Zombies of Byzantium

by Sean Munger

  I admit I was intrigued by this talk, but horrified too. “Your Maj—er, I mean, Maria—please, you mustn’t talk about such things. I’m in the employ of the Emperor. I’m handling a special project for him that could be crucial to the survival of Byzantium. I wouldn’t want any—er, personal things to interfere with that.”

  While I had been talking, the Empress moved closer to me. She ran her fingers along the rough wool of my monk’s habit about my shoulders, as if feeling the coarseness of the fabric. Being so close to her was intoxicating, electric. I tried mightily to remind myself of my monastic oaths. I’ve made an oath to God to renounce the pleasures of the flesh, I repeated to myself. And it’s certainly a sin to think such lustful thoughts about the Emperor’s wife!

  “Why shouldn’t I talk of such things?” she replied. “The Emperor and I aren’t marble gods, you know. We’re human beings like any other. After all, it’s not like a flock of storks leave royal heirs under bushes in the imperial garden, now is it?”

  She was now full-on massaging my shoulders. Sin or not, my manhood was in a condition comparable to the bronze column that supported the giant statue of Justinian in the plaza outside St. Sofia. My mind begged her to stop, but my body cried out for her to continue.

  “The Emperor may not be a god,” I said, “but he was certainly appointed by God.”

  At this the Empress laughed. She stopped massaging but kept her hands on my shoulders. “You think so, do you? Your pious patriotism is admirable, Stephen. But it’s not the truth. It was not God who appointed my husband Emperor of Byzantium. It was an army. Specifically, his army. That’s how things work out there in the world. Don’t you know that?”

  “I know very little of the world. I’m a monk.” This was as close as I got to telling her to stop. You have to give me credit for attempting even this much.

  “What other things about the world don’t you know?” She began kissing my neck.

  “Er—many things.”

  “Do you know how things are—between a man and a woman?”

  “Such knowledge is forbidden to a monk.”

  She smiled. “But not to an Empress.”

  As if what had already happened wouldn’t have been enough to convince me that my resistance to the Empress Maria’s charms was completely pointless, the deep kiss that she planted on my lips in the next moment ended all pretense of resistance in my mind. My monastic vows seemed so abstract and arbitrary at this moment.

  Nevertheless, thoughts of God and the next world were not totally alien to me in that next sinful but glorious hour. The sight of the Empress’s heaving breasts, her taut nipples pointed skyward as she helped me find in the enveloping comfort of her spirit the kind of rapture I had never before experienced in the company of God, reminded me that God made all beautiful things, and He had made this woman too. If to recognize beauty was holy, was to surrender to it such a mortal sin? God causes all things to happen for a reason. Perhaps it was He who brought the Empress to my little cell at St. Stoudios, and if it was, His will must be respected. But these thoughts too quickly evaporated from my head in the joy of my release. The Empress’s love was all-encompassing.

  It was only a few hours before matins, still in the middle of the night, when the Empress Maria, robed as a monk, her false beard reattached, slipped quietly from my chambers and made her way through the dying torchlight toward the stairs leading down to the rear doors of the monastery. I had decided that if she was observed by anyone and I was asked about how unusual it was to entertain a visitor so late, I’d just say that the monk who visited me wrote very slowly and took a great deal of time to inscribe his important and very holy message to me, so important and top secret that he insisted the parchments it was written upon be burned upon his departure. But I didn’t think I’d have any problem, and I didn’t. Outside, the battle was still going on at the Fifth Military Gate, having been renewed with the approaching dawn. Improprieties among monks, even potentially shocking ones, were the last thing on anyone’s mind. As far as anyone knew this might, after all, be Byzantium’s last night on earth.

  As it turned out, the renewed Saracen offensive was not a harbinger of the end, nor an indication that the Emperor’s plans (and ours) were stymied. In fact the opposite was true. Two days later Artabasdos again visited the Praetorium, carrying another gilded tube. The kouropalates was quite anxious and animated, and before he gave Michael Camytzes the Emperor’s message Artabasdos demanded to tour the dungeons and see for himself the horrors that now dwelled there. If he was repelled by it, he gave no sign of it. When he returned to our office, he said, “I’m pleasantly surprised by what I’ve seen here today. I dare say we are almost ready. How quickly can you be prepared to begin the transformation of Maslama’s surrender envoys, once we deliver them to you?”

  Michael, Theophilus and myself exchanged puzzled glances. “I thought that development had been rendered unlikely by the new offensive,” said Michael.

  “Of course not!” Artabasdos replied. “The Emperor planned it. He’s been playing the Saracen commander for a fool.” With this, he thrust the gilded message tube into Camytzes’s hand.

  He opened it and unrolled the message anxiously. Camytzes read it aloud. The Emperor’s tone was cheerful, almost jocular. Leo seemed totally untroubled by the Saracens’ recent actions, which he was proud to take credit for.

  I told Maslama that I’m more than willing to lay down our arms at the earliest opportunity, but that if I did so the churchmen, particularly Patriarch Germanus, would balk, and possibly even try to overthrow me. I suggested that if Maslama mounts a new offensive against the walls, it could convince old Germanus that further resistance is futile, and I could win the churchmen over. As you can see, I’ve got the Saracen fool eating out of the palm of my hand! How wicked am I?

  “What does he say about the peace delegation?” said Theophilus breathlessly. Camytzes continued reading.

  Naturally I had to let a few days go by during which I’m supposedly negotiating with the Patriarch. I plan to notify Maslama today that I’ve received the authority to discuss formal surrender terms. (As if I need authority to do anything! But of course I’ve lulled the Saracens into thinking I’m merely a puppet of the church, rather than the other way round!) I will suggest that Maslama send a delegation of no fewer than five, but no more than ten, officers who are empowered to speak for him. You’ll know if he’s accepted if there’s a total cease-fire along the walls precisely at sunset today. Assuming Maslama’s plenipotentiaries enter the city tomorrow morning, I suggest you be ready to receive the unfortunate envoys tomorrow evening at sundown.

  “As soon as you know how many men Maslama is sending,” said Camytzes to Artabasdos, “it must be communicated to us. Timing is absolutely crucial. Tomorrow evening we need to be in contact with the palace and the Emperor on a minute-by-minute basis, and we must have all the logistics in place ready to string the corpses up over the walls. We can’t risk transforming the Saracens until the very last second. I respectfully suggest, sir, that we establish a network of runners between the palace and this prison to pass messages.”

  “It will be done,” the kouropalates replied.

  “Tell the Emperor that we’ll be ready.”

  After Artabasdos left, Camytzes stood at the window, looking out at the city and its domes and spires, and the distant puffs of smoke from the walls beyond. “I confess, Brothers,” he sighed, “that I have a very strong suspicion that God will condemn me for what we’re about to do.”

  “If there is any condemnation,” said Theophilus, “it will be the Emperor’s to bear, not ours.”

  “I guess there’s nothing to do but wait,” I said.

  Wait we did, and it was not in vain. The moment the evening sun passed behind the dome of St. Sofia, all fighting immediately ceased. With no idea of what was happening behind the scenes, collectively Constantinople sucked in its breath, as did we.

  The next morning dawned bright and sunny although
it was one of the first truly cold mornings of the year. A procession of eight Saracen officers in glittering chain mail, protected from the harsh sun by a brocaded canopy carried by four small turbaned boys, marched solemnly under white flags toward the Third Military Gate. It was said that Maslama had demanded the entrance of his peace delegation through the Golden Gate—the portal through which Byzantine Emperors traditionally marched in triumph when they returned from a victorious campaign—but Leo had forbidden it, stating that the Patriarch’s permission to discuss surrender was extremely soft and that he’d likely reverse himself if he thought that the Saracens intended to humiliate us. Alas, the doors of the Third Military Gate were opened and a cadre of Byzantine soldiers escorted the Saracen delegates through the streets that had been carefully cleared and blockaded, lest angry Constantinopolitans take it upon themselves to jeer the Mohammedans.

  I didn’t know what transpired at the Great Palace. I do know that the eight officers were invited into the triklinos, the great reception hall, where a sumptuous luncheon banquet had been prepared for them in the name of Christian hospitality. I don’t know whether the Emperor allowed the Saracens to have lunch before they were surrounded and captured, but knowing Leo, I suspect he didn’t; why waste a perfectly good meal on them? The envoys were bound hand and foot and set onto the backs of donkeys, facing backwards, to be paraded ignominiously down the Mesē toward the Praetorium.

  This time the Emperor ensured there was an ample crowd on hand. I was part of it, watching the spectacle as the donkeys, led by soldiers, brought their human cargo toward the dungeon. The street was lined on both sides by furious peasants, hurling abuse, insults and garbage at the invaders. Angry shouts of “Go back to where you came from!” and “God will punish you for your heresy!” hung in the chilly air. I watched a woman fling the contents of a chamber pot onto the Saracen first in line, a burly dark-faced man with very sad eyes. His forehead streamed blood from where he’d been hit with a rock, and bits of the shells of rotten eggs clung to his chainmail. Chicken entrails hung from his greasy long hair. He evidenced no reaction as shit and urine splashed into his face and down his front. These Saracens may be heathens, I thought, but they are proud and stout warriors, every bit the equal of our own heroes. I quietly lamented for the dreadful creature this man would become in a matter of hours.

  No amount of caution was spared in the treatment of our prisoners. The Saracens were taken to the prison stables and dismounted one by one, where each of them was laid on a wheeled wooden cart and manacled hand and foot, all the while with no fewer than five swords leveled inches from their throats. The roads between the Praetorium and the Fifth Military Gate, where the bodies would be hung, had already been cleared. Troops were already standing by with the ropes and pulleys that would be employed for the grim purpose. Camytzes had ordered two ghouls to be separated from the shambling population of the dungeons and placed in a cell segregated from the others. One by one, each of the eight Saracens would be wheeled into the cell and the door shut. Once they were bitten, the door would be opened and an infantryman would quickly pierce the Saracen’s heart with a sword. Then the corpses were to be wrapped up and transported in haste to the wall at the Fifth Military Gate.

  I witnessed the first procedure. The victim was the big sad-eyed Saracen I’d noticed before, and he offered no resistance as he was laid on the cart and the manacles locked. Surprisingly, he spoke Greek. Noticing me as he raised his head from the cart, he said in a heavily accented voice, “I suspect I am about to die. Christian Brother, although we worship different gods, will you bless me?”

  “It’s sinful to give the sacrament to a heathen,” I said. “But I will bless you as best I can.” I made the sign of the cross over him and whispered the Lord’s prayer. The Saracen’s eyes closed; his lips moved and he murmured a little prayer in Arabic. Then Camytzes nodded to the guards, two on each side of the cart, and they began wheeling him toward the doorway that led to the cell of doom.

  We remained, Theophilus, Camytzes and I, watching the doorway for some time. The Saracen accepted his fate remarkably well, but even he grew panicked when he saw the ghouls. We couldn’t see what was happening beyond the doorway, but I heard him speak in a rush of excited Arabic. Then a blood-curdling scream rang through the dungeon.

  “Bring him out,” said Camytzes to the guards. They did. The Saracen was missing a hand. Without it, he had been able to draw his bloody stump through the manacle, and thus he had an arm free; but he was wailing in pain and obviously terrified, so he posed little threat. As a guard stabbed him through the heart, I winced and looked away. Theophilus’s eyes were closed and he crossed himself.

  “Bundle him up,” said Camytzes to the two other guards. “Bring in the next one.”

  “I don’t think I can handle it,” I said to him, shaking my head.

  He patted my shoulder. “There is little need for you to remain, Brothers. There’s nothing more for you to do. Take a break. Return to St. Stoudios for supper. When you return here afterwards, the work will be done.”

  I was grateful for the respite, and I’m sure Theophilus was too. But as we walked through the streets in the lengthening light of dusk, Theophilus voiced what was in my head. “Strangely I don’t seem to have much of an appetite.” Beyond this statement he was silent and I was glad of it. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to anyone about the dreadful acts with which we were involved.

  So, we returned to St. Stoudios, and Rhetorios was his usual kind and welcoming self. The prayer over supper was, predictably, for the deliverance of Constantinople, but the monks gathered around the table had more cause for optimism tonight. “We have enjoyed a complete day without enduring the slings and anger of our enemies,” said Rhetorios. “May God favor us by lengthening this fortunate lull into a permanent and lasting peace among nations.” We bowed our heads, said amen, and dined, though Theophilus and I ate very little.

  Darkness had fallen by the time we started back to the Praetorium. When we were still half a mile from the prison, Theophilus and I began to hear a great commotion from over the walls. The flickering of torchlight was more intense. I started to see fiery projectiles arcing over the parapets in the region of the Golden Gate. Within minutes there were three or four other flash points where active conflict was occurring, and the dreadful smell of burning oil reached our nostrils.

  “Well, I guess Camytzes delivered the Saracens back to their brethren,” I sighed. “And they’re plenty angry about it.”

  “They have a right to be,” said Theophilus. “The Emperor meant to be deliberately insulting.”

  As we walked up to the Praetorium, I began to notice that things were amiss. The soft orange glow of the windows, from candles and torches in the rooms within, was gone; all the portals were ominously dark. As Theophilus and I neared the heavy iron entry gate, we saw no guards or any other signs of activity. The gate itself had been left ajar. Only one of the two torches hung in brackets flanking the gates was still alight. Instantly fear began to seize my stomach.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said. “There are no guards, no horses—what’s happened?”

  Theophilus didn’t answer, but the cautious way he crept behind me—as if expecting to be attacked at any moment—was reply enough. We proceeded reticently through the gate. The light from a fireball arcing over the wall illuminated the yard in front of the stone prison. In the orange flash I saw the bodies of several guards, torn and broken. They were little more than twisted skeletons bearing teeth marks and a few pitiful shreds of flesh. Blood pooled in the cracks between the stones on the floor of the courtyard. A knot of ghouls, perhaps as many as ten, were gathered around one of the victims they had not yet finished off. I saw a leg, sheathed in chain mail, being pulled off and flung into the air by one of the ghouls. Another snatched it from midair and began to gnaw ravenously. As soon as they saw—or smelled—Theophilus and me, the group of ghouls began to claw and shamble toward us.

  “I think w
e’ve got a big problem!” I cried.

  Chapter Nine

  The Beleaguered Church

  “Swords!” Theophilus shouted. The guards who had been overwhelmed by the ghouls had left several weapons littering the floor of the Praetorium courtyard. Within seconds the old monk and I had a sword in each hand, facing down the mass of writhing, blood-streaked demons that ambled toward us.

  There was no question that the ghouls we dispatched in the next blood-soaked minutes were from the Praetorium dungeons. I recognized the first ghoul I beheaded—in life he was a notorious thief and cut-purse who’d been transformed about three days ago. By this point Theophilus and I were old hands at destroying ghouls. We slashed, spun, sliced heads and limbs, and soon were as soaked with gore and entrails as the ghouls themselves. Inside of five minutes the Praetorium courtyard was a charnel house of slaughter, and I dreaded once more the return of the pestilence that had bedeviled us since Theophilus and I first walked into Domelium several months before.

  “We must find out what happened,” said Theophilus, planting a foot on the chest of a slain ghoul in order to withdraw his sword from its head.

  “It isn’t obvious?” I replied. “The ghouls got loose somehow and overwhelmed the guards.” I saw movement in the darkness behind Theophilus. “Behind you!” I cried.