Lord of Slaughter

5

Loys set off on his long walk to the Magnaura. Like many immigrants to the city, he and Beatrice had settled very near to where they’d first entered — the lighthouse gate just north of the aqueduct on the Golden Horn. Scores of people offering lodgings greeted the incoming boats and it was impossible to choose between them. The couple had allowed themselves to be led away by the first man who’d approached them and been lucky he wasn’t a thief or too much of a fraud.

The thicket of backstreets wasn’t too dangerous at that time of day but he was glad to turn into the main street, wide, broad and bright with its splendid granite porches supported by elegant columns, some faded to white, some still in the colours the city’s founders had painted them. No ramshackle and stinking wooden buildings here, nothing crammed or cramped. Loys had been raised in a well-to-do family in Rouen, a cathedral town. But on this road more than any other he was as wide-eyed as a farm boy with straw in his hair — a barbarian, as the Roman natives of the town called him. He liked the feeling, really. All his life he had been the cleverest person he knew, the best read, the most worldly. Here he felt unsophisticated, daunted and naive. It would be a challenge to leave his mark on this city.

He passed soap makers, their stalls smelling of violets and roses, candle makers, linen sellers with their wares laid out in scarlet, blue and white, silk men — their fabrics in vibrant colours too, a flash of gorgeous purple poking from a chest to indicate they served royalty, not that the common people could buy silk of that colour even if they could afford it. Leather workers offered fine belts and boots; swords were arranged on one stall with two small shields above them, looking to Loys like a terrible beast of staring eyes and giant teeth. Wine was on sale, beer and olives, oil and pottery, some in practical fired white earth, some decorated in vivid greens, reds and blues.

Fishmongers declared the quality of their wares, their catch laid out like treasure, iridescent in the cold light. Saddlers and grocers challenged the crowds to find a better price anywhere on Middle Way. Jewellers sat flanked by scowling eunuchs, a bullion dealer stood by his scales, six fully mailed Norman mercenaries around him. They made Loys shiver, though they were not Beatrice’s father’s men, he would have recognised them. Next to the bullion dealer was a row of coin changers, less impressively protected by native Greeks and hard-eyed easterners. Loys longed to take Beatrice here, to buy her jewels to make up for the ones she’d lost to robbers in Montpellier before they’d boarded the ship for Constantinople.

The streets were busy, and he fought against a tide of people heading towards the Golden Gate — the city’s main ceremonial entrance. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked a boy who passed him.

‘The emperor’s back! He’s leading a triumph. He’s got the Varangians with him! Northern giants! They have a savage who attacked him in his tent with them!’

Loys had no time for that, he had to be at his studies.

He pushed on, past the emperor Marcian’s granite column and into the squabble of the Bull Market — where bulls and virtually everything else were on sale. It was less busy than usual but still busier than any other market he had ever attended in his life. He shoved his way through, thinking it the one blessing of poverty that you lacked a rich purse to steal.

From there he went under Theodosian’s Arch, decorated with images of victorious Roman soldiers — still gaudy in yellow, red and pink after all these years — and on down the Middle Way to the Forum of Constantine, where, thank God, the market was closed. He strode past the statue of the Roman emperor who had founded the city, only glancing at the other marvellous bronzes that decorated the wide square. At the exit of the forum were two keystones in the wall in the shape of huge blank-eyed heads, both taller than he was. Their brutal, heavy features stared out with expressions of ancient animosity. They made him shiver. Pagan gods or heroes, he thought, their names now forgotten. Loys saw eternity in their stares and his own life seemed fragile and fleeting.

Once through the forum, the magnificent hippodrome appeared — a massive building in pink cement supported by marble columns that stretched like a parade of trees out to the south-west. He had seen a chariot race there but it had all been too rough for him — the rival factions of Blues and Greens brawling on the terraces. He’d winkled his way out of the crush when a brute of a man behind him had pissed up the back of his trousers.

Past the hippodrome to the north-east shone the bright white walls of the palace and, beyond that, the most marvellous thing he had ever seen, the great dome of the mother church of Eastern Christendom, Hagia Sophia. He’d known God in that place among the ribbons of incense smoke that climbed from the gold of the altar through the sunbeams beneath the huge vault of the ceiling. The building was beyond mortal dreams, it was infused with God’s glory, its architects divinely inspired.

He walked on, following the Middle Way past the Numera. He never liked this part of the trip. The Numera was the city’s prison — built over one of Constantinople’s ancient cisterns. The most disturbing thing about it was its silence in the midst of such a busy city. Every other building in that area burst with noise, from the beggars and traders on the steps of Hagia Sophia to the clucking officials coming and going from the palace and the young men of the Magnaura laughing and fooling their way to their studies. Not so the Numera. Even the relatives of the prisoners, straining at the bars of its gates to offer food for the inmates and bribes to the guards, were cowed and subdued. The building itself was utterly quiet, its walls thick and the labyrinth of cells and tunnels, man-made or natural, that sprawled beneath it so deep that no sound of torment ever escaped.

The Numera was the plainest building on the road, a square block of unfaced brick in dirty yellow, like a stubby bad tooth in the mouth of a beautiful woman, thought Loys. At dawn it sat directly in the shadow of the great church, squatting silent in darkness as if the sun feared it. He guessed it would be getting a few more inmates with the emperor’s return.

He arrived at the steps of the Magnaura, its vast columned porch looming above him. He went up, nodding to the guard at the scholars’ gate, and passed through into the cloistered garden that led to the Senate House — which is what the school was still called, though the senators had long gone.

The scent of olive trees hit him. In the streets no tree would survive a moment — firewood and building materials being precious commodities. Here they stood in smart lines, their branches heavy with the green and purple fruit. He picked one and sucked off its flesh. ‘Agh!’ Bitter. He smiled to himself, wondering if they always tasted that way straight off the tree. He imagined Beatrice by his side, laughing and saying, ‘Well, there’s something you didn’t know, you with all your learning.’

Birdsong filled the air but it came from no natural birds. At the bottom of the line of olive trees was one of the wonders of the city — another olive tree, life-size and cast in bronze, with splendid birds in its branches, their glass feathers catching the light in spangles of colour. Their song piped high and sweet, backed by a sound like rain from the water that powered the machine. He would never get used to this, he thought. In some ways he considered it unholy and recalled the passage from the Bible: ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.’

God forbade such things. But could God begrudge man such beauty? Loys would have loved to have shown the singing tree to Beatrice, though that was impossible. No woman was allowed in the precincts of the university. He moved on.

The Senate House had an exterior of light yellow cement with three big arches of windows sitting beneath a dome. He still felt a thrill entering the exalted halls of the Magnaura. Today he had just a couple of teaching jobs — rhetoric and philosophy to the dense sons of some nobles. They weren’t inclined to learn much so he wasn’t inclined to teach much, and beyond giving them a few philosophers’ names to drop when questioned by their families, he spent his time with them talking of the many curiosities of the earth — the dragons of the east and the sand seas of Arabia.

Then he would take a class on law himself and — the highlight of his day — join the formal debate in the afternoon. That day he was speaking on the energies of God as separate from the essence of God — how we can know what God does but never what he is. Loys had also prepared a speech on the practice of hesychasm — a hermitage of the soul, withdrawing and stripping away all sensory perception until the eye of the soul awakens and an intuitive knowledge of God is developed. Loys was a theoretical rather than a practical student of this discipline.

He reached the door of the building and stepped inside to be met by the doorkeeper. He waved and went to walk through into the teaching cells but the man put up a hand to stop him.

‘Visitor for you.’

The doorkeeper’s face was pale.

‘Who?’

‘Go to the master’s rooms. He’s there.’

‘Who?’

The man said nothing, just scuttled into the little office behind his table. Loys went across the wide atrium, glancing down at the mosaic beneath his feet. Perseus slaying the Medusa, the snake-haired monster whose gaze turned men to stone. The way the doorman had acted you’d think there was one waiting for him in the master’s study.

He walked to the back of the building, passed the turn into the debating arena and went along a corridor to a single door on the left. He had been here only once before — when he gained admission by interview to the school. Well, actually an appearance before the faculty, at which he had to win through in a debate. It had not been easy — Rouen didn’t have that sort of competition — but he had done it. One debate on a subject of his choosing, one on theirs. Thank God they hadn’t picked the law.

He knocked on the door and a voice he didn’t recognise said, ‘Come.’ He thought it was a woman, but when he opened the door the master was on one of the guest chairs in his own room and behind the study table, in the master’s normal place, sat an exceptionally finely dressed and — no other word would do — beautiful man of around thirty. He shimmered in white silk and gold and, most tellingly, a bright purple sash worn left to right over his scarlet and brocade tunic. Only the emperor, his family and their very nearest associates had the right to wear that colour.

Behind him stood two enormous men, one clearly Greek by his short hair and beard, the other an African, his skin a deep black. Both had golden whips at their belts, along with a club and a sword. The whips, Loys knew, were for clearing a way through crowds for their master.

Loys instantly prostrated himself. He had no idea who this man was, but that sash, combined with the fact he’d turned the university’s master out of his own most comfortable seat, meant it was better to overdo the formalities rather than risk any appearance of arrogance.

‘Stand up, scholar, stand up.’ The sing-song voice was of an unusual timbre. The man had smooth skin like a woman’s, beardless; his limbs were long and his hands thin and graceful. His fingers bore three gold rings, one of which looked heavy enough to be an official seal. Certainly a eunuch, thought Loys.

He stood up.

‘Do you know me?’

‘No, sir, I do not.’

The man put his tongue into his lower lip in contemplation. Loys noticed the master had his eyes firmly on the eunuch, a static smile cut into his face like a scar into the skin of an orange.

‘I am the chamberlain. The parakoimomeno.’

Loys instinctively bowed. The parakoimomeno — he who sleeps beside the emperor — was the second most powerful man in the empire after the emperor; some would say more powerful even than he. Basileios was always away fighting his wars. The emperor didn’t enjoy court life even when he wasn’t fighting, and stayed at his estate up the coast. The chamberlain remained in Constantinople and was responsible for all the day-to-day running of the city.

‘He doesn’t look clever,’ said the chamberlain to the master.

‘He is the best man for the work you describe, sir,’ said the master. ‘I have none better.’

‘You’re not just giving him to me because he is a foreigner and you fear to lose a native scholar?’

‘This man is steeped in occult lore, sir.’

A long silence. The chamberlain’s expression was as blank as the moon’s. Loys and the master waited for the chamberlain to speak, and they waited a good while.

Eventually he said, ‘You are a foreigner. You live here at the school?’

‘No, I live-’

‘By the lighthouse gate.’

Loys said nothing, just gave a little bow. The eunuch was trying to intimidate him, and the wise course of action was to let him. No point standing up to such men. Better to allow them to intimidate you with long silences than with their soldiers.

‘With your wife. Who is higher born than you, it appears.’

Loys remained silent still.

The chamberlain puckered his lips.

‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘Silence is a talent and a precious one.’

After that Loys didn’t really feel he could speak until asked a direct question.

‘What do you think of magic, scholar?’

‘Sir?’

‘Your theory of magic, what is it?’

Loys rocked from foot to foot.

‘The Church tells us it is the devil working through malicious and envious men.’

‘But what do you think?’

‘I am bound to think the same. Though I can consider and understand heresies, even rehearse their arguments the better to prepare our priests to know them, then-’

The chamberlain held up his hand to silence Loys. He reached inside his tunic, took a coin out of a pocket and laid it on the table.

‘Study it and tell me what you think.’

Loys picked it up. It was an ancient Roman coin from the time of the founding of the city. On one side it showed Constantine along with his mother St Helena, on the other a picture of Christ on the Cross. It had been drilled to allow it to be worn as an amulet.

‘It is a charm, sir,’ said Loys, ‘probably for good luck or power.’

‘Yes, it is. And I would say it’s an effective one. From where does it derive its power?’

‘From the image of the True Cross.’

‘Is that the same as from God?’

‘A difficult question, sir. There are many drunken old women who babble the name of Christ in their spells. It would depend how it was used. And, of course, by whom. Contemplation, proper contemplation, of the image of Christ can lead us closer to God, whatever the iconoclasts would have had us believe. The Cross is an inspiration to faith, and it is through faith miracles are achieved. Yet the devil has many disguises.’

‘Spoken like a philosopher,’ said the chamberlain. ‘Which is to say you have given no answer at all. What if I told you the power of the coin came from the image of the emperor?’

‘Then that would make it no more than a pagan icon. A channel for the evildoing of demons.’

‘Our founder and ancestor Constantine a channel for demons?’

‘I did not mean to imply…’ Loys was very hot. ‘It is the image of a man. The likeness of a good man, an excellent man, can still be used for evil. I refer only to what the saints and scholars tell us. There are sympathies and antipathies in nature. The image of a powerful man might be able to manipulate these. Demons might fear him and so the amulet might bring good luck. Sorcerers could use it to do more.’

‘To alter the future?’

‘Anyone can alter the future, sir — it’s as simple as choosing to buy an apple at the market or to pass by the stall.’

The chamberlain smiled. ‘Don’t be clever with me, scholar. Could it be used to magical effect?’

‘I believe so, yes, if my reading is correct. But it would not be holy to do so. That is the province of wonder workers and I curse their names.’

The chamberlain tapped the table. ‘Could you tell a sorcerer from a saint, scholar? Their actions are often very similar.’

‘I believe I could.’

‘How?’

‘The saint’s powers come from his faith. The image of the Cross, as on the coin, simply provides a focus for that faith. So it is not exactly true to say the image of the Cross holds power in itself. It is, rather, the power of faith it unlocks inside us, as we see in the Gospel of St Mark. There a woman touches Christ’s robe and is cured of the affliction of the issue of the blood. But Christ tells her it is her faith, not the touch of his robe, that has made her well. A sorcerer works through demon-infested objects, not faith. And a sorcerer must fail. Any attempt to control demons is doomed to disaster.’

‘Yet our saints have been nailed up, drowned, eaten by lions, burned, beaten and buggered for all I know. A funny sort of success.’

The profanity shocked Loys. The chamberlain’s words weren’t blasphemous though they sat on the bench right next to it, so to speak. But of course nothing the chamberlain said was blasphemy, simply because it was he who had said it. Anyone pointing the finger at a man like that was likely to lose the finger and more besides.

The chamberlain spoke again: ‘Where do you get these ideas from? Do you invent them or is there a foundation in the work of learned scholars?’

‘From Proclus, mainly, a man of this city in ancient times, though Proclus brings with him one hundred other philosophers back to Plato.’

‘Proclus was a heathen, was he not?’

‘No, a Christian, but he followed other religions besides. He wanted to become a priest of the whole universe.’

‘A pretentious sort of sacrilege. And do you follow other religions?’

‘No. Proclus was wrong to be promiscuous in his faith. I am a true Christian.’

‘Not after our fashion, though? You follow the Pope.’

‘I follow Christ,’ said Loys.

‘But you do not accept the teachings of the Eastern Church.’

‘The Eastern Church has great wisdom. I am honoured to attend its services.’

‘But the Pope commands you.’

Loys was on difficult ground here. He didn’t want the chamberlain to extract a confession that he was effectively controlled by a foreign power. This was no place for fine distinctions, to say the Pope controlled his spiritual life but that in Constantinople Loys was a loyal subject of the emperor. Powerful men might not choose to see the difference.

‘My master is the art of learning, sir. There is right and there is wrong, and an appreciation of the difference is all that is required of the godly man.’

The chamberlain leaned back in his seat. For a while he said nothing and Loys felt himself frying beneath the man’s gaze.

Finally: ‘You won’t prosper in Constantinople with that attitude.’

Another long pause. Then the chamberlain did something extraordinary. He smiled. Loys glanced at the master. He still wore a fixed smile, like he’d taken too close a look at the Medusa.

The chamberlain gave a little chuckle. ‘It was a joke, friends. You could allow yourself to laugh.’

Loys forced out a laugh and the master was seized by a fit of hysteria, beating his hand on his knee and wheezing as if about to die. The guards behind the chamberlain were impassive.

When the laughter ended, which was not soon, the chamberlain turned to the master. ‘I would like to speak with the scholar alone.’

That stopped the old man’s mirth. For a moment he looked as though he might say something. Then the chamberlain pointed to the door. The master stood and went to it, hesitating in front of it.

‘You put your hand to the door, push and walk through. Do they not teach that in your philosophy, old man?’

The master went out. The big black man followed him, shooed him away down the corridor and returned to stand behind the chamberlain. The black man frightened Loys. The Arabs wrote that the blacks were the first of men, intellectually, physically and spiritually superior to other races in every way. This man looked it, with his quick eyes and gleaming muscles. He had a presence that made Loys want to take a pace back.

‘I need to speak to you frankly and in confidence. Only you, I and one other know what I am about to tell you. If these secrets escape there will only be you to blame. You know what that would mean.’ Loys’ eyes flicked to the guards.

‘The guards are trustworthy, but if it pleases you we can communicate in this way and they cannot understand us,’ said the chamberlain in Latin.

‘The master?’ said Loys in the same language.

‘He only knows a little of my purpose.’

‘I am ready to serve.’ Loys bowed and then bowed again, against himself. He wanted to show respect but he didn’t want to look like a serf.

‘I have a problem,’ said the chamberlain, ‘and you are its solution. Dark forces are at work in this city. The emperor himself is under magical attack and has been tempted by demons.’

‘This was the savage who broke through to the emperor’s tent?’

‘Hardly. Lazy guards rather than magic, I think. No more than a madman wanting alms, whatever the gossip you might here to the contrary.’

‘I’m glad there was no attempt on the emperor’s life.’

‘The emperor has more to fear than deranged men and drunken guards. This is much more serious.’

Loys kept his eyes forward, determined to show no reaction that could spark the chamberlain’s disapproval.

‘Furthermore, there is reason to suspect certain other high men face these assaults. Some may even lose their position because of them. Putting it straightforwardly, the emperor has been afflicted in the body, so he may also be attacked in his humours and attitudes. No one in this empire can afford Basileios to come under the sway of evil forces.’

‘No,’ said Loys.

‘The master says you are his best student. I need you to set out clearly for me the nature of magical attacks and how they might be countered.’

‘The solution is plain for Christian men, sir. By prayer.’

‘We have tried that and to no avail. Christ clearly wants us to take another course. This is no different to the way we would conduct any battle. We send out scouts to assess the enemy in his strengths and various weaknesses. You are our scout, our magical scout.’

‘I’d be honoured to make a study, sir.’

‘It is more than a study. The emperor expects his problems to end. The dark fate of great men must be averted. We want to know how that might be achieved.’

‘You are asking me to discover how to cast a magical spell?’

‘Exactly so.’

‘That is not Christian.’ Loys heard the words pop out of him. It was as if they trailed pennants behind them through the air, pennants he wished he could grasp in order to pull them back.

The chamberlain pursed his lips. ‘Oh come on, scholar. How many heathen practices do we study? Your philosophers of Athens never knew Christ. How much heathenism surrounds us, just under the surface of our Christian life? You quote the learned pagans with no fear to your mortal soul; you take pleasure from statues of false gods, you walk upon mosaics showing all manner of unchristian things. Look to the star and sickle moon that is our city’s symbol. Do you know how that came to be? Why we mark it on our walls and gates?’

‘I do not, sir.’ Loys, remarkably for him, had never even considered it.

‘It is the symbol of the goddess Hecate. “At my will the planets of the air, the wholesome winds of the seas, and the silences of hell be disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in diverse manners, in variable customs and in many names. Some call me Juno, others Bellona of the Battles, and still others Hecate. Principally the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustomed to worship me, do call me Queen Isis.”’

‘Apuleius’s Metamorphoses,’ said Loys, recognising the quotation.

‘Correct,’ said the chamberlain. ‘How much of our wisdom and art is taken from the pagans? Half the masses on their knees to Mary are secretly praying to Hecate in their hearts and the other half pray to her without knowing it. Paganism surrounds us. We are the fish; religion is our sea but cold and old tides are within it.’

Loys summoned his courage. ‘I must have a care for my immortal soul, sir.’

‘That sounds like defiance, scholar.’

‘No, sir, it is not.’

‘Then what do you call it?’

Loys said nothing.

‘It is an academic study,’ said the chamberlain. ‘I am not asking you to perform these sorceries, just to describe them and to tell us how they might be done. I am sick of frauds and ragged prophets. This requires the attention of serious men. You will be rewarded.’

Loys’ tongue came to his lips. The chamberlain smiled at that.

‘You will have rooms in the palace, where your wife will be able to wander freely among its many marvels. Has she seen the metal birds that sing beneath the fountains? You see them every day in the Magnaura but a woman cannot walk here, can she? And remember, as an honoured lady of the court, she need only command a court eunuch to come with her if she wants to take to the streets. Your food will be paid for and proper garments too, so you don’t offend the eyes of courtiers. Baths will be available and warm rooms — they say this winter is going to be a cold one and if the summer is anything to go by they’re right. Scholar, do you want to spend the months of true cold in that little pile of wood down by the water?’

Loys shifted. He felt like a mouse who suddenly realises a cat has been watching it. And he knew, as the chamberlain knew, he had no alternative but to accept.

The chamberlain clicked his fingers at the huge Greek eunuch and the man slid a wrap of cloth across the table.

‘There’s a pound of gold. Seventy-two solidi. That should keep the lady happy, I think.’

‘You know a lot about me, sir.’ Loys wondered who among the scholars had been spying for the chamberlain.

‘Pick up the gold.’

Loys did as he was told. It felt heavier than a pound. Four years’ wages for a soldier. There sat the chamberlain, richly dressed, delicate in features and movement. Was that how Satan had appeared to Christ in the wilderness?

The chamberlain watched Loys weighing the gold in his hand. ‘We have men who are paid to know all about you. The Office of Barbarians, as men call them, though they dislike the title themselves. They dislike any title, in fact. With so many foreigners we need someone to keep an eye on them all. Though in truth their time would be better spent watching our native Romans nowadays. Come to the door of the palace as soon as you can and mention my name. They will be expecting you.’

Loys bowed. He wanted to give the gold back but that was impossible. Another part of him wanted to kiss the little bundle, to hug it and to cheer.

‘I will expect your report by the end of winter. A working and efficacious spell to cure the emperor of his malaise and to protect him and the high men of this city against further attack.’

‘What is the emperor’s malaise?’

‘That need not concern you. Now stay here as we leave.’

Loys almost wanted to laugh, though he had no idea why.

The chamberlain left and, after a short while, the master returned. He had a cowed look to him. Loys had seen it before. It was the look of a boy who has been beaten in a fight, a man who has been made to appear foolish in front of a girl, a losing gambler creeping home to his wife. Humiliation, surprise even that life still went on after such a loss of status.

‘You can go, Loys,’ he said, returning to his chair behind the desk.

‘I will not be at the debate?’

‘No. You are the chamberlain’s now.’

‘Will my place at the school be open when he finishes with me?’

The master turned down his mouth and shook his head.

‘Succeed or fail, he will never be finished with you. You are his, for bad or for good.’

‘But why did he pay me so well? Why raise me up to live in the palace? He could have just commanded me to do his will and left me in that barn by the river at no cost to himself.’

‘You don’t understand our powerful men. You are his: you represent him, you will use his name to aid your researches. His enemies will discover what you are doing, too, be sure of that. So you must be a fit representative. His glory shines on you and he expects to see it reflected. His servants can’t go dressed in rags; they themselves must seem like important men. He is a terror, Loys, a terror, and you are now his mirror. Rejoice. You could be on your way to great riches.’

Loys smiled. ‘But to get there I must have commerce with demons.’

The master pointed at the pouch in Loys’ hand. ‘You already have,’ he said.