Redwald gave his prisoner a nod of approval and stood beside him. It had not struck Arnau until then how the Waring seemed always more of a bodyguard to his charge than a jailor. But then Doukas seemed to be considerably brighter than many of the courtiers, so perhaps that was not too much of a surprise.
When Doukas had left the apartment, Ramon folded his arms. ‘We must persuade Bochard to leave. If what we hear about this Isaac is true, his hold on power here will be even more tenuous than Alexios’s. I foresee the Franks getting their way. Their young pretender is the closest thing to a legitimate emperor here now.’
Arnau nodded unhappily, remembering the preening youth dressed as a Western prince aboard that Venetian ship. Somehow Arnau could picture him on the throne in a way that ended well.
Chapter 11: The Blind Fool
August 1st 1203
‘How desperate does a city need to be to make a blind madman their emperor?’ Arnau sighed.
Ramon snorted. ‘You saw the alternative. That pomped-up child the Franks keep parading around. Can you imagine him ruling the city?’
‘No more than a shell of a blind man who’s been made insane by years of incarceration. The choice should have been Laskaris. We all know it. Everyone knows it. Heavens, but he was even the coward Alexios’s chosen heir!’
‘And that is why he is unacceptable to the nobles, Vallbona, even if they know he’s best for the city. They cannot bring themselves to support Alexios’s choice, and so they turn to the man who had opposed him: his brother Isaac.’
‘Every step this city takes is one determined pace further into the maw of hell,’ Arnau grunted bitterly.
Ramon could not argue, and nodded sadly.
Whatever the older knight had planned to say next, he fell silent at a knock on the door. Inviting their visitor inside, the two men relaxed at the sight of Doukas, wearing his robe of office. If there was one positive Arnau could make out about the flight of the emperor and the reinstatement of blind Isaac, it was that Doukas had been released from his custody. Having never stood against Isaac Angelos, he had been given his freedom and, because of his obvious intellect, had even been promoted to the position of finance minister. It made Arnau smile a little to note that the burly Waring guardsman, Redwald, remained at Doukas’s shoulder at all times, though now as a guard rather than a jailor.
‘Minister, it is good to see you. I thought you would have little time for social visits in your new role.’
Doukas smiled. ‘Life has become more than a little busy, for certain, my friends. The city is not wealthy these days. Generations of mismanagement under certain grasping rulers and greedy councillors has left the treasury depleted. The true financial blood of Constantinopolis has always been mercantilism, and if we are to regain control, we must foster and nurture that trade. But with the city surrounded by enemies as it is, trade is in a rapid decline where we need it to grow. It is a troublesome situation and I bend every effort to solving the problem, but my fiscal worries were not what brought me here this morning. I came to deliver the latest tidings. I know that unless I do so, no one else in this benighted place will talk to you. In truth I was surprised to learn that you were still here at all. I would have assumed that your preceptor would wish to depart with haste.’
‘The preceptor is up to something,’ grunted Arnau, earning a sharp warning look from Ramon, who cut in.
‘Preceptor Bochard does not believe he has fully accomplished his task here yet.’
‘His task? I thought he was here to elicit promises from the emperor?’ Doukas’s face, and an odd twinkle in his eye, plainly suggested that he knew a lot more than that was going on.
‘Yes,’ Ramon said blandly, ‘and that failed, but now there is a different emperor on the throne. Bochard cannot leave without at least attempting to achieve his goals for the grand master.’
Doukas sighed. ‘His plan is futile, I’m afraid, if indeed securing alliances is his plan. The new emperor is in no better a position to grant that which you desire, and in his current mood, he is much less likely to be inclined to negotiate.’
‘He is mad?’ Arnau said.
This time, Doukas shot him the look of warning. ‘Saying such things about the emperor is both illegal and foolish. You would do well to watch your words, no matter how incisive they may be.’
A confirmation, then. Arnau turned his gaze on Ramon, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
‘The news, then?’
Doukas nodded. ‘The emperor is keenly aware of how precarious his position remains, though he cannot afford to show any weakness. This is a problem, as you can imagine. To consolidate his reign, the fugitive Alexios Angelos the Third has been made an outcast and an enemy of the empire. He will find no succour throughout our lands. His wife has been arrested, though her fate is as yet undecided.’
Ramon nodded slowly. ‘Unfortunate and unpleasant, though also predictable.’
‘The problem facing us now remains the Franks and Venetians. The emperor, upon his accession, sent a message to their leaders, Dandolo and Montferrat. He sought terms for their lifting of the siege, given that the emperor who defied them so openly has now gone.’
‘I cannot imagine their terms are any more acceptable now,’ Ramon murmured.
‘Quite so. Dandolo has hated the empire since the day he was blinded in this very palace for transgressions against the state.’
Arnau and Ramon shared a startled look. No wonder the Venetians were so rabid.
‘Their reply was flat,’ Doukas went on. ‘Their original terms remain, with one alteration. They have demanded all the payments that they have been promised by their pet exile, which, I might add, currently amount to around six times the entire financial wealth of the city. They have called for the patriarch to step down and the Church to submit to the rule of the Roman Pope. They have demanded that young Alexios out there be crowned as emperor, though they have offered to have him share the throne in joint rule with Isaac, for after all, they are father and son.’
‘A blind fool and a puppet of the Franks sharing the throne,’ Arnau spat, this time receiving that warning look from all the room’s occupants. He shook his head and went on. ‘That will be unacceptable, surely? It would be the death knell for the city. And while I cannot in conscience complain about the overlordship of the Pope, for I feel that unity of our faiths could only strengthen Christendom, I cannot see it being popular in the city. Worse still, bankrupting Byzantium to pay off the Venetians.’ He glanced at Sebastian who wore a sour look at the very idea. His connections to the Church of Rome through the Order were weakening daily these days, yet somehow, despite that, he still felt closer to Arnau than their master.
Ramon took a deep breath. ‘His mouth runneth over, but with wise words. Doukas, the city cannot accept this. It will put Montferrat and Dandolo effectively in control of the empire.’
Doukas sighed. ‘The response is currently being considered by the council of nobles, and despite the unacceptability of the deal, I am uncertain as to the outcome. Many nobles of the empire think far more of their personal comfort and wealth than of public service or the health of the Church. Such men could prosper under a new regime, for their private fortunes would likely remain untouched if they support the Franks and their position would become more secure. Honourable voices like those of the Laskaris could well be drowned out by an avalanche of avarice.’
‘When will the answer be given?’
Doukas shrugged. ‘That depends entirely upon how long the nobles argue. I have stated my case for a refusal and left them to it. I will be warned of their decision once it is made, though, and will pass on the news as soon as I have it.’
Ramon nodded. ‘Thank you for letting us know all this. It is good to see that there are still men like yourself in power. Let us hope you can sway the fools.’
Doukas nodded and turned, leaving the room. Redwald fixed Arnau with an inscrutable look for a long moment, and then followed his master
. As the door clicked shut behind them, Ramon frowned at Arnau. ‘No matter how correct you might be, think ahead on what might be prudent before you flap your lips, Vallbona.’
‘Doukas agrees with us.’
‘And even he warned you. Bear in mind that the Angle Redwald is one of the emperor’s own guards, no matter how close he might appear to Doukas. Just be careful.’
Arnau sighed and flopped back. ‘What was that you were telling him about the preceptor? He’s said nothing of the sort to me.’
Ramon sucked air in through his teeth and rolled his shoulders. ‘Thinking on my feet. I think we both know what Bochard is up to, but I could hardly tell Doukas that we weren’t leaving until the preceptor has raped the city of any relic of value. I cannot imagine that going down well.’
‘You lied?’ Falsehoods were very strongly frowned upon by the Order.
‘I made assumptions. What I said makes perfect sense, and if negotiation is our prime purpose for being in the city as the preceptor maintains, then what I said is almost certainly true. If it is not true, that is because Bochard is lying himself. I am only false if Bochard also lies.’
Arnau sighed again. ‘What will happen if they accept the terms?’
Ramon shrugged. ‘Latin control. The suppression of the Eastern Church and its gradual integration into the Church of Rome. Poverty and distress, for to meet the financial arrangements they will have to tear coins from the hands of every citizen. But they will have peace and the city will survive. The question that must be asked is whether that is worth the price they will pay.’
Sebastian was shaking his head, a sentiment with which Arnau agreed entirely.
‘Peace at such a cost?’ Arnau shook his head. ‘And already an area of the city lies in ashes since that last attack. Surely that will gird them to further defiance?’
‘To the common man it might have entirely the opposite effect,’ Ramon noted.
‘And if they refuse and hold out?’
The older knight shrugged. ‘Then it depends upon whether men like Laskaris can continue to lead a strong defence and hold until the winter drives the Franks away, or whether weak men will continue to fritter away what chances they have. The result is far from certain. Whatever the case the city will, I am sure, become more and more troubled in the coming days. I have half a mind to have it out with Bochard once more and attempt to turn him to departure.’
‘He won’t go.’
‘No.’ Ramon shook his head. ‘I don’t think so either.’
‘How long is it until sext?’ Arnau asked wearily.
Ramon glanced out of the window, looking up into the deep blue filled with the whirling shapes of birds, trying not to dwell on the distant looming shape of the Crusader camp below.
‘Less than an hour. I will prepare shortly. We should by rights be using our time wisely to practise or clean our weapons.’
‘Sebastian has our weapons and armour in perfect condition, and I think we’re getting plenty of weapons practice,’ he added wryly. ‘Fancy a walk out? Think I’d like to take a look at what’s happening across the water before we head to the Pisan church.’
Ramon shook his head. ‘I think I’m going to wait here in the hope of news from the council. If I hear nothing, I will meet you at the church in time for sext.’
Arnau nodded and strapped his sword to his side. For a moment he contemplated gathering up his shield and helmet, but decided against them. Saying farewell to Ramon and pulling his white cloak around him he left the room, allowing the door to clunk shut behind him. He glanced momentarily to the right at Bochard’s apartment. There was no sign of movement and no sound. Presumably the preceptor was once more out and about his seemingly nefarious business. Arnau gritted his teeth. Years of service to the Order had changed him. Learning, serving and fighting alongside men like Balthesar and Ramon had opened his eyes to the base levels of goodness and wickedness in the world and the fact that the two did not always correlate with whether or not a man bent his knee to the Pope. But what it had done most was convince him of the rightness and goodness of the Order. Men like the preceptor, he felt, did nothing to promote the image of the Poor Knights of Christ.
A secretive, untruthful and possibly even larcenous brother?
Lip fluttering in anger, he turned his back on Bochard’s door and marched out of their small area of the palace complex. He frowned as he emerged into the courtyard. In months of residence here, he had found Waring guardsmen either waiting in a small chamber near their rooms or at least out here. Now there were none in sight. Actually, that was not strictly true. He could see the big northerners here and there, moving up stairs or through doorways or strolling along parapets alongside more mundane city soldiers. But no small group stood waiting for him.
As a burly mailed man with golden braids hanging from his steel coif strolled past, axe hooked over his shoulder, Arnau gestured to him. The big man frowned as he paused.
‘Yes?’ he said in thickly barbarous Greek.
‘We usually have a Waring escort.’
The man shrugged. ‘New emperor. New rules. All assignments outside the imperial person and palace and court protection have been withdrawn. Sorry, little man.’
Arnau was too busy being surprised at their loss of Waring support to bother being offended at being addressed thus, and watched the blond northerner stride off to his duties. He still had access to parts of the palace and city even without the imperial guards, for each of the visiting Templars carried a small document bearing the imperial seal and granting them certain privileges. It would have to do.
How long before those were withdrawn by the new emperor too, he wondered?
He strolled through the palace grounds and corridors, relishing the sizzling play of hot summer sunshine on his face every bit as much as the respite of cool, shady interiors. The hum of city life joined that of bees and of birds, and it was difficult at times to remember just how troubled imperial life was right now. Emerging at one of the lower gates in the boundary wall of the Blachernae palace complex, Arnau nodded amiably at a man in a coat of shining plates with a tall pike. The man nodded back, uncertainly. A quick proffering of the document, a scan through it and a nod, and the gate was opened to allow Arnau out into the city.
Here the palace walls were particularly tall and impressive at the lower slopes of the Sixth Hill. The retaining wall at their base was hugely thick and formed at an angle against the hill, with the more decorative work with its arches and windows, and finally the battlements, rising some thirty feet above him, towering over the lower city and the Golden Horn.
The street that ran around these walls had been left deliberately wide, some twenty paces between the palace walls and the buildings facing them. In the West such a decision would have been made for military and security reasons. Here, Arnau suspected, it had more to do with propriety and aesthetics.
He strolled out across the wide street and at the far side began to descend the hill towards the walls stretching along the waterfront. It was only as he was closing on the defences that he remembered he was lacking the usual Waring Guard escort. He reached a doorway and knocked. When a Byzantine soldier with a suspicious face opened up with a mace in hand, Arnau held out his papers and asked politely whether he might be permitted to climb the walls and view the water. It came as no real surprise, but a little disappointment, when the soldier flatly refused his request and closed the door on him. It seemed that without the support of the Warings, he was of little import to the soldiery of Byzantium.
With a sigh he turned away from the walls and strode on through the city, making for the Pisan enclave and the church where they habitually attended all the services in the Litany of the Hours. For a short stretch of his journey he moved back inland from the walls, strolling along a narrow backstreet. He paused to buy an apple from a stall, and crunched upon it as he strode under the clear, warm azure sky. For a moment, things seemed less terrible…
His heart lurched as he rounded
a corner and was treated to a bleak vision of hell.
The street turned where it had once marched back downhill a short way and emerged close to the walls, but as Arnau rounded the corner, he saw no such vista. Instead, what his eyes fell upon was the aftermath of the Venetian assault.
Two houses down from the corner the buildings ended in a pile of blackened rubble. From there, he could see clearly across a vast swathe of the city, almost to the Pisan enclave for which he was bound. He realised now why Ramon had led them to every service since the attack along the hilltops and past the great church. He had been skirting the huge blackened field of destruction.
For the better part of a mile, nothing had been spared by the inferno. Here and there the brittle bones of churches and a few other rare stone or brick buildings rose like imploring arms above the blackness, pleading to heaven to be put out of their misery. Most of the area, however, had been almost entirely rendered down to ash and charred beams, the majority of housing and shops being of timber construction. It was impossible even to identify where streets had been. So utter was the destruction that even the wildlife was avoiding the place – there were no scavengers amid the ash and no carrion birds resting on the jutting remains. The charnel field was quieter than the grave, stretching out into the distance across the city, and reaching almost from the sea walls up to the crest of the hill.
Arnau tottered to a halt, staring in horror at the ruination of a huge portion of the city.
‘Lord, forgive us all,’ he whispered.
This had been the outcome of the fight at the walls. As the Venetians had fled up the water to support their Frankish allies, Arnau had cheered. He had felt elated, as though they had won such a profound victory, keeping the crafty doge and his men out of the city. Now he was being forced to acknowledge the cost of their victory. How many men, women and children had perished in this immense conflagration? How many had lost their houses and their livelihoods? How many ordinary, God-fearing folk who had no say in what their empire did had perished?
City of God Page 17