Shadows on a Sword (6 page)

His blood pounded in his ears as he raced back out. William held Centurion ready. Theo’s hands, as he took the reins, shook slightly. He grasped the pommel of his saddle to steady them. He must not look like an excitable, untried boy in front of his groom. When he had got himself under control, he turned back to William.

“You knew, didn’t you,” he said. “You knew they were going to leave the camp.”

“One of the grooms …”

“Why didn’t you say something, or warn me?” Even as he asked the question, Theo knew it was useless. There was a brotherhood among the grooms that excluded even the most beloved masters, and he was certainly not one of those. “Never mind,” he said. He put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle. “Is there food enough in my saddlebags?”

“Yes, master. For several days at least. And two skins each of water and wine.” The groom looked relieved.

Theo hesitated. I should discipline him, he thought. He should have told me what he had learned. If I can’t count on his loyalty … But there was nothing he could do at the moment. When I return, he told himself. William cannot go unpunished. He frowned. This business of being a master was difficult.

A shout called him to attention.

“Theo! Are you ready?” It was Amalric. “Godfrey has given me permission to ride with you. What fun! At last we will see some excitement!” He galloped heavily over to Theo, then reined in his charger with a yank that caused the animal to shake its head angrily and foam at the bit.

“You do your beast damage,” Theo said. Amalric’s exuberance grated on him. Did he not realize the enormity of the situation? The whole crusade was in danger.

Amalric reached over to throw an arm around Theo’s shoulders. His eyes were bright, his cheeks flushed. His enthusiasm was contagious, and in spite of himself, Theo felt his own heart begin to race.

It was not until morning of the next day that they reached the village the crusaders had raided. They saw smoke rising from the site long before the houses themselves could be seen. Theo and Amalric rode side by side, as usual. Amalric kept up a constant stream of talk as they drew near, but Theo gradually fell silent. He looked around him with growing dread. No birds sang in the trees. He listened in vain for barking dogs. They rounded a bend in the path and the village itself came into view. Nearly every house was burned to the ground; some were still smoldering. There was no sign of life anywhere. A few sacks of grain lay spilt in the middle of the road. The body of a cat lay beside them under a seething blanket of flies. Theo felt his gorge rise. He and Amalric reined in their horses and stared. Finally, Amalric spoke.

“The townsfolk have taken to the hills, I warrant,” he said. “Those who were left …” The words came out halting and uncertain, unlike his usual breezy manner. He shrugged his shoulders and tried to force the enthusiasm back into his voice. “We’ll catch up with the scoundrels who did this, never fear, and take them back to face the duke. That will teach them a lesson!”

“Our own men.” Theo’s voice was heavy with disbelief. “Our own men destroyed this village, Amalric, and it was a Christian village.”

“We’ll catch them. They’ll be punished.” Amalric’s face was blank. He didn’t meet Theo’s eyes. “These things happen in war. It can’t be helped.”

“We’re not at war here.” Theo stopped as Amalric dug spurs into his horse with a vicious kick and forged away. He stared after his friend. Amalric might be able to find excuses, to make some sense out of this, but he, Theo, could not.

It took eight days to find the renegade knights and soldiers—eight days of following behind and traveling through ruined villages and ravaged countryside. It seemed the soldiers had, indeed, gone mad. Here and there, Theo caught sight of survivors, but any who saw them ran quickly for the shelter of the woods.

“Should we not stay and help them?” he asked. It seemed to him that they must do
something
to atone for the terrible harm their own men had done. But Aimery just shook his head.

“We can help them best by leaving them alone. They want no more of us.” His face was grim, etched with lines Theo had not noticed before.

By the time they did catch up to the marauding army, the renegades had had their fill of violence and looting, and were on their way back. Count Garnier’s men took them under immediate arrest, but they seemed little chastened. Their saddlebags bulged, and they were red-eyed from carousing. Theo was sickened by the sight of them. Not so Amalric, however, who seemed to have recovered all of his original excitement. He pointed to a soldier who wore a stained rag tied around his head.

“Look, Theo, blood! That one has seen battle!”

“Battle? Cutting down unarmed villagers? Do you call that battle?” Theo’s words were heavy with disgust. For the moment, Amalric sickened him as much as the soldiers did. This time, it was Theo who turned and rode away.

B
y Yuletide, they were encamped on the stony, sparsely grassed hills outside the walls of Constantinople. The weather was raw and cold, although as yet there was no snow. The priests celebrated the Christmas masses with the domes and spires of all the churches of the great city looming behind them. Theo had never seen such a city before; he was in a frenzy of excitement to explore it. The emperor Alexius was cautious, however. It wasn’t until the Christmas celebrations were over that he began to allow small groups in. Amalric was quick to invite Theo to investigate the pleasures of the town’s taverns with him, but Theo demurred. His friendship with Amalric was back on its sound footing, and he had managed to convince himself that his judgment of his friend was too harsh, but there was so much else he wanted to see in the city. Then Emma appeared at his campsite early one morning before he had even eaten.

“Theo!” She stood before him, breathless, and a little uncertain. “I have the day to myself and permission to visit the city. Will you go with me?”

He didn’t hesitate. Emma would be the ideal person to explore Constantinople with. Besides, he had had little opportunity to seek her out in the past few days, and he had missed her.

“Most certainly, I will,” he answered. “I have no duties today—I will ask permission of the count.”

Within the hour, they presented themselves at the massive, metal-studded gate at the western edge of the city. Emma pressed through it eagerly and pulled Theo with her. Before them, tree-lined streets and alleys beckoned. Enormous houses of stone, unlike any Theo had seen before, sat surrounded by gardens, beautiful even in the cold of winter.

“I thought the churches of Cologne magnificent,” he murmured in awe, “but these surpass even them.”

“Truly,” Emma agreed. “I could never have imagined such places. They are not covered in gold, though, as was said.”

“And the streets are not laden with jewels,” Theo added with a laugh.

“But they are wonderful, are they not?”

“They are,” Theo said. There was something about the grace and the symmetry of the city that pleased him to the depths of his soul. A man could be happy living in such a place, he thought. The glory and the thrill of war seemed remote and unreal in such a setting.

The marketplace, where they had been told they could find all manner of foods and merchandise, was their main destination, but they lost themselves repeatedly in the maze of streets. Only after stumbling upon the old Roman aqueduct did they find it. The immense stone columns of the waterway towered over them, dwarfing all the buildings around. These pillars supported the gigantic open stone pipeline, built so efficiently by the Romans, that still brought the city’s supply of water coursing down from the hills. Theo and Emma stood for a moment, heads tilted back, gawking at the spillway far above them; then they moved on into the market.

As soon as they entered, Theo was overwhelmed with the sights, sounds and smells of it. As he sniffed in the smoky, spice-scented air, the smells wafted around him. Some he could identify—vanilla, cloves, herbs of many kinds—and others were strange to him. Color and confusion reigned. The owners of the stalls called out ceaselessly, hawking their wares, until their voices blended into one loud jumble. The sound of thousands of tiny tapping hammers led him, with Emma in tow, to an area where men battered out platters of silver and copper. Looms thumped and clattered as women wove brightly hued wool into shawls and blankets.

“Oh, look, Theo—shoes! My lady gave me a few coppers and I mean to have a pair.” Emma darted over to a stall and began to sort through the assembled footwear. The stall owner, a large, florid, black-haired woman with snapping dark eyes, unleashed a torrent of words at her.

“Greek, I expect,” Emma said in an aside to Theo. “I know not a word of it.” Undaunted, she held up the pair of soft leather shoes she had chosen and began to bargain with wild, expressive sweeps of her hands. The woman answered with gestures of her own, and an even greater flood of language. To Theo’s astonishment, they seemed to understand each other completely. A deal was struck and Emma handed over her few coppers. Then there was nothing for it but to put her new shoes on immediately. She plomped herself down on the cobblestones beside the stall, ripped off her old worn shoes and bound the new ones on. She leaped to her feet and took Theo’s arm.

“Are they not fine?” she asked at least ten times as they moved on, stopping each time to stick out a foot and admire it.

Next, they made their way to the food stalls. The aromas were irresistible, the foodstuffs exotic and enticing. They bought sizzling hot, fragrantly spiced meat pies that tasted strongly of mutton and garlic, and washed them down with a light, warm, pleasant-tasting mead. They tried the small black fruit called olives. When Emma made a face at the sour, flat taste, Theo mocked her, then persevered until he began to like them. They tried a strong goat cheese wrapped in grape leaves and drizzled with oil from the olives. Finally, they pushed on through the throngs of people to the other side of the market, and found themselves on a wide, spacious avenue adorned with statues and columns, and dotted with tree-filled plazas that gave shelter from the nipping wind.

“Look!” Theo exclaimed suddenly. “The Hippodrome!” He had heard so much of this stadium—famous for the public games and spectacles that had taken place there ever since the time of the Romans.

“Let’s peek in,” Emma said. “There’s a gate. It’s closed, but we can see through.” She ran over to it. Theo caught up to her and peered through the iron railings. He could see a vast oval enclosure, ringed with stone tiers. He had heard that over a hundred thousand people could be seated in the Hippodrome. Several tall columns ran in a straight line lengthwise down the center of it. Today, it stood vast and empty, but in Theo’s mind it was crowded with spectators. Their roar filled his head. Chariots pulled by crazed, frantic horses careened around the track.

One obelisk was sheathed in gleaming bronze; another column was topped with three serpents’ heads holding aloft a tripod that shone golden in the weak winter sun. This was a pagan monument, Theo knew, dedicated to the old Roman god Apollo. The western Christian church disapproved of such things as these and the many other heathen icons that the Byzantine Christians kept by them, but the beauty of the monument entranced him nonetheless.

Emma was eager to go on. Beyond the Hippodrome was Saint Sophia, the Hagia Sophia—one of the oldest and most revered churches in Christendom. Theo could see its dome towering over all the other buildings, even over the Great Palace of the emperor Alexius himself.

“There, Emma. That is where I want to go.” Of all the holy churches, the Hagia Sophia was the one Theo most wanted to see. There, he could kneel and pray.

I will pray for the success of our crusade, he thought. Here, it can really begin. The memory of the destroyed Christian villages flickered through his mind, but he pushed it firmly aside. That is not how it will be, he resolved. From here, we go on renewed. From here, the crusade will be a glory to God, and nothing else.

They entered the courtyard, then directed their steps to the small door at the side. Only the emperor himself, Theo had been told, could use the main entrance. Once inside the church, they passed through a low, arched doorway surmounted by a glowing mosaic of the Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus on her lap, with the great emperors Justinian and Constantine paying homage on either side of her. Theo stopped so suddenly that Emma bumped into him, and he heard her gasp, echoing his own sudden intake of breath. Never could he have imagined what now lay before him. Above, the shining dome stretched up higher than the tower of any church Theo had ever seen. The circular vastness was so great that Theo felt almost dizzy with the sense of space. All the columns and arches were intricately carved; the walls and ceiling glowed with the rich colors of the mosaics and paintings that covered every surface. The figures of Jesus and his disciples looked down on them from paintings illuminated with gold. Countless windows let in streams of light. Around the top ran a gallery enriched with a filigree of ironwork and colonnaded with smaller arches that duplicated the taller arches below. A magnificent cross blazed out from behind the altar, dominating all with a golden splendor of its own.

Theo brought his gaze back to look at the people around him. The church was crowded, filled with ordinary people as well as with men and women who were obviously of the nobility, but of a nobility very different from what Theo knew. On the whole, the knights of the German and Frankish lands were a rough lot. Their ladies dressed colorfully but modestly in woollens during the winter months, and in linen shifts when the weather was warm. The knights themselves worried little about their attire other than to ensure it was warm enough in the cold weather. The clothing of these nobles, however, dazzled Theo’s eyes. The ladies’ dresses shimmered and whispered with the softness of silk. Their hair was ornately styled and dripping with jewels. More jewels sparkled on their necks, arms and fingers. Shawls of gossamer wool were draped over their shoulders. If anything, the men outshone the women: they, too, were brilliantly dressed and flashing with gems. They knelt to pray on tiny, many-hued carpets.