The Belt of Gold by Cecelia Holland

insufficiently impressed.”
    Helena said, “He is a barbarian.”
    â€œSuch as he have served Rome in the past.” Irene put out the cup and someone took it. “Clearly God sent him to me, as Ida says. Glory to God.”
    â€œGlory,” they murmured, “glory, glory,” but their eyes were on Irene, and not on Heaven.
    Following after the girl Theophano, Hagen thought back over what had passed between him and the Empress. He had carefully avoided making any promises to her, but somehow she was giving him space in her Palace, making deals with him, inviting him into her following. Her whole manner toward him made him uneasy.
    Still, it was shelter, and he had learned some names: John Cerulis, and someone named Karros. He went after Theophano across a dark courtyard and down three wide shallow steps onto a terrace.
    This was a garden, adorned with statues and a fountain, and all around it torches in iron standards held back the night. He followed Theophano through the yellow haze of the torchlight. Other people moved past him, some carrying dishes or books or jugs from the fountain, others idle strollers, who stared at him with curiosity bright on their faces.
    The Palace was huge. At the edge of the terrace, he paused to look behind him, and saw the great curved wall of the Hippodrome looming up in the darkness, connected by the tower of the Imperial balcony to the many-leveled building he had just left.
    The ground sloped away across the whole headland; retaining walls and buttresses and pavements tamed it all into a descending sweep of terraces. Besides the sprawling Palace behind him, other buildings studded the grounds. Open walkways connected them, some bordered with gardens, and others with rows of white columns. The fountain before him was made in the shape of a great fish that spouted water from its back, and other monstrous shapes formed some of the columns of the building directly before him.
    The people who swarmed through this complex seemed somehow too small for the place, as if it had been made for giants. The torches fluttered in the wind with a hissing roar of flame. Music sifted through the air, and somewhere nearby people were laughing. Hagen stood still, enjoying the sight, moved again to admiration of these people who had the grace and good luck to live like this.
    Theophano came back to him, frowning, impatient. “Are you coming?”
    â€œYes, yes.” He went after her along a walk of brickwork. “We don’t have anything like this in Frankland.”
    She gave him a look of pity mixed with amusement. “I can see that very well. Come along.”
    Opening a door, she led him into a large empty hall, half-lit by candles on the walls. “This is the Triclinium. This is where we eat.”
    All the tables and benches had been shoved back off to one wall. At the far end of the room from Theophano and Hagen, a man with a mop was sloshing water over the black and white tiles of the floor. Theophano crossed the hall swiftly to the far side, Hagen on her heels.
    â€œWhy did you run away, at the inn?” he asked. “Why didn’t you come and get me so I could help Rogerius?”
    â€œI was naked!” She shook her head; her hair ribbon fluttered over her shoulder. “I looked for you, I did, really, but I had no clothes on, and it was I they wanted—I had to escape. I had some thought of leading them off, but it all happened too fast to make plans.”
    She led him across a semicircular pavement, another fountain in the center of it, where people were crowded on benches, talking, walking up and down, hailing one another. Someone called to Theophano as she passed and she raised her hand in answer without slackening her steps. In the wall at the far side she opened a door and stood aside to let Hagen through.
    â€œYou are fortunate the Basileus likes you. That was most presumptuous of you, talking to her the way you did. It’s an