Blachernae was a vacation home for the emperors and their families, a way to escape the City without leaving its safety. Built into the northwest corner of the Land Walls, it was more open and less cluttered than the Great Palace. Wide gardens and forests within Blachernae hinted at the wilderness that lay just over the massive double walls, while the pools, cisterns, and fountains hinted at the nearby sea.
The slaves inside Blachernae opened the gate and leaped out of the way just before Narses and his companions charged through. They rode at full gallop over the gravel paths to the stables, where they found many more horses than they were expecting—splendid, muscular coursers, caparisoned in purple and gold, their private attendants similarly attired.
“There are too many horses here for Erythro and her entourage,” Narses said to Axouch as they dismounted and tossed the reins to the lazing attendants. “These are senators’ horses.”
Axouch bowed. “Yes, aphéntēs.”
Narses and his companions walked at a brisk pace along an array of chapels and halls, stepping through courtyards lined with porticoes and past gorgeous fountains, the walls plated with gold, silver, and jewels.
A soft, perfumed, powdered Assyrian slave guided them, introducing himself as Yaghoub and babbling about what an honor it was to welcome the imperial presence to Blachernae for the first time—until Narses ordered him to be silent. He only reacted to this command by blinking his kohl-lined eyes.
“These palaces are always so massive it takes forever to get to wherever you want to be going,” Narses grumbled to his bodyguards as they stomped along the fifth loggia they had passed through.
At the top of the hill—after climbing zigzagging stairways that passed the usual decorative cypresses and gigantic stone pots full of blood-red roses whose green stems were serrated with thorns as sharp as razors—they found Erythro’s villa. This was a cubical structure of brick and marble several stories tall lined with windows, its ground floor decorated with elegant arches and pillars, with several sedan chairs and their carriers left out front. A nearby pergola was so packed with hanging purple wisteria that the scent was almost like an invisible wall that knocked over anyone who got too close. On the building’s far side, just past a fountain depicting a bronze cupid pissing a stream of water out of his little uncircumcised penis, Erythro reclined in a small marble amphitheater that overlooked the Golden Horn and the green lands of Galata beyond. All Konstantinopolis was visible here, descending past countless roads, buildings, and monuments to the Great Palace at the hooked peninsula’s tip. The Bosporos and Marmara could be seen as well as the cities of Chalkēdon and Chrysopolis, studding Asia like jewels.
Erythro looked at Narses. Her eyes flashed, and her lips parted. He stopped at the sight of her, having forgotten how beautiful she was. The last time he had seen her was in Hagia Sophia during Makrenos’s funeral.
She was all dressed in black, a heavy black robe covering her so you could barely see her. Only those searing gorgon’s eyes were visible, the ones that make all men who look upon her still as statues.
Erythro was still dressed in black here—the Day of Judgement would arrive before the mourning period for her father ended—but her black robe was thin and translucent, revealing her silk undergarments and much of her pale body, smooth and soft and full as the equinoctial moon in spring. Her bushy orange hair was impossible to restrain and bobbed with every movement of her head, and her blue eyes shone like the sky viewed from the tallest mountaintop, her cerulean irises hinting at the black void that lay beyond the atmosphere.
To think that I kissed this woman once, that I forced my tongue inside her mouth. Unbelievable.
Who was she? Where had this apparition come from? Her mother Ino had died years ago, and had possessed an impure lineage, Slavic on one side and Ethiopian on the other. Ino came from the House of Dalassenos, the mongrels. That explained her appearance. She was Narses’s half-sister, yet looked nothing like him. There was none of Nikephoros’s bull-like coarseness to her, either. Her mother must have slept with someone else—a beautiful, educated, and charming man—and convinced Nikephoros that the pregnancy was his. What was Erythro—her soul of fire as red as the Erythraean Sea—except the purest refinement of elegance, the anti-Nikephoros? An old book lay in her hands, the Fragments of Herakleitos.
Forbidden knowledge, Narses thought. Dangerous pagan nonsense.
Sadly, Erythro was far from alone. Several aristocratic women her own age sat with her, all of them lesser versions of Erythro—nowhere near as pretty or well-dressed. One had been scrawling what must have been poetry in a wax tablet, and when Narses and his companions walked in, she had been pressing the stylus to her lips, thinking up the next rhyme. Aristocratic men lounged about, each from the House of This or That. Most were on the older side, and drinking wine and nibbling from silver chargers piled with olives, feta, pickled artichokes, stuffed red peppers, walnuts, sliced cucumbers, and how many assorted meats. It was a glorious party on this perfect windy spring day, the warm sky like a nude pearl, the Golden Horn glimmering so beautifully you could cry. They were all celebrating something, laughing and chatting and having a good time. There was even an atsinganou musician strumming a lute with that rapid, open-handed style of theirs, singing the words “dance, dance, dance for me!” to the steady beat of two drums another atsinganou was slapping with his palms. The song was catchy; it was hard to resist the singer's demands.
Everything stopped when Narses entered. Everyone looked at him. He hesitated, and found himself bowing to Erythro like in the old days when he had been only a lowly palace excubitor. Why had he even come here?
Loneliness. And yet I can’t stand these people. They can’t stand me, either. I have no place among them.
“All hail Caesar!” someone shouted. The tone seemed serious, yet tinged with irony. Regardless, everyone put their glasses, books, and plates aside. They stood, then bowed on their faces, slave and senator alike. Narses was momentarily shocked that such wealthy and powerful people would treat him like this. Yet it was dangerous for the rich to show insubordination to an emperor.
A poor man, defying the emperor alone, can do little; but a rich man, doing the same, can sack him.
The rich and poor men and women bowed before Narses for just a beat too long before he realized that they were forbidden to get back up again until he ordered them to do so.
“Rise,” he said, smiling nervously. “Please return to your festivities. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
They climbed to their feet, bowed their heads, and did as he commanded, though they kept glancing his way. No one turned their backs to him. He approached Erythro and sat beside her, and her friends got up and mingled elsewhere as his bodyguards took up defensive positions around every possible entrance to the amphitheater, their eyes on the palace walls.
The Assyrian slave Yaghoub offered him wine and repast, even punning and rhyming—“a little anti-re-pasti for your majesty?”—but Narses shook his head and asked for water. Yaghoub then asked repeatedly if Narses would like a salad, but Narses ordered him to go away, at which point the slave looked at Erythro as if to say: this man is possessed.
“It’s a miracle,” Narses said to her. “Your sickness has vanished in a matter of moments.”
“I’m just sick of you,” Erythro said. Her tone was flat, as was her expression.
“A woman should know her proper place.” Narses thought he heard a couple of cracks of thunder in the distance—coming from the Bosporos, maybe—which was unusual on such a fine spring day, but he ignored them.
“What happened to my father?” she said. “What did you do to him?”
“Ah, yes,” Narses said. “We never got a chance to talk about it.”
“Doctor Donnolo said he’d never seen anything like it. Father was not so old. He should have had years or decades remaining to him. But he touched you, you touched him, and then he was lying on the floor. He was gone, just like that.” Tears came to her eyes. She wiped them away.
“His time had come,” Narses said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
“Don’t give me that nonsense. You did something to him.”
“Are you accusing the emperor of killing your father? That’s a serious accusation.”
“I can’t make that accusation, or else you’ll kill me, too.”
“I would never,” Narses said. “I would never let anyone harm you. I will kill anyone who touches you.”
“You swore a sacred oath in the sight of God to protect my father. Yet you didn’t even come to his funeral. Everyone knows what happened to him. No one trusts you.”
“Only fools trust anyone.”
Yaghoub brought Narses a bejeweled goblet filled with icewater, the ice inside having been shipped in special crates all the way from the snowcapped peak of Ararat. Narses sipped the water and gasped with pleasure.
“I came to discuss our wedding,” he said. “We should set a date.”
“What wedding?” Erythro said.
“Paul didn’t tell you?”
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“Tell me what?”
“You and me, we’re getting married.”
“No, we aren’t.”
“Yes, we are.”
She sighed. “It’s the first I’m hearing of this, Narses. And besides, you know it’s not proper for couples to discuss weddings on their own. Matchmakers and elder relatives are supposed to do the job.”
“Neither of us has elder relatives,” Narses said. “And what need do we have of matchmakers? We’re an excellent match. You’re the former emperor’s daughter, and I’m the emperor.”
“For now.”
Narses looked at her. “You have never taken this tone with me before.”
“You were my father’s favorite bodyguard. He promoted you to domestikos because he liked you so much. I was polite because I respected my father and recognized that you mattered to him. You mistook my politeness for flirtation.”
“You don’t need to be so direct…”
“Actually, I do.” Erythro stood. “I will never marry you, Narses, and if you even think of forcing me, I’ll kill myself. You can tie me up, set a guard on me all day, every day, but I’ll find a way. You killed my father. I’ll never be with you. And I never want to see you again. Get out of here—leave me alone!”
The music and festivities had stopped once more. Everyone was staring. Narses had no idea what to say. No one talked to him like this—no one except criminals. He was unused to such verbal defiance from someone so regal. Was Erythro with the enemy?
Something distracted him while he was staring at her, something moving in the distance. It was a ship—a dromon. Two masts, forty oars. This was a big one, sleek and fast, its rowers oaring at a rapid pace to a drummer with a good sense of rhythm, all working in tandem and well-trained, its huge sails so strained with wind they almost could have ripped the masts out of their sockets. It stood out from all the other vessels on the Bosporos.
The ship flew a red flag that was whipping in the gales. Which nation used a red flag? Rome used a red flag, but always with a yellow chi-rho. This flag was just plain red. Narses almost thought he recognized this ship. With a sinking feeling, he realized he had seen it before.
“It’s the Paralos,” he growled.
This was the ship Princess Herakleia and her creature Alexios Leandros had stolen from the Harbor of Eleutherios last summer, sinking another dromon—with an entire century aboard—on their way out. That was just after Narses had defeated the degenerate Dionysios, when Herakleia’s lackeys had sprung her from the palace dungeon.
Paul told me Trebizond was destroyed!
For some reason, the Paralos was now turning back toward the peninsula’s tip—toward the distant Great Palace. Narses stood and stared at it. Everyone else turned to see what he was looking at.
Silent smoke puffed from the ship’s bow, a lightning flash illuminating the world, and a black iron ball rose straight up into the air, growing larger, until Narses realized it was coming straight toward Blachernae.
They barely had time to dive for cover. The ball slammed into Erythro’s residence, shattering the brick, marble, and glass so that it fell crashing onto the cupid fountain, as well as Yaghoub—who, carrying a platter of dirty dishes, had been asking the elderly senator John Scholastikos—who couldn’t hear or remember anything, despite being immensely wealthy and powerful—if he would like a salad.
“Would you like a salad?” Yaghoub had asked. “Would you like a salad?”
“What?” Senator Scholastikos had said. “Where are we? What are we doing? What’s going on?”
Now Yaghoub dove away from the falling rubble, crying like a baby as his dishes smashed onto the ground. He had escaped. Senator Scholastikos was less fortunate; the rubble crushed him.
Damn, Narses thought. He was a reliable imperialist. Or at least his secretaries—who did all his paperwork and kept him alive so they wouldn’t lose their jobs—they were reliable imperialists.
The other rich people in the courtyard yelled, shrieked, and hid behind one another while Narses’s bodyguards rushed to protect him, with swears in multiple languages on their lips.
A loud booming crack! sounded from the distance and shook the ground, rattled the glasses, scattering the magpies and swifts from the cypresses and plane trees. Then the Paralos turned from the City, sailing south into the wide Marmara Sea.
“Fire!” Narses stood to his feet and shoved his guards away. “Fire back at them!”
He had personally positioned trained artillery crews on the Great Palace walls, checking the basiliks and the ammunition himself. Why weren’t they firing?
“Doesn’t anything in this city work?” he screamed. “Must I do everything myself?”
Erythro turned to him. “Can’t catch a break, can you?”
But then those city walls flashed, dark clouds whirled away onto the sea from the masonry, and black iron balls sped toward the Paralos, diving into the waves and sending fuming jets of boiling water high into the sky. It took a moment for the thundering explosions to rattle Blachernae’s surviving windowpanes.
Now several other dromons—all recently built, each worth several churches full of gold, their crews as green as new grass—were pulling out of the Harbor of Eleutherios to pursue. Narses’s flagship, the Wolf, was among them.
Narses jogged past Yaghoub, who was unhurt; and Senator Scholastikos, who was history. Soon Narses was sprinting through Blachernae’s buildings, courtyards, and gardens, on his way to the stables. His men followed. In the stables, he jumped onto his white courser and urged the beast to gallop out of the gate, which the attendants opened just in time. Hurtling along the city roads, he heard artillery booming. People had come out of their homes and shuttered shops to wander the ruins of the riots and see what all the noise was, shouting to one another that the Venetians had returned, the City was under attack. More than anything, Narses wanted to be aboard one of those dromons pursuing the Paralos, but when he reached the Harbor of Eleutherios, the old sea dog harbormaster Theodotos told him that the entire armada had launched.
“But there are other ships.” Narses had dismounted with his guards, and now he was pointing to the merchant vessels that were sailing past the harbor (many were turning away from the battle). “We could requisition one.”
Theodotos removed his cap, clutched it to his chest, and bowed. “Beggin’ yer pardon, majesty, but none of ‘em are fast enough. You’ll never catch that there phantom ship. She’s cursed, she is. She’ll drag the rest of ‘em straight down into hell, where they’ll all be the playthings of demons, they’ll be”
“Arrest this man,” Narses said to Axouch and Sulayman. The guards moved forward and seized Theodotos’s arms so roughly he dropped his cap.
“Why?” Theodotos said. “On what grounds?”
“Being annoying and superstitious,” Narses said.
“Since when’s that a crime, majesty?”
“I’m the emperor, my word is law, I say it’s a crime.”
“What have I ever done to you?” Theodotos said. “I’ve ever been your loyal servant, majesty. Why is it that—”
“Shut up.” Narses was thinking. Nobody ever let him think.
The problem was that Sulayman and Axouch lacked rope, manacles, chains. They were bodyguards, not city militia. How were they supposed to bring this man to prison? He was also just an old fool. Narses guessed that the actual harbormaster duties were covered by Theodotos’s subordinates, while the man busied himself by having one-sided conversations about demons and phantom ships with whoever was unfortunate enough to wander too close. That was the way it was with Scholastikos and plenty of other codgers who refused to retire. And then Theodotos was probably right about the Paralos. No one could catch it. Narses only hoped that his untrained crews on their new ships—so new that the floorboards still smelled like oak—could hit the Paralos with their basiliks before it escaped.
“Release him,” Narses said to Axouch and Sulayman. They did as he commanded. Theodotos squared his shoulders and stretched his arms, which had already been aching in their grasp. Then he picked up his cap and placed it back on his head with an unusual, even ridiculous dignity.
Narses and his men got back on their horses and rode to the Great Palace. There was business to attend to with Paul. But while riding along the Mese, a coward hiding on a rooftop yelled something at Narses.
“The uprising has returned!” the man shouted, keeping his face out of sight. “Long live Trebizond!”
Narses was too busy to pay this coward any attention. Pro-criminal sentiments were unpopular in Konstantinopolis. One could only say them in the shadows, and only scrawl pro-criminal graffiti in the middle of the night. So hostile were Konstantinopolitans to the criminals that the graffiti was usually erased within days. Small rewards had likewise been offered for information leading to the arrest of anyone expressing pro-criminal ideas, though three witnesses at least were required for convictions. Anyone who had anything positive to say about the criminals was already often a criminal himself—a wretch, a drain on society, as close to a slave as a citizen could be.
When Narses returned to the Great Palace, and had finally left his tired white courser in the stables, and had finally gotten back inside the actual building, Paul was gone. No one had seen him in hours. With the exception of Axouch, Narses ordered his bodyguards to separate and look for Paul. In the sekreta, all the logothetes busily scrawling at their desks and handing papers to their slave courtiers stood and bowed in silence when Narses (followed by Axouch) strode inside and demanded to know where Paul was.
“It’s a mystery!” Narses shouted. “A perfect mystery! Nobody knows where the second most important man in the City is! I guess my Grand Chamberlain is a ghost! I guess he has the power to turn himself invisible at will!” He turned to Axouch. “Why did I never know that Paul possessed this stupendous power? It could be put to such good use!”
Axouch nodded. No one spoke.
Narses turned back to the logothetes. “I will execute ten of you at random if no one tells me where Paul is—right now.”
“We don’t know, majesty!” one eunuch cried.
Narses pointed to him. “You.”
The guards brought him to the front of the desks. His name was Gerasimos Georgatos of Kephalonia. Narses selected nine more beardless, fat-assed eunuchs, lined them up, and drew his rhompaia.
“I will execute everyone in this room if I have to,” Narses said. “Your jobs are not difficult. Even monkeys can be taught to write letters and do figures.”
The logothetes were tense and silent, their eyes wide, though they were afraid to look at their doomed colleagues or at Narses, so they kept their gazes down on their desks.
Narses raised his rhompaia above Georgatos’s head. Georgatos was crying, and had even wet himself. Finally the eunuch fell on his knees and crawled away, but Narses pressed him to the floor with his boot and held him there like he was a giant insect.
“Please, majesty!” Georgatos cried. “Please, I have only served you, my lord! I have given everything to the empire—my life, my—”
“—manhood.” Narses laughed. “What do you have to live for? What are you so afraid of losing? Your life is worthless. All you do is push paper. A thousand other eunuchs would take your place in a heartbeat if I asked them.”
Georgatos screamed and writhed, but could not escape. Narses was about to skewer him through the back like a bug for display when Sulayman rushed inside the office. The guard was gasping for breath and dripping sweat.
“Aphéntēs.” Sulayman bowed. “Forgive the interruption, aphéntēs.”
Everyone looked at him, including Georgatos—who presumably felt that there was no need to forgive the interruption at all.
“Aphéntēs,” Sulayman said. “My lord, we have him.”
“Where?” Narses said.
“He’s taking sanctuary in Hagia Sophia, aphéntēs.”
Narses was already walking out of the sekreta. “Of course he is. The man who thinks all religion is a superstition is suddenly fascinated with the church. Come on.”
Narses left with Axouch and Sulayman. All the eunuchs remained behind.
