The Vault of Bones

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The Vault of Bones Page 48

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes


  Leaning against the wall of the palace, Captain de Montalhac and I began to laugh. No one could hear us, and we stood there for a while in the sun, mouths open, eyes watering.

  Is this really hell?' I asked the Captain, suddenly. He frowned, and then started to laugh again. A couple of Franciscans, late for Mass, scowled at us as they hurried by. -

  'Oh yes’ he said at last. 'Yes, my friend. This truly is hell’

  Historical note

  This is a work of fiction, and as such is constructed from a jumble of what if?'s. But here are some facts:

  The Crown of Thorns was taken to Venice in 1237 by one Nicholas Querini as security for a debt of 13,134 pounds of gold.

  King Louis IX of France, through the agency of Andrew of Longjumeau and James of Paris, redeemed the Crown from Venice for 135,000 gold livres, half the annual worth of the kingdom of France. He built the Saint Chapelle in Paris to house it, and went on to buy most of the other items in the Pharos Chapel.

  Baldwin de Courtenay did not return to Constantinople until 1240. He was always desperate for money, and at one point was reduced to mortgaging his own son to Venice.

  John Vatatzes' successor finally took back Constantinople in 1261. The Franks had crippled Byzantium beyond repair, though, and it finally fell to the Ottoman Turks on 29 May, 1453

  Baldwin spent the rest of his life as an emperor without an empire, wandering about the courts of Europe in the vain hope that someone would get Constantinople back for him. No one did. He died in Sicily in 1273.

  In 1238, the Abbot of San Giorgio Maggiore, Pietro Querini, obtained the body of Saint Eustichius from Constantinople.

  In 1310, the Querinis, together with the Tiepolos, attempted to overthrow the Venetian Republic and set up a despotate. Their rising failed, and the Querini Palace in San Polo was confiscated and turned into a slaughterhouse.

  The Mandylion of Edessa vanished sometime after the Franks sacked Constantinople in 1204. Nicholas Mesarites saw it in 1201, and Robert de Clari says it was in the Bucoleon Palace in 1205. Then it disappears from history.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  PART THREE

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  PART FIVE

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  PART SIX

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

 

 

 


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