The Golden Horn (26 page)

o0o

Anna had camped all day with Nikki atop the roof of Saint
Basil’s. She saw the towers taken; she saw the gates flung open and the
Emperor routed by the very sight of the knights in their bright armor; and she
saw the army’s gathering and its swift dispersal.

Alf was with her at the last of it, his day’s labor
over, his soiled robe laid aside for the only one he had to spare, his best one
of pale grey silk embroidered with silver. He looked, Anna observed, as if he
were going to a banquet.

They watched in silence as the sun sank and Latin fires kindled
before the Emperor’s tents. The invaders had pulled down the imperial
standard and put up their own, bright and crude as it was, snapping proudly in
the wind over the conquered camp.

Anna clenched her lists at her sides. “Why did my
people run away?
Why?
”

“They were afraid,” Alf answered gently.

She stamped her foot. “They were cowards! Everyone’s
a coward. Look at all those people down there like an anthill when you kick it,
yelling and crying and trying to run in all the wrong directions.
I’m
not running. I’m staying here.
And if any of those barbarians tries to break in on me, I’ll kill
him!”

“I’m one of them,” he pointed out.

“You don’t count,” she said. “You’re
an adopted Greek. Though maybe you’re ashamed to be one, now you’ve
seen what cowards most of us are.”

“Your people are civilized. Civilization has never
been much good against a determined army of barbarians.” Alf shivered slightly,
for her benefit. “It’s getting cold. Come down to supper and let
the City fend for itself for a while.”

o0o

Saint Basil’s was quiet, but not calm. The eyes of
healers and sick alike gleamed white, afraid; many prayed softly, a droning
murmur.

If there was fear within those guarded walls, there was
panic without. As the night deepened, a crimson furnace-glare stained the
gathering clouds. For the third time Latins had set fire to the battered and beaten
City. Flames raged through the streets along the Golden Horn, a burning wall
between the Greeks and the invaders, licking against the foot of the All-seer’s
hill.

Alf walked slowly down the street that led from Saint Basil’s
to the Middle Way. In the darkness, lit by the sullen light of the fire, the great
thoroughfare was like a road in Hell.

People thronged on it, fleeing the City’s center,
laden with their children and their belongings, shrieking and weeping and
praying in loud voices.

The side ways were quieter, a quiet born of terror. Behind the
barred gates men buried or concealed what treasures they had, while their women
and children cowered, awaiting the end of the world.

Alf turned aside from the tumult to a street that curved past
one of the City’s thousand cisterns, a small lake set in a garden and
surrounded by high narrow houses. As he passed from stone pavements to the
grass of the garden, he paused.

The street was full of fleeing figures, but among them
advanced a torchlit company. The man at its head glowed in a rich cloak of
crimson and gold; armor flashed beneath it, and on his head blazed the jewels
of a crown. His voice rasped over the cries of panic, harsh yet penetrating. “People
of the City! Romans! Why do you flee? The barbarians are within our walls,
caught like the fly in the spider’s trap. We have but to fall on them and
obliterate them.” He seized a man who ran wildly past. “You—where
are you running? Have you forgotten all the pride of our empire? We have them,
I say! We have them where they cannot escape. Come with me and drive them out.
Come with your Emperor!”

With an inarticulate cry, the man broke free and fled.

Mourtzouphlos’ face was livid in the torchlight,
suffused with fury. He pressed forward against the current, shouting, “Are
you men or worms? All the world will mock us and call us cowards, who had the
enemy within our grasp and let him conquer us.”

No one heeded him.

Alf stood motionless on the grass. His hood had slipped back,
his cloak blown away from the silver robe.

Mourtzouphlos drew near to him, silent now, his face a mask of
despair. The torch flared in a sudden gust.

The Emperor stopped, staring at the apparition on the hill above
him. Slowly he moved closer, motioning to his torchbearer to raise the brand
higher. Alf’s form leaped out of the darkness, all white and utterly
still.

“A statue,” muttered the Emperor.

Torchlight struck fire in Alf’s eyes.

Mourtzouphlos’ breath hissed in the silence. The torch
wavered as the bearer recoiled, crossing himself. “Stand, you fool!”
the Emperor snarled.

Mustering all of his courage, he advanced, stretching out a
hand. Marble, it should be. Cold, solid marble. Naught else.

“Your Majesty,” Alf said.

The Emperor froze.

“Sire,” said the apparition, “I am no
graven image.”

Mourtzouphlos snatched his hand away, but not before he had
felt the warmth of flesh and the smoothness of silk. But he was in no way
comforted. “You. Angel, demon—what are you?”

“Neither, Majesty, only one of God’s lesser
servants. How is it that you walk the City tonight?”

An angel, the Emperor thought. Or as close to one as made no
matter. He was of a piece with this terrible night, this shattering of the
world that had been Byzantium. It would not rise again. Its people were soft,
weakened by centuries of luxury and power, rotted to the core.

Alf shook his head sharply. “Not so, my lord! There’s
strength in the City still.”

“Where?” demanded Mourtzouphlos. “Not in
any quarter that we still hold. I’ve worn my feet to the bone and my
voice to a thread, and not one man will follow me. Not one! They flee, all of
them, and curse me if I hinder them. Terror is their Emperor tonight, not
Alexios Doukas.”

“How can they follow you if you yourself despair? You
speak brave words, but your heart does not believe them; and your people know
it.”

“My people are groveling cowards!” Mourtzouphlos
tore his crown from his head and cast it on the ground. “Let the filthy Latins
rule them. They deserve no better.”

The crown lay upon the grass, a splendid glittering thing half
hidden in Mourtzouphlos’ shadow.

“Your Majesty,” Alf said quietly, gazing at it, “you
know not what you say. You loved your city once. You fought for it when no
other man would. Will you surrender now? Remember your own words! The Latins
are trapped and cannot escape save past you, for they have set fire to their
own path of retreat. If you fall upon them now, you can defeat them. If you do
not...” Alf raised his eyes. They were terrible. “If you do not, my
lord, then this city shall see such horror as she has not seen in all her
thousand years of empire. The sack of Rome herself was nothing to what this will
be. For Rome was rich, but Constantinopolis is the richest city in all the
world.”

“Constantinopolis is dead. She died the day that
thrice-damned fleet came within sight of her.”

“The Franks have no knowledge of that. They wait in
dread for you to smite them. Will you let them conquer out of senseless fear?”

“They have conquered.” Mourtzouphlos’
voice was flat.

Alf lifted his hands. “Then truly the City is dead,
and you have killed her. May your fate be no better than that to which you have
sentenced your people.”

Mourtzouphlos drew himself up. His eyes glittered; his fingers
worked. And yet he laughed, hoarse and wild. “God Himself has damned us
all. Tell Him for Mourtzouphlos, angel of the bitter tongue; tell Him that I
laughed at Him. He may doom and He may damn, and He may make my empire a sty
for Latin pigs to wallow in; but my City was my City. There shall never be
another like her.” He stooped and snatched up the crown and turned,
swirling the splendor of his cloak.

That was the last Alf saw of him: a guttering torch and a
flare of crimson, and the glitter of the jewels in his crown.

Jehan sat up abruptly. It was dark in the tent, but through the
flap he could see the grey light of morning. Someone stood there. Henry, he
saw, narrowing his sleep-blurred eyes; and another beyond him, speaking rapidly
in a low voice.

Beneath and about the muttered words, Jehan heard a deep roaring
like the sound of the sea: voices shouting and cheering.

He groped for his sword, remembered with a start that he had
left it on the other side of the Horn. The others were stirring now, knights
and squires of Henry’s household, and Jehan’s own long-faced Odo,
fumbling for their weapons as Jehan had. “An attack?” one mumbled. “Have
the Greeks attacked?”

Henry turned quickly. “The Greeks?” He began to
laugh softly, and caught himself. “No, sirs, the Greeks have not attacked.
The Emperor fled in the night and his army has surrendered to my-lord brother on
his hill. The City is ours. We rule in Constantinople!”

They all leaped up, shouting, questioning, fouling one another
with their weapons. Jehan fought his way through them and confronted his
friend. “My lord. It’s true?”

Henry gestured to his companion, a sturdy man with a lined intelligent
face. “Can I doubt the Marshal of Champagne? He rode through the City
with a small escort, and no one molested him. We’re masters of the City.
We’ve won the war.”

Jehan shook his head in disbelief. Then he raised it,
cocking it. “Then those are our men.”

The Marshal nodded. “The sack has begun.”

“But,” Jehan said, “it was decided there
was to be no looting.”

“Tell that to ten thousand victorious Franks,”
the Marshal said dryly. “My lords, I’m for the Count’s camp
again before the army goes quite mad with joy. Have you any messages for me to
carry?”

“Only,” said Henry, turning his eyes to the loom
of the palace wall, “that henceforward he can send his dispatches to me within
Blachernae.”

The Marshal bowed and took his leave.

Jehan hardly saw either of them. “We’ve got to
stop the sack.”

Henry shook him lightly, recalling him to himself. “Breakfast
first, and a council. After that, the palace. And then, my dear priest, you may
save as many souls as you please.”

o0o

Well before either meal or council was ended, the gates of the
palace swung wide. Henry’s troops, restive already with their lords’
slowness, drew into rough formation.

But no army descended to sweep the Latins away. A single figure
rode forth on a grey mare, escorted by tall guards, each with an empty scabbard
and no spear in his hand. They advanced steadily until they met the leveled
spears of the foremost rank.

The rider dismounted and spoke for a moment, too far and
soft to be heard from Henry’s tent. At a bark from their sergeant, two
Flemings lowered their spears and seized the Greek. He made no effort to
resist, even when they searched him, stripping him of all but his silken
undertunic.

Henry was on his feet. “Enough!” he called out. “Return
the man’s belongings to him and bring him to me.”

He received his garments, but was given no time to don them;
with them bundled in his arms and two stout Flemings flanking him, he came
before the young lord.

A fine elegant creature he was, Jehan thought, even in this state;
he bowed smoothly, with all courtesy, and said in passable Latin, “Greetings
to my lord.”

Henry frowned. “Please, sir, dress. And,” he
added with a swift cold glance at each of the Flemings, “please be
certain to reclaim your jewels.”

Those hardened faces moved not a muscle; but when the eunuch
held out a slender hand, the Flemings emptied their pouches into it. He dressed
then, quickly and without embarrassment, and faced Henry with a smile and an
inclination of the head. “Michael Doukas gives thanks to my lord.”

“No thanks are necessary,” Henry said. “You
have a message?”

The eunuch sighed just visibly.
Ah
, his eyes said,
these
impetuous Latins.
Aloud he murmured, “My lord is wise and courteous,
after the fashion of his people. I, who was but the poorest of His Sacred Majesty’s
poor chamberlains, come now to you as a suppliant. His Serene Highness has
departed, leaving his palace unguarded and his city in disarray. We of his followers
know not where to turn. We have heard my lord’s praises, even here where
honest praise is rarer than the phoenix. Will my lord please to take us and our
palace into his protection?”

Behind Henry, his barons muttered. A sword or two hissed from
its sheath. “My lord!” cried a grizzled knight. “Will you trust
these slippery Greeks?”

The rest echoed him, some of them in terms that would have
sent a Latin flying for his sword. Michael Doukas merely smiled.

Jehan rose, towering over them all. The eunuch’s eyes
ran over him. “My,” he said, “what a great deal of man that
is.”

“Enough,” growled one of the knights, “for
both of you.”

Jehan schooled his face to stillness. “My lord, I
think he can be trusted.”

“Why?” demanded Henry.

“He’s as treacherous a Byzantine as ever haunted
an emperor’s court. But now he’s in a corner. We’ll overrun
his palace whether he surrenders or not. This way he has a chance of escaping
with his skin intact.”

“And perhaps with that of a friend or two into the
bargain?”

Michael Doukas looked from lord to priest and smiled. “No,
my lord, you think too well of me. The holy Father is quite accurate. And,
perhaps, a shade more intelligent than he looks.”

“A shade,” Henry said dryly. “Very well,
we accept your surrender. You’ll come with us, of course. Close by me, if
you value your life as much as you pretend.”

“It is my most precious possession.” Michael
Doukas bowed low. “I am entirely at my lord’s disposal.”

“Come then,” Henry said, striding toward his
horse.