Emperor's Winding Sheet (9 page)

“Oh,” said Vrethiki again. “I thought you'd go—if you could—before the battle starts.”

“What?” yelled John, suddenly purple in the face. “You thought I'd take a man's money to fight, and then rat off before the battle? If you were my size, boy, I'd break half the bones in your body for saying that! How dare you? Soldier of fortune I may be, but I'm yet a man of honor! And paid to fight, but I'll fight well for my pay!”

“Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean … I didn't think …”

“No. Well, you want to be careful what you say.”

“Oh, but John, don't you mind losing? Don't you mind fighting on the wrong side?” cried the boy, his panic breaking through.

John paused a long while before he answered. He bent his head over the harness he was oiling across his knee. “I've been a soldier since I was a boy,” he said, “not so much older than you. I fought for my own king in France, sometimes win, sometimes lose. I fought faithfully and well, to the best of my might. But when we burned Joan the Maid, there, that finished me. That finished me, boy. I don't mind fighting for a loser, so long as I'm fighting for the right. I couldn't fight longer for King Henry once I'd have hated him to win … I came looking for a king whose battle was on his own lands. That's not much of a title to rightness, I grant you, but it's a start. I've been here ever since.

“So you're not going home?” said the boy disconsolately.

“No,” said John. “Now be off with you.”

 

BUT WHEN THE BOY CAME BACK A DAY OR TWO LATER, JOHN
seemed to bear no grudges. He gave him a pile of bridles to clean and rub, and the talk was as free as before.

“John,” said Vrethiki, “who are Demetrios and Thomas?”

“They are the Emperor's good-for-nothing brothers,” said
John. “And we escaped having one or the other for Emperor only by the skin of our teeth! The Lady Empress saw to that; she may not be in favor of Rome, but she had a clear idea which of her sons she favored, thank God. Why? Are they coming to the City?”

“I just heard someone tell the Emperor he should have been one of them.”

“They were both against the Union, especially Demetrios,” said John. “So of course there were maniacs here with religion on the brain willing to support them. Either of them would sell his sister to the Turks, let alone the City. We are better far with Constantine.”

“He's a good soldier; he leads men from the front,” said Martin Freeland, John's second-in-command. “He's a man men would die for.”

The boy stared at them with disbelief written all over his face.

“I'll tell you this,” said John. “The Emperor's crown may be paste and paint, but his courage is real enough, even though he does surround himself with old men instead of good-hearted young captains.”

“Does he?” Vrethiki wondered, and then said, “Stephanos is a young man.”

“He's forty at least, if you call him a man,” John said.

“But his beard hasn't grown yet.

“He's a eunuch, boy,” said Martin. “That means he's had his balls chopped; he'll never grow a beard, nor pleasure a woman neither.”

“That's not what I've heard,” said another Englishman. “Do you know the story of the eunuch and the bailiff's wife?”

“No, what's that, then?” said Martin, interested.

“Belt up!” said John sternly. “Your barrack talk's not fit for the ears of a green youngster.” And Vrethiki crept off, feeling queasy, to look for other company.

Other company was to be had: there were page boys and children about the palace, though the girls were kept closely watched, and indoors for the most part. Vrethiki remembered his cousin Alys, riding her pony on the green hillside, with her curls stretched out on the wind behind her, and felt sorry for the shy pale Roman girls. But the boys would play tag, or archery, or dice, and a number of games with boards and counters. Vrethiki knew only one of these games from home, and that one he could beat them at; he called it Nine Men's Morris.

Sometimes the Emperor went hunting in the fair forests that lay on the hills outside the City. Vrethiki liked the long rides beside fresh tinkling streams, under the leafy trees. And once or twice they went in the Emperor's barge across the calm waters of the Marmara to the islands—those that lay like shadows on the southern skyline from the City—and he and his court refreshed themselves, walking in the shady woods and cool breezes of those lovely places. Thus the long heat of summer passed away.

 

IN THE AUTUMN THE AGED LADY EMPRESS DIED. SHE DIED,
and was mourned for, sung over and buried. Vrethiki, with the Emperor, walked barefoot and bareheaded in her long cortege. The Emperor did not forget her. His cheeks seemed hollower, his dark eyes larger than before; he ate even less, and seemed so dejected that even Vrethiki felt a twinge or two of being sorry for him. It was then that he could see which of the men who visited the Emperor were important to him: John Dalmata, the soldier who had come with them
from Mistra, Theophilus, the Emperor's young and handsome cousin, with his wry lopsided smile, who kissed him on both cheeks on coming and going, and the anxious, faithful secretary, Phrantzes; these men could raise a smile, a little liveliness on their master's countenance. With everyone else he kept his frozen dignity.

“He has no hope,” thought Vrethiki despairingly.

 

IT WAS THE DEPTH OF WINTER WHEN THE NEW SULTAN BEGAN
to move against the City. He began to build a great castle on the Emperor's shore of the Bosporus, a mere six miles from the City. First, soldiers arrived, and then masons. Driving out the people from the little fishing villages that nestled on the slopes of the winding woody shore, they smashed and dismantled houses and churches, and hauled the stone away to build their walls. There were agonized meetings, the Emperor sent protests, sent embassies. The ambassadors returned to the Emperor, tight-lipped and white-faced. The Sultan had threatened to have them flayed alive if they came to him with such messages again.

Now there was panic in the City. The people ran hither and thither, carting reliquaries full of ancient bones around the streets, carrying icons from one church to another in procession, praying and singing, wringing their hands and asking heaven for help. Vrethiki was swept with that agonized irritation that overtakes someone who sees a per son wake up to obvious danger too late. Stephanos calmly assessed the political advantage. “Now that the Empress Helena is dead, and the people are terrified, the Emperor can afford at last to silence Scholanos.”

“Who is Scholarios?” asked Vrethiki.

“I've told you that before, surely,” said Stephanos.

“I'm sorry … all those strange long names … I can't keep them all in my head.”

“Well, he is one to remember. Now that our brave Patriarch has fled to safety, Scholarios is the religious leader of the people. He's the one who signed the Union in Florence, and now preaches against it.”

“Because of Filioque in the Creed?”

“Because of that and other things.”

 

THE EMPEROR WENT TO SEE SCHOLARIOS BY NIGHT. HE WENT
with only Phrantzes, who brought a roll of parchment with him, and Stephanos and Vrethiki, and two soldiers to carry a lamp for them to ride by, and hold their horses at the gate of the house.

Scholarios received them in his room, a little room, whitewashed, and furnished with a table, a stool, a wooden bed, an icon, and a shelf of books. Scholarios himself wore coarse-weave clothes. His face was tense, the eyes narrow and deepset. “What do you want with me, Emperor?” he said, fiercely.

“Your help, Scholarios,” said the Emperor.

“If you have come to silence me, you come in vain,” said Scholarios.

“You of all men,” said the Emperor quietly. “How long were you secretary to my brother, and Judge General? Many years; you know what state the affairs of the Empire are in. I can appeal to you as a man who knows the arts of statesmanship, who understands necessity.”

“You misjudge me, Emperor, if you think I put necessity before truth.”

“Ah, truth,” said the Emperor. “Old friend, how often have you yourself not praised the Fathers of the Western church? Twenty years ago you were already writing to me praising
the works of Aquinas. You recommended my brother to go to Florence; you spoke in favor of Union. How is it that now, in our moment of need, you have changed your tune?”

Scholarios looked him straight in the eye. “I was led astray by their specious arguments,” he said. “Dazzled and led astray. God will forgive me my error because I have recanted it. But you, Emperor …”

“What of me?” said the Emperor, and there was an edge to his voice. Vrethiki pricked up his ears. He was staring at the long row of Aquinas in Latin that stood upon the shelf.

“I will give you a copy of my tractate,” said Scholarios. He held out to the Emperor a pamphlet, titled in Latin and Greek On the Character of Religious Peace, that it should be a Dogmatic Union, and not a Peace of Expediency.

“Thank you,” said the Emperor, and gestured to Vrethiki, who took the pamphlet for him. “My friend, everyone knows you are by far the most learned among the Romans. In all Byzantium, there has never been a man to match you for brilliance. You say there should be a true union of doctrine; I thought that had been achieved, and that you had said so.”

“I was wrong. I have withdrawn my error. But you, Emperor, do evil, do wrong, in seeking to buy help from the West by professing vile Western heretical beliefs in which you are not sincere!”

His voice got louder as he spoke, till he was almost shouting, and his fists were clenched. “This man is cracked,” thought Vrethiki, staring at the fixed glaring eyes.

“I not sincere?” said the Emperor. “What of this?” and Phrantzes unrolled on the table in front of him the parchment he had been carrying. There was a Greek text, and a Latin one. Vrethiki edged up to the table and looked. I declare that I submit myself to the decision of this Council … Wherefore
I consent to this opinion, The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, or from the Father through the Son, as from one principle and one cause …

It bore Scholarios' signature.

Scholarios said nothing. Instead he picked up a sheet of parchment, and laid it down on the table between them, beside his own confession. It was in the Emperor's writing. It was the Creed he had written at Mistra. “If you sincerely believe the West,” said Scholarios, “where is the word Filioque in your creed?”

The Emperor bowed his head. Then at last, “I shall have to have at least your silence,” he said. “At least your promise not to inflame the people. The Sultan is building a castle against us, and I must have Western help.”

“Necessity!” Scholarios almost spat the word. “Expediency. Pah!”

“You are to go to the Monastery of the Pantocrator,” said the Emperor, grimly. “You are confined there by my orders. You are forbidden to preach. Moreover, my command is secret; you are not to say that you are forced to retire. But God, I hope, will one day reconcile us in Heaven, where all these dark doctrines will be made clear.”

“There will be no Heaven for those who desert the true and ancient faith for a little worldly advantage!” said Scholarios.

The Emperor turned on his heel, and they abruptly plunged out into the cool night air.

“How on earth did he get that creed?” hissed Stephanos to Phrantzes.

“Nearly the whole Church is in league with him,” Phrantzes lamented.

“Oh, I wish I understood what this is about!” wailed
Vrethiki to himself. “Why does that one word matter? If I were Emperor, I wouldn't let anyone talk to me as that maniac did to him … and as for riding away weeping—I think he's weeping, he does keep wiping his cheeks—I don't care what John Inglis says, I think he's soft!”

 

JOHN WOULDN'T AGREE. “YOU'RE WRONG, BOY,” HE SAID
, and would say no more. But about the Sultan's castle he was more illuminating. He drew a map for Vrethiki in the dust of the courtyard. “Look, here's the Bosporus—this narrow length of water like a river, though river it is not. Up here at the northern end of it is the Black Sea, and the trade route to Russia and Georgia, and Trebizond, and also the way that any help from thence must come. Now just here, at the narrowest point, the Turks already have a castle—they call it Andalu Hissar—and now opposite, on our shore, they are building another castle. They will be able to close the Bosporus to ships whenever they please. And they will have a strong point on our flank, and cover for crossing to our shore with great armies.”

“But surely,” said Vrethiki, “they have been crossing to and fro whenever they pleased anyway.”

“True enough. Still, this looks bad to me,” said John, with a certain glum zest. “And I'll tell you what's worst about it. He's chosen his site well, chosen with a soldier's eye. And his men, they say, are well organized, well fed, and working like fiends. He's going to be a good general, that one, and we could have done with a little incompetence. Ah well. So it goes.”

 

THE CASTLE WAS ADVANCING WELL WHEN A HUNGARIAN
called Urban arrived in the City, and demanded an audience
with the Emperor. The Emperor received him in the throne room, in the presence of a dozen or so of his advisers, those that made up his council. Vrethiki, standing a little behind the Emperor's throne, was far from bored for once, for the conversation was in Latin, with Stephanos interpreting, since the Hungarian spoke no Greek. He was a stumpy little man, very splendidly dressed in Western fashion with doublet and hose, and short cloak, but though his garments were grand, his hands were dirty, blackened with in grained grime, the nails broken and split. His face was pockmarked with a scatter of little white scars, and the end of one of his eyebrows was burned off. He bowed low to the Emperor.