Michael Calaphates and his favorite uncle, dressed in their hunting leathers, stretched their legs to the fire and drank hot spiced wine from golden cups. Calaphates was on his third or fourth, his young head beginning to spin. Constantine took small sips and swallowed almost nothing. Wine hurt his stomach anyway, but more than that he needed all his wits this evening. There was a reason why he had spent the past three days in the company of this childish, coldblooded, possibly crazed young man. He had invited him to spend a few days at his Thracian hunting lodge, just the two of them, nephew and uncle, roughing it in the bracing air, coursing after small game in the hills, like friends, like comrades.
Calaphates was a poor horseman and a worse shot but his uncle had carefully instructed the beaters and trackers. One of them dragged a halfdead fox from the jaws of the dogs, held it up by its ears, and offered it to Calaphates to dispatch. The boy giggled like a girl as he drove his javelin into its throat. Constantine applauded. “Well struck, Majesty! You’ve earned the brush.”
Now Constantine refilled the boy’s cup. “Do you like your new stallion, Majesty?” He had made the boy a present of a white Arabian as well as a pack of prize wolfhounds.
“’Course I do, Uncle. Thank you. And again, I ask you to call me ‘Michael’.”
“But Majesty, you are our Emperor, I honor that. It pains me to say that there are some in the palace—in our own family—who do not.”
“Uncle John.” Calaphates spat the words out.
Constantine offered a sad, sympathetic smile and spread his hands. “Drink up, now, Majesty, and then I’ll have Cook bring in our dinner.”
Calaphates drained his goblet, letting the wine run out his mouth and drip from the scant hairs on his chin. “I drink to you, Nobilissimus”—he slurred the esses—“to your new appointment.”
“So kind, Majesty. I hope I shall be worthy. It’s a heavy burden you lay on me.”
Calaphates had just created Constantine Grand Domestic, that is, Commander-in-Chief, with the rank of nobilissimus, a dignity second only to the Emperor himself. It was of no concern to him that his uncle had never drawn a sword, never seen a battlefield. Until now, Constantine had held no position in the state. Now he commanded the army and navy.
Constantine refilled his nephew’s goblet. He leaned closer to the boy and spoke in a low voice, although there was no one to overhear them but a single servant who loitered near the wall. “Majesty, you won’t mind, I hope, if I give you a warning? Things are happening that disturb me. I feel I must speak. Your three cousins, the children of your father’s sister—you hardly know them, none of us do—but they are ambitious young men and they are in the city now. John has brought them here and, behind your back, he entertains them, gives them money, encourages them to hope for—I’m not sure what—your crown, I fear?”
Calaphates swallowed hard, nearly choking. “Why?”
“Because he knows he can’t control you anymore. You’re grown up now, a real Emperor, a mind of your own. You don’t need him now. But your uncle is used to being obeyed—by the sycophants who surround him, by those filthy orphans of his, and yes, even by us, his own flesh and blood.”
As he spoke, the memory flashed through Constantine’s mind of his childhood home: the wretched poverty, the brutal father who had crushed his sons’ testicles in his hands, and John, who treated the younger children like his personal slaves, teaching them to steal pears from the neighbor’s garden, even little Maria, and bring them to him. He would choose the best for himself and leave the spoiled ones for them.
“Those papers that he gives you to sign every day,” Constantine went on. “Well, of course, you don’t have time to read them all as carefully as you might. But one of them was nothing less than a grant of immunity for those young men if they should be discovered conspiring against Your Majesty. It’s true. I have my spies too, you know, just as John has his.”
“Uncle, what should I do? I’ll have them killed, I don’t care what I signed. We’ll ride back to the city at once.” Calaphates was on his feet, staring around him as if he expected to see assassins leap from the dark corners of the room.
“Now, now, now, Majesty, sit down, yes, take a breath, yes, that’s better. It will be all right, you have me on your side. John’s great mistake is that he gives no one else credit for brains. We can return to the city tomorrow if you like, although personally I’m enjoying myself here. But when we do, you will be careful to give nothing away to John, either by word or expression of your face. Can you do that Majesty? We must wait a while longer before we beard the lion in his den. We must sharpen our weapons.”
“What d’you mean, Uncle?”
“I’m new in my command. I need to make sure of the loyalty of my senior officers.”
“Good God, Uncle, you think it will come to civil war?”
“One must be prepared. You must trust me to know when the moment is right. Agreed? Excellent.” He touched his nephew’s knee and gave it a squeeze. “And now to dinner. I’ve worked up an appetite. How about you?”
The Emperor of the Romans replied with an uneasy smile.
It was Constantine who had invited them to the little family dinner in his apartment. John had accepted with an ill grace and was angry about something, that much was clear. The two brothers made an odd pair: both beardless, both middle-aged, but where John was big and solidly built, with a spreading paunch, Constantine was thin, almost cadaverous. And then there was their costume: John’s, as always, a shabby monk’s robe, Constantine’s a gorgeous plumage of silks and furs.
Waiters removed the remains of the fish course. The talk had been desultory so far.
“I want a wife,” said Calaphates, apropos of nothing.
“You’re too young,” John replied around a mouthful of food. He was drunk. He had become drunk at lunch, and now he was more drunk. “What d’you want with a wife anyway? Don’t you force yourself on every female in the palace under the age of forty? I swear the boy’s part goat.” He licked his lips and smiled at his own joke, glancing around the table.
Calaphates threw his napkin down. “Do not call me ‘boy’, Uncle. I am the Emperor.”
“Yes, and don’t ever forget who made you one.”
“Now, John,” Constantine said mildly, “we could just put out feelers to the Bulgars, the Rus. Wasn’t there some ambassador here a few years ago trying to shop Yaroslav’s daughter?”
Calaphates grinned. “Just what I want—a wild barbarian girl. What do you think of that, Mother?”
But before Maria could answer, John thumped the table. “No wife. End of discussion.” He reached for the decanter. As usual, he was drinking more than anyone else. Maria, who sat next to him, laid a hand on his arm. He threw it off.
Conversation flagged. Then George, who had said nothing so far, began a rambling monologue about the condition of the Imperial vestments and the price of silk. His voice trailed off when he realized no one was listening. The waiters carried in a steaming haunch of venison and began to carve.
Then Constantine, dabbing at his lips, said, “By the way, I’ve issued a contract for refurbishing the fleet and adding ten new warships. I’ve consulted with my captains, they’re all for it. I’m sure you’ll agree, Majesty?” He exchanged a look with Calaphates. This was the moment they had planned, the moment Constantine had waited all his life for.
“Absolutely, Uncle, quite so.”
John’s lip curled. “Your captains, brother? And who are you to decide this? You call yourself ‘Grand Domestic’? It’s a joke. I didn’t approve this promotion of yours. Calaphates, you should have asked me first. My brother is wholly unqualified for the position. The fact is, the treasury cannot afford this expense. Out of the question. Next time, Constantine, ask me before you go consulting anyone.”
Constantine carefully laid down his cutlery. “John, you’ve lorded it over us long enough. You are not our master. You are finished, Brother John.”
Maria and George stopped chewing in mid-mouthful. Calaphates smiled at his plate.
“Now, brothers,” Maria pleaded, “there is no cause for such talk. We’re a family. If we don’t stand united—why, well, we’re lost, aren’t we?” She glanced anxiously from one man to the other.
John stabbed a chunk of meat with his knife as though he were burying it in his brother’s chest. The bloody juices spattered his hand. “A family, yes, and I am the head of it. I make the decisions, I do the thinking.” He sawed off a piece and chewed it savagely.
“But Uncle John,” said Calaphates with a smile, “doesn’t that big, bulbous head of yours grow weary from so much thinking? What you need is a rest, Uncle—a long one. In a monastery, I think.”
John’s face contorted in a look of astonishment. “Listen to the boy’s insolence. Constantine, I blame you for this. You think I don’t know how you toady to him, all the gifts, all the winking behind my back? It’s disgusting. Be careful, Brother, I fear we’ve raised a serpent in our bosom. This boy would gladly see us all destroyed, you as much as me.”
“John, stop it.” Maria was looking desperate. “He isn’t a bad boy, not a serpent. If only Stephen were still alive to guide him.”
“Maria, your husband couldn’t guide his right hand to his asshole. I accept the blame for putting him in charge of the fleet but I won’t make that mistake with little brother Constantine here.”
She flared in anger. “You—you mind how you talk about Stephen. He had balls even if he hadn’t a brain.”
In an instant, the carefully learned city manners were stripped away and all that was left was a family of Paphlagonian peasants snarling at each other. There was a long moment of shocked silence—broken by a loud horse laugh from Calaphates. “Good for you, Mother!”
“Calaphates, excuse yourself from the table,” John commanded. “This conversation has taken an ugly turn, not for your ears.”
“Oh, no, Uncle. I’m enjoying myself. This is better than the pantomimes.”
“Of course, His Majesty must stay,” Constantine said, laying his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. It is you who must leave, John. Leave now, leave at once!” Constantine’s voice cracked in a shrill falsetto.
John struck out with his arm, sweeping everything off the table. Silver plates clattered to the floor, glassware smashed. He lurched to his feet, knocking over his bench. His cheeks—those immovable slabs of white fat—quivered with anger. They had never seen him like this. “I will leave. I will take myself away. And you’ll see how the senators, the heads of bureaus, will follow me, how every man of sense in this city will follow me. And in a week, when you discover that you know nothing about governing the Empire, you will all be begging me to come back.”
Maria wrung her hands; helpless tears made tracks in her face powder. George looked as if he had been smacked with a board. Constantine and Calaphates shared a secret look of triumph.
The waiters busied themselves cleaning up the mess on the floor. Except for one, who slipped out of the room unnoticed—one of the Logothete’s spies.
And John was right. He boarded his yacht and sailed, not to his mansion on the Horn, but to Prusa, across the Propontis, far enough away to frighten them and bring them to their senses. And half the court did follow him, Maria and George among them. He reigned there like a king. A week passed. A week in which Constantine and his ships’ captains and regimental commanders laid their plans, in which nobles and officials who hated John were sounded out, one of them being the Logothete. Then a letter was sent, stamped with the Imperial signet, begging John’s pardon, asking him to return, assuring him that he would find everything just as he would wish.
So John came back. Constantine Nobilissimus and the Emperor stood together on the palace roof, a cold wind whipping their cloaks around them, looking down at the Great Harbor as the yacht sailed in.
“Give the signal, Majesty,” Constantine murmured.
The yacht was almost at its mooring post. Calaphates raised his right arm. A warship darted out, came alongside and threw out grappling lines. Marines swarmed over the side. If you listened hard, you could hear the shouting. If you squinted into the morning sun, you could see John looking up to the palace, shaking his fist. You couldn’t see the expression on his face. But you could imagine it.
The warship departed, taking the Guardian of Orphans to the monastery of Monobatae, on a small island in the sea, where, in due course, he was blinded.
Now Constantine ruled the family and the empire.