14

Hagen sat on his heels beneath the myrtle tree, eating a handful of dates he had bought from a vendor on the Mesê. He had come early to his meeting with Karros because he had half intended to find a church along the way and pray a little and straighten his mind out. Many things bothered him. He could find no ground of confidence to stand on. Karros’s story about Theophano made sense in some ways—the wound in Rogerius’s throat had certainly come from behind him—and nonsense in others; but if she had killed Rogerius, Hagen would have to kill her, and that knotted up his guts, just thinking of it.

He had never killed a woman. He supposed a woman’s flesh would give way as easily to the blade of a knife, her veins would open as wide and gush as red. It wasn’t that. It was the memory that rose irresistibly of her lying in his arms that turned his belly to a rock.

This place was Hell. He had died and gone to Hell, and its name was Constantinople, where no one was what he seemed, where lies and truth were intermixed, and where people he did not understand were using him for purposes he could not fathom.

What had she said—“I know all, and you know only your small part.” Yet Irene’s own handmaiden betrayed her; Irene seemed to him a foolish old woman, in spite of her large ideas and the fierce energy of her looks.

There was some great design here, of which he saw only little pieces, and what pieces he was given were placed before him—as what, baits? Traps?

Theophano. The only evidence he had that she was betraying Irene to this John Cerulis was Karros’s word. When she had lain in his arms, he would have sworn his life away that she was honest—that he saw her as she was. If she had killed his brother, he would have known it, somehow, seen it in her eyes, tasted it in her kiss—

And if Karros really had killed Rogerius, then this would be a trap, luring him here, and Theophano would now be back at the Palace, doing what she would be doing, if she were honest.

He could not pray. God did not approve of vengeance in any case and would not help him, and now here came Karros. Hagen stood up.

The other man was rosy with smiles; he put out his hand in greeting, which Hagen ignored. “I’m glad to see you. Very glad to see you. My master has been told of your coming.”

Hagen watched him covertly, pretending to look all around him; Karros was leading him in through the gate, crossing the little kitchen court, smelling of basil and mint. A pile of broken terra-cotta pots covered a wooden table under the overhang of the myrtle tree. “I hope I’m to get dinner out of this, at least?” If Karros had lured him here to kill him, the Greek would have to act soon, while they were alone. He could already hear the voices of many people, in the building they were approaching.

“Dinner? Yes, yes, of course. I have every hope of being able to offer you a permanent place here with us. My master is most generous, and very powerful—he may be emperor one day, who knows?” Karros clapped him companionably on the back. Hagen moved sideways away from him, hating this false friendship, expecting to see a knife at any moment in Karros’s hand.

They went into a large, well-lit hall. Rows of sofas crossed and recrossed it; Hagen had seen how sometimes the Greeks were made to eat lying down, although he marked that, everywhere, the great people sat up properly to a table in chairs. It was no different here. At the far end of this room was a long table, set with tubs of flowers and plates and ewers of silver and candlesticks of gold, already blazing, although no one sat yet in the chairs lined up on the far side of it.

Karros gripped his arm, and Hagen tensed all over, ready to jump. “You’ll have a cup,” the fat Greek said, and a little boy in a red coat appeared with a silver tray, on which stood several cups of glass and a big brass ewer in the form of a rooster, the feathers of the wings and tail deeply outlined in the metal. Karros beamed across this offering.

“Go on, taste it. It’s marvelous wine. My master has the best of everything, we dine like kings here.”

Hagen poured a thin stream into a cup and took it from the tray. The boy bowed and backed away, and turned to offer the wine to others in the hall. Could it be poisoned? Hagen did not see how. He looked down into the cup, uncertain.

“Go on,” Karros said. “Drink.” He put out his hand for the cup, and when Hagen gave it to him, he drank half of it. Giving it back, he waved it toward Hagen’s lips. “Go on. Feel safe.”

The wine was so dark it looked black. He drank a swallow and then another, thirsty.

“It’s very good.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Karros said. “My master is very rich, you know. Of far greater birth than that upstart Irene—you know she’s only provincial nobility? Isn’t it a scandal? My master lavishes his wealth on those who serve him. I have chests of gold he has given me as rewards for my efforts in his behalf. I’ll show them to you, if you like.”

Hagen finished the wine; it was a very fine drink, and he looked around for more of it. “How does he pay for you, Karros—by weight?” He stopped the boy as he passed and took the ewer from the tray.

Karros laughed, a cracked note in the tone; yet he would not be insulted. He said, “If you join us—”

“I am joining no one,” Hagen said, with emphasis. “I am King Charles’s sworn man, my fealty is not mine to give away again.”

“Hah hah hah.” Karros’s belly bounced. “Ah, well, if you are so in love with this barbarian king of yours. Come on, I’ll show you my master’s palace.”

“You said Theophano would be here.”

“She is here. Probably my master is enjoying her at this very moment.”

At that Hagen’s guts churned; a heat of rage rose through every vessel into his brain, and he nearly knocked the other man down. Slow behind his temper came his reason, dismayed; he thought, What is she to me that such a mention of her makes me reckless? If she lies with someone else, what does it matter to me?

It did matter. He knew two things at once: that he was going to kill both her and John Cerulis, and that he was getting an erection. He pulled the front of his shirt down and followed Karros on through the palace.

“Irene is as wily as an old cat,” Theophano said; she had learned not to refer to the Basileus by her titles to this man who wanted so much to be emperor. She watched him through the corner of her eye. He made her skin cold just being near him; sex with him was like the embrace of death. “You will never be able to secure her person, except under the most extreme circumstances, an armed assault, perhaps. A riot of the general.”

“I have no desire to secure her person,” said John Cerulis.

He raised his glass and studied the color of the wine, swirling it to release the fragrance, and sniffed the developing aroma. One of his eyebrows quirked.

“The wine displeases you,” Theophano said.

“I had hoped for better.” He dispelled a sigh vibrant with regret; his perpetual smile carved deep lines and folds into his face, a mask of good nature.

Theophano looked away from him, her spirit sinking. Their table faced the hall, now busy with his hangers-on, gathered to have their dinner. None of them would eat until their master had finished. They sat on the rows of couches talking, laughing, exchanging kisses and ceremonial touches of the hand. She lowered her gaze to the table.

On the plate before her a steamed fish lay in a bed of olives, caviar, boiled egg, and clotted cream; she could not bring herself to eat it. She leaned her elbow on the arm of her chair and stared off across the room.

“I understand there has been a schedule of races posted on the gates of the Hippodrome,” said John Cerulis. “Perhaps this year she shall see at last the overthrow of the superb Michael.”

She said, “Michael has a few years left to him of the ultimate mastery. And Ishmael must buy his own horses.”

She was repeating phrases she had overheard from others more expert. The races were not a passion of hers.

“Surely men besides Ishmael can challenge on the track? I understand the Greens are bringing in a team from Caesarea that’s very well thought of.”

“I—”

Her voice broke off. There, across the room, two men were coming in through a side door, and her heart leapt. That white head could belong to no one but her Frank.

“What is he doing here?” she said.

John Cerulis looked in the direction of her interest. “Oh, yes—Karros has told me about this barbarian. I understand he is numbered among the legions who have bivouacked in your bed.”

She slid an oblique half-pitying glance at him. She understood why he would have preferred she had no basis for comparing his prowess. “One must sample a great many wines, Patrician, to develop a discerning palate.”

Her gaze returned to the Frank. He should not be here; surely he was overstepping his instructions from the Empress, coming into John Cerulis’s presence. She hoped he would not make trouble and jeopardize her mission a second time.

Yet as she watched him cross the room, she remembered lying with him, the tenderness of his kiss, the ardent energy of his hands and body. Seeing him again was like waking up, like coming alive. She found herself beginning to smile and schooled her expression to decorum, but she did not take her eyes from him.

In her ear, John Cerulis said, “He has been told that you murdered his brother.”

She started all over. Hagen was coming straight toward the dais, Karros a step ahead of him. Now suddenly his approach caused her real alarm. He was an innocent, a baby, in the hands of John Cerulis, and he had the list. If John could manipulate him—subvert him—

They stood before the dais now, and Karros, with many obsequious bows, was making Hagen known to his master. Hagen did not speak. He looked at Theophano once, just once, his eyes like cold iron. She saw hate in his eyes, and looked away, her face blazing. How could he believe that she had killed anyone, much less Rogerius, who had saved her life?

“Frankland,” John was saying, through his eternal fixed smile, “and where, if a man may ask, could that be?” His hand came groping toward Theophano and took possession of her fingers. “To this Roman, the world ends at the land walls.”

Karros said, “It’s off in the north somewhere, Patrician. Somewhere north of Italy, I think.”

“I’m sure this fellow is capable of speech,” John said. “You, barbarian, favor us with a few words. Your purpose in Constantinople?” He lifted Theophano’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the tips of her fingers.

Hagen’s features had no more expression than a rock. He would not look at her. He said, “I have been on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I am going home now, Patrician.”

Theophano pulled on her hand; it distressed her to have the big Frank see John Cerulis paying caresses to her. John held her fast. He said, “And you are seeking employment here?”

“I am going home,” Hagen said. “Nothing more, Patrician.”

Now his gaze did flick toward her; their eyes met for an instant. His look was like a blow. He hated her now. John Cerulis was nibbling on her fingers. She could do nothing, say nothing, to tell Hagen that this was all a piece of theater. And he was going. He was leaving, and taking with him the image of her in another man’s arms.

Watching him go, she calmed a little, enough to wonder at the depth of her feelings for him. Amazed, she thought, Am I in love with him? She had enjoyed so many men, but she had always been able to walk away, before.

John Cerulis let her hand go. She sank back into her chair, her head tipped forward, struggling with her thoughts. He hated her, because of John Cerulis. Because of this serpent beside her. Her hatred for John Cerulis blazed up like a blast of Greek fire; he was evil, in the most evil of ways, in that what he said and did bore no rational relation to the truth. For him there was no truth, only convenience.

She raised her head, looking out across the hall, her mind falling quiet, the confusions and doubts sinking one by one away, only the cold decision left. She had never killed anyone, but she intended to kill John Cerulis. She would rid the Empire of him, once and for all.

“What is this?” said her intended victim, outrage in his voice.

She startled. But it was not Theophano who had drawn his anger this time.

In through the masses of the supper guests, a very dirty man was coming. From head to toe he was disgusting. His clothes were filthy rags, and his feet were bare, and his face and hands and all other visible skin were smeared with mud and dung. As he came in across the room, all those within fifteen feet of his passage shrank away from him. Their voices stilled, and the silence spread like ripples through a pond, until, when he reached the front of the room and stood there before John Cerulis, the entire room was still.

John pressed a scented napkin to his nose and mouth. “Who are you?”

Theophano’s stomach turned. The man’s stench was appalling; she had never smelled anything so awful. Beside her, John Cerulis lifted his hand, and from the side of the room several of his guards rushed forward, holding their noses.

“Where did you come from?” John demanded. “Who let you in here? Speak!”

“Stop where you are,” cried the filthy creature. “If you lay hands on me, know that you obstruct a messenger of the Basileus!”

Theophano bit hard on her tongue, to keep back a burst of laughter. It was one of Irene’s jokes. She moved her head as far away as possible from the source of the odor. John Cerulis was pale as paper; his hand with the napkin dropped to the table.

“You come from the Palace?”

“Indeed,” said the filthy man. “She who rules the world has sent me here, John Cerulis, to command your attendance on her at the first of the qualifying races in the Hippodrome, to share the Imperial box with your Basileus and with the ambassador of the Caliph.”

The filthy man spat on the floor, grinned, turned, and walked away. No one spoke. Even the servants recoiled from him as he passed through their midst. Reaching the door, he went out.

John Cerulis was absolutely still. The insult had peeled away his smile; he looked as if he had just swallowed a needle that was stabbing him even now in the bowels. Slowly he lifted the perfumed napkin to his nose and inhaled.

“She is the Devil’s own daughter.”

Theophano kept her mouth shut. A gesture from John brought his fat bodyguard Karros leaping up to his side.

“Go,” John said, in an undertone. “Destroy that—thing, before he can boast of his offense to me. Go!”

Karros saluted him and strode off, his hand on the ornamented hilt of his sword. Slowly John’s head turned, sweeping his gaze across the room, looking, Theophano knew, for anyone who was laughing at him.

No one spoke; all struggled to look enraged for their master’s sake. Theophano looked away from him. There, among the line of the guards, was Hagen, his hand covering his mouth. She guessed he hid a smile. She glanced at John, and found him watching her with eyes that glittered like a dagger blade.

“You think to see me humiliated.”

“Oh, no, Patrician, I—”

“Well, you are wrong. You and your upstart mistress—know this, foolish one. I shall never sit there in her company and be condescended to! I shall never join with other lackeys in increasing her pride! Not I!”

“You cannot refuse the command,” Theophano said.

“I can—if I am not within the City.” He sniffed the perfumed napkin again, his gaze still burning on her. “And so I shall leave the City. We shall take up your suggestion, laughter-loving Theophano. We shall go to find this holy man who will make me emperor.”

“As you wish, Most Noble.”

“And in the country,” he said, showing his eyeteeth in a nasty smile, “many things may happen, hmm? And be hidden from all but the eyes of God. Hmm?”

“Are you threatening me?” she said evenly.

“I have no need to threaten, lovely, foolish Theophano. As you yourself said, your life is between the blades. And the blades are closing. Closing. Perhaps the wild uncouth barbarian can be persuaded to entertain us all with his revenge on the murderess of his brother? A public execution? Hmm?”

His smile grew wider and more unpleasant; he reached out with one hand and stroked her cheek lightly with his fingernails. Against her will, she turned her head, looking across the room, toward the wall where she had last seen Hagen standing.

He was gone. John Cerulis’s laughter, like glass breaking, clattered in her ears. She thought again of slaying him, but her mind would not confine itself in those comforting daydreams; her rebellious mind turned ever toward Hagen. She wondered if she would ever see him again. She longed to see him again, even if it meant her death. She leaned back against the back of her chair, torn with anxious longing.

It was Esad who, especially decorated for the task, had taken Irene’s invitation to John Cerulis. As soon as he got outside the nobleman’s palace, he knew someone was following him.

He looked around over his shoulder into the dark street and saw nobody, and his steps quickened. When the order came for this, he had thought it funny; the heavy purse that accompanied the order made daubing himself with horse dung a relatively harmless inconvenience. Now he knew he should have thought twice.

He moved through the narrow twisting streets toward the Forum of Theodosius, greatest of the wide squares that were strung like beads along the Mesê; the street was lit at night with rows of torches, and there, he thought, his heart jumping, he might find some safety. Behind him footsteps pattered on the stone, pursuing. He broke into a run. The footsteps ran also, coming closer. Panting with fear, he dashed out into the center of the great square, deserted now that night was come, and whirled in a circle, looking all around him.

On the roof of every shop, a yellow smoking torch flared. In the light, he saw only the broad flat pavement, a few wagons, a scattered heap of donkey dung. Then from the unlit lane he had just left, a tall figure stepped.

It was the white-haired barbarian, and he was coming after Esad with a look of purpose on his face. In a pell-mell rush of memories, Esad felt again the whip around his throat, the heavy hands on his body, and whirled and ran up the Mesê.

The barbarian was chasing him. The barbarian was gaining on him. His lungs on fire, his mind white with fear, Esad raced up the wide street, between the colonnades and the yellow torches, up toward the Palace. His eyes darted from side to side, looking for a cursor, for anyone who might help him, but the great street was deserted; among the fluted columns only shadows moved. He stumbled and went flat on his face, his knees and hands scraping over the pavement, and the barbarian caught him.

He screamed. The barbarian hoisted him up onto his feet and held him fast.

“Don’t be stupid,” the barbarian said in his ear, and shook him hard. “I’m trying to help you. God’s blood, you stink.”

Esad flung off the heavy hand on his arm. “Help me! What are you chasing me for?”

The barbarian smiled at him. “Let me walk you back to the stables. Or better, to the baths. Pagh!” He held his nose.

“I don’t need you!”

“You don’t? Well, then, I’ll be on my way, which happens to be the same way you’re going, isn’t it.”

Esad cast a look over his shoulder. The street swept down behind him into the broad square of the Forum; he could see nothing menacing there.

Except, now that he looked, a man who had not been there before was walking innocently along the side of the Mesê, and while he watched disappeared behind the columns. He faced front again.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, loud. “Not even John Cerulis would dare lay hands on a messenger of the Basileus.”

The barbarian said nothing, only walked along beside him, a few feet to the side, out of the stench. Esad was used to it; he mucked stalls for a good part of every day anyway. It had seemed such an amusing thing, when the order came, and the purse was heavy, a month’s pay in silver. Surely nobody would harm an Imperial messenger.

His back crawled. He could not resist looking behind him again.

Now the street looked entirely empty. But columns lined it, the walkways on either side where the jewelers kept their shops, and any number of men might hide there, even with the streetlamps lit.

“I don’t need you,” he said again, to the barbarian.

The white-haired man didn’t bother looking at him; he smiled wide as he walked.

If someone were coming after him—Esad glanced over his shoulder again—surely John Cerulis would send a pack? He thought of the two times he had taken the measure of the barbarian; his fingers went to his neck, still tender from the lash. On the big man’s hip the long sword hung, its hilt wrapped in worn leather, like any common tool.

“Why are you doing this for me?”

The barbarian said nothing for a moment, striding along beside Esad, his arms swinging loose at his sides. Finally, he turned to look down at the groom.

“I don’t know. I don’t like you, I don’t like your master, but I don’t like the man behind us a lot more than I don’t like you.”

“I don’t understand you—can’t you speak properly?”

“I don’t understand it either. I wish he would jump me and get it over with.”

“I thought you said it was I he’s after.”

The barbarian said nothing more. They were coming to the great square before the Palace wall, rising sheer and white into the night sky. The Mesê ended at the Chalke, and before the huge bronze doors they stopped. The barbarian looked behind them. The Mesê swept away from them into the City, a ribbon of marble blue-white in the moonlight, studded with torches.

“Good night,” said the barbarian, and walked away. Esad gaped after him; the ignorant, arrogant peasant, he was actually going in through the Chalke, banging on the bronze to wake up the half-drunken gateman. Esad shook his head, considerably uplifted by this evidence of the barbarian’s inferiority.

A sound behind him startled him; he jumped a foot, and then, as if his reason lost its balance, he was overcome with fear. He ran all the way down the wall street toward the Hippodrome door, and dashed inside, into the warmth and safety of the barn.

Karros watched the two men from behind a statue on the Mesê. When the white-haired barbarian went in through the Chalke, leaving the filthy groom alone and vulnerable, Karros almost went after him, but the groom sprinted away before he could get within striking distance. Karros relaxed, leaning against the pedestal of the statue, his eyes reflective on the Palace wall before him.

He had been right to come alone. He congratulated himself on his craft and foresight. Had he brought any of his men with him, they would have seen that he was afraid of the barbarian, he would have lost stature in their eyes.

As it was, being alone, he enjoyed a comfortable latitude of choice.

Of course he had been wise not to attack the groom, in spite of his orders; outnumbered two to one, he would have been mauled. Not even John Cerulis would have expected him to take on two men by himself.

Anyway, he could manage John Cerulis.

It was the barbarian who caused him problems. Karros had to kill him—this business of walking the groom back to the Palace, that proved it, proved he was no friend of John Cerulis. It proved as well he meant to stand against Karros in everything. But he was tough, the big man. To kill him, Karros had to catch him drunk, his back turned, his breeches down around his ankles, his shirt pulled over his head, his sword fifty feet away. Karros had not gotten where he was by taking unnecessary chances.

Make friends with him. Then kill him.

He padded away through the Forum of Theodosius, through the City sleeping and quiet. It was cold, for mid-June. Karros began to think of a cup of heated wine and his fur slippers. In an alley behind the fishmongers’ stalls, he killed a cat and smeared the blood along his sword blade, to prove to his master that he had slain the filthy groom, and went happily home again.