The Walls of Byzantium (26 page)

In the three months she had been at Serres, Anna had been imprisoned within a corner of the old Byzantine palace that had been given over to the women of the Sultan. She had not seen Damian or his father or Zoe and her only contact with the outside world had been the whispers and giggles of the beauties gathered for the Sultan’s unpredictable pleasure. She had retreated into herself, turning over and over in her mind the events at Monemvasia, events that increasingly centred on the golden figure of Luke. And she found herself praying, day and night, that he’d somehow survived the storm.

Then, just when she thought she might drown herself of boredom in one of the scented pools, a summons had reached
her. Devlet Hatun wanted to see her. But not within the whispering corridors of the harem. She was to meet her outside the city amongst the tents and flags of the army gathering to march on Constantinople.

Now she watched as two vastly turbanned officials rode out to meet them, their long black robes brushing the snow either side of their horses. They bowed from the saddle, then turned and led her through the maze of silk, canvas and rope to a large tent of exquisite greens.

Anna dismounted and waited while murmurs announced her coming. Then the silks were parted and she entered a world of shadow and shimmering heat. There were braziers of latticed gold around the walls, the glow from their coal hearts beating warmth into the tent. Thick carpets of intricate weave overlapped each other while cushions the size of galleys were piled around poles garlanded with vines. On the cushions rested girls of every age, some clothed and some naked, some talking, some sleeping, while others glided between the groups bearing trays of delicacies and bowls of sherbet. A tiny orchestra sat back to back playing instruments whose strings merged with their tumbling hair.

And no one looked at Anna as she stood there, blinking.

The light in the tent seemed to come from roundels of candles suspended from the tops of the tent poles. To begin with Anna could see little beyond the shapes immediately in front of her. Then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, she saw that there was a low, canopied dais in the centre with two thrones side by side on which sat a woman and a boy.

Only they seemed to notice her.

Bowing low to the couple, Anna unbuttoned her coat and laid it gently on the ground. Then she walked between the
bodies until she stood in front of the dais, her heart beating like a drum.

No one spoke and Anna felt beads of sweat collect on her brow and between her breasts. The woman in front of her was perhaps twenty years her senior, quite small and tending to plumpness beneath the swathes of silk that covered her from head to foot. Dark eyes, not unkind, scrutinised her from above an embroidered veil that clung to the contours of her face like a gauze.

The boy beside her was on the cusp of manhood, well made and possessing an intelligent gaze. Suddenly he smiled and a row of perfect white teeth appeared.

Anna’s heartbeat slowed.

The woman moved to unhook the side of her veil and Anna saw that she was smiling too, but with teeth less white. She held up a hand and a tray appeared at Anna’s side. The boy spoke.

‘It is hot wine, since my mother, assumes you to be cold after your ride,’ said the boy in flawless Greek. ‘But if you prefer sherbet, it can be brought.’

Anna glanced at the woman whose expression had not changed. ‘Please thank your mother, Prince Mehmed, and tell her that the wine will revive me,’ she replied, taking the cup.

‘Would it please you to sit?’ asked the boy, indicating a chair that had materialised behind her.

An extraordinary silence followed, extraordinary because the conversation of the surrounding groups didn’t cease and yet no sound came from them. The tiny orchestra, too, kept playing but no notes could be heard. The perfect choreography of movement around them permitted total discretion and was a thing both wondrous and beautiful to Anna, who was already
feeling the effects of the wine steal up her limbs like immersion in a warm bath.

The boy looked at his mother and then at Anna. ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ he asked.

‘In Serres, lord?’ replied Anna. ‘I suppose because my husband is here.’

‘And yet you have not seen him.’

Anna felt her heart begin to beat quickly again. She stared at the boy.

Mehmed joined his hands in his lap and looked down at them. ‘Why did the Mamonases bring you here? Would it not have been easier to leave you in Monemvasia? Surely the Despot would have been happy to find you there?’

‘I am here as a hostage, lord,’ said Anna.

‘I think not,’ said Prince Mehmed, looking up and frowning. Anna saw that the eyebrows were high-arched like his mother’s. ‘I think you are here because my brother, the Prince Suleyman, desires that you be here. And my brother, Allah willing, will be the next sultan.’

Anna felt sick.

‘I think,’ continued the Prince, ‘and my mother thinks, that you will be part of the bargain struck with the Mamonas clan.’

Anna said nothing. She just sat staring at the boy. New drops of sweat had gathered at her temples that owed nothing to the heat of the tent. She looked away towards the musicians as if the logic of soundless music might help her think.

Bargain? What bargain?

The Prince leant forward and dropped his voice to something barely above a whisper. ‘We are natural allies, you and I,’ he said softly, ‘and our alliance springs from shared danger. My
brother and I are very different. He looks to cities and courts for his pleasure. He looks to the West as the Dar ul-Harb and to Constantinople as his capital in years to come. I, on the other hand, have gazi blood in my veins. My mother is of the Germiyan tribe, sister to its leader Prince Yakub. I like tents, not cities. And I prefer the East.’

He drew even closer. ‘My father and brother are not close. My brother has been tasked to take Constantinople, a city that has never fallen except to the Franks. My father believes he will fail. But if he succeeds, then my brother will challenge Bayezid, who is not the man he was. You and I will both suffer if my brother becomes sultan. You, with your honour, and I, most assuredly, with my life. We are natural allies.’

‘But how can I help you, lord?’ Anna asked slowly. ‘I am a seventeen-year-old girl married to a Greek merchant.’

Mehmed smiled. ‘No, you are much more than that, Anna. You are the daughter of Simon Laskaris, Protostrator of Mistra. He has influence with the Emperor Manuel, who will either choose to defend Constantinople or surrender it. My brother has been entrusted with the siege and if he succeeds, he will become sultan and the West will become the Dar ul-Harb.’ He paused. ‘And I shall succumb to the bowstring.’

‘And if he fails?’

‘If he fails?’ said the boy softly. ‘Who knows? Perhaps someone other than him will become sultan. Someone who will lead his gazis eastwards. Someone who might be a friend to your empire.’

Anna and the boy looked at each other in silence.

‘So what would you have me do?’

‘A discussion will take place this afternoon,’ said the Prince. ‘There is a side passage to my father’s audience tent which leads to a women’s room with a grille from which you can see
and hear the proceedings. My mother will take you there. I want you to listen.’

Anna considered this.

‘And then?’ she asked.

The Prince picked an invisible speck from his silken sleeve. Anna suddenly remembered how young he was.

‘There are people who have come to this camp whom you know.’

‘Who has come, lord?’ asked Anna.

‘The Emperor, the Despot … and your father, Simon Laskaris.’

Anna’s heart jumped.

‘Why have they chosen to come?’

‘They haven’t. The emperor has been vassal to the sultan for some time. Manuel has to obey a summons or face war.’

‘But he faces war already.’

‘Not yet. There may yet be a chance to keep the peace. He had no choice but to come. None of them did.’

‘Are they in danger?’

Mehmed looked up into her eyes. ‘Yes, they are in danger. They must escape this place tonight.’

Anna hadn’t realised that the tent of Devlet Hatun was connected to that of Bayezid. It was as if the entire palace in Serres had been reconstructed out of silk on this hilltop, the echo of stone exchanged for the whisper of fabric.

Anna was waiting in a small anteroom and a low table had been set before her made of sandalwood and inlaid with mother of pearl. On it was laid fruit and wine and flowers of the summer somehow preserved to show colour in winter.

Eventually, she heard sounds of conversation and the wall opened to reveal the small figure of Devlet Hatun and a tall
woman by her side. The woman was unveiled and dressed in a cowled cloak of velvet thrown back from her shoulders. Her fair hair fell well below her shoulders to contour small breasts and brush the first curve of her hips. Her face was proud and angular, with a straight nose above wide nostrils and full, decisive lips. She regarded Anna with no expression of pleasure or enquiry.

She was, emphatically, of royal blood.

Then there was a further rustle and Zoe Mamonas stepped into the room. Anna gave a little cry and stood up. ‘How … ?’

Zoe walked towards her. She looked tired and drawn. ‘How do I dare come before you after what happened to Luke?’ she suggested, stooping to sit cross-legged before her with the grace of a courtesan. ‘Because, Anna, I had nothing to do with it. It was Damian who recognized Luke when you came through the gate. And it was he who guessed that you would try to make your escape that night. He followed you.’

Anna studied the wide, guileless eyes between dark eyelashes laced with kohl. She looked at the earnest intent in that pale face and the hands now drawn to the mouth in what looked like entreaty. In a day of uncertainties, this was an uncertainty too difficult to fathom.

‘I don’t know,’ she said after a time. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more.’

Zoe placed her hands, palms down, on the table. It was as if she had delivered an offering but had nothing more to give. ‘You don’t have to believe me. Just believe these women when they say that you are in danger. Why would they lie?’

In the silence that followed, the tall woman stepped forward, lifting her cloak in one hand, to occupy the chair from which Anna had risen.

‘I am the Princess Olivera Despina,’ she said. The voice was surprisingly deep. ‘I am the fifth wife of Bayezid and the daughter of King Lazar of Serbia. My father was executed by the Sultan at the field of Kosovo five years ago, since when I have been the executioner’s wife.’ She paused and studied a ring on her left forefinger. ‘After that battle, the Sultan used three battalions of dead Serbs as his banqueting table.’

She looked up at Anna. ‘My brother, Stefan Lazarević,’ she went on, ‘is now vassal to the Sultan. He too has been summoned here.’

She looked at the other two women and smiled. Then she returned her gaze to Anna. ‘We all represent different causes. You, your honour and the Empire; me, a murdered father; the Princess Devlet, her son’s future. Quite enough, one might think, to establish common interest.’

Anna looked across at Zoe. ‘And you, Zoe, what is your interest?’

Zoe Mamonas looked down at her feet and, for the first time, Anna saw discomfort in her poise.

‘My argument’ – her voice was soft – ‘is with Prince Suleyman.’

The silence that followed this statement was complete. A dog barked beyond the tents and a janissary’s cauldron clanked somewhere nearer.

Then the woman who had not thus far uttered a word spoke. ‘We must go,’ said the Princess Devlet Hatun. In Greek.

At the centre of every storm there is an eye of calm. And so it was in the court of the Sultan Bayezid.

While his messengers dashed to every corner of the Ottoman Empire to call his subjects to arms, while roads were repaired to ease the progress of his armies, while provisions in prodigious
quantities were amassed at every stopping point along the way, the inner sanctum of the court was an ocean of peace and tranquillity.

Like the palaces of Bursa and Edirne, the camp contained a series of tented courtyards, with carpets and fountains and orange trees in tubs within, their poles hung with painted lanterns and their walls lined with living statues that never spoke above a whisper. There were three courts here. The first conducted the business of the palace and city. The second contained the offices of state, the archives and the divan rooms where the Sultan’s viziers met. The inner sanctum, where the Sultan held audience, was a place of absolute quiet unless the Lord of the Two Horizons chose to break it.