by Neil Oliver
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘I am Joan of Arc,’ she said.
37
Yaminah could feel the blood pulsing hot in her face as she hurried from Prince Constantine’s bedchamber. The heels of her shoes clip-clipped on the stone floor of the corridor, and she raised one hand to her cheek to conceal the signs of her embarrassment. It was a needless gesture. The palace was all but empty. So close to the walls, and to the sight, sound and smell of the Turkish army, any and all that could had departed for less unseemly circumstances.
Even the air inside the palace reeked of the cloying damp of a winter without end, mixed with dread of whatever was to come. The cold, humiliating stench hung like a shroud, ready to enfold the dead. Yaminah made her way through halls and courtyards that smelled of the death of the world.
Constantinople was old, older than memory. The city had been pawed by more enemies than anyone had counted, and gnawed at from within by greed and neglect. Now it was the Ottoman Turks come to bait the tethered bear, and their hunger seemed insatiable. Bite by slavering bite, plain by plain, hill by hill and city by city they had consumed the empire until all that remained was the Great City itself.
Yaminah knew her focus should be on the present need of Constantinople. But she was a teenage girl, and youth and hope bubbled with her, alongside fear and dread. Her mind was therefore filled with thoughts of what the prince’s recovery – even his partial recovery – might mean; all that might change between them. For six years she had known him only as he had been from the moment of their catastrophic meeting in the Church of St Sophia – first the boy and then the man, but always without feeling or movement in his legs.
Mostly bedridden, he was a soul set apart from other people, from other men.
She had never once heard him complain, and his stoicism made his predicament harder to watch. Broken as he was, he carried an awful weight – the reality of his existence – and did so lightly. He was first to poke fun at himself, always quick to relieve the tension that might arise out of the thoughtless remarks of others.
From time to time she glimpsed an unfocused look in his eyes, as though he had allowed himself to drift in dreams towards a place where his legs obeyed his will, but she never asked him to share those thoughts, or to confess any sadness, and he never had.
She could not bear the word cripple and was quick to admonish any who used it about him in her hearing, but it lurked in the shadows just the same. Always she had liked him, and soon she loved him, but his handicap was between them every minute of the day. It was his dark half, never mentioned.
She had done this to him – or at best they had achieved the result together. She had not asked anyone to save her when she fell, but she was grateful nonetheless. He, and no one else, had had the nerve to step beneath her with arms outstretched, in defiance of gravity. He had broken her fall and she had broken his back – it was as simple as that. Then, in the aftermath, when her own fate had been uncertain (orphan that she was), it had been Constantine who had surprised everyone by insisting that he would take care of her. From his bed, while physicians shook their heads and his parents grieved for a son transformed – or an empire burdened with a crippled heir – he had summoned her.
Before all of them he had declared that she had been sent to him by Our Lady, and that having caught her it was his duty to keep hold of her ever after. His father the emperor, moved by his son’s words, had consented to his wishes.
In fact it had been the emperor’s companion and consort, Helena, who spoke first. Crossing to his bed, she had looked down at him, wordlessly, for what seemed an age. She was tall, so that in his dreamlike state it seemed her face floated high above him, and her dark beauty reminded him of the sharply delicate features of a hungry cat.
He lay confined and fixed upon a wooden frame that had been assembled on the orders of Leonid, most senior of the physicians – indeed a man so old his actual age was beyond the reach and knowing of everyone else at court. Leonid had declared that the prince’s best hope of recovery lay in being held immobile, belted and braced within a rigid structure that might give his body the chance to mend itself.
At last Helena had reached out to Constantine, seemingly meaning to take and hold his hand in her own while she spoke. But a sharp sound, somewhere between a hiss and a tut, stayed her hand. She snapped her head around in search of its source, and her dark eyes met those of Leonid, standing by the door of the bedchamber with three grim-faced colleagues. The sound had been involuntary, escaping his lips only when he sensed she might raise the injured prince’s arm, move him in any way, and the expression on his face showed he was already rebuking himself. Helena’s gaze softened and she smiled at the old man until he allowed himself an apologetic grimace in return.
‘Prince Constantine’s words reveal to one and all the kind of boy he is … the kind of man he will be,’ she had said, pausing to look at each of the assembled, anxious faces in turn. Her own face, illuminated by sunlight through the high windows, shone with righteousness so that it was hard to look at her
A murmur of approval had passed around the room then, like a breeze bringing relief to a room filled with stale air.
Constantine lay motionless, his eyes clouded with pain. He had been dosed with opiates but his senses remained within his control. He looked up at his father’s lover, keen to hear what else she might say.
‘The orphan Yaminah’s veins course with imperial blood from her mother, our sister so recently laid to rest, indeed from the line of Komnenos – the same who harried the Turkmen all the way back to their homeland two and a half centuries ago,’ she continued.
She paused again, and this time the low rumble of assent from her audience in the bedchamber made it clear she understood the will of the room.
‘Prince Constantine has accepted the child as a gift – and who are we to gainsay him after he risked and nearly lost his life in his determination to keep her from harm? And so in his wisdom he has made us her family now. In truth, she has always been one of us.’
Having said her piece, Helena had walked purposefully back across the room until she was beside the emperor once more. Constantine Palaiologos had reached for her hand and grasped it firmly. For a moment he had seemed smaller than the woman by his side, the lesser – but who knew whether it was his own sadness or her bravura in the face of grief that had made the difference?
‘So be it,’ he had said, his voice fragile with the emotion of the time and the moment. ‘So be it.’ Without another word and with his pale eyes shining, he had led Helena from his son’s bedchamber, followed by all but the physicians, who had gathered once more about the boy’s bed, eddying aimlessly there like the waters of a stream about a stubborn rock.
Since that hour and day, Yaminah had been a princess of the Byzantine Empire in all but name, raised alongside Constantine, his companion and his comfort all the while. Helena had been as good as her word, and Emperor Constantine along with her. Yaminah had grown to young womanhood with their every blessing. But like a flower grown in the shade, she had struggled for want of light. She lapped up warmth like a house cat laps milk, and found most of what she needed at her prince’s side.
She loved Constantine with a sharpness that sometimes made it hard for her to take a deep breath, but as the years passed and her girlish needs began to give way to those of a woman, the certainty that they could never be with one another as man and wife was a shadow on her heart, a draught of cold air that chilled her.
But now this! It was as though the golden, warming light of the sun itself had made its presence felt, unheralded and unexpected, through a break in the clouds. She had felt the hardness of him, the heat of him. Might there be new life after years of winter? Would the warmth newly returned venture further south? And would this late spring see him walk again as well?
It was all too much to hope for and she knew it. She closed her eyes and shook her head to banish the dreams. But for all her efforts to force her
self back into the world of before, back into reality, a half-smile remained immovable upon her blushing face.
Gradually, Yaminah became aware of where she was. She had taken her leave of the prince in such a state of discombobulation she had climbed stairs at random and rounded corners into a less familiar part of the sprawling palace complex. Lost in her private thoughts, she had wandered far from her own territory, indeed right into the part of the palace reserved for the emperor’s consort.
She was thrust fully back into the here and now by the sound of two voices – one a man’s and the other that of Helena herself. The conversation, a heated one, drifted into the corridor through a half-open door a dozen paces ahead of her on her left. It was the mention of her wedding that stopped her.
She stepped to the wall and pressed herself against the cool stone, one hand up at her mouth as though to stifle the sound of her breathing while she listened.
‘It is more important now than ever,’ said Helena. ‘It is about the appearance of legitimacy … of the rightful order of things … of confidence!’
Yaminah could not identify the man’s voice, but whoever he was, he sounded fearful – submissive to his mistress.
‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘I understand, of course – and you are right, my lady. I meant only to enquire whether you still felt this was the best use of your time. There are so many demands on your attention now.’
‘Do not patronise me,’ said Helena, her voice quiet and controlled so that the threat loomed all the larger in the softness of her tone.
‘The people watch our every move now,’ she said. ‘These are the blackest clouds ever to hang over the city. If we are seen to falter … if any action or statement reveals a lack of resolve … well, think about the consequences. These are the most superstitious citizens on God’s earth. We must treat them like the children they are. Give them a party and they’ll smile and forget, for a little while, what waits beyond the walls.’
‘Of course,’ said the man once more. ‘All is well.’
‘All must seem well,’ said Helena, her voice rising in pitch. ‘All must seem well, and while they are still celebrating the union of a prince and his bride, we shall take whatever action is required. The empire needs a backbone, and Constantine’s is broken. He shall not be their undoing. He shall not be our undoing.’
Yaminah pressed even harder against the wall, as though to penetrate the very fabric of the building and disappear. The tiles were cool to the touch but her whole body burned, twisting in the flames of Helena’s threat. She felt the colour rise higher in her cheeks. There was a jagged lump in her throat too, like a half-swallowed shard of glass, and for a moment she thought she might cry.
For all that she burned with the blood pulsing through her body, the chill of the palace pressed all around her. She was often cold within its walls, regardless of the season, but now she felt as though she must be glowing, that the light and heat radiating from her body must surely give her away, like a glow-worm in a cave.
What was this? Why was this? Helena meant Constantine harm – that much seemed clear. All in an instant, and for the first time, Yaminah saw life in this place for what it was. The palace, the whole city, was constantly awash with rumour and plotting, that much she had always known. Some courtier was on the rise while another was out of favour. This wife was consorting with a lover half her age while that one was drunk on wine by noon every day.
Hour by hour the dramas and intrigues flowed like currents rippling the surface of the Sea of Marmara. Often blood was spilled. Guilty or innocent – who could tell? The key to survival was to turn a blind eye. Yaminah kept track of as much as she could – which was a great deal. Often she had had to clamp a hand across her mouth to stifle a gasp at some or other revelation. But now she felt the tide, a power far greater than her own, pulling at her feet and threatening to sweep her away. She clung to the wall for fear of losing everything.
There was movement in the room beyond. The conversation had drawn to its close and there was the shuffle of footsteps and the rustling of expensive garments. She must not be found here at such a moment. She had no real business near Helena’s apartments after all; even without the complication of having been in a position to overhear such words – private, sinister words – she would have struggled to explain her presence there. If Helena were to catch her eavesdropping … well, the mere possibility replaced her blushes with a prickling chill. The urge to turn and run was all but overwhelming, and it was some other, better part of her that had her stand firmly in place. Any attempted flight over marble flagstones in hard-heeled shoes would have betrayed her utterly; instead she remained still, fixed like a flower pressed between the pages of a book.
Helena, tall and dark, slipped from the room like a resident ghost. For a moment she paused, and Yaminah would have sworn the woman raised her nose a fraction, as though sniffing the air around her. In one hand she held a walking cane, topped with an ivory heart. With the fingers of the other she fondled the contours of the carving, and for a split second Yaminah imagined her raising it above her head and turning to pounce upon her where she stood transfixed.
A single bead of sweat pricked in the small of her back. It trailed, like the tip of a dead finger, down the curve of her lower spine and all the way to her tailbone. She closed her eyes and imagined Constantine, asleep upon his bed and surrounded by cloaked and hooded figures bearing swords in upraised hands. The tension of the stretched and endless moment tugged at her heart and she almost spoke, just to break the spell. When she opened her eyes, Helena was nowhere to be seen.
All at once Yaminah was aware of a roaring, pounding sound inside her head and realised she was holding her breath. Slowly, painfully, she exhaled – taking care to let the trapped air seep soundlessly from between her lips. She realised too, with a shiver, that she had no idea which direction Helena had taken. For a moment she contemplated the possibility that the consort had seen her there, eyes tightly shut and pressed against the wall. Might it have suited Helena to know she had been overheard and yet to leave the eavesdropper dangling like a leaf in autumn? She dismissed the thought as nonsense and shook her head to clear it. Deciding to retrace the aimless steps that had so nearly delivered her into disaster, she turned from the door and walked away as quickly and as quietly as the flagstones allowed.
Any relief at having been overlooked at the scene of her crime was short-lived, however. Yaminah’s system had briefly coursed with adrenalin, but those moments of heightened sensation were past now, leaving dismal desolation in their wake. Reality bore down upon her narrow shoulders and she felt her knees might buckle, pitching her helplessly on to the floor.
Almost harder to bear than the new-found knowledge of the threat was having no one alive in the world, save Constantine himself, with whom she could share her burden. She had been taken into the care of his family, and of the wider court. He had spoken up for her from the depths of his own suffering to pledge his determination to care for her. But in spite of his patronage, she was and always would be an orphan. Her mother’s absence was a yawning emptiness at her centre, and while Constantine’s devotion made a bridge across the void, still she felt hollow.
She had cultivated acquaintances among the girls and young women whose orbits intersected her own, but always she had felt a need to maintain a distance. In part it was out of fidelity to her mother – some belief that her memory would remain untarnished only if no other woman or girl came between them.
But there was also an understanding of the reality of life within the gilded cage of the Blachernae Palace. At best the rarified world she inhabited was a rumour mill in perpetual motion. At worst it was a hive of venomous, hard-shelled creatures searching ceaselessly for the chance to land a mortal wound upon challengers both real and imagined.
Denied the bulwark of family, of elders and siblings bound to her by blood, she had grasped from the outset that her long-term security in the palace depended upon keeping her o
wn counsel as much as possible, ensuring that at least a portion of her thoughts remained private. But above all, she knew she depended on Constantine. He was hers and she was his. All this time she had assumed others valued him as she did. The realisation that some of those closest to him might wish him ill struck her with the force of a thunderclap.
She scolded herself, furious at her own lack of awareness and maturity. Constantine was all she had. It was therefore her responsibility to spot danger at a distance, and yet she had allowed her own feelings to blind her to the intentions of others. Now a potentially lethal threat was close by, and only by chance had she learned the truth, like a splash of iced water to the face.
Childish … childish! she scolded herself.
She made her way back through the corridors like a convict approaching the place of execution.
‘Yaminah?’
She was almost back on familiar territory, where she belonged, and within a minute’s walk of the sanctuary of her own quarters, when Helena’s voice reached out from behind her like an unseen hand. For the second time in the space of as many minutes she felt the rush of hot blood in her cheeks. How long had Helena been behind her? Had she followed her?
‘I am perfectly well, madam,’ she heard herself say.
If it was physically possible, her face felt even hotter than before. The non sequitur burned on her lips. She was so overheated she felt she might catch fire, and she was painfully aware of dampness on her brow and on her top lip. She ached to wipe away the beads of perspiration with the sleeve of her dress but resisted the temptation. Part of her wanted to run. An adult she might be, but the child within was alive and well. More than anything, she wished for darkness – cool, cosseting darkness in which to be unseen and unobserved.
Surely Helena must smell the sweat of her anxiety? She had read that animals could detect fear by scent, or some other sense, and she was not even sure she couldn’t smell it on herself now.