Constantinople, Late March 1440
The archimandrite of Saint Anthony's received the book with both hands, and his deacon leaned in to look at the clasps.
"Tell him this is a short printing, not the common kind," Constantine said. "On vellum, gilded by hand after the press has done its part. It goes from my hand as a gift. It is not sold."
The interpreter gave it in Arabic. The archimandrite answered at length, his thumb moving along the clasp while he spoke, and the interpreter rendered it back: the patriarch of Alexandria would hear of the Emperor's health, of the city restored, of this gift. He would hear too that the Emperor had asked after the churches of Egypt and the tax set on their heads, and had asked after it, town by town; and that the Emperor had wished them a fair hearing at the council at Florence, where they would speak for those churches.
Then the Copts backed the first three steps, turned at the pillar as the chamberlain had shown them, and went out with the book carried before them.
The day had run long with envoys, more than Constantine cared to sit through himself. Most went to George, or to Theophilus, and came back to him after, sorted and weighed by another hand before he ever heard of them. Only the ones that mattered, or the odd one that caught his interest, reached this hall in person. The Copts had been one.
The light in the western window had gone long, and Constantine's hands were already on the arms of the throne.
"The Ethiopians, Majesty," the chamberlain said. "The last of the day."
The staff struck twice, and four men came in.
Their dark wool had been brushed, but it was travel-worn all the same, soft at the hems, the scrips rubbed bright at the strap. Their staves stayed at the door. The one who led them carried a hand cross of dark wood, and when he reached the place the chamberlain had marked for him, he did not wait for the interpreter.
"Peace to this house," he said, in Greek, "and to the Emperor of the Romans, from the least of the servants of Christ at Jerusalem."
The interpreter, already a step forward, stopped where he stood. At the side table a secretary looked up from his paper.
"You speak Greek," Constantine said.
"From the monks of the Anastasis, Majesty. I wanted to read the Gospels in the tongue they were first written in. "
He bowed. "I am Petros, God's unworthy tongue for my brothers." He named them in turn, and each bowed as his name was said: Abba Tewodros, oldest, white in the beard. Abba Giyorgis, tall, silent. Abba Didimos, youngest, the road still in his face. "Abbot Nicodemus of our house at Jerusalem sends us."
"You are welcome in this city, you and your brothers. The archimandrite spoke of a Frank with the Pope's letters, come to Egypt to call his church to the council in Italy. I take it the same man came to you as well."
"The same, Majesty. He came to us first." Petros's hands stayed quiet on the cross as he told it.
In the autumn a Frank came to Jerusalem, Brother Alberto, with the Pope's letters. He asked men of their church for the council in Italy, and Abbot Nicodemus chose four. From Jerusalem the Frank went down to Cairo, to the Copts, and asked the sultan for the road south to their king. Sultan Jaqmaq would not give it. Whether the Frank waited there still or had turned back, they did not know. From Jaffa they sailed with the archimandrite, eight days at Cyprus for the weather, then Rhodes, where the captains spoke of pirate sails between and kept the convoy close.
Most of it Constantine had heard already, but not the refusal at Cairo.
"And the abbot charged us to turn aside to this city, to keep the feast here, and pray in the Great Church. None of us has seen it. After Pascha we sail for Italy."
"At the Pope's asking." Constantine said.
"The first we hear of it," George said, low, beside him.
"Yes, Majesty. And after Italy, if God gives us the road the Frank was refused, home, to lay it all before our king."
"And Jerusalem? How do things stand there?"
"As they have stood, Majesty. The holy places are open, and the lamps burn. Our own order is small. There is stone that wants repair the sultan will not license, and every pilgrim pays silver to enter. A Frank pays more than we do."
They spoke a while of Jerusalem then, of the year's pilgrims and the state of the roads, and Constantine listened more than he asked.
Then he said, "Rome and Florence. A long road from Jerusalem, all of it. What will you say there, at the council?"
"Little, Majesty. Witness of our church, and prayers for the peace of all the churches. We can bind nothing. That is for our king, and for the Abuna who is set over us."
"The Abuna."
"Our metropolitan, Majesty. The father of our church. He is not chosen among us. He comes to us out of Egypt, a monk of the Egyptian houses, sent by the patriarch of Alexandria. It has been so since the faith first came to us. He ordains our priests, and he crowns our kings, and when he dies we wait on Egypt for another. Sometimes the wait is long."
"And the patriarch of Alexandria sits under the sultan's hand."
"He does, Majesty."
"So your king waits on Cairo for the head of his own church, then."
"As his fathers did, Majesty."
At Constantine's shoulder, George had looked up at that, and Constantine let the matter rest where Petros had set it.
"Well. You said it yourself, you are not sent to bind. My own bishops are in Italy on the same errand, and I wait on their word as your king will wait on yours. What the Church binds, the Church will bind. In this hall you are pilgrims and my guests. The disputing is for Italy."
Petros bowed, and his shoulders eased.
"Now tell me of your king. What manner of man is he?"
There was a small pause, and a glance passed between Petros and Tewodros.
"A king who prays, Majesty. He writes books on the faith with his own hand, against sorcery and against disorder. He has brought the church to order through many provinces, and the provinces with it." Another beat. "He is not gentle in the bringing."
"Few of us are."
"His throne name," Petros said, "is Kwestantinos." He let the word stand in the hall. "In your tongue, Majesty: Constantine."
The secretary's pen stopped. George said quietly, "The Latins tell of a priest king beyond Egypt. Prester John, they call him."
"The Franks at Jerusalem asked us of him also," Petros said. "We could not help them. Our king is a king, and his priests are priests."
Constantine asked then how they kept the faith in their own country, the feasts and the fasts of it, and Petros spoke of Lents longer and harder than the Greek, of feasts kept through whole nights with drums and standing song, and of their observance of the days. "We keep the Sabbath holy, and the Lord's Day with it. Both."
By the window an officer turned his head, and one of the secretaries looked to George.
Constantine sat forward. "Now tell me of your country. The land, the rivers, the beasts. I want to hear it."
Petros told it, and where his own knowledge thinned he turned to the others and carried their words across. A river called the Takkaze that in the rains no army could cross, so that wars waited on the sky. A plant like the banana palm of Egypt, but bearing no fruit worth the eating; they pounded the stalk and the root of it into bread, and one such plant fed a household through the hungry months. An antelope so small a man carried it under one arm like a lamb. Mountains where the rain came every afternoon of its season, and where a man wanted a fleece at night in every month of the year.
Even the officers had left the window and stood listening like boys.
"And there is a beast," Petros said, and here Giyorgis spoke for the first time, low, to Petros alone, and Petros nodded. "A beast tall as..." He raised his hand above his head, considered it, and raised it as far as his arm went. "Twice this, Majesty, and half again. It runs with the horse. The neck alone is the height of a man, and the hide is marked all over in plates of brown, like broken ground." He hunted a moment. "Your fathers had a word for it. I found it at Jerusalem, in the old books. Kamelopardalis."
"The camel marked like the pard," Constantine said.
The secretary at the side table wrote the word down.
It was while Petros spoke of the forests that Didimos stirred. He said something low, to Petros only, and touched the scrip at his side. Petros hesitated.
"Majesty, it is a small thing. My brother asks pardon for it."
"Let him show it."
Didimos came forward, working loose the knot of a small cloth from his scrip, and opened it on his hand. In it lay seeds, a dozen at the most, dull grey-brown and hard-looking, each one flat on one side with a furrow down the middle of the flat.
Constantine came down the two steps from the throne. Behind him the chamberlain shifted, and he paid it no mind.
"Buna," Didimos said. It was the first word he had spoken aloud in the hall. He said it again, and then more in his own tongue, to Petros.
"It is the seed of a tree of his country," Petros said.
"His country is far in the southwest of the king's lands, forest country, weeks beyond the lakes. He has not seen it in six years. When pilgrims of his country come up to Jerusalem, he asks them for news of home, and for these. The tree bears berries, red when they ripen, the flesh thin and sweet, and inside each berry two of these. His people dry them. On a journey a man chews them, and the road grows shorter and sleep stands off. He gave me one at Jerusalem once, Majesty. It was bitter, and these were fresher then. I was awake half the night after it."
Didimos took one from the cloth and ate it, unhurried, to show the manner of it, and then held the cloth out toward Constantine.
The guard at the pillar came off it half a step. Constantine put two fingers up without turning, and took a seed from the cloth.
It was hard as gravel and at first gave nothing. He bit down and it broke, and then it was bitter, green as cut grass, then wood, then something stale far at the back of it, and his mouth drew tight around the taste.
Coffee.
Twelve years. Twelve years, and the taste of a dead seed off a stranger's palm brought all of it up at once: the smell of it, mornings that had begun with it, the cup in his hands before the first word of the day. And Ethiopia, of course. He had known that once, the way he had known a thousand idle things: this was where it began, these highlands, before it went out into the world. It had not gone out yet. No one drank it. Not here, not in Egypt, not in any port of any sea.
He finished the seed.
"Ask him. Does the tree grow wild, or do men plant it?"
Wild, came the answer through Petros, in the mountain forests where the mists sat. Men knew the groves.
"And do his people ever put the seeds in the ground?"
That took longer, Didimos looking from Petros to the Emperor and back, and Petros gave the answer with the smallest opening of his hands. "He says no, Majesty. There is no need. The forest is full of them."
"Will he spare me a few?"
Didimos held the whole cloth out at once. Constantine took four, and folded the monk's fingers back over the rest, and Didimos laughed once, softly. The four seeds went into Constantine's sleeve.
He nodded to the chamberlain, and a second Bible was brought, the same short printing the Copts had carried out.
"For the house of Abbot Nicodemus," Constantine said. "Such books go as gifts, from my hand. They are not sold. Open it. Read."
Petros freed the clasps with care and turned the leaves to the Gospel of John, and read: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." His voice changed when he read.
And Tewodros closed his eyes and gave the verse back in his own tongue, from memory, the sounds long and level, and for the space of a breath the hall was another country's church.
"Tell your abbot his house is in my prayers," Constantine said.
"And when God gives you the road home, tell your king that Constantine of the Romans prays for him, and rejoices that Christ has such a servant in the south."
"Majesty."
"And more than words. I mean to send men of my own to your king. Priests among them, and a book such as this one, for his own hand. They will need a guide who knows the roads and the tongues." He looked from one of the four to the next. "I ask that one of you remain behind when your brothers sail, and take my men to him."
For a moment none of the four moved. Didimos dropped his eyes a half beat before any of the others stirred. Giyorgis looked at Petros. Tewodros's hands were still on his cross.
"Majesty," Petros said at last. "You honor us past our answer. We are four under obedience, and our charge is Florence. Give us leave to pray on it."
"Take it. Give me your answer before you sail."
He went on before the silence could set. "You lodge at the Savior in Chora. The collection of books there is one of the largest in the city."
"Thank you, Majesty."
"And you came for the feast. You will keep Pascha in the Great Church; places will be made for you. Passage west goes with the convoy after."
The four bowed together and were shown out, and took their staves at the door. Didimos was the last through it, retying the cloth at his scrip as he went.
The chamberlain looked to the day's list. Constantine put his hand once against his sleeve where the seeds were, and took it away.
George came up on his left.
"An envoy to Ethiopia," he said, low. "That is new to me too."
"You heard it when I heard it. I decided it in the chair."
George looked at him. "The road runs through Cairo, Majesty. Cairo would not even give it to the Pope's man."
"We will find a way. A church that waits on Egypt for its head, and a king who bears my name. That is worth a few men and a book."
George breathed out through his nose.
"One more, Majesty," he said, low. "Not on the roll. He came to the water gate this morning, off a Cypriot trader, dressed as a merchant's clerk. He carries letters under the King of Cyprus's seal. A man who has done this work before. The rest, he says, is for you alone, and he asks that no one know he was here."
"Where is he now?"
"The porter's room at the water gate, with two of mine at the door."
"Keep him there until the hall is empty." Constantine looked out the western window a moment, at the last of the light on the water. "Then bring him. No list, no secretary. You and I."
Author's Note:
Crazy fun one to research! The Ethiopian/Coptic envoy is pretty close to what actually happened, four monks named Petros, Tewodros, Didimos, and Giyorgis really were sent by an Abbot Nicodemus from the Ethiopian community in Jerusalem, they really did travel toward Florence for the council around 1440-41, and Petros really was the one who spoke for the group. Barely had to bend anything to get them through Constantinople.
Coffee! Historically the drink spreads later out of Yemen, Sufi lodges, that whole trade. But the plant is native to Ethiopia, and people in the southern highlands were absolutely already chewing the raw or dried seeds for energy on long journeys, way before anyone thought to brew it. So C getting his hands on it decades ahead of "schedule" isn't really a stretch, it's just him running into people who've known it the whole time.
And yeah, no expedition to the Americas, but sending men to Ethiopia for coffee? I would absolutely do the same. Genuinely could not have written this chapter without a cup in hand. Priorities!