Byzantium

Maria looked quickly away. There was no answer to that dilemma that would not cause her pain.

‘Uncle . . .’Michael Kalaphates turned to his Uncle Constantine and shrugged expressively. Constantine looked at his nephew with momentary exasperation and then reached into his cloak and pilfered his purse for half a dozen silver nomismata. Michael greedily accepted the donation and leaned back over the massive ivory gaming table. ‘I’ll win it back double, Uncle,’ he said eagerly.

At last the boy needs me, thought Constantine bitterly, even if only to fill his perpetually exhausted purse. Constantine looked around at the jostling, garrulous patrons of Nicephorus Argyrus’s new establishment; a Magister in a silk robe had just bumped into a Venetian merchant wearing an entire shipload of gold around his neck, the sotted Quaestor was somewhere – over there, taking bets on a pentathlon contest – and the puffed-up, pigeon-breasted Proconsular Patrician Digenes Ducas, whose voice so often stirred the Senate, whispered in the ear of the elegant whore on the arm of a young Topoteretes of the Imperial Excubitores. A sharp-nosed Patrician – what was his name? Evagrius? – with a precisely trimmed short grey beard nodded curtly at Constantine and turned away. Constantine imagined himself shaking the arrogant fop and shouting, ‘I am Constantine, to whom you virtually prostrated yourself in the Senate chambers last month! Constantine, the former Strategus of Antioch, Vanquisher of Seljuks, and Saviour of your Mother, celebrated by the mob in the Hippodrome, and, not the least, brother of the Emperor Michael and the Orphanotrophus Joannes in the presence of whom even your silk-and-scent Magisters tremble!’ Ah, but there, of course, was the thorn that so clearly kept Constantine from plucking the rose of Rome’s adoration. Brother Joannes. A month ago such as these had indeed been ready to throw their faces to the floor before him. But a month ago Joannes had not yet made it entirely evident to the entire court that he regarded his brother Constantine as a temporary accoutrement, a discarded trumpet of his own power. Joannes had not sent for him once since the ceremony in the Hippodrome and the reception at the Senate, had not even inquired of him or their nephew. Such signals did not go unapprehended by the viciously acute eyes and ears of the Imperial Court. If Joannes had no further use for his brother, Constantine, then neither did these swaggering dignitaries.

Michael Kalaphates whooped at a successful toss of the dice. ‘Give me the trinity!’ he crowed; three was his number. At least the hoy has use for me, Constantine told himself again, his gloom deepening as he thought of the other Michael, his brother, too, his Father as well. Even Joannes had received them, appeared with them, if only briefly. Ah, well, Michael was so far away; it was as if the Imperial Sceptre had finally severed the already tenuous blood ties as savagely as a Varangian’s axe. They would go to their graves as strangers.

‘Holy Trinity!’ Michael Kalaphates leapt up from the table and embraced his uncle, showering him with silver. ‘Five times over, including what I had lost!’ He danced around his uncle, his fashionable silk bonnet beginning to slide towards his right ear. ‘Let me keep it, Uncle. I have learned of a winning team of four that can be had for a pig’s ear! We’ll buy a trainer and a driver and rule the Hippodrome!’

Constantine smiled. ‘Keep it, of course. You are my family, you know.’ Constantine shook his head in amazement. The boy was as impetuous as a thundercloud, but half his schemes seemed to come to something. The others . . . well they were best forgotten. Michael Kalaphates was his family now.

‘Uncle, our friend the Manglavite has come in. With the Hetairarch.’

Bile burned in Constantine’s chest. The boy needed to choose his friends more carefully, that was certain. Thugs like that would buy him more trouble than even he could scheme his way out of. ‘Yes,’ said Constantine, his voice acerbic, ‘the Hetairarch and Manglavite are virtually without employment these days. It is difficult to go out at night without encountering one or the other, and sometimes the two together, arm in arm like Herod and Pilate.’

‘They are always courteous to us.’

Constantine’s brow furrowed. ‘They are both so … agile. When a beast learns its master’s tricks too easily, the master should wonder if the beast doesn’t intend some day to teach him a few tricks.’

‘Well, as we are not their masters, I intend to greet them.’ Michael held his arm up. ‘Manglavite!’

The two Norsemen worked through the crowd; some of the dignitaries greeted them eagerly, while others discreetly turned away as they passed.

‘Manglavite. Hetairarch.’ Michael, joined perfunctorily by Constantine, bowed in greeting. ‘Now I know we have picked an auspicious destination for our evening’s adventure. Do you intend to stay for the theatre? They say this new drama is quite, one might say, transparent.’

‘So we have heard,’ said Mar, his manner genial. Then he grinned. ‘Look for us before you find your seats. And if your cup runs dry before then, tell your serving boy that the Manglavite is buying your draughts. You must relieve him of some of his gold before his vaults sink into the earth.’ Haraldr nodded his agreement. He had spent enough time working with Mar to be comfortable with him, if still wary. And while Mar’s Roman duplicity required a Norseman’s caution, Haraldr had found Mar’s Roman urbanity engaging, even beguiling. He had to admit he enjoyed going with him to a place like Argyrus’s.

Haraldr and Mar bowed and went off into the crowd. ‘What does Nordbrikt do with all his money?’ asked Constantine when they had left.

‘Women,’ said Michael. ‘He has taken a whore, a girl from Alania who is said to rival fair Helen, and it is said that his mistresses include several ladies at court. Apparently there is also something to be made of his relationship with the daughter of the Grand Domestic. You have met her. Perhaps there is a match there.’

‘I thought he was quite set upon Maria, the Empress’s dear companion. Don’t I recall some mention of their liaison during our recent journey?’

‘That ended some time ago. And were it to resume, I can assure that such a liaison would never be allowed to come to fruition.’

Constantine laughed and squeezed Michael’s arm playfully. ‘You have won a purse full of nomismata, so now you imagine yourself privy to the secrets of the Empress’s apartments.’

Michael smiled and put his arm across his uncle’s shoulders. ‘I have certain . . . contacts, dearest Uncle.’

‘They interest me.’ Mar spoke in Norse as he and Haraldr walked away from Michael Kalaphates and Constantine.

‘True, Joannes has shown them little favour,’ replied Haraldr. ‘But that is a far reach from saying that they might be inclined to conspire against him.’

‘You saw them in Antioch. What is your estimate of their abilities?’

‘The uncle could not be expected to figure out how to dump shit from a chamber pot. Michael Kalaphates, however, I believe to be far more able than he is given credit for. A bit of the praise-tongue, but all in all a very worthy young man. Certainly very keen.’

‘And perhaps keen enough to realize that his uncle is not rewarding his talents in near the measure that his qualities deserve.’

‘Possibly. We should deliberate this matter before we proceed, though, and then proceed very cautiously.’

Mar pursed his lips. ‘I am worried that we will not always have the luxury of caution. Joannes has made no move against us for weeks now. You know how a camp is always the quietest when there is to be an attack in the morning.’

‘Hetairarch! Manglavite! Esteemed Dignitaries!’ Nicephorus Argyrus’s leathery face beamed with its usual effusion of genuine affection, moderate inebriation and irrepressible self-interest. He swept the two Norsemen into the main dining hall, a miniature palace lined with sumptuously carved, emerald-shaded Carystos marble columns; the lofty, coffered ceiling had been painted a celestial blue.

‘I insist that you join us!’ boomed Argyrus. He guided the Norsemen to a large table set in the apse at the end of the room. The table was littered with goblets of fine glass, silver and burnished stone, silver plates and utensils, and the savaged remains of a suckling pig.

‘It appears you have finished eating,’ said Mar drily.

‘Gentlemen. Dignitaries. Esteemed colleagues!’ The fourteen or fifteen guests at the table continued tearing at bits of pig, arguing, and shouting at the ceiling. Haraldr recognized a komes of the Imperial Fleet, who licked his fingers with a look of grave deliberation, two senators, and a Genoese admiral said to keep a Saracen mistress in a town house only two blocks from Haraldr’s palace. A small man raised his oversize head from the wine-soaked white tablecloth and tilted it slowly as he appraised the new arrivals with glazed grey eyes. The Logothete of the