The Byzantine Wager

Chapter 3 - Terrible News From the Great City

That all was amiss in Constantinople was clear long before Marius ever set foot on the dock. Two days earlier, as the Faith tacked out of the Hellespont narrows and entered into the much wider Propontis, they encountered a fleet of ships which looked as if they were about to attack. Most flew the Lion of Venice from their masts. Marius knew - to some degree or other - every language necessary to travel from the Holy Land to the shores of far off Brittany. Venice was a week's leisurely ride from his home in Monferrato so he was chosen to speak. As the lead ship came close, Marius could see that she meant trouble. She had a ram on her prow and archers with fire arrows lined the decks. It was late in the day and the north wind blew in the Venetian's favor.

"State your intentions, sirrah." he cupped his mouth with his hands and shouted to the large bearded Venetian captain. "This ship carries the ambassador of King Baldwin of Jerusalem to the court of Constantinople."

He could see a discussion on the far deck. Moments passed. Across the chop of the waves came a reply. "We mean no trouble to Jerusalem, but we urge you to proceed no further. The Great City has gone mad. All the foreigners were slaughtered and we alone managed to flee."

"Who attacked you?"

"Who rules the city?"

"Has there been a war declared?"

The Venetians could supply no clear answers to these questions. After conferring with the captain, the ambassador decided to continue. The Venetians allowed them to go unmolested, but many sullen looks were cast their way from the people on the ships as they passed through the fleet which contained some forty ships.

Although he had traveled far in his young life, Marius had never been to the greatest city of them all. On his way east with William Longsword they had not tarried and sailed directly from Venice to Tyre, bypassing Constantinople. That trip had seemed happier. Marius had been twenty-one years old, his master was going to marry a princess and become King, the world had seemed so full of promise.

At the mouth of the Dardanelles strait the city of Kallipolis burned. Each stroke upon stroke of the oar now filled Marius with a desperate urgency and dread. Every village, town, and monastery on the north coast of the Sea of Marmara which they came to, and which the Venetian fleet had sailed passed, smoldered.

Smoke mixed with the dawn mist was the first they knew of Constantinople. The fog evaporated as the morning passed, but the smoke remained. They saw the domes of the Great City's basilicas before they saw the sails of the Roman navy. As they neared the city none of the naval vessels approached and no boat was dispatched from the harbor master as was the custom.

Strange. The Faith's captain proceeded north rounding the peninsula only to find the great chain leading to the Neorian Harbor by the Latin Quarter was raised. There was no access from the Bosphorous to the Golden Horn and so they had no choice but to row south again and put in at one of the other harbors. Normally they would put in at the naval docks, since they were carrying a diplomat, but no naval ship had given them permission to do so. Instead they docked in the commercial Eleutherion Harbor undirected. The ship's captain set off to find a harbor master, the ambassador set off to find a bureaucrat in charge of foreign affairs. Marius, not knowing what to do, elected to follow along with the ambassador.

At the Grand Palace, no one seemed to be in charge. Of palace functionaries, there were plenty. Secretaries, notaries, quaestors, tribunes, praetors, and other magistrates came and went, but they seemed nervous and none were interested in the situation of the foreigners. Greek was one of the languages he was least familiar with, so Marius felt himself hampered. But from listening as closely as he could to conversations he was able to deduce that the overseer of international diplomacy, the Logothete of the Dromus - the man to whom the ambassador should present himself - was dead. Just now. Publicly executed yesterday afternoon.

The empress regent had been confined to her rooms in the palace, and her power hungry lover the Protosebastos had been killed. The boy emperor, fourteen year old Alexios, was now the ward of an uncle or cousin or some such of his late father. No one seemed to know what had happened to Alexios' older sister Maria, or her husband Renier. With what money he had running low, Marius parted with as much as he could spare and hired a crier to shout for news.

That led him to a sailor.

The sailor led him to the fisherman.

The fisherman's son took him to where they had buried the body.