Byzantium (80 page)

‘I want to love her and understand her.’

‘Yes.’ Zoe’s eyes were flat again, unmoved. ‘Do you want to take her to this Norway when you return?’

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t follow that what a man plants in a summer meadow he can reap beneath the winter ice.’

Zoe laughed, a silvery chime that was pleasant despite its melancholy. ‘How apt, Hetairarch Haraldr. I am glad you have come to us from Norway. Well, we must enjoy this summer, for it may be the most beautiful we will ever remember.’ She pressed her hand flat against the cold silver cask and looked at him and smiled.

‘There you see it, Eminence!’ Giorgios Maleinus shouted into the southerly bluster. The reefed sail of the small galley clattered the yard-arm above him; sixteen crewmen, scruffy labourers who could scarcely row in unison, bent to and fro at the oars. ‘Prote! East to Eden, south to Prote, I say! Glorious, is it not, Eminence?’

Constantine thanked the Pantocrator that He had not brought him to the Isle of Prote to acquire a monastery. This island was small, rocky, graced only with a verdant, wooded spine like a green cap on a bald man’s head. Even if the Imperial Palace had been placed somewhere behind the groves, the price Maleinus was asking would carry a loss. The island could not support any kind of profitable husbandry, not even a herd of goats or a single winepress, not to mention the vast acreage of arable land required to make a monastic establishment truly profitable.
If I actually had intent to buy,
mused Constantine,
I would at this juncture wring Maleinus’s neck.

The jetty on the northern end of the island was formed from large rocks, obviously stripped from the island’s own craggy flanks and tumbled into the sea. The galley tied up at a wooden wharf, still in good repair. ‘My lady.’ Maleinus gestured gallantly to his ‘cousin’, Irene, an ample-breasted woman with proportionately substantial hips and, observed Constantine, enough paint on her sagging face to decorate an Imperial galley. Constantine gratefully reflected that he was not one of those eunuchs troubled by such desires; Maleinus’s inducement would perhaps be put to better use by promising her to this crew of cutthroats to ensure they didn’t make off with the galley in their master’s absence.

The stairs, neatly hewn in raw rock, led to a completely disused complex consisting of a small stone chapel and a row of uninhabitable - at least by any civilized standards - cells. ‘It appears that one would have to do more than shoo away the birds, Maleinus,’ said Constantine sourly; what could he possibly discover in this miserable wreck?

‘No, no. Eminence,’ prostested Maleinus, his face as red as his nose, his lips gulping like a fish as he gasped from the effort of propelling the considerable Irene up the steps. ‘This . . . this ... is merely the convent! It does not even figure in the price. Hasn’t been used for two indictions, if that. No, Eminence, you have not seen the wonders of Prote.’

Constantine walked over to one of the cells and kicked at the door. The decaying planks fractured, and one could hear the scratchy, alarmed rustle of small, unseen creatures. ‘It’s a ghastly place,’ said Irene in the struggling chirp of a large bird with a small voice. ‘To think of the nuns, all closeted away in here.’ To think of you, Irene, thought Constantine, walking the streets of the Venetian Quarter.

‘Well, as I understand, this was once the home to some relative of the Bulgar-Slayer.’

‘Indeed.’ Constantine felt the Pantocrator’s hand lift his sagging spirits. ‘Which relative?’

‘Well, most likely a woman, Eminence!’ Maleinus laughed wetly at his own jest, ending in a hacking cough. ‘Other than that, well, Eminence, you know how rumour dodges our efforts to grasp her and get a good feel of her.’ He winked at Constantine and then at Irene.

The birds fled in noisy regiments as the intruders crossed the forested ridge atop the island. Constantine immediately noted the architectural detailing when the monastery complex revealed itself between neatly arranged rows of cypress trees: the multiple domes of the chapel set on elaborately patterned cornices; deeply recessed arched windows divided with slender marble columns; carved window panels even in the rows of monks’ cells visible just above the thick defensive wall. Theotokos, exclaimed Constantine to himself. Someone with a great deal to atone for, and a great deal to atone with, had been the benefactor of Prote.

That conjecture was amply supported as Maleinus proudly displayed his merchandise: the chapel with its silver chancel screen and superbly executed mosaics; a storeroom full of golden censers and sacramental basins. The monks’ cells had floors of the richest opus-sectile marble, and the gold-tiled fountain in the courtyard near the library would have been suitable for an Imperial residence. Theotokos! Constantine eyed Maleinus with new respect; the old bandit was still asking more than the salvage price of this booty, but not so much that he wouldn’t find some fool at court to give him his price.

‘You see what the word of Giorgios Maleinus is worth now, don’t you, Eminence? Yes, you’ll never see me with some fancy title, but those that have them are not loath to deal when Maleinus comes offering! Now, Eminence, let me lead you to the crowning glory of this Elysium.’

‘Theotokos.’ Constantine could no longer keep his tongue at the sight of the library. Theotokos! There was a profit to be made here simply in the sale of the gem-studded gold, silver and ivory book covers, not to mention the value of the manuscripts. Maleinus must need the cash quickly, Constantine surmised.

‘Indeed, indeed, Eminence.’ Maleinus brushed the dust off a gilded scriptorium; his red-rimmed eyes suddenly had the vigour - and greed - of a badger contemplating a field-mouse nest. ‘Perhaps not the most extensive library outside our Empress City or your Antioch, but certainly the richest. Yes, Eminence, even an illiterate would soon learn of the glories of Paradise were he to acquire these volumes!’ Maleinus virtually collapsed from his rattling laugh and attendant cough.

‘What is this?’ said Constantine coolly, gesturing to the slightly open sliding door at the west end of the library; he had decided to consider this offering on its own merits. Of course there were details; the cost of shipping these items and the necessary agents in Constantinople had to be figured in.

‘That . . .’ Maleinus paused and shrugged, as if to say that the truth could not hurt him. ‘That, Eminence, is the source of the great mystery of Prote and, I might add, the reason these riches wait to be plucked for the price of a harlot’s favours.’

Constantine slid the door ajar with difficulty and squeezed through the opening. The room was lit by a solitary window that looked out over the exquisite gold fountain. Constantine stared in disbelief at the litter of scattered documents; it appeared as if someone had taken the entire contents of an Imperial bureau and simply had dumped them into this little room. A gilded lectern emerged above the pile of parchment like a lone tree poking above the pumice-buried slopes of a volcano.

‘The Father Abbot was a prodigious correspondent, was he not?’ Maleinus picked up one of the parchments and let it drop without reading it. ‘Letters. Probably would make interesting reading if one had the time or inclination. I saw one addressed to the Logothete of the Praetorium. As you can see, the Father Abbot had access not only to the Heavenly Tribunal but also to the Imperial Court.’

‘The one who was killed?’ Constantine worried that his throbbing heart might burst; he was short of breath.

‘No, the man who was killed was his successor. Father Katalakon. The name of the man who wrote all this was Father Abbot Giorgios. Strange, isn’t it, him and me with the same name? Him having led a life of denial, and myself, well, my virtue would not heal the sick, Eminence. Yet here I am to dispose of his riches.’ Maleinus laughed and began to cough.

‘The man who murdered this Father Katalakon, you say he has fled to Cappadocia?’

‘The Chartophylax? Oh, the old book-buzzard’s bound to be dead, no matter where he went. I don’t believe much of the tale, anyway. An old man like that. No, you might say that rumour’s breast was produced so that the truth would stop wailing, so to speak, Eminence. Like I say, the sin of Sodom was probably on the place. You know the vice is common among these cenobites, don’t you, Eminence?’ Maleinus winked at Constantine. Out in the library, Irene tittered.

Indeed,
thought Constantine as he surveyed Father Abbot Giorgios’s letters.
I do not believe the tale, either, and while this place reeks of sin, it is not that of Sodom.
But if there was a great secret among these papers, why wouldn’t Joannes have burned the lot? Or was Joannes merely interested in concealing something else? Only one thing was certain: the arms of the Pantocrator verily embraced this opportunity.

Constantine closed the door completely and again looked round the dazzling library. Maleinus gave him a few moments to calculate before nudging him along. ‘Act quickly, Eminence. There are parties at court who are bidding to double my price on this. But I’d like to count the brother of our Holy Autocrator and blessed Orphanotrophus among the clients Giorgios Maleinus has enriched. . . .’

Constantine raised his hand to silence this astute prince of pedlars. ‘You will have your price - minus, I trust, a suitable discount for a single payment in gold - as soon as we return to the Empress City, good sir.’

Haraldr set the canvas bag on the rough wooden table; the parcel was so heavy that the table creaked and canted a bit. The Blue Star folded her arms round her stout bosom and watched quizzically; she wore the same sleeveless lined tunic she had the first time they had met. Her white-eyed husband sat beside her. Haraldr opened the bag to show the Blue Star the hundreds of gold solidi. ‘I have a dozen of these bags for you,’ he said. ‘I reason that they are safer in my strongbox at my town palace. But they have been set aside for you and the people of the Studion. I’ll bring them as you need them. I hope you will buy food with them.’

For a mere instant the Blue Star’s eyes seemed as innocent as a girl’s, perhaps as she had looked when she first dreamed of crowds cheering for her in the Hippodrome. She pulled Haraldr’s head down from high above her and gave him a grandmotherly kiss on his cheek; Haraldr thought of his mother, Asta, and how long it had been since a woman had kissed him like that.

‘The Theotokos just said a prayer for you, boy, right at the feet of God. And if I get there, and that is no certain thing, I will say a prayer every day for you, until you join us.’ The tough look came over the Blue Star’s face again. ‘But this isn’t what the people of the Studion need, boy. Yes, this will feed them. For a while - not as long a while as you think, and not as many as you think. Do you know how many eat out there?’ Her question was rhetorical, but to himself Haraldr guessed as many as lived in all of Norway and Sweden combined. ‘When it gets bad enough, they’ll tax the poor peasants in Hellas and Anatolia, take the food from their mouths, and give it to us, to take a bite out of our anger. So you might say that their tax collectors can bring us these bags of coins, too, boy, though not with the goodwill that is in your heart.’

The Blue Star took Haraldr’s hands in both of hers; he could still feel the gymnastic power in her fleshy grip. ‘What these people need is food for the soul. They need to believe that someone cares about them, and not just when they are so desperate with hunger that they might crawl out of the sewers and prey on the Dhynatoi. They need to believe that someone is looking over them, so that if they clear the lot next door and plant vegetables, the soldiers won’t come and trample them. They need to feel that they can fix the holes in their roofs without being burned out when a cursore is murdered five blocks away. They need to believe that if their child gets a pox, someone up there on those hills cares whether that child lives or dies. The Bulgar-Slayer did that for the people of the Studion. He didn’t do as much as you would think, boy, but he did enough to give these people hope. They did the rest. The Studion isn’t dying because people have no food, boy. It is dying because people have no hope.’

Haraldr tried to imagine what it would be like to awaken each morning in the hell of the Studion and look up at the great palaces on the hills. ‘Hope,’ he said at length. ‘Well, I will continue to bring you this gold, because I do not think a full belly will deprive anyone of hope. But I also believe I can send you the kind of hope you are talking about. The messenger of this hope will be an immense black bird.’

The Blue Star looked at him as if he were mad.

‘Hetairarch Haraldr Nordbrikt.’ Joannes stood in greeting and Haraldr reflected that nothing was more hideous than Joannes’s smile; he looked like a horse baring its teeth. Joannes waved Haraldr to the simple canvas chair; Haraldr had to concede that the Orphanotrophus’s office evidenced only industry, competence and self-denial.

Joannes’s face settled into its usual glower after the ordeal of the smile. ‘Hetairarch, I will not mince words with you. I have been wrong about you and have wronged you grievously; I will not pretend that an apology or a snivelling ingratiation would have meaning to a man who has overcome myriad obstacles, some of my own design, to rise more quickly than any . . . outsider before him. Now that the former Hetairarch, Hunrodarson, is out of the way, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making you my ally.’ Joannes placed his fingertips together and brought his huge face forward until his brutish, smooth chin hovered above the deformed digits. His voice, though restrained, seemed to pound the walls. ‘I want to deal with you. I want to make a gesture of good faith.’

‘And what would that be, Orphanotrophus? Would the serpent permit me to inspect its fangs as a gesture of its good faith? We Norsemen are naturally curious, but we are not by nature fools.’

Joannes tilted his cathedral of ringers forward. ‘I want the gesture to be of your choosing.’

‘Then I shall arrange for a delegation from the Studion to talk to you, Orphanotrophus. Their request will be your gesture.’