not the purple-born currently an author of our predicament?’
‘Indeed the older sister is. Fortunately she is not the last purple-born Macedonian.’ Mar paused for effect. ‘The Varangian Guards would defend your client Theodora to the last drop of our blood if she were to ascend to the Imperial Throne. We would, of course, hope to consult on the choice of her consort and Emperor.’
Alexius clasped his hands beatifically. ‘Well said, Hetairarch! I applaud the economy of expression you Varangians are noted for.’ The eyes suddenly leapt at Mar, for a moment literally stifling his breath. ‘In matters according to God, I am undisputed on this earth. In matters that pertain to Caesar, my concerns are manifold. I govern a state within a state, with all the predictable difficulties of such administration. Fractious Metropolitans, incompetent bishops, rebellious priests in far-flung sees. Like a state, I have my enemies. Internally the growth of the monastic establishments independent of Patriarchal jurisdiction has become an epidemic that leeches the church of its vital resources. Externally I must contend with malignant impudence of the see of old Rome, which threatens every soul in my state. And let us not forget my mandatory allegiance to the Emperor, Basileus and Autocrator of the Romans. I am crowned by him, and can in theory be deposed by him.’
‘This Emperor will depose no one.’
Alexius made the sign of the cross, praying that the Emperor would be able to complete in Purgatory the penance he had begun here on earth. ‘Yes. It is the Caesar we must concern ourselves with.’
‘The Caesar is in Neorion.’ Mar caught the surprise, and new respect, in Alexius’s cat-quick eyes. ‘Four days now. He is still alive. My presumption is that he was overly assertive and Joannes intends to knead him into a more pliable state. All the more reason that the succession to this Caesar be initiated.’
Alexius looked again into the golden vault. ‘I had intended to convert you, and I see that instead you have begun to persuade me.’ Alexius turned away from the immense cavern of light. ‘God’s patience is infinite. But as He endlessly cautions us to observe, our time here is short.’
The centipede was as long as a man’s hand, and when it crawled over Michael Kalaphates’s thigh, it seemed to wrap his bare limb like a many-legged serpent. He began to scream hysterically and retreated to the corner of his cell, the slime wet and cold against his naked back. He could see nothing. He panted and tried to make his body pull in on itself, disappear, so that the beasts could not recognize him. But the screams reached in, sliding beneath the cracks in the door that even the light could not enter; he could see the screams, they were the only thing he could see, they were sharp, hot vines that curled around him and then grew huge red thorns that pierced right through his flesh.
On the fourth day the locusts came up from the shaft of the abyss, cloaked in armour and smoke. Their light was blinding. They flogged him with screams and led him into the abyss, driving him forward with thorns and brands. The fiery lakes burned on every side, and sulphur poisoned his lungs. The locusts would not let him retch the screams out of his intestines, where the thorns had planted their seed. And then they set him before the serpent, and the serpent spat thunder.
‘Nephew.’
The serpent touched him. It had the face of a man. The screams died and left only hard little pods that rattled in his bowels. Soon the warm liquid dissolved them.
‘Nephew, do you know where you are?’
Yes. Yes. I would tell you but man can no longer hear me. I talk to demons in their own language. Yes.
‘Neorion. Remember Neorion, Nephew.’
Then there were dreams, and in them the armies of Gog and Magog marched upon the earth. The Pantocrator spoke to him, from a mountain far away. He spread out his hands and revealed the kingdoms of the world, all little cities seen from a great distance. And then Michael slept, alone; the demons could not discover him beneath a cloud.
‘Nephew.’
He awoke with a start, the recognition like the sun on a hot sea. Neorion. I have been in Neorion. How long?
‘Do you know where you are, Nephew?’
Michael looked up and blinked. ‘Neorion.’
‘Yes. Five days. Your collapse was more complete than I had intended. ‘Joannes held out a silver goblet; Michael could smell the wine. He took a deep, desperate draught. ‘I am quite confounded as to what to do with you,’ Joannes said. ‘I had hoped you might make the acquaintance of some of your fellow guests, perhaps attend them in their time of travail among us.’ He waved his hand around the dimly lit, forbidding chamber, and the wine surged back up Michael’s gullet even though the racks and instruments Joannes indicated were not in use. ‘Now I feel that such a recourse would destroy your mind.’ Joannes picked up a pair of tongs and distractedly inspected them, clicking the jaws together. ‘You are so weak.’ He paused, as if this phrase were a matter of great philosophical interest to him. ‘You are so weak that I consider you too valuable to destroy. Yes. Consider it as I did. I am not unaware that the greatest prodigies of the sculptor are those in which the shape is first moulded in some malleable substance such as wax or clay, and then fixed in eternal bronze by the foundry master’s art. Because you can be shaped with such ease, you will be the substance in which I create works of astonishing complexity and endurance.’
‘I am certain you do not need my words to know how thorough my penitence is for my mad, utterly demonic, act against you.’
‘Yes. I observed your contrition.’ Joannes gestured to the goblet. ‘Drink, enjoy that. You have felt the lash. Now you have only to draw the cart.’
‘You know I will do whatever you bid, if only--’
‘Do not go on, Nephew. What I saw in your eyes yesterday was worth a lifetime of supplications from your lips.’ Joannes set the tongs back on the table with the rest of his instruments. ‘You were quite voluble before your isolation. I was intrigued by the depth of your friendship with our Blessed Mother. Having forced you to endure such an ordeal here, I would not like to deprive you now of the opportunity to seek the comfort of your Mother’s solicitous breast. I want you to go to her often, and seek her counsel about such matters as you have previously. I only ask that in exchange for your freedom you assiduously practise the mnemonic arts, and recite for me whatever Her Majesty has to say, however intimate or confidential. Should I discover that your recollection is less than complete, we will continue your instruction here in Neorion.’
Michael Kalaphates looked up at Joannes, his eyes rapt with gratitude, and whispered his thanks: ‘Uncle, yours is truly the voice of the angelic host.’
‘I hoped you would not look for me.’ Maria stood on the porch of her villa, facing a murky, malachite-green sea.
A Dark, steaming clouds rolled over the city to the west, and a broad shaft of rain advanced along the Golden Horn. She waved her hand as if throwing something onto the terraced lawns beneath her, but nothing left her clutched fist.
‘Why?’ Women are a mystery, thought Haraldr, hoping that this vague boyhood platitude might explain her unfathomable behaviour.
‘I wanted to be . . .away.’
‘Away from me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I will leave.’
‘Yes.’
Haraldr stood transfixed for a moment, then realized that she would not stop him. His hands trembled as he turned to walk down the steps to the jetty.
‘You are a liar.’ She did not look at him when she spoke.
Haraldr turned, grateful for any sort of reprieve.
‘Who are you?’ Her voice was so detached, it was almost as if she did not know she was asking a question. ‘You did not tell me the truth.’
Haraldr clenched his fists and jaw with the excruciation of his silence. He had sworn that secret to his brother, and to Jarl Rognvald, and so far had nothing but proof that their long-buried cautions had been anything but essential to his survival. And what Jarl Rognvald had told him about condemning other men had even kept him from telling Halldor and Ulfr, whom he trusted with his life. Even for Maria to know would be a threat to her. But none of those reasons were conclusive, even the soul-binding oaths to dead men. Only one reason truly held his
