The Belt of Gold (24 page)

The grooms answered him from down the aisle; all the other horses were unhurt. The grey's groom brought him a brush, a pail, and a soft cloth. Ishmael began to clean off the sand clinging to the sweaty grey coat.

He talked to it as he worked, reminding it of the courage and pride of its ancestors, and of its own triumphs, and the horse's ears flicked back and forth, listening. Slowly its shivering stilled. Its head hung, its blood dripping down its cheek. The groom came with a cloth and cleaned its face.

“He cannot race. How can he race half-blind like that?”

Ishmael was on his knees in front of the horse, brushing its forelegs. “Get me a scarf.” He ran his hand down the long tendons at the back of the slim black legs, feeling for heat, for bows, for other signs of breaking down, but the horse was sound enough.

In the next aisle, he heard the Caesarea driver's loud voice, fuller and louder now with victory. Ishmael's lips writhed away from his teeth, and he swore under his breath; the horse lifted its head up, snorting, at the change in his tone of voice. Ishmael stood up. He put his arms around the long slender neck and pressed his face to the flat cheek.

“You will win. You will overcome him. Remember your father, who ran on the track until his heart burst. Remember the great Kharayyun, your great-great-grandfather, who raced eight heats in a single day.”

The horse nickered, and its neck bent, recovering the proud arch of its kind. The groom brought the scarf, a yard of yellow silk.

“We have to start hitching up, if we're to go out for the last heat.”

“Hitch them,” Ishmael said.

“Ishmael, he will never race again. His spirit is broken.”

“No. Look at him.”

The horse lifted its head; the skin split wide over its broad forehead, the blood clotting in ridges and lumps. The flies were swarming toward it. Ishmael waved them away. The groom murmured to the horse and put out his hand, and the beast switched its ears forward, and pawed at the ground.

“You may be right.”

“I am right.”

“If you're wrong, you'll ruin the whole team.”

“I will race,” Ishmael said, between his teeth, “and I will win! Now do as I tell you, hitch up the other horses, and come back for this one when I call you.”

The groom went away down the aisle. Ishmael turned to the horse, which was trying to rub its injured face on its foreleg.

“Hey, hey, old one.” Ishmael laid the silk scarf over its face, covering both eyes. “You need no eyes. You have run on that track a thousand times, and you know who you run with. Trust your brothers and trust yourself, and give me everything you can. Forget your face, old one.”

He knotted the scarf securely around the horse's head, and under his hands, to his relief, he felt the horse pick up a little, its head rising, its ears swiveling back and forth. Again, it lifted its forefoot and pawed at the floor, and it snorted and nudged Ishmael's body with its nose.

He put his arms around the sleek dark neck and hugged it, and said into its ear, “Harken to me, to the reins, old one. We shall win again, you and I and the others, if you but keep faith, and we will break those bastards' hearts when we do it.”

The horse nickered again. Ishmael led it back to the rest of the team.

Getting into the car, he was as nervous as the first time he had ever raced. He gathered up the reins into his hands, separating and smoothing the leathers between his fingers. His heart pounded. It was madness to do this; the horses, so abused, would certainly shrink from the Caesarea driver's whip; he would make a fool of himself and destroy his team. He lifted the reins and spoke to them.

They responded. Bred for courage as well as speed, they loved challenge, and at the sound of his voice they went forward toward the gate, into the great wedge of light, and on to the track.

When they drove out on to the track the crowd surged up onto its feet and thundered their applause, and that, too, spurred the horses; even the dark grey, its head wrapped in the yellow scarf, began to dance.

Eagerly they rolled forward down the track. They loved the cheering crowds as much as the crowds loved them. Ishmael could feel their weariness leave them; their heads rose, and their mouths pulled and worked at the bits. Ishmael reined them down, talking to them.

The Caesarea driver was outside him, having won the last heat; the other two teams had withdrawn. Ishmael faced the long straightaway, the sand like chips of gold, the heaving, waving, screaming crowd.

“Get out of my way when I go for the lead,” the Caesarea driver said, and laughed.

Ishmael gave him a long, disfocussed look. He lifted his reins, and the ribbon fell.

The horses sprang forward. For an instant he felt the outside flanker hesitate, but the horses on either side of it steadied it and gave it heart, and it strode forward with a new strength and rhythm. They raced even with the Caesarea team down into the turn, and there Ishmael gripped his reins and drew back slightly, to keep even with the outside team.

The Caesarea driver roared. He flexed his whip and laid it onto the heaving backs of his chestnuts, and bending sideways he flogged at Ishmael's horses as well. They took the attack. With the whip burning on their bodies, they raced on, ignoring it, keeping in team, their great hearts carrying them, now, as much as their legs. They whirled around the curve and down the straightaway, and Ishmael kept them even with the Caesareas, head to head, although now he could have taken the lead.

The other driver knew it, too, and shot a wild-eyed look across the space between them. He leaned over his horses, urging them on. Matched stride for stride, they hurtled down the next straightaway and into the turn.

As they raced into the curve, that happened which Ishmael had been waiting for: the Caesareas began to bear out slightly, too tired to hold the track. He yelled. With his fists straining at the leathers, he drew his horses of line also, and shouting to them to keep pace he pulled them straight across the track, driving the chestnuts next to them out across the Hippodrome.

The Caesarea driver saw what was coming. He flailed away with his whip at Ishmael's team; he raised the whip and struck at Ishmael himself. The long lash wound around Ishmael's waist and chest and caught, and the Caesarea driver was yanked off balance.

He dropped the whip; he dropped the reins. Wailing, he clung to the rail of his car as it lurched madly across the sand, and the horses, brought up close to the outside wall, veered hard back toward the inside. The car's wheels caught. Ishmael whipped the chestnuts off his own team, and running ragged, out of team, headlong and maddened, the Caesareas swerved off again, and the outside horse ran into the wall.

The horse collapsed. The others were yanked down with it, and the car, going too fast to stop, smashed into the heels of the horses and flung the driver face-first onto the sand.

The crowd screamed with delight. Roaring, on their feet, they cheered Ishmael on around the track, as alone he raced, his horses at a steady, leisurely gallop, their heads high, their tails like banners, until they crossed the finish line, the winners.

In the evening, Michael sat in the courtyard of the Bucoleon, by the fountain, eating his dinner; a single manservant attended him. As he was drinking his wine, his uncle Constantine appeared, coming toward him past the fountain.

“What are you doing here?” Michael asked coldly.

Constantine stopped. “You sound as if you don't want to see me.”

“I don't.”

“But—what—”

“Did you try to bribe Ishmael to throw the race?”

Constantine's eyes blinked several times. He ventured a false, humorless laugh. “Who told you that? Ishmael? He's a liar.”

“I don't want you around here or around my horses or my grooms anymore, uncle. Get out.”

Again, the cracked laugh. “You can't mean that.”

“I do mean it. Get out.”

“But—”

“You corrupted the races,” Michael said, a heat of temper rising in his blood. “Even if you failed, you brought suspicion on the races. Now no one will ever see another horse-race without wondering, even if just for an instant, if it's been fixed. You slandered me. Get out.”

Constantine's face was turning red, and his lips quivered. He said, “Aren't you being a little sanctimonious, Michael? I mean, surely, a little tolerance—”

“Not for me!” Michael sprang up and advanced on his uncle, his fists clenched. “I will not suffer any stain on my name, Constantine; my honor must be perfect, or it is no honor!”

“Your honor! It's just a horse-race, Michael—”

The Prince slapped him across the face, twice, three times, four times, as hard as he could. “Get out!”

Constantine staggered back a step under the blows; his eyes shone bright. He said no more. Turning on his heel, he walked away into the darkness. Michael sat down again, trembling all over; he wished his uncle had fought back, so that he could vent this violence that welled in him like the irresistible urge for sex. He lowered his head between his knees, bereft.

21

John Cerulis had dined alone in his tent every night since the unfortunate spectacle where Theophano insulted him before everybody. A row of servants stood by the table, some with dishes in their hands, others with towels; the whole tent was swimming with the aromas of food. Karros bowed deeply before the man in the chair.

“Command me, Patrician.”

“Tomorrow,” John Cerulis said, putting down a spoon, “you will go ahead of us and find this holy man and bring me back a report of him.”

“As you command, Patrician.”

“You may take your new friend there with you. You, barbarian, what name do you go by?”

“Hagen,” the Frank said. “In my country they call me Hagen the White.”

“How imaginative. I understand you have been much in the company of the racing teams—have you the acquaintance of Prince Michael?”

Hagen was silent a moment; Karros elbowed him, trying to nudge him into speech, and the barbarian moved sharply away from him. Finally, in a meditative voice, he said, “Somewhat.”

“Then perhaps you know the meaning of certain mysterious actions of his? The yellow color he wore at the last race, for instance?”

Karros said, “Oh, Patrician, this one won't—”

“Silence!”

Hagen put his hands on his belt, his head to one side. “The scarf on his arm?”

“Yes, yes. I am convinced it is a signal of some sort.”

“A signal,” Hagen said; there was some undercurrent in his voice that Karros could not identify. “Yes, of course it is, didn't you know? Patrician.”

John Cerulis leaned forward, intent. “You do know?”

“They are fixing the races,” Hagen said. “That's what the signal is. To make money on the bets.”

Karros clenched his teeth together, wondering why he had not heard of that; John Cerulis's face shone with discovery. A moment later he frowned.

“They cannot make money if Michael wins.”

“No, no, no,” Hagen said, contemptuous. “The yellow means the fix is off. A red banner means it's good.”

“Ah.” John Cerulis's face cleared, bright with understanding. He turned toward Karros with a motion like a snake striking. “Why could you not discover that? What's wrong with you?”

“Patrician—I was diligent, I asked everyone I could—”

“Keep your lips together, you pig, you offend me with your excuses. Go! I don't want to see you again before you have done my bidding properly for once.”

Karros chewed on his moustaches, humiliated. With a curt gesture to Hagen, he marched out of the tent, past a little train of servants bringing in the next course.

Darkness had fallen over the camp. They walked off through the camp, circling the cooking fires in a ring at the center, and moving through the little groups of people busy with their own dinners. Karros turned to Hagen.

“How did you know that? About Michael.”

Hagen walked on a few steps before he answered; he said, “I thought it was common knowledge.”

“Certainly it was not common knowledge.” Karros grabbed his arm, stopping him. “You made it up, didn't you? You lied to him!”

The Frank shrugged his hand off. In the dim light he smiled with a flash of white teeth. “Don't touch me, Fatty.”

He walked away through the dark, passing between fires, his shape black against the leaping flames. Karros looked back toward his master's tent; the lamps inside illuminated the silk of the walls in circles of red and white and yellow. He knew if he went back to John and accused Hagen of lying that his master would think it only backbiting jealousy. He wanted to know something about Michael and now his wish was satisfied.

Yet in a way the lie soothed him. Hagen was shifty, a liar, a cheat like everybody else. Not brave, just big. Karros puffed himself up, feeling better all the time. He went off after Hagen, toward the guard's fire.

Before dawn, Hagen got Karros up out of his blankets and against the fat man's protests put him on his horse and went off down the road to find the holy man. The camp with its swarms of people bothered the big Frank; a long hard ride struck him as a distinct relief, and he wanted action.

He rode along far enough from Karros to discourage any conversation. The day dawned very fine, the sun rising up through a haze along the horizon, and the heat of the first level rays promised a broiling afternoon. Hagen strapped his cloak behind his saddle. Later, as the sun climbed, he stopped and took off his shirt.

Karros rode up beside him while he was doing that, and with one hand up to shield his eyes scanned the road ahead of them, winding off through the low featureless hills. “He can't be too much farther on.”

Hagen nodded toward the horizon. A thin dun smoke overhung the fold between the hills where the road disappeared into the distance. “That must be what we're looking for.” He glanced at Karros, beside him. “What are we looking for?”

“A desert preacher named Daniel. He's been stirring up something of a sensation, calling for a new breaking of the images. My master thinks he may help turn the mob against the Basileus.” Karros puffed up a little, smoothing down his moustaches with his thumb. “If you show some manners, who knows? You may serve an emperor some day, barbarian.”

“God grant it.” Hagen picked up his reins; the sun was bringing out the sweat on his shoulders and back. They rode on along the dirt track through the hills.

The dust cloud thickened as they went on, and in the early afternoon they began to meet the vanguard of a rabble army, people on foot spilling down the road toward them, poor folk by their rags and weathered looks, who were gathering up whatever they could find on the ground they marched over: roots and fruit and flowers, firewood, a few stray goats they managed to catch and kill. At a steady trot, Hagen and Karros moved deeper into this mass, and the crowd thickened around them, filling up the road, forcing them to ride off to one side. Then at last they came in sight of the holy man.

He walked down the center of the road, surrounded by people who sang and waved their arms and danced. A heavy ragged mantle was his only clothing, and that scarcely enough for modesty. He walked with a staff. His beard was long and yellow and matted with burrs and thorns, his hair a tangle down his back. As he walked people rushed up before him to throw flowers in his path, and when he had walked on them other people ran into his wake to snatch the flowers up and kiss them.

Hagen drew rein on a rise above the road, watching the holy man walk by. He said, “There he is. Who are all these others?”

“Disciples,” said Karros.

“Shall we take him back to Cerulis?”

“By the Son's Corruptible Body,” Karros said, aghast. “He is a messenger from God! Do you think we could drag him off before even such as my master with impunity? Barbarian!”

“I guess not,” Hagen said.

“You barbarians, you live in darkness.” Karros turned his horse. “We'll travel along with him a while, he'll stop to preach soon, probably.”

Hagen followed him. This holy man confused him. He had heard of wild preachers before, men who went into the wilderness and came out with their eyes full of fire and the word of God leaping from their lips; in Frankland, when Pepin ruled, a man from Bourges had gone around claiming to be Jesus Christ, come again to redeem the world, bringing judgment and eternity to the faithful and the false. He had gathered a band of followers and lived a life of robbery and rape and murder until the local count destroyed him. Hagen saw no use for John Cerulis in this Daniel, only danger.

Yet he remembered how passionately the Greeks argued faith, and how ardently they went to church, and it occurred to him that the word of a ragged old man might bring an emperor down.

The Empress is a fool, he thought, to let this happen. Of course she was only a woman. If Hagen had worn the crown, he would have sent someone long before to slit this old man's throat.

When he thought of killing, he thought of Theophano.

She hated him. She had thrown her darts at him, the last time they met, with a savage will to hurt. She had tried to have him killed. He turned that idea over and over in his mind, because her obvious dislike of him inclined John Cerulis in his favor. If she meant that—

What was she doing with Cerulis anyway, since they despised each other?

He remembered when she spoke to Cerulis, her face clear and implacable as a saint's, and the little motion of her hand, asking for something, withdrawn even as she extended it. Over and over in his mind he saw that half-expressed appeal. She had called for his death; she had begged him for help. His mind thrashed, torn in opposite directions.

His body knew no such turmoil. His body loved her, and the more he thought of her, the more his body trained itself in sympathy for her, muscles and tendons, bones and blood, like the strings of a lute tuned to one harmony. He flung his head back, his eyes shut, his face lifted to the sun, sore with longing.

Karros said, “There, he's begun.”

The two men reined in their horses. Below them on the road, the holy man had stopped, and his followers were swarming around him. He raised his arms and began to speak to them.

In the hot still air his words carried well. He spoke of God's love for each of His children, and of the lack of faith that kept His children from Him. How from lack of faith the children thought they needed other than God. They made themselves houses, they covered themselves with costly robes, they put up idols to worship and built their lives of the material dross of the earth, while around them, like the burning sky itself, God spread His all-encompassing love and was ignored.

They needed only God. God alone would save them. If they yielded themselves up to God, they would enter Heaven at that moment.

Hagen murmured in his throat. Before he realized it, he had gone down halfway to the road, his horse responding to the shift of his weight in the saddle as he leaned toward the preacher. Karros came after him.

“Excellent, is he not?”

Hagen shook himself out of his fascination. He told himself the world was more complicated than that: you could not simply give everything over and walk naked into Heaven.

The holy man's followers gathered tight around him, praying, and many began to chant. They linked arms and swayed back and forth in an undulating union, their voices raised, and the old man went up and down before them, blessing them, calling to them by name to denounce sin and give themselves to God. His voice was remarkable, soft and yet carrying, flexible as silk. Hagen wanted him to speak to him, to know his name, to call him personally into Heaven; he longed for that peace, for that certainty, and that finality.

Not yet. Rogerius's soul still cried unappeased from the grave. Theophano—

She was stronger than the holy man. Thinking of her, he brought himself back from the brink, from the old man's influence like a chasm before him.

“Let's go,” he said to Karros, and wheeling his horse he galloped away over the thorny hillside.

“You must be bored,” Theophano said, “to deign to seek the company of a mere female.”

John Cerulis leaned on his elbow on the side of his chair, with his little rod tap-tapping on the frame. “I am thinking of ways to deal with you, Theophano—I wanted to have you before me as I try them out in my mind.”

He swung the rod sharply out and cracked her arm with it. On the far side of her chair, Aunt Eusebia put down her embroidery, lay back, and shut her eyes. Theophano smiled. Deep as the bone, her arm hurt where he had struck her.

She said, “I do wish you would proceed with more pace, Patrician. Your company and this enterprise have become tedious in the extreme.” Her fingers slipped into the cuff of her sleeve, where the needle was hidden. If she could lure him a little closer, he would be within reach; she would strike then, and go on striking until he died.

“There is Karros,” he said, “and your wild beast of a lover.” He gave her a languid sideways look, his tongue between his lips. “He looks as if he has fleas. Worse than fleas. Did you trade one itch for another, my heart?”

“He is a man in all his parts,” she said, “which is his shame as well as his glory, since being a man he is coarse and stupid and without grace. You know, Patrician, by a simple amputation of that member which seems of no use to you anyway, you could become at least the image of a woman, if not the perfection itself—”

The rod struck; she saw it coming and did not dodge. The hard round of wood met her cheekbone with a force that snapped the stick in half. Unmoving, she stared at John Cerulis and took the pain like an honor. He looked away. His neck was red.

The two horsemen were nearly upon them. Theophano leaned against the cushions behind her, her face throbbing. Already she could see the swelling below her eye. Soon she would be ugly, misshapen as a witch. She felt drained, almost drugged, a lassitude like death itself creeping through her limbs. For days she had done nothing but ride in the chair, her body collecting the dust of the road, her hair unwashed and uncombed; the thought that she would die like this, her beauty ruined, brought her almost to tears. She took the needle in her fingers, ready to use it at the first chance. Then suddenly something large loomed between her and the sun.

It was Hagen. She blinked up at him who had ridden in between her and John Cerulis. On the far side of the Patrician's chair, Karros was greeting his master with fulsome stupid compliments. Hagen looked down at her from his great height, his face unreadable.

It infuriated her that he should see her this way. She snarled at him, “The servants' train is over there.”

“This one's for sluts and back-stabbers?”

The needle in her hand pricked her fingers. He was between her and her victim. Her face hurt. She said, “You are in my sunlight, pig.”

He glanced up at the sun and moved more exactly between it and her. Now she was shielded entirely from John Cerulis, and she said, “Patrician, this man offends me.”