quarters.
We stopped at a door flanked by two enormous urns, each taller than a man. The leading Patzinak turned to face me, and extended an arm towards the green courtyard beyond.
‘In there.’
I paused a second, to draw a breath and to imply my independence. Then I stepped out of the long passage, and into a different world.
It was not a courtyard, as I had thought: it was a garden. But a garden the like of which I had never seen, nor ever imagined. Outside, in the city, it was a rainy day in the depths of winter, but here I seemed suddenly transported to the height of summer. The trees around me were not bare but laden with fruit and blossom, and a golden light suffused the air so brightly it seemed to shine through the very leaves themselves. The ground was soft, silent beneath my feet, as though I walked on cushions, though the grass seemed real enough. It was wet, but it must have been a dew for when I looked up through the tangled leaves and branches above I could see only profound depths of blue. And somewhere in the trees, birds were singing.
I began to feel giddy, dazed; I had taken a few steps forward into this orchard, and when I turned back there was no longer any sign of the way I had entered. Then I heard a sound behind me, a gentle rustling as of leaves or silk, though there was no wind, and I spun about again to see what marvellous creature might appear.
My fancy had almost convinced me to expect a centaur, or a griffin or a unicorn, but in fact it was a man. A man, though, whose magnificence could have graced any legend. The crown on his head gleamed like the sun, as though it alone was the fount of the mysterious light. His robe was dyed purple all the way to its hem, and woven through with gold, while the lorum which crossed his broad chest could have served as the armour of a god, so thick were the gems which crusted it.
Even before I had seen the red toes of his boots I was falling to the ground. The earth seemed to sink under me, absorbing me, and I had to reach out my arms to balance myself as I chanted the acclamation. Though the settings where I had seen him before — the great church, the golden hall and the hippodrome — were all magnificent in their own fashion, it was in that garden that I first believed that a man might indeed be a living daystar, might endure a thousand years.
‘Get up, Demetrios Askiates.’
With some effort, I pushed myself away from the spongelike ground and stood, keeping my eyes downcast. There was something reassuring in his voice, something unrefined which seemed out of place in the fantasy of our surroundings.
‘Do you like my garden?’
‘Your. . your garden? Indeed, Lord,’ I stammered.
‘I did not mean to unsettle you with it. I find it soothes me: a world apart from the world I rule.’
‘Yes, Lord.’
He scratched the rough hair of his beard, and looked me in the eye. ‘I have called you here to thank you, Demetrios. If not for you, I would have no need of craftsmen’s tricks to believe I was in the gardens of heaven.’
I had never received the gratitude of an Emperor before, and I was unsure how to accept it. I opted for mimicry. ‘Tricks, Lord?’
‘Surely you do not believe that even I can bend the seasons and the weather to my will. Feel the leaves on that tree, those buds which are bursting to break into flower.’
I reached up and rubbed one of the leaves between my finger and thumb. It had the waxy sheen of a fresh oak-leaf, and I could see the dark lines of veins running through it. But to touch. .
‘It feels like silk,’ I marvelled.
‘Exactly so.’ The Emperor Alexios swept his hand around him. ‘All these trees — the grass and sky as well — all silk. Fires and mirrors make the sun, and if you were to pick yourself one of those plump apples and bite into it, you would break your teeth. Thus we maintain a world which is always on the cusp of summer, which never decays in the drear of autumn. Unlike my own realm.’
‘Are there rooms for all the seasons?’ I wondered aloud.
Alexios laughed, a throaty, peasant’s laugh. ‘Perhaps, but I have yet to find them. I lived five years in the palace before I discovered this room, and it took as long again for the workshops to restore its full splendour.’ He coughed. ‘But I did not summon you to talk about my garden, Demetrios. As I said, I want to thank you for guiding the traitor’s axe past my neck.’
‘I would have done the same for any man.’
‘No doubt. But not every man could reward you as I will.’
‘Your chamberlain already pays me more than I am worth to protect you. I was merely. .’
Alexios smiled. ‘It does not matter what
‘Thank you, Lord. The gifts of your bounty flow from your hand like water from. .’
The Emperor jerked his head. ‘I do not need your flattery. I leave that to those who have no greater talents. If you must protest loyalty, do so with your deeds.’
‘Always, Lord.’
‘Krysaphios tells me you think it was the barbarians who tried to kill me. The men who are camped in Galata, consuming my harvest and refusing my envoys.’
‘There are obvious reasons to think so.’
The Emperor pulled a leaf from the bough and twisted it in his hand. ‘My brother, Isaak, believes we should fall on them at once and massacre them in the streets of Galata, then send the survivors back across the sea in chains. There are many in the court and the city who think likewise.’
‘It would offend the laws of God,’ I offered, having nothing better to suggest.
Alexios discarded his crumpled leaf. ‘It would offend against the laws of reason. Those barbarians are there because I begged them to come, and if they have come in greater numbers than I hoped, and with their own purposes in their hearts, that does not reduce my need. Not if I am to rescue the lands of Asia which my predecessors squandered.’
‘There are those who say that the barbarians have not come to rescue those lands, but to take them for themselves.’ I could not believe that I was speaking thus with the Emperor, on matters of the most exalted importance, but against all expectation he seemed to welcome it.
‘Of course the barbarians have come to take lands for themselves. Why else would they journey halfway across the world to fight for me? That is why I must keep them here until they have sworn to return what is rightfully mine. If, after that, they can carve out kingdoms of their own, beyond our ancient frontiers, then let them. I would rather have Christians bound with oaths on my border than Turks and Fatimids.’
‘Do you trust the barbarians so?’
‘I trust them as far as they keep their swords from me — which, it seems, is not nearly far enough. But they have their uses. When the Normans invaded, I fought them in a dozen battles and lost each one, yet still I drove them from our lands. Why? Because they will not trust each other for long: they are more prone to faction and jealousy even than the Saracens. Gold and ambition will divide them from each other, will keep them weak against us, while all that will unite them is their hatred of the Ishmaelites. They will gain gold and kingdoms; we will have our lands restored, and we will live together in uneasy dependence.’
‘Will it work?’
Alexios snorted, in a way most unbefitting an Emperor. ‘Perhaps. If the barbarians are not massacred by the Turks, and if they do not fall out with themselves before they even reach Nicaea, and if their priests do not discover that in fact the Lord God intends some wholly different purpose for their army. But none of it will happen if I do not squeeze those oaths from their captains.’ He took my arm. ‘Which is why you must ensure that nothing is allowed to destroy our alliance with them. If they succeed in murdering me, or are even known to have tried, then there will be war between our peoples and the only victors will be the Turks.’
The audience was finished. I left that enchanted garden of perpetual spring, and returned to the world I knew. Where the rain was still falling.
