Chapter Fourteen: October 19, 1809

‘What does it mean to be memorialized in a song?’ Byron asked of Isak before dawn was even close. Both of them were awake very early, like the morning before, and these were the first words spoken after sleeping. Isak’s silence gave way to a deep sigh. ‘In these parts, my lord,’ he said at last, ‘that’s the only kind of glory – and it is more lasting than brass. Frail, and brittle and fleeting, is every kind of glory except the kind that song bestows. Books count about as much as stones in people’s memory, my lord. The same piece of parchment can be written upon many times over, and horse excrement now falls onto the stone slabs from ancient emperor’s palaces and medieval fortresses. Walls are constructed of the marble of old grave markers; people feed fires with books; but inside the walled courtyards, around the fires, songs are sung! Kings and sultans are quickly forgotten, but songs are remembered: songs about the strength of a man’s arm or the beauty of a woman’s countenance.

Only in Bosnia, my lord, have there been more than enough songs sung about unhappy loves, enough for the entire world, and yet still, to everyone in Bosnia, a pair of unhappy lovers means more than any number of Caliph Omars or Virgin Marys. The same people, who in real life pushed lovers to calamity, find themselves swimming in tears over a song. In these songs, heroes who have the world at their feet get their hearts broken by love; in these songs, a beautiful woman sets a city afire with a glance. To be preserved in a song, my lord, means being larger than life; it means being transformed into words, not into a written text but into a voice, not into letters but into a verse, not into a line or the rustle of paper but into a melody. If they should marry, these people, of course, sing nothing at their own celebrations; and if death overtakes them in the song, at least the song itself does not die.’

With that, Isak concluded his report. Byron was quiet.

‘I’ll go check and see if everyone’s ready, and if our horses have been saddled,’ Isak stated after a significant pause.

He left the room, and the door closed behind him. Byron remained behind alone lost in

thought and looking gloomy. He thought of Bosnia, this unknown and unseen land, and of the songs that the Bosnians sing. Not even fire can touch these songs, he thought, and that means they are real indeed. The poet remembers, and the poems will be remembered. That is as it should be, he contemplated; remembrance for what deserves to be memorialized, and what is forgotten was from the very beginning destined for oblivion.

Byron had to grin as he imagined the earnest, frowning faces of the first turban-bedecked men singing around a fire. The flames crackled, the strings of the gusle quivered, and their robes rustled in the wind. The song makes them sweat, and makes their skin crawl, and from time to time one of them takes a gulp of something bitter from a slender bottle, something that makes the tongue burn and the throat clench. A knock at the door interrupted these thoughts. Isak opened a crack in the door and asked: ‘Are we ready to leave, my lord? Everyone is set, and we are just waiting for you.’

Byron followed him out in silence. Indeed, the entire company was already in the saddle. They all greeted Byron cheerfully. He found his horse and, before mounting, stroked his mane. In the resplendence of the first light of morning, the han dropped behind them like a conquered castle keep.

* * *

The sun was spring-like, the sky clear, and the morning warm. It’s enough to fool a blind man, Byron mused; because only with eyes could one detect how far along October was. Such rains awaken the earth in spring, but now they are barren. Isak was riding along right beside him. When Byron mumbled something about spring rains as opposed to autumn rains, Isak understood him well.

‘I know what you are thinking, my lord. In spring the rains wash away the snow, and the land and trees turn green. There is nothing more beautiful here than the first few days after the spring rains begin. It’s a shame that you did not come at that time of year. Spring arrives overnight, and then the grass is greener than jealousy, and the petals of the blossoms are more fragile than butterfly wings. When the warm wind blows, it reveals one’s soul,’ Isak added. ‘Meanwhile these rains wash the remains of life from the earth, as if one were washing a meyt.’

‘Meyt – that’s a corpse?’ asked Byron. Isak nodded.

‘I would have liked to see the birth of a spring,’ Byron announced. ‘In England we have no proper winter or spring. After a brief pause, he added: ‘But we also don’t necessarily wash dead bodies.’ At that they both chuckled.

‘It’s that way here, too, my lord,’ Isak went on. ‘Some wash their dead, others bring them flowers, but both groups do what they do for their own sake and not for the sake of the dead.’

‘So it is,’ Byron said. He looked around. The countryside actually did resemble a corpse. Everything had been reduced to black and brown, to white and grey, and the blue skies were preternaturally lovely.

‘I envy you, my lord.’

‘For what,’ Byron wanted to know.

‘I envy you Athens and Istanbul: the whole south, to be more precise. Winter is on the march here, and it will not be pretty. The heavens will turn grey, the earth white, and all living things will be frozen. One can only wait for spring. And after spring, the order of the day is preparation for the new winter. That’s life here, my lord, half waiting and half trepidation.’

Byron repeated Isak’s statement in agreement. They were riding fast. Towards noon they stopped briefly to eat something and give the horses a short rest. From the han they had brought enough provisions for just one meal.

‘By evening we will be in Tepelena anyway,’ Isak said.

They ate while standing in the shade cast by a few trees. The trunks were still wet, and the shadows were short. The pleasant warmth of morning was now bordering on turning humid. The riding had warmed the men further. Hobhouse made a joke about Byron’s white silk cloth, which he had not removed from his brow. Byron was laconic, though; the wound on his head hurt more than the day before. His face was covered in sweat, and Hobhouse ventured that he was hot because of the scarf. Isak whispered something to him, though, and Hobhouse fell silent. Back on their mounts, Byron asked Isak what he had said. ‘That the white deflects the sun, my lord, and that’s why you are wearing it.’ Byron smiled contentedly. They rode for perhaps another half hour across level terrain, and then the trail began to climb once more.

‘Now we are quite close,’ Isak announced. The incline was not particularly steep, and the path did not become any narrower. The refreshed horses crested it easily and swiftly. When their little column had gained considerable altitude, Byron turned around and looked back. Far below them a whitish spot stood out on the horizontal greyness. The han, thought Byron, as he turned around to face forward again.

* * *

Time slowed to a crawl. The afternoon was as slow as the morning had been quick. The climb was gentle, but it seemed infinite. Even the horses seemed fed up with it. Fortunately we are very close now, Byron thought; and soon it will all be over. If it weren’t, even I could start to be bored. The East has ceased to be full of surprises for me, and I once considered that impossible. My old problem: I’m alive to everything, and then indifference creeps in. I maintain no enthusiasm for anything, and neither can I hate. All of this was jumbled up in Byron’s mind: In a few days I will be done with Albania and Ali Pasha. I will have satisfied the vanity of a powerful old man and quenched my own curiosity, and then it’s on to ancient Hellas. Let’s let the past jolt my soul awake a little if the present cannot manage it. But if I had lived in that past, I would have found it to be drab, too. Only the unattainable entices me, thought Byron.

All at once he was struck by his own ludicrousness. Take a look at yourself, Byron, he said to himself; have a look at your self, my lord, dragging yourself cumbrously around the globe in order to learn what you’ve known since childhood. You scurry through the world like the Wandering Jew, the Flying Dutchman, and everywhere it’s the same: men, trees, women, and cities. Everywhere the same thing, and you also remain the same naive and arrogant Englishman.

He looked around: a number of men, a number of horses, bodies, perhaps souls: They live, they move, they eat, they sing. And time passes. Byron felt, he even sensed physically, the way the anxiety in him mounted. His heart seemed to grow heavy, like a weight in the left side of his chest. The oppressiveness spread through him. His hands were shaky and unsteady, his palms sweaty and slippery. There was a weakness in his legs, a pain in his head; and anguish, fear, and heaviness. He thought back to the severed arm he had seen on the road to Yannina. How long had it been since then, two weeks? Blood had once flown in that arm, and that hand had also held a sword. Today perhaps only white bones remained. Not too long ago, Isak had mentioned a curse common in these parts. ‘If you curse a man here, you wish for the earth to spit out his bones. And everyone curses everyone else.’ Byron had before his eyes an image of the earth spewing things forth. Of an earth that vomits like a person, ejecting white foam and bones like dirty snow. He felt the sour contents of his stomach climb to his mouth, but he suppressed it and swallowed hard.

‘Are you all right, my lord?’ Isak asked. ‘You are pale.’

‘I’m all right,’ Byron shot back.

‘We’ll be there any minute now,’ Isak promised.

‘Any minute,’ Byron mumbled. “Everything is always so close,” he thought. Then the calm was broken by shouts of jubilation from the Albanians at the head of the column.

Amazement crept across Byron’s face, and his heart leapt at the sight before him. It was perhaps five in the afternoon and the sun was already going down. The silhouette of a city was displayed against the bluish-red background of the sky. It’s just as it appears in books, Byron thought; or in songs. The closer they drew, the more beautiful everything became. He knew, he knew beyond doubt, that he would never forget this scene. A peculiar feeling of dejà vu had already come over him, even though he was certain that he had never before witnessed anything similar. Except in books. It’s like Branksome Hall in Scott’s writings, he thought. The palace jutted from a public square, on which Albanians were standing in rows, clad in garments similar to those that Byron had been given. Tatars with tall caps, Turks with fur-trimmed capes, two hundred swarthy guardsmen on black steeds outfitted with harnesses and saddle blankets. Drum rolls delivered greetings of welcome. The sun was almost all the way down. Against the dark purple firmament, the palace seemed tall and inaccessible. Taller than the palace were the tips of the minarets, from which the ezan rang out. Akşam, Byron said to himself. Night is here.