“I shall find others who can use my services,” cried Lucas, all ablaze. “Have no fears, Signor. I’ll reach Cathay itself!”
“I wouldn’t doubt it, if God doesn’t weary of such a scamp,” said the man dryly. “Well--do you know who I am?”
Lucas cocked his head. “Plainly, Signor, you’re from Catalonia province, in the Kingdom of Aragon. Doubtless you’ve spent much time in the Sicilian War. From your bearing, you must be a rich hom.” He used the Catalan phrase, “great man,” meaning a scion of those baronial families which enjoyed extraordinary powers. And he continued in the same language, haltingly and ungrammatically but understood:
“Yet forgive me if I suggest you are wealthier in birth than gold. Your baggage and accommodations are not those of a moneyed lord. Was your estate perhaps devastated when the French invaded Aragon seven years ago? Ah, well, I’m certain you fought valiantly and had much to do with expelling them.”
“Know, I am the knight Jaime de Caza, traveling in the service for my namesake the Lord King of Aragon.”
“At your command, En Jaime.” Lucas dropped to one knee.
His use of the Catalan honorific was pleasing. Most Italians would have said “Don Jaime,” as if the visitor were from the Kingdom of Castile. The nobleman nodded in a friendly way. “My mission is not secret,” he said. “Now that Aragon has a new king, I am sounding out the attitude of certain powers concerning the war for Sicily that still drags on. Having been in Venice, I am bound similarly to the Byzantine Imperium. Since I talk no Greek, I admit that your instruction en route would be welcome; and afterward I can certainly make use of a confidential amanuensis. So be it, then, as long as you remain faithful. You shall have whatever pay you are worth, and I will not mention to anyone that you are not my original servant.”
It was more than Lucas had dared imagine. “Blessings upon you, my master!” he shouted, bouncing back to his feet. Gaiety torrented from him. “I must go to work at once, to prepare a suitable midday meal. I confess I’m not expert in the kitchen, but I know what tastes good. So by adding a leek here and a smidgen of cheese there, a dash of vinegar and enough olive oil, I’ll feel my way toward a dish not altogether insulting. And, oh, yes, Messer, I must see what clothes you have along, brush them and--Would you like entertainment? I can tell you the most scandalous stories; or chivalric romances, if you prefer; or a ballade or sirvente--” Hustling about the narrow cabin, laughing, singing, chattering, he soon crowded the other out onto the deck. And before him there shone the vision of Cathay and new horizons.
Chapter I
Fourteen years had passed when Lucas, called Greco, saw Constantinople for the second time. That was in April, in the year 1306.
He stood in the Augustaion, waiting for Brother Hugh de Tourneville to meet him as they had agreed. This was the heart of the city. On one side rose the wall about the Imperial grounds. Mailed Varangian Guardsmen with axes on their shoulders stood on the top and at the gates; their helmets flamed in the late afternoon sunlight. Above the parapets could be seen the roof of the Brazen House, their barracks, and a shining glimpse of the Daphne and Sigma Palaces. Behind Lucas, over flat intervening roofs, soared the domes of St. Sophia; around a corner bulked the Hippodrome, crumbling with age, its arches a shelter for beggars, prostitutes, and bandits by night.
Old and corrupt the Byzantine Empire might be, but nonetheless, here it surged with humanity. The citizens themselves, in long dalmatic and cope, dark, curly-haired, big-nosed, more Anatolian than Greek by blood, and styling themselves Romans; a noble in gold and silken vestments, looking with jaded eyes from the palanquin in which four slaves bore him; a priest, strange to the Western mind in his beard, black robe, and brimless hat; foreigners, English, Flemish, German, French, Iberian, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Russian, Mongol, half the world poured down the throat of New Rome. Their voices, the shuffle and clatter of feet, the ring of hoofs and rumble of wagon wheels, made an ocean-like roar. A smell of dust, smoke, cooking oil, sweat, sewage, horse droppings, rolled thick across the grumbling and grinding city. High overhead, sunlight caught the white wings of sea gulls.
Lucas shifted his stance, ill at ease. His memories of his first time here were still bright; but today he saw how much of that glamor had merely been his own youth. He shook his head, denyingly, for it was wrong that a man not yet thirty should feel old. He could not have changed so much. Could he? His bones had lengthened and his muscles filled out. His face, which he kept clean-shaven as part of an inborn fastidiousness, had become a man’s rather than a boy’s, flat-cheeked and square-jawed, with deep lines from nose to lips. The sun and wind of Asia had darkened his skin, lightened his hair, and put crow’s feet around his eyes. But he was stronger in every way than he had been then, wiser (or at least shrewder), with a thousand experiences both violent and subtle to prove he could rely on himself.
Perhaps, he thought, that was what he had lost. Fourteen years ago, Cathay had lain ahead of him; now it lay behind.
And scarce a ducat to show for it all, he added ruefully. His clothes--blouse, breeches, hose, shabby leather doublet and stained cloak, faded red bonnet--were a goodly proportion of his entire wealth. From time to time he had known riches, but . . .
“Ah, good evening, my friend.”
Lucas bowed. “Good evening to you, Brother Hugh.” They spoke in Genoese, the dominant Western tongue hereabouts, though both were also familiar with Romaic Greek. A chance encounter yesterday had led to mutual liking; both had considerable free time, and the city was well worth their joint exploration.
“Did your business speed?” asked Lucas.
“No,” said Hugh. “After cooling my heels in an antechamber, from morning until almost now, I was told the official could not see me yet. Oh, the underling was most polite, but his glee was plain.”
“Aye, they’d enjoy baiting the representative of a Catholic brotherhood, in this most Orthodox capital. I would do them a mischief, were I you.”
Hugh smiled. “If I lose my temper, will they not have succeeded in their aim? I can be patient; sit there as many days as need be, thinking my own thoughts. In the end, I’ll outlast their delayings.” Sadness crossed his countenance. “After all, they do have good reason to hate everything Western.”
They began to walk, off the forum and down narrow streets between high walls. Daylight should linger long enough for them to visit the famous Mangana building. Afterward they would share supper. Hugh limped, the result of an old wound, and leaned on a staff; but his leathery frame did not seem to tire. He was tall and bony, with England plain to see in his long face and long straight nose. Against the weather-beaten skin, his eyes were a startling blue. The grizzled hair was cut short, and he wore a close-trimmed beard. His dress was the humble garb of the Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem: over plain clothes, a black mantle with an eight-pointed white cross on the breast.
But that organization of warrior friars held lands across half Europe. Hugh himself had fought at Acre, when the Moslems drove the last Christian dominion out of the Holy Land. Since then, the Knights of St. John had found refuge, like their Templar rivals, with the Frankish King of Cyprus; but their wealth and power remained. They acquired warships to guard the Christian and harry the infidel by sea, and lately they nursed some larger plan. What that was, Hugh kept secret. However, this gentle, drawling second son of a Lincolnshire baron had risen to the rank of Knight Companion of the Grand Master. He would not come hither to interview officials of the East Roman Empire, subtly probing strengths and weaknesses, for nothing.
“What have you heard about the trouble at Gallipoli?” he asked.
“Little enough truth,” said Lucas. “I can relay any number of rumors, if you like.”
Arrived here from Trebizond, he had sought passage farther and engaged a place easily enough. The Golden Horn was filled with galleys, westbound after trading in the Black Sea, and more were arriving every week. But that was because war had broken
out at the mouth of the Sea of Marmora, between the Byzantines and a rebellious troop of foreign mercenaries. They held the area of Gallipoli, and the Imperial forces were besieging them. While the fighting lasted, no prudent shipmaster would risk passing through the narrows.
“I expect the trouble will soon be over,” said Lucas.
“I am not so sure,” mused Hugh. “Perhaps you haven’t realized how enfeebled the Empire is. Whole provinces torn from her, her master a venal government under a vicious dynasty. . . . Well-a-day, it need concern you little.
Did you say you were bound for Negroponte? You’ll be safely distant from New Rome and her woes.”
Lucas nodded. Negroponte, the Venetian-owned island of Euboea, lay just across a narrow channel from the Duchy of Athens. He dared not go directly to Venice, until he had cleared whatever old charges still stood against him. If the result of discreet inquiries proved discouraging, he could escape to the Greek mainland and take service with one of the Frankish nobles who ruled there. Not that he expected much trouble. After fourteen years, who would care? But those same years had taught him caution.
“I meant to ask you,” said Hugh, “if you ever met a certain countryman of yours, one Marco Polo? He reached the same places in Cathay as you’ve mentioned. I chanced on him in Trebizond some years ago, when I was there on my Order’s business and he on his way home.”
Lucas shook his head. “No. I heard of him at the court of the Kha Khan in Cambaluc, but I came later.”
Briefly, the recollection of graceful red roofs, willows and arched bridges above garden ponds, a philosopher who had been his friend and many gentle beauties who had been his loves, rose up to blot Constantinople from his awareness. And there had been music in violet nights when the cherry trees bloomed, and a certain mountain seen through clouds, and temple bells that rang in his dreams just at sunrise . . . what had driven him back to the filthy West?
They walked on in silence for a while. When they resumed their talk, it was with Hugh describing the state of affairs here in Europe. That was no hopeful subject in these years when one realm after another fell to pieces and anarchy raged through the ruins. But at least, for Lucas, it was impersonal; and that fact reminded him joltingly how rootless he had become. In the end, he had returned to the Occident because (however much he sometimes wished and tried) he could not change himself into an Oriental. So let him now seek out Venice. It might be a shoddy home for him, but a home, anyhow, perhaps.
The sun sank low. A small cold wind seeped down from the hills above Galata and across the Golden Horn, to blow dust through the darkening streets of Constantinople. The two men found themselves passing through a desolated section.
When the Crusaders gutted this city a hundred years before, they left ruins which the weakly restored Orthodox Empire had never repaired. Here the burned-out shell of a tenement stared down on a dirty lane filled with sunset shadows. The rains of a century had not whitened those charred beams; weeds grew thick where the floor had been, and rats scurried from human feet. On the opposite side were inhabited buildings, sleazy flat-roofed structures rising several blank stories. A few ragged people went by: a robber, openly armed in defiance of the law; a sly-eyed old moneylender and his hulking bodyguard; a beggar, loathsomely crippled; a thin-legged child who coughed. At sight of the child, Hugh reached into his mantle for a purse.
“No,” warned Lucas. “Give him a coin and you’ll bring the whole quarter screeching down on us. The end could be a riot. I know these Asiatic towns--and this section is not of Europe any longer.”
Hugh clenched his staff tightly. Lucas recalled that the Knights of St. John had begun as a nursing order and still maintained hospitals. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “I suppose you are right.” They continued.
Just ahead, another street crossed this one, a broader way running toward the Venetian district. A party of four was coming toward them. As if to erase the child from his mind, Hugh stopped to look at them. “Ah, your countrymen, Lucas,” he said. “They do make a brave sight, do they not?”
Lucas paused with him. There were three men in the group, all bearing swords, by special license, no doubt, since they would be abroad after dark. Two were young, their garments a shout of red and blue against the dingy walls. They carried unlighted torches, for use when the last sunset glow had vanished above the roofs. Plainly they were attendants of the third, an older man, heavy of body but firm of gait, clad in rich green fabric. The fourth went wrapped in a hooded cloak, with bent head and dragging feet--a woman.
Hugh peered into the deepening shadows. The wind flapped the hem of his mantle. “Where are they going at this hour?” he wondered.
Lucas spat. “Can’t you see? Look how the girl walks. She’s a slave, and they’re delivering her to some purchaser--a brothel keeper, or maybe someone, giving a feast--who wants her this very evening. I’ve seen that sight before.”
“I have . . . paid less attention.” There was a thinness in Hugh’s tone that brought Lucas’ gaze back to him. The knight stood rigid, pale about the nostrils. “In my weakness,” he said, “I averted my eyes from an abomination I could not fight.”
“Do you feel thus about slavery?” asked Lucas. “Well, then you can understand why I’d rather not dwell under a tyrant.”
He, himself, had witnessed so much cruelty that this delivering of a maiden like an animal looked mild enough. Since Brother Hugh stood unstirring, he held his ground, too. The little band came up to them and the leader stopped.
“Fellow Catholics!” he exclaimed. “God’s providence! You know not how glad I am to meet you!”
There was something familiar about him. Lucas stepped closer. The man spoke Venetian in a harsh basso. His clothes and full purse showed him to be wealthy. He was of medium height, his black eyes about level with Lucas’ hazel ones; his frame was stocky and muscular, turning fat in his middle age. But as yet only a large belly impaired him. His hair was black, thinning atop the massive head; his shaven jowls were blue, his nose lumpy, with small broken veins. But he was not altogether ugly. There was a bear-like impressiveness about him.
“We’re seeking the house of the nobleman Georgios Dalassenos,” he explained. “Near the forum of Amastrianon. D’you know the way? We seem to have lost ours. Not much. We can find the place, even if you can’t help. But I hate to ask one of those oily Greeks. Can’t trust ’em. Good to see real Christians.” He offered a furry hand. “I am Messer Gasparo Reni of Venice, with offices at Azov and Cyprus, and I’d like to invite--”
He broke off. His mouth fell open. He took a step backward. Even in the dull yellow light from the sunset clouds, Lucas could see how the blood mounted in his face. “Lucco,” he choked. “By all the devils in Hell--!”
Then, with a roar, he drew his sword and plunged to attack.
The training given by many desperate encounters saved Lucas. Before the other man’s blade was clear, he sprang aside. The thrust went past his ribs.
Off balance, Gasparo lurched forward. Lucas put out a foot. The ponderous body crashed to the cobblestones. Lucas snatched forth the Persian dagger from under his tunic.
“What’s the meaning of this?” cried Brother Hugh in outrage.
Gasparo struggled to all fours, bloody-nosed, and reached for his fallen sword. Lucas grinned. Suddenly the murk was gone from his head. He felt young and full of swagger. He kicked the blade away. “Naughty!” he said.
“Kill that gallows’ bait!” bawled Gasparo.
Lucas turned a little, crouching, the knife poised in his ' hand. He saw the Venetian guardsmen hesitate, one sword half out, the other drawn but lowered, uncertainty on both countenances. “Don’t listen to this hideous man,” he advised.
“God’s mercy, has a demon seized the fellow?” said Hugh.
Gasparo got to his knees. His head swung from Lucas to his companions, like a bull facing dogs. It rattled out of his throat: “Kill him, I tell you! A hundred ducats for his life . . . and my protection. Are
you men or puling Greeks?”
The slave girl moved back until a wall stopped her. One hand lifted to her mouth, stifling a scream.
Gasparo threw himself forward. His arms closed about Lucas’ knees. Lucas felt himself toppling. There was no time to think. The Ch’an Buddhist monk who had taught him a little of the way to use the body as a philosophical tool had also shown him how to fall. With every muscle loose, he hit the street and was unhurt. Gasparo scrabbled across him and regained his sword. Lucas glimpsed a triumphant baring of teeth as the merchant rolled clear with weapon in hand. He pounced. His dagger struck into the man’s upper arm, and downward.
Gasparo howled, “Two hundred ducats!”
Lucas saw the attack from the corner' of an eye. As one of the guardsmen’s swords whipped toward his neck, he made a frog-leap from his crouched position. The blade pierced his cloak and rang on a stone. Lucas heard the cloth rip as he pulled free. He waited, knife in hand, ready to jump either way. Both men were stalking him, from right and left. In the thickening gloom, their faces were blurs. But their swords flashed bright. Lucas backed up and was brought to a halt. A solid wall lay behind him.
He heard the slave girl moan. Through all the pounding of his pulse, it seemed to him, dimly, that her voice held more sorrow than fear. His eyes flicked from his inadequate knife to the two broadswords. Their points were now a yard away. He remembered the chivalric romances he had once loved, a single knight against a thousand paynim. However--
“The name is Lucas, not Lancelot,” he said, and threw the knife.
One Venetian yelled. His blade clattered to the ground and he fumbled at the steel in his shoulder. Then Brother Hugh came from behind, to snatch the other man and whirl him about. “In the name of God,” commanded the Englander, “desist!”
Two hundred ducats raised the Venetian sword and thrust it against his chest. “Stand back.” The guard had understood Hugh’s Genoese well enough. “Back, friar, or I’ll spit you, also.”
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