Daley bowed politely. So did Father Boyle, which, given his probable attitude toward the church of Constantinople, might have required more discipline. The patriarch, his voice more than an octave deeper than Alexios remembered it from the imperial city, said, “Is the Mayor of Shytown prepared to take the oath as Kaisar of New Constantinople?” Alexios translated his Greek into Latin for Boyle, who turned it into the aftermen’s English.
“I am,” Hizzonor said, his voice solemn.
The oath Garidas had Mayor Daley swear was far more ornate and imposing than the one Judge Corcoran had given the Basileus. It invoked all three persons of the Trinity, the Virgin, and a squadron of saints (among them St. Andrew, patron of Constantinople), and called down upon the mayor anathema and damnation if he violated its terms by so much as an iota. “Will you, then, hold to these terms, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?” the patriarch finished.
Daley crossed himself. “By the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I will.”
“Bend your head,” Garidas said. When Hizzonor obeyed, the patriarch anointed him with fish oil made sweet-smelling with perfume from the grailstones.
Alexios set a circlet of woven grass dyed scarlet round Daley’s head. “Hail to our Kaisar!” he cried. The people of New Constantinople cheered along with the delegation from Shytown. The chorus sent up a song of praise and thanksgiving.
“Now what?” the newly made Kaisar asked.
When do we celebrate, Alexios took him to mean. He said, “We have one thing left to do before the feast begins.” Daley folded his arms across his beefy chest and composed himself to wait. The Basileus raised his voice: “By elevating Hizzonor to the rank of Kaisar, I have left my brother Isaac without a title to suit him. As he is both flesh of my flesh and always at my right hand, by your consent, people of New Constantinople, I propose for him the dignity of Sebastokrator, august ruler, said dignity to rank in honor between my rank of Basileus and that of the Kaisar.”
“Let it be so!” the people shouted, as they’d been coached. Sebastokrator, a rank Alexios had invented back
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on Earth, was the title Isaac Komnenos had held most of his life there; in New Constantinople, the Basileus had resimplified the hierarchy. But the old title remained there in case it ever seemed useful, as it did today.
Alexios did not translate his proclamation of Isaac as Sebastokrator into Latin for Father Boyle; the longer Mayor Daley remained in blissful ignorance of what was going on around him, the happier the Basileus would have been. It transpired, however, that Father Boyle understood enough Greek to realize what was happening. That did not surprise Alexios; the Mayor was merely being prudent by having in his retinue someone who could follow the language of New Constantinople. Alexios had had a couple of English-speakers with him at Shytown.
He could gauge almost to the second when Hizzonor realized he’d been tricked. Daley must have had Celtic ancestors, for his skin was as fair as any Prankish Crusader’s. All at once, he turned brick red. “What the hell!” he bellowed, a roar of outrage even Alexios had no trouble translating.
Evstratios Garidas had almost finished administering the oath to Isaac. He paused, looked a question to Alexios. “Continue, Your Holiness,” the Basileus said calmly. Garidas continued. Only after he had finished anointing the newly named Sebastokrator, thus making Isaac’s tide indissoluble, did Alexios concern himself with his profanely displeased Kaisar.
Voice bland as butter, the Basileus turned to Mayor Daley. “Why are you unhappy? I named you Kaisar of New Constantinople as I promised. Had we gold, I’d have given you a crown rather than that fillet, but it is no less fine that the one Isaac wears.”
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Daley threw the red-dyed fillet on the ground and stamped on it. “You son of a bitch, you cheated me!”
“Before God, I did not,” Alexios answered. “As a condition for our alliance, you required me to name you Kaisar. I agreed, and the alliance did all we hoped it would: Bornu is no more, and we have divided its lands fairly between Shytown and New Constantinople. Nowhere did you require me not to appoint a lord of rank intermediate between mine and yours. That I have done, for the security of my own realm. But cheat you? I deny it, and deny it with clear conscience.”