The Walls of Byzantium (44 page)

‘You bastard,’ he said quietly.

The captain looked unembarrassed. ‘I cannot endanger my crew,’ he said. ‘And they have cannon.’

Niccolò di Vetriano, Knight of the Order of San Marco, had turned his back and the two marines took Luke’s arms. He was led to the side and below him the small boat was being lowered into the water.

He would not join the crusade.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CONSTANTINOPLE, SUMMER 1396

Passing the ruins of Troy by night, Luke dreamt of Achilles whose ghost travellers sometimes claimed to see stalking the shallows there.

The following day and night took him through the Dardanelles and into the Sea of Marmara and, as the first tentacles of dawn crept over the rim of the world, he found himself awake and attentive to the splash of the oars and the staggered pull of the boat as it made its way towards Constantinople.

For a while he lay still in the cabin and enjoyed the luxury of a goosedown mattress made for someone of greater consequence than he. The room was heavily perfumed by small braziers of lavendered wood and the noise outside was muffled by thick damask hangings that covered the door and windows. He was able to think clearly of the past five days when, having been relieved of his sword and armour, he’d been given freedom to move around this ship. The plump official appeared to be the only other speaker of Greek on board and had kept steadfastly to his cabin, leaving Luke to his thoughts.

And his thoughts were in turmoil. His carefully laid plan to go to Venice and sell his mastic was in ruins. But Plethon was
there and knew what he wanted to do. His determination to go thence to Monemvasia to find Anna had been disrupted by the news that she was with Suleyman. But wasn’t Suleyman at Constantinople conducting the siege?

That way lay hope, for Luke had guessed from the stars where they were going.

Constantinople
.

Constantinople. City of the Thrice-Blessed Virgin, ex-Tabernacle on Earth of the Bride of the Lord. Once the greatest city on earth, whose wealth had shimmered in the beaten gold of its domes and the veined marble of its palaces. Constantinople. Built between two continents and two seas, frontier of both Christendom and Islam.

Constantinople: Kizil Elma, the Red Apple.

Now, as they approached it, Luke could hardly contain his excitement. He rose, put on his shirt and hose, pulled a cloak around him and walked out on to the deck. The sea around the galley was indigo and dolphins surfed its waves, chasing the oars and diving across the bows. Up ahead was a mass of land turning to orange with the new light rising in the east.

A sailor approached him with a plate of bread and salted fish and he ate hungrily. Then he knelt to splash water from a fire-bucket over his head and shoulders. He scratched his cheeks and chin, shivering beneath the wet friction of beard raked by nails.

Whatever was awaiting him could wait; he was to see the glory of Constantinople. Or what was left of it.

An hour later he was there.

A low mist was suspended above the water like a skein of spider web, its tendrils reaching into the Asian land mass and
the sunlight spilling across it like dappled gold. Then its surface was ruptured by soaring walls of striped stone, with giant towers which rose even higher and on whose tops could be seen the flash of shield and spearhead.

Constantinople
.

Luke held his breath and stared.

Was this the same sight seen by Siward on a dawn three centuries past as his ships swept up towards Mikligard? How wide would the tired eyes of those five hundred first Englishmen have been when they first looked upon those walls?

He was so lost in thought that the man next to him had to repeat himself.

‘Do you see that tower?’

Luke turned to see the fat official leaning over the rail with one arm pointing towards the city.

‘That’s where the land walls join the sea walls. The land walls were built by the Emperor Theodosius and are said to be impregnable. The sea walls were where the crusaders got in two centuries ago.’

The man was short but wore a turban of such size that, upright, he might have been taller than Luke. His beard was long and manicured and moored him to the deck like an anchor. He seemed inclined to talk.

‘Normally there would be quays and jetties all along these walls,’ he continued, his arm sweeping across the distance, ‘but of course they’ve destroyed them all to prevent us doing what the Venetians did.’

Luke could see nothing but mist clinging to the walls.

‘The blockade has stopped any food getting to the city by sea. Look, are they not magnificent?’

They were passing the first of the Ottoman galleys, the sun
catching the shields slung over the
impavesati
parapets which protected the oarsmen. There were two bombards in the forecastle and Luke turned to the city walls to see their effect. Tiny pockmarks pitted the surface; tiny blemishes on a smooth, sun-kissed face.

‘The cannon seem to have done little harm,’ he remarked.

‘They have hardly scarred the walls,’ replied the official. ‘But they have kept away your navy and prevented the Genoese bringing in supplies.’ He paused and his smile broadened. ‘And they have persuaded the Sultan that he needs bigger ones.’

The mist that hovered above the water was beginning to fragment and was pooled with fire. Looking down the line of towers that were now aglow and seemingly without end, Luke could see more of the Ottoman galleys at anchor, their bows towards the walls and their pennants limp on their masts. Theirs was the only vessel in movement and, as it swept on, it seemed as if all the world was watching them pass. Luke’s mouth was dry.

He looked further along the walls and saw their striped surface jut out into a colonnade of grand, pillared arches dressed in white marble. There was a sea gate with two lions on guard either side. A church’s dome floated above like a papal hat.

‘That is the Boukoleon Palace,’ said his companion, ‘used by the Latin emperors while they were here. Now a ruin, I expect, like everything else.’

They had turned north and the sun was shining directly across the ship. There was no sound beyond the dip of oars and the cry of birds. Ahead of them rose the Great Palace and its tiered gardens with Cypress-spears thrust into the sky. The white curve of the Hippodrome sat at the summit upon shaded vaults, its top pitted with broken masonry.

The galley was now rounding the tip of the peninsula and there was a flash from above as the sun caught the column on which stood the bronze figure of the greatest of all the emperors, Justinian, his right hand raised and pointing to the east. By his side rose his masterpiece, the many-domed Church of Holy Wisdom, the Hagia Sophia. Luke clutched the rail and stared in wonder. He knew there to be cracks in its walls and few tiles on its roofs, but it was still one of the most magnificent sights in the world.

The rowers had seen it before and obeyed the quickened tempo of the drum. The galley lurched forward and soon they were passing Acropolis Point and the Golden Horn was opening up to their left and Luke could see the giant chain suspended just above the water between the northern walls of Constantinople and the Genoese colony of Pera, with the tall Tower of Gelata rising above its walls.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked, looking across at the turban.

The water was busier here and, beyond the chain, small craft were shuttling between the two shores. The sun blazed a pathway down the length of the Horn and birds rose in silhouette from its waters.

‘We go north, beyond the city. To Prince Suleyman’s lines.’

The following day, Luke was standing in the tent of the Sultan Bayezid’s eldest son with a janissary on either side of him.

They had landed a mile north of Pera where Suleyman had pitched his tents on a hill overlooking the city. His father and the rest of the army were well to the south, strung out behind the siege works facing the Theodosian Walls. Bayezid had arrived a week earlier to join his army and his eldest son had immediately ordered his headquarters moved as far away from his father’s as possible.

Since landing, Luke had been given comparative freedom to wander around the camp, although he’d never been out of sight of two janissaries who’d followed him without discretion. He’d spent much of the time just staring down at Constantinople, lost in wonder at its scale and magnificence. This city had stood for a thousand years, the eastern heir to the Roman Empire, and had repelled every attempt to take it except one. And on that night, when Armageddon itself had come to Constantinople, his royal ancestor had brought away a treasure that might still save it in this, its most perilous hour.

He’d thought about a sword that might hold an answer and was no longer with him.

Now he saw it in his captor’s tent, leaning against a shield suspended from a pole. Suleyman was seated on a curved, backless throne of a width that required him to stretch out his arms as if in greeting. He was wearing a coat of gold tulips and a single thick, leather glove reaching far up his arm that was spattered with bird-droppings. Beside him, standing haughtily on a perch of ivory, sat an unhooded peregrine, chained at the ankle.

Luke studied the man in front of him with care. The heir to the Ottoman throne was a more manicured creature than he’d imagined, but that he was a man of infinite danger, Luke was in no doubt.

Suleyman, meanwhile, was regarding Luke with less interest.

‘Luke Magoris. You have a friend here in the camp,’ said the Prince, picking some offal from a plate and stretching his hand towards the bird. ‘In fact you have two.’

Luke didn’t reply.

‘I would not count myself among that number, though,’ he went on. ‘There’s not a great deal in you I can find to like.’

The peregrine got bored and turned its head almost fully about, shrugging its folded wings.

‘You don’t know me, Majesty,’ said Luke.

‘No, that’s true,’ murmured the Prince.

There was a pause in which Suleyman lifted the ungloved hand and the janissaries bowed and disappeared. They were alone in the tent.

Suleyman rose and went over to a table on which stood an elaborate jug.

‘One of the few vices I’ve inherited from my father,’ said the Prince, pouring and returning to his seat. He drank, watching Luke closely over the rim of the cup. ‘Now, let’s see,’ he went on. ‘Firstly, you were on your way to join a crusade intended to crush us, not so?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Next, you’re masterminding new methods of defence on the island of Chios which have baffled our corsairs and given the islanders, alas, no further cause to rebel against the Genoese.’

Luke remained impassive.

‘Finally,’ said Suleyman, now looking at him with dark intensity, ‘you’re daring to impose yourself on someone far above your rank and currently under my protection.’ He paused. ‘And that, I should tell you, is by far the worst of your crimes.’

For the briefest of moments Luke felt elation. Anna was here in the camp. The emotion must have swept across his face because Suleyman’s eyes flashed black, their hoods closing in menace.

‘So I would like nothing more than to see you executed. But I fear that such an action would do little to foster my relationship with the Laskaris daughter. And then there is your other friend. Zoe Mamonas.’ He looked down at the curling tips of his shoes. ‘So, what would you do if you were me?’

‘I would fight me, lord,’ said Luke calmly. ‘Single combat, man to man. That would be the honourable thing for a prince to do. Let Allah decide.’

‘Hah!’ laughed Suleyman. ‘A duel! But I cannot see the benefit of such an arrangement. If you kill me, the Sword of Islam is without anyone to wield it. If I kill you, it’s of no consequence.’

Luke supposed he was in no immediate danger or he would be dead by now. ‘Then send me to the crusade,’ he said. ‘If you’re so certain of victory, I’ll probably die there.’

Suleyman pretended to consider this. ‘That would certainly get you out of the way. But I quite like the thought of you here for now, watching Anna Laskaris adapt to the life of the harem … prepare herself for motherhood …’