by David Capel
“Right here,” I said, and I reached down to the satchel I had brought with me into the Patriarchal palace. I opened it and brought forth the parcel, carefully wrapped in its soft linen. I held it reverently with both hands and placed it on a side table in the chapel where we had met.
The Patriarch Aemilian gently unfolded the material with his trembling fingers and examined the crumbling Latin vellum that accompanied the spear head.
“The Lance of Longinus” he said in awed tones.
“Yes, although you’ll note that it doesn’t say anything about to whom it belonged.”
“This lance,” intoned the Patriarch, reading the old Latin words, “pierced the flesh of Christ crucified. Forth came blood and water, thus demonstrating the divine nature of our Lord.”
He looked up at me with greed in his eyes. “The true holy lance! I knew that old stick in Constantinople was a fraud! What providence that it has come to us!”
“Well yes, I’m glad you can verify it.” I replied. “Now, if you don’t mind, I had better wrap it up again so that it’s not damaged on my trip back to the City. I’m sure Xiphilinus will be delighted to know…”
“But… but, what do you mean?” interrupted the old crow. “You cannot possibly take this away! The Holy Lance must remain in the Holy Land!”
“What, you’re saying we should return it to Jerusalem and the Arabs?”
“No, no, of course not,” he spluttered, “but it should remain as close as is possible in these uncertain times. It should stay here, here in Antioch, the first Christian see, founded by St Peter himself!”
I frowned as if in thought and uncertainty.
“Well, perhaps you’re right. I mean I can certainly see your point of view. But there is just one problem, Patriarch.”
“What is that, my son?”
“I have sent word on ahead to my family in the City that I will be arriving soon, with a great relic. They would have been sure to have spread the word. So by the time I get there…”
“And you told them it was the Holy Lance?” cried he in consternation.
“Well no, not specifically. But I did say that it was something of immense significance. And of great value.” I emphasised the last word.
We stood there in silence for a few moments, the bishop peering at the thing nestling in its linen wrappings. “We cannot allow this holy relic – which touched the side of Christ in his agony – to be lost once more.”
I ignored the fact that I was not proposing to lose it, but merely stow it somewhere that would be far safer than this front-line bolt hole. Instead I said tentatively, as if thinking it through on the hoof, “Well, there is one possibility, I suppose.”
“What is that?” he asked, turning on me, hope lighting up his old face.
“Well, I did not say exactly what the relic was, you see. So I could take with me something that was perhaps of equivalent value, but of less … spiritual significance.”
“And where would we find such a thing?”
“In your treasury, of course. You must have here some baubles that you can spare. It would have to be something that was not well known outside the confines of the church here, or else people might wonder how it came to be in my possession.”
“You seem to be suggesting some kind of exchange. Out of the question! The Lance belongs here, and that is all that matters.”
“I would not see it as an exchange. More of a giving of thanks for the arrival of the holy relic. But no matter, I will take it on to the City.” And I started to wrap the blackened spear point once more in its cloths.
“No, wait!” said Aemilian, and I stopped while he rubbed his beard in thought. “I suppose there might be one or two things that would sit just as easily in the Church of Holy Wisdom as here in St Peter’s. But we will need to keep the Lance safe. Safe from prying eyes, and safe from the infidel that hammers at our gates! Yes I have it,” he went on. “This holy thing will be as a rock to Peter’s church. We will bury it beneath the altar, at least until times are more secure. This very evening, when the church is quiet and free from prying eyes. Come back then, and we will see what we can find for you in the treasury that abuts the church.
“Thank you”. I shuffled in my chair as if to leave and then stopped. “Oh, I nearly forgot the matter of Nikephoritzes.”
A cloud crossed his face and he looked at me in consternation. “Nikephor... what has this to do with him?”
Now I knew that during Nikephoritzes’ governorship in Antioch some years before he and the patriarch had fallen out badly. It was well known, even in the City, that Aemilian hated the eunuch with a passion that was said to verge on the obsessive. He had denounced him from the safety of his pulpit on numerous occasions, and their hostility had been partly responsible for the governor’s recall.
Aemilian had survived the eunuch’s malice, so far. But now, perhaps, his ardour had cooled. Cooled in the knowledge of changed circumstances. Now Antioch was under threat from the enemy, and Nikephoritzes’ star was once more in the ascendant. The tables had turned. So the old man looked at me with suspicion as I embarked upon my tale.
I gave him a slightly edited version of the predicament that Nikephoritzes had placed me in. How in the course of my troubles, I had come across evidence that the Praetor was engaged in questionable activities to undermine the Imperial campaign.
“A plot, you mean?” rasped the old man, rubbing his hands together in relish, all hushed intrigue now that a weakness in his enemy’s carapace had been revealed. “I have heard the rumours of betrayal at this battle in Armenia of course. Are you saying that Nikephoritzes was in league with the Turk?”
This placed me in a something of a dilemma. Nikephoritzes had probably never spoken to a Turk in his life, though with the likes of Erkan on the prowl you could never be sure. On the other hand I did not want to reveal the exact detail of the plot. For all I knew Aemilian was a keen Ducas loyalist, and fully supportive of the rights of Michael and Maria. My ignorance of politics and recent absence in Damascus made me no expert in the shifting allegiances within the Roman Ecumene. So I dissembled.
“Quite possibly. Though the written note I came across did not make that clear. So I do not know who were the co-conspirators, simply that Nikephoritzes was involved.”
“What did you do with this note?”
“Father, I have been in captivity among the pagan for many months now. I lost it long ago, during the campaign.”
He sucked in his cheeks and frowned. There was a pause.
“What exactly is it that you want me to do? I am in no position to influence affairs in Constantinople. I cannot denounce him from afar.”
This was a clear contradiction of his actions of the past few years, but I let that pass.
“Patriarch, I have no wish to embroil you in these matters. Your province is the spiritual sphere, I know. But I must go back there, into the vipers nest. And the Praetor and his partisans may well have been made aware of my knowledge of their plans. At the same time I would want to be sure that the Imperial authorities were ... guarded against any further betrayals. Patriarch, I need your protection.”
“My protection? But I cannot watch over you from here. Spiritual my province might be, but I have not the power of angels!”
“You cannot, but nor can you be reached from that distance. All I need is for you to give some sort of indication, some sort of signal to Nikephoritzes, that the knowledge of his past actions is not confined to me alone. That if harm should come to me, then his ... dubious behaviour will be revealed. That is all. I believe that will help to deter him from ... from …”
“From killing you, you mean?” and the old man laughed for the first time. Intrigue obviously agreed with him. “I’m not sure it will. It might provoke him, but you never know. Anyhow I’m happy to compose some sort of letter. I will give it to you tonight.”
“I will see you later then,” said I, continuing to wrap the lance and its vellum before he could grasp it.
I tucked the package under my arm. “Oh, and father, we nearly forgot something else.”
He goggled at me in confusion.
“My absolution. You’ll remember my confession earlier on?”
**
I could see the moon in full through one of the high windows that overlooked the narthex of St Peter’s cathedral. I stood at the back of the church, the nave in front of me dim in its ghostly half-light. Under the dome two candles glimmered and I heard the last muttered prayer of Bishop Aemilian and the sole monk he had entrusted with the internment. I myself had helped dig up the slabs there just behind the altar where we had hidden the Holy Lance. The old Patriarch wished to bide his time before announcing the presence of the relic to the world. Then, when the Turks had gone away, the pilgrims would come.
That afternoon I had bidden my leave of the Governor Joseph Tarchaneiotes – the same man indeed who had commanded the southern army that had failed to appear at Manzikert. I had stumbled past the desiccated bones of his troops on my way to Damascus.
It was he who had told me of the triumph of the plotters.
Romanus IV Diogenes had been captured by the Turkish King, the Sultan, at Manzikert. In his absence, the conspiracy had struck. Michael VII had declared the Emperor deposed, effectively self-abdicated by imprisonment. Caesar John Ducas and Nikephoritzes were triumphant, securing the high offices of state for their adherents, including my old tutor, the philosopher Michael Psellos.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, Diogenes had been released by the Turks, having secured a treaty of surprising leniency. Civil war was inevitable. The conspirators renounced the Turkish treaty, Michael apparently happy to discard the chance for peace in favour of his own ambitions (or those of his uncle – I did not believe he had the steel to act like this on his own initiative). Andronicus Ducas, the same man who had fled the field at Manzikert, had dispersed Diogenes’ hastily gathered force and was even now pursuing him to Cilicia.
The governor had wrung his hands as he told me this. I saw that the proximity of the fight presented him with a ghastly dilemma. The old Emperor was hiding just a few days ride to the North from Antioch. He had no desire to be forced to pick sides in such a conflict. The losers were sure to be destroyed.
My presence just added another complication, and he was keen to be rid of me. I reminded him of death and defeat.
I still did not know the full extent of the conspiracy. It seemed wide, wide enough to catch me fully in its net unless I could find allies at home. I would need more than the Patriarch’s blessing.
There was no mention of Comnenus in the governor’s account, just as there had been none in the letter of Nikephoritzes to Gabras. This gave me some hope that at least the Ducas conspiracy had not ensnared the whole of the Imperial hierarchy.
How Tarchaneiotes had secured the governorship was beyond me, though nothing should have surprised me in those turbulent days when the Empire teetered on the brink of chaos.
He had been shocked at my tale, and looked at me red-faced as I told him of my ordeal and journey. At least he had the decency to be ashamed in my presence, and he was keen to see me on my way. So with the Patriarch’s recommendation it had not been hard for me to persuade him to grant me a scribbled title to the castle where I had found my haul of treasure.
I had suggested it was some recompense for the loss of my estate, and had spoken vaguely of returning with reinforcements from the West to reclaim it for the Empire. He had readily agreed in his shame. Thus I acquired some kind of legal claim to what I had found there, and what in turn had been passed to the See of Antioch.
I looked down at the leather satchel at my feet. I could just make out the glint of precious metal within. It was a weighty load, and I would have to guard it carefully on the journey home. The jeweled casket contained nothing more than a finger bone of the Apostle James the Less, but with it came two gold chalices rescued from the churches round about, and an ornate paten decorated with pagan figures than must once have graced the dinner table of some senator of old.
The Lance that pierced the side of Christ crucified was indeed a precious thing, and the man in front of me willing to pay heavily for it. I had more than replaced the bounty I had given Erkan.
I heard footsteps echo lightly on the dark stone of the church, and there was Aemilian once more, peering at me through the gloom.
“You’ll not mention this to a soul?” he asked anxiously.
“Not a soul, father. And remember, what I have here I found in the wilderness. There will be no mention of Antioch from me, so none will make a link between these things that I have and the Lance when it is revealed.”
“Good. And the governor gave you what you asked of him?”
“He did.”
“Then here too is something from me.” He handed me a scrolled letter. “You will see that I have placed you under my protection, for whatever that is worth. But I doubt you will last long in that pit of decadence, given what you seem to know! Seek for friends nearer and stronger than old Aemilian. But choose them carefully. Go in peace, my son.”
I slipped out of the door into the moonlight. There my mule was tethered, ready for the short journey down to Alexandretta and the sea, where a Pisan ship awaited me.
ψ
“So you escaped? From the East, I mean?” said Nikephoritzes as he handed me a bejewelled cup of wine.
“I escaped from many things.” I sniffed at the ruby liquid, but placed the cup on a nearby table untasted.
We stood on the balcony of his villa at Blachernae, overlooking his sumptuous gardens. It was the very spot where I had spied Caesar John Ducas all those months ago. To one side the trees had been cut away to provide a view of the Golden Horn below, aswarm with shipping. We could see the tower at Galata on the other side, where the great boom could be raised at need to seal the harbour from attack.
There was no sign of the Caesar, but otherwise the place was as busy as a hive of bees, in contrast to the quiet of my last visit. Eunuch secretaries scurried to and fro. One approached us, but Nikephoritzes waved him away.
“You have been lucky,” said the eunuch. “Very lucky. There are many who did not come back from Manzikert and the events that surrounded it.”
“Of that I am all too aware, Praetor. Yet I do not put it all down to luck. To have luck one must first have bad luck, and many of the things that befell me were by design, not ill-fortune.”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed.” I sat down on one of his divans and glanced at the guard who stood in the doorway at the entrance to the house. He was the same fat eunuch that I had encountered before, looking barely more lively in his master’s presence, his hairless skin glistening with oil.
I felt no fear of him this time. He was soft and fat from an idle life in this house, far from the troubles his master had created.
Besides, standing next to him was Symeon, the soldier that I had met on the beach on Prince’s Isle all those months ago. He had survived the campaign as well, and I had sought him out to apologise for missing our appointment, and also to ask him to accompany me into the viper’s nest. The centurion had been dismissed from the army after the dissolution of his regiment, and was desperate for employment. I could think of none steadier to guard my back on a visit to Nikephoritzes.
“If you wouldn’t mind waiting outside for a few moments,” I said to him. “I need to speak to the Praetor in private. It won’t take long.”
“As you wish, Taxiarch.”
“Taxiarch?” Nikephoritzes raised his eyebrows as he waved his own man away.
“An appointment by Alexius Comnenus. I commanded a regiment at Manzikert.”
I knew that my appearance did not belie my implied boast. Hardened by my captivity and the trial of my eastern journey, and marked by the assassin’s knife, I was a man transformed, as my own mother had told me. I also had the confidence to tackle the most dangerous man in the Empire – with extreme caution. I had arranged this visit almost as soo
n as I had landed in the Golden Horn, knowing that I had to forestall any precipitate action he would take on hearing of my arrival.
“Praetor, let us speak openly. You probably know by now that I arrived in Trebizond as you instructed me some months ago. And there I made a discovery that affected not just me directly, but also one that had… wider implications for the Ecumene.”
His black eyes glittered in their sunken folds. “And what was this discovery?”
“It was one that put my life in great danger. Do you deny it?”
He bristled visibly and stood up.
“I deny nothing! And nor do I accept your word for anything. You come here with a… with a solider in arms, and seek to threaten me with words and the sword.” He was all the outraged innocent. “I am affronted! What do you mean by this? I can only say that you put yourself – and me – at risk by this implication.”
He strode up and down, his jowls wobbling. But where two years before I would have been intimidated beyond action or words, now I sat motionless, as cool as a lizard on a shady wall.
“Nicephorus,” and for the first time I used his proper name to his face. “I do not mean to cozen you or threaten you. You know as well as I do what that letter said. You sent it to the East with me. Knowing that I could have opened it at any time. So little did you fear me! And rightly! For in truth you have nothing to fear.”
He turned and looked at me, still for the first time in several minutes.
“Nothing?” he said.
“Nothing,” I replied. “For like you I act in the service of the Empire. And therefore my loyalty, like yours, is to the Emperor Michael. Besides, you know already of my affection for him and my friendship with the Empress Maria.” I smiled, forcing my lips wide to reflect a humour I did not feel. “We are on the same side!”
He paused in thought for a while, regarding me from those black eyes, inscrutable behind their folds of fat.
“In that case, why are you here?” he asked. “I would of course take your loyalty to the Emperor for granted. There is no need to come and tell me of it.”
