The Walls of Byzantium tmc-1

by James Heneage

  ‘Luke!’ he said, pulling away and looking up into a face he’d last seen diving from the side of a ship. ‘I was overjoyed to hear that you’d found Longo. And Fiorenza tells me that you’ve found much more: Latin, Italian, mathematics … the list is endless. She tells me that you’re a glutton for learning.’

  ‘I have a gifted tutor,’ he said. ‘And now I have another. How long will you stay?’

  Plethon didn’t answer. Instead he made a little bow to Fiorenza and Marchese. ‘You will forgive me if I steal Luke from you for a while?’

  Fiorenza’s head was on one side and one blameless eyebrow had risen in surprise. Then she smiled. ‘Only if you speak in Latin.’

  Plethon bowed again and drew Luke away. He led him over to a belvedere shaded by trellised vine and sat, arranging the folds of his toga on his lap. ‘I am only here for today, Luke. I go to Monemvasia tomorrow and then on to Venice. I have come to Chios to talk to you.’

  ‘To me? What about?’

  Plethon smiled and lifted his hand to smooth his beard against his chest. ‘I have been learning a lot about you, Luke,’ he began. ‘It turns out that you have talents-’

  Luke interrupted. ‘Sir, Fiorenza is-’

  ‘I know, I know. She is herself remarkable. But I’m not talking about that. I’m referring to your escape from Monemvasia. You tried to bring a girl with you. The daughter of Laskaris, the Protostrator.’

  Luke stared at the man. How did he know?

  ‘You were friends?’

  ‘Plethon, she is the daughter of the Protostrator.’ He paused. ‘Yes, we were friends.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ said the philosopher. ‘She’s out of reach so you’ve schooled yourself not to think of her.’

  Luke looked down at his hands.

  ‘Well, you should cast aside this sense of inferiority, Luke. You are more than her match.’

  ‘Because I can now speak Latin?’

  Plethon placed a hand on Luke’s shoulder. ‘You lost your father, Luke. I’m sorry. What was his name?’

  A memory: darkness and wind and sea; a big man lying still on a rain-lashed jetty. He closed his eyes. ‘Joseph.’

  ‘And his father?’

  ‘Siward. Why is it important?’

  Plethon ignored the question. ‘Why did Siward leave Monemvasia?’ he asked.

  Luke chose not to answer.

  Plethon removed his hand and rose. He swung a fold of toga over his shoulder and looked out over the view. ‘I have been in Constantinople,’ he said. ‘The Emperor summoned me. He is interested in the Varangian treasure that is said to be buried somewhere and wants my help to find it.’

  Again Luke made no comment.

  ‘I began by going through the Varangian archives. A man called Siward, who’d come from the Peloponnese, turned up in Constantinople just after you were born. Would that be when your grandfather left Mistra?’

  Luke said nothing.

  Plethon continued. ‘He wanted to join the Varangians but was too old. Then he was enrolled at the special request of the Emperor himself.’

  The philosopher paused. He turned. ‘Why would the Emperor do that? Was it, perhaps, because Siward brought something with him?’

  Still no reply.

  Plethon tried another tack. ‘What did your father tell you of the treasure, Luke? That your grandfather stole it?’

  ‘He didn’t steal it.’

  ‘No, I don’t believe he did. And nor does the Emperor.’

  ‘So why did he move it, then?’

  Plethon shrugged. ‘Because he thought it was unsafe where it was? I don’t know. Did your father say what he thought the treasure might be?’

  What had his father said?

  If it is gold. It may be something else.

  ‘He didn’t know what it was,’ he said quietly. ‘But I don’t think he thought it was gold.’

  Plethon nodded slowly. ‘No, quite possibly not. But he thought it lay still in Mistra?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Plethon continued to nod, his lips pursed. ‘Or in Constantinople perhaps. After all, that’s where he’s buried. In the Church of the Varangians, where they say the treasure first came from. Perhaps he brought it back.’

  Luke had no idea. Plethon was looking at him strangely.

  ‘His tomb is magnificent,’ he said quietly. ‘Very ornate. As befits a prince.’

  Luke looked at him in astonishment. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Luke, your grandfather was the direct descendent of Siward Godwinson, Prince of Wessex, in a place called England. He was the first English Varangian.’

  Luke continued to stare at him.

  Plethon smiled. ‘Which is why you’ve got to cast off this sense of inferiority, Luke. You have royal blood in your veins. You’re more than her match.’

  Luke said, ‘But many Varangians were called Siward.’

  ‘But they were not Akolouthoi, Luke.’ He paused. ‘Did your father not speak of this?’

  Luke shook his head. ‘He never mentioned my grandfather. Until the night I left.’

  ‘No. He was ashamed. But I don’t think he had any reason to be. Certainly the Emperor didn’t think so, otherwise he’d hardly have let him rejoin the Guard.’

  Luke leant back against the stone of the belvedere. There was so much to absorb, so much to understand. If what Plethon said was true, then everything had changed.

  He felt suddenly light-headed. ‘You said you were on your way to Venice. Why?’

  ‘Because I believe that they’re building cannon for the Turks. Bigger cannon to bring down walls. And Chios has something to do with it. The Venetians want the alum trade and it’s their price for the cannon.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  Plethon tapped his nose with his finger. ‘Because philosophers have friends in many places.’

  ‘You’re a spy?’

  Plethon smiled. ‘I am many things, Luke. I hope to persuade them not to build the cannon but I doubt I’ll succeed. The Venetians only listen to money and that’s the one thing the Empire of Byzantium doesn’t have.’

  Luke considered what he’d been told. ‘You think the Venetians are behind these pirate raids, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t you?

  ‘Yes, I do. I’ve thought so for some time. But we have plans.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. Fiorenza tells me they are ingenious. They want you to stay, Luke. So do I.’

  ‘Why? I want to go to Mistra.’

  ‘You’re more useful to the Empire here. Making sure that the Venetians don’t succeed in getting hold of this island is very, very important. If I can’t appeal to their better instincts in Venice, then the realisation that they won’t succeed at Chios might just persuade them not to give the Turk the cannon.’

  ‘Won’t the Turks simply go somewhere else for their cannon?’

  ‘Perhaps, but they would take much longer to arrive, by which time the Sultan may have been persuaded to change his plans. His court is divided about Constantinople anyway. There is a new threat rising in the east. Tamerlane.’

  Fiorenza had told him of Temur the Lame, a man creating destruction on a scale unseen since Genghis. A man moving gradually west.

  ‘Which is why I need you here. To delay things. Delay is our friend.’

  ‘So I am to accept Longo’s offer?’

  ‘Yes.’ Plethon paused. Then he said softly, ‘Princes are sometimes not free to act as other men.’

  He rose. ‘I am to leave for Monemvasia tomorrow. Anna Laskaris has returned there with the Mamonases who have been reinstated under Turkish protection. Do you have a message for her?’

  Luke smiled.

  You are more than her match.

  ‘That I’m alive.’ He paused. ‘And can speak Latin.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MONEMVASIA, SUMMER 1395

  The view from the roof of the Mamonas Palace, perched high on the Goulas of Monemvasia, was unrivalled. The only buildings higher were the ch
urch and the citadel, neither of which had a balconied terrace to provide Olympian scrutiny of the world below.

  The terrace covered the entire area of the building and had a cool, marbled floor of complicated design that involved sea creatures paying court to a bearded Neptune standing in damp majesty astride a cockleshell. Its colours were expensively derived: Siennese for the yellow of fish and human skin; Parian for the whites of the waves; Carrera for the blue-grey of the sea and, most magnificently, Phrygian for the purple of the God’s cloak.

  At one end of the terrace was a formal rose garden in raised, battened beds with small pear and tangerine trees in bronze urns, speckled in verdigris, at each corner. At the other were more beds, this time filled with herbs: thyme, coriander and rosemary, with chamomile for tea and wild stevia for sweetening it. Above were vine-woven pergolas, heavy with bunched grapes and honeysuckle that in daytime would draw humming birds to feed. Against the balustrade were borders of spider orchids, cyclamen and tulips, entwined with clematis and passiflora that spilled through its arches to tumble down the palace like garlanded hair.

  But now it was far into the night and there was only smell to distinguish one flower from another. The moon was three-quarters full and set within a clear sky pitted with stars and it cast a soft glaze over everything it touched. It was almost light enough to read by and certainly to play chess, which was convenient for the two naked players lying either side of a chessboard. A brace of cats, one tortoiseshell and the other a pale grey Persian, were curled asleep beside them, their seal-soft skin aglow and rippling in the light breeze from the mainland. There was no sound beyond the hush of the wide, open sea and the languid rustle of silk.

  Suleyman had pitched his tent, as he always did, on the roof.

  Strictly speaking, it was not his to pitch, being his wedding gift to Damian and Anna, but it was a thing of great beauty and he felt sure that Damian would not begrudge the comfort of his only sister.

  Zoe knew this place well. It was where, as children, she and Damian had eaten their best food: huge flat species of fish with pink-white flesh steaming through silver skin, cooked on the outdoor grill and sprinkled with herbs from the garden. Their father had been the cook and had talked, as he turned the fish, of the Mamonas business, pointing out their ships in the sea lanes below and describing cargoes and exotic far-flung destinations. Zoe had listened while Damian had teased the cats.

  Later, it was where she had brought her lovers, usually men from the palace guard or a groom from the stables, whose mix of old sweat and new fear had so excited her. And quite often, in the throes of urgent coupling, she’d wondered how the cats had got there to watch them with such indifference.

  Zoe moved a chess piece now with equal indifference and yawned. The game was beginning to bore her and she wanted to feel air on her skin, still sticky with royal seed. She rose, stretched and walked over to the balcony, resting her elbows and breasts on a cushion of clematis with her long hair following its tumble over the edge. The city beneath was firmly asleep and entirely quiet. Indeed, the only movement she’d witnessed had come from Anna some hours before, adrift in the orchard below with the aimless gait of a sleepwalker. It was ironic, she thought, that Anna now had more freedom to move than she did.

  It was half a year since the Mamonas family had returned from Serres, secure between the ranks of a regiment of janissaries. They had faced the sullen stare of a citizenry now implacably in the camp of the Despot, a citizenry saddened that his army had been unable to deny entry to the janissaries.

  ‘Who are you now?’

  Zoe continued to stare out into the night. They’d been playing a game.

  ‘I am Queen Zenobia,’ she murmured, ‘and I am looking over the flames of burning Palmyra and awaiting the legions of Aurelian who I hope will ravish me, one by one.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Suleyman, ‘now that would be something to watch.’ He paused. ‘I believe the House of Orhan claims some ancestry from Zenobia. We should certainly take Egypt from those Mamluk pederasts. As she did.’

  They were both silent for a while, contemplating a desert kingdom dedicated to wealth and the worship of Baal.

  ‘How did she die?’ asked Zoe, turning back to the night.

  ‘Zenobia? They say she was taken back to Rome in golden chains and given a villa at Tivoli where she entertained philosophers for the rest of her days.’ Suleyman rolled on to his back on the soft hides of antelope covering the bed. He looked up at the silk ceiling of the tent, mysterious in the blur of sandalwood smoke that drifted up from a brazier. ‘Is that what I should do with you?’ he asked, smiling into his oiled and pointed beard.

  Zoe turned her body so that the moon made sand dunes of her breasts, her nipples casting shadows across them. Her legs were apart and the tendrils of hair between them were stark against the white of the balustrade. ‘Perhaps, but not philosophers. Come here.’

  Prince Suleyman shook his head. ‘No. I am spent and you are insatiable. We need to talk.’

  Zoe closed her legs and turned back to the view. ‘What do we need to talk about? Not Anna.’

  Suleyman sat up. ‘I want to talk about Anna.’

  ‘You are obsessed,’ said Zoe over her shoulder. ‘She would never satisfy you. And she loves someone else.’

  ‘Which makes her all the more appealing. She interests me.’

  ‘Do you want to talk to her or fuck her?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘I don’t know, both probably,’ he said. ‘I want her to come of her own volition.’

  ‘Which she won’t.’

  ‘Not now, no. But she thinks of you as a friend. That’s why I’m happy for her to be here with you rather than at Edirne. You can persuade her.’

  Zoe considered this. Her body was very still. ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘Then you can forget Zenobia,’ came the reply. He studied the back of his hands, turning each in the light to trace the contours of dark veins. ‘What is it that you want, Zoe?’ he asked, looking up at her.

  She didn’t answer.

  Suleyman went on. ‘Your father and brother want lordship of Mistra and a licence to print money on the island of Chios. But what do you want?.’

  Zoe turned very slowly and without provocation. Her jet-black hair fell with natural gravity and her pale face was more serious than he’d yet seen it. She looked him straight in the eye and she did not blink. ‘I can get you Anna’ — her voice was soft — ‘but my price is high.’

  ‘Name it,’ he said, equally softly.

  ‘Luke.’

  ‘And Luke is …?’ asked Suleyman, intrigued.

  ‘Luke is … a friend.’ She had never sounded like this before and it unnerved him.

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yes, to me and especially to Anna. I need you to find him.’

  Suleyman thought about this. A friend to Anna? He smoothed the sheet with his hand.

  ‘Where do I look?’ he asked.

  ‘Look for the unusual,’ she said quietly. ‘He will make himself known somewhere. He is … he is different.’

  Suleyman looked at her for a long time and something deep inside him, which he didn’t altogether recognize, stirred in its sleep.

  ‘I will try,’ he said at last.

  Much later, after they’d made a softer love than before and the first chill of dawn had crept over their sleeping bodies, they both awoke and knew that a new and important pact had been made between them. And neither wished to discuss it quite yet.

  Zoe turned her head to look at the man who would, one day, rule over the Ottoman Empire.

  The man who would take Anna for his wife.

  ‘Tell me how it goes at Constantinople,’ she said.

  ‘The siege is dull,’ said Suleyman, putting his hands behind his head and stretching his body to reach cool in the sheet below. ‘Sieges are always dull and the army hates them. The only excitement comes from your cannon.’

  ‘And our fleet?’ asked Zoe, turning her body to him and curling a s
trand of his hair around her forefinger.

  Suleyman wondered which fleet she meant. He supposed the Greek one.

  ‘It never arrived. It turned back before we ever caught sight of it. Someone must have told them of the cannon on board our ships.’

  Zoe thought about Anna and the camp at Serres. Getting her for Suleyman would be difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. She rolled on to her back.

  ‘Your father, is he pleased with how the siege goes?’

  Suleyman laughed. ‘He’s pleased with everything these days,’ he said. ‘A man from Chios appeared one day with a way to fill the holes in his teeth, and it worked. He has no more pain and can eat as much sugar as he likes. I’ve never seen him so happy.’

  Zoe raised herself to lean on her elbow, suddenly interested. ‘From Chios? What man?’

  ‘No one knows,’ said Suleyman. ‘He appeared, did his work, then left. He was a miracle.’

  ‘And the treatment? How did he do it?’

  Suleyman shrugged. ‘He left before we could get the secret out of him. But my father now has a special affection for Chios.’

  Zoe considered this. Later, she would consider it further. ‘Well, I am glad he’s no longer in pain,’ she said quietly and reached to stroke her lover’s cheek, which was dark and scaled with beard and divided by a ridge of high bone. She shivered and pulled up the sheet to cover them both.

  ‘But he still has cares,’ continued the Prince. ‘There’s another crusade gathering in the west to come to the aid of Constantinople. The Duke of Burgundy is emptying his purse to recruit knights and buy horses. Your father has probably sold him a few.’

  ‘So will Bayezid lift the siege?’ she asked.

  Suleyman yawned. ‘Perhaps.’ He rolled on to his side, studying her. ‘But enough about the siege, I am here to forget it. Last night we made a pact. Do you have a plan yet?’

  Zoe looked back at him. ‘Yes, I have a plan. And this is what I want you to do. Listen carefully and do not speak.’

  Later that morning, Zoe was feeding peacocks in the Court of the Lions in a place where she confidently expected Anna to pass. She was dressed in a long caftan of white cotton and had a straw hat on her head.