Spears of destiny

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

"The open space on which it stands," Matteo told him, "is called the Augustaion. This side of it you behold the Palace of the Senate, the building with the tall pillars. Beyond that again is the Palace of the Patriarch, he who is, in a manner of speaking, the Pope of the Greeks. On the southern side that long, flat structure is the Baths of Zeuxippus. It contains pools of water as long as this ship, and in winter it can be heated so that the cold does not penetrate. The great roofless building at the opposite end of the Augustaion from St. Sophia is the Circus, where the Greeks hold their sports and games. All the people of the host might find seats in it, and there would be room for as many more."

"Is there much more of the city than we can see from here?" asked Hugh.

Matteo laughed.

"Hugh," he said, "we have not seen the half of it—nay, not the quarter of it. Look away, and you will not be able to see across the hills to the land walls, for they go inland from the White Castle, where we first viewed them. So far you have passed along but one face of the city. You will barely see the third as we round this point."

Whilst he was speaking the fleet bore out from the shore in order to pass the point of land which projects into the channel of the Bosphorus to protect the entrance of the Golden Horn. On the top of this point, a rugged hill covered with the palaces of patrician families, stood the Column of Claudius Gothicus, its brazen plates, chased in bas-relief, flaming back the rays of the sun, a mute testimonial to the more virile days of the Empire, when subject peoples bowed their necks to the Emperors and Triumphs passed through the Golden Gate and up the colonnaded length of the Mesé to the Augustaion. Round and round the column twisted the story of the battles Claudius had won, the nations he had conquered, the benefits he had showered upon Rome. Never a man who stared up at it from the decks of the fleet far below perceived the ironic message which was flashed from the brazen plates, the message of defiance of an Empire which had ceased to conquer, which had ceased even to be Roman.

Around the point a new view burst upon Hugh. He found himself looking down the close-built shores of the Golden Horn, that matchless natural harbour which had done so much to facilitate the commercial pre-eminence of the city. On either bank at the entrance was planted a squat tower, and between the two was stretched a weighty chain, which blocked the channel to hostile shipping. Beyond the chain Hugh had a brief glimpse of another succession of walls and towers, fronted by wharves packed with shipping. The perspective seemed endless. As far as he could see the city filled the distance, dense, populous, sullenly perturbed. Trails of smoke arose from countless fires and chimneys: a bodyless, indescribable hum echoed over the water; on the walls there was a gleam of arms and armour.

It was not until the fleet had come about and was making for the opposite shore of the Bosphorus that Hugh bethought him of Edith. In his wonder at the marvellous sights spread out before him, he had forgotten for a moment that she was now separated from him only by that narrow current of water and those grim walls that seemed to threaten by their immobility. What was she doing? Had she stood, perchance, in a window of her father's apartment in some wing of the huge Palace of the Bucoleon, watching the fleet pass by? Had her eyes, mayhap, been fixed on the tiny, crawling hull of the Paradise, all unknowing of his presence? Did she still think of him at all? Or had she become immersed in the brilliant life around her to a point which shut out memories of the past?

An ache he had not felt in many a day began to gnaw at Hugh's heart, but his mind was snatched back to the present by the splash of the anchor overside and the shouts of the shipmen. The fleet had come to rest in a cove on the Asiatic bank. Atop of a gentle slope which ascended from the beach stood the Imperial palace of Chalcedon, a resort of the Byzantine Emperors in summer or when they sought relaxation in hunting. In the distance were tilled fields with the corn unshocked.

Hugh turned for one last look across the strait at the outline of Constantinople, dimming in the twilight. The city appeared to grow as the light diminished, casting a monstrous shadow athwart the world.