Lord of Slaughter (Claw Trilogy 3) Read online

  He stood up.

  ‘Do you know me?’

  ‘No, sir, I do not.’

  The man put his tongue into his lower lip in contemplation. Loys noticed the master had his eyes firmly on the eunuch, a static smile cut into his face like a scar into the skin of an orange.

  ‘I am the chamberlain. The parakoimomeno.’

  Loys instinctively bowed. The parakoimomeno – he who sleeps beside the emperor – was the second most powerful man in the empire after the emperor; some would say more powerful even than he. Basileios was always away fighting his wars. The emperor didn’t enjoy court life even when he wasn’t fighting, and stayed at his estate up the coast. The chamberlain remained in Constantinople and was responsible for all the day-to-day running of the city.

  ‘He doesn’t look clever,’ said the chamberlain to the master.

  ‘He is the best man for the work you describe, sir,’ said the master. ‘I have none better.’

  ‘You’re not just giving him to me because he is a foreigner and you fear to lose a native scholar?’

  ‘This man is steeped in occult lore, sir.’

  A long silence. The chamberlain’s expression was as blank as the moon’s. Loys and the master waited for the chamberlain to speak, and they waited a good while.

  Eventually he said, ‘You are a foreigner. You live here at the school?’

  ‘No, I live—’

  ‘By the lighthouse gate.’

  Loys said nothing, just gave a little bow. The eunuch was trying to intimidate him, and the wise course of action was to let him. No point standing up to such men. Better to allow them to intimidate you with long silences than with their soldiers.

  ‘With your wife. Who is higher born than you, it appears.’

  Loys remained silent still.

  The chamberlain puckered his lips.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘Silence is a talent and a precious one.’

  After that Loys didn’t really feel he could speak until asked a direct question.

  ‘What do you think of magic, scholar?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Your theory of magic, what is it?’

  Loys rocked from foot to foot.

  ‘The Church tells us it is the devil working through malicious and envious men.’

  ‘But what do you think?’

  ‘I am bound to think the same. Though I can consider and understand heresies, even rehearse their arguments the better to prepare our priests to know them, then—’

  The chamberlain held up his hand to silence Loys. He reached inside his tunic, took a coin out of a pocket and laid it on the table.

  ‘Study it and tell me what you think.’

  Loys picked it up. It was an ancient Roman coin from the time of the founding of the city. On one side it showed Constantine along with his mother St Helena, on the other a picture of Christ on the Cross. It had been drilled to allow it to be worn as an amulet.

  ‘It is a charm, sir,’ said Loys, ‘probably for good luck or power.’

  ‘Yes, it is. And I would say it’s an effective one. From where does it derive its power?’

  ‘From the image of the True Cross.’

  ‘Is that the same as from God?’

  ‘A difficult question, sir. There are many drunken old women who babble the name of Christ in their spells. It would depend how it was used. And, of course, by whom. Contemplation, proper contemplation, of the image of Christ can lead us closer to God, whatever the iconoclasts would have had us believe. The Cross is an inspiration to faith, and it is through faith miracles are achieved. Yet the devil has many disguises.’

  ‘Spoken like a philosopher,’ said the chamberlain. ‘Which is to say you have given no answer at all. What if I told you the power of the coin came from the image of the emperor?’

  ‘Then that would make it no more than a pagan icon. A channel for the evildoing of demons.’

  ‘Our founder and ancestor Constantine a channel for demons?’

  ‘I did not mean to imply …’ Loys was very hot. ‘It is the image of a man. The likeness of a good man, an excellent man, can still be used for evil. I refer only to what the saints and scholars tell us. There are sympathies and antipathies in nature. The image of a powerful man might be able to manipulate these. Demons might fear him and so the amulet might bring good luck. Sorcerers could use it to do more.’

  ‘To alter the future?’

  ‘Anyone can alter the future, sir – it’s as simple as choosing to buy an apple at the market or to pass by the stall.’

  The chamberlain smiled. ‘Don’t be clever with me, scholar. Could it be used to magical effect?’

  ‘I believe so, yes, if my reading is correct. But it would not be holy to do so. That is the province of wonder workers and I curse their names.’

  The chamberlain tapped the table. ‘Could you tell a sorcerer from a saint, scholar? Their actions are often very similar.’

  ‘I believe I could.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The saint’s powers come from his faith. The image of the Cross, as on the coin, simply provides a focus for that faith. So it is not exactly true to say the image of the Cross holds power in itself. It is, rather, the power of faith it unlocks inside us, as we see in the Gospel of St Mark. There a woman touches Christ’s robe and is cured of the affliction of the issue of the blood. But Christ tells her it is her faith, not the touch of his robe, that has made her well. A sorcerer works through demon-infested objects, not faith. And a sorcerer must fail. Any attempt to control demons is doomed to disaster.’

  ‘Yet our saints have been nailed up, drowned, eaten by lions, burned, beaten and buggered for all I know. A funny sort of success.’

  The profanity shocked Loys. The chamberlain’s words weren’t blasphemous though they sat on the bench right next to it, so to speak. But of course nothing the chamberlain said was blasphemy, simply because it was he who had said it. Anyone pointing the finger at a man like that was likely to lose the finger and more besides.

  The chamberlain spoke again: ‘Where do you get these ideas from? Do you invent them or is there a foundation in the work of learned scholars?’

  ‘From Proclus, mainly, a man of this city in ancient times, though Proclus brings with him one hundred other philosophers back to Plato.’

  ‘Proclus was a heathen, was he not?’

  ‘No, a Christian, but he followed other religions besides. He wanted to become a priest of the whole universe.’

  ‘A pretentious sort of sacrilege. And do you follow other religions?’

  ‘No. Proclus was wrong to be promiscuous in his faith. I am a true Christian.’

  ‘Not after our fashion, though? You follow the Pope.’

  ‘I follow Christ,’ said Loys.

  ‘But you do not accept the teachings of the Eastern Church.’

  ‘The Eastern Church has great wisdom. I am honoured to attend its services.’

  ‘But the Pope commands you.’

  Loys was on difficult ground here. He didn’t want the chamberlain to extract a confession that he was effectively controlled by a foreign power. This was no place for fine distinctions, to say the Pope controlled his spiritual life but that in Constantinople Loys was a loyal subject of the emperor. Powerful men might not choose to see the difference.

  ‘My master is the art of learning, sir. There is right and there is wrong, and an appreciation of the difference is all that is required of the godly man.’

  The chamberlain leaned back in his seat. For a while he said nothing and Loys felt himself frying beneath the man’s gaze.

  Finally: ‘You won’t prosper in Constantinople with that attitude.’

  Another long pause. Then the chamberlain did something extraordinary. He smiled. Loys glanced at the master. He still wore a fixed smile, like he’d taken too close a look at the Medusa.

  The chamberlain gave a little chuckle. ‘It was a joke, friends. You could allow yourself to laugh.’

&nbs
p; Loys forced out a laugh and the master was seized by a fit of hysteria, beating his hand on his knee and wheezing as if about to die. The guards behind the chamberlain were impassive.

  When the laughter ended, which was not soon, the chamberlain turned to the master. ‘I would like to speak with the scholar alone.’

  That stopped the old man’s mirth. For a moment he looked as though he might say something. Then the chamberlain pointed to the door. The master stood and went to it, hesitating in front of it.

  ‘You put your hand to the door, push and walk through. Do they not teach that in your philosophy, old man?’

  The master went out. The big black man followed him, shooed him away down the corridor and returned to stand behind the chamberlain. The black man frightened Loys. The Arabs wrote that the blacks were the first of men, intellectually, physically and spiritually superior to other races in every way. This man looked it, with his quick eyes and gleaming muscles. He had a presence that made Loys want to take a pace back.

  ‘I need to speak to you frankly and in confidence. Only you, I and one other know what I am about to tell you. If these secrets escape there will only be you to blame. You know what that would mean.’ Loys’ eyes flicked to the guards.

  ‘The guards are trustworthy, but if it pleases you we can communicate in this way and they cannot understand us,’ said the chamberlain in Latin.

  ‘The master?’ said Loys in the same language.

  ‘He only knows a little of my purpose.’

  ‘I am ready to serve.’ Loys bowed and then bowed again, against himself. He wanted to show respect but he didn’t want to look like a serf.

  ‘I have a problem,’ said the chamberlain, ‘and you are its solution. Dark forces are at work in this city. The emperor himself is under magical attack and has been tempted by demons.’

  ‘This was the savage who broke through to the emperor’s tent?’

  ‘Hardly. Lazy guards rather than magic, I think. No more than a madman wanting alms, whatever the gossip you might here to the contrary.’

  ‘I’m glad there was no attempt on the emperor’s life.’

  ‘The emperor has more to fear than deranged men and drunken guards. This is much more serious.’

  Loys kept his eyes forward, determined to show no reaction that could spark the chamberlain’s disapproval.

  ‘Furthermore, there is reason to suspect certain other high men face these assaults. Some may even lose their position because of them. Putting it straightforwardly, the emperor has been afflicted in the body, so he may also be attacked in his humours and attitudes. No one in this empire can afford Basileios to come under the sway of evil forces.’

  ‘No,’ said Loys.

  ‘The master says you are his best student. I need you to set out clearly for me the nature of magical attacks and how they might be countered.’

  ‘The solution is plain for Christian men, sir. By prayer.’

  ‘We have tried that and to no avail. Christ clearly wants us to take another course. This is no different to the way we would conduct any battle. We send out scouts to assess the enemy in his strengths and various weaknesses. You are our scout, our magical scout.’

  ‘I’d be honoured to make a study, sir.’

  ‘It is more than a study. The emperor expects his problems to end. The dark fate of great men must be averted. We want to know how that might be achieved.’

  ‘You are asking me to discover how to cast a magical spell?’

  ‘Exactly so.’

  ‘That is not Christian.’ Loys heard the words pop out of him. It was as if they trailed pennants behind them through the air, pennants he wished he could grasp in order to pull them back.

  The chamberlain pursed his lips. ‘Oh come on, scholar. How many heathen practices do we study? Your philosophers of Athens never knew Christ. How much heathenism surrounds us, just under the surface of our Christian life? You quote the learned pagans with no fear to your mortal soul; you take pleasure from statues of false gods, you walk upon mosaics showing all manner of unchristian things. Look to the star and sickle moon that is our city’s symbol. Do you know how that came to be? Why we mark it on our walls and gates?’

  ‘I do not, sir.’ Loys, remarkably for him, had never even considered it.

  ‘It is the symbol of the goddess Hecate. “At my will the planets of the air, the wholesome winds of the seas, and the silences of hell be disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in diverse manners, in variable customs and in many names. Some call me Juno, others Bellona of the Battles, and still others Hecate. Principally the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustomed to worship me, do call me Queen Isis.”’

  ‘Apuleius’s Metamorphoses,’ said Loys, recognising the quotation.

  ‘Correct,’ said the chamberlain. ‘How much of our wisdom and art is taken from the pagans? Half the masses on their knees to Mary are secretly praying to Hecate in their hearts and the other half pray to her without knowing it. Paganism surrounds us. We are the fish; religion is our sea but cold and old tides are within it.’

  Loys summoned his courage. ‘I must have a care for my immortal soul, sir.’

  ‘That sounds like defiance, scholar.’

  ‘No, sir, it is not.’

  ‘Then what do you call it?’

  Loys said nothing.

  ‘It is an academic study,’ said the chamberlain. ‘I am not asking you to perform these sorceries, just to describe them and to tell us how they might be done. I am sick of frauds and ragged prophets. This requires the attention of serious men. You will be rewarded.’

  Loys’ tongue came to his lips. The chamberlain smiled at that.

  ‘You will have rooms in the palace, where your wife will be able to wander freely among its many marvels. Has she seen the metal birds that sing beneath the fountains? You see them every day in the Magnaura but a woman cannot walk here, can she? And remember, as an honoured lady of the court, she need only command a court eunuch to come with her if she wants to take to the streets. Your food will be paid for and proper garments too, so you don’t offend the eyes of courtiers. Baths will be available and warm rooms – they say this winter is going to be a cold one and if the summer is anything to go by they’re right. Scholar, do you want to spend the months of true cold in that little pile of wood down by the water?’

  Loys shifted. He felt like a mouse who suddenly realises a cat has been watching it. And he knew, as the chamberlain knew, he had no alternative but to accept.

  The chamberlain clicked his fingers at the huge Greek eunuch and the man slid a wrap of cloth across the table.

  ‘There’s a pound of gold. Seventy-two solidi. That should keep the lady happy, I think.’

  ‘You know a lot about me, sir.’ Loys wondered who among the scholars had been spying for the chamberlain.

  ‘Pick up the gold.’

  Loys did as he was told. It felt heavier than a pound. Four years’ wages for a soldier. There sat the chamberlain, richly dressed, delicate in features and movement. Was that how Satan had appeared to Christ in the wilderness?

  The chamberlain watched Loys weighing the gold in his hand. ‘We have men who are paid to know all about you. The Office of Barbarians, as men call them, though they dislike the title themselves. They dislike any title, in fact. With so many foreigners we need someone to keep an eye on them all. Though in truth their time would be better spent watching our native Romans nowadays. Come to the door of the palace as soon as you can and mention my name. They will be expecting you.’

  Loys bowed. He wanted to give the gold back but that was impossible. Another part of him wanted to kiss the little bundle, to hug it and to cheer.

  ‘I will expect your report by the end of winter. A working and efficacious spell to cure the emperor of his malaise and to protect him and the high men of this city against further attack.’

 
‘What is the emperor’s malaise?’

  ‘That need not concern you. Now stay here as we leave.’

  Loys almost wanted to laugh, though he had no idea why.

  The chamberlain left and, after a short while, the master returned. He had a cowed look to him. Loys had seen it before. It was the look of a boy who has been beaten in a fight, a man who has been made to appear foolish in front of a girl, a losing gambler creeping home to his wife. Humiliation, surprise even that life still went on after such a loss of status.

  ‘You can go, Loys,’ he said, returning to his chair behind the desk.

  ‘I will not be at the debate?’

  ‘No. You are the chamberlain’s now.’

  ‘Will my place at the school be open when he finishes with me?’

  The master turned down his mouth and shook his head.

  ‘Succeed or fail, he will never be finished with you. You are his, for bad or for good.’

  ‘But why did he pay me so well? Why raise me up to live in the palace? He could have just commanded me to do his will and left me in that barn by the river at no cost to himself.’

  ‘You don’t understand our powerful men. You are his: you represent him, you will use his name to aid your researches. His enemies will discover what you are doing, too, be sure of that. So you must be a fit representative. His glory shines on you and he expects to see it reflected. His servants can’t go dressed in rags; they themselves must seem like important men. He is a terror, Loys, a terror, and you are now his mirror. Rejoice. You could be on your way to great riches.’

  Loys smiled. ‘But to get there I must have commerce with demons.’

  The master pointed at the pouch in Loys’ hand. ‘You already have,’ he said.

  6 Taken

  Beatrice only picked at her embroidery that morning. She was a northern woman, just one generation from the people who had settled the lands of the Franks in Neustria, and was not used to her life being so closed in.

  She put down the thread and frame and went to the window. The streets were so full of bustle and interesting people, but the Greeks would never tolerate her walking on her own. The smells of the market drifted up towards her – the frying omelettes, the little fires that had been set to cook them, a waft of cheese, the more pervasive note of fish. Just down the street a fisherman sat at a brazier taking live mackerel from a net of fluttering silver, coshing them on the pavement, then gutting and cooking them while a queue of people waited.