Maria slid her arms across the table and leaned towards Haraldr. She was slightly taken by the wine but to charming effect. ‘You must tell me what you see,’ she said. ‘Some people will see nothing, some will see different things, many will see the same thing. It is interesting to compare.’
Zoe touched Haraldr’s arm. ‘Think of this as a waking dream. Do not be alarmed. The first time you see it, if you see it, you may think that angels – or demons – have taken hold of you, it is so wondrous.’ She smiled warmly and wistfully at him. Haraldr settled back, tense with anticipation despite the wine. He had considered much he had already seen in Rome magic. Now he would see what the Romans themselves considered magic.
The stage was a construction of gilded wood that had been erected at the east end of the courtyard, just behind the Empress’s table. It was a virtually freestanding building, with a high, vaulted ceiling from which three elaborate candelabra hung, providing the platform below with an intense golden light. At Zoe’s command the organs flourished and the tables full of diners hushed expectantly. An old, bowed workman of some sort shuffled out onto the platform. Inexplicably, the workman instantly vanished, and in his place was a much taller man, young and handsome, wearing a loose black scaramangium much like a monk’s frock. ‘Who am I?’ asked the man in a voice that carried like a herald’s and yet at the same time seemed conversational, as if he were sitting across the table.
‘Abelas!’ yelled some of the young men and women who apparently had seen the man perform before. Abelas listened for his name and then whirled like a cyclone, and when he was still again, his face was as white as a corpse and streaked with brilliant tendrils of fresh blood that ran down from his thick black hair. ‘Who am I!’ he shrieked, and whirled again. When he faced the audience this time, he was the old workman. He began to shuffle off the stage. Then a burst of light and a flock of white pigeons fluttered above the stage and carried Abelas away, leaving only a mist where he had been. It was incredible; Haraldr could see the birds, a dozen of them at least, transport Abelas over the roof of the villa and off into the night.
Haraldr heard murmuring among the crowd and looked back to the stage. A dwarf in a black robe stood where Abelas had been. ‘Who am I?’ asked the dwarf in a voice identical to Abelas’s. ‘Abelas!’ came the return chorus. The dwarf clapped his stubby hands as if applauding the audience for this feat of identification. ‘Who am I?’ The dwarf flew up into the air, his black robe trailing like a column of smoke, and then the smoke cleared and a woman stood there, naked except for a single leaf over her pubic triangle. The crowd tittered. ‘Who am I?’ asked the woman in Abelas’s voice. ‘Abelas!’ The woman bowed and skipped off the stage; two huge cranes rose up from where she had stood, flapped their wings, and flew off into the night. The crowd applauded wildly.
Haraldr took a deep draught of unmixed wine. Spectacular but explainable; he had recently been shown the complex hydraulic lifts that raised the Emperor’s throne and had held in his hand one of the clockwork birds that had once bewitched him. Abelas was a wizard, but a wizard at mechanical stunts and sleight of hand. Haraldr drank again, relieved. He had feared that Abelas might have access to the spirit world. Fortunately that was not the case.
The organs flourished briefly and Abelas emerged again, a plain-looking man, perhaps late in his third decade, in a loose white scaramangium. He held up his hands for the crowd’s acclaim and snakes coiled from his fingertips. He shook the snakes off and, in a prodigious, catlike leap, bounded to the Empress’s table, almost weightlessly dodging the litter of plates and goblets with his dancing feet. He planted himself in front of Lady Manganes and leaned his torso far over her, seemingly in defiance of both anatomy and gravity. His hair seemed darker and his black eyes burned in the candlelight. ‘Who are you?’ he asked her.
Lady Manganes, a fleshily attractive woman with a spark in her own eyes, smiled mischievously. ‘Anna Manganes,’ she said, a hint of invitation, and fear, in her voice. Abelas whirled his arms in front of her face and made a motion as if pulling her soul right out of her body. ‘Who are you?’
‘Salome,’ said Lady Manganes in a voice quite unlike her own. She seemed to listen for distant music, and rose, swaying, tapping imaginary cymbals with her hands. Then she leapt onto the table and began to whirl, faster and faster, and yet her feet never disturbed a single utensil. Abelas let her go on for a moment and then touched her head lightly, at which she stopped and climbed down to her seat. Abelas leaned over her again. ‘Who are you?’
‘Lady Manganes,’ she said, shrugging.
Abelas bounded across the table and stood in front of Haraldr, the fulfilment of a dread that everyone at the table had experienced. Haraldr glanced for a moment at Maria and saw her bite her lip; was it possible that she had engineered this trick? Haraldr vowed to resist whatever wizardry Abelas used to induce the trance; he had heard of old women from Biarmaland, seeresses who had similar powers to command other minds. ‘Who are you?’ asked Abelas. Haraldr met the furious eyes, as black and deadly as hot pitch. ‘Hetairarch,’ said Haraldr. The hands whirled and Haraldr saw the rings flashing around him like dozens of brilliant moths. It is the hands, the lights that compel, thought Haraldr. He focused on Abelas’s eyes and pulled his consciousness away from Abelas’s darting fingers. ‘Who are you?’ Haraldr’s eyes flashed knowingly at Abelas. ‘Hektor,’ he said, so as not to spoil the wizard’s show. He was trying to figure some stunt to perform when Abelas crouched over him and placed his hands on Haraldr’s shoulders. They both shuddered from the jolt. Abelas’s eyes retreated and then plunged like arrows into Haraldr’s soul. This man knows me, Haraldr told himself with utter certainty. This man knows who I am. Not simply that, but everything, things that I do not even know. Abelas nodded drunkenly, as if in affirmation of a truth so terrible, it made even him swoon. For a long moment Haraldr and Abelas remained locked in the dance of fate. Then the illusionist dipped his head as if to kiss Haraldr on the cheek. ‘We are both merchants of destiny,’ he whispered to Haraldr in a harsh, frightened voice. He danced away and leapt to the stage. ‘The Hetairarch has suggested a fitting climax to my vision,’ he declared to the entire crowd.
The candelabra above the stage began to spin, slowly at first, then so fast that it was dizzying to follow the lights. Abelas was gone. His voice seemed to come from above the tables. Slowly, in a mesmerizing cadence, he began the story of the Creation. A nearly naked man and woman came on the stage, and it was obvious that they were merely actors. The light was distracting, whirling. Creatures and foliage appeared around Adam and Eve, somehow mechanically propelled onto the stage. Then a fish flew through the air, out over the audience, too brilliant to be a bird in some sort of guise, or even a lantern; many people pointed and watched. The characters on the stage vanished in an instant of flickering light, but some of the images lingered, like ghosts, a moment longer.
The lights of the spinning candelabra were joined by other lights, and all were in motion. ‘Go to the end,’ said Abelas. Haraldr did not notice that a Senator’s wife had moaned and fainted only a few places down from him. Much of what followed was clearly a spectacular enactment of Revelations: the opening of the seven seals, the blowing of the seven trumpets, the horsemen of doom, the lamb and the beasts and the naked whore. Yet there were evanescent glimpses of less substantial things, great fires, and the star named Wormwood that glowed above the stage for what seemed a long while, perishing everything below.