The great Justinian, Emperor and Despotes, stalks up to me angrily. His round peasant face is even more ruddy than usual.
“Narses, this beggars belief,” he says. “Why has this riot not been crushed? Where are the Imperial Palace Guards? Why have you not led them out?”
“Despotes,” I respond, standing to attention, “I fear I cannot rely on them. The rioters are civilians, and many of the guards have relatives among them. They will not attack.”
“Can we at least depend on them to defend the palace? Or will they cravenly hand us over to the raging mob?”
I stiffen. As Commander of the Imperial Guard, this is a very difficult position for me to be in. “No, Despotes. They will certainly defend the palace. To a man.”
“Small mercy. Already the entrance has been torched!”
“But the fire has been contained, and barricades have been put up.”
He grunts.
General Belisarius comes up and seeks to speak. “Despotes?” His handsome face, normally as open and friendly as any schoolboy’s, is tense.
“Yes?” the Emperor snaps.
“Between us, General Mundus and I have a couple of thousand men, housed in the Imperial barracks. Just say the word, and we–”
“No! I will not let a bunch of barbarian mercenaries loose on the people of Constantinople. Nor will I be dictated to by a rabble. The urban militia should be able to cope. We have had riots before, after all.”
“But, Despotes–”
“No, Belisarius. We’ll wait for calm to be restored. Which will surely be quite soon. This will blow over, if we keep our heads. Come, let’s drink some wine.”
They walk across the triclinium to join General Mundus on a couch. Mundus has a weather-beaten face resembling a saddle-bag left too long in the sun. He looks lugubrious. His hands dangle between his knees and he sighs.
At a handy table sits that plump pale legal fellow Procopius, secretary to Belisarius; he watches everyone with his small, closeset eyes and makes notes; he fancies himself as a historian, and records current events as if preparing one of his frequent despatches from the field of battle.
The Empress Theodora will not sit; she wants to be able to see out of the windows, although the palace complex is so huge that one cannot see the streets of the city. But one can see the flames. She stalks past Procopius, whom she hates for some reason, and comes to stand beside me. I have learned to know her well. I can read the rosy flush that stains her throat when she is angry. I can interpret, exactly, the set of her lips. She communicates with me simply by the way she breathes. Right now, she is both furious and frightened.
“Narses, this is ridiculous. How did it happen?” she demands in an angry undertone. “What set it off?”
I sigh. “Nobody knows, exactly. Doubtless the Greens accused a Blue champion charioteer of cheating, or vice versa, and out came the short swords.”
“But it wasn’t a serious riot, was it? We received no such reports. Besides, these partisan gangs have been allowed to do as they like for years. And never before …”
“True. But a number of people were killed, and Eudaemon knew the city was volatile. He acted to establish order. The enquiry was thorough, Despoina, and conducted with impartiality.”
“It is not clear to me why the seven men found guilty of murder were not all beheaded. Why behead three and then take the trouble to hang four?”
“To create a public spectacle,” I suggest. “Because they were rebel leaders. To quell all further urge to revolt. To demonstrate impartiality. There were two Blues and two Greens, after all.”
Her Royal Highness snorts. “So the Greens felt persecuted, and the Blues betrayed.”
As usual, she has cut to the crux of the issue. Justinian did formerly favour the Blues, and they expected his support. In vain. “True. Anger all around.”
“Were you there, Narses?”
She refers, I know, to the farcical catastrophe of January 10, when the condemned men were supposed to be hanged.
“I was there, Despoina.”
Since I am slightly built and do not have memorable looks, I have been able to move about among the agitated crowds, wrapped in a patched and hooded cloak so that I may pass for a slave. I walk with a slave’s ducked head and apologetic manner, and nobody recognises Narses the Eunuch, Commander of the Imperial Guard.
So yes, I was present when, on January 10, the four condemned men were to be put to death. The scaffold was erected in a square in Sykae, beyond the Golden Horn, near the monastery dedicated to Saint Conon. There were several monks amongst the crowd. I noted far more peasants among the onlookers than one might have expected; but the city has absorbed many of those lately bankrupted and dispossessed, their faces grown gaunt since they have had to scrounge from scrapheaps instead of eating from the land.
The mood was sullen. As ropes were put around the wretched men’s necks, a deep, threatening sound was heard, almost like the throaty rumble of a hungry bear. The executioner stood back, the platform on which the men stood was withdrawn with a jerk and a collective groan went up. All four rebels should have died in an instant as they fell and the nooses tightened.
But the executioner had bungled his job. Probably he had not knotted the ropes properly. Doubtless his hands had trembled. The crowd saw that two of the men had survived. They lay wriggling on the ground with their hands still tied behind their backs, unable to get up.
“It’s a miracle!” shouted one of the monks. “Hallelujah! The Lord has spared one Blue and one Green!”
“A miracle! A miracle!” The words echoed through the square.
But the hangman, a burly Libyan slave, was not deterred. He may well have feared that his failure could result in his own head being parted from his shoulders. With desperate haste, he hauled the men to their feet, forced them up onto the scaffold again, and once more put the ropes around their necks. The rumble from the spectators grew to an angry growl.
Again the hangman whipped away the platform. As before the wretched men dropped to the ground, still alive, still writhing in their bonds. I was close enough to smell that they had fouled themselves. The crowd roared its disapproval as the hangman bent down to try yet again.
A shout went up: “To the church, to the church!” The monks from St Conon’s rushed forward and took up the two survivors in their arms. The crowd cheered them on.
“Touch them and we’ll hang you, you bastard!” yelled a strapping young fellow.
“Yes, by the heels, and leave you to rot!” shouted someone else.
The monks hurried the condemned men, barely breathing, down to the Golden Horn, put them in a boat and headed to the Church of St Lawrence. There they were granted sanctuary.
Eudaemon the Prefect then sent a detachment of soldiers to the church to prevent anyone from entering or leaving, but even he did not dare to arrest the men inside the church. Supporters of the Greens and Blues rushed to their aid, but the soldiers blocked them. The priests refused to surrender the men, bedded and fed them. It was a stand-off.
Today is the 13th, and the ides of January, a date when the moon is clear and full. A day on which chariot races are traditionally held at the Hippodrome. The Emperor always attends, but given the fraught situation, I strongly advised him to stay away. He would have none of it, though, so I doubled the guards at every point. Naturally, as Commander of the Palace Guard, I brought up the rear as Justinian and Theodora with their usual entourage entered the Kathisma from the palace and took their seats with regal dignity, to be greeted by a tense and angry atmosphere. I kept close observation, standing next to a tall excubitor, whose hand rested on his sword. The great stadium was packed