Читать книгу The Beauty of the Purple - William Stearns Davis - Страница 4

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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!”

Fergal heaved a sigh of temporary relief. He knew enough of a sinful world to take the measure of the churchly couple, and every fibre of his being swelled with the prayer that whatever his calamity he might be spared such masters. Meantime he and Hormisdas alike scanned closely, such passers on the quay as might be ambitious enough to seek a stalwart slave.

The moments sped and the Celt was dreading the speedy return of Evagrios and Nikosia, when his eye caught a gleam of bright armour moving along the quay from the Navy Yard. Two officers were approaching with swinging martial strides. Even the unversed Fergal could surmise that one was of high naval rank, while the other was perhaps his superior in the army. The dromond captain, for he was surely that, was a short, jovial-faced little man, with great brown mustaches, a resounding laugh, and a hand clapped incessantly to the hilt of a long, clattering sabre. He was in a loose red costume, wore a crimson cap set with gold lace, and sported a great array of silken tassels from his cloak and baldric.

His companion, of commanding height, was equally of ample and powerful build. His arms and hands were long; his large features, intelligent and penetrating, were surrounded with a reddish beard. He wore high, green leggings laced with scarlet thongs, and a light leather cuirass with gilt plates, over which he had thrown a loose, blue mantle. On his thick locks was a small, silvered helmet topped with a very long and raking plume. His gestures were slower, his speech less boisterous than the sailor’s, yet at intervals a genial smile would flash across his fine teeth. Fergal saw donkey boys and hucksters give one glance at the numerous gold medals which sprinkled both officers’ breasts, then make way respectfully. Here were men of importance.

Another wagon, more elegant than Nikosia’s, its wheels and body splendid with gilt plates, had drawn up at the landing stage. The car was drawn by four superb bay horses, and around it moved a full score of gorgeously liveried menials and running footmen.

“A carriage from the Dukas palace,” passed a whisper down the quay. The two officers stepped past the lackeys and stood side by side at the water’s edge as a magnificent barge shot nearer. There was one clash as the perfectly trained crew unshipped the oars, then right under the eyes of Hormisdas’ quivering chattels, surrounded by her maids and with a beardless fat eunuch bending and giving her the hand, a great lady all in blue silks and gold lace stepped upon the landing. Fergal caught the general murmur, “Theophano Dukas, the patrician’s daughter.” He saw the two officers stand in salute, then approach the noblewoman. Her manner he could notice, was polite to the sailor, and was more than gracious to the soldier.

“Thanks, indeed, my very Excellent Leo and Basil!” was her greeting. “Your homage sends me home in good humour after a weary row down from Chelai.[10] How is your good wife, Captain Basil? And you, Sir Spatharios Leo—you have no pretty bride to ask after; but my father admires your exploits in the Caucasus and will soon bid you to dine with us and tell more of them. The Saints give you both a lucky day.”

The lady extended a slim hand covered with gems. Basil kissed it politely, Leo’s kiss was equally polite, and for him the hand was withdrawn a little slowly. The two officers escorted Theophano to the carriage and congéed low when her train swept away.

Basil burst into a ferocious laugh.

“Oh, dear comrade Leo! What inordinate luck! Here you’ve come to the quay to meet your mother from the ferry, and lo! up sweeps her Magnificence Theophano Dukas and takes it all for herself. Man!—since you returned to Constantinople your fortune’s clearly made. Everybody says you’re soon to rise to greater things, and every patrician girl is after you. There’s much worse that can happen than being Count Maurice Dukas’ son-in-law!”

“And better also,” returned Leo, slightly flushing.

“Why, nobody has better blood, better influence, better villas, or better estates in Bithynia.”

“But you don’t add ‘a better daughter’—for the wife of the son of a Mesembrian peasant.”

Basil slapped his comrade’s powerful shoulder.

“Your pedigree will be illustrious enough after they publish those patents that are now drafting at the palace. Your old comrades will have a merry night in your honour soon.”

“Loyal fellow,” declared Leo affectionately, “I’ve a thousand things on my mind much more urgent than that of taking a wife.”

“Such as——”

“Well, the unwelcome fact that I returned from my Black Sea mission to Constantinople, and found our Sacred Masters in the palace even more cowardly, luxurious and inefficient than when I departed.”

Leo delivered this opinion in a prudently lowered tone, but Basil recklessly slapped his own thigh.

“Holy Wounds! You speak for us all in the navy. The present Sacred Clemency Philippicus is worse in his sodden ease than raging old Justinian Slit-Nose. That eunuch Paul does everything. And who is he (smooth, sexless cat) to stop the Omiad kalif and all the advancing Hagarines?”[11]

“We’re on the quay,” admonished Leo, smiling; “I shouldn’t have started you——”

Fergal had not of course caught this conversation, but he had watched the two officers intently while they stood chatting only a few paces from him. The sale of slaves on the quay was too common to attract their least attention. Hormisdas, despairing of other customers, was beginning to mutter a prayer and kiss his relic as a stimulant to profit, when yet another strange party appeared upon the waterfront.

Two Syrian youths with striped turbans advanced, leading two patient donkeys. The saddle of one was empty. On the other rode a woman, evidently young, although decently veiled. Her dress was plain but of fine green material, and the trailing skirt was embroidered with skillful figures of Abraham and Isaac. Beside her walked a venerable man who commanded instant attention. His dark eye was very bright, but seemed surveying the mercantile tumult with distant abstraction. On his breast gleamed a single large gold medal set with gems showing the signs of the zodiac. He wore a saffron turban and a perfectly plain saffron gown of the finest wool. At his elbow another Syrian, evidently an elderly and trusted servant, twitched his master’s mantle as if to remind him when to avoid hucksters’ booths or piles of offal. The little party moved directly down upon the quay, and then halted as if disappointed to find the ferry-stage quite empty.

“Has not the ferry-boat come from Galata?” inquired the servant of Hormisdas, who (scenting no traffic) answered insolently: “You have eyes,” and shrugged his shoulders. But the Syrian turned to the two officials, justly believing that high rank did not imply discourtesy.

“Will my gracious lords tell my master if the ferry-boat from Galata has been in sight?”

A glance at the patriarchal stranger made soldier, and sailor salaam together.

“It is late already,” responded Basil with a flourish, “but the shipping conceals it, and it can only come through slowly.”

“We must wait therefore, Sophia,” spoke the ancient, dropping his head as if in an abstruse calculation. The lady, however, unveiled and gazed forth upon the animated harbour. Fergal was observing that she was very comely, with bright, gladsome features unspoiled by kohl, rouge or henna, when to his infinite misery back from the neighbouring church came Evagrios and Nikosia. The deacon set his eyes first on Neokles.

“Twelve solidi—not an obol more,” he proclaimed. “You know why he’s being sold. You’ll never get a better offer.”

“Twelve—ah! ruin,” began Hormisdas, his arms going like flails; “twelve for this incomparable cook. I am a poor man—eight children, seven are girls. Your sacred Reverences would not——”

“Pist!” responded Evagrios. “Twelve or nothing—I see you don’t mean business. Where’s the mule car, Nikosia?”

“Twelve, twelve, gracious Sacrednesses,” dissolved Hormisdas, “I am only too happy. Twelve for the cook. But this porter, the Armorican? Such an opportunity!”

“Well, twelve more for him.”

But now Hormisdas became obdurate. His oratory in praise of the strength and virtues of the younger captive was worthy of a Demosthenes or a St. John Chrysostom. It availed so much that Evagrios at last said, “Fifteen.”

Thus far Fergal had followed the proceedings with the desperate hope that the deacon’s desires would not match the trader’s cupidity, but at length he caught the triumphant gleam in Hormisdas’ eye which proclaimed: “We will make a bargain.”

In sheer recklessness the Celt uprose from his stone bench, his fetters rattling piteously.

“Oh, gracious and valorous Lords!” he cried, uplifting his voice. Basil and Leo turned immediately. Fergal sprang forward the length of his chain and cast himself upon his knees. “You are men of generosity and honour. Wretch that I seem here, I am the son of a valorous chief, of a free race not taught to bear fetters, but to wield the spear and sword. Hear my tale. Deliver me from this hell. I will serve such as you forever.”

Hormisdas in sheer horror uplifted his club to smite, but lowered it at a flash from Leo’s eyes.

“What would you, strange rascal?” spoke the spatharios, astonished but not unkindly.

In frantic words Fergal poured out his story, his mongrel Greek uncouth enough but quite intelligible. Captivity in Armorica, Frankland, Venetia, Syria—long bondage with the Infidels, escape, a little gleam of freedom, then new bondage and degradation! Passion and anguish attested his truthfulness, and when he finished Leo at least was not unmoved.

“A sorry plight for a fine stout fellow,” assented the soldier, apprizing the Celt’s sinewy frame. “If you can speak Arabic and know the Hagarines you ought to sell for something better than a porter.”

Whereupon Hormisdas, scenting now a rare opportunity for a higher bidder, renewed his patter commending his article as “an ideal servant for his Very Puissant Nobility, apt for any kind of desperate service, and versed in all the tongues, both Christian and Infidels’.”

Evagrios had watched this whole proceeding with rising disgust. “This brute will prove intractable,” vowed the deacon, “let us be off with only the cook.”

“On the contrary, that red-headed porter takes my fancy, I can tame him,” rejoined Nikosia with a defiant toss. “Take twenty solidi——”

“What is the price of this lad?” demanded Leo, admiring again the Celt’s magnificent physique.

“Thirty-five solidi—so I just told their Sacrednesses,” gesticulated Hormisdas; “he is a gift!”

“Don’t be hoodwinked,” muttered Basil in his friend’s ear; “these rogues know your gullible heart. Probably the slave is imposing on you in collusion with his master.”

“Twenty-four solidi,” interposed Nikosia, with a defiant glance at Evagrios.

“Unhobble him,” commanded Leo; “I would see him test his limbs.”

Hormisdas instantly produced a key. “With the forehead, Excellency; with the forehead. Your will is my pleasure.”

The key turned, the chain dropped, Fergal shook his ankle clear and gave a great leap in the air. “Most gracious Lord,” he pleaded, “I cannot know your rank and name, but high as you may be, while I have power to serve you that power is yours. My own land and kin are lost to me forever. Give me the word and with mind and courage, as well as body, I am yours for life.”

The appeal, the enkindled eye of the young Celt were compelling, but Leo hesitated. “Honest Frank,” he confessed openly, “your plight I pity, but I must not play with you. I am not rich and my household is small. This good Persian—ahem! Christian—holds you too dearly. I cannot rescue every deserving prisoner sold on the Stairs of Chalcedon.”

“Twenty-six solidi,” pressed Nikosia, and to Fergal’s unspeakable misery Leo turned away his face. Then this and every other group of chafferers were struck dumb by the sudden voice of Marinos, screaming from his pinnacle directly above their heads.

“Behold, even now is God’s wrath upon the frivolous and wanton! In place of mirth, destruction. In place of thoughtlessness, death. Look, look forth, ye sinners, and see the finger of Heaven upon the wicked who said ‘Aha! the evil day is not for me!’ Woe! woe! ye fools, this moment your souls are required of you.”

The shouts of the pillar saint for an instant made every eye turn upward to his station. They saw him swaying on high, pointing a long, bony finger towards the harbour. Then the spell broke, and there was a rush by scores to the side of the quay. A serious accident had occurred in the Golden Horn directly before the ferry-landing.