Tom Harper: The mosaic of shadows

I began tentatively. ‘You want me to find out who attempted the assassination of the Emperor?’ The words sounded no less ridiculous in my mouth than they had in my head, but I saw the eunuch nodding nonetheless. ‘Someone has tried to kill him, and I am to catch that man?’

‘Do you think yourself equal to the task?’ asked Krysaphios dryly. ‘Or have I called the wrong man from his drinking? The Eparch assured me I had not — though I naturally did not tell him the entire truth of your commission.’

‘I can meet the challenge,’ I said, with a confidence that I would regret the next morning. ‘But at what cost?’

‘Your fee, Askiates? I believe we can meet it.’ The eunuch wore the graceless smirk of one who can be deliberately careless of money. ‘Double, even. Two gold pieces a day should afford your time.’

‘It was not the cost to you that concerned me,’ I snapped, irritated by his easy confidence that I could be bought so easily. ‘Though I could hardly do this for less than five gold pieces a day. What of the danger to me ? I doubt this was the work of a tradesman with a grievance, a candlemaker who thought his taxes too onerous or a grocer whose balance was found crooked.’

‘Are those your natural quarry?’ jeered Krysaphios. The flickering gold panels behind him seemed to burn colder. ‘Tradesmen who steal a coin or two when their customers are too dull to notice? If you wish to keep their company, Askiates, I can have the Varangians return you there now. Rather than winning glory and the gratitude of an Emperor.’

‘The gratitude of an Emperor counts for little when he’s dead. And the hatred of his enemies a great deal.’

‘If you do your job properly the Emperor will not be dead. And if he does die, the hatred of his enemies will be the very least of your concerns. Have fifteen years dulled your memory so much? The fires? The looted churches? The screaming women debauched in the streets?’

I was nineteen years old when the last Emperor fell, with a young wife and a newborn daughter in my house; I had not forgotten it. Nor that the usurper of those days, whose entry to the city had supplied the pretext for the rapine frenzy that followed, was now my prospective employer, his holy majesty the Emperor Alexios. My eyes hardened at the thought, but the caution I met in Krysaphios’ gaze kept me silent.

‘Some things have been done which should not have been done,’ he said, as if reciting his confession. ‘And others which ought to have been done differently. But we have had fifteen years of peace since those dark days, and for that we should be thankful. We can build towers and walls beyond number in this city, put ten thousand men on her ramparts, but there will only ever be a single life which stands between peace and ruin. Surely that, for a man with two maiden daughters especially, is worth preserving.’

I could have struck him for drawing my daughters so casually into his web of persuasion, this half-man so haughty one moment and so devious the next, but with Varangians about me and nothing to gain by violence, I kept my fists at my side. Besides, he spoke the truth. I inclined my head in surrender, though hating myself for doing so.

Krysaphios gave a wolfish smile; evidently he relished even this trivial victory. ‘In that case, Master Askiates,’ he said conclusively, ‘you had better make sure the Emperor stays alive. For three gold pieces a day.’

If I was to lay myself hostage to the fortunes of a doomed Emperor and an unscrupulous eunuch, I consoled myself that at least I had secured favourable terms.

Krysaphios had been keen for me to begin by questioning the imperial household, the men most likely to profit from the Emperor’s death, but I insisted on first visiting the site of the act. Thus, next morning, a chill dawn found me outside the house of Simeon the carver, overlooking the arcades of the Mesi near the forum of Saint Constantine. Many of the ivory carvers had their shops here, with the emblem of the crossed horn and knife hanging from their arches; the house of Simeon, I guessed, was the one with the shuttered windows, the locked gate, and the two Varangians standing at the door, helmed and armed. The neighbours setting out their wares, I noticed, were careful to ignore them.

I crossed to the far side of the road and crouched low over the marble paving, scanning its grey-veined surface for signs of the murder. I had heard rain in the night as I lay sleepless in my bed, but I held out hope that blood would not wash away so easily. The stone was cold against my bare knee, and there were plenty of feet to tread heedlessly on my fingers as the morning crowds flowed around me, but I kept my eyes close to the ground until I found what I was looking for, a faded patch of pink stained into the white marble. Was this where a loyal guard had unwittingly given his life for his Emperor, I wondered, or merely the residue a hasty dyer had dripped onto the street?

‘This is where he fell. I was standing behind him when he was hit.’

I looked up, to see the creased, blue eyes of a Varangian peering down on me. The axe on his shoulder gleamed like a halo beside his face, though the skin was too coarse and lined to be that of a saint. His straw-coloured hair was streaked with grey, and although he stood as tall as any of his race, he seemed old for a guardsman.

I scrambled to my feet. ‘Demetrios Askiates,’ I introduced myself.

‘Aelric,’ he answered, holding out his spear-hand in greeting. I took it gingerly, and felt thick fingers clasp tightly around my wrist. ‘The captain’s waiting for you in the house.’

‘But this is where the soldier fell?’ A nod. ‘Was it sudden?’

‘Like lightning. All I saw was him on the ground, stuck in the side like a boar and bleeding his life out. In no more time than you’d need to blink. And straight through his armour, too,’ he added in wonder. ‘Like it was made of silk.’

‘His right side or his left?’

The guard turned to face up the street, clearly mimicking the last steps of his dead companion, and thoughtfully lifted a hand to his right breast. ‘This one,’ he said slowly. ‘The side where the Emperor rode.’

‘So the arrow must have been fired from high up, or it would never have passed over the Emperor on his horse, and from across the street — from the carver’s house.’

‘Where the captain’s waiting for you,’ prodded the guard, the merest hint of impatience edging his voice.

‘Stand here, then. I want to see what the assassin saw.’ I walked slowly back across the road and up the steps between the columns, to the barred gate on the carver’s door. Little light fell within, but I could see the scaly gleam of ringed armour not far back.

‘Demetrios Askiates,’ I called, putting my face up to the bars. The carver would have mounted them to protect his home and his goods; now, I suspected, they were become his prison.

‘I know who you are, Demetrios Askiates,’ said a gruff voice from inside. He stepped into the slatted light by the door, the red-headed Varangian captain of the previous night, and I saw his vast fist turning a key in the lock. The door swung inwards, opening onto a dim room filled with every manner of trinkets, reliquaries, mirrors, and caskets. Rich men and women would pay handsomely to own one of them, but in the present circumstances they put me more in mind of a tomb, a crypt, than of conspicuous luxury.

‘The bone scratcher’s upstairs,’ said the captain. ‘Lives over his workshop.’ He jerked a thumb up at the ceiling. ‘We’ve got two apprentices up there too. And his family.’

Had they been kept captive all night, I wondered, as I climbed the steep steps in the corner. I came onto the first floor, another large room covered in white shavings as fine and deep as snow. Long tables stood in the centre, still strewn with abandoned tools and half-finished artefacts, while tall windows looked out over the sloping tiles of the arcade’s roof. Beyond it, I could just see the top of a helmet: Aelric the Varangian, standing where I had left him.