Bulgar-Slayer. He raised many of them out of the dirt, gave them reason to walk in the Christ’s path, proved that he would not let the Dhynatoi crush them if they even lifted their heads out of the offal in the streets. Then the Bulgar-Slayer was summoned by the King of Heaven and the Studion became a hell. But we survived.’ She fixed Haraldr with cold, brilliant eyes. ‘Now we are not to be permitted even to survive.’
‘Mistress--’ began Haraldr.
‘Don’t call me mistress, boy. I am not one of the courtesans you fair-hairs fawn over.’
‘I swear to you by all the gods sacred to me and to Rome that Varangians did not light these fires tonight. We tried to prevent them. That I came to you like this should prove that I have no wish to punish those who have suffered enough.’
‘I know that now.’ The Blue Star barked at her son, and he ran out for a moment. When he returned, he handed his mother a plain clay bowl. She held it down for Haraldr to see inside. He looked back at her grimly. The bowl was full of noses and ears. Freshly cut. ‘This is the record of our conversation with the arsonists. We have not gone back as far as we can go, or will go, but the trail of noses, and worse, will lead us to the Orphanotrophus Joannes. We have known for some time that he is the architect of our misery.’
Haraldr nodded. ‘You are correct. But you must understand that you are not alone against the Orphanotrophus. There are many working in this cause. I am certain that when the Emperor himself recovers--’
The Blue Star burst into a rich peal of laughter. ‘Boy, what use are you to me when you don’t know the simple truths? This Emperor is not a bad man, we know that. But he is dying. He will not see the next full moon. And then his evil brother, Joannes, will put his newly anointed puppet upon the throne and bleed the people of Rome to feed his own ambitions and nurture his Dhynatoi accomplices. He will create a Rome that only the few will love, and robbed of the devotion of her people. Rome herself will perish.’
‘We believe we have time,’ said Haraldr. ‘Rome is not a corpse yet. Those of us who share your hatred of the Orphanotrophus have decided to wait and see if the Emperor recovers before we act. But we will act soon enough. Do not doubt that.’
‘And if the Emperor does not recover? Will you support this . . . Caesar?’
I believe the Caesar has many good qualities, and I believe that he is not likely to follow his Uncle Joannes’s policies blindly, in fact, he is inclined to the contrary. He should be allowed to prove his sincere concern for the people of Rome. I would think it would be to your benefit to take the same position. Why hold your nose and throw the fish out before you have even smelled it?’
‘If he shows the respect due the purple-born and places his aegis over the smallest folk, then we will joyously acclaim this Caesar as our Emperor. If not,
Haraldr felt weak, cold, and sick in his gut. Would there be such an order? Likely there would. He rose from the floor and looked down at the Blue Star for a long moment. ‘If the Orphanotrophus Joannes gives that order, then I swear by all the oaths I have already pledged tonight that I will kill him myself.’
‘Why have you come?’ Maria’s face was bloodless with fright – ‘What has happened? I know that Studion is burning. We went to the roof and saw the fires. He is not . . .’ Maria lowered her head and her dark, loose hair tumbled over her shoulders. The candelabra in her bedchamber had been extinguished, and two oil lamps on long slender bronze stands sent strange shadows scurrying across the densely patterned pale blue Antioch carpet.
‘He is safe,’ said Mar. ‘I sent some of my own men to find out. As I had feared, Joannes attempted to bury him there. I warned him.’
Maria’s breasts heaved beneath her sheer silk cloak. She was like a corpse returning to life, her lips suddenly flushed a brilliant red. ‘Yes. But you did not come here to bring me comfort.’
Mar studied Maria warily. ‘No.’ He paused, wondering if his purposes were more clear to her than they were to himself. Why had he come? ‘Do you love him?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are going to get him killed.’
‘Yes.’ Maria folded her arms under her breasts and looked at Mar with cold azure eyes.
Mar shook his head incredulously. ‘If you have contrived some insane plot of your own, I warn you that anything that now involves Haraldr concerns me as well. He is a Norseman, and my friend, and I will not lie to you, an ally whom I need above all others. Destroy another man with your foolish schemes and mad passions. Because if there is further danger to my ally, I will destroy you.’ In the silence that followed Mar realised that he had not conveyed conviction. Her eyes were too clever, too weary.
She looked down, her lips curling slightly as if concealing an amused disdain. ‘You aren’t his friend. Perhaps you are his ally. Are we rivals?’
Mar stepped forward and slapped Maria perfunctorily, almost as if it were a ritual punishment. ‘That is a slander, bitch!’
Maria laughed and put her ringers to her bleeding lip. She dabbed and tasted the blood. ‘Yes. It was unfair of me to say that. I do not believe that you could not love me simply because you want to love men. I never knew why. Was I unattractive to you?’
Mar’s face twitched slightly. He remembered the vision of her, naked, wanting him. Since then he had ached, thinking of what it would have been like to make love to her. Why hadn’t he? She had not been the first woman he had turned away from (why? he had reasons he could not admit), but she had been the culmination, the one who had brought him closest and had therefore let him fall the farthest. Why hadn’t he? He was not waiting for a woman who was pure; many who had offered themselves to him had been virgins.
The corners of Maria’s mouth trembled and her nostrils flared. ‘Do you think of me, Mar? I want you to think of me. I want every man who has ever touched me to burn with the memory of me.’ She swished forward, her silk cloak like a cloud. ‘I think of what it would have been like with you. I thought of you once when I was with him.’
‘And this is how you love him? You are a bitch.’
‘I love him!’ she screamed, her face brilliant. ‘I love him so much, I wake up in the night sick with dread that he will never love me again! I vomit! I heave my soul up for loving him!’ Her hair fell around her cheeks and her shoulders jerked with strange, dry sobs.
Mar shook his head. ‘I pity you. You are addicted to your passions. You have taken everything as long as you have known life, and so you despise anything you cannot entirely consume, like a flame that hates water. You will never understand men like Haraldr and me. We are Norsemen. When we are twelve summers old, we go on the western sea in open boats and sail to lands you Romans have never heard of, where the ice floats in great islands and the absence of everything except his own will makes a man strong.’
Maria cocked her head slightly, defiantly. ‘When I was twelve, I took my first lover.’
‘That man forced you, and later you killed him for it. I know the truth of that.’
‘I loved him. I liked it. It made a whore of me.’
‘So you pretend you are a whore with every man? As it was with me?’
‘I make love but I do not love. As I had hoped it would be with you.’
‘But with Haraldr it is different?’
‘Who is he!’ she blurted with a desperate, bell-like voice. ‘When he is inside me, I feel his fate around my neck, and mine around his. We are strangling each other with this destiny, two vines sucking the life out of one another. You say I will get him killed. Yes, I have known it, I have prayed for it, I have tried to do it! And he gave me my life back, so I could try again.’ Her eyes were insane, incandescent. ‘Who is he!’
‘He has not told you who he really is?’ Mar sneered. ‘Perhaps your love is not returned, then. You would understand the fate around your neck if you knew.’
‘Tell me!’ she shrieked, and fell on Mar, pounding his huge chest with her small white fists. He showed his gleaming teeth and she clawed his face. ‘Tell me!’ He felt the blood on his cheek. She lunged at an object on the ivory-inlaid trunk opposite her bed. ‘Tell me or I’ll kill you!’ Mar looked at the knife and laughed. She swiped wildly, and he caught her wrist. She strained to reach him with the knife, and he deliberately wrenched her arm so that
