The Walls of Byzantium tmc-1

by James Heneage

  Dimitri chose to kiss it as Luke thought he might. He said: ‘You are welcome, lady.’ He looked back to Luke. ‘Is the Princess to join us in our conversations?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Luke. ‘She knows the minds of the Genoese. Her husband leads them.’

  Dimitri glanced at Fiorenza and nodded shortly. ‘Most assuredly.’

  Fiorenza stepped forward. She was radiant and entirely at her ease. ‘Can we join the procession?’ she asked brightly. ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘To the sea, lady,’ replied Dimitri. ‘Or at least we go to the mastic groves closest to the sea to celebrate the kendos. By all means come with us. What better place to talk than amongst the trees that are the cause of our problems?’

  An hour later, Luke and Fiorenza were walking their horses down amongst olive and carob trees and between hills which opened like pages on to a sea of dark amber. They had just born witness to the birth of a full moon from its water bed and the disc hung washed-grey in a night of small colour. As it grew in strength, and as they drew nearer, a white scimitar of sand appeared with the sea blunting its edge as it slid over rocks to the salt flats above the beach. The cicadas were less busy here and an ass brayed above the plodding clink of a bell which sounded somewhere on the hill.

  Dimitri walked silently by their side. Luke studied this strange man who had education beyond that of a mastic-grower and anger beyond that called for by piracy. He wanted to know more of him but knew it was not yet the moment to ask.

  Someone close by lit a torch and the world beyond its glare vanished to be replaced with a closer scene of low, shrub-like trees with wrinkled scales for bark. Around the base of each had been cleared a circle of white earth, luminous and ghostly. The smell of soil and salt grew stronger as the shapes around them took form, carried perhaps by the clusters of night insects that ebbed and flowed around the light. More torches were winking ahead of them and the murmur of conversation carried up to them on the wash of the waves as they neared the sea.

  Then they were surrounded by people who emerged from the shadows like wraiths in their thin clothes, their children at their knees staring up at the strangers from gaunt faces. A smell of wine tempered the tang of salt and sweat and cedar and everywhere small amphorae lay on their sides beside half-finished meals and discarded shawls, their red pitted sides catching the flicker of flames. The noise had died and the air was dense with unease.

  Fiorenza passed the reins of her horse to Luke and turned to unstrap a saddlebag. She took from it a large bundle, which she laid on the ground, and then reached back to pull free a rug of coarse wool rolled up with cord. She picked up the bundle and carried both to a nearby tree, unrolling the rug to cover the white earth at its base. Kneeling on the rug, and with her back to the children, she very slowly began to untie the bundle, deliberately shielding its contents from the strained necks behind.

  Then she stopped and, in the silence, emitted a gasp of theatrical wonder. She drew back her head so that eyes, bright as crystals, emerged from the shadows.

  Then she did something Luke, Dimitri and every other adult least expected.

  She winked.

  It was not the wink of a princess or of anyone of quality. It was the wink of the theatre and its effect was sudden and electric. A child giggled and another laughed. Then a third stepped forward to see what the wonder might be, and a fourth pushed past her brother to get a better look.

  The night was suddenly filled with the happy gurgle of merriment and Fiorenza was at its centre, handing out sweetmeats and treats to children who’d never believed the world contained such things. They came forward and received and skipped away, their mouths crammed with delicious food whose juices ran down their chins and smocks and pitted the dry earth like rain. Their joy was contagious and swept across the gathering like a genial plague so that a time of apprehension turned, as it was meant to, into a time of celebration.

  Dimitri stood apart and said nothing.

  Luke was watching her but made no move. He could see the unfolding of a plan, pre-set by an intelligence greater than his, and he would not interfere with its execution. He watched the donation of the last sweet, the dispatching of the child to a parent then spoken to with kindness in their own tongue, the kneeling to inspect a foot damaged by some thorn. He watched it all as one watches the slow distribution of paint across a canvas and he marvelled that he’d ever supposed there might not be a plan.

  Eventually, Fiorenza returned to them, laughing.

  ‘There will be some sore heads tomorrow. Tell me, Dimitri, will they dance tonight?’

  ‘Those who’ve drunk souma will dance the dance of the fig,’ the Greek replied, ‘which is not a pretty sight … unlike your performance tonight.’

  Fiorenza ignored the barb and instead knelt to inspect the circle of earth beneath the nearest tree. ‘Is this clay?’ she asked, raking her palm gently across the surface.

  ‘It is.’ Dimitri knelt by her side. ‘When the trees weep the tears of St Isidore, it falls on to this clay where it can be seen and separated.’

  ‘St Isidore, the patron saint of this island?’

  ‘The same,’ replied Dimitri. ‘Later, you will see the effigy of the Roman Noumericanos, who gave him his martyrdom, burnt upon the water. It is said that the first tree wept its mastic the night Isidore died.’

  Luke had seen Judas burnt at Easter and knew the frenzy of song and dance that would precede the execution. The blur between the Christian and the pagan was at its vaguest on nights like these and Dionysus, born of Zeus’s thigh, protector of Chios and God of both wine and madness, embodied it to sodden perfection.

  ‘And these mastic tears,’ said Fiorenza, moving to sit with her back to the tree, ‘is it true that they grow solid the minute they emerge from the bark?’

  ‘They do. And it’s only in the south of this island that this miracle occurs,’ replied Dimitri. ‘That’s why these trees are so valuable. This is the only place on earth with the climate and soil for this alchemy. This is the only place from which the Turk can receive the gum or aphrodisiac for his harem, where the cure for snakebite can be found, where the agent for embalming the dead exists. It is contained, lady, within the bark you lean against … and your husband will not give protection to the alchemists.’

  Silence fell between the three of them.

  It was not shared by the villagers down on the beach, who’d begun to form circles for the dance. Somewhere a drum began to beat and a wind instrument sent its first, wheezing notes into the night. The torches were now either spent or extinguished and the moon had resumed control, tipping the revelry closer to the unseen and perhaps profane.

  Dimitri had taken sesame bread, curds and some prickly pears from a basket by his feet and put them on the ground between them. He lifted out a flask and poured wine into a small, earthenware cup and offered it to Fiorenza. She was studying him with the same interest she’d bestowed on Luke all those months ago.

  ‘You are not of these parts,’ she observed. ‘What is your story, Dimitri?’

  By now the benevolence of shared food was having a softening effect. Dimitri smiled guardedly. ‘You guessed?’ he asked.

  ‘It wasn’t hard,’ she replied, smiling back. ‘Your accent is not of this island and your conversation betrays you. What brings you to Chios, Dimitri?’

  The man was probably about the same age as Fiorenza but he looked, at that moment, much, much older. He sighed and chewed off a part of the loaf, spitting out the seeds with a delicate precision. ‘I don’t know how much I can trust you,’ he said. ‘Either of you.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Fiorenza, taking a small sip of the wine and looking over the rim of the cup at the man. ‘But you can trust the Venetians less. Luke was right last night when he said that they made the gift of the crossbows to you.’

  It was said simply but both men looked up sharply.

  ‘You were there?’ asked Luke.

  ‘It doesn’t matter who was there,’ she
replied. ‘What matters is that they’re using you and perhaps we’re using you less.’

  Luke stared at her. This was a Fiorenza he hadn’t seen.

  Dimitri laughed shortly. ‘Your family have held Trebizond for nearly two hundred years, against all odds. I think I can understand how.’ He reached for the flask. ‘My story is long and complicated and too much for this night. Yes, I am educated. I learnt all that the son of a competent doctor should know. I was born in the city of Manisa on the mainland and lived there until the Sultan took it five years ago. I wanted to be a doctor like my father but my teaching was cut short when an Ottoman dagger opened his throat because he wouldn’t leave the side of a dying child.’ He paused and drank from the flask. ‘The child was my sister.

  ‘I fled Manisa and took work at the alum quarries further up the coast. There I met a woman who was Genoese and the daughter of the man who ran things. We married in secret because she was already intended for another. Her father discovered the match and we fought and I killed him.’

  He looked up at Fiorenza. ‘So then I took ship to Cyprus, thinking the Franks might make better masters. But I was wrong, and now I am here.’

  No one spoke for some time and the rhythm of the drum kept time for dancers on a beach in a different world.

  ‘Then we have something in common,’ said Luke eventually. ‘I, too, am a fugitive and have someone I love far away. In Monemvasia.’

  ‘Not so far away,’ Dimitri said. ‘Bianca is dead. Killed by her father. That’s why I killed him.’

  Fiorenza hugged her knees, resting her chin on them so that the exquisite line of her face was in profile to Luke. He thought he saw the shine of a tear in her eye.

  Luke said, ‘But you have stayed here. You, an educated man, have chosen to live amongst uneducated people. Why?’

  ‘Because I know something that can make me rich.’ He said it without emphasis.

  Luke waited. Something had persuaded this man to trust them thus far with his story.

  The noise below them had receded, the festival having moved towards the water where the effigy of the Roman admiral stood in the boat that would be his pyre. There was laughter under a tree nearby and the pale movement of a body in submission. Everywhere lay the dim, moon-struck shapes of amphorae and the earth was stained with spilt wine. Dimitri was looking at Luke and there was challenge in his eyes.

  ‘Last night,’ he said. ‘Last night, I asked you why you had chosen the Genoese way and you gave no answer.’

  Luke had, in fact, considered his answer to the question for much of the night. ‘At first I was merely grateful to be safe and fed. I wanted to leave at the first chance. Then,’ and now he smiled at Fiorenza, ‘I was given an education.’

  ‘Not even duty?’ asked Dimitri. ‘Shouldn’t the son of a Varangian be thinking about his duty to the Empire?’

  Luke nodded. ‘Dimitri, I think of little else. But where would I go? And might I not better serve the Empire with some education? I will go when I know where I can be of most use.’

  A man appeared from the darkness with the moon on his hair and a new flask of wine in his hand. He put it down and disappeared.

  Luke said, ‘Now, you were telling us how you will become rich.’

  Dimitri picked up the flask and poured himself more wine. ‘Not just me. I want these people to be rich too because I know, as you should’ — he looked from Luke to Fiorenza — ‘that I won’t become rich from this miracle of mastic unless I can guarantee the safety of the workers who bring it to life.’

  Luke leant forwards, a new light in his eyes. ‘That’s why we’ve come here, Dimitri, to find how we can make this happen!’

  Slowly Dimitri nodded.

  He turned his head towards the beach and for a long while seemed lost in whatever was progressing on the sands of the little bay. There was now fire on the water and the silhouette of Noumericanos was engulfed in flames.

  Fiorenza lifted her cup. ‘To St Isidore, patron of Chios and sailors!’

  Luke was beginning to feel drowsy after the long ride and yawned. A dog walked into their circle and studied each of them before lying down to sleep.

  Dimitri suddenly got up and walked away, not towards the sea but into the trees. The night gathered him up like a blanket and they heard the crack of a branch not far away. There were voices.

  Fiorenza looked at Luke and there was a question in her eyes.

  Then Dimitri reappeared and with him was a girl, carrying a candle. She was in her late twenties and looked Greek. She had lustrous black hair that fell beyond her shoulders and shone in the pallid flame. She had a small face and what beauty she had resided in her eyes, which were large and unblinking. She was frightened and the slight body beneath a chemise of coarse wool was trembling at the shoulders. Dimitri was leading the girl towards them by the hand.

  ‘This is Lara,’ he said. ‘Lara came with me from Cyprus.’

  The girl was staring at Fiorenza in fascination. The Princess from Trebizond, who missed nothing, extended her hand, beckoning for Lara to sit by her side.

  The girl sat and her body uncurled in the warmth of the other woman’s smile. Dimitri sat at her other side.

  ‘Do you know what probably decides the fates of millions of people as much as the Sultan’s skill on the battlefield?’ he asked Luke quietly, stroking the back of Lara’s hand and tilting his head slightly as if the question might be a joke, or a riddle.

  ‘No,’ answered Luke.

  ‘The Sultan’s toothache,’ said Dimitri. ‘The Sultan eats sugar and there are more holes in his teeth than in a Cretan cheese. The man who will decide the fate of you and me is in constant pain.’

  Fiorenza spoke. ‘I have heard this,’ she said. ‘Bayezid’s rages can be timed according to the pain he feels in his mouth. His doctors give him medicine but he still eats sugar.’

  ‘His doctors are fools, lady,’ said Dimitri with feeling. ‘Bayezid needs more than opiates to cure his toothache. Lara worked in the sugar fields in Cyprus. She has probably tasted more sugar than all the kings of Christendom combined. When I met her, she could hardly eat or talk from the pain in her teeth. Now she has no holes and talks more than you would imagine.’

  Dimitri reached behind him and pulled forward a satchel of worn leather. It was stained and frayed and well travelled. He opened it and brought out two small pouches, tied at their tops, and a blunt candle with wax congealed on its sides. He used Lara’s candle to light it, placed it on the ground and carefully opened the pouches so that their contents were visible to everyone in the circle.

  In one was a pile of hard, translucent resin, grey-brown in colour, each piece the size of a misshapen coin. In the other was white powder.

  ‘Mastic and alum,’ said Dimitri. ‘One from this island of Chios and nowhere else, and one from Phocaea, no more than ten miles from here, where the best alum in the world can be found. And both places still belong to the Genoese.’ He turned to the girl. ‘Lara,’ he said softly, ‘can you open your mouth?’

  The girl parted her lips to reveal a row of crooked teeth and leant forward into the sphere of light around the candle. Dimitri gently lifted her chin and turned the girl’s face so that both Luke and the Princess could see inside her mouth. He used his forefinger to direct their gaze to Lara’s teeth.

  ‘You see these grey bits? These used to be holes but I have filled them with a substance that sticks to the tooth and is not disturbed when she eats. The substance moulds itself, when soft, to the walls of the tooth and so fits perfectly when it hardens. The substance is a mix of alum and mastic.’

  Luke whistled softly. ‘What would the Sultan pay for this!’ he whispered.

  ‘Not just the Sultan, but everyone who eats sugar, and there are more of them every year. Think of the market, now and in the future. It’s enormous!’

  They all stared at the piles that had been transformed into things of value. It was as if gold had been laid before them. Only Lara seemed unaffected by t
he excitement and instead gazed at Dimitri with pride and, thought Luke, a good deal of love. He wondered, without urgency, how the two of them had met.

  ‘So this is what we now have to protect,’ continued Dimitri, ‘a future market which will make us all rich.’

  ‘Do the villagers know of this?’ asked Fiorenza.

  ‘Yes, great lady, they know. They may not eat sugar but the mastic also damages their teeth. They, too, have fillings, as I’ve chosen to term these little bits of magic. They are very aware of the potential market.’

  ‘But why attack Sklavia?’ she asked. ‘What good was that going to do?’

  Dimitri smiled. ‘It brought you here, didn’t it? Would you have come here otherwise?’

  Fiorenza was nodding slowly, absorbed by the cleverness of the strategy. He must have known, somehow, of Luke and Benedo’s planned trip to the south. The timing of the attack was perfect.

  ‘So,’ said Luke carefully, ‘we come once again to the main issue. How do we protect you?’

  ‘Ah,’ replied Dimitri, ‘now that is your issue. How indeed do you achieve that? Not, I can tell you, with the corrupt and cowardly garrison at Apolichnon.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Luke, ‘not with that. You have to be able to protect yourselves. We will need to build walls around the villages and put garrisons inside them.’

  ‘Inside the villages? To live amongst us?’ asked Dimitri with incredulity. ‘There would be revolution!’

  ‘Of course Dimitri’s right,’ said Fiorenza. A noise from the beach made them turn. The boat was now a heap of glowing embers and was sinking. Its reflection in the water was a livid tongue within the pathway of silver that stretched to the horizon, growing smaller as the boat went down. On the beach, the dance was over and part of it had become a brawl with laughter at its fringes; people were returning to the trees to sleep. Mothers held the hands of children who sagged with exhaustion and looked for a circle of white on which to unroll their rugs.