by Tim Severin
‘Thorgils, I never thought that I would face a challenge like this,’ the architect confessed to me. ‘The task is even more daunting than when my grandfather had to repair the Church of Holy Wisdom after the earthquake. At least he had something to work with. Here I have to start from scratch. I’m going to need your help.’
So it was that I, Thorgils, the devotee of Odinn, came to assist in the recreation of what our guide called the Holy Sepulchre. Partly my work was practical: I held the end of the tape as Trdat took the measurements of the area he had to work in, and I took down notes of the angles he measured. I helped him uncover the lines of the damaged walls, so that he could trace the ground plan of the earlier buildings and compare them with the architectural plans he had brought from the archives in Constantinople. I also made lists of the materials on site that might be reused – the surviving sections of columns, the larger building stones and so forth. But by far my most important contribution was assisting him in interviewing all those who had known the holy place before it was razed on the orders of Murad the Mad.
Our talkative guide was our primary source, but rumours of our enquiries spread throughout the city, and furtive figures appeared, followers of the White Christ, who were able to tell us what the shrine had looked like before its demolition. In the light of what those Christians told us, we cleared away some of the rubble and chalked out on the ground the dimensions of the tomb as they indicated. It had been a small, free-standing building, chiselled from the living rock, sheathed in marble and surmounted by a golden cross. The cave inside had been large enough for nine men to stand inside as they prayed, and at the back was the shelf on which the White Christ’s body had been laid.
Trdat wanted measurements and practical details. He was told that the cave had been high enough for there to be a space of one and a half feet between the top of a man’s head and the roof; the shelf was seven feet long; the entrance to the cave had faced east according to some, south according to others. Our informants told us that it had taken seven men to move the large rock rolled in front of the cave at the time of the Christ’s burial, but that it had broken in half. Its two parts had been squared off and turned into altars, which had been set up within the great circular church that once covered the entire site. The man who told us that particular detail took us on a search through the rubble to see if we could find either altar, but without success.
Trdat was unperturbed. He drew a quick sketch of a squared-off stone, and showed it to the Christian. ‘Is that how it looked?’ he asked.
The man looked at the drawing. ‘Yes, just like that,’ he agreed readily.
Trdat gave me a quizzical glance and drew another altar stone, a slightly different shape this time. ‘And the other one. Was it like this?’
‘Oh yes, you have it perfectly,’ his informant replied, so eager to please that he barely glanced at the drawing.
In our inn later that evening I asked Trdat if he really believed our informants.
He shrugged. ‘It’s not important if I do. People will believe what they want to. Of course I will do my best and try to reproduce the original details when I do the designs for a restoration. But as the years pass, I’m sure that those who are devout will come to believe that what they are seeing is the original, not my copy.’
All this time Harald and the other Varangians had been remarkably patient. They spent most of their hours in the inn, playing at dice, or they came to where Trdat and I were at work. The presence of these bearded warriors was useful as it kept onlookers at bay and discouraged those Saracens who shouted curses at us or threw stones. In the evenings Trdat sat at a table, ceaselessly drawing his plans or scratching out diagrams and calculations. Occasionally a Varangian might saunter over and peer over his shoulder at the work, then return to his place. But I was aware that their patience would not last for ever. I felt that without some sort of distraction, Harald and his men would want to leave.
It was our guide who proposed an excursion. He offered to show us the Christian sights in and around the city, then take us on a short trip to the nearby river, where, he said, the White Christ had undergone a ceremony of immersion. Trdat was at the stage when he was working on perspective drawings and wanted to be left alone in the inn in peace and quiet, so he readily agreed that Harald, Halldor and the others should take up the guide’s suggestion, and that I should go as their interpreter.
To me that tour of the Holy Places was astonishing. There was hardly an item, a building or street corner that was not in some way associated with the White Christ or his followers. Here was Golgotha, where the White Christ was crucified, and our guide pointed to a bloodstain on the rock, which, if you were to believe him, had never been washed away. Nearby was a crack in the stone, and he assured us that if anyone put his ear to it he would hear running water, and that if an apple was dropped into the crack it would reappear in a pool outside the city wall a mile away. Eighty paces in that direction, so he claimed, was the very centre of the world. At that point rose four great underground rivers.
Next, with many backward glances to see that we were not being followed, he took us to a storeroom where he showed us a cup that the White Christ had blessed at his final meal, as well as a reed that apparently had been used to offer up a sponge of water to the Christ as he hung on the Cross, and the sponge itself, all withered and dry. The item of most interest to me was a rusty spear propped in a corner. According to our guide, it was the very lance that had been used to stab the Christ in the side as he hung on the Cross, and had been rescued from the Anastasis before Murad’s men smashed up the place. I handled the spear – it seemed very well preserved to be so ancient – and I thought it strange that the followers of the White Christ would claim to find such relics, while we, the followers of the Elder Faith, never imagined we could possess the spear which pierced Odinn as he hung upon the tree of knowledge. For us, what belonged to the Gods was their own.
The catalogue of marvels outside the city walls was just as wide ranging. Here were the marks of the White Christ’s knees as he knelt to pray, the stone receiving the impression as if it had been molten wax. There was the same fig tree from which a traitor by the name of Judas had hanged himself; earlier the guide had showed us the iron chain he had used for the suicide. On the Mount of Olives were more marks in the rock. This time they were footprints left behind when the White Christ was taken up to the place which was the equivalent of Valholl for his followers. Remembering my conversation with Pelagia back in Constantinople, I asked if I could see the cave where her namesake had lived, disguised as a eunuch. Without hesitation I was led to a small, dank grotto on the side of the mountain. I peered inside, but not for long. Someone had been using it as an animal pen. It smelled of goat.
The more I saw, the more baffled I became that the faith of the White Christ was so successful. Everything associated with it seemed so ordinary. I asked myself how people could believe in such obvious fictions as the suicide’s fig tree, and I put the question to Harald, picking a moment when he seemed to be in good humour, because I wanted to know if he was susceptible to the White Christ’s teaching.
He turned that great predatory look upon me, the sea eagle’s stare, and said, ‘Thorgils, you miss the point. It is not the physical things that matter: not the lance nor the sponge nor any of the other things we have been shown. The strength lies in the ideas the Christians preach. They offer hope to the ordinary people. That is their reward.’
‘And for someone who is above the ordinary, my lord?’ I ventured to ask.
Harald thought for a moment and then said, ‘There is something there, too. Have you not noticed how obedient the Christians are to their one God. They talk about following him, and no other. That is what any ruler would want of his subjects.’
I was still thinking about Harold’s reply as we collected our horses from the inn’s stable and rode out of the city behind Cosmas, our guide. We left through the eastern gate, and Cosmas asked me to warn Harald and t
he others that some of the people we would meet along our road could prove unfriendly. The most hostile were Samaritans. They had a horror of unbelievers, whether Christian or Jew. If we wished to buy anything from a Samaritan we would have to place the coins in a bowl of water because they would receive nothing direct from our hands, considering us unclean. And after we left, they would burn straw over the hoof prints left by our horses to purify all traces of us.
I suspect that our guide was secretly pleased when, close to the river, we did encounter a group of them. The Samaritans behaved exactly as predicted, blocking our path, spitting and cursing, shaking their fists and working themselves into a frenzy of hatred. Then they searched the roadside for stones which they began to hurl at us, very accurately. At that stage Harald and the Varangians were provoked into action. They spurred their small horses into a canter and charged at their tormentors, smacking them with the flat of their swords and scattering the shrieking zealots, who fled up the hillside, surprised at such brisk treatment.
The countryside became even more desolate than before. After crossing the plateau, our road descended through a steep-sided gorge where the only building was a distant monastery clinging to the rock face like a swallow’s nest. A few monks still lived there, our guide told us, because the semi-derelict building was so difficult to access that the Saracens left it alone. Emerging from the gorge we found ourselves riding through a wilderness of sand and scrub completely devoid of people, except for a single party of nomads who had set up their brown tents among the dunes. They were burning thorn bushes for their campfire, and had tethered their animals. I had previously seen such creatures in the imperial menagerie – camels – and I wondered that these beasts, which attracted so much attention in Constantinople, were regarded here as no more unusual than an ass or donkey.
We camped on the outskirts of a ruined town. The place had been completely levelled four years earlier by a great earthquake, and the sight of the tumbled ruins prompted Cosmas to claim that, long ago, its defences had similarly collapsed when an army of besiegers had played trumpets and marched around the walls, calling on their God to aid them.
‘The din probably woke up Loki, and he squirmed in his bonds,’ muttered Halldor sarcastically. He was finding the guide’s stories more and more outrageous.
It was another disappointment when we reached the river which we had been promised would be a marvel to behold. It was no larger than the streams beside which I had played as a child in Greenland. A muddy creek, it ran through reed beds, and the water when we tasted it was gritty and unpleasant. Yet this was the river, the guide assured us, in which the White Christ had been immersed, affirming his faith. The guide showed us a set of stone steps leading down from the bank. Several of the steps were missing, others were unstable, and there was a half-rotten rope to serve as a handhold. The steps, he said, were where the faithful had come in former times to imitate the example of the White Christ.
As if on cue – indeed I suspected that Cosmas may have arranged it – a ragged priest of the White Christ appeared from a small shelter of reeds nearby. He offered to conduct just such a ceremony for a small fee, promising that anyone who did so would store up ‘riches in heaven’. I translated his offer, and to my consternation Harald accepted. He removed his clothes, piled them on the river bank and, wearing only a loose gown, descended the steps and waded in. There Harald allowed the priest to splash water over him and chant a prayer. I was dismayed. Until that moment I was sure that I could sway Harald towards the Elder Faith.
Halldor saw my expression. ‘Don’t take it too seriously, Thorgils,’ he said, ‘When you’ve known Harald as long as I have, you’ll understand that the only riches he is interested in are those on this earth. He will do anything that will help him gain them, even if it means taking a dip in a muddy river. Right now, he’s probably thinking that the White Christ is fortunate to have him as a recruit.’
My consternation lasted all the way back to Aelia, as the Greeks called the Holy City, and it took Trdat’s air of suppressed excitement to dispel my disappointment. The architect was positively quivering with happy anticipation.
‘You can’t guess what occurred in your absence, ’ he said as he welcomed me. ‘It’s unheard of, at least since my grandfather’s time.’
‘What’s unheard of? You look as though you’ve found a fortune,’ I said.
‘Better than that. While you were away, I went back to the site of the Anastasis to check some details on my drawings, and an elderly Saracen came over to see what I was doing. He was very distinguished looking and well dressed. Of course I showed him my work, made gestures trying to explain what I was doing, and so forth. It turned out that he spoke a few words of Armenian and enough Greek to tell me that he is one of the dignitaries responsible for the upkeep of the Holy of Holies, the Golden Dome. He has invited me to visit the place if I promise to be discreet. Can you imagine! No Christian has been allowed to look inside the Dome and see its wonders for years.’
‘Don’t talk to me about the wonders of local religion,’ I said. ‘I’ve been disappointed enough in the last few days.’
‘Come on, Thorgils. This is an opportunity that won’t come again. Of course you must accompany me to visit the Dome. My visit is scheduled for tomorrow.’
A servant collected us when the last echoes of the Saracens’ prayer call had died away, and I had to admit a sense of excitement as Trdat and I, both wearing Saracen gowns, set off. Ahead of us the great shining Dome glowed in the early morning sunshine, seeming to float above the rooftops of the city. At an outer gate to the sacred area the servant asked us to change our footwear, providing us with slippers, then brought us across a broad platform paved with granite slabs to where Trdat’s acquaintance was already waiting. Trdat introduced me as his architectural assistant and then, even before our host could speak, the protomaistor had grabbed my arm and was blurting out ‘the Tower of the Winds!’ To my surprise he was not staring at the magnificent building soaring up ahead of us, but at a much smaller structure built beside it.
‘That is the Dome of the Chain,’ explained our host, whose name I gathered was Nasir. ‘It’s the model of the main building, made by the original architects. They produced it so that the caliph Abd-al-Malik, who ordered the construction, could approve the design before building began. Nowadays we use it for storing valuables.’
But Trdat was already out of earshot, hurrying towards the smaller structure.
‘Thorgils, that eight-sided base on which the Dome rests,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘there was one in ancient Athens just like that. That’s why my grandfather made me study the classic buildings, to learn from their skills. Just as the men who designed the Dome must have done. How I wish my grandfather could have seen this.’
Trdat circled the small building excitedly. ‘Do you mind if I take some rough measurements?’ he asked Nasir.
The Saracen hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘I suppose it can’t do any harm. It will not be allowed inside the Kubbat as-Sakhra, the Dome itself. There you can only take a quick look.’
Trdat walked around the Dome of the Chain, counting his paces. Then he measured its diameter by reckoning the number of paving slabs across its width.
‘Brilliant,’ he breathed admiringly as he stood back to judge its height. ‘It’s the geometry, Thorgils. The height of the eight-sided base is the same as its width, and the height of the Dome is the same again. The result: perfect proportion and harmony. Whoever designed the structure was a genius.’
‘Two of them,’ said Nasir. ‘A local man from the city by the name of Yazid-ibn-Sallam, and a great scholar called Abdul-ibn-Hayah.’
Trdat was squatting down and drawing with his finger across a paving slab, attempting make an outline in the dust. ‘I wish I had brought wax and stylus,’ he said, ‘but I think I know what we will find inside the main building.’
Nasir looked at the Armenian as if he was touched in the head. ‘We should not be loiteri
ng here. Just a quick glance inside is all that is permitted,’ he warned, escorting us to the Golden Dome.
To me it was like a triumph of the jeweller’s art, a diadem. Swathes of glittering mosaics covered the outer sides of the octagon, while the cupola above it gleamed as if solid bullion.
‘How do you keep the Dome so clean?’ I asked.
‘In winter, when there is snow or rain, we cover it with animal skins and felt.’ Nasir replied. ‘The caliph had not intended that the Dome should be gilded, but the work went so well and so swiftly – it took just four years to build – that a hundred thousand gold dinars were left over from the money allocated to the architects. It was decided to melt down the coins and use them to cover the Dome in gold leaf.’
We had reached the entrance to the building, and he held up his arm to prevent us going any further, but we were close enough to see inside. At the centre, right beneath the Dome, was a honey-coloured area of bare rock which, Nasir explained, was the spot from which their prophet ascended to a Seventh Heaven. This Holy of Holies was surrounded by a circuit of marble columns which supported the great vault soaring overhead. Looking upward into the bowl of the Dome, I gasped in astonishment. Its interior was covered with gold mosaic work, and from the very centre dangled a chain on which was suspended a gigantic chandelier. The light from hundreds upon hundreds of lamps reflected and glittered off the golden surface.
‘Now breathe deeply,’ Nasir advised us. The air was heavy with the smell of saffron, ambergris and attar of roses. ‘That’s my task,’ said our host proudly. ‘I supervise the preparation of the perfumes which the attendants sprinkle on the sacred rock and burn in the censers. But it is time we left.’
‘Double squares,’ mused Trdat thoughtfully as we walked back to the inn. ‘Just as I thought. That is what I was trying to work out when I was scratching in the dust. The interior of the building is based on a design of two sets of squares interlocking. The inner ones determine the circumference of the Dome itself, the outer ones provide the dimensions for the octagon. Best of all, I now know the size and shape of the dome which I will propose for the shape of the new basilica at Golgotha. I will model it on what I saw today, placing twelve pillars below, one for each of the apostles. I have all the information I need to work up my designs for the restoration of the Anastasis and the buildings around it. It is time we returned to Constantinople.’