A Place Called Armageddon (4 page)

Hamza watched, fascinated. His companion was young and was used to having anything – anyone – he wanted.

Yet there was something he wanted that was beyond such desire. The young man knew it, and looked away. ‘I need your …’ he sighed, ‘prophecies.’ He looked back, his voice hardening. ‘But when they are fulfilled, come to me and I will give you anything you want.’

She smiled. ‘Then I will come to you, on the eve of destiny. I will ask a boon of you. I will give you something in return.’ She gestured towards the door. ‘Now leave, master, remembering this – if anyone recognises you tonight, your dreams will crumble. Unless he does not live to tell of it.’

Hamza was puzzled. It was the second time she’d mentioned that. But he had no time to think. His companion gestured the pouch of gold coin from his belt and Hamza dropped it onto the floor. Then his arm was taken and they moved together through the courtyard and out the house’s door, opened for them by a shadow within a shadow, barred silently behind them.

In the room, Leilah bent and threw a cushion over the gold, then stood silently till she heard the outer door close. Only then did she call out, ‘Come.’

The inner door to the house opened. Isaac bustled in. ‘Well,’ he demanded, roughly seizing her, ‘did you do it? Did you ask him?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, almost relishing the pain in her right arm since she knew it was the last time this man would hurt her. ‘I did as you commanded. Refused his gold, exchanged it for his promise – that when the city fell, I would have free access to the library you spoke of.’

‘You?’ he barked, shaking her. ‘It is I who need Geber’s book, not you, you stupid whore.’

He raised a hand above her and she cowered back, as he liked her to do. ‘I did name you. Blessed you as my guardian. Perhaps …’ she chewed at her lower lip, ‘perhaps if you were to approach him, tell him what I failed to, even now …’ She trailed off.

He looked out to the courtyard. ‘You named me? He would know me then, favourably, if I spoke to him?’

She nodded. ‘Oh yes. But he is … occupied with many things. Perhaps he will forget even me.’ She looked up. ‘Go after him. Speak.’

The man moved to the door. ‘He can’t have gone far. I will catch him.’

He was halfway across the courtyard when she called, ‘Remember, Isaac. Greet him with all his honours. Name him as he is.’

‘Of course I will,’ he replied, not looking back. ‘Do you think I am a fool?’

She watched him fumbling at the bar. ‘I do,’ she whispered, and smiled. The Jew had been good for a while, easily satisfied in their bed, teaching her many things beyond it. Of the Kabbalah; and especially secrets of the alchemical art. She had become adept in the basics of both. But it was his greatest desire, confessed in cooling sweat after lovemaking, that had suddenly revealed her destiny.

‘It is the original text,’ he’d sighed. ‘Annotated in Geber’s own hand. Centuries old, yet with forgotten knowledge that, remembered now, would make me the greatest alchemist in the world.’

He’d sighed again, with greater lust than she’d ever brought forth, and she’d thought immediately, clearly: how valuable must this document be? This ancient scroll, collecting dust in a monastery in the city they call the Red Apple.

From that first mention of it, she was distracted. Less attentive to his needs. Plotting the way ahead. He had begun to strike her. The first time he did, he wrote his fate. Yet figs were not in season.

The door opened. He was gone.

She began to dress swiftly, in men’s clothes. While she did, she wondered, where next? She had a year and a day at least. Or perhaps the question was, who next? She knew he was out there, waiting in the shadows. She had seen him too, in the stars. In dreams. Two men of destiny stalked them. The young man who’d just left, armed with her prophecy, was one. But who was this other?

Something her visitors had discussed came to mind. A man, a German, who understood Greek Fire. He was a danger to their cause. ‘Johannes Grant,’ she muttered, stumbling over the hard sounds as the man known as Erol had. Then she smiled. She would find this German. Kill this German. For as much as the man who’d just left wanted the Red Apple to fall, so did she. Besides, the German’s death would bring a great deal of gold. She’d need that, now she was losing her protector.

She heard the first cry, her ex-lover’s. Isaac was hailing the recent guest in his house. ‘Farewell,’ she said, and stooped for her bag.

They had stood before the door for a few moments, clearing the sulphur from their lungs with river mist, so had only taken a few steps when the door behind them opened again and a voice called. They turned to see a man striding swiftly towards them. ‘Lord of lords of this world,’ called the man – a Jew by his garb. ‘Greetings, oh balm of the world. Oh bringer of light.’ He knelt before them, arms spread wide. ‘Oh most noble Sultan of Rum,’ he cried.

Hamza felt almost sorry for the Jew. His master never liked to be recognised on his midnight outings. His anger could be swift and violent. Tonight, freighted with frustrated lust, and with prophecy, it wasn’t an importuning subject on the ground before him. It was a threat to his very destiny.

‘Cur!’ screamed his companion, stepping forward, backhanding the man across the face, knocking him into the dust. ‘Hold him, Hamza.’

There was no choice, and little conscience. The word of the man he served was final. He had learned that from the old sultan. And if it had been true of the even-tempered Murad, it was even more so of his fiery son, Mehmet.

As Hamza took his arms, Mehmet reached forward and pulled the man’s head up by the hair. ‘What is your name?’ he shouted.

‘I … I … Isaac, master.’

Mehmet laughed. ‘Isaac?’ He looked at Hamza. ‘Son of Abraham, as we all are. But I see no ram in a bush nearby. So there is no need to seek elsewhere for a sacrifice.’

One of Mehmet’s titles, that the Jew had left out, was ‘possessor of men’s necks’. And he made the slitting of this one look almost easy, though it never was. Hamza held the twitching body at arm’s length, trying to keep the spraying blood off both his master and himself, only partly succeeding. Yet what he thought about as life left was how the sorceress’s first prophecy had already come true. Then, as he lowered the body to the ground, he realised that was wrong.

She hadn’t seen this. She’d ordered it.

I will watch out for this sorceress, he thought.

The other man leaned down, and wiped his blade on the dead man’s cloak. ‘A throat cut. A sacrifice made,’ Mehmet said, smiling. ‘Now, Hamza, let us go and cut the throat of a city. Let us go to Constantinople.’

–
TWO
–

Prayers

Genoa, Italy
2 November 1452

It was hard to find God in Genoa.

At least, it had become hard for her. Sofia was sure the Genoese managed it. It had to be her fault. Her weakness.

The master who had painted the ikons in her wooden altar was not weak. His belief shone in his dazzling brushstrokes, in those depicted – Madonna and the Infant Christ. Saints either side venerated the holy pair. The paintings had always inspired her, centred her, joined her to the Divine. Yet now she knelt before them mouthing words, inhaling incense, seeking union, feeling … nothing. Because she kept hearing her son’s laugh, her daughter’s cry. She’d turn away from God to the door – and remember that they weren’t there. Half a year since her husband had taken her away from Constantinople. Half a year, and they were growing and changing beyond her sight.

Her husband. Sofia heard him moving around the other room, awake at last. He had come in after dawn, and had collapsed, wine-heavy, onto the bed beside her. She’d thought to leave him, try and pray, but he had pulled her back and taken her, which he had not done in months. Taken her swiftly, caring nothing for her. After he’d collapsed immediately into sleep, she’d managed to slide from beneath him, gone to her house altar, knelt, sought God. She had not found Him.

Yet. Perhaps it was a demon that afflicted her? There was one, the Demon of Midday, who brought this sluggish despair. Reaching beneath into her robes, she pulled out her
enkolpia
. It was an amulet her mother had given her, a picture of St Demetrios worked in lapis lazuli. Lifting it to her forehead, she closed her eyes and tried to pray.

‘Do you beseech God for our coupling to give us another child?’

Theon’s voice startled her. She hadn’t heard the door open. He was standing in the doorway, already half dressed in his under robe and socks. She rose, letting the amulet fall against her breast. ‘I will fetch you food,’ she said, moving to the shelves where provisions were kept.

‘I want nothing. Maybe some water. I must go out.’

‘Then I will bring you water,’ she said. It was on the balcony off the bedroom. At home, a snap of fingers would have summoned three servants to do her bidding. Here, one sullen girl came by later in the day, to cook and clean. Sofia tried to go past him in the doorway as she spoke, but he took her arm, preventing her. ‘You did not answer me,’ he said.

What was his question? The Demon of Midday still held her in its thrall. Oh, something about another child. ‘If it is God’s will,’ she said, and tried again to move past him.

He did not let her. ‘Hasn’t man something to do with it?’ he asked, his grip tightening. ‘Shall we plant more seeds and see?’ She was never good at hiding her feelings. He must have noted her revulsion, because he smiled, released her.

She dipped the ladle into the amphora and took her time filling a water jug. She needed to think. What was this talk of children? He hardly ever touched her. She knew he had other women. She did not care. What did he need her for?

She replaced the ladle on its hook. He could hire a whore to fetch his water, cater to all his needs. She had served the small purpose he had brought her to Genoa for in the first week, so perhaps … perhaps he would let her go home. Where her city, her children and, she hoped, God awaited her.

He was standing by their scrap of mirror, tidying his beard with a blade. She put the jug beside him, went to the wardrobe to fetch his tunic and cloak. Laying them carefully across the arms of a chair, she straightened and looked at him. ‘Theon … Husband.’

His reflected eyes flicked to her. ‘Sofia. Wife,’ he replied, a slight smile for the formality.

Her hands clasped and unclasped before her. ‘I wish to know … I wish to ask …’

‘What?’

‘I wish to ask if I may go home before you.’

His blade paused at his throat. ‘Go home? When my mission here is not complete?’

She swallowed. ‘I do not see … I am not sure what use I am. You do not seem to need me here.’

‘Need? Does a man not always need his loving wife beside him?’ His voice was uninflected, all the more mocking for that.

She breathed, spoke softly. ‘You said that my presence would aid the cause you plead. That I would make the Genoese think on chivalry, when they considered the fate of the women of Constantinople if they do not act.’

He resumed shaving. ‘I think your appearance at the welcoming feast did that. For about a minute. After which these Italians briefly focused on your voluptuousness and envied the Turks their possible fortune.’ He laughed. ‘Then once chivalry and lust were dealt with, they reverted to the only thing truly important to them. Profit.’

She was no longer shocked by his levity – even when he was discussing the possible rape of his wife by infidels. But she had hoped for better from the men of Genoa. ‘Are they not concerned about God?’

‘God?’ Theon laughed. ‘I think he ranks somewhere down their list of priorities.’

Maybe it was her own self-doubt before the altar. Or maybe her noble parents stirred in her. For she felt her first flush of anger in a long while. ‘And yet you spend much of
your
time in discussing how we can sell our vision of God for Roman gold, do you not, husband?’

He turned to look at her. ‘Well, well,’ he said softly, ‘I think that is the first passion I have seen from you in an age. I certainly saw none this morning.’ He waved his razor at the other room, turned again to the mirror and his toilet. ‘So are you come to the belief of your cousin Loukas Notaras? Would you rather see a turban in the Hagia Sophia than a Roman mitre?’

As quickly as her anger came, it went. Though she had been educated like any noblewoman – she could read and write well – her husband had been trained almost from birth. Years of schooling under rigorous tutors, university and a dozen diplomatic missions had honed his mind far sharper than the razor he wielded. There was no point in arguing with him. Besides, she didn’t believe, like so many did, that to give up aspects of the Orthodox faith and reunite the Churches of East and West was a sin. She still trusted in God to save her city. But unlike many there, she knew that God needed men’s help. Men in armour, with cannon and crossbow.

‘You know I do not. All …’ she hurried over his interruption, because she knew if she gave him a chance he would use her like a whetstone for the wit he would deploy in the confrontations of the day, ‘all I now ask is that you consider letting me return. Our children need me. And I believe I can be more use to our city there than here. As you have said, I have already fulfilled my … meagre purpose.’ She lowered her eyes.

‘Well.’ He considered, looking above her. ‘I do need to send messages back to the Council. My talks here are almost concluded and then I must go briefly on to Rome and rejoin the main embassy.’ He studied her for a moment, then returned to the mirror. ‘I will think on it.’

She turned to the bedroom, unwilling to show him hope on the open book of her face. His voice halted her. ‘But you can do something for me.’

She did not turn. ‘Of course. What?’

‘That
enkolpia
you wear. Give it to me.’

She looked down. Fool that she was, she had not tucked her amulet away within her tunic. ‘It is my protection and … and my mother gave it to me.’