‘I will be unable to leave them an heir.’ The Emperor’s eyes were profoundly sad.
‘Of course you are unable to designate a Basileus and Augustus, as you could with a child of your own loins. But you could provide the children of your Imperium with a Caesar.’
‘Is this the help you would have me receive from our corporeal family? Then you must know I will not hear of it. Stephan would destroy everything that we have laboured for!’
‘I was not thinking of Stephan.’ Their brother-in-law, Stephan, was the closest male relative with the requisite reproductive organs.
‘Who, then? Constantine, thankfully, is . . .disqualified.’
Joannes observed to himself that this was not unlike the decisive moment in an interrogation in the Neorion, the moment when success and failure are both equally pregnant. ‘You have not met your nephew, Michael Kalaphates. I have taken it upon myself to become acquainted with him, and I am impressed with his qualities. He is intelligent, presentable, and is an experienced warrior. That he knows nothing of statecraft is of no consequence, because he need only offer the appearance of a princely character. We are not in need of a ruler to replace or even assist you, only a suitable image to present to your doubting children.’
‘I do not need this nephew beneath my feet like an unwanted pet.’
‘I assure you, Majesty, that will not be the case. I have already, discreetly and obliquely, approached him on this matter. I made it stridently patent to him that he would be your slave, a mere token of your God-granted authority. To this he agreed with touching humility and gratitude that even in the smallest fashion he might have an opportunity to earn your respect and affection. He is yours to command, to send through the city riding backwards on an ass if you so wish.’
‘And what of Zoe? Without public expression of her approval to this . . . succession, any designation would be meaningless.’
‘She is in no position to oppose us. But even so, we would be less than fair if we did not approach her with a measure of compromise, even humility. The Christ forgave a harlot, and is it not our highest purpose in life to walk where He has walked? Let us suggest to her that with respect to her purple-born stature, we would not dream of offering this Caesar to her children without her blessing and sanctification. And in further acknowledgement of her Endowment by the very Hand of the Pantocrator, we would humbly beseech her to take this child, this Caesar, to her bosom, metaphorically to suckle him with the milk of her impeccable Macedonian lineage, and formally adopt him as her son.’
The Emperor considered the matter for a remarkably brief interlude. His chin was set, his gaze decisive. ‘This is well conceived, my dearest brother and most faithful servant. I can only offer one caution as to this enterprise. If the Empress forms a personal enmity for our nephew, the plan will not work.’
‘Yes. I have dispatched him to her chambers this very evening, to dine with her and convince her of his merits, feeling that even if you did not signal your approval of this proposal, he might at least tell us something of her activities and intentions. He was quite quaking at the prospect, but I am certain that his boyish charms will arouse her maternal inclinations.’
The Emperor stood. ‘How much lighter is my load than it was an hour ago,’ he said. ‘Come and embrace me, my Peter, my rock.’ The Emperor held out his arms and clutched the giant monk to his own thick chest. He was astonished when Joannes suddenly burst into tears.
She awoke to his kisses on her neck. She rolled over and took him in her arms and felt the length of his body against hers and pressed her breasts to his hard chest. Haraldr held her head and whispered in her ear. ‘You had a night vision,’ he said soothingly. ‘Why did you cry out?’
‘I dreamed of you,’ said Maria in a voice like a hot breeze. They were so warm together, beneath silk and down, the heated floor baking the cold from the marble walls of her bedchamber. ‘I often dream of you.’
‘Are we lovers?’
‘Often.’
‘Did I hurt you this time, to make you cry?’
‘No . . .’She shuddered against him.
‘Why were you frightened?’
She would not answer; she nuzzled his neck and gripped his shoulders tightly. ‘Make love to me again,’ she said gently, raspily.
‘Tell me what you saw.’
‘It was . . . frivolous. A vision with no meaning.’
‘Then tell it.’
She paused to bite him on the neck. ‘Very well.’ She relented, hoping that her acquiescence would indeed render the vision frivolous. She pushed away from him slightly. ‘I saw you sailing across a cold black sea with hundreds of ships in your wake. A man who was with you pointed to the heavens, and thousands of ravens tittered overhead, until they were like a cloud that blocked the sun.’
‘A portent of death. What happened?’
‘I don’t know. I cried out, and your kisses carried me away from the shores of sleep.’
‘Were you afraid that you would share my fate?’
‘Perhaps I was afraid that I would not.’ She gathered him in her arms with a fierce passion. ‘Make love to me.’
It began again, on a sea made of light, boundless, their frantic arms drawing each other into a single atom of being, this common soul expanding until it embraced all time, all creation. ‘I … love . . . you!’ she screamed in her moment of paroxysm, and then she drifted slowly to his chest and wrapped her arms around him again.
Their kisses made him hard again before he had even left her. This time they clung to each other, flesh dissolving flesh, sleepwalkers meeting in a dream, lips to the other’s ear, waiting for some enchanted revelation. ‘Love . . . love . . .’ she said, her voice quavering. He waited, deciding he would not tell her of his love this night, might never tell her; but of course she already knew. She moaned softly and whispered again. ‘Tonight the world has changed for ever.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted, controlling his voice. ‘I feel that.’
‘No, you do not know how I mean that. It is not just these two breasts, these two souls locked within. It is a thousand thousand souls for a thousand years.’
He took her face in his hands and found her gaze with his. ‘I know,’ he told her, and in that moment he saw, like a distant image against an azure sea, the reflection of a raven as it tracked across the blue depths of her eyes.
‘Look, Nephew, I have provided you with a final treat. Finish your pastry and you will see it.’ Zoe raised her hand at the hovering eunuch who had reached for her empty little silver dessert dish. ‘Away!’ She looked at Michael Kalaphates and shrugged. ‘I do not know who is responsible for training the servants I am sent. Perhaps your uncle the Orphanotrophus Joannes. In any event, whenever Symeon finally instructs one in the proper decorum, he is snatched away and I am plagued with some new oaf. This one only arrived this very afternoon. Perhaps he will improve his performance.’
Michael Kalaphates swallowed the last of his dessert and smiled effortlessly. He studied the images chased on his silver plate and laughed. ‘You remembered my fascination with pagan scenes. This is a satyr, I believe you once told me, and this lovely creature, though she is as pale as her aureate spectre beside you, is a maenad.’
‘You remembered,’ said Zoe happily yet demurely. ‘We found we had much in common in Antioch, did we not? I am so pleased that your uncle has permitted you to renew our acquaintance.’ She cast her eyes at the servant.
‘Although I am virtually terrified by the boldness of what I must remark, let me humbly beg you that our acquaintance be given the opportunity to ripen into friendship. I will beseech the Holy Virgin each night that before I have pined away each of my days, I might be invited to sup with you again. Until then I will mourn, deep-eyed Hera, that I am for ever cast down from your Olympian immanence.’