Symponus, Haraldr observed, the official responsible for the financial administration of Constantinople. They are also drinking tonight in the Studion, thought Haraldr. Would the Logothete sleep as well, he wondered, if he could hear the oaths the cutthroats of Studion were growling into their cups?
Argyrus put his arm around Haraldr and addressed no one in particular. ‘I gave our worthy Manglavite his first employment when he came among us. You might say he learned his lessons at the foot of the master. My name means silver, but when I touch a man, he turns to gold!’ Argyrus rapped Haraldr’s massive shoulder as if he expected it to clink like a golden statue. ‘I’m proud of him; he took his advice from me and made himself a rival to Croesus. Of course I was generous when I dealt with him, and the only gratitude I asked was that he remember his mentor, Nicephorus Argyrus!’
Serving boys quickly cleared and set places before Mar and Haraldr could escape from Nicephorus Argyrus. They sat and looked about the room. With the current moratorium on Imperial banquets due to the Emperor’s illness, Argyrus had drawn half the Imperial Court. Everyone seemed to enjoy the relative absence of decorum; the noise required Haraldr and Mar to raise their voices in order to pursue ordinary conversation.
‘Let us forgo supper and ask the servants to bring us dessert.’ Mar smiled salaciously and looked around the room. ‘The Curator of the Magnara is here, so I imagine his wife has accompanied him to give the proper public display of their mutual infidelity.’ Haraldr noted this with interest, since he had slept with the Curator’s wife, Danielis, half a dozen times. ‘And I do not see the Grand Domestic Bardas Dalassena – no doubt he is home wringing his hands over his dispatches – so we can assume that Anna has probably come.’
Haraldr nodded and signalled the servant. He had at first been taken aback by the protocol of the Imperial Court, which was quite different from that practised in the more liberal-minded private homes – like Argyrus’s – or in a notoriously permissive environment like Antioch. Among dignitaries, it was considered scandalous for women to dine side by side with men; they instead dined in a separate chamber. But when dessert was served, the women were invited to join the men.
At court, the suffocating protocol constrained this contact to elaborate formality. Here, however, the interaction frequently exceeded propriety – thus the popularity of Argyrus’s venture.
The women had already begun to trickle into the dining hall, generally in groups of two or three. Here and there a man would stand and invite a lady to sit; she might accept, or she might pretend that she had not seen the gesture (even if the desperate gallant was flapping his arms in her face like a frantic bird) and hold out for a more desirable opportunity. Haraldr had come to enjoy the flirtatious ritual, the nods, the gestures, the raised eyebrows, the subtle communications and often quite complex strategies that the participants had evolved.
Haraldr sensed someone hovering at his shoulder. He turned and rose immediately. ‘Anna,’ he said, and bowed deeply.
Anna fixed her intense agate eyes on his and nodded. A servant brought her a chair. She and Mar greeted one another before she sat.
Each week she is more beautiful, thought Haraldr. Her colouring was still fresh, virginal, her cheeks and lips flushed brilliantly. But her eyes had become heavier, darker, more sensual, and full woman’s breasts now swelled against her dark blue scaramangium. ‘You will make Eros weary of his errands tonight,’ he told her. ‘You are the most lovely woman here.’
She put her hand lightly on his. ‘Tonight I only hope to dispatch Eros to one breast.’
Mar coughed dramatically and jerked his head to the right. Haraldr wished he had a wizard’s incantation that would turn him into a fly. But it was too late. She had seen him.
Danielis, wife of the Curator of the Magnara, walked among the tables, her long, swan-like neck erect, her arms relaxed, her fingers slightly poised as if she cradled some fragile, invisible object. Her husband, the dignitary responsible for not only overseeing but also financing all of the official diplomatic receptions at the Magnara Palace, was seated several tables away and had already deposited his decorum head first in the lap of an actress reputed to be the mistress of a famous polo player. That circumstance was hardly to Danielis’s discredit – far more humiliating to have been invited to sit by her own husband. But with Haraldr, her widely acknowledged paramour, also occupied, she was in an awkward situation. As was he.
Mar stood, his face regal, his eyes waiting to make contact with Danielis’s. She looked at him and the entire room seemed to hush for an instant. She then raised a sharp, dark eyebrow in a gesture that was at once almost imperceptibly delicate and wildly erotic. As Danielis moved to take her seat beside Mar, Haraldr nodded at him gratefully.
Haraldr had seen men’s eyes in combat – even Berserks -more pacific than Anna’s when she saw her rival seated only a place removed from hers. Danielis leaned forward and inclined her head slightly towards Haraldr. She had large, greyish-blue eyes that contrasted vividly with her dark hair, and a long, chiselled nose that seemed to pull her face down slightly, giving her beauty a hint of sadness that Haraldr found appealing. ‘Manglavite,’ she said in her demure, almost soothing voice. ‘Anna.’
‘Lady,’ said Anna as if she were an executioner addressing a client. She placed her hand on Haraldr’s thigh. But Haraldr could not help thinking of Danielis. Unlike most women of fashion who now wore only the long, sheath-like scaramangium robe in imitation of their Empress, Danielis persisted in wearing both a dalmatic, a short, sleeveless tunic; and a pallium, a long, shawl-like garment with an opening for the head – over her robe, a swathing of radiantly patterned silk that concealed her up to her chin. But once unwrapped, Danielis would insist that Haraldr perform as her ‘stallion’; he was never certain which role she enjoyed most for herself, the mare or the bareback rider.
Anna pressed her breast against Haraldr’s arm. Anna, he reflected, for all her sparkling eyes and busy hands, was the opposite of Danielis. Anna had lost her maidenhood somewhere on the road to Antioch, apparently to some clumsy lecher who had made the experience painful. She was still wary, so Haraldr had not pressed her. They had twice been alone in his chambers and merely had stayed awake, conversing, occasionally caressing, almost until cockcrow, when he had ordered guards and carriage to take her home. She had been very good for his Greek, and she made him happy.
‘Anna, have you heard of the new drama?’ asked Danielis as the servants brought out stuffed pastries, shaped like little churches, on silver plates.
‘No. Oh, I see, I believe you have confused the genres. This is a mime, or rather a comedy in the form of mime.’
‘Yes. I think you are correct. How wise of you to know that.’ Danielis plunged her fork deep into her little pastry church. ‘The content is considered improper. I have been told that the actress will lay aside her cloak and bare her bosom in emulation of Aphrodite.’
‘No. She will remove her cloak and appear before us quite entirely naked, as the ancients have shown us in their statuary.’
Danielis made a sharp, quick little inhalation, her public expression of shock. Hah, thought Haraldr, when Danielis is as naked as Aphrodite, she gasps like a post-horse. ‘Anna,’ Danielis asked, ‘do you think that viewing this spectacle will inflame the passions of the gentlemen present? How wicked it would be if this emulation of Aphrodite encouraged our gallants to an emulation of Hephaestus.’
‘But, Lady,’ said Anna, her pupils like needles, ‘Hephaestus was the lame husband of Aphrodite, cuckolded by the warlike and altogether more desirable Ares. Do we not see that emulation right here, even before our Aphrodite has yet appeared?’
Mar choked on his pastry. Danielis’s nostrils flared and a vein stood out beneath her ear. ‘Indeed,’ said Danielis, her voice uninflected by the accusation and insult. ‘We have other emulations as well. I am certain that we also have an Athena among us.’
Anna’s nails clawed Haraldr’s arm. Athena was a virgin goddess. ‘But where?’ Anna’s voice was faintly tremulous. ‘A maiden would hardly have the temerity to enter this company. Perhaps the error in your understanding is one of terminology. If I were, for example, to call a woman who squanders her . . . assets a spendthrift – and perhaps some would call her worse – I would not then be correct in considering a woman who merely prudently budgets her assets a miser.’
Mar and Haraldr exchanged helpless looks. ‘And I would not consider a woman--’ Danielis broke off, realizing that her voice was rising and the conversation around her abruptly diminished. She looked straight ahead and lifted her chin. Anna breathed hotly against Haraldr’s ear. ‘Tonight I want to emulate Aphrodite,’ she whispered with more anger than desire. Haraldr wondered why he could suddenly hear the clinking of silver and glass. A collective gasp drifted from the far end of the room. Anna turned her head and in spite of herself sighed
