Theodora’s features sharpened. ‘My Lord cannot mean that I should betray my purple-born sister.’
Alexius inclined his head slightly, his thin lips almost musing. ‘No. I am not asking you to initiate anything against your sister. But the day will come, and soon, when the people of this City will appeal to their Christ to deliver them even from the tormented bosom of their purple-born Mother. And for that day you must be prepared. Your line, the great house of Macedon founded by your uncle, Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, is, through its unyielding defence of the One True Faith, the very artery that nourishes every soul born unto life. And that artery must never be severed, or we are all damned.’
‘And how would my barren loins perpetuate the dynasty of Macedon? If ever I was fertile, I am now too withered to bear fruit.’
‘You are not the last of the Bulgar-Slayer’s line.’
Theodora’s eyes could not deny the shock of this jugular attack. ‘You . . . have known?’
‘Yes. For many years. I know the circumstances. Your sister, Eudocia, gave birth to the child at the convent on the Isle of Prote. I do not know the child, or even its sex. But I know that it was not stillborn.’
Theodora drew her tall, slender torso erect. Her pale eyes were steely and her tongue newly sharpened. ‘Then we will not discuss the child. I am in passing health, and when the Christ calls me to my Golgotha, I believe I can offer you ten good years of my life, years in which you can with all your resources wage your battle against the Bishop of Old Rome. Then if we are both still alive, we will discuss the child.’
Alexius inclined his head slightly and smiled; the bargain was acceptable.
Theodora flushed, aware of how easily the Father had led her to this precipice of fate but now far less concerned for the consequences of that leap than she ever could have imagined she would be. The child. The child had to be protected. And so, ultimately, did her sister; they were her family. ‘Father, do you intend to employ the Hetairarch Mar Hunrodarson to hasten the moment when the people of the city cry out for their deliverance from my sister’s lust? If so, I must have your assurance she will not be harmed.’
‘My child, I have not even met Mar Hunrodarson. What would I have had to discuss with him, until I knew your wishes in this matter? Now that I understand your requirements, I will accede to Mar Hunrodarson’s request for an audience and listen to what he has to offer. But first I must place a crown of thorns upon the head of our Caesar.’
V
Standards, observed the Parakoimomenos – Lord Chamberlain – of the Imperial Palace. What is missing today are standards. Rome has been built on the rigorous observance of protocol and the unwavering preservation of dignities. Today this is all changed. Today would long be remembered as the nadir of the Imperial dignity. But what was one to do? Abandon the legacy of Rome entirely to the whims of these lowborn parvenues? No. One held one’s head high and tried to preserve what one could.
The Parakoimomenos was a strikingly youthful-appearing man for his sixty years; castration had made him callow and plump for most of life, but his late maturity had finally brought out classic Thracian features. He had been born the same year the Bulgar-Slayer had ascended to the Imperial Dignity, had entered the Imperial household as a mere chamberlain-in-waiting when he was only sixteen years old, and his aptitude for the astonishing minutiae of Imperial protocol had advanced him inexorably through the various eunuch grades. Nine years ago he had realized his dream: Parakoimomenos, the highest of all eunuch offices, the official responsible for every aspect of public and private ceremony in the Imperial Palace, the man who presented the face of glorious Rome to an awestruck world. Then, three months after this apotheosis, Rome had fallen to the cruellest fate; the Pantocrator had asked the Bulgar-Slayer to set his throne beside those of the rulers of Heaven. At first the deterioration of standards had been gradual. The Bulgar-Slayer’s brother, Constantine, had been a profligate, a petty tyrant and a sloven, yet he had not simply discarded the prescribed Imperial protocols. His successor, Romanus, had been an even lesser man, but his efforts to transform his pygmy-like stature into a giant reputation had at least provided the solidi to maintain some semblance of Imperial dignity and decorum. But the lot who had purloined the throne from Romanus! The Emperor was a good man, in spite of everything, but utterly devoid of culture, as one might expect of the station from which he had risen. Still, he desired, in his simple, uninformed fashion, to observe proprieties. But the Orphanotrophus Joannes! There was the source of this veritable river of ignominy that now polluted the memory of glorious Rome!
The Parakoimomenos looked out from the arcade of the church of St Mary Chalkoprateia, confident that all was in order on the street. The facades of the buildings were cloaked with silk tapestries embroidered with the Imperial Eagles, and the enormous crowd, held at bay by the batons of the cursores, stood in their best wool- and-silk tunics, clutching armfuls of laurel, myrtle and olive branches. Two hundred Tauro-Scythians of the Grand Hetairia, gold helms and breastplates explosions of light in the sun, waited at rigid attention. Arrayed behind them was the sublime vision of the Court of Imperial Rome, ranked as the Pantocrator Himself commanded. The first two rows were Magisters, in their white silk tunics spotted with gold medallions, and behind them the Proconsular Patricians, also in shimmering white silk but without medallions, arms cradling the porphyry tablets that proclaimed their rank. And then the Patricians, in light rose-coloured robes, with their tablets of white ivory, and behind them the other fifteen ranks, each with its different colour silk and particular insignia of dignity. Behind the court were the bands; already a few booms of the kettledrums and blaring notes on the trumpets rose above the anticipatory murmuring of the crowd.
The Parakoimomenos noted that the ranks were in good order, that no witless Patrician had, in a desire to see what was going on, wandered up with the Proconsular Patricians. He turned and faced the bronze doors of St Mary Chalkoprateia. The Manglavite and Hetairarch flanked the portal of the ancient basilica. The Bulgar- Slayer would have been proud of the two Varangians, thought the Parakoimomenos, the Hetairarch with his axe motionless on his chest, red plumes rising from his gold helmet so that it seemed he would scrape the sky. The Manglavite was new, of course, but he learned quickly and had a noble bearing. Look how stately he holds the fasces, symbol of the centuries of Rome’s uninterrupted hegemony; hopefully he will not fall to his knees like some unwashed pilgrim when he sees the interior of the Mother Church for the first time.
The Parakoimomenos reluctantly abandoned his reverie and stared at the bronze doors as if his imperious gaze could somehow keep what was inside for ever incarcerated. Yes, in a few moments
As if to spite the Parakoimomenos, the doors flew open. The Caesar-to-be stepped into the shaded illumination of the arcade, wearing the long white silk tunic symbolic of Christ, crowned with a simple pearl tiara, and shod in purple boots. Behind this impromptu heir, this centurion in the ill-gotten cloak of the Christ, was the debaucher of every known canon of politesse in Holy Rome, the Orphanotrophus Joannes.
The chants began immediately; the political officers had rehearsed the crowd well. ‘Welcome, Caesar of the Romans! Welcome, strong arm of our Father! Welcome new luminary in the firmament of Imperial Rome!’ The Manglavite stepped in front of the Caesar and led him across the church porch and into the street; the Hetairarch walked at his side. The Parakoimomenos watched with horror as the Orphanotrophus Joannes took his place
The blaring, thumping band seemed to mock the Parakoimomenos as he took his place between the Manglavite and the Caesar. The Manglavite began to lead the multicoloured army of splendour south to the avenue of the Mese, his long, powerful legs snapping in a ceremonial goose step that was impressive and intimidating. The glittering caravan wended slowly through the city, amid the huge, thunderously chanting, petal-throwing crowds, backed up for blocks on either side of the route. Eventually the procession transited the vast Augustaion square, passing beneath the towering equestrian statue of the Emperor Justinian, and exited into the garden in front of the Hagia Sophia. The Manglavite turned directly opposite the western entrance of the Mother Church and began the final leg of the journey. As the massive domes rose before him, the Parakoimomenos armoured his spirit against what he would see within. Within? That in itself was an outrage that might indeed bring the great dome down on their heads this very morning. In all the centuries of Rome’s greatness, had anyone other than the supreme authority on earth ever been crowned in the Hagia Sophia? Indeed not! Until today, when a ship-tarrer’s son would receive his crown directly from the hands of the Patriarch himself – not, as was prescribed by all that
