Up The Line

54.

I had earned a little rest before I returned to that long night in 1204 and sent my alter ego here to continue the search. I bathed, slept, banged a garlicky slavegirl two or three times, and brooded. Kolettis returned: no luck. Plastiras came back: no luck. They went down the line to resume their Courier jobs. Gompers, Herschel, and Melamed, donating time from their current layoffs, appeared and immediately set out on the quest for Sauerabend. The more Couriers who volunteered to help me in my time of need, the worse I felt.

I decided to console myself in Pulcheria’s arms.

I mean, as long as I happened to be in the right era, and as long as Jud B had neglected to stop in to see her, it seemed only proper. We had had some sort of date. Just about the last thing Pulcheria had said to me after that night of nights was, “We’ll meet again two days hence, yes? I’ll arrange everything.”

How long ago had that been?

At least two weeks on the 1105 now-time basis, I figured. Maybe three.

She was supposed to have sent a message to me at Metaxas’, telling me where and how we could have our second meeting. In my concern with Sauerabend I had forgotten about that. Now I raced all around the villa, asking Metaxas’ butlers and his major domo if any messages had arrived from town for me.

“No,” they said. “No messages.”

“Think carefully. I’m expecting an important message from the Ducas palace. From Pulcheria Ducas.”

“From whom?”

“Pulcheria Ducas.”

“No messages, sir.”

I clothed myself in my finest finery and clipclopped into Constantinople. Did I dare present myself at the Ducas place uninvited? I did dare. My country-bumpkin cover identity would justify my possible breach of etiquette.

At the gate of the Ducas palace I rang for the servants, and an old groom came out, the one who had shown me to the chamber that night where Pulcheria had given herself to me. I smiled in a friendly way; the groom peered blankly back. Forgotten me, I thought.

I said, “My compliments to Lord Leo and Lady Pulcheria, and would you kindly tell them that George Markezinis of Epirus is here to call upon them?”

“To Lord Leo and Lady—” the groom repeated.

“Pulcheria,” I said. “They know me. I’m cousin to Themistoklis Metaxas, and—” I hesitated, feeling even more foolish than usual at giving my pedigree to a groom. “Get me the major-domo,” I snapped.

The groom scuttled within.

After a long delay, an imperious-looking individual in the Byzantine equivalent of livery emerged and surveyed me.

“Yes?”

“My compliments to Lord Leo and Lady Pulcheria, and would you kindly tell them—”

“Lady who? ”

“Lady Pulcheria, wife to Leo Ducas. I am George Markezinis of Epirus, cousin to Themistoklis Metaxas, who only several weeks ago attended the party given by—”

“The wife to Leo Ducas,” said the major-domo frostily, “is named Euprepia.”

“Euprepia?”

“Euprepia Ducas, the lady of this household. Man, what do you want here? If you come drunken in the middle of the day to trouble Lord Leo, I—”

“Wait,” I said. “Euprepia?Not Pulcheria?” A golden bezant flickered into my hand and fluttered swiftly across to the waiting palm of the major-domo. “I’m not drunk, and this is important. When did Leo marry this — this Euprepia?”

“Four years ago.”

“Four — years — ago. No, that’s impossible. Five years ago he married Pulcheria, who—”

“You must be mistaken. The Lord Leo has been married only once, to Euprepia Macrembolitissa, the mother of his son Basil and of his daughter Zoe.”

The hand came forth. I dropped another bezant into it.

Dizzily I murmured, “His eldest son is Nicetas, who isn’t even born yet, and he isn’t supposed to have a son named Basil at all, and — my God, are you playing a game with me?”

“I swear before Christ Pantocrator that I have said no word but the truth,” declared the major-domo resonantly.

Tapping my pouch of bezants, I said, desperate now, “Would it be possible for me to have an audience with the Lady Euprepia?”

“Perhaps so, yes. But she is not here. For three months now she has rested at the Ducas palace on the coast at Trebizond, where she awaits her next child.”

“Three months. Then there was no party here a few weeks ago?”

“No, sir.”

“The Emperor Alexius wasn’t here? Nor Themistoklis Metaxas? Nor George Markezinis of Epirus? Nor—”

“None of those, sir. Can I help you further?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, and went staggering from the gate of the Ducas palace like unto one who has been smitten by the wrath of the gods.