The Walls of Byzantium tmc-1

by James Heneage

  Soon he and Zoe were riding west along the northern ridge of the valley to where it ended above the mouth of the Horn. They came to a grassy defile through which the army would pass and where musicians had set out their drums and trumpets and bells to play their brothers to war. Black-skirted dervishes were there, practising the spins and whirls that would be their dance to the music, their dance to Allah. It was the dance that would remind the soldiers of their gazi roots and of the ferocity that flowed through them from the red earth of the Anatolian steppe.

  Towards the east they could see a haze of dust greying the horizon and could hear the deep percussion of thousands of feet on the march. The distant beat of drum and crash of cymbals kept their horses’ ears alert and sent tiny tremors up their flanks.

  Then Luke heard the sound of closer hoofbeats and looked up to see two riders approaching the opposite hill.

  ‘Say nothing!’ hissed Zoe.

  Prince Suleyman had stopped his horse on the hill across from them. Beside him, Anna was dressed and veiled as an Ottoman consort and mounted on a pretty palfrey of white and pink. Her head was lowered and if she’d seen Luke, she didn’t show it. As they drew up, Suleyman turned to her and said something in her ear; Anna nodded and kept her head bowed. Then he walked his horse forward and looked directly across at Zoe and Luke.

  ‘How does your new groom do, lady?’ he called.

  The musicians and dancers around them had prostrated themselves on the grass. A drum rolled gently down to the road at the bottom of the defile.

  ‘Get off your horse,’ whispered Zoe from the side of her mouth.

  ‘No,’ said Luke, quite loudly.

  There was a short laugh from the other side. ‘He is insolent! No doubt you will beat him later?’

  ‘Undoubtedly, Majesty. But it is my fault. I have asked him to remain mounted since my horse is skittish this morning. The music, lord.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the Prince, ‘the music.’ He looked round at the discarded instruments.

  The army was approaching beneath its cloud like a winding snake of many colours. The noise made Zoe’s horse start and Luke leant across and took her bridle.

  Suleyman nodded and the musicians collected their instruments and began to tune them. The dervishes stood and bowed and swept the grass from their robes. Someone went to retrieve the drum.

  ‘You will see something unforgettable in a moment, Luke Magoris!’ he shouted. ‘You will see an unbeaten army on its way to win another battle. Mark it well and be thankful that you don’t have to face it.’

  Luke was about to reply when Zoe’s hand gripped his arm like a vice.

  ‘He will mark it well, Majesty, and his silence,’ — the grip tightened — ‘will be proof of his astonishment.’

  Across the other side of the defile, Anna walked her horse forward and undid her veil. For the first time she looked up and her eyes locked with those of Luke.

  In the look that passed between them then was fear and joy and, above all, certainty. Whatever happened, whatever the lies, the forcing, the blackmail, there would be no other love in his life or hers. In that gaze was a longing, a longing grounded in something sublime that happened in a cave. Anna strained to search every part of his face, to store the memory of it to be unpacked, if it had to be, every remaining night of her life. She lifted her hand as he lifted his and the world beyond them was, for that moment, somewhere else.

  But the army was there.

  First came the flags, yellow and red and covered in holy writing, borne on lances. Behind them rode the aga of the janissaries and his captains and companies of dervishes whirling in their wake. Then, marching in loose order, came the ranks of janissaries in their tall white hats and long red coats, stepping out with their swords slung low from their waists and their most precious regimental badge, the cauldron, held between the two biggest men of each company.

  After them it was the turn of the court to pass. The White Eunuch, the Kilerji-bashi, in charge of the royal household, was in front, and behind him marched the Ilekim-bashi, the Chief Physician, and the Munejim-bashi, the Chief Astrologer. On either side trod the peik halberdiers, smart as buttons in their long swaying coats and plumed hats and between them came all the cooks, bakers, scullions, confectioners, tasters and musicians that created, approved or dismissed the Sultan’s food.

  The Pages of the Inner and Outer Chambers came next, each with his little golden bow, and the solaklar, the veteran janissary archers that surrounded the Sultan in battle. The high-stepping white horses of the Grand Vizier, suspended nightly by ropes to tread that way, all richly caparisoned followed, and behind them his own pageboys in matching livery. The Grand Vizier himself rode next, with his heron plume bobbing on his vast turban, smiling and nodding to right and left.

  The green banner of the emirs appeared and there rode Yakub, dressed in magnificent furs, and with him all the beys, pashas, kadis and other rulers, great and petty, of the Anatolian steppe with their wild moustachios and tilting turbans. Then came rank upon rank of the sipahi light cavalry in their skins of wild animals.

  The corps of the ulema came next: the imams, among whom were the Sultan’s confessor and the muezzins who would chant from the Holy Book. All were serious men, weighed down with age, beard and wisdom, and looked neither to right or left as they rode to holy war.

  At last there was Bayezid, dressed in shimmering silver mail and wearing a helmet, pointed at the top, from which a purple plume bounced with the steady tread of his splendid white stallion. He rode just ahead of an umbrella of green silk held high by one of his Kapikulu household guard. Beside him was carried the tall lance from which hung the three Horsehairs and, next to it, the great flag of the Prophet.

  Luke had never in his life seen such a spectacle. His mouth was choked from dust and his eyes dazzled by the pageant of banners and spears and turbans and nodding horse heads. His ears rang with the sound of cymbal and trumpet and the throb of the earth as boot and hoof pounded their way to battle.

  But there was more. After the Sultan came the irregulars, the thousand upon thousand bashibozouks who marched for no pay but the promise of plunder and, if truly valiant, a chance to become a sipahi with rights to land and chattels. These were a fearsome force, some hardly dressed, most without proper weapons and all with an ardour to die for their sultan.

  ‘Let’s go,’ shouted Zoe.

  She pulled hard at one rein and her mare spun around. Luke waited a minute, searching through the dust for the figure on the other hill.

  But there was no one there.

  Later that night, Luke was sitting with Zoe in her tent. It was not large and much of the space was taken up by a bed as wide as it was long. Above the bed was a hexagonal lantern with candlelight playing through a filigree of thorned rose, and around it were layers of diaphanous fabric, all of different colours, which seemed to move to the flickering light. Cushioned divans were set against the tent’s walls with tables before them. On the tables were bowls of herbs and multi-coloured stones. The floor was strewn with carpets and furs and an open stove smouldered in the centre.

  Luke sat against cushions on a divan with Zoe facing him across a table, kneeling and leaning forward on her elbows, her face in her hands. The tent was warm.

  ‘I want you to wait here,’ said Zoe. ‘I will go and get the sword. I know where it is in Suleyman’s tent.’

  ‘What happens if he finds you?’

  ‘He won’t. He’s gone to look at the city walls. He will be away a week. He’s taken Anna with him.’

  ‘Anna? Why has he taken Anna?’

  Zoe shrugged. ‘He takes her everywhere with him.’

  ‘Leaving you behind?’

  Zoe looked at him evenly and there was something hard in the gaze. ‘This is the tent of a courtesan,’ she said very softly. ‘We are all courtesans, just with different skills.’

  Ten minutes later she had returned with the sword hidden beneath her cloak. She removed the bowls from the t
able and placed it between them. Her body cast a shadow over it so she moved to kneel next to Luke. The light from the lantern moved across the pitted surface of the metal like rain and the gold dragon’s head glowed as if on fire.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘We see if any part of the hilt comes apart and we look for hidden inscriptions. God knows, though, I’ve examined this sword often enough.’

  He leant forward and pulled the sword across the table towards them, then held up the hilt to the light, turning it.

  ‘Wait,’ said Zoe. She rose and went over to the bed, parting the veils and reaching up to unhook the lantern. She brought it back to the table and set it down. ‘Now we can see properly.’

  Their cheeks almost touching, they peered at every inch of the sword, but there was nothing that Luke had not already seen.

  ‘Try twisting the pommel.’

  ‘I already have, countless times.’ But Luke put one hand around the grip and with the other tried to turn the dragon’s head. There was no movement.

  ‘Let’s try this.’ Zoe leant across to the bowl of herbs and thrust her hand in. When it emerged it was shining. ‘Olive oil,’ she said and wiped the hilt between the pommel and grip. Her fingers brushed against Luke’s, leaving traces of oil.

  Luke tried to twist it again and this time there was some give. Just a fraction, then a fraction more. Then nearly a full turn. Nothing more.

  ‘Try again,’ whispered Zoe and put her hands over his to help him.

  It wouldn’t shift.

  ‘Perhaps it’s only supposed to turn that far,’ said Luke.

  She leant over to the lantern and moved it closer to the pommel. Luke looked down at the brilliant sheen of her hair and the river of light that flowed across it.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Yes … perhaps. Just some scratching in the metal, I think.’

  Luke picked up the lantern and held it just above where she was looking. ‘Wait. I think they’re letters. There’s something written here. A word.’

  She peered closer. ‘Sepultus.’

  ‘It’s Latin,’ said Luke. ‘It means “buried”. Is there anything else?’

  ‘There are some numerals. I can see an M and a one. The rest is too worn.’

  ‘A date?’ Luke turned the metal further to the lamp.

  ‘I suppose so. It’s difficult to tell.’

  ‘Well, Siward was buried in the Varangian church in Constantinople. If he took the treasure with him, perhaps he meant to tell us that the treasure would be buried with him.’

  ‘But how would he know the date?’

  ‘We need to go to the church,’ said Luke quietly. ‘We need to go into Constantinople.’

  On the following day, the city of Constantinople opened its Golden Gate. It was still the most famous meeting place in Christendom and Luke and Zoe arrived there at midday when the sun was at its peak.

  The fields around the walls had been burnt by the Turks and bore all the imprints of a besieging army. There were empty trenches and broken palisades and the ruins of siege machinery lying everywhere in smoking piles. The road was dense with traffic as local villagers poured from the city to find what was left of their homes.

  The gate itself was still magnificent. For centuries, it had been the great ceremonial portal from which emperors had left for their campaigns and under which they’d celebrated their triumphant returns. In contrast to the brick and limestone of the walls, it was built of white marble and had gigantic doors studded with gold. On its top was a monumental quadriga with elephants and two statues of winged victory looking out with optimism.

  Now the two of them joined the queue of people waiting to enter the city and soon were being looked over by guards with the double-headed eagle of the Palaiologoi on their hauberks. The Turkish army had marched away but it was just possible that a few of their number had been left to enter the city as spies. Once they had satisfied the guards that they were Greek and had been let through the gate, Luke and Zoe entered a landscape of cultivated fields, hedgerows and men bent low over the plough. The ground either side of them was a patchwork of neat furrowed paddocks with the ruins of houses and churches providing the only clue that this had once been the busy suburb of Studion. There were wooden windmills dotted between the fields and donkeys waiting to take their grain, with birds hovering to pick up what was left.

  They rode past the fields and orchards and ruins in a state of wonder, seeing for themselves how a population of a million shrinks to one of fifty thousand. Another line of walls, this time in ruins, rose up before them and they were told that these had been the walls of Constantine and once the limits of a smaller city. They passed through another gate and the broad Mese, its flagstones lined with grass, began to fall away. They came to a large deserted square and a canal that ran beneath it to the harbour of Theodosius down to their right. Then the ground rose towards the second hill of this seven-hilled city and they found themselves in a place where, at last, there were signs of habitation. Around the circular, colonnaded square, with its heroic pillar at the centre, were palaces and people and the beginnings of bustle. A market had been set up around one side and every kind of vegetable was on offer.

  This was not, thought Luke, a population that was starving.

  The Mese ran straight now and had fewer weeds between its stones. It rose gently towards a big triumphal arch with scenes of war carved on its walls. On its top was a gold pyramid.

  ‘The Milion,’ said Zoe, pointing. ‘All the distances to the important cities in the Empire are inscribed on its sides. Most of them aren’t ours any more, of course.’

  Behind it was a throng of people and they stopped one to ask what was going on. The man pointed to the great aqueduct that could just be seen beyond the third hill. The cistern had been closed during the siege when water had been rationed. Now it was open again.

  Soon they were among people queuing around the main square of the city, at the centre of which rose the great column that Luke had seen from the sea. There were more markets here and many more people. Yellow-hatted Jews sat behind abacuses at tables piled high with coins. By their sides sat Armenians with square beards writing on parchment. Moors and Syrians chatted with fat merchants from the Levant and everywhere were the black doublets of Venetians and Genoese who eyed each other with distrust. Constantinople was open again and the many nations that had sheltered in their various ghettos and fondachi warehouses during the siege had re-emerged to do business. Zoe stopped to ask one of them for directions.

  ‘This way,’ she said.

  They turned north along the side of the Hagia Sophia and were soon plunged into the shadow of its great walls. Beyond it, the streets were narrower and seemingly deserted and they dismounted and led their horses past doorways with cats in them and others where dogs stood guard. Then, ahead of them, was a small church, crumbling at every corner, which looked as if it had not seen a congregation in years.

  ‘The Varangian church?’ asked Luke.

  ‘I think so,’ said Zoe and they emerged into a tiny, sunlit square, with a dead bird lying next to a fountain. They tied their horses to a carved stone fish.

  It was now late afternoon and they would not have much time to examine the church’s interior before the light began to fade. The little door was unlocked and opened on creaking hinges and a bird startled them as it made its escape. Inside, there was more light than they’d predicted because great holes gaped from the roof, framed by blackened roof struts, with shafts of sunlight reaching in. An oak beam lay at an angle across the nave, its end disappearing through a high window where plants grew. At the end of the nave, a broken rood screen separated the chancel and two tiny side chapels opened up either side, their interiors lost in shadow.

  Luke’s eyes grew accustomed to the light and he began to make out features within the church. There were frescoes covering nearly every wall but of what was difficult to judge. Age and indifference had combin
ed to fade the colours and chunks of plaster had fallen to reveal the stone beneath.

  ‘Didn’t you say there was a sword?’ asked Zoe, walking forwards into particles of floating dust.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Luke. ‘Over the altar. My father told me that the sword of St Olaf hung there.’

  They approached the rood screen and went beyond it and there was the altar but no sword.

  ‘In Venice probably,’ said Zoe. ‘Like everything else.’

  ‘Look for a tomb,’ said Luke. ‘Siward’s. It’s here somewhere.’

  They separated and looked around the base of the altar. There was no tomb.

  Luke called to her. ‘Come and look at this.’

  He was standing below a fresco painted on to the domed walls of the chancel that was different from the rest. A shaft of sunlight showed that it was in much better repair than the others.

  ‘What’s it of?’ asked Zoe, joining him.

  ‘It looks like the Resurrection,’ replied Luke. ‘Look, you can see the Roman soldiers asleep around the tomb. But … that’s strange.’ Luke had stepped closer and was shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. ‘I’ve seen paintings like this on Chios,’ he said, ‘but they always have the figure of Jesus above the tomb.’ He paused and looked at Zoe. ‘Here there’s none. And another thing: this painting is much later than the others in this church. That’s why it’s in such good condition. The colours are hardly faded.’

  Zoe nodded. ‘And look at the soldier in the middle. Look what he’s wearing.’

  Luke peered closely at the picture. The soldier was lying slumped against the side of a tomb whose stone lid had been slid to one side. He was wearing a corselet of gold and blue scales partially covered by a dark blue chlamys, clasped at the right shoulder. On the ground on one side of him lay a two-handed axe. In his hand was a sword.

  ‘I suppose it’s natural for the soldiers to have been painted as Varangians,’ said Luke slowly. ‘Or would have been if all of them were. But he’s the only one.’

  The light shifted again as the sun sank lower and Luke felt Zoe tense beside him. Only the head of the Varangian Guard was in light. It shone with an ethereal glow. It was someone both of them knew.