Pasha's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  As for the plan itself…

  As was the case with so many Byzantine churches, Saint Titus’ basilica had begun as a simple domed cross-in-square affair, and had grown and expanded over the centuries to acquire side chapels, narthex entrance halls, a sacristy and a baptistery and various other additions. Now it hunched, sprawled in the centre of the paved square as though it had fallen from the sky with a splat.

  Skiouros and Parmenio had been inside a number of times over the last couple of weeks, and had committed to memory every inch of the building to which they had access. The main stumbling block had been the location of the relic. For some unknown reason, the Church authorities seemed to be more nervous of their relics’ security than was commonly the case and consequently the holy items were not on public display in the church’s main naos, at the altar. Now, the relics were kept in a side-chapel which was open to members of the public only by appointment and with the consent of the priests. Members of the public were permitted to worship the relics only at the entrance to that side-chapel, the business-end of the structure remaining concealed by a rich, brocaded curtain displaying a gaudy image of Saint Titus receiving his instructions from Saint Paul. What lay behind that curtain only God, the priests, and Lykaion’s mouldering head knew.

  Therein lay Skiouros’ other worry. Over the years he had become so used to hearing his brother’s shade speaking in the silence of his head that he had considered it almost normal, and yet recently there had been nothing. Somehow, he had expected to hear something now he was back on Crete, so close he could almost touch his brother’s earthly remains. Yet nothing came.

  It led him to wonder, deep down, whether perhaps something had happened, and whether Lykaion was in fact still there. Had the priests sent the casket on to Venezia for safety? Had they somehow discovered the substitution and burned the worthless contents of the holy container? He dared not voice these concerns to the others, of course. Parmenio was already deeply unhappy at what they were doing and was only part of it because of his close ties with Skiouros, and Diego, while he felt less troubled at the nature of their mission, would still have had nothing to do with it had it not essentially been buying him passage from this dangerous place.

  With input from the other two, Skiouros had planned as best he could, drawing together a flexible, open strategy that allowed for the many unpredictable variables involved. He had been coy, keeping certain portions of the plan to himself, since he knew there would be objections. That was to be expected and was unavoidable, but they must not prevent the plan from going ahead, and so he had kept his secrets from his friends, despite their clear unhappiness over the matter. The critical factor had, of course, been the escape.

  Skiouros and Parmenio’s investigations had provided a good, accurate plan of the city’s tangled street network from the square to the port. The three conspirators had worked over the map for seven straight nights, memorizing all the best routes, the house-bound Diego remembering them principally from the map and from the landmarks described by his companions, who walked those routes every day for familiarity. If anything went wrong, the three would all make for the port and meet up at a Greek spice-merchant’s warehouse with a clear view of the three Ottoman kadirga moored nearby. They should be safe from the inquisition there, as any priest worth his cross would be at one of the houses of God on such a sacred day.

  The timing had been easy to decide upon. The normal order of service for the church of Agios Titos had been amended for this great feast day, and the services of Sext and None had been removed, replaced by one great mass and associated rituals from noon until the middle of the afternoon. Thus the perfect time for their task was immediately following the great mass. Beforehand, the church would be busy and filled with priests, and during it, there was no chance. But afterwards, the church would empty quickly and the rest of the day’s festivities would continue, drawing attention from the church interior. In theory, only a skeleton staff would stay on, the rest of the priests and monks moving up to the small church of Agios Georgios, where the statue of the saint would be blessed and garlanded before being paraded about the city until the sun set.

  Yes. The timing and the escape were as well planned as they could be. And little could be anticipated of what they would do if they reached the side-chapel, for none of them had seen past the curtain.

  And then there was Skiouros’ little secret, of course: how they would get in to begin with…

  He looked along the balustrade at Parmenio, who was becoming twitchy.

  ‘We go ahead as planned.’

  Parmenio’s brow furrowed and he looked back down into the square. The last of the public who had attended the great mass were dispersing into side streets, each to his own personal celebrations of the patron saint’s day. Many of the church’s priests had departed in a small knot towards the church of Saint George. Agios Titos would be pretty empty.

  But the square around it was not.

  ‘We have to get word to Diego before it’s too late,’ Parmenio hissed.

  Skiouros looked down at the soldiers in the square. They had escorted the grand parade to this church – the most important in the city – and had stood outside throughout the mass while the banners and pennants of Candia had been taken inside. But parading in the Cretan sun, even in April, in full dress for many hours was an exhausting business, and a second unit of the Ducal Guard had arrived during the service to take on the duty from this point. Once the service was complete, the replacement force had accompanied the banners onwards, but the earlier escort had been dismissed by their officer and his adjutant and now lounged in small groups around the square as festive innkeepers from the surrounding taverns moved among them with free jugs of wine and loaves of bread.

  ‘How long will they stay here?’ Parmenio asked nervously.

  ‘Until the innkeepers stop giving them free drink. Happens every year.’

  ‘And when will that be?’

  ‘When it gets dark and the people start to flood their taverns again.’

  ‘So you knew there would be soldiers in the square all along?’

  Skiouros nodded. He wasn’t proud of the way his mind worked sometimes, but the fact remained that it was sharp, even if he occasionally cut friends with it.

  ‘And that was why you wanted Diego? That’s why you kept this a secret?’

  Again, the Greek nodded with a shiver of self-loathing.

  ‘You bastard.’

  All Skiouros could do was nod again. An ordinary day would have offered them no chance at their prize, and earlier on this festival day would have been no easier. No matter how much he’d thought on matters, he had always known that the weary soldiery of the Ducal Guard would stand between them and the church. And while the pair of them could enter the church easily enough, even if they managed to escape past the reclining soldiers on the way out, their faces would be remembered, and there was little chance of managing to make it to sea the next day without being brought up on charges.

  Unless they could somehow make the soldiers disappear.

  And what could be more important to a unit of tired soldiers than free wine and bread?

  His eyes lifted slightly as, just on cue, a cloaked and cowled figure emerged from a side street and began to make its way across the square, slowly, between the small groups of relaxing guardsmen.

  ‘You can’t do it, Skiouros. They’ll kill him. They’ll crucify the poor bastard.’

  Skiouros shrugged. ‘What’s done is done. He’s fast and he knows the back streets. I have every confidence in him. If there had been any other way…’

  Parmenio glared at him angrily and then turned back down to the square below. A young boy – probably a homeless wretch by the look of him – was converging with the cloaked figure.

  ‘Stop!’ yelled the boy.

  The cloaked figure came to a halt, the covered head snapping this way and that as this new entertainment caught the interest of a dozen of the closest guards. The officer bus
y laughing with his adjutant turned to look.

  ‘Diego de Teba!’ the young boy bellowed at the top of his voice, and the square fell strangely silent and motionless for a heartbeat.

  Then, suddenly, Diego was running. Some of the nearest and sharpest of the soldiers were already leaping to their feet despite their exhaustion, and the officer was bellowing commands. Across the square the guards unhappily lowered their cups and jars to the paving and rose straight into a run, making for the cloaked fugitive as the officer urged them on.

  A man – very fast for a soldier who had been stomping around the city in the sunshine all day – managed to reach Diego before he left the square and grasped for him. Though he missed the fugitive himself, he caught the cloak and ripped it away to reveal the Spaniard, his eyes wild but already calculating as he left the square.

  Two heartbeats later the officer and his adjutant were running for that side street, every one of their tired men converging on the much-sought prey. By the time Parmenio had called Skiouros a bastard for the seventh time, the only occupants of the square were three rather surprised-looking innkeepers gathering up the abandoned wine jugs.

  ‘If Diego dies because of this, you know I’ll hold it against you ‘til the end of days.’

  Skiouros simply nodded again. Just the latest in a long line of sacrifices he had made. Should he worry that he was becoming so accustomed to losing friends that he was becoming numb to the prospect?

  ‘He’ll be waiting for us at the spice warehouse, mark my words.’

  Parmenio answered with an ambiguous silence, and Skiouros threw up a quick prayer to God – and to his Muslim prophet just in case – that Diego was as good as he thought. And with that he pushed what was already done from his mind and made for the open doorway that led back down from the roof. Behind him, Parmenio cast him a black look, swept up the bulky oiled-cloth bag meant for their grisly prize and scurried on after.

  All the various office doorways in this Venetian trade building stood closed and silent, their occupants uniformly out in the city, honouring the feast-day’s patron by drinking until they couldn’t recognise Saint George from a hole in the ground. A few of the poorly-paid youths who ran the baser sides of the business moved about on the lower floors, but none of them blinked at the pair descending from the higher levels and in moments the two were out and striding across the paving, past the last two innkeepers who were exchanging muttered comments about the guards.

  A commotion audible from several streets away confirmed that Diego was still moving, occasional angry shouts in Italian rising above the din, and Skiouros was sure that more than once he heard the muffled clash of steel.

  Run, Diego.

  A large number of pigeons had descended to the pavement in the wake of the soldiers, gathering up the crumbs from the various small loaves that had accompanied the wine, and Skiouros couldn’t help but smile as he remembered the flurries of pigeons that used to gather in exactly the same manner on the ancient square outside the church of Saint Nikolas back in the Greek Enclave of Istanbul. As used to humans here as those back in the great city, the pigeons continued their hungry work as Skiouros and Parmenio moved through them towards the church, a few flapping out of the way as the men passed, only to settle back down a few feet further away.

  The pair approached the great church, the afternoon’s golden sunshine at their back, casting spindly shades across the paving, the fluttering shadows of the pigeons pock-marking the triple-arched church front. The central arch contained the plain, unadorned door of the building, the left arch empty and the right occupied by a beggar rocking slowly back and forth in the brilliant glow. As he neared the door, Skiouros narrowed his eyes, trying to shut out most of the bright light and moments later, he passed across the threshold and into the dim interior of the church, his vision adjusting all the quicker because of his preparedness.

  As was so common – and so breathtakingly comforting to the Greek – the interior of this former Byzantine structure belied its frontage. Unlike those glittering churches of Catholic Rome, the buildings of the Greek Church presented a sober exterior, with no delicately-carved saints looking on and no gilded roofs or delicate tracery. The only external decoration one found in these ancient churches was a skilfully balanced architecture, perhaps with patterns picked out in different brickwork. Their decoration was in their design and their domes, their arches and columns. Glory for God and not for man. The rich internal decoration of these places lay in their masterful painted walls and the mosaics that covered the domes, each telling tales of the Lord and his servants.

  Passing into the shadow, from the square, the two men slipped through the empty exo-narthex and inner narthex and approached the doorway that opened into the naos where the main business of religion went on.

  The church was not empty, which surprised Skiouros, and he was grateful that the door had stood open and he had not disturbed the half-dozen or so locals kneeling towards the front of the church, deep in prayer. Quickly he gestured over his shoulder to Parmenio and slipped to his right, out of the doorway, and a moment later, the pair were in the gloom at the edge of the large nave, pausing quickly to take stock. Apart from the few locals, the church seemed to be quiet. No priests were visible, though the doorway to the sacristy stood open, so they were around and would likely reappear shortly.

  Skulking in the shadows, Skiouros and Parmenio moved around the edge of the church, beneath the colonnaded aisle until they reached the doorway that led to the side chapel containing the church’s relics. A centuries-old mosaic showing Saint Titus arriving in Crete with the apostle Paul filled the arch above the doorway, the writing below it in an archaic form of Greek that warmed Skiouros to the core. He might still be in Crete and not Istanbul, but every step now brought him closer to home.

  His heart suddenly thumping into accelerated life, Skiouros stopped dead, Parmenio stumbling into his back and grunting in annoyance. The young Greek held up his hand in a signal to wait, and he closed his eyes.

  Lykaion?

  No. It wasn’t. Because Lykaion had always been one whispered voice in his mind, and this was a discordant chorus of shades. A cacophony of whispered thoughts.

  A chill running the length of his spine, Skiouros shuddered. What was happening to him? It had never really struck him as odd that he could oft-times hear his brother’s spirit and that they still conversed on occasion as though the man still lived. It was largely this fact, after all, that had led him to such great efforts to preserve what he could of Lykaion’s remains and why he now robbed a church to retrieve them and take them home. But it had never occurred to him that he might one day hear the shades of others.

  ‘What is it?’ grumbled Parmenio irritably.

  Skiouros shivered again. ‘I… I think I heard something. Like whispered pleas.’

  ‘You mean like all the locals whispering to God, Skiouros,’ the Genoese sailor huffed, and Skiouros turned with a frown. The truth crashed on him in a mix of relief and embarrassment. He had been so intent on hearing Lykaion that he had missed the obvious. The locals whispered their prayers and pleas to God in a susurrating tide, and Skiouros smiled weakly at Parmenio, who was giving him an odd look.

  ‘Come on.’

  The side chapel – a parekklesion in the Greek – was covered with paintings of saints and biblical scenes, its false arches delicate and so achingly familiar. It did not escape his notice that the last arch before the dividing curtain contained an image of Saint Nikolas of Myra – the patron saint of thieves, among other groups – watching him with ironic sourness.

  At least the side chapel was empty, for all the accusatory glare of the painted saint, and the pair closed on the curtain quietly and quickly. Parmenio unslung the oiled-cloth bag and held it ready, nodding for Skiouros to move.

  With infinite trepidation, the former thief – falling back into his old ways only with the best of intentions – stepped up to the curtain and twitched one edge away from the wall by an inch or
two, leaning close to his disapproving patron saint and peering through.

  Empty.

  Skiouros exhaled gratefully; he hadn’t even been aware that he was holding his breath. How much he had changed over the years. Half a decade ago this sort of thing would have been so normal and simple for him that it would barely have raised his pulse. Now…

  Beckoning Parmenio, he slipped through the curtain and into the main chapel. With an apsidal end beneath its own small dome, the chapel was compact and even slightly claustrophobic. Every flat surface of wall was painted with saints and holy tableaus, and from the dome the Son of God looked down holding up his fingers in a sign of blessing. Somehow that did little to comfort Skiouros.

  To their right, a small, heavy and ancient door pierced the wall, a thick bar slid into sockets barring it from the outside, and a huge iron key sitting in the lock, welded to the plate with cobwebs and grime. The whole door was dusty and the crack at the bottom was not visible for debris. It had not been opened in decades – perhaps even centuries.

  A small altar draped with a blue and gold cloth stood at the far end, beneath the dome. Atop the slab stood two gild wood caskets protected by a gilded metal cage that rose from the very stone of the altar, covering the caskets like protective skeletal hands. The rear of the cage was hinged, the front fastened with a heavy padlock.