The Emperor Awakes (26 page)

Aristo and Katerina passed through the entrance to the acropolis without incident. At the entrance to the Library, they noticed a plaque attached to the wall. They asked the old man standing by the entrance what that plaque was for and what it said, but he looked at them with a blank expression, raising his eyebrows, and shaking his head he walked away, no doubt feeling sorry for these mad people.

Aristo nudged Katerina.

‘We should move on.’

Katerina, though, did not budge. She was staring at the back of the old man who was briskly moving away. As if he knew her eyes were on him, the old man turned and he was close enough for Katerina to see an expression of recognition beginning to cloud his face. She had the feeling the old man knew something. She thought she imagined it, but he winked at her and, without a backwards glance, hurried in the opposite direction.

Aristo was impatient. ‘Katerina, come on. Let’s go inside.’

Katerina hesitated. ‘No, Aristo. We can do that later. I think we are meant to follow that old man. Come on, he’s about to get away, although I believe he means for us to follow him.’

Aristo relented. He knew that stubborn side of Katerina, but he also trusted her gut instinct, which was right more often than not. She wouldn’t change her mind. He grabbed her by the hand and they almost broke into a run after the old man who disappeared around a corner.

‘Come on, we are going to lose him.’

As they were running, Katerina remembered something and turned to Aristo. ‘Aristo, about that plaque … I think I know what it says. It will sound weird and you probably will not believe me. Do you remember the language Giorgos and I made up as children? The writing on that plaque looks to have been written in that language. What are the odds of that? It can’t be a coincidence. Or then again perhaps we did not invent that coded language after all. Maybe we saw it somewhere and it subconsciously registered in a part of our brain until we dredged it up to encode our inner-most thoughts and feelings from prying eyes.’

‘Yes, but we are not going back now.’

‘No, of course not.’ Katerina said impatiently, annoyed, Aristo had no doubt, that he might have thought her capable of such stupid impetuousness and short attention span.

They saw the old man disappearing behind a lowhung wall sprayed with a wild bougainvillea. They rushed to it and cut through a group of people who ignored them as if they could not see them at all, but not before they saw a member of the group turning and briefly looking at them with intense interest.

Aristo smiled and shook his head, as if to chase the thought away. Katerina’s paranoia was rubbing off, Aristo told himself as a private joke. He wouldn’t dare voice it out loud.

They went round the wall in time to see the old man suddenly stopping, sitting down, lighting a fire and beckoning them over, not to roast chestnuts or meats as there were none around to be seen, but, they gathered, to talk. But he then, suddenly, got up and more swiftly than they expected, moved away.

Aristo and Katerina didn’t see it, but the member of the group they had just passed, discreetly distanced himself from the rest of his apparent companions, and, with raw purpose, headed down the street.

Aristo and Katerina reached a strikingly beautiful courtyard and the noise of the street died behind their footsteps. They then saw the slightest glimpse of a cloak dart through a door at the far end of the courtyard and they chased after it. The room they entered blinded them.

In the hushed silence, they saw in the centre of the room a sphere, suspended in mid-air, vibrating violently and shining brightly, and emitting a deathly purplish colour, smattered with gold and a ghostly white, that drew their stare inside its depths and then threw it on the walls and the space beyond, into the far doorway ahead and the next room opening up beyond it.

The whole spectacle presented an unashamedly irresistible invitation. It unfolded before them intending to impress and to seduce. Subtlety was not a language it spoke. It was drawing them in with a trick and a tickle of the senses, the smell of glorious food and an earthy smell with a smattering of a glorious floral perfume announcing what was to come, and then snatching it away before they could get closer and properly drink in its delight.

And where there was nothing before, the smells began to grow flesh and bones, and take the shape of trees and plants and flowers, an enchanting forest and an otherworldly sunken garden filled with birdsong.

The scene was changing and the contents of the next room were approaching fast, still vague shapes and forms, but were running away the moment Aristo and Katerina thought they could make them out, as if they were playing hide and seek with them, challenging them to try and tease their secrets out of them.

Aristo and Katerina wanted to see what came after that room, and then the room after that, but they steeled themselves. They had the feeling that it was a trick to hypnotise them, to make them drunk and vulnerable and that was dangerous. They closed their eyes and fought their curiosity.

When they started to breathe normally again and opened their eyes, they saw that they had managed to snap out of the spell that had engulfed them in its guiles and a universal dreamworld without the harshness of reality. They had to get back to the task at hand. The old man was nowhere to be seen.

Katerina pulled at Aristo’s sleeve indicating the sphere, which had stopped vibrating and had begun to turn slower, its surface covered with images, like a film.

They saw Elli, Aristo’s mother, stirring a large pot with both hands, then stopping and dipping her hands into the mixture and taking them out almost instantly. She then held her hands with the palms upturned, and out of each hand appeared a different representation of the Earth and she exclaimed in slight pain as if she was going into labour. The two Earths were coming closer and closer. Aristo and Katerina saw flashing dots, all in the Eastern Mediterranean. Then the dots became bubbles that began to expand outside the spheres in three-dimensional guise. They could almost touch and smell Cappadocia, Athens, Alexandria, Constantinople, Smyrna, Pergamon.

A strange thought entered Aristo’s brain. The two spheres were parallel universes. The dots on each sphere were in seemingly identical locations. In his mind’s eye Aristo saw his mother owning or controlling those sites, and manipulating what was happening in them and moving things from one place to its soulmate in the parallel Earth, like moving pawns on a giant chess set. As exciting as that sounded, Aristo dismissed the thought as outrageous.

‘Aristo, those are all the places that relate to the last Emperor, the Likureian icons or places that we have been to as part of this quest. Pergamon where we are now is the last one. I wonder whether …’

Aristo completed her thought. ‘… our next destination will appear.’

But instead of a dot appearing, as they expected, on any of the spheres and showing them their next destination, a series of images appeared. Their high expectations of a clear message started to rapidly deflate till they shattered. It would not be as easy as they had hoped after all.

They tried to make sense of the images. There were two boys playing who then began to grow into young men and continued to grow older. Whilst they were holding hands till then and standing on what looked like somewhere in the Southern Peloponnese in Greece, they suddenly let go of each other and started to walk away. One briefly wore a crown whilst in the Peloponnese, before taking it off and leaving it behind. He then entered what looked like Constantinople and put on a new crown.

The other stayed in the Peloponnese and walked a short distance, coming to a stop in the Evrotas valley with the mighty mountain of Taygetos rising above it like a lonely sentinel. He picked up the crown left behind by the other man and set in on his head. There the image suddenly vanished.

‘Aristo, that’s where Sparta is isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is. Let’s think about this. We saw two children holding hands and playing together. Let’s assume that they were brothers. Do they remind you of anything?’ Aristo paused and they both racked their brains, looking around for inspiration. It was Katerina that solved the riddle.

‘Aristo, I know. I know what it’s trying to tell us. It’s plausible. It fits. The two brothers are the last Emperor, Konstantinos XI Palaiologos, and his brother. The location there in the Peloponnese is not Sparta. It’s Mystras, just outside Sparta. When Constantinople was ransacked in 1204 A.D. by the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, who were “graciously” invited to intervene in a Byzantine dispute over the succession to the throne, and were not paid for their trouble, the Byzantine Empire was divided into independent Latin fiefdoms. But amidst that swathe of Latin fiefdoms, three islands of Byzantine tradition remained. Those were the Empire of
Trapezounta
on the Black Sea, in North-Eastern Asia Minor, the
Despotato of Epirus
in Northern Greece and the Empire of
Nicaea
in Asia Minor, from where Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos launched his campaign that eventually resulted in the retaking of Constantinople in 1261 A.D. The
Despotato of Morias or Mystras,
with Mystras as its capital, was created in 1261 A.D. when territory was captured from William II Villehardouin, Prince of
Achaea,
in the Peloponnese. It later became a province of the reconstructed Byzantine Empire and, from 1380 A.D. onwards, it became a tradition for the sons of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos to become
Despots,
with both the last Byzantine Emperor and his brother, Demetrios, having held that position. The
Despotato
remained a Byzantine stronghold even after the fall of Constantinople, but it eventually succumbed to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1460 A.D.

‘The important thing is that the last Emperor was born in Mystras and was ruler or
Despot
of Mystras before becoming Emperor and that he was succeeded by his brother. Mystras is the place that is common to them both. I think that’s our next destination. Mystras, the city of churches, now ruined with only some of its surviving, almost intact churches in use, but with many visitors treading its paths and feasting on its ruins and the view of the surrounding landscape.’

‘I believe that you are right. Your theory is sound. We have to give it a shot. Let’s not be tempted to explore the sequence of rooms and their intriguing spectacles opening up before us that appears endless. It must be a trick to distract us from our mission. Let’s go.’

Katerina felt there was something significant she had to remember, that they had to do before they left, and then it came to her. ‘Aristo, let’s check the tablet outside the Library on our way back. It may be important.’

* * *

Aristo and Katerina returned to the Library, but the tablet was no longer there. However, high up above the entrance there were glowing letters that Aristo could not understand, but had a strange feeling that Katerina could. And right on cue she delivered.

‘Aristo, I can read it. It’s written in my make-up language. It says: “For you who enters with purity of soul and having seen the sphere, the crystal temple of knowledge that is partly here and partly elsewhere, is yours”.’

CHAPTER 30

Mystras, outskirts of Sparta
Peloponnese, Greece
Present Day

Mystras. Spreading its tentacles across the face of a hill outside the modern town of Sparta (itself a small provincial town these days, its past glories long gone) were the ruins of the long-ago thriving city-state. A popular tourist destination for those who ventured into the romantic idea that was Sparta and Mystras.

Yet one felt something stir in them when walking through the ruined arches and the few surviving, and in some cases still used, churches and former monasteries.

Mystras held its mysteries and secrets well. Aristo and Katerina had no way of knowing that they were riding into the mouth of a horror that would be soon unleashed.

They used Elli’s private jet this time. From Pergamon they drove to the nearest airfield where the jet was waiting for them. They landed at a small airfield near Sparta and drove to Mystras.

The place was deserted as they entered through the main gate of the lower city, coming to rest in the square with the ruin of the Despot’s palace throwing an ominous shadow over them, giving them a brief glimpse into what was at one time a glorious, vibrant, powerful and very wealthy stronghold with a Byzantine heart.

It was in Mystras that the last Emperor was crowned Emperor of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. It was the first time that an Emperor was crowned outside Constantinople, outside the church of Ayia Sophia in Constantinople, a shocking break with the tradition of centuries. There was no proper ceremony. No Patriarch was there to perform the deed and invest the last Emperor with the crown and the power and the heritage of centuries of Imperial glory and Empire.

The last Emperor, Konstantinos XI Palaiologos never did have a choice. It was a thankless task, a worthless position, but somebody had to do it, somebody had to steer City and Empire, the tiny territories that still proudly carried the name of an Empire in its dying hours, somebody to lower the curtain on a glorious history and switch off the lights.

But of course the spirit of that long and proud tradition could never be crushed. Its people would spread it to the West and the rest of the world, an infusion of knowledge and enlightenment to inspire and form the basis for the Renaissance that followed soon after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 A.D.