Maria wended her way through the crowd, her teeth sparkling at the many compliments and greetings, her blue eyes blazing challenges at the disapproving Dhynatoi matrons. By the time she reached Haraldr, a troupe of young women and their ladies-in-waiting followed behind her, eager to watch the woman their parents so vehemently condemned. Maria greeted Haraldr and Argyrus with impeccable formality, nodding and then introducing her lady-in-waiting. But then she glanced over at Theophano Attalietes and the glaring Senatorial contingent and placed her hand on Haraldr’s arm. ‘I must introduce you to the wife of our foremost Senator,’ she said. ‘And you as well, Nicephorus Argyrus.’
Nothing, not even her fortress of attendants, could save Theophano; Maria’s ceremonial title. Mistress of the Robes, was exceeded only by the dignity of purple-born Augusta, and of course that of Empress. Maria performed the introductions in front of the bosom-heaving, almost apoplectic woman. Theophano was forced by her own rigid sense of etiquette to croak ‘Hetairarch’ and ‘Sir’ at the two subhumans. Satisfied, Maria led Haraldr and Argyrus away. ‘She will suffer the torments of the damned when she sees that you are to be seated to the right of the Empress.’ Haraldr became almost rigid. ‘Of course,’ explained Maria, ‘I am always at the Empress’s left, and you are across from me.’ Haraldr wondered at how small Rome had become.
‘I think the man you want never left Caesarea, my brother,’ said the monk, his eyes reddened and his brow furrowed from the effort of painting deep inside this rock . . . tomb. There was no other word for it, thought Constantine. Yet the raw fervour of this painter’s vision had converted the rock chapel into a primitive paradise where brilliant polychrome apostles hovered in precisely carved niches and gold-haloed Pantocrators looked down from the smooth-surfaced, perfectly contoured apse and dome. The pungency of fresh pigment challenged the omnipresent smell of limestone dust.
Constantine thanked the monk, left him a copper follis from his dwindling supply of coins, and stooped beneath the arched doorway into the fast-approaching, still-searing Cappadocian twilight. Despair had returned. He had already visited half a dozen of the largest chapels, and the suggestion that the Chartophylax had remained at the Bishopric in Caesarea was beginning to have credence, even though Constantine had already ascertained that there was no record of him in the Episcopal files. There was now only one large chapel left that might have any significant documentation. Constantine wearily mounted his wheezing mule.
The treacherous pathways between the cones were now crowded with monks scurrying to reach their sanctuaries before dark. This city of monks had attracted the usual urban vermin; Constantine had seen the secular ‘clergy’ of this place lurking in the shadows or just blithely sleeping in the shade, waiting for the darkness to come so that they could perform their sacraments of assault and thievery. Constantine identified the final chapel, and when he reached the broad base of the spire, he could hear evidence of expansion going on within the cone. He laboriously ascended the wavering wooden ladder – his hands were already blistered – and pulled himself over the lip of the porch. The noise was thunderous and the dust a hot talc thrust up his nostrils. Constantine pulled his veil tight around his nose and mouth and entered the single doorway.
Inside, bare-chested monks were visible through the reddish pall; they pounded iron chisels with heavy mallets like wretches condemned to the inferno. A monk working with a file smoothed the surface of one of a whole row of columns that these men had hewn out of solid rock. The sound of the hammering caused actual physical pain to the ears, and Constantine’s head ached. One of the brothers shouted at him through the din.
‘How can I succour you, brother!’ The monk was as powerful as a wrestler, and sweat yellowed with limestone dust beaded his entire face and beard. He signalled one of the brothers to bring Constantine a drink of water. The monk who brought the clay jug had dark, furious eyes; a strip of cloth was wrapped around the middle of his face, covering the slits where his nose had been. Constantine ignored the fearsome visage and greedily slurped from the noseless man’s wooden ladle.
‘The Lord’s work is unceasing!’ screamed the monk over the unremitting din. ‘I will not close my eyes in sleep, or my eyelids in slumber, until I find a sanctuary for the Lord, a dwelling for the mighty one of Jacob!’ thundered the monk, quoting Psalms.
Constantine had no reason to be encouraged; even the least scholarly monk knew Psalter by heart. He shouted back into the sweat-glistened ear of the monk. ‘I am looking for a Chartophylax, formerly of Prote! He would have come here five, perhaps six years ago.’
There was a flash of recognition in the monk’s eyes. He signalled his brethren to stop hammering. But his words were a disappointment. ‘A Chartophylax of Prote, you say?’ The monk shook his head and wrung the silted sweat out of his beard. Still, Constantine noticed that the other monks seemed to betray some knowledge; the noseless monk’s eyes shifted from Constantine’s scrutinizing gaze. ‘Well, of course, we have archives that go back to the time of Gregory of Nyssa. You are welcome to inspect them.’ He signalled the noseless monk to show Constantine the way.
The noseless monk lit a taper and led Constantine through a narrow series of galleries, then up a carved staircase to a room fairly well illuminated by two small square windows. Constantine sighed; the rock-walled scriptorium, with a single dust-covered writing table – apparently the monks here were more interested in works of stone than works on parchment -was lined with shelves full of dusty sheaves, many bound in ancient wood covers. He would be there late into the night, after an already exhausting day. But something told him that it was important he begin.
‘If he slips,’ said Zoe, leaning forward in her golden throne and pointing to the oil-glazed acrobat performing atop a pole balanced in the middle of the table, ‘then Lady Manganes will have a virtually naked man in her plate.’
‘Yes,’ said Maria. ‘I wonder if she will ask for some garos sauce to be ladled over him.’
Zoe laughed and lifted her fluted, scarlet-tinted wineglass. Haraldr felt both very sorry for her and very devoted to her. The pain of the continued separation from her husband showed in a kind of haunted darkness around her blue eyes; it was clear that she had hoped the Emperor might appear and surprise her. And yet in spite of how cruelly love had treated her, she obviously did not begrudge Maria and Haraldr their long, adoring looks. Instead she had played the gracious messenger of Aphrodite; she even had silenced the
‘Well,’ said Zoe, her disappointment a thin edge on a voice determined to provide others joy, ‘I have tipped everyone, toasted everyone who deserves to be toasted, sent enough bared acrobats’ breasts and buttocks among them to enact the forty martyrs of Sebaste’ – the martyrs in question had been forced to strip and stand in the snows of Rus until they perished – ‘shown them the latest beasts from the Indus, provided them with unremitting chorales, and have successfully commissioned a mime of the liaison of Ariadne and Theseus so explicit that I believe Lady Attalietes split her scaramangium in a combination of ecstasy and outrage. I believe that I can only exceed myself by ordering our illusionist to begin.’
Maria slid her arms across the table and leaned towards Haraldr. She was slightly taken by the wine but to charming effect. ‘You must tell me what you see,’ she said. ‘Some people will see nothing, some will see different things, many will see the same thing. It is interesting to compare.’
Zoe touched Haraldr’s arm. ‘Think of this as a waking dream. Do not be alarmed. The first time you see it, if you see it, you may think that angels – or demons – have taken hold of you, it is so wondrous.’ She smiled warmly and wistfully at him. Haraldr settled back, tense with anticipation despite the wine. He had considered much he had already seen in Rome magic. Now he would see what the Romans themselves considered magic.
The stage was a construction of gilded wood that had been erected at the east end of the courtyard, just behind the Empress’s table. It was a virtually freestanding building, with a high, vaulted ceiling from which three elaborate candelabra hung, providing the platform below with an intense golden light. At Zoe’s command the organs flourished and the tables full of diners hushed expectantly. An old, bowed workman of some sort shuffled out onto the platform. Inexplicably, the workman instantly vanished, and in his place was a much taller man, young and handsome, wearing a loose black scaramangium much like a monk’s frock. ‘Who am I?’ asked the man in a voice that carried like a herald’s and yet at the same time seemed conversational, as if he were sitting across the table.
‘Abelas!’ yelled some of the young men and women who apparently had seen the man perform before. Abelas listened for his name and then whirled like a cyclone, and when he was still again, his face was as white as a corpse and streaked with brilliant tendrils of fresh blood that ran down from his thick black hair. ‘Who am I!’ he shrieked, and whirled again. When he faced the audience this time, he was the old workman. He began to shuffle off the stage. Then a burst of light and a flock of white pigeons fluttered above the stage and carried Abelas away,
