The smell of manure, smoke, and garbage lingered in the air. A flock of birds flew over the Keratsio Gulf, faintly veiling Chrysoupoli and Chalcedon, while an indistinct buzzing of shouts came from the Hippodrome.
With wild orders, lashings, and shoves, the guards forced the monks out of the Venetian stables, where they had been imprisoned for two or three days and nights. Pained cries, groans, curses, and blasphemies were heard, while a cloud of dust was gilded by the morning sun, enveloping the clergymen. It seemed like a shapeless and undecided halo, before it was divided and encircled the heads of the chosen ones to be proclaimed saints and holy.
Just as brutally, they pushed another group, female this time, from the Green stables toward the dirt courtyard with the stone trough in the middle and the stone-built enclosure. Nuns with frightened looks, without veils covering their heads and with short haircuts, deeply shaved down to the white of their skin, all uneven in length.
As the two groups gathered at the neighboring arched exits of the stables, the guards randomly grabbed a nun and a monk, forced them to hold hands and proceed together. Some dared to pull away, with the immediate consequence of receiving repeated blows on their backs or even on their faces with the hilts of swords and whips. Teeth and noses were broken, and streaks of blood ran down their pale cheeks, as they had been shaved in the previous days.
Hyacinth felt the hand of a nun tie with his own, but he did not turn to see her. Whatever her appearance, young or old, beautiful or not, meant nothing to him. He only asked her: “What is your name?”