The Terror of Constantinople

by Richard Blake

Genres: Historical Fiction; Ancient World Romance

Synopsis

If you loved Gladiator and Spartacus, you'll love the second book in the DEATH OF ROME SAGA. 610 AD. Invaded by Persians and barbarians, the Byzantine Empire is tearing itself apart in civil war. Phocas, the maniacally bloodthirsty Emperor, holds Constantinople by a reign of terror. The uninvaded provinces are turning one at a time to the usurper, Heraclius. Just as the battle for the Empire approaches its climax, Aelric of England turns up in Constantinople. Blackmailed by the Papacy to leave off his career of lechery and market-rigging in Rome, he thinks his job is to gather texts for a semi-comprehensible dispute over the Nature of Christ. Only gradually does he realise he is a pawn in a much larger game.

Release date: January 21, 2010

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 436

Sample

1

I first saw Constantinople on Monday, 6 July 610. I was twenty at the time. We’d set out from Rome by barge, changed to a ship at Ostia, and then to a larger ship at Naples. We’d stopped for supplies at Palermo and again at Corinth, where the ship had been dragged across the narrow spit of land. I’d fancied a further stop at Athens but the Captain was muttering something about prevailing winds and his ‘instructions’.

    Most likely, I’d said to Martin, he was scared of putting in anywhere north of Corinth. The Slavs were now raiding at so many points that almost nowhere could be counted safe. Every night, after we’d passed Corinth, the sky was lit up by the fires of captured cities.

    Once, sailing north along that silent coast, we’d come upon a whole band of Slavs together with their booty and their captives. They’d raised their spears at us and shouted something incomprehensible. We’d tried to shoot at them with our bows, but always without success. After that, we’d made sure to stand well out from the shore at night, with guards posted on the main deck.

    From Euboea, we’d struck out for the East, straight through the Aegean. Every day, the sun had burned down from a sky of darkest blue on to still waters of blue and silver. We’d then entered the main shipping lanes, and were passing trading ships and fishing boats and war galleys. We’d passed little islands, sometimes putting in to shore. On some I saw abandoned temples gleaming white in the distance, and monasteries and fortifications of various kinds. To the bemusement of the crew, I’d scampered about the remnants of more civic and more populous ages, chasing away the queer lizards that darted all over the ruins and filling my head with details of inscriptions and building styles.

    On days when we hadn’t landed, I’d swum in the warm salty waters, with Martin’s voice calling out every so often he might have seen another dolphin. Despite the clear assurance of Aristotle and of the sailors stood beside him, he couldn’t be brought to believe the things weren’t dangerous.

    There had been a quickening of the traffic as we passed into the Hellespont, and a fair crowding of it as the channel widened out into the Propontis. It was now, looking left across the water, that I first saw the great City. Piled on to a high, central hill, its public buildings looked down over walls of a size and magnificence that came close to topping my wildest dreams. These surround the city, guarding its landward side with a triple fortification that no enemy has ever breached, or can ever breach. The two lengths of wall that front the sea are less elaborate but still provide adequate protection.

    Even if you aren’t allowed inside, the walls give an idea of how vast is Constantinople. The two sea walls are each about three miles long. The land wall is another three miles or so. Beyond the walls, suburbs – though mostly long abandoned – stretch some way into Thrace, and cover the neighbouring shore.

    When I first arrived, the whole blunted triangle and its depend encies may have contained a million people. Even today, it must remain the biggest and richest city in the world.

    ‘Behold the ancient city of Constantine,’ said Martin, sounding glum beside me.

    ‘Come, now,’ I said, ignoring his mood, ‘you know much better than that. Just three hundred years ago, this was a dumpy little town without walls, called Byzantium. Compared with Rome, it’s a thing of yesterday. It was only when the Great Constantine established the Faith, and then wanted a capital he could fill with churches and with better access to the frontiers, that this place became anything at all.’

    Ignoring the challenge to debate, Martin continued leaning on the rail and looked bleakly across the diminishing expanse of water that separated us from the City walls. The conversation of flags between ship and shore was ordering us closer in; I supposed it was to avoid the more important shipping in that crowded channel. Built on the far edge of Europe, the city faces Asia across waters narrow enough to swim, but for the treacherous tides.

    ‘Three hundred years,’ he said at length, ‘is long enough to bring every vice and every crime to ripeness. You wait and see.’

    There was a sudden shouting behind us. Men were running all over the ship, pulling on ropes. The sails came down, and I heard the dull beat of the drum as the rowers took over from the wind and we turned left into the Golden Horn – the long, sheltered harbour that washes the north-eastern sea walls and makes Constantinople a greater commercial centre even than Alexandria.

    I’d never seen so many ships before. Some crowded along the docks that lined an unwalled stretch at the city’s edge and that were repeated on the opposite shore. Others stood out in the channel and little boats darted between them and the docks. On land, I could see row after row of vast warehouses of the kind I’d seen in Ostia. But those were mostly abandoned, crumbling away beneath their vaulted roofs. These were bursting with all the produce of the world – foodstuffs, textiles, spices and drugs and aromatic goods, manufactures of all kinds, works of art. Whatever can be bought and sold, you’ll find in those warehouses.

    The Captain was shouting orders to his men and greetings to other ships as we navigated our way slowly and carefully across the harbour. No longer responding, his signalman was intent on the rapid waving of flags onshore. Every time the message was reported, the Captain would bark another set of orders. Since they all spoke Syriac to each other, I had no idea what was being said.

    From a few hundred yards out, I could see the swarming crowds on the docks – naked porters fetching and carrying, officials and their secretaries consulting lists, men and women of every condition and colour. I made out a line of slaves all chained together, still wearing the clothes of their northern home, their skins red from the burning sun.

    Beyond the docks the land rose upwards. Here, I allowed myself a sight of a jumble of glittering buildings. Some of these looked quite old – at least, they were in the ancient style of the Greeks. The larger buildings were all in the modern Imperial style. I strained to see more of them, but the afternoon sun was in my eyes and it dazzled me. I also couldn’t explain the little dark projections at regular points along an inner wall.

    Partly to rest my eyes, I looked down into the water. Further back, the oars were breaking it into a white foam. Where I stood at the front of the ship, I could see my own reflection, clear but distorted by the parting of the waters. I had put on my best robe for the occasion – yellow with a dark blue trim that gave me a vaguely official look. Because I still wasn’t up to growing a proper beard, I’d let my hair grow very thick and had bound it with a ribbon into a mass of gold.

    I gave myself a little hug as I leaned forward over the rail and looked down at that beautiful reflection. Behind my back, people might well be asking about the exact nature of my citizenship. None could deny that, visually, I was among the most glorious objects they had ever seen. I was like an old statue, with all the paint and gilding still fresh upon it. As ever when I caught an unexpected view of myself, I could feel a stiffy coming on.

    Still beside me, dressed in a suitably contrasting grey, a hat to keep the sun off his milk-white, freckled skin, Martin cleared his throat. It was one of those noises he made when somewhere between moderate concern and paralysing fear.

    ‘We’re putting into the Senatorial Dock,’ he said flatly.

    Certainly, we were going straight past the place where I’d seen all the activity. Still shouting orders I couldn’t understand, the Captain was pointing to some other landing place round a bend in the shore.

    For the hundredth time that day, Martin reached up to make sure his hat was in place. Hair as red as his doesn’t long survive a thirtieth birthday, and I knew Martin was approaching that age faster than he wanted.

    ‘Our things’, he added, ‘will still need to clear customs, but it shouldn’t be as searching as I expected.’

    ‘Well,’ I said, trying to keep my voice neutral, ‘let us be grateful for that.’

    Martin had warned me how the Greeks like to check everything when you land, and even try to levy duties on your personal effects. I hadn’t liked the thought of that. If we could avoid it, I’d not object to a little change of plan.

    I looked again towards the shore which was approaching fast. With the crowds behind us, we were putting into a small landing faced with blue marble and overlooked by buildings of restrained grandeur. Leading up to the main city, there was a wide avenue lined with trees.

    Following Martin’s glance to the landing place, I could see a small, though very fat man dressed in a robe with a purple border. Beardless, of indeterminate age, he seemed to be wearing a wig – or perhaps it was a full head of hair dyed black. It was hard to see the details at that distance or in that terrible glare of sunlight. A secretary stood beside him, his face cast down. Behind him, at a respectful distance, stood various retainers, some of them armed.

    ‘That’s not the Permanent Legate, or his people,’ Martin hissed, his grip tightening on the rail. ‘It’s a Gloriosus. There’s a really senior official waiting to greet you. You only see people of that status come down to greet foreign ambassadors.’

    My stomach turned over. The scared speculations I had pushed out of my mind on that hasty, midnight rush down the Tiber came crawling back. With the shore getting closer and closer, I felt like a man who falls from a high window and sees the ground rushing towards him. Even if I’d dared to ask, would the Captain have turned back?

    I wanted to say something reassuring to Martin. All I did was reach out to him under cover of the rail. He took my hand in his. It was cold and sweaty, but firmer than my own. We stood close together as the ship covered the last hundred yards or so.

    ‘He’ll be expecting our total deference,’ Martin whispered with a slight nod at the official. ‘You address him as “Your Magnificence”.’

    I had a speech rehearsed for the Permanent Legate’s agent. I had a variation ready just in case the Lord Silas should deign to meet us in person. I had nothing prepared for this.

    It might be a mistake, I told myself again and again. The Permanent Legate’s people might be waiting at one of the general docks. Perhaps an ambassador’s ship was even now being inspected by those customs men, and there’d be red faces all round. But I thought it best to assume that the traffic-control people in the city knew what they were doing, so I put an open smile on to my face and made a gentle bow in the official’s direction. He bowed in response, touching his forehead in the Eastern manner.

    As the oars swung suddenly upright and we coasted the last few yards into dock, I glanced up again at the inner wall. I could now see that those dark projections I hadn’t been able to make out were iron gibbets. There must have been dozens of these clustered round the Senatorial Dock. Each held a corpse in various stages of decay.

    The corpses looked sightlessly down at me, twisted in their death agonies, blackened by the sun. Some were naked. Others had shreds of clothing that scavengers and the shifting winds hadn’t yet torn away. Here and there, though faded, I could make out the purple border of the senatorial classes.

    Martin cleared his throat, directing my attention to the open mouth and outstretched arms of the official.

    ‘Executed traitors,’ he whispered again with a momentary glance at the gibbets. ‘You should pretend not to notice them.’

    As I stepped ashore, the official hurried forward to embrace me.

    ‘Greetings, Alaric of Britain,’ he called in a voice that might have been a woman’s but for its great power. His flabby, painted jowls shook with the force of his greeting. ‘I bid you welcome after your journey from the Old Rome to the New. Welcome, Alaric, welcome to the City of Caesar!

    ‘I am Theophanes, and I represent the Master of the Offices himself. In the name of His Glorious Excellency, and in the name of the Great Augustus whose benevolence shines upon us as a second sun, I bid you welcome. Yes, young and most beautiful Alaric, I bid you a fond welcome.’

    Theophanes must have seen my furtive look beyond him to the jumble of attendants. He continued:

    ‘His Excellency the Permanent Legate is sadly indisposed. Rather than send down a subordinate from the Legation, he took up our suggestion of an official greeting. It was no less than we could offer for a scholar of such pre-eminent qualities as yourself.’

    He paused and put a slight emphasis on the elaboration of the flattery: ‘A scholar whose qualities are no stranger to the city – though we were unprepared for such personal beauty to be so artlessly combined with youth and learning. Please regard me throughout your stay as entirely at your service.’

    His face creased into a smile and he spread his arms as if about to begin a declamation: ‘All that you require for your mission – all that you may desire for your convenience – you will look to me to provide.’

    He spoke in good Latin, though with an accent that wasn’t quite Greek. I answered in my best Greek, praising the Emperor for his forethought in all matters and thanking Theophanes for his own eminent goodness of heart.

    So there was no mistake. I was indeed the object of this fuss. The Emperor’s most senior Minister had taken an interest. He had sent one of his own most senior officials to greet me.

    As we drew back from our second kiss and were about to begin a new round of mutual flattery, the breeze shifted. The perfume that hung like a suffocating fog round Theophanes gave way to a smell of death from the gibbets above our heads. I resisted the urge to gag at the sudden stench and controlled my features. In a moment, the breeze shifted again and the smell of ropes and tarpaulins filled the air.

    We moved towards the litters placed for our service, and the armed men lined up into a guard of honour. Behind me, I could hear Martin giving subdued but curt orders for the unloading of our luggage. The customs officials who’d been hovering behind Theophanes and his entourage had given up hope of inspecting this and were dispersing.

    That ship had been our home for what seemed an age. I never looked back to it.

10

Instead, the whole restaurant fell suddenly quiet. It was as if a singer were about to begin a performance. There was that same feeling of hushed expectancy. The chattering and laughter of the diners had ceased. The serving slaves left off their darting around and clattering of dishes. All was suddenly fallen silent. All was still.

    I looked round to my left. Over by the door, their set faces pale in the glimmer of the lamps, three men dressed in the black I’d earlier seen at the Ministry stood looking at the diners. They were as still and silent as everyone else in the room.

    Then one of them stepped forward. Taller than the others, his wiry build partly compensated by the bulk of the armour under his cloak, he added to the impression of a performer about to begin. He looked from table to hushed, expectant table, dwelling on none. A smile on his thin lips, he seemed to bask in the terror his appearance had created. A slave was pushed forward to stand trembling beside him.

    ‘Well?’ the Tall Man asked in a voice of quiet but silky menace. ‘Where is he this time?’

    The slave pointed silently towards a table on the far side of the room from ours. A single diner sat there. I’d noticed him playing with some bread.

    His assistants two paces behind him, the Tall Man approached the indicated table. As they passed each table, I could sense a slight sagging of the tension. But it was only a very slight sagging. Everyone remained still and silent.

    The slave lightly touched the diner on his shoulder, and fell back. He squatted down on the floor, covering his face. His body shook with suppressed sobs. I could see dark bruises on his arms and his bare legs.

    ‘Justinus of Tyre,’ the Tall Man opened now, still quiet but in a peremptory tone, ‘do you know the reason why we stand before you?’

    The face of the diner turned grey in the lamplight. He was short and balding, in early middle age, the fingers of his upraised hands heavy with gold rings. His appearance cried merchant of the richer sort. He muttered a few words I couldn’t catch. Those at the next table looked down steadily at their wine.

    I noticed that all the other diners in the restaurant were also looking away. One man at a table near mine was breathing heavily despite himself. With shaking hands he fingered what looked like a pagan charm. The other diners hardly seemed to be breathing. Mine was the only head turned in that direction.

    Martin had drained his cup with a single gulp. He was looking carefully down at the table, his hands spread out before him. He kicked under the table at my foot, desperate to have me do likewise. I ignored him and continued watching the scene played out before me.

    ‘There are questions to be put to you – in the usual place,’ the Tall Man added with an ominous stress. ‘You will come quietly.’

    With a clatter of overturned cups, Justinus rose unsteadily to his feet. The vase of yellow flowers placed on his table went over, and, from a good fifteen feet away, I clearly heard the spattering of water on to the floor.

    ‘Please—’ he gasped in a deathly voice. His words were cut short with a heavy blow to the face from the Tall Man. Justinus fell back against a chair that broke under the shock. The two assistants reached down and pulled him to his feet. The neighbouring diners rose quickly and went over to stand with outspread arms and their faces pressed to the far wall. I could see one of them shaking as if in a mild epileptic fit.

    ‘You will remain silent,’ the Tall Man said in a soft voice. ‘You will speak only in the place where you are questioned, and when you are questioned.’

    As they moved away from the table, one of the serving slaves restrained himself from hurrying forward to pick up the broken vase from the floor. Instead, he remained squatting on his haunches with the others.

    With a sudden convulsion, Justinus broke free from the grasp of the men in black and looked desperately round for escape. The door was blocked by another of those men in black who stood just outside the room. He looked menacing, though seemed not to be armed. The only window was shuttered against the evening draught.

    A look of wild despair on his face, Justinus crashed heavily through the tables in my own direction. Crockery and knives clattered to the floor behind him.

    Knowing he was trapped, the arresting officials stood watching to see what he might do.

    I suppose, with my size and colouring, I stood out the most from the other diners. It didn’t help that I was the only one not looking carefully away or down at the table.

    Justinus made straight for me. ‘You’ve got to help me,’ he cried in a deathly voice, clutching at my robe. ‘Tell them I can explain everything. Nothing is what it seems  ...’

    Before I could so much as open my mouth, the two assistants in black were with us. They pulled Justinus back from me. He fell to the floor, his hands clamped round my left calf. They pulled harder, but nothing could break his grip on me. I tried to shake him loose but with no success. Big as I was, I was nearly pulled to the floor with him. But for the attendant circumstances, there was something faintly comic about the scene.

    From his robe, the Tall Man pulled a heavy cosh. With two short and exact blows, face still without marked expression, he smashed hard on Justinus’s wrists. I heard the dull crunching of lead on bone and felt the grip relax.

    The Tall Man stood back to admire his work. He wiped a splash of blood off the cosh and balanced it in his right hand.

    As the assistants pulled Justinus away from me, he curled into a ball, now screaming with pain and fear. They still couldn’t get him to his feet. Each time they seemed about to get him up, he’d go limp on them, and his dead weight fell through their grip.

    The two assistants now set about him with their coshes. They hardly seemed to move as, with careful and practised blows, they smashed his body to pulp. Blood oozed though his clothing as flesh burst and bones cracked. The screams gave way to an animalistic whimpering, and then to rattling gasps as blow after blow continued to fall on the more delicate and exposed areas of his body.

    Trembling with excitement, the Tall Man directed his assistants to areas of the body that hadn’t yet come under the cosh. In that silent restaurant, I could hear every blow and every rasping breath. Blood splashed my sleeve. There was a rich, high smell of shit as the man’s bowels relaxed.

    The other diners continued looking away.

    Moving round to get a new position, one of the assistants knocked into me. My cup went over, spilling red wine into my lap.

    ‘For God’s sake,’ I cried, disgust taking the place of alarm – ‘for God’s sake, is this really necessary?’

    I stood up and faced the Tall Man. My cup hit the floor, shattering on its hard surface. Lacking my bulk, his height was deceptive. I stared him straight in the face. His assistants fell back before me, obviously unsure how to respond to this kind of challenge.

    The Tall Man held his ground. His pale features again took on a thin smile. He stepped over the motionless body of Justinus. He put his face close to mine and I could smell some kind of spiced drug on his breath.

    ‘Do you presume to interfere in the arrest of a convicted traitor?’ His soft voice reverted to its silky, menacing tone.

    ‘My Lord,’ one of the assistants said. ‘My Lord’ – he bent to take up a letter that must have rolled out from that bloody robe.

    The Tall Man ripped at the seal and scanned the contents. His face contracted into what looked like the beginnings of a seizure, but he gripped the back of a chair and fought to recover himself.

    ‘You are aware of the treasons in this document?’ It was both a question and a statement. His voice still smooth by effort, his hand was shaking.

    ‘Of course not,’ I snapped, suddenly aware that I was splashed all over with blood. I was wearing the clothes I had brought from Rome. It would be days yet before the new ones were ready.

    ‘Please, Illustrious Sir,’ Martin broke in, scrabbling in his satchel for our documents, ‘please, but my colleague is a stranger to the City. He doesn’t understand City ways. We are under the protection of—’

    The Tall Man held up his arm for silence. ‘Not another word,’ he said with a grim pleasure. ‘You are the known associates of a convicted traitor. I have no doubt you will come quietly.’

    ‘Traitors?’ I blurted out, incredulous. ‘How about some charges?’ I asked, remembering my law.

    The smile expanded to reveal a row of stained teeth. The Tall Man waved at the other crouched, silent diners.

    ‘These are the accused. They wait the call of the Emperor’s Divine Justice. That offal on the floor’ – he glanced down at Justinus – ‘is the convicted one. And you are now his convicted associates.’

    He turned to one of his assistants.

    ‘Cuff them.’

    Then he turned to the slave who had denounced Justinus. He was still grovelling hopelessly on the floor. I could now see that the fingers on his left hand were broken and already swollen black.

    ‘Return to your master’s house,’ he said, his voice silkier than ever. ‘I’ll send for you again when I need you.’

    As we left, the restaurant had all the still silence of an hermetic monastery. I looked briefly back. No one moved. No one so much as breathed heavily. On the bright ceramic tiles of the floor, a dark smear showed where the body of Justinus had been dragged along behind us.

    The sky overhead was now black, and I felt a chill breeze on my face as we emerged from the restaurant. There was a small crowd in the street outside. Blank faces lit by the flickering of the torches, no one spoke. A few turned their backs to us as the Tall Man looked in their direction.

    We were pushed into a black windowless carriage. The possibly still living body of Justinus was thrown in beside us.

11

I’d nearly vomited at my first smell of the place: it was like an unwashed abattoir – all stale blood and rotted offal which almost overpowered the smell of damp.

    The creatures running this imitation of Hell kept up the resemblance to an abattoir. They wheeled silently about us in the stained leather aprons you normally see in a butcher’s market. As one whispered with the Tall Man, another darted a hand inside my robe. He squeezed hard on a nipple, all the time looking up at me with the bright, panting smile of a mad dog.

    ‘Tomorrow!’ he whispered triumphantly – ‘And tomorrow and tomorrow, and all for us!’

    I cut him short with a smart head-butt to the face. ‘Fuck you!’ I snarled. The others danced back out of my reach.

    I was in the Ministry where I’d earlier visited Theophanes. No – I was in the basement that ran far beneath the Ministry. Once unloaded from the carriage, we had been dragged in through a small side entrance, and then taken down worn steps that had twisted round and round and round on their course into a subterranean world of endless corridors lined every few yards with iron doors.

    At first, all down there had seemed quiet. As my ears began to adjust, though, I could hear a chorus of low, despairing moans. They came from behind the closed doors of the cells. They came from all directions. They came from as far as the ears could reach, and from further than the eyes could see in the dim glow of the lamps hung at every junction in that labyrinth of horror.

    As the one I’d butted lay grovelling on the floor, the Tall Man pushed his own face close to mine. ‘Tomorrow, indeed, my fine young barbarian,’ he crooned, ‘but not for these trash. You belong to me.’

    He stood back and took a deep breath to savour the endless despair of our surroundings before continuing in a tone of eager intensity: ‘I will show you how pain is very like pleasure. It too has its rituals and instruments. It too has its orgasms. It too can be prolonged by those who have studied the responses of the body.’

    ‘Fuck you!’ I snarled again, though I’d not felt inclined to try anything physical with this living image of Satan. He was on his home territory, and had seemed to grow taller and more substantial with every breath of that foul air.

    ‘We shall see how long your courage holds up under my personal ministrations,’ he said, turning to rap a few orders to his minions. ‘You will give me the answers to my questions, and much else before the end.’

    Still cuffed, we were pushed into separate cells spaced far apart. I don’t know how long I sat in darkness on that damp, stinking floor once the door had swung shut on me.

    Few definite sounds now reached me through those stone walls and the heavy door. But I felt aware of continual movement outside, and perhaps the occasional low moan.

    ‘I’m a guest of the Emperor,’ I shouted in the darkness. ‘I demand immediate release.’

    No answer. Instead, the sound of my voice within the invisible walls of that blackness chilled me more than the dank air. The wine fumes that had so far buoyed me up were now dispersing like a morning fog, and I was beginning to realise the full horror of my situation.

    Once I did hear voices. Though muffled by the close-fitting iron door, they’d come from just outside my cell.

    ‘So is this one Justinus?’ one had asked.

    ‘Nah!’ another had replied. ‘That’s the one back there. We’ll see what we can get out of him come the morning. I don’t think, though, there’s much left for us to do. He’s all smashed up now.’

    ‘Shame,’ had come the answer. ‘I suppose it is the right Justinus this time. I said the other one was telling us the truth.’

    The voices had drifted away, leaving me in a silence broken only by a steady dripping of water somewhere in the dark.

    I’ve seen people go mad in prisons. Even a short stay is unnerving. The blackness and the silence are bad enough. Far worse is the uncertainty of how long the stay there will be. Will you be taken out and tortured or killed? Or will you just be left there to rot to death?

    I kept my nerve in that cell by refusing to think about what might happen next, and by instead reciting in my head the whole of the Creed, first in Latin then in Greek. Yes, it may be a mass of words made up to torment the devout. But