Porphyry and Ash

by Peter Sandham

  Zenobia knew a hopeless argument when she saw one. She nodded her head and took Anna’s arm. ‘Come on then,’ she said as they set off again, the clipping of their heels on the cobbles echoing down the empty street. ‘But if your father was responsible, we shall find nothing at the bathhouse.’

  ‘Then we will have lost nothing but an hour of this day.’

  They turned down the street where the baths of Arcadius stood among the crooked terracotta roofs that clung, higgledy-piggledy, around the abandoned stone mountain of Hagia Sofia.

  Screeching pairs of seabirds wheeled about the grey-domed church on its silent hill, where once the songs of angelic choirs reverberated in the rapture of faith. The sight plunged Anna into melancholia once more.

  ‘There lies the corpse of Byzantium,’ she thought. ‘How good it would be if just one more time the tapers inside were lit and the people of the true church returned to lift up their voices beneath her great canopy. What a sound, to hear the soul of Byzantium flame up once more. Surely even the sultan would be moved by such a song.’

  Beyond the dark church, the mute, majestic skeleton of the old imperial palace stretched away towards the empty hippodrome.

  Anna closed her eyes and remembered the colourful, joyous carnival. A precious moment of pure happiness. Simple, uncomplicated passion among the ruins, or so she had thought, but the bramble of feelings it had germinated in her refused to wither and grew ever more tangled.

  There had been a murder that day also. She seemed to have been surrounded by death these past months.

  She forced her mind back to the matter at hand. ‘When was the last time you saw Baltus alive?’ she asked Zenobia. It had occurred to her that if they were to investigate the servant’s death then they were themselves witnesses worth questioning.

  ‘I saw him the day before he died,’ said Zenobia. ‘The last time, perhaps, around vespers.’

  ‘We went after orthros to the wall and by midday we saw my brother, at which point the body had been discovered. So, Baltus drowned sometime between vespers and sext,’ Anna said with a nod of satisfaction. The whole business appealed to her taste for logic and natural curiosity, Zenobia observed with some discomfort.

  ‘I have spoken further to Jacob about it,’ the handmaiden said. ‘The body was found by one of the refugee families camped in the palace ruins. It seems the locks to the bath doors were broken some time before. People have continued to use the baths to wash and draw water. It was around first light when they found Baltus.’

  The two women had arrived at the brass outer doors of the bathhouse. There was no crowd this time or nervous sentry from the reserve. The doors themselves were unlocked and the building abandoned. Any refugees had finished their daily ablutions.

  Their previous visit had been rushed. Now Anna realised how little she had taken in that day. The presence of Iagaris had unsettled her, the anxiety of her father and the shock of Baltus’s corpse had dominated her focus.

  The building, one almost as familiar to her as her own home, had been nothing but a blur around the edge of her senses. Her mind had filled it in from memory with scant attention to change.

  Now there was time to wander through the building undisturbed, to note the leaves unswept in the colonnaded atrium; grin at being scandalously loose in the male changing area of the apodyterium; slip deeper into the sanctum of the triple inner baths.

  Now she could throw back the high shutters in the tepidarium and let the light flood in, scouring the shadows from the walls, revealing the familiar fresco of the hunt.

  Now she could see clearly how it had been transformed by the mutilating work of a mason’s chisel. The deep, disfiguring grooves running right across the painting, carving out the wormy, occult symbols. She was immediately reminded of singed grass and a body before a cross.

  ‘Well, I think we have established a connection,’ Anna muttered as she ran a finger along the wall’s chalky wound.

  They searched the frigidarium where the corpse had been pulled from its icy bath but found nothing.

  The hollow-walled caldarium, now as cold as the other chambers with the furnaces unlit, lay equally empty.

  Anna walked back into the tepidarium and sat down on the bronze bench across from the mutilated mural.

  ‘What does it mean, Zen?’ she said, resting her chin on her fist. ‘A message or a signature, I suppose. It almost looks like writing, but those are neither Greek nor Latin letters. We must get to the bottom of it before anyone else falls victim. There can be no doubt now that Baltus was killed.’

  ‘Despoina, have caution,’ said Zenobia. ‘You said yourself, all civil authority is concentrated at the wall and there appears to be a madman on the loose. All the more reason to secure ourselves in the palazzo and not gallivant around the city in search of trouble.’

  Anna did not appear to be listening. ‘What have you learned about the poor wretch in the monastery garden? Did she know Baltus somehow?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Zenobia snorted. ‘She was a petty criminal, known to haunt the Forum of the Ox. There is a very loose connection I suppose, but it is delicate, Despoina, and probably of no significance.’

  ‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense.’

  ‘She had been seen previously in the company of Messer Barbo,’ said Zenobia, lowering her eyes.

  Anna laughed at her handmaid’s discomfort. ‘Oh, don’t be coy on my account, Zen. You mean she was a whore.’

  ‘It is not quite that simple, Despoina. Yes, she was a whore, but it seems she was part of a gang of thieves. The rumour was they swindled your betrothed out of a significant sum of money.’

  ‘Former betrothed, Zen.’

  Anna was very firm on that point. True, Barbo’s disappearance meant the betrothal had not been formally ended, but Anna considered the matter closed.

  ‘That is as close a connection to Baltus as I can discern,’ said Zenobia.

  Anna frowned. ‘You think Messer Barbo is behind these two deaths?’

  ‘Well, he is suspected of two other murders,’ said Zenobia. ‘The Genoese podesta, kyr Maruffo, and the Venetian banker, kyr Badoer.’

  ‘Paolo Barbo almost certainly fled the city weeks ago,’ said Anna.

  Zenobia shrugged. ‘It is you looking for a pattern.’

  They fled the tomb-stale air of the gloomy bathhouse and returned to the daylight and the quiet sky stretching in fields of pearly cirrus above.

  Beyond a screen of trees, on the wall of a necropolis facing the sea, someone had painted a danse macabre. A skeleton led a priest into the dance, then an emperor, then a lady.

  Anna thought of the angel wings and shivered. She studied the figures more closely and for a grim moment thought the lady’s gown bore a resemblance to one of her own.

  ‘Mehmed is the skeleton,’ she murmured to herself. ‘His threat has already killed off our true creed by the union with the Latins. Now he comes for Constantine, and finally he will come for us. He will find a hollow prize if he does breach our walls. No more glimmer of porphyry, no more majesty. Mehmed will find only things that are already familiar: the greed of merchants, the lust of flesh, the lies of men. He lacks the means to conjure up the hidden wealth of ancient writings or the sanctity of the original Church.’

  Zenobia was used to Anna’s regular consideration of the dust. Her mistress had spent too much time around old philosophers. It wasn’t healthy.

  ‘There is still hope, Despoina,’ she said. ‘The men at the wall have repelled the enemy so far and we saw first-hand the entire Turk fleet fail against just a handful of Genoese boats.’

  ‘You are right Zen,’ said Anna. ‘We must always think of our future and not just the fleeting present.’

  ‘You have that look, Despoina. I’ve seen it play upon your face a hundred times since childhood and it only ever meant one thing. You have mischief on your mind.’

  The movement of people in the street caught both their attention and robbed Zenobia of the chance to press Anna
further on the matter.

  A small crowd, drawn like water down a sluice in a single direction. The two ladies felt the invisible tug and followed, careless that they did not know what spectacle awaited them.

  As they moved around the curving sweep of the road, the glittering carpet of the Golden Horn unrolled and beyond it, the sight that would turn their day to horrors.

  Along the far shoreline of the Horn, well behind the unbroken chain, basked a dozen Turk galleys.

  The ground around these ships writhed with crewmen digging emplacements and earthworks to defend this newly won position. The fleet of Venetian, Genoese and imperial warships bobbed impotently beside the chain, somehow circumvented.

  Even as Anna and Zenobia joined the dumbstruck throng on the harbour road, the mystery unravelled. Another vessel appeared on the crest of the hill beyond Pera.

  Under full sail she seemed to glide across the ground, her oars cleaving the air in charade, her decks crewed by brightly coloured sailors clashing symbols and castanets or blowing trumpets as if on a merry pleasure cruise.

  On she came, gently buffeting into the waters beside her sister galleys, and was then manhandled into position on the beach. Across the waters, the city seawall lay utterly undefended.

  Clutching at the crucifix around her neck, Zenobia said, ‘What sorcery can this sultan command for ships to sail over land at his will?’

  ‘This undoes all our victories to date,’ said Anna. ‘They will have to move men from the land wall to check this new threat, and our numbers were already so desperately thin.’

  ***

  Directly across the narrow waters from the squat church, the masts of enemy vessels, adorned with twinkling lanterns, were uncomfortably close.

  The Venetians had summoned (summoned!) Emperor Constantine to a meeting at St Mary of the Mongols, much to the chagrin of his ministers, who bore the impertinence with far less dignity than the basileus himself. Their little party had threaded its way through the streets of the Phanarion quarter to the shores of the Horn under a cloud of glum impotence.

  Haunted by the tuneful notes of Turkish zurna and davul from across the water, they entered the church and found a conclave of a dozen Venetians and just a single Genoese.

  Giustiniani wore a look of exhaustion, and for the first time the phantom of defeat glimmered about the edges of his face. The Latins barely ceased their heated discussions to acknowledge the arrival of the emperor.

  ‘Now the seawall along the Horn is opened for warfare,’ Giustiniani said. ‘I cannot afford the men it would take to garrison those walls. Notaras will have to make do there with his reserve.’

  ‘And we cannot leave those ships at our backs or risk being strangled against the chain by an attack from both sides,’ said Trevisano, commander of the Venetian flotilla. ‘Our crews will need to stand to arms night and day.’

  ‘We must strike first,’ said one of the other Venetian captains. ‘We must destroy those ships within the Horn or else cede the waters.’

  That notion horrified the emperor’s grand logothete. ‘Ceding the Golden Horn is unthinkable – lose the water, lose the city,’ said George Sphrantzes.

  ‘So we attack! Immediately,’ howled Giacomo Coco, the shortest of the Venetian captains.

  The others fell silent and turned to him. Coco had earned a reputation for bravery, having bluffed his way past a Turk blockade that winter.

  He saw their expectant faces and continued. ‘I have the plan that will clear out that rat’s nest. We should go tonight, before they are ready. A small force – a couple of high-sided transport ships, two galleys and two fustae. We may lose one or both merchantmen, but it will be a small price to recover the Horn.’

  ‘It is a sound plan, Basileus,’ said the bailo, Minotto. ‘I have looked it over and Giacomo is just the man to see it through. We shall need an hour or two to dress the transports with wadded sacks of wool, the better to soak up punishment from the foreshore cannons. Then we shall strike.’

  Brimful with excitement at the room’s close regard, Coco said, ‘The merchantmen will screen the faster boats. Then, once close enough, the fustae will launch from behind that screen. They will be loaded with oil and anything flammable. By then it will be too late for the heathen devils to stop us firing their boats. God willing, the fustae crew will jump clear and swim for our galleys, which can also engage any Turk vessels that escape the conflagration. If we go this night, we shall catch them while their ships are still bunched together in the shallows.’

  ‘I am afraid that is out of the question,’ said the dry voice of Sphrantzes.

  The Venetians bristled. ‘Who are you to pass judgement on military matters, Logothete?’ Minotto spat the court title out with undisguised contempt.

  ‘It is not a matter of military strategy, Bailo,’ Sphrantzes shot back. ‘It is a question of legal jurisdiction, of which I am most qualified to pass judgement. The Turk galleys are moored on the Pera shore. That is Genoese territory. It is scandalous that the Turks should so blatantly flout Genoese neutrality, and no doubt the podesta in Pera is penning a furious protest to the sultan as we speak, but it does not give us the right to follow the heathen’s bad example. At the very least we should seek Genoese permission to assist them in clearing their shore.’

  ‘Then you may as well seek Mehmed’s consent also,’ scorned Coco. ‘Since to tell the Genoese is to tell the Turk!’

  The comment brought a bellow of anger from Giustiniani who drew his sword and dared the Venetian sailor to besmirch his city’s honour a second time.

  All trace of the sea shanty from across the water briefly vanished under a thunderstorm of growls and insults until the emperor himself stood between the parties and cried out for order.

  ‘There will be no attack tonight!’ said Constantine. ‘I am sorry, Master Coco, your plan is good, but our alliance with the Genoese cannot survive cutting them out of so important a matter. It will be a joint fleet that sweeps the Turks from the Horn. If it costs us a day more to prepare then so be it.’

  XXV.

  Six days had passed since the church meeting and the decision to attack the Turk boats in the Horn, but the merchant ships, wadded and ready, still sat idly in the harbour. Venetian animosity at the delays grew ever stronger, as did the far shoreline’s defences.

  What had seemed a desperate gamble on first contemplation now looked simply like suicide.

  The secrecy of the venture was now a widely known fact among the soldiers at the wall, but it had yet to reach the ears of Zenobia. As dusk began to thicken into night, the handmaiden, veiled and bedraggled in heavy lawn, flounced out through the gate of Rose Palace. With frantic steps she moved across the old forum and cast about the streets. ‘The fool,’ she muttered. ‘The silly young fool.’

  There was more activity than she had expected, but curfew was empty, she supposed, when there were none to enforce it.

  The Mese appeared busy down by the Milion. She hastened towards it and was surprised to recognise the face of one young man caught by a splash of moonlight. She had served him bread at the mesoteichion stockade on more than one occasion and marvelled, horrified, each time at the changes written in his bearing. The pure water of innocence had evaporated, almost before her eyes, and all that remained now was the salt crust of a cynic.

  He was one of the Scotsman’s men, she was sure of that, so she scuttled up to him and began to unburden her agitated mind.

  ‘Have you seen her?’ asked Zenobia. ‘Is John Grant here abouts?’

  The Genoese lad, startled by this verbal ambush, recoiled against one of the broken stone columns. She could smell the fetid drink on him as she grabbed his arm to stop him slinking away. ‘She’s gone!’ said Zenobia. ‘Snuck out, the silly fool. Is she with your man Grant?’

  The lad shrugged away her hand. ‘Leave off, mad woman!’ he said. ‘Grant’s at the wall with the rest of them. I’ve not seen your girl. The duke’s daughter, is it? She’ll not be with him.’
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  Her stomach was knotting wildly within herself. The streets were never safe after dark for a decent girl, but now, with a lunatic on the loose, Zenobia felt faint each time she contemplated the prospect or remembered the wretched body in the orchard.

  The inner terrors turned her tongue to acid at the unhelpful youth. ‘Run away, have you?’ she said. ‘Thought you’d lurk about here where it’s safe instead of doing your duty?’

  ‘I’m no coward!’ the lad shouted with unexpected vigour. ‘I’m not running. I’m going to prove I have it in me. For Genoa, for my uncle. I’m going to prove to them all what a soldier I can be!’

  ‘He’s cracked in the head,’ she thought and stepped back a pace.

  This time he reached out and stopped her leaving. ‘There’s to be an assault, tonight,’ he said. ‘Have you seen the boats in the harbour? They are making ready to strike at the Turk galleys in the Horn. I’ll be aboard one. I’ll help burn out those Turk rats, and then no man can say Leonello Boccanegra is a coward!’

  Before she could reply, he let go of her arm and shambled off towards the harbour road.

  An hour later, defeated, Zenobia returned to the Rose Palace, having scoured the streets about Hagia Sophia. She had even checked within the great empty basilica and at Hagia Euphemia, where Anna prayed on the rare occasions the headstrong girl was touched by a moment of piety. There was no sign at either, and the handmaiden had wept and begged the mute ikons for Anna’s safe return.

  Although Hagia Euphemia was busy with worshipers, her moans went unnoticed. There were too many others wailing and praying before the iconostasis for the sight of her tear-stained face to be remarkable.