hope and endeavour to escape them.’ Suddenly she turned and threw her arms around Haraldr. ‘What made you bring your axe down that day? How did you know that your stroke would not bring the sword down on my neck?’
‘I did not know that.’ But he was not certain what he had known in the instant he had decided; later he had realized that if he hadn’t killed the Seljuk leader at that moment, probably none of them, including Maria, would have left the kastron alive. Now he only hoped, in spite of himself, that his answer hurt her. ?I presented fate with an answer, and left fate to determine the question.’
‘Or perhaps fate had already told you the answer.’
‘You mean that what passes between you and I has already been determined?’
She let him go and walked a few steps away, her arms wrapped around her thick, fur-lined coat. The fine tip of her nose tilted to the stars again. ‘You and I are a moment when the stars collide. You came to me across all time, your path determined before the first stars were set in motion. We are bound together, your star and mine.’ She lowered her head and looked at him, and her eyes outshone all other lights. ‘I know this.’
‘We are alone,’ said the Emperor. ‘Please sit with me.’ Joannes awkwardly settled his enormous, distorted form on the gilded throne his brother used for the most informal, intimate audiences. Protocol insisted nevertheless that no one sit in the presence of the Emperor, much less on the throne beside him. But these were unusual circumstances.
Joannes studied his brother’s swollen wrists, puffy cheeks and shadowed, weary eyes. The deterioration was shocking; did the humours that afflicted his brain reside in the other parts of his body when they were not causing the mind storms? If so, they had begun to destroy the body which they had made their host. ‘It is sometimes wearying, is it not, to labour on behalf of so many?’ said Joannes.
‘And yet I must serve my children even with my last breath,’ replied the Emperor.
‘They have never had a more just and devoted father than yourself.’
‘Do not let modesty overlook your own contribution, dearest brother.’
‘I do not mind admitting that I have tried to serve you with every resource to my avail.’
‘Yes. You are my Peter, the rock upon which my throne has been erected.’
Joannes paused, assessing the width of the portal that was opening before him. Finally he spoke. ‘I have given much thought as to how that foundation, which I hope I do in some small part provide, can be strengthened.’
‘Indeed? Tell me, brother.’ The Emperor’s voice was earnest and somewhat solicitous, as if he could bestow a favour simply by listening.
‘Just as the Son of God had both his Heavenly family and his earthly family, so does his Hand on Earth have two kinds of family, the spiritual and the corporeal. The spiritual family he has sought out and embraced, and the proceeds of that virtuous endeavour will accrue to his glory both in this world and the next. But he has not sought out his corporeal family with the same diligence.’
The Emperor’s expression changed from open curiosity to inscrutable deliberation; his dark eyes suddenly seemed flat, impenetrable, as if they would take in no more of this information. ‘If a man wishes to take his ship upon rough waters,’ the Emperor said at length, ‘then he builds his vessel with sturdy, well-planed boards. The rotten timbers he discards.’
‘I am sensitive to your . . . feelings concerning our brothers.’
‘Constantine’s blundering in Antioch almost cost me my throne. Stephan will cost me Sicily.’
Joannes trod warily. His brother was no man to be trifled with, even in this condition. If only God could have shown them another way to place the Imperial Diadem upon his head, he might have been the greatest of all Emperors. But guilt was eating away at him like a leprosy. ‘There is another threat to your throne.’
‘I am ill. I am not dying. With the Pantocrator’s help and God’s forgiveness, I will be cured of my affliction. In the meantime I am quite competent to govern my children.’
‘Neither do I think that your life is in jeopardy, nor that your abilities have been impaired. The danger here is not in what we know to be true but in what others perceive. Do not imagine that this disease that has temporarily afflicted you has gone unnoticed, and that it has not fuelled the fires of rumour.’
‘I will soon appear before my children to assuage their anxiety and lay these rumours to rest.’
‘I think it will be some time before we can, with confidence, allow your children the privilege of seeing you. For your children to witness – may the Pantocrator forgive the boldness of my conjecture – one of your . . . attacks would turn these fires of rumours into a conflagration that would consume the entire Roman Empire.’
‘We will wait, then, until I have received absolution. St Demetrius is working prodigiously on my behalf, I can assure you.’
‘If only the blessed St Demetrius were able to proselytize in the inns and brothels of the Studion as effectively as he litigates before the Heavenly Tribunal, then we would have little to fear.’
The Emperor seemed to jerk into a more erect posture, and for a moment Joannes feared that another fit was upon him. There had been two episodes the previous day; after the second his Majesty had remained unconscious for several hours. But the Emperor responded with the acuity that had been, in better days, taken for granted. ‘What reports do you have of insurrection?’
‘I have myself seen an arsenal secreted by these rebels in an old warehouse just north of the Studite monastery. The quantity and quality of the weapons indicated that this group had resources we do not ordinarily associate with the unfortunate wretches who occupy that district. There is a danger that this . . . disease might be communicated to the classes of labourers and even the various professions and guild members.’
The Emperor’s broad shoulders and chest sagged with pain. ‘My children. Why would my children turn against me?’
Joannes wrapped his huge span around his brother’s suddenly heaving shoulders. ‘It is not any lack of love for their Father, believe that. It is that few can now resist the rumours. There are many who claim you are already dead, and the majority are certain that you are dying. In their desperation and grief they wonder why their Father has not, like any good father, provided for the future of his brood when he is gone. They think you are gone from them, and have left them no successor to your glorious and benevolent tenure. So quite naturally they are inclined, after enduring this lengthy period of distress, to think of placing their own successor on the throne. If you were to make a gesture towards them in naming a successor, I think this incipient insurrection would wither like a weed with its roots plucked from the earth.’
‘I will be unable to leave them an heir.’ The Emperor’s eyes were profoundly sad.
‘Of course you are unable to designate a Basileus and Augustus, as you could with a child of your own loins. But you could provide the children of your Imperium with a Caesar.’
‘Is this the help you would have me receive from our corporeal family? Then you must know I will not hear of it. Stephan would destroy everything that we have laboured for!’
‘I was not thinking of Stephan.’ Their brother-in-law, Stephan, was the closest male relative with the requisite reproductive organs.
‘Who, then? Constantine, thankfully, is . . .disqualified.’
Joannes observed to himself that this was not unlike the decisive moment in an interrogation in the Neorion, the moment when success and failure are both equally pregnant. ‘You have not met your nephew, Michael Kalaphates. I have taken it upon myself to become acquainted with him, and I am impressed with his qualities. He is intelligent, presentable, and is an experienced warrior. That he knows nothing of statecraft is of no consequence, because he need only offer the appearance of a princely character. We are not in need of a ruler to replace or even assist you, only a suitable image to present to your doubting children.’
‘I do not need this nephew beneath my feet like an unwanted pet.’
‘I assure you, Majesty, that will not be the case. I have already, discreetly and obliquely, approached him on this matter. I made it stridently patent to him that he would be your slave, a mere token of your God-granted authority. To this he agreed with touching humility and gratitude that even in the smallest fashion he might have an opportunity to earn your respect and affection. He is yours to command, to send through the city riding backwards on an ass if you so wish.’
‘And what of Zoe? Without public expression of her approval to this . . . succession, any designation would be meaningless.’
‘She is in no position to oppose us. But even so, we would be less than fair if we did not approach her with a measure of compromise, even humility. The Christ forgave a harlot, and is it not our highest purpose in life to
