Tim Severin - King's Man

I stood my ground and replied in Greek, 'My apologies, your excellency. I am on duty. I cannot leave the imperial presence.'

The Orphanotrophus raised an eyebrow. "Well, well, a guardsman who speaks Greek,' he murmured. 'The palace is finally becoming civilised.'

'Perhaps someone could call a dekanos, ' I suggested. 'That is their duty, to carry messages.' I saw I had made a mistake.

'Yes, and you should do yours,' the Orphanotrophus retorted acidly.

Smarting at the rebuff, I turned on my heel and marched back to the baths. As I entered the long chamber with its high, domed ceiling and walls patterned with mosaics of dolphins and waves, I knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. The Basileus was still in the water, but now he was lying on his back, waving feebly with his arms. Only his corpulence was keeping him from sinking. The attendants who had previously been in the room were nowhere to be seen. I dropped my axe to the marble floor, wrenched off my helmet and sprinted for the pool. 'Alarm! Alarm!' I bellowed as I ran. 'Guardsmen to me!' In a few strides I was at the edge of the pool and, fully clothed, dived in and swam as fast as I could manage towards the Basileus. Silently I thanked my own God, Odinn, that we Norse learn how to swim when we are still young.

The Basileus seemed unaware of my presence as I reached him. He was barely moving and occasionally his head slipped underwater. I put one hand under his chin, lowered my legs until I could touch the bottom of the pool, and began to tow him towards the edge, taking care to keep his head on my shoulder, clear of the water. He was limp in my arms, and his scalp against my chin was bald except for a few straggly hairs.

'Guardsmen to me!' I shouted again. Then in Greek I called out, 'Fetch a doctor!'

This time my calls were answered. Several staff members -scribes, attendants, courtiers — came running into the room and clustered at the edge of the pool. Someone knelt down to grab the Basileus under the armpits and haul him dripping out of the water. But the rescue was clumsy and slow. The Basileus lay on the marble edge of the pool, looking more than ever like a whale, a beached and dying one this time. I clambered out and pushed aside the courtiers.

'Help me lift him,' I said.

'In Thor's name what's going on?' said a voice.

A decurion, the petty officer of my watch, had finally arrived. He glowered so fiercely at the gawking courtiers that they fell back. The two of us picked up the emperor's limp body and carried him towards a marble bench. One of the bath attendants had the wit to spread a layer of towels over it before we laid down the old man, who was moving feebly. The decurion looked round and ripped a brocaded silk gown off the shoulders of a courtier and laid it over the emperor's nakedness.

'Let me through, please'.

This was one of the palace physicians. A short, paunchy man, he lifted up the emperor's eyelids with his stubby fingers. I could see that he was nervous. He pulled his hands back as if he had been scalded. He was probably frightened that the Basileus would expire under his touch. But the emperor's eyes stayed open and he shifted his head slightly to look around him.

At that moment there was a stir among the watching courtiers, and their circle parted to allow a woman through. It was Zoe, the empress. She must have been summoned from the gynaeceum, the women's quarters of the palace. It was the first time I had seen her close to, and I was struck by her poise. Despite her age she held herself with great dignity. She must have been at least fifty years old and had probably never been a beauty, but her face retained that fine-boned structure which hinted at aristocratic descent. She was the daughter and granddaughter of emperors, and had the haughty manners to prove it.

Zoe swept through the crowd, and stepped up to within an arm's length of her husband where he lay on the marble slab. Her face showed no emotion as she gazed down at the emperor, who was ashen pale and breathing with difficulty. For a brief moment she just stared. Then, without a word, she turned and walked out of the room.

The courtiers avoided looking at one another. Everyone, including myself, knew that there was no love between the emperor and his wife. The previous Basileus, Constantine, had insisted that they marry. Zoe was Constantine's favoured daughter, and in the last days of his reign he had searched for a suitable husband for her from among the ranks of Constantinople's aristocracy. Father and daughter had both wanted to ensure the family succession, though Zoe was past childbearing age. That had not prevented her and Romanus when they ascended the throne together from attempting to found their own dynasty. Romanus had dosed himself with huge amounts of aphrodisiacs — the reason for his hair loss, it was claimed — while his elderly consort hung herself with fertility charms and consulted quacks and charlatans who proposed more and more grotesque ways of ensuring pregnancy. When all their efforts failed, the couple slid into a mutual dislike. Romanus had taken a mistress and Zoe had been bundled off to the gynaeceum, frustrated and resentful.

But that was not the whole story. Zoe had also acquired a lover, not two years since. Several members of the guard had come across the two of them coupling together and turned a blind eye. Their tact had not been out of respect for the empress — she conducted her affair openly — but because her consort was the younger brother of John the Orphanotrophus. Here was an area where high politics mingled with ambition and lust, and it was better left alone.

'Stand back!' ordered the decurion.

He took up his position a spear's length from the Basileus's bald head, and as a reflex I stationed myself by the emperor's feet and also came to attention. My axe was still lying somewhere on the marble floor, but I was wearing a dagger at my belt and I dropped my hand to its hilt. The doctor paced nervously up and down, wringing his hands with worry. Suddenly Romanus gave a deep moan. He raised his head a fraction from the towel that was his pillow and made a slight gesture with his right hand. It was as if he was beckoning someone closer. Not knowing whom he gestured to, no one dared move. The awe and majesty of the imperial presence still had a grip on the spectators. The emperor's gaze shifted slowly, passing across the faces of his watching courtiers. He seemed to be trying to say something, to be pleading. His throat moved but no sounds emerged. Then his eyes closed and his head fell back and rolled to one side. He began to pant, his breath coming in short shallow gasps. Suddenly, the breathing paused, and his mouth fell open. Out flowed a thick, dark brown substance, and after two more choking breaths, he expired.

I stood rigidly to attention. There were the sounds of running feet, of tumult, and in the distance a wailing and crying as news of the emperor's death spread among the palace staff. I took no notice. Until a new Basileus was crowned, the duty of the guard was to protect the body of the dead emperor.

'Thorgils, you look like the village idiot standing there in your soaking uniform. Get back to the guardroom and report to the duty officer.'

The instructions were delivered in Norse and I recognised the voice of Halfdan, my company commander. A beefy veteran, Halfdan had served in the Life Guard for close on ten years. He should have retired by now, after amassing a small fortune from his salary, but he liked the life of a guardsman and had cut his ties with his Danish homeland, so he had nowhere else to go.

'Tell him that everything is under control in the imperial presence. You might suggest that he places a curfew on the palace.'

I squelched away, pausing to collect my helmet and the spiked axe which someone had obligingly picked up off the floor and leaned against the wall. My route to the guardroom lay through a labyrinth of passages, reception rooms and courtyards. Romanus III could have died in any one of his palaces — they all had swimming pools - but he had chosen to expire in the largest and most sprawling of them, the Great Palace. Standing close to the tip of the peninsula of Constantinople, the Great Palace had been extended and remodelled so many times by its imperial occupants that it had turned into a bewildering maze of chambers and anterooms. Erecting ever grander buildings was a fascination bordering on mania for each occupant of the purple throne. Every Basileus wanted to immortalise his rule by leaving at least one extravagant structure, whether a new church, a monastery, a huge palace, or some ostentatious public building. Romanus had been busily squandering millions of gold pieces on an immense new church to the mother of his God, though it seemed to me that she already had more than enough churches and monasteries to her name. Romanus's new church was to be dedicated to her as Mary the Celebrated, and what with its surrounding gardens and walkways and fountains — and the constant changes of design, which meant pulling down half-finished buildings — the project had run so far over budget that Romanus had been obliged to raise a special tax to pay for the construction. The church was not yet finished and I suspected it never would be. I surprised myself by realising how easily I was already thinking of Romanus in the past tense.