style="font-size:15px;"> “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 to capacity and people had clambered onto every possible perch, even along the spina down the centre of the horseshoe track where the triple-headed serpent on the Column of Apollo bares its ferocious fangs. There was a pale sun and an icy wind.
Before the first race could begin, the Green demarch, spokesman for the Greens, addressed the Emperor. “Thrice August,” he began, respectfully, “we wish you a long life and a victorious one. Truly you are God’s Vice-regent on earth, and you are all-powerful. We understand that it is your god-given task to uphold order in the kingdom. Yet we beseech you to show clemency this day.”
As the sonorous, formal syllables resounded, a deep-throated roar of agreement rolled around the enormous stadium. The excubitor next to me straightened up.
“Please, Thrice August, pardon the two fugitives in the church of Saint Lawrence. It is true that the Prefect Eudaemon condemned them to death, but they miraculously escaped execution not once, but twice. Surely we are meant to read this as a clear indication that God has pardoned them. Basileus, Despotes, we petition for clemency: please will you too pardon them?”
Again the crowd gave voice: “Cle-men-cy! Cle-men-cy!”
Justinian made no answer, staring coldly over the demarch’s head.
Now the Demarch of the Blues rose to his feet. He reminded Justinian that the Blues had long enjoyed his support, that they reckoned him to be a friend, that they appreciated his patronage. He repeated the words of the Green’s representative: “Please, Thrice August, pardon the two fugitives in the Church of Saint Lawrence. Despotes, we beg for mercy!”
“Cle-men-cy! Cle-men-cy!” The crowd stomped their feet.
Still Justinian gave no sign that he had heard a single word. Despite the chilly day, I felt a trickle of perspiration run down my back. I understood that his refusal to respond was his way of emphasising his authority. Yet it seemed to me that the Kathisma shook, and not merely because of the pentup power of the horses milling about below.
The Grand Chamberlain attempted to impose order on the threatening chaos by starting the day’s racing. Shouts, neighs, the snap of whips and the crunch of wheels: we smelled dust as the chariots rolled into position for the first race. The signal was given and the gates sprang open. The charioteers hurled their teams into the arena. But not even the most brilliant, death-defying dashes and hair’s-breadth wins could serve to distract the people from their grievances.
At the end of each race, the demarchs rose and again put forward their eloquent pleas for the release of the fugitives.
“Cle-men-cy! Cle-men-cy!” demanded the spectators.
Race after race, they waited for the Emperor to respond through his own spokesman, the Mandator. Still: nothing. Justinian maintained his indifferent gaze over the heads of the crowd, looking like a bust of himself: hewn from granite, obdurately silent. The Empress Theodora clearly found this extremely hard to sit through. Though she held her head regally high, she appeared very small and pale, and her knuckles were bone white as she clutched her furlined cloak around her narrow shoulders. At times she cast agonised glances at her husband, as if she would urge him to speak. But his only response was silence.
This continued until the twenty-second race: more pleas, delivered with increasing urgency. Sustained refusal to respond from the Kathisma. Frustration and anger smouldering among the people.
Then, suddenly, before race number twenty-three could form up, a stentorian voice bellowed: “Long! Live! The benevolent! Greens AND Blues!”
Shocked to hear the names of the usually feuding factions linked in this way, the excubitor unsheathed his sword with a hissing clatter. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed.
The rallying cry was repeated, with more and more people joining in. Tens of thousands of hostile voices roared their anger.
“Must have been planned,” I said, seriously alarmed. The faction leaders had clearly decided in advance that if all else failed, they would act together to force the Emperor to grant a pardon. I signalled to the other guards. “Form a cordon.”
The Emperor and Empress were swiftly surrounded by a circle of steel. Shaken, Justinian rose to his feet, ordered the Grand Chamberlain to cancel the remaining races and turned to leave.
Suddenly a different battle cry resounded: “Nika! Nika!” But this was not, as usual, the opposing factions exhorting their champions to win. No, this day it took on a new and frightening meaning. It became a rallying shout for the disaffected. Alas, at the present time there are many such.
Justinian hastily left the Kathisma, surrounded by his guards and trailing an entourage of senators and courtiers. We all retreated to the Sacred Palace, his safe haven.
The crowd streamed to the office of the Prefect Eudaemon and demanded to know what he intended the fate of the fugitives to be. He too greeted them with contemptuous silence.
That was the final, fatal error. That was the spark that set off the conflagration that has engulfed the city. The crowd became a mob, and the mob became a vicious creature bent upon destruction. And here we are, inhaling the smoke and bitter ash.
“He should have spoken,” Theodora whispers to me. I note that her delicate, pale face is even whiter than usual. “He should have answered
