Stewart Binns - Anarchy

The only constant was the boatmen – and their cargoes, an endless caravan of every conceivable form of artefact, chattel and merchandise. We saw sacks of grain and butts of wine, crates of timber and wool, tethered animals of every species, and human traffic by the score.

It was the turn of the year by the time we were disgorged into the Black Sea and another week before we were sailing through the Bosphorus, with the dome of the magnificent Hagia Sophia in sight.

Everything I had been told about Constantinople turned out to be true – except that not even the most redolent words could equal the breathtaking impact of the city’s first impressions. The mighty walls – the largest in the known world, with nine major gates – were said to be big enough to allow an entire army to be positioned on them. Its palaces and churches were larger and grander than anywhere else. Its hippodrome could hold 100,000 people in a city that was said to house half a million people.

The city’s greatest glory is the Hagia Sophia, the finest building in the world, a place where my grandmother, Torfida, had exchanged ideas with Christendom’s most learned men, and which she had described as ‘heaven on earth’. Said to be over 500 years old by the time she saw it, my mother said that the dome of the great church was a masterpiece of architecture, based on calculations Torfida understood and had explained to her, but ones that no mason she had ever met would attempt to replicate in stone.

After several days wondering at the sights of the city and enjoying its food and wine, we made our way to its north-west corner, to the Blachernae, the Emperor’s private residence hard against and high above its impregnable walls – the place where I was born.

Cooled by fresh winds from the Golden Horn, the present emperor’s father, Alexius I, had decided to move to the Blachernae during his reign to escape the heat and dust of the Great Palace in the centre of the city. Of course I had no recollection of the palace; as I stood outside its marbled entrance, an awestruck stranger from a distant land, it was hard to imagine that I had taken my first breaths inside its walls.

The entrance was guarded by two sentries who, from their appearance and armour, must have been Varangians, the legendary personal bodyguards to the Emperor. Exceptionally tall, the one fair and the other red-headed, they looked like battle-hardened Norse Berserkers or Saxon housecarls. Indeed, most recruits to the Guard hailed from northern Europe, including the few housecarls who had survived Senlac Ridge with King Harold. Eadmer nodded at the guards and spoke to them in English and then in Norse, but they ignored him – they were too disciplined to converse while on duty.

A bailiff and two young assistants sat under a canopy outside the gates, surrounded by a melee of supplicants trying to gain access to the palace. We stood in what vaguely resembled a queue as I practised my Greek. After half an hour, I was at the front of the line of people.

‘I am Harold of Hereford, Knight Commander of Venice. I wish to have an audience with His Majesty, the Emperor, John Comnenus.’

The Byzantine Empire was notable for many things, one of which was its labyrinthine bureaucracy. The bailiff had not looked up during the entire time we had been there – he was busy instead taking a log of the visitors – but he did when I spoke to him, and with a supercilious grin on his face.

‘You have to have a lawyer to petition here. And even then, no one has an audience with the Emperor. Go to your local lord.’

‘My grandfather was Hereward of Bourne, known here as Godwin of Ely, Captain of the Varangian Guard under the Emperor Alexius.’

The bailiff stopped grinning and everyone around us fell silent.

‘Godwin of Ely is well known here. What is your business at the Blachernae?’

‘I was born here. My mother, Estrith, Abbess of Fécamp, and her companion, Adela of Bourne, came here from the Great Crusade in the Holy Land to be cared for by the Emperor’s physicians during her confinement.’

‘And why do you need to see Emperor John?’

‘His Imperial Majesty has been caring for something that belongs to my family. I am now its guardian and I have come to collect it.’

The bailiff was now more courteous and listening closely to what I had to say.

‘And may I know what this something is?’

‘It is called the Talisman of Truth.’

‘Come back tomorrow, Sir Knight. I will speak to one of the assistants to the Papias. He runs the Palace and may be able to speak to the Nobilissimus, who has the Emperor’s ear. You are fortunate that the Emperor is here. He is fighting two wars at the moment – against the Hungarians to the north and the Serbs to the west – we hardly see him in the city.’

‘Thank you. I appreciate your kindness.’

As Eadmer and I turned to leave, one of the Varangian Guards who had been so steadfastly silent spoke to us in English.

‘Sir, did you say you were the grandson of Godwin of Ely? And that he and Hereward of Bourne, leader of the English Revolt, were one and the same?’

‘I did.’

The two Varangians beamed at one another.

‘My grandfather was at Senlac Ridge with King Harold.’

‘And my grandfather was a housecarl with Morcar, Earl of Northumbria. He fought at Stamford Bridge against the Norse. Our families have been here for two generations. There are many English families; we still speak English to one another.’

I was thrilled to meet men whose grandfathers would have known Hereward.

‘It is an honour to meet men from such noble English families.’

‘No, sir, the honour is ours. To meet the grandson of a legend – in fact, two legends! May we shake your hand? I can’t wait to tell the garrison.’

There were smiles and handshakes all round.

I suddenly realized that a huge weight had lifted from my shoulders. Now that the secrecy surrounding my birth was no longer necessary – and the Norman King of England was aware of our family history – the true accounts of our deeds over three generations could be known to all and sundry, and take their rightful place in the proud story of our nation.

We were back at the gates of the Blachernae very early the next morning, but had to wait until the middle of the afternoon for an answer from the bailiff. This time, he was not only polite but he actually bowed before addressing me.

‘Sir Harold, the Nobilissimus will escort you to the Emperor’s Audience Room in one hour. The Varangians will take you into the palace.’

With that, the two Englishmen we had met yesterday appeared, thumped their chests with the closed fist of the Varangians’ salute and strode through the gates ahead of us. Their long strides made us hurry, but I wanted to linger and admire the gleaming marble. I had seen marble before – as statues and high altars – but in the Blachernae the walls and floors were solid marble, as far as the eye could see, both outside and inside its sumptuous rooms. Carpets and tapestries the length of ten men were everywhere, as were gold, ivory, jade and polished wood of every hue.

In a room decorated from floor to ceiling with mosaics of past emperors, the Nobilissimus – a slight man with a wispy beard that led me to wonder whether he was a eunuch – greeted us with a nod of acknowledgement and beckoned to us to sit on a pair of gilded chairs.

‘The Emperor will be here in a while. He leaves for the Hungarian campaign in the morning; there is much to do. He will not be able to give you more than fifteen minutes.’

With our Varangians standing guard, we were left to gaze at the astonishingly lifelike mosaics. Wine, fresh lemon juice, bowls of fruit and cool towels appeared from time to time – all brought with an unruffled reverence by young servants. They were dressed in fine silk cream-coloured smocks, pale-blue braccae trousers, tied at the waist and ankles with cords, and the delicate chamois-leather slippers worn by all the Emperor’s household.