The Emperor Isaac Angelos sat on his throne with his crown upon his head and in his hand the orb of the world. Beside him on a second throne lay the source and center of his power, that which alone might rule the Lord of the Romans, the Heir of Constantine, the voice of God on earth: the book of the Gospels laid open to the image of Christ the King.
All about the double throne stood the high ones of the court. Above them arched trees of gold bearing fruits of diamond and ruby and emerald, and on the branches jeweled birds; before them crouched a lion of brass.
The lion, Alf noticed, was tarnished, and tilted at a precarious angle; the birds neither moved nor sang. The living courtiers seemed splendid enough, yet most looked bored beyond words. He caught at least one ill-concealed yawn before he turned his eyes away from them to the man upon the throne.
By rite and by custom the Sacred Emperor was more than a man. His every moment was hedged about in ritual as ornate and as holy as the Mass itself. His every thought was shaped in and for his office. Or so the makers of the empire had ordained over the long years. Like the beasts and the birds, the office was failing, the man marred.
Isaac Angelos might have been handsome once. His features, though strongly drawn beneath the greying red-gold beard, were furrowed deep with pain and petulance. Over his ruined eyes he wore a band of silk, imperial purple, that gave him the look of the blinded king in a play.
Every step of Alf’s approach from palace gate to the dais’ foot had been a step in a solemn, hieratic dance. It should have brought him into the sacred presence in a state of mindless awe; but he was only weary, fastidiously distasteful of the robes that he had been made to wear. Magnificent though they were, of priceless Byzantine silk embroidered with gems and gold, they had not seen a cleaning in all the reigns since they were made.
He bowed as his guide directed him, the last and deepest of many such obeisances, full upon his face as if before a god. Above him the Emperor stirred. His voice rang out unexpectedly deep and rich. “Is he up yet? Eyes—where are my Eyes?”
Alf rose. A small figure had come to stand beside the Emperor. Despite its size, it was no child but a slim honey-brown youth with a proud wisp or two of beard.
With his great dark eyes fixed upon Alf, he began to sing. He had a clear tenor voice and a relentless eye for detail, and the gift of painting a portrait in words. What he sang, the Emperor saw, even to the slight wry smile as Alf heard the inventory of his robe’s smudges and stains.
The sweet voice stilled. The Emperor sat in all his majesty. Beneath the bandage his cheek twitched slightly, spasmodically.
His fingers loosened on the golden orb; it rolled from his lap, fell to the floor with a leaden thud, bounced like a child’s ball upon the steps of the dais. It halted at Alf’s feet.
No one dared to touch it, although several of the guards and eunuchs had started forward aghast. Nor did Alf move to pick it up.
Among the courtiers, some had stirred, alive to the portent. Magicians, those: sorcerers; diviners and astrologers. They watched him avidly, some with knowledge and perhaps with fear.
“Sire,” Alf said in the silence, clearly and directly as if this had been a Western king and not the sacred Emperor, “surely you did not summon me merely to look at me.”
The Emperor started a little, his fingers opening and closing, finding only air. “To look? To look, you say? With what?”
“Why, Sire, with your Eyes.”
“My eyes are gone. Right in my palace he did it, my brother, my little brother who always swore he loved me. Do you have eyes, child?”
“Yes,” Alf answered. Off to the side a courtier drooped against his fellow, limp with ennui.
“Cherish your eyes, little one. So beautiful they are, so clever to take in the light.” Isaac Angelos trailed off. For an instant he seemed to subside into a torpor; abruptly he drew himself up in his seat. His fists clenched on the arms. “You,” he said in a new voice, a strong one. “They call you Theo. What is the rest of it? Theophilos? Theodoros? Theophylaktos?”
“Only Theo, Sire.”
Above the bandage the Emperor’s brow clouded. “No man has but half a name.”
One of the sorcerers made his way to the Emperor’s side. He was a prince of his kind, a turbaned Moor with a smooth ageless face the color of ebony and a fixed, serpent’s stare.
“Your Sacred Majesty,” he said softly in perfect Greek, “no man may have so little of a name. But is he a man?”
Michael Doukas stirred beside Alf, as languid as ever. “A boy, then. A youth, in courtesy, and quite likely to become a man. Of that, learned master, I can assure you.”
No one quite ventured to smile. Skeptical of the Moor’s magics they might be, but they knew enough to fear his influence.
He did not deign to reveal anger. “I questioned not his gender but his species. Look, sacred Eyes. Is that the face of a mortal man?”
“He is very fair,” sang the dwarf, “like to the old gods.”
The sorcerer bent, speaking in the Emperor’s ear. “Your Majesty, his name, his face, hint at great mysteries. The tales you have heard, the marvels of which your servants have told you—”
“Marvels,” Isaac Angeles echoed him. “Magic. Mysteries. An angel in the fire. It burned, my City, like old Rome. But nobody sang its fall to the lyre. He was working miracles. A house fell down and he walked out of it, no scratch or burn, and in his arms a man of twice his bulk. He laid on his hands and men healed. He healed them. He heals them. Come here, child, and lay your hands on me.”
Alf spoke gently, with compassion. “Sire, if I have a gift or a skill, it is of God’s giving. But He has granted me no power to restore what is gone. I cannot give you back your eyes.”
The Moor was a basilisk, the courtiers carrion birds, circling, waiting for their prey to fall. None yawned now or wished for release.
The Emperor turned his head from side to side as if to scan the audience. “No healing? No recompense? A throne—how easy after all to win it back. But I would rather have my eyes.”
He leaned forward. “They said there would be a miracle. They said one would come. It was in the stars, and in the crystal, and in the fires.”
“Aye,” intoned the Moor. “The time will come, beloved of God, when you will see again. You will have your eyes, your youth and strength, your empire in all its glory. You shall rule the world.”
Alf stooped and lifted the orb. Its fall had dented it, shaken loose a jewel or two, bent askew the cross that crowned it.
The courtiers had taken up the sorcerer’s proclamation, an interchange of verse and response, caught up short as Alf raised the sphere of gold. Suddenly he was weary of all this, the ritual, the tarnished splendor, the Emperor whose mind wandered on the paths of madness. They had made him so, these fawning servants, ruled by men who boasted of power and magic.
Charlatans, all of them. Liars, sycophants, parasites.
The Moor, who had more knowledge than most if no wisdom, drew back a step. In his eyes Alf saw himself, a frail figure in a great weight of soiled silk, grown suddenly terrible.
“Sire,” Alf said quietly in silence thick enough to touch, “your empire has fallen from your hand.”
“Then,” said Isaac Angelos, reasonably, “give it back to me.”
“I cannot.”
“I am the Emperor. I command you.”
“I cannot,” Alf repeated. “It has gone the way of your eyes. There is no healing for you, Lord of the Angeloi. Your eyes are gone. Your empire is gone. Your city will fall, because you have not ruled it but have sat upon your throne dreaming of miracles, paying heed to these false prophets who gather like jackals about you.”
“Lies!” thundered the Moor. “Who has sent you, O liar without power? The Doge? Marquis Boniface? Or,” he added with a venomous glance at Alf’s guide, “our own Doukas?”
Alf regarded the sorcerer calmly. “His Majesty summoned me, as you know well who brought my name to him. What was it that you wished for? That I add my voice to yours, echo your feigned foreseeings, strengthen your lies with mine? Or that I speak the truth as all my kind are bound to do, and perish for it, thus removing the threat of my presence? For true power must not endure if smooth words and conjurers’ tricks are to prevail.”
The Moor’s lip curled. “A poisonous serpent, you are, bloated with lies and twisted prophecies.”
With a sudden movement the Emperor smote the arm of his throne. “Prophesy, boy. Prophesy!”
“No one commands my power,” Alf said softly, “not even His Sacred Majesty.”
“Command it yourself, then,” snapped Isaac Angelos.
Alf did not quite smile. “Very well, Sire. What would you know?”
That took even the Emperor aback. “What? There are no incantations? No fires or crystals or arcane instruments?”
“I am not a sorcerer, Sire. My power comes from within. Ask and I will answer.”
The Emperor paused for a long while, stroking his beard. At last he spoke. “Where is my gold sandal?”
In the breaking of tension, one or two of the courtiers laughed.
Alf betrayed neither scorn nor fear. “You asked me to prophesy, Sire, not to find what you have lost. Your sandal,” he added coolly, “lies with its mate in the dragon chest that came from Chin, under your robe of crimson silk embroidered with pearls.”
The Emperor’s fingers knotted in his beard. “Prophesy,” he said. “Prophesy!”
Alf looked up into the haggard blinded face, with the orb a dead weight in his hands. The crowd of courtiers waited, minds and faces set for mockery. He drew a long breath and loosed the bonds of his seeing.