The Belt of Gold (21 page)

“Hibernia,” Nicephoros said. That had never even been part of the Empire; it was so far away the waters of Ocean totally surrounded it, as if God, having made the world and drawn back to observe His craftsmanship, had let drop a bit of the leftover clay into the sea. “What in God's Sacred Name is he doing here?”

Another exchange between the guide and the monk, during which Nicephoros heard his name spoken. The monk faced him and bowed once and lifted his hand and made the Sign of the Cross over him— made the barbarian way, left to right, with three fingers.

“He says,” the guide told him, “that his monastery was destroyed by an assault of the Northmen. He is here to ask the Basileus to give his order a place to build a new monastery.”

“Here? Why not Rome? Who are these Northmen?”

The guide and the monk spoke together a moment.

“He says that his order had some dealings with Rome in the past that left them unwilling to discuss matters of faith with those people. He says that this being the center of the world, we shall be safe from the Northmen for a long time yet.”

Nicephoros searched the barbarian monk's face, curious against his will: this seemed the sort of man who would live at the edge of the world, the wind from the abyss tearing at him, the darkness ever ready to overcome him; surely there was no room in that gaunt implacable face for any ease or pleasure in life. He said, “Who are these Northmen?”

“He says,” the guide said, after some more gabble with the monk, “that they are wolves from the sea. They come from the fogs, from the night, and from the storm, and set upon all things in their path, and all things in their path they devastate utterly. They are God's chosen instruments for the destruction of the world, and surely, he says”—the guide smiled, his teeth gapped—“they will come upon us one day, at the end of things.”

“Hunh,” said Nicephoros.

He faced the room again. Somehow the simple words of the monk had transported him. The room was oddly strange now, as if he had just been somewhere else. The splendid marble walls, the glass cases glowing in the diverted luminescence of the covered lamps, the low ripple of conversation—all seemed so safe, so ordinary, so cultivated, and so fragile; abruptly he shivered all over. In his imagination he saw these walls burst apart, this whole place shaken to the roots, while through every yawning crack rushed a wild ravening pack of wolves.

The vision made him sick to his stomach; he turned away. A few words to the guide transferred his best wishes and hopes to the Irish monk, whose cool pale gaze remained on him. Nicephoros thought, He will never reach the Basileus. Even if he did, what use would they be to each other?

Nicephoros turned around slowly again toward the Treasure Room. Marvelous, splendid, unbroken, unbreached, it surrounded these people caught up in their mundane conversations, preserving them from the greater all-encompassing truth. Was life possible only by insulating men from reality?

What reality? It was his low mood that brought him to such cankered daydreams. Nicephoros turned on his heel and walked out of the room, out on to the terrace, into the blasting sunlight of the day.

“He wants me to fix the race for him,” said Constantine.

They were standing on the edge of the rose garden, just outside the Daphne; from behind the Parakoimomenos came the boisterous laughter of a good party. Ibn-Ziad's voice was clearly audible through the open doors, shouting exuberantly to another celebrant. They had already seen tumblers and jugglers; in half an hour, there would be women in to dance.

“Can you do it?” the eunuch asked Prince Constantine.

“Ishmael needs money. Probably he could be talked into it, yes.” Constantine smiled at him.

The Parakoimomenos sniffed, disinclined to this little exercise in amending the possible. “I don't think so, really, my good man, do you?”

Beside him, Constantine moved, a short, fierce gesture swiftly brought under control, and said, between his teeth, “You know, we could all profit a little from this. Why not? I say. I mean—it can't hurt, really, can it? If she loses a wager—what does that matter?”

The Parakoimomenos raised his hand. He had just thought of a context in which Constantine's proposal acquired the overtones of an act of God. Even now, from the merry-making behind him, came the voice of the City Prefect, full of good humor, answering ibn-Ziad's remark.

“Gambling is a sin, my prince. A vile and corrupting sin, as some among us have only too great occasion to know. However—perhaps—in the circumstances, it might be preferable if ibn-Ziad did win his wager. Yes. Do what you can.”

“Excellent,” said Constantine briskly, and strode away, back toward the lights and the music.

The Parakoimomenos stood there a while longer. The evening was very warm and the roses yielded up their perfume in heady vapors, and everywhere in the purple twilight insects whirred and chirruped. Someone else was coming out of the party, out on to the terrace.

This was Nicephoros. Tall and angular, the Syrian came up to the edge of the terrace, reached in through the opening in his coat, drew out the arbor vitae, and relieved himself into the bushes. He ignored the Parakoimomenos, but the eunuch watched him steadily.

His clothes arranged again, Nicephoros turned, and the rivals faced each other. Nicephoros was looking surly and half-drunken. The Parakoimpmenos remarked that he and the City Prefect, always friends before, were avoiding each other now. The Treasurer grunted.

“What is wrong—have you forgotten your quill?”

The eunuch's head snapped up at the insult. Nicephoros walked heavily back toward the party again. A cold hand closed around the heart of the Parakoimomenos. He had been a fool, before, when with a method of success at hand, he had held back from it. The City Prefect would fall, and Nicephoros with him. The eunuch swore it to himself, on the testicles he had lost in infancy, when his family determined on a career for him in the civil service. It was the holiest oath he knew. He did not go into the party again; instead, he went away by himself.

19

“You know what the law says,” said the City Prefect, and tapped the owner of the ruined tenement on the chest with his staff of office. “You let entirely too many people live here—what were you running here, a cattle yard?”

He jabbed his ivory staff toward the blackened shell of the tenement on his left. They were standing on the waterfront; behind him was the harbor, a teeming human hive. The sunlight blazed on the waters of the Golden Horn, and on the sweating bodies of the lines of slaves and criminals working to unload the ships at the quays. Piles of goods stood along the side of the street, spices and cloth, wood and furs and grain. The groans and songs of the workmen reached his ears, and the screams of the gulls, fat tenants of every jetty and pile, gross with life.

Before him the tenement was a silent pit, a place of death. Inside the huge brick shell nothing remained. Most of the debris had been cleaned out of it already, and all the bodies; more than four hundred people, men and women and children, had died here in the fire. The Prefect imagined it with more detail than he wished for: the earth shook, knocking down the cooking pots; the flames caught on the desiccated wood of the floors, and raced on, through tiny crowded room after tiny crowded room, through ceilings and floors, through straw ticks and shabby blankets, through hoardings of coal and oil and wine, through blazing hair and eyes and skin.

His stomach turned. He faced the tenement owner again.

“Where else can they go but to such places as these?” The landlord made a face, bland, not worried; probably, the Prefect thought, he had friends in high places. And the first day of the month was just past: he had taken in all his rents. “The City is crowded with poor—where else can they live?”

“You are supposed to keep to the limits of the law.”

“I can't be here every day. The families already here were taking in other folk to stay with them.”

“And you are supposed to see they do no cooking in these premises. That's how this happens—they make fires in their rooms—”

“Look,” said the landlord, beginning to frown, his forehead bent into sweating creases, “I brought in the priests when they were built, I had verses written on every joist and upright. The place was safe as a church! Some great sinner lived there, that's why it happened—God rid us of some horror in the earthquake.”

The Prefect crossed himself. A little crowd had gathered to watch this confrontation, and now, at the landlord's words, they began to murmur.

“God's will, it is God's will.” They sounded satisfied, their uncertainties reduced to a platitude.

The Prefect straightened, hearing, in this, the voice of popular wisdom, and looked out over the black scab of rubble, reaching back to the next street, rising steeply past warehouses and more tenements, probably belonging to this same man, certainly also overcrowded, every room crowded with the wretched poor, every room stinking from the smoldering coals of the little fire in its iron pot, waiting to be kicked over, tumbled over by another trembling of the earth, to set the whole place blazing like a torch.

“The will of God,” the people in the crowd were whispering. “It was the will of God.” Some of the old women knelt down, in their black shawls, and began to pray.

The Prefect did not understand the will of God anymore. He saw no divine purpose in the frying of four hundred people. He saw no use in anyone suffering, especially since in everyone's suffering, he saw the mirror of himself.

In this man before him, smiling nervously, saying, “God did it, not me,” he saw himself as well, a corrupt and wicked man. Raising one hand, he said, “Rebuild it,” and turned away.

Turning, he saw, beyond the dissipating crowd, an elegant curtained chair, which he recognized as much by the long train of retainers behind it. He stopped. The bearers were squatting at the poles, but now, at a command perhaps from inside, they straightened up, lifting their burden to their shoulders, and advanced toward the City Prefect.

It was the Parakoimomenos. The eunuch drew back the curtains, sighed, and breathed deep of the inrushing air.

“The heat is quite unbearable. I am on my way to the Blachernae, and saw you here, and since I must have a word with you—may we?”

“Certainly,” said the Prefect. “Tell me how I may be of service.”

“You were greatly of service last night, I understand. Ibn-Ziad is full of your praises.”

“He is a fascinating fellow, for an Arab.”

“You know he has made a wager with the Empress, on the outcome of the next race—between Ishmael and the Caesareans, in fact.”

“I heard him say so last night.”

“Good. Then my task is a simple one. The Empress requires some object, for her wager, some piece of beauty that will amaze a caliph.”

“Of course.”

“Your taste is exquisite, your knowledge of the City's resources infinite—can you find something?”

The Prefect bowed in answer. He was very flattered to be chosen, but not surprised.

The Parakoimomenos smiled at him, a conspiratorial gleam in his eyes. “The object must be perfect, since it will certainly find its way to the Caliph. If you take my meaning.”

The Prefect said “Ah.”

With a gesture, the Parakoimomenos signalled his bearers to lift him away. “I shall leave it to you, sir. Good day.”

“Good day, my dear Parakoimomenos.”

Swiftly the red chair swayed away into the passing crowd; the eunuch's retainers hurried after it. The Prefect stood where he was. His mind was torn. On the one hand he was sorting rapidly through a mental index of possible art objects; it should be, he knew at once, a piece of that extremity of artifice that had as its goal the exact reproduction of nature. Another part of his mind was saying, They have fixed the race.

Turning, he began walking slowly back along the street, toward the harbor office at the far end, where he was to meet with several of his staff. He knew every goldsmith in the City. Only a few specialized in the sort of exquisite pieces he was thinking of, and only one of them produced work of highest quality.

If they had fixed the race, then all he needed to know was who ibn-Ziad was betting on.

His steps were coming faster and faster. His breath felt short. He lifted his head. He could get out of this. One last bet and he would be out of this. And once he had evened himself up again, he would never ever bet again, God witnessed it; he swore it. Striding at top speed toward the offices, he allowed himself the easy luxury of a blissful smile.

Ishmael took Hagen's black stallion into the Hippodrome and let it run. No blood stock, still the horse was a good mover, and his opinion of it was rising as he worked with it.

While he was following after it with his whip, to keep it moving, he saw Prince Constantine come down out of the stands and cross the sand toward him.

Constantine had worn the Golden Belt, some years before, and older men than Ishmael said he had been a great driver; Ishmael had never seen him race, and did not believe it. He watched Constantine through the corner of his eye. The black horse skittered away across the sand, its tail stuck straight up in the air and its nostrils flared, and when Constantine passed by, it sprinted away with a flat spray of sand spurned up by its heels.

“You have some use for this donkey?” Constantine said, as he came up to Ishmael's side.

“It isn't my horse,” said Ishmael.

“That's a relief to know.”

Ishmael trailed after the stallion, which had gone on around the turn at the far end of the racecourse. Constantine strolled along at his heels, whistling between his teeth.

“I understand you have problems with money.”

“Why is that of interest to you?”

“Oh, I don't know. I could help you out with it, perhaps.”

“You could.”

They rounded the curve, and seeing them the stallion leapt into the air, all four feet off the ground, and executed a body-screwing buck in the air.

“I happen to know how you could make yourself a good deal of money,” Constantine said.

“Really? How?”

“If you let the new team from Caesarea win your race.”

Ishmael spun around and faced him. “I don't believe it. You're suggesting that I throw a race?”

“It's just a qualifier. You can always qualify in the next round. You'll make it into the race that matters.”

“I don't believe it.”

“Certain people I know would give you a sizable sum of money right now, and you could make a lot more, betting against yourself.”

“I'm not that desperate, Constantine.”

“Think about it,” Constantine said, smiling, and walked away across the track toward the seats. He didn't even have the grace to look embarrassed. Ishmael rubbed his hands together, his thoughts tossed.

It was true he needed money. Everybody needed money, even the Empress, or so rumor had it. He wondered if this were one of her plots—if she needed money enough to gamble for it.

The black horse jogged down the track, and Ishmael dragged his feet after it. It was true: he could let the Caesarea team win, and still qualify in the next round. And who would be hurt by that? The Caesarea team was probably good, everybody said so, all the rumors, all the advance talk. A lot of money. Constantine had not said how much. Ishmael owed money again to his landlord, to the tradesmen. His wife needed cloth to make garments for herself and the children, and she wanted other things, a few pieces of furniture, a rug. She had complained for months that a man as important as Ishmael ought to live better than he did.

He was tired of being poor. He was tired of having to wait for money, and then when he finally did get it, all of it flowed away at once to pay the debts accumulated while he waited.

A lot of money, Constantine had said. Thousands of irenes, perhaps. He could pay all his debts and still have money in his purse for months to come.

If he were caught—if word got around the City—

It was Michael he thought of, what Prince Michael would think of him, if he found out.

Constantine was a prince also, and this was Constantine's idea. No. Someone else was behind it. Who? The Empress.

Unlikely. If the Empress wanted to fix a race, she would not go about it with a simple bribe, that could fail so easily, and expose her to scorn as well as failure.

He wished Constantine had told him how much money.

Morose, he caught the black stallion and led it away into the stable. His grooms were cleaning stalls and chattering back and forth; ordinarily he would have joined in their banter and jokes, but Constantine's offer tied his tongue. That was all that occupied his mind, and he could not let it out to the grooms, with their loose tongues, and their compelling interest. He went out of the Hippodrome and walked down past the baths to his house.

His wife gave him dinner, complaining about the cost of lamb. She was a slender, doe-eyed girl, younger than Ishmael, with a voice as musical as a lute, even when she sighed and fretted. Since their courting he had taught her to depend on him, and now there was no question of exposing her to the realities of things like this.

Eating beans and onions, he thought of bringing home a big bag of money; she would never ask him where he had come by it, she would buy the rug, the furniture, buy lamb for every meal. Even if she suspected, she would say nothing.

He almost made up his mind to go to Constantine and agree to it, but then his son came in, shouting, a wooden sword tied to his waist, and rushed up to his father and hugged him.

Then Ishmael knew he could do nothing dishonorable; he would never be able to face this boy again, this treasure of his life.

But then when he went back toward the Hippodrome, the landlord accosted him in the street, demanding money, and his certainty came unlocked again. He spent the afternoon watching the farrier trim his horses' feet and chewing over the whole proposal.

In the evening, Michael came down to the stables. He always visited his horses at night, while they were eating their hay, like a mother kissing her babies to sleep. Ishmael was sitting on a pile of straw, mending a bridle with an awl by the light of a torch. The grooms had all gone home, or to the tavern, much the same thing; Ishmael was unwilling to go either place and have to talk.

Unfortunately Michael wanted to talk. He sauntered past, his hands on his hips. “This new team from Caesarea arrives tomorrow.”

“Oh?” Ishmael said, and fastened his gaze on the bridle.

“When you've done with that, come and have a cup with me. Maybe I can give you some winning advice.”

“I don't need any advice from you about driving horses.”

“If you think that way, you'll never beat me. Put the bridle away, you have grooms for that. Come down and drink with me.”

“I can't afford it,” Ishmael said.

“I'll pay it. I don't mind supporting the lower orders, it's the obligation of the aristocracy.”

“Never mind,” Ishmael snarled at him. “I'll drink with my own kind, Prince.”

He was remembering Constantine, a prince, offering him money to do evil. He wondered if Michael knew about it. He had always thought Michael was honest, but the bribe had come from his uncle, after all.

“You're surly tonight, Ishmael,” Michael was saying. “Do the Caesareas have you a little worried?”

Ishmael stabbed the awl into the bridle, his mind churning. He was sorely tempted to ask Michael what he knew of the bribe, but if he did that, would he not condemn himself a little? They had offered the bribe to him—maybe they thought him weak. They knew he needed money. And why should he not have money? Michael had everything he needed, the horses, the grooms, the living, everything he needed, for nothing. For an accident, for God's inscrutable reasons. Why should Ishmael not narrow the gap between them a little?

He realized he was staring straight at the other charioteer, but saying nothing, and now Michael grunted at him, his lips twisting.