The Walls of Byzantium tmc-1

by James Heneage

  ‘I am here as a hostage, lord,’ said Anna.

  ‘I think not,’ said Prince Mehmed, looking up and frowning. Anna saw that the eyebrows were high-arched like his mother’s. ‘I think you are here because my brother, the Prince Suleyman, desires that you be here. And my brother, Allah willing, will be the next sultan.’

  Anna felt sick.

  ‘I think,’ continued the Prince, ‘and my mother thinks, that you will be part of the bargain struck with the Mamonas clan.’

  Anna said nothing. She just sat staring at the boy. New drops of sweat had gathered at her temples that owed nothing to the heat of the tent. She looked away towards the musicians as if the logic of soundless music might help her think.

  Bargain? What bargain?

  The Prince leant forward and dropped his voice to something barely above a whisper. ‘We are natural allies, you and I,’ he said softly, ‘and our alliance springs from shared danger. My brother and I are very different. He looks to cities and courts for his pleasure. He looks to the West as the Dar ul-Harb and to Constantinople as his capital in years to come. I, on the other hand, have gazi blood in my veins. My mother is of the Germiyan tribe, sister to its leader Prince Yakub. I like tents, not cities. And I prefer the East.’

  He drew even closer. ‘My father and brother are not close. My brother has been tasked to take Constantinople, a city that has never fallen except to the Franks. My father believes he will fail. But if he succeeds, then my brother will challenge Bayezid, who is not the man he was. You and I will both suffer if my brother becomes sultan. You, with your honour, and I, most assuredly, with my life. We are natural allies.’

  ‘But how can I help you, lord?’ Anna asked slowly. ‘I am a seventeen-year-old girl married to a Greek merchant.’

  Mehmed smiled. ‘No, you are much more than that, Anna. You are the daughter of Simon Laskaris, Protostrator of Mistra. He has influence with the Emperor Manuel, who will either choose to defend Constantinople or surrender it. My brother has been entrusted with the siege and if he succeeds, he will become sultan and the West will become the Dar ul-Harb.’ He paused. ‘And I shall succumb to the bowstring.’

  ‘And if he fails?’

  ‘If he fails?’ said the boy softly. ‘Who knows? Perhaps someone other than him will become sultan. Someone who will lead his gazis eastwards. Someone who might be a friend to your empire.’

  Anna and the boy looked at each other in silence.

  ‘So what would you have me do?’

  ‘A discussion will take place this afternoon,’ said the Prince. ‘There is a side passage to my father’s audience tent which leads to a women’s room with a grille from which you can see and hear the proceedings. My mother will take you there. I want you to listen.’

  Anna considered this.

  ‘And then?’ she asked.

  The Prince picked an invisible speck from his silken sleeve. Anna suddenly remembered how young he was.

  ‘There are people who have come to this camp whom you know.’

  ‘Who has come, lord?’ asked Anna.

  ‘The Emperor, the Despot … and your father, Simon Laskaris.’

  Anna’s heart jumped.

  ‘Why have they chosen to come?’

  ‘They haven’t. The emperor has been vassal to the sultan for some time. Manuel has to obey a summons or face war.’

  ‘But he faces war already.’

  ‘Not yet. There may yet be a chance to keep the peace. He had no choice but to come. None of them did.’

  ‘Are they in danger?’

  Mehmed looked up into her eyes. ‘Yes, they are in danger. They must escape this place tonight.’

  Anna hadn’t realised that the tent of Devlet Hatun was connected to that of Bayezid. It was as if the entire palace in Serres had been reconstructed out of silk on this hilltop, the echo of stone exchanged for the whisper of fabric.

  Anna was waiting in a small anteroom and a low table had been set before her made of sandalwood and inlaid with mother of pearl. On it was laid fruit and wine and flowers of the summer somehow preserved to show colour in winter.

  Eventually, she heard sounds of conversation and the wall opened to reveal the small figure of Devlet Hatun and a tall woman by her side. The woman was unveiled and dressed in a cowled cloak of velvet thrown back from her shoulders. Her fair hair fell well below her shoulders to contour small breasts and brush the first curve of her hips. Her face was proud and angular, with a straight nose above wide nostrils and full, decisive lips. She regarded Anna with no expression of pleasure or enquiry.

  She was, emphatically, of royal blood.

  Then there was a further rustle and Zoe Mamonas stepped into the room. Anna gave a little cry and stood up. ‘How …?’

  Zoe walked towards her. She looked tired and drawn. ‘How do I dare come before you after what happened to Luke?’ she suggested, stooping to sit cross-legged before her with the grace of a courtesan. ‘Because, Anna, I had nothing to do with it. It was Damian who recognized Luke when you came through the gate. And it was he who guessed that you would try to make your escape that night. He followed you.’

  Anna studied the wide, guileless eyes between dark eyelashes laced with kohl. She looked at the earnest intent in that pale face and the hands now drawn to the mouth in what looked like entreaty. In a day of uncertainties, this was an uncertainty too difficult to fathom.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said after a time. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more.’

  Zoe placed her hands, palms down, on the table. It was as if she had delivered an offering but had nothing more to give. ‘You don’t have to believe me. Just believe these women when they say that you are in danger. Why would they lie?’

  In the silence that followed, the tall woman stepped forward, lifting her cloak in one hand, to occupy the chair from which Anna had risen.

  ‘I am the Princess Olivera Despina,’ she said. The voice was surprisingly deep. ‘I am the fifth wife of Bayezid and the daughter of King Lazar of Serbia. My father was executed by the Sultan at the field of Kosovo five years ago, since when I have been the executioner’s wife.’ She paused and studied a ring on her left forefinger. ‘After that battle, the Sultan used three battalions of dead Serbs as his banqueting table.’

  She looked up at Anna. ‘My brother, Stefan Lazarević,’ she went on, ‘is now vassal to the Sultan. He too has been summoned here.’

  She looked at the other two women and smiled. Then she returned her gaze to Anna. ‘We all represent different causes. You, your honour and the Empire; me, a murdered father; the Princess Devlet, her son’s future. Quite enough, one might think, to establish common interest.’

  Anna looked across at Zoe. ‘And you, Zoe, what is your interest?’

  Zoe Mamonas looked down at her feet and, for the first time, Anna saw discomfort in her poise.

  ‘My argument’ — her voice was soft — ‘is with Prince Suleyman.’

  The silence that followed this statement was complete. A dog barked beyond the tents and a janissary’s cauldron clanked somewhere nearer.

  Then the woman who had not thus far uttered a word spoke. ‘We must go,’ said the Princess Devlet Hatun. In Greek.

  At the centre of every storm there is an eye of calm. And so it was in the court of the Sultan Bayezid.

  While his messengers dashed to every corner of the Ottoman Empire to call his subjects to arms, while roads were repaired to ease the progress of his armies, while provisions in prodigious quantities were amassed at every stopping point along the way, the inner sanctum of the court was an ocean of peace and tranquillity.

  Like the palaces of Bursa and Edirne, the camp contained a series of tented courtyards, with carpets and fountains and orange trees in tubs within, their poles hung with painted lanterns and their walls lined with living statues that never spoke above a whisper. There were three courts here. The first conducted the business of the palace and city. The second contained the offices of state, the archives an
d the divan rooms where the Sultan’s viziers met. The inner sanctum, where the Sultan held audience, was a place of absolute quiet unless the Lord of the Two Horizons chose to break it.

  Here, on this winter day of snow and approaching dusk, the braziers glowed with fresh and scented coals and three huge dogs slept at the feet of the Sultan Bayezid. He was, at this time, around forty years of age and the dash of his youth had largely departed, leaving behind a bloated husk of rouged and temperamental decadence. His appetite for female companionship had largely disappeared as had large numbers of his teeth, but his appetite for wanton cruelty remained stolidly intact.

  He was still a formidable and dangerous man and his sons, vassals and courtiers feared every hair in his luxuriant beard. The rise of a tapered eyebrow in displeasure was still enough to cause men to tremble, and the slow lift of a pudgy finger enough to send them to the bowstring.

  He was magnificent, all-powerful and capricious.

  Now, he lounged across several large cushions and tickled the flank of a dog with his toe. He was dressed in a tunic of damask studded with pearls buttoned over straining silken pyjamas. A jewelled turban of intricate layers sat above a face ruined by excess; heavy lids shielded eyes that darted to left and right in a parody of his former verve. With one hand he stroked the flaxen hair of a pageboy of teenage years and perfect skin, a gift from the Emperor of Trebizond. In the other he balanced a silver goblet of wine between two fat fingers. On a table beside him sat a dish piled high with sugar.

  The Sultan’s tongue was stabbing the inside of his cheek. He had toothache again and nothing his doctors did could alleviate the pain. So he drank instead.

  Anna was watching him closely from the other side of the grille. Beside her sat Devlet Hatun and Olivera Despina who was whispering into her ear.

  ‘The one next to the Sultan, the one with the heron’s plume, that is the Grand Vizier Kara Halil Candarli. He is wise but devious.’ She paused. ‘He served the Sultan’s father, Murad, before him.’

  Anna looked at the other people present. There was Prince Suleyman, Prince Mehmed and, beside him, a younger boy. Despina followed her gaze.

  ‘That is Prince Musa, third son to Bayezid. He shares the same mother as Suleyman but the brothers hate each other. Musa is only ten years of age but is very serious. He reads the Koran every moment of the day and seeks only the company of learned men. He despises the excesses of his eldest brother.’

  Anna looked at the pale-skinned boy with large, uncertain eyes and a hooked nose. He looked nothing like Suleyman.

  ‘Who are those two, standing behind the Princes?’ whispered Anna, pointing slowly at two well-made men standing together.

  ‘The taller one is Evrenos Bey,’ answered Olivera Despina. ‘He is the Sultan’s best general and has been with him at every victory. He is fanatically loyal to Bayezid and would die for him. He is of Byzantine descent but a convert to Islam.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘The other is the brother of the Princess Devlet. He is Yakub Bey, Emir of Germiyan and one of the most powerful gazi princes in Anatolia. He became vassal to the Sultan three years ago.’

  Anna studied Yakub closely, something about him inviting further enquiry. He was a man of medium height but powerful build and wore a long, quilted coat trimmed with the furs of different animals. His face was lined and weather-beaten and his nose flat, interrupting a scar that ran from eye to lip.

  ‘What is a gazi?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re the men of the steppe, the tribes that Bayezid and every other Ottoman Turk are descended from. There are many tribes, and the Germiyans are one of the largest. Each tribal land is called a beylik.’

  Then someone spoke.

  ‘Grand Vizier,’ said the Sultan, dismissing the boy from Trebizond and putting his goblet down on to the table, ‘we have summoned our subjects and vassals here to Serres to decide where will be our next Dar ul-Harb.’ He paused and ran his tongue between his lips, wincing. ‘There are those, like my son the Prince Suleyman, who believe that our destiny is to the west. There are others’ — here Bayezid nodded at Yakub — ‘not least the beyliks of our tribal homelands, who believe that we should confront the Khanates of the Black and White Sheep who threaten our eastern frontiers. Our Christian vassals await our pleasure outside but first we of the Faith should talk between ourselves.’

  Bayezid turned to Candarli. ‘Tell us your view, Grand Vizier.’

  Candarli bowed low to the Sultan. ‘Majesty, we are fortunate to be ruled by a sultan who can rightly call himself Lord of the Two Horizons. But what do we have on each of these horizons? In the east there are the Khanates and the remaining beyliks who have yet to see the glory of your rule as our friend Yakub of the Germiyans has. But these are not our enemy.’

  Anna looked at Yakub, who was looking at his feet. She saw that Bayezid was watching him closely.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ Candarli went on, ‘we have both opportunity and threat before us in the kingdoms of Christendom. What remains of the Roman Empire is weak and the lands of Thrace and Macedonia are empty of people and we can settle the akincis of Anatolia there at will. But the Christian kings are jealous of your success and, even now, Sigismund of Hungary and Mircea of Wallachia are entreating the Pope to bless another crusade against us. The lord Evrenos Bey can talk further on this subject.’

  Evrenos Bey stepped forward to stand directly before his sultan. He bowed. ‘The Grand Vizier is right, Majesty,’ he said. ‘Duke Philip of Burgundy has raised seven hundred thousand gold ducats to spend on such a crusade. There has been a long war between the English and French, which is in truce at this time, so there are many knights eager to join it. The new Pope Boniface is urging all the Kings of Christendom to act.’

  ‘And how would our armies fare against such a crusade?’ asked the Sultan. His tooth was throbbing ever harder.

  ‘Majesty, our armies have been everywhere victorious. There is no army in the world that can beat us.’

  The Sultan smiled and nodded. ‘Indeed. We are everywhere victorious except where our eldest son sees fit to show mercy on a Greek city. Prince Suleyman, what is your view?’

  Anna saw Suleyman’s face colour. He bowed stiffly to his father and looked around the faces in the room. ‘Father, Evrenos Bey and I decided jointly’ — here he glanced at the general — ‘not to risk an assault on Mistra because we wished to preserve our army for the attack on Constantinople. And we must secure Constantinople before making further advances into Christendom.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Bayezid, ‘Constantinople. The Red Apple. Why do you think we call it that, Prince Suleyman?’

  ‘Because, Majesty,’ replied Suleyman, ‘it is the sweetest fruit. Constantinople is still the greatest city on Earth and you cannot truly call yourself Lord of the Two Horizons until you have conquered it.’

  Bayezid flushed and his hand moved to his beard. He looked hard at his eldest son. Then he laughed. It was a rasping sound without humour. ‘And perhaps the Prince Suleyman will be the one to do it? Or would the charms of the city’s female citizens again be enough to deter him?’

  Suleyman was holding himself in check. Just. Anna could see that his fists were clenched.

  The Sultan turned to look at his second son. ‘I believe that the Prince Mehmed and Yakub Bey take a different view?’

  Mehmed didn’t reply immediately. He glanced at Yakub beside him. Then he spoke.

  ‘Father, the Emir is chief amongst the leaders of the gazi tribes and it is they that form the heart of our empire. These men sense threat from the East, not the West. From the Emir Temur, whom some call Tamerlane, whose horde is moving westwards and may ally itself with the Khanates to attack us. Prince Yakub believes, as I do, that we should make peace with the Kings of Christendom and move east to secure our frontiers against the greater threat of Temur.’

  The Sultan Bayezid was slowly shaking his head. ‘You speak with great wisdom, Prince Mehmed. And it may be that we need to confront
Temur before long. But our spies tell us that he will be employed for some time in the north fighting his cousin Tokhtamish of the Golden Horde and afterwards is more likely to attack the Ming Empire of China than move west. Yakub Bey?’

  The gazi chief spoke slowly in a voice little above a growl. ‘It is well known that the Mongol Temur claims sovereignty over the Turkmen tribes of Anatolia and is angered by your annexation of the beyliks. Temur is your enemy.’

  Bayezid ground his teeth and one of them exploded in pain. He lost his temper. ‘Temur?’ he roared, thumping the cushion to his side and leaning forward so that his beard brushed his knees. Muscles had appeared in the walls of his neck. ‘Temur?’ he shouted again, and Anna, behind her grille, felt the shock wave of his anger. ‘Who is this Temur? Who is Temur?’

  There was complete silence around him and even the dogs seemed to have stopped breathing.

  Bayezid had risen to his feet and was standing directly in front of Yakub, staring down into his eyes. ‘I have no fear of turning my back on Temur or Tamerlane or whatever he calls himself,’ he hissed through shaking beard. ‘Tamerlane is an illiterate barbarian who delights in massacre. I am Bayezid, Sultan of Rum and Sword of Islam. I have never lost a battle and have sworn that I will see my horses watered at the altar of St Peter’s in Rome.’

  He paused. ‘Believe me, emir, when I tell you that I will see that happen. And so will you. By my side.’

  He glared at Yakub for a while longer before turning to look at the others, each in turn. ‘So my will is this: we will take Constantinople quickly — if, that is, we do not manage to persuade the Emperor Manuel to surrender the remnants of his eunuch empire beforehand. And we will do nothing to dissuade the armies of Christendom from marching against us. And when they do, we will defeat them in such a way that they will never march again.’

  He looked around again at the assembly, breathing hard and challenging any dissent. None came. He sat heavily back on his cushions. ‘Then we will deal with this Tamerlane.’