The wind rattled in the Squirrel’s ears as he took off across the garden. If he could reach the forest around St Irene, the smaller church to the north of the Hagia Sophia, he could leap the wall and get lost among the warehouses behind the naval yards. Fear pumped his legs frantically as he dashed through a blur of winter-grey foliage; he did not look back until he saw the churchyard wall north of St Irene. Damn his soul! The barbaros was still after him, gaining with every freakish stride. The Squirrel bounded, body stretching, fingers clawing. His powerful, deft hands pulled and propelled his compact body over the wall.
The ground dropped away behind the wall and the Squirrel fell farther than he had imagined he would. No! Something snapped, and the pain made him shiver. He got to his feet and scrambled away from the rubble-strewn base of the wall towards the huge brick bulk of the nearest warehouse; it was only twenty paces away but each step was excruciating. If only he could find a door, a passageway. He looked back. The barbaros came down from the wall like a great cat. Oh, Theotokos, plead for me, for I never even knew the comfort of an orphanage, and I did. what I had to do, only stealing enough to eat and perhaps to have some minor luxuries, and though I have fornicated, I have never, I beseech thee, never taken another life, oh, Theotokos!
The Squirrel saw the small door, barely visible at the end of the building’s east side. He forced himself to run, and ducked into the welcome darkness. The smell of mould added nausea to the knifing pain in his ankle. Sacks were stacked everywhere, musty burlap covered with dust. He crawled, quickly burrowing into a tumbled-down pile. Something kicked him in the face, and dust came into his eyes. Boots. Bags of campaign boots for some great army that had never been assembled. Then the Squirrel heard someone enter the warehouse and he winced, holding his breath. The footsteps meandered, pausing to kick at the sacks. He heard an entire stack topple, then another. Closer. Another stack tumbled down and the dust was suffocating. Theotokos! The dust! The Squirrel’s ribs smashed against his guts and he saw brilliant sparks.
The Squirrel flew to his feet as if the hand of the Devil himself had jerked him up. The dust began to settle. The face of the barbaros came out of the gloom. Fortune’s scowl, the Squirrel told himself, finding irony in defeat. The devil’s blue eyes. The Hetairarch himself had run him down. This could be a painful death, the Squirrel ruefully considered.
‘What did you see?’ barked the fair-haired beast in perfect Greek.
‘See? Hetairarch, I am but a miserable thief who--’
The Hetairarch’s knife blocked the vision of the Squirrel’s left eye. ‘If your eyes are that useless, then I am certain you won’t mind losing them,’ whispered the Norse giant.
‘Well, worship, I … if I might presume in the presence of an eminence so overawing that I--’
‘What did you see, rabbit turd?’
‘I … ah … I believe someone has poisoned our Holy Father, has endeavoured to snatch the very sun from our skies and leave us bereft in a darkness that--’
‘Bite your tongue and listen, wharf rat.’
‘Certainly, worship.’
‘His Imperial Majesty is ill. More than ill. He is plagued by demons who drive the reason from him and will soon snatch away his life. Perhaps it is a punishment from the Pantocrator.’ The Hetairarch paused. ‘Do you know that our Emperor seduced your Mother?’
The Squirrel quickly crossed himself. There was only one woman in creation worthy of his respect, indeed his love. His purple-born Mother. ‘I have heard that, worship,’ whispered the Squirrel in a husky, truly humbled voice.
‘Where do you live?’
‘Studion.’
‘A long walk. Is your ankle broken?’
The Squirrel could scarcely believe his ears. Would a man who was about to slice his nose off and gouge his eyes out worry if he had far to walk? ‘I think it is broken, eminence.’
‘How much did you steal?’
The Squirrel pulled the purse out of his tunic and handed it to the Hetairarch. Mar hefted the purse and then pushed the man down on the pile of boots. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘Within ten minutes a man will come and bring you the donkey you are about to purchase.’ Mar reached in the purse and extracted a gold coin. ‘You will ride your new ass back to Studion as triumphantly as your Christ entering Jerusalem.’ Mar tossed the purse, the remainder of the coins untouched, back to the Squirrel. ‘When you get there, go to your inn. Buy anyone who will listen a cup of wine. And tell them what you saw today, just as I explained it to you. Need I tell you that my own name is not to be mentioned?’
‘Worship, you outdo fortune in the beneficence your unimaginably august and noble presence is capable of bestowing to those who are given life by the merest reflected ray of your shining being . . .’ The Squirrel trailed off. The Hetairarch had disappeared through a doorway like the Archangel ascending back among the heavenly host. Theotokos. Theotokos.
The Squirrel clutched the stolen purse as if it contained his miraculously redeemed life. Good information, he happily told himself. There is no limit to the value of good information.
‘What did you tell Gabras?’ asked Mar.
‘That you would be drilling me on the night postings around the Chrysotriklinos and Trichonchos,’ answered Haraldr.
‘Good. You are starting to think like a Roman. Now, if he is told – and I am certain he will be – if he is told that we were seen together, he will think nothing of it.’
Haraldr looked down from the terraced slopes that rose towards the massive, colonnaded flank of the Hippodrome. The lights of the vast palace complex glimmered below; the reflections off the variegated marble turned the intricate architectural tracery into a dazzling, multicoloured blaze. It was impossibly lovely. And impossibly painful to think that Maria slept there; he could see distinctly the brightly illuminated porticoes of the Gynaeceum, the Imperial women’s quarters. He could feel her breathing beside him like the faintest breeze, her slightly damp warmth. It hurt him more to think that she might have used him in a just cause; it was easier to imagine her as devoid of any redeeming virtue. With some perverse hope he wished that Mar’s ‘proof’ of Joannes’s conspiracy would turn out to be as counterfeit as her love. Then he would give Mar a last battle that would awaken every old god who slumbered in this city, and die cursing her for her treachery.
‘I could drink this view until the last dragon takes wing,’ said Mar, his eyes rapt at the shimmering nocturnal mosaic. ‘And yet here you must always be wary that you do not become intoxicated by this beauty.’ Mar shook his head. ‘Do you know the lays of Homer and the other tales of the Trojan War?’ Haraldr nodded. ‘Helen. I think of her at these times. Too much beauty. When there is too much beauty, men will do anything to possess it, to feel that she writhes in their arms alone. Sometimes I think that is true of this city and the glory it can offer men.’ He looked over at Haraldr. ‘Were you thinking of Maria?’
‘I … yes.’
‘You have loved the stars. I envy you. And I pity you.’ Mar clapped Haraldr on the back. ‘We must go.’
The garden, with its neat rows of shrubs pruned back for the winter and its fountains stilled, ended beneath the Triclinium, a little-used ceremonial hall abutting the Hippodrome. Haraldr followed Mar through the main hall, a space so enormous that Mar’s sputtering oil lamp could not illuminate the walls or ceiling. The two Norsemen’s footsteps echoed eerily, as if they were giants overwhelmed by the dwelling of even greater Titans. Finally the embossed eagles on the bronze doors flickered and materialized; Mar took a key from his belt and unlocked them. They entered a gallery that abruptly narrowed into a passageway only large enough for three men abreast. Then another much smaller bronze door. The gallery turned this way and that. More doors, clanging like thunder in the dark, narrow passages. Up steps. Down. Finally they reached a large circular chamber. A marble-balustraded spiral staircase rose into the darkness. ‘The Emperor’s box is above,’ said Mar, gesturing with the lamp. Mar turned towards the wall. The smooth plaster curve was frescoed with floral patterns; the squarish wooden panel hidden by twining painted vines was impossible to discern until Mar slid it aside and crawled through the opening.