Emperor's Winding Sheet (25 page)

Vrethiki stared at the dead man. A great strip of his face had been torn away. “Why is he wearing Stephanos' clothes?” thought Vrethiki dully. He looked round for Stephanos. “Why is he wearing your clothes?” he wanted to ask him. He was not there. “Stephanos?” said the boy, shakily. “Stephanos, Stephanos!” And he began to scream in his piercing high-pitched boy's voice. Justiniani grabbed him, carried him bodily across the terrace, and put him in a corner by the angle of the inner wall. “No panic here!” he was saying. “Noli hic clamare!” with a hand over Vrethiki's mouth. The boy fell quiet, and nodded, dumbly. For indeed there was panic enough: cries and wails, and shouted questions, and men running everywhere. Then two of Justiniani's men took the Emperor up on their shoulders, and carried him up and down the line.

“For God's sake, Sire, take cover!” cried Theophilus'
voice, from the inner wall behind them. “The Turks can see you too!” The Emperor was put on his feet again. The dead were being dragged across the terrace, to be laid out along the foot of the inner wall. The wounded were being carried through one of the doors to the City. The Emperor came over to Vrethiki. A crowd of men were with him, and the sight of Vrethiki seemed to fill them with dismay. The Emperor was shaking. He looked at Vrethiki with concern, and his and other voices were asking, asking …

“Oh, oh, what are you saying?” wept the boy. “Oh, Stephanos, get up and tell me what they're saying!” A dull ache throbbed in his cheek. What were they fussing about? So dazed was he that he did not realize yet that his cheek was cut; it was blood that had run down between his collar and his neck—he had coated his hands with it, and then rubbed his smarting eyes. He had plastered his face with blood, and they thought he was badly hurt.

One of Varangian John's men picked him up and carried him, back through a door in the inner wall, along the road behind, and to the Emperor's tent. He found a cloth, and washed Vrethiki's face; then he grinned, patted Vrethiki's cheek, said something to him in a cheering sort of voice, and left. Vrethiki lay on his back for a moment or two, and then slid swiftly into a deep exhausted sleep, as though he had been knocked unconscious. On the wall the Emperor's horse was led back to him, and he mounted, and rode off to visit other positions. Justiniani went to have his cut cleaned and bound up. Theophilus directed a repair gang for the damaged stockade. And a work party buried Stephanos with fifteen others in a shallow grave at the foot of the inner wall. A priest made one blessing, one prayer, do for them all.

I
t was dusk when vrethiki awoke. He awoke clearheaded in the empty tent. The cut in his cheek hurt. He sat up and looked around. While part of him wanted to think, to sit and weep over Stephanos, he could see there was no fire lit, no lamps burning, neither wine nor food for supper; and so, getting up, he set to work at once, doing what Stephanos would have done, to make some comfort ready for the Emperor. And when everything he could think of was prepared, and before he had time to sit and think, the Emperor returned. Vrethiki knelt, and pulled off his boots; brought clean water for him to wash in, and fresh clothes, for the grit of the ruined walls still clung to him. Hesitantly, feeling suddenly awkward at such familiarity, he picked up the Emperor's ivory comb, and creeping up behind him, began gently to comb out the dusty tangles in his hair. They were silent, having so few words in common. The Emperor made the boy sit down with him, and eat a share of what there was, though Vrethiki had not been able to find much, and the meal was only bread and broth. Vrethiki remembered longingly all those gluttonous banquets he had seen, and then felt cruelly ashamed of himself for feeling hungry when another man was dead.

After supper the Emperor put on his cloak, and with Vrethiki at his side went to pray in the Church of the Chora, because it was nearby. It was three hours after nightfall when they left the church, and yet it was not dark outside. A misty orange sky was visible above them, and the rooftops and domes of the City were all luridly lit up. The Emperor rode at once to the nearest tower of the inner wall, and he and the boy mounted it, and looked out. All over the enemy camp outside the City, huge fires were burning, and bloodcurdling cries could be heard from the blazing camp. The light flooded earth and sky, it lit up the Golden Horn like molten iron, it showed the distant towers of Galata, and the ships lying as far off as Scutari.

“Their camp is on fire!” thought Vrethiki, with a wild spiraling lift of the heart. He followed the Emperor running down the stairs of the tower, and out onto the terrace. And there the defenders were helplessly watching a huge swarm of enemy workers, with flares and fires to give them light, laboring to fill the fosse. They worked feverishly, like men possessed, and the discharge of the defenders' cannon, arrows and slingshot, though they reaped swathes of men, did not for one moment cow or stop the rest, but the work went on without pause. And just beyond the fosse, great rings of Turks were dancing and leaping to the crazy skirling of pipes and drums and trumpets, the fire light burning on their crazed faces; some of them whirled on one spot like tops, and others ran up and down, and turned somersaults like tumblers. Vrethiki saw that the fearful noise they were making was not cries of alarm at the conflagration, but howls of frenzied joy. And the glow from the lights and torches showed Vrethiki also the battered walls, and the lines of men on them; many of them kneeling at their posts, in terrified prayer.

By this time it was midnight. A bell sounded from the midst of that bedlam of bonfires; and suddenly the workers in the fosse retreated. A silence fell, as sudden and stunning as the racket had been. And almost at once the fires and torches were put out. Darkness and silence swept over the plain, leaving the Christians on the wall staring blindly into the night.

 

VRETHIKI WOKE IN THE NIGHT, LURCHING OUT OF NIGHTMARE,
and crying out. From the darkness a hand came, and held his firmly. “Stephanos?” murmured the boy, sleepily. He was drowsing again almost at once. Only, as he slipped away into sleep, he noticed fuzzily that the hand he held had thin long fingers, and a great chunky ring … In the morning Vrethiki reckoned it part of his dream.

 

THE MORNING DAWNED STRANGE AND SILENT. THERE WERE
no guns. No shouting, but a quiet brightening of the light. Vrethiki woke early and went out. He walked a little way in the open, through the wilderness that was now the Lycus valley, through a cluster of ruined houses. The silence made all the world seem made new. The sound of the stream came as sweetly as music to the boy's ears, battered into deafness by all those weeks of gunfire. He stood for a while beside a rambling clump of wild rosebush, its arched sprays breaking out in fragile papery pink petals, and listened enchanted while far and near the air was full of the melodious exotic chanting of all the tribes of birds. He did not think of yesterday, or of today, but simply drank in the morning moment all around him. It was a short moment; he had to return to his duties.

He had to poke up the fire, and warm a pan of milk. Then run across to the Chora Monastery, and bring bread and olives
for the Emperor's breakfast. There hadn't been much else to eat this long while past, and now even this was a luxury. When that was done Vrethiki opened the huge wooden chest that held the Emperor's clothes. He chose a clean linen undercoat, to go next to his master's skin, picking out the one he liked best, that had a border of fruits and flowers woven in black on white. He laid that out ready, smoothing the creases away. Then he fetched the corselet of gilded chain, and the golden breastplate, and all the polished war gear. Then a pair of undershoes: a sort of slipper and legging in one that went under the greaves; there was only one clean pair of these left, and they were of purple silk, woven with golden eagles. Then he found the Emperor's boots, of purple hide with bands of pearls sewn on the seams, and, last, the great purple surcoat the Emperor wore, that came to his knees over his armor, and was blazoned all over with golden embroidery. Then he woke his sleeping master, brought him his breakfast to eat sitting in his nightshirt, and then helped him dress.

That day made strange by silence began, like so many other days, with a quarrel, brought before the Emperor to settle, voices raised, the sour atmosphere of anger and suspicion. This time it was Justiniani and Notaras, who came to the Emperor's tent, and, almost snarling at each other, appealed to the Emperor, each asking him to rebuke the other.

The boy, offering them wine, and being angrily brushed aside, tried to make out what was happening. He was lost without Stephanos, and his helplessness frightened him. But he could make out roughly, from manner and gesture, that Justiniani wanted something that Notaras refused him. “Helepolis”—it would seem to be guns. The Emperor thought Justiniani should have them. With a cry of dismay Notaras began to talk about the Golden Horn, the wall
there. The Emperor mentioned the Lycus valley. “It's about the placing of guns,” thought Vrethiki.. And he was glad the Emperor took Justiniani's part, for he was sure that Justiniani was always right.

The Emperor insisted. Notaras was white-lipped with anger, and would not come with the Emperor to the walls. On the land walls the terrible endless treadmill labor of repairs was continuing. But beyond—outside in the camps of the enemy—there was still awesome silence. No noise; no movement; not a man visible round the tents. The sentries on the walls said the Turks had lit no fires, cooked no breakfasts, neither drilled nor ridden horses, nor prepared their guns. Instead there was that unearthly hush.

“They are preparing to go, perhaps,” said one sentry.

“No,” said Justiniani. “They are fasting. They are placating their God.”

“A day of prayer,” said John Dalmata. “And then? Look at this, my Lord,” and he held out to the Emperor one of those little rolls of paper that came on arrow shafts over the wall. It bore one word: “Tomorrow.”

The Emperor said, “So. Well, we, too, have a God. Let us pray to Him, and all His saints.”

It was at noon the bells began to ring. In a great gathering metallic clamor, they filled the terrifying hush left by the guns with insistent harmonious noise. The citizens flocked into the streets—old men, women, children, monks and nuns, and whoever could be spared from the walls. Images, icons, relics were carried out of the churches, and a great procession escorted them toward the walls. Incense was swung, smoking, in silver vessels; the people took lighted candles in their hands. They Sang; they repeated endlessly, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.

When the procession had gathered strength, the Emperor joined it, bareheaded, with Vrethiki at his side. Some one gave them each a candle. The great throng of people wound along the walls. At each battered and broken place they stopped. The priests in the procession gave Communion and a blessing to the soldiers there; the icons were placed on each battered parapet or rough stockade in turn, that their ineffable holiness might avert the danger. The solemn intoning music of the hymns was swelled by the pleading voices of thousands. Vrethiki, too, found himself praying. “O God, put forth your strength!” he said to himself, over and over. Ahead of him, under its canopy, moved the queen of icons, the image painted by St. Luke, that this time allowed itself to be carried through the streets.

It was four o'clock before the procession was over, and the icon of St. Luke was returned to Blachernae.

At Blachernae the Emperor went to his throne room. He sat on his wide golden throne, with the Gospels open beside him, and he wore his crown. Flocking into the tall marbled room, under the golden roof, came all his nobles and the demarchs of the City. “Another great meeting,” thought Vrethiki, “of which I shall understand so little.” And his heart lurched at the thought of Stephanos, who would have explained. But it was not a conference; it was a speech, the Emperor's last words to his people, before the crisis came. And one of Isadore's priests translated it, passage by pas sage, into Latin for the benefit of those who knew little Greek, and so Vrethiki did understand it.

“Noble princes,” said the Emperor. “Councilors, and famous soldiers, our most generous fellows in arms, and all faithful and honorable citizens—the crisis has come. The enemy will now exert his utmost force by land and sea against
us, and, if he can, like a lion he will devour us. Therefore I pray you, and exhort you, to resist the enemy of our faith, with steadfast and magnanimous courage, as you have always done till now. I give into your keeping, I commend to you, this most famous and illustrious citadel, our motherland, Queen of cities. You know, my brothers, that there are four things for which any of us ought to be ready to die—for our faith, for our motherland, for our Emperor, God's anointed servant, and for our family and friends. And if we are bound in duty to defend any one of these with our lives, how much more, now that all four are at risk, should we face death, unflinching! But if, because of my sins, God gives victory to the infidel, still let us face our ordeal in the true faith, bought with the blood of Christ. Yet this is the fifty-seventh day on which that vile and contemptible Sultan has besieged us, and with every possible device, and all his strength, day and night he has not ceased to fight us. And yet till now, by the grace of God, we have repelled him from the walls. For he puts his faith in engines of war, and force of numbers; but ours is in God, our Lord and Saviour.”

The Emperor spoke quietly, in a firm level voice. They listened still as stones, with their eyes fixed on his face. When he paused for his words to be said over in Latin, nobody moved, but heard them out intently.

“Be of good courage, therefore,” he continued. “Wield your swords stoutly. You have good serviceable armor to protect you, which most of them have not; you fight within the walls, they in the open. Remember how long ago a great number of Roman horses were put to flight by the mere sight and sound of a few Carthaginian elephants. And if brute beasts could accomplish that, how much more easily we, who are the thinking masters of animals, can do the same, especially
as those who fight against us are like animals, more brutal even than brute beasts! Think of yourselves as hunting a herd of swine, whom you know to be blasphemers, and fight, not like such beasts as they are, but like their lords and masters, the proud posterity of Greece and Rome. For you know, brothers, how the vile Sultan has without any just cause or provocation broken the peace with us, and besieged us, to wrest from us this City, which the great and thrice-blessed Emperor Constantine founded and gave to the Virgin Mary, that she might be its patroness, and its protectress, and that it might be the refuge of Christians. Shall this City, which is the hope and joy of all the Hellenes, the glory of the Eastern Empire, this splendid City, that flourished once like the rose of the field and was mistress of almost all peoples under the sun—shall it now be trampled on by blasphemers, and yoked in slavery? Shall our holy churches, where we have worshipped the Trinity, and sung the Liturgy, and celebrated the mystery of the Word made Flesh, be made shrines for the blasphemy of their driveling prophet Mohammed, stables for their horses and camels? Think of this, when you fight for our liberty.”