The Walls of Byzantium (36 page)

Anna said what Zoe had been waiting for her to say: ‘Prince Suleyman is here.’

Zoe looked at her and saw the tension that had hardened her mouth. ‘Yes,’ she said evenly. ‘I believe he is.’

There was a silence which each wanted the other to end.

‘What will you do?’ asked Anna eventually.

‘Apart from avoid him? Nothing much. What will
you
do?’

Anna looked back at Zoe and then beyond her to scan the courtyard behind. It was empty of anything but peacocks. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I heard what was said at Serres. Do you think there is a pact?’

Zoe took her hand. ‘I suppose it’s possible. But it was only Bayezid that mentioned it. If Suleyman had anything to do with it, why would you be here rather than at Edirne?’ She paused. ‘Could it be, perhaps, that Prince Suleyman is trying to protect you?’

‘From Bayezid?’ Anna shook her head. Bayezid preferred princes from Trebizond.

‘God knows,’ Zoe said, with bitterness, ‘I’ve no affection for Suleyman. But my father says that he’s not forgotten the day at Mistra when he first saw you in the forest. Perhaps he just wishes to protect you. Perhaps that’s why you’re here.’

Anna was still shaking her head. ‘I don’t believe it.’

But then she thought of the long months at Serres and the impeccable politeness of a dark man with a pointed beard who could, at any stage, have ravished her.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she said again.

‘Well, you must believe what you like,’ said Zoe. ‘For myself, I would rather not think about Prince Suleyman at all. Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?’

‘No, not that,’ said Anna.

Zoe knew what Anna wanted to know. ‘It is unlikely that he survived,’ she said gently. ‘The storm was terrible that night. One of our ships was driven as far as Santorini.’

The peacocks watched them, their heads erect.

‘We’ve had no news of Luke. I’m sorry.’

‘No. Well, it’s unlikely that you would,’ said Anna evenly, looking down into her lap and folding her hands. ‘He’s hardly a man of consequence.’

Anna thought of the scribbled message passed to her earlier. ‘There’s something else. I need to get off the Goulas, to go down to the lower town. Can you help me?’

Zoe nearly asked why but checked herself. ‘It might be possible, I suppose. With an escort.’

‘Can you get me one?’

While Zoe and Anna were sitting on their bench in the Court of Lions, Suleyman was lying on the bed in his tent high up on the roof, drinking sherbet and studying his toenails with no interest at all.

In front of him was a small man, on his knees, whose head was tucked between his shoulder blades and whose face was flat to the floor.

The Prince was irritated. ‘I can’t hear you properly. Stay on the floor but lift your head to me. Now say it again.’

The man’s beard was long and had got caught in a silver chain hanging from his neck. He grimaced with pain as it came free. ‘Majesty, I was saying that the Sultan your father is perhaps more exercised than he was about the new crusade from the west. As you know, the Voivode Mircea of Wallachia joined forces with King Sigismund of Hungary two years ago to take back their fortress of Nicopolis on the Danube frontier. It now seems the King has succeeded in finding common ground with more of his neighbours. Even Prince Vlad of Transylvania is wavering in his alliance with us.’

Suleyman flicked a fly from his sleeve and yawned. ‘I don’t
think we need be unduly concerned,’ he said. ‘The King of Hungary has difficulty enough keeping order between all those Magyars and Slovakians and whatever other rubbish he rules over before taking us on.’

The man said nothing and held his hands, which were trembling, between his chin and the carpet.

‘What of the Prince Lazarević? Does my father trust him?’

‘The loyalty of the Serbian Prince is unquestioned, Majesty. After all, your father is married to his sister.’

‘It means nothing,’ said Suleyman nastily. ‘My father had the Prince’s father killed along with most of his relatives. He is likely to remember it … So what is there new to report? Everything we have so far discussed I already know. Stand up.’

The man stood with some difficulty. He was not young and his joints were stiff. ‘What is new, lord, is that a celebratory mass was held in the Cathedral of Saint-Denis in Paris last week at which the Duke of Burgundy’s eldest son, the Count of Nevers, swore himself to lead the crusade and to dedicate his first feat of arms to the service of God.’

‘But he’s a child!’

‘He will be the nominal commander, sire. It is the Marshal Boucicaut of France who will lead the army.’

‘Ah,’ said Suleyman, smiling. ‘Now, that’s better. Boucicaut is good.’

‘And, lord, the alliance he commands is now impressive. Apart from Burgundy, France and Hungary, it includes Venice, Aragon, many of the German princes and the Hospitallers. And of course Byzantium. England will send money and some archers.’

Suleyman whistled softly. ‘That
is
impressive,’ he agreed. ‘And
what of the two Popes? Are the knights to get indulgences from both Rome
and
Avignon?’

‘Indeed, Majesty,’ said the man, quite seriously.

Suleyman stretched and stood up. He walked over to that part of the balcony where a buddleia, newly arrived from China, was attracting butterflies. The shrub’s white, tubular flowers, full of nectar, were covered in insects with heart-shaped wings of brown silk, veined with chrome. ‘Did you know,’ he murmured as much to himself as anyone else, ‘that the Ancient Greek word for butterfly was
psyche
, which is also the word for a man’s soul?’

He seemed transfixed by the creature. ‘And in the East,’ he went on, ‘they hold the superstition that if a butterfly chooses to perch on you, then the person you love is on their way to see you.’

Then Suleyman brought his other hand down on his arm so that the wet debris of the butterfly was scattered across his palm. ‘I do not believe in superstition,’ he said, lifting his palm and looking at it. He walked back to sit on the bed, wiping his hand on the sheet. A cat jumped up and licked what was left. ‘Now, what else?’

The older man cautiously wiped the sweat from his hands on the back of his caftan. ‘Some news from Chios, lord,’ he said.

‘Ah, Chios,’ murmured the Prince, a thin smile stretching his lips, ‘my father’s latest lover.’

‘The Sultan has forbidden any interference in the island’s affairs.’ The man hesitated, the next sentence caught somewhere near the top of his beard. Then he took courage. ‘So … I wondered, Majesty, where such an injunction might leave your plans with the Venetians.’

Suleyman looked up sharply. ‘Why should it change anything? Can I help it if these tiresome pirates insist on attacking the island? What could it possibly have to do with me?’

The man pretended to take this seriously. ‘Quite so, lord,’ he said, ‘but the pirates are attacking the very villages which make the mastic which has filled the holes in your father’s teeth. Or at least they were.’

‘Were?’ asked Suleyman. ‘What do you mean, “were”?’

‘Well, lord,’ went on the man, ‘the pirates were somewhat less successful in their last attack. It seems the villagers were better prepared for them. There is some talk of them building new villages with better defences And they’re being led.’

Suleyman looked up. ‘Led? By the Genoese?’

‘No, Majesty, by someone other. A young Greek.’

‘And do we know who this person is?’

‘Our friend on the island tells me that his name is
Luca
. Or at least that is the Italian version, lord.’

‘
Luca
?’

‘Yes, lord. Luca.’

Prince Suleyman was sitting on the edge of the bed and, the man was relieved but mystified to see, smiling now with real pleasure.

‘Luca,’ he murmured. Then he rose and walked to the wall and clapped his hands. The buddleia exploded with butterflies of every colour and the Prince made no effort to harm any of them. He turned.

‘I want you to bring this Luca to me as soon as humanly possible. I don’t care how you do it but I want him brought, unharmed.’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘And you had better inform the Venetians that our raids must cease for a while.’

Later that evening, Anna was making her way to the steps to the lower town in the company of a huge giant janissary called Yusuf who apparently spoke no Greek and, judging by his silence, might not speak at all. Anna felt conspicuous in his presence, for he was startlingly ugly. Although the evening was warm, she wore a long, woollen cloak that fell to the ground and her head was covered by a hood pulled forward over her hair so that she looked like a monk.

Once through the gate of the Goulas, Yusuf bowed and turned back.

In the lower town, the lamps were beginning to be lit and all around was the clatter of preparation for the last meal of the day, cats assembling at doors for the promise of scraps. A donkey, chewing into a nosebag, was standing next to a cistern in a tiny square and its owner was filling amphorae while examining the catch of a fisherman who’d paused to open his bundle. The sea wall was close and the calls of late swimmers could be heard beyond its battlements. The scent of the sea was fresh and all around and moving in on a soft breeze to replace the hot, animal smells of the land.

She reached a small house at the end of a street with a low door in its wall and a window with a piece of coarse cloth hung for a curtain. Anna knocked on the door.

It was opened by Matthew, whose grin reached from ear to ear.

‘Lady, you are welcome,’ he said, and stepped back to let her pass. ‘Please come in. This is my father, Patrick.’

He gestured to a bearded colossus behind him whom she
recognised. The man was standing, slightly stooped, in front of a table that ran the length of the room and around which sat the two other boys, Nikolas and Arcadius, and two older men, also lavishly bearded, who must be their fathers. On the table were the remnants of a meal. There were no women present and indeed little room for anyone else beyond the six gathered. A wooden staircase in one corner led to the room above.

Anna walked in and sat at the table. She looked from one to other of her friends. ‘Nikolas, Arcadius … I’m happy to see you. Are you well?’

The boys smiled at Anna but didn’t speak. Their fathers looked solemn. One of them spoke.

‘I am Basil and the father of Arcadius, Anna,’ said the man gravely. ‘We are well but a little hungrier than when you last saw us. We work as fishermen now and eat too much garon.’

One of the boys laughed but it had not been meant as a joke. All of them looked thin and gaunt and Anna realised what it had meant for these men when the Mamonases had first fled Monemvasia. The long-standing connection of Archon to Varangian had been severed forever and in its place had come janissaries and hunger.

‘Could you not have gone to Mistra?’ she asked.

Basil nodded. ‘We plan to go there. That is what we are here to discuss.’

Anna looked around at the faces all watching her. She smiled and placed her hands, folded, in front of her. ‘Your message said that there was someone who wanted to meet me.’

‘There is.’

It was a voice from heaven. Two sandals, then ankles, appeared at the top of the stairs. Everyone looked up and was rewarded
by the sight of a descending philosopher clad from shoulder to shin in a toga of the purest white.

‘Georgius Gemistus Plethon, evacuee of Constantinople, at your service,’ said the man as he arrived on earth and, within the tiny space available, performed an awkward bow in Anna’s direction. He gathered an armful of toga and threw it carelessly over a shoulder before sitting down heavily on the last available chair. Then he lifted his beard, which was the longest in a room of long beards, and placed it delicately on the table in front of him, patting it down to the wood. ‘I have long wanted to meet you, Anna. We have a friend in common.’

‘We do?’ asked Anna in surprise.

‘Why yes, yes indeed. One Luke Magoris. Is he not a friend?’

Anna felt the room shift beneath her. ‘Luke? You’ve seen him?’

‘Seen him, conversed with him,’ replied Plethon brightly. ‘Indeed, it was only last week that I sat with him and debated the possibility that the world may be round. In Latin.’