Haraldr followed, sliding on his belly for a dozen ells. The crawlspace opened into another mazelike gallery. Eventually they halted at a banded iron door; after some difficulty with the lock Mar finally pushed the creaking door ajar. A large vaulted gallery led to a waist-high stone railing. Mar leaped over the barricade.
The night seemed almost lustrous; a whipping cold wind pushed the clouds towards the south-east and revealed a diamond-studded sky. The Hippodrome was completely darkened, but the towering obelisks and columns that ran the length of the central spina were sharply defined against the uncountable rows of seats; along the portico that crowned the enormous sweep of the stadium, hundreds of statues stood as silent witnesses.
Mar trotted across the firm sand to another arch barricaded by a stone railing. This gallery ended in a staircase that dropped two storeys. Music and voices rose up as the Norsemen descended. An ancient crone waited on the landing at the bottom of the stairs. She turned quickly. ‘A divination,’ she crowed. ‘I’ll divine the both of you for a single coin.’ She appraised the two giants with rheumy, sporadically focusing eyes, and smacked her toothless lips. ‘When I was a beauty, I took on two like you whenever I wanted.’ She tilted her head back and cawed. ‘You paid, and you came back the next night! Both of you did!’ The crone crawled forward on her knees. ‘Don’t I know you, gentlemen? Indeed! Indeed! Fair-hairs. The Bulgar-Slayer’s boys. You’ve got gold, that I know. The Bulgar- Slayer gave you each a coin for every nose you brought him. Butcher boys.’ She crawled closer, her eyes suddenly acute. ‘I’ll divine you the time, my fair butcher boys. Then take her! The whore’s yours; she’ll spread her legs and take on every one.’ The crone punched her tiny, nutlike fist obscenely. ‘I know you boys.’ Her head slumped and she muttered something incomprehensible. Mar dropped a coin at her feet.
Beneath the southern end of the Hippodrome unfolded a tawdry, haphazard maze of stables, hovels, inns, brothels and small tenements, all lit by so many flaring tapers that the smoke hung over the district like a local fog. Wherever a street was visible amid the densely packed buildings, people were visible coursing and clamouring along; little figures could also be seen perched in windows and balconies. ‘The Empress City has many faces,’ said Mar. ‘You will find this one interesting.’
Mar followed a main street that zigged and zagged. Men in short tunics, some carrying sacks of feed on their backs, others driving donkey carts, zipped across at the intersections, heading down dusty side roads towards the Hippodrome stables. A cart with two huge, striped cats caged inside rolled past, followed by dozens of filthy, barefoot children who ran along singing a song. Beside an intersection a woman stood on her hands; her tunic had fallen away to leave her lower limbs completely exposed. A man threw a coin to the pavement beneath her head, and she spread her legs open. The various fortune-tellers were everywhere, sitting on carpets or sheltered beneath painted booths. A diviner, an old man with greasy silver hair, beckoned to them from one side of the street; a palmist, young, with beautiful black hair and a big scar that parted her chin, waved from the other, ‘Hetairarch!’ she yelled; Mar nodded and walked on. A noseless man ran past them, a small costumed dog under his arm.
Mar turned left. A dwarf directed singing by three pretty, sad girls in clean white tunics; a large crowd joined in choruses and coins showered onto the filthy street before the poignant little songbirds. After a right turn the street ended against a cluster of wooden buildings wedged round a tenement with a crumbling, vine-laced facade. ‘Big man, big, big man . . .’ The coarsely seductive woman’s voice came from a shallow porch in front of one of the wooden buildings. Mar ignored the disembodied invitation and slipped into an alley next to the brick tenement. Finally they stopped at a thick wooden door at the rear of a large, newly plastered, three-storey building. A viewing grate in the door slid aside at Mar’s knock. The door opened. Inside was a storeroom that smelled of sharp fish sauce and flour. Another door and they were into the light.
‘Hetairarch!’ A short, bald man in a sparkling blue silk tunic clasped Mar’s arms. His crooked teeth flashed in an open smile. He had a clipped, dark, wiry beard. ‘Welcome! Welcome!’
Mar turned to Haraldr. ‘This is Anatellon the charioteer. He won seven races in the Hippodrome. The Emperor Constantine had a bronze bust made of him.’
‘Of course the Emperor also made a full-size bronze statue of my best horse!’ said Anatellon. He threw his arms wide and emitted a curiously high-pitched giggle. He looked at Haraldr. ‘And you need no introduction, Har-eld, Slayer of Saracens and Seljuks, and now Manglavite of Rome.’ Anatellon extended his arms; his forearms were as thick as the forelegs of an elk and so hard that they seemed carved of marble. After clasping Haraldr’s arms, Anatellon suddenly raised his hands over his head. ‘So you hacked him right in two!’ he exclaimed, bringing his arms down in a huge motion. He giggled. ‘I like that!’
Haraldr looked around. They stood in a bright antechamber next to a heavy wooden spiral staircase. Whirling music and frivolous voices came from a larger room beyond; Haraldr could see only glimpses of bright silk through a wooden screen carved with intricate leafy patterns. Anatellon led the two Norsemen up the staircase to a dimly lit hallway punctuated with curtained openings every half dozen ells. A woman went past them like a wraith, her face as lovely and pale as a porcelain mask, her white limbs and large breasts seeming to fluoresce beneath a gauzy robe. Her glistening dark hair was coiled in the fashion of the court and sprinkled with gems. ‘She’s an Alan,’ whispered Anatellon to his guests. ‘Too good for this place. I won’t give her to just anyone, even if they can meet the price. I’ve already got a few highly placed gentlemen who want to take her into the palace and make a lady of her.’ He winked at Haraldr. ‘You could afford her.’
The hallway ended at bronze double doors chased with images of four rearing horses. The doors slid open and a young eunuch with a sweet, cherubic face bowed. The principal furnishing of the room was a large canopied bed. Anatellon gestured to three silk-cushioned backless chairs with thick ivory armrests. The eunuch quickly brought wine; he served the glass goblets with overly elaborate gestures, an unintended parody of the polished elegance of the Imperial Chamberlains. Mar motioned with his head at the eunuch, and Anatellon nodded. The boy left the room and slid the doors shut behind him.
‘I haven’t told the Manglavite Haraldr any of the details because I wanted to hear the story myself,’ said Mar to Anatellon. ‘What, exactly, did you see?’
Anatellon bent forward and tensed his bulging forearms. ‘Three nights ago a man came to my establishment and sat downstairs. I recognized him immediately as Nicetas Gabras--’
‘What?’ blurted Haraldr. ‘Not my chamberlain, Nicetas Gabras?’
‘Believe me, Manglavite, it would be most unhealthy for a man in my business not to know the faces of men owned by the Orphanotrophus Joannes.’ Mar nodded, apparently vouching for Anatellon’s reliability. ‘Anyway, I made it my business to keep a sharp eye on Gabras. To no end, it seemed. He drank a few cups, then called for a girl. He wasn’t with her more than a quarter of an hour. Then he left, but as he walked out he passed a man who had been sitting by himself all night, the kind who find melancholy at the bottom of a cup. Anyway, I was watching Gabras very closely, and as he passed this man he held his right arm by his side like this’ -Anatellon let his arm fall straight to the floor – ‘and showed three fingers like this. A gesture you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for something. Anyway, Gabras leaves, and this fellow stays and drinks for another two hours, perhaps. Then he calls for the same girl Gabras was with and, well, you should hear it from her.’