Raptor (71 page)

“What do you mean—
now
called Zeno?”

“On his accession, he took that name. From the famous Stoic philosopher of olden time.”

“I thought only the most pompous and pretentious bishops wore assumed names.”

“You would understand and sympathize with Zeno if you knew that he is of Isaurian lineage, and that the Isaurians speak a horribly cumbersome dialect of Greek. His name at birth was Tarásikodissa Rusumbladeótes.”

“Papaí!” I said. “I do understand. Thank you for explaining.”

We were still riding along the Mése, and many were the marvels and novelties that I saw. The broad avenue was lined with trees and with countless bronze or marble statues of gods, heroes, sages, poets, and behind them stood almost as many palatial mansions of stone or brick—though down the narrow side streets I caught glimpses of much more plebeian residences. The Mése took us up and down the city’s hills, through the lesser Golden Gate of Constantine’s earlier, less impressive wall. After that, the avenue at intervals broadened out around us to become a spacious marble-paved square. From the Forum of Boas, a square like a giant marble platform somehow suspended between the slopes of two hills, we were actually looking
down
on a small river running
beneath
the square—the Lúkos, which serves to flush away the city’s wastes. At the Forum of Theodosius, we were looking
up
at a man-made river—one of the city’s aqueducts, here upheld by graceful, towering stone arches as it crosses between two of the hills. In the Forum of Constantine, I saw the most grandiose statue in the whole city, the effigy of its founder, standing upon an immeasurably high column of marble and porphyry. That bronze statue shows Constantine with a corona of rays radiating from his head, thus representing him as either Apóllon with his aura of sunbeams or Jesus Christ with his crown of thorns; no city dweller of these latter days could quite decide which.

But still I tried determinedly not to stare or gape, and continued to make conversation with the chamberlain, saying:

“Very well, then. This Eastern Empire is now ruled by the Basileús Zeno and his Basílissa Ariadne. Meanwhile, what has been happening in the west?”

“As I said, Julius Nepos was deposed. By a man named Orestes, whom he himself had raised up to be a general of the armies. Nepos thereupon fled to Salona in Illyricum.”

“Wait a moment. Is not Salona the place where—?”

“Naí,” said Myros, nodding and smiling maliciously. “Where the former Emperor Glycerius had been exiled after Nepos deposed
him.
Do not ask me why Nepos should have chosen Salona as his refuge, because there the resentful Glycerius—not surprisingly—had him assassinated.”

“Gudisks Himins.”

“Ouá, the story gets even juicier.” Now, from the chamberlain’s womanish relish in confiding gossip, I only belatedly realized that he must be a eunuch. He went on, “Evidently in reward for that deed, Glycerius has been elevated from the minor bishopric of Salona to the much grander archbishopric of Mediolanum in Italia.”

“Liufs Guth! A bishop commits regicide and the Church
promotes
him?”

Myros made a face of fastidious distaste. “Well, that is Rome’s corrupt Catholic Church for you. Constantinople’s good patriarch Akakiós would never permit any such thing to happen in our Orthodox Church of the east.”

“I should hope not. So, who
is
emperor at Rome now?”

“The son of that General Orestes. Romulus, disdainfully called Augustulus.”

“Disdainfully?”

“Not Augustus. Augustulus. Little Augustus. Little, and not very august. He is only fourteen years old. So his father, too, like the late young Leo’s, is the real ruler. But no one expects either Orestes or Romulus Augustulus to last very long.”

I sighed and said, “I wonder, has it occurred to anyone besides myself that the Roman Empire is in more pitiable disorder than ever before? Emperors flitting to and fro, as ephemeral as mayflies. Bishops turned assassins turned archbishops. Saints squatting on high poles and dropping skeit on their followers…”

“Here is your house, Presbeutés Akantha,” said the chamberlain. “The finest xenodokheíon in the city. I believe you and your party will find it well appointed and more than comfortable. Would you be pleased to dismount and enter?”

The marble building and its enclosed grounds looked sumptuous indeed, but I would not let Myros see that I thought so. I sat my saddle and said:

“I am only the king’s marshal. I am responsible for the comfort of his royal sister.” I turned to my bowmen and told them, “Escort the princess forward, that she may decide if these humble lodgings are adequate.”

The oikonómos looked rather irked, but got down from his own horse to salute Amalamena. When she came unhurriedly up to us, I saw that she had somehow managed, inside the moving carruca, to adorn herself in fine vestments and cosmetics and jewelry. As if I had instructed her to do so, she bestowed only a cool nod on the deeply bowing Myros, swept regally on past him and, with Swanilda and my bowmen beside her, went on into the courtyard and then the house.

The eunuch, now looking hurt, continued to praise the xenodokheíon to me: “A luxurious private therma for the females in the left wing, the one for you and your male attendants to the right. A plentiful staff of servants to assist your own… including some Khazar slave maids specially selected for their beauty. They will be ever eager to, ahem, serve your needs as well as those of the princess.”

I pointedly ignored that, and cast about me a soldier’s look of survey. The building’s enclosing wall was not very high or constrictive, the gates were more decorative than ponderous, suggesting that we were not likely to be locked inside and held captive. Still, we
were
deep within the city and its own fortress walls. So, when Myros started to say, “The quarters for your other men—” I firmly shook my head.

“Oukh, oukh. The men are Ostrogoths. They need no roof over them or cushions under them. I shall dispose them about the courtyard here. And, regarding servants, the first I want to have serving us is the city’s best physician. I should like assurance from him that the princess has not been discomposed by her long journey.”

“The emperor’s own iatrós, the venerable Alektor, will attend upon you without delay.” He added, with eunuch spitefulness, “I could not help noticing that the princess looks rather older and more feeble than her reputed age.”

I ignored that, too. When the women and their armed escort rejoined us, Amalamena sent me a glance of mischievous complicity before she gave Myros another cool nod, no more, to indicate that the house was acceptable. I dismounted from Velox and instructed my bowmen to unload from our pack animals the gifts we had brought, and to give those to the chamberlain’s assistants. While that was being done, Myros went on:

“As you see, Princess and Marshal, your lodgings here are convenient to all sorts of amenities. The Hippodrome is yonder, where you may enjoy the games and races and theatrical performances. Yonder is the Church of Hagía Sophía, where you may care to attend worship services. The Purple Palace, yonder, is where the emperor will be granting you audience. The—”

“I hope,” I said, “we will not be here long enough to require many diversions or even the making of devotions. When will Zeno see me?”

“Ouá… well, now. You will, of course, be advised of that in plenty of time to prepare for the meeting.”

“Prepare? Prepare what? I am prepared right now.”

“Oukh, not at all. Not at all. There are formalities to be observed. You will be told at least one day before the audience, so that you may spend that day fasting.”

“Fasting?
I am not here to receive Holy Communion.”

“Ahem. Then, on the day, you will be conducted to the purple presence-chamber, where your gifts to the emperor will be all on display. As you walk toward the throne, you will three times halt and pause respectfully. When you are before the emperor, you need not throw yourself prone in the proskynésis, you being of ambassadorial rank. You will merely kneel to him and—”

“Hold, eunuch!” I said, hotly and rudely. “I am no humble petitioner, come to whine and wheedle!”

“Are you not?” he said, unruffled. “In my long experience as the palace chamberlain, every emissary from abroad has come either to present a declaration of war or to entreat the emperor to grant something to somebody. Are you here to declare war, then?”

It was a moment before I could reply, partly because I was choked with anger, partly because I had caught Amalamena’s look of amusement, reminding me that I
was
here to ask Zeno to grant something. Myros took advantage of my silence to go on reciting:

“The emperor will not make you kneel for long before he bids you rise. Then you will give him greeting from your King Theodoric—and take care that you do not speak of that king as the emperor’s ‘cousin’ or ‘brother.’ All lesser rulers are
sons.
The emperor will thank you and Theodoric for the gifts you have brought. Then he will name the day on which you are to return to the Purple Palace to discuss the matter that occasioned your coming here.” The chamberlain yawned right in my face. “War, or whatever it may be.”

I finally gritted out, “Since you seem to have had us spied upon from the start of our journey, you must know why I am here.”

“I did not, therefore I do not,” Myros said with elaborate indifference. “Our katáskopoi first encountered your train in the Valley of Roses. I do not even know
whence
you came.”

“Then I will tell all to your Emperor Zeno, and no later than tomorrow. This is urgent. I shall kneel, if that pleases his vanity, but I will not wait. See to it, eunuch, that the formalities and delays are dispensed with.”

“That would be unheard of!”

“You are now hearing of it. And you may give Zeno a hint of the message I bring. Theodoric has taken the city of Singidunum from the occupying Sarmatae. He holds it firm. He could keep it. He could make of it his own stronghold, from which to launch incursions into either the Western or the Eastern Empire.”

“This cannot be true!” gasped Myros. “Singidunum in Theodoric’s possession? Surely we would have heard of it!”

“Then your spies and your pháros fires are not all-knowing, are they? However, I am here to say that Theodoric can be persuaded to cede that crucial city back to the empire. To the august Zeno or the less than august Romulus—to whichever emperor offers the better price for Singidunum,
and offers it
soonest. Go now. Tell Zeno that. And tell him I expect an audience tomorrow. Go!” I shouldered past the eunuch into the courtyard, leading Velox so that Myros had to dodge to save his toes from being trodden on. I turned back only to add, “Do not forget—on your way, send me that Iatrós Alektor of whom you spoke.”

I tossed my reins to Daila and told him to see to the men’s camping arrangements in the courtyard. As I walked with Amalamena to the house, she regarded me somewhat admiringly and said:

“I warned you that you might not be received warmly here. But it appears that you will at least be
received.
I think you did very well, snapping orders at that person in the true manner of an Ostrogoth.”

“Thags izvis,” I said, but grumbled, “I should not have had to make demands. My being marshal to a king ought to have been credentials enough.”

“Remember what Aristotle wrote,” she said. “Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction. Ne, ne, do not snort. You
are
a fine-looking man.” She laughed, but she was not laughing at me. “Remember also the reputation of these Greeks—how much their men love beautiful men.”

I was not greatly flattered by her once again saying she regarded me as a genuine man, then making jape of me as the kind of man who attracts other men. Nevertheless, her quotation from Aristotle gave me something to think about.

The oikonómos had not exaggerated the luxuriousness of the guesthouse—nor, for that matter, the beauty and the complaisance of its Khazar slave maids. The princess and Swanilda, I and my archer-attendants immediately repaired to the baths—and I do not know how the women were served, but we men were not only voluptuously undressed and oiled and strigilated and bathed and dried and powdered by the maids, we also were treated to such sighs and eyelash-flutterings and even surreptitious ticklings that there was no mistaking the Khazars’ willingness to serve us in other ways. No doubt my bowmen later availed themselves of that; I did not. I suppose I had for too long been too close to the pale “moon of the Amals.” The dark-haired, dark-skinned Khazar girls did not appeal to me. Besides, I strongly suspected that they were katáskopoi, and I wanted no reports made to Myros or Zeno regarding my sensuality or carnality or pudicity or anything else about me.

I emerged from the therma, wrapped in toweling, to find the physician Alektor waiting for me, a hawk-nosed, gray-bearded man who eyed me as if he could see right through my swathing, making me feel just slightly uncomfortable in his presence. However, his presence was evidence that Myros had obeyed at least one of my commands. And Alektor’s being privileged to wear a beard indicated that he was accorded the status of a sage, so I took him to be an eminent physician indeed.

“You are the Presbeutés Akantha?” he demanded. “Are you the patient?”

“Oukh, Iatrós Alektor,” I said. “It is my royal companion, the princess Amalamena. Can I trust you with a confidence?”

He drew himself up and glared at me down his nose. “I am a Greek of the island of Kos. So was Hippokrátes.”

“Forgive me, then,” I said. “But I myself am not supposed to know what I am about to tell you.”

So I confided to him everything that the lekeis Frithila had told me about Amalamena’s affliction—the iatrós nodding solemnly and fingering his beard the while—and gave him certain instructions then directed him to the women’s chambers. He went thither, and I returned to the therma’s apodyterium, to don comfortable indoor garb. Afterward, I simply wandered about the house, admiring our accommodations.

The floors were all of delicate stone mosaic, and some of the walls were of even more exquisite glass mosaic. Other walls were adorned by hangings showing turbulent sea battles, lovers flirting in sylvan bowers, scenes from pagan myth or Christian history. There were many other works of art about, and statues large and small—statues everywhere—some of historical figures, but most of gods, heroes, satyrs, nymphs and the like.