The Golden Horn Read Online Free

spread his hands. “I
could be a thief, or—or a murderer. I could slay you all in your beds and
make off with everything you own.”
    “I’ll take my chances.”
    “Oh, Lady!” He seemed caught between laughter
and tears. “The doctor was right, you know. You’d do well to be rid
of me.”
    “Are you a demon?”
    He shook his head. “But—”
    “So,” Sophia said brusquely. “I’ve
things to see to. I’ll send for you when it’s time to leave.”

3.
    The sun danced and blazed upon the blue waters of the Bosporus;
a brisk wind filled the sail, lightening the oarsmen’s work, carrying the
barge toward the Golden Horn. Under a striped canopy on the deck the passengers
sat at their ease, even the guards relaxed in their vigilance.
    Alf had been docile enough when they left Chalcedon, lying quietly
on the pallet Sophia had ordered spread for him in the deepest shade. But as
they drew nearer to the City he grew restless, until at last he rose and
settled his hat firmly upon his head and stood like a hound at gaze, his face
toward the wonder across the water. Slowly, as if drawn by the hand, he moved
to the rail. He stood full in the sun, though with his back to it.
    Sophia sighed and came to his side. “Don’t you
think—” she began.
    He seemed not to have heard. “Look,” he said,
his voice soft with wonder. “Look!”
    All the splendor of Byzantium spread before them: the long stretch
of the sea walls set with towers, guarding the Queen of Cities; and within
their compass rank on rank of roofs and domes and pinnacles. Gold glittered
upon them, crosses bristled atop them, greenery cooled the spaces between,
rising up and up to the summit of the promontory that was Constantinople.
    There on its prow shone the dome of Hagia Sophia with its lesser
domes about it like planets about the moon, rising above the gardens of the
Acropolis, crowning the Sacred Palace with all its satellites.
    “The walls of Paris on the banks of the Seine,”
Alf murmured. “The citadel of Saint Mark on the breast of the sea; Rome
herself in her crumbling splendor; Alexander’s city at the mouth of the
Nile; Cairo of the Saracens; Jerusalem, Damascus, Ephesus; Antioch and holy
Nicaea: I’ve seen them all. But never—never in all my
wanderings—never such a wonder as this.”
    Yet it was a wonder touched with death. The ship had turned now,
sailing past the Mangana, striking for the narrow mouth of the Horn. A city
spread over its farther shore, once rich, now much battered, guarded by a
charred and broken tower.
    “Galata,” the ship’s captain said, coming
up beside them. “All that shore is infested with Franks, though they’ve
camped farther up in the fields beyond the wall. Most of the ships you see
there are theirs.”
    Sophia’s hands clenched on the rail.
    The captain spat. “They broke the chain. Clear across
the Horn it went, from Galata to Acropolis Point, thick as a man’s arm
and strong enough to hold back a fleet. But they broke it. Hacked at the end on
Galata shore and sent their biggest war galley against the middle with wind and
oar to drive her, and snapped it like a rotten string.”
    “Couldn’t our own fleet do anything?”
demanded Sophia.
    The man laughed, a harsh bark. “Our Emperor that was, bless
his sacred head, called up the fleet, sure enough. Only trouble was, there wasn’t
any. A couple of barnacle-ridden scows was all he had. The rest of it was in
the Lord Admiral’s pocket. The cursed Franks sailed right over them.”
    “And then?” she asked. “What then?”
    “Well,” said the captain, “then everybody
decided to do some fighting. The Frankish horseboys headed northward to the bridge
past Blachernae. Saint Mark’s lads took the sea side. Between them they
flattened a good part of the palace up there before the real fight began. The
Franks got a drubbing, but the traders got the Petrion and set it afire. Burned
down everything from Blachernae hill to Euergetes’ cloister,