Emperor's Winding Sheet by Jill Paton Walsh Page B

Emperor’s astonishment made, he said in Greek, with a stumbling lilting accent, “I have come to offer my sword, Cousin Emperor.”
    The Emperor said, “A man who is cousin enough to come and fight for me is surely my cousin indeed.” And moving forward, he returned Don Francisco’s embrace. And then, suddenly, Don Francisco was on his knees at the Emperor’s feet, kissing the Emperor’s hand.
    â€œHe’s good at that,” thought Vrethiki, watching sullenly from his corner. “He knows how to win people. That cocky absurd little man will fight to the death for him now—and a lot of help that will be! But I won’t be won. I’m not so soft. I shan’t forget he keeps me here against my will, in danger, in a quarrel that is none of mine, for the sake of a sideshow Empire, all paint and paste and ruin. I hate him.”
    A common soldier entered, bowing, and said he was on duty at the Charisian Gate, and a party of Turks had brought something to him, and told him to take it to the Emperor. There were two more soldiers with him, carrying a leather sack.
    â€œOpen it,” said the Emperor. Out tumbled two severed heads upon the floor. One lay on its left ear, fixing the Emperor with open staring eyes; the other rolled a little distance on the floor, spilling a spotted trail of gouts of blood. A gasp, then a wail of dismay arose. Don Francisco, at whose feet the rolling head had come to rest, staggered backward,retching into a handkerchief. A whiff of the butcher smell of them reached Vrethiki, and he felt his gorge rising. The Emperor stood stock still, gazing into the glazed eyes of the man whom yesterday he had sent unwilling to the Sultan, with letters asking for peace.
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    THE EMPEROR HAD ASKED THE POPE FOR HELP. THE POPE SENT Cardinal Isadore, and two hundred bowmen. They were only two hundred, but they made a goodly show, marching from the Golden Gate down the street called the Mese to the Hippodrome, and from there to their quarters on the wall by Blachernae. They were bravely clad in Papal colors, yellow and white, and armed with breastplates and helms of steel, each carrying a crossbow, and a quiver full of arrows on his back. The sight of them cheered the citizens immensely, and brought the crowd in the street round to the Emperor’s way of thinking, at least for a day or two, though there was still a small group faithful enough to climb the hill of the Pantocrator, and read the note that Scholarios had pinned to the door of his cell there: Woe to those who put their trust in the West, rather than in God!
    The Cardinal was a courteous and reasonable man, though he had come to insist on an immediate end to argument and the proclaiming of the Union of the Churches, and he made himself plain enough, but he had brought with him a fierce little man from Chios, the Arch-bishop Leonard, who made so many and such extreme demands that Lukas Notaras, the Megadux, told him, “Half of this would have the people rioting in the streets.”
    â€œLess than this,” the Archbishop replied, “and the streets will be in the hands of the Turks!”
    â€œPeace, gentlemen,” said the Emperor. “Cardinal, Ithought the Council of Florence allowed us our own form of worship.”
    â€œBoth Liturgies are equal, my Lord,” said the Cardinal. “So both must be used. You must say a Latin Mass in the Great Church, and proclaim the Union there. The Pope asks only that.”
    So it was decided.
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    VRETHIKI COULD SEE THAT HE WOULD HAVE TO WEAR HIS best robe again, so he went and fetched it himself from the wardrobe master the day before. He turned it inside out, laid it across his knees, and spent hours feeling for the sharp ends of wire thread and bending them back with his fingernails, so they lay flat, or jabbed back into the thickness of the purple silk, away from his skin. Then in the morning, when Stephanos woke him, he put it on without