Elli continued. ‘Ariana, we know the cross is very old. We don’t know how old it is or whether it is a genuine Imperial cross. That’s where Giorgos comes in. We hoped that he may be able to verify its authenticity.’
Giorgos, who until now had been sitting like the others in silence, made a move to take the cross from his sister who had already unclasped it. His mind was already processing what his grandmother had told him and even though the story was not finished, he was subconsciously already connecting the dots. Ariana did not let him complete the process.
‘That will not be necessary. That is indeed the Imperial cross.’
Ten pairs of eyes turned to her in shock. They were all thinking of what had not yet been said. Their minds were travelling in all sorts of weird directions and assumptions.
Elli dreaded the truth. Was Katerina’s family descended from the child or from the child’s nanny who may have stolen the cross? Is that how they knew about the icon and the ring and came to have the cross? Or, and this was the most outrageous possibility, were they connected with the kidnapping somehow, maybe through the nanny who may have assisted with that, or… was it possible… were they descended from the kidnapper? She did not utter any of this speculation, but like the others she waited. Ariana continued.
‘My family name is Vendis. My ancestor was Sotirios Vendis who lived in Constantinople in 1453.’
Now that had not come up in the check on Katerina’s family that Elli had carried out. And there was the matter of her ancestor’s, Eleni’s, son, Michael, having married the daughter of a Sotirios Vendis, Leyla. That certainly was not a coincidence. The two families were distantly related.
What other secrets were hiding in their past? Elli thought she knew everything. The inner circle of the Order of Vlachernae and all that.
Ariana continued. ‘The Vendis family was one of the most prominent in Constantinople. Sotirios Vendis was the head of the family and part of the Emperor’s inner circle. About a month before the city’s fall, he started to observe a change in the last Emperor’s behaviour. It was subtle, but he had known the Emperor well and for a long time and he was one of very few who could see it. He began to become concerned. The Emperor’s behaviour in public was credible — nobody seemed to have noticed anything different or strange — but in private he was becoming increasingly erratic, a different person. And it was not just the expected different persona of a public figure like the Emperor.
‘My ancestor knew him personally, so he could be confident of knowing the Emperor’s private side, life in his most private moments. And he decided to take action. He arranged for the taking of the child from the palace and for him to be taken to a safe place until at least he could see the situation had changed and it was probably safe to return, if at all. This is what became known as the kidnapping. He wanted to protect the
child. The kidnapping took place on 4 th May 1453.’
Elli remembered rumours about the identity of the last Emperor before the siege, rumours she heard from her family, stories that were handed down the generations of the Symitzis family.
Ariana, your ancestor was perplexed by the change in the Emperor’s behaviour, wondered maybe it was the tense built-up leading to the siege. But my ancestor and head of our clan and the Valchern business at the time suspected otherwise. My ancestor, Eleni’s son, Michael, visited Constantinople on 28 ^th May 1453, on the eve of the final battle and fall of the city. Michael met with the Emperor and had an extensive audience with him in secret. Michael asked him about the disappearance of the child and about the city. He was surprised with the Emperor’s total indifference to the plight of the child, his own son, and about his not initiating a search for the child. And he was surprised that the Emperor was seriously considering fleeing to Venice with many of his treasures. And Michael believed he was not joking.
‘At the time he thought the Emperor was out of his mind. It was totally out of character for him, one of the bravest people he had ever met, to take the coward’s way out. Eleni and Michael suspected that it was not the Emperor that he had met, but an impostor. I know it may sound crazy, but with everything we’ve heard so far, maybe it was not such a crazy suggestion after all.’
Ariana resumed her story. ‘Eventually the items that were stolen with the child found their way to my ancestor and that’s how they came to be in our family.’
Katerina could not hold it any longer. ‘What happened to the child Gran? You said the items came to be in our ancestor’s possession, presumably bought by him. But you said nothing about the child being taken to Sotirios Vendis as well.’
Before Ariana could reply Elli interjected. ‘Ariana, you said items. So it was not only the cross. What else was there?’
‘Giorgos had been here for some time before you arrived. I was telling him a story. Strangely enough it was a long story related to what we have just been talking about.’
Katerina turned to her brother. ‘Giorgos, why are you here?’ Giorgos proceeded to explain and repeated what his grandmother had told him. Elli was stunned. She couldn’t speak for a while. Then she found her voice.
‘Ariana, there’s more to this story, isn’t there?’
Ariana did not hesitate. She nodded, her eyes formed an iron-cast connection with the expectant eyes fixed on her and when she spoke her voice was clear and strong. ‘Yes. Those are the famed Likureian icons. The second one came to my family in Smyrna in 1922. It was my ancestor, Kostas Vendis, who found it by accident. The two icons relate to the legend of the last Emperor. They are the ones that are supposed to wake him from his sleep.’
Katerina shook her head in disbelief. ‘Surely that’s not true, is it?’
Elli intervened. ‘Actually, we believe that it may not be that implausible and, though we should not take it literally, there may be some grain of truth in the legend.’
Katerina tensed. ‘Do you mean to say that…?’
Elli gently cut her off. ‘Yes. There is a lot more on this that you don’t know. And some of it will seem fiction, but, in view of what has been revealed today, it is time for that to come out too, as it seems to be connected with the rest.’
Katerina remembered her earlier question. ‘Gran, what happened to the child?’
Ariana’s memory needed no jump-start. She had replayed the story in her mind too many times over the years to forget a single detail. Even though it all happened more than five hundred years ago, almost five hundred years before she was even born, it was such a big part of her life that she felt as if she had just lived that story a few moments earlier. Her account of the fateful events of that distant day was clear and precise.
‘When the kidnapper encountered a group of riders, he panicked and he could not risk the child making a noise and betraying him. So he left it there in the forest and ran away. But as luck would have it, the kidnapper did not go far. Two men working for my ancestor, and enjoying his complete trust, were on their way back to the city when they had an unfortunate encounter with the kidnapper when they bumped into him sleeping in the forest. They knew about their master’s plan. They tied the kidnapper and dragged him back to Constantinople to face their master’s judgment. The kidnapper stupidly demanded part of his promised reward for his trouble, claiming that the child was stolen from him. But of course my ancestor knew the scoundrel before him was lying and was outraged. He had no doubt that the kidnapper deserted the child either at the first sign of trouble or just because its cries or just its presence was proving tiresome and had probably decided that nothing like that was worth the reward promised to him or any reward for that matter.
‘Sotirios Vendis led a search party and dragged the kidnapper with him to show him the place where he last saw the child. But they found no child, nothing, however long and hard they searched the surrounding areas. They returned to the city where not only did the kidnapper not collect his reward, but my ancestor had the kidnapper put to death and retained the items the kidnapper had kept after he deserted the child to the predators of the forest and a fate of certain death. The items have been part of this family’s heirlooms ever since, at least until I donated the two icons to the Metropolitan. I thought that would be the safest place for them. That was, of course, after I had their true depictions concealed with others to hide their true importance and prevent their theft. Obviously, I was not that successful as their true identity had been discovered by those people who attempted to steal them.’
Elli had a sudden thought. ‘Giorgos, what was it that you found in the tomb in Cappadocia?’
Giorgos turned to Elli, surprised at the unexpected timing of the question. ‘We found a sarcophagus bearing depictions of Byzantine art and Imperial insignia. Inside we found the mutilated naked body of a woman, surprisingly well preserved.’
Elli remembered the dream that had been troubling her lately. ‘Lately I’ve been having this strange dream
