at Ostenson to show the Varangian out.
When the Varangian had left, Ostenson closed the door again and studied Mar, frank, farm-boy astonishment on his ruddy face. ‘May I speak, Hetairarch?’
‘I didn’t appoint you Centurion because I thought you were a fool. Go ahead.’
‘Hetairarch, that was a very minor incident, and one that did not take place in the palace precincts. Some Varangians of both the Middle and Grand Hetairia were drinking at the same inn, and one of the Manglavite’s men lured this man’s whore away by flaunting the gold in his purse. And it wasn’t just the whore they were fighting over. The men resent that the members of the Middle Hetairia are in most cases wealthier than them.’
‘I am aware of that, Centurion. That is why I want to make certain that whatever feelings of ill will that presently exist are not exacerbated.’
Ostenson still looked astonished. ‘Hetairarch, I don’t see how our interests are served by allowing the Middle Hetairia and the Manglavite to presume such importance.’
‘We are working with the Middle Hetairia towards a common objective. As soon as my plans are complete, I will explain them to you fully, and you will understand. In the meantime I need harmony among the two divisions of the Varangian Guard, and I am charging you with that responsibility. I myself will be working closely with the Manglavite Haraldr Nordbrikt.’
‘Hetairarch.’ Ostenson paused and then decided to test the limits of his relationship with his commander. ‘Hetairarch, when this common objective is achieved, won’t it be dangerous to have so strengthened Haraldr Nordbrikt? He is already a hero in the city. You cannot drink anywhere without hearing his name. Saracen-Slayer. Saracen-Slayer. I think he has the potential to be a dangerous rival to you, and you are merely encouraging his rise.’
It happened too fast for Ostenson’s comprehension. He saw Mar leap to his feet and lunge towards him, and then felt the huge force of inertia as he flew into the wall behind him.
When he came to, he was leaning against the wall, his feet outstretched, his head hammering. Mar was sponging the back of his neck.
Mar pulled Ostenson to his feet. ‘Never presume what I am or am not doing, Centurion,’ he said evenly.
The Bogomil twisted a lock of his long stringy hair and looked earnestly at Maria, with all sincerity trying to avoid so much as a glance at the jewelled icon of the Virgin hanging on the wall behind her; he regarded such images as manifestations placed upon this earth by Satanael, the eldest son of God, to confound those who truly believed in God and his two younger sons, Christ and the Holy Spirit. ‘The Antichrist,’ the Bogomil intoned in response to her question, ‘will be Satanael in his final form. When he is vanquished, the entire world will blaze with flame and a hurricane of wind and dust will scour the earth and raze the very mountains and obliterate the valleys, and all that will remain will be as flat and white as a sheet of parchment.’
‘How marvellous.’ Maria tried to envision that glazed, featureless, bone-white surface. Perhaps death was an all-consuming white light, she fancied to herself, not the darkness she had so often imagined. But of course these were the fables of heretics. She smiled at the gentle fanatic who sat on the carpet opposite her; before his conversion to the Bogomil sect the young man had been an idle Dhynatoi scion whose only passions were dice, polo horses and betting on races in the Hippodrome; he had often kept company with Ignatius Attalietes. ‘So why do you Bogomils oppose the sacrament of marriage?’ she asked, steering the impromptu sermon towards another of her favourite subjects.
‘It is impure. The unchaste love of a man for a woman is an act of obeisance to Satanael, who created the physical world.’
‘But if God perfected Adam, who gave life to Eve, who was seduced by Satanael and gave birth to Cain and a daughter you Bogomils call Perfection … I am correctly stating your beliefs, am I not?’
The Bogomil nodded. His placid, dreamy eyes blinked once, then twice, suddenly wary.
‘So if a perfect woman resulted from the illicit union of Satanael and Eve, was there not an element of purity in their congress?’
‘But Satanael and Eve were not joined in the sacrement of marriage. Nor was there love between them.’
‘Exactly. So Eve and Satanael fornicated as beasts do, and yet their spawn was a perfect woman child.’
‘And accursed Cain.’
‘I am only suggesting that the woman fornicated and conceived a daughter who was without sin. I do not care what crimes your Satanael urges men to commit.’
‘Satanael is prompting you to say that.’
Zoe appeared beneath the carved stone lintel of the door that connected Maria’s ante-chamber to the Imperial apartments. She clapped her hands. ‘Little daughter! You have confounded the heretic!’ The Empress walked over and rustled the Bogomil’s hair; he shrank away from her as if Satanael himself had reached forth his hand. ‘You would do better with the Euchitae, my darling,’ Zoe said to Maria. ‘They abhor the world of the flesh while permitting every kind of sexual excess.’ The Bogomil shot to his feet and scurried out of the room without another word. Zoe looked after him with mock despair. ‘Why is it that our invitations to Paradise are invariably extended by men with a peculiar, one would almost say, unnatural, horror of women?’
‘Perhaps they remember that it was a woman’s crimes for which they lost Eden.’ Her tone was suddenly wistful.
Zoe frowned slightly; even this casual distressing of her features seemed to age her dramatically. ‘Little daughter, you are not still reflecting upon the fruit you did not succeed in offering to your . . . companion, Haraldr Saracen-Slayer or whatever. I really believe that of all the melancholies you have nursed over the years, this is the most severe and worrisome. I can’t imagine that you still dote on him. Perhaps he has not forgiven you your little betrayal of his earnest Tauro-Scythian passions, but he has certainly forgiven our sex. You do know that he has become a frantic devotee of Priapus in the months we have been confined here, do you not? Apparently he is intent on impaling a new woman each day; perhaps it is some Tauro-Scythian custom. He has taken a whore to live in his palace, and do you know Danielis, the wife of the Curator of the Magnara? She is one of his conquests as well. Can you imagine her? I always considered her to be so … conventional. When I heard of the two of them, I conjured the most remarkable image. And of course you have heard about our dear little Anna. I must say there is a point at which we must be just a bit … censorious of these affairs. She is just a girl.’
‘She is not a virgin,’ said Maria sullenly.
‘Oh, dear. I seem to have missed that. When was it?’
Maria looked at Zoe as if reproaching her for her high spirits. Zoe frowned again and sat next to her; she stroked Maria’s sable-soft black hair like an admiring suitor. ‘I am not mocking you out of spite or even boredom, my little darling. You know that in my heart you are my first-born, the dearest child of my soul, if not of my loins. This melancholy of yours, which has apparently driven you to interviews with Bogomils, has rended my own heart. So I have . . . negotiated on your behalf.’ Zoe kissed Maria on the cheek. ‘I have won your freedom to come and go as you please.’
‘Mother!’ Maria threw her arms around Zoe. ‘So that is why you were teasing me!’ She hesitated. ‘But I will not leave you here alone.’
‘You are not leaving me alone.’ Zoe’s smile was enigmatic. Maria presumed that Zoe had taken a lover; she was often closeted in her sealed apartments late at night. ‘I think you should go out tonight,’ said Zoe. ‘Your friend Nicephorus Argyrus has initiated another clever enterprise. He has opened a hostel for the sumptuous lodging and extravagant entertainment of visiting merchants and embassies, this because he now has exclusive agreements with most of our major trading partners; I believe Genoa is the only substantial monopoly that has as yet eluded his grasp. His establishment has quickly become indecently fashionable; Symeon says that on any evening you could find enough Roman dignitaries there to convene the Senate, conduct the Palm Sunday procession, and conquer the caliphates. Argyrus has provided a dining room and boxes at the theatre, suitable even for ladies of your class, and Symeon says the merchant invites scandal by encouraging the sexes to mix discreetly.’
Maria said nothing, but her eyes glimmered with the ineffable confusion of her feelings: anticipation, dread, bitter longing, carnal heat. Would she see him?
Zoe cupped Maria’s chin in her hand. ‘I know what you are thinking, little daughter. But you must be careful. If you encounter your Tauro-Scythian, you may be forced to decide if what you feel for him is love, or merely desire.’
