by Anton Gill
Leporo could sense his master’s feeble eye squinting back at him through the gloom. He had been with the old man for the last forty years, since he was a novice monk, well before the trip to Constantinople three decades earlier which had left his master all but blind. They hadn’t managed to kill his eyesight as completely as they’d intended, back then. Leporo had seen to that. And what gratitude had he been shown?
Leporo prided himself on being one of only two men who stood close to the doge and enjoyed his confidence. Time was he had been the only one. He was Dandolo’s confessor, but not that alone. He was his secretary, confidant, eyes and – often – ears. Not much got past him.
But he always remained one step behind his master. With the passing years, that galled him more and more. Why should he be content with the crumbs which fell from the table when he might have the bread that was on it?
The problem was the other man close to his master. Leporo thought of him now, and hatred crept into his soul, its natural home.
But he kept his counsel. He knew how to bide his time.
‘This knight whose memoirs you are reading from,’ said the old man in a thin voice. ‘Who is he?’
‘Bohun de Treillis. A minor nobleman from Amboise.’
‘He thinks too much. We need to trim his account. Blunt his quill. He reveals too many secrets and he has no business even guessing at them.’
‘He is an ignorant man, Altissima. There is nothing to be feared. He writes in the dark.’
‘I’ll decide what is to be feared or not. Anything that bears a hint of my power must be excised. And, now – read on,’ said the doge, peering uncertainly towards Leporo through the gloom. The monk saw the one good eye glint in the candle’s flame.
He cleared his throat.
On the other side of the gate, there was a small square, streets leading off, and a crowd of people, staring at us, pissing themselves in fear. We put a few men in, and the people inside shrank back, all sorts, high and low, mixed up together in the streets, no fight in them, all gaudy clothes for the rich, though. They fell back into the narrow streets. Too narrow – too much risk of ambush. A man could easily get lost in this city; it was like a twenty-square-kilometre maze.
Our men followed the inside of the wall towards the sea, where a great chain had been stretched across the mouth of the big inlet, the Golden Horn, to keep us out. That’d been easy to smash. Bloody thing was half rusted away and, as for their fleet, the galleys were so rotten they were already sunk to their gunnels, and all their so-called grand admiral could muster was a few dozen cavalry who ran away as soon as they saw us!
How far into the battle were we? Six hours? Seven? The sun was at its height, beating down, and we would have boiled in our chain mail, but the wind cooled us. And now, at last – a real breach!
That was what was happening down near St Barbara’s Gate, on the seaward side. Some of our men who’d got in by the small gate had managed to fight their way round to a big gate on the seaward side, where our transports were, and the Greeks melted before them. Vicious bastards – they ran away into the streets, sure, but that didn’t stop them chucking anything they could find down on us from the rooftops.
Our lads got this big gate open, unopposed. It was wide and high; two, three, mounted knights could get through it at once. The transports immediately raised their anchors and beached themselves, throwing their foregates down so the big destriers, already caparisoned with their taffeta coats emblazoned with the knights’ insignias, their steel head-protectors strapped tight, could be led out fast by the squires. The knights, helmeted and armoured, all the colours of the rainbow on their crests and surcoats, were soon ready for the fray.
We wore our own battledress because we were fighting renegade Christians. We reserved the white surcoat with the red cross for the fight against the Infidel in Jerusalem. This, Lord Dandolo ordered us to do.
We stormed in. Right through that gate, the green sea glittering in the sun at our backs, the yellow sand, the high grey walls, the Greeks stampeding before us to avoid being crushed by the horses.
As for the defenders – well, they’d lost heart. And their new emperor, that traitor who’d killed the man we’d set up as their king – he’d gone AWOL. Well, he’d had his ten weeks. We’d been here the best part of two years, in this weird country, all hand-kissing and smells of strange spices; the unblinking sun in summer, the vicious cold and clinging damp in winter; all that silk and gold. Well, it was our turn now.
‘Take that out,’ said Dandolo.
Leporo nodded, and went on reading.
We were not such fools as to risk losing ourselves in the labyrinth of streets that connected the main squares and the palaces. We took up quarters on the Petrion Hill. We could see all around from there, and we smashed down a few of the wooden defence turrets the Greeks had built on top of the towers, just to let off steam. Evening by then. The officers told the men to bivouac: ‘Busy day tomorrow!’ But I couldn’t rest. I kept looking out over the city. Like a sea it was, twinkling lights of fires here and there, moon drenching it in a greyish light. Looked like an open oyster – all you had to do was find the pearl.
We’d all heard tales of the treasures the city held – and the Holy Relics too. Just a few of them ought to buy us our Christianity back all right, when we got home.
All that loot! Once we were done, we’d have more than enough not only to pay off our debt to Dandolo but to feather our own nests for life.
And in two weeks, we’ll celebrate Easter here. Our Easter. Not theirs.
And then, the great Pilgrimage – to Jerusalem!
Leporo paused. He looked at Dandolo, brooding in his chair, and brooded himself about the hidden power the old doge had, and how long it might be before he, Leporo, could be master of it. But he took care to veil his thoughts. Who could be sure that Dandolo wasn’t able to read them?
‘Take out that stuff about Jerusalem,’ said the old man.
‘Why?’
‘Because these Crusaders will never get there.’
Leporo wet his lips, not quite believing what he had heard, and not daring either to question or contradict. Instead, seeing his master’s eyes flicker, he said, ‘The looting and destruction have stopped.’
‘Good.’
‘It’s as if the Pilgrims of Christ just ran out of breath, or suddenly realized what a steaming slaughterhouse they’d created – and that they were destroying things which could be of value to them. Now we have the business of restoring order and getting a new, Roman Catholic, truly Christian emperor on the throne. No more of this Eastern Church mumbo-jumbo.’
‘That ought to shut the pope up. After all, that was what Innocent wanted, all along. In the meantime, we have some history to rewrite. We must remove any unfavourable descriptions of the sack of the city that are appearing.’
‘Do you want me to read any more of this?’ he asked.
‘Who wrote it, did you say?’
‘One of the minor knights, as I told you. Bohun de Treillis. Not a man of importance.’ The monk hesitated. ‘And don’t worry. He can’t read or write himself. He dictated it to one of their French priests. His memoirs. Wanted to get them down while the memory was fresh. But the priest is also one of our spies. What do you want me to do with it?’
‘How much more has he written?’
Leporo riffled pages. ‘There’s more about what we did after that first day.’
‘About what the Pilgrims of the Cross did,’ Dandolo corrected him. ‘We Venetians did nothing.’
‘We didn’t destroy much, that’s true. All we did was loot.’
Dandolo made an irritable gesture. ‘Sometimes I wish you’d forget your Christianity.’
‘I left it behind a long time ago. Perhaps that will be to my cost. But I am your loyal follower, as the years have proved.’
Dandolo ignored that. ‘I wish I could see just well enough to read properly,’ he murmured. Self-pity wasn’t in Dandolo’s nature, and
Leporo, knowing this, eyed him keenly. After all these years, he still couldn’t trust himself to fathom his master’s darkest thoughts.
But it wasn’t a ploy. Leporo knew what remained of the old man’s sight, ruined when they tried to burn his eyes out in Constantinople as a punishment for spying, was fading now, with every day that passed. His master was an old, old man. God alone knew how old he was, but he’d been in his mid-fifties when he had first taken Leporo into his employment as a secretary, four decades ago.
It was just a matter of time …
Leporo, whose own eyes had taken on a greedy glint as he thought of what was to come, what he might inherit, forced himself to return to the matter in hand. But the thought stayed at the back of his mind, and excited his soul.
‘We are taking what is rightfully ours,’ Dandolo went on. ‘Venice has bent the knee to Constantinople for too long. No more!’
‘We’ve done well here, no doubt of that. The Pilgrims have seized enough booty to pay us for the fleet we built them, and keep a tidy sum for themselves.’
‘But how much have they destroyed?’
‘Plenty.’ Leporo picked his words. ‘Works of art, from the ancient days. And they’ve burned down all the libraries. No profit in that.’
‘The Pilgrims are all illiterate, so you can’t expect anything else.’ Dandolo paused. ‘Beautiful works of art?’
‘Exquisite. Irreplaceable. Fortunately, we’ve had Venetian squads out rescuing the good stuff to take home. To adorn St Mark’s.’
‘Pity about the libraries,’ Dandolo said thoughtfully, but then a spasm pulled his face into a rictus of pain and his right hand, the good one – arthritis had turned the left into a claw – flew up to his eyes. When he sensed Leporo coming towards him, he waved him away impatiently.
‘The headache?’ asked Leporo.
‘Of course the headache!’ spat Dandolo. ‘And why should I give a damn about their libraries? I cannot read any more. And why should I care about the beauty of their art? I cannot see it!’
‘You remember it.’
Dandolo turned his milky eyes on his confessor, and Leporo saw their centres burn with anguish and rage. The glories of Constantinople were the last things his master had ever seen.
‘Console yourself, my son,’ said Leporo, taking refuge in his faith. ‘You’ve got what you came for.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Dandolo in a dangerous voice.
Leporo shrugged. ‘Revenge.’
‘For my eyes? Do you think I would have waited thirty years if all I’d wanted was revenge?’
The monk fell silent. He knew full well why it had taken his master thirty years: he had been waiting for the opportunity and the means. Then, as if handed to him on a plate by God, they had come: a Crusader army – and the power to control it and bend it to his will. And now the time was drawing near when Leporo would seize that power for himself. He knew more about how the doge had controlled that army than his master could possibly guess. It had taken a lot of dissimulation, but he knew where the real power lay.
3
New York City, the Present
Jack Marlow looked up at the façade of the discreet hotel. It looked handsome in the pale sunlight of this early autumn day. It looked welcoming. Marlow hoped this would be a good omen. He needed a change after the bad business in Paris. This transfer was the answer to his prayers.
His mind took him back for a moment to the woman, a blonde lapse-in-judgement who worked in HR. It’d lasted three and a half years, and he’d thought it was the real thing at last. But he’d been wrong.
‘What’s the matter?’ she’d said in response to his consternation when she dropped her bomb. ‘We’ve had a pretty good run.’
Three and a half years. A pretty good run. And he’d been fool enough to think it was for real.
That’d been eighteen months earlier. An Achilles’ heel he’d have to watch. Especially now. The first mission, from all he’d been told in his initial briefing, would need every gramme of concentration. But he’d kept his wound a tight secret. All that had happened was that he’d been used by someone who – as he discovered – had no conscience. And what should he blame for having been too credulous? Too trusting? The trace of Irish blood in his ancestry? Marlow smiled. No – allowing hope to get the better of reality, that was all. Bad news in his business. But nothing is wasted. Above all, he’d learned to know when there was nothing but darkness in another person’s eyes.
He shook himself free of his demons and ran up the steps; at the entrance before the commissionaire had a chance to get the doors for him. The commissionaire didn’t know him, and looked searchingly at the tall man casually dressed in a faded denim shirt under a black leather jacket. Marlow read the man’s expression. The uniform was thinking, This guy doesn’t look like our average guest. The clothes are good, OK, but he’s dishevelled. Doesn’t care about how he looks. Maybe too rich to need to. Maybe a music mogul? Give him the benefit.
Marlow swung past him. After all, the commissionaire was an innocent – he thought he was simply working for a hotel.
Two out of the five desk clerks knew better. The auburn-haired woman, a field agent once herself, returned his look and nodded him through. The look they exchanged wasn’t entirely professional. There was remembered electricity in it for both of them. Real electricity, in their case. But Marlow was done with all that.
Running a hand carelessly through his dark hair, more unruly than usual thanks to the wind outside, he crossed the lobby, passing unobtrusive signs indicating the direction of the restaurant and bar, gym and pool. He didn’t like the overstuffed richesse of the place, but it was good cover, and beat the hell out of the old import-export premises INTERSEC had used to hide its New York base back in the bad old days of the Cold War. He remembered them like his first date. He’d been recruited after graduating in 1990, just in time for glasnost and all the shifting goalposts which followed.
He reached a red door beyond the lift area and went through it into what anyone else would have taken for a breakout space for the staff – vending machines and a couple of tables and benches, smell of poor coffee. Marlow glanced round – checking a space was second nature to him – then he spoke the magic words, a machine swung back, and he entered another world.
A minute later the steel-lined elevator deposited him in a modern, soundless lobby off which only one door led. An aluminium plaque on it read: Richard Hudson.
Marlow hadn’t reached the door before it opened and Sir Richard himself stood before him. His new boss, though no stranger. They’d locked horns way back, in the London office, even before Marlow’s Paris posting. Must have been sometime during his SAS secondment, thought Marlow. How tough that had seemed, back in the day. He hadn’t thought he’d survive the disciplinary measures his insubordination had resulted in. But they must have thought him more of an asset than a liability.
Hudson was sixty-something now, the air around him carrying that odour of Lancero cigars and Annick Goutal cologne which only rich men in Savile Row suits exude.
He extended a hand. ‘Jack. It’s been a long time.’
‘Sir.’
Hudson waved a hand. ‘These days you must call me Dick. Everyone does. You and I are both Englishmen abroad, and here in America one dispenses with formalities. I can’t tell you how happy we are to have you on board. Chap with your qualifications. Especially now.’ Marlow thought the man looked troubled.
‘It’s good to be here,’ Marlow replied. There was a lot hanging on this appointment.
‘It’s a small team but a tight one. You’ve got Leon Lopez, as you requested. I gather you two go back a bit?’
‘You could say that.’
‘The girl’s been with us a while but she’s new to this field. And little field-work experience, beyond training. So you’ll have to show her the ropes. Brilliant in her way. Hand-picked. But, of course, if she doesn’t shape up, we’ll take steps.’
‘If she’s got the qua
lifications I requested, that’s good enough.’
‘Partly why we put this team together so fast.’ Hudson looked at him. ‘As I mentioned when we spoke earlier, your first assignment is, shall we say, rather special.’
‘That’s what I’m here for.’ Marlow shrugged lean shoulders, noticing the tightness return to Hudson’s expression. But the man relaxed slightly then, and said, ‘Yes. That’s what you’re here for.’
As they walked down the corridors, heavily carpeted in grey, and took a series of whispering stainless-steel lifts, Marlow, as he listened to Hudson filling him in on tighter firewall controls, thought about his time with INTERSEC. INTERSEC, one of the few examples of successful international government collaboration, was known to very few people. But it spread its net wide. As far as Marlow knew, only a handful of rebel, unstable or minor states in the entire world had no representation in it, and within it the old guard, the USA and Western Europe, could just about maintain the balance between themselves and the new kids on the block: a transformed and dangerous Russia, and China and India. Just about. The game was changing daily. How much and how fast, Marlow reflected, he was about to find out.
‘Here we are,’ said Hudson, opening an unmarked white door. ‘Room 55. Your new home.’
One end of the huge space they entered was partitioned off by a white wall, on which hung an original Matisse.
‘From my own collection,’ said Hudson, following Marlow’s gaze. ‘A good working environment needs tasteful surroundings.’
Marlow nodded, but he was picking up on the stress in his boss’s tone, however hard the man tried to cover it. ‘And beyond the wall?’ he asked, looking at the sliding door, now closed, which punctuated it.