Just as effusively as he had greeted Joannes, Tzintzuluces bade him farewell and withdrew, content that even though he had momentarily released his sacred charge to the clutches of the world, it would be in the company of a man equally devoted to him, a man who, like Tzintzuluces himself, wore the black frock of worldly denial.
She placed her hand in his. The night was clear, cold, magical, the cities spread across the black water like carpets woven from the stars, the stars above them mirrors of the Great City’s brilliance. She leaned back and looked overhead, her arching throat swanlike, erotic. ‘Do you think they ever collide?’ she whispered. ‘They swirl about in the heavens, they are known to fall to earth, but do they ever collide?’
Haraldr looked up. ‘Perhaps they do, or have, in a time when there were no men to witness them, when only the gods saw. I know that like all things, each one of those fires will one day come to an end.’
‘Yes. Every fire must exhaust itself. But perhaps some burn longer than others, Do you know much of astrology?’
‘I have met one of the astrologers attached to the Imperial retinue. I have also met others at court who consider the science to be pure chicanery. Is astrology an interest of yours?’
‘An interest . . . but not a belief.’ Maria lowered her head and looked across the water. ‘I do not believe that the movement of heavenly bodies determines our fortunes here on earth. But I believe that like the stars, our fates move in certain patterns, and that we are bound to remain in those orbits no matter how strenuously we may hope and endeavour to escape them.’ Suddenly she turned and threw her arms around Haraldr. ‘What made you bring your axe down that day? How did you know that your stroke would not bring the sword down on my neck?’
‘I did not know that.’ But he was not certain what he had known in the instant he had decided; later he had realized that if he hadn’t killed the Seljuk leader at that moment, probably none of them, including Maria, would have left the kastron alive. Now he only hoped, in spite of himself, that his answer hurt her. ?I presented fate with an answer, and left fate to determine the question.’
‘Or perhaps fate had already told you the answer.’
‘You mean that what passes between you and I has already been determined?’
She let him go and walked a few steps away, her arms wrapped around her thick, fur-lined coat. The fine tip of her nose tilted to the stars again. ‘You and I are a moment when the stars collide. You came to me across all time, your path determined before the first stars were set in motion. We are bound together, your star and mine.’ She lowered her head and looked at him, and her eyes outshone all other lights. ‘I know this.’
‘We are alone,’ said the Emperor. ‘Please sit with me.’ Joannes awkwardly settled his enormous, distorted form on the gilded throne his brother used for the most informal, intimate audiences. Protocol insisted nevertheless that no one sit in the presence of the Emperor, much less on the throne beside him. But these were unusual circumstances.
Joannes studied his brother’s swollen wrists, puffy cheeks and shadowed, weary eyes. The deterioration was shocking; did the humours that afflicted his brain reside in the other parts of his body when they were not causing the mind storms? If so, they had begun to destroy the body which they had made their host. ‘It is sometimes wearying, is it not, to labour on behalf of so many?’ said Joannes.
‘And yet I must serve my children even with my last breath,’ replied the Emperor.
‘They have never had a more just and devoted father than yourself.’
‘Do not let modesty overlook your own contribution, dearest brother.’
‘I do not mind admitting that I have tried to serve you with every resource to my avail.’
‘Yes. You are my Peter, the rock upon which my throne has been erected.’
Joannes paused, assessing the width of the portal that was opening before him. Finally he spoke. ‘I have given much thought as to how that foundation, which I hope I do in some small part provide, can be strengthened.’
‘Indeed? Tell me, brother.’ The Emperor’s voice was earnest and somewhat solicitous, as if he could bestow a favour simply by listening.
‘Just as the Son of God had both his Heavenly family and his earthly family, so does his Hand on Earth have two kinds of family, the spiritual and the corporeal. The spiritual family he has sought out and embraced, and the proceeds of that virtuous endeavour will accrue to his glory both in this world and the next. But he has not sought out his corporeal family with the same diligence.’
The Emperor’s expression changed from open curiosity to inscrutable deliberation; his dark eyes suddenly seemed flat, impenetrable, as if they would take in no more of this information. ‘If a man wishes to take his ship upon rough waters,’ the Emperor said at length, ‘then he builds his vessel with sturdy, well-planed boards. The rotten timbers he discards.’
‘I am sensitive to your . . . feelings concerning our brothers.’
‘Constantine’s blundering in Antioch almost cost me my throne. Stephan will cost me Sicily.’
Joannes trod warily. His brother was no man to be trifled with, even in this condition. If only God could have shown them another way to place the Imperial Diadem upon his head, he might have been the greatest of all Emperors. But guilt was eating away at him like a leprosy. ‘There is another threat to your throne.’
‘I am ill. I am not dying. With the Pantocrator’s help and God’s forgiveness, I will be cured of my affliction. In the meantime I am quite competent to govern my children.’
‘Neither do I think that your life is in jeopardy, nor that your abilities have been impaired. The danger here is not in what we know to be true but in what others perceive. Do not imagine that this disease that has temporarily afflicted you has gone unnoticed, and that it has not fuelled the fires of rumour.’
‘I will soon appear before my children to assuage their anxiety and lay these rumours to rest.’
‘I think it will be some time before we can, with confidence, allow your children the privilege of seeing you. For your children to witness – may the Pantocrator forgive the boldness of my conjecture – one of your . . . attacks would turn these fires of rumours into a conflagration that would consume the entire Roman Empire.’
‘We will wait, then, until I have received absolution. St Demetrius is working prodigiously on my behalf, I can assure you.’
‘If only the blessed St Demetrius were able to proselytize in the inns and brothels of the Studion as effectively as he litigates before the Heavenly Tribunal, then we would have little to fear.’
The Emperor seemed to jerk into a more erect posture, and for a moment Joannes feared that another fit was upon him. There had been two episodes the previous day; after the second his Majesty had remained unconscious for several hours. But the Emperor responded with the acuity that had been, in better days, taken for granted. ‘What reports do you have of insurrection?’
‘I have myself seen an arsenal secreted by these rebels in an old warehouse just north of the Studite monastery. The quantity and quality of the weapons indicated that this group had resources we do not ordinarily associate with the unfortunate wretches who occupy that district. There is a danger that this . . . disease might be communicated to the classes of labourers and even the various professions and guild members.’
The Emperor’s broad shoulders and chest sagged with pain. ‘My children. Why would my children turn against me?’
Joannes wrapped his huge span around his brother’s suddenly heaving shoulders. ‘It is not any lack of love for their Father, believe that. It is that few can now resist the rumours. There are many who claim you are already dead, and the majority are certain that you are dying. In their desperation and grief they wonder why their Father has not, like any good father, provided for the future of his brood when he is gone. They think you are gone from them, and have left them no successor to your glorious and benevolent tenure. So quite naturally they are inclined, after enduring this lengthy period of distress, to think of placing their own successor on the throne. If you were to make a gesture towards them in naming a successor, I think this incipient insurrection would wither like a weed with its roots plucked from the earth.’