would have been better suited to this mission, he thought; fortunately the stallion hadn’t been lamed by the load. The Turmarch looked over his shoulder; he could no longer hear the riders, but he again saw their silhouettes on the ridge; in an instant they were gone. As considerable as that weight had been, it did not warrant the apprehension he still felt. The Turmarch decided he would walk his horse at first. Yes, that had been a great deal of gold. But the Turmarch was certain that it had not been the final payment.
In the darkness he felt silk on one cheek; something lighter, almost as fine, on the other. ‘Ar-eld?’ she whispered, her hair over him like a shroud. She burrowed beneath him like a silken otter, turning him on his side. It wasn’t dark, he realized as the shroud fell away. His Frey-spike was tempered as hard as Hunland steel, and her hand tightened around it. ‘Citron,’ he mumbled.
Her dark tresses receded down his gold-flecked, huge torso, her course as direct as it had been all last night. Kristr! Odin! And that had been only the prelude. Citron’s tongue had been insatiable, as if she were a hummingbird who could only take sustenance through that medium. Odin! Kristr! The things she had done with that tongue, he had never imagined. She was doing some of them again. Haraldr moaned and writhed, as if she were sucking the life from him. When she was done, he slept again.
He awoke. Light filtered around the brocade curtains. He vaguely recalled the room in the palace Citron had taken him to. She was standing by the window, wrapped in a green silk robe. She opened the curtains slightly and returned to him. She bent over and the dark hair fell and she brought her lips to his again. She reached within the sleeve of her robe and took out a white slip of Alexandrian paper and laid it on his chest. Then, springing as lightly as if she were once again cavorting high above the Great Hall, she danced to the door, slid it open, and vanished.
‘Citron . . .’ Haraldr lay back on the pillow and looked at the red wax seal. Who would be summoning him here? He decided not to prolong his anxiety and broke the seal.
The message was written in runes, in Gregory’s hand:
Sir,
We game with one another. Such pastimes are for girls like Anna. I hope Citron has reminded you that there are other games. Today we go to Daphne. You will be with me.
Maria
‘Daphne?’ Nicon Blymmedes could in no way believe what he was hearing. ‘You received none of my intelligence? Do you think I employ akrites and a kambidhouter and a mandator because they amuse me with their inventions?’ Blymmedes’s face was ripening rapidly. ‘The indications are unmistakable. We have evidence of very large movements to the west of Aleppo. And one of the brothers at St Symeon was blessed to elude a reconnaissance party.’
Constantine toyed with the large clamp used to stamp his seal in lead, absently snapping the iron jaws shut several times. Delightful, he thought, the way the birds had added their early-morning chorus to the melody of his fountains. ‘Domestic,’ he said insouciantly, ‘I am most impressed with the fashion in which your barbaric akrites can examine a pile of camel dung and from it deduce the size of the Caliph of Egypt’s army. However’ – Constantine rattled a sheaf of documents – ‘I have here my own intelligence, and it is considerably more eloquent than the carefully studied excrement your akrites offer us.’ He threw the papers down.
‘Assurances of safe passage from the Caliph of Egypt, as well as his vassal, the Emir of Tripoli.’
‘It is never safe to be careless!’ thundered Blymmedes. ‘All I am requesting is another day or two to send two light cavalry vanda west as far as Harim.’
‘Our Mother does not wish to wait a day or two. She wishes to leave for Daphne immediately. She does not wish to await the winter inclemencies while your cavalry collect more droppings to display to you.’
‘Fine,’ said Blymmedes, calming and searching for compromise. ‘We will leave today, but we will move quickly and set a proper camp for the night. Daphne is not defensible.’
The Empress wishes to stay the night there. I am certain that with two thematic armies in her cordon she will not need the warriors of the Domestic of the Imperial Excubitores to safeguard her Blessed Person.’
Blymmedes saw that there was no hope; even one Strategus outranked him, and apparently the two he now had to contend with agreed on this foolish course. The only other recourse was dangerous insubordination. And these two Strategi, whatever their woeful shortcomings at military command, had the abilities to see that he would be punished promptly and mercilessly for any usurpation of their commands. Well, defending Daphne would at least be a challenging exercise in tactical deployment.
Blymmedes bowed crisply. ‘We will be ready to leave Antioch within the hour.’
‘These, Mistress.’ Symeon’s scarcely living, parchment-like fingers decorously placed the documents, broken seals dangling, next to Zoe. The Empress was stretched out under iridescent purple covers; her ponderous gilt and white-lacquer Imperial sleeping couch required an entire wagon for transport.
‘These are the original documents?’ asked Zoe as she read; her varnished fingernails picked at the dried emollient that masked her face.
‘Oh, yes, Mistress. After we have opened them we always feel it is better to make an exact copy with a fresh seal and send on the duplicate. A keen eye can detect a seal that has been restored.’
Zoe continued to read and pick for several minutes. She leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes. Symeon stood patiently, a single bluish vein throbbing just beneath the membrane-like skin of his ancient temple. ‘How interesting,’ said Zoe finally. ‘Do you really think it is Attalietes?’
‘No, Mistress,’ said Symeon without hesitation. ‘These came to us too providentially for even Providence to account for reasonably.’
‘How interesting. Then it is someone else who wishes to make a fool of a fool. And only our Mother in heaven knows what they plan for us. How very interesting.’ Zoe’s eyes were still closed and she seemed to drift off for a moment.
‘Mistress?’ asked Symeon. ‘Is there something you wish done about this?’
Zoe seemed not to hear at first. ‘Oh, Symeon . . . No, if you please. Nothing. We will do nothing.’
‘Blymmedes seemed quite convinced,’ said Ulfr. ‘Of course, we have not surveyed the terrain at this Daphne, but what he told me made sense.’
‘I have no doubt we will find the situation as Blymmedes described it,’ mused Haraldr. He looked at the lifelike, almost crocus-golden statue of a woman that stood beside the broad, paved, gently rising avenue. Set well back from the road, a large villa glimmered like ivory behind a screen of cypress trees. Haraldr turned to Ulfr and Halldor. ‘I smell something rank and foul here. I smell a plot.’ He went on to describe the vitriolic exchange between Attalietes and the Empress the previous night.
‘Perhaps,’ considered Ulfr. ‘But Blymmedes said the Empress herself had commanded this, and that both the Strategus of Antioch and the Strategus of Cilicia were in agreement.’
Haraldr thought for a moment. He knew that Attalietes was the Empress’s enemy. If Joannes was also the Empress’s enemy, then Constantine could well be allied with Attalietes, despite the disdain of the Dhynatoi for the eunuch. ‘I think I will find out what the Empress commands with my own ears,’ Haraldr said, motioning to Gregory to join him. He spurred his horse and turned back towards the Imperial carriages.
The Imperial Chamberlain Symeon rode in his own carriage with his own eunuchs riding in attendance. He pulled back the crimson curtain and peered out; his slightly jaundiced, watery blue eyes looked as if they would slide off his face.
Deceptive eyes, thought Haraldr; he had seen the authority in them the night before. ‘Chamberlain, I hope you will not think it impertinent if I discuss with you my anxiety about the safety of Our Mother.’ Symeon nodded. Haraldr recited Brymmedes’s concerns while Symeon fixed him with a curious look; not indifferent, but perhaps regarding Haraldr as only one of an entire multitude of things he witnessed at once. Then Haraldr added, ‘You will see that we are dependent on the thematic armies to guarantee the security of such a diffuse perimeter. Tonight will we sleep with the assurance that these bricks have been set with the proper mortar?’
‘Komes,’ Symeon intoned with ancient resonance, ‘the Empress herself is the architect of her fate. She has set these bricks you speak of in the pattern she finds most pleasing.’ Symeon closed the curtain and his carriage rumbled on.
‘Daphne.’ Zoe pulled aside the curtain and inhaled deeply. ‘You can smell the roses.’ She watched as her carriage passed a long marble pergola smothered with ivy. She inhaled again. ‘The air is as fragrant and pure as the water. You know how they say, “Antioch, near Daphne”, don’t you, dear? You have to be here to realize how true that is.’ Zoe again imbibed the fresh, floral-scented air. ‘Cypress, pine, roses . . . paradise! Fair Daphne, your
