited to visit her there were Selene and Olympia.

  It was nearly five months since the mad escapade when they had disguised themselves as nuns and smuggled Zoe out of the palace to make a last appeal to her dying husband. What a disaster that had been, and Zoe might have resented it but instead she conceived an almost pathetic affection for these two brave young women. They were now her favorites among the court ladies, her ‘daughters’, as she was wont to say.

  Psellus took a cynical view of this: Zoe understood where power lay. Selene was the wife of the new Commandant of the Varangians and Olympia the wife of the new Logothete. Zoe needed our loyalty, and the way to that, in her mind, was through our wives.

  But Selene had a different view, and I think she was right. The sad woman, who all her life had been terrorized and imprisoned, neglected by her father, deprived of the chance for motherhood, and abused by one husband after another, had an enormous need to unburden herself now, to defend and explain herself, and—yes—to mother someone.

  ‘Wear light and comfortable clothing,’ the invitation read. It was quickly apparent why. (I recount the scene now from what Selene and Olympia told us afterward.) The two friends were brought to the door by a young eunuch. Both were both nervous. Until that day they had met the Empress only at receptions or banquets where they were among a mob of court ladies. This was the first time they would be in a room alone with her. Of course, they knew all about the notorious perfumery from their husbands, and they weren’t looking forward to it. Selene whispered a silent prayer to Thrice-Great Hermes and touched the amulet that hung between her breasts under the thin fabric of her dress. She and Olympia exchanged a quick smile to give each other courage. The door opened, letting out a rush of pungent, torrid air. Selene swallowed hard.

  “My dears, such a pleasure to see you,” Zoe burbled, as the two women were ushered inside. She was dressed in a plain linen shift that clung damply to her rounded figure, her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and a scarf confined her grey-blond curls. Her face, still preternaturally smooth, was glowing. “You come at a critical moment, I shall want your advice. We’re mixing a new skin lotion, my own recipe.”

  “Your Majesty is very kind to invite us,” said Selene.

  “Majesty? Oh, no, no, my dear.” Zoe seized her by the hands. “After what
we have been through together! We are equals here. You may call me ‘ma’am’—kyria—as you would your own elderly aunts. You know, I’m old enough to be one, though no one would guess it.” She touched her buttery cheek and smiled archly. “And when we’re among ourselves we will use the familiar esu. Come along, now.”

  She led them to a vat in which some white and viscous liquid bubbled gently. A sweaty female slave clad in an apron stirred it with a long-handled paddle. Elsewhere in the room other women and men stirred other kettles, while along the farther wall still others worked at a long bench, filling and stoppering glass flasks. “Rub a little on your palms,” Zoe urged. “Tell me your opinion truthfully now.” Obediently, the women dipped their fingertips in, rubbed them together, sniffed.

  “Lovely,” Olympia exclaimed.

  “I’ve never felt anything like it,” said Selene—which was the truth because none of this stuff was to her taste. Her young skin needed no lotions, and she rarely wore scent.

  For the next hour Zoe led them in turn from cauldron to seething cauldron while she recited in exquisite detail the ingredients of this and that potion. “Spikenard … myrrh …” A sudden crash of breaking glass interrupted her in mid-word. A clumsy slave had dropped a whole tray of flasks and a puddle of perfumed ooze spread over the floor in one corner of the room.

  “Dolt!” Zoe shrieked, “Idiot!” She struck the woman across the face with the back of her beringged hand, leaving a red welt. “I’ll have you whipped. Clean this up!” The unfortunate woman fell to her knees and began to mop with the hem of her dress, while others ran for pails and rags. Selene and Olympia exchanged tense glances while their host was distracted.

  Zoe returned to them, composing her face with an effort. “You see what I have to contend with? That monster John killed all my old staff, or drove them away, and now I must begin all over again with these unskilled people. It’s hard, very hard.”