The Walls of Byzantium

CHAPTER TEN

THE MEDITERRANEAN, SUMMER 1394

It was the squeal of pigs that eventually dragged Luke from unconsciousness.

At first all was black around him. But then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he began to make out curves: of the hull sweeping away, of the deep shadows of bulkheads, of the enormous backside of a speckled pig.

As the squeal came again, he turned his head painfully to the right and saw animals in pens. There seemed to be pigs, chickens and at least one pair of goats. Above him, he could see the outline of a hatch with a sliver of sunlight around it, rising and falling with the swell of the sea. Motes of dust danced in the beams like cinders, shuddering as waves hit the ship’s side.

Any surprise that Luke felt on seeing the pigs was soon replaced by astonishment that he seemed to be alive. He had a scattered memory of towering seas silhouetted against continuous lightning and a thunder so deafening that the very planks of his little boat had seemed to come apart. He could remember cold rain driving against his back like a beating as he cowered under the rowing bench, holding on to his shoulder, which pulsed with the pain of salt in an open wound. And he could remember the sudden sense of weightless dread as a huge wave lifted his flimsy craft clean into the air, turning and turning as it fell, so that Luke knew for certain that he was going to die.

And, last of all, he remembered the fleeting sense that he didn’t much care if he did. His father was dead, Anna taken and he had no idea of the fate of his friends who’d stood with him on the jetty. What was there to live for?

Anna.

Anna was there to live for.

And here he was, alive and somewhat mended. Although his shoulder still throbbed, it appeared to have a bandage around it and he was wearing fresh clothes. He’d even been washed. What he hadn’t been, though, was fed and he felt hungrier than he’d ever felt in his life. Even the stench coming from the animal pens couldn’t remove the deep, gnawing pang that he felt in his stomach. He looked around to see if any food had been left for him but couldn’t see a plate. He wondered whether hens could lay at sea.

Luke took a deep breath and rocked his way up to lean on his good elbow. He peered into the gloom of the hold and saw, at one end, wine casks stacked on top of each other from floor to ceiling. Each barrel-end had the Mamonas castle stamped on to its wood and the word ‘Malvasia’ written beneath it.

So at least I know whose boat I’m on.

In front of the casks lay pile upon pile of animal hides — goatskins, sheepskins and cowhides — and Luke recognised the smell of decayed shit, lime and urine that meant they were fresh from the tanner’s yard. It looked as if something else might be stacked beneath them.

On his other side, and much closer, were the animal pens, with wooden hurdles between and steaming straw covering their floors. Given the curve of the hull, the animals spent much of their time in collision as the boat moved with the swell. And each was followed by a shriek of fear.

Luke shook his head slowly to try to clear the dots of light that were clouding his vision and groaned as he realised that his head throbbed every bit as much as his arm. And he had a raging thirst as well. He got to his knees and began to shuffle his way over to the animal hides. Perhaps there might be some crates of fruit underneath.

He began to lift the hides off one by one to see if they were covering another cargo. It was slow and painful work since they were heavy and their stench almost overwhelming. At last he saw the outline of a crate. He managed to pull it free so that it clattered to the floor.

Luke paused to see if the noise had been heard above. He looked around for something to open it with. In the gloom he made out a loose iron hoop hanging from a barrel and, ripping it free, straightened it with his knee and inserted one end into the gap between the lid and the crate. Putting all his weight on it, he heard the crack of splintering wood as the lid came free. Inside, neatly packed and with their mechanisms glistening with oil, were six crossbows.

Luke lifted one out to examine it, turning it towards what little light there was. It was made in Venice and of the very latest design.

He put the weapon back in the box and felt his way along the other crates, all of which appeared to be identical. Then, deep in the shadow of the bulkhead, his hands suddenly moved from wood to metal, the curved, heavy metal of a bronze barrel, rough and pitted to the touch, with thick hoops of iron surrounding it at intervals.

Cannon.

These must be the cannon at Geraki Alexis had told Anna of. Were they on their way to Constantinople? Presumably so.

Luke’s mind raced. Judging by the movement of the boat, they were at anchor, which meant that they would be close to land. But with his shoulder wound he wouldn’t be able to swim far, if at all. Perhaps, if the boat was on its way to Constantinople, Luke could find a way to enter the city’s walls and get warning to the garrison. But first he needed to know where they were.

He felt his way back up the line of crates and then moved to the stairs leading up to the hatch. By climbing two of the steps and pushing hard, he was able to extend the opening to a sliver of the world outside. And what he saw gave him a surge of hope.

Climbing above the deck rail outside was the towering mass of the Goulas.

They must have been driven back by the storm. Perhaps he could somehow get to the mainland and from there to Mistra. Then the Despot and Anna’s father could be told everything.

Luke stepped back down into the hull, replaced the lid on the crate and jostled it back into place. He picked up the broken hoop and began banging it against the underside of the hatch. He heard shouts, running feet and the squeak of bolts being released. The hatch was lifted and Luke found himself blinking into the late-afternoon sun and, framed against it, the bearded faces of four seamen.

There was a loud shout behind them and the men moved quickly away to be replaced by a man of florid complexion with costume to match. He was clearly someone of means since his doublet was slashed at the sleeves to reveal extravagant silks while the sword at his hip had a richly jewelled pommel. On his head sat a hat the size of a turkey plate, which supported a ruby the size of a vegetable. Luke guessed him to be about forty years of age.

The man’s face creased into an enormous smile and he bowed as deep as a Florentine dancing master. Then he extended a hand through the opening to help Luke on to the deck. Once there, Luke found himself encircled by sailors, most of them bare-chested, who seemed to be staring at him with awe.

The captain beamed at Luke as a father might to a favourite son. He took him in his arms and planted a kiss on both cheeks before turning to his men and issuing a torrent of Italian. He finished with a dramatic sweep of the arm and a cheer went up from the company.

There was silence.

‘I’m afraid that I don’t speak your language,’ said Luke. ‘You see, I’m from …’ He had raised his hand to gesture to the Goulas, except that he suddenly realised that it wasn’t the Goulas after all. The boat was anchored in the lee of a vast black escarpment that rose vertically from the sea and which ran into the distance as far as the eye could see. Perched at its top were a cluster of white houses interspersed with blue-domed churches, steep, stepped streets and balconies with hanging flowers. The lower houses seemed to be built partially into the rock. There was a faint smell of sulphur in the air and a gentle steam rose from the sea all around.

Where on earth am I?

‘Santorini!’ came a voice from the sterncastle as if the answer had materialised on deck.

Luke looked up towards the rear of the ship to see an extraordinary figure leaning against the upper rail staring up at the cliff face. He was a man in his middle years, of medium height and generous waist. His hair and beard were long, luxuriant and greying, obscuring much of his face, although a prominent nose could be seen pointed up at the rock and wrinkling with the smell around it.

‘Sulphur!’ said the man in Greek. ‘We are in what the poet Dante Alighieri might have referred to as a “circle of hell”, or a “basso loco”. We are in the middle of a volcano and what you see around you are the sides of its crater. Quite extraordinary.’

Luke looked at the man in amazement. He was dressed from head to toe in a garment that was part tunic and part toga and had sandals on his feet. The toga was of a startling whiteness that dazzled the eye even under an afternoon sun. He looked like a veteran angel.

Luke opened his mouth to speak but the Greek wasn’t finished.

‘In his Critias dialogue, Plato suggests that the civilisation of Atlantis existed here thousands of years ago and was swept under the sea by the force of the volcano’s eruption. Anyway, this is all that’s left of the island — this big caldera and a persistent smell of fart.’

The man paused, dipped his beard to his chest and began to hum in a distracted sort of way, moving his lips in concentration. Then he stopped as if he’d suddenly remembered something important and turned to face Luke.

‘I’m sorry, my manners. Georgius Gemistus Plethon, citizen of Adrianopolis, at your service.’ The voice was deep and rich, the words almost music. This was a man who liked to be heard. ‘You may call me Plethon.’

‘Luke Magoris, citizen of Monemvasia, at yours,’ replied Luke with a small bow. The sailors were still staring at him openmouthed and the captain appeared anxious for him to say more.

‘Do you speak Italian, by any chance?’ Luke enquired.

The older man tilted his head to one side and stroked his beard. Then he leant over the rail towards Luke and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Ah, well, that depends. To you, I may speak fluently in Greek, Latin, French, English, Arabic and Italian. To the dogs that surround you I prefer to pretend that I know only the rudiments of Italian. To do otherwise would be to invite conversation at a level I am unlikely to find congenial. For they are Venetian bandits to a man.’

Luke looked at the man in astonishment.

‘However,’ he went on, ‘you will doubtless be keen to know what they are saying to you. The captain, who is a scoundrel without parallel in Christendom, says that he thanks God that he has been the instrument of your salvation from the terrible storm that blew you both all the way to Santorini. They found you adrift on some log and believe that your rescue was a manifestation of God’s infinite mercy.’

Luke turned back to the captain. He stepped forward and put out his hand. ‘Thank you … grazie for rescuing me,’ he said, smiling into the face before him and shaking the man’s hand vigorously. Then he pointed at himself. ‘My name is Luke Magoris. Luke.’

The captain bent into another deep bow, his hat sweeping dust from the deck. When he’d straightened and smoothed the front of his doublet and curled a moustache, he turned to his crew and dismissed them with a wave of the hand. Then he said something to Plethon and beckoned to him. The Greek sighed loudly, grumbled something in a language that Luke didn’t understand and descended the steps to join them on the deck.

The captain put one slashed arm around each of their shoulders and began to walk them in circles around the deck. He spoke with deliberate slowness.

‘He wants to know,’ Plethon said, translating, ‘how you came to be out in such seas. Oh, and his name is Rufio.’

Luke thought quickly. He needed to be careful. He decided that simplicity might be best.

‘Please tell Signor Rufio that I was fishing too far out from my home in Monemvasia and didn’t see the force of the wind until it was too late.’

Plethon looked at him quizzically across the chest of the other man and then shrugged. He spoke for some time in halting Italian before being interrupted by Rufio, who stopped walking and looked in amazement first at the Greek and then at Luke.

‘He wonders,’ explained Plethon, ‘how anyone could be such a cunt.’

‘Did he say that?’ queried Luke. ‘I don’t think he said that.’

‘Well,’ said Plethon, ‘what the man says and what he means are very rarely the same. He is, after all, Venetian. In a moment he will tell you that he is bound for Constantinople and will be delighted to take you there. What he means is that he doesn’t believe a word you’ve told him and will therefore sell you to the first slave trader he meets.’

Luke looked at the captain, whose smile was still one of untarnished goodwill.

Plethon walked to the side of the ship and looked in apparent fascination at the huge rock above them. He had started to hum again.

The captain had reopened the conversation, this time with Plethon at the rail. He was gesturing at Luke. The Greek was nodding impatiently as he listened and making small grunting noises in between his humming.

‘Yes. As predicted, that was the offer to take you to Constantinople. I have said yes on your behalf since your alternatives appear limited.’

Luke considered this and then bowed in thanks to the Italian. He had no idea which of these men to trust but he needed time to think. Then Plethon spoke again to the captain.

‘What are you saying?’ asked Luke.

‘I am telling him that, despite appearances, I believe you to be a young man of some means and that you should be treated accordingly. He might believe this since you were found on your log clutching a fine sword. He has agreed to give you the spare cabin. I should accept it.’

‘Please thank him for his generosity,’ Luke said, ‘and ask him whether my sword might be returned to me.’

Following the translation, there was a pause. Then the captain, still smiling, shrugged and went over to a chest on the deck, took out Luke’s sword and handed it to him. Bowing again, he walked over to the door of the cabin beneath the sterncastle and opened it, gesturing Luke to enter.

The cabin was small but reasonably light, with two portholes above a narrow, suspended cot and a tiny writing table next to it. The desk had two stout candles on it with congealed wax ribbed against their sides. The cabin had been used recently.

Luke sat down to think and realised that both his headache and the severe throb in his shoulder had largely disappeared. There was a knock on the door and a crewman entered with a plate of cold chicken, bread and a paste of olives. With it came a flask of water and another of wine. Luke had never in his life tasted anything so good and he ate and drank too fast. He lay down on the cot.

Think. I must think.

He had no idea where Santorini was or whether it belonged to the Empire, Venice or Genoa. In any event, he was too weak to swim the distance to the rock and it had looked difficult to climb. He knew that Constantinople was five days’ sail from Monemvasia and, if they’d been blown off course, might be a week from Santorini. A childhood of running around the port of Gefira told him that this was a square-masted querina whose crew would have to work hard to make it sail more than sluggishly. These were the workhorses of the Venetian merchant fleet and were turned out in their hundreds by the Venice Arsenale. Normally they would sail in great caravans of merchantmen, but this one was on its own and carrying interesting cargo.

But what of the extraordinary Greek? He was clearly a man of considerable learning and he’d said that he was a citizen of Adrianopolis. But hadn’t Adrianopolis been lost to the Turks some thirty years past? Wasn’t it now renamed Edirne as their capital? Why was a Greek scholar living in comfort with the Turks? Why did he so hate the Venetians? And, most importantly, why did he appear to want to help Luke?

As he turned these thoughts over in his mind, Luke felt a sudden weariness envelop his body and he closed his eyes. In moments he’d fallen asleep.

It was nearly dawn when Luke awoke and the first thing he realised was that the boat was moving. He could hear the ripple of a calm sea passing along the side of the ship and the crack of the canvas sail above. Looking through a porthole, he could see the dim outline of the horizon, a black mass rising and falling against something less black, and the wink of stars as they moved in and out of his vision.

He put his hand to his shoulder and lifted the corner of the bandage, probing the surface of the wound with his fingers. It was almost closed, the skin at its edges puffy and raw, and Luke realised that the bolt had done far less damage than he’d thought. He tensed the muscles around it and swung his arm to test the extent of movement. He might even be able to swim a short distance.

Then Luke heard a familiar humming above him coming from the sterncastle deck. The Greek must be awake. Luke rolled off the cot and felt his way towards the door, opening it carefully, not wanting to wake the captain. He crept his way to the steps leading to the upper deck and climbed them on tiptoe. The humming was coming from the ship’s side.

Plethon was leaning on the rail looking up at the sky where the first glimmer of light was beginning to give dimension to the world. Luke went over to lean next to him. The older man went on humming with total absorption. Then he cleared his throat.

‘Kervan Kiran.’

‘I’m sorry?’ asked Luke.

‘Kervan Kiran. It’s what the Turks call Venus, the morning star,’ said Plethon, pointing to a twinkle low in the eastern sky. He began to hum again.

‘What does it mean?’

‘It means,’ said Plethon, for some reason now whispering, ‘“caravan breaking”.’

Luke pondered the significance of this. Perhaps there wasn’t any.

‘You see, their caravans move across the desert at night.’

Luke nodded, unclear as to whose caravans he meant.

‘For Muslims,’ continued his neighbour, ‘the dread hour is not at night but at noon when the devil takes the world in his horns and prepares to make off with it. And the only thing that stops him is the cry of Allahu Akbar from the minarets at midday. Quite extraordinary.’

Luke looked up at the star and thought of camels being tethered in the last dune-shadows of the night, of tents being erected in the sand against the fierce sun to come, of a people that moved with the calm movement of the moon. And he thought of this boat also moving with the night — and going where?

He needed some answers.

‘May I ask, sir,’ began Luke, ‘where you yourself are travelling to?’

‘Me?’ answered Plethon. ‘Well, assuming I escape slavery at the hands of these vermin, I shall be returning to my home in Adrianopolis. I have come from Methoni and from the tedium of a discussion with the Roman Bishop there about the possibility of union between our two Churches.’ He paused. ‘Methoni,’ he explained helpfully, ‘is a Venetian stronghold on the west coast of our glorious Peloponnese.’

Luke knew this but kept quiet. He wanted to know more about this strange man. ‘Why do you dislike the Venetians so much?’

Plethon looked at him in astonishment. ‘Why? Why?’ he cried. ‘Do you know nothing of our history? Do you not know that it was their own Doge Dandolo, a man blinded by age and evil, who was first over the walls when the Franks took Constantinople two hundred years ago? Had you not heard that the dogs put a whore on to the Patriarch’s throne in the great church of Sophia and danced around her nakedness? Or perhaps it had escaped you that the wealth and learning of our empire, so carefully amassed since the time of Constantine, now resides in Venice?’

Plethon’s hum now resumed at a higher pitch while his fingers drummed the rail like rain. His discovery that Venetian perfidy was unknown to his fellow passenger caused him to fix a gaze of horror past Luke as if a pack of duplicitous Doges might be climbing over the sides of the ship. But he wasn’t quite finished.

‘Dislike is too soft a word,’ he whispered. ‘I loathe and despise every Venetian on the face of this Earth and wish them all consigned to whichever of Dante’s circles of hell is most uncomfortable.’

‘And the Turks?’ asked Luke cautiously. ‘Should we not be saving our hatred for them?’

The older man seemed to consider this carefully. ‘I have lived among the Turks for thirty years now and find little to hate beyond their dogs. For some reason they love their dogs, while we Greeks prefer our cats. Every one of their cities is infested with flea-bitten mongrels. Even jackals scavenge in Adrianopolis by night and keep the citizens awake with their howling. But the Turks seem to like them, and at least they turn the city’s rubbish into shit for the tanners’ men.’

Plethon paused and returned to his humming. ‘Yes, that’s interesting,’ he murmured after a while. ‘Why do we Greeks prefer the indifference of cats? I’ll have to think about that.’

Luke said, ‘So if they’re not fighting us for our cats, what are they fighting us for?’

Plethon straightened himself and stretched, his long beard lifting clear of his chest in a movement of some grace. ‘The Turks fight for Islam and that is a strange and contradictory religion. To understand the Turks you have to first understand Islam,’ he said at last. ‘Consider this. While we in the west taunt and kick the mad of our society, in Damascus they put them in institutions with fountains and music to ease their pain. Yet they have a regiment amongst their irregulars called the deli, which is full of the insane and fills moats with their dead.

‘In most things that matter, like mathematics, astronomy and medicine, they are far advanced of us and yet their religion, which drives all their actions, closed its doors to new interpretation five hundred years ago.’

Luke thought of the man on the donkey with his potions on the road to Mistra. He thought of the mad of Monemvasia sitting amongst the cats in the streets. He looked at the morning star and saw it flickering like the last, guttering flame of a faraway candle and he looked at the new glow behind the sea’s horizon, the passage from the still of a Muslim night to the movement of a Christian day.

‘Islam is not so bad,’ Plethon continued. ‘At least they don’t have fornicating priests to sell them salvation. The Turks carry it on their backs as their camels carry their silks. Five times a day they unravel their mats, face to the east and pray to their God, wherever they are, and they don’t need illiterate priests to help them.’ He paused again. ‘Even their heaven is better. Wouldn’t you rather lie with virgins than endure the eternal choir practice we’re offered? And is our God so very dependable? Who created the earthquake forty years ago that allowed the Turk to cross over into Christendom?’

Luke had never heard such fabulous heresy. This man’s knowledge seemed as limitless as the dark sea around them. ‘Will they take over the world?’ he asked.

‘Their genius,’ Plethon replied, ‘is in their tolerance. Certainly they’ve won some battles, but the truth is that the common people prefer to be ruled by them. No one forces them to convert to Islam and they have to work a day a month for their new landlords instead of the three days a week under our system. And they feel safer. Someone at last protects them. So, yes, perhaps they will take over the world.’

‘And you think we should welcome them?’

‘No, no, no!’ cried Plethon. ‘A thousand times no! The Turks are nomads. They like to live in tents. They know nothing of building, of art, of culture or learning or creating the foundations for progress. Believe me when I tell you that they will build a great empire, and we may be part of it, but it will decay. Why? Because Islam hates change. The world cannot be ruled by people who don’t want to change!’

Luke felt in part reassured. However admirable, the Turks had to be resisted. ‘So what should we do?’ he asked. ‘How do we stop them?’

Plethon sighed deeply and looked down at his hands as if some answer might be found in the dark pattern of veins on their back. He shook his head slowly, his thick eyebrows creased in concentration. ‘It was as the fool Bishop said,’ he answered. ‘We have to unify the two Christian Churches of East and West. We have to stop rubbing the pebbles of our theological differences smooth with endless debate. We have to stop arguing about papal primacy, purgatory and the procession of the Holy Spirit. We have to stop worrying about how to properly make the sign of the cross. We have to unify these Churches which have been at war for three centuries so that the Pope in Rome can call the powers of Christendom to one final crusade against the Turks. It’s our only chance.’

Luke was silent, listening to the humming of his companion above the sounds of the ship as it ploughed its course through a sea whose shifting surface was catching the first glimmers of dawn. He’d heard the case for union and knew that the Emperor Manuel favoured it as a means of gaining help from the West.

‘And then there’s the Varangians, of course.’

Luke looked up sharply. ‘Varangians?’

‘Yes, surely you’ve heard of them. The Emperor’s Guard? Four of them were said to have taken a treasure from Constantinople when it fell to the Franks and brought it to Mistra. The myth has it that the treasure can save the Empire. It must be a lot of gold.’ He looked at Luke. ‘Didn’t you say that you were from Monemvasia?’

Luke nodded. ‘And am descended from one of those Varangians.’

Plethon stared at him in astonishment. ‘So you know of this treasure?’

‘Only that it’s been lost,’ replied Luke, shaking his head. ‘No one knows what or where it is.’

The older man stared at him for a long time. Then he shrugged and returned to the view. The humming resumed.

Luke suddenly felt cold and hugged his shoulders as he stared out to sea. A memory was creeping up on him. He saw his father, his axe an arc of silver above his head. He saw it frozen mid-air as a bolt found its mark. He shivered.

What had he died for?

‘So what do you believe in then, if neither our faith or theirs?’

Plethon turned to him and frowned. ‘I believe in reason,’ he said quietly. ‘And I believe our teacher should be Plato, since Plato equates good not with some God, but with reason. There is a new dawn of reason rising in the west, among the city states of Italy. Bayezid must be stopped because he will put out its light.’

Luke’s head was pleasurably lost in this labyrinth of new ideas and he wanted to listen to this man forever. But the first, blinding rays of the sun reminded him that he might be in imminent danger.

‘Sir,’ he asked, ‘may I perhaps come with you to Edirne? If you were to put me under your protection, would the captain dare move against me?’

Plethon put his hand on Luke’s good shoulder. He was shaking his head. He looked around the deck to check that they were still alone.

‘Luke,’ he said softly, ‘you clearly have little experience of Venetian greed. Look at you. You are tall, strong, blond and handsome. You will fetch a good price for them in the slave market and nothing that I say will stop them from trying to get it. No, your only hope is escape.’

But how?

‘The captain,’ the Greek went on, ‘speaks freely to the crew in my presence, believing that I cannot understand much of what he’s saying. Yesterday he told them that we would be putting into the island of Chios two nights from now. That will give you the best chance to escape. Chios is owned by Genoa.’

‘Why would he want to put into Chios? I thought the Venetians hated the Genoese?’ asked Luke.

‘Because,’ whispered Plethon, ‘it is only three miles from the Turkish mainland. So my hunch would be that they plan to meet the Turks there to do some transaction. And you might be included in the merchandise.’

Luke thought of the crossbows and cannon below. ‘They will give them cannon. Cannon to take to the siege of Constantinople. I saw them. In the hold.’

Plethon looked up sharply. ‘Cannon? Are you sure?’

‘Very sure.’

‘That is bad,’ Plethon said gloomily. ‘Well, we’ll know if I am right by the smell. You can smell a Turkish galley two miles away — the stench of slaves chained to their oars.’

‘I’ll need to escape. Can you help me?’

Plethon nodded slowly. He was suddenly very serious. ‘Yes, Varangian, you do. I will do what I can.’

By now the sun was clear of the horizon and Luke lifted his face to enjoy its soft warmth. He thought of the freedom to do this every morning of his life. What would it be like to awake slumped over an oar?

A shout in Italian behind him brought him back to the present. Captain Rufio was striding across the deck towards them, wearing a new doublet of shiny black leather and long riding boots that almost covered his multi-coloured hose. He seemed more delighted than ever to see Luke, pinching one of his cheeks and ruffling his hair.

Plethon began walking away. ‘That’s what they do to slaves,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I should look to that fine sword of yours.’

Two nights later, Luke was lying awake in his cot, fully dressed, his unsheathed sword beside him beneath the bedclothes and wine on his breath. He had been well supped and irrigated by the captain, who had entertained both Plethon and him with a dinner of partridge cooked in apple, eggplants and katsouni washed down with sweet vinsanto wine from Santorini. And Rufio had offered toast after toast, refilling every glass in between. Luke had done his best to drink slowly, to add water when he could and even to empty it through a porthole when Rufio had left the cabin. But he was unused to wine and it had had an effect.

Now he tried to focus on the beam above his cot, lit by the full moon outside. It seemed to have a name scratched into it that he couldn’t read. The ship rose and fell with the gentle swell and the moon appeared and disappeared from the porthole like a mime show. All was quiet outside his cabin but there was a new, putrid smell in the air and Luke thought of what Plethon had told him of Turkish galleys.

He knew that they were at anchor in a tiny lagoon whose shores were no more than a hundred paces from the ship’s sides. He could swim that distance. There were whispers outside and the squeal of bolts pulled back from the hatch over the hold. A cargo was being brought up to the deck. He heard the splash of oars and felt the bump of a smaller craft come alongside. There were grunts and low curses as heavy objects were lowered over the sides and the occasional thump as something metal hit wood.

There were more whispers and Luke guessed that if he was to be taken, it would be now. The door would open and he’d be rushed, tied up and thrown into the boat alongside the cannon. On the other side of his door he could hear the heavy breathing of men who’d recently exerted themselves. Luke tensed his body and gripped the hilt of his sword, moving his other hand to hold the edge of his bedclothes, ready to tear them off when the time came. He shook his head to try to clear it of the fog of wine, sucking deep breaths of air through his teeth.

Then it happened, but not as he’d expected.

He heard the handle turn slowly and the creak of the door as it inched open. Through half-open eyelids he saw a man silhouetted and two more behind, one of whom seemed to be carrying a coiled rope. The man sniffed; the smell of the Turkish galley was stronger now. It must be close.

Luke let out a drunken snore and heard a stifled laugh from one of the men. He turned on to his side, grunting and smacking his lips, offering his back to them. He heard the men move forward with greater confidence, greater carelessness.

Now!

Luke leapt from the cot, sword in hand, and lunged. The man in front let out a screech of pain as the sword tip ripped open the skin of his upper arm, blood quickly spreading across his shirt like a tide. He pitched backwards on to his companions, who fell out on to the deck, dropping the rope and clubs they were holding. Luke leapt through the door and slammed his sword hilt into the face of a man who doubled up in agony; Luke brought his pommel down on the back of his head, sending him crashing to the deck. He looked up to see the third man rush at him from the side, a spar in his hand, and Luke lifted his sword to parry the blow while rocking back on his heels to let his attacker overreach himself. Then he spun around as the man passed, kicking the back of his legs and sending him sprawling against the rail. He leapt forward and brought the side of his sword down sharply on his back. The man fell heavily to the deck.

There was a shout to Luke’s left and he spun round to see Rufio advancing on him, sword in one hand, dagger in the other and no hint of a smile on his lips. Behind him were two other sailors with swords, one also carrying a net. Luke glanced quickly at the rail and wondered if he had time to get to it. He looked back at Rufio, who was only feet away and shaking his head. With a roar, the Italian raised his broadsword and charged.

Luke was surprised at how fast the man could move and only just had time to duck Rufio’s swing, feeling the rush of wind on his hair as the blade passed an inch above his head. He stepped back and parried as the next stroke came with terrifying speed. This man was an expert swordsman.

Luckily, Rufio’s two companions seemed happy to let him fight alone and Luke could turn his full attention to how to use his youth and extra height to gain some advantage. One thing he had on his side, he realised, was the likelihood that Rufio did not want to kill him, for a dead slave wouldn’t command any price at all. He could afford to take chances.

With this in mind, Luke went on to the attack, bounding forward and using his sword as a spear, jabbing it at the Italian’s face and neck with short stabbing thrusts. The captain parried them with his broadsword but the weapon was heavy and his arm slowed with the effort. He fell back towards the mast and then, with his back against it and his sword locked at the hilt with Luke’s, he let fly a vicious kick which caught Luke in the stomach, winding him and sending him flying back towards the rail. In an instant, the Italian had sprung forward with a cry of triumph, gesturing to the man with the net to follow him.

Luke felt weak and dizzy and knew he was unlikely to be able to resist them both. He gripped his sword and prepared to do his best.

Then something unexpected happened.

‘Basta!’

From the deck behind him came a shout followed by a torrent of perfect Italian. Plethon was standing there, dressed only in the white toga, with his arm raised as if he were addressing the Senate. Rufio was so astonished that for an instant he forgot his adversary, and that instant was enough for Luke to climb on to the ship rail and dive into the sea, sword still in hand.

It was a twenty-foot drop and Luke landed badly, his wounded shoulder taking much of the impact. Nevertheless, he turned on to his front and kicked for the shore, paddling with his strong arm. He could see commotion on the ship’s deck and Rufio leaning over the side jabbing his finger in his direction. Then a crossbow bolt plunged into the sea beside him and Luke ducked underwater. Further bolts hit the sea and dived deeper, his shoulder protesting all the way.

Holding his breath, Luke swam as fast as he could towards what he thought was the shore, clutching his sword to his front. At last, with his lungs bursting and spots of light exploding before his eyes, he broke the surface and was relieved to see that he was almost at the rocks. No more bolts were being fired at him and he guessed that he was far enough away from the ship to be nearly invisible.

He pulled himself up to his knees and looked around him. At the end of the bay there seemed to be a deep beach of sand leading on to grass that climbed inland in a series of overlapping hills. He could see some dim figures grouped together on the sand with a boat beached in front of them. Were these the Turks? Above him was scrub, knee-high and interspersed with jagged rock that would make running difficult. While he remained low, he would be shadowed against the hill so he decided to keep to the shallows and try to make his way along the edge of the lagoon via the shoreline. He could see the ship’s boat silently gliding towards the shore, its oars muffled with hessian. On it would be the cargo of crossbows and cannon. He saw the outline of a cloaked figure standing in the bow and guessed that this was Rufio. Could he have given up?

Luke considered this as he stumbled through the shallows. Rufio might worry that he’d tell the Genoans what he’d seen and from them it would reach the Emperor Manuel. But then again, what had he actually seen? As far as Rufio knew, Luke had no idea of the cargo in the hold.

Luke decided to strike inland. Crawling up the hill, he found what looked like a sheep-path in the moonlight and set off in the direction of the hills. Every now and then he stopped and stood in silence to listen for any sound of pursuit. Nothing. The Venetians had either given up or were quieter than ghosts.

The path was gentle to begin with and then began to climb steeply, the stream beside it losing itself in a gully that turned into a ravine. There were stepped terraces either side in which stood strange, twisted trees, planted in rows, that Luke had never seen before. They were smaller than olive trees and their smooth trunks shone dimly in the light of the moon. Whatever they were, they were giving off a scent very different from the Turkish galley. It was sweet and aromatic and Luke wondered if the trees had some medicinal use.

The going now was easy and Luke hurried on, determined to put as much distance as possible between him and the Venetians and hoping to come across some village where he could persuade the Greek inhabitants to take him to their Genoese masters. But the landscape was deserted except for row upon row of these strange trees.

At last, towards dawn, he crested the hill and looked out over a broad valley of groves and orchards to what looked like a cluster of houses at its end. There were no lights to be seen amongst the buildings, which Luke thought strange. It was nearly daybreak and most farmworkers would be preparing to leave for the fields by now. He wiped his brow on his sleeve and strained to hear any sounds of animals.

Luke broke into a slow run, breathing evenly against the pain of the wound rubbing against the rough fabric of his tunic. As he reached the plain, he lengthened his stride and saw that he’d misjudged the distance to the village and that the first houses were already taking shape. He heard a dog bark and then another. Dogs usually meant people.

The village was indeed inhabited but not by anyone who wanted to meet him. As he walked up the dirt track between the houses, the low moon casting his shadow long across the ground, he heard the sound of a slammed shutter and the growl of a dog behind a door. He held his sword in one hand and his eyes raked every shadow for movement, his senses alert and his body tensed.

He stopped and cleared his throat.

‘I am a friend,’ he shouted. ‘I’m a Greek, like you, and I flee the Turks. You have no need for fear.’

Silence. Another dog growled.

‘I need to speak to someone.’

More silence, and then the sound of a bolt released from its lock and the squeak of protesting hinges as a door was inched open. ‘Here!’ hissed a man’s voice to his left. ‘Here, where I can see you!’

Luke lowered his sword and walked slowly towards the voice, keeping his head turned in the direction of the moon and hoping that his fair hair was clearly visible in its light. He stopped in front of the door and waited.

‘Where are the Turks?’ whispered the man. He was old and bent and the moon made the thin strands of white hair on his wrinkled head shine like gossamer. Luke heard a low growl beside him and glanced down to see a large dog leashed by his side, its teeth locked in a snarl.

‘They’ll be at sea by now,’ answered Luke. ‘I left them some hours ago in a small bay beyond those hills.’ He turned and pointed in the direction he’d come. ‘They were collecting some cargo from a Venetian round ship.’

‘They were at Fana Bay,’ said the man. ‘What was the cargo?’

‘Cannon,’ said Luke. ‘For the Turks.’

The man spat into the earth at Luke’s feet. ‘Venetian pigs,’ he mumbled. ‘They’d sell their own mothers.’

Luke very slowly laid his sword on the ground in front of him. Both man and dog watched his every move. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and spun around, his heart racing. Backing away from him was a younger man, with a single, dented cuirass strapped to his chest. A sword was slung at his side and he was holding his hands in the air. He bent down to pick up Luke’s sword and offered it to him, nodding slowly as he did so.

‘The Turkish galleys are too fast for the Genoans to catch them,’ said the man. ‘But I can give you my horse and you can go and tell them what you’ve seen. You should go to the big castle at Chora and ask for Marchese Longo. He is the leader of the Genoese.’ The man paused and looked up and down the little street. ‘I am Dimitri. We’ve been raided many times by Turkish pirates, and children have been taken into slavery.’

‘Give me your horse, Dimitri,’ Luke said.

By midday, Luke was standing in the entrance hall of the Giustiniani Palace inside the great castle of Chora.

Chora was more a fortified town than a castle since there were as many houses and churches inside the walls as out. Most of the island’s Greek nobles lived there while their Genoan overlords lived on their estates outside the city in the rich plain of the Kambos to the south. The castle had been built by the Byzantines two hundred years before and was enormous. It had strong walls, one overlooking the sea and three land walls surrounded by a wide moat.

It had taken Luke three hours to ride there from the village on a thin, asthmatic horse that preferred the grass of the verge to the thrill of the open road. He’d passed through a rich, hilly country in the south with steep valleys latticed by terraces of olive groves and row upon row of the strange shrunken trees. He had ridden through villages with fields of cattle and pigs at their edges and vegetable plots beyond. This was a prosperous land that seemed blessed with good soil and plentiful water and yet the people were reserved and fearful, watching him with suspicion as he urged his wretched horse towards their capital.

Coming out of the hills, he had ridden on to the plain of the Kambos, which was a place of even greater bounty, with orchards of orange, lime and tangerine next to fields of wheat and vineyards heavy with purple grapes. Here there was an earth so rich that its dark ochre colour seemed to overwhelm its produce. The land was crisscrossed with canals and narrow, high-walled lanes whose verges rippled with wild tulips. Every now and again a gated arch would announce another estate and he’d see the tops of mansions and tall cypress trees to shield them from the fierce meltemi winds of summer.

Luke was overwhelmed by the prosperity of the place, a prosperity even greater than that he’d seen on the Goulas of Monemvasia. He was fascinated by the churches with their square, pillared bell towers; by the gaudy, puffed doublets and feathered hats of the men he passed on horseback. This was indeed a place to prosper in.

But the wheezing of his horse soon jolted him back to reality and before long he was riding under the emblazoned arch of the Porta Maggiore and handing his reins to a servant at the base of a steep flight of steps that led up to the entrance to the Giustiniani Palace.

If Marchese Longo was surprised at the tall, fair figure in filthy rags and bandages that required his extraction from his meeting, he was far too well bred to show it. Dressed in a black doublet of marbled silk and a shouldered cloak cut in the French style, he strode into the entrance hall with two black hunting hounds in tow. His clothes and hounds seemed designed to complement the white squares of the floor so that the three of them might have been part of a game of chess.

‘Signor Magoris, I am so sorry for keeping you waiting,’ said Longo in almost accentless Greek, his hand stretched out in greeting. ‘The twelve of us in the Mahona meet only once a month and, as you will imagine, there is much to discuss.’

Luke had no idea who the twelve might be or what the Mahona was. He held out his hand and felt this dark man’s gaze settle upon him as his many-ringed hand made contact with his own. Longo was of middle years and middle height, with streaks of grey in his beard, but there was a tautness in his bearing that suggested energy.

Longo turned from Luke and issued a low whistle and the two dogs came instantly to his side and sat each on a white square, looking up at him with tongues adrift and true love in their eyes.

‘I am told that you have news of importance,’ said Longo, smiling and feeling the velvet of an ear between thumb and forefinger. ‘You have seen Turks in the south of our island? Would it be convenient for you to take wine in my office and tell me about it?’

Luke was about to answer when a rumble came from beneath his shirt.

‘And food!’ said Longo. ‘Of course. You cannot have eaten for hours. May I ask my cook to prepare something for you? Some cold chicken?’

Luke felt faint with hunger and gratitude. ‘Thank you.’

Longo and his dogs led him through into a sumptuous dining room of rosewood-panelled walls hung with Flemish tapestries and a long oak table stretching the length of the room. He clapped his hands and issued instructions. He held a chair back for Luke to sit on and went to a side table where a pitcher of wine and goblets stood.

‘I should add some water to it,’ said Longo, handing him the cup. ‘Chian wine is strong and yours is an empty stomach. Not a good combination for the telling of a tale.’

Luke was adding water to his wine when the food arrived. There was cold chicken and quail, bread, cheese, figs and olive paste and Luke ate as slowly as his hunger allowed. Longo watched him, making no attempt to hurry him into his story. At last, as Luke was washing the grease from his fingers, he spoke.

‘How have you found yourself in Chios, Signor Magoris?’ he asked. ‘I would say from your clothes that you did not expect to come here; indeed I would say that you’ve been recently engaged in some fighting, probably on board a ship, and escaped by swimming to the shore. What I’d like to know, though, is what this has to do with the Turkish galley that has been seen in our waters these past few days?’

Luke gathered his thoughts. He had rehearsed a version of events but now found himself telling this man much, much more.

Longo only interrupted twice; once to scowl and mutter something when told of the cannon at Geraki, and once when Luke described his encounter with Plethon. Then Longo smiled, his eyes filling with delight.

‘Plethon!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have not seen him in years. Now that had been a rare treat if he’d come with you to our island!’

Luke said, ‘I believe he saved my life. If he hadn’t appeared when he did, I’m sure the captain would have killed me.’

‘Signore,’ laughed Longo, ‘talking and dressing up have never been hardships to Plethon. And however lunatic his pronouncements, each one is a gem. He rarely comes to Chios, but when he does, I will follow him as my dogs do me, not wasting a moment of that mind!’

Longo became serious again. ‘But you’ll want to know how we can stop the Turks. Sadly, we could not possibly intercept the galley even if we wanted to. It is a fast ship and we in Chios are not minded to declare war on the Sultan just yet.’

Luke listened to this, knowing that he’d discharged his duty in reporting the cannon and that events were now beyond his control. Suddenly, a wave of exhaustion broke over his body so that he nearly swooned under its weight. He stifled a yawn.

‘You must be very tired,’ said Longo. ‘We can talk more about this tomorrow.’

Luke awoke the next morning to a choir. Every bird in Chios seemed to have gathered at his window, determined to display its individual repertoire. He’d slept deeper than he thought possible and had been untroubled by any wound of shoulder or memory. For a long while, he lay looking straight up at the white ceiling above his bed, its colour mirroring the emptiness of his mind. He wondered idly what time of the day it was and, were he to rise, what clothes he should put on.

This question was answered by closer inspection of the room. Draped over the back of a chair was a suit of clothes with leather boots and his sword propped neatly against them. They looked much too grand for him.

There was a knock on the door and a servant entered. He bowed from the waist. ‘The lord Longo begs your company downstairs when you feel sufficiently rested,’ said the man. ‘May I help you to dress, sir?’

‘What hour is it?’ asked Luke.

‘It is still early, sir, and the weather on the Kambos is fine,’ replied the servant and, as if to prove it, drew back the heavy curtains to reveal a sun shining straight into the room. Luke blinked and shielded his eyes from the glare. Then he swung a leg over the edge of the bed and walked over to the pail.

Ten minutes later, he was looking at himself in a long mirror and thinking he quite liked what he saw. Luke was not vain, but the tall, elegant figure in its smart leather doublet and riding breeches looked as impressive as it did unfamiliar.

And that was exactly what Marchese Longo thought when, five minutes later, Luke presented himself for breakfast on the pillared veranda.

‘Now, that’s much better,’ he said with a smile as he rose to greet Luke, looking him up and down with satisfaction. ‘I hope you slept well?’ Longo walked over to a side table on which there were plates piled with fruit and a jug standing in a bowl filled with ice. ‘Will you honour me by eating some fruit and cream from the estate?’

Luke sat down to eat amidst a pile of papers, a peacock quill stuck into an inkstand and an up-ended blotter. He noticed that Longo’s fingers were stained indigo as were the two tips of the melon slice that he’d half eaten. Luke helped himself to melon, plums and cherries and pulled off a chunk of the rye bread sitting on the table before him. As he ate, he looked into the courtyard below where palm trees ringed tulip-beds surrounding a wide, circular area of coloured cobbles. Two saddled horses were standing side by side in the shade of a tree.

‘I have to leave for my estate at Sklavia after breakfast and I was hoping you might accompany me,’ said Longo, following his gaze. ‘It’s a morning’s ride. It will give me a chance to show you something of our island.’

Luke was used to a world where kindness was shown for a reason. Marchese Longo was being more generous than the situation warranted and was a shrewd man of business. Without any unease, he wondered what his purpose might be.

‘I should be delighted,’ he replied.

Longo was silent for the first part of the journey and Luke was able to enjoy the bustle and colour of the outer town. Every race imaginable seemed collected there, from tonsured monks to shaven-headed Moors, from skullcapped Jews to plaited Scandinavians, and the harbour was a forest of masts and rigging. Cargoes were in constant transit, from cart to quay, from quay to hold, and the shouts of warning, the curses of contact, were hurled between ships, barrels and people like rotten fruit. And the smells! Luke lifted his nose like a hunting hound and breathed in the scents of cinnamon, cloves, liquorice and nutmeg that spoke of distant trade.

Coming into the bay was a huge galley, its oars unscrolling from the water to stand erect as combs and the silk canopy of its aft-deck winking its fringe in the early sun. Above its mast flew pennants emblazoned with the calligraphy of Allah and Luke turned to Longo with a question on his lips.

‘No, not the same one,’ said the Italian. ‘Yours was a war galley; this one is a trader. See: no ram at its front and much less smell. The cargo will see to that.’

‘What will it be carrying?’ enquired Luke.

‘Oh, some spices, I would wager, for us to take on to Genoa.’ Longo paused. ‘But see that big round ship coming in behind it?’

Luke capped his eyes with his hand and squinted into the light. The ship was big and riding low in the water, its steering paddles nearly horizontal.

‘Now that’s a valuable cargo,’ Longo said. ‘That ship is carrying alum.’

‘Alum?’

‘Yes. We take it from the Phocaean mines beside Smyrna, which we run under license from the Turk. Then we transport it to our port at Foca further up the coast and bring it here before shipping it on to Florence. We took two hundred thousand pounds’ weight there last year. For the Arte della Lana. It’s used by the dyers for fixing their colours.’

‘But why do they stop here?’ asked Luke. ‘Why not go straight to Italy from Foca?’

‘Because we have something even better for them to take back,’ replied Longo with something like pride in his voice. ‘When you rode across the island, you must have seen rows of small trees, hardly bigger than bushes? Trees giving off a strange smell?’

Luke nodded, drawing his horse closer to Longo’s to hear above the noise of the harbour.

‘Those are mastic trees and they are one reason we Genoese are here on this island. On Chios, there exists a sweet combination of climate and soil that means that this is the only place on earth where this kind of mastic can be grown.’

‘But what is mastic?’ asked Luke.

‘Mastic is the juice that we take from the trunks of those trees and turn into a sweet that the Sultan’s harem cannot get enough of. The women love it to chew because it sweetens the breath. The harem alone takes a week’s crop!’

The two men rode on in silence. By now they had reached the outskirts of the town and the broad sweep of the Kambos stretched out in front of them.

‘When did you Genoese come to Chios?’ asked Luke, as they passed an arch crowned with the emblem of a sphinx holding a bunch of grapes.

‘Fifty years ago,’ replied Longo. ‘At that time, twelve nobles of Genoa, of which my father Tommaso Longo was one, formed a campagna, or society, which they named the Mahona Giustiniani. Each family added their surname to that of Giustiniani so as to underline our loyalty to the Byzantine Empire, which, after all, owns the island, Justinian being the greatest of their emperors. All newcomers to the campagna are obliged to do likewise when they buy into it. The society was given a thirty-year lease by the Emperor John Palaiologos to exploit the island and, so successful has been the enterprise, we’ve extended it.’

The Italian pointed up at the sphinx emblem. ‘Originally we came to make wine and that emblem can be seen above the gates of many estates of the Kambos. But then the Turks discovered a liking for the mastic and everything changed. For the better and worse.’

Longo paused as he doffed his hat in greeting to a passing rider. ‘Better,’ he went on, ‘because the mastic has made use of the southern part of the island where it proved impossible to cultivate the grape. Worse, because we have had to move families there to grow it and these have become the target for Turkish slave traders. Now many of them have lost children and wish to move back to the north. They feel safer there — and who can blame them?’

Longo turned in his saddle to look squarely at Luke. ‘But that is not the real problem. The real problem is that the Greeks don’t trust us to protect them. They see the Genoese almost as much as an enemy as the Turks. They have hated us ever since we came here. What we need is someone down there who they will trust.’

Luke began to understand why Longo might want to befriend him. A man trained in the Varangian tradition of fighting, and Greek to boot, might prove useful. But what of his plans.

Luke looked down at his sword, at the dragon head that moved with the rhythm of the horse. What had his father said about Siward?

He left behind the sword that you now have. He did that for a reason.

But the reason was in Mistra, not Chios. He was on this island by a quirk of fate. Should he let fate play its hand a little longer?

As the sun climbed to its zenith in the sky, the hour of the devil’s horns that Plethon had talked of, and the horses began to hang their heads low and their riders to yearn for the cool shade of stone, the two men began the long climb out of the plain and up to Sklavia. As the slope got steeper, the path wound its way through ever-narrower terraces of vines, olives and citrus groves with water channels bubbling cool water to feed conduits in between. Looking back over his shoulder, Luke could see the Kambos laid out like a rich patchwork quilt as it stretched its way to the sea beyond. No wonder Longo chose to live here.

They entered an avenue of tall cypress trees casting small stabs of shadow in the noonday sun like dragon’s teeth and providing no shade for the riders. At the far end, Luke could see a magnificent arch and beyond it, just visible between its pillars, the shimmer of water. Soon they were riding into gardens of exquisite colour and proportion. Pools sparkled amongst lawns full of wandering peacocks. Exotic flowers tumbled over low hedges and on to paths of coloured pebbles, and ranks of cypresses lined the perimeters, standing guard over the giddy chaos within.

Luke rode in wonder through garden after garden until they reached two high pillars on which sat the sphinx and its grapes, carved in the same vermilion stone. Through them was a courtyard containing a wide stone staircase that led up to a three-storeyed building with white marble pillars running the length of its veranda. At the other end of the courtyard was a large cistern, adjacent to which stood a vertical wheel of oak. Nearby, a donkey munched placidly into a nosebag.

‘That is a manganos,’ said Longo, pointing at the wheel. ‘We use it to draw water from the well.’

Two grooms appeared from the space beneath the steps and took the horses’ reins while the men dismounted. Longo took Luke’s arm and they climbed the staircase together.

‘Marchese!’ came a voice from above.

And looking up, Luke saw the greatest wonder in this day of wonders.

Standing there was, quite simply, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.