The Walls of Byzantium (63 page)

All except Anna were entering for the first time. Plethon’s travels had taken him everywhere except, surprisingly, Mistra, and for some time he’d longed to see the place that some were calling the Empire’s finest jewel. Zoe had found no cause; her family did little business with the city and, in recent times, no Mamonases would have been welcome there.

Anna had not seen her home for two terrible years and her tired eyes strained to conjure memories from the shadows around her. It was approaching midnight and the streets were deserted apart from the cats darting from door to door like messengers, their tails aloft. The street lights were newly extinguished and a faint smell of resin hung in the air. There was a cry from an upper window, perhaps a dream of a time when Suleyman had stood before their gates with a young girl before him on his saddle.

The moon emerged from behind a cloud. Plethon had stopped and was looking up at the dark mass of the Despot’s palace. There were lights in its windows.

‘The Despot works late,’ said Anna, stopping beside him. Zoe had wandered on ahead. ‘We go there tomorrow.’

They walked on and caught up with Zoe and were soon turning into the street where the Laskaris house lay.

Approaching the door, she saw a small woman standing alone beneath a street lamp, bent with waiting. The light from it turned the woman’s hair into a long, disordered veil of mourning white, ribboned by scissors. Not the colour of her mother’s hair.

When she got closer, when she realized that it was Maria standing there, she let out a cry and brought her balled fist to her mouth. Then she was running, running as fast as her tired legs would allow to reach this woman who had suffered two deaths and then a third: her very will to live.

Moments later Maria was in Anna’s arms, and in her raised face, wet with tears, Anna could see the deep scars of her pain. She held her mother’s head between her hands, the white strands of hair spilling through her fingers, and whispered the four words she knew might bring her back from the dead.

‘
I am in love
.’

That night was the last that Omar and Luke would spend together before reaching the tribe.

They had arrived at an old Byzantine monastery perched on a hill above a small village called Seyit Gazi. It now held a mosque with outbuildings gathered within stout walls. They had ridden up the path to its gate in the rain and dark on horses whose heads hung low with fatigue.

Omar was both well known and loved by the men of this place. As soon as they’d ridden through the gate, they were surrounded by torches held high above faces shining with relief that they’d arrived late but safe.

One came up to Omar and embraced him as soon as his feet touched the ground. He seemed to be of similar age. ‘Welcome, old friend!’

Omar kissed both of his cheeks. ‘There are men following us, Abraham.’

‘Then we will bar the gates and post guards,’ said the monk. He gestured to another, who hurried away. ‘This monastery is difficult to break into.’

While Omar went into the mosque to pray, Luke was led across the courtyard by Abraham and down some steps into a large vaulted room with cells on either side. In the middle of the room was a long table with plates neatly laid out and a cup by each place. There were candles in wooden holders and baskets of bread and earthenware jugs in between.

Abraham sat and gestured for Luke to sit beside him. ‘We were worried for you. The steppe is not a place to spend the night if you are not a nomad.’ He lifted one of the jugs. ‘And there is more rain coming. Much rain.’

Luke looked around him. Some of the cell doors were shut.

‘Each door leads to a
cilehane
,’ said Abraham, ‘“a place of suffering”, in your language. Men come from far away to live in them and, while here, they will fast, talk to no one and read only the Koran.’

‘As I did,’ said Omar, who’d arrived to take the seat next to Luke, ‘for five years; with Abraham, who chose to stay.’

‘Why?’ asked Luke. ‘Why here?’

Omar leant over and took a basket filled with bread. He offered it to Luke. ‘Because it has special significance. It is the shrine of one of our saints, Battal Gazi. He was a giant Arab who fought the Greeks many centuries ago and ran off with the Emperor of Byzantium’s daughter. Theirs was a great love. Her tomb lies next to his in a vault below.’

He looked around at the cells, then he turned to Abraham. ‘The cells are taken?’

‘Many already. People come early.’

Omar turned to Luke. ‘It is the saint’s birthday tomorrow and there will be a vigil in the crypt tomorrow night. Many pilgrims have come already. More will come tomorrow.’

Much later, when they had eaten hot food and the last of the monks had gone to bed, Luke and Omar walked across the rain-splashed courtyard to the room they would sleep in. There were two beds in the room and a fire in the grate and a stone canopy above it shaped like a holy hat. Chairs had been placed before the fire and a jug of wine sat on a low table between them.

‘I don’t usually drink wine,’ said Omar as he sat, ‘but tonight I’ll make an exception. I’m sure Allah will overlook it.’

Luke shook the rain from his cloak and laid it next to the hearth. Then he poured wine for them both. It was hot and strong and tinctured with cinnamon and Luke felt warmth flood through him. He stretched out his legs and closed his eyes.

‘Don’t go to sleep,’ chided Omar gently. ‘I have much to tell you and this will be my last chance to do so.’

Then Omar began to talk and his deep voice rose above the wind and the rain outside and Luke sat forward and stared into the fire and listened to every word.

Omar spoke of Battal Gazi, who had loved a Byzantine princess with a passion that had transcended creed; then he talked of other things. And, as he spoke, Luke began to know this wise and funny man who’d forced his gentle way into his existence and why he’d cared to do so.

At last he said, ‘That is why we’ve come to this place, Luke. Because its beauty lies in the love that is buried deep within it.’ Omar prodded the embers with the tip of his shoe. ‘Like you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you, Luke. You know love without question. That is rare.’

The fire was bright in Omar’s eyes, casting miniature dancers in his pupils. His beard had been touched by the alchemist’s hand and ran in silver to his waist.

Luke said, ‘But many people love.’

‘Yes, but not like you. There is great power in such a love. Power that can be used for good.’

Luke leant back in his chair and stared into the fire as if it might hold answers amongst the embers. He suddenly felt tired and perhaps a little drunk. The jug was almost empty and Omar hadn’t touched the cup beside him. The walls around him were now almost lost to darkness, and he heard the noise of the wind and rain beating against their ancient stone. There was one question still that needed answering.

He said, ‘Why are you helping me, Omar? You’re a Muslim like Bayezid. Why are you helping a Christian?’

‘Religion is not the point, Luke.
Reason
is the point. There is a new flame of reason that’s been lit in the West among the city states of Italy. People there are beginning to think in new ways and show it through their art, their writing, their systems of government.’ Omar sighed. ‘But there is also a darkness coming in from the East, two monsters who would extinguish that flame, who would drag us back into another dark age. Bayezid and Tamerlane must be made to destroy each other. It’s the only way.’

‘Which is what you and Plethon want to bring about. But I am confused as to my part. Is it to find a treasure or to meet a madman?’

Omar turned to the fire. His eyes had taken its embers. ‘Which would you like it to be, Luke?’

Luke shook his head. ‘I was left a sword,’ he said. ‘A sword to take me to a treasure.’

‘Or to remind you that you are a Varangian? A Varangian prince?’

Omar rose and went over to his bed. His back was to Luke. He turned.

‘I have your sword here,’ he said, lifting it so that the fire made a river of its blade. He lowered it and walked over to Luke. ‘Here, it’s yours. Yakub brought it from Suleyman’s tent. He thought you might need it.’

Luke took the sword. He looked down at the dragon head, at its open maw.

A Varangian sword. For a Varangian quest
.

‘Well, I can’t go back anyway,’ he said. ‘I am a traitor in the west.’

Omar shook his head. ‘I could pretend so, but I won’t. Sigismund of Hungary has told Emperor Manuel the truth about Nicopolis. You may not be welcome in Burgundy, but you can return to Mistra.’ He paused. ‘Anna is there now. With Plethon.’

Luke stared at the old man. ‘In Mistra? Why?’

‘Because her father is dead. She will attend his funeral. She will be there for some weeks.’

Luke felt a wave of happiness break over him. He could walk out of the monastery that very moment, ride to Mistra and find a future with Anna. Somewhere. Somehow.

He took a deep breath. ‘Why have you told me this? You could have kept silent and I’d have done what I had to do.’

‘No, Luke.’ Omar shook his head. ‘That is the old way; not the way of
reason
. You must make this choice for yourself.’

Luke looked further into the fire, into its endlessly shifting centre. So many questions.

Much later, when Omar had gone to bed and the wine jug was empty, Luke sat with the sword in his lap and stared at it.

He’d looked again at what was scratched into its hilt. He’d read the word ‘seputus’ and seen the date below it.

Except that it wasn’t a date. It was a name.

Mistra
.

Outside the walls of the monastery, on a low hill to the west, twelve men were preparing for sleep.

They had ridden all day and kept the two men they were following always in their sight. Now, as they spread their bedding out on the ground, they looked up at the sky and swore beneath their breaths. The rain was closing in and it would be a hard one. Most were men of the steppe, of the Karamanid tribe, and they could feel its rhythm in the earth beneath them.

Two of their number were not of the steppe. They lay apart and looked not at the sky but at the black hulk of the monastery that broke the darkening horizon. One of them smiled. He’d watched the two men enter earlier and had seen the gates bolted behind them.

The men were exactly where he wanted them to be.

He yawned and drew his cloak around him. Tomorrow would be busy. For now, he would sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

ANATOLIA, OCTOBER 1396

Luke pulled up his horse. The thunderclap had been endless, rolling back and forth to reach a crescendo of deafening percussion. The animal had stopped suddenly, its body rigid with terror. Luke whispered into its ear, his hand massaging the wet down around it. At last it calmed and Luke felt the tension seep through his legs.

It was a good horse, intelligent and strong. It had understood perfectly the need for silence as Luke had saddled it at dawn and led it out of the still-sleeping monastery. That had been eight hours ago.

Before the rain had come again.

Now it fell in torrents, hitting the dry steppe around like a drum-roll, making Luke’s cloak a thing of weight rather than warmth. He was wet to the bone.