“I visited five,” I said.
“And they could do nothing for you,” he said, “except mock your misfortune.”
I didn’t know what answer to give, so I remained silent. We reached the end of the stream.
“Have you heard the stories about the monk Theodosios?”
I nodded. Everyone had.
“Let me tell you another,” the emperor said as we crossed a footbridge and started walking up the other side. “The emperor Maurice had a son named Theodosios. He was slaughtered by Phocas alongside his father, but because his head was not sent back to the city, some claim he escaped and fled to the Persians for safety.” The emperor paused for a moment. He glanced up at the ceiling, to the eyes of God. Then he continued. “That story belongs to the past, and yet only a week ago one of my spies brought me a troubling report. In both Aleppo and Antioch he heard a rumor that Maurice’s Theodosios and this monk are the same, and that this monk has a claim to the throne as the rightful heir.”
The emperor squeezed my arm, nudged me ever so slightly toward the briars.
“It is a foolish rumor, and yet it disturbs my sleep.”
“But, Emperor, surely no one would—”
At a look from Heraclius I quieted. He was at the height of his glory. He had crushed the Persian king Chosroes, regained the eastern provinces, restored the True Cross to Jerusalem, and ordered the golden saddle of the general Shahrbaraz beaten into coins for the poor. It was said that he had saved the empire, and now it would last a thousand more years. Meanwhile, Theodosios was the object of vague stories that had only recently spread to the city. He was a monk at the Monastery of the Five Holy Martyrs, in the desert between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, and was said to be a master ascetic and to have seen visions of the Holy Mother denouncing the Monophysites. He never stirred from his monastery, and as yet only a few pilgrims from Constantinople had reported seeing him — and they never spoke of the encounter except in the most general terms. The bronze likenesses of his head that merchants sold in the Mese were each unlike the other, because no one knew what he looked like, and his fame paled when compared to that of Father Eustachios, who lived at Mount Athos and allegedly spoke with the angels, or that of Severus, an Egyptian who was walking on his knees from Alexandria to our city and stopping only to deliver homilies.
What, I thought, could Heraclius fear from such a man? But then one need only consider his three predecessors, whose fates I’d studied as a child: Tiberius Constantine poisoned, Maurice made to watch the slaughter of his family before being slaughtered himself, and Phocas hanged then burned in the Bronze Bull. It seemed Heraclius had learned that most vital lesson of ruling: for an emperor, natural death is rare. All it takes is for the people to be disappointed — for the corn boats from Alexandria to sink, for the Avars to make unexpected advances on the frontier — and with a single riot, the Christ-Faithful emperor, Autocrat of all the Romans, can fall. The people only need a candidate to replace him, a candidate much like this monk Theodosios.
“You have led an aimless life,” the emperor said once he saw I understood. “A life without meaning, unworthy of your father. I offer you a chance to honor him and to serve the empire. I have need of a man with no fear of holy men, a man not known as one of my spies or assassins, a man who yearns for the glory of which he has been deprived.” I felt his fingers clench my arm. “I believe I have found this man,” he said.
His words sank like a stone weight. But there was no time for consideration. “You have, Emperor,” I said.
At that he guided me from the thorns. “I will not forget your service,” he said, then touched one of the carnelian berries. The door in the wall opened.
The eunuch was waiting for me. He rushed me back through the narrow passage and whispered hurriedly in my ear. “Do not kill him,” he said. “The emperor is superstitious and will not allow the death of a monk. You are to geld him, for a eunuch can never hope to be emperor.” He flashed me a grim smile, then handed me a knife and a leather purse filled with coins. “You will bring back the fruits of your gelding in the purse. For this the emperor will reward you with rank and gold.” We reached the courtyard just as he finished. Once there, he gave me a shove toward the waiting litter, then disappeared behind the crates. One of the slaves was holding open the litter’s curtain; I signed for him to wait. The elephant I had seen when I arrived was now enraged. A gold cover had been set on one of his tusks, but the elephant had crushed the other cover with his foot and, to the delight of the crowd, was now rising on his hind legs and trumpeting as his caretakers scrambled to tame him. It was a rare spectacle, and even in my state I thought it worth a moment’s pause.
WHEN I TOLD MY MOTHER the emperor had trusted me with a commission, she fell to her knees and kissed my hem, swearing she would pray each day in the Church of the Holy Wisdom for my success. I fled to my chamber and prepared to leave. I saw no reason to wait. Rather, I was eager to have the thing done. Rattled from my meeting with Heraclius, I seemed unable to loose the tangle of thoughts that had taken possession of me since our stroll in the Golden Meadow. There was insult: this was an executioner’s task, the kind you hire a wretch from the streets to accomplish. And there was fear: where would I begin, how would I bring myself to castrate a man? But twisted among these, growing like a summer vine, was pride. At last I could do something worthy, at last I could, in my way, serve the empire like my father. I sailed that very night, using the emperor’s gold to buy passage on a Cretan trader, and all during the voyage I stayed in my cabin and practiced. I wrestled with a sack of grain, cut at slabs of meat with the knife. As the ship rocked and the sack lurched, I trained myself to pin it with my lame hand.
My regimen was not perfect, but by the time I landed at Caesarea I felt I had become, if not expert, adequate to the emperor’s task. I purchased three donkeys and spent the day loading them with provisions, then joined a caravan for Jerusalem. Once we reached the city, still in ruins from the Persian occupation, I stopped only to take a meal. Let it be finished, I thought, and that night I hired a guide and set out for the desert.
I ARRIVED AT THE Monastery of the Five Holy Martyrs at noon the next day. The monastery, a collection of paths and caves and small stone buildings, lay scattered along the side of a dry ravine, and as soon as I rounded the last bend, a monk came running down from its tower. He intercepted me and introduced himself as Brother Sergios. He was young, just out of boyhood — his blond eyes and smooth skin would have caused a stir in the baths — and it was his task, he told me, to aid visitors.
“Where do you come from?” he asked, turning around and walking backward to face me. He had taken the donkeys in hand and was leading me toward the guesthouse, which stood, beneath the rest of the monastery, on a ledge overlooking the ravine’s dry bottom.
“Constantinople,” I answered.
“The capital,” he said, releasing the two words with a wondered hush. “We don’t get many visitors from the capital. The higoumen says it is a pit of devils.”
“That may well be so,” I said. Brother Sergios laughed, then tied up the donkeys and showed me into the guesthouse. I had to stifle my revulsion. The guesthouse was a long, low edifice of stone and mud. In its one large room men slept like hogs, one against the other, while others talked as they ate a sorrowful-looking gruel and played a game with stone pegs. Brother Sergios told me they were a party of farmers, come to pray for their crops, and that the others included a rug merchant and his daughter from Jericho — come to be near Theodosios — and two water sellers from Bethel, who were waiting for one of the monks, a Brother Alexander, to settle a dispute between them.