Tom Harper - The mosaic of shadows

I walked towards it, but at the sound of my footsteps the voices paused. With a nervous glance at the solitude around me, I pressed my boot against the door and pushed.

‘Demetrios.’ The Sebastokrator’s head jerked up as I fell to my knees, but I kept my eyes raised enough to see that he had been talking very closely with another man, who shrank back into the corner of the tiny room as Isaak stepped forward. He seemed flustered, but the time it took me to perform the full proskynesis allowed him to compose himself.

‘Get up,’ he told me. ‘What are you doing in this corner of the palace?’

‘I was lost,’ I said humbly. ‘I heard voices and thought I might find a guide to lead me out of here.’

Isaak scowled. ‘Count Hugh, have you had presented to you Demetrios Askiates? He works for us to thwart our enemies.’

I bowed. It seemed that Count Hugh had forgotten the scribe who accompanied him on his embassy to the barbarians, though it would be many months before I forgot the preening Frank who had almost been pissed on in the barbarians’ tent. ‘An honour, Lord.’

‘Count Hugh is one of the few Franks who understands the need for all Christians to unite under the banner of God and His Emperor,’ Isaak explained. ‘He hopes to persuade his countrymen to follow his good sense.’

‘Thus far without success,’ said Hugh mournfully. He fingered the agate clasp on his mantle. ‘Some of them are reasonable men, yes, but too many listen to the poison which the whelp Baldwin spouts.’

Isaak looked at me carefully. ‘But these great cares are not for Demetrios. If you seek the way out, take the north door from this passage and continue until you find the chapel of Saint Theodore. You will find your way from there.’

I bowed. ‘Thank you, gracious Lord.’

He attempted an insincere smile. ‘A Caesar’s duty is to aid his subjects. And perhaps I will see you next week — at the games?’

I did see him at the games, though I doubt if he saw me. He was seated on a golden throne beside his brother on the balcony of the Kathisma, while I shared a bench high on the southern side with a group of fat Armenians, who cared for nothing but gambling and honeyed figs. Worse, they supported the Greens.

‘Why would anyone support the Greens?’ I asked of my neighbour, a thin man who chewed his fingers incessantly. ‘You might as well declare yourself in favour of the sun.’

The man looked at me with terror, and returned to his fingers.

‘Demetrios!’

I glanced up warily, for one meets many men in the Hippodrome and not all are to be welcomed. This one I was happy enough to see, though I barely recognised him without his axe and armour. He wore a brown woollen tunic with a studded leather belt, and high boots which had little difficulty poking a space between me and my timid neighbour.

‘Shouldn’t you be at the walls?’ I asked.

‘The walls have stood safe for seven centuries, and broken every army which came at them. They may survive an afternoon without me.’ Sigurd shuffled along the bench a little, taking advantage of the newly vacated space. ‘I thought I could take a few hours to see the Greens win.’

I groaned. ‘Not the Greens. Why would you want to see them win?’

Sigurd looked puzzled. ‘Because they do win. Who would not support the strongest team? Don’t tell me that you support the Blues?’

‘The Whites.’

Sigurd guffawed, happier than I had seen him in weeks. ‘The Whites? You can’t support the Whites — no-one does. Have they ever won once in your entire lifetime?’

‘Not yet. Their day will come.’

‘But they don’t even race to win. Their only purpose is to act as spoilers for the Blues, to knock the Greens off the track and let the Blues past. They’re not competitors. You might as well see me supporting the Reds.’

If you supported the Whites, as I did, these were not new arguments. ‘Perhaps there is nothing I would rather see than the Green chariot upturned on the spina. The first and only time that my father brought me to Constantinople, he took me here and told me to choose a team. I was wearing a white tunic that day, so when I saw the Whites I decided that they would be mine.’

‘You must regret not wearing green.’ Sigurd was merciless.

‘Not at all. Because one day the Whites will win. .’

‘If a murrain strikes down the Greens and Blues and Reds first.’

‘And I will have more joy from that single victory than you will from a lifetime of seeing the Greens roll past the finishing post.’

Sigurd shook his head sadly. ‘You will die a bitter man if you wait for that day, Demetrios.’

Thankfully, a fanfare of trumpets rescued me. We fell silent as the Emperor rose from his throne.

It was the first race of the afternoon, and the hippodrome was as yet only three-quarters filled, but its spectacle remained undiminished. The arms of the arena stretched away from where we sat, alive with the colours of all the races and factions of men in their tens of thousands. In the distance, above the far gate, four bronze horses reared up as if pulling their golden quadriga into the air, while the great dome of Ayia Sophia crowned the horizon. Along the spine in the foreground were the statues and columns, the monuments of a thousand years of competition towering above us. There were Emperors and obelisks, set beside half a dozen effigies of Porphyrius and the other charioteers of legend, to whose company the church had added saints and prophets. I could see Moses, clutching two tablets of stone as he hurried towards the north gate; Saint George, brandishing his lance; and Joshua sounding his horn from atop a sandstone column.

Down in the Kathisma the acclamations were finished. The Emperor retook his seat, accompanied by a thundering roar from the crowd as the gates sprang open and the chariots emerged. They were quick on the damp sand of the arena, and had passed the northern marker in seconds. The factions rose as their champions galloped past, great squares of blue and green, many hundreds of men wide, all shouting in unison. None wore White or Red, for few were fool enough to support the junior teams who raced only in support of their seniors.

The teams slowed as they navigated the first turn around the southern post. They were directly below me, now, but some fool follower of the Greens chose the moment to raise a wide banner which completely obscured my view. By the time I could see again, they were past the Kathisma on my right and almost back at the far end.

‘Is that the Whites in the lead?’ I asked, squinting into the distance. ‘And the Greens, straggling along there at the rear?’

‘If the Whites could race seven circuits as well as they race the first two, then perhaps one of their drivers would be immortalised in stone on the spine.’ Sigurd was sitting forward on the lip of the bench, craning to see what was happening. He looked as happy as a ten-year-old.

‘Tactics,’ I muttered through my teeth.

As ever, the Whites had started well; as they came back towards us they led the Reds by a length, and the Blues and Greens by several more. But it was illusory, for the senior teams were biding their time, letting their horses stretch their legs on the opening circuits while their junior partners raced for the stronger position.

‘They’re taking their time.’ Sigurd bit his knuckle, looking anxiously at his team. ‘They don’t want to leave too much to do in the turns.’

‘They won’t have to. Not with that lame mule on the outside.’

But I was speaking from hope rather than reason. I could see the Green and Blue drivers using their whips more freely now, goading their teams into an ever faster rhythm. The leading pair were beginning to tire — the Whites faster than the Reds, I feared — and soon all four would meet. Every man in the hippodrome was tense; some could not keep to their seats in anticipation, but bounced up and down like puppets.