The interpreter handed the document to Haraldr. The writing was in Greek, and in a reddish ink. The broken seals seemed to be impressed with the likeness of a bearded man with long hair; he held a staff with a large ornamental knob. The back of Haraldr’s neck tingled. Was this the Emperor?
By the time Haraldr looked up again, the Legatharios and his interpreter were gone, and the horsemen had wheeled their mounts and cantered off in stately procession.
‘This is certainly no prison,’ Haraldr told Ulfr and Halldor. As he paced, his footfall resounded off the green marble floor and echoed through the vast hall. ‘Could it be one of their barracks?’ He bent over and examined one of the cots that ran in long rows, separated by an aisle, the hundred-ell length of the room. The simple wood frame of the cot, though dented and nicked in places, had been smoothed and finished. The linen-covered mattresses were yellowed and covered with the rings of old stains, but they seemed to have been washed. And they were stuffed with cotton, not straw.
Halldor sat down on one of the mattresses. ‘There’s no inn in Iceland this good. Perhaps they aim to soften us up with comfort. Then . . .’ Halldor drew his hand across his neck and grinned.
Haraldr couldn’t share Halldor’s amusement. He strode to the row of elegantly arched windows that lined the inner wall of the hall. Through the clear panes of glass – some were cracked and a few were missing – he could see the Varangians milling and arguing in groups on the broad lawn that covered the large interior court of the building. Beyond this court was a parallel wing of the huge villa, also filled with beds. At the left end of the court was a complex of empty stables and locked rooms, and at the right end were more rooms and a gate flanked by two large marble pillars. The wooden gate was open, and a wagon loaded with numerous sacks of grain and barrels of ale or wine had just rolled through. Haraldr had no doubt that the gate would again be locked behind them once the stores had been unloaded.
But other than his suspicion that they were under a polite form of arrest, Haraldr had no signal of what the Griks intended to do with him or his pledge-men, and he was wondering of the Griks themselves knew. And what about Marmot-Man? He was no official, but he knew’ about the Varangians and was trying to hire them, apparently for someone named Nicephorus Argyrus. One thing was certain, however. Haraldr couldn’t let the Griks’ confusion or subterfuge infect his relationship with his new followers; he had already heard one of the malcontents grumble to the effect that Hakon would already have had them feasting in the Imperial Palace. It wasn’t a moment too soon to organize the men into companies and begin to fashion them into a disciplined fighting unit. There, at least, he was on secure ground; as a boy he had seen Olaf turn ragged raiding parties into well-schooled armies a dozen times. And the thought occurred to him that if he was to one day be a king, then he would have to begin his own training. Now.
‘Halldor! Ulfr!’ barked Haraldr. They looked up, surprised at the unexpected sternness of his tone. ‘Get the men in here and assigned to beds. In one half hour have them dressed in full armour for drills in the courtyard.’
‘Where would you like to be?’ asked Maria. She stood before her bedchamber’s arcade, and the colour of her eyes was so closely keyed to the hot, flat cerulean sky and sea behind her that it appeared they had been painted with the same precious pigment.
‘I am at your discretion, mistress,’ said the eunuch. His name was Isaac. Despite his beardless skin, his jaw was tense and muscular. In his elegant, perfectly fitted silk robe, his frame seemed lithe and supple but with broad, masculine proportions. His blond hair was long and lightly curled.
Maria laughed delightfully. ‘No, I intend to leave this entirely up to you. Surprise me.’
Isaac did not have to deliberate. He was a vestiopratai, an Imperially licensed dealer in the finest finished silk goods, and while he numbered many of the Dhynatoi and high-ranking ladies of the court among his customers, this was his first summons to the Gynaeceum, the Imperial women’s apartments. He had prepared thoroughly; he could describe the plan and furnishings of the Mistress of the Robes’s apartments as accurately as if he had been there a dozen times previously. ‘You are not troubled by the heat?’ he asked.
‘No. I hate to be cold.’
Isaac led Maria to an observation cupola on the roof; he sent her eunuchs for cushions and cold wine. The breeze that whispered through the delicate columns was like silk tissue teased over the skin. He had long ago learned to be expedient, and as soon as the cushions and goblets had been properly placed, he unlaced Maria’s scaramangium. She stepped out of the robe and stood on the marble bench so that her body was exposed to the breeze. Isaac hardened her nipples with butter-smooth fingers, then took the chilled wine in his mouth. When he touched his cold tongue to her nipple, she convulsed and whimpered. His tongue slid towards her navel but she pushed him away. She unlaced him and stripped off his robe. He was as solid and as smooth as a statue. She fell to her knees and ran her tongue along the tawny mass of scar tissue at the base of his erection, then towards the engorged tip. ‘It is so beautiful,’ she said. ‘When you are almost ready, come inside me.’
Isaac was in fact both a eunuch and a silk dealer. But his principal vocation was making this sort of call on wealthy, highly placed women, a vocation for which he was uniquely suited. While the operation to create a eunuch was usually performed in childhood, some boys like Isaac had their testicles surgically removed in mid-adolescence. Although their bodies might never develop fully masculine characteristics, their ability to function sexually, and their desire to do so, could sometimes remain intact. Such a eunuch offered a highly placed woman two invaluable attributes. He usually would not arouse suspicion, and he could not impregnate them.
When they had finished, Isaac reclined on the tasselled cushions; he always provided his customers an opportunity to talk. Maria sat and shaded her eyes against the sun as she looked out towards Chrysopolis, the huge city across the Bosporus. ‘You are better than I had hoped,’ she said.
Isaac smiled. ‘Most eunuchs can function physically, I have found. Unless, of course, they have had the entire male apparatus removed.’ But this catastrophic surgery was rare; because the operation was so dangerous and the wound caused recurring problems even when healed, it was usually only performed on Pechenegs or other barbaroi races. ‘That they do not is usually a matter of inadequate desire. Or technique.’
Maria laughed. ‘What technique was required for me?’
‘That was desire. Is there any man who hasn’t desired you?’
‘I want something beyond desire. Still, I enjoyed this. You are like a boy, and yet also a man. I will want you again. I have a lover, and another boy with whom I am in love. But my specialist advises me that on certain days I must abstain if I do not want unintended consequences. Still, the more regularly one enjoys passion, the more one becomes addicted. If I did not have a lover now, I would not need you so badly.’
‘I am at your discretion, Mistress.’
‘Do you work with men?’
‘Only if a lady asks for another man to join us.’
‘Have you ever had a Tauro-Scythian?’
‘No. I would try to find one if you are interested.’
‘No.’ Maria looked down and stroked her fiat, velvet-soft belly. ‘Do you know what they are going to do with those Tauro-Scythians they are calling pirates?’ Maria understood the efficiency with which information passed among the city’s highly placed eunuchs; it was as if they had all joined in some secret pact to punish the society that had deprived them of their manhood by exposing its secrets.