Constantinople
29th May 1453 A.D.
(The Day of the Fall)
The Emperor never asked to see me that day to find out about the Likureian icon. No doubt his mind was otherwise engaged. I hoped he was inspiring fire into the hearts of the defenders.
I dared not leave my room for fear of being accidentally and forcibly recruited to the suicidal numbers on the walls. I could not put my life in danger like that. Not here. Not for this lost battle.
I heard the chaos running rampant outside and knew in my bones the enemy was close. The palace would not be spared. I had to get out, but could not risk using my powers for fear of being detected by any Ruinand spies in the city.
I had to do it on foot. I had to hurry, if I was to get out of there alive. I packed my things and ran out of the room, all my senses on high alert.
I did not know of any secret passages leading away from the palace. I had to reach the Basilica Cistern, which meant venturing into the streets of a city overrun by Ottomans running riot.
I had to disguise myself as an Ottoman. There was a good chance I would encounter Greeks, but they should not present a risk as they would be running away, trying to save themselves, though they could still probably stop to fight if cornered. I needed Ottoman attire. I did not want to have to kill to get it from a soldier.
I remembered the satirical play put on only last night at the palace. One of those costumes would, hopefully, help me look the part. Desperation and fear was fertile ground to inspire humour.
And you could not deny that a little humour could go a long way to alleviating the fear, to at least give temporary respite from it. That was the way to go; down with the ship, in style, flying the flag of defiance to the bitter end.
Nothing was more courageous than to laugh at adversity and certain death. I had no doubt that there would not have been any time to destroy the costumes. And I knew where to look.
I ran down the grand staircase, turned right, and, through a small door, I found the stairs leading down to the cellars and storage rooms. At the bottom of the stairs, in half-darkness, I stopped for a moment and felt my way around, attempting to smell the spice room.
My nostrils captured the aroma and I started to run in the direction my nose was pulling me, as if by a leash around my throat. I turned the corner and found the door I had been looking for.
I feared it would be locked, and I tried it cautiously. It did not resist to my push and gave way, which was surprising, but I had no time to stop and think about it. I would face whatever, if anything, was on the other side. But, thankfully, there was nobody there.
I found the chest with the costumes from the previous night’s play. I rummaged through it like a madman. My fingers touched what I had been looking for: the linen bag. I allowed my fingers to wander and feel inside it. It all seemed to be there.
I changed quickly and put my normal clothes into the linen bag, tied it and threw it over my shoulder. I knew I would also need to hold a weapon to carry off the disguise, and I took hold of the sword that was inside the bag. It was not real, but it looked the part and it had a shining blade that in the chaos and semidarkness outside should fool all but the most audacious man who dared to challenge me and threaten me with a death sentence.
I went out of the room and back the way I came. As I started climbing the stairs, I heard a distant noise. I stood and listened. I could hear gurgling water. I turned back down and followed the sound to a crumbling door breaking the seemingly solid wall.
I was not sure whether it was the Lycus stream, part of the city’s water system or sewer water, but I did not care. I kicked it in. The gap was wide enough to go through. I did not hesitate. I threw myself into the rushing torrent.
I rode the foaming water and suddenly found myself in a huge cavern. There was a ray of light coming from a gap in the ceiling. But it was too high and I could not reach it. I could not afford to wait for the water to rise. There should be another way out of here.
My feet touched something that felt like a step, and I cautiously planted my feet on it. I then felt further up and there was another step, and then slowly a staircase was revealed to me. I climbed it and came to a barred opening blocking my way, seemingly fixed and locked.
I could see a door behind it. The metal on the barred opening appeared rusted and the surrounding frame had started to chip away. I pulled the bar and easily wrenched it off. Now for the door. Luckily it was unlocked. I opened it slowly and took a peek outside.
Strangely, the street was totally deserted. I could see fires in the distance. I walked to the end of the street and looked around the corner. Ayia Sophia was only a short walk away. The distance was short, but the leap would feel long through the fire and the lion’s den.
I could now hear the sounds of battle, looting and rape. I could see the glow from the fires spreading across the city. I held my sword firmly in my left hand and plunged into the burning streets.
My destination was the gardens on the hills spreading North-East of the old Imperial Palace, the hills where the acropolis of ancient Byzantium used to be.
I hardly met with any resistance as I briskly made my way to my temporary refuge. I did not stop running until I had reached the deserted area of scrubland, magnificent ancient trees and caves.
This was one of the few pristine and untouched areas in the densely populated city, where buildings were for the most part packed close together, stubbornly jostling for space, vying to inhale the smallest breath of fresh air, their impatience rising, and then ebbing away, sliding down the blessed and cursed uneven gradient of the city all the way into the waters of the Bosphorus and its murky depths.
There, away from the hustle and bustle of the great city, it was difficult to accept that you were in the centre of the greatest city on earth.
Only when I stopped and let myself fall, exhausted, to the ground, did I realise that I was soaking wet, water mixed with sweat dripping from every surface and every pore, my clothes and my hair, and forming shining paddles at my feet.
I felt as if I had been dragged backwards through a hedge. I tried to recover from my close brush with death. I sat down under a great plane tree and tried to remember how to breathe normally again and find some semblance of calmness, before I did what I urgently had to do: talk to my mother.
She appeared before me, as impressive as ever, her larger-than-life presence filling every nook and cranny of the rocks and the motionless vegetation around me and invading every pore of my skin.
Her voice sliced through the air like a blade. Her voice was a booming echo filling my brain, with copious blood rushing to engage the intruder, and almost giving me a paralysing seizure.
‘Finally, our sick lady has succumbed to her fate. It was sad to see her at her sickbed fading away. But history will take its course and we cannot change that. We should not change it at any case. Michael, there is much to do, but we must move with extreme caution. The identities and secrets of the members of the Order may have been compromised and it will be difficult to know whom to trust. It is imperative to find that child and the fate of the real Emperor. Have you found the Likureian icon?’
‘No, I did not get the chance to even properly conduct a search for it. Mother, have you heard anything from Mark?’
‘Not yet. I will let you know when I do.’
And with those final words, she was gone.
Before I could be on my way I had a strange vision.
There was a castle and a beautiful garden next to an old harbour and a child was trying to climb an ancient olive tree and kept failing to get a grip, and kept falling down, but persisted and kept scratching the trunk and pulling the branches.
A short distance away, a woman, most likely the child’s mother, was smiling, full of pride at her child’s exploits and persistence, her eyes twinkling in amusement, a matching pair of two flawless emeralds, reflecting the sun’s rays and the surrounding landscape in a myriad colours.
Her mind was plotting her child’s future. I was surprised to be privy to her thoughts. The boy kept calling his mother to join him, to help him. From somewhere I heard a male voice calling the woman’s name and a blurred figure started to appear into this picture of blissful oblivion to the horrors of the world.
I was fully absorbed by the scene and smiling with them. But then I was forcibly dragged out of that dream when the landscape suddenly grew dark, and a ferocious wind ripped through the castle, the harbour, the child and the mother, turning everything into rubble, piles of ash, the entire scene stained with purple splashes falling from the sky, indistinguishable fragments of stone, soil, plant, flesh and bone, all swiftly turning to dust and scattered far away by a terrible twister, as if they had never existed.
Even though I was inside this vision I remembered myself feeling crashed by the scene of utter devastation; the air was blown out of my lungs. I collapsed to the ground and cried.
Soon after I was transported to a different scene. I saw figures, alternating between dressed in dark sinister hooded cloaks and then into dancing figures, magnificently dressed in vibrant attire and decked in glittering jewels, accompanied by a gloriously hypnotising hymn- singing, interspersed with images of what appeared like barbarian battle-dancing around a roaring fire, and an idol which I could not quite make out. I felt drawn in by this tune that was ringing in my mind, long after the vision ceased.
And then again I was abruptly and brutally taken into the middle of a furious battle with arrows and swords going right through me, as if I was not really there, but it, nevertheless, felt very real and the noises and battle cries were deafening and terrifying and I automatically brought my palms to my ears.
I tried to run to the sidelines of the chaos around me, but my feet were dragging ever so slowly, as if fighting through snow or sand or a bog, and then I caught someone’s eye and that person seemed to have momentarily ceased fighting, as if paralysed on the spot.
He stared right through me or at me, I wasn’t sure, but he seemed to have recognised me. And it started to trigger a memory in me, but I could not quite place it, a name…, just give me a name, that face… I tried again and again, but when I thought I had got it, it slipped away from me, and, at that moment, I saw that person being speared right through like a goat about to be roasted, and I let out a terrible cry which nobody could hear, as nobody present turned to me, a cry that changed nothing around me.
As suddenly as it appeared the vision disappeared and I was suddenly brought back to reality with a thud. I found myself drenched in sweat back in Constantinople. I felt confused by the riot of images that assaulted me.
I thought about that person I saw who seemed to be the only one to recognise me, but could not understand what happened, what it all meant. I tried to remember the woman’s name in the first scene, but it eluded me. After a while I gave up.
I strained my ears to hear the sounds of battle, but, strangely, could hear nothing. Had the Ottomans got bored of the looting and destroying and raping or was there simply nothing left to rape, loot or destroy? Whatever the case might be, I had to get out of there.
We had to find the child, which was as much ours and the Order’s as the Emperor’s and the mother’s that bore it, but whose identity and fate was unknown.
A piece of paper fell from the book that Elli was reading. She bent down and picked it up. It was three pages folded together. She unfolded them. It was a handwritten note with the date of 21 ^st December 1922 A.D. written on the top right-hand corner. She had seen the handwriting before, but could not remember where. Her curiosity piqued, she began to read.