The Walls of Byzantium (7 page)

‘And where is the honour in that?’ she asked. ‘Is that what Saladin would have done?’

There was a long pause. Then Suleyman threw back his head and laughed. ‘Saladin!’ he cried. ‘Very good. But he was Egyptian and I am a Turk.’ He studied Anna for a tense moment. He looked at the bustle of red hair, the wide, defiant eyes, the set jaw and the fifteen-year-old body poised to burst into its full blaze of beauty. He would like to see that.

He smiled. ‘You are an extraordinary girl,’ he said, bowing from the saddle.

And then he turned his horse and cantered away.

Simon Laskaris had watched all this with a mounting sense of foreboding. It seemed that both of his children were now to be taken hostage and he cursed himself for allowing Alexis outside the city walls. But something unexpected was going on in the plain below. Instead of seizing his children, Suleyman appeared to be conversing with them – and Anna was doing much of the talking.

Then, to his astonishment, he saw Suleyman ride back to his
lines, only slowing to issue a command to the sipahis that had ridden out to escort him. And, miracle upon miracles, the whole Ottoman army turned around and began to march back to its tents, the siege engines rumbling slowly behind them.

It seemed to the Protostrator that a tiny wind had risen across the hillside of Mistra as twenty thousand breaths were released below him and a city’s population looked down at its children and saw a future before them. Then, little by little, the wind rose to a roar, a roar of such jubilation that it seemed the very stones of the houses might be lifted from their mortar.

The city of Mistra was saved.

And out there on the plain below stood its saviours, hand in hand.

CHAPTER THREE

MONEMVASIA, SPRING 1392

Luke had never been inside the Mamonas Palace. In all the years he’d passed under its imposing gateway to meet Damian and Zoe, he’d not once been invited inside.

But he didn’t mind. The courtyards, with their fountains and gardens, were cool after the climb and anything that delayed an encounter with the twins was a blessing. The gardeners, too, were always good for gossip and reliable in gauging the mood of their young master and mistress.

But today he would enter the palace and he was not looking forward to it.

Luke and his father Joseph stood together in the entrance hall and waited in silence. Conversation between the two had been difficult since Luke had come home two days before to recount what had happened at the stud. His father didn’t know what to say to his son. He entirely accepted Luke’s version of events but he also knew the Archon. The wait for news from the palace had been nerve-racking. Was Damian maimed for life?

Other worries had kept Luke awake over the past two nights: the beautiful stallion for one. Despite its wildness, the horse had sparked something inside Luke and he longed to see it
again. But had they let it live? And then there was Zoe. She’d come to him once Damian had been lifted, screaming, on to the litter to bring him home. He remembered the conversation vividly.

‘You could have stopped that.’

‘What? Zoe, don’t be ridiculous. You saw what happened.’

‘I and no one else.’ She’d paused. ‘I want to know about the Varangian treasure.’

‘You’re blackmailing me?’ He’d laughed then. It was too absurd. ‘I told you, it’s myth.’

And she’d shrugged and walked away.

Now he waited. To distract himself, Luke looked around. Sitting amongst spacious orchards on the Goulas of Monemvasia, the Mamonas Palace was of an opulence unmatched anywhere in the city. An enormous marble gateway led into a series of courtyards of Moorish design inspired by Pavlos Mamonas’s visit to the Alhambra Palace in Spain. Central fountains played into pools in which lily pads gently floated. Gravel paths edged with fruit trees surrounded them, fronting borders full of flowers collected from the many countries in which the family sold its wine. Marble benches stood in the cool shade beneath the trees.

The entrance hall was circular and domed, with large, arched alcoves each holding an exquisite vessel of coloured Venetian glass. A shaft of light from an aperture at the apex of the dome threw their reds, blues, greens and yellows across the curved walls so that the room became a kaleidoscope of moving colour.

Both Joseph and Luke were staring up at the dome when the inner doors to the palace opened and a servant ushered them down a hall and into the audience chamber.

Joseph, unlike his son, had been in this room many times before. Huge frescoes covered every inch of its walls, telling
the story of the life of Alexander in vivid colour. The room was rectangular and a narrow carpet ran the length of the marble floor to a dais, on which stood an ornate throne beneath a canopy bearing the Mamonas crest.

On the throne, dressed in a magnificent tunic of red brushed silk and surrounded by his Varangian Guards, sat the Archon. And while Joseph’s fellow Guardsmen looked uncomfortable, Pavlos Mamonas just looked thunderous.

That his son wasn’t dead seemed to Pavlos Mamonas a miracle. After the calamity, the Archon had ridden quickly to the stud with the family physician, who’d spent hours binding the boy’s broken legs into splints while Zoe tried to distract him from the pain.

Pavlos’s mood had darkened further when he’d returned to Monemvasia to find a messenger with the news that Mistra had not been taken. To his dismay he’d learnt that the city had, in fact, been saved by what seemed like the capricious whim of the Prince Suleyman, a man the Archon had thought he could trust.

Now before him stood someone he could vent his anger on. He looked at the boy and thought it inconceivable that he could not have prevented what had happened. And anyway, why had this Varangian been allowed to remain unscathed when his son lay in twisted agony upstairs?

‘Your name?’ he asked, as if he didn’t know it well enough.

‘Luke Magoris, lord,’ he answered, looking his Archon straight in the eye.

I cannot be blamed for this
.

Luke felt his father stiffen behind him, as if he’d read his thoughts. He looked at the three Varangians with their great axes sloped on their shoulders. None of them returned his glance.

‘Luke Magoris,’ went on the Archon, ‘do you understand why you’re here?’

Luke didn’t reply.

The Archon looked beyond him to his father. ‘Is the boy stupid, Magoris?’ he asked.

‘Lord …’ began Joseph, but the Archon held up his hand.

‘Please don’t go on. I know he’s not stupid. Otherwise he wouldn’t be allowed near our horses. No, it seems he’s just insolent.’ Pavlos Mamonas rose from his chair and slowly walked down the steps to stand directly in front of him, his hands behind his back.

Luke returned his stare.

‘Yes, insolent. Insolent and more concerned for his own skin than that of my son, who, it might be supposed, he was there to protect.’ The Archon walked slowly around Luke, who stood rigidly still. ‘My daughter Zoe,’ he continued, ‘tells me that, having provoked the horse to charge, you then threw my son in front of you to take the consequences. Is that true?’

Luke was stupefied, but forced himself to stay calm. ‘No, lord. That’s not what happened.’

The Archon stopped. ‘You dare to call my daughter a liar?’ His face was almost touching Luke’s. ‘After all you’ve done, will you now accuse my daughter of lying?’

Luke’s mind was racing.

This is insane. Why is she doing this?

Mamonas’s next words were barely audible to anyone but Luke and his father. ‘Is my daughter a liar?’ he whispered.

Luke didn’t answer. The fear that had grown in him since entering the room was beginning to turn into anger. Then he felt a stinging pain. The Archon had slapped him hard across his cheek.

He heard a growl of protest behind him.

Mamonas turned on Joseph, challenge in his eyes. ‘Magoris, don’t make things worse for the boy.’ Then he turned away, mounting the dais again and sitting on his throne in a hiss of silk. ‘Send in my daughter.’

There was silence as the girl was found, a silence in which Luke looked directly into the eyes of the Archon. His body was trembling.

I must not lose my temper. I cannot win this. I must take what is given or my father will suffer too
.

Then the door opened and Zoe walked in. She glanced at Luke and then went to stand beside her father, her hand resting on the back of the throne. If she felt either guilt or discomfort, she didn’t show it.

‘Daughter,’ said the Archon, turning in his seat to address her, ‘is it true that this boy, Luke Magoris, caused a young stallion to charge and trample your brother Damian?’

Zoe looked directly into Luke’s eyes.

‘Yes, Father. We arrived at the stud to see the new stallion but Arsenius cautioned us about approaching him. Luke told Damian that he would be safe if he stayed close to him. They climbed into the arena and Luke shouted at the horse when it wouldn’t come to him.’

She paused. Then she said softly, ‘The horse charged and Luke threw himself behind Damian, pushing him forward to take the horse’s hooves.’ She stopped. Her voice was low, halting. ‘It was horrible.’

Luke could stand it no longer. ‘
That’s not true!
’ he shouted. ‘I went into the ring alone. I told Damian not to follow me! She knows that’s what happened!’

The Archon turned on him, spitting with rage. ‘And Arsenius? Does he lie as well?’

‘Arsenius wasn’t there!’

‘Silence!’ roared Mamonas.

And silence fell, an awkward silence in which several people strove to control themselves, Luke more than any. He was bewildered and very angry. The three Varangians remained motionless, staring directly ahead of them.

Then Luke heard the Archon address him, his tone suddenly formal. A sentence was being passed.

‘Luke Magoris, we find you guilty of the grossest neglect of your duty towards ourself and our children.’

Guilty? Guilty of what?

‘We find that you recklessly allowed my son to come into contact with an animal likely to do him harm and then deliberately sought to protect yourself from the consequences by exposing him to further danger.’

What am I hearing?

‘Your punishment will be as follows. It has always been the tradition that son follow father into my Varangian Guard, with all the privilege and status that goes with it. So it has been for generations. You, however, will not be permitted to do so. Neither I nor my son who, by the grace of God, will follow me, can count on your commitment to protect our persons.’

Luke’s world crumbled around him. He felt faint. He heard his father gasp.

But the Archon was not finished. ‘However, in view of your undoubted skill with horses, you will be permitted to continue as a groom in our household. Never again, though, will you ride out with any member of my family.’ The Archon picked
up some papers resting on the table beside him and began to read. ‘You may go,’ he said.

But Luke couldn’t move. He felt his father prod him from behind. The Archon looked up.

‘Leave!’

Luke found his voice, forcing himself to keep it steady. ‘What about the horse?’

‘The horse? What do I care about the horse? It almost killed my son!’ shouted Mamonas.

‘It was frightened. It cannot be blamed.’

His father took his arm. ‘Enough, Luke,’ he said quietly. ‘This will not help.’

‘It is the best horse you will ever own,’ Luke went on, turning to face the Archon as his father tried to guide him from the room. ‘And I can tame it.’

‘You,’ hissed the Archon, ‘will leave now, unless you wish to be whipped. Magoris, take him away.’

Joseph felt the tension in Luke’s arm. ‘Luke …’ he whispered.

Luke was still glaring at the Archon, rigid with fury. Then he blinked twice, glanced at Zoe and turned. His father led him from the room.

Pavlos Mamonas watched the door close behind them. Then he turned to the other Varangians. ‘You may all leave!’ he barked. ‘And not just the room, leave the palace! I can’t bear to have you all sulking around me. The boy deserved his fate.’

When they had gone, he looked up at Zoe, who was standing apart, watching him. ‘Was that what really happened?’ he asked eventually.

‘More or less,’ she murmured. ‘Anyway, you’ve done the right thing.’

The Archon was silent for a while, wondering whether there was perhaps more to this. He knew his daughter better than himself. She
was
himself. Like him, she wanted everything in the world, especially those things she couldn’t have. She’d grown up with Luke yet now she’d condemned him. Was there something more to this?

‘Will you mind him no longer riding out with you?’ he asked quietly.

‘No, Father,’ she replied. ‘He was becoming tiresome. You did right to punish him.’

Pavlos studied his daughter. He knew that her fierce ambition had found its outlet in reckless promiscuity and a refusal to submit in marriage to any man. What a pity she would not inherit the Mamonas empire.

‘What about the horse?’ he asked.

She paused. ‘He’s probably right about that at least,’ she replied. ‘It’s a magnificent beast and will fetch a high price. You should let him tame it. It’s worth nothing to us dead.’