The Walls of Byzantium

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EDIRNE, OCTOBER 1396

The party that left Edirne with the Sultan Bayezid a month after the Battle of Nicopolis was a varied one. This was especially true in the matter of age: Luke found himself the youngest by some years, the pretty page having been made to stay sulking in the capital.

The oldest person present was a man he’d never seen before but who’d joined them at the city gate, slipping quietly into the column behind the ranks of the imams. He was tall and gaunt and rode badly, his simple white robe rucked up to reveal legs spotted with age. His beard was as white as his caftan and was shaded by a beak that an eagle would have raised with pride. He wore a turban of green cotton from which grey hair hung like netting. He seemed to be known to Yakub, who rode next to Luke, and brought his horse up to the gazi’s other side. He glanced at Luke, nodded and said to Yakub, ‘we should talk, old friend. Shall we fall back a little?’

Anna had remained in Edirne, imprisoned in the harem, and Luke had not set eyes on her since she’d put a sword to her wrists. Matthew, Nikolas and Arcadius had stayed with her and become part of the Court Guard. If he couldn’t keep Luke, Suleyman would at least have the Varangians who, with some polishing, might make a fine embellishment to his retinue one day. Luke was relieved.

They’ll be close to Anna.

Suleyman himself had gone to straight to Constantinople, partly to resume the siege and partly to escape the necessity of explaining to Zoe why he’d not returned from Nicopolis with Luke. Suleyman had missed Zoe. He’d not taken her on the campaign because he believed carnal diversion before battle to weaken the sword arm. After it, he’d wanted nothing more than to lie with her.

Bayezid’s party came back through Thrace and the birds had seemed to travel with them, or at least those that had not already gone south for the winter, and they were fat, black creatures that had perhaps gorged themselves on the flesh of two thousand Christian martyrs.

Luke knew that the memory of that slaughter would stay with him forever, that his worst nightmares would be of men kneeling silently on blood-soaked ground, of exhausted executioners turning their old eyes to their sultan for some small measure of mercy and finding none within those cold, bloodshot eyes.

Approaching the town of Stenia, they’d seen the walls of Constantinople in the distance, defiant above the mist of an autumn morn. Here they’d crossed the Bosporus and ridden down its banks to the new castle of Anadolu Hisar, built four years past to stop help coming from the Black Sea.

Now it was a prison.

As they rode up to its gates, men were being paraded along the cliffs overlooking the channel and many were familiar to Luke. De Nevers, Boucicaut and d’Eu were standing in chains and all had days of dirty beard on their faces. Their once-splendid hauberks hung from gaunt bodies stripped of armour and they were wrapped in filthy bandages still black with their blood.

Their guards pushed them into line and the Sultan drew aside his curtains and laughed at their misery and drank toasts to the ransoms they’d fetch. And these men who’d once commanded armies turned their heads to look at the tall Greek who rode with Bayezid in clean clothes and no chains and their hearts were filled with hate.

The Sultan had come here for a purpose. Helped from his litter, he walked over to where he could see the waters below. Then he clapped his hands, toothache forgotten. ‘Is that him?’

A long line of ships was making its slow way down the channel.

‘Yes, lord. In the front boat.’

Bayezid clapped his hands again and turned to the line of chained men. ‘De Nevers!’ he shouted in French. ‘See! Hungary still comes to your rescue!’

The Turks roared at that; even the grave imams raised a smile. The guards slapped each other on the back and yelled insults and challenges to the boats below, and in the first of the galleys, the King of Hungary clutched the foredeck rail and looked up at his former allies through a film of tears.

Luke could do nothing except look as well but he’d have given his fortune to be somewhere else. He saw Sigismund below, his long cloak wrapped around his hunched frame, and he saw de Naillac by his side: two men sailing home to tell of the catastrophe that was Nicopolis.

A voice came from the line of prisoners behind him. ‘Traitor! May you rot in hell!’

Luke turned and saw Boucicaut staring at him.

Then de Nevers spoke. ‘We will get home one day, Greek. And when we do, you will pay for what you have done. This I swear.’

In Edirne, Anna was sitting in misery with Suleyman’s grandmother.

The Valide Sultan Gülçiçek, now seventy, was a woman smelt but seldom seen. Among the many scents of the harem, among its shifting essences of food and flowers and mastic, hers was a very specific smell of decay.

It was autumn when the Valide Sultan became most tetchy, being prone, at this time of year, to confront the issue of her age and, in confronting it, to banish the younger women from her presence.

It was also the time of year that the Chief Black Eunuch, the Kislar Agasi, spent most time planning how best to distract his mistress by way of entertainment. In a month’s time, winter furnishings would be introduced to the harem, soft velvets hung in place of sullen linens and the calm of milder weather would descend like manna upon the rooms, pools, courtyards and lawns of his little kingdom.

Until then, he needed to extemporise.

On this particular evening, he’d invited a travelling bard-poet and his apprentice to give of their best. First, the ozan had told amusing stories to the strum of his disciple’s baglama. Then he’d dared suggest a musical rhyming contest between the quartet of wives allotted to Bayezid by the Koran. Each kadin had embellished the game further by suggesting forfeits for those unable to find a suitable quatrain for the rhyme. There was little love between them.

The mother of Bayezid, unquestioned ruler of the harem and much beyond, was sitting on a low couch in the shadows of a little alcove before a tall window covered by an intricate wooden grille. Behind her, the evening light was caught in coloured glass and horn so that it arrived around her as tiny shards that exploded among the beads and sequins of the cushions.

She was, as she liked to be, almost invisible.

The room outside the alcove was blue and gold. Tiles from Iznik rose in patterns on all four sides to a height where gold mosaic took over. Above the mosaic, on a frieze beneath the dome, the calligraphy of earnest Koranic injunction swirled. In the centre was a small pool, strewn with the flowering of late roses and, drinking from it, a child sambar, its spindly legs mirrored in the water. Around the marble floor were bowls of apples and almonds and clear mastic sweets. A single cushion was propped against the pool’s wall and on it rested a zither, a tambourine and a little drum. Carpets were hung on the walls and before them knelt bare-breasted servant girls who stared at the ground. They were young and had gold bands on their upper arms and had, it seemed, escaped the Valide Sultana’s injunction on youth.

Anna had no idea why she’d been summoned to this room. She sat in uncomfortable silence next to the alcove listening to the ozan’s game and smelling the smell of Bayezid’s dying mother.

Then there was a cough and quiet fell upon the women.

Gülçiçek spoke. ‘You do not like this game, Anna Mamonas?’ The voice was muffled by its journey through the veil but no softness had attached to it. It was low and there was malice in every word.

‘I am sorry, highness, my mind was elsewhere,’ she said into the stillness.

A pause. Only the sambar dared lift its head, its tiny horns hooped in question.

‘I think you were thinking of a Greek. Am I right? One who betrayed his kind at the field of Nicopolis?’

There was stifled laughter from within the alcove. It belonged to Nefise, the Sultan’s aunt and Gülçiçek’s constant companion.

Anna didn’t reply. She had heard Suleyman for herself. She didn’t believe it.

The ozan and his apprentice were quietly gathering up their instruments and preparing to depart. Gülçiçek addressed them.

‘You haven’t finished,’ she said sharply. ‘The lady wishes to play our game. Give her a rhyme.’

The older of the men looked at Anna and then round at the kadins. No one spoke or moved. The apprentice carefully lifted his instrument.

‘Give her a rhyme about the Prince Suleyman since he is to be her husband. What could be more fitting?’

The ozan sat and gazed at the floor. Then he lifted his head and cleared his throat as his apprentice began to strum the strings of the bağlama.

He sang:

‘

The prince before the city walls

Calls out to those that guard

This gilded shadow of ancient Rome

…’

There was silence. The rhyme was deliberately easy. Three lines were all that Anna had to give, three lines of poetry that would deny what was left of her empire.

Three lines she could not say.

The silence rose into the dome and stayed, pregnant, above them. Anna felt her anger rising.

‘A forfeit, I think,’ came the voice from within, soft with satisfaction. ‘Now, what would be appropriate?’

There was a rustle in the dark and a whisper met by a wheezing laugh.

‘Yes!’ came the voice. ‘That’s it! A question that demands the truth.’ She paused. ‘Are you a virgin, Anna Mamonas?’

Anna recoiled.

‘The marriage to the Mamonas boy,’ continued the Sultana. ‘An unconsummated pleasure, he tells us. So the answer must be yes, surely?’

Anna still could not speak.

‘It seems simple enough,’ came the voice from the darkness, soft and full of hatred. ‘Will my grandson have a virgin for his queen, as he believes he will? Or will he have a whore?’

‘Highness,’ Anna whispered, looking into the darkness, ‘what do you want of me?’

But the answer came from someone else.

‘Enough!’

It was Suleyman and he was striding into the room. He wore a riding coat that billowed behind him and high boots mottled with dust.

‘Enough, Grandmother,’ he said more softly, turning to kneel before her.

‘Enough?’ asked the woman from the shades. ‘Would you not like to hear the answer to that question?’

The heir to the Ottoman Empire bowed low. He was breathing deeply. ‘It is, I think, a question better put to her by the man she will marry,’ he said calmly. ‘I will take her to a place where we may speak with greater ease.’

There was a snort of displeasure from the darkness and Suleyman rose. He bowed again, then turned to Anna and stretched out his hand. ‘Will you come with me into the garden?’

She rose and went before him from the room, not bowing as she left.

They stepped into a scene of moonlit geometry. Low hedges of yew enclosed beds of flowers that had been coaxed to the challenge of providing autumnal scent by expert gardeners. Around them were lawns and a perimeter of fruit trees that almost succeeded in masking the high wall that was the limit of the harem’s world.

The lawn was scattered with the shadows of sleeping animals and, between the trees, the domes of smoking leaves. A sudden breeze carried their rich smell to Anna and she shivered.

In between the hedged borders were four terraced walks that converged at a tiny lake where stood an island with a chiosk enclosed by a lattice interwoven with jasmine and honeysuckle. Around it, the waters were strewn with lily pads and leaves and an arched bridge connected the island to the garden.

Suleyman was leading her towards it and soon they had crossed the bridge and were sitting on a stone bench within. The smell of burning leaves was fainter but still with them and Anna closed her eyes and filled her lungs with its unpainted goodness.

Suleyman said, ‘An oasis, I should imagine.’

Anna opened her eyes. ‘This island? Yes, lord.’ She was trying to keep her voice steady. ‘An oasis within the desert that is your father’s harem.’

‘A desert?’ he asked. ‘Is it not a place of beauty?’

‘No,’ replied Anna. ‘It is a dry place of scheming old women and it is strewn with the carcasses of those they do not like.’

‘I suspect she just was trying to frighten you.’

Anna looked out through a gap in the vines to the lawns. She saw the trees beyond and she heard something faint within them. ‘Did you know that there are caged birds in those trees?’ She laughed softly. ‘You have your walls and you almost manage to disguise them with trees. But then what do you do? You put caged birds in their branches!’

Anna looked over at Suleyman and saw his profile against the fading sky. She saw that he was without fight that night.

They were both quiet for a long while, thinking of what had nearly happened on a bloody piece of ground.

‘Would you have done it?’ Suleyman asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You love him that much?’

‘Yes.’

‘And yet he betrayed an army.’

‘Did he? You let him escape. It seems careless.’

Suleyman didn’t answer. Luke Magoris was removed, Anna had submitted to him and Constantinople would fall. Nothing else mattered. It was victory, so why did it not feel like victory?

‘You can do a lot of good as the wife of the Sultan … Save whole populations from the sword. Constantinople’s, for instance.’

Anna flinched.

Damn you, Suleyman.

The Prince sighed. ‘I merely tell you what is true.’

‘So tell me something more. Did he betray the army?’

Suleyman rose. ‘I said what I said to keep him here. Surely that should please you?’

‘You said what you said because Zoe wants him here. It is your agreement.’

The harem had given her much time to think. He shrugged.

‘Well, whatever the past, you submitted to me and I lowered the sword.’ He looked out again over the garden. A sambar stirred and called out in its sleep. ‘How long will it take for you to come willingly?’

Anna breathed deeply. The smell of the leaves was fainter.

You can do a lot of good as wife of the Sultan.

She looked back at him. ‘Willingly?’

‘Willingly.’

‘Six months,’ she said. ‘It will take me six months. Then I will come willingly. But tomorrow I want to ride as far from this place as I can. And I don’t want to come back inside these walls. Ever.’

Suleyman waited.

‘There’s more. I will not marry you until my marriage to Damian is annulled. It must be set aside in the eyes of the Church. My church.’

Suleyman seemed to be lost in thought, but then he laughed. ‘Well, it’s not the language of poets,’ he said, ‘but I dare say I can agree to these things. Where would you like to ride to?’

‘I don’t care. Tomorrow?’

‘Of course. You have demanded it.’

‘Can I go alone?’

‘Ah, no,’ said Suleyman. ‘You will be escorted.’

‘By your Varangians?’

Suleyman laughed again.

‘I think not. By my sipahis.’

Suleyman was as good as his word.

Anna was woken at dawn the next morning and escorted to the Gate of Felicity. Two black eunuchs threw back the bolts of the giant doors and pushed them open. Outside was a saddled horse and a troop of sipahis wearing silver mail and turbaned helmets.

Anna had chosen to dress as her new freedom permitted. She wore clothes she had not worn since leaving Monemvasia. Gone were the diaphanous veils and silken pantaloons of the harem and in their place was a buff leather jerkin covered by a woollen surcoat. On her head was a velvet cap with a jaunty feather piercing its brim.

‘Where do we ride to?’ she asked the nearest of the men.

‘We go north into the hills, lady,’ said the knight from behind his nose-guard. ‘The lord Suleyman is to meet us there later.’

Anna leant forward to pat the neck of her horse. The horse was young and strong and still smelt of its stable, and Anna felt the curve of its belly against her legs and breathed in its scent with pleasure.

Then they were in motion and the five sipahis closed ranks around her as they trotted across the square.

Anna reined in. ‘No.’

They stopped.

‘Know this,’ she said. ‘You will tell me where to ride and I will ride there, fast. If you can, you may follow me.’

At exactly that moment, Suleyman was woken by a servant to bad news. The woman lying by his side heard it too.

Bad news from Chios.

‘Sunk?’ said Zoe, raising herself on to her elbow and pushing the hair from her forehead. She rubbed her eyes. ‘How?’

‘A sudden storm,’ replied Suleyman, putting on his slippers. ‘It comes off the land at this time of year.’

‘How many?’

‘Half the fleet. We won’t have enough ships now to enforce the blockade. Their alum and mastic will get through.’

‘Have you told my father?’

‘It’s he who is telling me. He’s waiting outside.’

As soon as Suleyman had left the room, Zoe rose and went over to the place where she knew there to be a spy hole from which he could see those who awaited audience. She rose on tiptoes to look through it. In the room were her father and a man she didn’t know. He was handsome.

Suleyman was pouring wine and talking. ‘You are hardly in a position to complain, di Vetriano. Your city played quartermaster to the Christian army.’ He turned to her father. ‘Pavlos, do you speak for them still?’

Pavlos Mamonas bowed. ‘The Serenissima wishes to convey its regret over its part in the crusade.’

Silk on silk.

Suleyman frowned. The full enormity of the disaster at Chios was coming home to him and he would have to explain to Bayezid why the ships were there at all. He needed Venice more than ever now.

Mamonas continued. ‘The Doge has instructed me to enquire whether you wish them to resume the arrangement.’

Suleyman looked up sharply. ‘You know damn well I do,’ he said crossly. ‘Is it as before?’

The man di Vetriano spoke, joining the tips of his fingers as if in petition. ‘It is as before, lord. Venice wants Chios, as soon as the fleet is re-equipped.’ He paused. ‘And a person.’

Suleyman raised his finger to his lips. He glanced behind him and then ushered the two men through the door they had entered by.

When the door was closed, Suleyman said, ‘I gave Magoris to you before Nicopolis, and you managed to lose him. Anyway, I don’t know where he’s going. Only Yakub knows that.’

‘But, lord, you will know the route he’s to take,’ said the Venetian, ‘should we want to … intercept him.’

Suleyman was silent, thinking. He’d already decided on something else, something that he’d thought of every moment since Anna had done what she’d done at Nicopolis. This might be the time. He glanced at the door, then turned back to the two men.

‘We will talk of this interception.’

From Anadolu Hisar, Bayezid’s party had ridden south and east along the shores of the Sea of Marmara and then on to Bursa, once capital to the Ottomans until Edirne had supplanted it and shown the direction of their territorial ambition.

Bursa was the end of the Sultan’s journey and the place where Yakub would leave his retinue to travel on to his capital at Kutahya. Bayezid had come to Bursa to commission a new mosque to thank Allah for the great victory at Nicopolis. On the eve of the battle he’d promised to build twenty new mosques if victorious but the Vizier had whispered in his ear of campaign and sundry other costs and now there would be twenty domes on this single mosque instead.

Much of the last part of the ride the Sultan had spent in conversation with the old man who’d joined the party late and, like everyone else, Bayezid seemed to hold him in the greatest respect.

So it was with some surprise that Luke saw the man leaning over his bed the next morning.

‘Luke Magoris,’ he said, ‘it’s time to rise. Your first lesson begins today.’

Luke swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes. ‘Lesson? Lesson in what, sir?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘firstly in who I am, I suppose. Do you know who I am, Luke?’

Luke shook his head.

‘My name is very long and I won’t try to teach it to you. I am a sufi, a mystic, and I come from the holy city of Konya. My friends, who include Plethon, call me Omar. You may call me Omar since we will be friends.’ He paused. ‘You’ve heard Rumi?

Luke shook his head.

‘Well, he was a great thinker and poet, a man of great wisdom. All Muslims revere him, even Bayezid. He was buried in Konya and I watch over his tomb. Before that I was in Kutahya.’

‘So that is why you know Yakub?’

Omar smiled. ‘I have known Yakub for many, many years. You might say we think alike about things. We want you to help us.’

‘Help you? By becoming a janissary?’

Omar laughed. It was a deep laugh, full of warmth. He tapped his long nose. ‘That’s what Bayezid believes, certainly. But I think Prince Yakub may have different plans for you.’ He paused and looked hard at Luke, suddenly serious. ‘A great many people are depending on you, Luke.’

An hour later, Omar led Luke down into the city streets, which were already busy. As they walked, he talked of Islam.

‘If you were to be trained as a janissary, as Bayezid wishes, then you would be indoctrinated in our faith. Whatever you now think, believe me when I tell you it would happen. It always does. But instead I shall explain the Faith to you and why I choose to follow it.’

Around them thronged men and women of every colour and dress. There were Arabs, Turks, Georgians and Jews, and no one bowed and no one gave precedence to anyone else. All seemed equal in the city of Bursa.

‘I choose to follow Islam because its rules are reasonable and uncomplicated and much to do with allowing courtesy to our fellow humans. There are five pillars to our faith: belief in Allah, prayers five times a day, giving money to the poor, making a pilgrimage to Mecca and observing Ramadan. Within everyone’s grasp, you would think.’

Luke thought of Christian Europe where the Latin word of God was denied the ordinary man and the Church grew rich by selling the way to Him.

The day was cold and without sun and they stopped at a stall where a man sold chestnuts roasted on a grill. Soon they came to a large mosque in a courtyard with buildings surrounding it. A fountain played at its centre and around it sat men and women washing their feet.

‘This mosque was built by Bayezid’s grandfather Orhan, founder of the Ottoman Empire. It is not just a place of worship, but also a place of rest, of learning, even of commerce. Here there is a hospital, a dormitory for travellers, a school, a soup kitchen. And over there is a market. Look, you can see that a caravan’s just come in. It is late in the season.’

Omar pointed towards the arched entrance to what looked like another courtyard. There were people crowding through it, eager to see what had arrived on the camels. He turned to Luke and winked. ‘I love markets. This is Han Bey, the best of them. Shall we go and see?’

Inside was chaos but, through the bustle, Luke could see that the courtyard was surrounded by an arched colonnade under which the merchants were selling their wares. The press of people was a river of colour and, miraculously, the river seemed to be flowing in a single direction.

With vigorous use of his elbows, Omar worked a passage to the front, Luke hard behind him. Soon they were able to see the merchandise on offer under every arch they passed.

One man sold caged birds of exotic hues that spoke in different languages. Another had gracefully carved lyres, tambours and a kudüm inlaid with mother of pearl; he played neys of a different sizes to the delight of watching children. They saw trays of spices and bales of exquisite silks and tables on which leather-bound Korans were opened by men with gloves. There were weapons from Persia and fireworks from China. There was silver from Bohemia and gold bands from India which women held out on their wrists to admire.

The merchants were resplendent in silks of every colour, paragons of fat prosperity with their beards combed and their turbans flashing with jewels. Coins were piled high on tables covered with rich kelims and behind them stood big men with arms folded above belted daggers.

It was overwhelming and exhausting and after an hour Omar pushed their way back to where a walled fountain played beneath a tiny mosque raised on stone pillars. They sat on the wall next to a family eating something wrapped in vine leaves.

‘You’ve heard of the Mongols? Of Genghis Khan?’ Omar asked.

Luke nodded. All the world knew of Genghis Khan.

‘Well, the only good thing that he did,’ continued Omar, declining a vine leaf offered by his neighbour, ‘was to bring the East under one rule. Trade has flowed freely ever since. Look at it!’ He waved his arm over the scene before them. Then he leant back and trailed a finger in the water, lifting out a leaf that dripped into his lap. ‘There’s a new Mongol leader now who is just as terrible,’ he said quietly. ‘Temur the Lame. Have you heard of him?’

Temur the Lame. Tamerlane. He had heard of Tamerlane.

‘What Temur decides to do next will decide the fate of empires. Yours included.’

Luke was about to ask more when he saw a commotion in a part of the market they’d yet to visit. There were shouts of anger and a stick was waving in the air.

Omar rose. ‘So much for the peace of Islam,’ he said and began to make his way towards the disturbance. This time the crowd parted before him like a sea.

At the far end of the square, a little semicircle had formed in front of an arch under which were tables arrayed with trays and jars and scales next to piles of lead weights. There were lumps of something white and grey and sometimes translucent lying on the tables and to Luke they were familiar. The merchant had his back to him and was remonstrating with a stout woman, who was livid with rage and shouting without pause.

For the crowd, this was entertainment at its best. The more that the woman shrieked, the more they laughed, some so helpless that they were hanging on to their neighbours for support.

Then Luke recognised the back.

‘Dimitri!’ he shouted and stepped out into the open space, clapping a hand on to his friend’s shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’

Dimitri swung round. ‘Luke! What are you doing here?’

The two embraced.

‘Thank God you’re safe.’ said Dimitri, stepping back.

The woman had stopped yelling, momentarily diverted by this new arrival. Then she started again.

‘Oh, shut up!’ shouted Dimitri. ‘Go and look in the brothels!’

The crowd roared at this.

‘I don’t really understand what she’s saying,’ said Dimitri with a shrug. ‘It seems I sold her some aphrodisiac yesterday which she gave to her husband last night. She hasn’t seen him since.’

Another man emerged from the shadow of the arch behind. He was bald and smiling and holding a set of bronze scales. He held out his hand. ‘Luke, I heard your voice. What happy chance!’

‘Benedo Barbi!’ cried Luke, taking his hand. ‘What brings you to this chaos?’

Barbi laughed. ‘I am to visit the Hospitallers at Smyrna and teach them about Greek fire. We go there next.’

‘You’ve perfected it?’

Barbi nodded. ‘Better than that. I’ve developed a hand-held siphon.’

The Hospitallers at the fortress of Smyrna were the last Christian stronghold in Anatolia. Bayezid had tried twice to take it and would try again now. Greek fire would be useful there.

Then Luke remembered that he was not alone. ‘Omar, these are my friends Dimitri and Benedo Barbi from Chios. Dimitri sells mastic.’

‘So I see,’ said the old man happily. ‘It seems to work.’

Dimitri grinned and shook his hand, ignoring the woman who was now being led away by the crowd. He turned to Luke. ‘Can you talk? We have things to tell you.’ He glanced at Omar. ‘Forgive me, sir, but this is unexpected.’

Omar nodded and walked over to the stall. He picked up a lump and examined it carefully. ‘So this is the cure for the Sultan’s toothache. We have much to thank you for, Dimitri. You go and talk and I will keep your stall. But don’t be long, I’m a poor haggler.’

Dimitri and Barbi led Luke back through the arch and into a cavernous warehouse full of kneeling camels being unloaded. The air was thick with the smell of dung and spices and dust rose from the straw on which the animals lay. The November grey entered through windows high in the wall and struggled to make headway through the gloom. It was a place to talk and not be heard.

Dimitri sat down on a bale of cotton. He unbuckled a flask from his belt and offered it to his friend. ‘So what happened?’ he asked. ‘The last I heard you were on a ship bound for Venice.’

Luke drank the water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘The captain of the ship was Venetian.’

‘So you were given to the Turks?’ asked Barbi, who’d sat down as well.

Luke nodded. ‘Then taken to Nicopolis as their captive. To watch.’

Dimitri took the flask and seemed engrossed in it. When he spoke again, his voice was low. ‘I hear it was a massacre. And worse. I heard that Bayezid murdered thousands of knights who might have been ransomed, that he got old men to do it.’ He looked up at Luke. ‘Is it true?’

Luke nodded again. ‘What else did you hear?’ he asked softly.

Dimitri and Barbi exchanged glances. News of Luke’s treachery had reached Chios already.

Luke leant forward and took Dimitri’s arm. ‘Dimitri, what you’ve heard about me isn’t true. You know me. I’m no traitor.’

The two men looked at each other for some time and then Dimitri smiled. ‘Marchese will be relieved. It was the only thing clouding his happiness.’

‘His happiness?’

‘Of course, you don’t know. Why should you? Fiorenza is with child.’

Luke stared at him. ‘With child?’

‘Yes. After all these years, their prayers have been answered. The whole island rejoices.’

Luke felt weak. Fiorenza with child? With his child? Of course it was his child. Marchese was incapable.

Dimitri frowned. ‘You’ve gone white, Luke. Is the news so bad?’

Luke forced himself to smile. ‘No, of course not. It was a surprise, that’s all. I thought …’

‘You thought Marchese too old? We all did.’ He was looking at Luke quizzically. ‘It would seem a miracle, no?’

‘A miracle, yes. Please tell them how happy I am.’ He changed the subject. ‘How did the alum and mastic fare in Venice?’ he asked. ‘Did we get a good price?’

‘The very best.’ Dimitri said. ‘With no alum yet through from Trebizond, we got what we asked for. And the Venetian fleet took pounds of mastic to dress the crusaders’ wounds.’

‘And does it fix dye?’

Dimitri shook his head. ‘Alas no. The Florentine chemists saw to that. But it didn’t matter. We sold it before the markets heard the news. The price was astronomical. Do you know how rich you are, Luke?’

Luke didn’t answer. Dimitri didn’t know that every penny of that profit had gone to Plethon, to the Empire.

But Luke wasn’t really considering that. He was thinking of the vines of Sklavia and the orchards of the Kambos and of a child that would grow up there thinking another man his father.

Then he remembered something and turned to the engineer. ‘Benedo. How is the building? How are the villages?’

‘The villages are good. They’re coming up fast and the mastic is reaching its markets. The blockade is no more.’

‘No more?’

‘There was a storm. The Turkish ships were scattered, many sunk. And then the Empire’s fleet appeared and sank what was left.’

Chios delivered.

In a world that had deprived him of Anna, of his freedom, of his good name, of his child, this was a rare bit of good news. Perhaps one day, when he had done whatever he had to do, he could bring Anna there.

One day.

‘I should go back to Omar.’

Dimitri asked, ‘Why not come with us?’

‘Escape? No, they have Anna and my friends. Anyway, where would I go? Christendom thinks me a traitor.’

Back in the courtyard, Omar was haggling for his life. It wasn’t so much the price as the sheer number of people desperate to buy the aphrodisiac now that word had got round of its effects. Luke wondered if the brothels of Bursa would be able to cope.

Beneath an arch on the other side of the square, a dark man in darker clothes was watching the scene, his hand on a short sword at his side.

Luke didn’t see him; nor did Omar or Dimitri.

But Benedo Barbi saw him and he frowned. He’d seen him somewhere before.

It took no time at all for Anna and her escort to reach the walls of the city.

The only creatures abroad at that early hour were dogs and cats and bakers stoking the ovens that would make the city’s bread. Their hooves echoed against the walls of sleeping houses and through the narrow streets that led out of the city. They met a line of donkeys plodding moodily along, their heads sunk low and their backs piled high with the stuff for building. A turbaned man walked in front and stopped to bow deeply as their little calvacade passed.

Then they were out on the plain and around them was all the melancholy of a spent summer. The fields were bare, scraped clean of their harvest and black with the stumps of blasted crops. They passed vineyards shorn of their bounty, with row upon row of stiff yellow leaves that only waited for a passing wind to lay them to rest.

Anna rode with all the energy of uncloistered joy. She swept off her cap and allowed her hair to cascade behind her. She felt the sun on her cheeks and lifted her palms to wipe the tears from her eyes. She felt the thrill of horse between her thighs and the smell of leather filling her nostrils. With every perfect stride stretched out beneath her, the memory of the harem grew fainter.

Whatever the future, for today I am free.

By mid-morning they had reached a small town where a market was in progress. Soon they were passing between stalls of hung game and trussed fowl, between copper utensils and carpets of herbs. There were baskets of over-ripe fruit and vegetables bursting from their skins. They passed forges and entered streets thick with the sawdust of wood carvers and lined with the kiln-fires of potters. The air was heavy with yeast and cow dung and carob and blood.

At midday, they were riding through a landscape of lakes and marshes. There were flamingos and black storks and pelicans strung out along the shores and a blizzard of cormorants taking wing. Anna stopped her horse and watched the sunlight dance across the water and listened to the talk of a million birds.

An hour later they had reached the valley of the Mariza River and its sides were thick with forest. The road they travelled was lined with trees aflame and the floor beneath them was hoof-deep in leaves crisp as parchment. She slowed her horse to a walk and the leader of the sipahis caught up with her.

‘Lady,’ he said as he came to her side, ‘from here we turn south.’

A track ahead branched off to the left and they took it, rising with the hill towards a forest of oak. Soon they were among gnarled, arthritic branches twisted with age and a silence broken only by the soft fall of hoof. As they crested the hill, Anna drew her horse to a standstill and stared at the beauty before her. The path ahead broadened into an avenue carpeted in gold. The trees on either side were beech and their tall trunks rose to form a vaulted roof above. She was in a cathedral through which heaven shone its individual eye.

The sipahi knight rode up to her and coughed politely; she nodded and gently kicked her horse. It was late in the day and the shafts of sunlight shone low through the branches, turning the carpet to a weave of richer reds. Then they were entering the hills where the air was milder and the sound of water could be heard all around. Through the trees they could see the glint of waterfall and the velvet of washed, mossy rocks. They saw deer between tree trunks and once they saw a single boar that stared at them, legs astride, on the path ahead. Anna raised her hand to stop a sipahi arrow and it cocked its heavy head, turned and trotted away.

Then, quite suddenly, they were there.

At the top of the slope, the wood ended and below lay a meadow halved by a tumbling brook. Stretching into the distance were fold upon fold of wooded hills with all their reds and yellows glowing like a pathway of embers towards the setting sun.

And there, pitched next to a little waterfall, was the tent that Suleyman had given her at her wedding. It was open on three sides.

She dismounted and walked slowly towards it and a delicate music came over the meadow to meet her. With it came servants who carried jugs of sweet wine and sherbet.

Anna entered the tent, sat on the cushions and watched the sun complete its progress to the west and she listened to the zither and thought of Mistra.

She thought of the Evrotas River twisting its way through the valley beneath the city walls. She thought of Mount Taygetos behind, always topped with snow. She thought of autumn in Mistra, of the St Adrian’s Day market where roasted chestnuts would be tossed from hand to hand as they cooled. She thought of grumpy praetors lighting the evening lamps along the narrow streets. She thought of her mother hanging tapestries on the walls of the triclinium against the winter cold. She thought of a little city on a hill that would, quite soon, fall to the Turks.

You can do a lot of good as wife of the Sultan.

The sun was almost set now behind the hills. It was a dazzling display of beauty put on by whoever’s God was up there, and its finale was an explosion of oranges and reds and yellows witnessed by an audience of tiny clouds basking in its brilliance.

Then all was violet and people with lamps appeared from nowhere to unroll the sides of her tent and to cast rose petals over her bed. A servant appeared at her side and refilled her glass with wine and another offered a plate of quail’s eggs and the roe of sturgeon. She ate and drank and wondered, with mild interest, when the Prince would arrive.

And then she thought of Luke.

Where are you? Where are you now?

He was as good as dead. She would never see him again. She closed her eyes and let the fatigue steal over her limbs. The questions came and went with images in their wake. Then they slowed and finally stopped on one single image that filled her mind as it had done every night for so very long.

Like this, she drifted into sleep, soothed by the lullaby of a zither.

She awoke suddenly. It was morning and she was in the bed and clothed in a gown of finest lawn. Someone had done this. A servant, she hoped.

She was aware that a voice had awoken her and it was a voice she knew.

Then she heard the voice of her future husband. He was talking to somebody close to the tent. But she knew it wasn’t his voice that had woken her.

There was a dressing gown hanging over a chair beside the bed and she quickly rose and put it on. She would not greet him from her bed. Her head was still heavy from the wine and the deep, deep sleep that had followed it and she found a little basin and splashed water over her face, blinking open her eyes.

Whose voice woke me?

Anna left the tent to find Suleyman outside but not the answer. The Prince was sitting at a table admiring the view. The horse from which he’d just dismounted was being led away by a groom and behind it followed a larger creature, stepping out elegantly. At its rein was a tall sipahi knight with gold mail and a gyrfalcon held high on his wrist.

Whoever had woken her was no longer there.

Anna walked over to the table and sat down. On it were bowls of fruit and dahl and honey and rose petals strewn between them and a small vase of lilies whose milky filaments bowed under orange stamens. For a while, neither of them spoke and the only sound was the gurgling stream and the music of morning birds.

Eventually Suleyman said, ‘I have brought a poet with me.’

‘A poet? For me?’

‘For us both. He will recite to us as we take our ease.’

‘But I want to ride. You’ve brought a gyrfalcon. We can hunt.’

Suleyman looked up from the peach he was quartering.

‘I told you,’ she continued calmly. ‘that I want to ride.’

Suleyman smiled and lifted the peach to his mouth. ‘And I want to listen to poetry. We disagree so soon?’

It was Anna’s turn to smile. ‘So let’s take the poet with us. Does he ride?’

At that, Suleyman laughed. ‘All right, we will ride. When would you like to go?’

Anna rose. ‘Now,’ she said.

Suleyman watched her for a moment; then he shrugged and rose and walked with her up the meadow, the long grass brushing their ankles. There was a little waterfall near the trees at the top and he knelt to fill his water bottle.

Then she heard it again. The voice that had woken her. It was within the trees.

She turned and walked up to the wood, leaving Suleyman at the stream. She entered the trees and peered into the sudden gloom and saw that he was standing there alone, his two eyes separated by a band of silver metal.

Eskalon.

He was the captain of the guard’s horse, the one she’d seen led away. His long nose was protected by a shaffron studded with jewels and at his haunches hung embroidered cloth of gold.

Eskalon.

She breathed his name and stepped forward as the great head came down to meet her. She lifted his chin and rested hers on the bridge of his nose so that they stared at each other, eye to eye.

‘Where have you been?’ she whispered, but she knew it was the wrong question.

His eyes were near to hers and they had tiny pools of light at their centre.

‘Where is he, Eskalon?’ she whispered.

The two pools moved a fraction as if the door to another world was opening. She looked into them and the trees grew still around her, the canopy above closing out the sun and birdsong. Then she was looking around a landscape of swirling gasses and there was someone coming out of the mist towards her, someone she knew, someone she still loved and who still loved her.

Luke.

The shape of him was vague but unmistakable. In a moment the face would appear and she was dizzy with longing. He drew closer and she lifted her arms to him.

‘Anna.’

It was Suleyman’s voice.

Anna turned to him.

He said, ‘You are pale.’

She took a deep breath, feeling the warmth of Eskalon’s breath on her neck. ‘Prince Suleyman, I want to offer you a wager.’

‘A wager? It is forbidden for me to accept wagers.’

‘And it is forbidden for you to drink wine and for your father to fornicate with boys from Trebizond but it happens. Call it a challenge.’

‘And it is what?’

‘A race. On horseback. You and me, back to the gates of Edirne,’ she said.

‘And the prize?’

‘If I win, this horse — which, by the way, I will ride.’

‘And if I win?’

She looked at him and her hand came up to touch the lily at her ear.

‘You win me,’ she said. ‘I will marry you without divorce. I will turn to your faith. You can have your red-haired heir within a year.’