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Nothing more came to disturb my sleep, though it
would have found little sleep to trouble. I lay awake, tensed by
every creaking beam or rustle of blankets, until the air outside
the door lightened, and the few birds which had not fled before the
winter began their morning song. Glad of any excuse to be away from
my restless bed I rose, passed the sentries on the door, and made
once more for the house.
My head already ached from its broken sleep, and
the stiff chill in the air did nothing to help it, but at least the
rain had passed. I looked around, nervously scanning every yard of
ground between me and the encircling woods. Nothing moved.
My pulse quickened as I reached the house, and even
the sight of the empty courtyard did nothing to soothe it. I
glanced up at the surrounding galleries, unable to shake the
apprehension that someone might be watching me; I even walked all
around the colonnade to be sure that no-one lurked behind a pillar.
No-one did.
I turned my attention to the corner where we had
found the boy in the night. His behaviour was a mystery, for if he
had wanted to escape he would surely not have come in here. And he
would be desperate indeed to try to run in a storm, in the midst of
a forest with his legs bandaged and his arms tied before him. He
would not have survived a day. So why had he risked so much coming
here, when an overzealous Varangian might easily have cut him down
in the dark?
I looked to the floor. The mosaic tiles were loose,
cracked open by the bush which had pushed through them. I squeezed
my thumb under one and tugged, watching as it came away in my hand.
Mortar trickled off it in a fine powder, turning to a grey paste
again on the wet floor.
I prised away half a dozen more tiles, looking
particularly for those which were already loose. They would be the
ones nearest the stem of the plant, I guessed, and I scratched my
arms several times reaching under its branches to grasp them.
Perhaps it was a futile exercise in eliminating an unlikely
possibility, but this whole expedition had been just such a task:
what were a few more wasted minutes?
And then I saw why the boy had risked so much to
come here. A black tile – the stripe in the side of a tiger – came
free, and as I poked my finger in the cavity beneath I felt the
cold surface of polished metal. It was a ring, the gold barely
tarnished by its underground sojourn, set with a red stone which
was probably a garnet. A sinuous black crack was cleft through the
gem, almost like a snake, and written around the shank in clumsy,
Latin lettering was an inscription.
‘The captain says breakfast is cooked, if you want
any.’
I looked around to see Aelric. ‘Tell Sigurd I’ve
found something,’ I ordered. ‘Tell him to send the boy here with
the interpreter.’
I rinsed the dirt from my hands in a puddle while I
waited, and rubbed the ring on the hem of my tunic before folding
it into my fist as Thomas stumbled in. His face was set firm in a
hard scowl, and his bandages were caked with mud.
‘Ask him what he was doing here last night,’ I
instructed Father Gregorias. ‘Did he really think he could escape
us?’
‘He says he was called by nature.’
‘And his modesty was such that rather than relieve
himself against a wall, he walked two hundred yards through a
driving storm to piss in here?’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Ask him if he
was looking for this?’
As I spoke, I opened my hand to reveal the ring,
keeping my eyes always fixed on Thomas’s face. He may have learned
his craft in the slums of the city, but he could not hide the
surprise of recognition which flashed across his features.
‘Where did you find that?’ asked the priest,
irrelevantly.
‘Under a stone. What does the inscription
say?’
The little priest took it in his hands and squinted
at it. ‘Saint Remigius, lead me in the way of truth,’ he
read.
I had never in all the feasts and liturgies heard
of this Saint Remigius, but I recognised the trinket clearly
enough. It was a pilgrim’s ring, the sort sold by hawkers and
peddlers near the shrines of the sanctified. Had the boy left it
here? His parents had been pilgrims, I remembered: was it
theirs?
‘Ask him if it was his mother’s.’
The boy’s cheeks coloured, and he spoke angrily at
some length. I twisted the ring in my hands while I waited, until
the priest was ready to translate.
‘He says it is his. The monk who brought him here
wore it on a cord about his neck. One night the boy managed to cut
the cord and hide it. The monk was furious and searched everywhere,
but eventually he accepted that it must have worked loose and
fallen somewhere in the grounds. The boy never had the chance to
retrieve it from its hiding place.’ The priest cleared his throat.
‘According to the boy, he remembered this in the middle of the
night and came to fetch it for you.’
What devotion. ‘Tell him I do not believe
him.’
The boy muttered a few short words, which Father
Gregorias seemed challenged to translate.
‘He says you . . . He insists it is
the truth.’
‘Am I to think he would simply have presented me
with this ring in the morning?’ I rolled my eyes. ‘If he stole it
once, he would not lightly surrender it.’
The priest was translating my words as I spoke, but
they wrought no change in the boy’s hardened face. I began to doubt
I would achieve much by continuing this bout of contradiction and
denial.
‘Whatever his purposes,’ I shrugged, ‘you may tell
him that by running away in the night he has done nothing to help
his fate with us. Nor has he helped his wounds to heal by splashing
them through mud.’ I looked at his shabby clothing and the soiled
bandages. ‘I saw a spring in the gardens; we had best use it to
clean him.’
We walked around the house – Aelric, the priest,
Thomas and I – and down some stairs into a sunken, walled orchard.
In its centre was a low plinth, from which a stone channel ran
between the trees back to the cistern under the house. The channel
was broken, feeding only into a boggy patch of ground, but the
spring still rose, and fed enough water over the moss-grown lip of
the trough that I could splash it over Thomas’s leg.
I had just dried him with my cloak, and was
wrapping on the fresh bandages which Anna had given me, when he
spoke unexpectedly.
‘What was that?’ I asked, pulling the linen
tight.
Gregorias translated. ‘He said this was where the
monk brought him to practise with the arbalest. They would spend
much of the day shooting at targets against the far wall over
there.’
I tied a knot, then paced down the garden to the
wall which the boy had indicated. Like all this estate, weeds and
lichens had made it their own, but there were many places where the
stone showed through, clean and sharp, and pitted with white
gouges. Many arrows must have struck here, each drawing the boy’s
eye closer to the true aim which would see his bolt strike home on
the Emperor. It was as well he had not practised any more.
A shout from above interrupted my thoughts; I
raised my head over the parapet and looked out across the broad
enclosure. One of our sentries had issued a challenge to a man now
riding between the gateposts on a handsome white mare. I saw Sigurd
emerge from the stables and move quickly to meet him, with the rest
of his company spread in a purposeful line behind. I ran to join
them.
The man on the horse seemed untroubled by the
cordon of Varangians, every one of them with an axe in their hands.
In fact, there seemed to be an arrogant amusement on his face as he
looked down from his mount.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. Although his
green cloak and high boots seemed expensive, his accent was
rustic.
‘We heard rumours that the Emperor’s enemies could
be found here,’ said Sigurd evenly. ‘We came to find them.’
The man on the horse squinted. ‘Did you find
them?’
‘None. Yet.’
I think Sigurd meant it as a threat, but it drew a
laugh from our visitor. ‘I am Kosmas, and no enemy of this or any
other Emperor. I am the forester, and I manage this estate for my
mistress, the owner.’
Sigurd moved his head in a broad are, deliberately
studying the ramshackle landscape. ‘Does she pay you well for
it?’
‘Enough that I do not tolerate uninvited guests. If
you have found all there is to find, which is nothing, you should
go.’
I could see Sigurd boiling up to resist the man’s
demand, and did not want a confrontation here. ‘Tell me, forester,’
I broke in, ‘who is this inhospitable mistress?’
‘My mistress, who is most hospitable to those she
invites, is the noble lady Theodora Trichas. Wife of the
Sebastokrator Isaak, and sister-in-law to the Emperor Alexios
Komnenos.’ He smiled. ‘Hardly a family to be harbouring traitors
and treachery.’
That was so optimistic as to be laughable. But we
left anyway.
The long ride back was silent, and the arrival
stormy. The road grew ever busier as we neared the city, and though
we chose one of the lesser gates so as to arrive inconspicuously,
we still found a mass of people jostling to get in. The watchmen
were ill at ease, barking questions at the entrants and searching
their belongings with brusque contempt; most of those around us
seemed to have come in from the country, and many must have carried
the greater part of their belongings on their backs. We might have
been there until nightfall if Sigurd had not managed to push and
kick a path through for us, and fortunately the guards recognised
him. When the last of our company was within the walls, he called a
halt.
‘We’ll take the boy to the palace and keep him in
the gaol,’ he declared. ‘If he’s well enough to escape once, he’s
well enough to get out of that monastery.’
‘If you put him in there, he’ll die in a
week.’
‘And that will be no loss to me.’ Sigurd snapped
his reins angrily. ‘Let disease take him, if God wills it.’
‘Disease is my least concern. Have you forgotten
what happened to the Bulgar? The monk, or his agents, can enter the
gaols at will it would appear.’ Although few seemed to care about
the Bulgar’s death, it troubled me every time I thought on it. How
had an assassin crept into the depths of the palace, through a
locked gate and past a legion of Varangians? None of the enquiries
that Krysaphios, Sigurd or I had made could answer it.
‘We’ll be more careful this time,’ said Sigurd.
‘For all it matters.’
‘Do you want me to go to the chamberlain over this?
He has given me the prerogative. I say the boy does not go into the
gaol.’
Sigurd glowered. ‘And where will you take him then,
Demetrios? Into the monastery, to the care of monks and women? Will
God protect him there?’
That thrust me onto the defensive. I had had all
day to ponder it, but my thoughts had been ever distracted by other
questions. Now I floundered for a solution, while Sigurd watched
with a sneer on his lip.
I spoke the first thought I had. ‘He will come to
my house.’
‘To your house?’ Sigurd looked delighted with my
folly. ‘Your castle? Your tower, surrounded by water and guarded by
a thousand archers? Or your tenement, where the boy could slit your
family’s throats and escape over the rooftops in a second?’
They were all sound objections, but I would not
give him the victory of acknowledging so. ‘If the boy wants to
escape, he will succeed eventually. Unless we put him in the
prison, in which case he will die. You will lend me two of your
soldiers to watch my door. As for my family . . .’ I
hesitated. ‘I will see they are safe.’
Sigurd stared at me in angry silence.
‘The boy is no more the monk’s ally than was the
whore he used. Perhaps a little affection and charity will coax
more information from him.’ I raised my hands. ‘Or, I can talk to
Krysaphios.’
‘Take care,’ Sigurd warned. ‘You might get your way
with him for now, but who will you turn to when he loses patience?
Take the boy; I will leave you Aelric and Sweyn – for the
moment.’
He kicked his horse and cantered off, followed
closely by all but a pair of his men.
‘I must go too,’ said Father Gregorias. He looked
desperate to be parted from his mount. ‘I am needed at my
church.’
‘You are needed with me,’ I answered. ‘How else am
I to talk to the boy?’
‘Call in the doctor. She speaks his tongue.’
And meek though he was, he left me. With two
reluctant Varangians, and a boy none of us could comprehend.
I led my companions back to my house, and realised
I had nowhere to stable the horses.
‘We should take them back to the palace,’ said
Aelric. ‘The hipparch will want them immediately.’
‘I can go,’ I offered. ‘I ought to report to
Krysaphios.’
Aelric shook his grizzled head. ‘You can’t go
alone. It’s getting dark, and the Watch will have you locked up for
a horse thief if they see you. And I can’t come with you: you don’t
want to leave Sweyn alone with your daughters.’
I smiled wearily. ‘My daughters are with their
aunt, my sister-in-law.’ I would have to leave them there another
night, though they would return primed with even more disdain for
my disreputable profession, and for my paternal failing to find
them suitable families of their own.
‘Then you and I can guard the boy, and Sweyn can
return our mounts.’ Aelric swung himself down from the beast and
strode over, lifting Thomas onto the ground. I dismounted, and
handed both sets of reins to the taciturn Sweyn.
‘Get back quickly,’ Aelric told him. ‘You don’t
want to rely on my old eyes all night.’
‘Not if last night is any guide,’ I said, as the
horses vanished around the corner. I had not yet raised his failure
to stop Thomas escaping the stable, for fear of provoking Sigurd to
still greater wrath, but I had not forgotten. Nor forgiven
it.
Aelric looked me in the eye. ‘We all have lapses,
Demetrios. You were kind to hide mine from the captain. But the boy
is safe, and no harm was done. If I’ve learned one thing from my
life, it’s that when I escape the worst consequences of my
mistakes, I should thank my God and forget it.’ He clapped me on
the arm. ‘Now let’s get the boy out of the street, before some
arbalest-wielding monk gallops past and puts an arrow in
him.’
We climbed the stairs to my home, keeping Thomas
always between us.
‘Is this the only entrance?’ Aelric asked, as I
unlocked my heavy door.
‘There is a way out onto the roof inside.’ I
crossed my threshold, bending to pick up a scrap of paper which
someone had pushed under the door. ‘Unfortunately, it only bolts
from the inside. This house wasn’t built to be a prison.’
‘But are we here to keep the boy in, or others
out?’ Aelric crossed the room and rattled the shutters. ‘At least
you’ve got bars on the windows.’
‘A sensible precaution for a man with young
daughters.’ My skills as a bounty-hunter and a searcher had allowed
me to move my home away from the more dangerous corners of the
city, but not always their inhabitants.
Aelric continued prowling around the house while I
unfolded the paper. ‘The merchant Domenico wishes to see me at his
house in Galata.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘I’ve never heard of him.’ I put the paper on a
table. ‘Perhaps he wants to sell me an arbalest.’
‘If that’s so, you’d better see the eunuch first to
collect your pay,’ Aelric chuckled. He poked his head around one of
the dividing curtains. ‘Who sleeps in here?’
‘My daughters.’ Although they were away, I did not
want Aelric or Thomas staying in that room. But I had yet to
consider how I would manage that combination in my household. ‘The
boy and I can sleep in my room; you can sleep on the bench in
here.’
‘I’ll get a palliasse from the barracks tomorrow.’
Aelric was clearly unimpressed at the prospect of another night of
hardship.
In the absence of my children, I chopped up some
leeks and onions, and mixed in some Euxine sauce which a former
client had sent me. Sweyn returned with bread he had had from the
palace kitchens, and the four of us shared a coarse meal by the
light of my candle. Then Aelric took the bench and pushed it
against the bolted roof door, while Sweyn descended to the
street.
‘Better to guard at a distance,’ he explained
solemnly. ‘Otherwise, if you miss them, it’s too late.’
I retired to my bed chamber with the boy and lay
down on the bed, gesturing that he could share it. Instead of
gratitude, though, he recoiled, cowering by the wall like a
cornered hare, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He stared
at me with bitter eyes, and his legs, I saw, were trembling.
‘Do you take me for some sort of pederast?’ I was
angry and embarrassed. At the tone of my voice he cringed still
further; a tear ran down his cheek.
With a sigh which might have been exasperation or
pity, I rolled off the bed and stood on the far side, pointing
first to him, then to it, then to myself and then to the
floor.
Still he did not move.
‘Very well.’ If words and signs would not suffice,
he would have to judge me by my actions – or stay cramped in his
corner all night. Very deliberately, I laid out a blanket on the
floor, reclined myself on it, and blew out the candle. Then I
listened in the darkness.
It must have been a full half an hour before I
finally heard the boy creep into the bed above me. And it was long
after that that I at last fell asleep.