Zoe’s finger traced over the engraved silver nymph again. ‘The beauty of dreams is that life does not hold us accountable for them.’
Haraldr eased backwards, the relief surrounding him like an eddy of the warm breeze. ‘And life can never entirely destroy the beauty of dream.’ In his gratitude he felt a residue of the passion that had joined them once.
‘The beauty, no. The substance, yes. Life so often destroys the substance of dreams, and yet so often provides us with new dreams. New beauties.’ Zoe sat erect and propped herself up with a silk-sheathed elbow. Her blue eyes had a diamond-like glimmer. ‘I have already thanked you in the name of Rome and the purple-born Empress for the lives of my people and the safety of our Empire. But you also know me as a woman, Hetairarch.’ Zoe’s full crimson lips curled with the merest hint of salacious irony. ‘And I have not thanked you as a woman for saving the life of my husband.’
‘He saved my life as much as I saved his, Majesty.’
Zoe nodded. ‘Yes. Like Achilleus, he has taken up his sword again, clad in the armour of the gods.’ Zoe stared as raptly as if the Emperor stood before her in his golden breastplate. ‘He will come to me, Hetairarch Haraldr. I have beseeched the Virgin with my prayers. Now that he is well, he will come to me.’
Haraldr sincerely hoped that Zoe would find this dream fulfilled. ‘Yes. He is a proud man, and justly so, and he did not want you to see him reduced by his illness. But I can assure you that his health grows more robust with each day. When he is the man you remember, then you will have him again.’
‘You are a gracious man, Hetairarch.’ Zoe eased back against the silk cushions. ‘You made love to me, and yet you do not begrudge me the resurrection of my love. So in kind I will not begrudge you the restoration of your love.’ Zoe leaned forward and looked at Haraldr earnestly. ‘Maria says that you two have conversed.’
‘Yes. We are starting to know each other.’
‘That will not be easy for you, Hetairarch. I have known Maria all her life, and yet she remains one of the great mysteries of my life. For all her beauty and . . . spontaneity, she has an ancient soul, profound and perhaps unfathomable. I do not know the depths of it.’ Zoe smiled warmly and the small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes became visible. ‘When she was a small child, my sister and I took her to summer at Botanci, on the sea. It seemed to us that she stared at the sea for weeks, nothing but that. And yet she seemed so happy to be alone, as if she had a secret child’s friend, a nymph who came up from the water when we were not looking. Finally we asked her who was out there. I remember her words so clearly because they were too sad for any child to speak. “Everyone,” she answered us. “The world will end in fire. I want to remember the time when there was only water.” ‘
Haraldr tried to see Maria as a child and wondered if even then, as she sat before the sea that had watched her grow and would see her wither and turn to dust, if even then she was moving towards him, and he to her. ‘She has told me that you were her parents’ friend. Were they worthy people?’
Zoe’s eyes were distant, as if she now sat beside that little girl and also stared into eternity. ‘They were the best of people. There were none more . . . worthy. They loved her more than . . .’ Zoe’s lips quivered. ‘How they loved her. Perhaps they would also have seen into her weary, tender breast and understood her. The rest of us can only love her.’
‘I want to love her and understand her.’
‘Yes.’ Zoe’s eyes were flat again, unmoved. ‘Do you want to take her to this Norway when you return?’
‘I don’t know. It doesn’t follow that what a man plants in a summer meadow he can reap beneath the winter ice.’
Zoe laughed, a silvery chime that was pleasant despite its melancholy. ‘How apt, Hetairarch Haraldr. I am glad you have come to us from Norway. Well, we must enjoy this summer, for it may be the most beautiful we will ever remember.’ She pressed her hand flat against the cold silver cask and looked at him and smiled.
‘There you see it, Eminence!’ Giorgios Maleinus shouted into the southerly bluster. The reefed sail of the small galley clattered the yard-arm above him; sixteen crewmen, scruffy labourers who could scarcely row in unison, bent to and fro at the oars. ‘Prote! East to Eden, south to Prote, I say! Glorious, is it not, Eminence?’
Constantine thanked the Pantocrator that He had not brought him to the Isle of Prote to acquire a monastery. This island was small, rocky, graced only with a verdant, wooded spine like a green cap on a bald man’s head. Even if the Imperial Palace had been placed somewhere behind the groves, the price Maleinus was asking would carry a loss. The island could not support any kind of profitable husbandry, not even a herd of goats or a single winepress, not to mention the vast acreage of arable land required to make a monastic establishment truly profitable.
The jetty on the northern end of the island was formed from large rocks, obviously stripped from the island’s own craggy flanks and tumbled into the sea. The galley tied up at a wooden wharf, still in good repair. ‘My lady.’ Maleinus gestured gallantly to his ‘cousin’, Irene, an ample-breasted woman with proportionately substantial hips and, observed Constantine, enough paint on her sagging face to decorate an Imperial galley. Constantine gratefully reflected that he was not one of those eunuchs troubled by such desires; Maleinus’s inducement would perhaps be put to better use by promising her to this crew of cutthroats to ensure they didn’t make off with the galley in their master’s absence.
The stairs, neatly hewn in raw rock, led to a completely disused complex consisting of a small stone chapel and a row of uninhabitable – at least by any civilized standards – cells. ‘It appears that one would have to do more than shoo away the birds, Maleinus,’ said Constantine sourly; what could he possibly discover in this miserable wreck?
‘No, no. Eminence,’ prostested Maleinus, his face as red as his nose, his lips gulping like a fish as he gasped from the effort of propelling the considerable Irene up the steps. ‘This . . . this … is merely the convent! It does not even figure in the price. Hasn’t been used for two indictions, if that. No, Eminence, you have not seen the wonders of Prote.’
Constantine walked over to one of the cells and kicked at the door. The decaying planks fractured, and one could hear the scratchy, alarmed rustle of small, unseen creatures. ‘It’s a ghastly place,’ said Irene in the struggling chirp of a large bird with a small voice. ‘To think of the nuns, all closeted away in here.’ To think of you, Irene, thought Constantine, walking the streets of the Venetian Quarter.
‘Well, as I understand, this was once the home to some relative of the Bulgar-Slayer.’
‘Indeed.’ Constantine felt the Pantocrator’s hand lift his sagging spirits. ‘Which relative?’
‘Well, most likely a woman, Eminence!’ Maleinus laughed wetly at his own jest, ending in a hacking cough. ‘Other than that, well, Eminence, you know how rumour dodges our efforts to grasp her and get a good feel of her.’ He winked at Constantine and then at Irene.
The birds fled in noisy regiments as the intruders crossed the forested ridge atop the island. Constantine immediately noted the architectural detailing when the monastery complex revealed itself between neatly arranged rows of cypress trees: the multiple domes of the chapel set on elaborately patterned cornices; deeply recessed arched windows divided with slender marble columns; carved window panels even in the rows of monks’ cells visible just above the thick defensive wall. Theotokos, exclaimed Constantine to himself. Someone with a great deal to atone for, and a great deal to atone with, had been the benefactor of Prote.
That conjecture was amply supported as Maleinus proudly displayed his merchandise: the chapel with its silver chancel screen and superbly executed mosaics; a storeroom full of golden censers and sacramental basins. The monks’ cells had floors of the richest opus-sectile marble, and the gold-tiled fountain in the courtyard near the library would have been suitable for an Imperial residence. Theotokos! Constantine eyed Maleinus with new respect; the old bandit was still asking more than the salvage price of this booty, but not so much that he wouldn’t find some fool at court to give him his price.
‘You see what the word of Giorgios Maleinus is worth now, don’t you, Eminence? Yes, you’ll never see me with some fancy title, but those that have them are not loath to deal when Maleinus comes offering! Now, Eminence, let me lead you to the crowning glory of this Elysium.’
‘Theotokos.’ Constantine could no longer keep his tongue at the sight of the library. Theotokos! There was a profit to be made here simply in the sale of the gem-studded gold, silver and ivory book covers, not to mention the value of the manuscripts. Maleinus must need the cash quickly, Constantine surmised.
‘Indeed, indeed, Eminence.’ Maleinus brushed the dust off a gilded scriptorium; his red-rimmed eyes suddenly had the vigour – and greed – of a badger contemplating a field-mouse nest. ‘Perhaps not the most
