Tom Harper - The mosaic of shadows

‘Your. . your garden? Indeed, Lord,’ I stammered.

‘I did not mean to unsettle you with it. I find it soothes me: a world apart from the world I rule.’

‘Yes, Lord.’

He scratched the rough hair of his beard, and looked me in the eye. ‘I have called you here to thank you, Demetrios. If not for you, I would have no need of craftsmen’s tricks to believe I was in the gardens of heaven.’

I had never received the gratitude of an Emperor before, and I was unsure how to accept it. I opted for mimicry. ‘Tricks, Lord?’

‘Surely you do not believe that even I can bend the seasons and the weather to my will. Feel the leaves on that tree, those buds which are bursting to break into flower.’

I reached up and rubbed one of the leaves between my finger and thumb. It had the waxy sheen of a fresh oak-leaf, and I could see the dark lines of veins running through it. But to touch. .

‘It feels like silk,’ I marvelled.

‘Exactly so.’ The Emperor Alexios swept his hand around him. ‘All these trees — the grass and sky as well — all silk. Fires and mirrors make the sun, and if you were to pick yourself one of those plump apples and bite into it, you would break your teeth. Thus we maintain a world which is always on the cusp of summer, which never decays in the drear of autumn. Unlike my own realm.’

‘Are there rooms for all the seasons?’ I wondered aloud.

Alexios laughed, a throaty, peasant’s laugh. ‘Perhaps, but I have yet to find them. I lived five years in the palace before I discovered this room, and it took as long again for the workshops to restore its full splendour.’ He coughed. ‘But I did not summon you to talk about my garden, Demetrios. As I said, I want to thank you for guiding the traitor’s axe past my neck.’

‘I would have done the same for any man.’

‘No doubt. But not every man could reward you as I will.’

‘Your chamberlain already pays me more than I am worth to protect you. I was merely. .’

Alexios smiled. ‘It does not matter what you are worth: my chamberlain pays for what I am worth. And I pay for what I value. I have instructed the secretaries to make the necessary payments, in due course. I believe you will be satisfied.’

‘Thank you, Lord. The gifts of your bounty flow from your hand like water from. .’

The Emperor jerked his head. ‘I do not need your flattery. I leave that to those who have no greater talents. If you must protest loyalty, do so with your deeds.’

‘Always, Lord.’

‘Krysaphios tells me you think it was the barbarians who tried to kill me. The men who are camped in Galata, consuming my harvest and refusing my envoys.’

‘There are obvious reasons to think so.’

The Emperor pulled a leaf from the bough and twisted it in his hand. ‘My brother, Isaak, believes we should fall on them at once and massacre them in the streets of Galata, then send the survivors back across the sea in chains. There are many in the court and the city who think likewise.’

‘It would offend the laws of God,’ I offered, having nothing better to suggest.

Alexios discarded his crumpled leaf. ‘It would offend against the laws of reason. Those barbarians are there because I begged them to come, and if they have come in greater numbers than I hoped, and with their own purposes in their hearts, that does not reduce my need. Not if I am to rescue the lands of Asia which my predecessors squandered.’

‘There are those who say that the barbarians have not come to rescue those lands, but to take them for themselves.’ I could not believe that I was speaking thus with the Emperor, on matters of the most exalted importance, but against all expectation he seemed to welcome it.

‘Of course the barbarians have come to take lands for themselves. Why else would they journey halfway across the world to fight for me? That is why I must keep them here until they have sworn to return what is rightfully mine. If, after that, they can carve out kingdoms of their own, beyond our ancient frontiers, then let them. I would rather have Christians bound with oaths on my border than Turks and Fatimids.’

‘Do you trust the barbarians so?’

‘I trust them as far as they keep their swords from me — which, it seems, is not nearly far enough. But they have their uses. When the Normans invaded, I fought them in a dozen battles and lost each one, yet still I drove them from our lands. Why? Because they will not trust each other for long: they are more prone to faction and jealousy even than the Saracens. Gold and ambition will divide them from each other, will keep them weak against us, while all that will unite them is their hatred of the Ishmaelites. They will gain gold and kingdoms; we will have our lands restored, and we will live together in uneasy dependence.’

‘Will it work?’

Alexios snorted, in a way most unbefitting an Emperor. ‘Perhaps. If the barbarians are not massacred by the Turks, and if they do not fall out with themselves before they even reach Nicaea, and if their priests do not discover that in fact the Lord God intends some wholly different purpose for their army. But none of it will happen if I do not squeeze those oaths from their captains.’ He took my arm. ‘Which is why you must ensure that nothing is allowed to destroy our alliance with them. If they succeed in murdering me, or are even known to have tried, then there will be war between our peoples and the only victors will be the Turks.’

The audience was finished. I left that enchanted garden of perpetual spring, and returned to the world I knew. Where the rain was still falling.

The rain fell for most of the following fortnight, splashing at my heels as I roamed the city. I spent many hours at the gates, watching as small parties of barbarians were admitted to admire the sights of the city and our civilisation. Most were content to gape in silence, though some felt compelled to mask their awe with belittling jokes and snide insults. Occasionally these would spark scuffles with Romans, but the Watch were always there, always ready to draw the combatants apart without violence. Clearly they too had had their orders from the Emperor. And all the while I wondered about Thomas.

The first two days after he left I had thought of little else, though I knew it would be weeks before I had news of him. His life was on my conscience, and I ached to ask those passing merchants who dealt with the Franks whether they had heard anything of him, but for the sake of his safety I could not dare. At least there was no news of his death, and as the days drew on my thoughts returned to more immediate concerns. Always, though, it was a weight on my heart, an itch worrying at my mind. Often it haunted my dreams.

There were also long days at the palace, when I wandered its corridors like a ghost, interviewing guards and functionaries, probing for any sign of trouble, and — as Krysaphios instructed me — keeping my eyes open. It seemed little enough to do for the gold he was paying me, but the strain of it told, for every hour I spent in those halls I lived in the terror that a slave would approach and announce that the Emperor was dead. I did not see him after that day in the unnatural garden, except once at a great distance: a gilded statue in the midst of an endless train of monks, guards and nobles, processing past a far door to the strains of music and incense. Otherwise, it was as if he inhabited a different world.

But I did see his brother, a week or so after my audience. A morning on the walls had left me too tired to face clerks who prided themselves on the time they could take telling me nothing, and I was walking down some empty, forgotten arcade when I heard the sound of voices. Not the gaiety of courtiers, nor the grumbling of servants, but the hushed murmur of men who do not wish their words to be heard. It seemed to come from behind a small door recessed between two columns, open just enough to be ajar but not so much that you would guess anyone was within.