King's Man

MAPS

To my hol
y
and blessed master, Abbot Geraldus, in humble obedience to your wish, I send this, the third and last packet of the writings of the false monk Thangbrand. Inauspicious was the day when I first found these pages in our library! May I be forgiven for reading them with my sinful eyes, for I was urged on by my imagination and impatience.

Here I have found false witness artfully woven into a tale intended to beguile the credulous. This serpent in our bosom levels vile and wicked allegations against our brothers in Christ, and shamelessly admits piracy and the desecration of hallowed relic. Even when among the schismatics of the East he cannot restrain his viper's tongue.

Nothing has grieved me more than to learn that this false monk made a journey to the Holy Land, a pilgrimage which is the greatest desire of those who are as poor and unworthy as I. Yet he besmirches his witness with profane mistrust, and thereby seeks to undermine the faith of all those who believe in the Incarnation of the Word. As scripture avers, to an evil, unbelieving man, the truth becomes a lie.

His spew of corruption is the more disturbing, for it touches on high matters of state. Questioned is the very ascent to the throne of England itself, and his words must surely be judged treasonable by those who have competence in these matters.

We will speak no further of this matter, but will leave the pious labours of the faithful to be rewarded and paid for by the Just Judge.

Will there ever be an end to the deceit and mendacity of this impostor? I pray fo
r his salvation in the fear of G
od, for is it not said that even one sparrow cannot fall into a snare without his providence, and that when God wills the end may be good?

Aethelred

Sacristan and Librarian

Written in the month of January in the Year of our Lord One Thousand and Seventy-two

The emperor was
pretending to be a whale. He put his head under water and
f
illed his mouth, then came back up to the surface and squirted little spouts across the palace plunge pool. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, not knowing whether to feel disdainful or sympathetic. He was, after all, an old man. Past seventy years of age, he would be relishing the touch of warm water on his blotchy skin as well as the feeling of weightlessness. He was afflicted with a bloating disease which had puffed up his body and limbs so grossly that he found walking very painful. Only the week before I had seen him return to the palace so exhausted after one of the endless ceremonials that he had collapsed into the arms of an attendant the moment the great bronze doors closed behind him. Today was the festival the Christians call Good Friday, so in the afternoon there was to be yet another imperial ceremony and it would last for hours. I decided that the emperor deserved his moment of relaxation, though his whalelike antics in the pool might have surprised his subjects as the majority of them considered him to be their God's representative on earth.

I shifted the heavy axe on my shoulder. There was a damp patch where the haft had rested on my scarlet tunic. Beads of sweat were trickling down under the rim of my iron helmet with
its elaborate gold inlay, and the heat in the pool room was making me drowsy. I struggled to stay alert. As a member of the Hetaira, the imperial household troops, my duty was to protect the life of the Basileus Romanus III, ruler of Byzantium, and Equal of the Apostles. With five hundred fellow members of his personal Life Guard, the palace Varangians, I had sworn to keep the emperor safe from his enemies, and he paid us handsomely to do so. He trusted us more than his fellow countrymen, and with good reason.

At the far end of the baths were clustered a group of the emperor's staff, five or six of them. Sensibly they were maintaining their distance from their master, not just to give him privacy, but also because his advancing illness made him very tetchy. The Basileus had become notoriously short-tempered. The slightest wrong word or gesture could make him fly into a rage. During the three years I had served at the palace, I had seen him change from being even-handed and generous to waspish and mean. Men accustomed to receiving rich gifts in appreciation from the imperial bounty were now ignored or sharply criticised. Fortunately the Basileus did not yet treat his Life Guard in a similar fashion, and we still gave him our complete loyalty. We played no part in the courtiers' constant plotting and scheming as various factions sought to gain advantage. The ordinary members of the guard did not even speak their language. Our senior officers were patrician Greeks, but the rank and file were recruited from the northern lands and we continued to speak Norse among ourselves. A court official with the title of the Grand Interpreter for the Hetaira was supposed to translate for the guardsmen, but the post was in name only, another high-sounding title in a court mesmerised by precedence and ceremonial.

'Guardsman!' The shout broke into my thoughts. One man in the group was beckoning to me. I recognised the Keeper of the Imperial Inkwell. The post, despite its pompous name, was one of real importance. Officially the keeper proffered the bottle of purple ink whenever the Basileus was ready to sign an official document. In reality he acted as secretary of the emperor's private office. The post gave him open access to the imperial presence, a privilege denied even to the highest ministers, who had to make a formal appointment before being brought before the Basileus.

The keeper repeated his gesture.
I
glanced across at the Basileus. Romanus was still wallowing and spouting in the pool, eyes closed, happy in his warm and watery world. The pool had recently been deepened in its centre, yet was still shallow enough for a man to stand upright and keep his head above the surface. There seemed no danger there. I strode over towards the keeper, who held out a parchment. I caught a glimpse of the imperial signature in purple ink even as the keeper indicated that I was to take the document to the adjacent room, a small office where the notaries waited.

It was not unusual for a guardsman to act as a footman. The palace officials were so preoccupied with their own dignity that they found it demeaning to carry out the simplest tasks like opening a door or carrying a scroll. So
I
took the parchment, cast another quick look over my shoulder and walked to the door. The Basileus was still blissfully enjoying his swim.

In the next
room I found the Orphanotrophus waiting. He was in charge of the city orphanage, an institution financed from the royal purse. Once again the title was no reflection of his real importance. John the Orphanotrophus was the most powerful man in the empire, excluding only the Basileus. Thanks to a combination of raw intellect and shrewd application, John had worked his way up through the various grades of the imperial hierarchy and was prime minister of the empire in all but name. Feared by all, he was a thin man who had a gaunt face with deep-sunk eyes under startlingly black eyebrows. He was also a beardless one, a eunuch.

I came to attention in front of him, but did not salute. Only the Basileus and the immediate members of the imperial family
warranted a guardsman's salute, and John the Orphanotrophus was certainly not born to the purple. His family came from Paphalagonia on the Black Sea coast, and it was rumoured that the family's first profession when they came to Constantinople was to run a money exchange. Some said that they had been forgers.

When I handed over the parchment, the Orphanotrophus glanced through it, and then said to me slowly, pronouncing each word with exaggerated care, 'Take this to the logothete of finance.'

I stood my ground and replied in Greek, 'My apologies, your excellency. I am on duty. I cannot leave the imperial presence.'

The Orphanotrophus raised an
eyebrow. "Well, well, a guards
man who speaks Greek,' he murmured. 'The palace is finally becoming civilised.'

'Perhaps someone could call a dekanos, ' I suggested. 'That is their duty, to carry messages.' I saw I had made a mistake.

'Yes, and you should do yours,' the Orphanotrophus retorted acidly.

Smarting at the rebuff, I turned on my heel and marched back to the baths. As I entered the long chamber with its high, domed ceiling and walls patterned with mosaics of dolphins and waves, I knew immediately that somethi
ng was terribly wrong. The Basi
leus was still in the water, but now he was lying on his back, waving feebly with his arms. Only his corpulence was keeping him from sinking. The attendants who had previously been in the room were nowhere to be seen. I dropped my axe to the marble floor, wrenched off my helmet and sprinted for the pool. 'Alarm! Alarm!' I bellowed as I ran. 'Guardsmen to me!' In a few strides I was at the edge of the pool and, fully clothed, dived in and swam as fast as I could manage towards the Basileus. Silently I thanked my own God, Odinn, that we Norse learn how to swim when we are still young.

The Basileus seemed unaware of my presence as I reached him. He was barely moving and occasionally his head slipped underwater.
I
put one hand under his chin, lowered my legs until
I
could touch the bottom of the pool, and began to tow him towards the edge, taking care to keep his head on my shoulder, clear of the water. He was limp in my arms, and his scalp against my chin was bald except for a few straggly hairs.

'Guardsmen to me!' I shouted again. Then in Greek I called out, 'Fetch a doctor!'

This time my calls were answered. Several staff members -scribes, attendants, courtiers — came running into the room and clustered at the edge of the pool. Someone knelt down to grab the Basileus under the armpits and haul him dripping out of the water. But the rescue was clumsy and slow. The Basileus lay on the marble edge of the pool, looking more than ever like a whale, a beached and dying one this time. I clambered out and pushed aside the courtiers.

'Help me lift him,'
I
said.

'In Thor's name what's going on?' said a voice.

A decurion, the petty officer of my watch, had finally arrived. He glowered so fiercely at the gawking courtiers that they fell back. The two of us picked up the emperor's limp body and carried him towards a marble bench. One of the bath attendants had the wit to spread a layer of towels over it before we laid down the old man, who was moving feebly. The decurion looked round and ripped a brocaded silk gown off the shoulders of a courtier and laid it over the emperor's nakedness.

'Let me through, please'.

This was one of the palace physicians. A short, paunchy man, he lifted up the emperor's eyelids with his stubby fingers. I could see that he was nervous. He pulled his hands back as if he had been scalded. He was probably frightened that the Basileus would expire under his touch. But the emperor's eyes stayed open and he shifted his head slightly to look around him.

At that moment there was a stir among the watching courtiers, and their circle parted to allow a woman through. It was Zoe, the empress. She must have been summoned from the gynaeceum, the
women's quarters of the palace. It was the first time I had seen her close to, and I was struck by her poise. Despite her age she held herself with great dignity. She must have been at least fifty years old and had probably never been a beauty, but her face retained that fine-boned structure which hinted at aristocratic descent. She was the daughter and granddaughter of emperors, and had the haughty manners to prove it.