The Belt of Gold (27 page)

23

Late in the afternoon, when everybody else was busy with preparations for the evening meal, Nicephoros, the Treasurer of the Empire, put a cloak around his shoulders and by himself went out a little gate at the back of the Hippodrome. In the lanes and alleys there, where the Imperial bear-keepers kept their beasts in cages and the City's prostitutes walked up and down hissing and jeering at men passing by, a chair waited. Nicephoros got in, and the curtains were drawn, and the bearers lifted him up on the supporting poles and sped away.

Nicephoros settled back into the depths of the chair. The cushions smelled musty but he did not open the drapery to let in the sweet air. He tucked his cloak around him and sunk his head down into the folds of his hood, his mind full of crossing thoughts.

He knew himself the victim of his own subtlety. All his life, he had guessed that things were never what they seemed; that the events on the surface of reality, like the shadows of clouds gliding over the earth, were merely the transient effects of the higher verities, often shown in contradiction and equivocation, to deceive the foolish. He had learned to see things in their opposites, to find truth in lies, confusion in understanding, and faith in skepticism. For the sake of argument, he could assume any possible viewpoint, and long ago, he had forgotten what it was he really did believe.

He knew, for example, that John Cerulis was a wicked man, from the point of view of the Empress; to John Cerulis, of course, the Empress herself was a monument of wickedness, and if he was right (and Nicephoros had potent evidence to favor that position), then the Empress's viewpoint was in itself a wicked one, and John Cerulis, being wicked in the eyes of wickedness, was good.

At that even Nicephoros's wonderful flexibility failed; it was not possible to see good in John Cerulis. And now he was bringing this image-breaker to Constantinople, this Daniel, this Jeremiah, this poison-toad, this saint who hated saints.

The chair swayed and bounced along on the shoulders of the bearers. Reaching the City gate, their chief spoke to the gate-keepers, and passed along a piece of money, and they were admitted to the world outside the walls. Now Nicephoros did lean forward and open up the curtains a little.

He had left Constantinople by the Gate of Charisius, in the north end of the City. Here, the road ran up over hills and meadows and past groves of many-legged olive trees, curving slowly to meet the great forest that began miles off and ended, no one knew exactly where, in the snowy wastelands of the north. The little plain outside of Charisian Gate was still near enough the City to be populated by Romans, who had built their villas here and there among the groves, and on this undulating plain, facing the City like a little army, John Cerulis had brought his retinue and his holy man for the first engagement against Irene.

Nicephoros could see the camp the moment he opened the curtain. It lay on higher ground, ringed with bonfires. His bearers took him there at a steady trot.

It was for the sake of this holy man that he had come out here, leaving the protection and comfort of Constantinople. John Cerulis had been plotting against Irene for years, with no success, but the holy man Daniel was another matter entirely.

The urge to break images was nothing new. For many years Irene's immediate predecessor and his father had waged a full-scale war against icons, saints, and monks, disrupting the Empire and causing the enemies of Rome to rejoice. Nicephoros had seen people roasted alive for praying to images of the saints; he had sat in the Hippodrome on that terrible day when thousands of monks and nuns were herded into the arena at the points of swords and ordered to pair off and copulate then and there to save their lives. He had watched in horror as men with buckets of whitewash and plaster covered over paintings and mosaics in churches, and he had wept when people—mostly women, it was women who loved them best, the images—when people fought and died to save the figures of eternity from an untimely destruction.

The iconoclasm had been grotesque and vicious, and the Council that ended it was the greatest triumph of Irene's career, that moment in which her skill at handling men had found its finest work. Now here came this Daniel to start the madness up again.

Or to bring down God's righteous wrath on Constantinople for worshipping idols.

Nicephoros pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. He loved Irene; he did not want to doubt her. That also made him wary. He had learned long before that those ideas to which he was most passionately committed were likely to be wrong in exactly the degree of his devotion to them. He trusted only those thoughts that he had subjected to the full blast of his doubts and suspicions—in short, he felt himself most liable to be right when he was least enthusiastic.

None of this seemed to him the sign of a whole mind. That was when he concluded that his subtlety was killing him.

The bearers slowed, coming to the pitch of the road. He looked up at the camp on the hill ahead of him. Soon he would be within that ring of fires, and it occurred to him, again, as it had when he first considered coming here, that he might have some difficulty getting out again, and in his mind he reviewed those means of persuasion available to him, in case he had to induce John Cerulis to let him go.

He had money; he lived frugally, and saved his salary; but money would not move John Cerulis, whose family owned half the European Empire. He had knowledge and understanding, since Irene had over the years given into his hands most of the administration. He had Irene, who, whatever her feelings toward a servant who had gone behind her back as Nicephoros was doing now, would surely prefer to deal with him herself than leave him to her worst enemy. If none of these tools served, he thought, uncomfortably, he belonged to John Cerulis.

He told himself this, but even now, as the bearers carried him up toward the circle of bonfires glowing in the darkness, the great billowing silk tent in the center like the center of a monstrous rose, his heart began to beat faster, his mouth went dry, and his stomach fluttered. He was entering an unknown and incalculable future, where the rules he had always kept no longer worked. He was outside Constantinople; anything could happen.

“Take this name, and go into the City, and slay.”

The two soldiers knelt on the carpet before him, their faces down between their hands, their noses to the ground. Their mutters of assent were muffled in the heavy rug. John Cerulis, sitting in his new throne before them, waved his hand to the scribe kneeling at his left, and that man copied off the next name. They took it and backed swiftly off on hands and knees toward the door.

“How many more?”

The scribe counted swiftly. “Thirteen, Augustus, Chosen of God.”

John Cerulis rose, restless, and paced off across the tent. He longed for the comfort of his palace in the City but he could not leave this work to others. The list had shocked him. There were names on that list he had thought were bound to him forever—men he had entrusted with the most crucial work, the innermost secrets of his career. He could have faith in no one—that was the great lesson of Theophano's list.

Soon, very soon, they would all suffer the consequences of betraying him; he did not mean to enter into his City until all those who had turned against him were dead.

“Bring in another.”

But before the next group of soldiers entered, a page came in, flung himself on the ground at the feet of the rightful Basileus, and begged permission to speak.

“Yes, yes.”

“Augustus, Chosen of God, the Treasurer the Most Noble Nicephoros is without, craving audience with you.”

“Nicephoros!” John wheeled around, triumphant.

Of all the men who served the usurper Irene, Nicephoros was the most indispensable to her. If he were coming to join the cause of John Cerulis—

He said, “Bid him wait.” In dealing with such men it was essential to convince them that they were unimportant. He measured his steps back to his throne and sat down.

More soldiers came in and prostrated themselves, and the scribe copied off the next name and they took it away, to write it on their swords. John sent for wine. He had dined tonight better than he had on the long trek into the country, because being so close to Constantinople he had ordered bread brought out from the City's ovens, and the wine had been permitted to settle.

“Bring me Nicephoros,” he said, and the page ran out.

The Syrian came in, his silken clothes still crumpled from the ride out from Constantinople. He walked across the high-piled Persian carpets and stood before John Cerulis and doubled up in a deep bow.

“Greetings, Most Noble, and welcome back from your journey.”

“Nicephoros,” said John, “your face is an offense against God. Unless you hide it from me, I shall take measures to have it removed.”

The dark features of the Imperial Treasurer never changed. He said, “Patrician, I reserve the ultimate obeisance for her who wears the purple boots.”

John Cerulis gripped his robe and yanked it up and thrust out his foot, shod in a buskin of dark red-blue. “Prostrate yourself, Nicephoros.”

The other man did not move. He said, “I shall suffer martyrdom gladly, Most Noble, to preserve my soul. It is blasphemy to do the Imperial honors to one who is not Basileus.”

John Cerulis pressed his lips together; he had gone too far, insisting on the prostration; he reproved himself for leaving no graceful way out of this. He had no intention of killing Nicephoros, whose brain was a great mine of invaluable information, necessary to the functioning of the Empire.

While he was examining his possible courses of action, the door blew back and Daniel stormed into the tent.

“Ah,” said John Cerulis, and relaxed. The holy man would get him out of this. “God's messenger to me makes his appearance. Come forward, holy one.”

Daniel strode straight up past Nicephoros and glared into John Cerulis's face. “How dare you have me confined!”

“For your own protection, holy one,” John said, smiling. It amused him to see the scruffy old hermit rant, and certainly it proved him authentic, a real Jeremiah. “There are those who would take your life on the very sight of you, for what you have done.”

“I will not be confined!” The holy man hopped up and down, his clothes slapping his bare legs. “I must be alone—I must have space, and the clean wind, and the open sky, or I cannot pray. I cannot pray inside this camp!”

John turned his gaze on Nicephoros, standing off to one side now, his gaze fastened on Daniel. “You see the messenger from God, who has named me emperor.”

Nicephoros was looking the old man keenly up and down. Finally, lowering himself to his knees, he reached out and tugged on Daniel's robe.

“Holy one, I ask the blessing of the Lord's fool.”

Daniel wheeled around. He was bony as a poor man's mule, and his clothes hung on him with no grace. He frowned down at Nicephoros's bowed head, but after a moment he raised his hand and made the Sign of the Cross over the Syrian.

“God have mercy on you, who are greater than you know.”

John Cerulis made a rude sound with his lips. He lifted his hand, and from the back of the tent a brace of his guards came forward.

“Remove the holy man to a quiet place where he can pray for our success.”

Daniel spun around, looking for a way to escape, and the guards closed on him from either side. Nicephoros skipped out of their way. One gripped the old man's arms against his sides, and the other got hold of Daniel's knees. The holy man shrieked and flung himself bodily against their hold, but he was old, and light, and the guards carried him off like a bundle of air. Daniel's screams and half-articulate curses sounded long after he had left the tent.

“The holy fit descends on him at odd moments,” John Cerulis said to Nicephoros.

He did not hide his smile. He enjoyed shaping Daniel to his own meanings.

Nicephoros had regained his feet. He said, “I am surprised at your confidence in him. He does not seem to view you with any ardent affection.”

“God is in him,” John said. “And he has done what God meant of him, when he acclaimed me emperor. His blessing on you disposes me to favor you, Nicephoros—if you join me now, I will promise you that you will keep your lucrative position in my court.”

Nicephoros bowed to him, his hands describing graceful flourishes in the air. “I must give the matter the thought due such a weighty decision.”

“No,” John said. “You will decide now, in this moment, or the possibility of decision will pass you by.”

He leaned against the arm of his throne, striking the casual, confident pose of one who had no doubt of his success, no doubt at all. He said, “I do not need you, Nicephoros. It matters only if you choose rightly, and join me. If you choose wrong, then that, and you, will matter no more. Now, choose.”

The Syrian stood motionless before him, his hands pressed together. His great wedge of nose filled up his face. His silence wore on, and John stiffened, straightening up, irritated.

Before he could speak, Nicephoros said, “Then you will not stop me from leaving, if I choose to abide with my lady.”

John bit his lips, furious. He almost called for his guards, to take this stupid fool and stop his mouth with mud. Yet it was true, surely, if God were with him, that the rejection of such as this stupid Syrian did not matter. He showed his power when he showed it did not matter what Nicephoros did.

He let himself fall back into the cushions of his throne. “Go,” he said. “Prepare yourself and your despicable mistress for the inevitable. Take back into the City the message of God and this holy old man and your Basileus: Your days are numbered, your sins are soon to be avenged. Go. Go. Go.”

The Treasurer backed away, bowing, to the tent door, and was gone. John unfisted his hands. What a fool that man was! And such a fool could not be valuable, could not have necessary knowledge. His death alone could give him consequence, the wrong kind, the eternal damnation of one who had defied the will of God.