Luke rounded a corner and saw before him the steps to the upper town. Soon he was catching his breath at the top, leaning against the balcony that overlooked the maze of streets below and the sea beyond. Here there were fewer people, fewer cats and much less noise. Here you weren’t brushed by pack-mules as you walked, or stopped by street hawkers trying to sell their wares. Here you could rest on a stone bench beneath the shade of a mulberry tree or sit for a moment on the cool edge of a fountain to collect your thoughts. And here you could gain an uninterrupted view of the vast canvas of sea on which were painted the motionless sails of vessels, large and small, which passed Monemvasia in the endless barter of continents, a barter in which his city played its important part.
Luke breathed in deeply. The plateau and surrounding mountains and valleys were covered in a spring blanket of narcissi, hyacinths and violets and the heady smell was all around him. What a difference from the lower town, where a waft of wind could pick up the stench of the tanneries, lime kilns and slaughterhouses that stood outside the walls. No wonder the Goulas was known as Manexie Kalessie, ‘castle of flowers’, and no wonder the rich chose to live here.
Luke crossed the square and started up the paved street towards the Panagia Hodegetria, the church that had provided a landmark for sailors for centuries. On either side of the street were the walls of great villas, the tops of cypress trees promising cool gardens within.
No one was up at this time except the old praetor, whose job it was to keep the streets of the upper town clean and lit at night. He was busy extinguishing the wicks of oil lamps along the walls. He knew Luke of old.
‘Wrong way for the palace,’ he said.
‘I’m to meet them at the citadel today,’ said Luke, stopping to catch his breath, ‘and they say the fleet is returned to Palea.’
‘It’s there all right. But the Archon won’t send it to help Mistra.’
The old man turned, wiping oil from his hands with a rag. ‘You might tell them there’s a beacon alight. As if they haven’t seen it.’ The man spat and turned back to his lamp.
That the Archon was unpopular in the city, Luke knew. What he hadn’t realised was just how much the citizens supported their new Despot, Theodore, sent to rule over them by his brother, the Emperor Manuel in Constantinople. Now the beacons had been lit and the people wanted to march to help defend their capital.
As I tried to do this morning.
By now Luke had arrived at the church and he climbed the rocks behind it, carefully avoiding a gossamer-thin spider’s web that stretched between two mulberry bushes. He bent to look at the beads of sparkling dew that hung from every taut thread and marvelled that anything so tenuous could resist the elements.
Perhaps the Empire can survive after all.
Looking away, he saw the blue expanse of the Mirtoon Sea before him, the coast to his left rising sharply as it swept round the edge of Monemvasia Bay. A mist still clung to the water and Luke strained his eyes to see the masts of the twelve galleys that were all that remained of the once-glorious Imperial Navy.
He shifted his gaze to the north, where the deep-water port of Kiparissi lay. Once it had contained shipyards that used the oak and pine from Mount Parnon, and the iron from the furnaces at Voutamas, to create ships of strength and beauty. The men of Monemvasia had provided much of the manpower for the navy but since the Emperor Andronikos had disbanded the fleet a hundred years ago, there were barely sufficient ships to protect the merchantmen that plied the shipping lanes to Constantinople, let alone fight the Turks.
Now most of the ships that Luke saw crossing the bay flew the winged lion of Venice, huge galleys with three banks of oars on either side whose sweeps dipped to the beat of a drum.
Wiping the sweat from his neck, Luke ran along the path that edged the north face of the rock. To his left the plateau fell away to fields containing neat rows of wheat and vegetables and the public cisterns. Luke hoped they were full.
Soon he was climbing the final slope to the rock on which the citadel stood. His path led round to the north edge of the plateau from where he could see the bridge that linked the island of Monemvasia to the mainland. The drawbridge at its centre was being lifted to allow a boat through to the jetties and quays beyond. Ships laden with wine, oil, silk, cochineal and the fruit of the Laconian soil would be waiting to leave.
‘Luke!’
He looked up to see a familiar face leaning over the battlement.
‘Late as usual, damn you!’ shouted Damian Mamonas. The Archon’s heir was a year older than Luke and stood to inherit the vast Mamonas empire. The knowledge made him arrogant. ‘My father is on the verge of not letting us ride to Sikia with the Turks on the march. Wait there. I’ll get Zoe.’
Zoe Mamonas: Damian’s twin in everything but temperament. While Damian was lazy, arrogant and shallow, Zoe had depths beyond the reach of man, or at least any man who’d tried to bind her in marriage these recent years. Zoe had rejected any suitor that might have eased the pain of knowing that she would inherit nothing.
They didn’t meet any Turks on the ride to Sikia and, if they had, the Turks would have been hard pressed to catch them. Like Luke, Damian and Zoe rode well, and all three were mounted on the best horses that the Mamonas stable had to offer.
They had met the horses at the town gate and had trotted through the outer town where lay the Jewish quarter and homes of the poorest inhabitants. Here were the glass factories, metal workshops and pottery kilns and Zoe held a handkerchief to her nose until they’d reached the custom houses and warehouses which clustered around the bridge. Crossing it, they’d come to the open field reserved for feast-day fairs, where you could watch bear baiting or buy a plate of suckling lamb, fresh from the spit. There you could find exotic goods from the outside world, the latest books and weapons from Florence or marten fur from the lands of the Golden Horde. And it was there that Luke felt, most strongly, the pull of somewhere else.
Once clear of the field, all three spurred their horses into a canter as the road began its gentle rise into the mountains of the hinterland. The going was easy since rain had not fallen for weeks and a fine red dust rose beneath them.
Luke rode behind Zoe, watching her lash the flanks of her horse, her jet-black hair flung out behind like a pennant. Neither she nor Damian had spoken more than a sentence to him since they’d mounted.
By now the riders had reached a deep gorge that split the mountain in two and they could hear the rush of a river far beneath them to their left. The path narrowed and vanished around a series of blind bends ahead. Something told Luke that there was traffic around the next corner. He was sure of it.
‘Slow down!’
The twins were riding fast and, if they’d even heard, paid no heed. It was a miracle that they didn’t hit the wagon. Both riders swerved to the left, their horses’ hooves close to the edge of the gorge, then yelled at the wagoner as he cowered against the mountainside.
It took five miles for Luke to catch up with them and only then because Damian and his sister had stopped to look over a long valley stretching out before them.
Vineyards of startling green against rich vermilion earth marched in perfect rows as far as the eye could see. Occasional watermills, wine presses beside them, followed the course of a thin string of river that wound its way through the valley. Flocks of starlings circled above, lifted by gusts of wind. In the distance, the village of Sikia sat on the only hill in the landscape. And beyond the village lay the Mamonas stud.
‘Malvasia,’ murmured Damian. ‘Our wealth laid out like a banquet before us.’
‘Which will disappear if the Turks overrun the despotate,’ said Luke. ‘Why won’t your father fight?’
Damian looked at him. ‘And what makes you think the Turks will bother Monemvasia?’
‘Because, Damian,’ replied Luke, ‘they’ve bothered every other part of the Byzantine Empire these past years. Hadn’t you noticed there isn’t very much of it left? Just our little Despot
ate of Mistra and Constantinople itself?’
Zoe smiled. ‘I hear you tried to get to Mistra yourself this morning.’
There was no doubt that Zoe was beautiful. Her long hair framed an olive-skinned face with heavy-lidded eyes and a full, sensuous mouth. She had the dark grace of the panther.
She continued: ‘When we were young you told us that you became a Varangian on your sixteenth birthday. Which is today. Were you going to Mistra to defend it or to find your treasure?’
‘It’s myth, Zoe.’
Luke kicked his horse down the winding path that led to the valley’s bottom and on to a wider road that ran past its vineyards.
It was a question he’d asked himself. Why had he wanted to go to Mistra that morning? He supposed it was what his father had spoken of: some ancient bond between Varangian and empire that he’d always seemed to feel so much more keenly than his friends. He looked around him at a different empire.
Malvasia wine: famed throughout the world for its taste and exorbitant price, the secret of how it was made known to only a few and was jealously guarded. It was the most valuable export of the city of Monemvasia, and the Mamonas family owned most of the vineyards that produced it. It was to be found on the tables of kings and cardinals throughout Europe. The English called it ‘Malmsey’, the French ‘vinum Malvasie’. Even the Ottoman Sultan, forbidden by his religion to enjoy the fruit of the grape, was said to have a craving for it. And every Venetian merchantman that left the ports of Monemvasia, its holds creaking with the weight of oak barrels, added to the enormous wealth of the Mamonas family.
Within an hour they had reached the outskirts of Sikia and Damian led them on to a path that wound its way up through explosions of yellow broom to the walled enclosure of the Mamonas stud.
As they approached, the gates swung open to reveal a series of paddocks surrounded by outbuildings. Inside, they dismounted, handed their reins to waiting grooms and walked towards a stout man who was hurrying over to greet them, beckoning to servants in his wake bearing trays of cool drinks.
The man bowed deeply. ‘Welcome, welcome, my lord Damian and my lady Zoe. You do us honour with your visit. Would that your great father could find time to come here more often.’
Damian exchanged a glance with his sister. They took the drinks.
‘Arsenius, thank you. My father, alas, has the welfare of our city to look to,’ said Damian imperiously. ‘So you have us instead. I hear you have a new stallion. Is it fine?’
Arsenius bowed again. ‘It is indeed fine, lord. Fine but fiery. We have not been able to place a saddle on its back nor a bit in its mouth. It is very strong and not biddable.’ He paused and glanced at Luke. ‘We have waited for Luke to speak to it, to see if his way will calm it.’
Irritation darkened Damian’s face. ‘It sounds as if it might make a good destrier to sell to some Norman knight,’ he said. ‘Luke knows little of such animals. Let me see him.’
Arsenius looked at Luke, who gave the slightest of shrugs.
The party walked between the paddocks until they reached one in which a single horse stood cropping the grass. At their approach, it raised its head and stared at them, every fibre in its powerful body taut, expectant. It began to back away, its eyes darting from side to side, searching for escape.
Arsenius shook his head. ‘I will go and get help. Just in case.’
The three of them were alone with the horse.
Luke moved next to Damian. ‘Let me go first, Damian,’ he whispered. ‘This one looks truly wild. Let me talk to it.’
Damian was transfixed by the animal. He didn’t reply.
‘Let me talk to it,’ Luke tried again. ‘Then you can come. But let me go first.’
Damian looked at Luke but he didn’t see him.
Zoe was standing next to her brother. She frowned.
‘You forget yourself, Luke,’ she said quietly. ‘If my brother wishes to approach the horse, he will do so.’
Luke shook his head and, with infinite care, climbed into the paddock. But Damian had heard his sister and, a moment later, vaulted the fence to land heavily beside him.
Luke spun round.
One of us will now die.
The horse screamed as it reared, pawing the air with its hooves. Luke backed away, not taking his eyes off it. One step. Two steps. Slowly.
Damian stood where he was, his body rigid with horror.
The stallion swung its neck violently to the left, to the right. Its eyes shone with madness and foam ringed its nostrils. Then it lowered its great head. Its hooves raked the ground, dust rising around it.
It’s going to charge. Sweet Jesus, it’s going to charge.
Luke turned to Damian. His voice was low, urgent. ‘Damian, get out of the ring. Get out of the ring now!’
Still Damian stood his ground, hypnotised.
But it was too late. The stallion, centuries of destrier blood pumping through its veins, did what its instinct dictated. It charged.
For Luke, what happened next stretched out to eternity. In slow motion he dived towards Damian, landing heavily behind him. He rolled on to his side, trying to drag the boy with him but it was too late. The stallion’s hooves were on top of Damian, trampling him into the ground.
Damian screamed as the hooves hit his legs, his arms, his body.
He must die. He must surely die.
Four grooms had come running to the ring and launched themselves at the horse. One of them threw a rope around its neck while the others managed to hobble its forelegs. Eventually the stallion was wrestled to the ground.
Silence.
Luke peered through the settling dust. Damian lay face up in the paddock, the red earth around him pooling into a deeper red. He lay absolutely still.
Oh my God.
CHAPTER TWO
THE CITY OF MISTRA, SPRING 1392
The darkness in the hole was complete and heavy, clinging to the little girl like a thing from hell. She felt it all around her, closing in with its searching tentacles, clawing its way into her soul with its foul presence. It stroked her hair and sent shivers up her spine with its reeking breath. It moaned with ghastly insistence, rising to a shrill scream when it felt itself denied.
Never before had she felt such fear.
She was curled into a little ball, her head sheltered beneath her hands in supplication to a God she knew had abandoned her for her disobedience.
I swear by my brother’s life I will never again disobey my mother. Let me see the morning and I will be good. I swear it.
The next morning seemed an impossibility. It felt like hours since that awful crash outside had told her that the storm had brought a branch down at the entrance to her hiding place. At first she’d tried to push it away, using all the weight of her seven-year-old body. But as it had refused to budge, she’d felt the first surges of panic rise up in her, quickening her heartbeat to a tempo that seemed to convulse her whole being.
Help. Help me. Help me. Help me.
But the panic had taken her voice. And the noise of the storm outside, as it ebbed and surged through the roots of the giant tree, drowned any tiny sound she could muster.
Please Father Jesus make Alexis come. I will never be bad again. I swear on his life.
To swear on her brother’s life was to promise a lot. There was no one more worshipped in Anna’s world than her only brother, three years her senior and idolatrously close to her God. But her brother didn’t know of this hiding place. One of the few secrets she kept from him was this little cave she’d found amidst the roots of the oak that grew in the corner of the Peribleptos Monastery walls. And she hadn’t told him for the very good reason that it provided the perfect hiding place in their games. Not even the monks who taught them knew about it.
Now she wished, with all her heart, that he knew of this place.
What was that noise?
She had heard a scratching noise. She was sure of it. It came from the entrance. It was closer than the storm.
It came again.
They are coming for me.
She turned away from the sound and began to tear at the earth, clawing great handfuls from the blackness in front of her to escape whatever was coming. Dirt flew into her hair, her eyes, her mouth, engulfing her as she scrambled to get away.
Father Jesus, Alexis, Mother Mary … help me, help me, help me.
Then she felt air.
Miraculously, her fingers were free and she felt air on her palms.
Freedom!
She threw every last ounce of effort into widening the hole she’d created. She brought her other arm up and pulled aside the earth and grass to make the smallest of windows. She hoisted herself up and looked into the night, lifting her nose to breathe in the scent of pine.
Then she screamed.
Two eyes, yellow and beyond evil, were staring into hers.
Anna shivered. The night was warm but the memory of that night was still vivid. She’d managed to block it for so many years and it was only in these days of terrible suspense, as the Ottoman army bore down on her city, that it had risen unbidden from the depths of her unconscious.
Had she kept her promise to God? No, she could not claim that. Had she obeyed her mother without question from that moment onward? Assuredly not.
But then had her crime been so terrible? All she had wanted was to see the Despot and his new Despoena, Bartolomea.
But her mother had forbidden her. She’d taken her hand and led her past the honey cakes, plums and spiced chestnuts, past the partridge and quail in saffron with fried mushrooms, past hares baked in wine and grey mullet from Rhegis, past everything that Bartolomea would eat without her.
Once in bed, she’d determined that she would see the new Despoena, whatever it took, and she’d climbed out of her window and on to the branches of an apple tree.
But just as Bartolomea’s delicate toe emerged from her litter, the branch had snapped and Anna had fallen on to a clothes line from which hung some of her mother’s finest dresses.
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