Moschus scrambled up the rope ladder and climbed over the heavy, gilt-and-red railing of the Imperial Trireme’s main deck. He strode right up to the Droungarios and in a lightning-quick movement was behind him; one powerful arm pinned the old man’s neck, and the other pressed a knife to his nose. ‘One movement and this blade will be in his brain!’ shouted Moschus to the four stunned aides. ‘Order your marines to hold their places!’ At the same time two dozen marines clambered out of hatches on the deck of the khelandia; some of them brandished liquid-fire grenades.
‘What did he offer you?’ the bulging-eyed Droungarios asked raspily.
‘I am to be the Droungarios of the Imperial Fleet,’ said Moschus.
‘I will give you my estates near Ancyra. Fifty villages,’ croaked the Droungarios.
‘I am a sailor,’ growled Moschus; suddenly he seemed truly enraged. ‘You might remember that. I saved your fleet and your command at Taranto. You gave me five pieces of gold. I am still waiting for the command of dhromons you promised me that day.’ Moschus jerked the old man off his feet. ‘We are finished negotiating. My men will burn this ship if you do not deliver the Orphanotrophus to me.’
Joannes’s voice exploded from the lofty stern-castle. ‘Droungarios, order your marines to kill him!’
The Droungarios’s throat gurgled as he quickly decided that the Orphanotrophus was not a man he was willing to die for; he had enlisted in this cause to aggrandise his land holdings, not sacrifice himself to some transient tyrant. ‘Will the Nobilissimus grant me a pardon?’ he said raspily, rolling his ancient eyes back at Moschus.
‘Nobilissimus!’ shouted Moschus. ‘Will you pardon the Droungarios if he yields up his passenger?’
‘Yes!’ shouted Constantine from the deck of the khelandia. He was surrounded by Moschus’s marines.
‘Order your marines!’ screamed Joannes. He came down the ladder with his arms akimbo, like a huge vulture descending to earth. His face was so dark with anger that it seemed like something viewed in the shadows at night. He waved his black wings at the marines. ‘I order you!’
‘The Droungarios of the Imperial Fleet commands these men, not the Orphanotrophus!’ shouted Moschus. The marines remained motionless.
‘I will destroy every man on this deck.’ Joannes stood near the main mast, and his voice carried without any apparent effort at projection, as if it were a pocket of cold, foul air that slowly seeped over the deck. The mysterious power of the black-frocked Orphanotrophus to bring fear among men brought silence like a sudden night. The hulls thumped together twice. Constantine’s chest burned and his breath strangled in his throat. ‘Kill him or you will all die in Neorion.’ The signal flags lifted in a faint breeze, and the ranks of the marines seemed to waver, their armour shimmering like a mirage. The gulls wheeled and cawed overhead.
‘Neorion.’ Constantine’s voice was a steady, calm tenor. ‘The Orphanotrophus will kill us all in the Neorion.’ With remarkable agility Constantine scrambled up the rope ladder to the deck of the Imperial Trireme. His voice rang out from the higher platform. ‘The Orphanotrophus says he has the power to kill us all!’ Constantine walked over to Joannes and set himself a fathom away from his brother. They were the same man viewed in a strange, distorting mirror: the one eunuch black-frocked, his face carved by some demon into grotesque hollows, his immense limbs and swollen joints projecting at angles like the legs of a monstrous insect; the other purple-robed, his beardless features haggard from a night of desperate solicitations and arrangements, his still fleshy chin set hard with purpose, his heavy chest heaving gently.
Joannes’s eyes fired from deep within their recessed sockets. ‘You are prolonging your death, Brother.’
‘He will kill us all in the Neorion!’ repeated Constantine. ‘So then, mighty Orphanotrophus, kill me now!’ Constantine’s robes swished, and he stepped forward with his right foot and raised his thick, fleshy hands in a pugilist’s stance. ‘Take me now, all-powerful Orphanotrophus! I have no weapon, Brother!’ Constantine’s face burned with anger and he gritted his teeth against the pain in his chest.
Joannes seemed to rise up off his feet, his entire form swelling like a preening bird of prey. He lurched forward and Constantine cringed reflexively. And almost in the same instant, Constantine’s arm shot out. His balled fist smacked into Joannes’s brutish nose with a crack and a deep thud.
Joannes slowly brought a huge paw to his gushing nose and dabbed incredulously. He studied the rich, red slick on his spatulate fingertips. The man who had drained the blood of thousands in Neorion seemed astonished to find that the same mortal stuff flowed in his veins. He leaned over and numbly watched the spurting blood dribble onto the white enamel deck. Then he crouched, slowly, almost as if he were trying to capture a butterfly. He knelt, dipped a forefinger in his spattered blood, and began to draw perfect concentric circles on the deck, pausing only to dip his finger again and again, as if it were the quill of a pen.
The wind came up and gusted. Joannes’s black frock flapped round his jutting limbs; it was as if only a wooden armature remained, where moments before there had been a man’s body. He continued to make perfect circles with his own blood. ‘None of them could ever see how long it would have lasted.’ His voice was a rasping, strangled whisper. ‘Except Michael. Michael would have made me complete. They took him. Now they are going to take me, my friends, and you will have no one left.’ Joannes smeared his circles with an angry motion of his vast, square palm and turned to Constantine. His sockets were alive with that strange silvery movement, the dance of thousands of tiny wraiths. He crawled on his knees and put his arms around Constantine’s legs and embraced them like a desperate child. He nuzzled his monstrous head against Constantine’s thigh. ‘I am so tired. Someone help me. I am so tired.’
Constantine reached into his cloak. ‘I have here an Imperial Chrysobull charging this man with treason,’ he said quietly, as if afraid to wake the child at his feet. ‘Arrest the Orphanotrophus.’ He held up the gold-sealed purple document, and marines moved forward to execute his command. Joannes did not resist when the marines peeled his arms from his brother’s legs and shackled him. His eyes were completely alive now, seemingly separate organisms.
Constantine turned to Moschus. ‘Droungarios Moschus, in the name of Michael, Emperor, Autocrator and Basileus of Rome, I order you to transport your prisoner to his place of permanent exile at the Monastery of Monobate.’
Moschus nodded. ‘You are certain?’ he asked matter-of-factly. ‘We could with no difficulty drop him overboard on the way.’
Constantine’s eyes were dark, wicked, as if the evil that had fled Joannes’s defeated soul had found this new home. ‘No. This is the one punishment he fears more than death. He went mad in the monastery when he was a boy. They had to send him home for a time. He was only fourteen years old.’
The entire drama had been clearly visible from the roof of the Gynaeceum. Michael had said nothing and registered no emotion, even when it had appeared that Constantine had clearly defected to Joannes. Now, as the two ships moved apart and dipped their oars back into the water, Michael only breathed steadily and shallowly, almost like a man in a brief doze. His dark eyes watched as Moschus’s khelandia moved away quickly to the south. The still, black figure of Joannes stood like a charred statue at the stern.
The purple robes of the Nobilissimus coruscated in the sun as he stood in the bow of the Imperial Trireme. The huge ship almost immediately veered left and prepared to dock. Constantine looked up at the palace and waved, though it wasn’t certain he knew where his nephew actually was. Michael waved back. Then the Emperor lifted his head to the sun and quickly brought his hand up to shield his dazzled eyes.