stopped we were almost back where we started, but on the far side of the outer perimeter of the courtyard of Ayia Sophia on the point where it touched the forbidding dark wilderness of what used to be the acropolis of the ancient Megareian colony of Byzantium.
Was my guide trying to shake off possible stalkers? Ioannis looked around and then in quick long strides entered the wilderness and suddenly disappeared through a thickset of brambles.
For a brief moment I was not sure whether I actually saw him, whether he had really existed or whether he was just an apparition, a figment of my imagination, my mind twisted by the stale air floating above the city and pressing down with its weight stifling all beneath it. I could hear nothing and I stood still and listened for any sound. I waited, but when he did not come out, I decided to take the plunge into the unknown.
The adventure was a short one and within seconds, I emerged into a cave. All around the cave was lit by what seemed like hundreds of torches. There was rich decoration on the walls and the ceiling was covered in frescoes depicting scenes from ancient Greece.
Ioannis was standing in front of an icon of Panagia or the Virgin Mary, silently praying. He suddenly turned and let the hood drop back to reveal his face. The cloak fell from his shoulders to the ground. I froze. I knew I had to kneel, but my legs would not obey me. Ioannis patiently waited. I recovered my speech.
‘Your Majesty, I am at your service.’ I paused, not yet trusting myself to continue.
There was the distant sound of running water and birdsong to break the silence.
‘It’s good to see you, Michael. Forgive me for the charade, but these are dangerous times and I suspect the Sultan has many ears amongst us. The odds are increasing against us with every passing day. It is becoming more difficult to inspire the people to defend their city. They seem to have grown more devout and helpless. They’ve put their lives in God’s and the Virgin Mary’s hands and believe that there will be a miracle. The Ottoman’s knock on our door is becoming louder and louder and instead of spurring them into action it paralyses them and has turned the brains of most of them to mash. I am running out of ideas.’
The Emperor seemed friendly enough. It seemed that my mission would be easier than expected. I truly believed at that moment that the Emperor had already come around to our way of thinking and no longer saw the Order as a threat.
It seemed such a relief, after centuries of suspicion and intrigue, with the members of the Order constantly looking behind their backs for the Imperial spies, at the same time as they were alert for any threat from the Ruinands against themselves and the against the Imperial family.
And yet Constantinople was important to them. Its fate was the key to the future. They had to watch for the dynasty; which was a thankless task as every dynasty fought them and tried to trip them at every turn. Successive emperors had been too blinkered to see that the Order was by no means not only not a threat but also a staunch ally.
And what those emperors chose to be blind to was the fact that, had it wished, the Order could easily have taken the reins of power in Constantinople. However, its mission was clear and its members were good and decent people of exceptional integrity and fortitude.
It was a sad show of the intricacies and machinations of the exulted and privileged courtiers surrounding the Imperial family, not just the members of the Imperial family itself, a clear and unfortunate case of paranoia plague, accelerating the empire’s suicidal collision with history.
The clock was ticking the final countdown to the city’s midnight hour of its last day.
Michael had no time to waste. He came straight to the point. ‘Your Majesty, I’ve come for the child.’
‘The child is gone.’
‘What do you mean ‘gone’?’
‘Taken, kidnapped, abducted, dead or alive. Who knows?’
I could not believe my ears. How could he sound so flippant? Where was the desperation, the panic for the loss of his flesh and blood and heir?
‘Please tell me what happened.’
‘The child disappeared from its crib on the 4 ^th May.’
‘And why have we not heard of this? Why have you not asked for our help? How could you have kept us in the dark about this when all we’ve ever done was to fight for this family? In spite of your family’s hatred of us, you should not have allowed it to cloud your judgement. Forgive my impertinence, but you are being flippant about this matter. You have forgotten the most important thing here. The empire is almost gone and the city too, but the child is the hope for the future; that we may still have time to save. But we need to act quickly, even if I fear we may already be too late, however much I hope that that is not the case.’
I could not understand it. If he did not care for his child, which in itself was strange, could he not want to ensure the continuation of his bloodline and its right to the legacy of an empire under a different form or re- establishment?
The doubts about the success of my mission and the Emperor’s ear and allegiance had fleeted back to gnaw at my heart. The future was not secure, as I had hoped it would be.
I, the appointed conduit of the Order to help an Emperor, if not to save the city then under a veil of secrecy so as to avoid draining the defenders’ moral, to complete the final preparations to save what we could, at the same time as defending the city to the end, suddenly realised that my remit had just expanded; I had to instil some sense into whom I had found to my surprise to be an increasingly deluded Emperor, a person transformed and unrecognisable.
I knew I was close to failing. I had to try to turn the situation around. I had to find out more about this disappearance of the child and heir.
As I was ready to resume my questioning, the Emperor beat me to it. ‘You are only a boy. What do you know of the life of an Emperor?’
It seemed as if the Emperor was deliberately trying to rub me the wrong way for whatever reason, perhaps for his amusement. ‘Your Majesty, forgive me, but there does not seem to have been made much progress in the transfer of the treasures of the city to the chosen secure locations. We cannot risk leaving all of these behind; these manuscripts, these valuable works of art, many much older than the City itself have been safeguarded for over a thousand years. We cannot let the efforts of our predecessors so unceremoniously and recklessly go to waste. We have to think of the future generations and their heritage, their and the world’s rightful legacy.’
‘What use are they to us now? Maybe the Ottomans will make good use of them now to go with their new acquisition. They belong with the city after all. How can they be wrestled away from their home and be denied their rightful place?’
I could not believe I was hearing this nonsense coming out of the Emperor’s mouth. I could not believe I was witnessing this defeatist attitude.
My uneasiness was growing. ‘But, if we leave them here they will be looted, melted and destroyed. You know what will happen to the city once it falls. Chaos will ensue and even the Sultan will not be able to stop it for at least a few days.’
‘Michael, since the crusader looting in 1204 not much has been left to whisk away. The last two hundred and fifty years have not left behind enough to be proud of. Compare with all that was lost back then
… well… it does not matter anymore.’
A sense of foreboding was spreading its tentacles across my skin like a plague.
‘Your Majesty, the legacy of the last two hundred and fifty years is itself at least worth saving.’
There was a brief silence as both men dwelt on the critical events that shaped the history of this city and empire.
The Emperor was the first to speak, and, in so doing, destroying our brief reverie in a puff of smoke; a dream ruined.
‘I have been thinking of seeking refuge in Venice. The Doge has offered his help. Of course I shall be taking my family with me and a lot of the city’s treasures.’
‘But your Majesty, Venice is the Empire’s sworn enemy. It was the Venetians, after all, that, opportunistic as they were, used the invitation for involvement in the Empire’s succession matters in 1204 to take the city, loot it and eliminate their most fearsome competitor for the trading routes of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. And being traders through and through, with liquid money running in their veins for blood, the Venetians would only be an ally for profit, nothing else. Once in Venice you will be under the Doge’s control and effectively a prisoner. And as for any treasures taken there, you will never see them again.’
