1922
THE WHITE MAGUS
IN THE DAYS of the Byzantine Empire in which our tale is set, many stories were told of the Princess Zoë. The only daughter of Emperor Constantine the Great, her beauty and goodness were renowned throughout Christendom, and people came from the far ends of the land to catch a glimpse of her, in her long dress that trailed stiffly behind her, on her way to church, where she would bow deeply before disappearing behind the great portal. The poor who turned to her always found her compassionate, and when she raised her slender hands in prayer some invisible blessing seemed to flow into her. It was said she could even heal the sick.
One day Princess Zoë boarded a sailing ship and spent the day at sea. It was spring, the sea was as blue as the sky, the sky was as deep as the sea, and where they met soft breezes caressed the fledgling waves. The Princess stood singing in the prow of the ship, her hair flying free. “How beautiful life is,” she exclaimed, “and how young I am!”
When she returned, towards evening, the whole city was out on the seafront waving to welcome her back. The shopkeepers stood outside their shops, women crowded in windows and mothers held their children aloft. “Welcome back, Princess Zoë,” they shouted. “God has brought you home safely from the kingdom of salt!” For the heart of the stone city, even as it cooled, beat inside her too, and in her face shone the classical beauty of ancient Greece, in its final and most haunting form.
When she reached the Palace news was brought to her that a little girl, the dearest to her of all her little friends, had died while she had been at sea. The cause was a long-standing but totally mysterious condition. The Princess was filled with self-reproach. Somehow she thought that had she remained by the side of her beloved little friend she might have kept her alive. From then on some inexplicable influence took possession of her. The happiness of her days darkened and gave way to the tearful melancholy of deep compassion.
The next day a throng of women came to her complaining that their children too were sick. The symptoms of the illness were always the same. The children became very cold and inexpressibly sad; they were full of longing, but for what could never be established because by this stage they could no longer speak. They did not cry, nor would they eat. Their little bodies grew steadily colder, while their faces took on a startling beauty, and by the time they died they had come to resemble the old statues of gods that householders in those days still sometimes found in their cellars. People were almost certain that through death the children were finding a way back to the happier, sun-blest lands of ancient Hellas. The doctors could find no cure, and ransacked their Galens in vain to find a name for this strange affliction.
The calamity that had struck Byzantium weighed heavily on Princess Zoë. She loved its children above everything. She felt truly at home among them and personally knew almost every child in the city. As the strange epidemic spread she busied herself night and day, going from house to house visiting the sick, comforting them and helping out wherever she could. The moment she drew near, the patient’s condition would take a turn for the better. At the touch of her hand a warmer life would flow into them. They were able to laugh again, and they joined her in chanting little rhymes. When she came and sat on their beds, those who had difficulty sleeping enjoyed happy dreams, filled with wonderful and inexplicable images of the past.
But Zoë was just one person, and the sick children were many. Moreover, the moment she left the condition would return. As soon as the child was alone again, the chill took an even firmer hold. The streets of Byzantium filled with long, slow processions of tiny blue coffins.
Zoë was indefatigable, loyally accompanying every grieving mother on these last journeys. But not one of those distraught parents knew the depth of pain that she did. With every child that went to the grave, part of her own life was being buried. It was not just the mothers’ tears that burnt into her heart. It was also the nameless, mysterious grief that had claimed the children, and her earnest desire to understand the fatal secret in their eyes, as they slowly faded into death.
One evening she was making her way home with her ladies-in-waiting, ostensibly to take some nourishment herself, though really she was more concerned about the fact that her women, tired as they were, had refused to leave her on her own. Along the way they called in on yet another sick little child, when she suddenly remembered that an especially dear little one, who lived at the other end of the city, was due to enter the critical phase of his illness that day. She persuaded her women to carry on without her, then she borrowed a simple, ordinary dress from the sick child’s mother, not wanting the citizens to see her in the street without her attendants. If news of that reached the ears of the Court they would be punished for her misdemeanour.
She hurried through the town, almost running, but even so she arrived late. At first the parents failed to recognise her. They asked her, rather rudely, who she thought she was and why she was bothering them so late at night, and told her to mind her own business. It took some time to persuade them that she was indeed Princess Zoë, and that they should let her in to see the dead child. She placed a flower in the little boy’s clenched hand and bade him a silent farewell.
Slowly, wearily, she made her way back towards the Palace. Suddenly she felt her face starting to burn, and the chilling words of farewell she had so often heard took on a fresh meaning for her, as a peculiar sensation of coldness such as she had never felt before took hold. In the dark and unfamiliar streets the wind seemed to blow with an even greater sharpness, and she glanced around apprehensively. This was a new Byzantium. She noticed, for the very first time, that everything was made of stone. The houses and public fountains were of stone, the streets were paved with stone. Wherever she went, stone temples and stone archways weighed down over her head, and the footsteps of people hurrying home clattered and rang in the street. Every one of them was a complete stranger, and the weary, indifferent glances falling on her seemed to come from an immense distance, dressed as she was in someone else’s clothes, covered by a headscarf and not in the least beautiful. Zoë had only ever seen these people when they lined the streets through which her carriage was passing. On those occasions there seemed a sort of glow on their faces, some lingering glimmer of an antique radiance, and she had thought that they too were children, children who had simply grown older. But now she saw that this was not true, that on their pallid brows they carried the mark of the stone city, and it was only their constant motion that made them seem alive. She tried to fill her mind with thoughts of the sea, and the huge blossoms in the vast imperial gardens, and then it struck her that in all the windows of the city there was not a single flower to be seen — nor could there possibly be. She saw that flowers never could grow in this place — the cold withered them in the root, just as it blighted her dear ones, the children — and that she herself was the last, lonely blossom, the forgotten relic of a long-dead summer.
The road home was very long, and when she finally arrived at the Palace to find that yet more women had come to beg for a visit, she was filled with such a stupor of weariness that she sent them away without even a word of comfort. Though longing for sleep, she was so tired she could barely undress.
Her bed was icy cold, the blanket immensely heavy. Its folds seemed to have been sculpted from solid marble. Her limbs felt no less heavy, and sleep claimed her instantly.
The next morning another throng of grieving women were there waiting for her to awaken. She attempted to rise but, held down by the weight of the blanket, her frozen limbs refused to budge. She tried to explain that she was very tired, she would not get up that day but the day after — but the words simply circled round in her head, malevolently, in some strange foreign tongue, and she could not utter them. She folded her hands over her breast and simply waited for night to come.