feed 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
‘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
