Emperor's Winding Sheet (11 page)

The fabric was woven all over with medallions between the leaves and branches, and in each medallion was a boy driving a four-horse chariot. Vrethiki rather liked it, if truth were told. And the new day that was just then fingering the rooftops and domes of the City promised at least a ride through the streets, and ceremony to look at, instead of the endless voices of the Emperor's council room, and, at last, a look inside the famous Church of the Holy Wisdom. But Vrethiki stamped on his lightheartedness. “I should not be here,” he told himself. The anger muscle of his heart was getting tired, but he worked up his rage. “He keeps me prisoner against my will. I am no better off than a young calf driven to the slaughter. I hate him.” Having carefully put himself into a sullen mood, he felt safe again. “Why should I care?” he asked himself fiercely, taking his place at the
Emperor's side and three paces behind him, when the procession mounted and formed up within the palace. “I'm not a Roman, or a Greek. And a lot of difference that will make to a Turk!”

 

THEY ENTERED THE GREAT CHURCH THROUGH A HUGE
rectangular door. It led into a hall, in which the Emperor's party halted, while he dismounted. Another vast door faced them, and beyond it another huge hall, running transversely across the church, gleaming darkly with golden mosaic and walled with panels of marble. Here again the party halted. This time a priest came forward, and the Emperor took off his crown, and gave it to him. From this second great hall a third door of towering height led onward; beyond it there was so much light that Vrethiki thought it gave into the open air, except that he could see, seemingly a long way off ahead of them, the sanctuary screen and, beyond it, the altar.

From that first blinkered glance of a long forward view, Vrethiki unconsciously expected a long church, a marching avenue of columns like the nave of the cathedral at Bristow. Stepping through, on the threshold of the door, he was quite unprepared for the vast width of it—far to his left and right rose the great complex walls—and yet he had seen rightly when he saw that it was very long. Then, looking upward, he was dazzled by the height of it, for the eye of a worshipper on the threshold soared straight to the apex of a vast flattened dome, all pierced with a ring of windows, and shedding angled light—a golden arc, hovering overhead like a dawn; so immense, so brilliantly light, so sky-shaped a building could not seem like inside any where to Vrethiki; and yet it did not seem like outside either, with its dance of encircling columns, cool green, dark porphyry, with its enclosing, billowing, cloudy golden domes
and half-domes. It was like some paradisal pavilion—the majestic tent of the Almighty, pitched across the sky. Head in air, gazing round him, Vrethiki blundered up the church, losing his place behind the Emperor, trip ping on someone's trailing cloak, and then scurrying to catch up.

“It does look like a tent,” he thought in a little while. “It seems to float, it seems to have no weight.” For where were the massive piers to carry the downthrust? Where were huge columns tensed to carry great loads? Instead he could see only lovely walls, paneled in polished marble, pink and green and yellow, veined and suffused with streaks of creamy white, and bordered with vine-leaf tendrils carved in crisp white glittering stone. The columns were not firmly braced, but seemed delicately suspended, and carried their leafy capitals and the arches above them, all fretted into leaves and flowers and inlaid with purple roundels, as lightly as a dancer wearing a garland. Between the columns were glimpses of aisles and galleries, more light, more surfaces of gold, as though the whole walls were a windowed curtain made of silk rather than stone.

Yet with all this to look at, the boy's eyes were drawn upward, rising to the dome. The rim of the dome seemed not quite to touch the tops of the four arches on which it rested; it seemed suspended above them. And under the floating dome, the shining, folded, feathered wings of four dreaming Seraphim drifted shimmering in the angles of the arches.

The Liturgy was halfway over before Vrethiki came to earth again, and took note of what was happening round him. It was a Latin Mass they were saying. They were saying it to a half-empty church. And most of those present were weeping, weeping and wringing their hands. A wail went up when the Pope's name was spoken, cries of grief when the priest held up the white disk of unleavened bread. And when Cardinal
Isadore mounted the ambo, and began to preach, there were those in the audience who held their hands over their ears.

“Dearly Beloved Brethren,” said Cardinal Isadore, and then paused for the priest at his side to read the same words in Greek. “I come to you as one who has been chosen by the Lord to gather all His sheep once more into a single fold. I am the legate of the Pope in Rome, and yet I am a Greek like yourselves. Look, brethren, at the great golden roof that stretches above us. It is made of a myriad million tiny pieces of golden glass. Each one of those innumerable pieces is set at a different angle from those around it, so that the whole may sparkle like the stars in the heavens. Even so, beloved brethren, we need not all be in all things the same to be pleasing to God our Father. Our differences may even serve to show forth His glory, if they arise from love of Him, and not from hatred of each other. Let each of us be sure that it is the light of God's truth that his beliefs reflect, and God in His holy wisdom will unite each different facet in a single eternal refulgence. His will be done. Amen.”

And, “What does it matter?” thought Vrethiki. “What does any of it matter, compared to this? Churches at home are like hands, human hands laid together in prayer and pointing upward, but this church is like a swelling joy, like the ecstasy of the heart. Compared to this what does a Filioque matter, or a morsel of leaven in bread? Compared to this what do life and death matter, even mine? All that is as nothing, in the eternal wisdom of God.”

Such a dreamlike peaceful expression lingered on the boy's face as they departed after the Mass that the Emperor noticed it as he stopped to put on his crown in the outer hall. “God is with you today, my son,” he said. “Stay closely by my side.”

•

 

WHEN THE SULTAN HAD FINISHED HIS CASTLE ON THE
bosporus, he announced that no ship should pass it without stopping for his permission. A Venetian galley bringing silk from Trebizond was the first to defy him. His cannon sank it, and his men hauled the sailors out of the fast-running Bosporus current. The crew were decapitated, and the captain impaled.

Varangian John told Vrethiki about impaling. “They skewer them, like a chicken on a spit,” he said. “A sharp pole driven in between the legs, and out between the shoulder blades, and set upright in the ground for poor devils to die on. They say the Venetian captain took two days to go. Some take longer. I'll tell you another thing, young Piers. The gun that did the damage was cast by our friend Urban. I told you he should have been dealt with. The Turks have a name for that new castle of theirs. They're calling it the gorge-cutter.”

“How do you know that?” asked Vrethiki, astonished.

“Ways and means,” said John cryptically. “The Sultan may have made a mistake, though, blasting off his shiny new gun. The Venetians can hardly overlook it—or at least we must hope they can't.”

The Emperor hoped so too. He assembled all the Venetians in the City to meet him in council. Among them were the captains of six merchant ships lying in the Golden Horn, four of them bound for Trebizond and unable to proceed for fear of the Sultan's guns, and two on a homeward run, having come down the Bosporus just in time. The Bailey of the Venetians in the City, an elderly man called Minotto, promised the Emperor that he would remain in the City, that every able-bodied Venetian would bear arms in the City's defense, and that he would send urgent messages home to ask for a fleet to come swiftly to their aid. The Emperor spoke to
each of the captains in turn, asking them to stay and help the citizens in their struggle. They consulted together, briefly. Trevisano was the one who gave their answer. “We stay,” he said. “For the honor of God, and all Christendom.”

The Emperor turned next to Pera. Over the Golden Horn, opposite the tip of the City, stood that Genoese colony which the Genoese called Galata. It was snugly ringed with its own walls, with its own warships drawn up below them. Nearly all the trade with the Black Sea and beyond was in their hands; they sucked the City dry of wealth. Their ruler, the Podestà, was evasive, careful never to give a straight answer. He would promise the Emperor nothing. Yet it was from Genoa that the best help was to come.

His name was Justiniani Longo. It was January when he put in to the Golden Horn with two ships, and the news of his arrival took the City by storm. Varangian John was cock-a-hoop about him: “A man of our own kind, lads, a soldier of fortune, who has never yet fought without glory, and best of all is famous, is renowned above all in the art of defending cities and dealing with siege warfare. Let's hope the Emperor knows what a bird has flown to him, knows how to treat such a man!”

“You should tell him yourself, if you think he might not know,” said Vrethiki.

“Not I,” said John. “But you could. You tell him.”

Vrethiki told Stephanos.

Justiniani was a thickset, stocky fellow, very light on his feet. He presented himself wearing armor—a full suit of gray plated steel, and a short pleated cloak that fell from his shoulders just to his buttocks. He was wearing a huge wide-brimmed hat when he entered, but he swept it off as he came forward to the throne. His black hair had a streak of pure
white, growing on his brow and swept back over his head like a plume. A splash of white grew also in his beard, a little off-center. He drew his sword, and, coming forward, knelt, and laid the blade on the Emperor's knees.

“Are you sent from Genoa?” asked the Emperor.

“Not sent, Lord Emperor. I am here on my own behalf, as a private citizen.” He must have noticed the dismay on the councilors' faces. Standing, he said, “Genoa will do nothing for you officially. They are afraid of offending the Turks, in case that's bad for trade. They won't help either directly, or through Pera. The Podesta at Galata has orders to stay neutral. I blush for my countrymen, but I tell you the truth.”

“Have you any other news for us?” the Emperor asked. “What will Venice do?”

“I have heard they are sending ships. But I saw nothing of them on my way here.”

“And the Pope?”

“He is sending letters and embassies everywhere. Something will come of them perhaps …” Justiniani looked straight at the Emperor. “Your Imperial Majesty would do well not to count on it, I think.”

Vrethiki stared raptly at this famous man. There was a perky, sparrowcock look to him, as though he brought with him a breath of the fresh wind that had blown him here.

The Emperor handed him back his sword. Those dark eyes of his were bent on his visitor, weighing him up.

“Will you take me into your service, Sire?” said Justiniani.

“You can be my commander in chief at the land walls,” said the Emperor. “If we win, I will give you Lemnos.”

“That's generous,” said Justiniani. Vrethiki could see that it was, from the angry look on Lukas Notaras' face.

“I must say honestly,” said the Emperor in a cool level voice, “that I do not expect to have to make that offer good, unless we have help from the West. From some where in the West, and substantial help. Change your mind if you will.”

The Genoese looked at his new master with a slight twist of the mouth, and a twinkle in his eyes. “Come, Sire,” he said. “War is a fickle thing. Here's seven hundred well-armed men with me. There must be some Venetian dogs here who can be made to bite as well as bark, and you have your own loyal citizens. Perhaps we can beat the bloody infidel, perhaps not; but for certain we can give him a good fight of it!” He broke into a cheerful grin. “I'll go and look at these walls you've given me,” he said, and bowed, and marched out, with his sword lifting a fold of the cloak swinging behind him like a dog's tail.

“My Lord, you cannot, you absolutely cannot make him a commander,” said Lukas Notaras. “The Venetians will never obey a Genoese. The commands must all go to us Romans.”

“He's a soldier, Lukas, and you are not,” said the Emperor. “Besides, I like him,” he murmured under his breath.

At the dinner in honor of Justiniani and his captains which the Emperor gave next night, Justiniani said cheer fully, “A lot needs doing to those walls. First of all, the moat needs clearing, and flooding with water again as far as the lie of the land permits. There's a good stout fellow called Trevisano who's undertaken that, with his men.”

The Emperor eyed Lukas Notaras across a bowl of figs. Trevisano was a Venetian.

 

IT SEEMED JUSTINIANI HAD REALLY BROUGHT A NEW WIND
with him. Suddenly there was work, things to do, precautions
and preparations. It seemed to Vrethiki that finding things to do had brought the horrible threat nearer, made it more real to everyone, and yet mysteriously dispersed the stagnant atmosphere of fear. The Emperor went riding with his new commander up and down the land walls, studying weak points and strong points. The citizens made work gangs to labor at clearing the great fosse of rubbish, at mending the walls, at carting stone balls for ballista and cannon, making stockpiles at well-chosen points. Justiniani had no trouble getting men to work for him. He smiled freely, praised freely, was not above lending a hand in a task he had ordered, generous with praise and always cheerful; he made even hard labor like carting stone seem worth while in a hopeful cause. Vrethiki's heart warmed to him; he thought him splendid. Riding the walls Vrethiki saw even the Emperor in a new light. The moment he got up on those windy parapets, talking strategy, he lost his ceremoniousness; he became a brisk and practical sort of man, with a good eye for cracked masonry, and so little hobbled by ancient piety he was willing, without batting an eyelid, to order the ripping up of tombstones or the dismantling of ruined chapels to be used as repair material.