From behind, Kourikos called, "Wait!"
But Maniakes would not wait. "Gangway!" he shouted as he and his men neared the plaza of Palamas. For a moment after that, he glimpsed a sea of startled faces, all staring toward him. Then, with cries of alarm, people scattered every which way, some of them trampling others to keep the onrushing horses from trampling them.
He didn't think his mount ran over anyone. Horses didn't care to step on the soft, wiggling things people became when they fell to the ground. But from the screams that rose in back of him, some of the animals of his riders had been imperfectly careful about where they set their feet.
He had thundered out onto Middle Street before he realized he didn't know exactly where in the northwestern quadrant of the city the convent dedicated to the holy Phostina lay. He shouted the question back over his shoulder. "I can find it, your Majesty," one of his men said. "I grew up not far from there."
"Come forward, then," Maniakes said, and slowed his mare to let the city man take the lead. The mare snorted indignantly, as if asking him to make up his mind: first he'd called for more speed, so how dared he check her now? The animal complained again when he booted it in the ribs to make it keep up with the horse his guide was riding.
Once they swung north off Middle Street, the journey through the city became a nightmare for Maniakes. The streets were narrow and winding; he couldn't gallop full tilt no matter how much he wanted to. And if a mule-drawn wagon or donkey cart blocked the way, not all his curses or threats would clear the road for him until the driver could find a corner and turn.
At last he heard shouts of alarm and fury ahead that seemed to have nothing to do with the panic his own passage was causing. He muttered a quick prayer to Phos that they meant he was coming to the convent. A moment later, he burst out into the open space of a small square and found his prayer had been granted.
Blood splashed the cobbles of the square. A lot of the sailors he had sent were down, some dead, others thrashing with wounds. Others were down with them, men whose chainmail proclaimed them genuine soldiers. A good many more of them were trying to break into the convent dedicated to the holy Phostina.
They weren't having an easy time of it. Beneath the whitewash, the walls of the convent were solid stone, the windows mere slits too narrow to let a man through. The door was the only vulnerable point-and it didn't seem any too vulnerable, either.
Genesios' men here were all Videssians-they had no axe-wielding Halogai to make short work of the stout timbers. They had found a long, thick board to use as a ram, but, just as Maniakes rode into the square, the nuns poured a large tub of hot water down onto their attackers. The soldiers staggered back from the door, howling with pain.
"Yield or die!" Maniakes shouted at them and at the rest of the guardsmen trying to find other ways into the convent. The soldiers who had followed Genesios to-and past-the end stared in horrified dismay as cavalrymen, some with swords, some with light lances, but most with bows, filled the open space in front of the building.
A couple of Genesios' men stepped away from the convent and toward Maniakes and his followers with weapons still in hand. Bowstrings twanged. The guardsmen fell, screaming and twisting on the cobblestones. That was plenty to give their comrades the idea. Swords clattered as men threw them down.
Maniakes waved some of his soldiers forward to take charge of the prisoners. Glumly, they let their hands be tied behind their backs and filed off into captivity.
Maniakes rode closer to the convent wall-but not too close. To the nuns at the second-story window, he called, "I am Maniakes son of Maniakes, now Avtokrator of the Videssians. Genesios the tyrant is dead. May I approach and confer with your abbess without fear of being boiled like a capon in a holiday stew?"
The nuns disappeared from the window without answering. After a couple of minutes, another, older, woman appeared there. "I am Nikaia, abbess of the convent dedicated to the memory of the holy Phostina," she said, and Maniakes believed her at once: her voice held authority any general would have been glad to own. She looked him over from beneath the blue head-scarf that concealed her hair, then went on, "How may I serve you… your Majesty?" By the hesitation, she remained imperfectly convinced he was who he claimed to be.
He said, "I am told by the eminent Kourikos, logothete of the treasury, that you have taking refuge within your walls his wife and daughter. As you will probably know, I am betrothed to Niphone. Now that I am returned to Videssos the city, now that the eminent Kourikos has accompanied me here, I would have you tell the noble ladies they are free and safe to come forth into the world once more, should they so desire."
"We have no 'noble ladies' here, only those who serve the lord with the great and good mind," Nikaia answered sternly. "Wait there, if you will." As the nuns had before her, the abbess left the window. She returned in a little while with another nun and pointed out at Maniakes. He heard her ask, "Is that the man?"
Was that Niphone there? Maniakes stared up at the window as the nun stared down at him. She was young; he could see that much. But her head scarf robbed her of much of her individuality, and, he discovered, the picture of his fiancee he had carried in his mind these past six years of exile had faded over time. He remembered Niphone as having a long, rather thin face, with delicate features and large eyes. That could have been she at the window, but he would not have dared take oath on it.
Whoever the woman was, she seemed similarly troubled. She said, "Mistress, I believe that is the younger Maniakes, but-I have trouble being certain."
Her voice was not far from what Maniakes remembered Niphone's sounding like, yet again he could not be sure. He called her name. She waved and nodded. He waited for a great surge of love and affection to pour from his heart and warm him from head to toe. He had been waiting to see her again for six years, after all. The surge didn't quite come, or rather did come but wasn't nearly so large as he had expected. He carried on as if it had been, saying to Nikaia, "Holy abbess, I ask you again: will you release this woman and her mother from the vows they took more to protect themselves from Genesios' evil designs than to resign from the world forever? Not that they are not pious, of course," he added hastily.
Niphone retreated; Nikaia came forward. "I have seen their piety these past months, your Majesty," the abbess said, "and it is far from inconsiderable. But, in any case, I have not the power to release them from vows they took of their own free will. Here in Videssos the city, that power rests only in the hands of the most holy ecumenical patriarch Agathios. If he so orders, and if the women be willing, I shall in obedience let them come forth from my convent. Until that time, I reckon them nuns no different from any others."
Maniakes admired her courage and rectitude, however much of a nuisance he found them. If he tried to disregard the abbess' wishes and take Niphone from the convent dedicated to the holy Phostina without patriarchal leave, he had no doubt boiling water would come rain down on him. He told Nikaia, "I'll see the most holy Agathios, then." To Rhegorios, he said, "Leave a third of your men here, to make sure we have no more problems with diehards-oh, and send a rider back to the eminent Kourikos, so he knows his wife and daughter are safe and well. You and the rest of your men will come with me to the High Temple."
Though both the convent and the High Temple lay in the northern part of Videssos the city, the fastest way to go from one to the other was to drop back down to Middle Street, ride west along it to the avenue that led up to the chief shrine of the Videssian faith, and then travel north along that avenue.