The Walls of Byzantium tmc-1

by James Heneage

  The captain put one slashed arm around each of their shoulders and began to walk them in circles around the deck. He spoke with deliberate slowness.

  ‘He wants to know,’ Plethon said, translating, ‘how you came to be out in such seas. Oh, and his name is Rufio.’

  Luke thought quickly. He needed to be careful. He decided that simplicity might be best.

  ‘Please tell Signor Rufio that I was fishing too far out from my home in Monemvasia and didn’t see the force of the wind until it was too late.’

  Plethon looked at him quizzically across the chest of the other man and then shrugged. He spoke for some time in halting Italian before being interrupted by Rufio, who stopped walking and looked in amazement first at the Greek and then at Luke.

  ‘He wonders,’ explained Plethon, ‘how anyone could be such a cunt.’

  ‘Did he say that?’ queried Luke. ‘I don’t think he said that.’

  ‘Well,’ said Plethon, ‘what the man says and what he means are very rarely the same. He is, after all, Venetian. In a moment he will tell you that he is bound for Constantinople and will be delighted to take you there. What he means is that he doesn’t believe a word you’ve told him and will therefore sell you to the first slave trader he meets.’

  Luke looked at the captain, whose smile was still one of untarnished goodwill.

  Plethon walked to the side of the ship and looked in apparent fascination at the huge rock above them. He had started to hum again.

  The captain had reopened the conversation, this time with Plethon at the rail. He was gesturing at Luke. The Greek was nodding impatiently as he listened and making small grunting noises in between his humming.

  ‘Yes. As predicted, that was the offer to take you to Constantinople. I have said yes on your behalf since your alternatives appear limited.’

  Luke considered this and then bowed in thanks to the Italian. He had no idea which of these men to trust but he needed time to think. Then Plethon spoke again to the captain.

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked Luke.

  ‘I am telling him that, despite appearances, I believe you to be a young man of some means and that you should be treated accordingly. He might believe this since you were found on your log clutching a fine sword. He has agreed to give you the spare cabin. I should accept it.’

  ‘Please thank him for his generosity,’ Luke said, ‘and ask him whether my sword might be returned to me.’

  Following the translation, there was a pause. Then the captain, still smiling, shrugged and went over to a chest on the deck, took out Luke’s sword and handed it to him. Bowing again, he walked over to the door of the cabin beneath the sterncastle and opened it, gesturing Luke to enter.

  The cabin was small but reasonably light, with two portholes above a narrow, suspended cot and a tiny writing table next to it. The desk had two stout candles on it with congealed wax ribbed against their sides. The cabin had been used recently.

  Luke sat down to think and realised that both his headache and the severe throb in his shoulder had largely disappeared. There was a knock on the door and a crewman entered with a plate of cold chicken, bread and a paste of olives. With it came a flask of water and another of wine. Luke had never in his life tasted anything so good and he ate and drank too fast. He lay down on the cot.

  Think. I must think.

  He had no idea where Santorini was or whether it belonged to the Empire, Venice or Genoa. In any event, he was too weak to swim the distance to the rock and it had looked difficult to climb. He knew that Constantinople was five days’ sail from Monemvasia and, if they’d been blown off course, might be a week from Santorini. A childhood of running around the port of Gefira told him that this was a square-masted querina whose crew would have to work hard to make it sail more than sluggishly. These were the workhorses of the Venetian merchant fleet and were turned out in their hundreds by the Venice Arsenale. Normally they would sail in great caravans of merchantmen, but this one was on its own and carrying interesting cargo.

  But what of the extraordinary Greek? He was clearly a man of considerable learning and he’d said that he was a citizen of Adrianopolis. But hadn’t Adrianopolis been lost to the Turks some thirty years past? Wasn’t it now renamed Edirne as their capital? Why was a Greek scholar living in comfort with the Turks? Why did he so hate the Venetians? And, most importantly, why did he appear to want to help Luke?

  As he turned these thoughts over in his mind, Luke felt a sudden weariness envelop his body and he closed his eyes. In moments he’d fallen asleep.

  It was nearly dawn when Luke awoke and the first thing he realised was that the boat was moving. He could hear the ripple of a calm sea passing along the side of the ship and the crack of the canvas sail above. Looking through a porthole, he could see the dim outline of the horizon, a black mass rising and falling against something less black, and the wink of stars as they moved in and out of his vision.

  He put his hand to his shoulder and lifted the corner of the bandage, probing the surface of the wound with his fingers. It was almost closed, the skin at its edges puffy and raw, and Luke realised that the bolt had done far less damage than he’d thought. He tensed the muscles around it and swung his arm to test the extent of movement. He might even be able to swim a short distance.

  Then Luke heard a familiar humming above him coming from the sterncastle deck. The Greek must be awake. Luke rolled off the cot and felt his way towards the door, opening it carefully, not wanting to wake the captain. He crept his way to the steps leading to the upper deck and climbed them on tiptoe. The humming was coming from the ship’s side.

  Plethon was leaning on the rail looking up at the sky where the first glimmer of light was beginning to give dimension to the world. Luke went over to lean next to him. The older man went on humming with total absorption. Then he cleared his throat.

  ‘Kervan Kiran.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Kervan Kiran. It’s what the Turks call Venus, the morning star,’ said Plethon, pointing to a twinkle low in the eastern sky. He began to hum again.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It means,’ said Plethon, for some reason now whispering, ‘“caravan breaking”.’

  Luke pondered the significance of this. Perhaps there wasn’t any.

  ‘You see, their caravans move across the desert at night.’

  Luke nodded, unclear as to whose caravans he meant.

  ‘For Muslims,’ continued his neighbour, ‘the dread hour is not at night but at noon when the devil takes the world in his horns and prepares to make off with it. And the only thing that stops him is the cry of Allahu Akbar from the minarets at midday. Quite extraordinary.’

  Luke looked up at the star and thought of camels being tethered in the last dune-shadows of the night, of tents being erected in the sand against the fierce sun to come, of a people that moved with the calm movement of the moon. And he thought of this boat also moving with the night — and going where?

  He needed some answers.

  ‘May I ask, sir,’ began Luke, ‘where you yourself are travelling to?’

  ‘Me?’ answered Plethon. ‘Well, assuming I escape slavery at the hands of these vermin, I shall be returning to my home in Adrianopolis. I have come from Methoni and from the tedium of a discussion with the Roman Bishop there about the possibility of union between our two Churches.’ He paused. ‘Methoni,’ he explained helpfully, ‘is a Venetian stronghold on the west coast of our glorious Peloponnese.’

  Luke knew this but kept quiet. He wanted to know more about this strange man. ‘Why do you dislike the Venetians so much?’

  Plethon looked at him in astonishment. ‘Why? Why?’ he cried. ‘Do you know nothing of our history? Do you not know that it was their own Doge Dandolo, a man blinded by age and evil, who was first over the walls when the Franks took Constantinople two hundred years ago? Had you not heard that the dogs put a whore on to the Patriarch’s throne in the great church of Sophi
a and danced around her nakedness? Or perhaps it had escaped you that the wealth and learning of our empire, so carefully amassed since the time of Constantine, now resides in Venice?’

  Plethon’s hum now resumed at a higher pitch while his fingers drummed the rail like rain. His discovery that Venetian perfidy was unknown to his fellow passenger caused him to fix a gaze of horror past Luke as if a pack of duplicitous Doges might be climbing over the sides of the ship. But he wasn’t quite finished.

  ‘Dislike is too soft a word,’ he whispered. ‘I loathe and despise every Venetian on the face of this Earth and wish them all consigned to whichever of Dante’s circles of hell is most uncomfortable.’

  ‘And the Turks?’ asked Luke cautiously. ‘Should we not be saving our hatred for them?’

  The older man seemed to consider this carefully. ‘I have lived among the Turks for thirty years now and find little to hate beyond their dogs. For some reason they love their dogs, while we Greeks prefer our cats. Every one of their cities is infested with flea-bitten mongrels. Even jackals scavenge in Adrianopolis by night and keep the citizens awake with their howling. But the Turks seem to like them, and at least they turn the city’s rubbish into shit for the tanners’ men.’

  Plethon paused and returned to his humming. ‘Yes, that’s interesting,’ he murmured after a while. ‘Why do we Greeks prefer the indifference of cats? I’ll have to think about that.’

  Luke said, ‘So if they’re not fighting us for our cats, what are they fighting us for?’

  Plethon straightened himself and stretched, his long beard lifting clear of his chest in a movement of some grace. ‘The Turks fight for Islam and that is a strange and contradictory religion. To understand the Turks you have to first understand Islam,’ he said at last. ‘Consider this. While we in the west taunt and kick the mad of our society, in Damascus they put them in institutions with fountains and music to ease their pain. Yet they have a regiment amongst their irregulars called the deli, which is full of the insane and fills moats with their dead.

  ‘In most things that matter, like mathematics, astronomy and medicine, they are far advanced of us and yet their religion, which drives all their actions, closed its doors to new interpretation five hundred years ago.’

  Luke thought of the man on the donkey with his potions on the road to Mistra. He thought of the mad of Monemvasia sitting amongst the cats in the streets. He looked at the morning star and saw it flickering like the last, guttering flame of a faraway candle and he looked at the new glow behind the sea’s horizon, the passage from the still of a Muslim night to the movement of a Christian day.

  ‘Islam is not so bad,’ Plethon continued. ‘At least they don’t have fornicating priests to sell them salvation. The Turks carry it on their backs as their camels carry their silks. Five times a day they unravel their mats, face to the east and pray to their God, wherever they are, and they don’t need illiterate priests to help them.’ He paused again. ‘Even their heaven is better. Wouldn’t you rather lie with virgins than endure the eternal choir practice we’re offered? And is our God so very dependable? Who created the earthquake forty years ago that allowed the Turk to cross over into Christendom?’

  Luke had never heard such fabulous heresy. This man’s knowledge seemed as limitless as the dark sea around them. ‘Will they take over the world?’ he asked.

  ‘Their genius,’ Plethon replied, ‘is in their tolerance. Certainly they’ve won some battles, but the truth is that the common people prefer to be ruled by them. No one forces them to convert to Islam and they have to work a day a month for their new landlords instead of the three days a week under our system. And they feel safer. Someone at last protects them. So, yes, perhaps they will take over the world.’

  ‘And you think we should welcome them?’

  ‘No, no, no!’ cried Plethon. ‘A thousand times no! The Turks are nomads. They like to live in tents. They know nothing of building, of art, of culture or learning or creating the foundations for progress. Believe me when I tell you that they will build a great empire, and we may be part of it, but it will decay. Why? Because Islam hates change. The world cannot be ruled by people who don’t want to change!’

  Luke felt in part reassured. However admirable, the Turks had to be resisted. ‘So what should we do?’ he asked. ‘How do we stop them?’

  Plethon sighed deeply and looked down at his hands as if some answer might be found in the dark pattern of veins on their back. He shook his head slowly, his thick eyebrows creased in concentration. ‘It was as the fool Bishop said,’ he answered. ‘We have to unify the two Christian Churches of East and West. We have to stop rubbing the pebbles of our theological differences smooth with endless debate. We have to stop arguing about papal primacy, purgatory and the procession of the Holy Spirit. We have to stop worrying about how to properly make the sign of the cross. We have to unify these Churches which have been at war for three centuries so that the Pope in Rome can call the powers of Christendom to one final crusade against the Turks. It’s our only chance.’

  Luke was silent, listening to the humming of his companion above the sounds of the ship as it ploughed its course through a sea whose shifting surface was catching the first glimmers of dawn. He’d heard the case for union and knew that the Emperor Manuel favoured it as a means of gaining help from the West.

  ‘And then there’s the Varangians, of course.’

  Luke looked up sharply. ‘Varangians?’

  ‘Yes, surely you’ve heard of them. The Emperor’s Guard? Four of them were said to have taken a treasure from Constantinople when it fell to the Franks and brought it to Mistra. The myth has it that the treasure can save the Empire. It must be a lot of gold.’ He looked at Luke. ‘Didn’t you say that you were from Monemvasia?’

  Luke nodded. ‘And am descended from one of those Varangians.’

  Plethon stared at him in astonishment. ‘So you know of this treasure?’

  ‘Only that it’s been lost,’ replied Luke, shaking his head. ‘No one knows what or where it is.’

  The older man stared at him for a long time. Then he shrugged and returned to the view. The humming resumed.

  Luke suddenly felt cold and hugged his shoulders as he stared out to sea. A memory was creeping up on him. He saw his father, his axe an arc of silver above his head. He saw it frozen mid-air as a bolt found its mark. He shivered.

  What had he died for?

  ‘So what do you believe in then, if neither our faith or theirs?’

  Plethon turned to him and frowned. ‘I believe in reason,’ he said quietly. ‘And I believe our teacher should be Plato, since Plato equates good not with some God, but with reason. There is a new dawn of reason rising in the west, among the city states of Italy. Bayezid must be stopped because he will put out its light.’

  Luke’s head was pleasurably lost in this labyrinth of new ideas and he wanted to listen to this man forever. But the first, blinding rays of the sun reminded him that he might be in imminent danger.

  ‘Sir,’ he asked, ‘may I perhaps come with you to Edirne? If you were to put me under your protection, would the captain dare move against me?’

  Plethon put his hand on Luke’s good shoulder. He was shaking his head. He looked around the deck to check that they were still alone.

  ‘Luke,’ he said softly, ‘you clearly have little experience of Venetian greed. Look at you. You are tall, strong, blond and handsome. You will fetch a good price for them in the slave market and nothing that I say will stop them from trying to get it. No, your only hope is escape.’

  But how?

  ‘The captain,’ the Greek went on, ‘speaks freely to the crew in my presence, believing that I cannot understand much of what he’s saying. Yesterday he told them that we would be putting into the island of Chios two nights from now. That will give you the best chance to escape. Chios is owned by Genoa.’

  ‘Why would he want to put into Chios? I thought the Venetians hated the Genoese?’ asked Luke.
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br />   ‘Because,’ whispered Plethon, ‘it is only three miles from the Turkish mainland. So my hunch would be that they plan to meet the Turks there to do some transaction. And you might be included in the merchandise.’

  Luke thought of the crossbows and cannon below. ‘They will give them cannon. Cannon to take to the siege of Constantinople. I saw them. In the hold.’

  Plethon looked up sharply. ‘Cannon? Are you sure?’

  ‘Very sure.’

  ‘That is bad,’ Plethon said gloomily. ‘Well, we’ll know if I am right by the smell. You can smell a Turkish galley two miles away — the stench of slaves chained to their oars.’

  ‘I’ll need to escape. Can you help me?’

  Plethon nodded slowly. He was suddenly very serious. ‘Yes, Varangian, you do. I will do what I can.’

  By now the sun was clear of the horizon and Luke lifted his face to enjoy its soft warmth. He thought of the freedom to do this every morning of his life. What would it be like to awake slumped over an oar?

  A shout in Italian behind him brought him back to the present. Captain Rufio was striding across the deck towards them, wearing a new doublet of shiny black leather and long riding boots that almost covered his multi-coloured hose. He seemed more delighted than ever to see Luke, pinching one of his cheeks and ruffling his hair.

  Plethon began walking away. ‘That’s what they do to slaves,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I should look to that fine sword of yours.’

  Two nights later, Luke was lying awake in his cot, fully dressed, his unsheathed sword beside him beneath the bedclothes and wine on his breath. He had been well supped and irrigated by the captain, who had entertained both Plethon and him with a dinner of partridge cooked in apple, eggplants and katsouni washed down with sweet vinsanto wine from Santorini. And Rufio had offered toast after toast, refilling every glass in between. Luke had done his best to drink slowly, to add water when he could and even to empty it through a porthole when Rufio had left the cabin. But he was unused to wine and it had had an effect.