certain you won’t mind losing them,’ whispered the Norse giant.
‘Well, worship, I … if I might presume in the presence of an eminence so overawing that I--’
‘What did you see, rabbit turd?’
‘I … ah … I believe someone has poisoned our Holy Father, has endeavoured to snatch the very sun from our skies and leave us bereft in a darkness that--’
‘Bite your tongue and listen, wharf rat.’
‘Certainly, worship.’
‘His Imperial Majesty is ill. More than ill. He is plagued by demons who drive the reason from him and will soon snatch away his life. Perhaps it is a punishment from the Pantocrator.’ The Hetairarch paused. ‘Do you know that our Emperor seduced your Mother?’
The Squirrel quickly crossed himself. There was only one woman in creation worthy of his respect, indeed his love. His purple-born Mother. ‘I have heard that, worship,’ whispered the Squirrel in a husky, truly humbled voice.
‘Where do you live?’
‘Studion.’
‘A long walk. Is your ankle broken?’
The Squirrel could scarcely believe his ears. Would a man who was about to slice his nose off and gouge his eyes out worry if he had far to walk? ‘I think it is broken, eminence.’
‘How much did you steal?’
The Squirrel pulled the purse out of his tunic and handed it to the Hetairarch. Mar hefted the purse and then pushed the man down on the pile of boots. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘Within ten minutes a man will come and bring you the donkey you are about to purchase.’ Mar reached in the purse and extracted a gold coin. ‘You will ride your new ass back to Studion as triumphantly as your Christ entering Jerusalem.’ Mar tossed the purse, the remainder of the coins untouched, back to the Squirrel. ‘When you get there, go to your inn. Buy anyone who will listen a cup of wine. And tell them what you saw today, just as I explained it to you. Need I tell you that my own name is not to be mentioned?’
‘Worship, you outdo fortune in the beneficence your unimaginably august and noble presence is capable of bestowing to those who are given life by the merest reflected ray of your shining being . . .’ The Squirrel trailed off. The Hetairarch had disappeared through a doorway like the Archangel ascending back among the heavenly host. Theotokos. Theotokos.
The Squirrel clutched the stolen purse as if it contained his miraculously redeemed life. Good information, he happily told himself. There is no limit to the value of good information.
‘What did you tell Gabras?’ asked Mar.
‘That you would be drilling me on the night postings around the Chrysotriklinos and Trichonchos,’ answered Haraldr.
‘Good. You are starting to think like a Roman. Now, if he is told – and I am certain he will be – if he is told that we were seen together, he will think nothing of it.’
Haraldr looked down from the terraced slopes that rose towards the massive, colonnaded flank of the Hippodrome. The lights of the vast palace complex glimmered below; the reflections off the variegated marble turned the intricate architectural tracery into a dazzling, multicoloured blaze. It was impossibly lovely. And impossibly painful to think that Maria slept there; he could see distinctly the brightly illuminated porticoes of the Gynaeceum, the Imperial women’s quarters. He could feel her breathing beside him like the faintest breeze, her slightly damp warmth. It hurt him more to think that she might have used him in a just cause; it was easier to imagine her as devoid of any redeeming virtue. With some perverse hope he wished that Mar’s ‘proof’ of Joannes’s conspiracy would turn out to be as counterfeit as her love. Then he would give Mar a last battle that would awaken every old god who slumbered in this city, and die cursing her for her treachery.
‘I could drink this view until the last dragon takes wing,’ said Mar, his eyes rapt at the shimmering nocturnal mosaic. ‘And yet here you must always be wary that you do not become intoxicated by this beauty.’ Mar shook his head. ‘Do you know the lays of Homer and the other tales of the Trojan War?’ Haraldr nodded. ‘Helen. I think of her at these times. Too much beauty. When there is too much beauty, men will do anything to possess it, to feel that she writhes in their arms alone. Sometimes I think that is true of this city and the glory it can offer men.’ He looked over at Haraldr. ‘Were you thinking of Maria?’
‘I … yes.’
‘You have loved the stars. I envy you. And I pity you.’ Mar clapped Haraldr on the back. ‘We must go.’
The garden, with its neat rows of shrubs pruned back for the winter and its fountains stilled, ended beneath the Triclinium, a little-used ceremonial hall abutting the Hippodrome. Haraldr followed Mar through the main hall, a space so enormous that Mar’s sputtering oil lamp could not illuminate the walls or ceiling. The two Norsemen’s footsteps echoed eerily, as if they were giants overwhelmed by the dwelling of even greater Titans. Finally the embossed eagles on the bronze doors flickered and materialized; Mar took a key from his belt and unlocked them. They entered a gallery that abruptly narrowed into a passageway only large enough for three men abreast. Then another much smaller bronze door. The gallery turned this way and that. More doors, clanging like thunder in the dark, narrow passages. Up steps. Down. Finally they reached a large circular chamber. A marble-balustraded spiral staircase rose into the darkness. ‘The Emperor’s box is above,’ said Mar, gesturing with the lamp. Mar turned towards the wall. The smooth plaster curve was frescoed with floral patterns; the squarish wooden panel hidden by twining painted vines was impossible to discern until Mar slid it aside and crawled through the opening.
Haraldr followed, sliding on his belly for a dozen ells. The crawlspace opened into another mazelike gallery. Eventually they halted at a banded iron door; after some difficulty with the lock Mar finally pushed the creaking door ajar. A large vaulted gallery led to a waist-high stone railing. Mar leaped over the barricade.
The night seemed almost lustrous; a whipping cold wind pushed the clouds towards the south-east and revealed a diamond-studded sky. The Hippodrome was completely darkened, but the towering obelisks and columns that ran the length of the central
Mar trotted across the firm sand to another arch barricaded by a stone railing. This gallery ended in a staircase that dropped two storeys. Music and voices rose up as the Norsemen descended. An ancient crone waited on the landing at the bottom of the stairs. She turned quickly. ‘A divination,’ she crowed. ‘I’ll divine the both of you for a single coin.’ She appraised the two giants with rheumy, sporadically focusing eyes, and smacked her toothless lips. ‘When I was a beauty, I took on two like you whenever I wanted.’ She tilted her head back and cawed. ‘You paid, and you came back the next night! Both of you did!’ The crone crawled forward on her knees. ‘Don’t I know you, gentlemen? Indeed! Indeed! Fair-hairs. The Bulgar-Slayer’s boys. You’ve got gold, that I know. The Bulgar- Slayer gave you each a coin for every nose you brought him. Butcher boys.’ She crawled closer, her eyes suddenly acute. ‘I’ll divine you the time, my fair butcher boys. Then take her! The whore’s yours; she’ll spread her legs and take on every one.’ The crone punched her tiny, nutlike fist obscenely. ‘I know you boys.’ Her head slumped and she muttered something incomprehensible. Mar dropped a coin at her feet.
Beneath the southern end of the Hippodrome unfolded a tawdry, haphazard maze of stables, hovels, inns, brothels and small tenements, all lit by so many flaring tapers that the smoke hung over the district like a local fog. Wherever a street was visible amid the densely packed buildings, people were visible coursing and clamouring along; little figures could also be seen perched in windows and balconies. ‘The Empress City has many faces,’ said Mar. ‘You will find this one interesting.’
Mar followed a main street that zigged and zagged. Men in short tunics, some carrying sacks of feed on their backs, others driving donkey carts, zipped across at the intersections, heading down dusty side roads towards the Hippodrome stables. A cart with two huge, striped cats caged inside rolled past, followed by dozens of filthy, barefoot children who ran along singing a song. Beside an intersection a woman stood on her hands; her tunic had fallen away to leave her lower limbs completely exposed. A man threw a coin to the pavement beneath her head, and she spread her legs open. The various fortune-tellers were everywhere, sitting on carpets or sheltered beneath painted booths. A diviner, an old man with greasy silver hair, beckoned to them from one side of the street; a palmist, young, with beautiful black hair and a big scar that parted her chin, waved from the other, ‘Hetairarch!’ she yelled; Mar nodded and walked on. A noseless man ran past them, a small costumed dog under
