‘Wait . . .’ The voice stood on the threshold of the spirit world. Haraldr held his blade at the beginning of its merciful arc. The man looked at Haraldr with a bitter yet kindred defiance. ‘The . . . Blue . . . Star,’ he croaked, barely audibly. Then with the last fibre of his strength he lifted his head. ‘Now,’ he pleaded.
Haraldr brought his blade screaming through the man’s neck, his strength fuelled not by Odin but by the desperate hope that somehow this stroke would sever the head of the Imperial Eagle.
‘What will you do?’ asked the purple-born Augusta Theodora. Her pinched face and dull brown braids were unadorned; despite her gold-laced purple robe, she seemed as plain as a butcher’s wife.
‘I could refuse to crown this Caesar,’ answered Alexius, Patriarch of the One True Oecumenical, Orthodox and Catholic Faith. His small black eyes stalked like agile panthers above the craggy hump of his nose. ‘Imperial protocol dictates that the Caesar be crowned by the Emperor, and so I could refuse to sanction the ceremony simply on that basis. But of course the paradox of our Caesar is that we must have him because the Emperor is not well enough to crown him.’
‘You would be … coerced if you refused to crown him.’
Alexius smiled. ‘I fear no coercion. If my jurisdiction were merely the Empire of Rome, then I would offer this Caesar nothing about his head but penitential ashes, and glorify the Pantocrator with my own martyrdom. But my Empire is that of all souls, and so my considerations are rather more complex.’ Alexius stroked the ornate rings on his left hand with the fingers of his right. ‘It is unfortunate that your sister Zoe has so warmly embraced her husband’s heir. Were the Empress opposed even mildly, I could take her reluctance to the people of the City, and before the three days that it took our Lord to be scourged, martyred and resurrected had passed, the people of this city would have hurled Joannes and his Dhynatoi accomplices into the abyss that spawned them. But now the fortunes of our secular Empire – and those of my beleaguered spiritual Empire – will go from bad to worse. Your sister’s husband has listened to the Christ with one ear, and the demon Joannes with the other, and that is the source of the torment that is destroying his body if not his immortal soul. I believe and pray that when this Emperor supplicates the Heavenly Tribunal, he will find expiation. But when this Caesar inherits the Imperial Diadem, he will hear only Joannes, and his soul will endure the fiery lakes of eternal woe.’
Theodora crossed herself. ‘Father, you cannot think that the Emperor is so close to his mortality. He will recover, certainly. He is an extremely . . .robust man.’
Alexius stroked his silvery beard. ‘If he recovers, it will not be soon, and during his illness he will have yielded that much more of his authority, and perhaps his soul, to Joannes. My child, your love for your sister is an example to Christian charity, and I, too, pray for her soul each morning and evening. But Joannes has used the objects of your sister’s lust to enslave her people. Whether we are to be ruled by Michael the present Emperor, or this new Michael, the Caesar, is of little consequence to the suffering folk of Rome, who know only that it is Joannes’s boot on their neck. Yet as long as your sister continues to place her carnal aspirations above the obligations of her purple-born sanction, her people will obediently suffer that scourge. But God will not suffer this outrage with infinite patience. He has already risen up the Bishop of Old Rome and his blasphemous filioque, to warn us of our transgressions.’
Alexius studied Theodora’s troubled face; she wore her almost child-like expression of grief. Finally the Patriarch gestured at the barren walls of Theodora’s apartment; his golden rings caught the light for an instant. ‘My child, your spiritual wealth has increased in this place of exile.’
‘Yes. I do not miss the palace. I prefer to dream of the Lord’s mansions.’
Alexius’s thin, elegant lips parted with genuine warmth, but his dark eyes still paced menacingly. ‘I am certain you will be well received in those mansions. In your devotion to our Lord you are similar to your sister, Eudocia, may the Pantocrator keep her soul in His Eternal Light, though she came to her faith too late to save her mortal being from the consequences of her sin.’ Theodora seemed startled by this; her face retained the innocence of regret, but her eyes were alert, wary, the prey observing the stalking beast.
‘Indeed,’ continued Alexius, ‘where the Christ’s steps have gone, I see yours following. And yet there is another path that the Christ has also charged you to follow, a charge he gave you from the moment of your soul’s conception, and now the Christ cautions us that you have strayed from this path.’ Alexius’s eyes no longer paced; they crouched. ‘I need not tell you that Christ the Pantocrator, crowned in heaven, was also crowned here on earth.’
Theodora’s pale blue eyes shifted. ‘Yes. The crown Pilate gave him. A crown of thorns.’
‘Our Lord accepted the crown of thorns because beneath that excruciating diadem He would lead mankind to the resurrection and eternal life.’ Alexius smiled sympathetically. ‘All worldly crowns are crowns of thorns, my child. Mine own bleeds me even now. The Christ was offered all the Kingdoms of the world if only he would fall on his knees before Satan. We who rule the world must turn away from like blandishments and take only the crown that earns us favour in the Kingdom of Heaven. And that crown is pain.’
‘I, too, have renounced the Kingdoms of the World. At last, Father, I have.’
Alexius’s eyes leapt forward. ‘No. You have renounced the crown that brings only blood and pain and death to your brow, and in so doing you have denied your people their hope of resurrection. You are the purple-born, child, chosen of God to do His will here in this valley of sorrows. What you have achieved here in your exile is a strengthening of your soul. But that soul must now assume the Holy Burden it is obligated to bear, or it will cease to quest for Eternal Glory. Soon our Lord will bid you rise up and bear your cross to Golgotha.’
Theodora’s features sharpened. ‘My Lord cannot mean that I should betray my purple-born sister.’
Alexius inclined his head slightly, his thin lips almost musing. ‘No. I am not asking you to initiate anything against your sister. But the day will come, and soon, when the people of this City will appeal to their Christ to deliver them even from the tormented bosom of their purple-born Mother. And for that day you must be prepared. Your line, the great house of Macedon founded by your uncle, Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, is, through its unyielding defence of the One True Faith, the very artery that nourishes every soul born unto life. And that artery must never be severed, or we are all damned.’
‘And how would my barren loins perpetuate the dynasty of Macedon? If ever I was fertile, I am now too withered to bear fruit.’
‘You are not the last of the Bulgar-Slayer’s line.’
Theodora’s eyes could not deny the shock of this jugular attack. ‘You . . . have known?’
‘Yes. For many years. I know the circumstances. Your sister, Eudocia, gave birth to the child at the convent on the Isle of Prote. I do not know the child, or even its sex. But I know that it was not stillborn.’
Theodora drew her tall, slender torso erect. Her pale eyes were steely and her tongue newly sharpened. ‘Then we will not discuss the child. I am in passing health, and when the Christ calls me to my Golgotha, I believe I can offer you ten good years of my life, years in which you can with all your resources wage your battle against the Bishop of Old Rome. Then if we are both still alive, we will discuss the child.’
Alexius inclined his head slightly and smiled; the bargain was acceptable.