Byzantium

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  “Let him through,” I said. “This man has work to do on our behalf.” Tolar moved aside, allowing the baker to pass.

  Constantius disappeared into his bakery once more, calling, “I am an honest man, and I bake an honest loaf. You will see me at the harbour—but do not look for me before sunset!” With that, he slammed the door again.

  “What has happened here?” wondered Gunnar.

  I explained to him all that had taken place. He listened, shaking his head. “I should not have wagered so much money,” he said gloomily. “Sunset is a long time. Hnefi and the others are certain to return to the ships before us.”

  “You are forgetting that we have the sakka.” I then explained the purpose of the small, but all-important square of parchment he had given me, and which I had just passed on to the baker. “No one will give them bread without it.”

  “Heya!” said Gunnar, his frown turning to a grin and spreading wide. “I should have wagered more.”

  “Gunnar Big-Boast,” chuckled Tolar.

  “Unless Hnefi swiftly learns to speak Greek,” I added, “they will not soon realize their error. By the time they think to find us, we will have the bread aboard the ships.”

  “Very shrewd, my friend,” observed Didimus. “You are a very Hercules of the intellect. I salute you.” He thrust his hand in the air in a rough rendition of the imperial salute. “Now then, as we dare not linger here, I will take you wherever you wish to go.”

  “Please, could you take us to the Great Palace? There is someone I must see.”

  “I will take you, never fear,” replied Didimus, “and then I will take you to the Hagia Sophia, and you will light a candle for me that the All-Wise God will give me shrewdness like yours. Follow me.”

  36

  The guards at the Great Palace turned us away. None of them had ever heard of Justin, but they knew he was not of the gate contingent, for there had been no new appointments for more than a year. One of them suggested, however, that he might be part of the inner-palace scholae. “You could look for him there,” the guard told me.

  “If you will kindly tell me where to go, I will do as you advise,” I replied, and was promptly told that it was impossible unless I had official business beyond the gate.

  “But my business is with the Scholarae himself,” I explained.

  “No one is allowed into the inner-palace precinct without a formal summons,” the gateman insisted. I thanked him for his help and resigned myself to leaving the city without seeing Justin again.

  “Now we will go to The Church of Divine Wisdom,” said Didimus, leading us back through the swarms of beggars who made their homes along the palace walls. “We will light a candle for your friend. We will perhaps light many candles.”

  Gunnar seemed well disposed to seeing the sights of the city one last time before sailing, and Tolar had seen nothing of Constantinople at all, so was happy to follow wherever we went. “I do not care where we go,” Gunnar said, ’so long as I am there to collect my winnings from Hnefi.”

  “It is no distance at all,” Didimus said. “I will return you to your ship in plenty of time, never fear. You are talking to the best guide in all Byzantium. Come with me, my friends, and I will show you the Hippodrome and the Forum of Augustus on the way.”

  The Hippodrome was impressive. The forum was a hollow square surrounded by two hundred columns, mostly taken from Greek temples, Didimus told us, because no one remembered how to make them like that anymore. I did not believe this, but the columns were definitely much older than the forum, so perhaps there was a small grain of truth in what he said. As imposing as these structures were, however, they shrank to insignificance beside the awesome achievement of the Hagia Sophia.

  Heaven bless me, the Church of Holy Wisdom is a holy revelation made visible—a testament of faith in stone and mortar, a prayer in glass and tile and precious metals. The wonder of the world, it puts antiquity’s much-vaunted architectural spectacles to shame. Sure, God himself inspired this church, and guided each and every labourer—those who put hand to trowel and beam, no less than he who conceived and drew the plans.

  Just outside the forum, we four fell into step with the crowd entering the church, and passed directly into the first of two separate halls. Like many others, we paused before a chandler’s stall for Didimus to purchase candles and incense, then walked quickly into the second, larger hall which was lined with huge slabs of red and green marble. The vaulted ceiling overhead was decorated with myriad stars and crosses picked out in gold. Above the towering bronze doors before us was a mosaic of the Virgin and Child; the divine infant held a small cross in his hand as if to bless all those who passed beneath his beneficent gaze.

  Pushed along by the throng, we were swept under the mosaic, through the gate called Beautiful, and into the nave of the church. If from the outside Hagia Sophia’s imposing red bulk appears heavy—a veritable mountain of brick and stone whose ponderous slopes rise above the surrounding trees, an enormous domed and mounded eminence girded about with massive masonry walls and giant supporting buttresses—on the inside, it is all light and air.

  To step through the great bronze doors is to enter one of Heaven’s own halls. Golden light streams from a thousand windholes, striking glints and gleams from every surface, falling from a dome as wide and open as the very sky. Miracle of miracles, there are no roof-trees of any kind at all under Sophia’s dome—nothing obscures the glance or obstructs the eye as it soars up and up and up toward the exalted heights. The majestic dome hangs high above the marbled floor as if suspended from heaven by angelic hands.

  The floor, as expansive as a plain, is all fine, polished marble; the double-tiered galleries high above the floor are marble also, deep-coloured and striking to the eye. There are screens and panels of marble, painstakingly carved with every manner of design: intricate geometrics, crosses, suns, moons, stars, birds, flowers, plants, animals, fish—everything, in fact, that exists in heaven and earth. The galleries are lined with enormous porphyry columns, the capitals of which have been carved into the shapes of plants; so cunningly have the sculptors practised their craft, it is as if the columns support masses of vines, luxuriant with leaves.

  The galleries and corridors seemed endless; the high-pillared arches rose in tiers one above another. Above these were tall arched windholes, hundred upon hundred, admitting heaven’s light. Though there must have been a thousand thousand people within the body of the church, such was its size that it could comfortably accommodate two or three times more again.

  Almost every ceiling and pediment was covered with mosaics of the most elaborate design. The monks of the scriptorium are divinely adept at the intricacies of highly complex and sophisticated patterns; but even our good master at Kells could have learned much to his advantage from a close study of Sophia’s panels and ceilings. Sure, the majesty of the church stole the breath from our mouths. Incapable of speech, Gunnar, Tolar, and I could but gape and stare, staggering from one marvel to the next, minds numb with wonder. And still we stared, drinking in each incredible sight as if it would be the last thing we would ever see.

  Gunnar grew increasingly subdued, but not from boredom or lack of appreciation. Far from it! He gazed with amazement upon all he saw, and from time to time pointed out details of workmanship that I had missed. But his comments grew increasingly few and far between, and though he still appeared eager to capture every sight before him, his enjoyment took on the quality of rapture. Once, turning to see if he was still with me, I saw him standing before one of the gigantic carved screens, staring as if in a trance. He had his hand raised to the figure of a cross which had been carved into the panel as part of the design; and he was tracing the shape with his finger, repeating the motion again and again.

  Gunnar seemed especially fascinated with the cross. Passing beneath the centre of the dome, I felt a touch at my shoulder and looked round to see the stout barbarian staring straight up at a golden mosaic of the largest cross I have ev
er seen. “His sign,” Gunnar whispered, in a voice made small with awe. “It is everywhere.”

  “Yes,” I answered, and explained that the cross was revered even as far away as Éire, the furthest limit of the empire. “Although the cross of the Byzantines is slightly different from the cross of the Celts, and that of the Romans is different again, yet they all honour the self-same sacrifice made by the Lord Christ for all men.”

  “So much gold,” remarked Gunnar. Tolar nodded sagely.

  Didimus led us to the left side of the nave where a free-standing panel had been erected to hold a number of large images painted on flat wooden boards. These icons bore the images of Christ, and various apostles and saints, which the people of Byzantium especially venerated. Before the panel, which Didimus called the iconostasis, rose a series of boards in stepped ranks which held the candles placed there by the worshippers. Taking his candles, Didimus lit one from those already burning, and placed it in one of the few empty holes in the plank. He stood for a moment rocking slightly back and forth, before taking a bit of the incense and sprinkling it over the flame. The incense struck the flame with a puff of fragrant smoke.

  “There,” he said, turning to us, “I have sent a prayer through Elijah that Holy Jesu will give me your shrewdness, and I have sent one through Barnabas that God will give me your barbarian friend’s strength.”

  I conveyed these words to Gunnar, who appeared much impressed with this procedure. He held out his hand to Didimus for one of the candles. While Tolar and I watched in amazement, Gunnar lit the candle and performed the little rocking motion in imitation of the boatman. I wondered what had moved him to pray—and what he said—but thought it uncouth to ask.

  Both Gunnar and Tolar were dazed by the grandeur of the church—especially the extravagant use of gold and silver throughout, which continually amazed them. It is no exaggeration to say that the gleam and glitter of these rare metals everywhere meet the eye, especially as one approaches the sanctuary—to which Didimus led us next. Rising from the floor is a circular platform, the ambo, reached by two flights of wide, low stairs to the right and left. The ambo is surrounded by a series of pillars with gilded capitals which support a shelf bearing a multitude of lamps and crosses—some silver, some gold, and many adorned with pearls and gems.

  “We can go no further,” Didimus explained once we had pushed our way to the edge of the platform. “No one but churchmen and high officials are allowed beyond the ambo.”

  “In Éire,” I said, “anyone can come to the altar. It is God’s table and all are welcome.”

  The little boatman looked at me curiously, as if he had never heard of anything so peculiar. “The choir stands there,” he continued. “On high days there is always a choir.” Pointing beyond the ambo he indicated a sort of raised walkway. “That is the solea,” he told me, “it is used by the priests and emperor when approaching the altar. The chancel screen is solid silver—so they say.”

  The chancel was enclosed on three sides by an open lattice-work screen of gleaming white, radiant in the light of all the lamps and candles. The chancel screen had a series of columns which supported a low parapet on which stood a number of priests and court officials, all dressed in the colours of their kind: priests in white robes, courtiers in red and black. The columns and parapet were faced in silver, and the light of candles and lamps hanging down allowed the eye to feast on the rich metalwork: images of the Christ, and the Virgin, prophets, saints, angels, seraphim, and imperial monograms.

  The chancel with its screen and parapet formed an inner sanctuary for the altar standing just beyond. The worshippers were not allowed beyond the ambo and solea, but the parapet was fairly low, and the altar was raised, making it easy for the gathered congregation to view the ceremony taking place at the altar.

  The altar was of rose-pink marble, surrounded by a sort of tent of gold. “That is the ciborium,” Didimus said when I asked him. “The stone comes from Damascus,” he said, paused, and added, “or Athens.”

  The fabric of the tent-like shelter was wefted with threads of gold, and sewn with jewels—ruby, emerald, topaz, and sapphire—arranged in patterns. The light of all the lamps and candles, and the sunlight streaming down from the windholes above, struck the ciborium and suffused the altar with a heavenly glow. The entire sanctuary seemed to radiate pure, golden light, bathing and engulfing not only the altar, but those attending it, too.

  For, sitting in a golden throne to one side of the altar, was the basileus. He was holding a lighted candle in his hands, looking bored and perturbed. Flanking him on either side were two young men in long purple robes; beside them stood two more men in priestly white. Gunnar pointed out the emperor to Tolar, who seemed somewhat disappointed in the look of the jarl’s new master. But he kept his observations to himself.

  A priest wearing a long stole embroidered with crosses stood at the altar holding a censer which he swung back and forth on a chain. This task completed, he backed away, bowing before the altar. Then another priest—an older man with a small, flat hat upon his white head—approached the altar, bowed three times, raised his hands, and began speaking very quickly and very low. Still speaking, he began performing some service there. Everyone seemed most intent on the actions of this priest, but I could not make out what he was doing.

  After a time, this priest also retreated and there came the peal of a bell. “We should go now,” Didimus said abruptly, “otherwise we will be caught in the crowd and we will not reach the ship in time.”

  Taking one last lingering glance at the magnificent altar, I could see that the service was ended and those around the altar had commenced their procession along the solea. People around us were already streaming back through the nave. We hurried as best we could, but there were so many people that we were soon halted by the crush at the doors.

  “There is another way,” said Didimus. “Hurry!”

  He led us across the nave to one of the great galleries, where we turned and began running down the long corridor, arriving at a long, switchback ramp. We joined the people making their way down this ramp and eventually tumbled out into a narrow street behind the church. A high wall lined with trees rose directly before us, and a double row of soldiers had formed a rank across the street which stretched away to the right and left; holding their bronze-topped rods lengthwise across their chests, they blocked the right-hand side of the street, to prevent the crowd from following the emperor and his courtiers who were walking in procession back to the Great Palace.

  Most of the people strained for a look at the emperor; many called out to him, seeking impromptu audience. But it was not the emperor who caught my eye as the crowd surged forward. I took one look at the rank of soldiers and turned to Gunnar and Tolar. “Stay here, both of you. Wait for me.” To Didimus, I said, “I have found my friend. Wait here.”

  Pushing through the crush, I elbowed my way to the forefront of the throng, enduring many knocks and curses along the way. Tight-pressed as I was, I managed to get one arm up and began waving and shouting: “Justin! Here I am!”

  Turning, he caught sight of me and beckoned me to him, pushing people out of the way with the butt of his spear. “I have been looking for you,” I said upon reaching him.

  Taking my arm he pulled me aside. “We cannot talk now. Come to me tomorrow—the east gate. I will watch for you.”

  “But I am leaving at dawn tomorrow,” I told him. “I was afraid I would not see you again.”

  He nodded and glanced around, as if he feared someone might be watching him. “Pretend you are resisting me,” he whispered.

  “What?” I did not understand. “Why should I—”

  “Act like you are trying to get by me,” he urged, raising his rod, and holding it with both hands across his body. “Stand aside, you!” he shouted, pushing me backwards with the rod. “Stand aside.”

  I fell back a step or two, and Justin pursued me, pushing me back further. When he had shoved me five or six paces back, he s
aid, “Aidan, listen to me: I have word of your friends.”

  My heart clenched in my chest. “What? Tell me. What have you heard?”

  “Keep quiet. We should not be seen together.” He glanced around quickly and said, “They were here—”

  “Here! In Constantinople!”

  “Shh!” he hissed. “Be quiet and listen. They were here—they were seen.”

  “When?”

  “Just after First Fruits, I think. They—”

  “How many?”

  “Eight or ten, perhaps—I cannot say for certain. They were led by a bishop, and were taken to the monastery of Christ Pantocrator upon arrival. They stayed with the monks there.”

  “But what happened to them?”

  “They left again.”

  “Without seeing the emperor? I do not believe it.”

  Justin shrugged. “They were seen to depart.”

  “Who saw them? How do you know this?” I could feel myself growing frantic.

  “Quiet!” he said, pushing me back with the rod. “I have certain friends.”

  One of the scholarii took an interest in the exchange between Justin and me, and started towards us. “Trouble there?” he called.

  “It is nothing!” Justin replied over his shoulder. “This fellow is drunk. I am dealing with him.” Pushing me again, he said, “Hear me, Aidan: the komes knows about this.”

  “The komes…Nikos?”

  “The one who helped trap the quaestor, yes,” Justin answered. “My friend said Nikos met with them twice—the last time was on the day they left. That is all I could discover.” He looked around quickly. “I must go. I will try to learn more if I can.”

  The chief guard called again. The other soldiers were already moving off. “Trust no one, Aidan,” said Justin, stepping quickly away from me. “Beware Nikos—he has very powerful friends. He is dangerous. Stay far away from him.”

  I made to thank him and bid him farewell, but he was already running along the narrow street to join the other soldiers. I turned and made my way back to where Didimus and the Danes were waiting. I pushed through the crowd, thinking: They are alive! My friends are alive! At least most of them are alive, and they reached Constantinople after all.