Anarchy by Stewart Binns

Author:Stewart Binns [Binns Stewart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

17. Birthplace

Everything I had been told about Constantinople turned out to be true – except that not even the most redolent words could equal the breathtaking impact of the city’s first impressions. The mighty walls – the largest in the known world, with nine major gates – were said to be big enough to allow an entire army to be positioned on them. Its palaces and churches were larger and grander than anywhere else. Its hippodrome could hold 100,000 people in a city that was said to house half a million people.

The city’s greatest glory is the Hagia Sophia, the finest building in the world, a place where my grandmother, Torfida, had exchanged ideas with Christendom’s most learned men, and which she had described as ‘heaven on earth’. Said to be over 500 years old by the time she saw it, my mother said that the dome of the great church was a masterpiece of architecture, based on calculations Torfida understood and had explained to her, but ones that no mason she had ever met would attempt to replicate in stone.

After several days wondering at the sights of the city and enjoying its food and wine, we made our way to its north-west corner, to the Blachernae, the Emperor’s private residence hard against and high above its impregnable walls – the place where I was born.

Cooled by fresh winds from the Golden Horn, the present emperor’s father, Alexius I, had decided to move to the Blachernae during his reign to escape the heat and dust of the Great Palace in the centre of the city. Of course I had no recollection of the palace; as I stood outside its marbled entrance, an awestruck stranger from a distant land, it was hard to imagine that I had taken my first breaths inside its walls.

The entrance was guarded by two sentries who, from their appearance and armour, must have been Varangians, the legendary personal bodyguards to the Emperor. Exceptionally tall, the one fair and the other red-headed, they looked like battle-hardened Norse Berserkers or Saxon housecarls. Indeed, most recruits to the Guard hailed from northern Europe, including the few housecarls who had survived Senlac Ridge with King Harold. Eadmer nodded at the guards and spoke to them in English and then in Norse, but they ignored him – they were too disciplined to converse while on duty.

A bailiff and two young assistants sat under a canopy outside the gates, surrounded by a melee of supplicants trying to gain access to the palace. We stood in what vaguely resembled a queue as I practised my Greek. After half an hour, I was at the front of the line of people.

‘I am Harold of Hereford, Knight Commander of Venice. I wish to have an audience with His Majesty, the Emperor, John Comnenus.’

The Byzantine Empire was notable for many things, one of which was its labyrinthine bureaucracy. The bailiff had not looked up during the entire time we had been there – he was busy

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.