The Emperor pressed his hands into his eyes. ‘I bear the mark,’ he whispered, his horror barely audible.
Symeon torturously bent his withered, arthritic legs and dropped to his knees beside his Emperor. ‘Though your sins are scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they are dyed crimson, they may yet be like new wool.’ He finished in a low, wondrous tone.
Tzintzuluces gave silent praise to the Pantocrator for the wisdom of the stylite. ‘The sight of a woman is like the venom affixed to a poison arrow,’ he whispered to the Emperor. ‘The longer the venomed barb remains in the flesh, the greater the infection of the corruption it carries.’
Symeon’s voice rose again, a booming concert to Tzintzuluces’s note of caution. ‘And the angel of retribution sayeth this of the whore of Babylon, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication. “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her plagues. For her sins are piled high as Heaven, and God has not forgotten her deeds. Pay her back in her own coin, repay her twice over for her deeds!” ‘
Tzintzuluces realized that with the help of the thrice-blessed Symeon he had now found a voice of his own, a wonderful palliative for his Imperial novitiate’s terrible distress. ‘If your right eye is your undoing,’ he intoned richly, ‘tear it out and fling it away; it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for the whole of it to be thrown into Hell. If your right hand is your undoing, cut it off and fling it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for the whole of it to be cast into perdition!’
‘You have fornicated with the harlot clothed in purple and scarlet!’ boomed Symeon. ‘Now heed the warning of Jehovah’s messenger and come out of her!’
‘Cast the woman out!’ thundered Tzintzuluces in a voice he had scarcely known he commanded. ‘Let not even the sight of her poison your immortal soul.’
‘Cast the woman out!’ David the dendrite added his chorus to his colleagues’ ringing admonitions.
To the Lord of the Entire World, the Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of the Romans, even the massive brick walls of the holy crypt seemed to tremble with the echoes of the righteous yet ultimately merciful wrath of the Pantocrator. ‘Cast the woman out,’ the Emperor said weakly, his agreement lost amid the clamouring oaths of the Holy Men.
Nicetas Gabras lifted the lid of the exquisitely granulated gold box and studied the seal on the rolled parchment tucked inside. ‘No,’ he said. He opened the second box, this of silver chased with what appeared to be, from Haraldr’s vantage (seated behind his writing table) a hunt scene. ‘No,’ Gabras pronounced even more emphatically. The last box was blue enamel with red floral patterns. ‘No!’ Eustratius, Haraldr’s newly appointed chamberlain, turned to his master. He almost imperceptibly raised the silver tray that held the three boxes and bowed slightly. Haraldr looked at Gabras and raised his unscarred right eyebrow. Gabras ran the tip of his tongue very quickly between his lips and pulled reflexively at each long, silver-hemmed, silken sleeve of his tunic, as if he weren’t certain that the garment fitted properly. ‘The eidikos, rank disputor,’ said Gabras briskly. ‘Actuarius, rank protostrator. A vestitore. None of them men of immediate consequence. I will defer indefinitely their urgent requests for interviews with the Manglavite Haraldr Nordbrikt.’
Haraldr nodded at Gregory to indicate that he understood the Greek. Then he nodded at Gabras, who tipped his bulbous head, draped with long thin blond hair, at the chamberlain Eustratius; the willowy eunuch turned and walked out the door with curious, toe-bouncing strides. Haraldr dully praised Odin and Christ for the endless distractions of his new office, household and fame, an opiate of details that were meaningful only because they momentarily contained the pain and fear. He focused on the words, the bewildering ‘Roman system of titles and dignities’. Eidikos, disputor, actuarias, vestitore, eidikos, disputor, actuarias. . . . The words rattled over and over again in his head like an absurd ditty, briefly confusing the only thought he really had had for ten days now.
She had used him, of course, to an end so hideous that the memory of the words still froze his flesh to his bones: sever the head of the Imperial Eagle. He had fled from her bed like a man fleeing a demon in a dream, hoping that as much as his night with her had been an incorporeal vision, so, too, would its nightmare conclusion. He had not seen either Maria or the Empress in the week and a half since they had tried to make him the agent of their treason; mercifully protocol had shielded him on the road, and since the arrival of the Empress’s huge caravan in Constantinople, neither woman had left the Imperial Gynaeceum. But what madness had kept him from going to Joannes as soon as he had returned? The intent of the two Valkyrja had been clear enough: the head of the Imperial Eagle was the Emperor, and how many times had Haraldr heard it implied that this Empress had already murdered one husband, as well as the rumours that she had been neglected by her new spouse? And yet he had been unable to accuse the Empress of such a conspiracy, much less sentence Maria to the inevitable ‘interrogation’ in Neorion. Now it was quite likely that the plot had been uncovered – why else would the Emperor have been absent on his wife’s return, and why were the two women virtual prisoners in their own apartments? And how soon would it be before the two silk-sheathed Valkyrja implicated him with the length of time he had concealed their terrible intentions? He had been mad to spare Maria, even for a moment, even after an eternity of her seduction. When the Emperor returned, Haraldr could only throw himself before the mercy of his Father and beg that his pledge-men be spared. But she had doomed him. And she had known that when she had led his soul into the depths. The pain of her betrayal was almost suffocating. Every word, every thought, was a struggle.
‘Manglavite,’ said Gabras; he looked anxiously at the large bronze water clock near Haraldr’s writing table. ‘Might I suggest that Eustratius inform your groom that one of your horses be saddled? You have a meeting at the third hour, in the palace, with the Grand Eunuch. Do you have a preference as to the horse, or perhaps merely the colour? And would you--’
A shout came from downstairs. Gabras turned towards the door and pursed his lips in alarm. Surely the servants aren’t quarrelling, thought Haraldr distantly; Gabras has already got them working together as smoothly as the gears of this water clock. The shouts ascended the stairs and became an angry chorus, then a moment later crescendoed. In a blur of colours and cacophony of rattling armour, a lean, ruddy-faced blond in the full gold-and-red ceremonial regalia of the Grand Hetairia lurched into Haraldr’s office; he shook off Eustratius and two of his eunuch assistants like a wrathful bear shedding hunting dogs. Gabras’s scarcely whiskered little chin dropped. Haraldr rose to his feet, stunned, uncertain whether to defend himself or to submit meekly to this emissary of the Emperor’s justice.
‘Manglavite Haraldr,’ said the Norseman apologetically. He made no effort to advance; instead he threw back his red satin cape and smoothed it behind his leather-kilted hips. His next words were in Norse with a slightly rustic Icelandic inflection, but with the perfect diction of a man who could read and write the runes as well as a skald. ‘I am Thorvald Ostenson, Centurion of the Grand Hetairia. I beg you not to regard the manner of my coming before you as an insult. I petitioned to see you in the accepted fashion, and your servant’ – he gestured at Eustratius, who still glared at the Norseman with small black eyes – ‘simply placed my request with all the rest, even though I assured him that life and death were at stake in this matter.’ Ostenson held out a small rolled and sealed document. ‘The Hetairarch Mar Hunrodarson asked me to make certain that you have read and destroyed this message.’