James Heneage - The Walls of Byzantium

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.

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.

He hadn’t slept at all in the night. He’d gone to bed with two words jostling each other in his mind.

Mistra .

He would leave at dawn, ride back to Mistra, tell Plethon of what he’d found written on the sword. He would see Anna and tell her that he’d come back to her from wherever it was he had to go, tell her to wait for him. Then he would return to Omar. His note explained it all. He’d be back at the monastery in ten days, maybe less. Omar must have faith in him. He’d even left his bag as hostage.

But now, as the landscape around him became less certain through the rain, as the warnings crashed out from the heavens, as the varied smells of the steppe combined into a single stench of wet leather and horse fear, he was not so sure.

Have I done the right thing?

He looked around him. It was as if he was separated from the world by this curtain of grey. He felt water course its way down his spine and thought of the spiced wine of the night before. He looked down at the sword by his side, saw the rain hitting the dragon head pommel in tiny explosions. He shivered.

Then he heard something beyond the curtain, something faint that wanted to get through: a shout.

Immediately he thought of the group that they’d seen following them on the previous day. It must be them. But where to hide? There were no hiding places on the steppe.

He stopped and listened.

The shout came again, this time closer — in front. Luke strained his eyes, wiping the drips from his eyelashes and nose.