The Rose Demon

1

    Constantinople 29 May 1453

    The Rosa Mundi,
Its heart is cankered.
Its petals drop like a fallen angel
From the fields of heaven.

    ‘Oh day of wrath,
Oh day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophet’s warning.
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!’

    The opening lines of the Dies Irae echoed along the marble naves of the churches. The priests in their gorgeous vestments, shrouded by clouds of incense, lifted their hands and beseeched the Almighty to help against the tide of terror which had broached the massive walls, towers and fortifications of Constantinople. Mohammed II, self-styled God’s Vice-Regent on earth, had brought his fleet across the Golden Horn. Just after dawn, his yellow-coated janissaries had made their final assault. The walls had been breached, the last home of the Caesars was about to fall. Already the purple, imperial banners were retreating deep into the city as cries of desolation rang out along the streets and alleyways of the Emperor’s city. Soon, the horses of the conquerors would ride in triumph into the palaces of the Byzantine nobles.

    The calamity had been foretold. Hideous portents had filled the skies. Satan, like some great bat, his shadowy wings extended, his talons like those of a huge eagle, had been seen hovering over the city. And had not demons appeared in the hippodrome, red-clawed hands turned up towards the sky, whilst sepulchral voices at midnight, sounding like hollow bells, prophesied horror upon horror: Constantinople was about to fall.

    In his private chamber at the Blachernae Palace, only a short distance from the fighting, Constantine Palaeologus, the last Roman Emperor, was about to leave and die on the walls of his city. In the antechamber, his housecarls, their long, blond hair falling down to their waists, now rested against marble walls, loosening the straps from their chain mail byrnies. They sipped wine and knew they would not taste it again until they met in the kingdom of God. They too were to die. Each had taken the blood oath. They would fight until their master fell, and beyond. They would never bend the knee to the Ottoman Turk. They were impatient for death and whispered amongst themselves what could occupy their emperor at such a fatal hour. He was closeted behind the ivory-plated doors of his private chamber with the old priest Eutyches and the two Westerners, the Hospitaller knights, Raymond and Otto Grandison. The brothers had come from Rhodes to offer their swords in the Emperor’s last stand. The housecarls agreed that the Grandisons were sturdy fighters - unlike the Western mercenaries, who had fled through the night, seeking shelter and succour from the Venetian fleet waiting so helplessly beyond the harbour.

    Inside his privy chamber, Emperor Constantine slouched in his purple, gold-embossed throne. He stared down at the two knights kneeling before him. Their hair was thick with grease, dark faces unshaven, their armour was blood-spattered, their leather leggings stained with sweat. They both leant on their great, two-handed swords whilst between them stood the venerable Eutyches, dressed gorgeously in the full pontifical robes of a Byzantine priest. A gold-encrusted cape hung about Eutyches’ thin, bent shoulders, clasped by a silver chain at the front. Beneath this, in his white gloved hands, he held a pyx bearing the Sacrament.

    ‘I am going to die,’ the Emperor declared, breaking from his reverie. ‘Before noon I will be dead. I will die like a Roman general, my face to the enemy, my sword in my hands.’

    ‘Then, Excellency, let us die with you,’ said the elder of the knights. ‘That is why we entered our order, what we live for. To die for Christ, His Holy Mother and the Christian faith.’

    Constantine shook his head.

    ‘My empire is to fall,’ he murmured. ‘It will never rise again. This city is twelve hundred years old.’ He smiled thinly, wiping the dust from his face. ‘Our conquerors will find secrets - they are welcome to them - but, one they must not discover. I have sworn a great oath, on holy relics, as my father did before me, that, if this city falls, my last act must be to destroy a great evil.’ He stirred in his chair. ‘That is why you are in Constantinople. You are to help me.’

    The two Hospitaller knights stared at him. They were young men, their soft faces sunburnt, eyes gleaming with the light of battle. They looked so alike - black hair neatly cropped, well-spaced, honest eyes.