The Mosaic of Shadows

In a corner, the sergeant stood with his arms crossed over his chest, surveying his achievement. ‘Is this the one?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Suddenly, after the energy and momentum of the chase, I felt a stab of uncertainty. Surely this was the right man – how could it not be? Feeling my limbs shivering with sudden tension, I walked slowly around the captive until I could see the back of his head.

He did not have a tonsure.

I cringed; I felt as though someone had kicked me in the groin, or punched my throat. Black bile flooded my stomach, and I stepped away from the prisoner. Yet still I clung to my belief, like a drowning sailor to his flotsam. It was weeks since I had caught the monk outside my house, more than sufficient time for his hair to grow back. Indeed, a man so attuned to his safety would hardly have done otherwise, especially once he knew I had seen him.

The Patzinak captain had arrived now. I could see his head just emerging from the hole in the floor where the ladder protruded.

‘Send two of your soldiers to the monastery of Saint Andrew,’ I told him, ‘and have them bring back a boy named Thomas who is living there.’ I brushed aside his puzzled objection. ‘He is the only one who can tell if this is the man we seek.’

That next hour was an aching ordeal, my every hope hostage to Thomas’s arrival. We searched the house, the top room particularly, but found nothing of import: our prisoner had a low bed, a crude table and a pair of stools, and little else. He did not speak, and I could not summon the strength to interrogate him, so we left him sitting against the wall with his hands tied before him and four Patzinaks surrounding him. Most of the guards were dispatched back to the palace, while others rummaged through the shopkeeper’s rooms below. Every sound they made caused me to start, to peer down the ladder to see if Thomas had arrived, and every time I felt a fool for revealing my agitation.

Predictably, I hardly noticed when he did finally arrive; I was standing at the window looking out over a wasteland of broken tenements, and only when I heard the sentry’s challenge did I turn to see him.

He was looking well. Anna must have seen to it that the monks who cared for him did not take their ascetism too rigorously, and in the weeks since I had seen him his chest and shoulders had swelled out like a warrior’s. His pale hair was brushed and trimmed, and his young beard was beginning to close in over his chin. He looked uncertainly about the room, unsure perhaps as to why he had come.

Even before I could ask my question, his eyes told me the answer. I had seen him notice our prisoner, sitting bound and guarded, had seen the curiosity which the sight engendered. There had been confusion, certainly, and perhaps a little fear, for it was not so long since he had been in that position. But not, to my furious frustration, the least hint of recognition.

κ

‘This is not him.’ A month in the monastery had worked miracles on Thomas’s Greek, though I was in no mood to appreciate it. Thomas looked closer, his hesitant lips moving silently as he rehearsed his next words. ‘But like.’

‘Like? Like what? This man is like the monk?’

A look of pain furrowed Thomas’s face, and I forced myself to repeat my questions more slowly.

He nodded. ‘Like. Like him.’

‘Like a brother, perhaps?’ I turned to our cowering captive, who had heard every word. ‘Is your brother a monk? Does he stay with you?’

I was tense enough to shake an answer out of him, but he merely snivelled a little and rested his head on his knees. One of the Patzinaks slapped the side of his face.

I looked to the sergeant. ‘Go downstairs and ask the grocer whether this man received visitors: a monk. Apologise for the damage you have done his house; tell him that the Eparch will see he is well paid for his trouble.’

The sergeant looked doubtful, but I was the only man in that room who could vouch for the Eparch. We waited in silence while the sergeant thudded down the ladders; then we heard raised voices, the sound of the grocer’s wife screaming accusations, and the crash of some clay vessel shattering.

The sergeant returned, flushed.

‘There was another man who often stayed here. The grocer’s wife had many rows with the tenant, who she calls Paul, over whether he should pay more rent for this guest. She was outraged that a man of God was taking advantage of them. “Why can he not stay in the monastery, with his brethren?” she asked.’

A flood of elation burst through me, but I tried to remain methodical. ‘What did this Paul say in return?’

‘That the man was his brother, brought to our city on a pilgrimage ordained by God. Who was he to deny him hospitality?’

‘And when was the last time this monk visited?’

The sergeant smiled in triumph. ‘Two days ago.’

I turned back to look at our prisoner. ‘Your brother is the monk I seek, the man who would kill the Emperor.’ I did not know whether to feel joy or anger that I had come so close. ‘Sergeant, take him to the palace for the torturers to start their work. Leave six of your men here in case the monk returns.’

As I had hoped, I saw the prisoner Paul go pale when I mentioned the torturers. ‘You will not snare my brother here,’ he protested. ‘He is gone.’

I watched him coolly. ‘Of course you say that. We will see what you say after a month in the dungeons.’

The prisoner went silent and bit his lip; his fingers were now wrapped tight about each other, and his nails gouged white weals in his skin. ‘He is escaped,’ he insisted. ‘I swear it. I saw him yesterday evening, in the forum of Arcadius, and he told me he would be gone by dawn. Whatever you want with him, you will not get it now.’

‘Then we will get it in the dungeon.’

‘But what more could I tell you there?’ The prisoner threw his gaze desperately around the room, beseeching pity, though the watching Patzinaks evinced nothing but menace. ‘He is gone, curse him, and he will not come back. You say he wanted to kill the Emperor, whom I pray to live a thousand years. Maybe he did. He was much changed, my brother, when he came here, and I think evil had blossomed in his heart, but what could I do? I could not bar my brother from my door: he would not let me – and he was my kin. “Do not be slow to entertain wayfarers,” he told me, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”’

I snorted. ‘He was far from an angel.’

‘He did not think so.’ The prisoner Paul shuffled his shoulders a little, trying to smooth out his tunic. ‘How many nights did I listen to him, his sermons of how the empire needed a purifying fire to descend and burn away its withered branches.’ Paul looked at me imploringly. ‘He was not like this when we were young.’

After his earlier silence, the torrent of Paul’s story left so many fragments I could scarce begin to think what to examine first. I settled on the beginning.

‘When you were young,’ I repeated. ‘When was that?’

‘Thirty years ago?’ Paul shrugged. ‘I have not counted. We grew up in the mountains of Macedonia, the sons of a farmer. Michael and I . . .’

‘Michael? Your brother’s name is Michael?’

Paul shook his head. ‘It was then. But when I greeted him by it after he returned, he chastised me for it. “I am reborn in Christ,” he said. “And I have taken the name Odo.” After that he insisted I call him by this new, barbarian name.’

Once again the story was flowing away from me. ‘After he returned . . . from where? When did he go?’

‘He went not long after he was grown to manhood. He and our father . . . disagreed.’

‘Disagreed about what?’

Paul lifted his bound hands and wiped his wrists across his forehead. ‘Our father had arranged a bride for him, but Michael did not want to marry the girl. When my father insisted, Michael refused. Afterwards he left our village and came here, to the queen of cities. He said he would make a pilgrimage to the relics of Saint John the Baptist, and find absolution.’

‘Did he find it?’

‘Not here. He came, but he did not stay. He did not have the means to enjoy all the fruits of the city, and – though he did not say as much – I think he fell in with immoral companions. After he escaped them, his wanderings took him to the ends of the earth, to the lands of the Kelts and the Franks and the other barbarian tribes who cling to the fringes of the world. There he found his salvation.’

‘In the western church?’ No wonder he had taken a barbarian name, after the fashion of his new religion. ‘When was that?’

‘Some time in the past.’ Paul looked at me hopelessly. ‘I heard nothing from him in all those years after he left the village. Everything I know I have from what he told me when he returned. Some three months ago,’ he added, anticipating my inevitable question. ‘He sent no word that he was coming – I did not even know that he knew I was here. I had come much later, after our father died. One day I returned from my work to find Michael – Odo – sitting on a stone by the grocer’s door. I scarcely recognised him, but he knew me immediately and told me he had come to stay with me. How could I refuse?’

‘Did he say what he purposed here?’

‘Never. And after one attempt, I did not ask again. He was always a private man, my brother, and he grew more so in his wanderings. He told me nothing, not even when he would be here. Sometimes he disappeared for days or even weeks, leaving no word, and I thought that perhaps he had gone back to his friends in the west, but then he would return unannounced and demand my hospitality again. Only yesterday did he say that he was going forever. As I told you.’

‘Where was he going?’

‘He did not say.’

I should not have been surprised. ‘Did your brother ever mention any notable men of the city?’ I asked, wondering if I could at least draw some hint as to his masters.

As so often, Paul shook his head, then looked up doubtfully. ‘One evening I rebuked him for eating all my dinner. I had prepared none for him, thinking he would not return that evening. As was his habit, he responded with a bitter harangue on the pre-eminence of his work: he told me that he was employed by a great lord, and lesser men should presume nothing but to make straight his way.’

I kept my tone restrained. ‘Did he say which lord?’

‘Of course not. I assumed he meant the lord God. He often spoke of his calling as the Lord’s avenger, the cleansing flame of the Holy Spirit.’

‘Did he speak of what he would avenge?’

For the first time, I drew from Paul a feeble smile. ‘Constantly. He wanted to cleanse the city of her filth, her heresies, and restore purity to her streets. To him she is Babylon, the great mother of whores and abominations, drunk on the blood of the saints. Michael swore that in the hour of her doom she will be made desolate and naked, her flesh will be devoured and burned with fire, and he will be the agent of this destruction.’ His smile widened a little. ‘If you read the apocalypse of the divine Saint John, you will understand.’

‘I know the apocalypse.’

‘During his years in Rheims, he had somehow been persuaded that this was his proper task.’

‘His years where?’

‘Rheims, I think he called it. A barbarian town. He spent some time at a school there, and later took orders in its abbey. It is where he was re-baptised as Odo. I do not know where it is.’

I did not know where it was either, but I knew I had heard of it. I thought back to a dusty library and a severe archivist lecturing me on Frankish saints.

‘Did your brother ever speak of a Saint Remigius?’ I asked. ‘Or show you a ring inscribed with that name, mounted with a cracked garnet.’ I reached into my pocket, fumbling for the ring which I had carried with me ever since that day in the forest, as if by holding his totem I might gain some grasp over the monk himself. ‘This ring?’

Impervious to the excitement in my voice, Paul shrugged. ‘He did have a ring, but I did not see it closely. It was red; it may be the one you hold. I glimpsed it only when he washed. He said it was a token of the barbarian town.’

‘Did you ever see any others with such a ring?’

‘None. As I have said, no-one visited my brother here.’

I spent another hour throwing questions at the prisoner, checking the details of his story and prodding for any clue he might reveal, wittingly or not. I asked about his own circumstances – he was unmarried, it transpired, and worked as a minor clerk for a notary, taking a fraction of his employer’s earnings for the documents he prepared. He worshipped in the approved manner, fervently but without the zealous self-righteousness which the fathers condemned. He told me the name of his village and I wrote it down, for someone would have to travel there and ask about his brother. It would not be me: a journey through the Macedonian mountains in winter would not, I decided, afford the best use of my time and talents.

Outside the windows, evening was coming early to the dark day, and I was keen to be away. I had only a single question remaining, and it was more curiosity than hope. ‘Tell me, Paul, was your brother a violent man?’

The words seemed to agitate the prisoner greatly. He did not answer, but jerked his head against his shoulder as if shaking water from his ear.

‘Unbind me, and I will show you.’

I ordered a Patzinak to cut his bonds. Paul gave a grimace of acknowledgement as his hands were freed, and pulled up his sleeve. I drew in a breath, for all down to his wrist the entire arm was black, as if it had been burned or rotted away. Only after a few moments could I see that they were in fact a mottled patchwork of overlapping bruises.

‘It does not become a man to speak ill of his brother,’ said Paul heavily, ‘but even in our childhood Michael was cruel. I told you he departed our village because he disagreed with my father’s choice of bride. In truth, he fled before the vengeance of her father, after his rage had left the poor girl almost dead. He has learned many new things on his travels since then, but he has forgotten nothing. If he could throw down our city in a cauldron of blood, he would not hesitate.’ He rubbed his loosened wrists. ‘Indeed, he would revel in it.’

‘So he is a Roman, corrupted by Franks into turning on his mother city, and returned to work violence and sedition.’ Krysaphios licked the honey from his fingers as he considered this; he had been eating when I found him at the palace, and the urgency of my news would not deter him from his meal. ‘And just across the waters of the Horn we have ten thousand armed Franks, who spurn our hospitality and provoke our ambassadors. Who arrived mere weeks after your monk. I imagine you have noticed the coincidence?’

‘I have.’

‘But how could they profit from killing the Emperor unless they could take the city. And what could give them to think they could do that? They have no siege engines to batter down the land walls, and no fleet to attack us from the seaward side. They depend utterly on the Emperor to provide for them. If they risked an assault and failed, we could starve or execute them at our leisure.’

‘Then they must be confident. Or fools.’ The contradictions bothered me too, for it was ever my task to question the anomalies which other men dismissed or did not notice, but here I could not resolve them. They were barbarians, I told myself – they did not think as we did. ‘Perhaps they relied on the monk, or Aelric, to open the way for them.’

‘It would need more than one treacherous Varangian to open our gates to an enemy horde.’ A honeyed nut crunched between Krysaphios’ teeth. ‘And my spies have yet to discover any others who were complicit with Aelric.’

‘Yet the Varangians remain exiled from the palace,’ I observed. Every door and alcove still had a Patzinak by it.

‘The Varangians are posted on the walls, away from the gatehouses, and will remain there indefinitely. We need men we can trust about us, Demetrios, and the Patzinaks are ferocious in their loyalty.’

‘Until the monk manages to corrupt one of them.’

Krysaphios’ smooth forehead wrinkled with mock confusion. ‘But the monk is gone, you told me. His brother said so. Do you not think he has fled back to Frankia?’

‘I doubt he is further than a mile beyond our walls, and probably safe in Galata with the barbarians.’

‘You think he will come back? Attempt to murder the Emperor a third time?’

‘I do. If his brother spoke truly, and I believe he did, then he is too much a zealot not to. Whomever he serves.’

Krysaphios fixed me with an inscrutable look. ‘And so? How do you propose to act next?’

Here I was on firmer ground, for I had spent the march back to the palace pondering exactly that. ‘First, we need to find a home for the monk’s brother. I have brought him here, but he should not be cast into the dungeon. He has done nothing to deserve it, and a little kindness might repay itself with more news of the monk. We should leave him somewhere comfortable but secure.’

Krysaphios nodded. ‘You have an extravagant kindness, Demetrios, but I will do as you suggest. You can quarter him in one of the houses we use for foreign emissaries.’

‘Good. After that, we need to worm a spy into the barbarian camp. Someone who can see if the monk is hiding there, and listen for any word of a plot against the Emperor.’

‘That will be harder. There are many eyes watching the barbarians: the Patzinaks, the merchants who supply their needs, even down to the drovers and carters who deliver it – all that they see is reported back to me. But to penetrate their darkest confidences . . . I cannot see how that would be done.’

‘I can.’ With brief words, I told him my plan. He did not like it; indeed, he rebelled against the sacrifice and chastised me for a sentimental fool. But, after a full hour’s argument, I won him round.

Anna did not like the plan either when I told her the next morning.

‘It will almost certainly fail,’ she told me. ‘Either he will abandon you the moment he has crossed the Horn, or he will be discovered and tortured to death. Either way, you would never forgive yourself.’

I rubbed my chin. ‘I know. But I cannot think of an alternative. And if he does desert me, then he will be back among his own people and I, for one, will not feel his loss. There are many poulia in this game, and he is one who has no other role to play. If he succeeds it will be a great blessing; if not, we have lost nothing.

It was a poor choice of words, and Anna hissed with anger. ‘You’ve spent too much time in the halls of the palace, among the generals and eunuchs, if you believe that men and boys are all just counters in a game, to be discarded from the board at the throw of a die.’

‘I’m sending him back where he belongs.’ Her words pierced me like arrows, that she should think me so callous, but I hid my shame and persevered. ‘A boy of his age should not be kept locked in a monastery far from home, to be tutored by monks. If he chooses to come back, then he will have earned his freedom and far more besides; if he does not, he is still free.’

‘And if he tries to come back and is found and killed by the barbarians?’ Anna’s anger had not subsided. ‘What will you do then, Demetrios?’

‘I will pray for his soul. And for mine. I do not do this lightly, Anna, but there are no others who would be trusted in the barbarian camp who could pass for a Frank.’

‘Thomas doesn’t pass for a Frank – he is a Frank,’ Anna observed tartly. ‘And what of your monk? If he is in the camp, as you believe, then he will recognise Thomas and he will kill him, as he tried before.’

‘Yes.’ I had come to tell Anna that I would be taking Thomas away from her, but she had quickly forced from me the entire story of my plan and the reasons for it. ‘There are ten thousand men lodged in Galata. With luck he will keep apart from the monk.’

‘Luck.’ Anna snorted, not at all like a lady. ‘If you are trusting to luck, Demetrios, then you are a bigger fool even than I thought.’ She pulled her fingers through her hair, and seemed to relent a little. ‘Are you really so desperate to keep him away from your daughters?’

Despite all the gravity of the moment, I laughed. ‘I would be grateful if you did not tell Helena. But I cannot force Thomas to do anything against his will, so I had better speak with him myself.’

Reluctantly, Anna acquiesced. She led me across the monastery courtyard to the kitchen door, where the sweet smell of baking bread mingled with smoke and the scent of onions. The aromas played on my stomach, for I had not yet eaten; they also reminded me of another cause for my visit.

‘Anna,’ I called, stopping her just before the door. ‘Before we speak to Thomas, I had almost forgotten: I wondered whether you would come for supper with me. And the girls,’ I added hastily, lest I seem too suggestive. ‘Perhaps on some evening in the next fortnight, before the fast of Great Lent constrains my hospitality.’

Anna turned and eyed me with suspicion. She wore a reddish-brown dalmatica today, its inexpert dying giving the effect of woodgrain, or mottled leaves. It was tied over her hips with the silken cord she always wore, and the breeze in the courtyard blew the skirt close against her thighs.

‘I accept your invitation,’ she told me. ‘But if you are merely trying to corrupt me into agreeing with your wicked plan, then you will fail.’

‘It’s neither for you to agree or otherwise. Thomas will decide.’

Thomas was in the kitchen, stirring a simmering pot of beans without enthusiasm, while a monk sat on the stairs and read at him from a dust-worn Bible. He scowled at the sight of Anna and slammed his book shut, locked the clasps and climbed the stairs out of the room.

‘It happens often,’ said Anna, without offence. ‘Some of them do not like having a woman within their walls, and all of them fear what might happen if they were found alone with her.’

‘Their misfortune.’

Thomas looked up from his cauldron as we approached. He gave a shy smile on seeing Anna, a broader smile on seeing that the monk had departed, and a nervous frown on seeing me. He let go of his ladle, and cursed fluently as it slid beneath the oozy surface of his broth. I doubted he had learned that expression from being lectured out of a Bible.

‘Demetrios has come.’ Anna spoke slowly. ‘He wants to ask you something.’

I pushed past a row of iron pots to stand beside her. ‘I have news of the monk.’ I paused to see if he had understood me. From the way his eyes stilled and his cheek twitched, I guessed he had. ‘We think he is in a big camp of barbar . . . of your people, outside the walls of our city.’

Thomas glanced hesitantly at Anna, who added a few words in his natural tongue.

‘I want you to go there and find him.’

For a long time Thomas remained silent, while the pot beside him bubbled, and spat its liquid into the air. Some of it landed on his tunic but he did not seem to notice.

‘If I go, he kills me,’ he said at last.

I shook my head. ‘No. You find where he lives. Then you go to the house of my friend.’ My fervour hastened my words, and I had to concentrate to rein them in again. ‘He will protect you, and send us your news. Then we will come with many soldiers and catch the monk, and lock him in the dungeon.’

Again Anna spoke in the barbarian language. I kept my eyes on Thomas, hoping Anna did not take advantage of my ignorance to dissuade him. Thomas replied in kind, hunching his shoulders and gesticulating with his arms; I felt a growing anger that I was barred from their arguments.

‘I go.’

Coming at the end of a string of foreign sounds, I failed to realise that Thomas had reverted to Greek until he had repeated himself.

‘I go.’

‘You will go?’

He nodded, uncertainly.

‘Good. Very good.’

‘And when he returns, he will be free to go where he pleases, to return to Frankia or stay in Constantinople or settle in the empire, whichever.’ Anna stared at me with steel in her eyes. ‘You promise that.’

‘I promise.’ I would wonder how to persuade Krysaphios to honour that promise later, if the boy delivered the monk into our hands, and if he did not desert to his kinsmen.

If he lived long enough.

κ α

We stood by the Adrianople gate, shivering even in our cloaks. The rain which had relented on the previous day had returned with an implacable constancy in the night, beating on the tiles above my head so loudly that I could not use even the few hours I had for sleep. Two hours before dawn we had met at the gate – Anna, Thomas and I – the only light a beleaguered pitch torch in the shelter of the archway. Burning fragments dripped from it, hissing as they fell into the mud below. It was not a propitious beginning to what was already a slender hope.

‘If they ask, tell them the truth of your story – how you came here, the fate which befell your parents, and how you escaped to live in the slums of the city. Perhaps blame your misfortune on the Romans: curse us for not having provided more aid to your army, or more succour when you returned.’ I did not wait for Anna to translate my words, or worry if the boy had understood them. I had told him all this a dozen times the previous afternoon, and I spoke now more to quell my own nerves than to rehearse his duties.

‘You will have to go all the way around the Horn and come back down its other side. It will not be a pleasant journey, but we cannot risk the chance of them seeing you rowed across from here. Give me your cloak.’

Unwillingly, Thomas pulled the sodden cloak from his shoulders and handed it to me. Underneath, he wore only a thin tunic which had been purposely torn on stones and dragged through mud.

‘He’ll die of cold before he’s halfway to the silver lake,’ Anna muttered. I half expected that, even now, she would try to persuade him to abandon the plan.

‘He will look bedraggled, mud-splattered, and forlorn.’ I let concern shade my voice with anger. ‘As befits an urchin who has lived for weeks in the slums. He’s already too fat.’

I turned my attention back to Thomas. ‘Try and evoke pity with your story, and find a kind knight or soldier who will take you as his servant or groom. Then try and discover if the monk is in the camp, and where we can catch him. As soon as you know that, make for the house of Domenico the merchant. You remember where I showed you on the map?’

Thomas nodded, though perhaps only because I had stopped speaking.

A sentry ambled out of the guardhouse, his cloak pulled tight around his shoulders. The briefest glance at the pass I carried from Krysaphios satisfied him, and he started drawing back the bolts on the heavy door. I hoped that with the rain in his eyes he would be unable to see much of Thomas, for I did not want anyone to remember him leaving the city.

‘I do not like this course,’ Anna told me. There was sadness in her face. ‘But Thomas has agreed it, and you think it necessary, so I cannot argue.’

The last bolt came free, and the sentry pushed the door open. It took the full weight of his shoulder to force it. In the night beyond, I could see only driving rain and darkness.

‘Go, Thomas.’ I gave him a little push to hasten him forward. He stooped to hug Anna, who held him tight for a moment, then turned his back on me and stepped out into the night. Long before the gate was drawn shut, he had vanished.

I returned home to my bed, but my broken night had upset my soul and it would not permit sleep. I lay there for hours, sometimes rolling onto one side or another, sometimes trying to lie very still, but even with my eyes shut the visions of my mind continued unblinking. A grim daylight and the hustled noises of the street pricked at my senses, and even when I could forget my concerns for Thomas, and keep from revisiting the memories of his departure, I found no solace.

Eventually, I surrendered and threw off the covers. A glance out of the window revealed nothing of the hour, for there would be little change between dawn and dusk that day, but it must have been near the middle of the morning.

I pushed through the curtains, ambled across to the stone basin and splashed some water on my face. It was as cold as the floor, though it did little to wake me.

‘You’ve slept even later than Helena.’ Zoe was sitting at the table stitching a tear in her camisia. ‘She doesn’t approve. She says a father should wake before dawn to provide for his daughters.’

‘She can save her indignation – I couldn’t sleep.’ I found the end of a loaf of bread, spread it with honey, and chewed on it without enthusiasm.

Zoe looked up from her needlework. ‘Did you leave us in the night? Helena thought she heard the door.’

I winced as a shard of crust scraped the roof of my mouth. ‘I did. Sometimes the dark hours are the best time for dark secrets.’

‘And dark fates,’ Zoe admonished me.

I heard a door shut below, and light footsteps on the stairs. It seemed to take longer than usual, but at length the inner door swung open.

‘You’ve risen.’ Helena surveyed me reprovingly. She carried a basket of bread and vegetables under her arm, and her palla was streaked with mud. ‘I thought you might have become the eighth sleeper of Ephesus.’

‘And my heart rejoices to see you too.’ A hammering pain was beginning behind my eyes and I did not welcome Helena’s contempt, but I tried to remain calm. ‘What have you brought for my lunch? Mutton?’

‘There was no mutton.’ Helena dropped the basket on the table with a bang. ‘Only this.’

I peered at what she had brought. ‘The fast doesn’t start for another week and more,’ I told her. ‘Couldn’t you have found some fish, or some gamebirds?’

‘The righteous need no priest to tell them when to fast and when to feast,’ said Helena stonily.

‘Was he not there, then?’ asked Zoe.

I looked between my daughters. ‘Was who not there?’

‘The butcher,’ answered Helena quickly. ‘No, he was not. He had sold his meat and gone home. The rest of this city must be as gluttonous as you, father – and they at least leave their beds at a decent hour.’

‘Well, I want some stewed lamb. If my own daughter cannot provide for me, I will have to go to the tavern.’ I pulled a heavy dalmatica over my head and tugged on my boots, then added: ‘Perhaps in the afternoon we can go to see the spice-seller’s aunt, and her nephew.’

I had meant it as conciliation, but at the sound of my words Helena stamped her foot, glared at me and swept into her bedroom.

I threw up my hands and looked at Zoe. ‘Why should she do that?’

But Zoe was suddenly much preoccupied with her sewing. She stared at her needle and gave no answer, as inscrutable, in her own way, as her sister.

I abandoned my attempt at being the dutiful father. ‘I will be in the tavern along the road,’ I told Zoe. ‘Eating lamb stew.’

But it seemed I was fated not to eat my meat that day: I emerged from my house to meet a quartet of Patzinaks. Three were mounted; the fourth, just moving away from his horse, was approaching my door. Another held the reins of a fifth horse.

‘You are summoned to the palace,’ announced the man who had dismounted. ‘Immediately.’

I rubbed my temples. ‘Has the monk been found? If not, I am going to eat my lunch. Tell Krysaphios he can wait.’

The Patzinak stepped closer, bristling. ‘Your orders do not come from the eunuch. They are from a power you cannot defer. Come.’

I went.

There were many reasons I regretted the exile of the Varangians to the walls, and not least was their company. Coarse and erratic though they were, they had welcomed me into their conversations; the Patzinaks showed no such warmth. They rode two ahead of me and two behind, at a pace which allowed little more than an occasional grunted direction. I even found myself grateful to the horses for hastening the journey, though their jarring progress added a fresh dimension to my headache.

The Patzinaks’ route was as direct as their manners: we rode straight up the Mesi, past the milion and the tetrapylon, and into the Augusteion, under the gazes of our ancient rulers. As soon as we halted the guards were off their mounts and on their feet, pushing away the candle-sellers and relic-merchants who flocked to the forecourt of Ayia Sophia. They barged a path to the great Chalke gate, thrust the horses’ bridles into the hands of a waiting groom, and pushed past the petitioners and tourists who streamed into the first courtyard of the palace. In all this, I was their helpless obedient. I lost count of the turns we took, the corridors and courtyards we navigated, for with two Patzinaks at my back I had never a second to orient myself. The endless marble halls and golden mosaics made it hard to distinguish one part of the palace from another, and everything we passed seemed at once both strange and familiar. Only the ever-diminishing number of people around us suggested we were moving into more private quarters.

We stopped at a door flanked by two enormous urns, each taller than a man. The leading Patzinak turned to face me, and extended an arm towards the green courtyard beyond.

‘In there.’

I paused a second, to draw a breath and to imply my independence. Then I stepped out of the long passage, and into a different world.

It was not a courtyard, as I had thought: it was a garden. But a garden the like of which I had never seen, nor ever imagined. Outside, in the city, it was a rainy day in the depths of winter, but here I seemed suddenly transported to the height of summer. The trees around me were not bare but laden with fruit and blossom, and a golden light suffused the air so brightly it seemed to shine through the very leaves themselves. The ground was soft, silent beneath my feet, as though I walked on cushions, though the grass seemed real enough. It was wet, but it must have been a dew for when I looked up through the tangled leaves and branches above I could see only profound depths of blue. And somewhere in the trees, birds were singing.

I began to feel giddy, dazed; I had taken a few steps forward into this orchard, and when I turned back there was no longer any sign of the way I had entered. Then I heard a sound behind me, a gentle rustling as of leaves or silk, though there was no wind, and I spun about again to see what marvellous creature might appear.

My fancy had almost convinced me to expect a centaur, or a griffin or a unicorn, but in fact it was a man. A man, though, whose magnificence could have graced any legend. The crown on his head gleamed like the sun, as though it alone was the fount of the mysterious light. His robe was dyed purple all the way to its hem, and woven through with gold, while the lorum which crossed his broad chest could have served as the armour of a god, so thick were the gems which crusted it.

Even before I had seen the red toes of his boots I was falling to the ground. The earth seemed to sink under me, absorbing me, and I had to reach out my arms to balance myself as I chanted the acclamation. Though the settings where I had seen him before – the great church, the golden hall and the hippodrome – were all magnificent in their own fashion, it was in that garden that I first believed that a man might indeed be a living daystar, might endure a thousand years.

‘Get up, Demetrios Askiates.’

With some effort, I pushed myself away from the spongelike ground and stood, keeping my eyes downcast. There was something reassuring in his voice, something unrefined which seemed out of place in the fantasy of our surroundings.

‘Do you like my garden?’

‘Your . . . your garden? Indeed, Lord,’ I stammered.

‘I did not mean to unsettle you with it. I find it soothes me: a world apart from the world I rule.’

‘Yes, Lord.’

He scratched the rough hair of his beard, and looked me in the eye. ‘I have called you here to thank you, Demetrios. If not for you, I would have no need of craftsmen’s tricks to believe I was in the gardens of heaven.’

I had never received the gratitude of an Emperor before, and I was unsure how to accept it. I opted for mimicry. ‘Tricks, Lord?’

‘Surely you do not believe that even I can bend the seasons and the weather to my will. Feel the leaves on that tree, those buds which are bursting to break into flower.’

I reached up and rubbed one of the leaves between my finger and thumb. It had the waxy sheen of a fresh oak-leaf, and I could see the dark lines of veins running through it. But to touch . . .

‘It feels like silk,’ I marvelled.

‘Exactly so.’ The Emperor Alexios swept his hand around him. ‘All these trees – the grass and sky as well – all silk. Fires and mirrors make the sun, and if you were to pick yourself one of those plump apples and bite into it, you would break your teeth. Thus we maintain a world which is always on the cusp of summer, which never decays in the drear of autumn. Unlike my own realm.’

‘Are there rooms for all the seasons?’ I wondered aloud.

Alexios laughed, a throaty, peasant’s laugh. ‘Perhaps, but I have yet to find them. I lived five years in the palace before I discovered this room, and it took as long again for the workshops to restore its full splendour.’ He coughed. ‘But I did not summon you to talk about my garden, Demetrios. As I said, I want to thank you for guiding the traitor’s axe past my neck.’

‘I would have done the same for any man.’

‘No doubt. But not every man could reward you as I will.’

‘Your chamberlain already pays me more than I am worth to protect you. I was merely . . .’

Alexios smiled. ‘It does not matter what you are worth: my chamberlain pays for what I am worth. And I pay for what I value. I have instructed the secretaries to make the necessary payments, in due course. I believe you will be satisfied.’

‘Thank you, Lord. The gifts of your bounty flow from your hand like water from . . .’

The Emperor jerked his head. ‘I do not need your flattery. I leave that to those who have no greater talents. If you must protest loyalty, do so with your deeds.’

‘Always, Lord.’

‘Krysaphios tells me you think it was the barbarians who tried to kill me. The men who are camped in Galata, consuming my harvest and refusing my envoys.’

‘There are obvious reasons to think so.’

The Emperor pulled a leaf from the bough and twisted it in his hand. ‘My brother, Isaak, believes we should fall on them at once and massacre them in the streets of Galata, then send the survivors back across the sea in chains. There are many in the court and the city who think likewise.’

‘It would offend the laws of God,’ I offered, having nothing better to suggest.

Alexios discarded his crumpled leaf. ‘It would offend against the laws of reason. Those barbarians are there because I begged them to come, and if they have come in greater numbers than I hoped, and with their own purposes in their hearts, that does not reduce my need. Not if I am to rescue the lands of Asia which my predecessors squandered.’

‘There are those who say that the barbarians have not come to rescue those lands, but to take them for themselves.’ I could not believe that I was speaking thus with the Emperor, on matters of the most exalted importance, but against all expectation he seemed to welcome it.

‘Of course the barbarians have come to take lands for themselves. Why else would they journey halfway across the world to fight for me? That is why I must keep them here until they have sworn to return what is rightfully mine. If, after that, they can carve out kingdoms of their own, beyond our ancient frontiers, then let them. I would rather have Christians bound with oaths on my border than Turks and Fatimids.’

‘Do you trust the barbarians so?’

‘I trust them as far as they keep their swords from me – which, it seems, is not nearly far enough. But they have their uses. When the Normans invaded, I fought them in a dozen battles and lost each one, yet still I drove them from our lands. Why? Because they will not trust each other for long: they are more prone to faction and jealousy even than the Saracens. Gold and ambition will divide them from each other, will keep them weak against us, while all that will unite them is their hatred of the Ishmaelites. They will gain gold and kingdoms; we will have our lands restored, and we will live together in uneasy dependence.’

‘Will it work?’

Alexios snorted, in a way most unbefitting an Emperor. ‘Perhaps. If the barbarians are not massacred by the Turks, and if they do not fall out with themselves before they even reach Nicaea, and if their priests do not discover that in fact the Lord God intends some wholly different purpose for their army. But none of it will happen if I do not squeeze those oaths from their captains.’ He took my arm. ‘Which is why you must ensure that nothing is allowed to destroy our alliance with them. If they succeed in murdering me, or are even known to have tried, then there will be war between our peoples and the only victors will be the Turks.’

The audience was finished. I left that enchanted garden of perpetual spring, and returned to the world I knew. Where the rain was still falling.

κ β

The rain fell for most of the following fortnight, splashing at my heels as I roamed the city. I spent many hours at the gates, watching as small parties of barbarians were admitted to admire the sights of the city and our civilisation. Most were content to gape in silence, though some felt compelled to mask their awe with belittling jokes and snide insults. Occasionally these would spark scuffles with Romans, but the Watch were always there, always ready to draw the combatants apart without violence. Clearly they too had had their orders from the Emperor. And all the while I wondered about Thomas.

The first two days after he left I had thought of little else, though I knew it would be weeks before I had news of him. His life was on my conscience, and I ached to ask those passing merchants who dealt with the Franks whether they had heard anything of him, but for the sake of his safety I could not dare. At least there was no news of his death, and as the days drew on my thoughts returned to more immediate concerns. Always, though, it was a weight on my heart, an itch worrying at my mind. Often it haunted my dreams.

There were also long days at the palace, when I wandered its corridors like a ghost, interviewing guards and functionaries, probing for any sign of trouble, and – as Krysaphios instructed me – keeping my eyes open. It seemed little enough to do for the gold he was paying me, but the strain of it told, for every hour I spent in those halls I lived in the terror that a slave would approach and announce that the Emperor was dead. I did not see him after that day in the unnatural garden, except once at a great distance: a gilded statue in the midst of an endless train of monks, guards and nobles, processing past a far door to the strains of music and incense. Otherwise, it was as if he inhabited a different world.

But I did see his brother, a week or so after my audience. A morning on the walls had left me too tired to face clerks who prided themselves on the time they could take telling me nothing, and I was walking down some empty, forgotten arcade when I heard the sound of voices. Not the gaiety of courtiers, nor the grumbling of servants, but the hushed murmur of men who do not wish their words to be heard. It seemed to come from behind a small door recessed between two columns, open just enough to be ajar but not so much that you would guess anyone was within.

I walked towards it, but at the sound of my footsteps the voices paused. With a nervous glance at the solitude around me, I pressed my boot against the door and pushed.

‘Demetrios.’ The Sebastokrator’s head jerked up as I fell to my knees, but I kept my eyes raised enough to see that he had been talking very closely with another man, who shrank back into the corner of the tiny room as Isaak stepped forward. He seemed flustered, but the time it took me to perform the full proskynesis allowed him to compose himself.

‘Get up,’ he told me. ‘What are you doing in this corner of the palace?’

‘I was lost,’ I said humbly. ‘I heard voices and thought I might find a guide to lead me out of here.’

Isaak scowled. ‘Count Hugh, have you had presented to you Demetrios Askiates? He works for us to thwart our enemies.’

I bowed. It seemed that Count Hugh had forgotten the scribe who accompanied him on his embassy to the barbarians, though it would be many months before I forgot the preening Frank who had almost been pissed on in the barbarians’ tent. ‘An honour, Lord.’

‘Count Hugh is one of the few Franks who understands the need for all Christians to unite under the banner of God and His Emperor,’ Isaak explained. ‘He hopes to persuade his countrymen to follow his good sense.’

‘Thus far without success,’ said Hugh mournfully. He fingered the agate clasp on his mantle. ‘Some of them are reasonable men, yes, but too many listen to the poison which the whelp Baldwin spouts.’

Isaak looked at me carefully. ‘But these great cares are not for Demetrios. If you seek the way out, take the north door from this passage and continue until you find the chapel of Saint Theodore. You will find your way from there.’

I bowed. ‘Thank you, gracious Lord.’

He attempted an insincere smile. ‘A Caesar’s duty is to aid his subjects. And perhaps I will see you next week – at the games?’

I did see him at the games, though I doubt if he saw me. He was seated on a golden throne beside his brother on the balcony of the Kathisma, while I shared a bench high on the southern side with a group of fat Armenians, who cared for nothing but gambling and honeyed figs. Worse, they supported the Greens.

‘Why would anyone support the Greens?’ I asked of my neighbour, a thin man who chewed his fingers incessantly. ‘You might as well declare yourself in favour of the sun.’

The man looked at me with terror, and returned to his fingers.

‘Demetrios!’

I glanced up warily, for one meets many men in the Hippodrome and not all are to be welcomed. This one I was happy enough to see, though I barely recognised him without his axe and armour. He wore a brown woollen tunic with a studded leather belt, and high boots which had little difficulty poking a space between me and my timid neighbour.

‘Shouldn’t you be at the walls?’ I asked.

‘The walls have stood safe for seven centuries, and broken every army which came at them. They may survive an afternoon without me.’ Sigurd shuffled along the bench a little, taking advantage of the newly vacated space. ‘I thought I could take a few hours to see the Greens win.’

I groaned. ‘Not the Greens. Why would you want to see them win?’

Sigurd looked puzzled. ‘Because they do win. Who would not support the strongest team? Don’t tell me that you support the Blues?’

‘The Whites.’

Sigurd guffawed, happier than I had seen him in weeks. ‘The Whites? You can’t support the Whites – no-one does. Have they ever won once in your entire lifetime?’

‘Not yet. Their day will come.’

‘But they don’t even race to win. Their only purpose is to act as spoilers for the Blues, to knock the Greens off the track and let the Blues past. They’re not competitors. You might as well see me supporting the Reds.’

If you supported the Whites, as I did, these were not new arguments. ‘Perhaps there is nothing I would rather see than the Green chariot upturned on the spina. The first and only time that my father brought me to Constantinople, he took me here and told me to choose a team. I was wearing a white tunic that day, so when I saw the Whites I decided that they would be mine.’

‘You must regret not wearing green.’ Sigurd was merciless.

‘Not at all. Because one day the Whites will win . . .’

‘If a murrain strikes down the Greens and Blues and Reds first.’

‘And I will have more joy from that single victory than you will from a lifetime of seeing the Greens roll past the finishing post.’

Sigurd shook his head sadly. ‘You will die a bitter man if you wait for that day, Demetrios.’

Thankfully, a fanfare of trumpets rescued me. We fell silent as the Emperor rose from his throne.

It was the first race of the afternoon, and the hippodrome was as yet only three-quarters filled, but its spectacle remained undiminished. The arms of the arena stretched away from where we sat, alive with the colours of all the races and factions of men in their tens of thousands. In the distance, above the far gate, four bronze horses reared up as if pulling their golden quadriga into the air, while the great dome of Ayia Sophia crowned the horizon. Along the spine in the foreground were the statues and columns, the monuments of a thousand years of competition towering above us. There were Emperors and obelisks, set beside half a dozen effigies of Porphyrius and the other charioteers of legend, to whose company the church had added saints and prophets. I could see Moses, clutching two tablets of stone as he hurried towards the north gate; Saint George, brandishing his lance; and Joshua sounding his horn from atop a sandstone column.

Down in the Kathisma the acclamations were finished. The Emperor retook his seat, accompanied by a thundering roar from the crowd as the gates sprang open and the chariots emerged. They were quick on the damp sand of the arena, and had passed the northern marker in seconds. The factions rose as their champions galloped past, great squares of blue and green, many hundreds of men wide, all shouting in unison. None wore White or Red, for few were fool enough to support the junior teams who raced only in support of their seniors.

The teams slowed as they navigated the first turn around the southern post. They were directly below me, now, but some fool follower of the Greens chose the moment to raise a wide banner which completely obscured my view. By the time I could see again, they were past the Kathisma on my right and almost back at the far end.

‘Is that the Whites in the lead?’ I asked, squinting into the distance. ‘And the Greens, straggling along there at the rear?’

‘If the Whites could race seven circuits as well as they race the first two, then perhaps one of their drivers would be immortalised in stone on the spine.’ Sigurd was sitting forward on the lip of the bench, craning to see what was happening. He looked as happy as a ten-year-old.

‘Tactics,’ I muttered through my teeth.

As ever, the Whites had started well; as they came back towards us they led the Reds by a length, and the Blues and Greens by several more. But it was illusory, for the senior teams were biding their time, letting their horses stretch their legs on the opening circuits while their junior partners raced for the stronger position.

‘They’re taking their time.’ Sigurd bit his knuckle, looking anxiously at his team. ‘They don’t want to leave too much to do in the turns.’

‘They won’t have to. Not with that lame mule on the outside.’

But I was speaking from hope rather than reason. I could see the Green and Blue drivers using their whips more freely now, goading their teams into an ever faster rhythm. The leading pair were beginning to tire – the Whites faster than the Reds, I feared – and soon all four would meet. Every man in the hippodrome was tense; some could not keep to their seats in anticipation, but bounced up and down like puppets.

‘There go the Reds. Your Whites have gone too close to the spine. They’ll never take this turn cleanly.’

It seemed Sigurd was right, for the Whites had kept an impossibly straight line coming down the stretch towards us and would need to rein in the horses almost to a standstill if they were to make the turn without crashing. Seeing his chance, the Red driver was fading away to his right, intending to cut inside the White chariot and force him against the far wall so that his allies the Greens could go through.

‘Never mind that your horses can’t run. Now it seems you have a driver who can’t drive either.’ Sigurd did not disguise his glee.

But his crowing was too soon, for the Whites were not slowing their approach to the turn. If anything, they were accelerating. I saw the Red driver look over at his challenger in disbelief, then start frantically lashing his beasts in a belated effort at overhauling the Whites. He heaved on his reins, trying to edge across the Whites, but there was not enough space and his nerve failed him.

With immaculate timing, the White driver leaned back in his chariot and pulled in his team. They seemed to slow almost to a stop, inscribed a gentle arc around the post below us, and began to canter away down the far side while the Reds, held off from turning and forced almost against the wall, watched the Blues and the Greens gallop past them.

‘That won’t help the Greens,’ I shouted in Sigurd’s ear.

‘I thought the Whites were to knock out the Greens, not the Reds. Can’t they tell one team from another?’

The noise of the crowd was overpowering; all were on their feet now, willing their favourites to snatch the lead from the Whites, who were slowing quickly. By the next turning post, if not before, the teams behind would have caught them and their race would be effectively over. I had seen it happen too many times before. But, as Sigurd had said, they still had to trouble the Greens long enough for the Blues to edge in front. In a straight, wheel-to-wheel contest, not a man in that stadium would have gambled against the power of the Greens’ four horses.

The White driver now adopted a defensive strategy, standing almost side-on in the quadriga as he looked back to see his opponent. With every second that passed, he sacrificed speed veering across the track, trying to stop the Greens from passing while not impeding his Blue colleague. It was an awesome display of skill. But when your horses are tiring, and your opponents are nosing at your wheels, skill can be insufficient. They were about three quarters of the way down the eastern stretch, on the fifth circuit, when the Green driver turned his chariot slightly left. The White driver reacted immediately but was too quick: the Green had deceived him, and had just enough time to snake back across the track before throwing his horses into a skidding turn which must have come close to snapping his spokes. The White driver screamed at his horses to run faster, raining his lash down on their backs, and for a moment he and the Greens were galloping in tandem, as if all eight horses pulled a single, two-man chariot. The shouts from the crowd – from the factions, the gamblers, the fruit-sellers, even the morose man whom Sigurd had dislodged – rose in a cauldron of noise; Sigurd and I were bellowing out cheers and abuse like madmen. If the Whites could hold off the Greens until the next turn, I thought, they might have a slender hope of pushing them wide and upsetting their rhythm.

They could not. The Green driver, with almost indifferent ease, snapped his reins and watched the Whites drop ever further behind. By the time he reached the turn they were gone from his sight, and from there the distance only grew. The Blues tried to match his speed, but they had rested their hopes with the Whites and left their own charge too late. The noise subsided, and all around the hippodrome men began to reclaim their seats. Only the Green faction stayed standing: somehow they managed to sustain their cheering unbroken while their team galloped out the two remaining circuits.

‘Not a bad race,’ said Sigurd. ‘We could have done better. He waited too long to attack. But I never doubted he would do it.’

‘That,’ I told him, ‘is why I’ll never support the Greens.’

Some of the Green faction had vaulted over the wall and run onto the track to embrace their champion, to wrap him in the victor’s cloak and carry him on their shoulders in triumph. Down on my right, the palace guards had opened the gate to the Kathisma stairs, where the charioteer would soon ascend to receive the Emperor’s blessing. The Armenians beside me were cackling with glee and swapping piled coins among themselves, while other spectators argued over whether the Blues should find a better driver, or if they should send their horses to pasture and bring in a fresh team.

I was about to search out a fruit-seller when a movement down on the arena floor caught my eye. A spectator had crossed the barrier and was moving down the edge of the track; as I watched, he reached the foot of the stairs, darted past the hesitant guards and began running up towards the Kathisma. Straight towards the Emperor.

I leapt from my bench in a panic. What if this was the moment I had been commanded to prevent, an assassin who would murder the Emperor in full view of a hundred thousand Romans? Could it even be the monk? He was too far away to see, and obscured by the stair wall which also protected him. The lumbering guards were at last giving chase, but he was well ahead of them and climbing ever higher. If he pulled a bow from under his tunic now, I thought, he would have clear sight of the Emperor.

Not knowing what I could do, I ran. Not down, for that was too far and too crowded, but up, towards the long arcade which swept around the rim of the stadium. It was almost empty at this hour, save for a few children who had come to escape the noise and bustle, and I sprinted along it as if driven by Porphyrius himself, around the bend and down the straight to the place where steps fell away towards the Kathisma. So quickly did I take them that I almost tumbled headlong to my doom, but my desperately outflung arms managed to steady me on the shoulders of a passing wine-seller.

I reached a mezzanine, level with the second floor of the Kathisma, and paused. The interloper had stopped on the winner’s dais, an exposed platform before the Kathisma where the garlands were bestowed, and was on his knees. Patzinaks had sprung down from the imperial box to surround him, but they kept a wary distance as he finished his obeisance and rose to his feet.

‘Prince of Peace,’ he declaimed, ‘the least of your subjects begs an audience. Hear my petition, Lord, that you may know the mind of your people.’

He spoke loudly, in a voice well-drilled by some theatre or market. His words carried across the ranked benches, for all about him had fallen silent; further off, I could hear the murmurings as his oration was repeated around the hippodrome.

I could also see the Emperor from my vantage, ensconced on his throne like a statue of Solomon. He neither spoke nor moved, and his guards and courtiers followed his example.

I found the silence ominous, but the orator seemed to draw strength from it. ‘Why, Lord, are your lands ravaged by heretic barbarians, occupying our homes and eating our bread? Why do you tolerate their invasion, and feed their appetites for ransom and plunder? Every man in your realm would rather die defending his home from such carrion, than invite them in as wolves to the flock. Lead forth your armies, Lord, and drive them from our shore as once you routed the Normans and the Turks. Will we be snared by their wiles and slaved to their power? No.’

He was not alone in answering his own question – from all directions, voices began to echo his defiance.

‘Will we see the Kelts defiling our daughters, plundering our treasury and sleeping under our roofs? Will we be forced to declare, against all the teachings of the church and of God, that the Spirit proceeds from the Son? That our Patriarch should be the slave of a Norman Pontiff? That, in the manner of the heretics, we should choke on unleavened bread when we feast at Christ’s table? No!’

Now I could hear the ‘No’s’ resounding from the far side of the arena as well. Still, though, the Emperor did not move.

‘These barbarians are an abomination before God and His church, and before all who truly believe.’ The orator had worked himself into a frenzy; his arms swung wildly and his face burned red. ‘We have them in the palm of our hand: we should not stretch it out in friendship, but squeeze them in our fist until their blood runs from our fingers. Prince of Peace, your people beseech you to lead your army into battle and win them a victory to rank with your triumphs at Larissa, at Lebunium. Or, if you will not do so, then let some other member of your family lead them, and rout the barbarians from our homes. Defend the honour of Christ and the empire. Kill the barbarians!’

His words were like a wind on embers: hardly had he spoken them than the cry was taken up by the crowds around him. Quickly, their neighbours joined them, and then their neighbours’ neighbours, until all the stadium shook with the chant. It was louder than any cheer I ever heard for a charioteer, louder even than the acclamation when the Emperor was crowned. ‘Kill the barbarians! Kill the barbarians! Kill the barbarians!’

In all this the speaker was forgotten. Looking back, I saw Patzinaks surrounding him, dragging him from the platform, but he had worked his mischief. Whichever party or faction had employed him – and no doubt that information would be worked out of him in the dungeons – they had made their point. Whether the Emperor was wise to put his faith in the barbarians, to entrust the recovery of Asia to them, I could not know and did not care, but it was clear now that he had spoken truthfully in his garden. If he died, there would be war. And though the chanting, hate-filled faces around me seemed confident enough, I feared that in that battle there would be no victors.

κ γ

It was a long season, the Great Lent that year, but more from fear than penitence. A black mood hung over the city, the anger of ten hundred thousand people against the barbarians who starved and mocked them. It seemed they had stolen even the sanctity of our fast, for what was praiseworthy in fasting when there was nothing to eat anyway? Every day Helena went to the markets, and every day she was gone longer, trying to find what scraps were to be had. Most stall-holders had little to do but gossip, and even at the far end of the Mesi the ivory-carvers and silversmiths sat by their doors and watched their hands grow smooth. Only the churches kept their custom – increased it, even, as their incensed domes resounded with the prayers of a city begging God for food, deliverance or vengeance.

And all this while the smoke of the barbarian camp rose from across the Golden Horn, from behind the walls of Galata. More of them arrived, of all their tribes and races, and it took great purpose from the Emperor and the unbending Patzinaks to keep them quartered in distant villages, prevented from joining with their compatriots in Galata. In the city, the scuffles between Romans and visiting Franks escalated: one day a watchman was almost blinded when he intervened to stop some young squire being stabbed by the mob. None of the barbarians passed our gates after that, and my duties receded even more into the confines of the palaces.

It was wearing, lonely work, for there was little for me to do save watch. Once, early in March, I actually went to Krysaphios and asked to be released, but he would not allow it: the Emperor, he said, was adamant that every risk should be countered. So I continued my uncomfortable vigil, well rewarded but ill satisfied.

In those grim days, as the bastions of winter held out against spring, the one consolation was the friendship of Anna. Though she would not forgive me my gamble with Thomas, she had accepted my invitation to dinner before Great Lent, and many more in the weeks which followed until the invitation was scarcely needed. She became a welcome guest in our home, sitting with us in the evenings and sharing our meals, and if her monks or my neighbours disapproved, they did not show it. Those who knew my family best, indeed, declared that it was a blessing for my daughters to have a woman in the house, instead of the faltering attentions of a father too much preoccupied with his own affairs. And they were probably right, for my daughters found the season a great burden, and I think Anna was some comfort to them. Helena was particularly morose in those weeks, and even lost interest in hectoring me to arrange a marriage. Which was useful, as there were few respectable families who would countenance a union in those uncertain times.

For it was as if we lived the eight weeks of Great Lent amid a pile of tinder and kindling, while sparks showered down over us. There were skirmishes against the newly-arrived barbarians in an effort to keep them hemmed in at Sosthenium on the Marble sea, and it was rumoured that the Emperor had assembled an army at Philea, a single day’s march away. Then there was the gossip, which I had on my own account from several merchants, that the cargoes they supplied to the barbarians were now much reduced by order of the Eparch, that the Emperor was trying to starve the men and beasts of the barbarian army into submission. None of these sparks set the city aflame, but all knew that it would not smoulder forever. And still the stream of envoys who visited the barbarian captains returned unanswered.

It was on the Wednesday of the Great Week of Easter, the last week of the fast, that the web which the Emperor had spun around the barbarians began to unravel. Anna was at my house, drinking soup with us after attending the evening liturgy, and we were – as so often in those weeks – discussing the possibility of ridding ourselves of the barbarians.

‘You work all your days in the palace, father,’ Helena said, ‘what do you hear there?’ She was far more reasoned and thoughtful in her conversation when Anna was present.

‘Little more than what I hear on the streets, and in the markets,’ I told her. ‘Either the grocers are particularly well-informed, or the secretaries in the palace are equally ignorant.’ It was true – there was barely a single piece of news I had heard in the palace which was not common rumour in the forum. ‘But I saw a grain merchant I know today, and he told me – in confidence, naturally – that this morning he was ordered to keep back all his supplies from the barbarians. Unless they have started growing their own wheat and cattle, they are going hungry. Nor have they had any fodder for their horses in two weeks, that I know of.’

Anna drained the last of her soup. ‘Is that wise? I have a cousin in Pikridiou who says the Franks are growing bolder. Yesterday they left their camp to plunder her village. Only the strength of the Patzinaks checked them.’

‘Why don’t they just go away?’ Zoe demanded. ‘Our walls are too high for them, and our armies are too strong – why do they stay here making us miserable?’

I put my hand over her small clenched fist. ‘Because they and the Emperor both desire the same thing, the lost lands of Asia, and neither will forfeit it. They cannot reach those lands without the Emperor’s permission, and he will not give it unless they surrender their claim. He cannot dislodge them save by force, but if he uses force he will break the alliance and lose all chance of invading Asia. We are like two serpents, so tightly coiled together that neither can bite the other.’

‘They’re both barbarous.’ Helena, as ever, saw the problem with the clarity of conviction. ‘Why should great men squabble and sulk, like Achilles before the walls of Troy? The true purpose should be to liberate the Romans – the Christians – who live under the Turkish yoke. What does it matter which army frees them?’

‘It matters greatly.’ I looked at her firmly. ‘Ask Sigurd what the Normans did to his country when they conquered it. Every man became a slave, and the kingdom was booty for their lords to plunder. They are murderous and cruel, these barbarians; their rule would be just as bad as the Turks’. Perhaps worse. That is why the Emperor resists them.’

‘Then why . . .’ Anna broke off as a furious thumping erupted from the bottom of the stairs. She eyed me inquisitively. ‘Did you expect others to join us?’

‘None that I invited.’ The sudden noise had jolted me with shock, spilling my soup across the table, but now I steadied myself. ‘I will see.’

I crossed to my bedroom and pulled out my knife from the chest where I kept it. Then I descended the stairs.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Sigurd. The eunuch commands you to the palace.’

I groaned – it seemed there was no hour of day or night when Krysaphios could not summon me. ‘Can he wait until dawn, at least, when I will return there anyway?’

He could not.

I ran back up the stairs to the three expectant faces. ‘I am called to the palace,’ I said briefly. ‘I cannot say when I will be back. Will you stay with the girls, Anna? You can sleep in my bed. I . . . I will take the floor when I return.’

Helena seemed about to complain that she could watch herself and Zoe well enough, but stilled her protest at a glance from Anna.

‘Of course,’ Anna said. ‘Though I must be back in the monastery in the morning.’

‘I hope even the chamberlain cannot keep me that long.’

The night was cold outside, though during the day I had begun to think that winter was relenting its grasp and making way for spring. Sigurd was waiting for me in the arch under the house opposite; he crossed the street and joined me as I closed my door.

‘What is this?’ I asked quietly as we strode up the hill. ‘Have the barbarians moved?’

Sigurd shrugged. ‘I doubt it – I saw nothing from the walls. A messenger arrived at the gate two hours ago and demanded I take him to the palace. I’d barely introduced him to the guard when some flummeried noble appeared and took him away. I was ordered to wait. Then one of the eunuch’s slaves appeared and told me to fetch you there. Which I’m doing.’ He paused, letting the stamp of his boots fill the silence. ‘Even standing sentry duty on the walls was more honourable than being a eunuch’s go-between.’

‘You were doing much the same thing on the first night we met,’ I reminded him.

‘That was different.’

The moon was waning, but with still more than half its face showing it lit our way adequately enough through the pale shadows. We passed by the severe statues of the great squares, through the looming triumphal arches, down empty streets, and so to the palace.

Sigurd conferred briefly with the guards at the gate, and then at greater length with a clerk who sat at a table just within, scribbling away by the light of an oil lamp.

The clerk looked up at me. ‘He will take you to the throne room,’ he said, indicating a slave who had appeared noiselessly from behind a pillar.

‘And you, Siguard?’

‘I will wait here.’

Without a word, the slave turned and receded into one of the main corridors. I had walked it many times in the past months, and always it had been thriving with all the ranks of palace life, from distant relatives of the imperial family down to the slaves and errand boys. Now it was empty, and the gaps between the pools of light on the floor seemed unnaturally dark. Soon we turned off the thoroughfare, and down a succession of dimly lit passages where the smells of oil and roses were replaced by dust and damp. Some of these areas were familiar, and others seemed so, but without my silent guide I would have been as lost as Theseus in the maze.

He brought me to an open peristyle and vanished. The arcades around it glowed with the warm light of many lamps, suspended from the roof on thick, golden chains, while in its centre a floor polished like silver reflected back the shaved disc of the moon.

I drew a sharp breath. It was not a silver floor, I realised, but a lake, a pool spread over the entire square, yet impossibly smooth, unrippled. A marble causeway was built out across it to an island in its centre, where I could see the silhouette of some dark structure rising from the water.

‘Demetrios.’

I turned back to the arcade and looked about. The voice had come from my left, and from some distance, but I could see nothing. The thick columns which obscured my view drew my eyes up, and I gaped again as I saw their vast height, four times higher than a man at least, and far wider. I had seen larger, of course, not least in the great hall of Ayia Sophia, but the stark beauty of these stone trunks towering above the pool held an awe all its own.

I walked around the arcade to my left, looking down at the speckled images passing under my feet. They seemed to be cameos of bucolic life, or what some urban artist had imagined bucolic life to be: children playing or riding on donkeys, goats grazing, huntsmen chasing a tiger. But amid these idylls were flashes of brutality: a dog being ripped open by a bear, an eagle with a serpent writhing about its body, a griffin feasting on slaughtered hind. Protean faces in blues and greens stared out of the borders, wrapped with fronds and leaves, and from the gentle swaying of the oil lamps high above, one could almost imagine their features twisting and contorting as I passed.

I turned a corner and saw the origin of the voice which had called me: Krysaphios. He was perhaps half-way along the passage, but I was an uncomfortably long time under his gaze before I reached him.

‘The Sebastokrator Isaak has sent me news,’ he said. ‘He has spies in the barbarian camp. They have found the monk there.’

‘The monk?’ He had faded in my thoughts over the past weeks. Though there had been every chance that he had not left the city, that he still sought a moment to strike at the Emperor, every day which passed without news of him had lessened that likelihood. He had become a phantom, a ghost who could slip into my thoughts – and sometimes also my dreams – but never assume substance. ‘Where in the barbarian camp?’

‘Near the wharves of Galata, in a lodging house by the walls. It is behind the warehouses, apparently, now abandoned by merchants who fear to transact their business in a barbarian camp.’

‘Why was I not told that the Sebastokrator had spies there?’ I demanded. ‘How can you ask me to perform my tasks when there are vital factors I am ignorant of?’

‘There are many things of which you are ignorant. I would have thought you might have guessed that the Sebastokrator keeps his own spies, as does every member of the imperial household. Did he not once ask you to serve him so?’

‘Perhaps. But how will we entice the monk out of Galata? We may be invincible within our walls, but Galata has become almost a Frankish kingdom. Ten thousand of their warriors make a commanding bodyguard.’

‘We cannot entice him out. It has taken us weeks to find him, and if he sensed a single whisper of a trap he would disappear again. We must enter Galata and capture him. Or rather, you must enter Galata and capture him.’

I stared at him. ‘I must enter Galata? How? Will a loyal widow hoist me through her window in a basket?’

‘You will go with two hundred Patzinaks – they will protect you. You will be welcomed, because you will be escorting a grain convoy on behalf of the Emperor. While the barbarians are distracted, burying their faces in the trough, you and the guards will slip away and seize the monk before they realise what has happened.’

I shook my head. ‘If we invade their camp, and forcibly abduct one of their acolytes, there will be war. No-one desires more than I that the monk should be captured, but in Galata his danger is caged. Surely that cannot merit risking all the Emperor’s diplomacy?’

Krysaphios folded his fingers together and stared at me with the full displeasure of an imperial eunuch. ‘The Emperor desires what I command. The Sebastokrator has agreed that it should be thus, and you will be the instrument of their will. Already the monk has proven that he can penetrate and corrupt our inmost halls and trusted servants: if he were to do so again, as the quarrel with the Franks comes to its crisis, there would be devastation in the empire. And there is not much time – two weeks, at most. Bohemond of Sicily, whom the Emperor defeated at Larissa, is hurrying here with his Norman army to reinforce the Franks. If they join their forces we will be helpless before them.’

I swallowed. This was news I had not heard in the markets – nor even in the outer wards of the palace. I remembered Sigurd’s tales of the ruin the Normans had wrought on his homeland, and – far nearer my home – the barbarity when the Normans captured Dyrrachium and Avlona ten years earlier.

‘When do we go?’

‘So that you reach the walls of Galata at dawn, when they are least prepared. You will leave by the Blacherna gate and take the road around the Golden Horn.’

‘Boats would be faster – and would make our escape easier if we met resistance,’ I objected.

‘But you could not cross the Horn until daylight. Then they would see your approach and prepare for it. By road, you will be hidden from them until you arrive. And I have already ordered the grain carts to meet you by the Blacherna gate.’

‘Then it’s as well we have two hundred men and a cloak of darkness,’ I told him. ‘The mob will slaughter us if they see wagons of food being taken from the city granaries to the barbarians.’

Krysaphios ignored my words. ‘You will sleep in the palace tonight; I have ordered the slaves to prepare you a bed in the guard quarters. There are few enough hours already before you must leave.’

‘I will sleep at home tonight.’ I bridled against his dictating my least movement. ‘I would rather half a night’s sleep in my own bed than a full night in another’s. I can meet the Patzinaks by the gate.’

Krysaphios flashed a look of petulance, but waved his hand carelessly. ‘As you will. I had thought you would abhor distractions now that the monk is so near your grasp.’

‘There will be no distractions.’ Nor would there be any satisfaction, not until the monk was in chains in the dungeon. Even with two hundred Patzinaks to guard me, entering the barbarian camp would be walking into the jaws of a lion. I could scarcely believe that after this long chase, these many months’ hunting, I might finally trap the monk. But even if I did, would it justify bringing the two great armies of East and West into open war?

I left Krysaphios under the shadows of those great pillars, beside the moon pool, and hurried out of the palace. The slave who had led me there appeared as soundlessly as before, and took me quickly to the outer courtyard. The scribe was still there, writing in the lamplight, and Sigurd with him, dozing on a bench.

‘Is your axe still sharp?’ I asked quietly, nudging his shoulder.

His eyes opened slowly, and I repeated my question. ‘Or have long days on the rainswept walls rusted it?’

He growled. ‘The only thing which blunts my blade is bone, and it has felt none of that these last two months. Why?’

‘I am going on a dangerous errand tomorrow, and I would welcome a stout axe beside me.’

‘What errand?’ Sigurd watched me suspiciously.

‘A dangerous one. It would be more dangerous for you to know more, though you can probably guess where the greatest dangers are to be found at the moment. Will you come?’

‘I should be on the walls.’

‘As you told me once before, the walls have stood seven hundred years without you. They might survive one more morning.’ I spoke light-heartedly, but with Krysaphios’ warning of the Normans ringing in my mind, the jest no longer held so much of its wit.

Sigurd rubbed his shoulder, then stood up. ‘Very well, Demetrios. You make a habit of needing my help in dangerous places, and my conscience has too much to trouble it already. When do we go?’

I arranged to meet him at the Blacherna gate at the end of the midnight watch, then slipped out of the palace and hastened home. The night was already old, and I began to doubt my wisdom in refusing Krysaphios’ offer of a bed. I could not afford a tired mistake in the barbarian camp in the morning, for I might pay for it with my life.

I was now well known to the Watch, after so many weeks walking home from the palace after dark, and I passed through the streets undisturbed. The thought of the Normans still worried me, and the darkness of the shadows preyed on my fears all the way to my own door, so much that I felt a flood of relief when I had locked it behind me, mounted the stairs, and gained the safety of my own bedroom.

My frugal daughters had not left a light burning, but I knew my home well enough to navigate it blind. I stood there in the dark and pulled off my tunic and cloak, letting them drop unheeded to the floor. The air was cold about me, and I felt my skin pinch at the chill. Thinking I would have to rely on my soldier’s habit of waking when I was needed, I felt for the edge of the bed and pulled myself under the covers.

Where I was not alone. I almost yelped in terror, a second before remembering my careless folly. Of course – I had asked Anna to stay with my daughters, had offered her the use of my bed while I was gone. How could I have forgotten, even with a hundred images of Franks and Patzinaks and Normans and war consuming my thoughts? And – worse – she was as naked as I, to judge from the smooth warmth of her skin against me. For a moment I could hardly move, paralysed by shock, embarrassment and a desire I had not felt in years. And to my further mortification, I was responding to her presence, firming and stiffening, pressing towards the hollows of her body.

I tried to pull away, but she mumbled something in her sleep and threw out an arm, crooking it around my shoulders and drawing me closer. Christ forgive me.

And she was not asleep, for the words she spoke next, though tinged with drowsiness, were perfectly clear. ‘Demetrios? Is this your tactic, to lure unsuspecting women to your bed and then leap in unannounced?’

‘I forgot you were here,’ I said, desperately aware how false I sounded. ‘In the dark, and with many worries troubling my mind, I . . .’

She put a hand over my lips. ‘Be quiet, Demetrios. A woman wants a man who desires her. Not one who stumbles on her in the dark by accident as though she were the corner of a table.’

‘But this is . . .’

‘Sinful?’ She laughed. ‘I have spent my life probing the secrets of the flesh: I’ve found blood, bile, bone and sinew, but never anything that looked like sin. You were in the army – did you never seek company when you were far from home?’

Her plain speaking shocked me, but the way her fingers played over the small of my back beat down my consternation. ‘A young man may find himself a slave to his urges,’ I admitted.

‘So may a woman.’

‘I confessed it and was absolved. That does not license me to make it a habit.’

‘But you have fought men, sometimes killed them. Why do you submit to anger but resist pleasure?’

Her manner was bewitching, and her persistent arguments inescapable. Nor was the resolve of my spirit constant in my flesh, for I had begun stroking my hand between her breasts, running it up to her throat and down the curve of her neck. I thought of my wife, Maria, and faltered a second, but the memory of her touch redoubled my desire, and I pushed harder against Anna’s yielding body. She wrapped her arms around my head and pulled me towards her chest, dragging my lips over her in a welter of tiny kisses.

In my body there was now no resistance; every part of me was tugging, kissing or squeezing her, but my mind held out. Was this blasphemy? Did I defile Maria’s memory, our marriage before God? But the Lord had not condemned me to the celibate life of a widower forever. And Maria, who had matched her elder daughter’s pragmatism with her younger daughter’s playfulness, would not, I thought, want me living the life of a monk in her name.

Perhaps that was true, or perhaps circumstance made me wish it true, but I was in no place for reasoned moral argument. I surrendered and sank into Anna’s embrace, clutching her against me in our silent coupling.

κ δ

The Blacherna gate was cold when I reached it, and colder still for the sleep I had lost. Leaving Anna’s caressing warmth behind had been hard enough, but as I plodded through empty streets to the walls, doubt and guilt and shame overtook me. How could I have surrendered to such abandon, and in the most sacred week of the year? What would my confessor say? How would the Lord God treat with me? With a long march through darkness ahead of us, and nothing but ten thousand hostile barbarians at the end of it, I had chosen a poor time to offend His laws.

Sigurd was already there. He had his axe on his shoulder, his mace by his side, and a short sword in his belt, yet still had the strength to carry two shields and another sword in his arms.

‘These are for you,’ he muttered. There was something about the night which hushed all our talk. ‘I dug them out of the armoury.’

I strapped the shield onto my arm, and buckled the sword around my waist. The distance ahead of us seemed immediately longer.

‘They’ve made these heavier since I was in the legions,’ I complained. ‘How can any man fight with this?’

‘They’ve made you heavier since you were in the legions, I think.’

‘Who is this?’ The Patzinak captain, the same who had led the expedition to the monk’s brother’s house, jabbed a finger at Sigurd. ‘We’ve no need of Varangians.’

‘Sigurd is my bodyguard,’ I explained tersely. ‘He must accompany me.’

The Patzinak looked unimpressed, but shrugged and moved away to the head of his men.

Sigurd glared at me. ‘Two months ago I was bodyguard to the Emperor. Now it seems I protect only those whom no-one could possibly want to kill.’

‘Maybe.’ I hitched the shield further up my arm. ‘Let’s hope that you can still say that in the afternoon.’

A shout from the front of the line ordered us forward. Two columns of Patzinaks began marching, followed by the squealing rumble of the lumbering grain carts. The oxen pulling them lowed their displeasure; their coats were glossy with the moisture in the air, and breath steamed from their snub-ended noses. Sigurd and I joined the after-guard at the tail of the column. High above us tiny squares of yellow glowed in the windows of the new palace, where perhaps even now the Emperor dreamed of conquests, but they vanished as we passed through the arch and onto the plain ahead. The moon was gone, and clouds had covered the stars, so we travelled almost blind, with only the huffing and squeaking of the ox-carts to break our solitude.

Those carts might have been a wise idea as a disguise, but they were nothing but a hindrance on that dark journey. One got stuck in a rutted stretch of road, and had to be heaved out by Patzinaks; then their weight forced us to pass by all the bridges, and travel to the very tip of the Horn. The shield dragged on my arm, and when I tried lashing it to my back, as I had in the legions, the straps almost strangled me.

‘To think it is Great Thursday,’ I murmured, as much to myself as to Sigurd. ‘We should be at prayer, not warring with our fellow Christians.’

‘If they feel likewise, then you can be at your church by noon.’ Sigurd’s strides were, as ever, a foot longer than my own, and I hurried to stay with him. ‘If not, then you might yet find time to talk with God today.’

We straggled on, and I grew glad of the oxen for they were the only ones of our group whose pace was slower than mine. Now we were heading back along the northern shore of the Horn, following where it curved in to form the harbour. I could see lights across the water here, small fires rising on the crests of the hills, though the greater part of the city still lay in darkness. We should be close to Galata now.

As if to confirm my thought I heard a call from ahead, and the sound of two Patzinaks conversing in their fractured language. We must have reached the picket line surrounding the camp, must be little more than a few hundred yards away. The night was falling away, receding into a grey half-light which opened our surroundings to my eyes, and in the distance I could see the dark shadows of the walls of Galata. We had timed our arrival well: their sentries would be rubbing their eyes and thinking of sleep, thanking their God for another night unharmed, while the rest of the camp would be in their beds. Including, I prayed, the monk, in the small house by the far wall, on the street behind the warehouses.

I threaded my way to the front of the column, with Sigurd close behind. ‘Do you remember the plan?’ I asked the Patzinak captain. ‘As soon as the gates are open we leave the wagons and make straight through the camp along the main street.’

The captain gave an unpleasant smile. ‘If the monk is in there, we will find him.’

‘Alive,’ I reminded him.

We were within twenty paces of the gate before the challenge came, a thin shout from a boy who sounded little older than Thomas.

‘Food from the Emperor,’ I called back. ‘Five wagons of grain. Open the gates.’

‘Why does the grain come before dawn?’ There was doubt in the boy’s voice, but whether from nerves or suspicion I could not tell. ‘And why is it surrounded by men in arms?’

‘So that you can enjoy your breakfast, and so that brigands on the road do not empty the wagons before they reach you. The Emperor does not wish you to be hungry.’

That drew derision, followed by a long wait, perhaps while the boy conferred with his superior. I began to doubt Krysaphios’ plan, to wonder whether we would be left standing at the gate while the Franks took the carts. What would we do then? We could not invest Galata with two hundred men, and we could do nothing which might spark a war unless we were sure of getting the monk.

Without warning, the gates swung open.

Even the Patzinaks, barbarians who would charge the walls of Hell itself if ordered, seemed to shrink as we marched into the camp. As we had hoped, there were few Franks about at that hour, but all those we passed stood by the roadside and watched us in hungry silence. Their arms were folded across their chests, and hate was plain on their gaunt faces. Even the sight of the grain carts rolling in behind us did not soften them, though a few of the children scurried away from their parents’ sides into the alleys behind, doubtless spreading word of our arrival.

‘You have to wonder why the Emperor allowed them to set their camp within a well-fortified colony,’ I said to Sigurd, breaking the hostile silence which surrounded us. ‘They might have been more co-operative with nothing stronger than canvas to protect them.’

‘Perhaps he wanted to prove he trusted them. Or perhaps he wanted them trapped, easily surrounded and watched. Walls make prisons, as well as forts.’

‘Whom do they imprison now?’

We reached a square, the main forum of Galata. There were more Franks here, many of them women and children with baskets for carrying home the grain. They surged forward as the ox-carts halted, but our column of Patzinaks never dropped a step. From somewhere behind us a man shouted that we should halt; we ignored him, and kept marching. I had to credit Krysaphios’ cunning, for the grain served its purpose: with the choice between stopping a company of Patzinaks or eating for the first time in days, every one of the Franks chose to serve his stomach.

Unhindered, we crossed over the square and entered the twisting road which the Sebastokrator’s spy had described. It followed the line of the coast a few dozen yards away, but so thick were the buildings against it we caught only the merest glimpses of water. It seemed almost deserted, perhaps because of the hour or perhaps because all its occupants were gorging themselves in the forum. Whichever: the fewer people who saw us capture the monk, the safer we would be.

As we progressed deeper into the town, the shops and taverns which had lined the road gave way to warehouses, taller and heavier buildings which pressed against the sides of the street. They had few windows and fewer doors, and none of the wondrous smells that surrounded their counterparts on the far side of the Horn. I had heard that the business of trade had almost died since the barbarians arrived, and since the Emperor began his blockade. Certainly there was none of the industry of stevedores, factors and merchants I remembered from my last visit.

We had now come clear across the town of Galata; ahead of us I could see the bulwark of the western walls barricading the end of the street. And just before it, tucked into a crevice between two warehouses, in what must once have been an alley, a thin house.

I tapped the Patzinak captain on his armoured shoulder, and started at the speed with which he spun about. He was broad and squat, almost like a boar, and the links of his scale armour strained against each other, but there was a worry in his grizzled eyes which unsettled me.

‘That is the house,’ I told him, pointing to the thin building. ‘We should get some men behind it, but there seems little point garrisoning the roofs of the warehouses.’ They towered over it on either side, and it would have taken the leap of Herakles to escape that way.

The captain jerked his head, and I heard the rattle of armour as two dozen men turned down an alley behind us to guard any retreat the monk might attempt.

‘Do we knock on the door?’ he asked slyly.

‘We knock it down.’

He shouted an order and six men ran forward. Instead of swords they carried axes – not great battle-axes, like Sigurd’s, but woodsmen’s tools for hewing trees. The core of our company assembled opposite, ready to charge the moment the door was broken, while the rest broke into two parties guarding either end of the street. It seemed a ridiculous force to apprehend a single man, but I knew him too well to think it extravagant.

‘Now.’

Two axes swung against the door, their blades biting into the wood and gouging deep rifts out of it. I saw the Patzinaks heave to get them free, then sweep them round again into the timber. It splintered and trembled, but did not give. Its strength must have frustrated the assailants, for they pulled their axes clear again and struck a third, thundering blow.

One of the men swore and turned to his captain. He shouted something angrily in his own tongue, which I could not understand.

‘What did he say?’

‘He says . . .’ The captain’s words choked off inexplicably; he clutched his neck, and turned to look at me, as my eyes opened wide in horror. An arrow had transfixed his throat, and blood streamed out of it down over his hands. He sank to his knees in silence and I stared, uncomprehending, but even as I looked I heard more cries around me, and the buzz and rattle of arrows in flight.

‘They’re on the roof!’ Sigurd shouted. ‘Get into the building! And get your shield over your face,’ he added. He charged across the street and slammed his shoulder against the scarred door of the house. It was a blow to topple an ox, let alone the ramshackle door of a makeshift tenement, but Sigurd recoiled from it as if he had struck stone.

‘They’ve barricaded it,’ he called. ‘It’s a trap. Raise your shield, curse you.’

Still reeling, I found the wit to lift my shield arm across my eyes as I crouched on the ground. It was not a second too soon, for even as I did so I felt the blow of an arrow thudding into the leather, inches from my head. The impact threw me off my balance, and I tumbled onto my side, before thick arms dragged me to my feet and pulled me into the shadow of the warehouse.

‘Their archers are on the roofs,’ said Sigurd grimly. ‘They were expecting us.’

‘But they cannot have had time since we arrived to assemble . . .’

Sigurd cut me short. ‘Time enough. And for who knows what else besides. We must escape before they bring reinforcements.’

Keeping my shield over my head, I peered out. A dozen corpses already lay spilled out in the road, but the rest of the Patzinaks had managed to huddle themselves into four circles, holding their shields above them and warding off the worst of the onslaught of arrows.

‘If they keep that formation, they can retreat to the docks,’ I thought aloud. ‘We can find a ship to evacuate us.’

I would have crossed to the nearest cluster of men and explained my plan, but Sigurd held me back. ‘We won’t find a craft that can hold two hundred of us and just sail away. We’ll be trapped with our backs to the sea – we’ll be driven into the water or massacred. We have to make for the square, for the gate.’

‘That’s half a mile away,’ I protested ‘We can’t go that far scuttling like crabs.’

‘We can if the alternative is death. And once we get away from these warehouses, the archers will be behind us. Unless they have more further along the route.’

Who knew where the barbarians would be? But I could not ponder it, for suddenly – as quickly as it had begun – the chattering of arrows on the walls behind me stopped. Nor was it just where we stood, for I could see the Patzinaks in the street relaxing their locked shields a little, peering out from their makeshift shelters.

‘Have they run out of arrows?’ I wondered.

‘All at once?’ Sigurd glanced up grimly. ‘I doubt it. This will be some new devilment. We should move now.’

Even as he spoke I heard a rumbling in the ground, as tremors before the earth shakes. Was even God against us now? The Patzinaks in their circles looked about nervously, shields half lowered. The rumbling grew louder, and Sigurd must have recognised it a second before the rest of us, for I heard him shouting for the men to form a line just as the barbarian cavalry galloped around the bend in the road. Some of the Patzinaks gaped, petrified with horror, but discipline and instinct triumphed in the majority and they began spreading across the street with their shields before them. We did not have spears, but it takes more than spurs to force a horse into a line of men, and if a single beast pulled up it would throw the others into disarray, opening a gap for us to charge into.

But we were undone. The archers above unleashed a fresh volley of arrows, striking down those Patzinaks whose attention was on the oncoming knights: they were caught between the two onslaughts, unsure where to face, and died helplessly. Sigurd strode among them, trying to marshal some form of order, but confusion frustrated his commands and there were too many spaces in the line to check the cavalry.

They broke over us in a wave of spears and blades, thrusting and chopping and hacking at any who withstood them. One galloped inches past my face, but the wall behind me broke his swing and forced his sword away from me. I lunged blindly with my own weapon, but he was already gone and I stabbed nothing but air. Then the space about us was clear again, and I stumbled forward into the street. The ground was littered with blood and shields and broken men, some of whom lifted themselves to their feet, but many more of whom did not. Sigurd still stood, a mountain above the carnage, pulling his axe from the chest of a Frank he had unhorsed and bellowing orders, but there were few who listened. An arrow struck the road by my foot and I ducked down again, but the archers must have had their fill of easy slaughter for their shots were sporadic now.

I waved my arm to the far end of the street, where the cavalry were regrouping. ‘Their next charge will surely sweep us away,’ I called. ‘We cannot withstand them.’

‘I will fight to the death,’ Sigurd answered, his face crimson with blood and anger. ‘There is no honour in surrender.’

‘There is less honour in leaving my daughters orphaned. Die for the Emperor, if you must, but do not waste your last strength in some skirmish of no account. The barbarians will value us far more as hostages than as corpses.’

The keenest of the Frankish cavalry were already beginning to urge their mounts forward, kicking at their flanks and bellowing the war-cries of their race. Lances tilted down; they would be upon us in seconds.

‘The Varangians never surrender,’ Sigurd shouted wildly. ‘We do not leave the battlefield before our enemy, except in shrouds. Stand and fight!’

But his was a lonely voice in a lonely place. Whether Varangians would indeed have fought to the last I do not know; the Patzinaks would not. All around me, those who could still stand cast down their swords and shields and lifted their arms to show they were finished. For a moment I thought the Franks would ride them down even then, but at the last they divided themselves and rode into a circle around us. Sigurd alone resisted the inevitable defeat, snarling and prowling and hurling challenges at our captors, but at length even his head dropped, and his axe fell to the ground.

The barbarians did not address us, but let their spears speak for them. Those ahead began to ride away, while those behind advanced, jabbing at our heels. They did not even allow us time to drag our wounded to their feet, and I saw at least one man, still alive, casually trampled under the cavalry’s hooves. Shame and fury were evident on all our faces, none more than Sigurd’s, but we were impotent: the Franks could have butchered us in seconds.

They herded us like swine back to the forum. The grain carts were gone, doubtless swept clean of all their load, but a crowd many faces deep had gathered. They were expecting us, I realised, taking in the gleeful expectation around me, just as the archers and cavalry had expected us. It sickened me to think of the ease with which we had been trapped.

Four tables had been dragged together on the far side of the square to form a crude platform, on which a dozen of the Frankish captains now stood. All were in armour, and many had their faces obscured by helmets, but the man standing at their centre was bareheaded – and familiar. He was the fair-haired duke, Godfrey, who had received Count Hugh’s embassy in his tent: I remembered he had treated the count courteously, if warily, while his brother pissed on the floor. Though I was numb from the battle, from the forced march at spear-point and the peril of our predicament, the sight of him gave me reason for hope.

Hope which vanished as the leader of the cavalry cantered around the square, reined up his great bay stallion before the stage, and tugged his helmet from his head. His dark hair sprang out in unruly curls, as though he had just risen from his bed, while beneath it the skin was as cold and pale as ever. Baldwin, I remembered, the unlanded brother of Duke Godfrey.

He slipped from his horse and crossed to his brother, a triumphant smile on his face. He spoke brashly and quickly, waving his arms towards his captives and directing his words as much to the crowd as to his brother. He spoke in Frankish, but there was little misunderstanding the vicious exultation in his voice. He seemed to be pressing some sort of argument, for several times the duke interrupted him sharply, but the mind of the crowd was clearly with Baldwin. When he addressed them directly they cheered and applauded, while when he jabbed his finger at his brother they whistled and jeered.

They must have agreed on something, though, for at length Baldwin leaped down off the platform and advanced towards us.

‘No doubt he comes to tell us how much our ransom will be,’ I whispered to Sigurd. ‘Did you understand any of what was said?’

Sigurd shook his head, the agony of surrender still plain on his face.

Without waiting for a translator, nor making any effort to discover which of us was the leader, the barbarian captain approached the nearest of the Patzinaks. The guard’s arm was bleeding, gashed by a spear, but he lifted his chin and drew back his shoulders as Baldwin stopped and stared haughtily down on him. He let his head drift away, then snapped it back and spat full on the Patzinak’s face. The Patzinak flinched, but otherwise kept still, while Baldwin grinned around at the approving crowd, accepting the murmur of agreement which greeted him. He was still facing them, still grinning, while his hand dropped to his sword-belt. And the grin never left his face as he spun about, pulled his sword from its scabbard and, in a single arc, sliced it across the Patzinak’s throat. There was not even time for surprise to register on the murdered guardsman’s face before he was dead on the ground. Blood began spreading across the stones around his body.

A roar of jubilation erupted from the crowd, and Baldwin gave a mock bow, wiping his blade on the dead man’s sleeve. His brother looked on with silent disdain, but he could not defy the mob whose cheering only grew as Baldwin took two exaggerated steps towards the next Patzinak. His blade hovered before the man’s face, darting left and right; then, as the guard tried to duck from its path he reversed the sword and stabbed it into the man’s leg. The guard howled with pain and doubled over, presenting his neck to Baldwin’s hungry blade. He probably did not even see the blow which killed him.

I closed my sickened eyes, then reopened them and looked to Sigurd. ‘We cannot endure this,’ I hissed. ‘He will murder us all for sport, if the crowd do not tear us apart first. We must escape.’

‘You said we would be worth more as hostages than corpses.’ I had never heard such bitterness as was now in Sigurd’s voice.

‘I was wrong. But if we are to die, we should die on our feet. And if we can avoid it altogether . . .’

There must have been four score of us captive in that forum, and Baldwin’s barbarity had kindled the same determination in every soul. Now one of the Patzinaks acted. Refusing to be a willing sacrifice, he charged towards the edge of the square where the crowd was thinnest. The knight there raised his sword to chop him down, but the Patzinak ducked away under the horse and escaped it. I saw his hands grasp the barbarian’s leg and start to pull, while his shoulder must have collided with the beast’s ribs for it reared up on its hind legs, unseating its rider. He fell to the ground with a cry of terror, and in an instant his sword was in the hands of the Patzinak, who lunged towards the crowd with a great shout of defiance.

Desperation filled my lungs. ‘Now,’ I shouted. I snatched Sigurd’s arm and pointed to our right: as the Frankish cavalry and their rabble surged forward to stop the lone Patzinak, a gap had appeared in their cordon. I sprinted towards it with Sigurd close behind, crushed my fist into the single man who barred my way, and stuck my knee into his groin to be certain. He collapsed from my path. More cries and shouts sounded from behind me as Sigurd cracked and shattered the limbs of those who tried to stop him.

We were free, but I could hear the noise of many footsteps running after me. Whether they were barbarian pursuers or Patzinaks who had followed us out I could not tell and dared not look, but they pushed me on up a thin alley away from the forum, away from the confused commotion of the Frankish mob. I ran past the first two roads which turned off my path, swerved into the third and ducked immediately down another lane, hoping it would not prove a dead end, for the sounds of pursuit were everywhere about me. It was empty, but would not be so for long, and with so many barbarians we could not keep running around this maze for ever. I saw a crooked shed leaning against the wall of a house and made for its door, praying to my God that it would not be locked, while Sigurd pushed past me, scanning for any enemies approaching ahead.

The door resisted my first touch, but a frantic kick broke through the rust on its hinges and it swung open. I turned to call Sigurd back, for here we could wait until the barbarians passed, but the shout died in my throat.

A barbarian had found me. He stood behind me watching curiously, almost lazily, though there was nothing the least slack in his arms and shoulders. The blade he held at my neck did not tremble an inch.

κ ε

He had both grown and withered in the last two months. His beard was now full, though still close to the chin, and hunger had chiselled away at his face to reveal the man beneath. But he was thin, far thinner than after weeks of the monks’ hospitality, and if work had kept his arms and legs hard with sinew it had also stooped his back a little. What had it done to his spirit?

He seemed unsure what to say, but this was no time for long silences. ‘Are you going to kill me, Thomas? Or turn me over to that demon Baldwin to be dismembered?’

‘You are the enemy of my people,’ he said harshly.

‘I am your friend. I saved you from death, once, you remember.’

‘You tied me up like a thief.’

‘And then set you free.’

I saw the tip of his sword decline just a fraction before his arm stiffened again. ‘You are the enemy of my people. You try to starve and kill us.’

‘Will you orphan my daughters because we serve different masters?’

The mention of orphanhood must have bitten his conscience, for he went very still, and suddenly the eyes which stared at me seemed to be those of a child again. I thought to say more, to evoke his own parents, but I did not want to twist the knife of memory too far. He would not have forgotten them, I told myself: if their loss could sway him, then it would be so, and if not, then I would die.

‘I do this for your daughter,’ he whispered at last. ‘And because you save my life.’

‘Thank you.’ I could hear more shouts, and the echo of horses’ hooves drawing near. ‘Can you help me get to the harbour? To find a boat?’

Thomas shook his head. ‘No boats. The Greeks take them all. And my people look for you there. Go away. Go up to your friend on the hill.’

Panic and incomprehension stalled my mind for a moment, before I realised whom he meant. ‘The merchant Domenico? You mean him? Is he still there?’

Thomas shrugged. ‘I see him sometimes. He help you.’

That was something I would discover myself. I had not seen the merchant Domenico since before the Feast of the Nativity, and he was closer in kin to the barbarians than to the Romans. But Thomas spoke truthfully of the alternatives: the Emperor had ordered all boats away from Galata, to complete the barbarians’ isolation, and it was in the lower reaches of the city, around the docks and gates, that the search for us would be thickest.

‘Will you lead us?’

Thomas did not answer, but turned his back on me and began moving up the street at a half-run. I followed with Sigurd, who had watched my conversation with Thomas in silence.

‘Do you trust him?’ he whispered as we approached the corner.

‘I would not choose to trust him. But it is not my choice to make.’

‘It may still be the wrong choice. We should have knocked him down and left him in a corner. Then at least we would have had a sword.’

‘It will take more than a sword to escape from this trap.’ I spoke shortly, for ahead of me Thomas had not stopped at the corner, but had run straight out into the crossroads, and I heard frantic shouts erupt as he came into view. He turned to acknowledge them, and I watched in helpless despair as he shouted back, waving his arms confidently. Were we betrayed? I could scarcely stand to wait there, helpless, utterly ignorant of whether he summoned our doom or our salvation. Beside me I felt Sigurd tensing himself, as if to spring forward and strike Thomas down, and I touched his arm to stay him. If Thomas had revealed us to his countrymen, we would be powerless.

Thomas turned and began walking towards us, moving with an almost insouciant air. Only when he was out of sight of the main road did he drop the pretence and hurry to meet us.

‘I tell them you are not here,’ he said curtly. ‘They go.’

‘You sent the Franks – your people – away?’ As I listened, I could hear the truth of it, for the noises which had been almost upon us were now fading to a few lingering shouts. We waited until they were almost silent, then followed Thomas away from that place, up into the streets which led inland from the harbour. Thomas was a sure guide, and as the shore and barbarians receded he grew ever quicker, darting around corners and seeking out crevices if danger threatened. Once he was so fast I thought he might intend to maroon us, but he always reappeared, beckoning us upwards.

And suddenly we were in the mouth of an alley which faced a lime-washed wall, and the gate I had passed through once on a December afternoon. Thomas pointed at it.

‘Domenico.’

I took his arm to thank him, but he drew away abruptly.

‘You can come with us,’ I told him. ‘After this you have earned your freedom. You can live in the city and make a new life.’

He did not answer, but disappeared back down the hill. Back to the barbarians.

We crossed to the gate, and endured a terrified wait while the suspicious doorkeeper approached, argued with us, took our names to his master and finally returned, grudgingly, to admit us. The courtyard was little improved from when I had last visited – worse, in some respects, for the orange trees had not taken to their soil, and had shed most of their leaves onto the unpaved ground. The facade remained incomplete and unpainted, but there was no sign of the workmen or their tools. I doubted Domenico would have wanted too much ornament with barbarians for neighbours. Somehow, though, through invasion, siege, famine and war, the little merchant had managed to keep as plump and well-groomed as ever. Only the rims of his eyes told the strain he was under as he welcomed us to his house.

‘You stretch the laws of hospitality, Demetrios,’ he admonished me as we sat in a cool, unwindowed room deep in his house. ‘I do not usually entertain outlaws.’

‘Nor do you now. The law of the empire still holds here.’

Domenico giggled nervously, and wiped his brow on the arm of his gown. ‘Is it the law of the empire that imperial soldiers are executed in a public square by a Frankish lunatic? That a hysterical mob rules the streets of Galata with the justice of the sword?’

I leaned closer, urgency in my eyes. ‘Were you there in the square? Did you see what befell us?’

‘Me? No, indeed no. But I hear much.’

‘There was an argument between two of the barbarian captains, the Duke Godfrey and his brother Baldwin. Do you know what they said?’

We were interrupted by the arrival of a servant bearing a flagon of wine and a plate of smoked partridge. I downed my glass as soon as it was offered, and gobbled the tender meat like a glutton.

‘You no longer observe your fast,’ Domenico observed.

‘Not today,’ I admitted between mouthfuls. I could serve my guilt later. ‘But tell me of the barbarians.’

Domenico sucked some fat from his fingers. ‘My report is that Baldwin, the younger of the pair, declared that the Emperor had shown his true intentions, that after penning them up, starving them of food, and heaping indignities upon their holy quest, he had declared war. To this, he averred, there was only one response. They must invade the city itself, and drag the impious usurper from his throne. Only thus would the honour of God be satisfied.’

‘Let them try,’ snarled Sigurd. ‘I saw no siege engines in their camp. If they assault the walls and legions of Constantinople with their rabble, they will learn what happens when the Emperor goes to war.’

‘So said Duke Godfrey. But his brother answered him that he had a spy within the walls who would open the city as the Lord opened Jericho to Joshua. He added a few slurs against the prowess of your race which I need not repeat, but the crowd adored it. Especially when he demonstrated the ease with which your soldiers died.’

I poured myself more wine, splashing it over the rim of the cup in my haste. ‘Did he name the spy?’

Domenico looked at me severely. ‘And perhaps reveal when he would strike, and by which ruses he would open the gates? No, he did not. But there were other things he said, which I guess would interest you greatly. A Norman army is coming . . .’

‘I know.’ I lifted my hand wearily. ‘In two weeks it will be here, and then there will be twice as many barbarians to contend with. This is not news to me. Surely Baldwin will wait until then.’

Domenico sighed. ‘You do not know how their minds work, Demetrios. Baldwin has not come to see the holy sights of Jerusalem, nor to help his Norman rivals gain a throne. He has come for himself, and he is terrified that if he delays others will snatch his prize. That is why, even as we speak, his army straps on its armour and prepares for battle.’

‘You seem well acquainted with the barbarian’s plans.’ Sigurd curled his fingers into fists, and let them loose again. ‘How does a merchant come to know the minds of our enemies so well?’

‘In the same fashion as I come to have meat and drink on my table when all around me eat rats. I listen for what I want, and pay generously when I find it. Baldwin and his brother hold sway over this colony, so I learn everything I can of them, in the hope that one day the information may avail me something.’

There was a silence in that dim room, while each of us summoned our thoughts. At last I spoke. ‘If the barbarians are marching on the city, in the hope that a traitor will undo us, then we cannot delay. We must get word of this to the palace, and warn the Emperor of their intentions.’

‘You cannot leave this house,’ said Domenico. ‘Baldwin has unleashed the mob in this colony. It is a calculated act, to stir their blood to a frenzy and to affirm their loyalty, but if you venture from here you will be slaughtered. Far better to wait until the rage has subsided and the army has left. Then we can leave in the cover of night.’ He saw the objection rising in me. ‘They have no boats, and it is a long march around the Horn. They will not take the city by surprise.’

‘And their spy?’ In my heart I had already named him as the monk. ‘What if he works his evil before the Emperor is alerted?’

Domenico shrugged his round shoulders. ‘What of it? If you go tonight, he may have acted before you arrive. But if you go now you will certainly be too late, for you will never reach him.’

‘And tonight you will help us escape?’ pressed Sigurd.

‘God willing. If the mob have not burned down my house and looted all I own. Though I hope they will not come this far – the hill should deter them, I think.’

‘And in the meantime?’

‘In the meantime you should stay in here. There is more food if you desire it. Or you could pray. It is, after all, the day for it.’

I did pray in the long hours which followed, repeating the pleas of the prophets again and again until a dark look from Sigurd silenced me. After that I kept my prayers in my heart, while Sigurd prowled around that small room like a bear in its cage. Sometimes we spoke, but neither of us could muster much effort, and our words inevitably fell away unheeded. Domenico’s servant brought some bread and water, which we ate gratefully, and a little after that I managed to hold back the horrors from my thoughts long enough to fall asleep. Once I awoke thinking I heard shouting in the distance, but it came no nearer and soon I slipped back into dreams.

I woke again to a tugging on my arm, and opened my eyes to see Domenico peering down on me.

‘It is dusk,’ he said. ‘In half an hour, when it is dark, we will go.’

I rubbed the grit from my eyes, and took a sip of the water he had brought. ‘Have the barbarians gone?’

‘Their army left many hours ago, but the rest of their camp are still in the streets seeking out what little plunder remains. It will still be dangerous to venture among them.’

‘Not so dangerous as when we came here,’ I said. ‘You have saved our lives today, and I will not forget it.’

The merchant sat down opposite me, the chair creaking under his weight. ‘In truth, my friend, I do not do this because of my love for your people, though I bear them no grudges.’ He peered nervously behind him, where I could see the dim figure of Sigurd sleeping on a bench. ‘The Emperor’s blockade has all but ruined me, while every day from my window I see the ships of my rivals unloading across the bay.’

‘If I reach the palace alive,’ I told him, ‘and if there is a single man in the palace who will listen to me, you will have the grandest mansion which stands in the shadow of the old acropolis.’

‘I hope so, my friend. I hope so. My father in Pisa will be unhappy if I return a beggar.’

We sat there in silence and darkness a few moments, the only sound Sigurd snoring in his corner.

‘Tell me what else you know of Baldwin,’ I said. I was too alert to sleep again, and Domenico was not so well known to me that silences were comfortable.

He shrugged, sucking on a dried fig. ‘Little things, pieces of gossip and hearsay. He has brought his wife and children – did you know that?’

‘I did not,’ I admitted. ‘Does our climate agree with their health?’

Domenico chuckled. ‘It will do, when they are queen and princes in his new kingdom.’

‘He has no lands in the west? In Frankia?’ It was half a question, half a statement, for I remembered the Count Hugh taunting him to such effect in his tent.

‘None. His father was a count, and his mother heir to a duchy, but he was the third son and so got neither. According to rumour, they intended him for the church, but you have seen the temper of his soul. I do not think he was long in the great cathedral school at Rheims. After that . . .’

Domenico was never a man to diminish a tale which could be expanded, but he broke off in confusion at my shout of astonishment.

‘Rheims? Baldwin was at Rheims? The barbarian town, where they keep the shrine of their Saint Remigius?’

‘I believe so.’ Domenico was looking up at me in alarm, while behind him Sigurd stirred from his sleep. ‘I have never been there. Why?’

‘Because the monk was at Rheims – that was where he joined his order, and was turned against the Romans. Where Baldwin must have found him.’ I remembered the monk’s brother describing his cruelty. ‘I imagine they found much in common. So when Baldwin came east, and needed a man who could pass for a Roman yet had the barbarian faith in his heart, he chose the monk, Odo.’

Domenico watched me in puzzlement. ‘You believe this monk – the man who once approached me to fund his scheming – is Baldwin’s assassin.’

‘I do. You said he had brought his wife and children, that he wanted to claim a kingdom in the east because he had none in the west. What richer prize than Byzantium itself?’

Much of this I had suspected, or believed, but finally to have a definite connection between Baldwin and the monk made me course with triumph. Though there was no triumph yet, I reminded myself, while the monk walked free and the barbarians were in arms.

‘We must go and tell the Emperor,’ I said.

Domenico edged open the door. It must have been as dark outside as within, for it admitted no light.

‘We can go,’ he announced.

‘Then we had better move quickly.’

Armed with long knives which Domenico gave us, we hurried out of his courtyard and down the hill. His house was unscathed, but barely fifty yards away the devastation began. You could almost see where the crowd had stopped, the high-water mark of their destructive flood: one moment the houses we passed were intact and unharmed, the next they were roofless ruins, their doors beaten from their hinges and every window shattered. Smoke filled the air, the acrid fumes of human misery, and I had to hold my sleeve over my face to keep from choking. Domenico had spoken of a mob, but there must have been a method to their savagery for not a single building had been bypassed or forgotten. Even now, the dull wind brought more shouts of havoc and spoliation to my ears.

I shivered. ‘The Lord God help us if they get inside the city. He Himself could not have visited greater destruction here.’

We descended lower, Domenico leading us uncertainly through smouldering streets and rubble-strewn alleys. We saw no-one, living or dying, and fear whetted our ears such that we were quick to hear if any approached. Several times we crouched in the ruins until we were sure that danger had passed, and our progress was fitful until at last the slope tailed away onto the flat ground by the shore. We came onto a broad street – the same, I realised, that we had trodden that morning. We had felt strong then, invulnerable, but how many from that column were alive now?

Domenico scuttled across the road, into the shadow of a warehouse, and beckoned us after him. It had probably been empty even before the looters reached it, and though it was scorched black, the new bricks of its walls had saved it from the worst effects of the flames. Its door had not been so fortunate, but that was to our advantage as we followed Domenico under the charred lintel.

He swept an arm about him in melancholy. ‘Once, this was to be the cradle of my fortune; now it is its tomb. But in this week of all weeks, we should remember that salvation also can come from the grave. Help me raise the floor.’

We crouched on our knees, and pressed our fingers into a groove where he directed. When we tugged, a broad square of planking came up in our hands, opening a shallow pit to our view. On the packed earth within lay a small boat.

‘The wise merchant guards against every risk,’ said Domenico proudly. ‘And thus never loses everything.’

‘If you can get us across the Horn, you will gain a great deal more.’

We bent over the hole and lifted out the boat by its prow. I was glad of Sigurd’s strength, for Domenico did little but fuss: together we managed to haul the craft across to the door by the wharf. The hull rasped and grated horribly as we dragged it over the floor, the noise redoubled by the towering walls, but the barbarians must have exhausted their appetite for plunder, or indulged it elsewhere, for none came to trouble us.

With a final push, Sigurd heaved the boat over the edge of the wharf and watched it splash into the black waters of the Horn. There was a ladder bolted to one of the pilings which even the Franks had not bothered to destroy: we slid down it, and soon we were splashing away from the dock, away from danger, away from the horror that had once been Galata. Though looking across to the far side of the Horn was no comfort, for by some unknown devilry there seemed to be flames there as well. I lay back against the thwart and stared at the sky, floating between the shores of a world on fire.

κ ς

It was like some vision of the apocalypse, for around the entire sweep of the bay flames licked into the night. In Galata they were burning out, dying slowly, but along the coast the barbarian’s progress could be measured by the heights to which the fires still rose in every village and settlement. To my horror, they did not stop at the bridge, but continued back along the southern shore even into the city itself. I stared out through the darkness, trying to judge if any were near my own home, but it was hidden in the hills. Where were the barbarians now? Had they entered the city, as Baldwin had promised they would, as the flames seemed to herald? Was the empire betrayed into slavery? I wanted to weep, but tears would not come. The last time there had been violence in the city I had spent three days and nights at my door, sword in hand, refusing to sleep lest the mob come for my family. There would be no consolation if I had failed them now.

Sigurd made a crude boatman, but he managed to bring us across the Horn, between the moored ships, and towards the walls. They were clear to see, for on that night even the waves burned: sea-fire had been spread over them, to deter all who might approach and illuminate any who did. I could smell the oily smoke, hear the spitting as the flames danced and swayed on the water.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked Sigurd. We seemed to be heading north-west, towards the headwaters. ‘Take me to the gate of Saint Theodosia, so I can return to my house and find my children.’

Sigurd never looked back. ‘We’re going to the new palace. The Emperor will be there, unless he has changed his ways. We need to warn him of the danger he faces.’

I almost laughed. ‘Look around you – he can guess at the danger, if he still lives. I must see to my family.’

‘We all have families, Demetrios. But if the empire falls to the Franks, we will wish they had never been saved.’

I was too feeble to argue, and I said nothing more as Sigurd sculled the boat to the stone pier by the new palace. We were close to the barrage of sea-fire now, and I sat up in the terror that the current would carry us into it, but a small opening had been left and Sigurd deftly worked us through it. Guards came running, and I saw with relief that here at least Romans still held the walls. Their faces glowed orange in the firelight, as indeed did the stones, the water and even the air about us, but there was mercifully little panic in their faces.

‘Who approaches?’ they challenged. ‘Declare yourselves, or we will burn you into the sea.’

‘Sigurd, captain of Varangians, with news for the Emperor. Is he here?’

‘He is. He directs the war on the barbarians from his throne.’

‘War?’ I echoed. ‘Is there now a war between us. Have they entered the city?’

The guard laughed. ‘They have sacked the outer villages, and paraded before the walls, but it will take more than a rabble of men and horses to force our defences. The city is safe enough – for the moment.’

‘But what of the fires?’

‘Our own mob. They came into the streets this afternoon, demanding that the Emperor unleash his full might on the barbarians and make the Lycus red with their blood. When he refused there was violence, and some set fire to the tax collector’s office. But the Watch have the ringleaders now, and the streets are under strict curfew.’

‘Thank Christ for that,’ I breathed.

‘Thank Him when it is finished,’ reproved the guard. ‘There are still barbarians beyond our walls, and great anger within. But for now, I will take you to the court.’

We scrambled out of the boat and came through the water-gate into the new palace. Everywhere was in turmoil: companies of soldiers hurried between the walls, and in the courtyards whetting wheels scraped plumes of sparks from steel blades. Spears and shields were stacked all about, while serving boys from the kitchen laboured under baskets of arrows. We climbed many stairs, often pausing to let files of guards push past, until at last we came to the great bronze doors. A dozen Patzinaks, armed and helmed and with spears in their hands, barred the way.

‘The Emperor is in council,’ their sergeant growled. ‘He will not see petitioners. The secretary . . .’

I cut him short. ‘Is the chamberlain within? Tell him that Demetrios Askiates and Sigurd the Varangian have returned from Galata. Tell him we have news which must be told.’

Whether from the surprise of being countermanded, or the flat certainty in my voice, the sergeant disappeared through the door, and emerged humbly ten minutes later to confirm that the chamberlain would see me immediately.

It was probably the most exalted gathering I would ever witness, I thought, as the bronze doors closed behind me. I had entered the room where I had once met the Sebastokrator, the broad chamber built atop the walls overlooking the plain. It was filled with the light of many candles, and with the glittering array of more generals, counsellors and their retinues than I could count. Apart from Isaak and Krysaphios, I recognised the Caesar Bryennios, the Emperor’s first son-in-law; the great eunuch general Tatikios whom I remembered from his triumph against the Cumans; and myriad others in gilded armour and the regalia of their offices. All stood save the Emperor himself, who sat on his golden throne in the centre of the room and inclined his head to the arguments which flowed about him. On the marble floor, between the pointed shoes of his courtiers, I thought I saw blood.

I was too shabby to be noticed by that shimmering assembly, but Krysaphios noted my arrival and gradually slipped around the edge of the throng to greet me in a corner.

‘You have returned,’ he said calmly. ‘When we saw the barbarians marching from their camp, we feared the worst. Particularly when we received reports that some of our soldiers had been executed.’

I stared into his shifting eyes. ‘It was a trap. If the monk was ever there, he was not in the house when we arrived. Instead we found barbarians, hundreds of them, waiting for us. They cut down many of our force and took the rest captive. When they started murdering prisoners for the sport of their crowd, we escaped. They know that the Normans will come, and they are eager to seize the spoils for themselves before that day.’ I leaned closer. ‘When the barbarian captain Baldwin addressed his army, he told them he had an agent in the city who would see to it that the gates were open to them. I have discovered that he was taught at the same school where the monk learned to hate Byzantium. He and the monk must be in league.’

To my surprise and chagrin, Krysaphios laughed openly at this news. ‘Your effort does you credit, Demetrios,’ he told me, immaculate condescension in his voice. ‘But you are tardy with it. The Emperor’s enemies have already revealed themselves.’

I stared about the room. The Emperor Alexios still lived and breathed – so much was obvious. ‘Was the blood on the floor . . . ?’

‘The monk’s doing? No. Those windows through which the Emperor surveyed the battle make an inviting target from without. Many Franks tried their aim with arrows, and one struck the man who stood beside the throne.’

‘I winced to think how nearly we had been undone. What was this battle you speak of?’

Krysaphios glanced back to the middle of the room, where a stout general was making an impassioned oration against the barbarians, recapitulating their historic offences. ‘I told you that the barbarians had revealed themselves as our enemies: so much was obvious, as soon as they had ambushed your expedition. After they left Galata, they pillaged their way around the Golden Horn until they arrived at the walls. The palace by the Silver Lake is entirely destroyed.’

‘They left little untouched in Galata either.’

‘Then they drew up their army over there’ – Krysaphios pointed through the windows – ‘and began an assault on the palace gate, trying to burn it open. All afternoon they launched themselves at our defences, while within our walls the mob rioted and demanded war.’

‘But the Emperor did not succumb?’ I said, remembering the words of the guard by the sea gate.

Krysaphios’ eyes narrowed. ‘Not yet. Invoking the sanctity of the day, he ordered the archers to keep to the walls and fire over the barbarians’ heads, or at their horses if they pressed too close. Even now, when they hammer at our gates, he holds out hope that there can be peace and does not admit his folly. But fortune will desert them tomorrow. Even the Emperor cannot defy the howl of the mob forever, and when the barbarians attack again he will have no choice but to destroy them. As many have long demanded.’

‘But what if he commits to battle and does not destroy them? What if they pierce our defences and break in?’ I saw scorn rising on Krysaphios’ lips, and hurried on. ‘What of the monk? Surely tomorrow will be the day he strikes.’

Unexpectedly, Krysaphios chuckled. ‘The Great Friday of Easter – a good day for martyrdom. But the Emperor will never be alone; his guards, family and commanders will attend him constantly. And it would need more than one man to open our gates, against the will of all who manned them. If even that concerns you, then stay and keep watch. Unless you again prefer the familiarity of your own bed.’

‘There is enough of the soldier left in me that I can sleep where I am needed. But I fear for my daughters. If the mob riot again tomorrow and they are caught up in it, I will not forgive myself.’

Krysaphios’ lip turned a fraction upward. ‘Every man in this palace has a family, Demetrios, and all those wives and sons and daughters must wait in their own homes with the rest of our people. Do you really struggle between your obligations to two girls, and your duty to the millions in the empire?’

I had no patience for such contempt. ‘If the empire cannot protect my family then I have no use for it; my duty is to my kin. You yourself might understand if you had more than a mule’s seed.’

I regretted those words even as I spoke them, but the toil of the day had crushed my patience and loosed my wits. I saw anger sear Krysaphios’ cheeks and did not bother to wait for its eruption.

‘I will go and guard my family. If I were you, Krysaphios, I would not stand too near the windows tomorrow.’

I turned on my heels and walked stiffly from the room, invisible to the gilded company who still threw the same arguments between each other. Neither Krysaphios nor the guards tried to stop me, and once I was past the bronze doors there was too much confusion for any to notice. I descended the stairs in a daze of bitter misery, and had just gained the second courtyard when I heard running steps behind me, and felt a hand on my arm.

I turned, to see a handsome, apologetic-looking young man. His dalmatica was of the finest fabric, fastened with a brooch in the shape of a lion, while the ornament on his tablion betold a rank far above his years.

‘My apologies, Master Askiates.’ His voice was light, and his manner friendly. ‘My lord Alexios the Emperor saw your departure and begs you to stay. He fears he may need you tomorrow.’

‘The Emperor was wrapped in a council of war when I left – can he really have seen me?’

‘My lord Alexios has both eyes and ears, and he does not always use them in unison. Will you stay, by his invitation?’

It was hard to resist the easy humour of this youth, but the single purpose in my mind overrode all else. ‘I must return to my home. I worry for my daughters’ safety, and I fear there will be more danger in the streets tomorrow.’

‘And the Emperor shares those concerns. He will send his guards to bring them here.’

At a stroke, all my resistance ebbed away. Though the palace was far from safe, and though any battle in the city would rage fiercest here, I would rather see my daughters by my side in a stout fortress than at the mercy of the mob. I nodded my agreement. ‘I will stay.’

The young man smiled, though there was a strain in his cheeks. ‘Thank you – it will relieve the Emperor. God alone knows what else will on this accursed day.’

‘Accursed indeed if my doings are his only comfort.’

‘Today has been bad. His enemies have risen, and his friends circle the throne like dogs; his choices are few, and ever diminishing. Yet these are merely the first breaths of the storm.’ He played absently with the clasp of his brooch, scanning the sky as if for a portent. ‘Tomorrow, I fear, it will break.’

κ ζ

It was the Great Friday of Easter, the holy day when Our Lord was crucified, and I woke in fear. Not fear of the barbarian armies who massed to strike us, nor of the assassins who might haunt the palace halls, nor even of the mob who could tear the city in two at their Emperor’s cowardice. It was fear of my daughters, fear that they would wake too soon in the small chamber where we had been lodged, and see their father curled shamelessly on a mattress with a woman who was not their mother.

Anna must have sensed that I stirred, for she twisted herself so she could see my face. ‘I should go. There must be some in need of a doctor here, after yesterday’s violence.’ She shook her tangled hair. ‘And though your daughters guess much, there are some things they should not see.’

‘Some things their father may not wish them to see,’ I added quietly. My spirits had leapt when Zoe and Helena arrived at the palace with Anna, she having still been at my home when the guards came. When at last I had finished roaming the passages near the Emperor’s apartments, well after midnight, I had been grateful, if cautious, of her embrace.

All thoughts left me as a stern knock came from the door. I was on my feet in an instant, trying to kick the blanket free of my legs, while Anna rolled against the wall and affected sleep. I heard tentative sounds from the far corner, but by the time Zoe’s head had peeked above the covers I was at the door and looking into the unblinking face of a guardsman.

‘You are summoned.’

I had grown tired of this abrupt phrase, seemingly the only form of invitation familiar to the guards, but I was glad of an excuse to be out of that room, and followed willingly. The smudged light I saw beyond the windows suggested that the dawn had not yet come, yet still we had to force a way through the bleary-eyed functionaries bustling about, until at last we came to a door guarded by four Patzinaks. My escort spoke something unintelligible to them and they stepped apart, flanking the door.

‘Go up,’ said my escort. ‘We wait here.’

Trying to affect calm under the Patzinaks’ hostile stares, I pushed through and began climbing the stairs beyond.

After a time, I began to wonder if this was some joke on the part of the guards, for there seemed no end to the stairs, only a succession of turns and counter-turns leading inexorably up. Nor did it seem that any others attempted the ascent: I passed no-one, saw none descending, and heard nothing but the lonely sound of my own footsteps. Even the slitted windows were sunk too far through the walls to reveal anything but grey light beyond.

I turned another corner, identical to every other, and saw a slab of sky above. I ran up the last dozen steps, and emerged onto a broad, flat platform. It was a high place, as high as I had ever been in my life and perhaps as high as man could build without provoking the jealousy of the Lord. By day it must afford an extraordinary view of the city, and all the lands for miles about, but in the predawn darkness I could see only a skein of embers spread across the landscape. A low wall lined the tower’s edge, utterly out of proportion to the depth of the drop beyond. Certainly inadequate beside the magnitude of the imperial life it now had to protect.

I dropped to my knees, glad of the excuse to be hidden from the dizzying space around me, and prostrated myself.

‘Get up. By tomorrow you may have to save your homage for another man.’ He spoke gently, but there was a weariness in his face which gave his words an unintended bitterness.

‘Is your confidence in me so low, Lord?’ The altitude must have enfeebled my mind: how else could I presume to jest with an Emperor?

He stretched his lips a little under the thick beard. ‘Confidence? Demetrios Askiates, you are one of the few men in whom I keep any confidence. Every one of my generals thinks me a coward, or worse, and my subjects denounce me in the streets. Many of my predecessors have found their eyes put out and their noses slit open for less.’

‘They pray that you will live a thousand years,’ I protested, but he rolled his eyes in impatience.

‘I have ruled fifteen years already,’ he said. ‘Longer than any since the great Bulgar-slayer himself. Yet what will a later Theophanes or Prokopios write of my reign? “He spent his life fighting the barbarians when they attacked, yet willingly surrendered them the empire when they came as guests.”’ He turned to the east, where a smear of crimson heralded the sun’s rising. ‘I stood here when Chalcedon burned with the fires of the Turkish army, when a single mile of calm water kept us from their advance. Without the Franks, and the Normans and Kelts and Latins and whomever else the pontiff of the west sends us, the Turks will come again, and they will not pause at the shores of the Bosphorus.’ He kicked the balustrade, and I tensed for fear that he might trip and topple over it. ‘My counsellors and their mobs do not understand that we no longer have the might of our ancestors. We cannot march across the world, as a Justinian or a Basil could. We are a nation rich in gold but poor in arms, and if I am to protect my people I must let others fight in their place.’

‘Then it is little wonder that your generals chafe, Lord.’

The Emperor laughed. ‘Little wonder indeed, and far greater wonder that they have left me my throne this long. In fifteen years I have never sought war – why would I? If I win, my commanders grow stronger, and scheme to put themselves in my place; if I lose, then thousands more Romans are left to the depredations of our enemies. Only by turning those who would attack us against each other can I keep my people safe. Except now the barbarians will not be turned, and the precarious edifice which passed for my policy is revealed as a conjuror’s trick.’

‘Yet the walls remain strong,’ I argued. ‘As long as they are manned, the barbarians can do little more than ransack the suburbs.’

‘The walls remain strong while their garrisons are loyal. How long will they support a coward who resists every provocation of the barbarians?’

The scarlet sun was rising now, filling the east with a cold red light, while above us great banks of clouds surged against each other, scarring the sky. The first bells were ringing in the churches below, and I could see their many domes gleaming crimson in the dawn. I shivered, and the Emperor must have noticed for he warmed his tone a little. ‘Keep faith, Demetrios, and keep close beside me. Have you not guessed their plan?’

I started. In the night I had conceived a hundred plots which the barbarians might have devised, but none which seemed probable.

‘They mean to kill me today.’ He assessed the prospect calmly. ‘When I am dead, I will change from coward to martyr. The mob and my generals will throw open the gates to avenge my memory, and the barbarians will rout them. That is what I would do. While we keep to our walls they cannot harm us, so they must tempt us out. As long as I rule, we will keep inside, so they must remove me.’

‘You could stay here, Lord,’ I suggested, ‘on this tower. Then none could approach, and you would be safe until the barbarians were gone.’

Alexios shook his head sadly. ‘If I stayed up here, isolated and alone, I might as well be dead. My generals would issue orders which I could not countermand, and there would be a battle. No, I must stay in their midst, exerting what power I can, and you must see to it that the barbarian agents – this monk, perhaps – do not overcome me. While we hold to our walls, we will be safe.’

I looked over to the west. The light had touched it, now, and I could see the fringes of a vast army gathering itself for war. They must have spent the night in the fields, cold and damp, but I guessed they would have kept the rust from their swords. And somewhere among them would be Baldwin, buckling on his armour and dreaming of making our empire his by nightfall.

The Emperor had nothing more to say. I followed him back down the long stair as the sounds of our own army rose from the courtyards below.

It was two hours or more before the barbarians showed any semblance of order, two hours while I lingered in the throne-room trying to keep my eyes on the space around the Emperor rather than the events beyond his windows. It amazed me how the pugnacious, lively man I knew from the rooftop and the garden could still himself into the statued poise demanded by ritual. He sat on his golden throne, turned so that he could look out at his enemies, and kept motionless while a stream of courtiers and soldiers paraded past. Most of their petitions he did not even acknowledge, leaving Krysaphios to answer; a few, if the question was particularly confused, or the supplicant well-liked, he answered with brief changes of his aspect, stern or gracious as was demanded. I wondered that the weighty debates of empire could be settled thus, but never did I sense that he left any doubt as to his meanings.

And all the while, the low chants of the priests rose and fell in the background. As the Emperor could not attend the ceremonies in Ayia Sophia, an altar screen had been erected behind him, and three priests sang the melancholy songs of the Great Friday liturgy in private. Perhaps if my faith had been deeper I would have found solace in them, in the promise that even the worst suffering and death would be redeemed into eternal life, but in truth it only unsettled me to hear the brutal narrative of the passion. How it played on the Emperor I do not know, but he gave the appearance of ignoring it, save when the priests scurried out for him to perform some role allotted to him by custom. Then his audience would pause, while he recited his part or did as was required, before resuming his business. Incense rose with the music from behind the screen, and the scent, coupled with the ceremonial familiarity, slowed my senses and left me uncomfortably lethargic.

As the morning drew on, the room slowly filled with courtiers. They clustered around the fringes and conversed in hushed tones, so adept at hiding their voices that even I, standing almost beside them, could hardly discern a word. Their presence piqued my unease and restored my vigilance; perhaps overmuch, for now there were too many faces to scan, too many hands to watch for hidden daggers or sudden movements. Though the air from the open windows was cool, I began to sweat, and I wondered again how the Emperor could seem so frozen under the radiant weight of his grand robes.

At about the fourth hour, the bronze doors opened to admit a familiar figure, the barbarian Count Hugh, with a quartet of guards before him and as many pages behind. I stiffened, and nodded to the Patzinak captain to keep close to the throne. I had been assured of Count Hugh’s loyalty to the Emperor, or at least to his treasure, but having a barbarian so close, on this day of all days, seemed unspeakably reckless. The Emperor, as ever, gave no sign of discomfort.

‘Count Hugh.’ Krysaphios spoke from beside the Emperor. ‘Your kinsmen are again marching in arms against us. We are a peace-loving people, but in their hearts there is only war. Will you go to them, and press upon them our fervent desire for their brotherhood? Those who befriend us are rich in the blessings of life; our enemies enjoy only the pains of death.’

Count Hugh swallowed, and touched his throat to straighten the glittering pendant he wore. ‘You know I am always at my lord the Emperor’s command. But there is a madness in my kinsmen which I can neither cure nor explain. They have forgotten all that is good, and are seized by a thirst for blood and war. Loyal as I am to my lord, I do not think they will hear me.’ He lowered his voice a little. ‘They may not even respect the honour of my station.’

Krysaphios seemed about to speak angrily, but the Emperor forestalled him. It was the subtlest of movements, a drop of the chin and a slight widening of the eyes, but it must have been a deafening shout in Krysaphios’ ears for he recomposed himself and continued: ‘The Emperor reminds you that on this holy day, all Christians should unite in friendship. As our Lord Jesus Christ preached: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for great will be their reward in heaven.”’

It was not the gospel as I remembered it, but it seemed to pacify Count Hugh. He shifted the weight of his enormous lorum, so heavy with jewels that I feared it might crush him, made his obeisance and departed in haste. From beyond the door, I heard the sergeant calling for horses.

Left to his own desires, I suspect Count Hugh would even then have delayed his embassy as long as possible, but the Emperor must have made his will known throughout the palace, for within a quarter of an hour I saw their small procession trotting out of the gate below and across the plain towards the barbarians. I moved my way around the room, so as to have both the Emperor and the Franks in my sight.

Count Hugh and his entourage had just dropped into a dip in the landscape, and out of our view, when the doors were thrown open with a crash. I spun around, my hand on my sword, to see the Emperor’s brother Isaak marching in heedless of manners and convention, and entirely without the customary retinue.

‘What is this?’ he demanded of Krysaphios. ‘The barbarians are massing to attack again, and the legions sit in their barracks polishing their shields. They should be behind the walls, ready to be unleashed as soon as we have our enemies trapped under them.’

Krysaphios stared at him dispassionately. ‘The Emperor believes that the sight of our army in the streets would incite the mob to demand action, and raise the risk of a precipitate attack by an intemperate commander.’

‘Does the fear of the mob now guide the Emperor’s policy? Has he lost all faith in his captains, that they cannot be trusted to keep their men in order?’

‘If captains could be trusted with strategy, they would be generals.’ Krysaphios was less patient now. ‘And we have companies of archers who will hold the walls.’

‘And will they aim at clouds, as they did yesterday?’ Isaak was red with anger. ‘Every time we do not crush these barbarians, they grow bolder. Defeat is the only lesson they will learn – defeat by the force of our arms.’

The grains of the argument threatened to grow swiftly, but in a second the Emperor had stilled his chamberlain and his brother both. It seemed that he did no more than stretch out the fingers on his right hand, as if admiring his rings, yet Krysaphios and Isaak and all the assembled courtiers fell silent, and turned their gaze on the plain outside. Count Hugh was returning, galloping back as if the furies themselves chased him; he was comfortably in advance of his escort, and had entered the gates, climbed the stairs and been admitted to the Emperor’s presence before the last of his group had even reached the walls. All that time no-one spoke, save the priests who continued their ceaseless chanting behind the screen.

Count Hugh’s splendour was much diminished by his errand, though his pride was unbowed. There were gaps on his lorum where gems must have been shaken loose by the violence of his ride, and mud was splashed halfway up the skirts of his dalmatica. The jewelled cap he wore so constantly had slipped over one ear, which glowed as if it had been slapped.

Krysaphios still waited before he had performed the full homage before letting him speak.

‘My Lord,’ he said indignantly. ‘It is as I warned you: they are completely deaf to reason and charity. They called me a slave – me, a lord of the Franks and brother of a king. Their king, no less. How can I treat with such men?’

‘How did you?’ Krysaphios was unsympathetic, but Count Hugh’s answer was delayed, for the three priests suddenly processed from behind their screen and walked solemnly before the Emperor. One held a tall cross on a wooden staff, the second a censer, and the third a golden cup. He tipped it to the Emperor’s lips, while the others flanked him and sang their acclamations. When he had drunk, all three retreated, never once acknowledging the watching multitude.

Count Hugh glared at them, and continued. ‘I did as my lord the Emperor wished. I told them that all should offer their allegiance to the greatest power in Christendom. I reminded them that they were far from home and allies, and that rather than seek to overthrow the noble Romans they should be grateful of their aid. I appealed to their love of all good things in earth and heaven, and they laughed at me. Me, the brother of . . .’ A stare from Krysaphios ended his aside. ‘They said: “Why beg for a treasure we can seize ourselves, and from a king whose crown will have fallen before we are even within his walls?” I would have argued, but they grew tired of the interview and I feared they would kill me if I delayed longer. “Run to the Greeks,” they said as I left, “but you will find no safety there. For we are coming, and none can resist us.”’

‘And they are coming indeed.’ The Sebastokrator Isaak spoke from beside the windows, through which the lines of the Frankish cavalry could now be seen advancing towards us arrayed for battle. ‘Now will you hear me, brother?’

Krysaphios looked to the Emperor, still as a rock, and back to Isaak. ‘Your brother reminds you that unless they have built an army of siege engines in the night, the walls are secure. We can withstand a thousand such attacks.’

‘And every time our men will die.’ Isaak was speaking to the entire room now, as much as to those about the throne. ‘Are we to widow our women and orphan our children because we do not dare oppose the barbarians? I say it is better that a few should die in the glory of battle, than that the barbarians should pluck us from the walls one by one.’

‘Your pardon, Lord,’ Count Hugh broke in. ‘I beg the Emperor’s indulgence, and leave to retire to my apartments. The effort of my embassy has exhausted me.’

Krysaphios waved him away, though I saw that the Patzinaks followed when he left. Hugh would not be resting, I thought: he would be stuffing his trunks with all he could salvage, lest the barbarians make good their threats.

‘My Lord.’ Now Krysaphios addressed the Emperor. ‘It is plain the barbarians distrust Count Hugh. They fear he has betrayed his race, and so they do not respect his overtures. But Christians should not fight while there remains a hope of peace. Send another envoy, one who would awe the barbarians with his resolve and stature. Send one of your generals with a light escort, for the words will carry more weight from a soldier.’

‘And a legion of cataphracts will carry more weight still.’ Isaak stood in silhouette under the window arch, while behind him the barbarians drew ever closer. ‘You yourself could ride out, brother, and still they would not heed you. Do you hear that?’ He paused, allowing a distant roar to penetrate the room, as of a waterfall or high wind. ‘That is the mob. They know the barbarians approach, and they demand action.’ He crossed to the throne, and I too moved nearer, for I had not relaxed my suspicion of him. ‘You cannot deter the Franks with words. In this course you will not weaken them by a single man, while your enemies in the city will pull us down in riot and murder. If we attack, in a single stroke we will restore the loyalty of our people and destroy the barbarian threat.’

‘And leave ourselves open to the Turks.’ For the first time since entering the room, Alexios spoke. ‘If we hold firm we will see off the mob, the barbarians and the Turks, but if we waver, any one of them can destroy us.’

‘Forget the Turks!’ Isaak was shouting now, heedless of protocol and decorum. ‘Do you see Turks hammering on our gates demanding our blood? We have survived these fifteen years because we focused always on the greatest danger, not on those which might come later. This is not some game where you can plot your tactics many moves in advance, and sacrifice the lesser pieces for a greater end. Here every move risks destruction, and all you will sacrifice is yourself. Ourselves. Please, brother, forget this madness before it overwhelms us.’

It was astonishing watching these two brothers, so alike in form and so disparate in temper. The greater Isaak’s frenzy, the greater Alexios’ composure, and when at last he gave his answer it was still Krysaphios who spoke for him.

‘We will send the captain of the Immortals, with ten of his men, to warn the barbarians of their folly.’

Isaak seemed about to tear himself apart with rage, but Krysaphios continued: ‘Meanwhile, order all the legions of guards to assemble behind the gates.’

‘I will summon them myself. And send your words to the captain of the Immortals.’ Isaak hissed between his teeth, made the slightest of bows, and strode from the room. The noise of the mob grew loud as the doors opened, then subsided when they snapped fast. Again the chants of the priests were the only sound we heard. The courtiers looked at the floor and did not speak, uncertain perhaps how to respond to the Emperor’s public confrontation, or worrying whether they were bound to a doomed allegiance. I watched them each in turn, flicking my eyes from one to the next for any hint of rebellion. All were sullen, but none seemed fired with murder.

‘There.’ Krysaphios saw it first – or perhaps the Emperor signalled it to him – the first horses of the Immortals’ expedition. They rode on massive beasts bred for the purpose, capable of bearing a man cased entirely in armour into the heart of battle. I had seen them charge several times during my time in the army, and on each occasion I had marvelled how seldom they needed lance or mace, how quickly their weight alone tore through enemy lines and scattered men before them. Isaak was right: nothing could convince the barbarians of the might of our arms if they did not.

I counted them as they came into view from under the walls. Their captain rode in front, with four cataphracts flanking him and another four after them. That should be force enough, I thought. But there were more, trotting forward row after row: twenty, then sixty, then a hundred.

‘I ordered ten men.’ Every man in the room looked to the Emperor, who had half-risen from his throne to stare at the sight before him. There was nothing of the statue about him now: his face was alive with horrified anger, and every limb shook with rage. ‘Call them back now, before the barbarians take them for an assault.’

Orders were shouted out of the doors, and I heard trumpets sound from the ramparts, but the cataphracts had little ground to cover and already the head of their column neared the barbarian vanguard. They were too far away to hear, and too close to the barbarians to turn: we could only stare, as if watching a mime-show. Neither army slowed; the cataphracts kept to their unforced pace, and the Franks to their relentless advance. They were barely fifty feet apart now, and still closing; I watched for an opening in the Frankish ranks, wondering if they would admit the embassy, but they stayed locked together.

‘Turn back,’ a voice whispered.

Then a cloud of darts and javelins fell from the sky, and the battle began.

Even before the first arrows struck our cavalry had responded: they broke from their column, and cantered to form a double line facing the oncoming Franks. The missiles would have done our men little damage, for their armour was more than its equal, but I saw several horses already felled, their riders struggling to be free of their harnesses before the barbarians were over them. With a shout which reached even our ears, the Franks lowered their spears and charged. Our cataphracts spurred to meet them, and for a second I saw only two waves of brown and black and silver rushing against each other, closing over the ground between them. Then they struck, and the shapes of single men were lost in a sea of battle.

‘We must reinforce them, your Majesty.’ Krysaphios spoke urgently, but without the confusion which had gripped the rest of the room. ‘A hundred against ten thousand – they will be slaughtered to no gain.’

‘If I send out more men, there will merely be more slaughter. And why were there even a hundred to begin with? I gave orders for ten.’

‘Lord, the mob . . .’

‘Forget the mob. My office exists to restrain them, not pander to their craven dreams. We have the hippodrome for that. Where is my brother?’

‘At the Regia gate with the Varangians, Lord,’ a young courtier volunteered. ‘He awaits only your command to march to the aid of the cavalry.’

‘He will have a long wait then. Go and order him, in my name, that he is on no account to leave the city.’

The courtier made to leave, but a word of command from Krysaphios paused him. The eunuch’s eyes moved across the room and fixed on me. ‘Demetrios, you know the Varangian captain. These instructions would be better heeded if they came from you.’

I was hardly used to refusing direct orders before the Emperor, but my sense of duty rebelled. ‘The Emperor needs me . . .’

‘He needs you where you are sent. Go.’

Though I had many misgivings, I could not disobey: I ran for the door, slipping on the marble floors in my haste. As I steadied myself on a column I looked back at the Emperor, hoping perhaps for a word to countermand my errand, to keep me where I felt most needed. He did not see me, but stood before his throne gazing out of the arched windows in silence, while the nobles around him argued loudly and openly. Only the priests seemed unaffected, continuing their liturgy even while the fate of the empire was decided on the plain before them. I could see them coming around the edge of the screen even now, bearing an icon for the Emperor to kiss. I had to admire them their devotion, their pious indifference to the mundane, even if it seemed almost sacrilege to ignore such extraordinary events. Perhaps I envied them.

The Emperor caught sight of them and sank back into his throne, ready to enact the ritual. Doubtless he should have resumed the utter impassivity which was his appointed role, but the cares of the moment had stripped away all talent for pretence and he watched with open interest. Nor could he even keep from frowning a little, as if some thought or sight had jarred in him. His face was towards me, and – fearing that he frowned at my delay – I was about to depart, when I realised that his eyes were fixed not on me, but on the approaching priests. I followed his gaze. Two of them I recognised, having been there since the morning, but the third was new: he must have come in to allow the other a rest. His knuckles were tight about the tall cross he held, and he stared on it with almost feverish devotion, tipping his head back as if he basked in the sun of heaven. The pose accentuated the angles of his sharp face, particularly the crooked line of his nose, and I saw that he must be recently come from a monastery, for the skin of his scalp was still pink where the tonsure had been shaved.

Too slowly, I recognised what I saw. Perhaps the Emperor had seen something unholy about him, or perhaps he had just been surprised by an unfamiliar face, but he could not have known who it was: that, after all, had been my task. I hurled myself across the room, staving aside any who blocked my path and screaming warnings as I went.

And the monk struck.

κ η

There was nowhere for the Emperor to hide, for the monk had him trapped on his throne. Most men would have been stilled by terror, or thought only to squirm feebly aside, but the Emperor had the instincts of a soldier and in that instant threw himself forward. It was still too late. As the two priests looked on, speechless at this murderous apparition, the monk brought his cross down like a mace on the Emperor’s head. The pearled diadem shattered; blood spouted from the thick hair and poured off the Emperor’s neck and shoulders as he fell face-first to the floor. I expected the monk to lift his weapon for a second blow, but instead he put one hand on the golden cross and pulled it from its shaft. As it came free and clattered to the floor, I saw that it was no ordinary staff he held, but a naked spear, whose point had been hidden in the crucifix. Still no-one in the room moved, petrified by the sudden onslaught. The Emperor groaned, and tried to raise himself on his arm, but the monk kicked him in the face and lifted the spear over his head. He screamed something in an unknown tongue, untrammelled triumph wild in his eyes, as he drove the spearhead down onto the Emperor’s neck.

All this time I had been moving towards him, too quickly to think, and my frantic oblivion carried me just far enough. I charged into the monk, too late to stop his blow but soon enough to knock his aim awry. The spear sank into the Emperor’s back and he howled with anguish, while the monk tumbled to the ground under my impact. Thin fingers clawed at my face, scratching my eyes, and as I tried to fend them off the monk rolled me onto my back and sprang away. His spear stood upright in the Emperor’s back, swaying like a sapling in a storm; he pulled it free and swung it in a half-circle around him, keeping any who would approach at bay.

But there were none save me, it seemed, who would approach. Though dozens of guards and nobles crowded that room, not one of them moved. Perhaps it was from cowardice, or shock; more likely they feared to intervene on one side or another while the empire hung in the balance, but they held back, pressed together in a circle of watching faces which surrounded us like the walls of the arena. It was as if the monk and I were the two anointed champions, Hector and Ajax, and the world ceased its wars while we fought our mortal duel.

But I had no Apollo to guide my hand, nor even a sword. The monk was approaching, lifting his spear with evil purpose. Perhaps he recognised me as his pursuer that day in the icy cistern, or perhaps he had reconciled himself to death in the cause of death, but there was a calm about him as the bloodied tip of his spear followed my futile evasions. I backed away, keeping my eyes fixed always on his. ‘The thrust of a spear begins in a man’s face,’ a sergeant had once told me, and as long as I held his gaze he would struggle to beat me.

But my concentration was undone. I took another step back, and felt something jostle my arm; instinct drew my eyes around to the man I had collided with, one of the priests, and in that moment the monk lunged.

It was the priest who saved me. Not by any act or intercession, though perhaps he offered a prayer, but through the sheer depths of his fear. He saw the monk move before I did, and in his haste to duck away he brought me to the floor in a tangle of limbs. The spear rushed over my head, too fast to change its course, and as I threw out my hand to break my fall I felt an iron chain underneath me. It was the censer, dropped by the priest in his fright; I lifted it, and as the monk’s momentum carried him over me I swung it through the air with all the force I could summon. It cracked against his face in an eruption of hot oil and screams, though whether they were the priest’s, the monk’s or even my own I did not know.

I found myself on my knees, my skin burning where the liquid had splashed it. The priest was beneath me, wailing piteously, but the monk still stood and still held his spear. One half of his face was seared with a crimson welt where the censer had struck him, and his eyes were clenched with pain, but it seemed he might yet find the strength for a single, final blow.

Then his mouth opened wide and the spear fell from his hand; blood dribbled down his chin and his eyes bulged open. His thin body convulsed as his soul broke free, and his empty corpse sank to the ground.

Behind him, Sigurd looked distastefully at the short sword he held, its blade bloodied almost to the hilt. He dropped it silently onto the monk’s body, then pulled me to my feet as we ran to the Emperor. The monk’s spell was broken and there was uproar in the room, shouting and recrimination, but it seemed Alexios was almost forgotten. Was he dead? Would all he had worked for, all I had sworn to protect, be undone? Krysaphios was kneeling at his side, one hand on his blood-smeared neck, and he looked up urgently as we approached.

‘He lives,’ he said. ‘But barely. I will have the guards carry him to his physician.’

‘We will go with him.’ Sigurd made to follow the guards who had answered Krysaphios’ command, but the eunuch stopped him abruptly.

‘Not you,’ he said. ‘You are needed for greater matters. Look.’ He pointed to the window, where I could see the cataphract remnants being pressed back by the barbarian host. ‘Soon they will be at the walls, and if we do not have a force to hold the gates then our cavalry will be massacred in full view of the mob. You know what would happen then.’

The blood and battle and noise and confusion had left my mind dangerously brittle, scarce able to register the words he spoke, but his mention of gates sparked a vital memory which I dragged into my thoughts. ‘The gates,’ I mumbled.

Krysaphios regarded me like a fool. ‘The gates, yes. We must protect them.’

‘But that was their plan. The Emperor guessed it. When the monk killed him, the mob would open the gates in fury and the barbarians would pour in. Now that the monk has failed, they too have failed.’

Sigurd glanced outside. ‘It seems they do not know they have failed.’

‘Then we should prove it to them.’ The demands of the moment overpowered my daze, and pulled together my thoughts. ‘We must show the barbarian leaders, Baldwin and Godfrey and their captains, that their effort is futile, that the gates will never open except to unleash the full power of our armies.’

‘There is a simpler way,’ said Sigurd. ‘Unleash the full power of our armies now. Then they will not doubt their defeat.’

‘No! That is what the Emperor almost died to prevent. He will not thank us if we now squander that hope without a final effort at peace.’

Krysaphios and Sigurd looked at each other, and then at me, and for a moment we were a single trio of silence in the tumult of the room.

‘Very well,’ said Krysaphios. ‘But how do you propose to reach the barbarians?’

There was no question of our leaving by the palace gates with the enemy so near, and we lost precious minutes riding along the walls to the Adrianople gate. This quarter of the city had become an armed camp, and the waiting legions were arrayed in long, unblinking rows behind us – as much to keep the mob from the gatehouses as to strike at the enemy, I think, but they kept a path free for us to pass. We were seven in all: Sigurd and I, three Varangians, an interpreter we had seized from the chancellery, and the dead monk tied over my horse’s back. He slowed me considerably, for these were steeds of the imperial post whose strength was all in their speed, not cataphracts’ beasts, and I had to shout after the others not to leave me behind.

The crowds were thicker by the Adrianople gate, for there were fewer guards to restrain them, and I feared lest our exit give them the opportunity to push through. Their faces were contorted with hate and fury, while the rocks and clay vessels they threw upset our beasts and impeded our progress. If they had known what the man I carried had attempted, I did not doubt they would have torn his dead limbs apart and danced on the bones. I probably would have fared little better.

Thankfully, the gatekeeper was a man equal to his task. He left his gate closed until we were almost upon it – so close that I could barely have pulled up my horse in time – then heaved it open just wide enough to admit a single rider. Sigurd, in the lead, never hesitated, and my horse followed his true course through the gap with mere inches between my legs and the wood. There was a thud as the monk’s head caught the edge of the gate, but the rope held him in place and we were out of the city, galloping down the Adrianople road towards the right flank of the barbarian army. Though they had seemed so many from the throne-room, they were some distance from us now, in the hollow between our ridge and the shore of the Horn. They appeared to have concentrated all their might on the gates by the palace, where the walls were nearest and where, I supposed, the news of the Emperor’s death might be expected to reach them first. Their foot soldiers were at the base of the outer walls, some wielding siege rams against the gates, others trying to shore burning pieces of timber against the masonry, perhaps trying to collapse it. Their mounted knights were drawn up further back out of bowshot, waiting for a breach to be made, while archers tried to keep our defenders pinned behind the ramparts. On the slope which rose behind them, a sheaf of banners were planted amid a cluster of men on horseback.

Sigurd slowed his horse so that I came up beside him. ‘I should be sallying out of those gates at the head of my company,’ he muttered. ‘Not skulking around the enemy’s flanks.’

‘A glorious battle is what we hope to prevent,’ I reminded him. ‘And in any case, the flanks are where the enemy are always weakest.’

‘Not so weak that six men and a corpse can turn them. Look.’ Sigurd pointed his axe to our right, and a wave of apprehension coursed through me as I saw a score of the barbarian cavalry galloping towards us. Sparks flew where their horses’ hooves struck rocks, and their spears were couched low.

‘We can outpace them,’ I said, glancing towards the hill where the barbarian captains stood. ‘These beasts were bred for speed.’

‘We can outpace them,’ Sigurd agreed, ‘but we would only spur ourselves into the end of the sack. There is a company of spearmen on that hill, and it will take more than half a dozen post-horses to break their line.’

I looked back to the approaching horsemen, who were now fanning out to envelop us. Battle would be futile, for they outnumbered us four to a man: even the Varangians would succumb against those odds. Reaching under the ill-fitting mail hauberk I had hurriedly pulled on at the palace, I felt for the hem of my tunic and tore at it. A thin strip came away; I knotted it about the end of my sword and waved it desperately over my head, shouting the one Frankish word I had learned. ‘Parley! Parley!’

Thankfully they did not carry bows, or they might have brought us down before ever coming into earshot. But the brevity of their weapons, and the unlikely threat that our gaggle of Varangians posed, drew them close enough to hear our vital pleas. I saw their leader slow his steed, and cock an ear to what we said, while his men spread into a loose cordon about us.

I looked to the interpreter, who seemed struck dumb by our situation. I doubted he had ever expected to be plying his trade in the midst of a battlefield.

‘Tell them that we ask for a parley,’ I shouted to him. ‘Tell him that we come from the Emperor, that we must see Baldwin or Duke Godfrey.’

Somehow the interpreter found voice to stammer a few words in the Frankish tongue. The barbarian listened impassively, his face masked by the thick cheeks of his helmet, then answered brusquely.

‘He says he will not take us to his captain,’ the interpreter told me. ‘He fears we are assassins.’

I reversed my sword, and let it fall from my hand. It stuck upright in the soft ground, the white ribbon on its blade flapping weakly in the breeze.

‘We are not assassins.’ Though it would have been of little use against their spears, I felt exposed without my sword, but I forced calm into my voice. ‘Tell him to take this to Baldwin.’

I withdrew the monk’s garnet ring from my pocket, where I had carried it so many months, and threw it to the Frank. His hands were clumsy in their mail gauntlets, and he almost dropped it in the mud before trapping it against his saddle.

‘Tell him that I have news of Odo the monk.’

I could see nothing of the barbarian’s thoughts, but I guessed he did not like this errand at all. For long, painful seconds he was silent, doubtless wondering whether he should slaughter our little band and be rid of us. Beside me, I heard the interpreter mumbling a plaintive Kyrie Eleison to himself, heedless of those around him.

Christ have mercy. Christ have mercy. Christ have mercy.

Without realising it, I had shut my eyes as I echoed the words of the prayer in my head. I jerked them back open, to see the Frankish leader passing the ring to the man beside him and barking a few short commands. The subordinate nodded, pulled his horse about and kicked her away along the ridge towards the captains’ standards. None of the other Franks moved, and their spear-tips never lowered so much as a finger’s breadth.

I could not count the time we waited there, for every second seemed an eternity. On the plain before us the barbarian army had withdrawn a little distance, and my hopes rose that perhaps they had learned the futility of their assault, but it was only to regroup. Again they attacked, charging forward under a hail of arrows, their shields flat above their heads. I hoped we had stout men on the walls, for though our archers held back many of the horde, many more managed to raise ladders to the battlements and scale their heights. I imagined the legions drawn up in the city, swords unsheathed and bowstrings tight, waiting on a single command to throw open the gates and join battle. There would be a slaughter indeed if that happened, for even against our unyielding walls the barbarians were fighting like wild dogs.

The clanking of harnesses on my left drew my attention away from the battle: four horsemen were approaching along the ridge, their leader riding a great bay stallion which I recognised from the ambush in Galata the day before. The Franks who encircled us moved apart as he cantered towards us, spear in hand, and it seemed for a moment he would charge us alone until he reined his beast in just before me, staring at the corpse I carried. Though his helmet covered much of his aspect, the death-pale skin it framed was unmistakable.

I cut the monk free and let him drop on the ground. ‘This is the man you hoped would murder the Emperor and break open the city,’ I said, ignoring the echo of a hurried translation. ‘He has failed. You have failed.’

A second man spurred forward. A few locks of fair hair crept from under his mail hood, while his face was grim. He spoke angrily to his companion, making no attempt to disguise his words from the interpreter.

‘Is this true, brother? Is this the man you claimed would . . .’ He broke off, aware that his words were heard and understood, and whispered urgently in Baldwin’s ear.

‘Duke Godfrey,’ I began. ‘Since you came, the Emperor has desired only peace and alliance, for all Christians to unite against our common enemies. Many voices in the city condemned him for his generosity, but he withstood them against every provocation. Even as your army assaults his walls, he does not retaliate with the full force of his might.’

‘Because he is a coward,’ Baldwin spluttered. ‘Because he knows too well the strength of Frankish arms against his rabble of eunuchs and catamites.’

‘Silence!’ barked Godfrey. The wind snapped at the great white banner with its blood-red cross which the herald carried behind him. ‘I never sought this battle, even when the king sent his mercenaries to attack us in our camp. For two days I have submitted to your demands, Baldwin, and the gates have not opened as you promised they would.’

‘Nor will they open,’ I pressed. ‘The Emperor has survived your plots, and will destroy you from the comfort of his walls if you do not abandon the battle now.’

Baldwin’s eyes were black with hate, deeper than the depths of Sheol, but his brother was unmoved.

‘I will call back my army,’ said Godfrey, ‘if the Emperor will allow me to pass on to the Holy Land, where I have ever sought to go. There have been enough . . . delays.’

‘He will not let you pass without the oath,’ I reminded him. ‘But I am not the man to argue that with you. He will send an embassy to your camp tonight. You would be wise to let them approach unharmed.’

Godfrey nodded, and without a word of farewell turned his horse back towards his captains on the hill. The company who had surrounded us fell in behind him, and I saw several galloping down the slope to take the news to their army.

Baldwin, though, did not move away. ‘I do not know your name, Greekling,’ he hissed, ‘but I know there is no proof to a word you have said.’

‘Your brother’s response gives me proof enough.’ I sensed Sigurd raise his axe a little beside me, and hoped he would be quick enough if Baldwin succumbed to the desire so plain on his face. For the moment, though, the Frank saved his violence for his words.

‘My brother is a coward to match your king. Retreat and delay are his only strategies.’

‘Then he is a wiser man than you.’

Baldwin’s spear twitched. ‘As wise as a Greek?’ He sneered. ‘Even if I had found this cruel little monk, and turned his murderous thoughts against his king, do you think that he alone could have opened your city? Do you think that I told him when the Emperor might walk within bowshot, or admitted him to the secret doors of the palace? Would he have assumed the throne when the Emperor was dead? Would I have even imagined turning my army against the city unless there were men inside – men of power and stature – who invited me?’ He gave a savage laugh at my stunned confusion, but before I could speak he had stabbed his spear into the monk’s broken corpse, so deep that it stuck in the mud beneath, and kicked his horse away.

‘Assume the throne?’ I repeated numbly. A terrible panic broke over me, choking my trembling limbs. ‘So there is an enemy . . .’

Sigurd’s words echoed my own. ‘. . . in the palace.’

The wind roared against us as we galloped across the plain, ducking our heads close against the horses’ manes and crouching in our stirrups to smooth our path. The barbarian army was in full retreat now, straggling back towards what remained of their camp. The weariness of failure was all about them, and none troubled us as we skirted their flank, racing towards the palace gate. I scarcely noticed them. One name alone was fixed in my mind, a looming horror of what he might purpose and the chaos which would ensue if he did. Several times my thoughts grew too terrible, and in frustration I kicked my unfortunate mount all the harder.

‘Look.’ They were Sigurd’s words, brought back to me on the wind, and I snatched my eyes from the ground before me to look further ahead. We were nearing the walls – I could see the black scorches where the barbarians had tried to burn the gate, the spent arrows and bodies littering the field. Some I recognised as cataphracts, great rents hacked into their armour, but most were Franks.

‘At the gates,’ Sigurd called, indicating with his fist. I looked, and for a second thought I would be pitched from my saddle, so slack did I slump. The gates had opened, and a great column of soldiers was marching forth: not stretcher bearers or gravediggers come for the fallen, but a full legion of Immortals arrayed for battle. Some of their out-riders broke ranks to spur towards us, but Sigurd waved his Varangian axe in the air and they slowed, hailing us with urgent shouts.

‘What are you doing?’ I demanded. ‘The Emperor gave orders that you should hold at the walls. The barbarians are broken, and you will only antagonise them by appearing in such force.’

‘We mean to do more than antagonise them,’ barked one, an officer. ‘The Emperor is dying, and we are commanded to rout the barbarians in their retreat. Against our cavalry, they will be like wheat in the harvest.’

‘Does the Sebastokrator command that?’ A great emptiness swelled within me: I had failed. The Emperor would die, and with him all hopes of peace with Franks, Turks, even among the Romans themselves.

But the officer shook his head. ‘The Sebastokrator remains at the Regia gate, I think, waiting with the Varangians. He has given no orders that I have heard.’

‘Then who has . . . ?’

‘The chamberlain, or regent as he soon will be. The eunuch Krysaphios.’

It was as well Sigurd could speak, for I was struck dumb. He pulled off his helmet and stared hard at the Immortal officer. ‘Do you recognise me, Diogenes Sgouros?’

Though there was not an inch of his body not cased in steel armour, the Immortal still seemed to cringe. ‘You are Sigurd, captain of the Varangians.’

‘Do you doubt my loyalty to the Emperor?’

‘Never.’ Sgouros’s voice was fainter now. ‘But the Emperor is dying and . . .’

‘Dying is not dead.’ Sigurd rested his axe on the pommel of his saddle. ‘Do you remember the legend of the Emperor who feigned death to test the loyalty of his men?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you remember what he did to those who failed him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then unless you wish a similar fate, Diogenes, draw up your company here and do not move one pace nearer the barbarians until I or the Emperor himself bring word that it pleases him you do so. Do you understand?’

Sgouros’s helmet seemed fastened too tight under his chin: he struggled to breathe. ‘But . . .’

‘If you fail, even witlessly, there will be a terrible vengeance,’ Sigurd warned. ‘And not the vengeance of the Komneni, too quick to forgive their enemies, but the vengeance of Sigurd, who has never yet forgotten a wrong. Will you risk that to prick at the heels of a few broken barbarians?’

The throne in the great hall of the new palace was empty, the only clear space in the room. Every general and courtier must have had word of the Emperor’s wounds and rushed to stake their place in the succession – or to pray for his healing, as they doubtless later protested – for Sigurd and I could barely pry them far enough apart to push ourselves through. I searched desperately for Krysaphios, trying to pick out one sumptuous head among the golden throng, but it was Sigurd, with his height, who saw him first. He was standing near the throne in a circle of nobles, speaking pointedly and forcefully, though his words were lost in the din. His eyes darted over the surrounding faces, seeking out disagreement or disloyalty, and he did not see our approach until Sigurd pulled away a whimpering acolyte and loomed over him.