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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
In William Stearns Davis' novel, 'The Beauty of the Purple,' readers are enveloped in a rich narrative set against the backdrop of ancient Rome. The book intricately weaves together themes of power, betrayal, and love, presenting a vivid portrait of Roman society. Davis' writing style is characterized by detailed descriptions and a deep understanding of historical nuances, creating a literary work that transports readers to a distant world. 'The Beauty of the Purple' stands out in the context of historical fiction for its meticulous attention to historical accuracy and its portrayal of complex characters. The novel is a captivating exploration of the intricacies of Roman politics and personal relationships. William Stearns Davis, a renowned historian and classicist, drew upon his vast knowledge of ancient civilizations to pen this compelling work. His expertise shines through in the meticulous research and attention to detail present in 'The Beauty of the Purple.' Readers with an interest in historical fiction and ancient Rome will find this book to be a captivating and rewarding read, immersing them in a world of power, intrigue, and romance.
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The Beauty of the Purple
Table of Contents
PROEM
BY THE OAKS OF ST. THEODORE
This is the story which the monks who wrote the annals of the Christian Empire of Constantinople desired other ages to accept as true.
In the year which later generations would reckon as 705 A.D., on a certain midsummer’s day a droning peace brooded over the village of St. Theodore. The village was very small, only a few white-walled, red-tiled houses and barns clustered around the grey stuccoed dome of the little church before which opened a market-place. The latter was sprinkled with a dozen oak-trees useful for tying cattle when the Thracian farmers gathered to barter their rural products. This, however, was not a market day, and the signs of life were few except just by the church where sprawled the low buildings of a tavern and posting station. Here travellers sometimes changed horses, for St. Theodore lay on the highroad betwixt Constantinople and Adrianople, and here also diverged a way southward to Kallipolis if one wanted to cross to Asia without first going to the capital.
It was, to repeat, a sleepy moment in the early afternoon. The long-haired “pope” of the church, having intoned his last office to an empty nave, was sitting with his red-cheeked wife at one of the small tables in the shade by the tavern door, each meditating over a pot of thin country wine. Two farmers’ churls were throwing dice for a stake of three coppers at the next table, while a drover, an unkempt man in a dirty sheepskin coat, leaned on his crook-topped staff and recounted his adventures to Simmias, the idling inn-keeper.
“Yes, the pigs were sold at a good price,—praised be the Panagia![1] The recent uproars in Constantinople have made almost a famine, though the country is still so unsettled that I feel lucky to have trudged back these fifty miles with this wallet (he slapped his thigh) without attack or adventure. When I saw the old tavern I said, ‘Only three miles more to the farm,’ and turned in to wet my throat after the dust.”
“So old Justinian Slit-nose is back in the palace?” suggested Simmias, rubbing his face with a much-spotted apron.
“He’s back and his temporary supplanters are in heaven or a place more fiery. Ai! but there was a strange sight! The merchant who bought the pigs got me a seat in the Hippodrome; up high, of course, but I could see very well. You know all about the Hippodrome?”
“I saw the ‘Blue’ chariots win there four years ago,” assented the inn-keeper.
“Well, that of course was when Justinian II was in exile. St. Kosmas smite me, but I can’t remember how in these queer days they change around their ‘Sacred Clemencies’ in the palace. Tiberius Aspimar must have been reigning then. As I remember it’s just ten years since Leontios deposed Justinian, slit up his nose and packed him off to exile in Scythia; then after three years Tiberius deposed Leontios, shaved off his nose in turn and clapped him in a monastery.”
The publican plucked at his own nose, as if to make sure that familiar ornament was still in normal condition.
“Then, d’you see,” continued the drover, “after seven odd years, Justinian breaks away from exile, gets help from the Bulgarians and retakes Constantinople.”
“Haven’t we heard all that?” retorted the other.
“No doubt,” condescended his customer, “but perhaps you haven’t heard what lately befell in the city while I was there. After Tiberius Aspimar had been deposed they dragged his nigh-forgotten rival Leontios out of his monastery. The restored Justinian had the two usurpers haled around the streets in chains, of course with a mob hooting and throwing offal. Then as many of us as could packed into the Hippodrome, everybody roaring and applauding together. Whereupon in came Justinian, clad in purple and gold, so splendid he could be seen clear across the arena, with all his ‘Protectors’ shining in silvered armour around him. He took his seat in the Kathisma—that’s the imperial box, you know—amid greater uproar still; and next they dragged in Leontios and Tiberius Aspimar. Poor wretches! They must have been nigh dead already. With my own eyes I saw them forced to prostrate themselves on the top step of the throne, and then Justinian put his right foot on the neck of one and his left on that of the other. Whereupon all the courtiers, Protectors and the Blue and Green faction leaders around the Kathisma took up a great chant, something from the Psalter, I think: ‘Thou shalt tread upon the LION and the ASP, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under thy feet!’ And there those two miserable creatures had to lie while the chariots raced, and while we all wagered and cheered like mad. After that I’ve heard they took the usurpers away and chopped their heads off, also that Justinian burned out the old Patriarch’s eyes and set up a new ‘Holy Beatitude’ on the archbishop’s throne in Hagia Sophia. Ai! These have been brisk days in Constantinople.”
Simmias crossed himself with deliberation. “When I pray to the saints to-night,” said he, “I shall give thanks that I sell wine in a quiet village and am neither Emperor nor Patriarch. Fine titles are fine things, but a firm neck and two good eyes seem better. Hei?—but what’s that moving in the road?”
As a matter of fact two of the roads which converged near the church were clouded with dust, the one from the city obviously by two or three vehicles, the one from the north apparently by the approach of a large flock of sheep. The wagons rolled in rapidly and soon were halting at the tavern while Simmias ran forward.
“What are the kyrios’ commands?”[2] he began.
The “kyrios” in this case was a tall grey man with a remarkably lengthy beard and a long dark cloak which made the pope rise abruptly from his table, ready to crave the blessing of a hegumen over a great monastery. But the newcomer, who now descended, was clearly a secular personage. He wore many rings and a heavy gold chain with a large gilt medal about his neck, and instead of the tall monastic hat a kind of black turban. His aquiline countenance made the pope sit down muttering, “A Jew.”
“More probably a Syrian,” whispered his wife; “see, the little girl leaving the second wagon has a crucifix hung around her neck.”
Not one but two girls, aged about eleven and nine, were now clambering from under the canvas hood of the second wagon. They were bright-eyed, winsome young mortals, the older with dark, the younger with much lighter hair, but both with healthy cheeks, rosy lips and a gaze most desirous to take in all the world. An elderly maidservant descended after them, ordering sharply “not to wander”—which mandate their animal spirits, repressed by the long ride, made it hard to obey. Meantime the Syrian gentleman was joined by two other quasi-Orientals also of peculiar yet venerable aspect, who had been riding with him. The third wagon was laden with baggage, and several competent servants made haste to water the horses and summon the hostler for forage.
In the interval Simmias respectfully informed “His Most Reverend Lordship” that a government regulation required him to take the names of all travellers halting at St. Theodore. The gentleman waved his hand graciously.
“Write then that I am Kallinikos of Heliopolis—by profession a scholar of all fair learning, of late lecturer in the Imperial University at Constantinople, but now journeying to Thessalonica to expound Plato in the schools of that city. These are my daughters, Sophia and Anthusa Maria, and thus far have come with me my erudite fellow-countrymen Barses and Chioba. They, however, leave me here, going afoot to Kallipolis to get shipping for foreign parts to keep alive the divine fire of our ancient learning perchance among the western Barbarians.”
This last flourish was lost on the publican as he scratched down the names on a smudgy waxen tablet. “These are your servants, I suppose,” he remarked, then tactlessly added, “and your wife——”
The scholar frowned. “I am a widower,” he replied curtly.
“A thousand pardons, kyrios; I’m only doing my duty. Now you and your very learned friends will doubtless have some of our good Thracian wine and a few figs while the horses are resting.—Holy Mother, what’s that!”
This exclamation followed a piercing scream which sent the whole tavern population into the market-place. What followed took far less time than it needs for the telling. Down the Adrianople road had shambled a huge flock of sheep, baaing and bleating and nosing one another desperately to get to the little river which they sniffed as flowing just beyond the church. Onward they came, headed by an august bellwether, an emperor among rams, with huge horns and terrifying frontlet. As he led on the van of his ewes, lo! the younger maid, Anthusa Maria, roving composedly about the market-place, suddenly found herself directly in front of him. The sight of the formidable beast froze the very blood in her veins. She stood helpless to flee, paralyzed even as a bird before the proverbial serpent, shrieking and trembling from head to foot. The ram halted one ominous instant, fixed his eyes on her, bellowed raucously, and charged.
A dozen rescuers had run from the tavern, but all would have been too late to save Anthusa. Then, unwarned, out of the dust cloud of the advancing herd, came flying a human form. In full charge, the ram was caught by the horns, whirled about with a marvellous concentration of strength and skill, and flung upon his back, kicking in vain fury.
The victorious champion was instantly the centre of a gesticulating, congratulating throng composed of every one from Kallinikos to the pope’s wife.... “Such a rescue! If the ram had charged Anthusa would have been killed, or at least had all her bones broken, or at least had all her breath knocked out!” So the other drovers behind guided the sheep onward to the river, and in a great flurry they had the rescuer across to the tavern.
Speedily it was evident that if the Lady Anthusa had been slightly older she might have been embarrassed to express with maidenly decorum proper thanks to her deliverer, for the vanquisher of the great ram made the good pope (who knew his Scriptures) recall a certain other lad who once “kept the sheep” yet was “ruddy and withal of a beautiful countenance and was goodly to look upon.” The present youth stood straight and tall with features not perfect but sufficiently regular, short reddish hair, a reddish first beard, a firm but friendly mouth, a clear eye and a high forehead. His dress was simple yet neat, and superior to that worn by most drovers. His sandal thongs were of green leather. In his belt hung a long ivory-hilted dagger. One glance at his shoulders told (without the proof upon the ram), “He is very strong”; a second glance at his face would have added, “He is very intelligent and can be trusted.”
Congratulations being over, natural inquiries followed. The youth stated with perfect frankness that he came from Mesembria, a coastal city at some distance, where his parents were prosperous peasants, and that now, with a favourite servant Peter and other adjutants, he was driving some five hundred sheep to Constantinople upon assurances of a good market. They had come through without mishap, despite rumours of Bulgarian raiders. Loud were his apologies that his ram had thus terrified the little kyria—it was the first misadventure of the journey. As for himself, they had christened him Konon, but he had long since been called Leo (“Lion”) “because,” he added simply, “I have always wished to be a soldier, and have never disliked a chance for brave fighting.”
One of the Syrians regarded him closely.
“You are from Mesembria, young sir, yet your Greek seems of an Eastern flavour?”
“No doubt, worshipful father,” answered Leo; “my parents are from the Isaurian mountains on the confines of Cilicia. They were part of that great band of Isaurians who were compelled, when I was a babe, to migrate to Thrace by command of the Emperor. In my home my parents still keep up their Asiatic style of speech, although at our monastery school I hope I learned fair Greek as well as how to turn over a few books.”
“I knew you were no ordinary Thracian,” remarked Kallinikos, with a shrug. “Isaurians as a nation have greater fame as bandits than as readers. But this is a surly return for your brave promptness! Well, young master, we must be journeying. The angels know when we shall meet again. By your looks I’m fearful you’d refuse some money. Anthusa, my dear——”
“Yes, father,” from the girl who with recovered colour was clinging to his long sleeve.
“Go over to Master Leo and thank him for his strength and courage. You are not too old to pay him with a kiss.”
Blushingly the reward was given: still more awkwardly was it received. Leo appeared happy when the ceremony was over. Presently, the horses having been baited and rested, Kallinikos still with dignity paid precisely the proper sum to the host. He bade a private and solicitous farewell to the two Syrians. The girls climbed into the wagon and waved vigorously to Leo as the little party drove away. The young peasant gazed after them until the wagons vanished up the Adrianople road, then, declining the broad hint of Simmias that he should order refreshment, walked to where a line of evergreen oaks behind the church indicated a clear stream and a placid meadow. His drovers with their barking dogs had driven the sheep along the marge, where they could nibble in safety, while Peter, the head servant, laid out simple provisions and the party arranged for its siesta.
* * * * * * *
Leo sated his hunger and spread out his cloak a little apart from the drovers. The day was sultry. An hour’s slumber would not hinder the journey, but the young man (so he clearly remembered it later) saw the two venerable Syrians sitting at a slight distance in the shade, consuming a wallet of bread and dried fish. They silently beckoned him to join them, and leaving his men he obeyed. The twain were marvellously alike in costume and person, and presumably were brothers: they gravely offered him a small silver cup of wine superior to any he had ever before tasted. He noticed now that their garments, although very plain, were of remarkably fine material, and that each wore a girdle ornamented with gold plates set in gems, and embossed apparently with the signs of the zodiac. Their manner, however, excited confidence, and Leo was soon chatting freely, explaining how the proximity of a small convent to his parents’ farm had given him a tolerable education; but that, although he had no distaste for letters, he felt no vocation for a religious life, because all his ambition was to become a soldier.
“Why then, stalwart sir,” questioned Barses, the elder Syrian, benevolently, “have you not enrolled in one of the Emperor’s cavalry ‘themes’? Your broad shoulders commend you to any recruiting centurion.”
Leo laughed ingenuously. “I will tell you, good fathers. I’ve a mother who rules me in everything. She has an ambition for me that’s so high that as long as she lives—and the saints lengthen her days!”—he crossed himself—“I fear I must stay a simple trader of sheep. She swears that I must never enter the army save as a ‘Protector.’ ”
“A lofty ambition, Brother Barses,” commented Chioba, the second Syrian, looking upon his companion fixedly. “The Emperor’s life guard is reserved for youths of noble blood and courtly influence, and many even of these are denied the honour. There are few enough peasants from Mesembria in that corps.”
“Well, so I told my good mother an hundred times,” rejoined Leo, “yet she always repeats, ‘No son of mine is good enough to lay down his bones as a common private. Join the Protectors or follow the sheep.’ Heigh-ho! It’s hard to be thwarted by a beloved parent!” The young man seemed far from being down-hearted, however, and Chioba continued the conversation, albeit on more general matters:
“Your mother should know that the day may come when he who can serve as a simple archer, nay, as a mere rower in the fleet, can please God better than the pious monk who wears out his knees with long prayers.”
The young man surveyed the others incredulously. “Why, venerable kyrioi, no churchmen ever talked to me like that. It’s on my conscience that last week I told old Father Eukodimos that while I presumed that God loved the monks the best, I’d have to risk getting less of His love by refusing to enter the convent.”
“This is a deep matter, we will not argue,” rejoined Barses incisively. “Nevertheless, it was written of old, ‘To everything there is season and a time for every purpose under heaven.’ But I say to you—with your own eyes you shall behold the day when all the monks in the Empire shall join in one prayer, ‘That God make the hands of all Roman soldiers mighty in battle!’ What know you, young man, of the state of the Empire and the power of its foes?”
“Only what is said everywhere: that the Saracens press in from the east and the Bulgarians from the north: that there is riot and mutiny in the army: that the treasury grows bare though taxes ever increase, and that every time an Emperor is changed there is a woeful spilling of Christian blood. Even in Mesembria we hear all that. But old peasants always add, ‘When was there a time when the years were not called evil and the foe dangerous? The Roman Empire is ordained of God, and being ordained of God will endure forever.’ ”
Barses laid a long gaunt hand on that of Leo.
“Young man, give ear. No Empire is eternally ordained of God, and any Empire can perish save as its sons fight for it valiantly. We from Syria know the power of the Saracens, the Misbelievers who call on their Anti-Christ. Syria, Egypt and now Africa bend to their yoke. Every year adds to their emirates while churches become mosques. Our children forget the Gospels for the Koran. Daily are victories reported to the Kalif in Damascus. While rival emperors slay one another and the witless racing factions howl in the Hippodrome, the Kalif counsels with his divan, ‘How can we strike off the very head of Christendom? How can our Prophet give us dominion over Constantinople?’ Every day brings the hour of their great enterprise nearer, and that sore ordeal shall you witness with your two eyes.”
Leo recoiled. The manner no less than the words of the Syrian made him ejaculate, “God forbid!”
“God forbids nothing,” persisted Barses, “when lawlessness, pride, iniquity work the ruin of Empires. Forty years ago in the reign of the Fourth Constantine the Infidels came and assailed Constantinople. You know how they dashed themselves upon the walls in vain. Now yet again will their hosts advance, and beside this second onslaught the former shall be merely as the first patter of rain before the thunderbolt. For these many years what has there been in the Roman armies save mutiny? What in the palace save tyranny? What in the capital save corrupting luxury? What in God’s church save contending doctors and clutching bishops? Great was Babylon, yet for its sins Babylon fell. Great was Old Rome, yet for its sins Old Rome fell. Great is New Rome, that is to say Constantinople, but think not that God will be more kind to Constantinople than to Old Rome and to Babylon.”
The young shepherd drew back yet more: the two strangers had fixed their strange eyes on him, their gaze as piercing as swords.
“Why, venerable sirs,” protested the youth in discomfort, “all this to me? Am I of the great patricians to counsel about the Empire’s safety? Who are you that have the right to talk thus darkly and wildly?”
“Take then this answer,” returned Chioba, still holding Leo spellbound. “We are masters of the foreknowledge of the East, permitted to read the horoscopes of the nations. Twelve years shall the Moslem terror wax in strength until nigh overmastering, then in the thirteenth shall a gracious God vouchsafe deliverance. And that deliverance shall come from a man of the people——”
“What man?” cried the youth, his flesh creeping as he listened.
The two seers appeared to be speaking no longer directly to him, but seemed in dialogue between themselves.
“This is the youth our science told us we should meet,” spoke Barses.
“It is he,” responded Chioba.
“Sprung from Asia, but bred in Europe; born from peasant stock, yet not unlettered; bred of the cleanness of the land, and not amid the corruption of cities; strong of limb, clear of eye, faithful of purpose,—this is he.”
Whereat Chioba took up the speech, “He shall fling back the Infidels. He shall purify the state. He shall renovate the Church. For hundreds of years he shall prolong the life of this Christian Empire.”
“Master Leo,” suddenly interposed Barses, still compelling awestruck attention, “do you not desire to be a Protector?”
“Most certainly.”
“And a spatharios?”
“Aide-de-camp to the Emperor? Why, yes.” Leo began to smile again. The jest seemed evident. The Syrians were clearly indulging in a somewhat forced pleasantry.
“And a patrician?”
“Of course—if you can make me one!”
“And Emperor?”
“By the Panagia, sirs, why not ask if I wish to have yonder brook pebbles turned forthwith into gold? Who would refuse to be Emperor?”
“So many an Augustus has said on his day of acclamation. Later he has perished miserably. It is a fearful thing to be Emperor.”
“Good then,” laughed the youth, making to rise, “I will cancel that particular wish. There are others I must forgo with greater pain.”
But Chioba retained him with a grasp of remarkable firmness, and Leo broke out in protest: “Why do you gaze thus upon me? I begin to mislike you both. What have I, the son of plain Christian folk, to do with Syrian astrologers even if they profess the true religion?”
Chioba, however, still held him at arm’s length, while Barses spoke once more, as if addressing his companion, but with rising voice:
“He shall bear great burdens. On him shall rest the fate of millions. He shall know sorrow, care and the crushing anxiety lest after having dared all things he should fail. But after the winter shall come the time of the singing of birds, after the storm brightness, after the conflict peace. Victory over the Infidel shall attend his arms, and new life and healing shall he bring the afflicted Empire. Nations shall obey his laws, strong princes shall spring out of his loins, and a thousand years after him men shall extol his name, Leo the Isaurian, Leo Augustus, Deliverer and Emperor.”
The shepherd leaped angrily to his feet, his eyes blazing.
“You make pitiful sport of an unpretending youth. The Holy Apostles forbid that such a burden should rest upon me! I beseech you both—talk as reasonable men.”
But Chioba turned on him a smile inscrutable, tantalizing and quizzical. “For this end, nevertheless, you are summoned of God. Forget it not: turn not aside to the right hand nor the left, turn not for pleasure of men nor love of women. Remember you belong not to yourself, but to the Holy Christian Empire until the Infidel peril is ended.”
“You rave wildly,” protested Leo, his wrath still kindling.
“Nevertheless,” replied Chioba calmly, “we ask you not to believe but only to remember. In all that shall come after forget not our saying and the oaks and the stream by St. Theodore. Our journey is long, Brother Barses, we must be going, for we are to carry our warning concerning the Saracen even to the Lords of the Western Franks.”
They rose and picked up quaintly carved staffs, preparing to take the road, but Barses held out his hand as if desiring a friendly parting:
“Master Leo, you have said that you desired to become a Protector. That is a bold but not quite a superhuman desire. Do you still cherish it?”
“Of course—if it were possible.”
The Syrian pointed with his long staff toward the sun. He seemed writing figures in the air. “Mark then these words. Ere the sun has sunk half way to the horizon you will be a Protector. Remember then all else that was spoken by Barses and Chioba.” ...
* * * * * * *
... Leo glanced about him. His head was upon the soft grass. He heard the brook purling over the round stones, and the wind in the oak leaves. The Syrians were nowhere, but to him came, running, Peter the herdsman. “You surely slept hard, young kyrios; at least I called many times and never an answer. We must get the sheep together and hasten.”
“Where are the strangers?” the youth demanded.
“I was not looking particularly, but I think I saw them pack their wallets some time since and take the road to Kallipolis.”
“A curse go with them,” muttered Leo, “if I did not merely dream all they seemed to say—what with their senseless talk, their wagging beards, and their snake-bright eyes. What could have been their jest? And so I am to be Protector in a little while? A pretty spot for induction into the corps! They say it is always done in the great court of the Palace.”
The dogs and drovers were again herding the sheep into the little market-place and Leo strode vigorously about, mustering his bleating army. But there were to be more visitors to St. Theodore that afternoon. Even while the sheep were forming their fleecy companies, great clouds of dust were seen rising over the rolling hills which covered the Constantinople road. “Horsemen: many horsemen and at speed,” hastily observed Simmias, shading his forehead, and Leo was ordering Peter to hurry the sheep back to the stream side (for armed bands often meant lawless foraging) when straight into the village galloped at full speed four riders whose tall bay steeds had carried them far ahead of the advancing squadrons.
The newcomers rode horses of superb mane, coat and limb. The housings of three of them gleamed with silver. Silvered, too, were the peaked helmets and the coats of mail of their riders, who carried lances whence streamed blue banderoles. Over the cavaliers’ backs clattered light targets likewise of silver plate, marked in the centre with crimson eagles having outspread wings. Their cloaks and the tunics under their cuirasses were of blue silk brilliantly embroidered. There were pearls on their sword hilts and on their golden baldrics. All three of them were handsome, proud-visaged young men who carried their armour superbly, but every curvet and gesture indicated that their attention was fixed on the least doings of the fourth rider, their chief.
As the horsemen whirled up, Leo as by instinct stood unafraid at military attention. Behind him shuffled and crowded the drovers and the sheep, but come what might he would not let himself be plundered unresisting. All his gaze also was upon this fourth rider.
The leading horseman wore likewise a silvered helm, cuirass and shield, but his tunic was a very deep red. Around his helmet ran a circlet of large pearls. His feet were cased in tall leather leggings dyed a brilliant purple, and each set at the ankle with a conspicuous gold eagle. All these things Leo took in at a glance as the four swept by him. They entered the market-place at full gallop, then the leader jerked back the reins and sent his powerful steed almost down upon the haunches.
“Halt!” he ordered in a voice sharp as edged steel. The three aides reined automatically and vaulted to the ground.
“Cool wine!” enjoined the leader, turning his face towards the little group that had assembled before the tavern: and at sight of him first Simmias and next all his guests and myrmidons in sheer terror dropped upon their knees, nor for a moment kept wits enough to heed the demands flung at them. Under the pearl-wreathed helmet showed forth a face aged, sensual and cynical, but every particular feature was forgotten in the realization that the nostrils had been slit hideously and then almost cut away. There was no mistaking this latest visitor to St. Theodore.
“Mercy, great Emperor,” began Simmias, when at last chattering words came to him, “we are dust: we are dung: we crave your famous and ever abundant pardon!”
“Pardon for what?” roared Justinian. “If you’ve done anything evil do you suppose I’ll spare you! Mice and lizards—you’ve not the courage for any genuine villainy! Move briskly, don’t grovel, do what’s commanded—then you can keep your skins.”
The Emperor shot his eyes around the market-place, and took in the closely packed sheep and their master drover. When he fastened his gaze on Leo the youth raised his arm in soldierly salute. He did not fall on his knees.
Justinian threw up his distorted face with a brattling laugh: “Sacred wounds! What’s here? A shepherd who salutes like a centurion! And this great flock of sheep? True manna from heaven, considering the plight of our commissariat. Question him, Demetrios—whose sheep are they and who is the fellow himself?”
The spatharios so ordered approached Leo and briefly learned all he desired.
“May it please the august Basileus,”[3] he reported, “the lad says his father is a prosperous peasant of Mesembria. The sheep are to sell in Constantinople.”
“Tell him,” quoth the Emperor, “that the fat citizens will never grow fatter upon all that mutton. Here we have been constrained to march suddenly to save Philippopolis from the Slavs, with the capital so stripped of provisions that we’ve had to forage along the way to feed the army. These five hundred sheep are a gift from the angels. Give orders to the camp treasurer so his father won’t weep over our requisitions, but first bid the tall boy to step nearer.”
“The Emperor would speak to you,” announced the spatharios to Leo.
The young peasant, not without awkwardness, but with a manly step, approached the great war horse. He saw the hideous face turn towards him.
“Tell me, sirrah,” began Justinian, “why you didn’t fall on your knees and bleat like all those other clowns.”
“I would some day be a soldier, Sacred Clemency,” responded Leo without trembling; “soldiers do not kneel before their masters. They salute their commanders, meaning that they are ready to die at their bidding.”
“Nobly said. Heard you that, Demetrios? I hope all the Protectors mean the same when they salute me.—But why do you call me ‘Sacred Clemency’?”
“I’ve heard that is the respectful way to address an Emperor.”
“And you think I am always very ‘clement’? Ha!”—the mutilated face broke again into laughter.
“I’m only a youth from Mesembria. People will talk, but I’ve no right to believe anything but good of those whom God has set over us.”
“Better and better still. If only all people had obeyed that Holy Gospel I wouldn’t be spurring over this accursed road to-day. You say you want to become a soldier? Haven’t you ever met a recruiting officer?”
“Often, Sacred Clemency, but my mother forbids me to enlist as a private. She consents to my enlisting only on a condition which is the same as forbidding me.”
“Your mother? Oh, Blessed Lord Jesus, who is it that obeys one’s mother any more than one’s emperor in these fearsome days! This grows ever more wonderful, Demetrios. And what is the strange condition which deprives our imperial service of such a strong-limbed fellow as you?”
“Your Sacred Clemency would be overwhelmed with anger if I told it.”
“Pah! Say it out. You aren’t Leontios or Tiberius Aspimar to need beheading.”
“May it please the Emperor, my mother is so vain that she says I can only serve if I am made a Protector.”
The three aides-de-camp nowise suppressed a loud guffaw, which however died away instantly at a withering glance from Justinian.
“Why is this, laughing jackasses? Finely have my high-born Protectors guarded me in the past! A band of silver-sheathed turncoats I call you. Leontios you ‘guarded’ lately, then Tiberius yesterday and Justinian again to-day. I wonder whom you’ll ‘defend’ to-morrow! God’s lightning blast me if I don’t recruit up the corps with more heed to valour and fidelity than to long pedigrees. What’s your name, my brave cockerel?”
“Leo, please your Sacred Clemency.”
“Leo, ‘Lion’—by all good omens! But what do you know of arms? You’ve swung something better than a scythe, I warrant.”
“I’m unskilled with many weapons but my friends say I have a ready hand and a good eye. Sometimes I have flung the javelin.”
Justinian nodded to the second spatharios. “Give him your lance, Genesios. It’s an over-heavy weapon, but it’ll prove him. Now, my fine younger brother to Achilles, mark that knot on the oak bough over yonder. It’s a mettlesome distance, but see how near you can come to striking it.”
“I can only try, Sacred Clemency.” Leo’s heart had been pounding at first: now, however, he was perfectly cool. An inward sense was telling him that he was completely his own master. It was a fair sight to see his supple form poise itself and swing. The lance sang through the air and quivered high on the tree in the centre of the knot. The Emperor gave a deep “Euge!” and his aides exchanged frankly admiring glances.
“What else can you do? Can you wrestle?” demanded the monarch.
“I’ve shown a little skill, but among my fellows merely,” calmly responded the shepherd, brushing back his hair.
“Good, then; we’ll prove how little. Eustasios”—the third adjutant stepped forward—“you pass for the first wrestler in the corps. Strip off your cuirass and give this bold rascal a fall.”
Only the implicit obedience due to the purple leggings prevented Eustasios from refusing this unwelcome behest. To soil his patrician hands with the person of that dusty shepherd was anything but to his liking, but the commanding eye of the despot kept him from more than an impatient gesture. The two men stripped to their tunics. Already the van of the cavalry had cantered into the market-place and a swarm of gleaming staff officers was gathering around Justinian, whose fondness for sudden pranks and follies was abundantly known.
Eustasios approached his adversary with an unpleasant smile, muttering just as they grappled, “Now learn, my young swaggerer, not to boast again.” But Leo, good-humoured and apparently quite at ease, parried his opening tricks, then suddenly had him round the middle with a grip of steel. The unfortunate aide felt his ribs crack. Almost before the new arrivals had ceased asking one another, “What is the Basileus’ latest pleasure?” behold the “Very Exalted” Eustasios, whose father was a Senator, whose uncle a Logothete, and whose great-uncle had been a Patriarch, lay on the dust of the market-place of St. Theodore, with Leo the peasant standing over him, and all his own comrades joining in sardonic applause.
The victor brushed the sand from his arms and neck, complacently assisted his late foe to rise, and respectfully looked towards the Emperor. Justinian beckoned towards his staff:
“Makrinos,” he summoned, and a high officer, his breast covered with broad gold medals, advanced and saluted; “how many vacancies are there now in the Protectors?”
“I think ten, Sacred Clemency.”
“I think nine, Illustrious Strategos. In these times of disloyalty we cannot ask too closely concerning noble ancestors. This lad from Mesembria can serve me better than by herding sheep or carrying a spear as a common private. It will also sound well to have men say, ‘Justinian is terrible to his foes, but honours sturdy worth before pedigrees.’ Therefore enroll this Leo among your Protectors, and assign him suitable armour, horses and allowance.” A perceptible murmur began to spread through the staff, but ceased before one bold sweep of the imperial hand: “And say to his new comrades that he is not to be mortified or misprized because his parents do not own a high palace upon the Mesē. This is my will——”
The autocrat had spoken. If the Emperor chose to lift an inferior subject from the dust, and enroll him in the privileged life guard what loyal officer had the right to say him nay? Instantly Leo was embraced by a score of noble arms, and flattering lips were lauding the monarch’s “remarkable judgment” and welcoming the new member of the Protectors.
“Thus shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour,” murmured the astonished village pope, silent witness of the whole proceeding.... A led horse was put at Leo’s service, then a shrill trumpet blew and the whole force of cavalry went whirling away. Some quartermaster’s men drove off the sheep, while the infantry divisions advancing by a parallel road did not enter the village.
* * * * * * *
Soon all was droning quiet again around St. Theodore. The sun was precisely half way betwixt zenith and horizon.
CHAPTER I
A HUMAN CHATTEL APPROACHING NEW ROME
It was very early on a warm September morning in the year 712. Justinian II had been slain in his sins more than two years earlier and Philippicus reigned in the Sacred Palace. From the quay of the little island of Proti near the eastern mouth of the Bosphorus a heavy coasting boat was setting out across the Marmora, her prow pointing towards Constantinople.
The Holy Elias crawled over the grey water under a lumbering triangular sail. A dense fog rested on the sea, not merely hiding the land but even making navigation dangerous. The captain, a swarthy, hawk-eyed fellow from the Archipelago, who wore a bright red sash (his name was Plato, but he was no philosopher), was fain to shift his big steering oars often, while yelling fierce orders to the half-naked boys in charge of the ponderous lateen yard. However, after he finished cursing at a tall government dromond that had shot out of the mist and almost grazed his stern, ere flying away under her double oar-bank, the fog lifted by a little, and the skipper ventured to chat with his chief passenger.
“St. Theodore smite me,” he bluntly informed the latter, “if I put out from Proti again before sun-up, without at least a better bargain than you were shrewd enough to drive last night, my good Hormisdas!”
The man addressed, who liked to pass for a Persian Christian, but who had a decidedly Semitic cast of countenance, thrust out a beak-like nose from under a dingy cloak and answered mollifyingly:
“Ah! my dear friend Plato, don’t you realize that you will get my cargo down at the wharf by the Navy Yard before the day is even started, and then pick up a most profitable fare? This trip is pure gain——”
“The Apostles grant it,” assented the skipper, turning to gesticulate his greetings to a familiar fishing boat that loomed up suddenly, “but perhaps I’ll wait all day and only get two old women merely bound for Chalcedon with a few boxes. However,” with a pious sigh, “it’s all as the Panagia sends!” Then he added, casting a calculating glance at Hormisdas’ cargo, “Why do you land your cargo first at Proti, anyway? Why not take it straight up to the city? You’ve good shackles.”
Hormisdas’ dark eye was cunning as a rat’s.
“Why not? Alas! because there is no such thing in this sinful world as Christian gratitude for kindness. Where can one lose a rogue who can pry off his fetters quicker than in the blind lanes of Constantinople? I weep still to think of what happened three years ago. As fine a pair of young Lombards as I ever handled, strong as oxen. I thought I had them snug and tight in a nice cell in Galata. They were worth fifty solidi[4] apiece, but lo! the night before I could sell them, the devil let the twain escape. All because I treated them too well and spared the fetters! Now I’ve leased a good bagnio on Proti. They’ll first have to break prison, then swim off the island. I take them to market just a few at a time as chance offers.”
The slave-trader drew from his bosom a gold-set relic, a martyr’s finger-bone apparently, and kissed it devoutly to enlist heavenly aid for his approaching traffic. Plato shrugged his shoulders:
“My boat takes you, and I take your money, but blessed be the Four Evangelists for giving me a different calling! Last year I was voyaging off Rhodes and we were nigh snapped up by a Saracen raider. I could almost feel the shackles on my legs, and see myself on sale in the Beyrut market.”
“You’d have found those Syrian dealers wonderfully decent to their wares,” consoled Hormisdas; “for Infidels,” he added hastily.
“I’d rather not test out their good nature,” returned Plato vigorously; “however, no offense, Master Persian, it won’t be your sins I’ll have to account for. And do you mind telling how you came by those poor fellows here that you’ve got in those gentle fetters of yours?”
Thickness of hide being among Hormisdas’ prime virtues, he answered with oily accents, “Got ’em at Naxos down in the Islands. An Amalfi trader passed on three of ’em to me. How he got ’em is none of my business, seeing they aren’t the Emperor’s subjects, and I paid him good money.”
“You’ve no women to-day?” persisted Plato.
“Not to-day. To-morrow I’ll bring over three Gothic girls—strapping wenches, the Moors’ booty snapped up in Spain.”
“There’s a fearsome amount of kidnapping,” continued the skipper; “I pity the poor folk on the open coasts to westward, with the Infidels harrying everywhere.”
“It surely forces down the market,” assented the dealer dolefully; “I used to get forty solidi apiece for these fellows; now blessed be the Saints if I get twenty. Constantinople is glutted with slaves.”
Plato ran his eye over the four prisoners who reclined sullenly on the roof of the little cabin. “Well, that negro’ll make a good house porter for some High Excellency. That little chap chained to his ankle is a Sardinian—stupid and probably lazy. The older of the other pair looks like a regular Greek, but the fourth—the Apostles help me if he isn’t a bird with queer feathers—lank and bony enough for a hermit, tall as a pillar, with a nose like a falcon’s, and, oh, wonder! hair as red as carrots! Whence came he?”
“The Amalfian called him a Frank,” replied the trader; “but I gather he sucked his first milk in a very remote region of even those Barbarians. He can jabber the mongrel Greek of you sailors very well, and I learn that he’s called an Armorican,[5] from a region extending far out into the Sea of Darkness. He said his name was Fergal, and that his father was a kind of chief or petty king among his half-savages.”
“All captives are ‘princes’—by their own story,” remarked Plato astutely.
“Of course; still I think his tale hangs together. His family was wiped out in a feud with another chief. As a captive lad he passed to an honest man in my own trade, and then on to another who sold him through Rialto (or Venice, as they’re beginning now to call it) to a Syrian emir. Our fellow was then several years among the Infidels at Damascus and might have come to big things had he only accepted the Prophet; but, like a pious rascal, he kept to our Holy Religion, and presently along with some fellow Christian captives he escaped by sea. However, it’s plain the Panagia didn’t want him to face the temptations of being his own master. Their crazy bark was smashed off Crete and the strand-wreckers seized him as he swam ashore half-drowned. So the Amalfian got him and then your humble servant, and to-day he’s to see Constantinople.”
“For which no doubt he’ll thank you,” leered the skipper.
“He should wax proud when I sell him for fifty solidi,” replied Hormisdas, ending the conversation by sitting down upon a coil of rope, producing a wax tablet and beginning a calculation.
Plato resumed his attention to the helm. Meantime the four human chattels, dumb and silent at first, were beginning to take interest in their surroundings. The negro indeed, ignorant of every Christian tongue, could only grin and gesticulate to his involuntary comrade, the Sardinian, but the elderly Greek found the Armorican, shackled by a short chain to his own ankle, more communicative. The two perforce sat close together, the younger man cupping his hands around his eyes while peering into the mist.
“Heigh-ho!” declared the Celt at length with a bitter grin. “What can’t be cured must be endured—an old saying, I take it, in every country. To-day I’m sold again like a pig or a sheep, but at least it’ll be in a city which the old monks by my father’s smoky hall chattered about, and which the emirs in the Kalif’s palace at Damascus envied. Hardly can I believe that Constantinople can rise to a tenth of its fame.”
His companion, a grey, unkempt fellow, and very melancholy, looked up listlessly from his tattered cloak: “You’ll see the city all right; too much of it, I fancy, if Hormisdas sells us, as he probably will. Curse my eyes! Wasn’t I second cook to a turmarch, free in everything but name, and happy and fat at Corinth? Then that wretched affair of the missing silver cups—what if I did know who snitched them! Ten years ago I quitted Constantinople expecting to come home a Senator perhaps, and now——”
He spat disgustedly into the gliding water.
“Don’t take on, friend Neokles,” soothed the Armorican with a friendly glint in his shrewd young eye. “The Saints send us all foul weather. At least I’m comforted that this time I’m like to get a Christian master and not an Infidel. Forget the cups and if we can’t make a merry morning, why, make the best of a sad one. Did you live long in Constantinople ere your master went to Corinth?”
“Most of my days,” grunted Neokles, a bit less surly.
“Well then, let us pretend we do not enjoy this jewelry”—Fergal cast a spiteful glance at his leg shackle—“and that I am some brisk merchant nearing the city to sell and not to be sold. You are my guide and travel companion and shall tell me everything.”
“An idle game,” growled the ex-cook.
“Yet play it for lack of a better. Lift up your head, man, and look about you.”
Neokles shook himself. He was indeed the victim of black thoughts, but the Celt’s elasticity and cheerfulness even in such an hour were not quite to be resisted. He peered out into the mist.
“Still fog everywhere. The Marmora’s often full of it in the autumn.”
“See where the sun is just creeping up to eastward. I get the thin tracery of a sky-line. Hills, masses of cypress trees and buildings. What are they?”
Neokles’ face lightened. “Chrysopolis,”[6] he exclaimed, standing up. “We are nearer in than I reckoned. We will be in the Golden Horn in half an hour.”
“The fog is lifting!” rang the voice of Plato. “Shift the sail, you brats! We’ll get the breeze and make the Point of St. Demetrios and the harbour on this tack.”
Fergal leaped also to his feet, almost tripping his companion. The fog was rolling away in a smoky gauze, which still hung closely over the choppy waves, but through it now were lifting dimly masts by sea, and ghostly domes and pinnacles by land. Straight across the Holy Elias’ clumsy bows shot an elegant barge, her sixteen oars pumiced white and leaping with mechanical rhythm. They caught the gilding and brave colours on her curving prow, the rippling scarlet canopy on the stern, the brilliant dresses of two or three women beneath the canopy.
“A patricianess going to visit some convent down the coast. The liveries, I think, of the great house of Bringas.” Neokles forgot his sorrows in his kindling excitement.
Instantly Fergal became aware that all about Plato’s sordid bark there moved shipping. A tall merchantman laden perhaps for Sicily was working out into the Marmora, her sails still flapping on the yards, and her sailors chanting lustily as they plied the long sweeps. A deeply laden barge glided past. On her decks was a sheen of white marble. “Pillars from Proconnesus for a new wing to the palace, I take it,” confided Neokles, his spirits momentarily rising. This was passed by a more speedy fishing boat, her brown sails set like picturesque pinions, her decks swarming with the orange-capped crew, plying keen knives as they cleaned their catch for market. Ever and anon out of the fast-dispersing mist would shoot caiques—slim, elegant skiffs of beechwood, with upturned prows and cushioned sterns, a pair of boatmen making each skim the waves like a swallow, while again like swallows they were darting hither and thither.
Close behind Plato’s bulwarks sped one of these craft. Fergal could almost touch the passengers in the stern, a young man and a young woman. He could even sniff the redolent musk of their festival garments, and catch a few words of the song they were merrily raising together. Then a little knot of mist covered them. Slavery and rejoicing license had met and parted each for its separate destiny. Nevertheless, the reaction upon Fergal was not unpleasant; in a city thus sending forth its messengers of wealth, mirth and ease, how could it prove all sorrow for him?
“This pair seem very gay together,” spoke he. “Does Constantinople begin its merry-making so early?”
“They are off on an all-day lark to Kartalimen, where there are delightful pleasances for little money, but we’ll find troubles enough after we’ve landed,” responded the other captive, shaking his head again.
“But look, Neokles! Oh! marvel, the light!”
The sun had shot above the dark contours of Chrysopolis. A sudden puff from the Marmora sent the last mists flying. As by magic the great veil to westward over the imperial city melted, and before the wondering eyes of the Armorican was spread out the majestic panorama of “New Rome”—of Constantinople—under the young light every detail from headland to headland standing forth with intense clearness of line and rigour of colour.
Fergal had seen many lands amid involuntary wanderings; he had heard of the present spectacle many times. Yet the reality surpassed all fame.
The Holy Elias was gliding steadily up the entrance of that mile-wide river, the blue Bosphorus. On the left, washed by the Marmora waves, for over five miles extended a vast circuit of imposing seawalls crowned by a magnificent confusion of greenery, terraced roofs, domes, enormous piles and stately pinnacles. The reach of the fortifications ran off dimly into the distance, almost beyond the scope of human eye. To the right were now revealed the white mansions and cypress groves of Chrysopolis with white and yellow villages crowding down to the Asiatic shore. Not far from these, lifting ruddy masses from the sparkling deep, rose the rough contour of unhappy Proti and behind her the larger bulks of Chaleitis, Pityusa and their sister “Isles of the Princes.” Straight ahead was opening the Bosphorus, one retreating vista of villa-crowned hills, terraced vineyards, nestling towns and frowning towers.
But Fergal’s gaze was all ahead and to the left, while, overcome by the once familiar spectacle, Neokles had dropped on his knees and was praying wildly:
“Oh! ye Saints who make blessed this immortal city, whose images never lack your multitudinous candles, whose relics are worshipped by a million, have pity on my plight!” Then the elder captive pointed in a kind of ecstasy to a majestic gilded dome supported by vast masses of grey masonry.
“Hagia Sophia,” he cried, “the temple beyond compare!” Fergal himself was fain to stand awestruck, trying to make his eyes bring some order out of the amazing spectacle, until Neokles recovered from his emotions enough to answer and explain. At last he began to point and wax eloquent:
“Right before us is now the imperial residence: not a palace of course, but a marvellous enclosed park, a mile and a half long and jutting out into the Bosphorus. You see how it rises terrace above terrace out of the sea. That two-storied building with long tiers of round-topped windows is the Bukoleon, a special residence beside which is the private haven for the Emperor’s yachts. A state dromond is at the quay even now. Those waving tropical trees are in the incomparable imperial gardens. All that confusion of lofty buildings contains the halls of state and the government ministries. Behind these of course extends the city itself. You can count most of the Seven Hills. Hagia Sophia is on the nearest, but all are crowned by some mighty edifice or tower. The Hippodrome is hidden behind the palace compound, but try to number the domes of the churches silvered or gilded:—that lesser one near Hagia Sophia is Hagia Irene,[7] further south you see Hagia Anastasia,[8] far away on another hill is the second noblest of them all, “Holy Apostles,” where they bury the Emperors. Yonder column is that of Constantine overlooking his own great Forum——” But here Neokles overran his eloquence, gloomy thoughts enforcing silence, and Fergal was left to drink in the spectacle unaided.
Plato shifted the helm, hugging close to the walls of the palace, so that on the battlements above could be seen pacing the silver-armoured guardsmen of majesty. Then as the wind bore them around a fortified headland, suddenly there flashed forth a new vista. A long, deep inlet of the sea was revealed, its length again fading into the distance. On the left hand, as the coaster turned westward, the buildings of Constantinople (no longer restrained by walls) seemed crowding tier above tier down to the harbour’s edge. Brightly coloured wooden houses appeared, mingled with marble palaces. Everywhere waved foliage. There were even gleams of flowering gardens. Churches, columns, residences, public buildings, colossal statues, many-storied dwellings, all were thrown together in an astonishing disorder.
These were on the southern bank of the harbour, while on the northern apparently rose another city of innumerable black buildings and of labyrinthine lanes, backed in turn by a lofty ridge. This was crowned with yet more cypresses and gardens, and by masses of white houses with nobly wooded hills spreading out beyond the range of vision.
“The Golden Horn?” queried Fergal, and Neokles recovered enough from his black mood to nod, and add: “Here to the north is Galata; on the height above is Pera. Ai! Our voyage is soon over; we’ll know our fates!”
But now the progress of Plato’s craft slackened. The entrance to the Golden Horn was one jumble of vessels. Deeply laden corn ships from the Black Sea and Crimea were contending for the fairway with lighter traders from Salonica and Smyrna. Fearful were the curses exchanged betwixt the mariners as their craft barely avoided collisions; reckless were the taunts hurled at the larger ships by the rowers of the numberless caiques which shot daringly across every path of danger. Over them all hung the sapphire sky of morning, flinging its light into the yet bluer water. The Armorican stood for the instant transfixed, forgetful of present chains and impending barter.
“I thank ye saints,” he spoke aloud in his own Celtic tongue, “that I am suffered to behold this miracle. Now I understand what often I have heard of Constantinople, ‘If men there could be immortal, this city would be very heaven!’ ”
“Here comes Hormisdas after us,” croaked Neokles at his elbow. “The devil wither him! Now our troubles begin.”
As the ex-cook spoke, Plato dexterously seized with a boat hook one of the large bronze rings set along the quays. The long yard fell with a clatter. Hormisdas flourished an ugly, loaded cudgel.
“Here, you four, ashore with you! Don’t trip over your chains, and get a pair of you drowned together. The sun is high and a customer may have come and gone already.”
... And thus it was that Fergal the Armorican, second son of a kinglet of Vannes, set foot in New Rome.
CHAPTER II
A WHARF BY THE GOLDEN HORN
The “Stairs” or Wharf of Chalcedon rose from the Golden Horn close to the Neoria, the Imperial Navy Yard, while a little westward was the frequented landing place for the ferry from Galata.
Close by the ferry station was a fish market, where imposing piles of Bosphorus mullet, pilchards, tunny, Black Sea turbot and swordfish were spread upon the pavement to be vociferated over by ardent buyers and vendors, and sniffed by the ubiquitous mangy dogs. Nearer the Dock Yards, however, rose the brazen statue of an ox, and beside this a more orderly crowd had mustered to listen to the morning sermon of the pillar saint Marinos.
Any loafer along the waterfront would have told you that in holy imitation of St. Simeon Stylites and others of blessed memory, Marinos had now these twenty years lived on top of a stone pillar some thirty feet in height, and about four in diameter, exposed to wind and weather, sleeping standing, and protected from falling only by a light railing around the summit.[9] How he had trained his body to this feat was heavenly mystery not lightly to be pried into. While daylight lasted, scores would watch him, fascinated by his constant genuflections in honour of the Deity, while every morning he favoured a larger company with a sermon, usually composed of repetitious praises of the Trinity, although very often “when the fleas bit him too sorely” (said the few scoffers) he would scourge with dire prophecies the sins of the Imperial City. This day Marinos had been in his least conciliatory mood. His shrill voice had sent terror shooting down the spines of all the Slavs, Thracians, Greeks, Armenians and Caucasians in the motley throng which was gazing up at him.
“Yet forty days and Constantinople even as Nineveh shall be destroyed! Yea, it shall be with this iniquitous city as with Old Jerusalem! The angel of the Lord shall smite upon it and its gates shall lament and mourn. In place of a sweet smell there shall be a stink. In place of a girdle a rent garment.” But here Marinos’ eyes lit on the wimple of some female hanging on the edge of the crowd. “Woe, too, unto all ye mincing women, who walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes!” His voice rose to a passionate scream. “Therefore the Lord will smite with the scab their heads and will take away their tinkling ornaments and their round tires like the moon. For your sins are great, I say unto you, and none shall deliver any of you in your hour of desolation!”
“He means that the Saracens will soon take the city,” shivered a caterer, picking up his portable oven, wherein meat was roasting to hawk to the passers-by.
“It’s an awful doom—they say the Infidels advance daily,” groaned back an Armenian porter, lifting an enormous bale to the pad on his shoulders and staggering away.
Meantime Marinos, his gust of passion peacefully subsiding, leaned over his railing and carefully drew upward a small bucket of beans, his daily ration, attached to a cord by the porter of a near-by chapel. The crowd melted. The traffic along the quay thickened. Marinos, apparently a gaunt individual, one mass of filthy hair and clad in an equally filthy sheepskin, began devouring his meal with great equanimity.
There was a constant scurrying of loose-trousered Bulgars, yellow-faced Huns, tall Persians with peaked sheepskin caps, and of swarthy Greek stevedores and sailors, but no visitors of note until a sudden “Way there!” from an outrider indicated travellers of quality. A gaily painted wagon rattled upon the quay. Its panels were adorned with excellent pictures of the martyrdom of St. Stephen. The harness of the two mules was set with silver. The canopy curtains were embroidered with the story of Adam and Eve. A dapper brown Coptic boy, its driver, went cracking his whip almost down to the very water edge, then drew up with a flourish, close to the base of Marinos’ pillar. Hormisdas, evidently expecting the arrival, presented himself beside the wagon with a fulsome smile.
The curtains opened and there appeared a stoutish man and a woman. The former was still in his thirties, but his ample dark hair and beard, his long, white tunic, white veil and flat-topped black hat proclaimed him a deacon. The lady seemed of elegant figure, yet wore the black hood, grey mantle and black shoes of a religious virgin. She had dropped a veil across her face, but the gauze was thin enough to betray features regular though highly rouged, while her hands flashed with rings and all her garments were charged with perfume.
“My lord the most sacred deacon Evagrios,” bowed Hormisdas, his hooked nose nigh touching the pavement, “and this most sacred lady——”
“My beloved ‘Spiritual Sister’ Nikosia,” confirmed the ecclesiastic.
“I count myself fortunate in her holy acquaintance,” Hormisdas salaamed again. “If your Blessednesses can deign to such carnal things, the slaves which I sent word about are ready for your approval.”
“We will see them,” announced the lady; whereupon Hormisdas waved his visitors forward to a stone bench by the waterfront, where were seated, sour and anxious, his four captives, the chains still rattling at their ankles.
“These are the two which I commend—the cook, and, let me call him, the porter. The strength of this red-headed fellow is tremendous. They breed giants in Frankland. Around your holy establishment you can find innumerable uses for him.” And here Hormisdas dissolved into flowery praise of the intelligence, industry and faithfulness of his two chattels, which was cut short when Evagrios seized the unhappy Neokles by the arm.
“Flabby! Old!” proclaimed the deacon incisively. “You say he was a cook in a good house? Sold for thieving, then! He’s dear at five solidi.”
“Thirty! A gift at thirty, most sacred Reverence,” cried Hormisdas.
“Well, let’s try the other.” Evagrios gripped Fergal above the elbow. At a touch of the oily hand of the deacon the Celt’s face crimsoned. His teeth gritted. “More muscle,” confessed the churchman, “and perhaps more honesty! But what can he do? We want a porter, not a barbarian mule who must be flogged into learning everything. What do you think of him, Nikosia?”
The lady pushed back her veil, confirming the impression that although past her first youth, her features were as handsome and voluptuous, as certainly her manners were coquettish.
“I think him very possible. His red head will command attention. They say those western Barbarians are usually honest. Since old Pogon died I’ve needed such a man.”
Fergal’s teeth ground harder. His ankle chain tugged at that of Neokles.
“What’s his price?” demanded Evagrios abruptly.
“Sixty solidi, most sacred Reverence.”
“Sixty solidi? The Holy Ghost deny salvation if I hear aright!” Evagrios threw up his plump hands in outraged astonishment. “Why did you waste my time if your first talking price was not at worst thirty?”
“Oh, Sacred Reverence, hearken! He is young and stalwart. Consider: forty years of service out of him. No sickness. No epilepsy. Mark well his honest countenance. Forty years of porter’s work is the least——”
A hissing noise sounded betwixt Fergal’s teeth. How the bargaining might have ended none might say, but even then across the hum of traffic came the boom of a great semantron, a sounding board hung in the porch of a church and struck with a mallet before every service. Immediately Nikosia dropped her veil and crossed herself devoutly, raising her hand to her forehead, then drawing it to her heart, her right shoulder and her left.
“I must go into St. Gabriel’s,” she declared, “and hear the morning ‘office.’ When it is over we can decide whether to make you a reasonable offer for this boy and the cook.”
“And I have business with the sacristan over a new chalice,” confirmed Evagrios, drawing away with her.
“Brimstone consume them,” cursed Hormisdas, the instant they were beyond hearing; “they only go to consider how far they can beat me down!”
