The Sacred Scroll (4 page)

‘Going grey,’ smiled Marlow, shaking his hand.

‘But no paunch to go with it.’

Marlow knew there was more to the bespectacled, slightly stooping six-footer than just a back-room boy. Lopez’s other job was senior lecturer in the History of Science at Columbia University. They’d first worked together in Honduras, when Lopez and Marlow were doing a spell with the Marines in what had been called an ‘advisory capacity’.

‘How’s Mia? Still failing to teach you Swedish?’

‘She’s fine. And my Swedish has come on – even her mother approves.’

‘And the kids?’

Lopez grinned. ‘Alvar’s thirteen now –’

‘Which makes Lucia what – ten?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Surprised you’re still doing this.’ As he spoke, Marlow saw Lopez and Hudson exchange a glance. But then the main door opened and the woman came in.

‘Jack,’ Hudson said, ‘this is Laura Graves.’

The woman looked at him levelly through clear blue eyes.

Marlow knew all about her. She was a native New Yorker, born thirty-years ago on Long Island, where her parents – Irish/French stock – still lived. An only child, she was unmarried, and she’d been recruited by INTERSEC after collecting degrees from Yale, and Cambridge University in England. She’d then had a brief career in academic journalism.

Marlow took her hand. Her handshake was as cool as the look in her eyes.

He knew she spoke three living languages fluently – French, Arabic and Chinese, which complemented his own German, Italian and Spanish. In addition, she knew Latin and Greek, but her real expertise was in Sanskrit and Aramaic, with a working knowledge of the ancient Babylonian languages – Sumerian and Akkadian. Those were the skills she’d been picked for.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello.’

Marlow took stock of his new colleague. An intelligent face whose expression was reserved, though Marlow sensed humour beneath the surface, and in the fine lines at the corners of the mouth.

She was maybe 1.70m tall. High cheekbones, lips less than what you’d call full, a nose that just managed not to be aquiline, a delicate chin. All framed by the kind of long hair a model would die for, auburn. Lightly tanned skin, slight sunglass-paleness around the eyes. Her chunky grey sweater and black jeans couldn’t disguise an athletic figure.

She gave him a faint smile now. Marlow, homing in on details, saw that her simple clothes were complemented by an emerald pendant on a silver chain, and an emerald ring on her right hand. On the little finger next to it was a minute, faded tattoo of what looked like a heart.

‘Good to meet you,’ she said.

‘Welcome, all of you, to Section 15,’ said Hudson, clearing his throat. ‘Which, with Jack’s arrival, is now complete. As you know, this section’s been created in response to a
special contingency of prime importance. As far as I am concerned, you’ll report to me but I’ll leave you alone. In fact, the fewer the people who know what you’re doing, the better, even within INTERSEC.’ He turned to Marlow. ‘Sorry to be brief, but there’s no time for a welcome party. I’ll leave you to get acquainted. But don’t take too long over it. Leon will fill you in.’

Marlow nodded, and Hudson left, trailing his aura of expensive cigars and cologne.

‘So what have we got?’ he said, turning to Lopez. ‘A handful of missing archaeologists? They must be super-important.’

Then the blue phone rang. Marlow nodded again. Lopez picked it up, spoke briefly and passed it over.

Marlow listened intently, and hung up.

‘Playtime over,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to work.’

Constantinople, Year of Our Lord 1204

At a sign from his master, Leporo began to read from de Treillis’s battle memoir again.

We found no fugitives in the Palace. We found only the great ladies, the Empress Marie of Hungary, who was the sister of the Hungarian king; and the Empress Agnes, the sister of our own King Philip, both widows of late emperors of this city and this Eastern empire.

I could see that the Italian, Boniface, one of our two leaders, had his eye on Lady Agnes from the first.

 

They say that fifty years ago the emperor had a golden throne which was lowered from hidden heights down on to the dais which stood ready to take its weight. The emperor would welcome ambassadors here, in the great palace of Boucoleon, clad in his gold-and-silver clothes, capes encrusted with emeralds and rubies and sapphires. Next to the throne stood a plane tree made entirely of gold, in which clockwork silver-and-gold birds sang. And they say that either side of the golden throne were mechanical lions and griffins which by a secret device could be made to turn their heads, open their mouths and roar. And – wonderful to relate – after envoys to him
had prostrated themselves, the emperor, on a signal, would be hoisted up on his throne to those hidden heights, only to descend again soon afterwards, resplendent as ever, but now in completely different robes.

Even the Turks who came here in those days, they say, were cowed and impressed.

 

We found no such thing in the palace as that throne, but for all we knew it was there somewhere, in its many rooms – we stopped counting at five hundred, wary of getting lost, of an ambush even. But there was no sign of one.

 

We were blinded by the splendour. Where we use iron for nails and hinges, they use silver and gold. Where we have wooden or earth floors, theirs are marble; and that is only the beginning.

 

But I must speak of the fire.

 

It was worse than the ones that had gone before.

 

We had all hoped for rest that first night after the victory, though we were still cautious. I continued to look out over the city, thinking of its riches, when the glow of what I thought was one of the fires in Lord Boniface’s camp some way off grew great, and spread. In minutes I could see that it was another great fire, ravaging the city. I found out later that it had been set by some of the Italians – Pisans – who were afraid of a counter-attack by the Greeks under cover of night. They were brawling drunk; they went to the mosque and picked a fight with the locals they found worshipping there. Wrecked the place and set it on fire.

 

There was a wind from the north. The fire burned all the rich quarter in its southward path, and it raged for eighteen hours. Lost a lot of loot that way.

 

A part of me felt sorry for the locals. They’d done nothing to harm us. They were only merchants. I saw one family who’d got out of their house but didn’t run away, just stood near it, watching it burn. Their whole lives.

 

The rest of the city lay open. The emperor was gone, no one knew where, maybe out of the city with the rest of the rich, through the Golden Gate at the southern end of the West Wall. This was good, because the only troops left who were worthy fighters were his personal guard, the Warings – Vikings, and Saxons who’d fled from the Normans. They were confused, having no sense of direction or duty without an emperor to protect. We took them prisoner but handled them well. They were men like
us
, after all, men we could understand – not like the Greeks. Dandolo already had one of them in his pocket, a bloke who’d been with him for years. He helped smooth things over, but it was the old doge himself who won them over. How, I’ve no idea.

 

There was much to do. This huge city lay wide open to us, and we – and I mean us French as well as the Germans and the Italians – didn’t hesitate to help ourselves to its riches. We were surely in the right, but it grieves me to report that in our victorious fury we respected nothing.

 

We did not respect the churches or the sacred images. And some of our men – not our own Frenchmen but the Pilgrims from Germany and Italy – attacked and raped men, women and children.

 

All sorts of atrocities and killings we carried out. The monasteries and the convents were looted and burned down, as well as the great houses. I saw our men tear the
habits from nuns, young and old; two men would spread the women’s legs while a third thrust in. They took turns, gouging the women till they bled, and then cutting their throats. I saw a monk try to intervene once, a young man, strong. They ripped his hairshirt from him and used a dagger to cut off his balls.

 

Leporo paused. Dandolo looked up.

‘Why have you stopped?’ he asked.

‘There’s a passage that follows which I do not wish to read.’

‘Read everything.’

We rode into the great church of Saint Sophia on horseback, right up to the altar. We tore the vestments from the priests who stayed, praying, at their posts. The face of Christ in gold and in majesty looked down at us from the dome as we broke up the shrines and altars for the sake of their marble. We looted the sacristy and the crypt and the treasury. We needed money to pay the Venetians for the fleet we had ordered for the great venture to Jerusalem.

I’m a poor knight, but I’m a nobleman, and I could see the value and a bit of the beauty of what we took; but try telling that to the ordinary soldiers. They are farmhands from the kingdoms of the west who live in wooden shacks and mud hovels. They’d never seen anything like this. Half of them didn’t have jobs when they joined up, were close to starving. This was their big chance. All they saw was stuff which could be melted down and turned into bullion and coin.

 

But it
had to be done
.

 

What I cannot support, and the memory lives with me still, is that they took one of the whores from the camp and got her drunk and sat her on the Patriarch’s Throne in the great church. There she was, legs wide, and drinking, singing disgusting songs while a couple of sergeants pawed her. I left before I could see what else the men would get up to there. They were out of control.

 

It went on well after the fire had gone out, from Tuesday to Thursday in those last days before Holy Week. I say again that I had never seen such beautiful things as were pulled over and smashed up, if they were stone or marble, or melted down if they were gold, silver or bronze.

 

There was a statue of Our Lady in the Forum of the Ox near the city centre. They tore that down and within half a day it was molten metal, ready to be turned into coin, because she’d had the misfortune to be made of bronze. And that wasn’t the only one, I can tell you. There was a massive statue of Hercules, and another one of Pegasus, the second so big that I counted ten storks’ nests between the bronze horse’s head and his crupper.

 

I was told of two others, one of Juno, and another, which we really should have spared – a statue of the Servant of the Winds, in bronze with the goddess so beautifully balanced on a rotating orb that she acted as a weather vane. And there was a statue of Helen of Troy which I
did
see before it was broken up and taken to the furnaces. I couldn’t believe anyone would destroy such a thing; she was so beautiful you’d’ve thought she was alive. But nothing would stop them. We’d been farting around
for so long, trying to take this city, better part of two years, and now, well, there was so much to get your hands on that the lads just couldn’t stop themselves.

 

But the statues couldn’t feel anything. It was the people I felt sorry for, and it was the little people who suffered. Most of the rich got away.

 

I managed to stop one soldier who’d heated the point of his sword and was about stick it into a little girl he’d picked up crying in the street. Had him arrested – hanged him later. Had the little girl taken to one of the convents in the suburbs. There, they had escaped the full fury.

 

When the anger simmered down, some of us looked back at what we’d done and wept. But it was too late. I reckon more houses were burned down than all the houses you could find in our three biggest cities back in France.

 

But there was still plenty to go round.

 

Leporo turned the last page. ‘That’s as far as he’s got,’ he said.

Dandolo gave a papery sigh. His right hand went to a pocket concealed within the tunic under his stole and closed round something hidden there. Leporo knew the gesture, and followed it with his eyes. He knew what his master was clutching so protectively. He watched, silently, covetously.

Dandolo was still. He closed his eyes. He stayed like that for a minute, so quiet that the monk peered to see if he could detect the rise and fall of the old man’s clothes as he breathed.

He thought he could not. Cautiously, he approached.

He was within touching distance when the milky eyes snapped open. Leporo could see the old burns on the skin around them as Dandolo had struggled to keep his eyes away from the magnifying glass they had used all those years ago, in this city, to concentrate the rays of the sun on to his retinas, to burn them out.

Leoporo shrank back, but he wasn’t quick enough. The doge’s right hand shot out with surprising speed and seized his confessor’s robe near the neck, pulling him down so the monk could smell the musty breath of age.