The Towers of Samarcand (34 page)

‘Yes, and he vowed he would avenge Nicopolis. Without Burgundy next time.’ Plethon looked at his companion closely. ‘Is he a good Christian, do you know?’

De’ Medici thought before he spoke. ‘He is a practical man. And he’d like to be Holy Roman Emperor one day.’ He paused and narrowed his eyes. ‘You know, of course, that he and Ladislaus are mortal enemies, both claiming the crown of Hungary?’

Plethon nodded. ‘I had heard.’ He scratched his beard. ‘This daughter … Angelina. She is illegitimate. Is he fond?’

‘No father is fonder. She is his only child.’

Plethon nodded. ‘Well, I saw him as well in Rome. He agrees to the plan.’

There was silence in the church. De’ Medici was looking at the man next to him in admiration. Then he said, ‘Your grasp of Italian politics is impressive, Plethon. Do you even have a candidate for Pope?’

Plethon smoothed his toga over his knees. He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. ‘No, but you do. Tell me about Baldassare Cossa, Giovanni. He sounds interesting.’

De’ Medici let out a long breath. ‘Now that
is
impressive. What do you know?’

‘That you’ve just bought him his cardinal’s hat. Ten thousand florins, I believe: a fabulous sum. There must be some purpose to such magnanimity.’

The Florentine laughed. ‘There’s competition. Venice wants Angelo Correr, cousin to the Doge. And he should be persuadable on union. After all, he was titular Patriarch of Constantinople and has been discussing
Filioque
issues with your own Patriarch Matthew.’

Plethon shook his head. ‘Too old, too godly. The battle will be fierce. Baldassare Cossa is well chosen: he is greedy, ruthless and intelligent, a winning combination for Pope.’

De’ Medici was silent for a long time. The only indication that he’d found interesting matter in what Plethon had said was in his breathing, which had quickened. His goggle eyes were a little wider, his cheeks pinker, and his templed hands were raised to his lips in thought.

Eventually he turned and asked, ‘But how will you persuade the two Popes to do this when they have excommunicated each other? How will you get them to persuade their cardinals?’

Plethon looked into the banker’s eyes. ‘You will just have to trust me on that. I have the means to do it and, to judge from my meeting with Boniface in Rome, it will work.’

The Italian nodded slowly. ‘And you go on from here to Avignon?’

‘Yes.’

De’ Medici was still nodding, this time with his fist beneath
his chin. ‘It might just work,’ he said. Then: ‘Where does the Princess come in?’

For a moment, Plethon didn’t know who he was talking about. Then he realised.

Fiorenza
.

‘She is here to give you gold.’

De’ Medici smiled. ‘Ah, the final carrot. Would this be the repayment of the loan to Chios?’

‘The final part, I believe. Delivered to you with interest, although I gather you don’t call it that.’

The banker laughed, a thin sound from an unused organ. ‘My agent there will be disappointed. He’s in love with her and needs a reason to stay.’

Plethon shook his head. ‘They think he’s a spy. For Venice.’

Laughter again, this time louder. ‘Tommaso Bardolli a spy? Don’t be ridiculous! He’s too busy being in love. She encourages it.’

Plethon frowned. ‘The Princess Fiorenza encourages it?’

‘She flirts with him. It was she who told him to stay on the island.’

*

In fact Tommaso Bardolli had little choice but to stay on the island. Not long after Fiorenza and Plethon had set sail from Chios, the galleys that the philosopher had noticed weren’t at Constantinople turned up in the bay of Chora.

Their admiral was a nervous man. He had been given strict and challenging instructions. He was to take ten ships, fill them with two thousand janissaries, sail to Chios and take it. And he was to do it in two weeks. Now the two weeks were up and the island still hadn’t been taken.

Prince Suleyman, still smarting over the loss of the cannon,
had been the one who ordered them there. He’d not take Constantinople until he had more cannon, and the Serenissima had made it clear that they wouldn’t even start making them until Chios had been delivered to them.

Now, standing on the battlements of the castle at Chora, Marchese Longo was thinking about snakes. Since antiquity, Chios had been famous for snakes, its Greek name Ofioussa meaning ‘having snakes’. Some said that the gods had given the island mastic as the means to live with them. At that moment, it seemed to Longo that the bay was full of them, its surface a churn of writhing bodies that rose and turned and spat, their darting tongues breaking out to lick the air.

The meltemi
.

Thank God for the meltemi. The wind was early this year, early and strong. It had started almost the moment that the Turkish galleys had broken the horizon two weeks ago and had yet to stop. The Chians saw it as proof that God was with them and put their swords to the grindstone with new fire in their bellies.

Around Longo stood the men from the campagna, all armed and grave. Zacco Banca turned to him.

‘Marchese, we thought that our mastic would protect us. Has the Sultan changed his mind?’

Longo shrugged, pulling his cloak tighter to his shoulders. ‘Perhaps it is not Bayezid we are facing. They say that he’s gone to Wallachia.’

Gabriele Adorno nodded. ‘In which case this has been ordered by Suleyman. He means to take our island and hand it to Venice. What do we do?’

Longo looked at the galleys lined up at the mouth of the bay. They were rocking like cradles and presumably the poor
wretches within were mewling and puking as the contents of cradles do. The ships were crammed with men desperate for dry land, yet every attempt to disembark them had, so far, ended in disaster. The landing craft were flat-bottomed and didn’t stand a chance in such a sea.

‘Perhaps nothing. The wind does our work for us.’ It was Benedo Barbi who’d spoken. He was standing between Longo and Dimitri and had had to raise his voice to be heard. The wind made noise of everything it met: ropes, flags, cloaks; each snapped its own particular protest.

‘How much longer will they bear it?’ asked Dimitri. ‘The decks must be awash with vomit.’

Longo nodded. He looked up into the sky. It was blue and without cloud and the sun was at its zenith which meant that the wind was about to blow more strongly. It always did in the afternoons. ‘If it will just continue for a few more days,’ he said. He turned to a man behind him whose vestments were billowing like sails. ‘Monseigneur, keep those masses going. I want one an hour.’

The priest bowed, his hands clamped to his knees. ‘It is to be wished that the Princess Fiorenza’s passage was safe in such seas. We will pray for that too.’

Longo frowned. He’d hoped she would be in Florence by now, delivering gold to Giovanni de’ Medici and telling him that they had no more use for Tommaso Bardolli on the island. It seemed an unlikely coincidence that the Turks had appeared two days after a large part of the garrison had left. Where was the agent now? He’d have to have him followed.

*

In Edirne, it was evening and the daughter of the King of Hungary had just been visited by a priest found somewhere
within the small Christian community that resided in that city. He was a small man, tonsured and smelling of cheese, whose gloom had preceded him into the room and stayed long after he’d left.

The Princess’s condition was deteriorating by the day. She was whiter than the sheet beneath her and her eyes were sunk deep into a face washed with perspiration. She drifted in and out of fever and could hold nothing down. The only thing she could do was read and she did this continuously, finding it easier than talking.

It was now five months since she’d taken to her bed and the palace doctors had tried everything they knew to try. She’d been starved, bled, wrapped in wool, fed every disgusting herb under heaven and, moment by moment, the life had drifted away from her like pollen from a flower. Anna and Maria had sat by her bed day and night, rigid with cheer, and only once had they broken down. It was the day her hair had been taken from her.

Now, shaved and shivering, Angelina lay asleep in sheets drenched with sweat and the first traces of blood. They’d given her a sleeping draught an hour past and she would not wake. Maria had pulled back the sheet to change it and was the first to notice the stain.

‘It must be in her urine,’ she whispered. She’d gone as white as the patient, her eyes wide with horror. ‘Look, it’s between her legs, from where she’s wet the bed.’

‘What
does
that?’ asked Anna.

Maria was shaking her head. ‘There is something in India they call
cholera
which comes from bad water. Otherwise …’

‘Otherwise?’

Maria looked at her and there was dread in her eyes. ‘Otherwise, it could be arsenic or certain snakes’ poison.’

They stared at each other without speaking, both thinking the same thing. Only one person in the harem would have access to such poison.

Gülçiçek
.

‘We need to find the doctors,’ said Anna, rising. She bent over Angelina to kiss her forehead, prising the book from her sleeping fingers. She held Angelina’s hand in hers, staring at it.

The fingers
.

Something about Angelina’s fingers was wrong. She looked closely at them, at their flaked tips; then she raised them to her nose. She looked at the book.

Of course
.

In the corridor were the palace doctors. Their heads were joined and they were speaking in whispers. Beside them stood the Chief Black Eunuch. Anna motioned him to join her.

‘It’s poison,’ she said, ‘I’ve seen it on her fingers. Someone coated the corners of the pages in the book that I lent her.’

The Kislar Ağasi was a giant from Mali and famous for his calm. Early in his Timbuktu upbringing, his calm had been mistaken for stupidity and he’d been sold as a slave. He’d secured his role as ruler of the Sultan’s harem through deploying that composure to best effect. Now he said nothing.

‘You know who’s done this,’ Anna said, looking up at him.

The eunuch remained silent. He was dressed in a thoub of flawless white and not one muscle in his giant, impassive face moved.

‘Angelina is near death. The priest has been. Our only chance of an antidote is in knowing the poison.’

The eunuch wasn’t looking at her. His half-closed eyes were fixed on something beyond and above her.

‘In the not very distant future,’ Anna continued, her voice
even, ‘I shall be married to the next sultan and you will either be free and rich or have died in as agonising a way as someone crueller than I will have devised.’ She paused. One tiny bead of sweat had appeared on the man’s temple. She rose on tiptoe to it and whispered: ‘I want to know the poison, Kislar Ağasi.

Three days later, Bayezid’s mother was dead. No one had known the Valide Sultan’s age, only that she was infinitely old and infinitely powerful. Some said that she’d exercised her power well, others that she’d been a scheming witch. Anna felt that her only good act had been the one she’d performed on her deathbed. As to how she’d been persuaded of it, Anna preferred not to know.

The man had set off for Venice as soon as they knew where the poison had come from. Now he’d returned with bad news. The Kislar Ağasi was passing it on to Anna and Maria. ‘The Jew had no antidote.’

‘Did he even say what poison it was?’ asked Maria.

The giant shook his head. ‘He said that it was poison from many different snakes. Snakes from the island of Chios.’

Anna put her hand on his arm. ‘Chios is close. We can send for someone.’

The eunuch frowned. ‘I fear not, lady. Chios is under attack.’

*

On Chios, the meltemi was over. Despite the Monseigneur’s many masses, the wind had blown itself out. Or almost.

From Marchese Longo’s vantage point on the castle walls, he could see smoke from the burning fields drifting north into the foothills of Mount Aipos and, closer, the dust of pounded masonry following it. The Turkish galleys had hove to beneath the walls and were firing their cannon. The guns were small and the firing infrequent but dust had obliterated the sun. The sound was deafening.

‘There they are.’ Dimitri was pointing south across the plain towards the Kambos where the fields had been set alight. Emerging from the smokescreen were the janissary ortas and they were advancing in good order. They had been dropped further up the coast an hour before.

First came groups of infantry behind large wicker screens, then archers who stopped behind them to loose volley after volley of arrows. Next came the water-carriers who would also tend to the wounded. It was an impressive and entirely silent manoeuvre and Longo found himself nodding in approval.

‘No wonder they win,’ he murmured, turning to Benedo Barbi, who was on his other side. ‘Look at them.’

‘Look at their clothes,’ said Lara, who’d arrived later. She and the monks of the Nea Moni monastery had set up a hospital inside the castle. The meltemi had at least given them time to prepare.

The janissaries were certainly fine. Each wore a tall white
börk
, and beneath they wore mail hauberks over long tunics and boots of red leather. Some carried banners with crescents and the hand of Fatima on them. In front of them, soldiers of the campagna were streaming back through the suburbs of the town, some carrying wounded. The town’s population had taken shelter inside the castle.

‘I’d better go back to the monks. I wish the Princess was here.’

Longo wished it too, and not just for her healing. He missed every part of his wife.

Barbi said: ‘If only we had some cannon. We’d make better use of them than these clowns.’

The Turks’ first rounds had been aimed at the row of windmills on the harbour front. Every one had missed and one of the cannon had exploded, setting fire to the sail above. Now they had chosen the easier target of the walls.