Byzantium Read Online Free PDF

Theodosios’s testicles in the leather purse and pushed my way out. Once across the footbridge, I fled blindly, but fleeing was easy. The monastery was only a labyrinth when you were looking for someone, not when you were running away. I slipped and slid on the paths, shoved my way through the monks who’d come from their caves at the sound of Theodosios’s howls. By the time I made it to the bottom of the ravine, they were sounding the monastery’s wooden bell. Its furious tock filled the valley. I skirted the guesthouse—the lodgers had emptied out onto the ledge—and ran to where the goatherd was waiting with the horse.
    “Sir,” he said as he helped me up. “What’s happened, why are they ringing the bell?”
    “Don’t worry yourself about that,” I said.
    He was still holding the reins when he pulled back and pointed. “Sir,” he said. “Your hand.”
    I looked down. It was ribboned with blood. I gave the goatherd a kick, took the reins, and spurred the horse. But I soon lost track of where I was going. Too startled to think, I kept looking in disbelief at my hand. The goatherd had not seen what I had seen. He had seen only the blood. I saw something more. Where the blood had run over my hand, it had made the withered flesh whole.
    I PASSED THE NEXT DAY in a wandering stupor. I am still uncertain how I made it out of the desert. As I sat upon my horse, a lightness coursed through my veins. My mind reeled: each explanation I could fathom crumbled in the face of another. He knew what I’d come to do; he didn’t know. He was a true holy man; it was some sort of new charlatan’s trick. The hand was a blessing from God; it was a curse of the devil. I felt a sickness for what I had done, but then I would look at my hand. I had washed it and wiped it clean, and as my horse ambled and nibbled at dry grass, I gazed at its new perfection. I flexed its fingers, traced the straightened, flat pan of its palm. I held both hands side by side. They were mirrors of each other, though the healed hand was smoother, pinker.
    Just before sunset, I reached the orchards outside Jerusalem. I rode around the city, headed straight to the coast as I imagined the new life that awaited me: a place in court, prominent seats in the Hippodrome, our family restored to its rightful place. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too late for me to take a command, some squadron on the Dalmatian frontier. If any asked about my hand, I would say I had visited a sulfur spring in Greece and was treated by a physician. But surely few would ask. I was unknown. Only the emperor’s long-memoried informants had any idea who I was. That, I decided, would soon be changed.
    BY THE TIME I RETURNED TO CONSTANTINOPLE, I had regained enough of my reason to be fearful. I didn’t know what news had reached the city, or what the reaction might be: perhaps mobs filled the fora, clamoring for my death. Once off the boat, I hid in the crowds and gleaned the conversations of passersby. I trailed parties of beggars through the markets, sat with the mad outside church doors. Only among these did I feel safe, unseen. Within hours of my arrival, while huddling outside the Church of the Holy Wisdom with a pair of moaners, I heard the first rumors of the gelding. Some passing monks were discussing it, and I was relieved: they had the story wrong. “The assassin was a Monophysite,” one declared, setting the others off. “No, I heard he was a Jew.” “No, a devil.” “It was a punishment, for pride.” The monks all frowned, though on one I detected a stifled smile. By evening, a troupe of clowns had spread through the city, portraying the surprised Theodosios and his veiled attacker.
    After another day of listening, satisfied I wasn’t hunted, I made my way to the Chalke Gate, where I whispered my presence to one of the guards. I was expected. Within a minute, the eunuch from before came and showed me directly to the Chamber of the Golden Meadow. There I knelt and waited,