The Walls of Byzantium

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MONEMVASIA, SUMMER 1395

The view from the roof of the Mamonas Palace, perched high on the Goulas of Monemvasia, was unrivalled. The only buildings higher were the church and the citadel, neither of which had a balconied terrace to provide Olympian scrutiny of the world below.

The terrace covered the entire area of the building and had a cool, marbled floor of complicated design that involved sea creatures paying court to a bearded Neptune standing in damp majesty astride a cockleshell. Its colours were expensively derived: Siennese for the yellow of fish and human skin; Parian for the whites of the waves; Carrera for the blue-grey of the sea and, most magnificently, Phrygian for the purple of the God’s cloak.

At one end of the terrace was a formal rose garden in raised, battened beds with small pear and tangerine trees in bronze urns, speckled in verdigris, at each corner. At the other were more beds, this time filled with herbs: thyme, coriander and rosemary, with chamomile for tea and wild stevia for sweetening it. Above were vine-woven pergolas, heavy with bunched grapes and honeysuckle that in daytime would draw humming birds to feed. Against the balustrade were borders of spider orchids, cyclamen and tulips, entwined with clematis and passiflora that spilled through its arches to tumble down the palace like garlanded hair.

But now it was far into the night and there was only smell to distinguish one flower from another. The moon was three-quarters full and set within a clear sky pitted with stars and it cast a soft glaze over everything it touched. It was almost light enough to read by and certainly to play chess, which was convenient for the two naked players lying either side of a chessboard. A brace of cats, one tortoiseshell and the other a pale grey Persian, were curled asleep beside them, their seal-soft skin aglow and rippling in the light breeze from the mainland. There was no sound beyond the hush of the wide, open sea and the languid rustle of silk.

Suleyman had pitched his tent, as he always did, on the roof.

Strictly speaking, it was not his to pitch, being his wedding gift to Damian and Anna, but it was a thing of great beauty and he felt sure that Damian would not begrudge the comfort of his only sister.

Zoe knew this place well. It was where, as children, she and Damian had eaten their best food: huge flat species of fish with pink-white flesh steaming through silver skin, cooked on the outdoor grill and sprinkled with herbs from the garden. Their father had been the cook and had talked, as he turned the fish, of the Mamonas business, pointing out their ships in the sea lanes below and describing cargoes and exotic far-flung destinations. Zoe had listened while Damian had teased the cats.

Later, it was where she had brought her lovers, usually men from the palace guard or a groom from the stables, whose mix of old sweat and new fear had so excited her. And quite often, in the throes of urgent coupling, she’d wondered how the cats had got there to watch them with such indifference.

Zoe moved a chess piece now with equal indifference and yawned. The game was beginning to bore her and she wanted to feel air on her skin, still sticky with royal seed. She rose, stretched and walked over to the balcony, resting her elbows and breasts on a cushion of clematis with her long hair following its tumble over the edge. The city beneath was firmly asleep and entirely quiet. Indeed, the only movement she’d witnessed had come from Anna some hours before, adrift in the orchard below with the aimless gait of a sleepwalker. It was ironic, she thought, that Anna now had more freedom to move than she did.

It was half a year since the Mamonas family had returned from Serres, secure between the ranks of a regiment of janissaries. They had faced the sullen stare of a citizenry now implacably in the camp of the Despot, a citizenry saddened that his army had been unable to deny entry to the janissaries.

‘Who are you now?’

Zoe continued to stare out into the night. They’d been playing a game.

‘I am Queen Zenobia,’ she murmured, ‘and I am looking over the flames of burning Palmyra and awaiting the legions of Aurelian who I hope will ravish me, one by one.’

‘Ah,’ said Suleyman, ‘now that would be something to watch.’ He paused. ‘I believe the House of Orhan claims some ancestry from Zenobia. We should certainly take Egypt from those Mamluk pederasts. As she did.’

They were both silent for a while, contemplating a desert kingdom dedicated to wealth and the worship of Baal.

‘How did she die?’ asked Zoe, turning back to the night.

‘Zenobia? They say she was taken back to Rome in golden chains and given a villa at Tivoli where she entertained philosophers for the rest of her days.’ Suleyman rolled on to his back on the soft hides of antelope covering the bed. He looked up at the silk ceiling of the tent, mysterious in the blur of sandalwood smoke that drifted up from a brazier. ‘Is that what I should do with you?’ he asked, smiling into his oiled and pointed beard.

Zoe turned her body so that the moon made sand dunes of her breasts, her nipples casting shadows across them. Her legs were apart and the tendrils of hair between them were stark against the white of the balustrade. ‘Perhaps, but not philosophers. Come here.’

Prince Suleyman shook his head. ‘No. I am spent and you are insatiable. We need to talk.’

Zoe closed her legs and turned back to the view. ‘What do we need to talk about? Not Anna.’

Suleyman sat up. ‘I want to talk about Anna.’

‘You are obsessed,’ said Zoe over her shoulder. ‘She would never satisfy you. And she loves someone else.’

‘Which makes her all the more appealing. She interests me.’

‘Do you want to talk to her or fuck her?’ asked Zoe.

‘I don’t know, both probably,’ he said. ‘I want her to come of her own volition.’

‘Which she won’t.’

‘Not now, no. But she thinks of you as a friend. That’s why I’m happy for her to be here with you rather than at Edirne. You can persuade her.’

Zoe considered this. Her body was very still. ‘And if I refuse?’

‘Then you can forget Zenobia,’ came the reply. He studied the back of his hands, turning each in the light to trace the contours of dark veins. ‘What is it that you want, Zoe?’ he asked, looking up at her.

She didn’t answer.

Suleyman went on. ‘Your father and brother want lordship of Mistra and a licence to print money on the island of Chios. But what do you want?.’

Zoe turned very slowly and without provocation. Her jet-black hair fell with natural gravity and her pale face was more serious than he’d yet seen it. She looked him straight in the eye and she did not blink. ‘I can get you Anna’ — her voice was soft — ‘but my price is high.’

‘Name it,’ he said, equally softly.

‘Luke.’

‘And Luke is …?’ asked Suleyman, intrigued.

‘Luke is … a friend.’ She had never sounded like this before and it unnerved him.

‘A friend?’

‘Yes, to me and especially to Anna. I need you to find him.’

Suleyman thought about this. A friend to Anna? He smoothed the sheet with his hand.

‘Where do I look?’ he asked.

‘Look for the unusual,’ she said quietly. ‘He will make himself known somewhere. He is … he is different.’

Suleyman looked at her for a long time and something deep inside him, which he didn’t altogether recognize, stirred in its sleep.

‘I will try,’ he said at last.

Much later, after they’d made a softer love than before and the first chill of dawn had crept over their sleeping bodies, they both awoke and knew that a new and important pact had been made between them. And neither wished to discuss it quite yet.

Zoe turned her head to look at the man who would, one day, rule over the Ottoman Empire.

The man who would take Anna for his wife.

‘Tell me how it goes at Constantinople,’ she said.

‘The siege is dull,’ said Suleyman, putting his hands behind his head and stretching his body to reach cool in the sheet below. ‘Sieges are always dull and the army hates them. The only excitement comes from your cannon.’

‘And our fleet?’ asked Zoe, turning her body to him and curling a strand of his hair around her forefinger.

Suleyman wondered which fleet she meant. He supposed the Greek one.

‘It never arrived. It turned back before we ever caught sight of it. Someone must have told them of the cannon on board our ships.’

Zoe thought about Anna and the camp at Serres. Getting her for Suleyman would be difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. She rolled on to her back.

‘Your father, is he pleased with how the siege goes?’

Suleyman laughed. ‘He’s pleased with everything these days,’ he said. ‘A man from Chios appeared one day with a way to fill the holes in his teeth, and it worked. He has no more pain and can eat as much sugar as he likes. I’ve never seen him so happy.’

Zoe raised herself to lean on her elbow, suddenly interested. ‘From Chios? What man?’

‘No one knows,’ said Suleyman. ‘He appeared, did his work, then left. He was a miracle.’

‘And the treatment? How did he do it?’

Suleyman shrugged. ‘He left before we could get the secret out of him. But my father now has a special affection for Chios.’

Zoe considered this. Later, she would consider it further. ‘Well, I am glad he’s no longer in pain,’ she said quietly and reached to stroke her lover’s cheek, which was dark and scaled with beard and divided by a ridge of high bone. She shivered and pulled up the sheet to cover them both.

‘But he still has cares,’ continued the Prince. ‘There’s another crusade gathering in the west to come to the aid of Constantinople. The Duke of Burgundy is emptying his purse to recruit knights and buy horses. Your father has probably sold him a few.’

‘So will Bayezid lift the siege?’ she asked.

Suleyman yawned. ‘Perhaps.’ He rolled on to his side, studying her. ‘But enough about the siege, I am here to forget it. Last night we made a pact. Do you have a plan yet?’

Zoe looked back at him. ‘Yes, I have a plan. And this is what I want you to do. Listen carefully and do not speak.’

Later that morning, Zoe was feeding peacocks in the Court of the Lions in a place where she confidently expected Anna to pass. She was dressed in a long caftan of white cotton and had a straw hat on her head.

The Court of Lions was a more or less accurate copy of the same at the Alhambra Palace in Al-Andalus, and had been built by her grandfather who’d sold horses to the Emir Yusuf. As might be expected, it had a fountain at its centre made up of an alabaster shell basin supported by twelve marble lions and a cloister round its sides whose horseshoe arches were supported by columns and muqarnas covered in fine calligraphy. The colonnade was paved in white marble and its walls were covered in blue and yellow Iznik tiles with borders above and below of enamelled gold. At one end, a pavilion had a map of the world drawn in coloured marbles on its floor.

Zoe was admiring the iridescent blue-green train of a peacock, hoping that the peahen nearby would offer enough for it to raise its tail. She admired the gaudy male of this species as much as she despised the female.

‘What do they eat?’

Zoe turned and looked up at the girl whose every feature was the opposite of hers. She looked at her hair which today was free of veil or flowers or ribbons and which fell to her shoulders like coppered gold. Her gaze travelled down a body whose curves gave shape to the simple tunic she wore. She looked up into viridian eyes.

‘What do you eat?’ smiled Zoe, getting to her feet and taking Anna’s hand. ‘I haven’t seen you looking so well in all the time I’ve known you.’

Anna coloured slightly and changed the subject. ‘Are they from India?’ she asked, looking towards the now fanned tail of the peacock which stood, ridiculously, facing them.

‘I think so,’ replied Zoe, following her gaze. ‘I believe they were a gift to my father from the Sultan Nasir who rules in Delhi and has a fondness for our wine.’

Anna let go of Zoe’s hand and walked over to a stone bench sheltered by a pergola woven with jasmine. Zoe came and sat by her side and they watched the peacocks which strutted and barked like bankers on the Rialto.

Anna said what Zoe had been waiting for her to say: ‘Prince Suleyman is here.’

Zoe looked at her and saw the tension that had hardened her mouth. ‘Yes,’ she said evenly. ‘I believe he is.’

There was a silence which each wanted the other to end.

‘What will you do?’ asked Anna eventually.

‘Apart from avoid him? Nothing much. What will you do?’

Anna looked back at Zoe and then beyond her to scan the courtyard behind. It was empty of anything but peacocks. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I heard what was said at Serres. Do you think there is a pact?’

Zoe took her hand. ‘I suppose it’s possible. But it was only Bayezid that mentioned it. If Suleyman had anything to do with it, why would you be here rather than at Edirne?’ She paused. ‘Could it be, perhaps, that Prince Suleyman is trying to protect you?’

‘From Bayezid?’ Anna shook her head. Bayezid preferred princes from Trebizond.

‘God knows,’ Zoe said, with bitterness, ‘I’ve no affection for Suleyman. But my father says that he’s not forgotten the day at Mistra when he first saw you in the forest. Perhaps he just wishes to protect you. Perhaps that’s why you’re here.’

Anna was still shaking her head. ‘I don’t believe it.’

But then she thought of the long months at Serres and the impeccable politeness of a dark man with a pointed beard who could, at any stage, have ravished her.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she said again.

‘Well, you must believe what you like,’ said Zoe. ‘For myself, I would rather not think about Prince Suleyman at all. Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?’

‘No, not that,’ said Anna.

Zoe knew what Anna wanted to know. ‘It is unlikely that he survived,’ she said gently. ‘The storm was terrible that night. One of our ships was driven as far as Santorini.’

The peacocks watched them, their heads erect.

‘We’ve had no news of Luke. I’m sorry.’

‘No. Well, it’s unlikely that you would,’ said Anna evenly, looking down into her lap and folding her hands. ‘He’s hardly a man of consequence.’

Anna thought of the scribbled message passed to her earlier. ‘There’s something else. I need to get off the Goulas, to go down to the lower town. Can you help me?’

Zoe nearly asked why but checked herself. ‘It might be possible, I suppose. With an escort.’

‘Can you get me one?’

While Zoe and Anna were sitting on their bench in the Court of Lions, Suleyman was lying on the bed in his tent high up on the roof, drinking sherbet and studying his toenails with no interest at all.

In front of him was a small man, on his knees, whose head was tucked between his shoulder blades and whose face was flat to the floor.

The Prince was irritated. ‘I can’t hear you properly. Stay on the floor but lift your head to me. Now say it again.’

The man’s beard was long and had got caught in a silver chain hanging from his neck. He grimaced with pain as it came free. ‘Majesty, I was saying that the Sultan your father is perhaps more exercised than he was about the new crusade from the west. As you know, the Voivode Mircea of Wallachia joined forces with King Sigismund of Hungary two years ago to take back their fortress of Nicopolis on the Danube frontier. It now seems the King has succeeded in finding common ground with more of his neighbours. Even Prince Vlad of Transylvania is wavering in his alliance with us.’

Suleyman flicked a fly from his sleeve and yawned. ‘I don’t think we need be unduly concerned,’ he said. ‘The King of Hungary has difficulty enough keeping order between all those Magyars and Slovakians and whatever other rubbish he rules over before taking us on.’

The man said nothing and held his hands, which were trembling, between his chin and the carpet.

‘What of the Prince Lazarević? Does my father trust him?’

‘The loyalty of the Serbian Prince is unquestioned, Majesty. After all, your father is married to his sister.’

‘It means nothing,’ said Suleyman nastily. ‘My father had the Prince’s father killed along with most of his relatives. He is likely to remember it … So what is there new to report? Everything we have so far discussed I already know. Stand up.’

The man stood with some difficulty. He was not young and his joints were stiff. ‘What is new, lord, is that a celebratory mass was held in the Cathedral of Saint-Denis in Paris last week at which the Duke of Burgundy’s eldest son, the Count of Nevers, swore himself to lead the crusade and to dedicate his first feat of arms to the service of God.’

‘But he’s a child!’

‘He will be the nominal commander, sire. It is the Marshal Boucicaut of France who will lead the army.’

‘Ah,’ said Suleyman, smiling. ‘Now, that’s better. Boucicaut is good.’

‘And, lord, the alliance he commands is now impressive. Apart from Burgundy, France and Hungary, it includes Venice, Aragon, many of the German princes and the Hospitallers. And of course Byzantium. England will send money and some archers.’

Suleyman whistled softly. ‘That is impressive,’ he agreed. ‘And what of the two Popes? Are the knights to get indulgences from both Rome and Avignon?’

‘Indeed, Majesty,’ said the man, quite seriously.

Suleyman stretched and stood up. He walked over to that part of the balcony where a buddleia, newly arrived from China, was attracting butterflies. The shrub’s white, tubular flowers, full of nectar, were covered in insects with heart-shaped wings of brown silk, veined with chrome. ‘Did you know,’ he murmured as much to himself as anyone else, ‘that the Ancient Greek word for butterfly was psyche, which is also the word for a man’s soul?’

He seemed transfixed by the creature. ‘And in the East,’ he went on, ‘they hold the superstition that if a butterfly chooses to perch on you, then the person you love is on their way to see you.’

Then Suleyman brought his other hand down on his arm so that the wet debris of the butterfly was scattered across his palm. ‘I do not believe in superstition,’ he said, lifting his palm and looking at it. He walked back to sit on the bed, wiping his hand on the sheet. A cat jumped up and licked what was left. ‘Now, what else?’

The older man cautiously wiped the sweat from his hands on the back of his caftan. ‘Some news from Chios, lord,’ he said.

‘Ah, Chios,’ murmured the Prince, a thin smile stretching his lips, ‘my father’s latest lover.’

‘The Sultan has forbidden any interference in the island’s affairs.’ The man hesitated, the next sentence caught somewhere near the top of his beard. Then he took courage. ‘So … I wondered, Majesty, where such an injunction might leave your plans with the Venetians.’

Suleyman looked up sharply. ‘Why should it change anything? Can I help it if these tiresome pirates insist on attacking the island? What could it possibly have to do with me?’

The man pretended to take this seriously. ‘Quite so, lord,’ he said, ‘but the pirates are attacking the very villages which make the mastic which has filled the holes in your father’s teeth. Or at least they were.’

‘Were?’ asked Suleyman. ‘What do you mean, “were”?’

‘Well, lord,’ went on the man, ‘the pirates were somewhat less successful in their last attack. It seems the villagers were better prepared for them. There is some talk of them building new villages with better defences And they’re being led.’

Suleyman looked up. ‘Led? By the Genoese?’

‘No, Majesty, by someone other. A young Greek.’

‘And do we know who this person is?’

‘Our friend on the island tells me that his name is Luca. Or at least that is the Italian version, lord.’

‘Luca?’

‘Yes, lord. Luca.’

Prince Suleyman was sitting on the edge of the bed and, the man was relieved but mystified to see, smiling now with real pleasure.

‘Luca,’ he murmured. Then he rose and walked to the wall and clapped his hands. The buddleia exploded with butterflies of every colour and the Prince made no effort to harm any of them. He turned.

‘I want you to bring this Luca to me as soon as humanly possible. I don’t care how you do it but I want him brought, unharmed.’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘And you had better inform the Venetians that our raids must cease for a while.’

Later that evening, Anna was making her way to the steps to the lower town in the company of a huge giant janissary called Yusuf who apparently spoke no Greek and, judging by his silence, might not speak at all. Anna felt conspicuous in his presence, for he was startlingly ugly. Although the evening was warm, she wore a long, woollen cloak that fell to the ground and her head was covered by a hood pulled forward over her hair so that she looked like a monk.

Once through the gate of the Goulas, Yusuf bowed and turned back.

In the lower town, the lamps were beginning to be lit and all around was the clatter of preparation for the last meal of the day, cats assembling at doors for the promise of scraps. A donkey, chewing into a nosebag, was standing next to a cistern in a tiny square and its owner was filling amphorae while examining the catch of a fisherman who’d paused to open his bundle. The sea wall was close and the calls of late swimmers could be heard beyond its battlements. The scent of the sea was fresh and all around and moving in on a soft breeze to replace the hot, animal smells of the land.

She reached a small house at the end of a street with a low door in its wall and a window with a piece of coarse cloth hung for a curtain. Anna knocked on the door.

It was opened by Matthew, whose grin reached from ear to ear.

‘Lady, you are welcome,’ he said, and stepped back to let her pass. ‘Please come in. This is my father, Patrick.’

He gestured to a bearded colossus behind him whom she recognised. The man was standing, slightly stooped, in front of a table that ran the length of the room and around which sat the two other boys, Nikolas and Arcadius, and two older men, also lavishly bearded, who must be their fathers. On the table were the remnants of a meal. There were no women present and indeed little room for anyone else beyond the six gathered. A wooden staircase in one corner led to the room above.

Anna walked in and sat at the table. She looked from one to other of her friends. ‘Nikolas, Arcadius … I’m happy to see you. Are you well?’

The boys smiled at Anna but didn’t speak. Their fathers looked solemn. One of them spoke.

‘I am Basil and the father of Arcadius, Anna,’ said the man gravely. ‘We are well but a little hungrier than when you last saw us. We work as fishermen now and eat too much garon.’

One of the boys laughed but it had not been meant as a joke. All of them looked thin and gaunt and Anna realised what it had meant for these men when the Mamonases had first fled Monemvasia. The long-standing connection of Archon to Varangian had been severed forever and in its place had come janissaries and hunger.

‘Could you not have gone to Mistra?’ she asked.

Basil nodded. ‘We plan to go there. That is what we are here to discuss.’

Anna looked around at the faces all watching her. She smiled and placed her hands, folded, in front of her. ‘Your message said that there was someone who wanted to meet me.’

‘There is.’

It was a voice from heaven. Two sandals, then ankles, appeared at the top of the stairs. Everyone looked up and was rewarded by the sight of a descending philosopher clad from shoulder to shin in a toga of the purest white.

‘Georgius Gemistus Plethon, evacuee of Constantinople, at your service,’ said the man as he arrived on earth and, within the tiny space available, performed an awkward bow in Anna’s direction. He gathered an armful of toga and threw it carelessly over a shoulder before sitting down heavily on the last available chair. Then he lifted his beard, which was the longest in a room of long beards, and placed it delicately on the table in front of him, patting it down to the wood. ‘I have long wanted to meet you, Anna. We have a friend in common.’

‘We do?’ asked Anna in surprise.

‘Why yes, yes indeed. One Luke Magoris. Is he not a friend?’

Anna felt the room shift beneath her. ‘Luke? You’ve seen him?’

‘Seen him, conversed with him,’ replied Plethon brightly. ‘Indeed, it was only last week that I sat with him and debated the possibility that the world may be round. In Latin.’

‘Luke Magoris? Latin?’ She looked at Matthew, who sat halfway down the table and was regarding the angel, or prophet, as if he was mad.

‘Yes, Latin,’ replied Plethon testily. ‘The script we were discussing was written in Latin so it seemed prudent to interrogate it in the same tongue.’

The three boys and Anna exchanged glances.

‘Ah,’ went on Plethon, his voluminous eyebrows raised in new understanding, ‘yes, I see. You share the common conviction that the world is flat and stable. Well, we shall see. The Portuguese King Henry sends his ships further and further south each year and none have yet dropped off.’

There was silence around the table as each considered what they had heard. Then Anna spoke. ‘We do not know any Luke Magoris who speaks Latin,’ she said carefully.

‘No? Well he’s learnt. And more. I believe he’s competent in Italian as well. After all, on Chios he’s surrounded by the brutes. He has to be.’

For the first time, Anna was daring to fill her senses with the giddy taste of hope. She felt tipsy with its fumes and a feeling such as she’d not felt in months rose within her as this man’s words sank in. ‘He’s learnt? Luke is alive and has learnt Latin? And you are his friend?’

Plethon nodded impatiently. ‘I consider myself to be thus, yes.’ Then he looked quizzically at Anna. ‘But he said you were clever. You don’t sound very clever. He said that you had taught him things in a cave.’

Anna threw back her head and laughed. ‘Luke!’ she cried. ‘You’re alive and you speak Latin!’

Then she rose from her chair and, to the astonishment of all present, walked, or rather danced, over to Plethon and kissed him on his forehead.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said bringing her fingers to her lips as Plethon blushed and put a hand to his brow. ‘I hardly know you. But you know Luke and he’s alive and I will always love you for telling me that.’

Then Anna remembered where she was and why she was there. She turned, wiping tears from her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, this time to her embarrassed audience. ‘It was a surprise. I’m sorry.’

But Plethon was far from embarrassed. He was quietly chuckling to himself and staring with approval at Anna. She was every bit as lovely as Luke had described.

Then a throat was cleared. ‘The news is good,’ said Patrick, ‘and we must thank God for Luke’s deliverance. But time is short and we need to discuss other things. Plethon, I think you want to say something?’

‘I do, indeed I do,’ said the man, still looking at Anna, who was wiping tears of happiness from her cheeks.’ I believe you to be Varangians, yes? Descended directly from those who fled to Mistra from the desecration of our beloved capital by the Franks two centuries past?’

Three beards nodded slowly.

‘Good. Well, I’m speaking to the right men then.’ Plethon paused and stroked the long train of his own. ‘What is it that you believe they brought with them when they fled?’

The Varangians exchanged glances. None spoke.

Plethon waited a while for an answer. Then he asked simply, ‘If Luke has put his faith in me, would it not be reasonable for you, too, to trust me? I suppose not.’

Plethon sighed and a hand disappeared inside the folds at the front of his toga. When it re-emerged, it was holding a ring: large, gold and embossed with a double-headed eagle. It was pitted with age and glowed in the light of the candle.

‘This is the ring of Manuel, our emperor,’ he said. ‘It was given to me by the same five weeks ago when he bade me farewell from the sea gate of the Blachernae Palace. I passed through the Sultan’s blockade in a Genoese round ship from Pera which carried me on to Chios.’

Patrick leant forward and carefully lifted the ring from the open palm. He turned it into the light of the candle, examining it from every side. Then he passed it to David, Nikolas’s father.

‘You may know,’ Plethon went on, ‘that a great army is assembling in the west to march to our aid. They say that the flower of Christian chivalry is polishing its armour and that the force will be large enough to crush the Turk once and for all.’

Plethon paused and leant forward.

‘Perhaps they will defeat the Turk and I can go back to my beloved home and it will be called Adrianopolis again. Perhaps. But what then?’ He looked around at seven people waiting for the answer. ‘Well, what happened the last time that a great crusade came to the aid of Constantinople?’

Patrick began to nod slowly, his thumb and finger at work on his moustache.

‘It’s why you are here, Varangians!’ said Plethon with some feeling. His palm came down hard on the table. ‘They can’t help themselves! Last time they sacked our city and raped our nuns when there were a million people inside its walls. This time the citizens number fewer than fifty thousand and most of them are armed with pitchforks.’ He paused. ‘And why did the Franks do it? Because we couldn’t pay them what they wanted.’

Now all three of the older men were nodding, as Plethon, philosopher and orator, used the weapon of silence. Basil was holding the ring and he placed it deliberately on the table before the man in the toga.

‘So the Emperor needs the Varangian gold to pay them off?’

Plethon nodded. ‘Quite possibly. If it is gold.’

‘What did Luke tell you?’ asked Patrick.

‘He told me that he didn’t know anything about the treasure beyond legend. He told me that he would have learnt more from his father but his father is dead.’ He paused, scraping off a vein of wax from the candle in front of him with his fingernail. ‘Tell me, Patrick, why is Luke called Luke? And why is Joseph called Joseph? Why are they both not called Siward?’

The Varangian exchanged glances with his companions.

‘It’s not such an odd question,’ Plethon continued. ‘After all, the Akolouthos was always called Siward. Father to son, always Siward. And the family name was Godwinson.’

‘I will tell you what we know,’ Patrick said. ‘Luke’s grandfather Siward and our fathers quarrelled. Siward left with the treasure. It’s no longer at Mistra.’

‘He stole it?’

Patrick didn’t answer. Matthew, Nikolas and Arcadius stared at him. They’d not known this.

‘Well, I think I can help,’ Plethon said. ‘There was a Siward who rejoined the Palace Guard in Constantinople a few months after Luke’s grandfather left Monemvasia. He spent the rest of his life there and was buried with honour in the Varangian church. I think it was the same man.’

‘Rejoined the Guard? But he would have been fifty!’ said David.

‘It seemed the Emperor intervened.’

‘But he was a traitor!’

‘Was he? Are you sure that he took the treasure? Why would a rich man rejoin the Varangian Guard?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Why do you imagine they quarrelled, David?’

There was no answer. Three Varangians were considering the possibility that it had been their fathers, all now dead, that had wanted to take the treasure.

Anna held her breath, watching Matthew, Nikolas and Arcadius watch their fathers.

‘No one knows what or where the treasure is,’ Plethon continued softly. ‘But I believe that it wasn’t gold that was removed from Constantinople that night. I think something much, much more important was taken, something so important that it had to remain hidden where no one could find it. I think Siward moved it to make sure that remained the case and that a grateful Emperor rewarded him.’

Patrick was shaking his head, the frown driven deep into his forehead. ‘So you think that he simply gave the treasure to the Emperor?’

Plethon shook his head. ‘No, I think he hid it somewhere else.’

‘But where? In Mistra or Constantinople?’

Plethon looked down at the piece of wax, held between his fingers, which he had moulded into a ball. ‘That’s what I’m here to find out,’ he said simply.

Outside the room, the sounds of a little city poised between land and sea were fading as the first noises of the night crept in. A church bell sounded across the red-tiled roofs and some laughter came and went, shut away with the closing of doors and the bolting of windows. Quite soon, the soldiers at the three gates of the lower town would be ushering through the last travellers and, much to the annoyance of the citizenry, the muezzin would call his small, military flock to prayer.

‘I am afraid we will disappoint you,’ Patrick said eventually. ‘The secret of the treasure is lost to us.’

‘Siward left no clue?’

‘He left nothing but his sword,’ said Basil. ‘Which Luke now has. Or had.’

Plethon sat there, twisting the wax round and round between his fingers, staring at the candle.

His sword.

There was sound from the street, of footsteps and of conversation approaching and then stopping. He frowned and looked at the window. Matthew got up and opened the door. There was nothing there.

Plethon stood. He turned to Matthew. ‘There is one more thing. The Emperor has need of his Varangians. There are only a few of you left now, here and in Constantinople. He wants you to join this crusade.’

Basil grunted. ‘Well, we’re no longer sworn to the Archon, it’s true. But how would we leave? The Turks guard every gate.’

Plethon went over to Basil and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean you,’ he said gently. ‘You may not be sworn to the Archon any more, but you’re still sworn to guard a treasure that might yet be here somewhere. I meant your sons.’

Matthew asked, ‘but what about Anna? And Rachel? We can’t leave them here.’

‘So take them with you,’ said Plethon. ‘Find a way to escape. Go to Chios, leave Anna and Rachel there and take ship to Venice.’

Nikolas had risen. There was excitement in his voice. ‘So how do we do it?’

The silence was broken by Anna. ‘I think I may know of a way.’

‘You have a plan?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And something better. I have someone who might help us.’

Yusuf was standing in front of Zoe in her bedroom within the palace. His hands were behind his back and he was trembling. She, fully clothed but prepared to be otherwise, was tracing the contour of a pectoral muscle at exactly eye-level and her breathing was quicker than normal.

Yusuf was ugly but, for Zoe, ugly was new.

‘Where are you from, Yusuf?’ she asked, allowing her hand to drop from his breast and travel slowly down the valley that led to his groin.

‘Edirne, lady,’ replied Yusuf in perfect Greek. The statement ended in a gasp as Zoe’s finger brushed the tip of his penis, prominent beneath the soft folds of his janissary pantaloons.

‘The Devshirme?’ she murmured, her fingernails moving very slowly down its length to rest somewhere beneath.

Yusuf nodded. His face was red and a contortion of vein and perspiration. Zoe turned the hand and slowly pushed it forward between his legs and then up, so that her open palm was suspended fractionally beneath his balls. She lifted a middle finger and began to rub it gently in the place where, had he been a woman, his vagina would have been, getting closer, with each stroke, to a puckered hole behind.

‘And the man she met was also from Edirne … Plethon, wasn’t it? Did you know of him?’

Zoe pressed the hole and discovered that she’d been right. A small convulsion, definitely of pleasure, ran through the man’s great body. He gasped and his hands, still behind him, were clasped and shaking.

‘I knew of him, lady,’ he said dully, fighting for vowels. ‘He … he used to speak in the forum. Of learned things.’

‘And you understood him? A great big ugly brute like you understood him? A great big …’ Zoe moved her hand up to grasp the object so apparent between them and began to stroke up and down slowly. ‘What did he talk about?’

‘He talked about … our Greek forefathers. I was a child, lady …’

‘A child, yes. Not so big … then,’ she said, squeezing harder, the rhythm quickening. ‘And what did he talk about with the girl tonight, Yusuf?’ she asked, rising on tiptoe to get closer to his ear. ‘What did they talk about?’

‘It was hard to hear, lady … something about a treasure. Oh.’

Zoe had stopped the movement and held him, poised, her thumb idly caressing the tip.

‘Treasure? Varangian treasure?’ she asked sharply.

‘Yes, lady … please …’

‘Only if you are very clear, Yusuf. Did they say where it was?’

‘They talked of a sword.’

A sword. Luke’s sword.

Yusuf had screwed his eyes in the effort of containment and Zoe, still on tiptoe, was smiling up at him and one hand resumed the movement while the other began to unbutton her tunic.

‘Open your eyes, Yusuf,’ she whispered. ‘You can look, if you want.’

He looked down and saw one breast, then two as Zoe drew the tunic apart. They were the colour of satinwood and without flaw and the nipples were darker than mahogany.

‘Would you like to touch, Yusuf?’ she murmured, her tongue at the base of his neck. ‘Would you like to touch them?’ Her hand moved behind him and grasped one huge buttock and a finger found the hole again.

But this was too much.

With a groan, the giant bent forward and the hands left his back and grasped Zoe’s hand as, with one deft and final movement, she pulled him into heaven. His shoulders rose and fell as if in laughter but the sound that came from his mouth was not laughter. He fell to his knees, grappling with the front of his pantaloons, trying to stem the flow, his whole body in unwanted spasm.

‘I’m sorry, lady … please,’ he moaned, not daring to look up.

But Zoe was not looking at him. She had walked to the other end of the room, buttoning her tunic as she went, to where a towel was folded beside a low bathing pool. ‘Get up,’ she said, dipping her hand in the water and wiping it dry. She threw the towel at Yusuf.

‘Here, clean yourself,’ she said, ‘and then tell me the rest. With accuracy, if you want to live.’

Yusuf, now standing, was feverishly wiping the front of his trousers, his big head bobbing up and down with the effort. ‘He had come from Chios, lady. He spoke of someone there called Luke. The lady was glad of the news. She had thought him dead.’

Zoe clapped her hands together. ‘Hah! I knew it. So he’s alive. What is he doing on Chios?’

‘He has learnt Latin,’ said Yusuf, knowing it wasn’t enough. ‘And Italian … from the Genoese.’

‘And how to fill men’s teeth, I don’t doubt,’ murmured Zoe. She turned to the man. ‘Anything else?’

‘The girl means to escape, taking the woman Rachel with her. With the help of a friend.’

‘Ah, a friend. Yes.’ Zoe smiled. ‘You may go. Find Prince Suleyman and ask him to join me.’

Yusuf, still clutching the folds of his pantaloons to cover the stain, bowed in relief and turned to go.

‘And Yusuf?’ said Zoe over her shoulder as she walked towards the balcony. ‘One word of what has happened in this room tonight and you will never talk again.’

It was much later when Rachel was awakened by a freshly changed Yusuf who signalled to her to dress for travel and brought her, in some bewilderment, to Anna’s bedroom. Anna was already wearing breeches and a thick, woollen smock so as to be ready for either sea-borne or mounted escape.

Rachel seemed more frail than when she’d last seen her, but her frailty was bolstered by a new joy that had been born the moment that Anna had told her that Luke was alive. She felt exultant, ready for anything: in particular ready to join her son on Chios as soon as humanly possible.

Now Anna sat opposite Rachel in a room that was almost dark and they held hands and told stories for comfort and to pass the time. A single lamp stood on the table between them with its wick almost burnt through. It was smoking slightly and its light made monsters on the walls. The palace outside was silent and asleep.

‘Speaking Latin!’ whispered Rachel. ‘He must have been educated.’

‘Was he always clever?’ asked Anna.

‘Well, he shared a few lessons with the twins long ago but they stopped it for some reason. Perhaps Damian was jealous.’

Anna wanted to imagine Luke as a young boy, running barefoot, knees scratched, or riding bareback, his arms clinging to the neck of an animal he already understood better than other people.

‘Were they close once, the three of them?’ she asked.

‘Close? They were inseparable! They shared everything from their toys to the bath. The servants had to be sent down from the palace to bring them home. I loved those twins like my own.’

Rachel was laughing softly at the memory, her hands steepled in her lap.

‘I used to take them with me to gather kermes outside the city. I would put them on a donkey, one, two, three, with the baskets behind, and they would laugh and laugh at its ears and the silly noise it made when they pulled them.’ She paused, eyes faraway. ‘Yes, they were very close.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Anna gently.

‘They grew up, I suppose. But something else as well.’

Anna was still, allowing Rachel to decide whether or not to find comfort in disclosure.

‘She was always a difficult girl,’ said Rachel, looking up. ‘She had everything she wanted but only wanted the things she couldn’t have.’

Anna felt the very first pricking of a new fear deep, deep inside her stomach. It was a fear without name or, for now, explanation. But it was there.

‘Luke?’

Rachel nodded slowly. ‘Luke, money, power. It was difficult to tell which was more important to her.’ She paused. ‘Probably money and power. She was always a clever girl.’

Anna didn’t have time to think further because there was a muffled knock on the door and Yusuf arrived to take them somewhere else. He stood in the doorway and nodded to Anna, who helped Rachel to her feet. Then they walked out into the dark of the corridor and along it until they reached the top of a curving staircase that swept down to the hall below.

The hall was lit by torches held in sconces on the walls that were beginning to splutter. Standing in the centre of the space was Zoe, alone. The janissary guards were either asleep or had been persuaded to absent themselves.

Holding Rachel’s hand, Anna tiptoed down the staircase, stopping every third step to listen to the palace around them. When they reached the bottom, Zoe put a finger to her lips and beckoned for them to follow her. Anna glanced behind and found that Yusuf had left them. They crept into the lobby where, centuries ago, Luke had stood with Joseph to learn his sentence.

The first glimmer of dawn was framed in the opening at the top of the dome and it cast everything in a spectral glow. Waiting there were Matthew, Nikolas and Arcadius, armed but not armoured; each stepped forward silently to kiss Rachel. One of them gave her a hooded cloak and helped her to tie it at the throat.

Zoe took Anna to one side. ‘You know the way to the cellars below?’ she whispered. ‘You know the door through the kitchens into the street? Go there. It’s unguarded and once outside you can make your way to the gate to the lower town. How you get through that is your business.’

Anna nodded and walked past the three young Varangians who’d formed a little circle around Rachel, and into the deep shadows of the corridor that led to the staircase. Her heart was beating a rhythm of increasing hope. She wanted to run to the stairs but knew that any noise would be fatal.

Then she heard a noise.

Behind her: a command and the drawing of steel. Her stomach lurched and she turned back to see the three Varangians, swords before them, staring up at the balcony. Zoe was standing next to them looking aghast. She glanced in the direction of Anna and her eyes bore into her.

Stay where you are.

Anna put her back to the wall of the corridor and edged along its shadow to see into the lobby. Lining the balcony were at least a dozen janissaries, each with an armed crossbow pointing below.

With them was Suleyman. And Yusuf.

Yusuf. Do you work for Zoe or Suleyman? Who has betrayed us?

Suleyman’s hands were clasped, his forearms resting on the balustrade.

But this was no thunderbolt. He was unsteady on his feet. He seemed unlikely to wield the sword of Islam to much effect. Perhaps this Burgundian crusade would succeed after all.

He glanced at Suleyman. Surely, thought Luke …

His hands were clasped and his forearms resting on the ledge. He was leaning over and he was smiling. Anna watched, appalled, as he began to walk slowly down the stairs, his black eyes moving around the hall in search of something, someone. He went up to Zoe and walked around her once before stopping beside her, his mouth level with her ear.

‘Someone, I think, is missing, lady,’ he whispered. ‘Where is she?’

Zoe turned so that her face was very close to his and facing Anna. ‘I regret that she’s flown, lord,’ she whispered, quite loudly. ‘She’s flown to somewhere you won’t find her. Somewhere safe.’

‘Safe from me?’ he said, drawing back a little. ‘You know it’s my father she should fear, not me. I am trying to help her. Have you told her that? I imagine not.’

Suleyman and Zoe locked stares; then he laughed softly and walked backwards to the bottom of the stairs, still holding her gaze. ‘Yusuf!’ he called without turning. ‘Bring me your sword!’

The giant came down the stairs and handed an unsheathed scimitar to his master. Suleyman, his eyes still fixed on Zoe, put his thumb to its blade and felt its sharpness. Then he pointed at Arcadius. ‘Kneel,’ he commanded.

Arcadius stood still, his big body frozen in indecision. Suleyman walked over to him.

‘Kneel!’

Matthew came to stand by his side, Nikolas beside him.

‘If he is to die, then we all die,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Suleyman agreeably. ‘You will if you don’t tell me where Anna is. If she is in the town, she will be found — probably by my father’s men who are already here. Would you want that for her? Now kneel. All of you, or I’ll ask Yusuf to make you.’

It was Zoe who spoke next. ‘I’m sure they will tell you what they know, Prince Suleyman. They will tell you that Anna has escaped to a place they have no knowledge of. That is what they will tell you, one by one, as you kill them.’

There was the sound of a footfall and Anna stepped out of the shadows. ‘I am here.’

Suleyman turned and saw her. The light from the dome was stronger now and it turned her hair into fire. Anna was upright and uncowed and there was challenge in her voice.

‘If it is me that you want, then take me,’ she said. ‘But Rachel and the Varangians go free.’

Suleyman raised an eyebrow. ‘Lady, these men cannot go free.’

Anna walked up to him. ‘If you want me to come with you, prince, they will go free.’

Suleyman pretended to weigh all this in the delicate and capricious scales of his mind, as if this sequence of events had not been rehearsed some time beforehand. He stroked his beard to its oiled and tapered point and looked at Anna with questioning eyes.

‘So, lord,’ said Anna, looking up at him with her head tilted in query, ‘am I to come with you or not?’