Haraldr clutched Michael’s shoulders, and the Emperor recoiled with pain and fear. ‘Where is Maria?’
Michael collapsed to his knees. ‘Oh, Father!’ he wailed. ‘Oh, Father!’ He pounded the earth. ‘Father, you have forsaken me. Oh, Holy Spirit, smite my foes!’ Michael tore at the sparse clumps of grass and tossed handfuls of dust and chaff in the air. ‘My Father, why have you forsaken me!’ He wailed hysterically, his shorn boy’s face livid with distress, his eyes luminous with tears that left dusty tracks on his face. He sobbed and then shrieked, ‘I cannot forgive them and neither could you! Don’t lie to me! Don’t lie to me! You always lied, didn’t you? You are Satan. You are Satan! You tricked me!’
The crowd surged inward and the vortex compressed. Constantine was pushed into Haraldr. ‘Oh, Lord, have mercy on us sinners,’ Constantine sobbed. The crowd hurled oaths wildly. ‘Skin them!’ ‘Cut their throats!’ ‘Death to the tyrant! Death! Death!’ Haraldr remembered Maria’s description of her dream in every chilling detail. She had the gift, and yet fate did not always obey her. ‘Death to the tyrant!’ shouted the mob again and again. The sun had set and there was a final coppery tint in the thickening, swirling dust.
‘You must act!’ shouted Psellus. ‘In a moment the mob will have its way. That lust must never be consummated or all Rome will perish in its heat.’ Halldor held up the sharpened spikes and looked grimly at Haraldr. ‘Psellus is right. You must act now if you wish to spare them.’
Constantine clutched Haraldr’s arm, his grip firm and his face now resolute. ‘You!’ he commanded Haraldr. ‘Please order these people to stand back. I will show you how a man of ability bears his calamity!’ Haraldr pushed the labourers away and cleared a space for Constantine to lie down. Constantine sat on the scoured, dusty turf. Haraldr signalled to Halldor and Ulfr to lay him down flat and hold his arms and legs securely; if he moved about, he might be wounded even more severely. Constantine looked up at Haraldr, his eyes spitting their final rage. ‘Look, you! If you see me so much as budge, then you may
Haraldr worked quickly. He pressed the right eyeball to one side of the socket, jabbed it firmly with the sharpened spike, and the sight flowed out in a glutinous serum. He took the left eye and stood up. Constantine rose with him and Psellus helped hold the blind man up. ‘I do not fear the darkness,’ said Constantine to that darkness.
‘Please spare me, Nordbrikt! Satan lied to me! He said he was the Pantocrator! I let them live! He wanted me to kill them but I let them live!’ Michael spat as he screamed. ‘Satan has fouled me! The true Pantocrator will have to cleanse me!’ Michael threw his arms around Haraldr’s knees and clung to him, trembling with spastic fury. ‘Father! The Pantocrator must cleanse me. I must live to be cleansed. My mothers must cleanse me. Mother, oh Mother, oh Mother, oh Holy Father! Let me live so that I may be cleansed.’
Michael’s pleas only inflamed the surging lust of the crowd, and Haraldr forced him to the ground in the tiny space cleared by Halldor and Ulfr. He pressed heavily on Michael’s chest, compressing his lungs so that he could no longer cry out. Michael’s legs and arms continued to twitch madly. Haraldr lowered his face to the already unseeing eyes. ‘I will let you live,’ he said, ‘if you will tell me where Maria is.’
Reason flew over Michael’s face like the shadow of a passing bird. ‘Oh, Holy Father, let me live,’ he said raspily. ‘I do not need my sight to repent in the pure light of Your Being.’ He blinked again, and his dark eyes saw for the last time. ‘I did not harm her. She is with Zoe.’ Michael strained forward and focused on Haraldr. ‘This was arranged for us, was it not? In the Mother Church that day.’
Haraldr nodded. ‘Yes. I, too, felt . . . it.’
Michael’s head fell back and he awaited fate. ‘Some day a king will show you mercy,’ he whispered. Haraldr brought the spike down twice, swiftly but carefully, to destroy the raven’s reflection in the dying sight of Michael Kalaphates.
Haraldr helped Michael to his feet and Constantine reached out for his nephew. The former rulers of Rome were guided to each other’s arms and they embraced in a darkness they alone could share. The noise of the crowd receded outwards from the vortex, fading like the denouement of some vast orchestration. The wind was audible again, a harsh, scouring sound, as it buried the twilight in a shroud of dust. Silently the great crush of people fell away, recoiling more with fear than satiation from the evidence of destiny’s implacable hand; they retreated through the shadowed borders of the park and left Michael and Constantine to the soughing empty night. Yet no sooner had the crowd vanished than a new chant began a haunting ascent from the surrounding city, rising to confront the swirling wind. ‘Theodora! Theodora!’
‘Children! Children!’ pleaded Alexius. ‘The weight of all of you will collapse your Mother Church! As many of your brothers and sisters as this sacred roof can shelter have been admitted! Let them be your eyes! And the purple-born daughters of the Pantocrator will appear to you soon to bless you for your forbearance!’
The crowd let loose a thunderous acclamation and halted its menacing surge against the west facade of the Hagia Sophia. Haraldr looked out from beneath the arches of the narthex; he stood just behind the Patriarch. The area encompassing the porch, portico and garden in front of the church was a black-and-gold tapestry of flaming tapers; the gradually diminishing pinpoints of light filled the Augustaion and ascended the Mese towards the Forum of Constantine. The entire city had come to welcome its Mothers.
Alexius turned to Haraldr and asked him to precede him through the mob that had squeezed into the narthex. The faces that blocked the way were a cross section of the great city: dirty-haired labourers; a puffy- faced, silk-garbed merchant; scented bureaucrats; even a beggar crawling with lice. These heads lowered deferentially and the bodies tried to move respectfully back, but the crowd was so dense that they could scarcely move, and Haraldr had to bull through with the Patriarch tucked in behind him.
The immense circular candelabra floated with galactic splendour beneath the light-wreathed dome. Glowing stringcourses of candles and oil lamps ran along every cornice and ledge. The floor was a solid mass of people, and the towering second-level arcades were filled with entire populations. The carved balustrades of the narrow walkways above the arcades seemed on the verge of giving way beneath the weight of the people squeezed behind them; the slender stone ledges in front of the railings were perches for hundreds who clung precariously to the intricate grills. The people had even found their way to the catwalk that encircled the base of the hemispherical central dome, and hung in even more perilous positions more than a dozen storeys above the heads of their fellow citizens. It was only a matter of time before someone plunged into the crowd.
Theodora, flanked by her chamberlains, stood on the silver roof of the ambo, directly beneath the central dome. She was attired in the same purple-and-gold robes and ponderous diadem she had worn throughout the afternoon. Haraldr pushed through the crowd and after an arduous journey delivered Alexius to the marble staircase of the ambo. Alexius motioned for Haraldr to come up the steps behind him.
Theodora’s lips puckered with fatigue and fear. She looked gratefully at Alexius and then Haraldr as they stepped onto the roof beside her. Alexius stood next to her and motioned to Haraldr to stand directly behind the Empress, so close that he could have embraced her. The glittering pearl-and-diamond lappets that coursed over Theodora’s ears trembled slightly, reflecting the agitation of their wearer.
‘I must acclaim you,’ said Alexius. ‘They are growing impatient.’
‘No,’ said Theodora, her voice slightly tremulous. ‘Wait another half hour. I know she will come.’
Alexius looked out at the sea of expectant faces. ‘I will delay for a half hour,’ he said. ‘Then I must, and pray that our Holy Father’s sanction can overcome your sister’s enmity.’ He steeped back from Theodora and pulled Haraldr aside. ‘You have been through the city and dealt with the factions. What is your assessment?’
‘The poor folk will accept Theodora alone. The guild and trade factions expect to acclaim both Empresses,’ said Haraldr grimly. ‘If they are not both presented here tonight, the factions will turn on one another. The guildsmen are already rumbling their threats.’ Haraldr pointed to the Varangians who ringed the base of the ambo. ‘I am certain my men can escort the Empress safely to your apartments, but we will have to stain our swords with the blood of this morning’s comrades and profane the floors of this holy place. And by tomorrow morning there will be a full-scale civil war in the streets of the city. Even my men and the Taghmata will not be able to quell the violence. Rome will be destroyed.’
Alexius blanched slightly, but his eyes did not flinch from Haraldr’s forecast. ‘Yes’ – he nodded gravely – ‘you are quite astute. You will be an able king.’ His eyes slowly swept the huge church. ‘I will wait as long as I can. Then I must acclaim her. Better that we please half of these than no one at all.’
The half hour passed beneath the blazing lights. ‘Where is Zoe?’ shouted a guildsman near the ambo. The
