The Belt of Gold (30 page)

They walked about a hundred feet along the top of the wall. The sun had just gone down. The twilight was rising off the sea like a transparent veil. Here the wall broke steeply downwards, down a short difficult slope toward the beach, and on the outward side was nothing but thickets and overgrown trees and wild meadows, while on the inside were groups of little houses, surrounded by gardens and goat pastures, in which, now, as the twilight deepened, one window after another grew yellow with the light of lamps. Nicephoros stopped.

“It was here,” he said, “that the Virgin Mary appeared on the walls, when the Arabs and their fleet were besieging the City; she came to warn us that the infidels were launching a surprise attack. You can see that cove, down there, where they came ashore in little boats.”

He pointed down the hillside toward the sea. Hagen nodded; he had been at the siege of Milan, and he saw the possibilities of an attack up this slope.

Nicephoros was looking from one side of the wall to the other, from the wilderness to the City, his head moving steadily back and forth. He said, “I have been thinking of becoming a monk.”

“A monk!”

The Treasurer sighed. With one hand he rubbed quickly at his huge arched nose. “I come here, you see, because to me this is the edge of the Empire. Not—we have territories outside the walls, of course, but they are ancillary. It is here that Constantinople ends.”

Hagen put his back to the brambly wilderness and stared into the great City. Here, close to the wall, the houses were sparsely scattered among fields and meadows, but as the slope mounted, rising and falling in a succession of hills that climbed toward the great summit of the headland where the Palace stood, the buildings thickened and gathered to a solid mass of worked stone and tile roofs and domes. Over there he could see the Mesê, where now the streetlamps were being lit, starting at the Charisian Gate. The smoky orange flames in pairs mounted halfway up the uneven slope, and as he watched, more appeared, rising through the gathering dusk like a bed of fallen stars.

He said, “To me, this City is like a woman, who turns her back on me, but flirts with me over her shoulder, and seems ugly and plain at first, but becomes more beautiful than any other, and is good to me and foul to me—”

He stopped. He did not want to say what he felt, that the City's fascination frightened him. He thought of Theophano. In his memory she was pure and white and good as the Virgin herself, who had come here to warn her people against evil, and he ached for what he had lost.

Nicephoros was saying, “Indeed. Well: corroboration from an unexpected source. I too feel her to be an illusion.”

He locked his hands behind his back, looking out over the land wall into the thorny thickets and tumbled boulders. Hagen could hear the surf on the beaches of Marmora, and he could make out also the sounds of animals in the wild brush, the birds hopping from branch to branch, the first faint piping of the night frogs and the little tree-toads. Above the brush, the bats whirled and dove after insects invisible in the gathering darkness, and something larger was crashing through the brush almost directly below him, browsing. A deer, or a wild goat, perhaps.

Beside him the Treasurer's voice began again, freighted with meaning.

“Life, my friend, is a castle of illusion. The only reality is death. We may strive against it all we will, and imagine great bulwarks of art and science and faith to put it off, but in the end it takes every one of us. Christ Himself could not elude death.”

Hagen glanced at him, wondering; he saw the Treasurer's face fixed in an expression of fierce decision.

“Yet even Christ had to live in the illusion,” Nicephoros said. “He lived thirty-three years upon this earth, awaiting the moment of His Godhead, and while He lived, He lived in the Empire.”

At that he caught a quick breath, as if he had walked into something. Hagen kept still. In Nicephoros's voice more than his words he sensed a struggle going on.

“If one must live in the illusion, even when the reality is elsewhere, then what matters is the quality of the illusion. There is this, or that.” He indicated first the wilderness, and then the City. “There is the brutish life of savages, or the rational, humane life of Christian men.”

Hagen said, “You think too much, Nicephoros, and act too little.”

“Ah, yes. One might expect such criticism from such as yourself, my dear barbarian—in your smaller sphere, you may brawl and blunder as you will, harming no one but yourself. But my failures are disaster for the Empire.”

“Then why are you becoming a monk?”

“I—” Nicephoros lifted his arms and let them fall. His gaze swiveled from the wilderness to the City and back again. Finally he turned to Hagen once more, and his face was grave and eaten with doubts. “As long as she needs me, of course, I will stay.”

“Nicephoros, if you give it up, if all men of heart and mind give it up, who will do it?”

“Clowns, and fools, and wicked sinners,” said Nicephoros. “Which is very little change, it seems to me.”

Then suddenly he was weeping. Hagen stepped back, surprised at the vehemence of the other man's tears.

“I am sorry.” The Treasurer struggled for composure. “A friend of mine died recently, I am not myself.” His eyes burned lunatic bright behind their gloss of tears. Under his breath, he whispered, “But I am alive! Alive.”

Hagen looked toward the City again. He was resisting the impulse to touch this Greek whose passions contended so nobly, who struggled so stubbornly to make sense of the inconceivable. Beside him, Nicephoros, with a certain superb practicality, blew his nose.

“You drove the Arabs back,” Hagen said. “The City will survive this, too.”

Nicephoros was putting away his napkin. He said, “It was my fault the Arabs came at all. I am not much of a soldier—she gave me an army, and I lost it.” He threw back his shoulders, lifting his chest, bracing himself into a manly stature, like putting on a uniform. “Well: let us go back. There is much to do before dinner.”

“As you will, Nicephoros.”

They went down from the wall; they went back into the bosom of the City, glowing with the lights of the evening.

26

Ishmael was not at the underground stable of the Hippodrome, nor at the tavern where the racing teams gathered; no one there had seen him for days. Hagen went down into the City and found the charioteer's house.

He banged on the door with his fist; there was no answer. He stood there staring at the blank panel, wondering what he was doing here: Ishmael was no matter of his. None of this was any matter of his. Yet he knocked again on the door, and this time, someone answered.

“Yes?” The door opened a crack. A woman peered out, covering her face with the flat of her hand. “Yes? Yes?”

“I am looking for Ishmael.” He struggled to remember the rest of the charioteer's name, and it leapt into his memory, the reverse of his own. “Mauros-Ishmael.”

“He isn't here. Go away.”

“Wait.” He stuck his foot into the crack in the door to hold it open. “Has he been here recently?”

Go away.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

At that, she melted into floods of tears, and sank down in the doorway, and the door swayed open. Weeping, she huddled at his feet, and from behind her came forward a little boy, unmistakably Ishmael's child, who said, “My father has been gone two days, sir.”

“Where is he?”

“Down to the holy man—down to wait for the Heavenly City.”

Now the woman lifted her head, her face smeared and red. “He says we are no more married! He says I must do for myself now—he won't care for us anymore—” She sobbed. “The neighbors have given me bread for the children the past two days, but what shall I do now?”

She reached out her hands toward Hagen, who recoiled from the need raw in her face, her desperate eyes. “I have no money—not a crumb in the house—please—”

Behind her the boy stood, silent, watching him, and now beside him an older child appeared, a girl. They said nothing; they only stared at him over their mother's head. Hagen thought, They could die and no one would notice, here, and in his mind saw them swept away, whirling like fallen leaves along the great rushing torrent. He pulled the purse from his belt.

“Here. Feed them.” He shook out coins, the money Nicephoros had given him for saving his life. The money bounced ringing off the stone doorstep. “I'll get him back.” He turned and went long-striding off toward the street, to his horse.

Ishmael was half-drunk. There was nothing else to do but drink; he had lain here on this meadow grass for hours, waiting for some sign, for the holy man to come again and preach, for the Heavenly City to show itself again in the sky, but nothing had happened, except that more people had drifted down from Constantinople into the fields below the camp of John Cerulis.

He supposed he should be praying, but he could not. The world was rushing to its end, surely; there was no more preparing for it, only the final event itself. He wished the holy man would speak again. It was hard to keep his mind focussed on eternity without some help from God.

He lifted the leather flask of wine and drank again. His stomach hurt.

All around him were others waiting for the Coming of Christ, some praying, some talking, some asleep or eating or drinking—it seemed incongruous that these gross functions of the flesh should be necessary, now, but people could not be expected to become saints overnight. Ishmael did not watch the ragged man who was going from sleeper to sleeper, fingering their clothes, and taking little things away. None of that mattered anyway. The material would all disappear, in the Heavenly City; they would walk around in shapes of pure flame. He squeezed his eyes shut, imagining the city, its white streets, its vaulting domes and towers.

With his eyes shut, he swayed, half-lost in drink, but he did not lie down. If he lay down they would rob him.

Behind him a horse snuffled. The familiar stable sound cut through the haze of drink and the bonds of faith and touched the quickest part of him, and he gasped out loud. He had not seen his horses in days. He fought against the upsurge of anger at God, that finding God meant giving up his dearest love, and the struggle had him rigid and inward for a long moment, until Hagen sank down beside him.

“Ishmael.”

“What are you doing here, blasphemer?”

The barbarian sat on his heels. He did not look at Ishmael, but turned his gaze forward, toward the camp of John Cerulis, and his jaw was set. His cheek was faintly pocked from some old disease. His pale eyes and his hair were bright in the sunlight.

He said, “I just left your wife, Ishmael. She is afraid, and alone.”

Ishmael bit his lips. Oh, these were temptations of the Devil, to deprive him of the Heavenly City.

“I gave her some money,” Hagen said.

Up there in that camp, somewhere, was the holy man who could call the City down; why would he not preach again? When he spoke, Ishmael was certain of everything.

“Are you a man, then, to let another man take care of your woman and your children?”

Ishmael flung himself sideways onto the barbarian, snarling; he attacked him so unexpectedly that Hagen went down flat on the soft ground under him, and Ishmael pounded him three or four times hard in the head. Under him the barbarian rolled over and flung him off. Ishmael skidded backward through the dirt.

“Fight! Fight!”

From all around the meadow people came running, joyful, toward this diversion. Ishmael got to his feet. Startled, he looked around him at the ring of cheering onlookers, urging him on.

Hagen was up on his knees, his hands at his sides. His hair was dirty. From the crowd a clod of earth flew at him, and he ignored it. Slowly he got up onto his feet.

“Your Heavenly City,” he said, and spat.

Ishmael raised his fists at him, and the crowd screamed, delighted. “Kill him! Beat him up!”

Through the luxuriant silk sleeve of Hagen's stola, a crimson stain was seeping. Ishmael struggled with himself, trying to keep his temper up, but he saw now that the barbarian was wounded. And Hagen was going. His face twisted with contempt, he started toward his horse.

“Keep your damned dream, Ishmael.”

“Wait,” Ishmael said.

Hagen did not wait. He walked straight toward the horse, and the people blocking his way jeered and thumbed their noses and flew their fingers at him and yielded a way for him through their midst. The blood was streaming down Hagen's hand, dripping from his middle fingertips.

“Wait,” Ishmael called, and went after him.

The Frank ignored him. Reaching his horse, he took up the reins and put his foot in the stirrup and mounted, and Ishmael got hold of the bridle.

“Can you make it back to the Palace? You're hurt.”

“I don't need you, Ishmael.” He closed his good hand into a fist and jammed it against his arm, to stop the bleeding.

“I'll go with you.” Ishmael led his horse toward the road.

Hagen said nothing. There was the sound of tearing cloth; when Ishmael looked back Hagen was wadding up a pack of cloth against the hole in his arm.

“What happened?” Ishmael asked, when he and Hagen were sitting down in the tavern near the Hippodrome.

“I got into a fight.”

The wound had stopped bleeding. Hagen sat slouched on the bench, drinking red wine. Ishmael had gone to the stable and seen to his horses, and now he meant to go back down to the meadow again, to await the Heavenly City, but surely it would not matter much if he stayed a little while, here where he had had so many happy times. He nodded to the tavern wench for a cup of wine.

“You will not race, then?” Hagen asked.

“I shall never race again.”

“God, you're a fool, Ishmael.”

“Shut up. You won't think me a fool, when the earth is being consumed, and you with it, and I am safe in the Heavenly City.”

“That did not look like a congregation of saints down there today.”

“God does not work according to the rules of men.”

“That's what you told me before. When is Saint Febronia's Day?”

“Three days from now,” Ishmael said.

“And then the holy man will enter the City preaching, and also the race will be run?”

“So.”

“And on that day, John Cerulis will become emperor.”

“No! On that day, all this shall fall away, and we shall become saints,” Ishmael said.

But he had to struggle to believe it. Here, in this place where he had been so often, his certainties went otherwise than up to God. He shut his eyes. What a weakling he was, how his faith failed him. Or he failed his faith. He thought of his wife, depending on some stranger's money to feed her children.

The Devil did this to him—tormented his mind like this.

“Here is the Prince,” Hagen said.

Ishmael straightened. Prince Michael was coming into the tavern.

The usual flock of hangers-on swarmed around him, but Michael seemed utterly alone in their midst. He walked upright as a column of marble, his eyes wide and fierce. Ishmael had seen him before, on the day before a race, and he always had this look, this soaring pride, this fierce intent purpose barely restrained.

Without realizing it, he stood up on his feet before the champion. Michael stopped to stare at him.

“Will you race?” he said.

Ishmael met his eyes, and made his tongue move. “I have given myself to God, Michael. I will not go back to Mammon.”

Across the face of the Prince the dark anger flashed like a streak of lightning. “I should have known you haven't the heart for it.”

That fell across Ishmael's soul like a lash, and he jumped up in his place, facing Prince Michael. “It's God's will, Michael—”

“God's will!” Michael snorted, contemptuous. “You should know by now, Ishmael, that nothing matters but the race.” His gaze moved, going past Ishmael, and his voice changed slightly; now he was talking to Hagen, and there was a guarded respect in his voice. “Can you make no sense to him?”

Hagen grunted. He sat there with his arms laid across the tabletop, his cup between his fists. “No. Nor can you, if you think nothing matters more than horse-races.”

“Oh? And if I disagree with you, will you hack me up with your sword, warrior? Is that more honest and just than the Hippodrome? You live in a simpler world than I do, if you believe that.”

He turned to Ishmael again and their eyes met. Michael lowered his voice to a murmur. “If the Judgment comes, Ishmael, He will take you for what you are, and what you are best is in the arena.”

“You speak with the voice of the Devil,” Ishmael cried. He pushed through the cordon of men between him and the door; he had to get away from here; he knew if he lingered they would seduce him into it again, into that heat of struggle and uncertainty, death and power. Outside in the street, the sunlight was so strong he blinked and flung up his hand to block the glare. Half-blinded, he wobbled away down the street.

“Ishmael! Ishmael!”

His own name burned like a whip now. He flinched from the sound of his name. In his path a ragged dirty old man appeared, his head wrapped in a brown cowl, a bundle of herbs tied around his neck: one of the soothsayers.

“Ishmael! You will win. This time you will carry off the Golden Belt! I saw it—I saw the omens in a dream, Ishmael!”

The charioteer staggered; he ran down the street away from the old man, away from the tavern, going toward the Mesê, the way to the holy man. He had to reach the holy man, who made life so simple, so bearable. Who would bring the Heavenly City to him. He hoped no one had stolen his place in eternity. Swiftly he raced down the street full of people.

In the tavern, Hagen watched Ishmael go, and his heart fell. When Prince Michael came in, he had seen in Ishmael's face that he would return, take up the challenge, and be a man again. He glowered up at the Prince, who still stood on the far side of the table, watching him, his head back, aloof and arrogant.

“I hear you are a veritable Achilles,” Michael said. “It bears some remembering that he was a barbarian also.”

“Is there any way to bring Ishmael back to his right mind?”

Michael laughed. He pulled back a chair and dropped into it, half the table between him and Hagen. “Have no concern. When the horns call forth the Blues and the Greens, on Saint Febronia's Day, Ishmael will be there. He could not do otherwise and be Ishmael.”

His hangers-on were still pressing close around him. He swung his head, driving them back with the force of his gaze, and when the area around them had cleared a little, he turned to Hagen again.

“Let me talk to you, Hagen.”

That surprised the Frank, that Michael knew his name. He laced his fingers together. “Speak, Patrician.”

“Prince,” Michael said, correcting him. “We are Athenian nobles, not city courtiers with long fingernails and flowers in their underwear.”

He stopped. A girl was bending over the table with a cup for him and a jug of wine; she fawned on him, but he did not seem to notice. Hagen watched him curiously. A man with no more consequence to his life than a game, he needed that overblown arrogance.

“What I want to ask you—” Michael lifted his head. “Do you know where Theophano is?”

“She is dead,” Hagen said.

“Dead.”

“John Cerulis had her killed. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, well. We were lovers once. I liked her. I noticed she was gone, but she was often gone, on errands for my cousin.” Michael frowned, his eyes focussed on the empty space before him. All his strut and swagger left him; startled, Hagen saw that Michael was younger than he was by several years.

“She was such a beautiful girl,” Michael said.

“Oh, yes,” Hagen replied. “Almost as interesting as a horse-race.”

The Prince gave a light, glib phony laugh. “Oh, it would have to be a hell of a horse-race.”

Hagen swung at him. Smoothly Michael wheeled around, half rising from his seat, and his hand clamped tight on Hagen's wrist. It was like catching his arm in a closing door; Hagen could not move his fist an inch either forward or backward. Michael leaned into his face.