The Belt of Gold (11 page)

The pigeons, bold as bandits, hurried in a clucking waddling rush toward him. He broke off a corner of his luncheon bread and crumbled it up and scattered the bits around his feet, and laughed to see the birds fight over this largess. Besides the bread, he had brought a piece of cheese wrapped in a wine-soaked cloth, a little jug of the same wine, some olives and pickled mushrooms. While he was arranging this repast on the bench, his friend the City Prefect appeared.

“Good morning, my dear Nicephoros. You won't mind if I join you?”

Nicephoros looked up, surprised; he had assumed his friend was ill. “No, of course—sit with me. We missed you, at the council.”

The Prefect pulled his coat skirts up around him and sat down. He was a younger man than Nicephoros, a native of the City, tall and handsome, with curly dark hair and a splendid beard and a ready, charming smile; in his rapid rise through the government to his present eminence this rare and delightful mixture of ingratiating charm and impeccable refinement had been more valuable than any genuine skill at administration.

“Nicephoros,” he said, with no more preamble, “may I ask a favor of you?”

“Ask me, Peter.”

The Prefect was poking into Nicephoros's lunch; he nibbled an olive and nodded, pleased.

“Ummm. Not bad. Is the cheese as good?”

“Try some,” Nicephoros said patiently.

“Thank you.” The aristocratic fingers of the younger officer went hard at the block of crumbly cheese, which gave off its briny fragrance like a protest at this rough treatment. The Prefect leaned on his arm, a pose no less pleasing for the studiousness of its effect, the folds of his coat sleeve falling precise as mathematics to the tight-fitting cuff. “The presidents of the Guilds have come to me with a huge petition, Nicephoros, asking for a whole long list of changes in the laws of commerce. God's Judgment, you would not believe it without reading it—they want nothing less than the overthrow of the entire economy.” The Prefect lifted his eyes to Nicephoros's, his look candid as a baby's. “It's a catastrophe. She will never agree to a word of it.”

“Tell them so,” Nicephoros said.

“Nicephoros, I cannot do that. It's not so easy as that. You know the Guilds—how hard it is to get them to do anything in concert? This petition took them weeks to draw up. Every single page is signed and sealed with every single president's name. I can't simply throw it into the scrap basket and say, ‘Not this time.'”

He was eating the cheese in great chunks; Nicephoros watched another toothsome piece travel to the Prefect's lips and disappear within. What he was saying made sense. Through the Guilds of Constantinople, the Basileus regulated every detail of commerce—who bought what and at what price and for what purpose; under normal conditions, these rules provided for the smooth functioning of industry, allowed a decent living for everybody, and brought the Basileus sufficient income in taxes to support the court. Unfortunately conditions in Constantinople were seldom normal. The iconoclasm had aroused the people to unnatural passions, which even now surged powerfully into evidence at the least excitement, and the steady shrinking of the Empire itself over the past century had lost the City Guilds important markets and sources of raw materials, while driving thousands of new people into the City. The Caliph's court in Baghdad had come to contend with the Romans for the raw materials of civilization, the gold and wax, gems and incense, wood and furs and slaves, forcing all the prices up.

“She has to see it and make some answer,” the Prefect said. “Nothing less is appropriate.”

“I agree with you,” Nicephoros said. The cheese was gone. He put the jug of wine before his friend. “What I cannot as yet perceive, Peter, is what favor you require of me in this context.”

“I can't face her, Nicephoros.”

“Peter.”

“I mean it!” The Prefect leaned toward him, as if shortening the distance between them intensified the force of his words. “I cannot take this petition to her, Nicephoros.”

The Treasurer laughed, disbelieving and amazed; but the expression on his friend's face moved him to the yet more amazing understanding that the Prefect meant what he said.

“She terrifies me,” said the Prefect, and his voice sank. “And you know—you know, Nicephoros, she cannot grant the changes. She will think me a fool, or worse, for proposing them.”

Nicephoros drank some of the wine; he turned his gaze away, toward the fountain's pleasing sprays. As certain as he was of the Prefect's real alarm at facing his Basileus, the Treasurer was just as certain that the reason for it was not what he said it was.

“Will you take it to her? You could say that—it does fall as well within your province, after all, and perhaps is better explained to her— defended to her from your point of view. Nicephoros. Please?”

“I shall do what I can. Have the petition sent to my secretakoi.”

Into the handsome face of the Prefect rushed a warm glow of relief. “Nicephoros, what a wonder you are! I shall never be able to repay you.”

“I'll think of something, Peter, have no fear of that.”

“Anything, Nicephoros—any extravagance I can secure for you. Only name it.”

Nicephoros grunted. None of this tasted sweet to him. He reached for the wine again. “Look—there is Prince Michael.”

The Prefect turned. The wall behind the bench where the two men sat fell off on the far side ten feet to a walkway through the dense hedges that lined the Empress's mulberry orchard. Along this walkway two people were walking, hand in hand—a girl and the charioteer.

“He's certainly a greater driver than any other I've been privileged to witness,” Nicephoros said.

The Prefect was staring glumly down at the Empress's kinsman. “I wish he would lose.”

“Oh, do you? I wouldn't be so quick to look for Michael's downfall. The mob adores him. The Empire itself will tremble when he loses.”

The Prefect turned around, putting his back to Michael, who was walking directly behind and below them now, his feet crunching the gravel. “Yes, but the odds they give on him are dirt-low.”

“Ishmael has an extraordinary fire and style. He'll win against any but Michael. Bet on him.”

“The odds on him are just as low.”

Nicephoros was eating the pickled mushrooms, which, in keeping with his high-bred tastes, the Prefect disdained. “Gamblers only win in their dreams, Peter. Tend your purse in your waking hours.”

The Prefect scratched his nose, muttering under his breath. “You'll talk to the Basileus?”

“Yes, yes.”

“You're a lovely man, Nicephoros.”

“Yes.”

11

“Augustus,” the Parakoimomenos said, in his mellow tremulous voice, and reached out to tap a line in the letter they were drafting, “Is it not perhaps unduly—shall we say—provocative? to mention Africa among the Imperial provinces?”

“I thought that over quite some while,” Irene said. Helena was doing her nails. The Empress sat sprawled on a low divan covered with red and blue and green pillows of silk, the Parakoimomenos beside her on his knees on the carpeted floor, the letter between them. This corner of the day room was the only quiet one. The Empress's nameday was fast approaching and crews of workmen were hurrying to redecorate this room and the rooms around it for the celebration, and even now three half-naked men were struggling to hang a chandelier from the ceiling at the end of the room to match the one already in place above the Empress's head. The rest of the furniture was covered with drapery to protect it from the dust. Irene could have gone elsewhere to work but she wanted to supervise the redecorating herself, to avoid any unpleasantness later. Now she watched as the men teetered off balance on a ladder and one another's shoulders, the huge heavy candle-holder swaying in their midst.

“However,” she said, returning to the matter of Africa and the letter to Alexandria, “Africa was indeed a third part of the Empire, in the days of Augustus, and with God's help will be part of the Empire once more, when we have recovered it from the Arabs. To leave it off the list would seem to surrender even hope, would it not?”

The Parakoimomenos pursed his lips. “Perhaps. Still, this may not be the most appropriate moment to insist on such things.”

“Pagh.” She waved her hand at him. “If we say it often enough they will believe it.” In the doorway, just beyond the workmen, who had succeeded in hanging the chandelier, a page appeared, and behind him, Nicephoros. She sat up.

“Now, what do you suppose he wants?”

The Parakoimomenos looked where she was looking, and rose at once to his feet. “The most excellent Nicephoros? You did not summon him?”

“He asked for entry.” She suspected what was Nicephoros's business. Nonetheless it suited her to keep the rivalry between him and the eunuch on her left as lively as possible short of bloodshed and poison. “I cannot guess what he wants. Would that he were as open with me as you are, my angel.”

The Parakoimomenos swelled at the caress of her voice. She smiled to herself; with one hand she gestured Nicephoros across the cluttered room toward her.

He knelt down and pressed his face to the floor at her feet. The Parakoimomenos watched him with the avid intent of a hawk watching an unwary mouse, and indeed, when Nicephoros rose, he spared no look for the eunuch, ignoring him entirely.

“Augustus, Chosen One of God, I ask your leave to present to you a petition from the Guilds of Constantinople.”

From his coat he took a sheaf of papers, which he bent down to lay at her feet. Irene put her shoe down on it. She had known this was coming.

“Really, Nicephoros. This is not your office, is it? Where is the Prefect of the City, whose responsibility such a matter must be?”

“Augustus, Chosen of God, the Prefect and I discussed the matter, and we concluded that the issues that force the Guilds to plead with their most beloved Basileus for recourse might be better elucidated from my perspective.”

She tongued her lower lip; her gaze slid to the Parakoimomenos, and she smiled and put out her hand to him.

“If you will be so good—go and find out where our refreshments are? Helena, you may go with him and help.”

The eunuch's mouth drooped. With a bow and a series of eloquent gestures he backed away from the couch, lingering as long as he could; Helena swept right by him, her skirts trailing off the divan. A pillow rolled after her and the Empress caught it and put it back where it belonged.

“Now, Nicephoros,” she said, “you know this will not do.”

“Augustus.” On one knee, he gathered up the petition and put it firmly beside her among the silks. “I assure you, the sufferings that these words represent are as real as—”

“No, no, no,” she said. “I shall read the petition, that isn't what I meant. It is the Prefect whose little foot doth not fit his shoe. What's wrong with him?”

“Augustus.”

“He has been avoiding me. Something is wrong, Nicephoros. He's taking bribes, or subverting the government, or plotting my overthrow —what is it?”

The Treasurer's face, saturnine by habit, was rigid as a mask. “Augustus,” he said, his voice off-key, and cleared his throat. The Prefect was a friend of his. Everyone befriended the Prefect, even the Empress, who liked his handsome looks and his splendid taste in jewels and clothes. Nicephoros gave a little shake of his head, putting off the concerns of friendship, and his gaze met hers.

“Yes, Augustus. I marked it myself. There is something gone wrong.”

“Very well.” She sat back. The Parakoimomenos was rapidly returning, his long legs striding through the door from the terrace, his coat sinuous around his knees. She said to Nicephoros, “Find out what it is.”

“Augustus, I wish the burden of spying on this man could fall on other shoulders—”

“Nicephoros, do it.”

The Parakoimomenos reached them, overhearing this, and with many bows to her and to the Treasurer he overflowed with protests.

“Augustus, Nicephoros already is so heavily overworked—allow me the honor of taking whatever of his tasks I can.”

Nicephoros stood up, his face flushing, his eyes sharp. “I will do as my Basileus orders.”

She nodded. “You will indeed. And soon, Nicephoros.” Her unsmiling gaze turned sharp on the eunuch. “Did I not send you on some errand, my angel?”

“Basileus, the cook refuses to serve the meal in this room, because of the dust.”

Helena was coming into the room now, and overheard this; she nodded, her hands clasped, her mouth pursed as if her lips clasped one another also.

“God's True Nature.” Irene plucked at the huge pile of the petition. It would take her hours to read it, and she already knew what it said; her spies in the Guilds had been relaying her news of this for months. One of the pots of nail paint had tipped and was spilling purple onto a red cushion and she threw it irritably onto a pile of rubbish near the door. “Who rules here, the cook or me?” The chandelier was up; now the men would begin to hang the new draperies on the walls, and there would be a lot of dust. She knew the cook was right. With no grace she yielded, getting up, pushing aside the men who leapt to help her as if she were an old lady. Helena bustled around her straightening the long gauze oversleeves and the embroidered skirt of her dress. “Come on, then, I'm hungry,” Irene said, and went out on to the terrace.

“I shall have to see Nicephoros after the reception,” Irene said; she was crossing the courtyard of the Daphne toward the Octagon, the robing room, to be dressed for the meeting with the presidents of the Guilds, and half her court hurried along with her, receiving orders and obeying them. “No, no, Helena, not that one, the green one. Where is that damned Frank?”

At top speed she strode at the door in the brick wall of the Octagon, and a page leapt to open it for her. She burst into the Octagon without even faltering in her step; a volley of orders sent her people radiating into all parts of the building to fetch her ceremonials. In the center of everything, she stood with her arms outstretched and let Helena peel off her coat and robe.

“There he is.” Off by the wall in the midst of other men she saw a white head. “Bring me the Frank.” She stooped slightly, to let the women slip the robe of purple onto her arms; Helena knelt down before her to fasten the clips.

A page led the tall barbarian up before her; he lowered himself down on one knee in deference to her. Someday she meant to see him on his face at her feet, but not now.

She said, “My dear Hagen, are you enjoying the hospitality of Rome?”

“Augustus,” he said, “you are most generous to me. I hope now you are ready to let me have the men who killed my brother.”

“Well, we are proceeding in that direction, in any case. You know that John Cerulis is behind it all.”

“So you told me.”

“I want you to go to his palace—he lives near the Forum of Theodosius, on the Mesê, that's the central street leading north—and keep watch on him, and see if he leaves the City, and if he does, you will come back and tell me.”

On her left, Ida, on her right, Helena raised up the robe of golden net above the Empress's head, and she moved backward to let them put it on her; when she emerged from the center of the dress, Hagen was frowning at her.

“Augustus, I don't see why—”

“You aren't being asked to understand,” she said, exasperated; her people always did exactly as she told them, with no questions, and it was annoying to have to train him now. “If you wish my help in achieving your revenge, you will yield up control of the matter to me. I see everything, you see only your small place in everything. Now do as I say. Cerulis may be getting ready to leave the City, after all, and it's he you must destroy, which you cannot do if he is off in the countryside somewhere. Now, go.”

Forward to her now came the six noblemen whose ritual task it was to put on her purple slippers. They knelt in rows before her, and Hagen got up and backed away. She watched him go, her heart perturbed. He had no respect of place. She wondered how the barbarians managed to survive if their social order were so chaotic. Still, he was going. She had shown him good reason to keep watch over Cerulis, and if he lost patience and attacked her rival, that might have its advantages as well.

They put the slippers on her feet, and now, accompanied by the chanting of monks, the chief officers of her court advanced with the Imperial diadem. Irene fastened her eyes on it. This was the chief emblem of her power, the only thing save God that she knelt down to, and she put her hands together as if in prayer and went down on her knees on the cushion that Helena had laid before her and bowed her head.

The diadem was formed all of jewels and pearls in the shape of a flat cap, from which flaps of pearls and garnets, emeralds and blue diamonds hung down over her hair and her cheeks. When she raised her head under its weight, she was Basileus, and all the people in the room around her went down on their faces before her.

She rose, smiling. The monks began their chants again, this time at a higher pitch, and swiftly the court formed up ranks at the door, each hurrying to his appointed place. In step, as one body, they marched out the door, and Irene followed them, surrounded by her women and her guards.

They walked up the hill to the Magnaura Palace, where all such receptions were held. On the far side of the building from the door through which Irene entered, she knew the presidents of the Guilds of Constantinople were waiting, each in his official dress, in his place in line. They could not enter until she was ready, and she marched after her court into the huge empty room.

The Magnaura was drafty as a barn. Its walls stood up high as a church, the ceiling vaulting over like a replica of Heaven, the floor of green and white veined marble giving off a clammy chill. The walls were hung with tapestries from all over the world, and busts and statues of the great emperors of the past lined the two long walls. The throne took up the entire west end of the room, two seats side by side, encrusted with gold and cushioned with velvet. From one seat Irene would give audience. On the other seat lay an open Book of Gospels.

Beside this emblem of Christ, the real ruler of Constantinople, Irene took her place, her hands in her lap. The rest of her court arranged themselves around her. On her left, three rows of men with long coats stood, each with his rod of office laid in the crook of his arm, and on her right, her guards formed up in three rows, each man standing with his feet exactly one arm's length apart, his left fist clasped to his armored breast, his right hand, gripping his axe, swung up to hold the great curved blade over his right shoulder.

Before these, the lesser officials ranged themselves, their posts prescribed by half a thousand years of tradition. All averted their eyes in deference, faces turned at the proper angle to the ground, and waited.

Now here came the presidents of the Guilds, come to ask her for what would help them little enough in the short view of things, and ruin them all in the long.

The Guild presidents shuffled in through the doors in worse order than the courtiers, having less practice at it. Most of them walked with their heads bowed down between their shoulders. They wore rich coats, past knee-length, aping the style of court dress, which was called the Hun coat, from a time when barbarians had dominated the Imperial service. Their feet were shod in velvet boots. These clothes were passed down from each president to his successor and some were as old as Irene's own ceremonials. They advanced into the center of the hall and formed up their ranks and in a ragged sort of timing they went down on their hands and knees before her and pressed their faces to the icy marble floor.

Irene looked out over them a moment, letting them feel the power of the Basileus. She knew that most of the City's trades were suffering through a series of poor years, this latest being the worst. Nicephoros, gifted as he was at these things, had explained why to her, and made her see that the problem was not one that needed her interference. But the Guilds, which controlled industry in the Empire, wanted her to let them raise the prices they charged for their goods, reduce the wages they paid to their workingmen, and lower their standards of manufacture, and they claimed that otherwise they would lose so much money that they would be unable to continue their trade.

She lifted her hand and made the Sign of the Cross over them, and they responded with the words that centuries had hallowed, the words that had greeted Constantine and Justinian and Heraclius.