The Riddle and the Knight

by Giles Milton

  With the Ottoman conquest, however, the good life came to an abrupt end. The monks fled and the abbey fell into ruins, and by the

  The Riddle and the Knight

  turn of this century, the British were using its car'eci stone blocks for road building.

  The monks of Bellapais were never to return, although their Pre-monstratensian order still exists. Unmarried and back to their vows of poverty and chastity, their base has moved to the sober area of Tonger-loo in Belgium.

  The more 1 read Sir John's tales from Cyprus, the more I found myself scratching my head, for although some sounded both plausible and accurate, others appeared to be figments of his imagination. He only alludes to the Lusignan wealth—a surprise, since most travellers left the island wide-eyed—but occasionally records details that no other writer mentions. Take the bizarre eating habits of the locals: 'Tt is the custom that all men, both lords and others, eat their food in the earth. For they make pits in the earth around the hall, knee-deep, and have them well paved; and when they want to eat, they go into these pits and sit down. And this is in order to be cooler, for that land is hotter than it is here."

  Could this be true? No earlier traveller describes such a custom, but when a sixteenth-century Englishman came to recount his Voyage o( Master Laurence Ahiersy to Jerusalem, he, too, was struck by these habits. "The people there are verv rude," he wrote. "They eat their meat sitting upon the ground with their legs a crosse like tailors."

  This is only one in a string of curious details. As a knight of the realm, Sir John would have been accustomed to hunting in the Hertfordshire countryside, and it is not surprising that he writes about the hunting on Cvprus. But what strikes him is not the number of hounds or the quality of the falcons. Instead, he is fascinated by a strange animal that the nobles use during their hunts. "Men hunt with papions/' he says, "which are like leopards; and they catch wild beasts as well— better and more swiftly than hounds. And they are somewhat bigger than lions."

  These papions, or hunting cheetahs, were indeed used in Cyprus in the fourteenth century; they had been imported from India more than a century before. But Mandeville's Travels is the first recorded account of their being used on the island, and as such, it is an important piece of evidence in his favour His final detail, however casts a cloud of sus-

  Cyprus

  picion over his story; to assert that cheetahs are bigger than hons is an astonishing error for anyone who has actually seen a cheetah.

  But he is not the only writer to get the size of the animal wrong: the French pilgrim Seigneur d'Anglure—who definitely did visit Cyprus in 1395—also describes these hunting cheetahs, yet assures his readers they are smaller than a fox.

  Where Sir John does agree with all travellers is in his description of the wine. Virtually every account of the country mentions it, and several pilgrims remonstrate that their less pious compatriots drink disgraceful quantities on reaching Cyprus. The local plonk was renowned for its potency and was so strong that it was usually mixed with water. But not everyone took this precaution: one English traveller was shown a row of tombs of English knights who had dropped dead after a long evening's binge.

  Mandeville's description of the wine bears a remarkable similarity to a passage in a book by William of Boldensele. But there is one important difference: unlike Boldensele, Mandeville names the wine, singling out de marrea as having the finest and most delicate bouquet of all. 'Tn Cyprus [there] are many vines, of which a very strong and noble wine is made; the first year it is red, and after a year it turns to a white, and, the older it gets, the whiter it becomes and the clearer and stronger, and the better the bouquet it has." Mandeville is the first in a series of writers to praise de marrea as the best of all. Seigneur d'Anglure is the next to enthuse about this wine, but Sir John could hardly have copied it from the Frenchman. By the time Anglure wrote his book, Mandeville had been dead almost thirty years.

  I had arranged to meet a family friend as soon as I arrived in Lefko^a. Nick Cannon worked for the British High Commission in Greek Cyprus, but he also spent part of his time overseeing British relations with Northern Cyprus. This dual job has led to an absurd anomaly. Since the British government doesn't recognize the self-styled "Republic of Northern Cyprus," it cannot be seen to have any formal diplomatic relations. As soon as Nick crosses the green line from the south to the north—in official terms, at least—he no longer exists. The Turkish army's advance in 1974 was finally halted in Nicosia

  The Riddle and the Knight

  and a boundary hastily scribbled across the city map. This divided the former capital in two and forever separated Greek from Turk, Christian from Muslim. But it also produced some ludicrous situations: the British High Commission fell into Greek Nicosia, the British Residence fell into the Turkish side, and there is a minefield running between the two. Even less fortunate was the Ledra Palace Hotel, which found itself trapped in the middle of no-man's-land. Once the finest hotel in the Middle East, it now rises forlornly from behind its fence of barbed wire—home to United Nations' squaddies and the scene of futile diplomatic meetings.

  But the barriers, barbed wire, and machine guns have in no way marred the splendour of the British Residence, for although surrounded by ruined tenement blocks pockmarked with gunshots. Her Britannic Majesty's servants strive to keep up the standards. A chandelier brightens the Residence's grandiose hallway, while a resplendent portrait of the Queen hangs above the stairwell.

  Only diplomats are allowed to pass freely over the green line. Nick had crossed the military checkpoints earlier in the morning, and before lunch he showed me around the northern half of the city. Lefko§a is a shabby place, and Northern Cyprus's lack of cash is visible in the crumbling buildings and peeling paintwork. The streets are crowded not with shoppers but with thousands of Turkish conscripts who are based in nearby barracks and who patrol the town as if it were an army compound.

  We walked through the covered market, but were soon stopped in our tracks by a twenty-foot-high wall topped with barbed wire. Other roads and alleys were similarly uninviting: most became cul-de-sacs overnight in 1974 and now boast red warning signs bearing the skull and crossbones. But the landmines buried in this bleak strip of no-man's-land haven't stopped nature from colonizing: rusting oil drums, set up to block streets more than twenty years ago, now sprout trees and flowering plants.

  Suddenly I heard the sound of Italian voices and dived into a shop with Nick in tow. But it was too late—the women had caught a ghmpse of me and they entered the shop just behind us, beaming with smiles and throwing their hands into the air. Walking had overheated them and their faces were glistening with sweat. The woman who had

  Cyprus

  winked at me at breakfast now gave me a sickening smile, then pointed in the direction of Kyrenia. Did I want a Hft back in their taxi? I de-chned, and they waddled off in the direction of the Saray Hotel.

  Over a huge lunch of rnezze, brochettes, and kofte, Nick told me the latest green-line gossip. "Recently a Turkish pizza delivery boy acci-dently strayed into the no-go area/' he said. "He was immediately arrested and detained by Greek soldiers. Of course, as soon as the Turks heard about this, there was a huge campaign to free him. Eventually he was released, but his moped was held for three months while the Greeks negotiated the return of a Greek car which had strayed through a Turkish checkpoint. When the moped was finally exchanged for the car, there was much rejoicing. The pizza, it was said, was still on the bike."

  Other incidents don't have such happy endings. An English tourist who fell desperately sick in Northern Cyprus was allowed to cross the green line so she could be flown home from one of the British military bases in the south. But before she reached the airport, she died. Her husband, meanwhile, was stuck on the Turkish side of the island . . .

  Nick had to return to the south that afternoon and left me outside the medieval cathedral which dominates the city. It looks as if it has dropped out of provincial France—hardly surpri
sing, since it was designed by French architects and built by French craftsmen—and in Mandeville's day its golden sandstone must have provided the city with a glittering skyline. Today it is in a sorry state; the west front once boasted a huge stained glass window, but the glass has long since disappeared and the delicate Gothic tracery been replaced with prefabricated concrete mouldings. The surround to the huge double doors used to be decorated with finely chiselled statues of the Virgin, but all were smashed when the Ottomans seized the city. Only two carvings remain: miniature figurines of angels whose pious expressions are captured forever in stone.

  One glance at the west front is enough to warn you that there is something not quite right about the building. Rising up from either side are two towers, and on top of these towers are minarets pointing their slender fingers into the blue sky. This, then, was the fate of the building: in 1570 the cathedral of St. Sophia was converted into the Se-limiye Mosque.

  The Riddle and the Knight

  I took off my shoes and entered through the west door. It was cool inside and completely silent. A few Turkish conscripts stood peering in, and those with cameras took snapshots of this strange mosque. But they soon lost interest and left, and as their chatter died away, I wandered down the aisle in the presence of medieval ghosts.

  Converting the building into a mosque has created a strange effect. On entering, the eye is drawn down the long nave towards the apse. But Islam has reahgned the church's interior in the direction of Mecca, and the focal point of today's worship—the mihrab and mimher, or prayer niche and pulpit—is set at a diagonal to the south wall. It looks as if a giant hand has given the church's innards a sudden twist while leaving the outside walls in the same position.

  If Sir John came here, he didn't mention it: a pity, for the cathedral was consecrated in a splendid ceremony in 1326 when he was already four years into his travels. It was here in St. Sophia that the Lusignans were once crowned kings of Cyprus before travelling to Famagusta to be anointed as kings of Jerusalem. Long after Jerusalem had fallen to Islam, they continued receiving this hollow honour. The nobles, too, liked to keep the titles and pretensions of their lost kingdoms, and for decades they continued to style themselves as princes and counts of Antioch, Galilee, and Tripoli, even though they had never set foot in their realms.

  I lifted up the carpets to see if I could find any remaining tombstones. There were a few fragments, but none was complete. The feet of a knight m armour poked out from the bottom of one rug, but when I removed the heaw cloth, I found that the body and head had disappeared. Here and there I discovered traces of inscriptions in Latin, but they, too, were worn or broken. Only the faintest outline of a cross remained on one of the walls as testimony to the building's former usage.

  As I stood on the spot where the altar must once have been, I reread the local bishop's sermon to his people just hours before the Turkish attack. He urged them to remain steadfast in faith and pleaded that they defend their city to the death: "You do not only defend religion," he said, "but also your wives, children and estates; so as all things, both human and divine, invite you to shew invincible valour; and that the more readily and boldly, as that you being free men, and generous, are

  Cyprus

  to fight against slaves, base and unarmed people, wont to overcome more by their numbers than their valour."

  It was not the greatest of speeches, and it was all to no avail. A few days after this sermon, in September 1570, the city was captured, the population enslaved, and St. Sophia turned into a mosque. Of all the major towns and cities in Cyprus, only Famagusta still remained in Christian hands. If that, too, fell to the Muslims, the island would be lost forever, and Sir John's great fear—that the defeat of Christendom in the region was inevitable—would have been proved all too true.

  The following day I took the bus to Famagusta, the main port in Northern Cyprus, and was sitting in a cafe in the old town when a young student entered, looked around for a table, and finding none free, asked if he could sit at mine. Before I could answer, he had sat down, ordered a coffee, and swallowed a sugar lump.

  "You are English . . . ?" he asked, before proceeding to bombard me with questions about where I lived. When I told him that my wife was a teacher in Haringey—home to a huge Turkish-Cypriot community— his face lit up. 'T have an uncle in Haringey," he said. "Where does your wife teach? What age are the children? Perhaps my nephews go to her school?"

  Mehmet had studied history at Ankara University, and when I explained why I had come to Famagusta he jumped at the chance of telling me a few stories.

  "You know, of course, about the battle of Famagusta?" he said.

  I did know a little about the battle, for the siege of Famagusta had been a defining moment in Cyprus's tragic history. But before I could say anything, Mehmet was in full flow. "You need to know more," he said without a moment's hesitation. "It was the most wonderful battle ... a glorious, extravagant battle."

  I told him I'd never heard of a battle described as extravagant before, but he brushed my comment aside. "That is because battles are not normally extravagant," he said. "But the battle of Famagusta was, I assure you, an extravagant battle."

  Meeting Mehmet was a gift: in Istanbul, Syria, Jerusalem, and Egypt, I had tried to arrange meetings with people who could help me explain the world in which Mandeville had lived. In Northern Cyprus

  The Riddle and the Knight

  this had been much more difficult because I'd been unable to establish contact with anyone before leaving England. But now Mehmet had walked in off the street and started to explain the history of his home town, grabbing the salt and pepper to help him demonstrate the battle.

  "This," he said as he pointed to the pepper, ''is Mustafa Pasa, the fantastic general of the Ottoman army. Try to imagine him; he has waged many successful campaigns and won many battles, but like all great men he has a weakness . . ." He paused for a moment to let me guess, but when I shook my head he continued. "His weakness," he said, "was his uncontrollable temper."

  He then reached for the salt and brought it nearer to the centre of the table. "This," he said, "is Marcantonio Bragandino, commander of the combined Venetian and Greek forces and the defender of Fama-gusta. The town's defence is dependent upon him, and he is as brilliant as Mustafa."

  Mehmet put down the salt and reached for the pepper once more. This time he poured a large pile onto the table as he gulped down the last of his coffee. "But here is the problem. The Turks have huge cannon—hundreds of them—which rain down cannonballs on the town. The defenders only possess a few light arms, but they have the huge city walls to protect them."

  This much I knew was true. Before coming to the cafe, I had climbed on to the battlements and seen for myself the dozens of cannonballs still scattered around the defensive walls. These walls had been mined and rebuilt during the lengthy siege. The Ottoman troops had caught the plague and the defenders had starved, yet still the battle went on. But by August, with fewer than two thousand soldiers left alive, the Venetian commander knew that all was lost. Deciding to spare the lives of the rest of his troops, he sued for peace.

  "When Bragandino walked out to surrender," explained Mehmet, "he carried his commander's umbrella and walked with great pride. Mustafa treated him kindly at first, for he was a good man, but suddenly, bang . . ."—Mehmet banged his fist on to the table at this point, rattling his coffee cup—". . . he flew into one of his rages."

  There was now a small pool of coffee on the table, as well as a pile of salt and pepper, and Mehmet mixed them together with his spoon.

  "Bragandino accused Mustafa of dishonour—not a clever idea—

  Cyprus

  and without warning Mustafa screamed at him, grabbed his head, and shced off one of his ears before ordering another soldier to cut off his other ear and his nose. The other generals were all executed, but Bra-gandino was thrown into prison for twelve days."

  I pulled a face, but Mehmet had not finished. He told me how,
on the following Friday, the Venetian was released from prison and forced to carry heavy sacks of boulders around the city walls and ordered to kiss the ground each time he passed Mustafa. He was then hauled into a chair and hoisted on to a yardarm while the victors jeered at him to scan the horizon for the fleet that would save him. And that, said Mehmet, was the end of the Venetian. He was killed, and the town had been won by Mustafa.

  But whether by design or through ignorance, he had not told the end of the story as it really was. For what actually happened to Bra-gandino was far more terrible, even in an age noted for its barbarism and cruelty. He was stripped, tied to a column, and flayed alive while Mustafa watched with glee as the executioner's knife slowly sliced off Bragandino's skin. Mustafa screamed at the Venetian to convert to Islam, but Bragandino remained silent. Not until the knife had cut down to his waist did Bragandino finally expire, muttering a quiet prayer.

  Once he was dead, Mustafa had Bragandino's skin stuffed with straw and tied to a cow with the red umbrella mounted over his head. This gruesome spectacle was then led through the city. Medieval chroniclers agree that even the Turks were shocked by such a display of barbarism.

  Mustafa eventually took the skin back to Constantinople, where it was kept as a memento until a member of the Bragandino family managed to acquire it for a vast sum of money. It was transferred to an urn in the church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, where it is kept to this day.

  It was a brutal end to a brilliant commander. Mustafa had secured his victory, and Islam had come to Cyprus. But the glorious medieval towns of Cyprus lay in ruins, and the population had fled or been massacred. It was worse than anything Sir John had predicted.