The Emperor Awakes (6 page)

The mass exodus from Constantinople had begun months ago as rumours were swirling that the Ottoman army was approaching the city on all sides. Many were in no mood to wait and get caught naked in the middle of that particular carnage.

A caravan of people with their few precious belongings stretched for miles from the city and heading west, as far away from the advancing Ottoman armies and the centre of the Ottoman Empire as they could.

It was a sad spectacle. Nobody spoke. Nobody looked around. All forlorn faces stared dead ahead with the fear of death in their eyes. Their eyes betrayed the fact that they had witnessed death too. Luck was with them as it had not rained for weeks and progress was easier through the rough terrain.

The advancing Ottoman armies simply watched, indifferent to this sad human column. It was the Sultan’s orders that dictated that they should be left undisturbed. Nobody was to be harmed or looted; mostly that was because there was nothing worth taking there.

The city was the prize. No distractions would let them deviate from this single purpose. And there was another reason. The more people left the city the fewer would be there to defend it. Of course, depending on what those people were carrying, the less would be the loot when the city fell. So the Ottomans would stop and check people’s belongings, but would otherwise leave them in peace with no harm or physical violence befalling them.

The Ottoman’s indifference to this mass of rudderless human specimens was not enough incentive to those still in the city to flout their sense of duty and their posts and flee. The exodus declined to a mere trickle and then it abruptly ceased.

The air was heavy and it was difficult to breathe. But then my nostrils protested and flared up; the culprit was a putrid smell hanging in the air, the stink of rotting flesh, the leftovers of the most recent battle.

The two sides had engaged and had drawn blood. The city still seemed from afar to have remained untouched. The Ottomans could taste blood and were taking small bites and retreating, wearing down the city’s defenders to break their spirit.

Inside the city they knew their days were numbered. They resorted to prayer to a God that, surely, would not desert them in their dourest hour. But even as they prayed and hoped for salvation, they felt the flesh falling away, until for some only their bones were left and unable to stand on their own two feet and eaten away by hunger, they came crashing down, sinking into the sand and becoming one with their beloved soil.

Maybe those were the lucky ones, the ones not to have to suffer the ravishing and humiliation of the rape of the city or their imprisonment away from their homes. The city’s defenders felt as if a bird of prey kept lunging at them, biting chunks off them. They were waiting for the final assault that would spell their doom, the end of one thousand years of glorious history and the dawn of a new chapter for the East.

God, today though, was nowhere to be found. God forgot or decided not to show up for work on this inauspicious day and to take a long-overdue and well-deserved rest from the exciting entertainment of watching people’s squabbles. And yet the defenders prayed. They prayed that God did not crave their company just yet.

I wiped my forehead with the back of my sleeve. The humid air was weighing me down. I felt as if I was going to melt; clothes, flesh, bones, horse and all, and seep into the ground. My horse was suffering too. I could feel it through her fur that hang limp from her glorious form. But she would not fail me. She never had before.

I had a mission to complete. History would not be forgiving if I failed. I made a final push towards the city careful to avoid the Ottoman blockade. The darkness offered me good cover. It had been a long time since I last saw the Emperor and I wondered how I would be received, in view of past conflicts between the Order of Vlacharnae and successive Imperial dynasties. I ached for a warm welcome.

The horse sensed my urgency and accelerated at my command with no further prodding. I saw the Western Gates growing ever closer and I was blinded at times by the reflection of the moonlight on the metal that gleamed and led my way like a beacon. Upon reaching the towering Western Gate complex, I suddenly felt tiny and overwhelmed by the walls rising high above me.

I looked up for signs of the guards on the posts above the gates. Nothing, not even the normal gleam of light emanating from a torch. I had to gain entry to the city. I called for the gates to open. But the gates remained steadfastly closed and the city shut to me; so close and yet so far out of reach. I did not want to camp outside for the night and wait till morning. I had to find another way in.

Then I suddenly caught a glimpse of a faint light coming from some point near the walls at ground level. Was it friend or foe? I decided to take a chance. I reluctantly went closer. I nearly missed the shadow silhouetted against the walls and almost merging with the shadows around it.

But then I smelled its foul breath and its radiating warmth hit me like a slap even in the heat around me. I could just about make out the silhouette of a person. I wondered whether it was an illusion, a play of the shadows thrown by the moonlight. I blinked, in case my eyes were deceiving me.

Yet there it was; a hooded figure was standing in front of me. I tried to say something. I thought I said something, but as my ears registered nothing, I soon realised that it was all in my head and any words I wanted to say died on my lips, my vocal chords shuddering to a grinding halt; or had the hooded figure magically removed them?

And then, as suddenly as I saw the figure, a voice came out of that dark blotch against the sky blocking my way.

‘My name is Ioannis. We have been expecting you. His Majesty has sent me to escort you to the palace. Please, follow me.’

I could not see his face and did not know whether I could trust him, but his voice had authority and, involuntarily, I instantly became his slave and would follow him anywhere like a dutiful lamb. I was tired from my long journey and following this stranger seemed an attractive and easy option to my predicament of how to enter the city.

Ioannis touched a stone on the walls and a doorway appeared. Beyond it opened a pitch-black chasm. Ioannis lit a torch and went in. He was immediately swallowed by the darkness. I hesitated. Then I saw Ioannis stop in his tracks and half-turn to me.

I obeyed his call. I passed under the doorway and into the eerie space beyond. The torch was throwing sparks of light and shadows and half-illuminated the space, and once my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw a tunnel leading away from me and disappearing into the far darkness with no hint as to its length.

I knew this tunnel was only one of many. The builders of this city’s defences must have really provided for every eventuality. I wished I had the time to explore this great city’s closely-guarded secrets. Secrets that had prevented its fall for more than a thousand years. Secrets that a selected few kept close to their chest. And, no doubt, there must have been other secrets that had been forgotten over time.

The long tunnel led into the city’s grandest underground reservoir, the Basilica Cistern. Walking through the forest of giant columns I felt I was an intruder to the home of hundreds of forms frozen in time and stone. At the far end of that huge space, we came face to face with a wall and no obvious way out.

Ioannis then pointed to stairs I had not noticed before that rose up and I followed. We soon came to a door which Ioannis quickly unlocked with a key he had hidden in an inside pocket.

We emerged in a large square. After the coolness of the Basilica Cistern, the heat that hit us even at this hour knocked the wind out of my lungs and I had to take a second to steady myself and get accustomed to the stifling air of the city before we could proceed.

Of course during my recovery time, I could sense, in the darkness, my guide’s amusement at my inability to adjust straight away. It did not take long, however, for my guide’s amusement to turn to impatience and I could smell his annoyance and his silent instruction to rush me along.

In front of us, the magnificent, imposing and forbidding mass of Ayia Sofia rose to the sky topped with its huge dome that seemed to float in mid-air. The square was empty, implying that the city had already been deserted. Yet the air was not devoid of signs of human existence. I could smell the foul breath of an overcrowded besieged cauldron slowly simmering with the faint perfume of near eruption.

A distant chant reached me and I turned towards the great church. Faint lights blinked through the many windows. I could see in my mind’s eye a full to bursting church pulsating with the desperate prayer of numerous souls carried upwards and threatening to smash the giant dome to smithereens in their despair to reach the heavens and God’s seat of power.

If you looked closer, you could see the sweaty vapour rising from every pore of the steaming home of God on earth. If the faithful did not exit soon they would be cooked alive.

I wondered why we had made such a long detour from the Western Walls and the Vlachernae Quarter of the city where the Palace of Vlachernae stood. I had no time to waste. I had to meet with the Emperor. Where was this man taking me? Was I to meet a fate of death by traitors, by my sworn enemies? Was I being led to a trap? Could I trust this stranger who purported to have been sent by the Emperor to lead me to him?

My guide had not uttered a single word. I dared not question him, as the slightest murmur could carry far in the stillness of the night. There was danger lurking in the shadows and I saw my guide’s eyes dart in all directions, searching for ghosts, alert at the tiniest movement and sound.

Though suspicious, I kept my own counsel and resisted the impulse to break the silence. My questions stayed on my lips and, as I sensed my companion’s pace progressively quickening, I increased my pace to keep up.

We walked briskly across the faintly-lit square and through the deceptively deserted city, turning through twisting lanes and alleys that made me feel disorientated and queasy.

I could not say how long we had travelled, but we seemed to be going around in circles and when Ioannis stopped we were almost back where we started, but on the far side of the outer perimeter of the courtyard of Ayia Sophia on the point where it touched the forbidding dark wilderness of what used to be the acropolis of the ancient Megareian colony of Byzantium.

Was my guide trying to shake off possible stalkers? Ioannis looked around and then in quick long strides entered the wilderness and suddenly disappeared through a thickset of brambles.

For a brief moment I was not sure whether I actually saw him, whether he had really existed or whether he was just an apparition, a figment of my imagination, my mind twisted by the stale air floating above the city and pressing down with its weight stifling all beneath it. I could hear nothing and I stood still and listened for any sound. I waited, but when he did not come out, I decided to take the plunge into the unknown.

The adventure was a short one and within seconds, I emerged into a cave. All around the cave was lit by what seemed like hundreds of torches. There was rich decoration on the walls and the ceiling was covered in frescoes depicting scenes from ancient Greece.

Ioannis was standing in front of an icon of Panagia or the Virgin Mary, silently praying. He suddenly turned and let the hood drop back to reveal his face. The cloak fell from his shoulders to the ground. I froze. I knew I had to kneel, but my legs would not obey me. Ioannis patiently waited. I recovered my speech.

‘Your Majesty, I am at your service.’ I paused, not yet trusting myself to continue.

There was the distant sound of running water and birdsong to break the silence.

‘It’s good to see you, Michael. Forgive me for the charade, but these are dangerous times and I suspect the Sultan has many ears amongst us. The odds are increasing against us with every passing day. It is becoming more difficult to inspire the people to defend their city. They seem to have grown more devout and helpless. They’ve put their lives in God’s and the Virgin Mary’s hands and believe that there will be a miracle. The Ottoman’s knock on our door is becoming louder and louder and instead of spurring them into action it paralyses them and has turned the brains of most of them to mash. I am running out of ideas.’

The Emperor seemed friendly enough. It seemed that my mission would be easier than expected. I truly believed at that moment that the Emperor had already come around to our way of thinking and no longer saw the Order as a threat.

It seemed such a relief, after centuries of suspicion and intrigue, with the members of the Order constantly looking behind their backs for the Imperial spies, at the same time as they were alert for any threat from the Ruinands against themselves and the against the Imperial family.

And yet Constantinople was important to them. Its fate was the key to the future. They had to watch for the dynasty; which was a thankless task as every dynasty fought them and tried to trip them at every turn. Successive emperors had been too blinkered to see that the Order was by no means not only not a threat but also a staunch ally.

And what those emperors chose to be blind to was the fact that, had it wished, the Order could easily have taken the reins of power in Constantinople. However, its mission was clear and its members were good and decent people of exceptional integrity and fortitude.

It was a sad show of the intricacies and machinations of the exulted and privileged courtiers surrounding the Imperial family, not just the members of the Imperial family itself, a clear and unfortunate case of paranoia plague, accelerating the empire’s suicidal collision with history.