The Byzantine Wager

Chapter 82 - Breaking Bread

Chapter 82

Breaking Bread

Pons' first awareness of the day was low drunken singing, the melody was an old barracks song to which he once knew the words.

Smash. Breaking pottery.

Sobs, further boozy lyrics.

It had been a late night at the house of Pandarus. He tried to shut out the racket.

Back to slumber.

In his cot on the second floor of the Golden Eel, Pons drifted off again.

Smash.

A slurred marching cadence put off beat by hiccups.

A quiet footstep. A tentative hand shook his ankle.

"Domne, please. I hate to wake you, but there is a man. He is inebriated. He is breaking all of the drinking bowls. If you could... I implore you. I believe the man is known to you."

"Alright Pops. Can't sleep with the noise anyway. Whose ass do I have to kick?"

He assumed that either Marius or Cyn had continued to carouse after they left the brothel. On the way home they had seen the Margrave safely to the city residence of John Ducas where he was staying as a guest.

But no. Marius snored in the next cot, and Cyn was curled on the floor between them.

"Kick his ass, Pons." Cyn mumbled and tried to burrow deeper into the cloak he used as a pillow.

Pons led, the owner of the Golden Eel cowered behind him as they entered the common room.

A hulking man, slouched at a bench in the gloom. He tossed back another bowlful of wine then smashed it on the tile floor.

"Brian the Saxon?"

"Whozzat?" The Verangian sat upright. "Go on. Captain Pons is it?"

He guffawed and clapped his knee.

"When the order came down - to impale all the foreign mercenaries - phhttt, I knew you'd be long gone. Ha ha."

"Nice to see you. Haven't seen you since Nicea."

"Don't make me laugh, that sounds like...hic... something the rhyming hunchback would say."

Pons waved the Golden Eel's proprietor away.

"What are you doing here so late or is it early? Have they even started the baking ovens in the artopoleia?"

"The ovens are..." Brian leaned over and looked up the lesser Mese, "...fired up." He motioned Pons forward. From the shadows he pulled forth an amphora. "Sit. This is the good stuff. I paid an entire aspron for this."

"I have been kicked out of every taverna in the city."

He mimed the gesture and almost fell off his bench.

"Until I ended up here."

Brian poured Pons a bowl of deep crimson. "I had a dream that he died. And I awoke. And... hic... Dreams are strange. I got an aspron for betraying my lord. How much did Judas get?"

"Begin again. Explain everything - like you were talking to a child."

"Where do I begin? Ha. I wish I knew. Maybe it began when I fell in love, but knew that I would not have enough money for a wife and family. And then He offered me gold. So I pressed the key in wax and told him of the patrols. I was young. I wanted a wife."

Pons sipped, running the rich grape around his mouth. It was the good stuff. "I will need a lot more of this if I hope to follow a tale of love going back to your youth. I need to catch up."

"He gave me leave this morning. To see my family. Gave me an electrum piece." Brian belched. "I don't think he remembered me until this very morning."

"I was going to buy a big wax candle and light it before the Shrine of the Virgin in Christ Pantocreator - to thank her for saving me when your man charged."

"Theodore Kantakouzenos. Killed by a groundhog."

Both soldiers crossed themselves in their own Orthodox and Catholic styles.

"I went home," Brian continued, "to see my Missus and the girls. I haven't seen them since I went on campaign. She made a meal, and we went to bed early. But I had the most vivid dream."

"I was on the deck of a storm tossed trireme. Emperor Andronikos was at the helm. The lightning flashed and I saw Emperor Alexios at the rail. It flashed again and he went over into the frothing deep."

"I awoke all sweaty. I armed myself and went to the palace to make sure he was alright."

Brian was quiet now. The breaking of crockery and drunken singing were gone.

"What good am I as the Emperor's bodyguard if I can't protect the Emperor?"

"What did you see?"

"When I arrived at his apartments in the palace, Emperor Alexios was already dead. His lips were blue. His eyes bulged. And then my colleague" - the word dripped ichor - "Istvan - took his head with his poleaxe. The youth was bent over a table. The blade split the wood."

"Christos."

"Then his noseless rat displayed the severed head, like a trophy. The old Emperor began to stab at it with a nail - piercing the tongue and ears. The Master of the Inkstand produced notarized parchments legitimizing the execution. His creatures were lining the hall to thank and congratulate him for saving them from 'this capricious beardless boy' and his 'rebellious conspiracies.'"

"Ptttht! The boy had no idea what you, young Kantakouzenos, and the Angelos brothers were up to in Nicea."

"Let's get you moving. Up the street we will grab some hot bread." Pons helped Brian to his feet.

"He could have brought forty years of peaceful rule to the Empire."

"Si."

"I am going to kill him. He told me to escort him to church on Sunday. I was going to light an expensive candle, but I spent the Judas coin on the wine instead."

If the Verangian did strike down the Emperor - that would solve a lot of problems...

"They will kill you. Then what of your wife and the girls? How old are they?"

"Fifteen and sixteen."

"You need to be thinking of dowries."

"That son-of-a-bitch Istvan shook a purse in my face as he left. Told me I needed to be like a tree which bends in the wind not one which becomes uprooted. He was off to insure that the Patriarch will preside at Andronikos' upcoming wedding to Princess Anna. Sickening."

"And if he refuses? He is not so mad as to kill the Patriarch of the Hagia Sophia."

"Patriarch Theodosius will disappear into a monastery to contemplate God as a simple friar, and Bishop Basil the bootlicker will replace him. Just you watch."

At the first stall ready for business, round loaves were being placed into baskets.

Pons paid an obol and broke his open under his nose inhaling the warm yeasty scent. "Perhaps you should bend in the wind. For a time."

"How long?"

"Have you ever received a donative?

"A donative?"

"Si. When one Emperor dies, and a new one ascends to the throne - a donative is given to the army. A cash bonus. In gold."

"My grandfather was given one when Emperor John took the throne, and quickly. As was my father when Emperor Manuel raced back to secure the city from his own brother."

"But Alexios and Andronikos have both become Emperor... and no donative."

"What are you saying, Pons?"

"Bend in the wind for a while. Talk to some of your fellow Varangians. Maybe there is another Emperor available. Maybe they would like a donative."