“Kaisar,” Alexios answered.
“Okay. That’s what you’ll name me, then. You see what I’m driving at?”
“I see,” Alexios said slowly. If he took Mayor Daley’s terms, whichever of them assassinated the other would rule New Constantinople and Shytown both. Life henceforward would be nervous for the two headmen, but their
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retainers would live. Alexios went on, “But, you see, I already have a Kaisar. He—”
“I got a Vice Mayor, too,” Daley interrupted. “It’s no big deal. This is important. It needs doing, if Shytown and New Constantinople are going to end up next door to each other. Am I right, or not?”
Alexios had been about to say that his Kaisar was his own brother, the only man he’d ever known upon whom he could rely absolutely. The last thing he wanted was to replace Isaac with someone mainly interested in killing him off. But Daley had made it clear that Shytown wouldn’t help against Bornu unless he had his way. And if New Constantinople took on Bornu alone, then even if he won he’d be vulnerable to an attack from downstream.
Better the risk to his person than the one to his empire, he decided. “Let it be as you say,” he told the Mayor. “Once Bornu is taken, you will name me Vice Mayor and I will appoint you Kaisar.” And we shall see what happens after that, too, he added to himself.
Daley stuck out his hand. Alexios took it. The Mayor’s clasp was brief, firm, and as mechanical as the gears and levers that raised the imperial throne in Constantinople high in the air to overawe barbarous envoys. Daley, worse luck, did not act like a barbarian—he did not show on his face what he was thinking. Alexios reminded himself that the aftermen had had hundreds of years past his own time in which to learn deceit. He hoped his own lifetime of practicing such arts would suffice.
Once the Mayor had what he wanted, he turned businesslike in a hurry. “Let’s plan this thing out,” he said. “If we’re going to do it, we ought to do it right. I think we can, but we need to work things out beforehand….”
The sun came up while Daley and Alexios were still
plotting. Only the roar from the grailstones made the Basileus notice he no longer needed torches to see. One of Daley’s henchmen fetched him breakfast: fried eggs and bacon, toasted bread with fruit jam sweeter than honey, and the hot bitter brew called coffee. He didn’t care for that, but drank for politeness’ sake. After he finished it, he felt more awake and alert than the long night should have permitted.
Mayor Daley’s title was anything but martial, but he had a sound grasp of strategy. If everything went as he and Alexios designed (which seldom happened in war), Bornu would be ground between them like grain between upper and lower millstones. And Daley’s scheme for returning Alexios to New Constantinople was simplicity itself: “We’ll send you as a sailor in one of our boats, and we’ll tell the black boys they’ll get instant war with us if they try searching anything of ours that floats. Think that’ll work?”
“It should, by the Virgin,” Alexios said. To his surprise, he found himself liking Hizzonor. Could the afterman have been trusted for a single instant out of Alexios’s sight, he would have made a good Kaisar. As it was, he would make a bad enemy if he didn’t get his way. Alexios smiled. Of course he intended to keep his promise to Daley….
The army of Rhomaioi swept over the border a little before dawn. A few sentries shot arrows at the soldiers. More fled screeching into the interior of Bornu.
“Had it been my choice instead of Musa’s, I would have had the Shytown boat searched and taken me off it were I found,” Alexios said to Isaac. “But Mayor Daley was right there: the men of Bornu dared not antagonize
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him and me at the same time, and so I came home safely.”
“I’m glad of it, too,” Isaac Komnenos answered. “From all you’ve said since you got back, the opisthan-thropos would be too much for a plain old honest soldier like me.” He laughed to show he didn’t mean to be taken altogether seriously.