58.
58.
"Yiaaaaahk—!"
"Huff— huff— hoo— hoo—!"
In the hour of the dog and the wolf, as twilight descended, two men ran across the field of the Hippodrome, their faces flushed red.
"Rommmaaaaa— In— Viiiictaaaa—!"
"Hel— la—! A— ro— s—!"
The Emperor and the Konungr.
An incongruous pairing indeed, yet on the faces of the imperial bodyguards watching the spectacle—the Skólleysir—there was not the slightest stir of emotion.
The Emperor's face had flushed bright crimson as he ran at full speed. Beside him, moving his enormous frame like a great mountain in motion, the Konungr's expression was serene, yet a mischievous smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"Heugh—! Heugh...! I... I shall not lose...!"
"Good! Good! That is the spirit, Your Majesty! Run a little faster, I say! A— ro— s— thun— der—!"
[Tat-tat-tat-tat!]
[Flump!]
Unlike the Konungr, who charged ahead in high spirits, the Emperor—despite his bold words—collapsed immediately.
Splat! Beside Michael, who had fallen in an unsightly heap, I turned back from my path and sat myself down before him just the same.
"Heugh—! Heugh—! Kek! Ker-kek! Uwek—"
"Hoo— sssp— hoo— hoo— ... Will your stamina hold up like this? Eudokia Ingerina—ah, I do not even know what to call her now... the former co-emperor's wife? The present traitor's wife? In any case, she has been moving about vigorously after childbirth, so should Your Majesty not muster even greater strength?"
"Heugh.. heugh... hoo— hoo— So you... heugh... knew... about Eudokia...?"
The Emperor, who had been lying spread-eagled on the dirt in his costly silks, arms flung wide, raised both hands and covered his face.
The twilight was not so bright as to blind the eyes... was this man feeling embarrassment?
'No, did he truly and sincerely think they were having a secret love affair...?'
That was a surprise.
"Of course I knew. Who would not? The way you two carried on in plain sight."
"Hoo— hoo— No one... no one ever said a word..."
The Emperor's breathing gradually steadied, yet his head seemed to grow ever more tangled.
Mine grew tangled along with it, naturally. No, truly—he had thought they would not be found out...?
They did say love was blind, but this seemed rather extreme.
'Well, with the Patriarch and Damian... given the nature of sycophants, they would have had neither reason nor nerve to say such things directly to the Emperor.'
Perhaps the Emperor had been gritting his teeth and willfully ignoring the truth. In any case, it no longer mattered now.
"I was so terribly afraid, Helgi Konungr."
At last, the Emperor, having overcome his shame, pulled his palms from his face and gazed vacantly up at the sky.
In the distance, several guards had started to rush toward the Emperor lying on the cold ground, but I saw Basileikinos restraining them.
"I feared my mother. I feared my uncle. And now even Basil, who swore lifelong loyalty to me, has raised his sword against me... I am simply afraid of all of it."
The Emperor shut his eyes tight, and upon his face was not so much fear as utter exhaustion. Not physical fatigue, but something far older and more tenacious—a spiritual anguish.
Now even the twilight was slowly taking its leave. Gazing up at a sky shifting from crimson into deepening darkness, I brushed myself off and rose to my feet.
"Now, we must complete a full circuit of this arena before that sun fully sets. Come, let us rise."
"...Konungr, is this some novel method of assassination? If so, my congratulations. You shall soon succeed."
"What kind of nonsense is that? Rise, now. Is the Emperor of Rome a man who amounts to no more than this? Where, I ask you, has vanished the man who charged so boldly toward the rebel ranks?"
"Leave me be— oooughk!"
"Heave-ho!"
The Emperor had loved chariot racing so excessively that he now seemed to wish to become one with the Hippodrome's earthen floor. I seized him by the shoulders and forced him upright.
The Emperor's body rose with a single yelp. Michael seemed flabbergasted at my strength, having lifted him as lightly as turning over a sheet of paper, but I gave him no time to ponder it.
"Now, let us run! Quickly! The night sky chases at our heels!"
"Nay, I have no strength left...!"
"Come now, just two more sets!"
"What is a 'set'...?"
"I mean run, damn you!"
"Gh— gwaaaaah!"
Of course, a sudden change of heart did not mean that the Emperor would spontaneously awaken, as if in some youth drama or comic strip.
When one had been steeped in drink for so long, it was only natural for the body to be utterly wrecked. And I had heard he scarcely exercised. The result stood plainly before me.
A bottom-tier constitution.
"Wek— kek—! Wek— we-e-e-ek— ker-kek!"
Still, the Emperor had done his utmost—he had run about half the circuit of this enormous arena. For a man whose entire life had been pickled in drink, that was a fair distance, I supposed.
"Uuurgh—"
"Hup— tchah."
I patted the back of the Emperor a few times as he lay prone, retching dryly. When signs appeared that he was settling, I hoisted him up and slung him over my back. The manner in which Brock Lesnar executes the F-5. Or rather, the manner in which John Cena executes the F-U. Commonly called the fireman's carry, the fireman's lift...
"Now, let us go, Your Majesty."
"Heuk— heuk—"
The remaining half-circuit was an easy matter. The Emperor weighed next to nothing, and though the locals called this cold weather, to the Northmen—myself included—it felt no more than a cool spring breeze.
"Sssp— sssp— hoo— hoo—! Sssp— sssp—"
Past the serpent column, shaped in the form of a great snake coiled upward. Past the enormous obelisk. Past the towering pillar said to be carved with the likeness of Justinian the Great. At last, the finish line lay before us.
"Now, you may dismount."
[Whik—!]
Overcoming the inward impulse to execute the technique, I lowered the Emperor's two feet to the ground. He swayed briefly.
But soon, having regained his balance, the Emperor stared blankly back along the path he had traveled, and finally looked down upon the finish line. No visible line had been drawn, of course, yet a finish line most certainly existed before us now.
"To have been unable to complete even half a circuit, and only to have reached the end by being carried upon your back... it seems you have won this wager, Helgi Konungr."
The Emperor, having spilled a great deal of sweat and stomach acid, looked somehow relieved. He had shaken off some measure of his despair, it seemed.
"Even having arrived piggyback, standing before the finish line is no different in the end. What matters is whether you possess the will to cross this line."
The words were disjointed and incoherent, yet the Emperor understood me.
"And if I cross this line...? What then? How am I to run the next circuit...? And the one after that? I do not know, Helgi Konungr. I am no Basil, nor my uncle, and least of all my mother..."
As if seeking the twilight he had long since forsaken, Michael's reddened eyes welled up and spilled a single heavy tear.
"Can I... can I truly do this?"
This was a question cast not at me, nor at anyone else, but at himself.
I could only supply what was lacking in his confidence. The decision now belonged to the Emperor.
"The power of those three all sprang from you, Michael Basileus. And... until now, failure would have meant your life alone, but that is no longer the case, is it not?
Michael. The time has now come when you, too, must move forward."
"The time when I must move forward... Eudokia... Leon... Leon... Leon."
Beyond the woman he loved, now holding the name of his child upon his lips, Michael's eyes no longer shed tears.
Could a person truly change?
In truth, I did not know. Could the Emperor, steeped in drink his entire life, really change?
I had neither the heart to defend him, nor the will or capacity to safeguard the precarious throne of the Eastern Romans.
When my own nose was three feet long, what business had I...
Rather, it was as a comrade-in-arms who had fought back-to-back with him upon the battlefield. I would simply do all that I could do.
Now, all that I could do in Rome, I had done.
'The bargain was fulfilled. Constantinople.'
When the sacred wind I had felt gazing out over the sea beyond the terrace upon first arriving at the Bucoleon had come to dwell upon the Hippodrome, and at last the Emperor had planted his feet upon earth stained with his own tears and taken a heavy step forward—
Somehow from the sky, the faint cry of an eagle seemed to ring out.
Now it was time for me to return home.
*****
The work of Strategos Peganes and Damian was thorough, but what truly astonished me was the consummate military skill of the Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy, Niketas Ooryphas.
In the blink of an eye, he had blockaded the ports of Macedonia. Immediately thereafter, he dispatched the thematic fleets on both flanks with orders to commit no rash action, and Basil found himself isolated in an instant.
Bulgaria's Knyaz Mikhail kept his oath. The Emperor, who had already gone two weeks without a drop touching his lips, drove the central army and the Thracian thematic forces headlong toward the capital of the Macedonian Theme—Adrianople.
Adrianople, a city that had long served as the western bulwark of Constantinople.
Now transformed into a city of traitors, pressed by both Bulgaria and Rome, a city over which the shadow of death hung heavy.
When the siege had stretched past a week—the third month of winter, 866 AD, December 30th by the Julian calendar.
The mild winter that had allowed unhindered military operations was a bitter blow for Basil and a stroke of heaven's fortune for Michael. To my eyes, however, the span of time had merely been shortened... Basil's downfall had been foreordained.
When men condemned to wage war in midwinter because of the prolonged civil strife fell into fury, and when even the Patriarch, whose Christmas observances had been glossed over in the chaos, flew into a frenzy—
The steadfast gates of Adrianople swung open. Envoys bearing white flags shuttled between the two camps on numerous occasions.
To my astonishment, Basil had singled me out by name, seeking me as his negotiating counterpart.
*****
"Helgi Ragnarsson."
"Basil Bardasson."
When he addressed me outright in the northern manner, I returned the favor and called him by his name in that same way. Basil stared at me a moment with a blank expression, then burst into loud laughter.
U-ha—hahahahaha!
It was a hearty laugh, from a man I could only imagine standing on the brink of prophesied defeat.
"Aye, my father's name was Bardas indeed! U-hahahaha! You Northmen are a truly honest folk! Hahahaha!"
Now, only at death's door, had the face of Basil returned to what it once was in those bygone days when he had ridden horses to his heart's content. It was an expression of profound relief, tinged with a faint, wistful sorrow.
"Had it not been for you, I would have succeeded in my rising and become Emperor. I should never have summoned you to Constantinople in the first place... Petronas dealt me a blow there, I admit."
As if two players at a chess match were reviewing their past moves after the game had ended, Basil murmured softly. I merely nodded.
"Had I used a stronger poison, things might have turned out differently. Regrettable, Basil."
"Haha. Poison is not so easily prepared, Helgi. It was the best move I had at the time, but you were the stronger. Aye... that is all there is to it.
In this race called power, one either kills the opponent or is killed oneself. Only one of the two is possible, ever..."
Basil, still wearing the emperor's crown, suddenly lifted it from his head and surrendered his hair to the blowing wind.
His face, once the crown was removed, appeared all the more unburdened, yet one lingering thread remained—a thing not to be forgotten, though one might wish to forget.
"With so many lives taken by my own hand, how could I hope for Heaven? Only... I thought I had made my peace with everything, yet one lingering attachment remains—one that I simply could not settle—and so I entreated you to come here."
"And what would that be?"
At length, before me—whom one might well call the very foe who had driven him to this pass—Basil closed even his eyes, utterly defenseless, and placed a single name upon his lips.
"Constantinos..."
Unlike the transcendent, hearty demeanor he had shown until now, the name flowed with clinging attachment and aching wistfulness.
"My son. A way to spare the life of Constantinos... I would ask this of you, Helgi."