Michael fell back into his faint, and this time the Imperial Diadem clinked against the marble floor and almost slipped off his head.
‘You are certain the Empress could not be persuaded?’
Maria stood with her arms folded, her face pale and her eyes red but her posture resolute. She had just returned from an urgent interview with the Empress Zoe. ‘You of all people should understand why she cannot abandon her people to Joannes. Even at the cost of her life.’
Haraldr nodded. ‘My brother died to preserve the honour of Norway’s kings. I do not think his death was meaningless.’ He took Maria in his arms again. ‘I will remain and fight to protect you and the Empress. I will release my men from their pledges in that case, but their honour will almost certainly compel them to stay with me. We will give meat to the eagles in the east. And this, then, is where our bones will stay.’
Maria clutched so hard that Haraldr’s breath was constricted. ‘If you fall, I will not let them take me. I will put the dagger in my own breast. You know I am strong enough.’
‘Don’t make me think of that,’ said Haraldr. He caressed her hair and nuzzled her forehead.
‘I simply want you to know that I will not die in Neorion. I have promised myself, and I promise you.’ Maria’s hands were like powerful claws. ‘This is so abrupt,’ she said, suddenly relaxing, her voice breaking slightly. ‘But then, that is how dreams end.’
‘Our dreams have not ended. A dream is not truly ended until the dreamer dies. And who is to say we do not dream in the Valhol or in Paradise? Only the dragon of Nidafell can swallow all dreams.’
Maria blinked away her tears. ‘When this dragon flies, I will be content to surrender the memory of us. Until then, wherever my soul is--’ Maria broke down for a moment and pressed her wet face to his chest. ‘You must know what that memory is to me.’ She threw her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear, her cheek blazing against his. ‘These last months with you have been my life. All of it. To hold you in the dark, to see the light of morning in your eyes, this closeness we have shared … it has given life to a dead soul. Do you remember the Empress’s tale of Daphne, how she traded that moment in Apollo’s withering arms for an eternity of virginal repose? I would not trade our moment, however short it may be, for any kind of eternity.’
Haraldr held her as desperately as life and let his own tears answer the eloquence of her love. And in his heart he prayed to all the gods to deal with him as they would but mercifully to leave him not a single breath in a world without Maria.
‘What divine efflatus has been brought forth unto your coruscating resplendence by the offices of swift-footed Hermes, hence to your Olympios of fair-girded columns, O Zeus!’ The Senator and Proconsular Patrician Romanus Scylitzes flourished his arm at the black-frocked Orphanotrophus. Joannes was too pleased with the enormous outpouring of – if it was not love, then what was it? Yes, love that his constituents had displayed to him, to bother swatting away the otherwise unbearable Scylitzes.
Joannes had set up his court in the great hall of his country residence, a dwelling similar in Hellenic majesty to the palace he had so graciously lent to the former Caesar (soon to be former Emperor, he reminded himself). His throne was a massive ivory-and-gold dining chair; the concentric rings of dignitaries surrounding the throne were the same who yesterday had attended the Emperor. However, one of the dignitaries who might ordinarily have attended him was missing; having learned from his woeful experience with the Caesar, Joannes had banished the new Magister Constantine to a position of responsibility in the stables. Once this Constantine’s docility had been irrefutably established, he would be permitted to kick the horse dung from his boots and don the Imperial buskins.
The Orphanotrophus contemptuously ripped the gold seal from the purple-tinted document. ‘Our Emperor’s hand seems unsteady,’ said Joannes to the Logothete of the Dromus as he began to read the crimson script. ‘Touching sentiments indeed,’ said Joannes when he had finished his quick scan. ‘The boy has begged for his life.’ Joannes mused for a moment; the heavy reptilian lids of his eyes slipped shut. Scylitzes stood by anxiously; the attendant arcs of dignitaries were utterly silent. ‘The Nobilissimus Constantine, of course, will never achieve perfection. We will strive mightily on his behalf, we will labour over him unceasingly, and yet he will never become an object of our pleasure. We shall be forced to discard him. But the boy might be the culmination of my arts, the vehicle through which fair Calliope will articulate the concentric harmonies of the Roman universe. The boy will stand before the Heavenly Tribunal and proclaim in a voice that shall silence the cherubim that the thousand years of mankind’s perfection are at hand, and their name is Rome. And then our boy Emperor shall gratefully offer his soul to that millennium.’ Joannes’s eyes had been closed throughout this vision. He opened them and looked over at the Logothete and showed his repulsive teeth. The boy Emperor is sending a galley to transport me back to my palace. The thousand years begin.’
‘O Son of Kronos,’ spouted Scylitzes, ‘O Olympian who has with the unparagoned industry of an arm both cogent and omnipotent hurled forth the lightning of his imperium, unto the egregious usurper--’
‘Shut up, Scylitzes,’ growled the Logothete of the Dromus, his feral eyes sparking. ‘Orphanotrophus.’ Joannes nodded for the Logothete to speak. ‘Permit me to caution you. This galley the Emperor has so humbly dispatched may have a Ulysses at the tiller. I would suggest you order him to send a vessel under the command of an officer trusted by you. We have already requested the Droungarios of the Imperial Fleet to remain in Neorion Harbour should we have need of him. Since we clearly do not need to be concerned about a military challenge, I think a more immediate utility of the Droungarios would be to command this craft, along with a crew of his choosing. It would be a gesture of appropriate significance. The Imperial Galley under the command of your officers. And we would have no treachery to fear.’
‘Well noted, Logothete,’ said Joannes, his thoughts already on the Empress City. The black-frocked monk rose and turned his back on his glittering, aristocratic supplicants. ‘Please arrange the details with my secretary, to be forwarded with my acceptance of our Emperor’s gracious gesture. And now I must prepare myself to return to the inevitable and unrelenting duties of state.’ The assembled dignitaries erupted into spontaneous applause.
‘Accept the condition.’ Constantine stared up at the soaring dome of the Chrysotriklinos.
‘But, Uncle, this was our last opportunity. We had three well-trained men among the crew, any one of whom--’
‘Accept it. You are a sportsman, are you not?’ Michael nodded numbly. ‘Accept that the wager has been increased. Now, I have ordered the gates closed early this evening. There is no point in maintaining the charade of government. Compose your acceptance to the Orphanotrophus’s gracious conditions and then dismiss your secretaries and go to your baths. You must try to find some comfort and rest this evening. I am going to try to raise our own stake in this matter.’
‘Uncle . . .’
‘Continue to trust me, Nephew.’ Constantine patted Michael’s arm and stepped quickly away from the throne.
Rumour stalked the streets of the great city on a cool, windless night. Haraldr could hear the low, murmuring anxiety that drifted in the still air, and he awakened often to its fevered, wordless voices. For a long while he listened to Maria’s troubled, fitful breathing and wondered if she dreamed tonight, and what fate she knew. Towards dawn he was awakened by a rattling at the window. It was too insistent to be a bird. He kissed Maria’s shoulders and got up and opened the shutters. For a moment the face at the glass startled him. He peered into the gloom and recognized the white streak in the black hair: an ‘associate’ of the Blue Star’s son. With hand signals he directed the little man to come round to the front gate. He threw on a silk cloak and silently padded downstairs.