Tom Harper - The mosaic of shadows

And hour after hour, as I asked the expected questions and heard the expected answers, I struggled with the motive of the crime. Aelric could not have hoped to gain from his treachery, for even had he felled the Emperor he would have died the next instant. Unless madness or an evil spirit had taken hold of him, someone must have driven him to attempt the murder with a threat greater than certain death. What could that be — and who? It might have been the monk, but whose ends did he serve? Was it as Isaak suggested, that the barbarian envoys had hoped to use the confusion to their advantage? That was madness, for they would have been slaughtered to a man. Or was it the barbarian captains, away in their camp, hoping that the Emperor’s death would give them an excuse and an opportunity to take the city? That was almost too fanciful to credit. Or were the barbarians simply a distraction, an irrelevance in a political contest fought among our own nobles?

I found no answers, but when my task was done I took the notes to Krysaphios at the new palace. Such was my exhaustion, my shock, that I did not argue when the guard announced that the eunuch was unavailable: I called for a secretary, sealed the book with wax, and left it with him to relay to his master. Then, as it was not far, I walked along the hilltop in the shadow of the walls to the Varangian barracks.

‘Is Sigurd the captain here?’ I asked.

‘On the ramparts,’ answered the sentry.

‘Can I speak with him?’

‘You can,’ he said dubiously, ‘though you might regret it. He’s in an evil mood.’

‘I’ll risk it.’

I crossed the parade ground and climbed the broad stair up to the wall, watching my breath cloud the bitter air. The sky was clear, a swathe of purple far above me, and the first stars were beginning to prick through. They reminded me of the Emperor’s opulence, the glittering gems set in the imperial fabric, and I wondered who would have been wearing those robes tonight if I had been a second slower. The Sebastokrator Isaak? The Emperor’s first son, barely eight years old? One of the eminences whose servants I had interviewed that afternoon? Or a barbarian from the west, sitting awkwardly on the throne watching the abomination of an empire?

I found Sigurd alone, leaning on the deep embrasure between two battlements and staring out at the sparks across the water where the barbarian campfires burned. He grunted when I greeted him, but did not turn to face me.

‘It seems so tranquil,’ I mused, pulling my cloak tight about me. ‘Truly, night smoothes the fractures of the world.’

‘But night dawns, and it will be a long time before the fragments of this day are forged back together.’ Sigurd tipped a clay flagon to his lips, and I heard the gulping of liquid tumbling from its throat to his. ‘Wine?’

‘Thank you.’ It was coarse stuff, but a welcome tonic against the cold.

‘Though you’ve no cares. You saved the Emperor’s life. You can expect a house and a pension for such service. I let a traitor destroy the honour of the Varangians, and come within an inch of razing the empire.’

‘So who guards the Emperor now, if the Varangians are expelled from the palaces?’ My fevered mind wondered whether Aelric’s deed had merely been a gambit to discredit his legion, to leave the Emperor vulnerable.

‘Patzinaks.’ Sigurd’s voice implied they might as well be lepers. ‘Round-faced barbarians from the east: an ugly race, with ugly women and uglier habits.’

‘Reliable?’

‘As rocks. Once the Emperor defeated them in battle; now they worship him as a god, and serve him as zealots. I once saw a Patzinak stand for four days and nights in driving snow because no order came to relieve him.’

There was a silence as we swapped the wine again. I leaned against the massive parapet, and felt the cold of the stone on my cheek.

‘I know your wounds are sore,’ I began again, ‘but there are questions which need swift answers before the trail fades. Did Aelric have any particular comrades in the guard? Or a family?’

‘He was in a company of men who were all like brothers. But do not seek answers from Sweyn or Stigand or any of the others: they were as ignorant as me. Otherwise Aelric would never have crossed the palace threshold, except in chains. He had a family, though — a wife, Freya, and a son.’

‘Do they live in the barracks?’

‘None of the women do. The wife keeps a house in Petrion, not far from here. The son left home years ago — he probably has grandchildren by now. Remember, Aelric was already a warrior when most of us were still sucking on our mothers.’

‘Did you know him then? Back in Thule?’

‘England,’ Sigurd corrected me automatically. ‘No — our paths here were separate, and it was years later, when I was a grown man, that we met.’

‘And his wife — did he meet her here, or was she also from England?’

‘English. She fled with him after the Bastard conquered us.’

‘I think I had best see her. Will she already have been told Aelric’s fate?’

‘I doubt anyone has thought of her until you, Demetrios. You may have to relate the news yourself.’

‘Will you come?’

Sigurd drained the last of the wine and tossed the bottle over the parapet. I heard it shatter on the stones below.

‘I cannot leave this place.’ He kicked at the battlement before him. ‘We are not allowed any closer to the palace than these walls.’

On balance, I decided, it would probably be better to arrive at the widow’s house without her husband’s murderer.

I left Sigurd in his isolation, walking the utmost boundary of the city, and made my way to the house he had described. Though I knew that the passing of time was no ally, I moved listlessly, rebuffing the attentions of the Watch and hating the fact that I would have to tell Aelric’s wife of her husband’s treason and death. All too soon I was at her door, thumping a cold fist against the thick oak. Every stroke sent numb shivers through my hand, but I persisted until at last I heard a suspicious voice within demanding my business.

‘I have come from the palace. It concerns your husband.’ My words haunted the empty street.

Three times I heard the sounds of bolts being drawn. Then the door cracked open.

‘You are not of the Varangians. Have I seen you before?’

All was darkness beyond the door, but the voice bespoke someone old, a woman pinched by a weary life.

‘I am a stranger,’ I admitted, ‘but I knew your husband. He. .’

‘You knew my husband?’ The door edged open a fraction further. ‘Why is it that you knew my husband? Where is he now?’

‘He is dead.’

I had not meant to say it so baldly, but it was out now and I could curse my carelessness later. I heard a wail arise in the room within, the sound of someone stumbling about, and I pushed in through the door before she could slam it on me. Small fists flailed against my chest, and I raised my arms in defence, though there was little force in her bony blows. The darkness hindered me, but eventually I managed to catch hold of her wrists and hold them away, until the screams of defiance broke down into a forlorn sobbing.

As gently as I could, I steered her backwards, away from the door. She was weeping, calling her dead husband’s name and many other things in a tongue I could not understand.

‘Do you have a candle?’ I asked as she took a choking breath. ‘It would help if I could see you.’

Tentatively, I relaxed my grip a little, testing whether she still aimed to attack me. There was no sudden movement, nor any increase in her sobbing, and so I let her loose.

She moved away. For a second I feared she might be fetching a blade, might assault me in the darkness, but then I saw a shower of sparks in a corner and the flare of a wick. The candle was burned low, crusted with shrivelled knobs of wax, but it gave enough light that I could at last see Aelric’s poor widow.