East & West- Catharsis

by David Capel

  He bridled, but had the sense not to risk challenging my story. “The governor should be available tomorrow morning.”

  “Good! Then I will come again then. At about the fifth hour?”

  He nodded, and I swept past him towards the exit and into the city.

  I had not achieved my objective of gaining information as to the Emperor’s whereabouts, so once I had found somewhere to stay for the night (which was difficult, for Trebizond was crowded with refugees), I trawled the taverns in some of the more salubrious streets of the city until I found some army officers enjoying a cup of wine. I joined them and asked the news of the campaign. According to them there was no prospect of the Emperor Diogenes visiting Trebizond. The military activity here was purely down to the energy of the Gabras administration. Instead the main army was searching for the enemy near Lake Van, advancing eastwards from Sebastea. I must unwittingly have crossed the army’s path either just before or after its passing. At any rate it was presumably now somewhere to the South and East of here. I was disappointed, not least because I had half-hoped to come across the Sentinels, the tagmata of my sturdy friend Symeon from the beach on Prinkipos. I was left with my dilemma still, whether to sail for Constantinople or seek to join the Emperor. I decided to leave my decision for the morning after my interview with the governor.

  **

  That night I slept badly. Something about Armanis had unsettled me, and I could not stop thinking about the oily functionary. My thoughts kept returning to his arrogant tone with me, as if I were some dumb military ox, an adjunct to his schemes. It was true that I hardly presented the figure of an important man of rank. By this stage of my travels I was bearded and ruffianly, though I flattered myself that my weapons and gear lent me the air of someone to be taken seriously. The cut on my cheek, received during my mugging near the Church of Holy Wisdom, had healed to a vulpine scar that could be mistaken for the mark of a veteran. Not that a soldierly demeanour was likely to impress a palace-bound cleric unduly. He and Nikephoritzes were two of a kind, gelded or not. It was these clever, scheming bureaucrats who had brought the Empire to this pass with their plots.

  Not that I knew anything about either of them, really, especially Armanis. But something about him worried me, quite apart from his supercilious manner. If there is one thing less conducive to sleep than anger it is fear, and the two kept me awake in turn. This was not helped by the jug of sour wine that I had shared with the two army officers.

  After slumbering for a few hours I rose and dressed. I was unaccountably nervous about my interview with Theodore Gabras. I told myself that this was a ridiculous frame of mind. He was of no great lineage and I was used to dealing with far greater men than he in my life in the City. Was I not on the closest of terms with the co-emperors Michael and Maria Alania herself?

  But the soft life of the City seemed a world away. I walked through the waking streets of Trebizond to kill some time before my appointment. It seemed to me that there was a tense, febrile atmosphere in the port, even at this hour. In the markets the traders were unpacking their wares. But even here there seemed to be more soldiers than merchants. There were a handful of stalls packed with the bounty of the Pontic Sea, and wine from the hills to the South. There were a few strange looking merchants selling carpets and spices and finely made silks from Persia and the lands beyond, for Trebizond was usually a great entrepot for trade from the East. Here the caravans would reach the end of their journey from the lands of the dawn, selling their goods on to sea-captains for onward transport to Byzantium.

  I stopped at a baker’s shop to eat a koulouria. The one thing I could say about Nikephoritzes was that he had been generous with his travel allowance. I still had plenty of the eunuch’s gold, though if I decided to join the army instead of making for home I would have to stretch my funds out carefully. The thought of the Praetor brought a ball of tension to my stomach, and I threw my half-eaten bread to the sea birds. I decided to go up to the palace early and try to get my meeting with Gabras of the way.

  Back at the inn I readied my horse and armed myself. I told myself it would boost my demeanour and confidence if I approached the palace as a soldier. Why then did I find myself packing my garments and personal effects into the saddle bags? I stopped what I was doing and tossed the luggage back on the floor of my room and looked at them. Something was definitely disturbing my peace of mind, knocking at the door of my consciousness like an urgent visitor in the night.

  I tried to think about my position rationally. There was nothing to fear and much to gain. At the worst I would deliver Nikephoritzes’ letter and receive an offer of passage back to the City. At best I would be taken into the counsels of the Governor and perhaps I could use my knowledge to gain some kind of status as an intermediary between him and the Emperor. I looked once more at my reflection in a copper plate. A little unkempt, perhaps, but with a certain air of rugged experience. I could even be called dashing, or so I fancied. I left the inn and made my way to the palace on foot.

  Once again I was shown to the same waiting room, and there I kicked my heels for half an hour or so. Again the tension mounted, and before long I felt that every muscle in my stomach was strained to bursting point. At length there was a respectful knock on the door and Armanis entered, looking somewhat more humble than he had the previous evening.

  “John Lascaris?”

  “Yes.” I replied, and my hackles rose at the sight of him.

  “You’re rather early, sir, but the governor is available. If you don’t mind waiting here a short while I will come and get you when he is ready to receive you. You can deliver your letter to him then.”

  The last sentence was delivered with a slight emphasis, with a faint hostility that in my nervous state I picked up on. A sense of panic filled my head, as if alarm bells were ringing there, driving out rational thought. What was it about the man? He seemed harmless enough. But what had he said?

  And then I had it, the beginnings of a train of thought, the like the frayed end of a thread that you must grasp and then pull.

  John Lascaris! He had known my name! And yet I was almost certain that in our hurried argument the night before I had not mentioned it. But of course, I had announced myself to the guard, both yesterday and this morning. For a moment I calmed myself, cursing my own timorous stupidity. But the idea had set me on the right course nonetheless. What else had the man said?

  Yes, last night, he had mentioned Bryennius. How did he put it exactly? He had asked something about me being with Bryennius, as if … as if ... Yes! And it struck me like thunder. As if it were the most natural thing that my errand for Nikephoritzes should connect me with the man. In other words Armanis had assumed that I was in league with both Bryennius and Nikephoritzes.

  I stalked back and forth in the room, with panic rising within me. What did this mean? I had the dreadful sense that I had to find out before my audience with the governor. Yet for precious seconds the answer eluded me. And then I remembered in a flash what Bryennius had shouted to me as I had left him at the scene of the murder.

  “You’re carrying you death warrant,” he had yelled, and at the time his words had spurred my flight. But like a fool I had thought he was referring to the Antiochene officer’s document, which was now destroyed.

  I snatched Nikephoritzes’ letter from my pocket and broke the seal. It was two pages of close written Greek and my eyes skimmed over the text with growing impatience. There was dangerous stuff there, no doubt about it, dangerous for me in particular if I were caught reading it. The words sprang out at me, ‘the death of the Emperor’, ‘troops in Constantinople’, and ‘desertion in the field’. The name Gabras was mentioned several times – he seemed to be in the thick of the plot, which appeared at a glance to involve some kind of coup initiated by a betrayal of the Emperor’s campaign here in Asia.

  The two men were clearly in league, and I remembered that Nikephoritzes had once been governor of Antioch. Was there a link there too to Comnenu
s?

  But I had not time to take it in, and rushed to the end, and there I saw, it, the words as clear now in my memory as they were then in black ink at the bottom of the milk-coloured page.

  “The bearer of the message must not be allowed to return to the City alive. He is of little importance of himself and will not be missed in the upheavals to come.”

  λ

  For an instant I gazed at the words in shock before I thrust the letter back and stalked from the room. There was a guard by the door outside and I called to him as I passed that I had forgotten something from my rooms, and he made no attempt to stop me as I made straight for the great door of the palace.

  As I reached it I heard questioning voices behind, but I did not glance back. Instead I lost my head. I accosted one of the guards at the gate and gabbled to him.

  “I return in an hour. But there is some danger. Armanis is a traitor. Do not believe a word he says. In fact, if you see him, arrest him. Hold him until my return.”

  It was nonsense of course, and the man looked at me in astonishment but I did not wait to see whether he acted on my instruction. I strode out of the main door and into the sunshine of the front courtyard beyond. Almost immediately the guard called out to me.

  “Hey you! What are you talking about! Stop and explain yourself.”

  I cursed my stupidity and ran towards the gate that led to the tangled streets of the city beyond. I heard another shout from the door and looked over my shoulder to see Armanis standing there with the guard. I had hardly gone a dozen paces.

  “Lascaris! Come back! Where are you going?” he shouted. And then to my horror another man joined them.

  It was Bryennius.

  I sprinted towards the gate, but the soldiers there were already looking in my direction, alerted by the commotion.

  “Stop him!” I heard Armanis shout. “Close the gate! Stop that man!”

  There were two guards ahead of me, and for a moment they hesitated as I charged towards them. One reached for his spear while the other tugged at the chocks that held the great wooden door that opened to the world.

  To their left, but closer still to them than me, there were steps leading up to the wall from the courtyard and I saw that a slender walkway breasted the ramparts so soldiers could view the streets below them from its top. The guards stood stupidly, awaiting my onset, and I charged towards them then veered aside to the foot of the steps at full pelt and took them three at a time.

  I daren’t look back, but in seconds I was atop the wall and running pell-mell along it, away from the gate, heedless of the narrow walkway and the ghastly chance of slipping and falling.

  Ahead the wall ended all too soon where it met a bastion that thrust out from the main building of the palace complex. There was a narrow door there but I knew it could be locked, and even if I made it inside, where would I hide, still in the palace? But here some houses had crept into the lee of the wall on the town side, and the rude sloping tiles of their roofs reached more than halfway to the battlement.

  Without looking back I leapt from the wall and onto the nearest roof and hit it with a jarring thud. My leading foot went straight through the tiles, but the other held, and I tumbled forward, crashing onto the roof in a cloud of dust. My face and arms bounced inches from the edge and I had an image of the filthy street below me, but I was saved from sliding forward by my foot being entangled in the tiling. There were yells from behind and I glanced round to see my pursuers already at the wall above: Bryennius and two guards.

  “Lascaris, stop, come back!” shouted Bryennius, but I heaved myself up, swung my body round, and dropped to the street. About fifty paces further on there was a lane that led away from the wall and I sprinted towards it. As I turned the corner I looked back and was shocked to see one of the guards already running after me, though Bryennius and the other were still on the palace wall.

  I swung into the busy street which was lined with stalls and shops and modest houses, their open doorways hung with drapes to keep the flies and heat out. On an impulse I ducked inside the first one, sweeping aside the hanging. There was a scream and I saw a young woman sitting there at a table in the shady space, apparently applying paint to her face.

  She stood, holding her hands to her mouth in alarm, and I pushed her back and grabbed her stool. “Excuse me madam!” I said as I lurched back out again into the street and straight into the soldier who had careered round the corner after me. We both staggered back from the impact and I swung the stool at his head, connecting with a splintering of timber. He didn’t go down, though, so I hit him again with the wooden leg I still held, hysterical screams still coming from behind me. Down he went, and I kicked him as hard as I could in the stomach and resumed my headlong flight.

  It must have taken seconds to ambush the guard, but it felt like an age, and panic lent wings to my heels as I bolted down that alleyway, scattering people left and right who leapt to get out of my way. I flung aside my stool leg, a mistake I regretted an instant later, and sprinted on, hearing the first shouts of pursuit resuming behind me.

  Ahead the narrow street seemed to open out into a small square, and there was the looming flank of a large church. It had scaffolding hanging scab-like between two buttresses, and the germ of an idea sprang into my mind.

  I raced on, barging people aside, turning right along the side of the church towards the western end where I knew the entrance would be. There was a larger open space there, quieter now, but still with plenty of folk wandering about their business. The door was just at hand, and I forced myself to drop to a walk and passed through into the shadowy narthex with my heart pounding within me.

  The church was empty, as I had hoped, and I looked around frantically for what I sought. There it was; a small wooden door half hidden by a confessional, and I strode over to it, dreading that it might be locked.

  When I turned the iron ring and pushed, for a second it refused to yield against the accumulated dust that held it, but I shoved my shoulder in desperation against it, and to my intense relief it scraped open to reveal some narrow, shadow-grey steps beyond.

  Christ knows what I would have done if the door had not been there, or had not opened. It was a plan fraught with hellish risk, I realised as just in time I pushed the stocky portal to, and enveloped myself in darkness. Beyond, booted feet pounded into the church and Bryennius uttered a series of commands to search the place.

  Silently I crept upwards, and as my eyes adjusted to the gloom I could see a faint grey light ahead. The staircase narrowed and my panting breath echoed in the confined space. I was on my hands and knees, feeling my way forward, and to my shock I suddenly felt something soft and yielding before me. I recoiled in horror – a dead rat. The stench sprang up around me. I stood and inched up the stair, my ankle now starting to throb from smashing through the tiles what seemed like an hour ago but was probably a matter of minutes. I dreaded the scraping sound of the narrow door behind me and hastened on. They would see the dust marks of my boots for sure.

  At length the stair opened out as I knew it would onto a narrow internal gallery used for cleaning and decorating the edifice from within. A stone balustrade a foot high protected me from the yawning space of the church aisle. Looking ahead my mind recoiled in vertigo at the immense space of roof and dome around me. Perhaps thirty paces on, the gallery came to an end once more in another door that led into the base of the dome that towered above the cruciform altar space beneath it.

  Voices echoed from below: the soldiers calling to each other in their vain attempts to find me. I shuffled along, fearful of being seen or heard, and careful not to dislodge dust and mortar into the void beside me.

  Then a voice called out – it was Bryennius – and I shrank to the floor.

  “Lascaris! Where are you? Come out! I know you’re here.”

  Silence echoed round the building, except for the massive pounding of my heart.

  “Come on out, John” he said again, and I crept forward once m
ore. “You can’t hide in here forever. These men will fish you out soon enough.”

  Resentment boiled within me. Fish me out, as if I were some criminal. Had this creature not committed murder and betrayal? And it was I who was being hounded!

  Almost as if he read my thoughts Bryennius changed his tone.

  “Come on, John, all I need is that letter! It’s none of your business, I know that! And you’ll be safe with me, I promise you. This … this is not what it seems.” A note of pleading entered his voice. “Look John, I can’t explain this here, now. But you must … join me, before it’s too late. For you and for me.”

  And then when I did not answer he yelled in frustration. “It’s a message of Imperial importance, for God’s sake! Surrender it and you can go free!”

  Nothing he said convinced me. If I went down to him and his guards I was a dead man, I was sure of it. I had reached the far door and I pushed timorously against it. Nothing. Yet it felt frail and looking closely I could see the gaps between the planks where the wood had started to rot. I pushed again, trying to lever my body against it, but still it would not give. There was nothing for it. I stood.

  “Alright Bryennius, here I am,” I shouted, and they all stopped to look up at me, their faces pale in the gloom. “The letter I have place in the crypt yonder. It’s yours.”

  And after pointing vaguely beyond them into the shadows I hurled myself against the door, which cracked but did not budge, and my momentum nearly carried me over the edge.

  “Get him!” yelled one of the soldiers, but Bryennius just gazed at me in consternation, not even looking in the direction I had indicated.

  “That door! Get him,” yelled the guards and they pounded towards my escape route.

  I smashed myself against the barrier once more, and this time it splintered and I stumbled through into a narrow passageway that curved round the inner fabric of the dome. I scraped along it, muttering to myself in fear, and there was what I had hoped for, another door, this time to the outside world. I pulled and pushed at it, and again it yielded before my desperate strength.