standards of Constantine’s thematic army were already lost in the leaden pall. Until today the retreat from Antioch had been strangely foreboding, in spite of every reason for celebration. Of course, the pilgrimage had been terminated after the Empress’s harrowing ordeal; clearly the Saracen guarantees of safe passage were worthless. Haraldr had held his guard in constant battle readiness until five days ago, when the Imperial party had come as far west as Ancyra, where Saracens had not penetrated for centuries. And Blymmedes still sent out two reconnaissance vanda well before each dreary dawn. Even Constantine, who had been so dilatory before the abduction, had insisted on contributing his thematic army to Her Imperial Majesty’s safekeeping and now quite obviously intended personally to command the escort all the way to the Empress City. Certainly his principal motive was to reap an undeserved share of the credit for Her Majesty’s deliverance, but nevertheless he had taken his command seriously on the return journey.
Apparently the Empress had suffered greatly from her captivity. She had seemed well enough and at ease when she had received her champions after her rescue; Constantine, Blymmedes, Haraldr and Kalaphates had all been honoured with gifts of robes and solidi and profusely grateful benedictions from the lovely Imperial lips. But then the Empress had plunged into deepest seclusion. Each day she ordered the carriages to begin their creaking advance before dawn and would not command halt until the tinted twilight had begun to char into the smothering blackness of the Anatolian night. Then she would disembark directly into her tent. Symeon had turned into a fierce, ancient reptile, hissing at the merest suggestion of an intrusion on her Majesty’s privacy. Even Kalapahates, who had recovered sufficiently from his mostly superficial wounds to join his uncle’s retinue, had not been permitted to see his Blessed Mother.
And Maria. Since their eyes had met that terrible and beautiful morning, nothing. For six weeks now, no word -not even a glimpse of her silk slippers. Just the memory of what had passed between them in that moment when love and death had embraced over the great abyss of time. They were still together, plunging into a blackness lit only by the torch of their joined souls. That was the truth she could not confront.
Until now. Haraldr put his hand to the message he had placed against his heart. Tonight,’ she had written, ‘I will send for you.’
‘Komes.’ Haraldr was doubly shocked. He had not expected the Empress, and not in this setting.
Glowing braziers offered the only light, and a dry, clean, aromatic heat. Everything was tinted red; the Empress’s lips were like fresh blood. Zoe curled on the cushions like a panther; there was a sense of power, even viciousness, latent in her lithe limbs. And there was much of her limbs to see. The sheerest lilac silk, hardly more opaque than the drizzling mist outside, clung to her breasts and hips. Haraldr helplessly noticed that his Blessed Mother’s nipples were large, flat areolae.
‘Komes Haraldr.’ The voice was like liquid desire. ‘Can you speak without your little tongue?’
Haraldr had been asked to come without the ubiquitous Gregory; now he was grateful for the concentration Greek required. ‘Yes. I have learned a great deal on this long road.’
‘Yes, you have,’ Zoe said, enunciating carefully. ‘I am impressed by your fluency.’
Haraldr thanked Christ’s Father, Lord God, for the many tongues he had created in his tower at Babel. The barrier of language seemed to take the seduction out of Her Imperial Majesty’s voice. ‘It is my intention to become, as you Romans say, “civilized”.’
Zoe’s eyebrows quivered and set with a slightly elevated arch. ‘Yes. But you must retain the … impetuousness of your race. I believe I owe my present comfort, if not my very life, to your . . . instincts. I want to thank you more properly and more privately.’ A serving eunuch brought wine in response to some signal Haraldr had missed.
Haraldr took his goblet. Perspiration began to bead on his back but he felt a certain stimulation. Maria had proven herself fond of such preludes. Then he almost choked. Christ! Citron! Surely he was not intended to use the Empress as he had Citron?
‘So, Komes Haraldr.’ Zoe raised her goblet, her smooth white arm compressing her ample breast. The nipple had now become slightly erect. ‘Let us raise a cup to your future as a civilized man. And let us hope that you do not become too civilized.’
Suddenly Zoe stood, and Haraldr scrambled out of the couch and onto his knees, his head bowed as prescribed by protocol. He could hear the Empress swish towards him. He closed his eyes in terror like a man expecting the blade to kiss his neck. The Imperial fingers tousled his hair like a breeze. ‘Golden silk,’ she said, her voice frightening, but only in its sorrow. Then the touch of the purple-born fingers was gone. Eyes shut tight, Haraldr again heard silk rustle.
‘You may rise, Komes Haraldr,’ said Theodore in his droning tenor. Haraldr stood and crossed his arms over his breast. Zoe waited by the curtained brocade partition, apparently to take leave of her guest. She was now wrapped in a glistening black sable cape faced with purple satin.
‘Komes, am I a fool to be certain of your loyalty?’
‘We would both be fools if you could not be certain of that loyalty.’ Haraldr’s unhesitating pledge brought him not even an inkling of anxiety; in the long, monotonous weeks since the rescue he had allayed many of his suspicions. The Romans, he had concluded, were more incompetent than treacherous; when the arrows had begun to fly, they had defended their Empress with absolute unanimity. The sorely misjudged Attalietes certainly had been a colossal blunderer, but ultimately he had given his life to defend the Empress. Constantine was equally inept, but had he truly conspired against the Empress, he would have obstructed or opposed Blymmedes’s rescue mission, rather than approving it and in fact facilitating it with his temporary withdrawal. And Joannes’s nephew, Michael Kalaphates, had come very close to his own mortality fighting at the door of the Empress’s carriage. Certainly the Romans had their internecine feuds – every court did – but in this case it was obvious that the ‘conspiracy’ he had imagined was actually a Seljuk adventure. And as for the attempt on his own life, he still did not discount Mar’s involvement, but he was certain that no Roman had sent his would-be assassin.
Zoe fixed Haraldr with the certitude of centuries-old power. Her seductive lips became muscular, shaping her words as if they were to be carved in stone. ‘Komes, Maria is coming for you. She has much of which to speak with you. But she will also ask a question in my name.’ Head erect, Zoe vanished in a whisper of sable and silk.
Theodore ushered Haraldr back to the lavishly cushioned couch. He waited, smothered in down and plied with wine, for what seemed an hour. Then the brocade was lifted away and Maria appeared with heart-stopping suddenness. She wore a coat of pale blue silk trimmed with white ermine; the collar of snowy fur came up to her chin, and her skin seemed like the whitest marble against it. Her raven hair was loosely pulled back and set in a single braid.
‘I am sorry. Our Mother wished to speak with me.’ She looked at her slippers, the same white silk with pearl beads that she had worn to the banquet at Antioch. There was no intimacy in her voice. It was as if Hecate – Haraldr sucked in a breath almost audibly at the memory of what lay beneath that coat – had never happened. ‘We are only two days from Nicaea. In a week we will be in the Queen of Cities. I long for my home. Do you miss your home?’
‘Yes.’ For the first time in weeks Haraldr thought of the debt he must pay to the kings in whose footsteps he followed. And yet how could he leave her now?
‘Do you remember the stadium in Daphne?’
‘Yes. I remember everything at Daphne.’
Perhaps her cheeks became more deeply tinted, perhaps it was the play of the braziers on her usual glow. ‘Together we heard the echoes, the acclamations to the heroes of ancient Hellas and old Rome. When we return to the Empress City, you will be the hero of new Rome. In the streets they will sing your name.’ She looked up at him for the first time. The intense blue of her eyes was always a fresh marvel. ‘Who will one day walk in those ruins, to listen for your name? Will they be as we were, lovers in search of their own fate?’
Haraldr felt the surging in his breast and the stirring in his loins. She acknowledged . . . them. Or was it no longer them but a single being, a new soul born in that terrible instant? ‘I know my fate,’ he told her softly.
‘Yes. So do I.’ She stood suddenly. ‘Come to my bed.’
Haraldr struggled to his feet and reached out with a trembling hand.
Maria stepped away. ‘No. You must promise not to touch me except where I touch you. You cannot ask me except what I ask you.’ Then she touched his hand with the hot brands of her fingers.
The partitioned chamber in the Imperial Pavilion had room for little more than a large wooden bed frame covered with thick down quilts. There was no light from lamps or braziers but the room was quite warm. Maria
