The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [309]
Justinian’s doors, twelve feet tall, folded open before him. This gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter. Carved out of cypress nine hundred years since, they were deeply scored with the names and arms of Crusaders. He hoped his guests, walking behind him, would notice. A special Sinaitic company of the Crusaders had protected the monastery. The effect of the basilica and its history was one of the stronger spiritual weapons in his armoury. The mountain was the other.
The church being built on the site of the Sacred Bush, at the lowest level of the convent, newcomers were always awed by the height of the roof-timbers, and by the double column of red granite pillars whose arches separated the nave from the aisles. The first impression, though, was of the blinding dazzle of light upon gold. The Abbot was proud – sinfully vain – of the multiplicity of his lamps, fed by their own olives, grown in God’s sunlight. The convent was continually blessed by gifts of fine lamps.
He led the way down the nave, noting the February ikon askew, and the exquisite smell of the Sultan’s new incense. The Franks behind him were wealthy. One of them had brought a girl. He was worldly enough to know when it happened; his monks were naïve and noticed little, and he used his own discretion, provided proper conduct was observed. He did not propose to emulate the brotherhood which had protested that its well, unless specially tended, had the misfortune to turn men into women.
The Franciscan, Ludovico da Bologna, had brought a woman as well, and had taken her away. But he had confessed, and explained, and left an offering.
The Abbot, reaching the end of the nave, passed beyond the low marble balustrade into the chancel and turned. His vestments rustled. He supposed they had only seen him before in patched black, or in his floured bakehouse apron. Soaring behind him in the vault of the apse was one of the glories of Christendom: the mosaic of the Transfiguration, old as the church. He saw the light from above it fall on the upturned faces before him. The singing began, and he took up his candle.
Saint Ekaterina would forgive him if he pondered now and then, through the ritual. They prayed. He led them from altar to altar over white marble and blue, while they marvelled at the holy legends set like damask under their feet, and the holy pictures thick with gold all about them. In the Burning Bush chapel, where it was forbidden to enter with shoes, he saw that the Venetian Fleming had made use of his indulgence, and walked on woollen hose. His manner was reverent. The attitude of both parties had been grave and tense, rather than elevated. The girl who called herself Stephen knelt by the marble under which the Roots still reposed, and stared at the Venetian’s feet.
The hose were not, of course, in contravention. Wool was permitted. The man had said, smiling, that he had left his soles on Mount Sinai and did not propose to go back to get them. The Abbot knew that was true. The woman had come down the mountain, but the man had stepped aside to the chapel of St Marina halfway. (St Marina, the holy virgin who had passed her life as a monk. How odd. Had he known?) At any rate, the man had been brought down in the end by the Franciscan Patriarch and his friends.
The Latin Patriarch. It was nearly time to open the Coffin. The Abbot had known Ludovico da Bologna for a long time; as had Lorenzo. The Latin Patriarch was a friend of the great Cardinal Bessarion. The Patriarch had been, in his time, a protégé of Pope Eugenius and his successor Calixtus, who had favoured Ferrante of Naples and who had led