The Walls of Byzantium

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CONSTANTINOPLE, SUMMER 1396

Passing the ruins of Troy by night, Luke dreamt of Achilles whose ghost travellers sometimes claimed to see stalking the shallows there.

The following day and night took him through the Dardanelles and into the Sea of Marmara and, as the first tentacles of dawn crept over the rim of the world, he found himself awake and attentive to the splash of the oars and the staggered pull of the boat as it made its way towards Constantinople.

For a while he lay still in the cabin and enjoyed the luxury of a goosedown mattress made for someone of greater consequence than he. The room was heavily perfumed by small braziers of lavendered wood and the noise outside was muffled by thick damask hangings that covered the door and windows. He was able to think clearly of the past five days when, having been relieved of his sword and armour, he’d been given freedom to move around this ship. The plump official appeared to be the only other speaker of Greek on board and had kept steadfastly to his cabin, leaving Luke to his thoughts.

And his thoughts were in turmoil. His carefully laid plan to go to Venice and sell his mastic was in ruins. But Plethon was there and knew what he wanted to do. His determination to go thence to Monemvasia to find Anna had been disrupted by the news that she was with Suleyman. But wasn’t Suleyman at Constantinople conducting the siege?

That way lay hope, for Luke had guessed from the stars where they were going.

Constantinople.

Constantinople. City of the Thrice-Blessed Virgin, ex-Tabernacle on Earth of the Bride of the Lord. Once the greatest city on earth, whose wealth had shimmered in the beaten gold of its domes and the veined marble of its palaces. Constantinople. Built between two continents and two seas, frontier of both Christendom and Islam.

Constantinople: Kizil Elma, the Red Apple.

Now, as they approached it, Luke could hardly contain his excitement. He rose, put on his shirt and hose, pulled a cloak around him and walked out on to the deck. The sea around the galley was indigo and dolphins surfed its waves, chasing the oars and diving across the bows. Up ahead was a mass of land turning to orange with the new light rising in the east.

A sailor approached him with a plate of bread and salted fish and he ate hungrily. Then he knelt to splash water from a fire-bucket over his head and shoulders. He scratched his cheeks and chin, shivering beneath the wet friction of beard raked by nails.

Whatever was awaiting him could wait; he was to see the glory of Constantinople. Or what was left of it.

An hour later he was there.

A low mist was suspended above the water like a skein of spider web, its tendrils reaching into the Asian land mass and the sunlight spilling across it like dappled gold. Then its surface was ruptured by soaring walls of striped stone, with giant towers which rose even higher and on whose tops could be seen the flash of shield and spearhead.

Constantinople.

Luke held his breath and stared.

Was this the same sight seen by Siward on a dawn three centuries past as his ships swept up towards Mikligard? How wide would the tired eyes of those five hundred first Englishmen have been when they first looked upon those walls?

He was so lost in thought that the man next to him had to repeat himself.

‘Do you see that tower?’

Luke turned to see the fat official leaning over the rail with one arm pointing towards the city.

‘That’s where the land walls join the sea walls. The land walls were built by the Emperor Theodosius and are said to be impregnable. The sea walls were where the crusaders got in two centuries ago.’

The man was short but wore a turban of such size that, upright, he might have been taller than Luke. His beard was long and manicured and moored him to the deck like an anchor. He seemed inclined to talk.

‘Normally there would be quays and jetties all along these walls,’ he continued, his arm sweeping across the distance, ‘but of course they’ve destroyed them all to prevent us doing what the Venetians did.’

Luke could see nothing but mist clinging to the walls.

‘The blockade has stopped any food getting to the city by sea. Look, are they not magnificent?’

They were passing the first of the Ottoman galleys, the sun catching the shields slung over the impavesati parapets which protected the oarsmen. There were two bombards in the forecastle and Luke turned to the city walls to see their effect. Tiny pockmarks pitted the surface; tiny blemishes on a smooth, sun-kissed face.

‘The cannon seem to have done little harm,’ he remarked.

‘They have hardly scarred the walls,’ replied the official. ‘But they have kept away your navy and prevented the Genoese bringing in supplies.’ He paused and his smile broadened. ‘And they have persuaded the Sultan that he needs bigger ones.’

The mist that hovered above the water was beginning to fragment and was pooled with fire. Looking down the line of towers that were now aglow and seemingly without end, Luke could see more of the Ottoman galleys at anchor, their bows towards the walls and their pennants limp on their masts. Theirs was the only vessel in movement and, as it swept on, it seemed as if all the world was watching them pass. Luke’s mouth was dry.

He looked further along the walls and saw their striped surface jut out into a colonnade of grand, pillared arches dressed in white marble. There was a sea gate with two lions on guard either side. A church’s dome floated above like a papal hat.

‘That is the Boukoleon Palace,’ said his companion, ‘used by the Latin emperors while they were here. Now a ruin, I expect, like everything else.’

They had turned north and the sun was shining directly across the ship. There was no sound beyond the dip of oars and the cry of birds. Ahead of them rose the Great Palace and its tiered gardens with Cypress-spears thrust into the sky. The white curve of the Hippodrome sat at the summit upon shaded vaults, its top pitted with broken masonry.

The galley was now rounding the tip of the peninsula and there was a flash from above as the sun caught the column on which stood the bronze figure of the greatest of all the emperors, Justinian, his right hand raised and pointing to the east. By his side rose his masterpiece, the many-domed Church of Holy Wisdom, the Hagia Sophia. Luke clutched the rail and stared in wonder. He knew there to be cracks in its walls and few tiles on its roofs, but it was still one of the most magnificent sights in the world.

The rowers had seen it before and obeyed the quickened tempo of the drum. The galley lurched forward and soon they were passing Acropolis Point and the Golden Horn was opening up to their left and Luke could see the giant chain suspended just above the water between the northern walls of Constantinople and the Genoese colony of Pera, with the tall Tower of Gelata rising above its walls.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked, looking across at the turban.

The water was busier here and, beyond the chain, small craft were shuttling between the two shores. The sun blazed a pathway down the length of the Horn and birds rose in silhouette from its waters.

‘We go north, beyond the city. To Prince Suleyman’s lines.’

The following day, Luke was standing in the tent of the Sultan Bayezid’s eldest son with a janissary on either side of him.

They had landed a mile north of Pera where Suleyman had pitched his tents on a hill overlooking the city. His father and the rest of the army were well to the south, strung out behind the siege works facing the Theodosian Walls. Bayezid had arrived a week earlier to join his army and his eldest son had immediately ordered his headquarters moved as far away from his father’s as possible.

Since landing, Luke had been given comparative freedom to wander around the camp, although he’d never been out of sight of two janissaries who’d followed him without discretion. He’d spent much of the time just staring down at Constantinople, lost in wonder at its scale and magnificence. This city had stood for a thousand years, the eastern heir to the Roman Empire, and had repelled every attempt to take it except one. And on that night, when Armageddon itself had come to Constantinople, his royal ancestor had brought away a treasure that might still save it in this, its most perilous hour.

He’d thought about a sword that might hold an answer and was no longer with him.

Now he saw it in his captor’s tent, leaning against a shield suspended from a pole. Suleyman was seated on a curved, backless throne of a width that required him to stretch out his arms as if in greeting. He was wearing a coat of gold tulips and a single thick, leather glove reaching far up his arm that was spattered with bird-droppings. Beside him, standing haughtily on a perch of ivory, sat an unhooded peregrine, chained at the ankle.

Luke studied the man in front of him with care. The heir to the Ottoman throne was a more manicured creature than he’d imagined, but that he was a man of infinite danger, Luke was in no doubt.

Suleyman, meanwhile, was regarding Luke with less interest.

‘Luke Magoris. You have a friend here in the camp,’ said the Prince, picking some offal from a plate and stretching his hand towards the bird. ‘In fact you have two.’

Luke didn’t reply.

‘I would not count myself among that number, though,’ he went on. ‘There’s not a great deal in you I can find to like.’

The peregrine got bored and turned its head almost fully about, shrugging its folded wings.

‘You don’t know me, Majesty,’ said Luke.

‘No, that’s true,’ murmured the Prince.

There was a pause in which Suleyman lifted the ungloved hand and the janissaries bowed and disappeared. They were alone in the tent.

Suleyman rose and went over to a table on which stood an elaborate jug.

‘One of the few vices I’ve inherited from my father,’ said the Prince, pouring and returning to his seat. He drank, watching Luke closely over the rim of the cup. ‘Now, let’s see,’ he went on. ‘Firstly, you were on your way to join a crusade intended to crush us, not so?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Next, you’re masterminding new methods of defence on the island of Chios which have baffled our corsairs and given the islanders, alas, no further cause to rebel against the Genoese.’

Luke remained impassive.

‘Finally,’ said Suleyman, now looking at him with dark intensity, ‘you’re daring to impose yourself on someone far above your rank and currently under my protection.’ He paused. ‘And that, I should tell you, is by far the worst of your crimes.’

For the briefest of moments Luke felt elation. Anna was here in the camp. The emotion must have swept across his face because Suleyman’s eyes flashed black, their hoods closing in menace.

‘So I would like nothing more than to see you executed. But I fear that such an action would do little to foster my relationship with the Laskaris daughter. And then there is your other friend. Zoe Mamonas.’ He looked down at the curling tips of his shoes. ‘So, what would you do if you were me?’

‘I would fight me, lord,’ said Luke calmly. ‘Single combat, man to man. That would be the honourable thing for a prince to do. Let Allah decide.’

‘Hah!’ laughed Suleyman. ‘A duel! But I cannot see the benefit of such an arrangement. If you kill me, the Sword of Islam is without anyone to wield it. If I kill you, it’s of no consequence.’

Luke supposed he was in no immediate danger or he would be dead by now. ‘Then send me to the crusade,’ he said. ‘If you’re so certain of victory, I’ll probably die there.’

Suleyman pretended to consider this. ‘That would certainly get you out of the way. But I quite like the thought of you here for now, watching Anna Laskaris adapt to the life of the harem … prepare herself for motherhood …’

Luke flinched and found his fists clenched. Despite the clumsy provocation, his anger was rising.

‘My mother was Greek,’ went on Suleyman genially. ‘Did you know that? I’ve always vowed to myself that the sultans who follow me should also have Greek blood in their veins. And hers is the best.’

Luke found his voice. ‘She would never submit herself to you willingly.’

‘No?’ Suleyman arched a black eyebrow. His voice was a whisper. ‘Not even if your life depended on it?’ He came very close. ‘Tell me, Luke Magoris, you’re a merchant now, aren’t you? You like money, the money you will make from selling all that alum in Venice. How much more would you make if I went on stopping the Venetians from bringing in their alum from Trebizond yet let yours from Chios through?’ He paused and his smile was wafer thin. ‘That could be arranged … for a price.’

Luke moved fast. His hands were around the Prince’s neck almost before the sentence was out, dragging him to the floor of the tent. The two men hit the carpet with some force, Luke’s thumbs digging into Suleyman’s windpipe and the Turk’s hands gripping his arms, trying to relieve the pressure. They rolled over once, twice, before Suleyman managed to angle his head and sink his teeth into his attacker’s forearm. Luke loosened his grip as the pain hit him and it was enough for Suleyman to pull a dagger from his sleeve. But Luke had seen the move and rolled away, coming to rest within reach of the peregrine’s stand. As he grabbed its base, the bird tried to escape, shrieking as it reached the limit of its chain.

There was the sound of metal from across from the tent. Luke looked up. Suleyman’s guards had entered, swords drawn.

Suleyman yelled something and they stayed where they were. The peregrine, still chained, sprang at Luke, its claws splayed for attack. But Luke was beyond its reach and it screamed its rage as it pawed the air, the chain taut behind it.

Luke rose and looked around the tent. His sword was tantalisingly close. He glanced back at his enemy.

Suleyman had risen too and pulled another dagger from the belt and it was a long, vicious thing that might have gutted a leopard.

He lunged at Luke but met only air as Varangian training produced a sidestep of precision. Suleyman spun round, panting, the dagger thrust out before him.

‘Oh, let me kill you, Luke Magoris,’ hissed Suleyman. He was close enough for Luke to smell the wine on his breath. ‘Please give me an excuse to kill you. It would solve so many problems.’

There was a rustle behind him. Someone was standing between the guards.

‘Prince Suleyman!’

Suleyman sighed and lowered the dagger. ‘Ah, your other friend.’

‘You said he would not be harmed,’ said Zoe.

‘And he has not been. He attacked me as I was in the middle of discussing my plans for the Laskaris girl.’ He paused and tucked the dagger in his belt. He felt his neck and tested his head from side to side. ‘Does he know the penalty for assaulting the son of the Sultan?’

Zoe glanced at Luke and then, unexpectedly, knelt. ‘Lord, he is impulsive. He was always thus. He feels deeply for the Laskaris girl and doesn’t realise you mean her no harm.’

Suleyman was looking at Luke with malevolence. ‘He threatened my life. He must forfeit his own.’

Zoe prostrated herself on the carpet, her forehead deep in its weave. ‘Majesty!’ she whispered, her voice muffled. ‘He acted rashly and he will not do so again. I will take him into my household and guarantee that you need not set eyes on him again.’

Suleyman sat on the chair with one hand on his neck and stroked his beard, examining Luke with malice. The silence in the tent was broken only by the uneven breathing of the two men.

Then Suleyman said what he was meant to say. ‘Very well. He will be your groom. But I will look to you to guard him well.’

A short while afterwards Zoe and Luke were sitting in front of her tent on cushions, sipping cool sherbet in the mid-morning heat and looking out over the Bosporus. The channel was alive with craft ferrying people and goods to the villages further down its shores or beyond into the Black Sea.

Luke looked at the palaces that lined both sides of the water, most set back with lush gardens that ran down to the water’s edge. They were abandoned now or occupied by Ottoman generals.

Zoe asked, ‘Suleyman offered to keep the Venetian alum from getting through?’

Luke nodded.

‘And in exchange?’

‘You can imagine. That’s why I attacked him.’

‘That was a mistake.’

‘You saved me. Thank you,’ Luke said. He watched a Turkish galley intercept a round ship from Genoa. Bales of something were being transferred to the lower vessel. ‘Why am I here?’ he asked.

‘You are here because of what you’ve been doing on Chios,’ replied Zoe. ‘Your success there has made you conspicuous. The Turks want the island for the Venetians. They give them Chios and get cannon in return, cannon big enough to bring down Constantinople’s walls.’

‘So why not simply kill me?’ asked Luke.

‘Because I persuaded him that you’d be more useful alive than dead,’ said Zoe. ‘But it’s precarious. You cannot afford to cross him again.’

‘But I will,’ said Luke. ‘I mean to take Anna.’

‘Then you’re a fool. If you try to take her from him, he will kill you. Both of you … I would not advise going anywhere near Anna. Let me be the go-between.’

‘You? Why should I trust you after what happened in Monemvasia?’

Zoe looked sharply at him. ‘Your friends must have told you of my part in Plethon’s visit, my part in saving their lives? Anna trusts me and so should you.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, what choice do you have?’

Luke rubbed his chin. He’d managed to shave and wash himself at last in Zoe’s tent and was enjoying the breeze on his face. He was wearing new clothes and his feet were in soft leather. He looked down at them and wondered again why Zoe wanted to help them.

‘I am already the go-between,’ continued Zoe. ‘And I know about the treasure.’

Luke looked up.

‘I know that Plethon wants you to find it. For the Empire.’

Luke stared at her. This was unfamiliar territory.

‘Has it occurred to you, Luke, that I might not entirely agree with my family’s plans to protect its wealth? After all, I’ve little incentive given that Damian will inherit it all.’

‘Your interest is power and money,’ said Luke. ‘It always has been.’

‘And you. My interest has been you.’

‘Only because I denied you.’

‘Am I that shallow?’ She smiled. ‘All right, let’s just talk about power and money. Why shouldn’t my interests now coincide with that of the Empire? It seems to me that I might gain more from a grateful emperor if I were to help you find the treasure than from Mamonas primogeniture.’

Luke considered this. He’d been prevented from going to Venice and the crusade. He was at the gates of Constantinople. If he could just get in …

‘There is a sword,’ he said at last.

‘Ah, the sword. Siward’s sword. Is it important?’

Luke ignored the question. ‘Suleyman has it.’

‘I know. He showed it to me.’

‘Can you get it for me?’

It was a week later that the siege was raised. The Crusader army was on the Danube and it was time for Bayezid to march against it.

It happened with the silent purpose that characterised all Ottoman military manoeuvres, so that when Luke rose one morning and came out of his tent to wash, only a handful of tents were still standing. One of them was Suleyman’s.

The Ottoman army, forty thousand strong, had already assembled in the Valley of the Springs and was awaiting the Sultan. It was strung out along the northern shore of the Golden Horn and its banners fluttered in a light wind from the sea, sunshine glancing off helmet and shield. The army would take the road west to Edirne before striking north to meet up with Prince Lazarević’s Serbs at Tarnovo in Bulgaria.

‘We should ride to the head of the valley,’ said Zoe, emerging from her tent. ‘Watching them march out is a spectacle. Get our horses.’

Luke walked to the paddock where their horses were tethered. Both had been saddled and he led them back to where his mistress stood, watching the Sultan and his retinue emerge from Prince Suleyman’s tent. Surely, thought Luke, the Prince was to join Bayezid on this campaign? But there he was, bowing deep to his father, without a scale of armour on his person. If he was going to war, it would not be today.

Soon he and Zoe were riding west along the northern ridge of the valley to where it ended above the mouth of the Horn. They came to a grassy defile through which the army would pass and where musicians had set out their drums and trumpets and bells to play their brothers to war. Black-skirted dervishes were there, practising the spins and whirls that would be their dance to the music, their dance to Allah. It was the dance that would remind the soldiers of their gazi roots and of the ferocity that flowed through them from the red earth of the Anatolian steppe.

Towards the east they could see a haze of dust greying the horizon and could hear the deep percussion of thousands of feet on the march. The distant beat of drum and crash of cymbals kept their horses’ ears alert and sent tiny tremors up their flanks.

Then Luke heard the sound of closer hoofbeats and looked up to see two riders approaching the opposite hill.

‘Say nothing!’ hissed Zoe.

Prince Suleyman had stopped his horse on the hill across from them. Beside him, Anna was dressed and veiled as an Ottoman consort and mounted on a pretty palfrey of white and pink. Her head was lowered and if she’d seen Luke, she didn’t show it. As they drew up, Suleyman turned to her and said something in her ear; Anna nodded and kept her head bowed. Then he walked his horse forward and looked directly across at Zoe and Luke.

‘How does your new groom do, lady?’ he called.

The musicians and dancers around them had prostrated themselves on the grass. A drum rolled gently down to the road at the bottom of the defile.

‘Get off your horse,’ whispered Zoe from the side of her mouth.

‘No,’ said Luke, quite loudly.

There was a short laugh from the other side. ‘He is insolent! No doubt you will beat him later?’

‘Undoubtedly, Majesty. But it is my fault. I have asked him to remain mounted since my horse is skittish this morning. The music, lord.’

‘Ah yes,’ said the Prince, ‘the music.’ He looked round at the discarded instruments.

The army was approaching beneath its cloud like a winding snake of many colours. The noise made Zoe’s horse start and Luke leant across and took her bridle.

Suleyman nodded and the musicians collected their instruments and began to tune them. The dervishes stood and bowed and swept the grass from their robes. Someone went to retrieve the drum.

‘You will see something unforgettable in a moment, Luke Magoris!’ he shouted. ‘You will see an unbeaten army on its way to win another battle. Mark it well and be thankful that you don’t have to face it.’

Luke was about to reply when Zoe’s hand gripped his arm like a vice.

‘He will mark it well, Majesty, and his silence,’ — the grip tightened — ‘will be proof of his astonishment.’

Across the other side of the defile, Anna walked her horse forward and undid her veil. For the first time she looked up and her eyes locked with those of Luke.

In the look that passed between them then was fear and joy and, above all, certainty. Whatever happened, whatever the lies, the forcing, the blackmail, there would be no other love in his life or hers. In that gaze was a longing, a longing grounded in something sublime that happened in a cave. Anna strained to search every part of his face, to store the memory of it to be unpacked, if it had to be, every remaining night of her life. She lifted her hand as he lifted his and the world beyond them was, for that moment, somewhere else.

But the army was there.

First came the flags, yellow and red and covered in holy writing, borne on lances. Behind them rode the aga of the janissaries and his captains and companies of dervishes whirling in their wake. Then, marching in loose order, came the ranks of janissaries in their tall white hats and long red coats, stepping out with their swords slung low from their waists and their most precious regimental badge, the cauldron, held between the two biggest men of each company.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Let’s go,’ shouted Zoe.

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

But there was no one there.

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

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

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

‘What happens if he finds you?’

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

‘Anna? Why has he taken Anna?’

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

‘Leaving you behind?’

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

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

‘What do we do now?’ asked Zoe.

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

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

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

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

‘Try twisting the pommel.’

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

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

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

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

It wouldn’t shift.

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

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

‘Can you see anything?’ he asked.

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

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

She peered closer. ‘Sepultus.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘But how would he know the date?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘This way,’ she said.

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

‘The Varangian church?’ asked Luke.

‘I think so,’ said Zoe and they emerged into a tiny, sunlit square, with a dead bird lying next to a fountain. They tied their horses to a carved stone fish.

It was now late afternoon and they would not have much time to examine the church’s interior before the light began to fade. The little door was unlocked and opened on creaking hinges and a bird startled them as it made its escape. Inside, there was more light than they’d predicted because great holes gaped from the roof, framed by blackened roof struts, with shafts of sunlight reaching in. An oak beam lay at an angle across the nave, its end disappearing through a high window where plants grew. At the end of the nave, a broken rood screen separated the chancel and two tiny side chapels opened up either side, their interiors lost in shadow.

Luke’s eyes grew accustomed to the light and he began to make out features within the church. There were frescoes covering nearly every wall but of what was difficult to judge. Age and indifference had combined to fade the colours and chunks of plaster had fallen to reveal the stone beneath.

‘Didn’t you say there was a sword?’ asked Zoe, walking forwards into particles of floating dust.

‘Yes,’ replied Luke. ‘Over the altar. My father told me that the sword of St Olaf hung there.’

They approached the rood screen and went beyond it and there was the altar but no sword.

‘In Venice probably,’ said Zoe. ‘Like everything else.’

‘Look for a tomb,’ said Luke. ‘Siward’s. It’s here somewhere.’

They separated and looked around the base of the altar. There was no tomb.

Luke called to her. ‘Come and look at this.’

He was standing below a fresco painted on to the domed walls of the chancel that was different from the rest. A shaft of sunlight showed that it was in much better repair than the others.

‘What’s it of?’ asked Zoe, joining him.

‘It looks like the Resurrection,’ replied Luke. ‘Look, you can see the Roman soldiers asleep around the tomb. But … that’s strange.’ Luke had stepped closer and was shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. ‘I’ve seen paintings like this on Chios,’ he said, ‘but they always have the figure of Jesus above the tomb.’ He paused and looked at Zoe. ‘Here there’s none. And another thing: this painting is much later than the others in this church. That’s why it’s in such good condition. The colours are hardly faded.’

Zoe nodded. ‘And look at the soldier in the middle. Look what he’s wearing.’

Luke peered closely at the picture. The soldier was lying slumped against the side of a tomb whose stone lid had been slid to one side. He was wearing a corselet of gold and blue scales partially covered by a dark blue chlamys, clasped at the right shoulder. On the ground on one side of him lay a two-handed axe. In his hand was a sword.

‘I suppose it’s natural for the soldiers to have been painted as Varangians,’ said Luke slowly. ‘Or would have been if all of them were. But he’s the only one.’

The light shifted again as the sun sank lower and Luke felt Zoe tense beside him. Only the head of the Varangian Guard was in light. It shone with an ethereal glow. It was someone both of them knew.

‘Look,’ whispered Zoe. ‘Imagine him younger, without the beard.’

They both gazed at the face, entirely still.

‘It could be you,’ she said softly.

Luke pulled away from the painting and found that his hands were trembling. He suddenly felt cold although the afternoon was still warm. ‘The sword — look at its pommel,’ he said.

The dragon head was aglow. Alive.

‘It’s my sword,’ whispered Luke. ‘Siward’s sword.’

Then he said, ‘Perhaps it’s pointing. What’s it pointing at?’

Zoe’s gaze travelled the length of the blade. ‘Well, that answers that,’ she said. ‘It’s pointing to where the painting has worn away. Look at the corner of the picture. It’s worn through to the plaster beneath.’

‘And beyond?’

‘Into the side chapel.’

There was no sound in the little church beyond their breathing. The light was almost gone now, a frieze of dust motes suspended above the ground like things discovered. They felt their way into the chapel. As their eyes accustomed themselves to the dark, they saw tombs, the black shapes of sarcophagi with one, much larger than the others, rising up at their centre.

‘Siward’s tomb,’ said Luke.

‘How can you tell?’

‘I just know,’ replied Luke quietly. ‘I must write to Plethon. He’ll know what to do.’