The Golden Horn

by Judith Tarr

  “Born thieves and cutthroats.” Baudouin turned toward the hill which the Emperor had abandoned, where the tents glowed crimson in the sunset, glinting with gold. “There,” he said, “I shall mount my guard.”

  Marquis Boniface fixed him with a hard stare. “I shall make my camp on the Middle Way, as near to the Forum of the Bull as I may go. For,” he said, “one man at least should guard against the greatest massing of the enemy.”

  Baudouin smiled. “My valiant lord. I’ll think of you when I lie in the Emperor’s bed.”

  “Which,” said Boniface, “is also a coward’s.”

  Henry stepped swiftly between them, catching Baudouin’s hand as it fell to his sword hilt. “My lords! Haven’t you exchanged blows enough with the enemy that you have to turn on each other?” Under his steady brown eye they subsided, glaring at one another but saying no word. Henry smiled and bowed to them, and again to the Doge. “I, for my part, am minded to keep watch over the servants and eunuchs barricaded in Blachernae. If my lords will agree to it?”

  They all nodded assent. “Go,” said the Doge, “do as you will. In the morning we shall renew the battle.”

  Henry took his charger’s bridle from the squire’s hand, flashing a smile to Jehan, and swung lightly astride. “Until morning, my lords. God be with you.”

  o0o

  Anna had camped all day with Nikki atop the roof of Saint Basil’s. She saw the towers taken; she saw the gates flung open and the Emperor routed by the very sight of the knights in their bright armor; and she saw the army’s gathering and its swift dispersal.

  Alf was with her at the last of it, his day’s labor over, his soiled robe laid aside for the only one he had to spare, his best one of pale grey silk embroidered with silver. He looked, Anna observed, as if he were going to a banquet.

  They watched in silence as the sun sank and Latin fires kindled before the Emperor’s tents. The invaders had pulled down the imperial standard and put up their own, bright and crude as it was, snapping proudly in the wind over the conquered camp.

  Anna clenched her lists at her sides. “Why did my people run away? Why?”

  “They were afraid,” Alf answered gently.

  She stamped her foot. “They were cowards! Everyone’s a coward. Look at all those people down there like an anthill when you kick it, yelling and crying and trying to run in all the wrong directions. I’m not running. I’m staying here. And if any of those barbarians tries to break in on me, I’ll kill him!”

  “I’m one of them,” he pointed out.

  “You don’t count,” she said. “You’re an adopted Greek. Though maybe you’re ashamed to be one, now you’ve seen what cowards most of us are.”

  “Your people are civilized. Civilization has never been much good against a determined army of barbarians.” Alf shivered slightly, for her benefit. “It’s getting cold. Come down to supper and let the City fend for itself for a while.”

  o0o

  Saint Basil’s was quiet, but not calm. The eyes of healers and sick alike gleamed white, afraid; many prayed softly, a droning murmur.

  If there was fear within those guarded walls, there was panic without. As the night deepened, a crimson furnace-glare stained the gathering clouds. For the third time Latins had set fire to the battered and beaten City. Flames raged through the streets along the Golden Horn, a burning wall between the Greeks and the invaders, licking against the foot of the All-seer’s hill.

  Alf walked slowly down the street that led from Saint Basil’s to the Middle Way. In the darkness, lit by the sullen light of the fire, the great thoroughfare was like a road in Hell.

  People thronged on it, fleeing the City’s center, laden with their children and their belongings, shrieking and weeping and praying in loud voices.

  The side ways were quieter, a quiet born of terror. Behind the barred gates men buried or concealed what treasures they had, while their women and children cowered, awaiting the end of the world.

  Alf turned aside from the tumult to a street that curved past one of the City’s thousand cisterns, a small lake set in a garden and surrounded by high narrow houses. As he passed from stone pavements to the grass of the garden, he paused.

  The street was full of fleeing figures, but among them advanced a torchlit company. The man at its head glowed in a rich cloak of crimson and gold; armor flashed beneath it, and on his head blazed the jewels of a crown. His voice rasped over the cries of panic, harsh yet penetrating. “People of the City! Romans! Why do you flee? The barbarians are within our walls, caught like the fly in the spider’s trap. We have but to fall on them and obliterate them.” He seized a man who ran wildly past. “You—where are you running? Have you forgotten all the pride of our empire? We have them, I say! We have them where they cannot escape. Come with me and drive them out. Come with your Emperor!”

  With an inarticulate cry, the man broke free and fled.

  Mourtzouphlos’ face was livid in the torchlight, suffused with fury. He pressed forward against the current, shouting, “Are you men or worms? All the world will mock us and call us cowards, who had the enemy within our grasp and let him conquer us.”

  No one heeded him.

  Alf stood motionless on the grass. His hood had slipped back, his cloak blown away from the silver robe.

  Mourtzouphlos drew near to him, silent now, his face a mask of despair. The torch flared in a sudden gust.

  The Emperor stopped, staring at the apparition on the hill above him. Slowly he moved closer, motioning to his torchbearer to raise the brand higher. Alf’s form leaped out of the darkness, all white and utterly still.

  “A statue,” muttered the Emperor.

  Torchlight struck fire in Alf’s eyes.

  Mourtzouphlos’ breath hissed in the silence. The torch wavered as the bearer recoiled, crossing himself. “Stand, you fool!” the Emperor snarled.

  Mustering all of his courage, he advanced, stretching out a hand. Marble, it should be. Cold, solid marble. Naught else.

  “Your Majesty,” Alf said.

  The Emperor froze.

  “Sire,” said the apparition, “I am no graven image.”

  Mourtzouphlos snatched his hand away, but not before he had felt the warmth of flesh and the smoothness of silk. But he was in no way comforted. “You. Angel, demon—what are you?”

  “Neither, Majesty, only one of God’s lesser servants. How is it that you walk the City tonight?”

  An angel, the Emperor thought. Or as close to one as made no matter. He was of a piece with this terrible night, this shattering of the world that had been Byzantium. It would not rise again. Its people were soft, weakened by centuries of luxury and power, rotted to the core.

  Alf shook his head sharply. “Not so, my lord! There’s strength in the City still.”

  “Where?” demanded Mourtzouphlos. “Not in any quarter that we still hold. I’ve worn my feet to the bone and my voice to a thread, and not one man will follow me. Not one! They flee, all of them, and curse me if I hinder them. Terror is their Emperor tonight, not Alexios Doukas.”

  “How can they follow you if you yourself despair? You speak brave words, but your heart does not believe them; and your people know it.”

  “My people are groveling cowards!” Mourtzouphlos tore his crown from his head and cast it on the ground. “Let the filthy Latins rule them. They deserve no better.”

  The crown lay upon the grass, a splendid glittering thing half hidden in Mourtzouphlos’ shadow.

  “Your Majesty,” Alf said quietly, gazing at it, “you know not what you say. You loved your city once. You fought for it when no other man would. Will you surrender now? Remember your own words! The Latins are trapped and cannot escape save past you, for they have set fire to their own path of retreat. If you fall upon them now, you can defeat them. If you do not...” Alf raised his eyes. They were terrible. “If you do not, my lord, then this city shall see such horror as she has not seen in all her thousand years of empire. The sack of Rome
herself was nothing to what this will be. For Rome was rich, but Constantinopolis is the richest city in all the world.”

  “Constantinopolis is dead. She died the day that thrice-damned fleet came within sight of her.”

  “The Franks have no knowledge of that. They wait in dread for you to smite them. Will you let them conquer out of senseless fear?”

  “They have conquered.” Mourtzouphlos’ voice was flat.

  Alf lifted his hands. “Then truly the City is dead, and you have killed her. May your fate be no better than that to which you have sentenced your people.”

  Mourtzouphlos drew himself up. His eyes glittered; his fingers worked. And yet he laughed, hoarse and wild. “God Himself has damned us all. Tell Him for Mourtzouphlos, angel of the bitter tongue; tell Him that I laughed at Him. He may doom and He may damn, and He may make my empire a sty for Latin pigs to wallow in; but my City was my City. There shall never be another like her.” He stooped and snatched up the crown and turned, swirling the splendor of his cloak.

  That was the last Alf saw of him: a guttering torch and a flare of crimson, and the glitter of the jewels in his crown.

  29.

  Jehan sat up abruptly. It was dark in the tent, but through the flap he could see the grey light of morning. Someone stood there. Henry, he saw, narrowing his sleep-blurred eyes; and another beyond him, speaking rapidly in a low voice.

  Beneath and about the muttered words, Jehan heard a deep roaring like the sound of the sea: voices shouting and cheering.

  He groped for his sword, remembered with a start that he had left it on the other side of the Horn. The others were stirring now, knights and squires of Henry’s household, and Jehan’s own long-faced Odo, fumbling for their weapons as Jehan had. “An attack?” one mumbled. “Have the Greeks attacked?”

  Henry turned quickly. “The Greeks?” He began to laugh softly, and caught himself. “No, sirs, the Greeks have not attacked. The Emperor fled in the night and his army has surrendered to my-lord brother on his hill. The City is ours. We rule in Constantinople!”

  They all leaped up, shouting, questioning, fouling one another with their weapons. Jehan fought his way through them and confronted his friend. “My lord. It’s true?”

  Henry gestured to his companion, a sturdy man with a lined intelligent face. “Can I doubt the Marshal of Champagne? He rode through the City with a small escort, and no one molested him. We’re masters of the City. We’ve won the war.”

  Jehan shook his head in disbelief. Then he raised it, cocking it. “Then those are our men.”

  The Marshal nodded. “The sack has begun.”

  “But,” Jehan said, “it was decided there was to be no looting.”

  “Tell that to ten thousand victorious Franks,” the Marshal said dryly. “My lords, I’m for the Count’s camp again before the army goes quite mad with joy. Have you any messages for me to carry?”

  “Only,” said Henry, turning his eyes to the loom of the palace wall, “that henceforward he can send his dispatches to me within Blachernae.”

  The Marshal bowed and took his leave.

  Jehan hardly saw either of them. “We’ve got to stop the sack.”

  Henry shook him lightly, recalling him to himself. “Breakfast first, and a council. After that, the palace. And then, my dear priest, you may save as many souls as you please.”

  o0o

  Well before either meal or council was ended, the gates of the palace swung wide. Henry’s troops, restive already with their lords’ slowness, drew into rough formation.

  But no army descended to sweep the Latins away. A single figure rode forth on a grey mare, escorted by tall guards, each with an empty scabbard and no spear in his hand. They advanced steadily until they met the leveled spears of the foremost rank.

  The rider dismounted and spoke for a moment, too far and soft to be heard from Henry’s tent. At a bark from their sergeant, two Flemings lowered their spears and seized the Greek. He made no effort to resist, even when they searched him, stripping him of all but his silken undertunic.

  Henry was on his feet. “Enough!” he called out. “Return the man’s belongings to him and bring him to me.”

  He received his garments, but was given no time to don them; with them bundled in his arms and two stout Flemings flanking him, he came before the young lord.

  A fine elegant creature he was, Jehan thought, even in this state; he bowed smoothly, with all courtesy, and said in passable Latin, “Greetings to my lord.”

  Henry frowned. “Please, sir, dress. And,” he added with a swift cold glance at each of the Flemings, “please be certain to reclaim your jewels.”

  Those hardened faces moved not a muscle; but when the eunuch held out a slender hand, the Flemings emptied their pouches into it. He dressed then, quickly and without embarrassment, and faced Henry with a smile and an inclination of the head. “Michael Doukas gives thanks to my lord.”

  “No thanks are necessary,” Henry said. “You have a message?”

  The eunuch sighed just visibly. Ah, his eyes said, these impetuous Latins. Aloud he murmured, “My lord is wise and courteous, after the fashion of his people. I, who was but the poorest of His Sacred Majesty’s poor chamberlains, come now to you as a suppliant. His Serene Highness has departed, leaving his palace unguarded and his city in disarray. We of his followers know not where to turn. We have heard my lord’s praises, even here where honest praise is rarer than the phoenix. Will my lord please to take us and our palace into his protection?”

  Behind Henry, his barons muttered. A sword or two hissed from its sheath. “My lord!” cried a grizzled knight. “Will you trust these slippery Greeks?”

  The rest echoed him, some of them in terms that would have sent a Latin flying for his sword. Michael Doukas merely smiled.

  Jehan rose, towering over them all. The eunuch’s eyes ran over him. “My,” he said, “what a great deal of man that is.”

  “Enough,” growled one of the knights, “for both of you.”

  Jehan schooled his face to stillness. “My lord, I think he can be trusted.”

  “Why?” demanded Henry.

  “He’s as treacherous a Byzantine as ever haunted an emperor’s court. But now he’s in a corner. We’ll overrun his palace whether he surrenders or not. This way he has a chance of escaping with his skin intact.”

  “And perhaps with that of a friend or two into the bargain?”

  Michael Doukas looked from lord to priest and smiled. “No, my lord, you think too well of me. The holy Father is quite accurate. And, perhaps, a shade more intelligent than he looks.”

  “A shade,” Henry said dryly. “Very well, we accept your surrender. You’ll come with us, of course. Close by me, if you value your life as much as you pretend.”

  “It is my most precious possession.” Michael Doukas bowed low. “I am entirely at my lord’s disposal.”

  “Come then,” Henry said, striding toward his horse.

  o0o

  The calm of Saint Basil’s broke soon after sunrise. The Latins’ rampage had not yet reached that quarter save for a distant and terrifying tumult, but the wounded had begun to make their way there as best they could. Crawling, some of them, or staggering and carrying others worse hurt than they. The gates opened for them and shut again, with the strong company of Master Dionysios’ guards at arms within.

  “They’re beasts,” said a boy whose arm had been all but severed by a sword-stroke. “Animals. Demons. My—my mother—they—”

  Alf laid a hand on his brow, stroking sleep into him. He was not the worst wounded in body or in mind, and he was only one of the first.

  So many already, so sorely hurt, and so few to tend them. Still more of the healers had fled in the night, mastered at last by their fear; those who remained were white and trembling, ready to bolt at a word.

  The boy was as comfortable as he might be. Alf left him, crossing over to the women’s quarter. There were more women than men, for the pillagers wer
e less eager to kill women this early in their madness. Only to rape them.

  Only, Alf thought, bending over the nearest woman. A child truly, little older than Irene, in the tattered remnants of a gown. It was of silk, and rich.

  She lay like a dead thing save for the sobbing of her breath. One eye was swollen shut, the other squeezed tight against the world. When he touched her she recoiled violently, gasping and retching.

  “Hush,” he said to her in his gentlest voice. “Hush, child. I bring you no hurt. Only healing.”

  She drew into a knot as far from him as she could go. Her mind knew nothing of` him. She was in her house as the barbarians battered down the door, and one struck her father when he ran against them, no weapon in his hands; and his head burst open like a melon in the market, and his face still angry and his eyes surprised. One mailed monster came toward her, all steel, stinking the way the gardener stank after his holiday, and laughter rumbling out of him, and hands stretching out to her, bruising, tearing, hurling her down; and that, oh that, the pain—

  She shrieked and lay rigid on the bed, her good eye wide, roving wildly. It caught on the white blur that was Alf’s face. All her mind bent to the task of making clear those features, of drowning memory, of forcing him into focus.

  For a long while she simply stared. At last she spoke, soft and childlike. “Are you an angel?”

  He shook his head a little sadly.

  “Ah.” It was a sigh. “I hoped I was dead. I’m not, am I? I hurt. I hurt all over.”

  Even through his healing; for it was her mind and not her body that tormented her. He did not venture to touch her, but his voice caressed her. “You hurt. But the hurt will go away and you will be well. No one will harm you again.”

  She did not quite believe him. But she believed enough that she let him summon one of the women to undress and bathe her and cover her with a clean gown, when before she had let no one near her. Nor would she allow him to go until sleep took her; even at the very last she fought it, in terror of the dreams it would bring.

  o0o

  Alf rose from her bedside, gazing down the length of the room. It was not full, not yet, not with bodies. But it was filled to bursting with pain.