The Walls of Byzantium

CHAPTER TWENTY

VENICE, AUTUMN 1396

At the new headquarters of the Banco dei Medici, situated discreetly above their Hanseatic friends at the Fondaco dei Turchi on the Grand Canal, there was mixed reaction to the news.

The Ottomans had lifted their siege of Constantinople.

Of course it meant that alum from Trebizond could now get through and prices to the Arte della Lana would fall. On the other hand, it meant that the considerable outlay they’d made to the Campagna Giustiniani on Chios looked a little more precarious.

On the Rialto, all was joy. The news lifted the ducat ten against the écu, and the cortigiane di lume, those bawds who plied their trade in those and other parts, lifted a celebratory toast.

But then this was Venice and celebration was in the air.

Except, it must be said, for Murano. That five-fingered island, second in the Venetian constellation, its hundred glass foundries belching smoke into the gassy air, was a place of serious industry. It looked with contempt at the goose-masked, all-night revellers who rowed their unsteady way across the lagoon each dawn. Its foundries were at full blast, the scarred, glistening bodies of their maestri toiling with tongs and bubbled rods in the bloody glare of the kiln-vents, tweaking, shaping and rolling end-jewels into weightless circles of nothing.

Leaving such a factory were its owners, the father and son Mamonas, whose palace on the Goulas of Monemvasia contained, it was said, the very finest of its produce. There was, between them, an air of smug satisfaction only slightly tempered by the thought that a dearer ducat would narrow their profit margin. Both were wearing the sober black damask that signalled wealth and probity.

They were surprised to see, waiting for them at the quay, a barge sent by the Serenissima to gather them to her bosom.

A man, also dressed in black, bowed to them as they approached.

‘Niccolò di Vetriano, Knight of the Order of San Marco, at your service,’ he said between lips pressed into the tightest of smiles. ‘I am to bring you to meet His Serenity, the Doge.’

Father and son bowed in return, assuming their names were known.

‘We are honoured,’ said Pavlos, ‘but we are not dressed to meet the Doge.’

‘We will go to your fondaco first, signori,’ said the man. ‘When you are prepared, we can go to the Arsenale.’

The Mamonas exchanged glances.

‘The Arsenale?’ said the older. ‘But we understood that His Serenity never stepped outside the palace.’

The Venetian captain smiled and examined the neat tips of his gloves. He was a handsome man of dark and manicured menace. His voice was soft and dripping with condescension. A bejewelled short sword hung at his side. ‘Indeed. The Doge will leave the palace only in exceptional circumstances.’

Pavlos Mamonas inclined his head. He’d expected to meet the Doge but not so soon, not like this. He and Damian stepped into the boat and walked to the stern where cushions were arranged beneath a tasselled awning.

As the barge moved away, he screwed his eyes against the sun and looked across the milky surface of the lagoon towards the skyline before him, elaborate with campaniles, domes and crenellations. There was Venice, the supreme mistress of trade, reclining scented in her lagoon. There, across the water, was the flamboyant city of festivals, water parties, music and masquerades. There was the place of barter and procession and entertainments of more intimate nature conducted behind the silken curtains of gondolas. There, in all her eccentric glory, was the Bride of the Adriatic, the Eye of Italy, who counted, among her hundred thousand amphibious souls, no fewer than ten thousand prostitutes. Pavlos Mamonas smiled.

One in ten.

They were passing the island of San Michele now, the Camal-dolite Monastery squat behind its walls, where the pious but worldly monks supplemented their income by making the finest maps in the world. The waves from their oars rippled against the little jetty and a monk carrying a basket of fish looked up with little interest.

Another emissary. Another alliance to allow this fair but ferocious republic to carry on its divine right of trade.

‘Ah, your escort,’ remarked di Vetriano. He was pointing towards the docks and wharves of St Mark’s Basin from where two golden barges were rowing in leisurely tempo towards them. ‘Twenty years ago,’ he went on, ‘I was fortunate to witness the King of France sail in on a ship rowed by four hundred slaves. He had an escort of fourteen galleys and there was a raft on which glass blowers made objects from a furnace shaped as a sea monster. Had you heard of this?’

It was clumsy and neither Mamonas did more than smile thinly. The captain spoke again.

‘You will be pleased with the news of alum shipments at last getting through from Trebizond, no doubt?’

‘The alum is but a small part of what we do,’ Pavlos replied easily. ‘Frankly, I’m more amused by the new appetite for our Malvasia wine amongst the English. Their nobility drink it by the gallon. They call it Malmsey.’

Di Vetriano laughed. ‘I drink it too,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot more gratifying than this new mastic drink.’

‘Mastic drink?’ asked Damian, too quickly.

The Venetian arched an eyebrow. ‘Had you not heard? I brought the shipment in from Chios myself last week in one of the Empire’s galleys. The rest brought alum. They broke through the Turks’ blockade of Chios. Since then all the talk has been of mastic. Its applications seem limitless.’ He was watching them carefully. ‘They say it even fixes dyes. Surely not, for then what need would there be for so much alum?’

Pavlos Mamonas gripped his son’s arm before he could answer. He looked hard at the Venetian.

Why has the Doge sent this man?

He turned towards the scene opening up in front of them. They were coming in fast with the race of the tide and the escorting galleys were finding it hard to turn to station on either side.

‘Slow down!’ yelled the captain to his oarsmen. ‘Wait for our escorts to form up, damn you!’

The oars lifted as one and the barge slowed. Mamonas leant forward to gaze along a shoreline he knew better than most in the world. There was something about the melancholy of this marshy home to waterfowl and fishermen that he found reassuring: a refuge in a world that suddenly felt less secure.

Ten minutes later they had passed the bar and were sweeping in past the Piazza San Marco with its twin pillars from which the winged lion of the city’s patron saint and his predecessor, St Theodore, looked down with hauteur. As they drew nearer to the entrance to the Grand Canal, they found themselves amidst a bustle of boats: passenger skiffs, lighters, vessels laden with fish and vegetables — all of them manned by half-naked men yelling greeting or warning to each other. Some of the ships entering were deep-keeled, seagoing vessels, pulled by tugs, which would travel past the opening bridge of the Rialto to reach the small docks fronting the fondachi further down the canal.

The Grand Canal opened up before them and soon they were passing a parade of palaces, shimmering in pink self-satisfaction, with restless coveys of boats nuzzling at their water gates and sunshine blushing their pillared loggias. This was the central artery of the city from which smaller canals branched off; it was an esplanade of wealth and splendour, a dazzling repository for the booty wrenched from Constantinople.

The canal curved its way through the length of the city and, at its second bend, came to the bridge of the Rialto where the bankers had their stalls, the merchants their offices, the slavers their auction yards and the whores their love potions. On the quays were barges from the mainland, moored in their hundreds, waiting to ship cargoes from the ocean-going ships. And it was here that the Mamonas family flag, the black castle, flew high above their splendid fondaco.

As they glided towards its jetty, two trumpeters, winged lions on their tabards, stood at the front of the barge to herald their arrival. A gondola, gilded and tasselled and poled by liveried negroes wearing the Loredani badge, slowed to let them pass.

On the jetty stood the Mamonas factor, a small man of some girth. He was flanked by two fat sons and a fatter wife, all dressed in black and looking nervous and hot beneath the afternoon sun. Pleasantries were exchanged, travel enquiries made, two heads patted and then the party walked up the steps and into the loggia that ran the length of the building.

‘I’m told all the talk is of mastic?’ said Pavlos as they walked.

The factor was rubbing his hands as if the substance was stuck to them. ‘No one knows what it can do, lord,’ he said. ‘Aphrodisiac, wound sealant, drink, tooth filler … every day it seems they have a new use for it. Some even say it will fix dye. The market is excited. It will calm.’

‘I think not,’ said his master. ‘And Chios is the only place that can produce it?’

‘It seems that way, lord,’ said the man uncomfortably. ‘Or at least the sort of mastic with these properties. It would seem that the island has a unique climate.’

Mamonas was silent for a while and the sound of their boots on the stone echoed beneath the arches. The children were hurrying behind, dragged by their ample mother, and one was grumbling too loudly.

‘Have you bought the land there?’

It was the question the factor had been dreading. ‘Lord, there have been difficulties …’

‘Difficulties? It’s a straightforward transaction. I told you to pay what they wanted for it.’

‘The Genoans have control of the island, lord. They will permit no sale of land to anyone outside their campagna. It didn’t matter what sum I offered.’

Mamonas cursed silently. Despite the blockade, any further pirate raids on the south of the island had been expressly forbidden by the Sultan on pain of the bowstring. Meanwhile the Genoese were consolidating their hold. He would need time to think before his meeting with the Doge.

He stopped and turned to the factor. ‘Please go and thank Signor di Vetriano for his courtesy. My son and I will walk to the Arsenale.’

An hour later, the two men were walking across the Piazza San Marco. The square was full to bursting point and they were jostled as they walked. There were the booths of trade guilds collecting their dues, shipmasters recruiting crews and the perennial tourists, money changers, souvenir sellers and those of nobler rank, black-gowned and heavy with brocade. It was alive with dialect and the scents of several continents and it was, for Pavlos, close to paradise.

This was where the Mamonas family belonged. This was where an empire, built from alum and wine but now encompassing much, much more, should have its headquarters.

But what of my heir?

Pavlos glanced across at Damian, struggling to keep up, his head dipping with the drag of a foot.

They say Temur is lame.

The Arsenale of Venice was, undoubtedly, one of the great wonders of the world. Surrounded by two miles of stout walls, it contained the secret of Venetian power and it was a secret jealously guarded. The walls were patrolled by crossbowmen and today their red and white striped jerkins were spotless and their breastplates polished to a blinding sheen.

They, and the other sixteen thousand arsenalotti, were to receive their doge.

In fact he was already there. Standing in front of the ranks of his guard, the excusati, was the sixty-third of that office: Antonio Venier, His Most Serene Prince the Doge, Duke of Dalmatia and Istria and, to the eternal shame of every Byzantine, Lord of a Quarter and a Half-Quarter of the Roman Empire. He was a tall man of erect and patrician bearing who looked born to rule such an empire. A man of seventy-two years, with an enigmatic mouth, prominent nose, sallow skin and contempt in his eye. A man of implicit control whose only unruly feature was a beard of some bushiness.

A man unlikely to mire himself in the sweaty friction of trade.

And yet here he was, in his ermined cloak and long, Byzantine robes, grave and aquiline, the pragmatic master of a pragmatic empire. He bowed very slightly to the Mamonas couple; if he was pleased to have escaped the confines of his palace, they weren’t to know it.

Father and son had seen this man before and they’d been ignored. Now he opened his arms to them.

‘Welcome, Pavlos. And you, Damian. What a pleasure it is to welcome you back to Venice, which I hope, like me, you regard as home.’ He stepped forward and raised the older Mamonas to his feet by the elbow. ‘Come, no kneeling! We are a republic and all men are equal.’

Pavlos Mamonas rose. He remembered a room in the Doge’s palace where maps on the walls told of a trading power greater than any the world had yet seen. He remembered a Carpaccio lion with its feet both on land and water signifying sovereignty over two empires. He remembered kneeling before a man who didn’t know his name.

‘We must talk as friends, Pavlos,’ the Doge continued in his basso voice, turning and leading them up the steps and into the building. ‘And we must talk where we shall not be overheard.’

They walked the length of a chequered hall and came to a vast door guarded by stone men with fish scales for armour and tridents for weapons. Opening it, the Doge brought them into a tall room, panelled with oak and red damask and lined with candle sconces and the portraits of former Doges. There was a row of high windows on one wall, all of which had been shuttered. Models of galleys and barges stood on plinths below the portraits and a scale model of the complex of boatyards, slipways and factories that made up the Arsenale occupied a wide table at one end. At the other end, a colossal fireplace burnt logs the size of trees. They were alone.

The Doge walked over to the model of the Arsenale and pretended to examine it.

‘

One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks

The ribs of that which many a voyage has made;

One hammers at the prow, one at the stern,

This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists,

Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen …

’

His murmured words faded and he looked back at the Mamonases. He removed his cloak and set it down on a map chest. He beckoned to them.

‘Come over, please. Not to hear any more Dante, I promise. No, I want to show you a secret.’

The two men walked the length of the room. The model of the Arsenale was presented at thigh level and was a mass of shadow. The Doge went over to the wall and took a candle from its sconce.

‘This is our secret,’ he said softly, lifting the candle high above the buildings and cradles and canals. The Arsenale was a city within a city. ‘No one, not even the members of the Great Council, is permitted to know how this miracle of human ingenuity is arranged. That is why the windows are shuttered and will remain so.’

The Doge spoke in a whisper. He spread an arm above the scene like a man throwing seed. ‘Look at it. It is a revolution. At any one time there may be fifty galleys within its walls in different stages of production, from great galleys to rembate. We’re even building round ships for the Genoese now. See how we use these canals to bring the boats to the workers rather than the other way round? It’s a form of industry seen nowhere else in the world.’

He paused and looked across at the two Greeks. ‘They tell me that in ten years we will be building a ship a day. Imagine that … a ship built every day of the year!’

Pavlos thought of the antiquated boatyards north of Monemvasia. The fastest they’d ever built a ship in was five months.

‘And, of course,’ the Doge went on, ‘our method of building from the frame first means we use much less wood. That is good for the city’s purse and the poor trees of our Montello hills.’ He pointed at a building. ‘This is the largest rope factory in the world, this a cannello for lifting boats from the water and this’ — he looked up at them — ‘is where we make cannon under the expert eye of gun casters from Budapest and Ragusa.’

They peered down at a part of the model constructed of newer wood. It was a long building and had tall chimneys at one end.

‘Here we are making bombards and culverins and ribaudekins and pots-defer.’ He stroked the roof of the building with his fingers. ‘And of course cannon to go on ships.’ He looked up at the two Greeks. ‘And now, it seems, we are persuaded to make cannon big enough to bring down the walls of Constantinople. There is no one else the Sultan can go to for these cannon. But of course you know this.’

Hat in hand, Pavlos Mamonas suddenly felt at a disadvantage. He left the model and walked over to the largest of the model ships, a gorgeous thing of swirling gold, canopied stern and long banks of oars poised like spiders’ legs. He turned to the Doge, pointing at the model. ‘Every year, Your Serenity throws a ring into the sea from this floating palace. The Romans called the sea Mare Nostrum, and it was truly theirs. But it’s not your sea yet and nor will it be unless the Sultan allows it.’

The Doge smiled. He walked over to the model of his barge, the bucintoro, and stooped to look carefully along the lines of miniature oarsmen. ‘There are no slaves in Venice,’ he said calmly. ‘Every man in the galley is a volunteer. We part the sea because we want to and it is our strength.’

‘And yet the Rialto parades slaves daily. It seems you exercise your tyranny by proxy.’

‘Ah,’ said the Doge looking up. His smile was glacial. ‘Now that’s a good word. Most apt.’ He placed the candle on the plinth beside the barge. ‘Signor Mamonas, we are a merchant nation and cannot afford to take sides. We are unique among nations: half eastern, half western; half land, half sea; poised precariously between Christendom and the lands of the Prophet and trading indiscriminately with both. We are a place of silk and velvet and soft fumigations and we are a place of hard porphyry and marble.’

His look was now sharp, the smile gone. ‘Above all, signore, we are pragmatic. We are like a hunting dog. We point to best advantage. Now, which of these sultans are we to deal with? The one ruling, or his heir?’

Pavlos Mamonas stood very still. The room was not cold but the skin beneath his doublet was pricked as if the lightest current of air had crept through the shutters. It was fear of course. He heard Damian shuffle behind him.

‘My son finds standing difficult,’ he said. ‘Will Your Serenity permit him to find a seat outside?’

‘Father-’

The Doge raised a hand. ‘I would insist,’ he said.

Damian stayed where he was. He looked from one to other of the older men.

‘Leave, Damian,’ said his father quietly.

The note of the heavy door shutting stayed with them for some time and, after it had subsided, there was no sound in the room except the crackle of the fire. Antonio Venier gestured towards it. ‘Shall we warm ourselves?’

Two chairs, not three, had been placed on either side of the fireplace. They were high-backed and padded with embroidered velvet. With a screen, it might have been a confessional.

Both men sat.

‘So which sultan is your master, signore?’ asked the Doge. ‘Is it Bayezid or Suleyman?’

Pavlos Mamonas suddenly wanted wine. His mouth was dry and he needed something to do with his hands. He hoped they weren’t trembling.

He said, ‘The Sultan’s heir, Prince Suleyman, has been tasked by his father with the capture of Constantinople. There is division within the Sultan’s court as to where to go next for conquest. He leads the faction that would go west.’

The Doge nodded slowly, his old eyes alert above steepled fingers. ‘We know this. The philosopher Plethon has been in Venice for some time now. He argues that Venice is committing suicide by building ships and cannon for such a prince.’

Pavlos Mamonas sighed. He’d hoped that Plethon had left the city by now.

The Doge continued: ‘His case is strengthened with the offer of gold.’

‘Gold?’ asked Mamonas. ‘The Empire has no gold.’

‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. A young Greek has sent us a galley filled with mastic. Do you know the price mastic is fetching on the Rialto these days? It’s extraordinary.’

Pavlos shook his head slowly, his mind working.

A young Greek.

‘But what is more extraordinary is that this Greek has instructed that the entire profit from the mastic go to Plethon to use in the service of the Empire. So I now have a counteroffer for my cannon.’ The Doge furrowed his brow. ‘Difficult.’

Pavlos Mamonas asked, ‘Am I permitted to know the name of this generous Greek?’

‘His name is Luke Magoris. He is from your city of Monemvasia. You may know him.’

‘And he is here in Venice?’

‘Alas no. He was captured by pirates and taken to Prince Suleyman’s camp at Constantinople. We don’t know why.’

Where Zoe is.

Pavlos Mamonas took a deep, but silent, breath. The feeling of unease that had entered him since leaving his factory on Murano had suddenly strengthened.

But the Doge hadn’t finished. ‘Then there’s this crusade,’ he said. ‘They say that Burgundy has emptied his considerable coffers to put a vast force into the field. An unbeatable force.’ He paused. ‘Again, difficult.’

Pavlos Mamonas was only half listening now. Part of his mind was considering what he’d just discovered about Luke Magoris and the implications of telling Suleyman that he’d not get his cannon. Of Suleyman telling Bayezid. He felt ill.

But, he thought, I am here. If the Doge’s mind is made up, why is he talking to me?

He decided to be direct. ‘What do you want?’ he asked quietly.

The Doge’s beard looked like spun silver in the glow of the fire. Pavlos Mamonas waited and was suddenly glad he had not been offered any wine. The Venetians were said to strengthen it when it was served at negotiations.

‘We want Chios,’ Venier said at last.

Pavlos said, ‘Your Serenity has already instructed me to include Chios in the negotiations. But there is a complication.’

‘I know it,’ murmured the Doge. ‘The Sultan’s teeth.’ He put a finger into his mouth. ‘I must go there myself one day.’

‘With the alum from Trebizond now coming through, I had assumed the Chios trade less urgent.’

Venier raised his hand. ‘Please, signore. The alum trade is not the issue. We want Chios, not its alum. And we want it quickly if we are to work hard to perfect a cannon big enough to bring down Constantinople’s walls.’

The Doge affixed his eyes to Pavlos above the most sparing of smiles. He was stroking his beard, smoothing its chaos into something more akin to his speech. ‘Do you want to know why we want that little island so badly?’

Pavlos shrugged slightly. ‘Because you want to be able to say Mare Nostrum? Because you own every other island from Corfu to Negroponte to protect your trade routes? Because the Genoese like it so much? There is likely to be more than one answer.’

‘Yes, but there is something else. Come.’ The Doge had risen and was making his way to the other end of the room, where stood the model of the Arsenale. He lifted the candle and pointed to a small collection of buildings that seemed unconnected to the purpose of ship building. ‘Every civilised place of work should have an infirmary, don’t you think? All those accidents that can happen in a shipyard.’

‘Infirmary, Serenity?’

‘Yes, infirmary. I want to take you to see it, Pavlos. Come.’

A short while later they were there, without guards and without Damian, who seemed to have been magically removed. The building was entirely without character or embellishment of any kind. Two soldiers of the arsenalotti stood to attention either side of the door.

Inside was a small anteroom, whitewashed and unwindowed, in the middle of which stood a long table with two sets of strange clothing laid out. There were two overcoats, coated in wax, two pairs of long leather breeches that would stretch up to the groin and two wide-brimmed hats. All of the clothes were black. Beside them were two masks with long beaks, also in black, and two sets of gloves.

Pavlos Mamonas suddenly felt cold. ‘These are the clothes of the plague,’ he said.

‘Indeed, and I will ask you to put them on. As you do so, I will explain why we are here.’

Mamonas hesitated. It was only fifty years since the Great Plague had left half of Europe dead and it had reappeared every five years or so since. It was an invasion far more deadly than even the Mongols could aspire to.

‘Please. You will be quite safe, I promise you.’

The Greek stepped forward slowly and began to dress. His heart was beating fast. Venier joined him.

‘Half a century ago,’ he said, ‘Venice lost two-thirds of her population in less than a year from the plague. Like most things bad, we have the Genoese to thank. A month before, the Mongol Jani Beg had been besieging their colony at Jaffa when he had the inspiration to catapult the bodies of plague victims over the walls. The Genoese fled in their boats and those that didn’t go to Sicily, came to us.’

He paused to fasten the breeches tightly around his waist. ‘We weren’t much worse off than most. Florence’s population halved in less than two months.’ Now he was donning the long coat and small pieces of wax fell away as he pulled the sleeves over his arms. ‘We both know what happened after that. Chaos. Jews and lepers were massacred, there were crop failures and famines because of labour shortages, flagellants were everywhere. And our city, famed for its cats, lost them all in one bloody night when the populace remembered that they were in league with the Devil. Worst of all, trade seized up. The blood in this city’s veins coagulated to a standstill.’

Venier had dressed completely, including the hat, and was studying the beak of his mask with distaste. Two red glass eye-pieces stared back at him malevolently. ‘I’m told they first thought it spread through migrating birds, hence the shape of this thing. At least the herbs inside it will provide some benefit.’

He turned to Mamonas, who was by now dressed. ‘Do you know what’s really interesting?’ he asked suddenly, his voice lower. ‘What’s really interesting is the places the plague didn’t reach. The Pyrenees, Santiago de Compostela to name two.’ He had come over and was helping Mamonas tuck the cowl of his hood behind the mask. ‘And yet it leapt from island to island in our Middle Sea like a grasshopper. Especially those with ports.’ He had tilted the beak of his own mask to peer into it and check that the herbs were in place. ‘Except one. And can you guess which one it was?’

Mamonas, giddy from the fumes in his mask, didn’t answer. He’d guessed which one.

‘Yes, Chios. It never reached Chios. The population of that island was, at the end of the plague, slightly larger than it had been at its start. Shall we go in?’

The Doge opened the door on the other side of the room and led Mamonas into a long corridor along which were a dozen cells. Each had a grille at eye level through which the visitor could see into the room. Penetrating the smell of herbs was the stench of sulphur and something indefinable.

The air was full of low, unhappy monologue.

‘We should not talk,’ whispered the Doge, turning. ‘It distresses them.’

The two men walked the length of the corridor, stopping at every door to look inside. In each cell was a man, half-naked, skeletal and pale, with deep, sunken eyes ringed with shadows. Their bodies were clean and their heads had been shaven. They either sat or lay on straw pallets; they looked vacantly before them or talked to themselves. Their bodies were a mass of coruscating scars, dried abrasions where there had once been pustules and buboes, and they scratched at their necks and armpits where the scars were most closely gathered.

Mamonas reached the end of the corridor without vomiting and, even when they had come into the clean air of the outside, he did no more than remove his mask and retch. When he had collected himself and straightened, he found himself staring into the face of di Vetriano.

‘You have met, I think,’ said the Doge, calmly removing his mask and gloves. He placed them in a tall butt containing a grey powder. ‘Captain di Vetriano will now explain further why we are here.’

The man in front of Mamonas was a more serious creature than he’d been in the barge.

‘Signore,’ he began, ‘I don’t know how much you know about the plague but I will tell you anyway. The first stage begins with buboes in the groin, neck and armpits that ooze pus and bleed when opened. After two or three days, the second stage sets in when black spots, small and large, appear all over the body. The victim then begins to suffer additional fever and vomits blood. His breathing becomes laboured. He develops a raging thirst and will drink anything. In a further two days he is dead. It is always so.’

Mamonas nodded. He’d seen it once.

‘I told you that I brought in the first shipment of mastic from Chios. It was a week ago.’ Di Vetriano was watching him closely. ‘Unfortunately, mastic wasn’t the only cargo I brought into Venice.’ His voice was grave. ‘I also brought the plague. We picked up some crew at Negroponte, men who had been abandoned by a Genoan galley. We needed rowers but I should have checked them more carefully before bringing them aboard. In three days it had spread throughout the crew. We were throwing men in the sea by the dozen. We limped into Venice and the ship was placed under quarantine.’

The Venetian paused and looked at the Doge, who was motionless and staring hard at Mamonas. A seagull called above them and was joined by others.

‘The men died one by one, out there in the lagoon. They went from tumours to black spots and then died in agony. I myself only survived by barricading myself in my cabin. But for twelve men it was different. These were those whose duty it had been to guard the cargo. They’d been close to the mastic throughout. They developed the buboes but never reached the stage of the black spots. They’d also been consumed by the usual thirst and, in their madness, drank a compound of the mastic that had been formulated to fix dye.’

Di Vetriano looked back to the door through which they had just come. ‘Those are the twelve men in there.’

For a long time, none of them spoke. Mamonas felt his heart hammering against his ribcage and his mouth was dry. He looked from captain to doge. ‘A … a cure?’

Venier shrugged. ‘Perhaps. It is too early to tell. It may be coincidence, but I think not.’ He walked over to Mamonas and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘You can see why we want Chios,’ he said gently and smiled. ‘A cure for the plague will pay for a thousand armies. It will make us invincible.’

‘But first, signore, we need Luke Magoris,’ said the Doge. ‘We need him to tell us what was mixed with the mastic to bring about this miracle.’

Mamonas swallowed. Two masters, Ottoman and Venetian, each as dangerous as the other. He needed time to consider this new information. But the Doge went on.

‘Di Vetriano knows this Magoris by sight and is the best captain in my navy.’ He bowed slightly towards his fellow Venetian. ‘We need you to deliver Magoris to him. Can you do this for us?’

Mamonas was thinking hard. ‘And if I do?’

‘Then the alum monopoly from Chios will be yours. We will be happy with the mastic … once, of course, we have the island.’

Suddenly Pavlos felt very tired. He had just heard something that could transform him from a man of great wealth to a man of limitless wealth. But it was dangerous. Venier saw his struggle.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘Nothing need be decided today. Let us return to my palace and drink some of your excellent wine.’

The two men turned towards a guard of excusati that had mysteriously appeared at the end of the street.

As di Vetriano bowed his farewell, he spoke. ‘By the way, you’ll be pleased to hear that it doesn’t fix dye. We brought in the best chemists from Florence. The experiment failed.’

Four days later, Suleyman was standing at the top of the Gelata Tower in Genoese Pera and thinking about Zoe. It was an evening of moon and stars and bats flitting around the tall silhouette of its hat like bloated moths.

He’d been admitted to the tower by a Genoese nobleman who knew perfectly well whom he was admitting and had asked no questions. If the heir to the Ottoman throne and his companion wanted privacy, then they’d find it in this, the most obvious of places.

Suleyman hadn’t joined the army marching north because its departure from Constantinople gave him the perfect opportunity to study the city’s defences incognito. So he’d moved his tents further north of Pera, to a place where they couldn’t be seen from the walls, donned the disguise of an Arab merchant and ridden forth with a small bodyguard.

And Anna.

And it was as he was riding back from the Theodosian walls, his map-maker by his side with a tunic stuffed with drawings, that the message had reached him that Pavlos Mamonas needed to meet with him. Urgently.

He’d been delighted by the choice of meeting place. The Gelata Tower offered unrivalled views of Constantinople’s sea walls as well as the full length of the Golden Horn where the Empire’s shipping had remained secure behind its chain throughout the siege.

The chain.

Something would have to be done about that chain. It was infuriating that something so simple could prove so effective. If he could somehow break or remove it then the sea walls beyond were the weakest part of the city’s twenty miles of defences. But that meant taking Pera and, apart from the nobleman standing guard below, every Genoan seemed staunch in their allegiance to the Empire.

Now he turned to the man next to him, his two eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘Pavlos, am I to understand that the Serenissima is attempting to change the terms of our agreement?’

Pavlos Mamonas had ridden without stopping from Venice. He’d not slept for forty hours and was more exhausted than he’d ever been but he needed to choose his words with care. He took a deep breath.

‘They have been offered a better price for the cannon they’re building,’ he said. ‘By the Empire.’

‘The Empire? But it’s penniless.’

‘They have found money.’

‘So give them more money.’

Mamonas scratched his chin. There was three days of stubble on it. ‘It’s not so simple. The Venetians have persuaded themselves that this crusade will succeed. They are nervous.’

‘They are fools,’ Suleyman snorted. ‘We will beat this crusade and punish them for their cowardice.’ He paused. ‘So what do we do? I want Constantinople. How do I get my cannon?’

‘You wait, lord. Crush the crusade and then talk again. Meanwhile …’ Mamonas was looking beyond Suleyman to the door to the staircase, checking they were alone. He’d heard that Anna might be with him.

‘Meanwhile?’

He turned to look Suleyman in the eye. ‘Meanwhile, you give them the Magoris boy. They want him.’

‘Why would they want him?’

‘They wouldn’t tell me.’

Suleyman frowned.

Why does everyone want Luke Magoris?

But then why did it matter? The more he considered the idea of handing Luke over to the Venetians, the more he liked it. It would remove him from Anna.

But what about Zoe? What about their agreement?

Suleyman’s mind wandered to his usual picture of Zoe: naked on the bed beside him. No other woman had engendered such hunger in him. He wanted to keep Zoe.

But hadn’t he fulfilled his side of the bargain? She had given him Anna and he had delivered her Luke Magoris. He’d never promised that she could have him indefinitely. And this was an affair of state. He wondered, briefly, how much of his daughter’s activities the man standing beside him knew.

‘When do they want him?’

‘As soon as possible, lord. It could happen tomorrow or when you go north. There will be Venetians with the Christian army.’

Suleyman considered this. If he handed Luke over tomorrow, there would be difficult questions to answer from Zoe. Better to do it later.

Then Suleyman’s mind moved on to a new idea. Having Luke escape and be taken by the Venetians might prove very useful. Especially if he then took certain information to the enemy.

‘All right.’ He turned towards the door. ‘I will take him north and arrange for him to escape. I will tell you where your Venetians can pick him up.’