The Iron Lance (14 page)

He made it sound as if we had known one another for several lifetimes, but if the slight exaggeration secured the benefit of the alluring creatures' company even for a moment, who was I to complain? “Ladies, I am charmed.” Raising the young woman's hand, I brushed it gallantly with my lips. “I am very happy to meet you, Miss Charmody.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Murray,” she purred in a low, melodious voice.

“Allow me.” Leaning close, I withdrew her chair. Her delicate perfume filled my senses with delicious hints of exotic nectar, and I instantly wondered what it would be like to kiss her. “Angus said he had a surprise for me, and I am delighted to say it is indeed a surprise—and of the most agreeable kind.”

That was probably the last rational thing I said that night, I fear. For, at the ladies' appearance, the waiter produced a bucket of chilled champagne and we all drank a toast to the public announcement of Angus and Elizabeth's wedding engagement, much to the amusement of all the members looking on.

Thus the evening passed in a brilliant haze of candlelight, perfume, wine and laughter. When we rose to leave, the dining room was dark and everyone else, including the waiters, had long ago departed. We walked along the river then, we four, and we must have walked for hours. I cannot think what I said, but the russet-haired beauty on my arm seemed to hang on every word, so I spoke just to keep her there, dreading the moment when we would part. I talked like a blithering fool to forestall the impending disaster.

But the moment would not be held off forever, and we said good-night, and then Angus bundled the ladies into a carriage, paid the driver, and sent them off. I stood in the street, bereft, watching the love of my life fade into the foggy mist. I felt as if life itself—at least any life hereafter worth living—had been cruelly torn from me. To make matters worse, it suddenly occurred to me that I had allowed her to leave without arranging to call on her again, or securing even a fragment of her address.

Angus, awash in love and benevolence, took one look at my face and said, “Cheer up, old son. You'll see her again.”

“When?” I said, my voice a miserable bleat in the night.

“Why, tomorrow, I should think. We're all going out to Queen's Ferry for a Sunday picnic. It's all arranged. Have you forgotten?”

“All of us? You mean—I thought it was just you and Lizzy—'”

“Libby.”

“All of us? Really? I thought…but that's just fantastic. It's tremendous!”

“Steady on.” He laid a hand to my arm. “Come along, then.” He started off down the street. “Let's see if we can find one more damned elusive cab.”

Thus, the two most significant events of my life occurred on the same evening. Within moments of each other, two meetings took place—Pemberton, and Miss Caitlin Charmody—meetings which were to alter the entire course of my life, the first no less than the second.

“By order of Alexius, Supreme Ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Elect of Heaven, Equal of the Apostles, it is decreed that you shall not enter the city with your armies, but you shall establish your camp in this place and here you shall wait until the basileus receives you.” Nicetas paused, looking up from the rolled parchment in his hand. “Do you understand what has been read to you?”

Godfrey, Duke of Bouillon, inclined his head slowly, but his brother Prince Baldwin made bold to reply. “How long must we wait?”

“You will wait,” explained the commander patiently, “until the basileus summons you.”

“Do you hear, brother?” Baldwin said, his voice thick with indignation. “We are to be made to wait here outside the walls like a pack of lepers!”

“Wait however you like,” replied Nicetas placidly, “but wait you will—until the basileus desires your company.”

“It is intolerable!” sneered Baldwin.

“It is so decreed,” concluded the young commander. He passed the document to the elder of the two brothers, turned and mounted his horse. The emperor's Varangi looked on without expression, as equally prepared to fight as to withdraw.

“After all we have endured on our journey,” Baldwin fumed, “to be confined to our camps like a beggar band—it is an insult!”

“Perhaps the Christian citizens of Selymbria would have preferred such an insult,” replied Nicetas sharply.

“That was a mistake,” sniffed Godfrey, “which we deeply regret.”

“I am certain Selymbria will rejoice to hear it,” Nicetas intoned. “No doubt the survivors will feast in your honor. Would that your contrition extended to more material expression, however; the orphans and widows may find it difficult to feed themselves on word of your regret.”

“Come down off that horse, you impudent ass,” Baldwin roared. “We command an army of forty thousand! We will not be—”

“Oh, we have seen what your glorious army can do,” Nicetas informed him coldly, “when attacking the innocent and defenseless. If you find the emperor's greeting too harsh, I can only suggest that you might have considered whether slaughtering his subjects was likely to increase his joy at your arrival.”

Baldwin made a strangled cry and started forward. The Varangi spears swung level as they prepared to attack.

“Peace!” Godfrey said, putting out a hand to hold off his brother. To the commander of the palace guard, he said, “We will abide. You will please convey our promise to the emperor, along with our highest regards.”

Nicetas lifted the reins, turned his mount, and rode away, followed by the excubitori. Upon reaching the military gate, the riders passed quickly through and the gate was sealed once more behind them. The commander returned to Blachernae Palace and was admitted directly into Alexius' private audience chamber, where the basileus was waiting to receive him.

“Well?” demanded the emperor. “Tell me, Nicetas, what did you make of them?”

“They are Franks, basileus,” the commander replied with a shrug. “They are arrogant hot-heads without the slightest intelligence.”

“Did they deny the attack?”

“They said it was a deeply regretted mistake.”

Alexius nodded thoughtfully. “That is something, at least. Even so, we will send the Varangi to search out the stragglers and escort them at once to Constantinople. We will not suffer further attacks on people and properties under imperial protection. See to it, Nicetas.”

“It shall be done, basileus.” The commander of the palace troops acknowledged the order with a bow. “Regarding those already arrived, they have been ordered to confine themselves to the camps outside the walls as you have decreed. Do you wish me to arrange an audience with their leaders?”

“Soon, Nicetas, but not yet,” answered Alexius. “Perhaps once their hot heads have cooled sufficiently, they will recover some part of their sanity. A season of sober reflection is in order. Therefore, we will let them wait.”

“And the provisions, basileus?”

“We will grant the newcomers the same supplies we have extended to Count Hugh,” the emperor replied impatiently. “Nothing more.”

Nicetas acknowledged the plan, but questioned the efficacy. “Is it enough, basileus?”

“It is more than they gave the people of Selymbria,” replied Alexius tartly.

“Forgive me, basileus, but there
are
a great many of them.”

“How many, Nicetas?”

“The scouts say—”

“We know what the scouts say,” the emperor told him. “We are asking
you
, Nicetas. You have seen them, what do you make of it?”

“Perhaps twenty thousand, and more are arriving all the time.” He paused, as if unwilling to impart the bad news. “The lords boast twice that number.”

“Forty thousand,” groaned Alexius, calculating how much it would take to feed so many mouths.

“That is just the soldiers,” Nicetas said. “There are women and children with them, too.”

“God help us,” sighed Alexius. What madmen these crusaders were: bringing women and children into war. What possessed them? That they should arrive wholly unprepared for the rigors ahead—that was folly enough; that they should inflict such horror on their wives and offspring passed all understanding.

Alas, he reflected ruefully, they paid the highest price for their folly: the hermit Peter of Amiens and his peasant army had been cut down by the Seljuqs outside Antioch. Of the sixty thousand that left Constantinople, seven thousand were spared and taken into slavery; all the rest were slaughtered. On a single afternoon, fifty-three thousand misguided Christians sacrificed themselves to the folly of the Bishop of Rome. Indeed, it passed all understanding.

“God help us all,” sighed Alexius. He ended the audience then, dismissing the commander to his duties. When Nicetas had gone, the basileus called for the magister of the chamber. “Gerontius!” he said as the man appeared. “Bring us our riding cloak and cap. When we have gone, you may inform the magister officiorum that we have left the palace.”

“Certainly, basileus,” replied the elderly servant. “Shall I summon the drungarius to attend the basileus?”

“No,” Alexius replied, “we wish to ride alone today.”

The request for his cloak and cap had long been the emperor's coded way of saying he wished to go out into the
capital unattended by his retinue of imperial bodyguards and advisers—something he often did, especially when he wished to learn the true humor of the people. Alexius wore no other disguise, having learned long ago that, without the elaborate pomp and ceremony that normally accompanied his slightest movements, he could easily go among the citizenry without attracting the least attention. Alexius, with his compact stature and bald, unassuming appearance, was not much remarked upon; dressed in rustic homespun, he could easily pass for one of his own subjects.

When he had put off his imperial robes, and donned the common cloak and drab cap of a stablehand, the Elect of Heaven, Co-Regent of God, walked quickly from the palace, using one of the hidden gates. Unlocking the low, narrow door, he ducked out quickly, passing between two high walls and into a close, winding street which backed onto a jumbled row of market stalls. He could hear the hubbub of the market in the street beyond. Stepping into the street, he looked to see if there was anyone about, but saw only two skinny dogs nosing in a garbage heap.

Pulling the cap down further, he hurried off along the backstreet, turned the nearest corner and passed unobserved into the market and melted into the crowd. He walked along for a time, taking in the sights and sounds of the market; he paused to buy a bag of dates from an elderly merchant, and then directed his steps towards the Wall of Theodosius.

Alexius moved easily among his subjects, eating dates and plotting recompense for the witless destruction of Selymbria. These arrogant princes must be brought to heel, and he would see justice satisfied before any of them returned home. First, however, he must get the measure of these petty potentates who dared ride roughshod through his realm in the name of God.

Upon reaching the wall, he turned and walked along the wide, busy street which ran the length of the western defenses. Between the street and the wall, crude huts of cast-off wood and cloth had been erected by the poor—little more than lean-to dwellings to keep off the rain. Like so much within the capital, the basileus saw in this circumstance a symbol of the empire, where the massive wall was the strong rule of imperial law and civilizing faith, and the mean hovels were the fragile lives of the citizens which leaned in pitiable dependence upon the empire's great strength for their ever-tenuous survival.

Now and then, a wretch would hobble from a hovel to beg, and Alexius always obliged, giving a coin and a blessing to any who asked. When he ran out of coins, he gave away his dates.

He came to a crossroads which formed a wide square before the massive Charisius Gate, last of the old gates. Later emperors had constructed further defenses just beyond the Wall of Theodosius, but in this part of the city, the older walls towered above the newer, forever proclaiming the glory that had been. Passing quickly through the entrances, he found himself in a quarter of smiths and artisans of innumerable variety, each practicing his particular trade in a rough wooden stall behind which the craftsman lived in a few small rooms with his family. Judging strictly from the sound, every last smith was toiling away with utmost industry amidst the drifting smoke from their foundry fires. The clatter of hammer on metal, wood, and stone, the clamor of men shouting to one another for tools and materials, rose to a cacophony, not unlike that of battle.

Alexius liked the noise and commotion; he appreciated men who could make a living with the skill of their own two hands. He paused often to praise the finer examples of one craftsman or another, but did not allow himself to become involved in con
versations which would, he knew, lead to bargaining for the wares he had just admired.

He pressed on to his destination, and came to the end of the Artisans' Quarter where he stopped for his first view of the pilgrim camp which lay on the other side of a wide expanse of waste ground—part of an old salt marsh that had long since been drained. The low dark tents sprawled across the land like an untidy flood, stretching back and back into the distance, rising up to overflow the banks of the Golden Horn. The smoke of their cooking fires hung in a dull haze above, making it seem to Alexius as if he were gazing upon a range of diminutive dark mountains wrapped in dirty clouds. What is more, this strange mountain range seemed to spread out north and west as far as the eye could see. There were thousands of them—tens of thousands! And, according to the scouts and spies working back and forth along the coasts and roads of western borders, these were but the first of several groups on the move across the empire, and all of them were headed for the capital.

Alexius moved closer. At the outer perimeter of the camp, he could just make out the long lines of the horse pickets as a thin brown line snaking off into the heat haze. Indeed, even though he could not see the animals, he could smell them—even at this remove, the pungent aroma of horse manure was unmistakable. Closer, the stink would be almost suffocating. Nevertheless, the emperor steeled himself for a closer look and started across the waste land; he wanted to see these mad Romans in the flesh.

Not that he was a stranger to the sight: as a young man, his first battles as emperor had been fought against just these sorts of men. In fact, he had traded victories with the wily Robert Guiscard for several years before the stubborn king had at last given up the fight and died following a brief struggle with
typhoid. With the old king's death, his sons had fallen to squabbling among themselves for supremacy, thus leaving the empire free to concentrate on the defense of its northern borders, as well as the new and growing threat posed by the latest Arab terror, the Seljuq Turks.

Now the Romans, as they styled themselves, were back—and the fact that this time they were here to help him win back the Holy Land did not cheer him as much as they might have expected. He had seen in Robert Guiscard the naked face of the West, and he had good reason to fear and despise it. For the welfare of the empire, however, he would not allow personal rancor to dictate his conduct towards the pilgrim lords. He would receive them; he would even welcome them, but he would not believe them, and he would never trust them.

As Alexius neared the first ranks of tents that formed the perimeter, he noticed a fair number of merchants had gathered to offer their goods to the pilgrims—everything from precious gems, and rolls of the brilliant silken cloth for which the weavers of Byzantium were justly famous, to cabbages, boiled eggs, and flat bread. Closer, he heard in the bickering tones of trade a somewhat strident note, and quickly discerned that the bargaining was not flowing with the usual harmony of purpose. Seeing several disgruntled merchants—their handcarts filled with unsold produce—leaving the proceedings, the emperor hailed one of the men and asked what ailed him.

“Agh!” The merchant rolled his eyes. “By the Pure Light of Heaven, these Romans are worse than barbarians! They want everything but will not pay. There is no talking to them. I am finished.”

Before the emperor could reply, the man demanded, “Do they think us fools, that we should give away our wares? Look at these melons!” He plucked a round ripe melon from the neatly-
arranged stack. “Did you ever see such beautiful melons? And these apricots! Here, try one. Did you ever taste such an apricot?”

No, the emperor said, he had certainly never tasted such a wonderful apricot.

“Of course not!” cried the merchant. “I grow all this with my own two hands! Food fit for the basileus himself! And what do they do? They blow their noses at me!” Taking up the handles of his cart once more, the man continued on his way. “Theotokis is finished with them! Let them remember that when they are starving! Agh!”