‘I am the chamberlain’s scholar.’
‘So where is your silk and your fine shoes? Why do you smell of the docks rather than of perfume and oil?’
Loys stood tall.
‘I am the scholar Loys, appointed by the chamberlain to do his most valued work. I am to report here for my lodgings and my clothing. The work is pressing, and if you want to frustrate it that is up to you. When the chamberlain asks me why I have not done as he asks, I shall say you stood in my way and defied his will.’
The two guards said nothing but one stepped inside. When he returned he was with a short man dressed in a yellow silk gown and a three-cornered blue hat.
‘This is not the poor door,’ said the man. ‘If you wish to apply for alms go to the kitchens at the rear of the palace.’
‘I am the chamberlain’s man,’ said Loys, ‘the scholar Loys.’
‘My God, are you really?’ said the man, as if he’d just been informed a toothpick he’d discarded at dinner was part of Christ’s True Cross.
‘Proper…’ Loys tried to find fine words, ‘proper raiment has been provided. Take me to my wife. I think she has been brought here.’
‘I know nothing about that.’
‘She should have been brought here not an hour ago.’
‘My shift has only just begun.’ The man examined his tablet.
‘You are listed here,’ he said, ‘and expected. Come in and pass quickly through the room.’
Loys stepped inside and the world was transformed. Outside, under the bubbling clouds, the light cast the buildings in blues and greys. Here, a thousand lustrous colours shimmered under the lamplight.
Few people had been on the streets but though this room was very large, it was crowded. It was a wonder to Loys — lit with oil lamps that gave off a soft golden light. Every surface seemed alive. The floor was a mosaic of flowers and lilies with the representation of a pond, complete with shining copper fish at its centre. The walls were lined with trees but no tree that had ever grown in a forest. They were rendered in gold and silver with berries of rubies and leaves of green glass. The branches threw a canopy over the ceiling, silver moons and twinkling stars — diamonds or glass, he couldn’t tell — peeping between them. Rich and beautiful people sat or lay on couches, and servants dressed in tunics laced with gold and emerald green served drinks and food from silver cups and plates.
The room fell completely silent when he entered and everyone turned to look at him. Loys suddenly had a sense of himself standing in the same clothes he’d grabbed as he’d run from Normandy, save for a fourth-hand scholars’ gown, breathless in front of these people who moved like fabulous fish through the waters of a beautiful fountain.
Another man came forward. He was short, bald and dark and wore a robe of green velvet.
The man in the silk showed him the tablet. ‘The scholar is to go to his rooms here,’ he said, ‘as quickly as possible.’
The dark man smiled. ‘This way, sir,’ he said.
As he led Loys across the room the man said: ‘The Room of the Nineteen Couches. They wait here to see the emperor. It’s become rather more popular since the mouth of hell spewed out all this brimstone across the sky. People imagine the emperor will defend them from the devil’s legions.’
‘You know what is causing this sky?’
‘That’s your job, isn’t it?’
‘What do you know of my job?’
‘This is Contantinople, my friend. The ancient city of Byzan-ti-um.’ He enunciated every syllable of the city’s old name in a way that was far from friendly. ‘Everyone knows everything about everyone here. And if they don’t, they make it up.’
Loys swallowed. ‘It is the mouth of hell? You know this?’
‘A figure of speech. Surely you should tell me what it is.’
‘I don’t know. At the moment my only concern is for my wife. Is she here?’
The man did not reply, just led Loys out of the Room of Nineteen Couches through a bronze door struck with the sickle and star of the city’s emblem. They went down a short corridor.
Loys studied the figure beside him. He had been so keen to find Beatrice that he hadn’t really paid any attention to the man. He’d taken him for a servant but he didn’t talk like a servant. And he wore velvet, a deep green. No one dressed their servants so richly, no one.
This corridor was as splendid as the couch room, the walls glittering with greens and blues showing an undersea scene, complete with images of the sea god Poseidon with his chariot of wave-horses. The light came from lamps arranged all the way down the wall and a big window at the end. It was uncovered and opened on to a lovely garden of orange trees. Loys shivered as the draught blew in.
They walked down corridors and through rooms glittering with decoration. Loys would have liked to have seen more Christian symbols, but he knew the emperor and his retinue for holy men so could find nothing to object to in them mimicking the art of previous generations. Men love stories and, as long as they saw them as stories, there was no harm in them. But where was Beatrice?
They came to a corridor plainer than the rest but still hardly simple. Here the mosaic was only on the floor — scenes of rural life, children feeding donkeys, men collecting hay from the fields.
‘You’re aware your appointment has caused a stir in the palace.’
‘What sort of stir?’
‘There are those who say it shows a lack of faith in the abilities of the existing intelligence services.’
Bronze doors led off the passage. Was Beatrice behind one of them?
‘I have nothing to do with the investigation of foreigners.’
‘Then you think your evil magicians could be Romans? You’re in our city for a blink and already you’re slandering us.’
‘No. I don’t know. I haven’t started investigating.’
‘No, you haven’t, because you don’t know what you’re doing. Let me point out where you might start.’
‘I’d be grateful.’
They had stopped and the man faced Loys directly. He had the appearance of being made of something more solid than flesh, some weighty marble, maybe.
‘The Varangians. It doesn’t take a great scholar to work it out. A clear blue day — no problems. The Varangians march in — the sky darkens. So work back. The rebel Phokas is struck dead by magic. Who was there? The Varangians. The emperor fought three battles without them and the outcome was decided by sword and shield. This one by sorcery. Their arrival is heralded by a comet.’
‘That wouldn’t explain the emperor’s ongoing illness.’
‘The emperor has an illness?’
‘No, I-’
‘Dear, dear, you need to control your tongue, scholar. That is treason, did you know that?’
‘I said nothing.’
The man glanced around him.
‘Indeed not. But you are a northern oaf and may well make such a mistake again one day, and in front of witnesses, at which point you will need friends. I could be one of those friends. Let me give you a word of advice. The Varangians are to blame for this. No question. Make them the focus of your investigation. Limit the deaths this causes.’
‘What deaths?’
‘Well, for a start we’ll be purging the street magicians as soon as we receive an edict from the emperor.’
‘You said the Varangians were to blame.’
‘And so I believe. But this is a serious situation. The Varangians are six thousand armed fighters, and it will take time to undermine them, isolate their leaders and bring them to task for their crimes. The sky is boiling and the mob is restless. The street magicians are but two hundred jabbering men and wild women. God is angry with them. What else could this sky mean?’
