‘What is that?’ whispered Maria drowsily. Haraldr sat up and listened. A door closed downstairs and he heard someone clanking through the halls. ‘One of my men,’ said Haraldr. ‘Damn. I hope it is not something that will require my presence in the palace.’
‘I hope not too,’ said Maria, wrapping her warm arms round his waist. ‘It is sad enough to say farewell in the dawn light. At this hour of the night--’
The chamberlain knocked on the ante-chamber door and Haraldr called out to him to enter. The light from the oil lamp glowed through the archway that separated the two rooms. ‘What is it, John?’ asked Haraldr.
‘Haraldr.’ It was Ulfr’s voice. ‘I am sorry, but the Emperor has requested that you attend him. He wants to be escorted to the Monastery of the Anargyroi.’
‘What?’ whispered Maria to Haraldr. ‘I thought he was spending less time with his holy men. To go off at this hour, in this weather, will only make him ill again.’
‘I think this may be the day we have waited for,’ said Haraldr. ‘The Emperor is going to Anargyroi to ask the saints’ forgiveness for once more entering his wife’s bedchamber.’ Haraldr kissed Maria and got out of bed with a sudden eagerness to meet the cold, wet dawn.
‘I don’t want any more pastries, and I don’t care for any more wine!’ shouted Michael Kalaphates. ‘I am the Caesar, and I demand to know why I have been summoned here in the name of the Emperor and have travelled most of the wretched night only to be greeted by chamberlains offering me pastries and wine! I demand to know when I can expect his Majesty to receive me! My uncle and I have waited for what I count as three hours now. We did not come here to mince pastries and sip wine to the accompaniment of cockcrow!’ Michael stood and glared at the trembling chamberlain, satisfied that his outburst had conveyed the importance of his abused Imperial dignity. The chamberlain bowed and retreated with his arms crossed over his breast.
Constantine looked around the sumptuously appointed ante-chamber; green Thessalian marble revetted the walls, and a silver candelabra illuminated the complex opus-sectile patterns on the floor. He plumped the scarlet silk pillow against which he was reclining, and fingered a gold tassel. ‘We are in the same building as the Imperial Apartments,’ he said. ‘As you know, I have never been invited there, but I have been privileged to familiarize myself with the location. Apparently our informal reception is in keeping with my Imperial brother’s regard for our importance. When I think that he has not even had the courtesy born of blood to greet me in the time I have been here.’
‘Well, this is preferable to Neorion,’ said Michael with false bravado. ‘When the simpering chamberlain reappears, I think I will have more of that wine. It is quite a bit better than I am getting . . .ah!’ Michael turned to the swishing of a silk robe but saw that it was not the chamberlain. The elegant, silver-headed Parakoimomenos entered the room and fell on his knees before the Caesar, as prescribed by protocol.
‘Well, at last – someone who can tell us what is going on here,’ said Constantine.
The Parakoimomenos stood and bowed. ‘Majesty. Eminent sir. The Emperor has commanded that you be lodged here in the Imperial Apartments until such time as he asks for you. Please send for me personally if you feel that any courtesy has been withheld from you. I will now direct the chamberlain to assist you to your bedchambers.’ The Parakoimomenos bowed and retreated as prescribed.
The renovation and expansion of the Monastery of the Anargyroi was still under way; a lattice of wooden scaffolding, visible in the first faint lightening of the sullen, wet sky, surrounded the unfinished west wing, and several broad areas of graded earth flanked the walls, awaiting the spring plantings. The reception portal in front had been finished, and the intricately foliate arches had a lustre of newly cut stone that even the lingering night could not conceal. The Emperor’s curtained litter was borne quickly through the south wing of the monastic complex and out into the newly landscaped courtyard in front of the church.
‘Why the secrecy?’ whispered Ulfr as the litter, carried by burly Khazars, halted beneath the open arcade in front of the church. ‘There is hardly anyone about in the city at this hour to see him. And I am certain he does not need to fear an assassin from among his people.’
‘I think,’ said Haraldr, ‘that he is overcome by a certain modesty, if I am correct as to what he is about. He has led a rather saintly life for many months, and now he is returning to more secular pursuits.’ Haraldr could not help but remember, with both acute guilt and pleasure, his night with the Empress. The Emperor would soon forget his saints and holy men.
The monk Cosmas Tzintzuluces looked inquiringly at the Hetairarch; Haraldr nodded for the monk to assist the Emperor from his litter. Haraldr liked Tzintzuluces, though he did not quite understand him; the monk truly loved the Emperor, and his ardent if extreme piety was, unlike that of most monks one encountered at court, unquestionably sincere. Haraldr also felt a certain sympathy for the frail, sad-eyed monk, who would soon have to watch his prize novitiate once again succumb to the perils of the flesh. With trembling fingers Tzintzuluces pulled back the curtain.
Haraldr and Ulfr prostrated themselves. When they rose, they clutched each other’s arms in a desperate reflex.
Bloated beyond recognition, his purple robes and glittering Imperial Diadem the only indications of who he was, the Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of the Romans struggled to stand. Haraldr rushed forward to help him and was met with the appalling stench of a corpse. He was aware only of the tear-blurred aura of the brilliant lights and glowing altar as he virtually carried the limp, grotesquely pulpy body into the sanctuary. Tzintzuluces and two priests helped him lower the Emperor to his knees. Haraldr stood, his mind reeling, and backed away. Joannes was beside him. Tears fell from the recessed sockets of Joannes’s eyes and glistened on the smooth slabs of his cheeks. ‘Holy Father,’ Joannes moaned in a weak, almost hysterical voice, a voice Haraldr had never heard before. ‘It was so sudden. The fit came on him two days ago. He suffered as never before. And then yesterday, I thought we had lost him. I thought . . .’ Joannes’s misshapen shoulders jerked spasmodically and he wailed. Tzintzuluces left the Emperor to the attentions of the priests and placed his spindly arms around the huge bulk of the fearsome Orphanotrophus. Joannes bawled like a child.
‘We must allow him to make the sacrifice now,’ said Tzintzuluces gently. ‘We must.’
Joannes fell to his knees and pounded his chest until it seemed the walls would shake. ‘Take me!’ he pleaded to the altar. ‘Take me in his stead!’
Tzintzuluces continued to soothe Joannes. ‘Please. We must. He has so little time.’
Joannes mastered himself with a great effort of will. ‘Yes,’ he whispered, his giant arms trembling with an animation of their own. ‘Yes. We must . . .’ His voice trailed off to a strangled sigh and he slumped to the floor.
Tzintzuluces returned to the kneeling, quaking Emperor and whispered to him. The Emperor began to speak in rattling syllables punctuated by gurgling sounds; it was obvious that the same enormous courage and physical will he had shown against the Bulgars would be necessary simply to complete the ritual he now undertook. ‘Most Holy Lord . . . King of Kings,’ he pronounced torturously, ‘may you find me … a worthy sacrifice . . . accept me to Your unstained Bosom . . . receive me in pure grace . . . when I have achieved … my consecration.’ The Emperor lifted his bobbing, bloated head to the priests. ‘I am . . . your . . . willing . . . sacrifice.’
The priests simultaneously signed him with the cross and began a long, mournful, slowly rising and falling chant. When they had repeated the invocations of the Lord’s Sacrifice, they gently removed the Emperor’s purple robe and placed over him a rough woollen mantle. They removed the Imperial Diadem from his head and with scissors clipped away his hair and beard. Finally they signed the cross over him again and stood away. It was a miracle of sorts that the bloated corpse could continue to kneel without assistance. And yet as Haraldr watched the shorn face of the former Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of the Romans, now a simple monk about to humble himself before the Pantocrator to whom all men must bow, he realized that the newly initiated Brother Michael’s eyes glowed with a happiness he had never before seen on the Emperor Michael’s face. ‘I am … ready … to begin my . . . journey,’ Michael said raspily, tears of profound joy streaming down his waxy, stubbled, hideously swollen cheeks.
Halldor came to Haraldr’s side; he alone seemed in command of his emotions. His cloak and armour were drenched from a renewed downpour. ‘You had better come,’ he whispered. Haraldr followed him outside into the courtyard.
The woman stood alone in the rain, her fur cape beaten down by the pelting cold drops. Haraldr did not recognize her tortured face until she spoke. ‘I must see him,’ said Zoe. ‘I must see him before--’ The Empress collapsed to her knees and pounded the sodden earth. ‘I must--’ Haraldr lifted Zoe to her feet and brought her
