banished, Theodora would have no rivals.’
‘Except the Emperor.’
Knutson blinked away his confusion. ‘I thought the Emperor was . . . well, you know all the nights we have joked about what we would do with an Emperor in the interrogation chambers of the Numera.’
‘Yes, Turmarch, but that was before little Michael had displayed this unusual ability to rid us of our problems. Consider that under the patronage of Theodora we will always be subject to the coercion of her purple-born status. But with Michael as our patron, we will have only to overcome the legacy of a parvenue. We might even be hailed as liberators when we usurp him.’
Mar crushed Alexius’s missive in his huge fist. ‘Turmarch, convey a message to his Imperial Majesty. Tell him I have returned from Italia on a mission of necessary secrecy and utmost urgency. I will be arriving at Bucoleon Harbour this evening to discuss matters of vital importance to the future of Rome.’
Knutson snapped out of the room. Bianca Maria sat up; a silken white night robe draped her bony shoulders and barely pubescent breasts. ‘Will I see the city tonight?’ she asked in a high, clear voice like the ringing of the finest glass.
Mar gently touched the straight dark hair that cloaked her slender neck. ‘Yes, little candle,’ he said softly, ‘tonight you will see the Great Palace of the Roman Emperor.’
Constantine slammed the wooden shutter and pressed his hands to his ears. ‘Even their noise is an assault!’ he shouted to Demetrius Metanoites, the young Roman commander of his Pecheneg guard. Metanoites opened the shutter again to see for himself, and the intensity of the shrieking drone rose perceptibly. He shook his head in amazement. Two storeys below him, the street was awash with women and children, all of them wailing as if the Last Trumpet had blown; their brilliant, beardless faces, flushed with rage, were like a field of rose blossoms amid the dull colours of their tunics. The wooden shafts of various tools rose above them here and there, but the principal weapons of this army, other than noise, were stones. With every heartbeat another missile pelted the front of Constantine’s town palace; not a single pane of glass remained intact. And now the raging, wailing maenads had begun pounding away at the walls with large rocks.
‘We are going to have to summon the Taghmata!’ shouted Metanoites.
‘They won’t slaughter these innocents!’
‘Then we must break out! My Pechenegs have no such reservations about killing the women and children of Rome.’
‘We still could not get through. You have seen how many they are!’
Metanoites pulled his wiry black beard for a moment. ‘We will send the Pechenegs out of the front gate, and we will leave through the rear entrance. We will need to change into simple tunics!’
A quarter of an hour later Constantine unbolted the front gate and sent two dozen Pechenegs, swords unsheathed, into the street. The screams rose to a hideous din; Constantine saw a flash of enamel-brilliant crimson before he turned away. He and Metanoites raced through the main hall and kitchens and slammed against the rear door. They surprised several women who were setting refuse afire in the alley. The smoke provided good cover, and after a short dash to the street they were able to merge unnoticed with the crowd.
It took half an hour to work through the mob and reach the Mese. The broad avenue was frantic with merchants and tradesmen and even some barebacked porters up from the docks; most were running towards the palace, and many carried bows and spears. A portly man in a plain woollen tunic puffed along with a rusty sword in his ruddy fist. Women were also about on the Mese; one dashed past, clutching a linen veil to her face. ‘Where is our Mother, our beauty, our noble Empress?’ she moaned.
The arcades of the shops along the lower Mese were shuttered. A crowd blocked the entire Milion Square near the end of the Mese. Spear shafts rising above the milling wool-and-linen-cloaked figures were now common. ‘Where is our Mother?’ every rage-rouged face seemed to be screaming. Metanoites stumbled over a middle-aged woman dressed in widow’s black who had slumped to her knees; she beat her breast with her withered fists. ‘Oh, Theotokos! Oh, Theotokos! Deliver our Mother!’ she wailed.
‘The Mother of Rome!’ boomed a male voice. The Bulgar-Slayer’s niece, and him from nowhere!’
Metanoites led Constantine through the mob, shoving bodies aside with fierce determination. Constantine could only thank the Pantocrator that his rough servant’s tunic had spared him the deadly recognition of the mob. At the entrance to the Augustaion, Constantine looked to his left. The enormous bronze equestrian figure of Justinian charged above a lake of wailing faces that filled the entire square and spilled over to the porches of the Hagia Sophia. ‘Heavenly Father!’ he shouted to Metanoites. ‘The entire city has come out!’
The giant Imperial Eagles embossed on the Chalke Gate loomed ahead. Constantine and Metanoites struggled with terrified urgency through clusters of well-armed tradesmen arguing about how to assault the palace. Close to the gate, the crush was so oppressive that Constantine was lifted off his feet from time to time. His chest ached and at one point it seemed that the pressure of the crowd would suffocate him. Somehow Metanoites got him close enough that he could have spat on the huge bronze doors. But that was as close as they could get. Metanoites was also blocked by the surging mass, and he looked back at Constantine desperately.
‘I know one of the guards!’ shouted Constantine to a beefy-faced man next to him. ‘Let me up there and I will get him to open the gate!’ The beefy-faced man shouted to someone next to him, and soon a group of five or six pushed Constantine towards the small, man-sized door set within the colossal gates. The security grate, set at eye level, had been battered away. Constantine removed his seal ring and dropped it through the opening. A face flickered at the grate. ‘Let me in!’ screamed Constantine.
‘Let us in!’ bellowed the tradesmen who had pushed Constantine forward. ‘Let us at the swine who have taken our Mother!’ Suddenly the small door cracked open and arms thrust out and yanked Constantine inside. Metanoites tried to follow, but he was not recognized by the Khazars. Their swords ripped open his belly. The beefy-faced man also charged. His neck was hacked to the bone, and he slumped, blood gushing. The door slammed shut.
Constantine’s chest burned like the fires of Hell and his head whirled. He was alive. He wished he had gold to give the Khazars; he promised them gifts as they returned his ring. He requested an escort to the Chrysotriklinos. As he headed past the Hall of Nineteen Couches, Constantine was shocked to observe business as usual in the palace precinct. The silk-clad eunuchs and bureaucrats glided along the colonnaded avenue; only once did Constantine see two officials – lower-level secretaries to the Sacellarius – stop and discuss the furious din beyond the walls, a sound as clearly audible as an approaching cyclone.
Michael sat on his throne beneath the gold dome of the Chrysotriklinos, listening to a report on the virtually defunct tax-collection apparatus in Theodosiopolis theme. His eyebrows shot up when he saw Constantine approach in his soiled servant’s tunic. Michael nodded at his eunuchs, and the vast chamber was quickly cleared except for the Grand Eunuch and the Pecheneg guards in their gilded breastplates and plumed helmets. ‘Whatever are you doing, Uncle?’ asked Michael, as if he were merely concerned about some prank. ‘I am so disappointed that you could not attend my presentation to the Senate. They were quite taken with it.’
‘Majesty, I have scarcely escaped with my life from my own house. The captain of my guard is dead. The entire city is up in arms.’
Michael fanned his hand languidly. ‘Then I shall announce an event in the Hippodrome and put an end to it.’
Constantine approached the throne. ‘Nephew,’ he whispered, ‘would you please walk outside with me?’
Michael’s face contorted with boyish displeasure, but he nodded for his guard to surround him and followed Constantine out to the porch of the Chrysotriklinos. The vast dirge from the city came like a gale from the west; it was perceptibly louder than when Constantine had gone inside only moments before. Michael listened for a moment, then studied his purple boots for a long while, apparently carrying on some inner conversation. He looked up and smiled. ‘How incredible,’ he said effusively, his dark eyes glowing. ‘The Pantocrator has already sent the means of our deliverance from this rabble.’ Constantine looked at his nephew with concern. ‘Yes, Uncle. It is true. The former Hetairarch Mar Hunrodarson has returned to save us.’
The interior of the Hippodrome was already in twilight. Halldor was the first into the vast, empty stadium and his boots crunched in the neatly graded sand. He and Ulfr walked to the spina and stood beneath the bronze pylons at the south end of the stadium. Behind him followed the Blue Star, a short, plump figure firmly mounted on a donkey. The Varangians came next and clustered about the south end of the spina. And then the army of the city began to enter. Rank after rank after rank marched through the gates. They wore coarse wool and burlap tunics; some were in beggar’s rags, some in fine Greek wool. The men with spears entered first, then men with swords,
