Byzantium

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  I have never seen a race so given to hats as the people of Byzantium. Everyone who could afford even the most rudimentary covering wore something on his head, be it a scrap of heavy woollen cloth folded into a peak, or strands of straw woven as a sunshade and tied into place with rags. Many of these hats seemed to possess official sanction and were worn as badges of office. Others seemed to be following the dictates of some convention, the sense of which I could not penetrate.

  We ambled along in stupefied reverie, gawking at everything, until, “Listen!” hissed Gunnar.

  The Sea Wolves stopped as one, and held their breath, listening. “What is it?” wondered Orm, after a moment.

  “It sounds like an animal,” observed Hnefi. “A large one.”

  “Nay,” said Gunnar. “It is people.”

  “There must be very many of them,” agreed Orm.

  “A battle!” cried Hnefi. “This way! Hurry!”

  Off they ran towards the sound, clutching their weapons in the hope of winning plunder for themselves. I hurried after them so that I would not be left behind. Ahead of us the street widened and I could see movement and colour in the light beyond.

  And then I found myself standing in a market square—the largest, busiest, noisiest market I had ever seen, thronging with hordes of people and all of them bawling at the top of their voices. Merchants stood beneath rich-woven canopies crying the virtues of their wares to one and all, wheedling with their customers in any of six languages while prospective buyers sauntered slowly by, eyeing each item and bargaining with undiluted fervour. Strange battle this, but a form of combat nonetheless. The various sounds of commerce melded together to produce the monstrous din we had heard.

  Drawn into the maelstrom, the Danemen stumbled forth, still holding tight to their weapons. I had taken but a half-dozen paces when my eyes watered and I began sneezing. Directly before me was a stall boasting spices the like of which I had never known: deep red and dusty yellow, black, orange, pale green, and white. These mysterious spices were heaped into pyramids of casual abundance: brown mounds of powder that smelled like peppered honey—cinnamon, I learned later; black deeply pungent spikes, which were cloves; three or four kinds of pepper, yellow turmeric, earth-coloured hills of cumin and coriander, bright red chilies ground to fine crimson powder, golden peaks of ground almonds, and little round, stone-coloured beans called chickpeas. The mingled scents created a perfume so intensely pungent I could not see, and had to hurry on.

  Beside the spice merchant was the first of many stalls selling green produce. I stopped and stared down the long line of stalls at vegetables of every kind under heaven: leeks, onions, garlics, lentils, little red objects called capsicums, cucumbers, green finger-like things called okra, cabbages, any of a dozen varieties of beans and squash and melons. Nor was this all. Indeed, it was not even the least part of all I saw. It was as if the whole world had sent its goods to this marketplace: everything from gold and silver to salt and pepper, live animals and Egyptian leather, Macedonian pottery and Syrian wine, magic potions and Holy Icons blessed by the Bishop of Antioch. If one could think of it, there was someone selling it in the market.

  One merchant sold only olives—fifteen or twenty different varieties! This astonished me more than anything I had seen before. Sure, I could not tell one olive from another in the dark; I had never even seen an olive before. But looking at bowl after bowl of olives—green, black, purple, and more—it occurred to me that any civilization which could concern itself in such detail with such a small and insignificant fruit must possess powers beyond imagining.

  Twenty kinds of olives! Think of it!

  No king of Éire, however powerful or wealthy, had ever seen, let alone tasted, one solitary olive. Merely undertaking the transportation would have squandered nearly all of Éire’s energies and resources. Yet, here in Byzantium, even beggars could eat olives grown in the furthest outposts of the empire. How, I asked myself, was it possible to measure such an achievement? To this, I had no answer.

  Unfamiliar with such casual displays of wealth, the market was, for me, less a place of commerce than a revelation of magnificence unrivalled by anything I had known. After but a few moments, I could comprehend no more; and though I continued walking through the marketplace, looking at everything on offer, my mind simply refused to credit it.

  As we passed a stall selling brass bowls and cups and other small objects, the merchant suddenly called out in Danespeak: “Heya! Heya! Come here, my friends.”

  The Sea Wolves stopped and stared at the man. “This man is a Dane!” said Orm.

  “Then he is like no Dane I ever met,” observed Gunnar.

  “He is, I tell you,” insisted Orm, who turned and began speaking rapidly to the man, who simply smiled and spread his hands with a shrug.

  “Gunnar is right,” decided Hnefi, “the man is no Dane.”

  Disgusted by what they considered a shabby ruse, the Sea Wolves stalked away. But the brass-seller was not the last to hail the barbarians in their own tongue, for as we made our way along the close-set stalls, other merchants called out to us in Danespeak. At first wary, then charmed, the simple feat, repeated so frequently, soon amazed the Sea Wolves almost as much as the wealth on display. They continually stopped to engage the various sellers in conversation—which did not run far beyond the first few words of greeting on the seller’s part before lapsing into Greek or, sometimes, Latin, or some other tongue.

  Hunger overtook us as we wandered the lavish stalls. Orm complained loudly that the sight of so much food was making him light-headed. Gunnar said that bold plunderers such as we needed sustenance to keep our wits keen and strength ready. Hnefi suggested that the food would not be good for us; unaccustomed to it as we were, it might make us sick. Orm and Gunnar protested so vehemently at this that Hnefi finally relented. Having a bellyache, he said, was far preferable to listening to the others piss and moan about how hungry they were.

  Hnefi decided that we should eat nothing more unusual than salt fish; the others agreed, so we went in search of one of the fish-sellers we had seen earlier. While we were looking, however, we happened upon a man standing at a brazier of glowing coals over which he roasted long strips of meat wrapped on long wooden skewers. The meat sputtered in the heat, sending up an aroma that brought water to the mouth.

  Orm took one sniff and stopped in his tracks. He and Gunnar stood side by side, transfixed by the sight and smell of the sizzling meat. The man, his face glowing in the heat of the coals, saw that he had acquired interest in his wares, and called out, “Heya! Heya!”

  “How much?” asked Hnefi, pointing at the skewers.

  The man shook his head.

  “How much?” demanded Hnefi, speaking more loudly.

  The man simply smiled wide and shrugged his shoulders. “Forgive me, my friend. I do not understand,” he said in Greek.

  “He is asking how much for one of the spits you have roasting there,” I told the man.

  “Ah!” he laughed, “a learned slave we have before us. Welcome to Great Constantine’s city, my friend.”

  “How do you know we are newly arrived?” I asked.

  The man laughed again and said that everyone else in the world knew very well that the skewers cost two nomismi. “How many would you like, my friend?”

  “Four,” I replied, and told Hnefi to give him eight of the small brass coins.

  When the money was counted over, the man allowed us to choose our skewers. The Danes wolfed down the meat in gulps and demanded more, which the man happily supplied for eight more coins. Taking our meat-sticks, we continued on through the maze of market stalls, chewing the meat from the sticks and looking at all around us. The Danes moved like men in a dream.

  As we passed along a row of stalls selling incense and perfume, our progress was arrested by the sight of a most regally beautiful woman being borne through the market in a chair on poles. Four slaves carried the chair and a fifth held a round sunshade made of stiffened cl
oth attached to a slender cane. The woman—a queen, certainly—wore a robe of shimmering blue silk; her hair was elaborately curled and heaped high on her elegant head, and her painted face was impassive as she regarded all beneath her.

  The Sea Wolves decided to follow her and see where she went, hoping to mark the place so that they could return and plunder it later. So, we followed the chair-bearers from the market as they started down one of the many streets radiating from the square.

  The way was narrow and dark, the dwellings so close-built that little light from sun or sky made its way down to the street. Men hurried to and fro, or stood in huddled clumps talking to one another; some glanced at us as we passed, but most ignored us. Apparently, the sight of wild barbarians wandering the streets was nothing new to them, although we saw no other Sea Wolves that day.

  The buildings here were of more humble construction, their roofs steeply pitched, their facades far less ornate than those we had seen previously. There was little glass to be seen and no statues. The path itself was unpaved save for a narrow strip of flat stone down the centre. We made our way along, and eventually came to a place where two roads crossed. Carts and bearers filled the street at this junction and it was all so confused we quickly lost sight of the queen and her chair. We stood in the centre of the crossroads and tried to decide which direction to take. Thinking to return to the wealthier district we had seen before, Hnefi chose the right-hand way, though it was darker and even more narrow than the one before.

  We had walked but a dozen paces when a low, broad door in the wall suddenly banged open and out on a gust of hot air rushed a wooden cart pushed by two men, stripped to the waist and sweating. The cart was full of fresh-baked bread, and the smell from the open doorway halted us in our steps.

  “Bröd!” cried Orm, running after the men. He caught the cart, stopped it, and grabbed a loaf from among those stacked in the cart. The men yelled at him, snatched it back, and hurried on again, shouting at him as they went.

  Seeing how Orm had fared, Hnefi turned to me. “Get us some of this bread,” he said, and sent me after the cart.

  I caught up with the men and fell into step beside them. “If you please,” I said, “we would like to buy some of your bread.”

  “No! Not for sale!” one of the bakers shouted irritably.

  “We have money,” I said.

  “It is impossible,” the other baker said. “This is theme bread.”

  “Forgive me, I do not understand.”

  “Theme bread!” repeated the first baker. “Theme bread—bread for the soldiers. We are not permitted to sell on the streets. You will get us into trouble. Go away.”

  “I am sorry,” I replied. “But we are hungry. Perhaps you can tell us where we can buy bread like this.”

  “Fie!” muttered the first baker, pushing away.

  But the other man paused long enough to say, “Try over there.” He pointed to an open doorway a little further along the street.

  I shouted my thanks to the men and returned to where the Danes were waiting. “They say we can buy bread there.” I showed him the house the baker had indicated. We made our way to the place, whereupon Hnefi withdrew a handful of coins from his pouch, selected a small one marked with a K and gave it to me. “Buy it for us,” he ordered.

  Regarding the tiny coin doubtfully, I promised to do my best and entered the dark doorway. The interior of the building was warm and lit only by the fire from an enormous oven. A large fat man in a leather apron together with a skinny boy were stoking the flames with chunks of chopped wood. On the floor beside them was a small mountain of loaves still hot from the oven.

  I greeted them and explained that I wished to buy some bread. The man wiped his hands on his leather apron and held out his hand for the coin. “All of it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He shrugged, stooped to the stack of still-warm loaves, selected three and held them out to me. I took them with thanks, whereupon he selected three more and gave those to me as well. I thanked him again, and received three more loaves. These bread loaves were not large, but nine of them were enough to fill my arms. I thanked him for his generosity and he placed two more loaves atop the others and bade me farewell.

  Staggering back into the street, I rejoined the amazed Sea Wolves. “All this,” wondered Hnefi, “for only one coin?”

  “Yes,” I told him. “I could not carry any more.”

  “We can live like kings in this place,” remarked Orm. With that, the Danes helped themselves to the bread, each taking three loaves, leaving me with two, which was more than plenty. We strolled on happily, tearing off pieces of bread and eating as we walked along.

  The thin warmth of the day began to fade as the sun sank lower and the night clouds crowded in. The streets became shadowed and the sky took on a pale purple cast. Hnefi grew concerned that we should make our way back to the ship to tell what we had learned of the city. It was only when we turned and tried to retrace our steps that we discovered our predicament; we had wandered so far and by such a circuitous path that the process soon proved utterly futile.

  “You will ask the way to the harbour,” Hnefi commanded. We had paused at a paved open space near a cluster of stalls selling woven cloth and dyed wool. Two streets led away from this small square: one uphill in what seemed to be a westerly direction, and the other downhill to the north. Neither way seemed likely to lead to the harbour, which we imagined to lie somewhere to the south, though this was in no way certain, as Gunnar thought it must certainly be to the east, and Orm was convinced that it was due west.

  “Ask that man,” Hnefi ordered, pointing to an old man hurrying by with a bundle of sticks on his back.

  I went to the man and hailed him. “Pardon me, father,” I said, “I was hoping you could tell me the way to the harbour.”

  The old man glanced at me and, without stopping, said, “Follow your nose.”

  “A strange thing to say,” remarked Hnefi when I told him. “You must ask again.”

  I tried another passerby, who told me that we should take the uphill path. Though we hastened on our way, the sky was growing dark by the time we reached the top of the hill to find another square surrounded by several large buildings and a view of the city to the east and south. “Heya!” shouted Orm, pointing to the east, “Gunnar was right. There is the harbour.”

  Gunnar made no reply, and when I turned to him, I saw that his attention was wholly occupied with a large white structure behind us. “Look,” he said, indicating the roof.

  I saw where he was pointing and my heart leapt within me. A gold cross stood at the apex of the roof, gleaming in the last light of the setting sun, and this had caught Gunnar’s eye.

  I was instantly seized by an overwhelming desire to run to the place and throw myself on my knees before the altar. I stood staring at the cross and thought: I have arrived at last. I have crossed many oceans to be here, but here I am. I thought I should tell someone about the pilgrimage. The brother priests in Constantinople should know of this; I should tell them.

  Without thinking, I started away towards the church. Alas, I had walked but three steps when Hnefi grabbed me roughly by the arm. “Stay here!” he snarled.

  Orm misunderstood the significance of Gunnar’s interest. “It is not gold,” he said.

  “Most likely brass,” added Hnefi. “It is not worth taking.”

  Ignoring them, Gunnar said, “It is his sign—just as you said, Aeddan.”

  “Yes, it marks a church,” I told Gunnar. “A place where the Lord Christ is worshipped.”

  We were thus involved when the big double door swung open. There came the peal of a bell from inside the church, and a procession of priests emerged carrying candles and cloth banners on poles. Dressed in long dark robes, they moved out into the street, singing a psalm in a slow, undulating chant. Their tonsure was the Latin kind, unlike mine; their clothing, however, was similar to that worn by the western monks, but more richly ornamented.
Several of the priests wore long silk scarves around their necks—the orarion—embroidered with crosses in gold thread; the sleeves of their robes were long and also ornately patterned.

  Leading the procession was a bishop carrying an eagle-headed crozier and wearing a mitre. He was followed by a pair of monks wearing white chasubles: one of them carried a large wooden cross, and the other the image of the Christ painted on a flat wooden panel. The painting showed Jesu nailed to the cross, eyes lifted heavenward, pleading mercy for those who had crucified him.

  The sound of priestly voices lifted in song filled me with a rare delight. It seemed half a lifetime since I had heard the psalms sung out—though the singing was in Greek. Still, I felt a thrill ripple through me at the familiar words: “Praise God in the heights, all ye men! Praise the Lord of Hosts, all creatures on the earth below!”

  Gunnar put his head near mine. “It is him!” he whispered. “It is the Hanged God you told us about. It is the same one, heya?”

  I told him that it was the same god, and that the cross had become Christ’s sign.

  “Even in Miklagård?” wondered Gunnar. “How can this be?”

  “He is everywhere,” I replied. “And is everywhere the same.”

  “Then it is true,” he concluded, much impressed. “All you said of him is true.”

  Orm, overhearing this, decided to give us the benefit of his vast knowledge of religious matters. “You are mistaken, Gunnar,” he declared flatly. “Do not let this Shaven One lead you astray. That was certainly some other god, for how can the same one be in two places at once?”

  “There could not be two such gods,” Gunnar maintained. “Aeddan said he was hanged on a cross by the Romans. There he is, and there is the cross.”