"Here comes Hypatius," announced Ajatasutra. "And Pompeius."
Narses glanced down at the stairs leading from the Hippodrome to the imperial loge. The stairs ended in a wide stone platform just in front of the kathisma. For reasons of security, there was no direct access to the imperial loge from the Hippodrome. But dignitaries saluting the emperor could stand on that platform and gaze up at the august presence, seated on his throne above them. And separated from any would-be assassins by a nine-foot-high wall.
Clambering up those stone steps, escorted by Balban, came the two nephews of the former emperor Anastasius. The faces of Hypatius and Pompeius were pale from anxiety. Their steps faltered; their lips trembled. But, still, they came on. Greed and ambition, in the end, had conquered fear.
"Finally," grumbled Narses.
A minute later, the new arrivals were hoisted over the wall into the imperial loge. The royal nephews made heavy going of the effort, despite the assistance of several kshatriya. Balban, despite his heavyset build, managed the task quite easily.
Seeing Narses' scowl, Balban smiled cheerfully.
"You are too pessimistic, my friend. Such a gloomy man! Everything is in place, now. The factions are here. The kshatriya are here. The new emperor is here. The Army of Bithynia is on its way. And the Cappadocian is about to slide in the knife in the Great Palace."
Suddenly, from beyond the barred door leading to the Great Palace, shouts were heard. Cries of alarm, from the excubitores. Then, the sounds of clashing steel.
Balban spread his arms, beaming.
"You see? John has unleashed his bucellarii in the palace. What could go wrong now?"
John of Cappadocia's final treachery, when it came, was brutally simple.
One moment, he was standing on the floor of the small audience chamber where Justinian was holding his emergency council, vehemently denying Theodora's latest charge against him:
"It is absolutely false, Your Majesty—I swear it! The excubitores in this room"—he waved at the spear-carrying soldiers standing along the walls and behind the thrones—"are the very finest of your personal bodyguard."
"Which you selected," snarled Theodora.
John spread his hands, in a placating gesture. "That is one of my responsibilies as praetorian prefect."
Justinian nodded his head firmly. The five other ministers in the room copied the gesture, albeit with more subtlety. They had no wish to draw down Theodora's rage.
The Empress ignored them. Theodora half-rose from her throne, pointing her finger at the Cappadocian. Her voice, for all the fury roiling within it, was cold and almost calm.
"You are a traitor, John of Cappadocia. Irene Macrembolitissa has told me that you have suborned a dozen of the Emperor's excubitores."
Suddenly, the clangor of combat erupted beyond the closed doors of the council chamber. John of Cappadocia turned his head for a moment. When he faced forward again, he smiled at the Empress and said:
"She is wrong, Empress."
The Cappadocian made a quick chopping motion with his hand.
The four exbubitores standing at the rear of the chamber strode forward and seized the Emperor and the Empress by the arms, pinning them to the thrones. Ten others, standing along the walls, immediately leveled their spears and stabbed the six remaining bodyguards. The attacks were so swift and merciless that only one of the loyal excubitores was able to deflect the first spear-thrust. But he died a moment later, from a second spear-thrust under his arm.
"It was fourteen!" cackled John of Cappadocia.
Ten of the traitor bodyguards now lunged at the five ministers standing to one side. Four of those ministers, stunned by the sudden havoc, never even moved. They died where they stood, gape-mouthed and goggle-eyed.
"As it happens," giggled the praetorian prefect, "all fourteen are in this room."
The fifth minister, the primicerius of notaries, was quicker-witted. Despite his advanced age and scholarly appearance, he nimbly dodged a spear-thrust and scampered toward the door. He managed to get his hand on the door-latch before a hurled spear took him in the back. A moment later, two more spears plunged into his slumping body.
Even then, even as he fell to his knees, the primicerius feebly tried to open the door. But the first of the traitor bodyguards had reached him, and a savage sword strike sent the old man's head flying.
John watched the minister's head roll to a stop against an upturned rug.
"I made sure they were all here today, of course. That's my job, you know. As praetorian prefect."
He smiled at the Emperor and the Empress. Justinian was silent, pale with shock, limp in his captors' hands. Theodora had also ceased struggling against the hands holding her, but she was neither pale nor silent.