King's Man (26 page)

Like a ship buffeted
by a sudden great wave, the empire of the Romans heeled, almost capsized, then began to right itself when the ballast of centuries of obedience to the throne made itself felt. During the days which followed the blinding of Michael and his uncle, there was widespread disquiet in Constantinople. The citizens asked themselves whether it was possible that two elderly women could run an empire. Surely the machinery of the administration would stutter and come to a halt. Foreign foes would then take the chance to attack the imperial frontiers. There would be civil war. But as day followed day and nothing dire occurred, tensions eased. In the chancellery, in the tribunals, and in the myriad offices of state, the bureaucrats returned to their records and ledgers, and the government of the empire resumed its normal course. Yet not everything was quite as it had been before. During the insurrection the mob had broken into the Great Palace. Most of the crowd had hunted for valuables to loot, but a small and determined band had headed for the archives and burned the tax records, as those officials who came back to the treasury discovered.

'Simeon the money changer suggested that we torch the files,' Halldor told me in the guardroom where the Varangians had once again taken up their duties. 'I doubt that Harald himself would

have thought of it, but Simeon sought us out during the uproar. He too had been released from jail by the mob, and he gave us directions as to where to find the archives.' And with a chuckle he added, 'It means, of course, that now there is no evidence against those accused of collusion with the tax collectors.'

'I'm surprised that you found time to destroy tax records when you were also carrying out the instructions to arrest Michael and the Nobelissimus.'

'There was time enough,' said Halldor. 'The sister empresses argued for hours over what should be done with the former Basileus. Zoe wanted him imprisoned, awaiting trial. But Theodora was all for having his eyes put out, and as quick as possible.'

'Surely it was the other way round? Theodora was a nun, or at least had been.'

'No,' said Halldor. 'Theodora was the bloodthirsty one.'

I murmured something about the idea that the Christians, especially the nuns and monks, were meant to practise forgiveness and charity, but that evening, when I crossed over to Galata to spend the evening at Pelagia's villa, my friend soon set me straight.

'You still don't understand, do you, Thorgils? When it comes to the pursuit of power, nothing matters to those who are really ambitious. Take the example of Araltes. You think so highly of him and you assist in every way you can. Yet he will stop at nothing to achieve his ambitions, and one day you may regret being so loyal to him.'

I was thinking to myself that Pelagia probably resented my allegiance to Harald, when abruptly she changed the subject: 'Next time you are on ceremonial guard duty, take a good look at the two empresses for me, will you? I'd be interested to hear what you make of them.'

I did as she asked, and at the next meeting of the supreme state council in the Golden Hall I made sure that my position in the circle of Life Guards was right beside the imperial throne. In fact there were now two thrones, one for each of the empresses,
and Theodora's throne was set back a fraction, signifying that Theodora was very slightly junior to her sister. I could see that court protocol had adapted remarkably smoothly to the novel arrangement of twin female rulers. All the usual high functionaries were present, dressed in their official robes of silk brocade and holding their emblems of office. Standing nearest to the empresses were their special favourites, and behind them were the most senior ministers. Then came an outer ring of senators and patricians, and finally, in the background, a group of ranking civil servants. Among them, I identified Psellus who, judging by his green and gold robe, was now a senior official of the chancery.

I took careful note of details to tell Pelagia. Zoe was more plump than her sister, and had managed to retain a remarkable youthfulness, perhaps as a result of all those ointments and perfumes I had heard about. Her skin was smooth and unlined, and it was difficult to equate the harassed supplicant whom I had turned away from her husband's deathbed with the poised and immaculately manicured woman who now sat on the throne in front
of me. Interestingly, when Zoe
was bored she amused herself by eyeing the more handsome men in the room, and so I judged that she was still man-hungry. Theodora, by contrast, fidgeted as she sat. Taller than her sister, she was rather scrawny, with a head that seemed too small for her body, and I had the impression that she was unintelligent and frivolous.

While I was wondering which of the two sisters was dominant in their partnership, I heard H
arald's name mentioned. The ako
louthos, the commander of the Hetaira, was making a formal request on behalf of spatharokandidatus Araltes. He had asked permission to leave the imperial service. The logothete of the dromos who was hearing the petition turned to consult Zoe, bowed obsequiously and asked for her decision. Zoe had been gazing at a handsome young senator, and I doubt that she even knew what the subject was. 'Denied,' she said absently. The logothete bowed a second time and turned back to face the akolouthos. 'Denied,' he repeated. The business of the day moved on.

'Harald won't like that at all,' said Halldor when I told him the decision that evening. 'He's heard that his nephew Magnus has been declared King of Norway.'

'What difference does that make?'

Halldor looked at me as though I was a dimwit. 'Harald has as good a claim to the throne as his nephew, probably better. That's what all this has been about - the amassing of loot, the gathering in of valuables. The money will be his war chest if he has to fight for what he considers rightfully his. Sooner or later he will seek his inheritance, and the longer he delays, the more difficult it will be to press his case. My guess is that he will ignore the government's decision and leave.'

'But where will he find the ships to take him back up the straits to the Pontic Sea and along the rivers to Gardariki? ' I objected. 'It is not like when he sent those three ships back with the emir's ransom from Sicily. What's left of his war band is now a land force, without ships. If he tries to leave without permission, he'll be arrested again. Then he'll never get to claim the throne.'

'They'll have to catch him first,' said Halldor stubbornly, but I could see that he lacked a solution to the problem.

'Let me see what I can come up with,' I said, for something told me that this was my chance to make myself indispensable to Harald and win his trust for the future.

Psellus was so swamped with work that I had to sweeten the chartularius of his office with a small bribe to give me an appointment.

'It's all very well having two empresses,' Psellus complained when I finally got to see him, 'but it doubles the workload of the officials. Everything must be prepared in duplicate. Every document has to be written out twice so that a copy can be sent to the staff of each empress, but frankly neither woman seems much interested in dealing with the chores of government when the papers do arrive. They prefer the more frivolous aspects of their role. It's very pleasant having so many banquets, receptions,
pageants and the like, but the administration moves very slowly, mired in honey, you might say.' He sighed and shifted the pile of paperwork on his desk. 'How's your friend the spatharokandidatos doing?'

'You've guessed correctly,'
I
said. 'My visit is about Araltes.' I lowered my voice. There was no one else in the room, but I knew that very little was truly private in the Great Palace. 'Araltes urgently needs to resign his post and leave Constantinople. It is very important that he does so. But he has bee
n forbidden per
mission by Zoe. '

Psellus got up from his seat and went over to check that there was no one loitering outside.

'Thorgils,' he said seriously, 'it was one thing to suggest how Araltes might be cleared of charges for tax fraud. That could have been arranged with some judicious bribes. It is entirely another matter to connive at the direct disobedience of an imperial decision. It could lead to my impeachment and — at worst — the death penalty.
I
have no wish to be scourged, tied up in a sack and thrown into the sea.'

'I
know,' I said. 'It gets worse. It's not just Araltes who should be allowed to leave. The surviving members of his war band — there are about eighty men - will want to depart with him. They've got what they came for. They've made their fortunes.'

Psellus sighed. 'That's outright desertion. Army regulations call for punishment by mutilation or death.'

'I
know,' I said. 'But don't you have any suggestions as to how Araltes and his men can get away?'

Psellus thought for a while. 'Right now I don't have any idea,' he said, 'but I can assure you that if Araltes does succeed in leaving without permission, there will be a violent hue and cry. There will be a hunt for those who might have helped him. His close associates will be picked up and interrogated. You have worked with Araltes for several years now, and you would be the first to fall under suspicion. I suggest that if Araltes does leave the city, you make sure that you leave with him.'

'That's something that I've already been thinking about,' I said.

Psellus came to a decision. 'Thorgils, I promised that I would assist you. But this request of yours goes beyond anything I had expected. I have to protect myself. If the scheme fails and you, Araltes and the others are caught, I must not be traceable. If an opportunity for Harald's departure with his men presents itself, I will contact you, but not in person. That would be too dangerous. Even your visit here today is now a risk to me. I do not want you to come to this office again. Instead I will write to you, and that message will be the last you will hear from me.'

'I understand,' I said. 'I'll wait for your contact.'

'It may never arrive,' Psellus warned. 'Anything could happen. I may get transferred out of this office, or I may never see the opportunity for Araltes to slip away. And if the letter falls into the wrong hands, that would be a disaster for all of us.'

By now I had guessed what Psellus was leading up to. I remembered how Harald had used rune symbols as a private code to set up the ambush of the Arab pirate, anticipating that his letter would be intercepted.

'You will use code?' I asked.

Psellus blinked in surprise. 'As I've noted before, Thorgils, for a barbarian you are remarkably astute. Here, let me show you.' He reached for a sheet of paper and wrote out the Greek alphabet, arranging the twenty-seven letters in three equal lines. 'The principle is simple,' he said. 'One letter substitutes for another that falls on the same line but in the mirror position. Thus, the second letter on the first line, beta, is substituted with the second to last letter on the same line, eta. Similarly with the other letters. It's a very basic code, and any senior bureaucrat would recognise it immediately. But it would baffle a mere messenger who might open the letter and read it out of curiosity.'

'I understand,' I said. 'I'm very grateful.'

I
had
to
wait
nearly five weeks for Psellus's coded message to arrive, and it was a bitter-sweet interval. As Psellus had remarked, the reign of the Augustae, the two empresses, was characterised by frivolity. It was as if the terrible events of the fall of the Basileus Michael had to be followed by a period of gaiety so that the people could expunge the memory of the rebellion. Apparently, when Halfdan and I had been taking the Basileus to the Studius monastery, hundreds had died in the streets during skirmishes between the rebels and the troops loyal to the Basileus, as well as among the bands of looters fighting over the spoils. Now the populace wanted to be distracted, and Zoe and Theodora dipped into the treasury reserves to pay for parades and spectacles in the hippodrome. They gave lavish banquets, and even allowed selected members of the public to visit the Great Palace and see its marvels.

This gave me the opportunity to repay Pelagia for her kindness and hospitality, and I showed her as much of the Great Palace as was permitted. As a commoner she was banned from the great apartments of state, of course, but I took her to see the private zoo with its collection of exotic animals, including a hippopotamus and a long-necked African cameleopard, and in the Tzykanisterion sports ground we watched a horseback tournament. Young patricians were playing a game which involved using long-handled mallets to hit a leather ball the size of an apple into a goal. The game bored Pelagia, but she was fascinated by the horologion, a Saracen-made contraption which calculated hours by measuring water draining from a bowl and opened and closed small doors from which carved figures emerged according to the time of day.

'Isn't it strange,' she commented 'that the palace tries to make sure that everything endures and remains the same as it has always been. Yet it is also the place that measures how time is passing. It is almost as if the palace believes that one day they will discover how time could be stopped.'