TLV - 01 - The Golden Horn (18 page)

The assault came on Tuesday morning. Someone had gotten the rioters organized, with leaders and arms, for they stormed the palace from three sides at once.

Harald stood with a hundred Varangians before a major gate, hoping to keep it from being rammed in. He watched coldly as the folk moved closer, yelping insults and throwing stones. Those swine dared imperil Maria! Then a tall man shouted and charged.

Harald saw how his rags fluttered in the morning wind and how sunlight ran off his lifted ax. The Norseman raised his sword, but the Byzantine went down with an arrow in him. His ax clattered on the pavement. The rioters came after, a human landslide driven by its own weight, and trampled him flat.

Spears, arrows, quarrels hailed on them, but their dead could no longer fall, the press was so thick that a corpse was borne along. Harald lifted his shield. At least no more rocks and filth would be thrown. His sword flickered out and clove a skull.

Another man leaped over the fallen one, screaming. His club shocked on Harald's shield. The
Norseman took a leg off him. Someone else behind, one to the right and one to the left, hew, hew, hew, three down and a thousand more coming!

There was one in armor, an Imperial trooper fighting for Theodora. He struck at Harald with skill. The Norseman beat down the round shield and buried his long sword in the jaws. As the soldier died, Harald had time to wonder if they had been together in Greece last year.

From the red
welter below, a knife stabbed upward. He felt a blade slide along his greave and stamped on the hand of the wounded man. Bones crunched. The man sighed wearily and died.

A sledge crashed on Harald's helmet. Lights glared through a brief darkness. As his guard dropped, two men sprang over the heaped dead and fell upon him. He kicked one in the belly and knocked the other down with the boss of his shield. His sword finished them.

In the end, the mob drew back and cursed the Varangians from beneath the Hippodrome. Harald sucked breath into starved lungs and looked about. The
pavement gleamed with the lurid
brightness of new blood. Dead men sprawled and stared, wounded men moaned and tried horribly to crawl away. No few of his own were down too, heads cracked open, steel in their throats, limbs broken. The faces of the hale were gray with weariness. Harald's hands were red and slippery. He wiped them on a slain man's tunic, leaned on his sword and panted.

"Shall we follow and scatter them?" asked Ulf.

"'No. They are too many. They'll come back." As his heartbeat waned, Harald heard noises from the court, struggles of the guard and the tchukanisterion. Assaults were still being mounted. He glanced at the sun and was dimly surprised to see that it stood almost at noon. Had the fight lasted so long? Or . . . rather . . . only one morning?

Servants slipped through the gates at his back to remove the casualties and bring food and drink. He tore the bread with his teeth, not hungry but knowing he would need strength. Over by the Hippodrome, a wagon laden with wine barrels was trundled forth. The enemy yowled around it. They would return here full of wet courage.

That was after an hour of haranguing. Again it was smite, hack, hew, a whirl and a roar and a final withdrawal. Harald felt giddy, his helmet was a bake oven, sweat runneled through the scutes of his armor. The Varangian line had been gruesomely thinned.

"One more such attack, Ulf, and they'll have us," he croaked. "Prepare the men to retreat into the palace grounds. After that we can only try to hold the halls until . . ."He sighed. "Until everybody is dead on one side or another, I suppose."

Maria's image seemed very faint, he knew only the drag of iron from his shoulders, the bite of wounds in legs and arms.

As the sun declined, the rioters stormed once more. Harald stood fast, taking a storm of blows on his shield, striking with a sword grown dull from slaughter. One by one the Varangians went through the gates. "Now, then, forward!" A last brief rage of axes, the front ranks of the enemy cut down and their advance stopped, a moment's pause gained for Harald to lead his rear guard inside and bar the gates.

Beyond, the garden was cool. There were clipped hedges and ordered flowerbeds, trees that rustled in the evening wind. Harald sat on the grass, gulping what wine he could get, while the gates buckled and groaned. Out there a hundred men wielded a log, drumming down the portal and the throne of Michael.

"Here they come." Harald rose and led his troopers to the entrance of the nearest building. "Form ranks!"

The gates sagged. The people surged in and spilled through the palace. High on their shadowed walls, mosaic saints watched God's judgment roll over the Imperium.

The Varangians were attacked less fiercely than Harald had awaited. With so much to loot, only the most revengeful rebels went against them. He withdrew step by step down seemingly endless hallways, giving and taking weary blows. Forced at last into a wide room and attacked on every side, his formation was broken and his men must flee singly. He saw Ulf backing up a stair, ax still flying as half a dozen swordsmen pursued.

Later, with much lewd detail, the Icelander told what had happened. No lamps were lit on the floor above, so he ducked around a corner and into the gloom of a luxurious suite. A woman hiding there gasped as she heard him come in. He seized her and clapped a hand to her mouth. "Silence! They'll hear us!"

"Oh
...
a Varangian!" She coughed out, then, still in his arms half weeping, she said, "Save me, save me, for God's holy sake! I will pay you, I'll make you rich if you save me. . . ."

Though he reeled on his feet, Ulf thought he could best stop her fit with a good noisy kiss. That worked well enough, perhaps, because even in her terror Anna Danielis expected no such thing from a mere guardsman.

"At your service, despoina," he said. "We can make ourselves a fortress here. They're not likely to come in such numbers that they can storm it." He piled furnishings against the doors and got a lamp lit. Since he saw no chance of rejoining his comrades, and a full carafe stood on a table, he removed his mail and shared the wine with her. They were soon drunk. She was a leading lady at court, handsome in a plump pop-eyed fashion, her decorum torn away by fear. Ulf was not too worn to bed her and afterward they often found occasion to meet. Her husband was a dry stick, she told him.

As for Harald, he rallied a few men in a doorway, beat off an attack and stood waiting. The foe grumbled sullenly at him but did not try afresh. Every man's hands felt too heavy to lift. In the hours that followed, the mob sacked the palace.

Toward morning a band of Imperial guardsmen, bearing torches and a flag of truce, arrived with their news. The Emperor had fled with his uncle, Zoe had resumed power, the cause was won and all folk should go peacefully home.

"And my men died for him!" said Harald. He threw his blunted sword on the floor and walked out.

4

Theodora was not like Zoe. She was big and ugly, dressed plainly, hoarded her wealth and, although a good speaker, she voiced more prayers than counsel. While the commoners cheered, danced and sang in the streets, the Senate confirmed her as colleague on the throne, much to her sister's displeasure.

Harald stood with several Varangians behind Zoe while she addressed her people from a balcony, thanking them for the aid which had left her dwelling a gutted wreck. His wounds ached, he mourned good friends, but the riots had not come near Maria's home and that was sign enough of God's goodness.

The Empress' fat shoulders sagged with exhaustion. When she asked mercy for Michael, her voice was quite lost in the shouts.

"Death to the Caulker! Down with the scoundrel! Impale him! Burn him! Geld him!" For a moment it looked as if wrath would again waste the city. Zoe fled back to her apartments, tears making channels in her powder.

Harald was not surprised to learn that the praefect and a squad of offic
ers were already off to St. Stu
dion. Theodora had many years to avenge. He and his men were ordered to hold back the crowds while sentence was publicly carried out.

The braces had been erected in the square before the palace, and the executioner was heating his instruments when Michael and Constantine were brought thither. Both still wore the black monastic robes they had hoped would keep them safe. Michael stumbled, half dragged along by his guards; Constantine strode firmly, glaring contempt at the world.

As they lashed him into place, Michael struggled and screamed. "Christ, not so, have mercy, in
Christ's name, I am your Emperor, God will smite you for this, help, help, help!"

"Hear how the pig squeals!" called someone. The mob, pressing hungrily closer, laughed. Theodora watched from a balcony, avid. Zoe was not present.

"Show some respect, there!" rapped Constantine when he was fastened in the brace.

"Take him first!" screamed Michael. "Take him first!"

The executioner shrugged and plucked a white-hot needle from his brazier with tongs. Constantine watched unwaveringly. Harald saw how the eunuch's teeth caught at his lip when the steel sizzled in, but he made no sound. The executioner withdrew the needle and picked up another.

Blood ran down Constantine's cheeks from the empty eye sockets. "God be praised!" he said. "Now I need no longer look at you dogs."

Michael jerked against his bonds, keening above the jeers. Thus had it ended, the power and wealth, stately days and reveling nights—ended in a wooden spiderweb and the blue-white glow of a needle. He screwed his eyes shut, still shrieking. The executioner forced the lids back with deft fingers.

Afterward the prisoners were led off, to drag out their lives as common monks at Elegmos. Two old women sat upon the Imperial throne, with a treasury nearly dry and a realm yet trembling.

Up on the balcony, Theodora permitted herself a pious little smile.

X

How Zoe Was Ungrateful

1

A few days later, Harald learned that Georgios Maniakes had been released and reappointed commander in Italy. The Empire's affairs there had fallen into a sorry state, with the native Italians rising and the Norman mercenaries, by now a sizeable army, holding most of the Imperial possessions as an independent nation. Harald went to see his friend and wish him Godspeed. He found him directing preparations from an office by the Golden Horn.

''Oh . . . Araltes. Spatharo
kandidatos Araltes now, is it not? Good day to you. Be seated." Georgios laid down a list and peered across the table. Two years in prison had bleached his skin and gaunted his flesh, and his movements were jerky; but he smiled with a touch of the old sour humor. '"Say not you are coming too!"

Harald shook his head. "I will soon be bound home, kyrios. I came but to say farewell."

"That was kind of you. I'll miss your mulishness." Georgios' fist slammed the table. "Body of Christ! Men these days are nothing but traitors or catamites. Where shall I find anyone like you who'll do a task
and not stab me from behind?"

"Your common soldiers are not such bad fellows."

"Clods. I need officers. By the Virgin, it's hard." A whine entered the tone. "For two years they let me rot, then today when I've scarce seen my family I must be off again to shore up this wreck of an Empire, while my enemy Romanus Skleros stays home to intrigue against me. Has a man no rights?"

"You could resign your post and retire to the country."

"And leave myself powerless? Never." Georgios' mouth drew into harsh lines. "But let them give me my deserts this time, or beware."

Harald stirred uncomfortably. "Well, then . . . farewell," he said. "God help you."

"I'll help myself. It's useless to rely on anyone else."

Harald went out feeling that he had spoken to an unlucky man.

A sharp wind bore tar and smoke and a hundred spices to his nose. The docks clamored with men: a sweaty gang of laborers loading a^ merchant vessel, a carpenter hammering a gaggle of drunken sailors, a squad of harbor guards tramping by with the sun aflash on their mail. Ships, seemingly without end, lay berthed in the harbor, their yardarms athwart the sky. A gilt naiad leaped at the prow of one; tangled cordage and rusty anchors were everywhere; and the slap of wavelets on barnacled hulls permeated the air. Elsewhere the court might scheme and feast and make a great thing of refurnishing the palace; here there was work to do.

Harald walked the barrier chain, looped metal links as thick as a man's arm. At night, in times of peril, it stretched on timber floats across the Golden Horn, no part far above or below the water. An idle thought came to him, a way by which certain craft could pass it if they must.

He fetched his horse from a livery stable and rode toward Nicephorus' house to see Maria. As he jogged through the swarming streets, he sang under his breath. At the gate, a servant took the beast. Merrily, Harald tossed him a coin, and got a troubled thanks. "Why, what's the matter, Demetrios?"