City of God

by S. J. A. Turney

  Arnau was not surprised to realise that he shared that anger.

  So did Ramon, though he was always more circumspect in what he showed publicly.

  ‘The only question,’ Arnau muttered over the rumble of carts and clop of horses leaving the city, ‘is whether Byzantium will rebel in his absence or wait for his return. The prince might come back to find the gates shut against him.’

  Ramon nodded. They continued to refer to the new co-emperor as ‘the prince’, an insult they had picked up from the Laskaris, who had refused privately to acknowledge his lordship over them, as had many good men who now waited quietly in the shadows for the next move.

  ‘It cannot last more than a few months, maybe even weeks,’ Ramon agreed. ‘I can feel the city crouching, bunching its muscles, ready to rise once more. And this time, when it does, there will be no negotiation or quiet tolerance. It will be cataclysmic. The end of days for one force or the other.’

  ‘Bochard is insane. You know that?’

  The older brother turned to him, lacking his usual recrimination over such a remark.

  ‘No, Arnau. Not insane. Dangerous, for certain, but not insane. He believes he is doing the right thing, and he is utterly focused on it. I cannot say precisely what, but he is clearly gathering relics, and that is hardly new for the Order. Moreover, he seems to be doing it on the grand master’s orders. And whether we trust him or not, in fairness he has survived half a year of this city so far with nothing to show but success. The trouble we have met we have invited.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s doing this for the Order, do you?’ Arnau scoffed, turning away from the parapet and gesturing back north. ‘Nor is he doing this for the grand master. He’s doing this for himself. I worked it out a while back. He failed utterly on Cyprus. He was given a whole island to make part of the Order’s territory, and he left a boiling, rebellious land of warring citizens, tearing down our red cross. He failed. And he’s been living on the margins of the order ever since – a preceptor without a house to rule. A failure. And he’s been given a task. It was probably even given to him as an afterthought to keep him busy and out of the way, but he sees it as a way to redeem himself. He thinks that if he brings great treasures back to the Order, it will erase his failures and make him a valued brother once more. You might not say he’s insane, but I think I can happily apply that term.’

  Ramon said nothing, which to Arnau felt like tacit agreement.

  ‘Back to the palace?’ he asked. The older brother nodded. Behind them four hulking Waring guardsmen in colourful leather and gleaming plates turned and shadowed them. Through poor rulers, insidious invasions, local grievances and siege warfare, the Warings were the only thing in the city upon which Arnau felt he could truly rely. No matter who ruled, they seemed utterly loyal and fearless. He respected their stance.

  ‘We need to leave, Ramon,’ he said quietly. ‘More than ever we need to leave.’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Brother, when this pot boils over, what happened last month will look like a play-fight at a local fair. The next time conflict comes it will only end with Hell rising to the living world.’

  ‘Do not say such things,’ snapped Ramon.

  ‘But that is what it will be like. We both know that. What Bochard went through on Cyprus will be nothing compared to this. If we stay in the city and the Franks win, we will just be five more bodies to ruin in the conquered city. Do you think they’ll care that we wear the red cross? And if the Byzantines somehow win, against all odds, then we’ll be in no less danger. Their leaders owe us nothing and will see us as the same as those men out there. We are sons of the Church of Rome. At best we can expect a knife in the dark. Ramon, we need to leave this city before the next rising.’

  Again, that silence with its tacit agreement.

  They strolled along the walls, heading the three miles back to the Blachernae. After a while, Sebastian broke the bitter silence.

  ‘I will not be coming with you.’

  ‘Brother,’ Arnau began, but he had been half expecting this, in truth, and the young squire shook his head.

  ‘I cannot leave. This is my city, my empire and my people. As long as the Franks remain a threat, I will hold my sword and defy them. If you stay, I shall stay as I vowed, by your sides, but if you leave, consider my involvement with the Temple done. I shall offer my sword to the Lords Laskaris. I will not leave Constantinopolis undefended.’

  Ramon eyed him sidelong. ‘You must do what you believe to be right, of course.’

  They strode on in silence, the hot summer sun gradually making their chain shirts less and less comfortable, such that Arnau began to long for a simple white habit once more. They had packed away those habits now, though, certain that armour would be the order of the day for some time. They walked along the walls, watching Frankish horsemen practising on the grass beyond the city’s wide moat, passing the last areas of farmed land inside the walls, past the monastery of the Holy Martyrs and the great Gate of Saint Romanus through which the previous emperor had led his failed attack. Finally, they crossed the shallow valley of the Lykos and climbed the Sixth Hill to the Blachernae.

  As they approached, Sebastian silent and determined behind them, Arnau fixed Ramon with a look. His eyes bored into the older knight until they reached and entered the palace gate. Finally, clearly irritated by the glare, Ramon’s head snapped round.

  ‘All right. We will make one more appeal to the preceptor.’

  Satisfied, Arnau turned his gaze back to the squire.

  ‘Head to our apartments and wait there. We shall not be long.’

  A short time later they were standing before Bochard’s door. They had approached along the corridor, shushing and clanking with their armour and belted swords, and yet had clearly not been heard by the chamber’s occupants, who were engaged in an argument. It seemed rare these days to find the preceptor in his room at all, let alone arguing with someone. They paused for some time, listening.

  It was impossible to make out the details through the thick door, and Arnau surmised that the voices were probably in a far room of the apartment, but there were clearly demands being made and refused. When the argument finally ended, Ramon lifted his hand to rap on the door, but it swung open before he could do so and a man in a priest’s robe left, his face thunderous. Arnau noted that though the man wore the red garment he had seen on so many Byzantine priests, a Western crucifix hung around his neck like a millstone. The young Templar frowned. He vaguely recognised the man, but couldn’t recall where from.

  As Ramon stood there with his knuckles ready to rap on the open door and the priest passed, throwing him a black look, Bochard appeared in the chamber beyond, his face puce once again, eyelid dancing.

  ‘What do you want?’ he snapped.

  Ramon looked over his shoulder at Arnau. ‘Bad time.’

  ‘Do it anyway.’

  They strode into the room, where the preceptor poured himself a cup of cold water and stood drinking it. Arnau couldn’t help noticing how the cup shook in the man’s hand and hoped it was down to the anger clearly coursing through him.

  ‘Well?’ Bochard demanded curtly.

  ‘The war here is over, Preceptor. The Church of Rome is triumphant. The Franks will finish up here and sail on for Egypt as originally intended and the Venetians will leave, mollified by enough gold to sink their fleet. Whatever happens now is beyond our control. And with the Pope leading their Church and a man in the pocket of the Franks on their throne, the vows we sought to protect Christendom are rendered pointless. We have no ostensible reason to be here now. We should return to Acre and prepare to join the true expedition against the Saracen.’

  ‘No.’

  Ramon’s fists bunched. ‘All right. I was playing the fool’s game there, Preceptor. Look around you. We are in the eye of a great storm. We’ve weathered the first blast, but the second will be worse. This isn’t over and the city is going to rise against the Franks. When it does, this t
ime we may not be so lucky. And the Order has no official involvement here. We cannot be here. We must leave before the real trouble begins.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you owe us an explanation.’

  ‘I owe you no such thing. ’Tis you who owes me obedience, as per the Rule of our order.’

  ‘There have to be limits to such obedience. Would you obey the grand master if he told you to murder the Pope? Of course not. The Rule is there to instil order, not to force men of God into blind servitude. Believe me that I have no wish to disobey you, but we cannot risk remaining here and falling in with the chaos that is coming simply to facilitate your theft of icons.’

  Bochard’s face went from puce to white, as though all the blood had drained down through his neck. His eyes bulged.

  ‘How dare you, de Juelle! I am a brother of the Temple and a man of God. What I am about is far from theft. Very well. You seek clarity, you may have it. This place is a warren of heresy. I have secured some of the most holy relics of Christendom for the true Church, and I will continue to do so until I have saved all that can be saved. There remain some of the greatest treasures of the faith in this city, jealously guarded by men who refuse to acknowledge Rome’s supremacy. If I cannot retrieve such items, they will as like as not be destroyed along with their keepers in the angry flame of crusading zeal. They must be preserved. And I am not stealing them. Despite the fact that as their betters they should willingly give items to us, I have secured many relics with the consent of their former keepers, and others I have purchased with good coin. The city needs gold to pay their Venetian debt, and they are willing to part with the most wondrous things for that coin.’

  He wagged a finger at them. ‘It is every bit as important to retrieve our sacred items from the heathen Greek as it is from the Saracen. I am doing God’s work, and what is more, I am doing it on the orders of our grand master. I shall not fail again!’

  Arnau’s brow creased. That tic had crept back into Bochard’s eye stronger than ever, and that accidental slip at the end had confirmed everything Arnau had suspected. The preceptor sought redemption for what had happened in Cyprus. Some men believed you could buy your way into heaven, despite the scriptures, and Bochard’s coffers were not yet full enough for him to be sure.

  ‘The city boils over,’ Ramon reminded him.

  ‘And if there is war again? If there is a siege that succeeds and the city is sacked? What do you think will happen then, de Juelle? Fire, theft, rapine and massacres. What then of these important relics? They will burn with their churches, or be taken to private estates in the West in Frankish purses. What I am doing will save these items from destruction. I care not whether we are caught up in war. What we are about is more important than that.’

  Arnau stepped forward now. ‘I know a man,’ he said quietly. Somehow he knew that confrontation would achieve little now. Gentle encouragement might succeed where anger had failed. Bochard was on the verge of mad anger, and he could see it. ‘I was with this man on a Moorish island,’ he added, ‘hunting just such a relic. He learned the hardest way that sometimes faith in the unseen is more important than a mouldering bone, no matter to whom it belonged. Avid acquisition brings with it its own madness, Preceptor. Do not fall into the trap of avarice.’

  Bochard’s eyes darkened. ‘Do not presume to tell me my business, boy. I will save all that can be saved. You have no idea the work I have accomplished. Already treasures beyond your ken are bound for Rome and Venice and Acre aboard ships secured by our brothers outside the walls. They know the value of the work I do.’

  Arnau blinked. They’d not seen much of Bochard recently, but it had not occurred to him that the preceptor had been dealing with the Franks and Venetians. Now that he knew, though, it came as no surprise. How else would Bochard have expected to shift such a weight of sacred reliquaries from the city? They had to go by ship and, until the young prince had been crowned weeks ago, the Venetians had been sinking Byzantine ships attempting to leave the city. Now they were ferrying Bochard’s ill-gotten gains away. Almost certainly that was why Bochard had been atop the walls that day, watching the siege. Had he seen his ship-owning contacts among the enemy?

  His gaze raked the room, and it did indeed look less like a storeroom than the last time he had seen it. Something caught his eyes, though, in the tense silence that had now settled in the room. On the desk opposite sat a silver reliquary, edged in decorative gold, but Arnau could have sworn he glimpsed a spatter of dried blood on the silver before the preceptor caught his gaze and stepped very deliberately in the way, blocking the view of the casket.

  ‘I have business in the palace. I no longer have time to debate your desire to disobey me. Return to your rooms and simply thank God that the heathens have submitted and the Pope can instil the true faith in this place.’

  Arnau glanced at Ramon, who flicked his eyes back towards their rooms. With stiff, formal bows, they departed. In the corridor, they almost bumped into three insufferably smug looking men in long dark-green tunics. The young Templar was momentarily taken aback to realise that they were Westerners, visiting the palace. They bowed their heads respectfully and stepped aside, waiting as the Templars passed before continuing on to Bochard’s door.

  ‘Scusa,’ the lead one said in a thick Italian accent, his expression containing little more than distant disdain for all this politeness.

  Arnau nodded in return, not trusting himself to speak, and slipped past them, half-inclined to remain and eavesdrop on his master. In moments, back in their room, the squire looked up hopefully. Ramon nodded with a sigh. ‘Be assured, Sebastian, it appears we are to remain in the city.’

  ‘We are not to disobey him, then?’ Arnau said.

  ‘His points are all valid, no matter how much we might dislike them,’ Ramon responded. ‘Any number of masters of our order would support him and condemn us for leaving. No, we must remain for now.’

  ‘Did you see the reliquary he hid? It bore blood marks. Not all his icons and treasures were bought or accepted from willing hands, I’d wager.’

  ‘You think he would kill for a relic? Kill an innocent, I mean?’

  Arnau squared up. ‘You think he wouldn’t?’

  Ramon looked troubled then, and Arnau frowned. ‘He had business in the palace, he said.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not in the city, but in the palace. With whom? The important Franks are all away with the new emperor or in their camp.’ He shook his head in sudden realisation. ‘And not those three oily curs in the corridor. I think they were Venetians, but that priest in red? He’s a priest in the palace. You know that important church down near the water in the palace grounds?’

  ‘Saint Maria’s?’

  ‘That’s the one. The one where they keep that icon they parade round in times of war as a protection for the city. He’s the priest from that church. I’ve seen him around the palace. He didn’t look happy.’

  Ramon frowned. ‘You think the preceptor is trying to take the city’s protective icon?’

  ‘It seems likely, does it not? And will the city stand for its most sacred protection being taken away?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We need to stop him. He’s going too far.’

  Ramon nodded. ‘I doubt he can be persuaded, but we should try. Sebastian, you stay here. We’ll go alone.’

  ‘What about the Warings?’

  ‘We don’t need them. We won’t be leaving the palace grounds, and I’m not sure it would be a good idea if they learned what Bochard was planning anyway.’

  They nodded and left their apartment once more. A quick visit to Bochard’s room confirmed that the preceptor had already left. Hugues answered the door, opening it only a crack through which Arnau could see the dark green of those Venetian visitors, and told them. Leaving once more, they hurried down the stairs and out into the open. There was no sign of Bochard, of course, but that mattered not, since they were sure where he was bound. They moved through the gar
dens and vestibules, past baths and towers, along tree-lined arcades down the slope of the hill towards the Golden Horn. The church lay at the lower end of the huge complex, a fairly grand building, if not by the standards of the great basilicas of Holy Apostles and Holy Wisdom. Still, it was accounted one of the more ancient and important churches in the city, housing the most significant of relics. Indeed, as well as the church itself and an attached baptistery, there was a purpose-built relic house, the Haghia Soros.

  The two Templars closed on the end of the church complex, rounding the corner and taking deep breaths, preparing for a troublesome encounter. Arnau’s heart leaped into his throat as they rounded the brick edge and the door came into view. Two heavily armoured men in great helms and long mail hauberks with full sleeves stood beside the door, shields on arms and hands gripping sword hilts. Though neither of the two men were known to Arnau, both were clearly Franks, their shields and surcoats displaying their allegiance – one red and white checks with black lys flowers, the other the same colour but with a strange design of shields within shields.

  Ramon grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back around the corner.

  ‘What?’ Arnau whispered.

  ‘They didn’t see us. Great helms, no peripheral vision.’

  ‘We need to go in.’

  ‘I fear things are beyond that. It seems Bochard is now not only visited by Venetians, but guarded by Franks. I doubt we will be given a warm reception.’

  Arnau nodded, shivering. Something about those coats of arms was oddly familiar, though he couldn’t say why. Ramon gestured back the way they had come and Arnau nodded, following him. They passed back through the gardens and palace buildings. At one point, a servant hurried past them, carrying a lipped tray of pomegranates. He ducked round the two men, not slowing his pace, and several fruits fell. With deft speed, Ramon reached down and grabbed one as it dropped, lifting it and looking at the hard red shell.