Chapter XXI: Islam and Cross

The sun was high over the Asian Olympus, bathing in its glow the calm waters of the Propontis, and the rocky islets that we now call the Islands of the Princes. The islet nearest to Byzantium, and within a few miles of it, still bears the name of Prote, or "the first," from the capital. It commands a glorious panorama of that superb scene, crowded with hills, rocks, bays, cities, and towers, as it fronts the lower opening of the Bosphorus, and the southern side of the city with its battlements, palaces, and domes.

High on a headland of the islet stood a large edifice of stone, which had once been a monastery--but for many years had served as an imperial summer lodge, and of late was used as a ceremonial retreat for state prisoners and fallen princes. There the deposed emperor, Romanus Lecapenus, had passed in peace the last years of his checkered career; and, since the capture of Chandax, it had served as the palace and the prison of the defeated kouropas, or governor of Crete, the aged Abd-el-Aziz, and his family. As he had duly gone through the abject forms of prostration before the emperor in the triumph at the Hippodrome, and had fully submitted himself to the conquerors, Romanus and his politic advisers had given the old hero an adequate estate, offered him senatorial rank, and the honors of a princely retreat. His submission was real and final; he had suffered his son Anemas to accept rank in the imperial guard, and his daughter Sophia to enter as a pupil into a nunnery, where she had acquired a perfect Greek education. Both had been baptized, and followed Christian rituals. But the old man himself, a Syed of the blood of the Prophet, stoutly refused to abandon the faith of his race, and patiently accepted the position of a state prisoner, under an honorary seclusion and military guard.

To-day he sat alone on the covered terrace of his mansion, looking down upon the garden below, across the rippling waters, where he could see the proud towers of his conqueror, now Basileus of Rome. All was a scene of perfect peace and beauty. Trellised roses clustered in profusion round the arcades of his terrace, filling the air with perfume; violets, lilies, hyacinths, narcissi, and oleanders nestled in recesses beneath it. As the slopes, ornamented with balustrades, vases, and statues, fell downward to the sea, they were shaded with fruit-trees, pomegranates, acacias, cedars, and ilex. And at the bottom, where lounged on formal sentry a huge Varangian guardsman, an avenue of cypresses half concealed the garden wall.

The old kouropas mused in silence, his white beard flowing down over his embroidered khaftan, for he retained his Saracen dress and habits. His work was done, and he waited in peace for the summons of Allah; pondering on the inscrutable decrees which seemed to be confounding on all sides the hopes of Islam since the fortunes of Rome had passed to the hand of the invincible Nicephorus Phocas. As he mused, his daughter stole gently in upon her father to see if he were sleeping in a siesta, or had any need of her help. She was a sweet girl of seventeen, tall, elegant, of olive tint, with the full, dark eyes of her race. Sophia, for she adopted the Greek spelling of her name with her change of habits, after five or six years of training in the capital, was now in every sense a Byzantine, and wore the embroidered silk robes of a lady of the court.

"What can I do for you, my dearest father?" she asked, in the musical tones natural to an Arab maiden.

"Nay, come and sit below my divan here, my child," he said, "and tell me of all you have seen and heard in the great city and their Sacred Palace."

The girl softly nestled down beside her father, and, looking up into his eyes, she poured out the tale of all she had seen in her recent visit to the court. She had just returned from admission to the suite of the Princess Agatha, who had taken her to the imperial dais, at a reception of the foreign ambassadors. Since she left her home in Crete, at the age of twelve, she had seen little beyond the cloister of the nuns of St. Basil, who had brought her up; and her girlish imagination had been profoundly impressed by all she had seen and heard. "Never could I have believed any city was so vast," she said: "such endless crowds in the street, such magnificent halls, corridors, terraces, and gardens, to which those of Prote were a mere toy. And the long lines of soldiers in splendid uniforms, father, and the Danubian cavalry on their chargers, lining the streets--tens of thousands of mailed giants, all as big and fierce as that fair-haired Varangian there below in the garden--and the organs and choirs in the hall--and the magnificent robes of the emperor and his court, and his imperial guard--the Immortals--in gilt mail--and Anemas was there, on duty, and looked the most like a soldier of them all."

"Ah!" said the old emir, with a soft, sad smile, "it is natural that you young ones should be dazzled with the power and splendor of Roum. Allah has sorely chastened the rebellious people of Islam, whose quarrels and treasons reach upward to the throne of grace. In his mercy and his wisdom he has decreed to give victory to the Nazarene--victory for a time--his will be done. I submit to it for me and mine. His inscrutable purposes may bring together all his children in the end."

"Father!" said the girl, with a solemnity beyond her years, "if you could only enter into the great church of the Holy Wisdom, and, while the choir chant their 'Holy, Holy, Holy!' look up to the figures of Christ the Saviour, and the Mother of God, you would feel that it is not false when they say that the faith of the Cross is a spirit of love, mercy, and reconciliation, and that it offers a new heaven to us poor women, and makes us in religion the true peers and helpmates of men!"

Struck by a tone so strange in a Saracen girl, by the earnestness of his daughter's appeal, the old chief turned to his child with a searching look, and said, "But you have no thought, my best beloved one, of remaining for life in that convent, of becoming what they call a bride of Christ?"

"Never will I take the veil. I am not worthy. I should never be at peace there," she replied, with deep emphasis, but in broken sentences, "Never!" And as the old man searched her look, a soft blush seemed to show itself in her olive cheek. Silence followed, and both of them thought.

"But, oh, how sweet and good and wise is the Lady Agatha!" the girl suddenly resumed; "she has taught me so much, helped me in all things, and made me feel as if I were a sister, one of her own faith and race. She knows by heart the Greek poems of Homer, both those about Troy and about Ithaca, of Achilles and Priam, and of Odysseus and Penelope, and Hector and Andromache; and yesterday she recited part of the tragedy of 'Œdipus at Colonus.' She is so sweet and thoughtful and brave, after all she had to bear. And, father, I am to be one of her bridesmaids when she is married next month, if the empress will consent."

"And whom is she about to marry?" asked the chief, carelessly.

"Why, don't you know, father, it is the Lord Basil Digenes, the warden of the marches, the favorite lieutenant and friend of the emperor!"

"What! the son of the emir of Edessa, he who struck us so hard at Chandax," said the old chief, with a groan. "Yes, yes; he who was saved by the daughter of Ben Senoussi in prison, and who saved her in the great defeat. So, the blood of the Prophet of Mecca, after all, is to be mingled with the blood of the Constantines of Roum. It is the will of Allah! Let us bow to it with reverence and submission."

The old emir rose, and, going to his prayer-carpet, turned towards the tomb of the Prophet, devoutly prostrated himself, and performed his mid-day devotions.

The girl meanwhile drew aside in silence, crossing herself, and fingering her own chain and cross, she uttered fervent prayers to the Mother of God.

When Abd-el-Aziz returned to his divan she took his hand, kissed it, and said, "Father, does it give you a pang to think that one of our people, if truly converted to the faith of the Cross, should mate with a follower of Christ? What would you say if my brother Anemas took him a wife from the Byzantine court?"

"What Allah decrees it is not for us to gainsay," said the emir, somewhat oracularly. "The warden of the marches is a noble soldier and a true knight, be his faith what it may. But I thought he might have wedded the Lady Fatima, whom he saved, and who saved him from death."

"He was born and bred a Roman and a Christian," she said, "and he loved the Lady Agatha before she was my age. I saw him at the court reception, looking every inch a hero and a prince, along with his two lieutenants, who seemed worthy of such a place."

"And who are they?" asked the chief, quickly. "Anemas, I know, is one, but who is the other?"

"Do you not know?" she answered at last, distinctly blushing as her father watched her. "The other is the young Norwegian prince, just promoted to be colonel in the imperial guard."

"And is he, too, Roman and Christian?" asked her father, promptly.

"He is high in honor with the emperor, and was baptized as a youth. He has seen battle in five countries; for all that he is but four-and-twenty. He is the tallest of all these battle-axe guardsmen, and as fair-skinned as the fairest lady of the court. But he can hardly speak Greek yet, and does not look in the least like a Roman or a Greek. He has blue eyes and long hair, of the color of silk from the cocoon. And his battle-axe is so enormously heavy that when he let me take it in my hand to feel its weight, it fell to the ground with a crash," the girl rattled on.

"Have you spoken with him, my daughter?" the old man peremptorily asked.

"Once," she said, "in the open court, as we came from the Magnaura; I was with the Lady Agatha, when the warden and his officers came up, and Anemas presented to me his young comrade in arms. He bowed, and smiled, and said nice things in his broken Greek, but he looked so tremendous in his golden coat of mail, and his casque and plume, that I could hardly answer him, father," she murmured; and, as the sire still looked at her, she blushed again.

"And did you see the famous empress?" asked the father, wishing to make the girl talk of other things.

"Oh yes! the crash of the battle-axe, when I let it drop on the marble pavement, amused the royal circle. The little boy princes laughed aloud, and Basil cried out that girls should not handle weapons, and the empress stepped forward and flashed upon me with her great eyes, and asked who I was. She is the most beautiful woman in the world. Those beside her look like slaves. But when she stared at me with her imperious look, I felt that I should faint, if Anemas had not taken my arm and led me away. Father, there is nothing in all Rome so lovely, so bewitching, so terrible!"

"And she is absolute mistress of our conqueror. Allah! the just, the merciful, thy stricken people will be avenged at last!"

Here the conversation of father and daughter was interrupted by the entrance of Anemas himself. The old emir's son was now about five-and-twenty, of the finest Arab type, spare, sinewy, and finely proportioned. His limbs, hands, and feet were delicate and supple. His features were sharply cut, handsome, and intelligent; the tint, a pure brown, with keen, black eyes, and a short, curled beard of jetty hue. He resembled the lord warden, but was slighter and darker, for he was of pure Fatimite descent, and had no European blood in his veins. He wore his uniform as an officer of the body-guard, and bore himself as what he was, a brilliant soldier of that splendid and renowned corps.

He greeted his father with profound respect and affection, for, Roman and Christian as he had become, he held fast to the ceremonial traditions of his ancient race. He kissed his sister, and, by a look, encouraged her to leave them for a conference alone.

"Father," said the gallant youth, standing before his sire's divan in an attitude of deep respect and affection, "I am come to ask your blessing and to claim your advice. I was preparing to be ordered with my own corps on service in the new Bulgarian war, and I burned to show these proud Byzantines that a son of Abd-el-Aziz can hold his own with the bravest swords of Rome. For three years I have worn the imperial uniform, but have never yet seen action in their ranks. They shall see the son of the great emir challenge to single combat the foremost champion in the enemies' host. And the name of Anemas shall live in the annals of Byzantine glory."

"Go, my son," the old man broke in, "go and prove yourself a true soldier of the race of Ali. Even in the uniform of our conquerors you will do honor to our blood."

"But, alas! my father, there is an obstacle to my joining my corps. The emperor has need of some diplomatic relations with the Fatimite caliph of Kairouan. You know that, after the disasters of the imperial armies and fleet in Sicily, and the death of the emperor's cousin at Rametta, the general-in-chief, Nicetas, was taken prisoner, and has been detained by Al Muizz, the caliph, in El Mehdia, on the African coast. Nicephorus ardently desires peace with both caliphs of Kairouan and of Cordova, as all three kingdoms are closely pressed by the growing power of Otto, the Teuton emperor of the west. And he is anxious to obtain the ransom of his beloved officer and friend, Nicetas. The embassy to Muizz is to be headed by the patrician Nicholas. But they designate me, as a descendant of the Prophet, to be his secretary and second, and persona grata, to a Fatimite sovereign. As an officer of the guard, I cannot refuse such a command. But if I go to Africa, I shall lose all chance of joining the Bulgarian campaign. I come to beg you, father, to petition the emperor that he may employ my sword in war, and not my tongue in diplomatic wrangles."

"You are young, my son," said the old chief, in a meditative tone, as if weighing the future in his mind; "you will have ample opportunities of meeting in battle these barbarians of the north--your day of glory may come--ah! only too soon it may be, for your father's peace--but the opportunity of seeing our own people again on the African coast is not to be lost. It will be noble revenge for me that our conqueror has need of my son to restore his honor, and to rescue his commander from a Saracen prison. You will never have such a mission again. You have twenty years yet to fight the Bulgars. No; go to Kairouan, and take to the caliph there a message from a Roman prison, that the defeated emir of Crete does not despair of Islam."

The son submitted, and took a dutiful and loving farewell of his sire; and, seeing his sister in the terrace below, he hurried forth to give her his news. The young Sophia, who now had but dim memories of her life as a Saracen child of the harem, was far more truly converted to Rome and to the Cross than her brother, and had absorbed the religion of the Virgin Mother with all the ecstatic fervor of a Christian girl. Her keen intelligence, and her experience of the Sacred Palace, showed her the importance such a mission would prove to her brother, her father, and all the survivors of Crete. She warmly pressed her brother to make the most of his good fortune, and by no means to attempt any escape from the task.

Long and tenderly the brother and sister poured out their hearts to each other, till at last Sophia found courage to say, "Brother, I, too, have a mission for you in the far west. There is another caliphate in Andalusia--how many more caliphs there may be in Asia and in Africa I know not--but Hakim, the new caliph of Cordova, whose ambassadors are now in the city, is on terms of amity with Rome. At his court still lives, in strict seclusion, as a Saracen girl must do, Fatima, the daughter of Ben Senoussi, my own dearest cousin, from whom I have had, as I have told you, sad but loving greetings. Go from Africa to Spain with the embassy about to start, under Theodosius the deacon and Michael the secretary; obtain a place in their mission, but contrive a meeting with Fatima. I will trust you with presents from me. Urge her from me to come to visit us here in my father's mansion. I long to see her. I yearn to try if she can be led to see how much a woman gains when she accepts the Cross and learns to pray at the altar of the Mother of God."

"It is impossible. She would not see me--she would not listen to a word from me, if she did see me. It is impossible. Sister, say no more," said the young guardsman, with an air of dejection.

"Anemas, you have not ceased to love her? You loved her, you have told me, when you were both of the same age, and I remember how fit to be loved she was."

"Yes; she was kind, good, merciful, but she never really loved me, much as we had been together. But from the hour she saw the Roman prisoner, her cousin, the Lord Basil Digenes, she could think of no one but him, and for his sake she has lived in solitude ever since."

"He will have been married to Princess Agatha long before you can reach Spain. Seek her again, Anemas, urge your own love, and when she hears of this marriage she will listen. Bring her to me. Anemas, she shall be your bride, or else the bride of Christ!"

Anemas was despatched on his mission to the caliph of Kairouan, Al Muizz, then at the height of his glory. The Roman embassy, after touching at Messina and Syracuse, crossed to the port of El Mehdia, then in its era of prosperity and power. The Roman envoys were amazed to find on the African coast another Saracen kingdom, almost as splendid and as flourishing as the caliphate of Andalusia itself. The docks of the African seaport were crowded with ships from Syria, Alexandria, Sicily, and Spain, with galleys from Venice, Pisa, and Amalphi. The palaces of Muizz and of his chief emirs were almost as rich and luxurious as those of Abd-er-Rahman himself at Cordova. The culture of the Fatimite court of Kairouan was not equal to that of the Ommeyads of Spain, and the civilization of the African people was not so advanced as that of the long-settled Cordovan dynasty of the west. But the military energy and movement of troopers was even more conspicuous. For at this very season the caliph was preparing the vast expedition which a few years afterwards was destined to march into Egypt, and, under the famous commander Jouhar, to transfer the dynasty to the banks of the Nile, and to found at Kahira the modern city of Cairo. It was the preparation for this great revolution in the world of Islam which the young Anemas was able to witness.

The mission was successful; peace was made between Muizz and Nicephorus, for both had other enemies to meet and other conquests to win. And Anemas, in returning, adopted his sister's advice, and had no difficulty in finding an honorable welcome in the Andalusian capital of Hakim II. As the son of Abd-el-Aziz, the old kouropas, and as the brother of Sophia, he had at last obtained an interview with Fatima, who lived with her sister and aunts in a retired villa that had been assigned to them in the mountains of the Sierra Morena, north of Cordova.

Fatima received Anemas in the terrace of their garden looking out towards the east upon the mountains of Granada. She was accompanied by her young sister, as if she had resolved not to listen to a word of love. Fatima was now in the full maturity of her beauty, to which a life of meditation and solitude had given a peculiar aspect of spiritual refinement. She had always refused that close veiling and seclusion of women which had begun to spread over the Moslem world. She asked rapid questions as to her dear Sophia, whom she remembered almost as a child; as to the aged emir, who had so stoutly defended Crete, the nature of his imprisonment, and the treatment that the Cretan captives had received at Byzantium: Was dear little Sophia really a Christian, and about to be a nun? Was she happy? Had she quite forgotten her father's faith and people? Was the kouropas held in honor, and was he at peace, and was he satisfied with his lot?

These and such questions she eagerly poured out to her young compatriot from the Byzantine court.

Anemas answered her questions truthfully, and at length. And, in turn, he put to her some similar questions of his own:

Was she satisfied with her life in a Spanish retreat? Would she live and die in a mountain hermitage? Was this the destiny of Islam? Were not the followers of the Prophet as much divided among themselves as the followers of Christ? Could true believers in the Koran still feel that Allah was purposed to lead them ever on to victory? Could she wonder if a soldier felt that true religion taught him to serve his commander and be faithful to the standard under which he was sworn, and to the land in which God had destined him to live? Did she not think that an officer was doing his duty if he gave his life to his service, and left the mysteries of Heaven to the imaums of Islam, or to the patriarchs of Christ?

"There is but one God," she said, with profound earnestness; "I know but one God, and I care not if he be named the Trinity or Allah. I have lived so long in this Andalusian caliphate, I have seen enough of the Romans of the empire." She sighed as she uttered that name. "I have seen and heard enough to know that Christendom and Islam have each much that is godlike and good, and much that is of Sheitan and evil. This splendid capital of Cordova is in many things, in most things, the counterpart of Byzantium, as rich, as luxurious, as corrupt, as elegant, as turbulent. These Ommeyads here execrate the Fatimites--Abbasides from the first contend with Kharijis. There are as many sects among Mussulmans as there are among Christians, as many dynasties, as many wars. Bagdad, Damascus, Haleb, Antioch, Edessa, Fostat, Kairouan, Andalusia, war on each other as often as Byzantine, Bulgarian, Lombard, Calabrian, Frank, or Saxon. Whether it be Allah and his Prophet or Christ and His Mother who inspire these rivalries and combats, I know not. All that I know is that it is not the one God."

"Does not Christendom, with its culture and its freedom, its poetry, its art, its ritual, offer, at least to women, a richer, nobler life? So my sister Sophia asserts, and longs to show you. Oh! that you could be persuaded to visit her in my father's house at Prote, and see our Byzantine world, our Christian Church!"

"The Byzantine world," she said, sadly, "differs not so very much from our Cordovan world. It may have more art, more ceremony, more priests and nuns I dare believe, but it has less poetry, less science, less philosophy, less learning. Its women have a freer life--it may be a happier and a wiser. Its men are less chivalrous, and faithful, and resolute. There may be more saints in Christendom. There are more heroes in Islam."

"Has not Christendom its heroes, too?" he asked, suddenly, looking at her with passionate devotion.

"God forbid that I should doubt it," she said, with a deep sigh. Silence ensued, and each could feel the tremor in the soul of the other. Rapturous memories and cruel sorrows crowded through the mind of the woman. Eager hopes rose in the mind of the man. They gazed upon each other in silence. At length, as she looked at the young chief, Fatima saw again in the young Anemas the strange blending of the Saracen and the Roman, that figure which, for long years, had been the warrior-saint of her inmost dreams and devotions. Anemas, too, was now spiritually a Digenes himself, with the heroic temper of Saracen and of Crusader compounded in one.

"Can I never hope to utter those words which have been on my lips in my long journey to this land?" he said, and, seizing her hand, he held her close to him--gazing into her eyes with passion and devotion. "Can I hope?"

She suffered her hand to remain for an instant in his grasp. "It is too late in my life for me to change my creed--my home--my people. It is too late in life for me to think of happiness. I will live and die here a lonely woman, who has known too much sorrow to dream of being happy, or of making any one happy." She paused, and, looking at the young soldier again with tender compassion, she added, "I must think over my message which I mean to send your sister and your father. Yes; I will see you again before we part."