tongue: he could not trust Maria. What Mar had said, what many men had said about her still haunted him. He was one of many, a caprice, as evanescent as those loves who had parted her legs before him. Two great fates warred for him now, Norway and Maria, but only Norway would always be constant. To surrender that lifelong fate to hers, and then to see it discarded like a necklace she no longer admired, would kill his soul before it ended his life.
‘Yes. I … withheld the truth. I will tell you what I told you the first time you asked that question, then. I cannot tell you.’
‘Mar knows.’
The sensation of alarm seemed to lift Haraldr off his feet for a moment. He did not even know how to get at this. Mar would never risk their plans unless he had intended to betray them all along.
‘He would not tell me, either.’
Relief quickly spawned anger. ‘You endanger yourself, me, my five hundred pledge-men, and anyone you ask that question,’ Haraldr snapped. ‘We are not children playing some game.’
‘Yes. Your game is different.’ She whipped her head around and glared at him, her face distorted with anger and anguish. ‘You think that because people die in your games that they are somehow less trivial than a child’s.’ She jerked her chin up violently. ‘I know how it is to kill a man, Haraldr Nordbrikt, Slayer of Saracens and Seljuks. I killed my first lover.’
Haraldr was not surprised; he had known, almost for certain, when Mar had first suggested the possibility. It explained much. He would be patient with her. ‘I know,’ he told her softly, and he reached out for her.
Maria recoiled. ‘Get away. I asked you to leave, Manglavite. If there is a drop of civilized blood in your
She lay mute, her eyes flat, the fire receded deep within. He kissed her neck, swooning with the taste of her, the softness of her skin. He now suspected one of her caprices; when would she erupt with manic passion, surprising him with something he could not even imagine? She maddened him with desire; he felt himself harden and pulled at the ties of her scaramangium. He reached up her robe and touched her thigh. She shuddered and pushed him away.
‘Stop.’ She sat up. ‘Do you care that I do not want to love you?’ Haraldr kissed her neck, and she slapped him. The sound seemed like a thunderclap. ‘I don’t want your touch. I don’t want your stinking
Haraldr denied the knife in his gut. ‘You are lying.’
Maria loosened the collar of her scaramangium and pulled the fabric down to reveal her left breast. The bite was a livid bruise, the teeth marks evident. Her eyes were furious. ‘I begged him to bite me. I asked him to do things you have never heard of. I was his slut.’
Haraldr already had enough images of her with other men. ‘Who is your lover?’
She laughed wickedly, a laugh he had never heard before, not even in the passion of love. ‘Do you want to kill him?’
‘You were not forced. You are not my wife. No.’ He made his decision and stood up. He watched her self- consciously stroke her bruised breast. ‘You love me. That is why you are driven to hurt me. You are as transparent as an image cut in glass. But I will not beg you for a love that causes you pain.’
‘You are a vain fool.’
He turned and walked out. She went to the window and watched through the greenish-tinted glass as he descended the steps to the jetty. When he was well out to sea in the small skiff, she ran to the porch. She could still see him, the distant speck of his blue tunic. ‘I have undone what the stars commanded,’ she told him through the salty wind whipping off the Bosporus. ‘I have given you back your life.’ Then she prayed silently to the Virgin that once before he died – the death she blessedly could no longer bring him – he would understand that she had loved him.
‘Little boy.’ Zoe stroked the curls from Michael Kalaphates’s forehead. ‘You should have come to your mother more quickly. The weeks have been an agony for me.’ ‘It has been . . . difficult for me, my beloved.’ Michael reclined on the sitting couch, his head propped forward by a damask cushion.
‘Yes. That terrible place. It is appalling even to consider the things he must have shown you there.’ She looked at him with a wryly erotic, subtle puckering of her lips. ‘He performed no alterations on you, did he, precious little candle?’ She placed her hand behind his neck and let her silk-restrained breasts touch his shoulder.
‘I am still . . . frightened.’
‘Nonsense. Such plots are commonly initiated, almost as commonly forgiven. You will not spend the rest of your life dwelling under some cloud, little one. He will attribute your failed conspiracy to my antipathy, and soon overlook yours. You are too important to him now.’ Zoe looked away, lost in a reverie she would never dare to speak of. ‘In any event, I will involve you in no more plots. You are too dear to me. There are many brutes I can employ for assassinations. You alone can author my pleasure.’ She leaned forward and placed her dry, sweet lips just on his. He spasmed. Zoe observed his swelling crotch. ‘It seems I am the architect of your pleasure.’ She smirked regally. ‘I touch you and raise a column.’
‘I am so glad I am alive,’ he said almost deliriously.
Zoe stood and lifted his hand. ‘I have discovered an unguent that imparts an indescribable silkiness to my breasts and thighs. You must try to find words for it.’
After the caresses, the sweating passions, the grateful reunion of their flesh, Zoe held Michael’s head to her breast. ‘I will never let him hurt you again,’ she said. ‘I am now more determined than ever.’
He lifted his head in alarm and looked at her with doelike eyes. ‘No. It is too dangerous.’
She hushed him with kisses. ‘I know. That is why I have selected a man both fearless and . . .expendable.’
‘Who?’ Michael whispered, his eyes wider still.
Zoe pressed Michael’s head to her breasts again. ‘The Komes … I mean, Manglavite, the Tauro-Scythian, Haraldr whatever.’ She felt the sudden stirring against her thigh and laughed gently. ‘Why, Nephew, I seem to have raised another column.’
‘It was not necessary to bring that.’ Mar pointed to the ceremonial fasces that Haraldr carried in his arms. ‘There is to be no procession.’
‘Yes, I understand,’ said Haraldr. ‘But I thought that once on the grounds--’
‘No.’ Mar was impatient and anxious. ‘In fact, you shouldn’t even have that out where it might be seen.’ Mar slipped his cloak off and wrapped the thick-shafted axe in it. He looked around and then whispered to Haraldr. ‘They are bringing him in a covered litter. With maybe a dozen Hyknatoi to guard him. They want to get him here without anyone taking notice. That’s why I am here, instead of with him.’
‘And they suspect something here? Is that why the Middle Hetairia has been summoned?’
Mar looked at his boots pensively. ‘I imagine so. You are the principal unit for dealing with riots.’ Mar leaned over and whispered even more softly. ‘I am not certain what is going on any more. You know how long it has been since I have even seen the Emperor.’ It had now been several months. ‘It is possible his recovery has been complete, and the purpose of this visit is to establish that he can indeed appear fit and able before his subjects.’
‘So perhaps all my cautions don’t seem so foolish now,’ Haraldr said goadingly. He was tremendously relieved to hear that the Emperor was mending, because otherwise he and Mar had got nowhere with their increasingly fitful conspiracy to rid Rome of Joannes. Even Mar had admitted he was making no progress on the miraculous alliance he had promised weeks ago; it was obvious it would come to nothing.
Mar shrugged placidly. ‘Well, we shall see what we shall see. Do you know what this is?’ Mar pointed to the gleaming new building, set back from a quiet side street by a broad, tree-rimmed lawn. The two-storey edifice looked much like a prosperous new monastery; a freshly plastered chapel with five tiled domes rose in the midst of a four-sided block of living quarters.
