Chapter Fifteen

The next morning brought fog. It was chilly, and the Captain and I, accustomed as we were to the sun, shivered as we broke our fast with our Pisan hosts. Then we set out for the palace. We had nothing but our packs, and the Pisans offered us a servant to carry those to the inn. To be polite we accepted, but not the offer of a guide. The Captain could find his way, he said, and we set out. The dour mood of last night had vanished with the mornings fog, which the sun had indeed chased away, and I was fairly skipping as I followed the Captain along the foot of the walls, winding through a maze of lodgings, warehouses, offices and churches, some of which were still being built, and all of which hummed and sometimes raged with Italian voices, the sing-song dialects of Genoa and Venice, Pisa, Florence, Siena and a babel of others I did not recognise. It was here I heard my first Greek spoken, though the speakers were labourers working on one of the new Frankish churches, whose campanile was beginning to rise above the level of the sea walls. Soon afterwards we came to a gate, much broken down and guarded by sleepy-looking men-at-arms in the imperial red and gold livery, leaning on their spears in the shade and gossiping with each other in French. They did not bat an eyelash at us. Thus I entered Constantinople.

The street we found ourselves walking down was almost empty save for a few ancient crones in dusty black clothes who regarded us with icy indifference. As soon as we had passed through the gate I knew I was inside the rotten jawbone I had imagined from the boat. The houses around us, once grand, were in a horrible state of disrepair. Some were roofless, the sun shining through their upper windows. Those that were intact looked half occupied, with some windows boarded up and others showing a ragged curtain or a drape of tattered laundry. Every wall showed evidence of fire. I have said the street was near empty, but only of people: stray dogs, emaciated and flayed by mange, scurried everywhere, and the air was rank with their piss and turds. We hurried on under the impassive eyes of the old women. Turning a corner, we entered a wider thoroughfare, but the same neglect and ruin was in evidence here also. The buildings were high and flat-fronted, in the main, with many tiers of round-arched windows. They stood side by side so that often the street was a seamless wall of stone. The effect was majestic even now, and more than a little sinister. This had not been a city like the ones back home, I knew now, with their ramshackle houses of wood and mud all leaning on each other's shoulders like a congregation of drunkards. And it had paid a terrible price for its superiority.

Thus we made our way, mostly in silence, although the Captain would every now and again point out some landmark, or what had once been such, for invariably it was now a gutted shell. I could not believe how empty the streets were. This had been a city of a million people, and now… There were a few more old people here, and children with matted hair and dirty faces played in doorways and chased the dogs. I shook my head in dismay, but all of a sudden the Captain grabbed my shoulder and jerked me against the nearest wall. There was a cacophony of barking and curses, and a great pack of mangy dogs hurtled past us, driven by a company of men-at-arms who marched towards us up the street, swords and spears clinking against chain mail, jeering and swearing at the few people who were abroad. The old folk retreated into their houses, crossing themselves in the backwards Greek fashion, but some of the bolder children fell into step with the soldiers, tugging on their surcoats and holding out their hands. A couple of them were rewarded with small coins, but one, a cheeky boy with great brown eyes who was skipping about in front of the man who looked to be the company's leader and chanting 'Please! Please!' in Greek, came too close and the man suddenly lashed out, sending him sprawling over the flagstones. The others laughed and, to my horror, marched right over him, trampling his little body heedlessly with their boots. I was about to drag him out of the way, but the Captain stopped me, and indeed the little one picked himself up, dusted himself off and limped away to his fellows, who surrounded him, cackling. Meanwhile the soldiers had drawn abreast of us, and the one who had trampled the child glanced our way and saluted us, a twisted smile on his boozy face. I was about to tell him what was on my mind, but again the Captain stopped me, and replied to the soldier's greeting with a haughty lift of his chin. The soldiers clattered away towards the sea, and left the street to the dogs, the children, and ourselves.

We walked on, but the children, in search of fresh diversion, began to tag along behind us. We had gone a few paces when I felt a tug on the hem of my tunic.

'Lordos! Lordos!' The voice was a hoarse squeak. I turned and looked down into the dust-streaked face of the little boy. He was around nine years old, I judged, and his hair was thick with dust. A thin trickle of blood ran from each nostril, and he had wiped it crosswise across his cheek. What do you want, little one?' I asked him gently, in the Greek Anna had taught me. He stepped back in amazement.

'Coin, Lordos?' he asked again in Venetian. I pulled out a silver florin and and held it out to him.

'I am no lord’ I told him in Greek. He looked me up and down in disbelief, and I realised I was dressed in my finest Venetian clothes: short, point-sleeved tunic of white and black-striped silk; bronze silk surcoat with broad blue stripes, scalloped at the neck and hem with bronze ribbon; red woollen hose; saffron-coloured coif. I had my sword buckled on, and the knife hung next to my red leather purse. The boy snatched the coin and took a couple of hasty steps backwards. ‘Who are you, then?' he asked me in Greek.

‘Kakenas’ I told him. Nobody. He cocked his head and regarded me for a moment with hooded eyes. Confusion and perhaps anger came from him like the heat of a fever: I could feel it. For a moment I thought he would spit at me, but instead he bit the florin and turned his blood-smeared face up to mine once more before turning on his heel and running back to his mates.

We walked on through one ruined street after another. The very air was suffused with an oppressive melancholy, as if the ruined buildings were breathing it out through their blackened skull-mouths. °Where are all the people?' I asked quietly.

They fled, some of them’ the Captain answered. 'Like Anna's people, to Anatolia, Epiros. Scattered. But many did not flee.' He pointed to an empty house. It had been quite grand once, red brick trimmed with marble that had been carved, around windows and door, into thick, leafy vines. Now fat stains of soot stretched up from each blank cavity where a fire had once raged. 'They died in their houses, or in the streets. Or they were herded into the churches and butchered like vermin.'

'Raped on the altars.' It was something that Anna always said, and I always thought it a bit of hyperbole. Now I saw it must have happened just as she had told it.

Yes, then hacked to pieces. The crusaders hated the Greeks. Called them effete and soft, corrupted. Do they look effete now?' Indeed they do not.'

'This place… thirty-three years ago, in my lifetime, this place, this Constantinople, was the centre of the world,' he went on. He was angry, I realised: very angry, though not with me. 'It was the greatest city man has ever known. Look! This street is empty, save for that beggar, those children. That woman – is she a whore, or simply a pauper? There used to be a million people teeming here. A million! These walls would have swallowed every soul in London, Rome, Paris, all of them at once without a trace. Doge Dandolo and his crusaders looted and burned until there was nothing left. I was born the year the crusaders came here, but I have talked to old men who remember the city that was-'

'And Anna, too,' I interrupted. 'To her it was a city of gold, a miracle.'

'And now it is a skeleton.' The Captain kicked a lump of charred brick, which clattered hollowly into an empty doorway.

'That is what I saw from the ship, as we came in last night,' I told him. 'A jawbone, all rotten. And the merchant churches like fat worms feasting on the decay.'

At last we found ourselves in another open space, a public space, surely, but one that now held no one who might be described as public. It did, however, contain a large number of armed men, who loafed about, polished weapons or fed horses. On the far side rose a vast wall of stone and brick. It rose in a series of arches, one row atop the other, to a tumult of domes, battlements and spires topped with Greek crosses, two-headed birds and other arcane devices. Many flags and pennants fluttered: the gold and red of the empire, of course, and others I did not recognise. As we walked closer I saw that we were approaching a gate in an outer wall, that was in itself as complex as the palace – for so it was – that it shielded. It extended out of sight on both sides, swallowed up in other buildings or in heaps of rubble, to which, in many places, it had itself been reduced. Now at last we were among crowds, and it became apparent that these men did not follow the practices of the effete Greeks they despised. For they stank. The square gave off a rancid stench of unwashed flesh, manure and horse-piss. It was almost as foul as the air on the rowing deck of the Stella Maris.

Around us, uncouth voices croaked and snarled in French, Flemish, Catalan, Piedmontese. I guessed it was some regular gathering – pay day, perhaps – for the soldiers were bored but restless. The bulk of them I took to be mercenaries – for what else would Catalans be doing in Greece? – but here and there I saw white surcoats stitched with the rough cross of the crusader. Old Pope Gregory had said a crusade had been preached, and evidently a few, at least, had heeded the call, but their fresh, younger faces were at odds with the scarred, scowling countenances of their fellows. Those men lolled about, many of them perched on plinths of stone that were dotted about regularly, and which I guessed had held statues or monuments that had been looted or destroyed. And indeed I glimpsed a headless marble figure that had evidently been part of a fountain or some such. Now it lacked, not only a head, but one arm and much of its upper torso. By way of compensation, though, it had been endowed with a gigantic, virile cock sketched crudely in charcoal. Horses were tethered to one of its legs. The streets we had walked to get here had been more or less clean, save for the detritus of ruin, for there was no one to foul them. Here, though, the ordure lay in heaps all around, and the stone pavement of the square was all but hidden by a thick layer of dung and other filth. It was a barnyard, a midden. The Franks had been here thirty-three years, and they had yet to find a broom.

The gate, in keeping with the gargantuan scale of the palace, was towering, and wide enough for a company of horsemen to ride through six abreast. It had been much hacked about lower down, and was charred and streaked with the memory of fire. Many of its iron fittings were bent and buckled. And yet it was still formidable, and at this hour it was shut fast.

A pair of smart-looking guards in leather hauberks, with gold crosses upon their red surcoats, came noisily to attention as we stepped out of the reeking throng and approached them. For the second time that morning I remembered that we were dressed like Frankish lords, and felt somewhat smug when the guards wiped the surliness from their faces. I allowed the Captain to take the lead, and-when one of the guards stepped forward to ask our business, he flourished the letter with the gigantic papal bull under the man's nose. In the wink of an eye the gate was hauled open a crack by unseen hands, and we had been ushered through into an immense courtyard. The guard indicated a second gateway, and we set out across the yard. In a way this place was the exact opposite to the square outside. Here the marble flagstones were swept clean, and the statues still upon their plinths, although here again only a couple still retained their heads. It was clean and orderly, but I had the sense that, when once such a majestic yard would have had dozens of servants devoted to its upkeep, now it was maintained by one tired man. The trees – for oranges, olives, bay laurels and even palms grew here and there – were dead or dying, although their fallen leaves had been removed. Swarms of brown sparrows and pigeons crowded the dry branches and filled the air with their shrill riot. It was as bright and cheerful a scene as I had yet found in Constantinople, and yet it was a ruin nonetheless, and here, as outside, there were phantoms. Well, gentlemen, greetings indeed!' said Narjot de Toucy, looking up in surprise from the pope's letter. He beckoned over a tall, thickset man who was standing against a nearby column. This is my lord Anseau de Cayeux, Regent of the Empire of Constantinople. Anseau, these chaps have a letter from the pope.'

It was our turn to be surprised, and we both backed away and made the lowest, courtliest bows in our repertoire.

‘Jean de Sol, at your service, Excellency,' intoned my companion.

‘Petrus Zennorius,' I echoed. The man laughed good-naturedly.

'Nay, nay, good people. You are most welcome here. We do not stand on a great deal of ceremony, as you have no doubt observed.' He laid a friendly arm across the shoulders of Narjot de Toucy, and the two barons regarded us amiably. They were quite unlike, these two: de Toucy was hollow-cheeked and crow-like, with coarse black hair and a short-cropped soldier's beard; de Cayeux was somewhat florid, with a lion's mane of golden curls. He appeared to be running to fat, but I saw that this was not the case. His jolly appearance was deceptive: what seemed to be fat was muscle, and his happy blue eyes were piercing.

We had arrived at this temporary throne room after much peregrination through the labyrinthine and decaying corridors of the Bucoleon Palace. Beyond the great doors we had entered another courtyard, this one shaded and smelling of cat-piss and wet moss, and through another gateway into a high hall that receded into shadow in a series of pillared archways. Here again the cats had been diligent, and although large Flemish tapestries were hung here and there on the walls they were dwarfed by the great height of the ceiling, and, when I cast my now expert eye over one as I passed by, I saw that it was old and not of any great quality: no more than would have graced the dining-chamber of an Antwerp burgomeister of the middle rank. The tapestries tried to mask the faded murals and damaged mosaics that covered the walls, but seemed crude and ugly in contrast. For though the plaster was crumbling, and the mosaics had been stripped, I guessed, of their gold, where they still existed they yet possessed a hint of dignity, like the shred of life that lingers on the faces of the dead until the flesh has grown cold. As we made our way down this hall we came upon small groups of men who turned their heads and regarded us suspiciously as we passed by. They were French nobles and priests, mainly, to judge from their dress. We came to the end of the corridor to find ourselves at a locked door and a crossways: seeing people to our left we chose that road, but only by asking a legion of slack-faced serving lads had we found ourselves in this far-flung corner of the palace. I had long since lost track of how we had come here, although, thinking back, we might have passed the ancient throne room, a lofty cavern whose walls were faced with purple stone but whose ceiling had indeed caved in. Nothing but spiderwebs here now: spiders and dust.

I was beginning to wonder if one of the thousand locked doors we had passed hid the Pharos Chapel, and if its wonders were not already buried under tons of ancient roofing. When we had at last found the guarded door we sought, we were ushered in, only to find that there was no throne to speak of, only a round-walled chamber with marble columns supporting a mercifully strong-seeming roof, around which a gaggle of men stood, talking loudly and idly picking at a table laden with silver trenchers of food. Silence fell abruptly as we were announced by a man we took to be the chamberlain, and all heads turned towards us. It was strangely like walking into a country tavern where you are not known. Finally the man with the black hair had stepped forward, gestured for our letter, and blinked with amazement. At once the hubbub was restored, the chamberlain had wandered away, and the Regent had come over to meet us.

Anseau de Cayeux studied the letter in silence. Nothing disturbed his placid face save a little twitch of one eyebrow. Then he murmured something into de Toucy s proffered ear. Their eyes met for a brief moment, then the Regent turned back to us.

‘Jean de Sol, Petrus Zennorius. Your visit was unlooked for, but it comes as the answer to our prayers’ he exclaimed. ‘We are… the empire is suffering a small upheaval, temporary of course, and we cannot welcome distinguished guests as we would wish. This.. ‘ he swept his arms around the low-ceilinged room in which we stood. 'These are somewhat sorry-looking quarters, but the roof collapsed in the throne room – fearful builders, the Greeks! – and in a month or two we shall be moving the court to the Palace of Blachernae. Shocking, really. But soon remedied!' And he threw back his golden head and laughed, as if all this – the palace, Constantinople, the empire itself – were nothing but a good-natured prank at his expense.

'Now, come and share our meal’ he finished, and with a familiar hand on our shoulders he steered us over to the table. Taking my lead from the Captain, who appeared entirely at ease, I accepted a goblet of wine and tore the leg off a pea-hen. The room might be shabby, I thought, but the dinner service was quite impressive: ancient silver and gold carved and hammered into scenes of gambolling animals and humans. I wondered how long it would be before it was sold off. Although the Regent and de Toucy were solicitous, the other barons held back, ignoring us or studying us with hooded eyes. Nervous, I tried to ignore them, and instead watched a tendril of carved ivy as it strangled a marble pillar.

‘Where are you lodging, may I ask?’ The Regent was asking a question.

‘We arrived but yesterday evening, and stayed at the house of some Pisan merchants,' said the Captain. We shall take rooms in an inn close by here, God willing – our hosts recommended it.'

‘An inn around here? Good Christ!' the Regent guffawed, then belched. Your merry Pisans must think you have a taste for knocking shops! Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all,' he added. 'But you are the emissaries of the Holy Father, and the King of France, no less. I do not think our local inns can provide you with the milieu that befits your station. You shall be our guests.' He held up a finger, mock-stern, and I knew we had no choice. My heart sank.

We ate and drank quite companionably, despite our somewhat frosty audience. The Regent was a jolly host, indeed, so jolly that I was quite surprised when he abruptly laid down his cup, signalled for a salver of water and washed his greasy hands.

'Now, let us speak in private,' he said, wiping his hands on a linen towel. We were led through a low door at the back of the chamber into a smaller room lined entirely in snow-white marble. There were a number of curious fittings jutting from the wall, and I guessed that this had been a bathing place once. Now, chests covered with heavy tapestry covers were pushed against the walls, and in the centre a stone-topped table stood on graceful iron legs fashioned to look like the limbs of a beast of prey. We were offered folding stools cushioned in bronze silk. De Cayeux, de Toucy and the chamberlain, a silent man with close-cropped grey hair, a large nose and pendulous earlobes, seated themselves across from us.

'Now, gentlemen, welcome again’ said the Regent, fulsomely. 'I trust your voyage here was easy? And you came from… where, by the bye?' ‘From Rome’ said the Captain.

'Ah, how superfluous a question that was!' said the Regent hurriedly. 'But your journey?'

‘Was easy, certainly’ said the Captain. 'Is that not so, Petrus?' He turned to me, eyes signalling me to be alert.

'Indeed, although we caught a damnable headwind that blew against us right across the Aegean’ I agreed, and swallowed, hoping the Franks did not notice my dry mouth.

'And how do you find our city?' asked de Toucy. To my horror, I realised the question was intended for me. I opened my mouth like a codfish, then shut it again. What, by the excised tongue of Saint Eusebius, was I to say? My lords, your programme of destruction has been admirably efficient?

‘The streets are wonderfully clean’ I blurted out. The barons' eyebrows shot ceiling-wards. 'And… perhaps that is an outward manifestation -' I took a breath – 'of the cleansing of the schismatic churches, and the saving of heretic Greek souls.' There. I seemed to be finished.

But the barons were smiling, and the chamberlain leaned forward and regarded me keenly. I saw that those long ear-lobes were robed in silvery down.

'A cleric?' he asked. I had the odd sense that, had he been a hound, his snout would have been carefully sniffing my clothes. Would that I had such a calling,' I gushed. 'No, no, I…'

'Master Petrus is a scholar,' said the Captain, smoothly. 'He is too modest: his learning is equal to his piety. This young man could have served Mother Church faithfully from within. For now, he chooses to do her work out in the world.'

Would that I were as modest as that – but Master Jean is too kind. I am a bookworm, no more.'

'And yet you both look like soldiers,' said the chamberlain. 'De Sol – a Toulousian name?'

'Aquitaine,' said the Captain, crisply. 'My father held estates in Les Landes.' 'And I am Cornish,' I interjected.

'Indeed. Zennor?' De Toucy rolled the word on his tongue as if it had a taste he was not sure about.

'Hard by Falmouth. The most beautiful place on God's earth – save the Golden Horn, of course.'

'Quite. But you have a soldierly air – Hughues is right,' said the Regent. So the chamberlain was named Hughues.

'One may serve the Church with the sword as well as the Word,' I said.

'Amen! Amen to that, young sir,' said the Regent. 'It that were not so, the poncing schismatics would be fouling this great city as we speak. Piety keeps our defenders on the ramparts, but steel keeps the enemy at bay.'

'As to armed men,' the Captain said delicately, 'we were given to understand that the emperor is at this moment seeking to raise a great army.'

‘Which brings us to business!' said the Regent, slapping the table with a meaty hand. 'Now. You bring a letter from the Holy Father, and yet you are not priests. You serve the interests of the King of France, yet you bear no accreditations. Forgive me if I sound churlish, but who precisely do you serve?' For the first time, the jovial face had acquired a hardness, almost imperceptible.

The Captain presented our mission as our hosts studied us with mounting interest. 'And Louis Capet will be immensely grateful’ he finished.

‘Immensely grateful? In what way?' asked the Regent, grudgingly. His face was flushed, and he rubbed the stubble on his jaw as if something had bitten him there.

‘In the only way that could possibly matter to your empire’ said the Captain.

'He would put a price on…' spluttered the Regent, incredulously.

'Oh for Christ's sake, Anseau’ barked de Toucy impatiently. 'This is no time for your piety. Yes, dear men’ he said, turning to us. 'The gift is freely given, if we have your guarantee of the immensity of Louis' gratitude. Now enough talk. I am sure our guests would like to see what they have come so far to… what did you say? Facilitate? Hughues, the key to the Chapel of Pharos, if you please.'

The chamberlain disappeared into the outer room, and returned momentarily with a great iron hoop upon which dangled a small silver key. The effect was comical, but then, I reflected, here in miniature was the predicament of Constantinople: the delicacy of one race skewered upon the hard brutality of another. We followed the Franks – so I now thought of all these folk, forgetting yet not forgetting that I was one of them, for if I was their brother by what was writ in our blood, in my soul I was utterly different – out through the makeshift throne room and into the dead belly of the palace beyond. The two barons seemed almost as lost as the Captain and I, but Hughues strode confidently ahead. We passed the wrecked chamber with the walls of purple stone and plunged down a wide flight of stairs, then another and another. The palace seemed to be built in tiers that spilled down the hillside towards the sea, and as we descended, so the structure became damper and more decayed. Finally Hughues put his shoulder to a fine wrought-iron gate which shrieked open and painted his white robe with rust. I smelled burning, and in another pace we rounded a corner and entered a high domed chamber. Four guards in imperial livery crouched, playing dice, under a guttering lantern which, although it was broad daylight outside, was the only light in that place. We might have been deep beneath the earth for all I could tell. The guards sprang up and the chamberlain seemed to be about to launch some harangue, but de Cayeux put them at their ease with a lordly wave. Hughues stooped to fit the little silver key into a plain door set into a narrow, round-topped arch. The lock snicked neatly, and the door swung inward on silent hinges. The three Franks crossed themselves and prayed silently, eyes screwed shut. The Captain and I hurriedly imitated them. I looked beyond the door, but there was nothing but a velvety darkness.


The air was thick and stale, but the clear scent of frankincense cut through like a trickle of icy water. One of the guards had lit a taper for the chamberlain, and now he held it before him and stepped over the threshold. Anseau de Cayeux followed, head bowed reverently. The Captain and I hung back politely, but Narjot de Toucy stepped behind us, and we had no choice but to go on into that dead air.

Hughues was touching his flame to racks of candles that stood on either side of the door. Light sprang up, dim at first but growing like a bashful sunrise until the walls, the ceiling, the floor itself began to glow and to throw back the rich candlelight with the gleam of gold. For there was gold everywhere, save on the floor, which was all of dazzling white marble. At first I thought the walls were hammered sheets of the stuff, but as my eyes became accustomed to the light I saw that I beheld mosaics. Every inch of wall and of the columns that held up the domed roof was inlaid with tiny squares that my intelligence told me were glass but that my soul – for if ever a place called out to my soul, it was this chapel – saw as rubies, emeralds, precious metals, garnets. The walls were lined with portraits of standing figures, scores of them, all of them stern. Bearded prophets regarded us, shoulder to shoulder with warriors clad in ancient armour, angels wrapped in their wings or in fire, queens with towering crowns, hollow-cheeked saints. I gasped, and backed into the Captain, who steadied me with a hand. Looking up, I saw that the little cupola in the ceiling bore the likeness of Our Lord, bearded, his face blankly serene, holding out his pierced hands. Either the air in that musty chamber had affected me, or the man who had made this image, far back in some unimaginably deep corner of time, had been possessed by some rare genius, for this Christ appeared, as I stared, to grow as vast as the sky, his arms stretching to embrace the horizon. I gasped.

'Rather extraordinary, isn't it?' said de Toucy blandly. 'Look at all that. The Greeks… profligates, every one.'

At that moment I realised that this tiny chapel, with its encrustations of wealth and elaboration going back through long centuries to its birth at the hands of a Roman emperor, was a last clue to the tortured husk of the palace in which it lay. It must all have been like this once, I thought. Those halls would have been magnificent beyond imagining. The throne room… I shook my head. It had been stripped, like crows and foxes strip a dead sheep. The big beasts had torn off the meat, and the little ones, the ants and maggots, had picked the bones until they gleamed. I remembered the words I had read in the history of the Sieur de Villehardouin: 'the lordly Palace of Bucoleon, a more magnificent building than had ever been seen before.' To my Anna, whose tales of this place came from folk who had known it well, it had been a wonder of the world. And in half a lifetime it had come to this. If raw stone had value, there would be nothing here at all. I wondered if the jolly Regent had already mortgaged it off to the lime-burners. I thought of the city outside. What legion of wonders had been sold off or wantonly destroyed? What glory had passed from the earth, never again to be seen by men's eyes? The air was growing heavy with the scent of beeswax, and my eyes wandered around the figures watching us from the walls, gazing at us through the windows of the past. The chapel itself seemed to be humming, as if we were inside a bell that had been struck a long, long time ago, but in whose metal the memory of the blow still resonated, a ghost of sound.

The chamberlain and the barons were picking their way through the columns towards a golden structure that loomed at the back of the room. I glanced at the Captain. He was watching them too, his eyes narrowed. I shook off my fancies. We were here on business. And without a doubt, every man who had set foot in here in the past thirty-four years had been on business too, like those three men now making a perfunctory genuflection before the altar.

'Here we are’ I muttered to the Captain, just to break the silence. And there, presumably, it is’ the Captain replied. Well, the hound sees the hare. Shall we go on?' 'View halloo’ I said faintly. 'That's the spirit’ said the Captain.

We walked forward, our feet clicking on the time-rounded marble tiles. In the Greek fashion, what I would have called a rood-screen – and doubtless Anna would have put me briskly to rights – formed a complete wall before the altar, pierced by three doors. This wall was populated by a host, nay, a regiment, of painted saints that thronged in tiers, row upon row. Here and there the panoply of age-darkened figures was interrupted by a patch of bare wood, where an icon had been pried out none too tenderly. But the Franks had gone through the central door into the well of darkness beyond, ignoring the paintings. A light flared, and first one candle, then a cluster of them began to flicker upon the altar. We passed through the narrow door in our turn, and stepped into a smaller space. It was a semicircle, and there were three small windows in the back wall, although two had been crudely bricked up and the third shuttered with a piece of slate behind an iron grille so that it admitted nothing but the most minute thread of daylight. There was no mosaic here. The plaster walls were painted black, purple, deep red, with here and there a gold line or band. But behind the altar the wall had been gilded, and from the floor to the apex of the ceiling rose a cross.

Our Lord hung there, His face fixed in as terrible and sorrowful an expression as paint and the hand of man has surely ever rendered. A crown circled His brow, an appalling thatch of murderous thorns that pierced and rent His flesh. The artist had known that blood would soak Our Lord's hair, and showed it limp and wet, clinging to temple and cheek. The body hung, the weight of death already dragging it earthwards, bones and sinews tearing where the nails had pierced the hands and meekly crossed feet. Christ's flesh was pale, almost snow-white, and seemed to hold its own faint luminescence. As the blood had flowed out, so light had crept in to fill the empty places.

Years of training in monastery and school had not prepared me for this. Nor had a lifetime of belief. And the utter loss of my faith, which had come upon me when I fled England, had left a great wound that, I now found, had not yet fully healed. For my first thoughtless impulse was to fall to my knees and cross myself, something I had not done in three long years, and my second was to puke. A burning gout of bile rose in my throat and I would have vomited at the foot of the altar had not some inner discipline, some strength I had not known lay in my possession, caused me to clamp my mouth tight shut and swallow. It was all over in an instant. The Franks doubtless approved my piety, and the Captain doubtless thought my acting skill worthy of emulation, for he too dropped to his knees and genuflected. I stood up and shook my head, trying to clear it. The oppressive stillness of the chapel was worse in this chamber, and the air was more dead. My head buzzed, and I shook it again. Then a loud clank brought me more or less to my senses. The chamberlain had dragged a large chest into the circle of candlelight, and was fiddling with the lock. Now I saw that the room was lined with such chests, some large, some very small. Some were ornate reliquaries dripping with gems, others plain wooden boxes. The one which Hughues was now working upon was black and banded around and about with many hoops of metal and studded with nails. It seemed to swallow the candlelight, for it had been coated with pitch long ago.

'Do we need a priest for this?' the Regent asked querulously. De Toucy shrugged, and Hughues shook his head. 'Not if we don't touch it.'

'Garry on then, man!' said de Toucy impatiently. The chamberlain went back to the lock, which finally opened with a sound like the snapping of bone. He scrabbled for a purchase on the smooth pitch-covered wood, and with a barely stifled oath managed to heave up the lid. As one we craned forward, like so many peasants at the summer fair, straining for a first look at some two-headed piglet.

There was nothing to see at first, nothing but a black cloth spangled with tiny golden stars. It was as if the chest contained the night itself, I thought, but then Hughues pulled it away to reveal the yellow shimmer of tarnished silver. With a grunt he set his feet like a wrestler, leaned forward, and heaved out a large box. It was evidently quite heavy, for he winced as he set it down on the floor. The Captain dropped reverently to his knees, and I did the same. The Frankish barons darted quick looks at each other, but followed suit, and de Cayeux crossed himself fervently. I regarded the box. It was a cube of silver, somewhat battered with age, its corners rounded and with a dent or two here and there. In fine gilded relief, figures with the delicate poise of ancient carvings I had seen in Rome acted out the Passion. On the lid, a calm Christ, looking young and unconcerned, hung from a slender cross. Hughues bent and kissed the metal, then carefully lifted the lid and handed it to the Regent, who accepted it reluctantly, as if it were burning hot. Then he stepped back, and gestured us over to the box. We rose, knelt again, crossed ourselves reverently, and peered in.

Something unfathomably old and horrible nestled down amongst the folds of stained linen. Jet black, a mass of thick and wickedly curved spines, it seemed to reach up towards the dim light like a crippled spider. The spines twisted about each other in a whorl. It was a blighted flower that had no centre. I thought of sea urchins and the teeth of night-terrors. At the same time I had the overwhelming urge to reach for it with my hand, which I resisted with difficulty. I looked at the Captain. He had gone very white, and had an odd half-smile on his lips that could as easily have signified pain as amusement. The barons and the chamberlain, I noted, had retreated and stood, backs pressed against the wall. The Regent fidgeted, his body twisted with unease. Again I had the urge to plunge my hand into the midst of the thorns, imagining them snag and burrow into my flesh, closing around my wrist like the jaws of a mantrap. I shuddered. The Captain must have felt it, for he stood up quickly and took two brisk steps backwards.

'My lords, I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this holy thing’ he croaked.

I rose too. My legs felt weak, and I felt sick again. Christ in His agony loomed over us, and the ghastly Crown bristled at my feet, sucking the candlelight from the air. And then I remembered the Inventarium I had first read that day in Viterbo. It had been nothing but a list then: how had the Captain referred to it? A stock-in-trade. And yet now I was in the storeroom, and I knew what the boxes that littered the floor held: the holy Lance, Christ's Shrouds and Burial Cloths, the vinegar-soaked Sponge, the Chain. That was what vibrated in the close air: it was torment, and death.

Would you care to see more?' De Toucy had paced to the centre of the chamber and was peering at a stack of chests. 'Hughues, what have we here?'

'Narjot! In Our Lord's sweet name, please! This is not a larder, man!' It was the Regent, and his voice was full of pious indignation.

I could have sworn that the chamberlain and de Toucy rolled their eyes at one another. The baron shrugged, and Hughues busied himself with the lid of the silver box. De Cayeux made a small hiss of displeasure and came over to where the Captain and I stood. He gave the Crown a wide berth.

You do not wish to see any more at this time, do you, gentlemen?' he asked. By the way he kept glancing over our shoulders I could tell he was anxious to leave. The Captain smiled and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

‘It is no secret that the wonder we have just beheld is but one of many such in this chapel,' he said. The Regent's face fell. The Head of the Baptist, I believe?' the Captain went on. 'The Robe of the Virgin herself?'

‘Yes, yes, and more, much more,' blurted de Cayeux. 'But surely you are both tired. Surely

‘You have a list, of course,' said the Captain, implacably. 'His Majesty King Louis has an interest that does not necessarily end at the holy Crown.' The Regent, well and truly impaled on the hook of greed, writhed. Strong and vital as he was, he was plainly unmanned. This place seemed to have the same effect on him as on me, although where my discomfort stemmed from my loss of faith, I guessed that for the Regent, piety and a guilty conscience – both beasts with sharp teeth – were gnawing his insides. I felt a tiny prick of sympathy for the man, then stifled it.

‘Yes, a list… I believe such a thing exists,' I said. De Cayeux gave a sort of whimper and ducked through the door. We followed. He stalked up the central aisle, then halted and turned to face us. He had mastered himself.

'There is an inventory, to be sure. I would be delighted for you to see it, and…' He dragged a sweaty hand through his curls. 'And I will order a copy made, for His Majesty the King.'

"That will be excellent,' said the Captain. He turned, genuflected a final time towards the altar, and strolled to the Regent's side. 'Such wonders,' he said, shaking his head in a fine parody of ecstatic disbelief. ‘I never thought to see such a thing. That these unworthy eyes…'

'Indeed! It haunts me, this… that is to say, the responsibility of guarding the relics of Our Lord's Passion is an honour that I never thought would rest on my shoulders,' said de Cayeux. He had reverted to his blustering tone, but I knew he had revealed to us a glimmer of truth. What mortal man would not be haunted by that terrible thing? But those two men who still pottered around in the chamber behind us like pantrymen clearly were not, and many more like them had stripped a holy city of its wonders as one might skin a rabbit. The Regent was evidently cut from more delicate cloth, as far as his immortal soul was concerned, at least. Leaving them to their devices, he ushered us out to where the guards were waiting with their smoking lantern.

'Dear visitors, I must get back to my affairs. But I insist you shall be our guests tonight, and as long as you stay in this city.' He turned and barked through the chapel door: 'Hughues!'

The chamberlain's grey head popped up behind the altar, looking rather spectral in the dim light. He saw the Regent beckoning impatiently and disappeared, to emerge with de Toucy. The two men hurried about, blowing out candles, and finally left the chapel, their clothes reeking of soot. Hughues was commanded to show us to our new quarters, and the Regent, with a final bow, hurried away down the ruined hall, de Toucy following behind. There was anger there, if I was not mistaken. And now the chamberlain pocketed his key and regarded us, buzzard-like. He scratched his grey stubble with a yellowed nail and sniffed thoughtfully.

'Now. Where shall we put you?' he mused aloud. I looked around at the ravaged walls and shuddered. Where indeed? In the event, our rooms were not so very horrible, which was fortunate, as we were to make them our home for the next two months. They were two flights up and faced south, out over the Bosphorus towards the shores of Asia. We were in another part of the palace from the Regent's throne room, and it took all our navigating skills to find our way to and from our lodgings to the state-rooms. There were other folk living around us, some in some style, others in more straitened circumstances. Perhaps it was the only section of the wrecked complex that was fit for habitation, for it had the air of a boarding-house, albeit a noble one. I did not know where the Regent had his rooms, but I recognised several of the barons from his court. They too lodged on our hallway, and every time I saw one of them, haughty or sometimes harried, toing and froing from the throne room, I could not help but reflect on the tenuous nature of this empire's heart.

Below us was another courtyard, clean-swept but mouldering, in which a party of stone statues held an eternal conference. Perhaps they were comparing their various dismemberments, or bemoaning the state of their home. In any event they were silent neighbours, although when the moon shone down upon them they seemed to gain some measure of life, an odd revenant tremble that made them kin to the fading, gouged faces of the frescoes and mosaics inside the palace. For although the Bucoleon was all but deserted in most of its vast area, its half-looted decorations kept watch. There were eyes everywhere, and if they were but paint and coloured glass, still they observed our mortal comings and goings, and judged them sternly.

The rooms themselves were pleasant. They were dry, their ceilings were firm, and the walls were painted gaily with flowering trees and vines, gambolling animals and happy birds. My chamber had three high-arched windows and slender stone columns that ended in carved thistle-leaves. I had a gigantic bed and linen that was changed tolerably often, from which I guessed that a Greek held sway at least over the running of the household; and indeed I was right in that, for the serving girls who made up our beds, the pot-boys who brought our food, and the major-domo who called in every so often to make sure all was in order – all these folk were Greek. It was clear that no Frank would sully themselves with such demeaning work, although most of those who were not soldiers appeared to have no function at all in the working of the palace, and indeed often seemed half-starved. But the Greek servants were cowed, and if they were not, perhaps, slaves, they were not free.

The days passed slowly. The Regent was distracted by the crumbling state of his borders and was often away from the palace for days at a time with his barons, and so there was no one to negotiate with. We did some business with the Italian merchants on the Golden Horn, and I went out sometimes to walk through the city, but I found it too ominous and sad, and all but empty of the Greeks, Anna’s own people. Those that remained were wan and half-starved, and cringed from the swaggering Franks like beaten hounds. I saw more than one man set upon and dragged away by the Regent's men-at-arms, and the city's gibbets were always heavy with stinking fruit. Once I came upon a naked corpse, so bruised that at first I took it for a Moor, sprawled in an empty doorway, and two smiling Franks walking away from it, eyes chilly as fox-lights. So most often I stayed in my chambers, reading the old Greek books that I would find amongst the rubble in deserted rooms. Winter was creeping in, and I found that Constantinople grows bitterly cold when the wind begins to blow down from the land of the Russians. One day, after I had been wandering through the palace in search of wood to burn in my fireplace, I returned to find the Captain waiting for me in the doorway to his own chamber.

At last there was, all of a sudden, much to occupy us. The Captain was already packing his bag. He would be taking ship back to Italy as soon as one could be found, and he hoped it would be in the next two days. A fast ship from Venice had brought a letter from Gilles, and the Captain handed it to me after first locking the door of his chamber.

Jean de Sol and Petrus Zennorius, from Gilles de Peyrolles, Greetings,' I read. I am in Venice, dubbed the Serene, although serenity is not, at present, a commodity of which I have much stock. I arrived in time to meet the envoys of His Noble Majesty et cetera, et cetera, Louis Capet, the two Dominican friars. They will be taking ship for Constantinople early next week. If the vessel I have chosen to carry this letter is swift, it should arrive a good while before them.

I hope with all my heart that it does. For Baldwin is not here in Venice. I have been to the offices of the Doge, and have searched high and low, but he is nowhere. My friend, I fear that Petroc is right: Querini is holding him. This Querini is a power in the city and I fear it is not safe for our company here. I am leaving for Rome, and on the way I shall make further enquiries. The Cormaran I have sent to Alexandria under the guise of trade, but perhaps it will draw Querini’s spies.

The brothers will be with you a few days after you receive this. They are good men, and you are right to trust them. Can you trust anyone else? Dear friend, my suspicious heart tells me that there is more rottenness in Constantinople than even you no doubt suspect. I recommend that, when you receive this news, you will make haste back to Paris with the brothers. Could Petroc remain behind, and use his excellent wit to divine the true nature of this looming disaster?

Michel, I hope I shall see you anon. Safe journey, my friend. Petroc, to you our usual advice: Pay Attention! Farewell! Gilles de Peyrolles 'It makes perfect sense, does it not?' I asked the Captain.

'Alas: it proves – finally, I should say, although I did not ever doubt you – that Baldwin is no longer his own master. Why would he avoid those whose sole intent is to cover him with gold? Baldwin is a fool, but not that big a one. Now there is hardly any point in us being here at all, in this forsaken city, and this ridiculous heap of a palace.' 'But the emissaries, these friars, are on their way’ I protested. ‘They are ready to offer gold for the relics in the Pharos Chapel.'

'I do not believe anyone here is really in a position to negotiate,' said the Captain. 'No. But what if…' I began. What?'

'Nothing,' I said, deflated. 'I was thinking that if Querini is holding Baldwin in lieu of a mortgage, there might be a way for us to parlay the negotiations with Louis into… no, it does not make sense.'

'No, go on,' said the Captain. 'I had not been thinking in terms of a mortgage, simply of hostages.'

Well, if Louis has money to spend on the Crown, could not he still buy it? Then the barons would have money to… to ransom, or redeem, rather, their sovereign.'

Yes! But why should they, though?' the Captain said, shoulders sagging.

'Because he is their ruler, and because the pope will be, I don't know. Very angry. Excommunicate Constantinople, not that it would make much difference.'

You might be right,' said the Captain, not sounding very convinced. 'No, you might be.'

'And we would collect our commission whatever happened,' I pointed out. He raised his head at that.

A fine point!' he said. 'If money changes hands between Louis and the empire, we stand to collect. The nature of the transaction need not concern us. Patch, you have it!' 'But I cannot do this alone,' I told him.

'Nonsense. It will be plain dealing. The friars will talk money and the Regent, sick with gold-greed as he is, will agree to anything. You have the pope's decree, which gives you the authority to make the transaction. Then you need merely witness the contract, and your work is done. That you can do alone’ he added. 'So. It is agreed. Gilles' information cannot be ignored. I will leave on the morrow -I have found a ship already, a fast Venetian galley with a master happy to be bribed – and you will stay and conclude this ridiculous affair. I am sorry to leave you here, though: this city is detestable.'

'It is’ I agreed, although I was blinking with surprise at the speed of all this. I did not let the Captain see, but I was shaken at the prospect of being alone here, and in the rafters of my mind the ghosts had awoken. I made my excuses soon after and went off in search of drink strong enough to put me to sleep.

I thought it would be easy enough to fetch a servant, but no means existed that I could see. I wandered through the rotting halls, through the pools of shadow that stretched between the rush lights in the walls, thinking to hail someone. But I had navigated my way almost to the Regent's state chambers before I chanced upon a serving wench hurrying on someone else's errand, a linen-draped trencher in her hands. I stopped her and she stared at me, terrified, great black-ringed eyes searching my face for who knows what dreadful portent. It was the girl who sometimes came to clean my room, I found, but it plainly heralded terrible things for servant girls to be hailed by Frankish men in this place, for she did not seem to recognise me, and I hastily spoke to her in Greek.

Wait, dear one. I wish nothing more than a jug of wine. Do you know how I might come by such a thing?' And to show her I had no ill intent, I stepped away and held my palms up before me. She quivered like a mouse stranded in the middle of a threshing floor. 'The tap-room?' I tried again. Again she shook her head. Indeed she shook all over, so hard that I feared she would drop her trencher. I was so appalled by the terror I was inflicting upon her that I had backed up hard against the wall. ‘Sto kali despoinaki? I told her: Go to the good, little queen. She goggled, and as I edged away she scuttled off in the opposite direction and disappeared into the gloom. Feeling more unnerved than ever, I kept walking until I came to the zone of light and life, where servants were running to and fro and where I could at last follow my nose to the kitchens. There I procured myself a great clay jug of wine from a fat German cellarman, who was quite disturbed to be collared by one of the quality in his own domain, but who promised me the best of his supply. By the smell of it, his supply was poor indeed, but it was not vinegar, and gratefully enough I set off again into the purgatory of deserted hallways.

I had already climbed the stairs and was, I thought, quite close to my chambers when I heard a muffled squeak and a thump behind me. Those sour shadows were rich with suggested horrors, and so I whirled around, to find empty gloom. This was a desolate quarter of the palace, where the walls were flaking and the rush lights few and far between. Doorways appeared at odd intervals, and side passages opened unexpectedly, sometimes giving on to stairways going down and sometimes up, although as far as I knew the upper floors were unsafe and uninhabited. The little hairs on my neck were prickling, and I shrugged away the gooseflesh, shuddering. This place gave me terrors far worse than come upon folk who wander in open places. The sullen dead of a thousand years had left their essences to flitter and blunder about like grey and dusty moths, so thick in places that you could almost smell their grave-cloth wings. I began to step backwards towards the nearest pool of light. Then the sound came again. It was no ghostly sound after all. A man's low growl, the click of metal on stone, and a woman's moan, stifled. I listened again. My hairs were still prickling, but now they were telling me of a different kind of fear. Was it fear, though, or pleasure? A tiny, sharp voice in my skull told me this was none of my business. I agreed with myself wholeheartedly, but then came another moan, more desperate than before. That was no woman: it was a child. I set down the wine and made my way towards the sound. My feet made no sound in the thick dust, and it was obvious from the rustling ahead that I was undetected. Now I could tell that it was coming from one of those sinister side passages. Back to the wall, I slid along until I was close enough to peer around the corner. I hesitated, for I was fearful that I had heard nothing but an illicit but happy coupling, and that my intrusion might be taken for prurience or worse. But I was no prude, and knew what love sounded like, and lust as well; and this did not sound quite like either. So, gritting my teeth, I leaned slowly, silently, into the darkness of the passage.

Nothing was visible at first save two pale stains of light, and for an instant my heart lurched at the threat of the unearthly, but then they resolved themselves into a pair of naked legs, white and sun-starved. A man seemed to be crawling up a narrow flight of stone stairs on his hands and knees, but there, in the almost black shadows beneath the collapsed tent of his clothing, was another pale smear: no more than two black holes in a weak halo of light, a ghost skull which, as I blinked, uncomprehending, became the great, terrified eyes of the little Greek serving girl I had met in the corridors below. She mewed like a kitten, and no louder, for a thick hand was over her mouth. The ink-black circles of her eyes were as hollow as those of a corpse, yet she gave a feeble jerk and the man who lay upon her slapped her head hard with the hand which was not stopping her breath.

Black hair, pale skin, dying eyes. I did not think, I did not consider, until my hands were caught in the man's clothes and I was wrenching him backwards. He was big but surprised, and I threw him against the wall, grabbed him and spun him towards me. I glimpsed thick, sandy hair and a dull, drunken Frankish face. Then I broke his nose with my forehead, a sound like a walnut cracked between stones; and as his blood ran down my neck I kneed him in the cods and swung his slumped weight out into the corridor. He landed heavily on the stone floor. I ran at him and landed one good kick in his guts before he cringed away, stumbled to his feet and lurched off into the shadows. I heard his feet picking up speed and vanishing into the desolation.

I turned to find the girl cowering against the steps. Her long tunic of homespun was still tangled about her ankles, and I reckoned, my mind whirling to make a calculation of the unspeakable, that her attacker had not reached his goal. Making soothing noises as if to a frightened beast I reached out to her, but she gave an awful, feral cry and, gathering her tunic up to her knees, jumped up and darted past me. She sprinted away, pale legs scissoring, up the corridor towards my quarters. In another instant she was gone. Had I not had a ringing in my head, and another man's blood trickling down my front, I might have dreamed the whole thing for all the evidence that remained.

My jug of wine was where I had set it down, but later, as I lay upon my bed and drank, I knew that the sly palace ghosts had lapped at it like Aristotle tells us the shades of the dead heroes, feeble and squeaking, drank the warm blood of sacrifices. The haunted wine was suitable company, for if I had gone in search of wine to dull her memory and my grief, I had instead found Anna's fetch. For what else could that girl be? I knew it was not so, with my scholar's mind that shunned superstition and with the aching in my head, for I had butted a living man, and such oafs do not seek to violate spirits. But my bereaved heart had found a shred of relief, a piece of flotsam to cling to in the howling storm, and so I lay there and remembered how I had first found my love and saved her from a man who meant to kill her, how her black hair and white skin had pierced my soul. Only when the wine was all but gone, and I could taste clay from the jug in the dregs, did I banish such thoughts and tell myself that I had merely saved the virtue of an inconsequential servant, and made an enemy of Christ alone knew who. At last I slept, and the mothy ghosts of the palace swarmed about me, drawn to me, as to all who slept there, as if to flame. We draw them, we living souls, our hot blood and beating hearts as enticing as a lantern on a summer night, but the dead are never warm, and we cannot give them warmth; and they dash themselves against us as we dream our little, desperate dreams of life.

Загрузка...