The Walls of Byzantium (46 page)

After them it was the turn of the court to pass. The White Eunuch, the Kilerji-bashi, in charge of the royal household, was in front, and behind him marched the Ilekim-bashi, the Chief Physician, and the Munejim-bashi, the Chief Astrologer. On either side trod the
peik
halberdiers, smart as buttons in their long swaying coats and plumed hats and between them came all the cooks, bakers, scullions, confectioners, tasters and musicians that created, approved or dismissed the Sultan’s food.

The Pages of the Inner and Outer Chambers came next, each with his little golden bow, and the
solaklar
, the veteran janissary archers that surrounded the Sultan in battle. The high-stepping white horses of the Grand Vizier, suspended nightly by ropes to tread that way, all richly caparisoned followed, and behind them his own pageboys in matching livery. The Grand Vizier himself rode next, with his heron plume bobbing on his vast turban, smiling and nodding to right and left.

The green banner of the emirs appeared and there rode Yakub, dressed in magnificent furs, and with him all the beys, pashas, kadis and other rulers, great and petty, of the Anatolian steppe with their wild moustachios and tilting turbans. Then came rank upon rank of the sipahi light cavalry in their skins of wild animals.

The corps of the ulema came next: the imams, among whom were the Sultan’s confessor and the muezzins who would chant from the Holy Book. All were serious men, weighed down with age, beard and wisdom, and looked neither to right or left as they rode to holy war.

At last there was Bayezid, dressed in shimmering silver mail and wearing a helmet, pointed at the top, from which a purple plume bounced with the steady tread of his splendid white stallion. He rode just ahead of an umbrella of green silk held high by one of his Kapikulu household guard. Beside him was carried the tall lance from which hung the three Horsehairs and, next to it, the great flag of the Prophet.

Luke had never in his life seen such a spectacle. His mouth was choked from dust and his eyes dazzled by the pageant of banners and spears and turbans and nodding horse heads. His ears rang with the sound of cymbal and trumpet and the throb of the earth as boot and hoof pounded their way to battle.

But there was more. After the Sultan came the irregulars, the thousand upon thousand bashibozouks who marched for no pay but the promise of plunder and, if truly valiant, a chance to become a sipahi with rights to land and chattels. These were a fearsome force, some hardly dressed, most without proper weapons and all with an ardour to die for their sultan.

‘Let’s go,’ shouted Zoe.

She pulled hard at one rein and her mare spun around. Luke
waited a minute, searching through the dust for the figure on the other hill.

But there was no one there.

Later that night, Luke was sitting with Zoe in her tent. It was not large and much of the space was taken up by a bed as wide as it was long. Above the bed was a hexagonal lantern with candlelight playing through a filigree of thorned rose, and around it were layers of diaphanous fabric, all of different colours, which seemed to move to the flickering light. Cushioned divans were set against the tent’s walls with tables before them. On the tables were bowls of herbs and multi-coloured stones. The floor was strewn with carpets and furs and an open stove smouldered in the centre.

Luke sat against cushions on a divan with Zoe facing him across a table, kneeling and leaning forward on her elbows, her face in her hands. The tent was warm.

‘I want you to wait here,’ said Zoe. ‘I will go and get the sword. I know where it is in Suleyman’s tent.’

‘What happens if he finds you?’

‘He won’t. He’s gone to look at the city walls. He will be away a week. He’s taken Anna with him.’

‘Anna? Why has he taken Anna?’

Zoe shrugged. ‘He takes her everywhere with him.’

‘Leaving you behind?’

Zoe looked at him evenly and there was something hard in the gaze. ‘This is the tent of a courtesan,’ she said very softly. ‘We are all courtesans, just with different skills.’

Ten minutes later she had returned with the sword hidden beneath her cloak. She removed the bowls from the table and
placed it between them. Her body cast a shadow over it so she moved to kneel next to Luke. The light from the lantern moved across the pitted surface of the metal like rain and the gold dragon’s head glowed as if on fire.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Zoe.

‘We see if any part of the hilt comes apart and we look for hidden inscriptions. God knows, though, I’ve examined this sword often enough.’

He leant forward and pulled the sword across the table towards them, then held up the hilt to the light, turning it.

‘Wait,’ said Zoe. She rose and went over to the bed, parting the veils and reaching up to unhook the lantern. She brought it back to the table and set it down. ‘Now we can see properly.’

Their cheeks almost touching, they peered at every inch of the sword, but there was nothing that Luke had not already seen.

‘Try twisting the pommel.’

‘I already have, countless times.’ But Luke put one hand around the grip and with the other tried to turn the dragon’s head. There was no movement.

‘Let’s try this.’ Zoe leant across to the bowl of herbs and thrust her hand in. When it emerged it was shining. ‘Olive oil,’ she said and wiped the hilt between the pommel and grip. Her fingers brushed against Luke’s, leaving traces of oil.

Luke tried to twist it again and this time there was some give. Just a fraction, then a fraction more. Then nearly a full turn. Nothing more.

‘Try again,’ whispered Zoe and put her hands over his to help him.

It wouldn’t shift.

‘Perhaps it’s only supposed to turn that far,’ said Luke.

She leant over to the lantern and moved it closer to the pommel. Luke looked down at the brilliant sheen of her hair and the river of light that flowed across it.

‘Can you see anything?’ he asked.

‘No. Yes … perhaps. Just some scratching in the metal, I think.’

Luke picked up the lantern and held it just above where she was looking. ‘Wait. I think they’re letters. There’s something written here. A word.’

She peered closer. ‘
Sepultus
.’

‘It’s Latin,’ said Luke. ‘It means “buried”. Is there anything else?’

‘There are some numerals. I can see an M and a one. The rest is too worn.’

‘A date?’ Luke turned the metal further to the lamp.

‘I suppose so. It’s difficult to tell.’

‘Well, Siward was buried in the Varangian church in Constantinople. If he took the treasure with him, perhaps he meant to tell us that the treasure would be buried with him.’

‘But how would he know the date?’

‘We need to go to the church,’ said Luke quietly. ‘We need to go into Constantinople.’

On the following day, the city of Constantinople opened its Golden Gate. It was still the most famous meeting place in Christendom and Luke and Zoe arrived there at midday when the sun was at its peak.

The fields around the walls had been burnt by the Turks and bore all the imprints of a besieging army. There were empty trenches and broken palisades and the ruins of siege machinery
lying everywhere in smoking piles. The road was dense with traffic as local villagers poured from the city to find what was left of their homes.

The gate itself was still magnificent. For centuries, it had been the great ceremonial portal from which emperors had left for their campaigns and under which they’d celebrated their triumphant returns. In contrast to the brick and limestone of the walls, it was built of white marble and had gigantic doors studded with gold. On its top was a monumental
quadriga
with elephants and two statues of winged victory looking out with optimism.

Now the two of them joined the queue of people waiting to enter the city and soon were being looked over by guards with the double-headed eagle of the Palaiologoi on their hauberks. The Turkish army had marched away but it was just possible that a few of their number had been left to enter the city as spies. Once they had satisfied the guards that they were Greek and had been let through the gate, Luke and Zoe entered a landscape of cultivated fields, hedgerows and men bent low over the plough. The ground either side of them was a patchwork of neat furrowed paddocks with the ruins of houses and churches providing the only clue that this had once been the busy suburb of Studion. There were wooden windmills dotted between the fields and donkeys waiting to take their grain, with birds hovering to pick up what was left.

They rode past the fields and orchards and ruins in a state of wonder, seeing for themselves how a population of a million shrinks to one of fifty thousand. Another line of walls, this time in ruins, rose up before them and they were told that these had been the walls of Constantine and once the limits of a smaller city. They passed through another gate and the
broad Mese, its flagstones lined with grass, began to fall away. They came to a large deserted square and a canal that ran beneath it to the harbour of Theodosius down to their right. Then the ground rose towards the second hill of this seven-hilled city and they found themselves in a place where, at last, there were signs of habitation. Around the circular, colonnaded square, with its heroic pillar at the centre, were palaces and people and the beginnings of bustle. A market had been set up around one side and every kind of vegetable was on offer.

This was not, thought Luke, a population that was starving.

The Mese ran straight now and had fewer weeds between its stones. It rose gently towards a big triumphal arch with scenes of war carved on its walls. On its top was a gold pyramid.

‘The Milion,’ said Zoe, pointing. ‘All the distances to the important cities in the Empire are inscribed on its sides. Most of them aren’t ours any more, of course.’

Behind it was a throng of people and they stopped one to ask what was going on. The man pointed to the great aqueduct that could just be seen beyond the third hill. The cistern had been closed during the siege when water had been rationed. Now it was open again.

Soon they were among people queuing around the main square of the city, at the centre of which rose the great column that Luke had seen from the sea. There were more markets here and many more people. Yellow-hatted Jews sat behind abacuses at tables piled high with coins. By their sides sat Armenians with square beards writing on parchment. Moors and Syrians chatted with fat merchants from the Levant and everywhere were the black doublets of Venetians and Genoese who eyed each other with distrust. Constantinople was open again and the many nations that had sheltered in their various
ghettos and
fondachi
warehouses during the siege had re-emerged to do business. Zoe stopped to ask one of them for directions.

‘This way,’ she said.

They turned north along the side of the Hagia Sophia and were soon plunged into the shadow of its great walls. Beyond it, the streets were narrower and seemingly deserted and they dismounted and led their horses past doorways with cats in them and others where dogs stood guard. Then, ahead of them, was a small church, crumbling at every corner, which looked as if it had not seen a congregation in years.