etc.
Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Prologue: The Nika revolt begins, 10-13 January, AD 532
Narses the eunuch: his journal
In the year of Our Lord 532, January 13
There is insurrection in the air. I can smell it. Constantinople smells of many things, depending on who you are: incense and myrrh, floral perfume, spices, salt sea air, fresh bread, fried fish, dried dung, human excrement and piles of garbage left to rot. Right now, the bitter smell of smouldering fires, borne on a raging north wind, permeates the palace where we have sheltered for long hours. The New Rome, founded by Constantine on the Bosphorus when the Old Rome finally fell to the barbarians, is itself now the victim of barbaric acts; what, after all, is the difference between a Christian and a barbarian when either is capable of putting the Church of the Holy Wisdom to the torch? The monumental Walls of Theodosius are ineffectual against the barbarism rampant in our hearts. Ha! Tell this to the rapacious Goths: they need not batter at the gates. We are entirely capable of our own destruction.
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
