‘Little boy.’ Zoe stroked the curls from Michael Kalaphates’s forehead. ‘You should have come to your mother more quickly. The weeks have been an agony for me.’ ‘It has been . . . difficult for me, my beloved.’ Michael reclined on the sitting couch, his head propped forward by a damask cushion.
‘Yes. That terrible place. It is appalling even to consider the things he must have shown you there.’ She looked at him with a wryly erotic, subtle puckering of her lips. ‘He performed no alterations on you, did he, precious little candle?’ She placed her hand behind his neck and let her silk-restrained breasts touch his shoulder.
‘I am still . . . frightened.’
‘Nonsense. Such plots are commonly initiated, almost as commonly forgiven. You will not spend the rest of your life dwelling under some cloud, little one. He will attribute your failed conspiracy to my antipathy, and soon overlook yours. You are too important to him now.’ Zoe looked away, lost in a reverie she would never dare to speak of. ‘In any event, I will involve you in no more plots. You are too dear to me. There are many brutes I can employ for assassinations. You alone can author my pleasure.’ She leaned forward and placed her dry, sweet lips just on his. He spasmed. Zoe observed his swelling crotch. ‘It seems I am the architect of your pleasure.’ She smirked regally. ‘I touch you and raise a column.’
‘I am so glad I am alive,’ he said almost deliriously.
Zoe stood and lifted his hand. ‘I have discovered an unguent that imparts an indescribable silkiness to my breasts and thighs. You must try to find words for it.’
After the caresses, the sweating passions, the grateful reunion of their flesh, Zoe held Michael’s head to her breast. ‘I will never let him hurt you again,’ she said. ‘I am now more determined than ever.’
He lifted his head in alarm and looked at her with doelike eyes. ‘No. It is too dangerous.’
She hushed him with kisses. ‘I know. That is why I have selected a man both fearless and . . .expendable.’
‘Who?’ Michael whispered, his eyes wider still.
Zoe pressed Michael’s head to her breasts again. ‘The Komes … I mean, Manglavite, the Tauro-Scythian, Haraldr whatever.’ She felt the sudden stirring against her thigh and laughed gently. ‘Why, Nephew, I seem to have raised another column.’
‘It was not necessary to bring that.’ Mar pointed to the ceremonial fasces that Haraldr carried in his arms. ‘There is to be no procession.’
‘Yes, I understand,’ said Haraldr. ‘But I thought that once on the grounds--’
‘No.’ Mar was impatient and anxious. ‘In fact, you shouldn’t even have that out where it might be seen.’ Mar slipped his cloak off and wrapped the thick-shafted axe in it. He looked around and then whispered to Haraldr. ‘They are bringing him in a covered litter. With maybe a dozen Hyknatoi to guard him. They want to get him here without anyone taking notice. That’s why I am here, instead of with him.’
‘And they suspect something here? Is that why the Middle Hetairia has been summoned?’
Mar looked at his boots pensively. ‘I imagine so. You are the principal unit for dealing with riots.’ Mar leaned over and whispered even more softly. ‘I am not certain what is going on any more. You know how long it has been since I have even seen the Emperor.’ It had now been several months. ‘It is possible his recovery has been complete, and the purpose of this visit is to establish that he can indeed appear fit and able before his subjects.’
‘So perhaps all my cautions don’t seem so foolish now,’ Haraldr said goadingly. He was tremendously relieved to hear that the Emperor was mending, because otherwise he and Mar had got nowhere with their increasingly fitful conspiracy to rid Rome of Joannes. Even Mar had admitted he was making no progress on the miraculous alliance he had promised weeks ago; it was obvious it would come to nothing.
Mar shrugged placidly. ‘Well, we shall see what we shall see. Do you know what this is?’ Mar pointed to the gleaming new building, set back from a quiet side street by a broad, tree-rimmed lawn. The two-storey edifice looked much like a prosperous new monastery; a freshly plastered chapel with five tiled domes rose in the midst of a four-sided block of living quarters.
‘They say it is a convent,’ said Haraldr.
‘Yes. A peculiar convent. Come with me.’
The entrance to the convent was beneath a large arch supported on polished columns of rare green porphyry from Sparta. The massive wooden door was carved with images of the life of Christ. A grate opened, and they were admitted by a young woman in the black frock worn by nuns and monks alike. A black cowl covered her hair, and she drew part of the cowl around to veil her face, but Haraldr glimpsed that she was strikingly attractive, so much so that he was ashamed of the thoughts he had about her. ‘He has come?’ asked the nun anxiously.
‘Soon,’ said Mar. ‘We are ordered to check the building. It is simply a ritual.’ The nun led them through a vaulted hallway into a large refectory lit by rows of circular bronze polycandelons. Beneath the lamps sat hundreds of nuns in uniform black; they tittered in a very undignified fashion when Haraldr and Mar entered, and many, if not most, forgot to veil their faces. Their meal seemed extremely lavish, the silver plates and glass ewers immediately apparent; servants scurried among the tables carrying gilt platters piled with roast meats. Most remarkably, many of the women were as young and attractive as the nun who had opened the door, although many others seemed careworn or had pocked faces.
‘Do you see the way they are looking at us?’ said Haraldr. ‘I thought nuns would have their eyes cast down in Christ-like humility. These women are as brazen as--’ He broke off in astonishment.
Mar nodded and tried to keep from staring. ‘You will probably recognize some of the faces. You may have passed them on the streets of the Studion.’
‘Odin. Theotokos. Whores.’
‘Every one of them.’
The simple canvas litter was borne up the marble path a short while later; only a handful of armoured Hyknatoi and a single sad-eyed eunuch, apparently the Emperor’s personal chamberlain, were in attendance. Haraldr stood by, at a loss to determine the protocol involved in this strange circumstance, and then fell to his face as the curtains of the litter were drawn aside. When he stood again, he could not avoid the sight, though he damned his eyes for what they saw.
It was not the same man, of course, but an impostor, a decoy. No, it was the man; the essence, the profound eyes, and the decisive nose were still there. But the rest was a painful parody of the magnificent Lord of the Entire World who had awed Haraldr those long months ago. The Emperor had swollen grotesquely, his cheeks and limbs and torso as sickeningly bloated as those of a floating corpse; his fingers were like thick sausages. His skin was jaundiced, with red streaks. It clearly pained him even to set his feet on the ground. He looked around, as if searching for someone to comfort him. Haraldr could not bear it. He stepped forward and offered his arm. ‘Glorious Majesty, please let me help you.’
The Emperor looked at him, his eyes struggling for recognition. ‘Hetairarch,’ he gasped, obviously mistaking Haraldr for Mar. ‘Thank you, Hetairarch … I need … no assistance.’ And then he began to walk, an effort so pitiful to watch that it broke Haraldr’s heart.
It seemed an eternity before the shuffling, hobbling Emperor could drag his stiff, dropsied legs across the inner courtyard to the chapel. The nuns already knelt before the glimmering silver chancel screen and the huge mosaic of the Virgin in the apse, and they bowed when the Emperor entered. Yet another lifetime passed before he reached the small rectangular ambo. Haraldr prayed that the Emperor would not attempt to climb the marble steps to the canopied platform, though it only rose to the height of a man’s shoulders.