The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age) (34 page)

Part 3
: The Mission

Chapter 18
: Old wisdom

A half moon had just risen. Low grey clouds, just shadows against the purpling evening sky, flew ahead of a chill wind from across the Euxine sea.

Javor shivered and drew his ragged cloak closer around his throat. He tried not to make noise as he hurried. He thought he could see his destination in the failing light: a rickety shed at the end of an even more rickety dock, teetering on long poles over the water, separate from all the other buildings in the harbour. In the shadows it looked like a great water-bug perching near the shore, waiting for … something.

He knocked on the door, which was only a cracked and weathered plank. It rattled under his knuckles and opened into blackness. He heard a faint repetitive creaking and a laboured breathing over the gentle sounds of the water below his feet. A musty odour came out. Javor scowled and stepped in hesitantly.

Inside, he could see only dim shapes in the faint light from the open door. There was no fire, yet the air was warm and stuffy. The repetitive creaking came from the far corner. Javor gradually made out a figure squatting on the floor, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth.

“
Hello?” said Javor. “Are—are you … umm, Paleologus?”

The figure stopped rocking and raised his head. Javor could now see that he was wearing a hood. A blanket was wrapped around his legs. “Who are you?” demanded a raspy, aged voice.

“
My name is … Janus,” Javor answered. He didn’t know what prompted him to use the name that Photius had given him at the Roman fort, but it seemed somehow safer in this dilapidated city filled with strange looking and heavily armed people.

“
Janus,” repeated the croaking, old voice, and the figure resumed rocking. “Janus,” it rasped again. “So, Photius sent you?”

Javor was shocked to hear the old magus’ name.

“
How did you know?”

“
From the ring on your finger. What do you want?”

“
Photius said you might have answers.”

A strange croaking and wheezing came from the figure. Javor realized it was laughter. “Answers. No. Only questions. There are no answers. There never were, never will be,” the figure rasped. He stopped rocking and lifted his head. Candles flared to sudden life, the light chasing shadows into the corners of the shed. Javor started
. I should be used to that old trick by now. Photius used it often enough
.

“
He is dead, then?” Javor nodded, then gasped as the candlelight illuminated the figure’s face: it was a woman, an old, old woman. Her white hair hung long and limp. Her thin face was all long vertical lines: long, deep shadows dipping below high cheekbones, lines leading from each side of her long nose down to the corners of her mouth, vertical lines like a row of spikes along her upper lip, lines leading down from the corners of her mouth to her chin. There were more deep lines on her neck leading under whatever clothing she was wearing. Yet more lines criss-crossed her forehead. Her eyebrows were mere darker shadows. Her heavy eyelids drooped to almost vertical at the sides.

But her eyes were lit by a piercing intelligence that flared in the shadows. They searched Javor’s eyes for something, some truth, that Javor could not say. Finally, her eyes dropped away and she looked sadly at the dirty floor.

“
You knew him well?” Javor asked as the silence thickened like smoke.

The woman nodded. “We were lovers once. Many years ago.” She started rocking again. “What did he tell you about me?”

“
He told me to look for Paleologus, or rather, ‘old wisdom,’ in Constantia. He said you would be in a place like this, in a wooden shed over the water. No one here knew that name, but finding this … house wasn’t all that hard. It stands further out over the sea than any other place.” He shivered as the wind found a way in through cracks in the walls.

“
Paleologus,” the old woman laughed sadly. “Yes, that would be his idea of a joke. ‘Old wisdom’ indeed.”

“
Then what is your name?”

Still looking at the floor, she answered “Once, I had the nerve to call myself ‘Sophia.’ The true wisdom. Oh, what a foolish girl I was. But I was strong then, and beautiful, and Photius loved me …Oh, he made many bad choices. He chose the wrong side.”

“
What side?”

She sighed and looked at him. “The gods are at war, as never before. Sky once loved Earth and together they brought forth life and many beautiful and horrible things, but they were all alive. Now, Sky has turned away from Earth, and seeks to suppress her … and all the great civilizations have turned away from her, too—Rome, Persia, all now worship Sky and call Earth evil. They despoil her soils, pollute her waters...”

This made no sense to Javor. He lost his patience. He put his knife and amulet into Sophia’s hands. “What do these mean?”

Sophia’s eyes grew wide. She held the dagger and medallion under the candlelight, which flared brighter. “Where did you get these?”

“
They were my great-grandfather’s,” Javor answered, shielding his eyes from the candles which burned even brighter now as Sophia turned the knife and amulet over and over, examining them closely. “He was a soldier in the Emperor’s army. He brought them back from the Caucasus, where he defeated a giant.” Sophia shook her head and whispered in a language that Javor did not understand. “What do they mean?”

Bang!
A gust blew the flimsy door open and the shack filled with moaning wind. The candles flickered and died, no longer stoked by Sophia’s will.

“
They are coming,” she whispered.

“
What? Who’s coming?” Javor pushed the door closed.

Sophia pressed the knife and amulet into Javor’s hands. “Take these, Janus or whatever your name is. Keep them with you, but watch over them. They alone can protect you. You must run, you must go to Constantinople, but show these to no one else.”

“
I know, I know, they protect me. But how? And from what? What is chasing me, and why?”

“
Find our old Order at the Abbey of St. Mary of Chalkoprateia. From there, you must seek the four hundred. Only the four hundred can end this war.” The wind got stronger and Javor could hear strange noises in it.

“
What are the four hundred?”

“
There is no time,” Sophia said. “They are coming!” Sophia wasn’t looking at him, but seemed to be looking through the wall. “To Constantinople! You must go now!”

“
You said these things keep me safe! The amulet keeps me invisible from them. Tell me what’s going on—who are ‘they’ and what do they want?”

She still didn’t look at him. “The amulet only keeps you invisible from any supernatural vision. They cannot see you from a distance, as they can see me. But if I can see you naturally, so can
they
. You must stay away from them. And they know that you would come here. You must flee now so you do not lead them to the Order!”

Is she mad?
He sheathed the knife and hung the amulet back around his neck, under his tunic. “All right, then, come with me.”

Sophia was still staring through the wall. “No. My time has come. I can delay them long enough for you to escape. Take a boat anywhere, and get to Constantinople as quickly as you can. Find the four hundred!”

Four hundred what
? The wind was shrieking around the corners of the shed. “No ship is going to sail in this weather!” He had to yell over the wind.

“
This is not weather! This is
them
. They are nearly here!”

“
Who
is nearly here?”

“
The Archons! Now go!”

The wind shrieked like a hysterical woman and the door banged open again. Debris flew about the shed and dust stung Javor’s eyes. The roof rattled and a board tore loose, flying spinning over the sea. The easterly wind had shifted to the west. “They have followed you! They knew you were coming! They knew you would come to Sophia!”

With a tearing and popping sound, the whole roof tore away, splashing into the harbour. In the last of the twilight, Javor could see dark clouds in the west swirling closer, closer.

“
The Gnostics call them the Archons, but they are wrong. The Gnostics are wrong. Sky has turned on Earth. Photius saw it, but he chose the wrong side.” Sophia sat with arms spread, gazing at the approaching clouds. “Sky has turned on Earth. Earth is flogging Sky. Photius chose wrong. Oh Photius!” she shrieked above the wind. “Why did you leave me, Photius! Why did you choose?”

The shed was disintegrating, walls falling board by board into the water. None of the other houses or sheds nearby seemed to be affected. Javor tried to pull Sophia away, but she shook him off, surprisingly strong. As the last of the shed fell away, Javor thought he could see human-like shapes in the clouds.
Time to go
. He sprang onto the dock and ran to the city. He turned onto a stone pier and ran until another wooden dock reached out to the sea. Two sailors had just loosened the last rope that tied their sailboat to the dock.

Javor ran with all his might down the dock and leapt, landing heavily on the boat’s deck. He fell to his knees and lurched to the rail as the sailors yelled and cursed.

“
What do you think you’re doing?” one yelled, picking up a club.

Javor stood unsteadily and reached under his cloak for his purse. The sailor brandished the club and yelled, but Javor said “Wait!” in his best Greek. “Where are you going?”

“
Thracia,” said the sailor. Others were gathering behind him, looking threatening.

“
Good!” The name sounded vaguely familiar. “Take me there. I’ll pay you.” He held out a silver coin.

The sailor’s eyes widened, and then a sickening smile creased his face.

“
Well, so you want passage to Thracia, do you?” Javor nodded. “And who are you, then?” He spoke with a strange, harsh accent, not at all like Photius or Valgus.

“
My name is … Meridius.” He felt strange, taking the name of the brave centurion, but he felt he needed anonymity.

“
I’m Thais,” the sailor said, taking the coin. “Welcome aboard.”

I’d better not sleep tonight,
Javor thought.

Chapter 19
: Constantinople

Nothing in Javor’s experience could have prepared him for the splendour and crushing force of Constantinople, the greatest city in the world.

Passing through the Gate of St. Romanus as Antonio had advised, he found himself in a crowd larger than he ever imagined: people, donkeys, carts and wagons, crossing in all directions in front of him, pushing him from behind. The noise was overwhelming: voices, animals, creaking, crashing. Songs and chants boomed out of a market to his left as vendors called attention to vegetables and fruit and fish and pottery. On the other side, a troop of soldiers clanked and stomped down a broad avenue.

The wide streets were paved with smooth stones. The buildings reached high overhead. Colourful flags and pennants fluttered from balconies and balustrades, eyes gazed brightly from mosaics and statues of men and women in long robes.

He saw impossibly thin women in shimmering, multicoloured clothes on gilded litters carried by muscular, nearly naked men with shining, dark skin; tall chieftains with gleaming armour; young boys and men running from street to street. The variety was astonishing: men and women wore long gowns that reached their ankles, or short tunics and trousers. Some wore sandals, others had high boots caked with mud, and others tiny, delicate slippers or heavy wooden shoes clunking down the stone-paved roads. Their voices washed over Javor like surf, crashing over and over, deafening and drowning him.

Girls in rotting clothing, eyes bigger than hens’ eggs, pulled on his tunic, on his boots, on his pack, begging for coins. Alarmed, he took his purse in his hand and tried to escape their clutching faces and pleading hands. They caught at him, sensing weakness, and Javor felt an unaccountable fear. He ran into the square, leaving one pathetic girl sprawling in the dust.

Safe
! He looked over his shoulder as he ran until a huge black horse reared up in front of him, nearly upsetting the  chariot it pulled. The driver smacked the reins and his master, a man dressed in a robe so white it seemed to glow, yelled “Watch where you’re running, you yokel!” Javor dodged, nearly panicking in case the beggars caught up to him.

He found himself beside a market stall. Behind a low table stacked with vegetables and buzzing flies stood a young girl with dark hair that spilled out from under a scarf and an impossibly beautiful face that was pulled up in laughter. To one side, a man with a dark beard was arguing with a customer about lettuce. “Are you all right?” she asked in a breathless giggle.

Javor’s face felt hot. “I’m fine,” he mumbled, turned and walked away with her laughter burning his ears. He stayed close to the side of the broad avenue to avoid the animals and carriages that rattled along it.

The sun heated the stones beneath Javor’s feet. He realized what bothered him most: the smells. Rotting vegetables and other garbage reeked in great piles in alleys and shadowy spaces between buildings. Manure of horses and cattle and donkeys and dogs and cats and chickens and ducks and geese and other animals Javor didn’t recognize. Stale water in dark green pools in corners and in broken pieces of stone.
The smell!
Javor wondered that people could ever live in such a reek.

Four Winds Inn
, he thought.
Antonio’s hiding place.
How could he find it among all the grand avenues and narrow, twisting streets?

Ask someone, stupid
. Javor looked around. He approached two soldiers in their red capes and polished armour. He thought of Antonio and of Legate Valgus. “Pardon me,” he said in his best Greek, which brought looks of confusion mixed with disgust to the soldiers’ faces. “I’m looking for the Inn of the Four Winds in the Vlanga section. Can you tell me how to get there?”

The soldiers looked at each other and chuckled. “Sure thing, country boy,” said one. He pointed down a narrow street. “Turn left and go all the way until you reach the Forum of Arcadius—it’s a big square. Turn left again on the Mese—that’s a big highway, the broadest, grandest road that such as you ever saw!” He barked a disparaging laugh and slapped Javor on the back so hard he staggered—which surprised Javor, as he was almost a head taller than the soldier. “Not far from there you’ll find the Forum of the Ox, which you’ll know because there is a big cattle market there. Take the next major avenue on your right, and you’re in the Vlanga. But as for your inn, sorry, lad, I can’t help you. Hey, Zotikos, have you heard of the—what did you call it?”

“
The Inn of the Four Winds.”

“
Inn of the Four Winds, Zotikos?”

Zotikos smiled, showing brown, crooked teeth. “There’s an Inn of the Four Whores by the Ox Forum,” he sneered.

The first soldier laughed hard again. “Oh, yah, you would know, wouldn’t you?”

“
I would know,” Zotikos agreed, grinning at Javor. “You want to know how to find it, country boy?”

“
Uhh, no, thanks.” Face burning, Javor walked in the direction the soldiers had told him with as much dignity as he could muster while the soldiers laughed behind him.

Is it ever hot!
Sweat beaded on his forehead and his legs felt like they were burning. He pushed past crowds and horses, and followed the lead of the crowds when they made way for some dignitary in a beautifully decorated wagon or chariot, or carried in a sedan chair by sweating, muscular slaves.

There are hardly any trees.
A few showed their crowns from behind walls of wealthy villas. Flowers grew in boxes under windows and beside doors. Constantinople did not want for colour.

It’s like they want to control everything.
There was almost nothing in the city that was not man-made—even the flowers and trees were carefully planted. And from what he had seen on his approach to the city walls, every bit of ground all around the city was planted and cultivated. Nothing grew wild, except on the steepest slopes.
They have tamed Moist Mother Earth.

He stopped for water at a fountain, another new marvel to him, then rested in the shade of a building. The heat and the stink were merciless.

Javor took nearly an hour to reach the Forum of Arcadius, an imposing square thronged with people and horses and donkeys and more people. In the centre was a spire, a huge column topped by an immense statue of a man wearing a cape and holding a long spear.
Must be an Emperor
. The column was covered by figures of fighting men that spiralled upward toward the Emperor at the top, as if to tell a story. Javor could see soldiers and warhorses, chariots and other things he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t read the lettering, but he could see it told of the Emperor’s victories.

             
He looked for the Mese. Only one street could have met the description: the broadest and grandest avenue that Javor could ever imagine. Hundreds of people crowded along it, nobles and merchants, rich and poor, servants and slaves, in such a breadth of styles and dress and complexion that Javor felt dizzy.

A short distance down the avenue was another, smaller market. Javor stepped under an awning to escape the sun.

“
Here, son, try this,” a voice rumbled in strongly accented Greek. He hadn’t realized he had closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he was looking at the most extraordinary face he had ever seen. A man as tall as Javor himself smiled at him. He wore a high, multi-coloured turban, but the most extraordinary thing about him was his skin—such a dark brown colour, it was almost black. He had black eyes, too, and a very broad but flat nose. His parted lips were full, and his teeth gleamed. He held out a small cup. “You look hot. This will help.”

Cautiously, Javor took the cup and sipped. “It’s hot!”

“
Hot drinks cool you down,” said the black man. 

“
That doesn’t make sense!” But Javor took another sip, slurping. The drink was strange, strong and bitter. “Go on, drink it!” said the black man. “It will make you feel much bettah.”

Javor blew on it, then gulped it down. It tasted bitter, strong, yet strangely … invigorating. He coughed. “What is it?”

“
It’s called kaffee. It has many good effects on a man’s health.” The turbaned man grinned broadly.

“
Well, it’s quite bitter, but thank you. It does make me feel better. How much do I owe you for that?”

“
Nothing, my boy, nothing! You looked like you needed a drink. Just tell your friends about kaffee. I am Anbasa Wedem from Axum, the only kaffee importer in Constantinople, but you know, most Romans do not seem to like to try new things.”

“
I don’t have any friends here,” Javor answered. “I’ve only just arrived in the city.”

“
I should have known!” the importer exclaimed. “You do not look like a Roman or a Greek, with your yellow hair and—my goodness, you have blue eyes like a bird! You and I, we are opposites—you are as light as the sun, and I am as dark as the earth!” He laughed, a deep rumble that seemed to come right out of the ground. “Just enjoy the kaffee, and tell others you meet how good it is!”

“
I don’t think it’s good. It’s very bitter.”

Anbasa Wedem frowned. Javor could not understand the expression on his face. “Well, maybe you should try it with some sugar!”

“
No, thank you. I have had enough. And I do feel better. Somehow ... less tired. Can you tell me how to get to the Vlanga?”

Anbasa Wedem pointed east; Javor thanked him again and pushed through bustling people and animals and all the stalls and great statues, earning curses and scowls as he went. The road, paved with stones packed close together almost like bricks, was three times as wide as the streets Javor had taken to get to the Forum. On each side were rows of colonnaded buildings, under whose shadows were shops and stalls selling food, clothes and other items that Javor couldn’t begin to guess at.

He pressed on. He smelled the Forum of the Ox before he saw it.  There must have been hundreds of animals in the great ox and donkey market of Constantinople. Men shouted and argued and bought and sold animals. Servants and slaves struggled to push or pull stubborn asses and oxen from sellers to buyers.

The Mese continued on the other side, just as broad. The great colonnaded buildings on both sides were just as imposing, but the side avenues that opened off it seemed tiny in comparison.

He took the first right, plunging into deep shadows as the tall buildings hid the sun. Now, the city was not as grand. Buildings were lower and plainer. Garbage piles rotted in little alleys or odd corners. There were still people going past, but fewer rich nobles and merchants and more slaves.

He stopped a man who appeared to be roughly his own age, but smaller, darker with a scruffy beard. “Inn of the Four Winds?” he asked, but the other man just shrugged and walked away quickly. Javor asked an old woman carrying a basket. She responded with something he could not understand, so he repeated “Inn of the Four Winds” in the most careful Greek he could manage. Again, she babbled something, then shook her head and shuffled down the street, muttering and waving her free hand.

How can I find a single inn in such a huge city?

Wait. Am I in the right area?
He turned to another passer-by, a fat man with a bald head. “Excuse me, is this the Vlanga district?”

The man looked alarmed. “Vlanga, yes, Vlanga,” he muttered, turning sideways and shuffling away quickly. Javor was perplexed. He hitched his pack higher on his shoulders and strode on down the street.

These Romans are either afraid or totally crazy.
The street sloped down, and Javor thought he could detect, almost masked in the general stench of the city, an occasional whiff of the sea. As he walked downhill, he caught glimpses, between the buildings, of a harbour: shining water dotted with boats.
I’ll soon be out of the city again. It must be around here somewhere.

He paused again and stood on one foot, shaking the other. He was so thirsty, his throat hurt. What was it about walking through a hot, dusty city that exhausted him so?