by Alan Gordon
We picked up our bags and walked to the inner Blachernae gate. The complex had an interior wall separating it from the city, just in case the population decided to rebel. Once inside, we passed by the domes of the Church of Saint Savior in Chora and the Church of the Theotokos, passed the older palace and marched up to the marbled and frescoed ornateness of the new palace.
We used the side entrance, of course. Aglaia gave me a quick kiss and hurried off to the Empress’s quarters, while Rico and I passed through a series of rooms until we reached the Imperial Throne Room.
Emperor Alexios Angelos was up before noon, an indication that he was taking the arrival of the Venetian fleet seriously. He was in his sixties, a hale man with hearty appetites and bad legs who dyed his thick, black beard daily to maintain its virile appearance. He was on his throne with his feet propped up on a cushioned stool, the Imperial legs being massaged by his favorite mistress, a sultry Egyptian who played the flute quite badly.
He had his ministers and generals with him, all looking worried and confused. He saw us enter and smiled wanly.
“The fools are here, everyone,” he said. “Finally, some worthwhile advice.”
We bowed, and set up quietly near the foot of the throne. A soldier came in, panting and sweaty, and saluted.
“Out with it,” said the Emperor.
“They’ve raised anchor and set sail toward the city,” he gasped.
“Did they come ashore at all while they were anchored?” inquired Theodore Laskaris, one of the Emperor’s sons-in-law and one of his more competent generals.
“No, milord,” said the soldier.
“They didn’t even stop to forage,” said Laskaris. “That’s bad. They’re determined to come straight for us, that’s what I think.”
“How much of a navy do we have left?” asked the Emperor.
Michael Stryphnos, the Lord Admiral, looked glum. He had acquired his post by way of being the Empress’s brother-in-law and had spent his time embezzling the funds allocated to restoring the navy. Perhaps he never expected that he would actually have to take to the sea while admiral. “We can put maybe twenty ships in the water against them,” he said.
“And how many are in their fleet?” the Emperor asked the soldier.
“We counted about two hundred,” he replied.
“Well, that would be more, wouldn’t it?” commented the Emperor. “Didn’t we used to have a bigger navy?”
“Not really,” said Stryphnos quickly.
“Oh, yes,” said the Emperor. “I remember having more. You’ve let it go, haven’t you, Admiral? Diverted a little ship-building money to your own needs?”
His brother-in-law said nothing.
“I think he’s an excellent admiral,” chirped Rico.
“Your reason, my foolish little one?” inquired the Emperor.
“For he has single-handedly destroyed a mighty fleet,” said the dwarf. “Too bad it was his own.”
“Hmph,” said Alexios, not particularly cheered. “Maybe we could borrow someone else’s fleet. Isn’t that what we’ve been doing? What navy do we usually use when we need one?”
“Venice’s, Your Majesty,” said Laskaris.
Alexios slumped back in his throne, sighing.
“I suppose that won’t do this time,” he said.
“No, Your Excellency.”
“All right, see how much they want to go away,” commanded the Emperor. “And, my Lord Admiral, since you don’t have a navy, I want you to follow the fleet from the shore. Take five hundred knights with you.”
“Yes, sire.”
“We do still have some horses left, don’t we?” thundered the Emperor.
“Yes, sire,” said Stryphnos, and he bowed and left.
“And we’ll be eating them inside a fortnight,” Rico muttered to me.
“Dear me, I had better warn Zeus,” I said. “All that money I’ve spent keeping him stabled here would go to waste.”
“Better keep him handy,” said Rico. “You never know when you might have to leave in a hurry around here. Look, your ball-less friend is trying to catch your eye.”
I looked up to see Philoxenites, the Imperial Treasurer, jerking his head toward a corridor, then vanishing down it. I played on a bit to give him time, then stood and stretched and strolled out of the room as if I was heading for the nearest chamberpot.
TWO
The concession to the Venetians of a Quarter in Constantinople, with
shops in the district of the Ferry, between the gate called the Jews’
Gate and the gate called the Watch Gate, with all occupied and un-
occupied lands, and comprising the three wharfs or landing stages on
the shore of the Golden Horn.
——FROM THE ALEXIAN CHRYSOBULL (1082 A.D.)
Philoxenites kept his offices at the northeast corner of the palace, with a view overlooking the Golden Horn. He was a large, bald man, a source of much ridicule among the masses, but he was a wily, manipulative, ambitious schemer. That in itself did not distinguish him from the average member of the upper echelon. What did was his knack for thriving no matter who was on the throne or in favor of the Emperor. He had his fingers in every pie in Byzantium, which made him a useful source of information as long as you kept your back to the wall.
He was a eunuch, something favored by those who knew him. Such creatures should not be allowed to reproduce.
He waved off our usual preliminary banter, though observing the social amenities. I always made sure he drank first, just in case.
“To Byzantium,” he said, smirking as he lifted his cup to his lips. “I might as well get right to it,” he began as I cautiously tasted my wine. “There’s been a death in the Venetian quarter. I thought you might want to look into it.”
“Who died?” I asked.
“Fellow by the name of Bastiani,” he said. “Camilio Bastiani. A silk merchant.”
“And why should the death of a merchant interest me?”
“I thought all humanity interested you.”
“I don’t have time for every single one of them. There’s probably a sparrow falling somewhere that I’ve missed as well. What’s so important about Bastiani?”
“He’s a Venetian.”
“So? Venetians die. There’re thousands of them sailing toward martyrdom as we speak.”
“Which makes the timing of Bastiani’s death all the more interesting.”
“Why? What makes this particular Venetian significant to you?”
He walked to the door, opened it briefly, and glanced in both directions. Satisfied that no one was listening, he closed the door and pulled a chair close to mine. His appearance did not improve with proximity.
“He was my principal informant inside the Venetian quarter,” he said softly. “And a possible conduit to the fleet if we needed to open negotiations quietly. He is a major loss.”
“To you or to Byzantium?”
“Everything I do is for Byzantium,” he said with a straight face. “I think you must know this by now.”
“With a healthy dose of personal gain,” I observed.
“One’s wealth should be commensurate with one’s value, don’t you think?” he said.
I let that go by. I’ve lived most of my fool’s life in poverty, at least as far as gold was concerned. If I had wanted to be ambitious, I would have stayed home.
“All right, the timing is suspect,” I said. “Why do you need me? Why not use Will and Phil like you usually do?”
William and Philip were Englishmen who had joined the Varangian Guard. Philoxenites had close ties to the Varangians, and these two in particular did his dirty work with efficiency and no small amount of personal pleasure.
“Will and Phil are otherwise engaged,” he said. “They are soldiers first, and there is a bit of a war brewing, as you have probably observed. I can’t draw on them now. But even if I could, I would prefer using you.”
“Why?”
He l
ooked out his window at the seawall. A squad of Varangians was getting a catapult in position at the top of a tower.
“The jurisdiction over the area makes this a delicate situation,” he explained. “There have been various chrysobulls between Venice and ourselves over the years that have made the quarter virtually independent, although the Logothete is nominally in charge. The Venetians have their own officers, courts, and judges. We can’t just barge in and stomp around looking for a murderer, even if the victim is one of their own.”
“And the murderer may not be from the quarter at all.”
“Exactly!” he said, beaming at me as if I were a student in his class.
“Tell me more, and I’ll see if it interests me enough to pursue it further,” I said.
“These are strange times when the Imperial Treasurer must entertain the fool,” he said. “Bastiani lived in a three-story building inside the Porta Viglae. The landlord is a man named Vitale. Poor housing, but the merchant was a stingy man by all accounts. He has no family here. There is rumor of a wife in Venice, but that’s not certain. His ships came into the wharf on the other side of the gate, and his offices were in the smaller embolum used by the silk merchants.”
“I know the place,” I said. “I’ve passed by it when I’ve entertained at the hospital there.”
“Your charitable work does you credit, I’m sure. Last night, Bastiani took his evening meal at a communal table in the embolum with his fellow merchants, then went home alone. His landlord saw him go to his room on the top floor. Bastiani bade him a good evening, then shut and barred the door. That was the last time anyone saw him alive.”
“What happened to him?”
“When he didn’t appear for the morning meal, the landlord went up and knocked on his door. There was no answer, and it was still barred. When they broke down the door, they found Bastiani lying on his bed in his nightclothes. The room was otherwise undisturbed. His eyes were closed, and he failed to respond to the ruckus raised by the door being smashed in. He was dead.”
“How was he killed?” I asked.
“That is a puzzle,” admitted the eunuch. “There was no mark on him, no evidence of violence. The only unusual thing was that his face was bright pink.”
“Poison of some kind.”
“That would be my conclusion, but how was it done? There were no indications that he had eaten or drunk anything in his room. The last meal he had was a communal one, and nobody else at the table suffered any ill effects. The boarding house was a short walk from the embolum, and there are no taverns to lure the pedestrian between the two buildings. So, there you have it.”
“I do have other matters to attend to, you know,” I said.
“Not any more,” he said. “Please believe me when I tell you that we are working toward the same goal.”
“What do you know of a fool’s goals?” I asked.
“Last year, you trusted me enough to alert me to a plot against the life of the Emperor’s deposed brother,” he said. “You and your talented wife mentioned the advantages of keeping Isaakios alive in the event that his son came knocking at the gates with an army behind him to claim the throne. Your advice has proved all too prescient. Because of all these factors, I’ve allowed your activities to proceed unhampered.”
“Most of the time,” I said.
“Most of the time,” he conceded. “As the only official who bothers watching the doings of fools, I’ve developed some idea of your goals. Would I be correct in saying that you seek peace?”
“Who doesn’t want peace?” I said.
“Two hundred ships full of soldiers for a start,” he said. “The pursuit of peace can be quite dangerous. My goal is the preservation of Byzantium. Peaceful preservation would, of course, be the most desirable. But if peace can only be bought through subjugation, then there will be war.”
“I understand entirely,” I said. “You say you wish the preservation of Byzantium. You said nothing about preserving the current emperor.”
He leaned back in his chair, his hands making a tent before his chest, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“I know what I said, and I know what I didn’t say,” he said finally. “Right now, I need to know who killed my informant, and why. If there is to be a siege from Venice, then we have the matter of ten thousand Venetians already in the city. If they struck at my informant as the first step toward insurrection, then I want to know about it. Find out for me.”
“And then?”
“And then I’ll decide what to do with the information.”
“What if I refuse?” I said.
“Then I have you arrested as a foreign spy,” he said. “Along with your lovely wife, your stilt-walking friend, and the Emperor’s dwarf.”
“Can’t have that happen,” I said. “All right. But on one condition.”
“Yes?”
“I’m only gathering information. If you want anyone killed, seek elsewhere.”
His eyebrows crawled up his forehead.
“My friend, I would never ask you to do anything that vile,” he protested.
I nodded and headed to the door.
“I have plenty of men available for that sort of thing,” he added.
I hesitated, then turned back toward him.
“Who do you have to contact the Crusaders now that Bastiani’s gone?” I asked.
“That’s none of your business,” he said.
“Maybe not,” I said. “I am not interested in getting anyone in trouble. Far from it. But if Bastiani was killed because someone wanted to destroy your means of communicating with the Venetians, then anyone else you might consider using could be in danger right now.”
“A good point, Feste,” he said. “I will warn them. If necessary, would you undertake the task? I’m guessing you have some friends in the enemy ranks.”
“I’ll think about it,” I replied, and then I left.
The Venetian quarter was once the Jewish quarter before the Jews were kicked out of the city. All that was left to show they had been there was a small burial ground and the Porta Ebraica, the Jews’ Gate. This now marked the easternmost point of the quarter. Not quite four hundred paces west was the Porta Viglae, which marked the other end. In the middle was the Porta Drungarii. The gates were in the seawall, a thick monster soaring some forty feet into the air, dotted with towers. Opposite each gate was a wharf.
The whole district nestled between the base of the Third Hill and the Golden Horn, with the seawall more or less bisecting it. Ten thousand Venetians were jammed into every available bit of space, along with their churches, their stores, and their warehouses. Land was at such a premium that many locations combined different functions. The Church of Saint Akindyni, the chief church of the quarter, also did a very nice business as a bakery. I heard that the communion wafers were excellent.
To the west was the Moslem quarter. To the east, the Amalfitani, the Pisans, the Genoese, competitors of the Venetians in trade, rivals in everything else, always with one hand on a ledger and the other reaching under the table for a dagger. There were walls between the districts, and for good reason.
On top of the hill, the Vigla kept watch over everything. I doubt that any of them saw Bastiani die.
I had no trouble finding Vitale’s boarding house. It was at the end of an alley by the hospital, a basic brick cube pressed against the northern wall. I glanced to my right and marked the embolum. The eunuch was right—there were no taverns in this area, no obvious brothels beckoning to the passerby with too much time and money on his hands. That’s not to say Bastiani couldn’t have stopped by someone’s room and shared a private bottle or two, but I wasn’t looking to go door to door asking his neighbors if any of them had murdered him recently.
Vitale himself was sweeping out the door when I came up. He was a portly man with a florid face, and the slight exertion he placed on the broom caused him to sweat profusely without having a noticeable effect on the dirt. He had ample time to see me approach
ing, but the appearance of my whiteface caused him to gape a bit. I bowed, and he nodded his head back at me.
“Feste the Fool, at your service,” I said. “Are you the one called Vitale?”
“That is what they call me,” he said. “I’ve seen you about. You’re a funny fellow.”
“Thank you, good sir,” I said. “Then it won’t surprise you to know that I am here on funny business.”
I looked up and down to see if anyone was listening, then leaned toward him until the bells on my cap were practically dangling in his eyes. “They say there’s been a murder here,” I whispered. “Is it so?”
“Well, don’t know that I’d be calling it a murder so quick,” he said hurriedly. “One of my tenants passed away during the night.”
“But under mysterious circumstances, yes? Tell me everything.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “Why should I?”
I took his arm and pulled him inside the doorway, glancing behind me.
“I collect gossip,” I said. “A bit of scandal is worth several dinners to me. And it may be worth something to you as well.”
“Really?” he said, more interested now.
“I have a patron, a wealthy man,” I explained. “He has, shall we say, unusual tastes, even for this debauched city.”
“Go on.”
“He has a particular interest in macabre settings. Places of sudden death, whether suicide, murder, or just the unexplained. He has been known to take impressionable young ladies into these rooms, close the door and … well, I’m sure you can imagine the rest.”
“Shameless!” exclaimed Vitale, his lips glistening. “To think that such shocking behavior goes on in this city. And he would be willing to pay?”
“For one night’s entertainment, it could be as much as a year’s lease is worth to you,” I said. “But it must be the right kind of atmosphere. That is why I’m here, as sort of an advance scout. May I see where it happened?”
“Certainly, certainly,” he said, dropping his broom with glee. “It’s on the third floor.”
He started up the first flight with a bustle but slowed considerably on the second and was wheezing heavily by the time he reached the top.