‘That’s sensible enough.’ Haraldr nodded. From what he had already seen, the Saracens’ huge, swift horses were more formidable foes than the men who rode them. ‘But perhaps the ransom available to them here will incite them even to fighting on their own legs.’
Blymmedes turned in his saddle and checked again on the progress of the distended baggage train. The Imperial caravan had just left the cross-roads where the road from Antioch met the coast road, an ancient highway that ran a few miles north to the seaport of St Symeon, and south past the port of Laodecia all the way to Tripoli, Beirut, Caesarea, finally turning inland at Arsuf to their destination of Jerusalem. ‘I am certain they will consider the Imperial baggage train a more convenient target than the Sacred Person of our Mother. An abduction of the Empress would provoke massive punitive action. As I’m certain you have seen, the value of the baggage train is an Empress’s ransom, without the attendant risk of retaliation.’
‘So you think that is why the astute Strategus Nicon Attalietes has ordered the Imperial Excubitores to guard the Imperial baggage train?’ asked Haraldr with wry emphasis. ‘What if the Saracens are to receive a ransom for not sparing the life of our Mother?’
Blymmedes pushed back his golden helm and massaged his temples. The Varangian, Haraldr Nordbrikt, was a clever boy, thought the Domestic, but perhaps his intellect was a bit too active; he saw conspiracy in the rising of the sun each morning. Only one man in the entire Roman Empire was both devious and able enough to carry out such a plot, and the Orphanotrophus Joannes knew that his brother – Lord God, forgive me for thinking such a thought – would not go shod in the Imperial buskins for a single day without the Divine sanction of the purple-born niece of the great Bulgar-Slayer. But what about a plot engineered by the Orphanotrophus Joannes to embarrass the Senator and Magister Nicon Attalietes through the agency of the Strategus Meletius Attalietes? After all, the Orphanotrophus Joannes was a dedicated enemy of the Dhynatoi, and blessedly so, for if Joannes and Nicon Attalietes ever joined forces, the result would be too disagreeable to contemplate. But if this conspiracy only aspired to slitting the throat of the scapegoat, Meletius Attalietes, let the Orphanotrophus Joannes conspire. The purple-born surely was safe.
The Domestic looked at Haraldr. ‘My friend, I’m certain I would see demons scampering about by light of day if I had seen what you saw last night.’ BIymmedes thought of that obscene giant, his brains oozing from the hole in his face, and wished he could have seen Haraldr dispatch him. ‘But I know the man who tried to kill you served in the Hetairia and I’m almost certain that he was punished and expelled by the Hetairarch for some illegal confiscation. He had a grudge, and you were the most convenient Varangian. I’m certain he is not an agent of some plot against our Mother.’
Perhaps. Haraldr, mind aching from sleeplessness and worry, tried again to make sense of it. What if the giant had not acted on his own? Who had sent him? Haraldr was too fatigued to think of the possibilities. And his mind was too full of Maria. She appeared in a flash of alabaster; he could feel her smooth, wet skin. The previous night he had taken her back to the villa before he had alerted his own men to the attempt on his life. At the gate she had given him a kiss more erotic, certainly more emotionally powerful, than their embrace in the Temple of Hecate. She had saved his life, and he hers. But that kiss had told him that they had yet to plumb the depths of their shared fate.
‘There!’ BIymmedes stood in his stirrups and pointed to the rugged crags that pushed the coast road against the azure band of the sea. Haraldr saw nothing, but BIymmedes assured him that a large Saracen force was stirring dust in the heights. ‘We’re vulnerable now that we have turned south to Laodecia. They’re waiting.’
‘I’m going to the Empress,’ said Haraldr. Signalling Gregory to follow, he spurred ahead, passing the huge baggage train of Attalietes’s thematic army. Incredible, he thought as he observed the rugs and pillows and wine jars these so-called soldiers had brought along. Before he had transited half of the thematic army’s line of creaking wagons and groaning pack mules, he was passed by two akrites heading in the opposite direction, their dust- and sweat-stained mantles flying and their horses whipped to a furious, foaming gallop. Only minutes later Blymmedes came by, heading towards the Imperial carriages like a whirlwind. ‘This is it!’ yelled the elbows-akimbo Domestic.
Haraldr whipped his horse in pursuit of Blymmedes, but by the time he reached the Imperial carriages, the Domestic had already dismounted, stopped the caravan, and engaged himself in discussion with Symeon and the resplendently armoured Meletius Attalietes; Halldor, who had remained with the Empress’s carriage, looked on helplessly. Haraldr was grateful when the dogged Gregory arrived less than a minute later, though even without his interpreter he had already discerned that the argument was over the disposition of forces to defend against an imminent attack.
‘I gather that Domestic Blymmedes wants to disengage half his force,’ said Gregory breathlessly, ‘in order to protect the Empress if the Saracens move for the Imperial carriages, or, should the Saracens capture part of the baggage train, to pursue them while they are laden with spoils. The Strategus Attalietes forbids this. He commands the Domestic Blymmedes to use all his forces to guard the Imperial baggage train. As far as the Strategus Attalietes is concerned, the matter is settled.’
Blymmedes continued his livid, arm-thrusting presentation of his strategy, but Attalietes merely stood with his arms folded and his snub nose lifted. Blymmedes finally stopped, stomped the dust layered over the paving stones, and turned away. Then Attalietes spoke to Symeon.
‘You will not like this, Haraldr Nordbrikt. The Strategus suggests that the Empress, in the person of her Chamberlain Symeon, command the Varangians to guard … to guard the thematic army.’ Gregory cleared his throat anxiously. ‘Excuse me, I am embarrassed to have to clarify that. To guard the baggage train of the thematic army.’
Haraldr’s aching skull could not even momentarily contain his fury. ‘Symeon,’ he shouted, ‘I am ordered by the Emperor himself to offer my life and that of all my men in defence of our Mother! I will not guard donkeys while she goes undefended!’ Haraldr stepped towards Attalietes and narrowed his eyes at the arrogant Strategus, with satisfaction detecting the spark of fear. ‘Symeon, you tell this strutting peacock that we will die before we withdraw from the person of the Empress, and if the Strategus Attalietes wishes otherwise, he will first have to convince my own sword!’ Haraldr did not add that there was now another life in the Imperial carriage for which he would sacrifice his own a thousand times.
Gregory translated with admirable emphasis. Attalietes’s pale forehead coloured, Blymmedes made no attempt to conceal his smile, and Symeon stared as if Haraldr had worn red silk to an Imperial banquet. His lifeless fingers suddenly clasped in relative agitation, Symeon walked a few paces to Her Imperial Majesty’s carriage and tapped the window. The door opened slightly and Symeon stuck his head in. After a moment he walked back to the still speechless group of military men, his corpse-like composure restored. He said nothing.
The door to the Imperial carriage opened wide. Gilded wooden steps were placed in the dust, Leo dropped out in sparkling white silk, Theodore following with a gold-tasselled silk parasol he quickly opened. Michael Kalaphates leapt out, cinching the leather straps of a bright new bronze breastplate embossed with a rearing lion. Leo extended a hand into the carriage, and the pearl- and gold-studded red silk slipper of Zoe the purple-born reached for the great Roman road upon which she had travelled, for perhaps a hundred rowing-spells, without ever setting down her foot.