'Well?' demanded the emperor. 'Tell me, Nicetas, what did you make of them?'
'They are Franks, Basileus,' the commander replied with a shrug. 'They are arrogant hot-heads without the slightest intelligence.'
'Did they deny the attack?'
'They said it was a deeply regretted mistake.'
Alexius nodded thoughtfully. 'That is something, at least. Even so, we will send the Varangi to search out the stragglers and escort them at once to Constantinople. We will not suffer further attacks on people and properties under imperial protection. See to it, Nicetas.'
'It shall be done, Basileus.' The commander of the palace troops acknowledged the order with a bow. 'Regarding those already arrived, they have been ordered to confine themselves to the camps outside the walls as you have decreed. Do you wish me to arrange an audience with their leaders?'
'Soon, Nicetas, but not yet,' answered Alexius. 'Perhaps once their hot heads have cooled sufficiently, they will recover some part of their sanity. A season of sober reflection is in order. Therefore, we will let them wait.'
'And the provisions, Basileus?'
'We will grant the newcomers the same supplies we have extended to Count Hugh,' the emperor replied impatiently. 'Nothing more.'
Nicetas acknowledged the plan, but questioned the efficacy. 'Is it enough, Basileus?'
'It is more than they gave the people of Selymbria,' replied Alexius tartly.
'Forgive me, Basileus, but there
'How many, Nicetas?'
'The scouts say-'
'We know what the scouts say,' the emperor told him. 'We are asking you, Nicetas. You have seen them, what do you make it?'
'Perhaps twenty thousand, and more are arriving all the time.' He paused, as if unwilling to impart the bad news. 'The lords boast twice that number.'
'Forty thousand,' groaned Alexius, calculating how much it would take to feed so many mouths.
'That is just the soldiers,' Nicetas said. 'There are women and children with them, too.'
'God help us,' sighed Alexius. What madmen these crusaders were: bringing women and children into war. What possessed them? That they should arrive wholly unprepared for the rigours ahead-that was folly enough; that they should inflict such horror on their wives and offspring passed all understanding.
Alas, he reflected ruefully, they paid the highest price for their folly: the hermit Peter of Amiens and his peasant army had been cut down by the Seljuqs outside Antioch. Of the sixty thousand that left Constantinople, seven thousand were spared and taken into slavery; all the rest were slaughtered. On a single afternoon, fifty- three thousand misguided Christians sacrificed themselves to the folly of the Bishop of Rome. Indeed, it passed all understanding.
'God help us all,' sighed Alexius. He ended the audience then, dismissing the commander to his duties. When Nicetas had gone, the Basileus called for the magister of the chamber. 'Gerontius!' he said as the man appeared. 'Bring us our riding cloak and cap. When we have gone, you may inform the magister officiorum that we have left the palace.'
'Certainly, Basileus,' replied the elderly servant. 'Shall I summon the drungarius to attend the Basileus?'
'No,' Alexius replied, 'we wish to ride alone today.'
The request for his cloak and cap had long been the emperor's coded way of saying he wished to go out into the capital unattended by his retinue of imperial bodyguards and advisors-something he often did, especially when he wished to learn the true humour of the people. Alexius wore no other disguise, having learned long ago that, without the elaborate pomp and ceremony that normally accompanied his slightest movements, he could easily go among the citizenry without attracting the least attention. Alexius, with his compact stature and bald, unassuming appearance, was not much remarked upon; dressed in rustic homespun, he could easily pass for one of his own subjects.
When he had put off his imperial robes, and donned the common cloak and drab cap of a stablehand, the Elect of Heaven, Co-Regent of God, walked quickly from the palace, using one of the hidden gates. Unlocking the low, narrow door, he ducked out quickly, passing between two high walls and into a close, winding street which backed onto a jumbled row of market stalls. He could hear the hubbub of the market in the street beyond. Stepping into the street, he looked to see if there was anyone about, but saw only two skinny dogs nosing in a garbage heap.
Pulling the cap down further, he hurried off along the backstreet, turned the nearest corner and passed unobserved into the market and melted into the crowd. He walked along for a time, taking in the sights and sounds of the market; he paused to buy a bag of dates from an elderly merchant, and then directed his steps towards the Wall of Theodosius.
Alexius moved easily among his subjects, eating dates and plotting recompense for the witless destruction of Selymbria. These arrogant princes must be brought to heel, and he would see justice satisfied before any of them returned home. First, however, he must get the measure of these petty potentates who dared ride roughshod through his realm in the name of God.
Upon reaching the wall, he turned and walked along the wide, busy street which ran the length of the western defences. Between the street and the wall, crude huts of cast-off wood and cloth had been erected by the poor- little more than lean-to dwellings to keep off the rain. Like so much within the capital, the Basileus saw in this circumstance a symbol of the empire, where the massive wall was the strong rule of imperial law and civilizing faith, and the mean hovels were the fragile lives of the citizens which leaned in pitiable dependence upon the empire's great strength for their ever-tenuous survival.
Now and then, a wretch would hobble from a hovel to beg, and Alexius always obliged, giving a coin and a blessing to any who asked. When he ran out of coins, he gave away his dates.
He came to a crossroads which formed a wide square before the massive Charisius Gate, last of the old gates. Later emperors had constructed further defences just beyond the Wall of Theodosius, but in this part of the city, the older walls towered above the newer, -forever proclaiming the glory that had been. Passing quickly through the entrances, he found himself in a quarter of smiths and artisans of innumerable variety, each practising his particular trade in a rough wooden stall behind which the craftsman lived in a few small rooms with his family. Judging strictly from the sound, every last smith was toiling away with utmost industry amidst the drifting smoke from their foundry fires. The clatter of hammer on metal, wood, and stone, the clamour of men shouting to one another for tools and materials, rose to a cacophony, not unlike that of battle.
Alexius liked the noise and commotion; he appreciated men who could make a living with the skill of their own two hands. He paused often to praise the finer examples of one craftsman or another, but did not allow himself to become involved in conversations which would, he knew, lead to bargaining for the wares he had just admired.
He pressed on to his destination, and came to the end of the Artisans' Quarter where he stopped for his first view of the pilgrim camp which lay on the other side of a wide expanse of waste ground part of an old salt marsh that had long since been drained. The low dark tents sprawled across the land like an untidy flood, stretching back and back into the distance, rising up to overflow the banks of the Golden Horn. The smoke of their cooking fires hung in a dull haze above, making it seem to Alexius as if he were gazing upon a range of diminutive dark mountains wrapped in dirty clouds. What is more, this strange mountain range seemed to spread out north and west as far as the eye could see. There were thousands of them… tens of thousands! And, according to the scouts and spies working back and forth along the coasts and roads of western borders, these were but the first of several groups on the move across the empire, and all of them were headed for the capital.
Alexius moved closer. At the outer perimeter of the camp, he could just make out the long lines of the horse pickets as a thin brown line snaking off into the heat haze. Indeed, even though he could not see the animals, he could smell them-even at this remove, the pungent aroma of horse manure was unmistakable. Closer, the stink would be almost suffocating. Nevertheless, the emperor steeled himself for a closer look and started across the waste land; he wanted to see these mad Romans in the flesh.
Not that he was a stranger to the sight: as a young man, his first battles as emperor had been fought against just these sorts of men. In fact, he had traded victories with the wily Robert Guiscard for several years before the stubborn king had at last given up the fight and died following a brief struggle with typhoid. With the old king's
