The Walls of Byzantium (47 page)

‘The Varangian church?’ asked Luke.

‘I think so,’ said Zoe and they emerged into a tiny, sunlit square, with a dead bird lying next to a fountain. They tied their horses to a carved stone fish.

It was now late afternoon and they would not have much time to examine the church’s interior before the light began to fade. The little door was unlocked and opened on creaking hinges and a bird startled them as it made its escape. Inside, there was more light than they’d predicted because great holes gaped from the roof, framed by blackened roof struts, with shafts of sunlight reaching in. An oak beam lay at an angle across the nave, its end disappearing through a high window where plants grew. At the end of the nave, a broken rood screen separated the chancel and two tiny side chapels opened up either side, their interiors lost in shadow.

Luke’s eyes grew accustomed to the light and he began to make out features within the church. There were frescoes covering nearly every wall but of what was difficult to judge. Age and indifference had combined to fade the colours and chunks of plaster had fallen to reveal the stone beneath.

‘Didn’t you say there was a sword?’ asked Zoe, walking forwards into particles of floating dust.

‘Yes,’ replied Luke. ‘Over the altar. My father told me that the sword of St Olaf hung there.’

They approached the rood screen and went beyond it and there was the altar but no sword.

‘In Venice probably,’ said Zoe. ‘Like everything else.’

‘Look for a tomb,’ said Luke. ‘Siward’s. It’s here somewhere.’

They separated and looked around the base of the altar. There was no tomb.

Luke called to her. ‘Come and look at this.’

He was standing below a fresco painted on to the domed walls of the chancel that was different from the rest. A shaft of sunlight showed that it was in much better repair than the others.

‘What’s it of?’ asked Zoe, joining him.

‘It looks like the Resurrection,’ replied Luke. ‘Look, you can see the Roman soldiers asleep around the tomb. But … that’s strange.’ Luke had stepped closer and was shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. ‘I’ve seen paintings like this on Chios,’ he said, ‘but they always have the figure of Jesus above the tomb.’ He paused and looked at Zoe. ‘Here there’s none. And another thing: this painting is much later than the others in this church. That’s why it’s in such good condition. The colours are hardly faded.’

Zoe nodded. ‘And look at the soldier in the middle. Look what he’s wearing.’

Luke peered closely at the picture. The soldier was lying slumped against the side of a tomb whose stone lid had been slid to one side. He was wearing a corselet of gold and blue
scales partially covered by a dark blue chlamys, clasped at the right shoulder. On the ground on one side of him lay a two-handed axe. In his hand was a sword.

‘I suppose it’s natural for the soldiers to have been painted as Varangians,’ said Luke slowly. ‘Or would have been if all of them were. But he’s the only one.’

The light shifted again as the sun sank lower and Luke felt Zoe tense beside him. Only the head of the Varangian Guard was in light. It shone with an ethereal glow. It was someone both of them knew.

‘
Look
,’ whispered Zoe. ‘Imagine him younger, without the beard.’

They both gazed at the face, entirely still.

‘It could be you,’ she said softly.

Luke pulled away from the painting and found that his hands were trembling. He suddenly felt cold although the afternoon was still warm. ‘The sword – look at its pommel,’ he said.

The dragon head was aglow. Alive.

‘It’s my sword,’ whispered Luke. ‘Siward’s sword.’

Then he said, ‘Perhaps it’s pointing. What’s it pointing at?’

Zoe’s gaze travelled the length of the blade. ‘Well, that answers that,’ she said. ‘It’s pointing to where the painting has worn away. Look at the corner of the picture. It’s worn through to the plaster beneath.’

‘And beyond?’

‘Into the side chapel.’

There was no sound in the little church beyond their breathing. The light was almost gone now, a frieze of dust motes suspended above the ground like things discovered. They felt their way into the chapel. As their eyes accustomed themselves to the dark, they saw tombs, the black shapes of
sarcophagi with one, much larger than the others, rising up at their centre.

‘Siward’s tomb,’ said Luke.

‘How can you tell?’

‘I just know,’ replied Luke quietly. ‘I must write to Plethon. He’ll know what to do.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

VENICE, AUTUMN 1396

At the new headquarters of the Banco dei Medici, situated discreetly above their Hanseatic friends at the Fondaco dei Turchi on the Grand Canal, there was mixed reaction to the news.

The Ottomans had lifted their siege of Constantinople.

Of course it meant that alum from Trebizond could now get through and prices to the Arte della Lana would fall. On the other hand, it meant that the considerable outlay they’d made to the Campagna Giustiniani on Chios looked a little more precarious.

On the Rialto, all was joy. The news lifted the ducat ten against the écu, and the
cortigiane di lume
, those bawds who plied their trade in those and other parts, lifted a celebratory toast.

But then this was Venice and celebration was in the air.

Except, it must be said, for Murano. That five-fingered island, second in the Venetian constellation, its hundred glass foundries belching smoke into the gassy air, was a place of serious industry. It looked with contempt at the goose-masked, all-night revellers who rowed their unsteady way across the lagoon each dawn. Its foundries were at full blast, the scarred, glistening
bodies of their
maestri
toiling with tongs and bubbled rods in the bloody glare of the kiln-vents, tweaking, shaping and rolling end-jewels into weightless circles of nothing.

Leaving such a factory were its owners, the father and son Mamonas, whose palace on the Goulas of Monemvasia contained, it was said, the very finest of its produce. There was, between them, an air of smug satisfaction only slightly tempered by the thought that a dearer ducat would narrow their profit margin. Both were wearing the sober black damask that signalled wealth and probity.

They were surprised to see, waiting for them at the quay, a barge sent by the Serenissima to gather them to her bosom.

A man, also dressed in black, bowed to them as they approached.

‘Niccolò di Vetriano, Knight of the Order of San Marco, at your service,’ he said between lips pressed into the tightest of smiles. ‘I am to bring you to meet His Serenity, the Doge.’

Father and son bowed in return, assuming their names were known.

‘We are honoured,’ said Pavlos, ‘but we are not dressed to meet the Doge.’

‘We will go to your fondaco first, signori,’ said the man. ‘When you are prepared, we can go to the Arsenale.’

The Mamonas exchanged glances.

‘The Arsenale?’ said the older. ‘But we understood that His Serenity never stepped outside the palace.’

The Venetian captain smiled and examined the neat tips of his gloves. He was a handsome man of dark and manicured menace. His voice was soft and dripping with condescension. A bejewelled short sword hung at his side. ‘Indeed. The Doge will leave the palace only in exceptional circumstances.’

Pavlos Mamonas inclined his head. He’d expected to meet the Doge but not so soon, not like
this
. He and Damian stepped into the boat and walked to the stern where cushions were arranged beneath a tasselled awning.

As the barge moved away, he screwed his eyes against the sun and looked across the milky surface of the lagoon towards the skyline before him, elaborate with campaniles, domes and crenellations. There was Venice, the supreme mistress of trade, reclining scented in her lagoon. There, across the water, was the flamboyant city of festivals, water parties, music and masquerades. There was the place of barter and procession and entertainments of more intimate nature conducted behind the silken curtains of gondolas. There, in all her eccentric glory, was the Bride of the Adriatic, the Eye of Italy, who counted, among her hundred thousand amphibious souls, no fewer than ten thousand prostitutes. Pavlos Mamonas smiled.

One in ten
.

They were passing the island of San Michele now, the Camal-dolite Monastery squat behind its walls, where the pious but worldly monks supplemented their income by making the finest maps in the world. The waves from their oars rippled against the little jetty and a monk carrying a basket of fish looked up with little interest.

Another emissary. Another alliance to allow this fair but ferocious republic to carry on its divine right of trade.

‘Ah, your escort,’ remarked di Vetriano. He was pointing towards the docks and wharves of St Mark’s Basin from where two golden barges were rowing in leisurely tempo towards them. ‘Twenty years ago,’ he went on, ‘I was fortunate to witness the King of France sail in on a ship rowed by four hundred slaves. He had an escort of fourteen galleys and there was a
raft on which glass blowers made objects from a furnace shaped as a sea monster. Had you heard of this?’

It was clumsy and neither Mamonas did more than smile thinly. The captain spoke again.

‘You will be pleased with the news of alum shipments at last getting through from Trebizond, no doubt?’

‘The alum is but a small part of what we do,’ Pavlos replied easily. ‘Frankly, I’m more amused by the new appetite for our Malvasia wine amongst the English. Their nobility drink it by the gallon. They call it Malmsey.’

Di Vetriano laughed. ‘I drink it too,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot more gratifying than this new mastic drink.’

‘Mastic drink?’ asked Damian, too quickly.

The Venetian arched an eyebrow. ‘Had you not heard? I brought the shipment in from Chios myself last week in one of the Empire’s galleys. The rest brought alum. They broke through the Turks’ blockade of Chios. Since then all the talk has been of mastic. Its applications seem limitless.’ He was watching them carefully. ‘They say it even fixes dyes. Surely not, for then what need would there be for so much alum?’

Pavlos Mamonas gripped his son’s arm before he could answer. He looked hard at the Venetian.

Why has the Doge sent this man?

He turned towards the scene opening up in front of them. They were coming in fast with the race of the tide and the escorting galleys were finding it hard to turn to station on either side.

‘Slow down!’ yelled the captain to his oarsmen. ‘Wait for our escorts to form up, damn you!’

The oars lifted as one and the barge slowed. Mamonas leant forward to gaze along a shoreline he knew better than most
in the world. There was something about the melancholy of this marshy home to waterfowl and fishermen that he found reassuring: a refuge in a world that suddenly felt less secure.

Ten minutes later they had passed the bar and were sweeping in past the Piazza San Marco with its twin pillars from which the winged lion of the city’s patron saint and his predecessor, St Theodore, looked down with hauteur. As they drew nearer to the entrance to the Grand Canal, they found themselves amidst a bustle of boats: passenger skiffs, lighters, vessels laden with fish and vegetables – all of them manned by half-naked men yelling greeting or warning to each other. Some of the ships entering were deep-keeled, seagoing vessels, pulled by tugs, which would travel past the opening bridge of the Rialto to reach the small docks fronting the fondachi further down the canal.

The Grand Canal opened up before them and soon they were passing a parade of palaces, shimmering in pink self-satisfaction, with restless coveys of boats nuzzling at their water gates and sunshine blushing their pillared loggias. This was the central artery of the city from which smaller canals branched off; it was an esplanade of wealth and splendour, a dazzling repository for the booty wrenched from Constantinople.

The canal curved its way through the length of the city and, at its second bend, came to the bridge of the Rialto where the bankers had their stalls, the merchants their offices, the slavers their auction yards and the whores their love potions. On the quays were barges from the mainland, moored in their hundreds, waiting to ship cargoes from the ocean-going ships. And it was here that the Mamonas family flag, the black castle, flew high above their splendid fondaco.

As they glided towards its jetty, two trumpeters, winged
lions on their tabards, stood at the front of the barge to herald their arrival. A gondola, gilded and tasselled and poled by liveried negroes wearing the Loredani badge, slowed to let them pass.

On the jetty stood the Mamonas factor, a small man of some girth. He was flanked by two fat sons and a fatter wife, all dressed in black and looking nervous and hot beneath the afternoon sun. Pleasantries were exchanged, travel enquiries made, two heads patted and then the party walked up the steps and into the loggia that ran the length of the building.

‘I’m told all the talk is of mastic?’ said Pavlos as they walked.

The factor was rubbing his hands as if the substance was stuck to them. ‘No one knows what it can do, lord,’ he said. ‘Aphrodisiac, wound sealant, drink, tooth filler … every day it seems they have a new use for it. Some even say it will fix dye. The market is excited. It will calm.’

‘I think not,’ said his master. ‘And Chios is the
only
place that can produce it?’

‘It seems that way, lord,’ said the man uncomfortably. ‘Or at least the sort of mastic with these properties. It would seem that the island has a unique climate.’

Mamonas was silent for a while and the sound of their boots on the stone echoed beneath the arches. The children were hurrying behind, dragged by their ample mother, and one was grumbling too loudly.

‘Have you bought the land there?’

It was the question the factor had been dreading. ‘Lord, there have been difficulties …’

‘Difficulties? It’s a straightforward transaction. I told you to pay what they wanted for it.’

‘The Genoans have control of the island, lord. They will
permit no sale of land to anyone outside their campagna. It didn’t matter what sum I offered.’