Relics bp-1

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  Some time later, Anna stirred, her face still deep in a pillow. 'How much was that worth, penance-wise, Brother Petroc?' 'Three years, my child. At the very least.'

  Chapter Fifteen

  The candle had burned down until the wick floated in a pool of tallow, guttering. Anna and I lay and watched the mothy shadows flitter about the rafters. We had taken the trouble to strip, eventually, and now a scratchy, smelly coverlet kept the chill from our skin.

  'If my uncle could see us now…' said Anna, wriggling against me. 'The Emperor? What would he do?' I replied, lazily.

  'He would make you stare at a white-hot iron until you were blind. Then he would have you castrated. Then he would lock you away somewhere, blind and ball-less, and let you think about matters. Then he would have you strangled.' 'Oh.' 'He would do the same to me, minus the castration of course. If that makes you feel any better.' 'I can't say that it does.'

  'Don't trouble yourself, my precious love. I am not going to tell him. Are you?'

  'Just as long as it doesn't come up at my next audience with him.' She cackled. 'He thinks I'm dead, of course.'

  I stared at the struggling candlelight playing along a beam. Someone had tried to paint a lewd scene on it, but had given up half-way. I could make out the odd breast here and there in the scrawl of flaking pink paint, and a man's face, the eyes bulging in a ludicrous portrayal of ecstasy. I hoped I hadn't been making that face earlier.

  Earlier, as I made love to the niece of the Emperor of Byzantium. And as she made love to me. The immensity of it hit me like a stone from a sling. I, Petroc of Auneford, renegade monk, outlaw and accused murderer, sheep-farmer's son from the peaty wastes of Dartmoor. How had this come to pass? The Emperor's niece! Somehow I had put that fact from my mind. The thin, hollow-eyed creature whom the crew knew as the boy Mikal had simply become my dearest friend.

  And now we were sated, lying warm against each other. I turned and brushed my hand down her breast to her belly, feeling goose bumps start at my touch. I ran my fingers along the edge of the springy curls below her navel, which now I knew smelled of gillyflowers, Anna's true scent, but more powerful here. I pushed my nose into the softer hair on the pillow, and closed my eyes. Her lips found mine and we kissed, soft and quiet. I felt the heat of her skin seep into mine and found I cared nothing for Anna the Emperor's niece. It was this Anna, the girl of flesh and hot, wild blood, who lived inside me now, and she would never leave so long as I still drew breath. Your nose is cold,' I said. She rose up on one elbow and looked down on me. A breast fell free of the coverlet, the nipple almost black in the shadows. Well, my ganymede, are you ready to kill Mikal?' she said.

  We decided that it would be better to leave the brothel as men, if only to avoid more questions. Although Anna had said that her uncle believed her as good as dead, I noticed that a new caution – the merest tint, like a drop of dye in clear water – had entered her mood. Perhaps she had realised only now that she was back in the civilised world, and that someone as powerful as her uncle – let alone her erstwhile husband – could have ears and eyes in a big port like Bordeaux. A bold sodomite who suddenly became a noble lady would be something that was remembered, even in a place such as this.

  So we dressed and made our way downstairs. It was the dead of the night, just after the watch had rung four bells, and the house was quiet, but not silent. The sounds of rut still came from the room by the landing. Downstairs only two women were still awake, and they had thrown on some clothes. A man sat slumped at one of the tables and tried to fondle one of them, but he was very drunk and could do no more than pluck pathetically at her rumpled shift. Only the bulbous-nosed doorman noticed us. He unlatched the door and accepted a small gold coin with a simper empty of sincerity. It was clear that we disgusted him. That a man who made his living in a place like this could allow himself the luxury of disgust made me smile, and I laid a hand, deliberately, on his shoulder.

  'Thank you, good fellow. I look forward to seeing you again very soon.'

  He tried to shake me off while still appearing obsequious, but it was an ugly performance. I was glad when the door closed and left us alone in the street. It was very cold and dark, and reeked of beery piss.

  We needed to find some abandoned place where Anna could change into her woman's garb. Now that we were alone in the cold, I wanted it done and over with. We had to get back to the ship and face the wrath of Elia and Pavlos, if indeed they had yet woken. I wished we had changed in the brothel after all. That foul old goblin of a doorman wouldn't have noticed or cared, surely? Where would we go now?

  'Could you not just slip whatever clothing you have over your tunic and hose?' I ventured. Who would know?'

  'I would,' she said, firmly. 'Mikal is finished. I want no more of him. I feel my womanhood rushing through me, which is all your fault, by the way.' Well then, what now?' 'Let's find a nice church,' said Anna.

  It wasn't a bad idea. There would be no one about in a small church at this hour, and the doors would not be locked. St Pierre was close to the Great Gate, but was big enough to perhaps have a verger in attendance. But I remembered a smaller church in its own square a little further in to the heart of the town. That would have to do.

  I thought I could remember how to get back to the cathedral, which I believed was at the opposite end of the town from the river. If we kept the west door of the cathedral to our backs and followed the inner wall of the town, we should arrive at the wharf before long. But we needed to hurry and to be cautious, for now we were breaking the curfew, and would have to keep a sharp eye out for the Watch. I told this to Anna, and she gave me a crooked grin and rattled her sword. I did not find this a comfort, but kept my thoughts to myself.

  It was easy to find the street of the cook-shops from the trails of bread, bones and vomit that led to it from all points of the compass. We crept past the shuttered storefronts that had been so full of life and cheer just a little time past. From there I tried to remember the twists and turns we had taken. After finding a couple of dead ends and streets we had no recollection of, we burst into a square, from which we could see the cathedral spire looming off to our right. Soon we were back beneath the scaffolding around the door.

  Why not in here?' hissed Anna. I remembered the last time I had been inside a great cathedral such as this. Nothing, not the foulest demons of hell clacking red hot pincers, could drive me into such a place again. I shook my head and led the way to the west door. Sure enough, the old wall of the town stretched away before us. It would be easy to find our way from here. We set off once again, keeping to the thickest shadows and stepping lightly.

  The church of St Projet was smaller than St Pierre, and the square it stood in was smaller too. We padded around the dark shell until we reached the door. I tried it: it was unlocked, and we stepped into the dim, candlelit nave. The place smelled like all churches: old stone, polished wood and incense. We listened, our ears pricking like hounds, but there was no one there. I noticed that some of the candles before the various altars had long since burned out. A verger would have relit them. We would be alone for another hour or so.

  It was a grand place, in its way. Enough wealthy families had lavished money on altars and tombs and windows to fill the modest space with carved wood and stone, gleaming plate and brass. Nevertheless I felt the same hollowness within that had come to me first in Gardar, and I almost turned on my heel and walked out. Instead I muttered to Anna that we should be quick as lightning.

  A door led up to the bell-tower, and it was not locked. We slipped through it and pulled it to behind us, leaving a narrow crack through which I could see the main entrance. Behind me, Anna unbuckled her sword-belt and sank down onto the steps that wound up into the spider-guarded shadows. I heard the sough and hiss of doffed clothing, and a faint Greek oath directed at an over-tight knot. Two clinks as her garters dropped onto stone.

  She was leaning back on silk-draped steps, her body glimmering, pearl-like, in the faint candle-glow from b
eyond the door. I looked from her face to the darkness between her legs, sprawled wantonly. Into the cold air crept the scent of gillyflowers. And then for a timeless instant I was back in Balecester, in the church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. The painted hell had blossomed into life. The pink, naked housewives pranced as the devils jabbed away with their toasting-forks, but I saw that the points were soft and gave delight, not pain. All these jolly folk, ladies and devils, romped and laughed until all were entwined in a heaving, happy knot, and dissolved before my eyes.

  Anna was rummaging in her satchel, pulling out pieces of clothing and strewing them on the stairs. I gathered up an armful of her nobleman's costume and began to fold it, running the fiery silk of Anna's tunic through my fingers. How immediate were the pleasures of the senses, but how real also. The church, I now realised, was a place of beauty. I could admit that much to myself. It had given delight to those who had built it and wrought its fine decorations, the delight of creation, the delight that the eyes and hands convey to the heart. That delight, it seemed to me now, was enough, all, perhaps, that we earthly beings had a right to expect. The glow of love was still upon me, and joy still flowed through my limbs. How many times had I knelt on cold stone in a place like this and waited in vain for some divine sensation to flood me? And now it had happened.

  Anna had put on a long, tight-sleeved tunic of deep-blue silk and drawn a sleeveless surcoat of deep red over it. Her back was turned and when she turned back to me I gasped. I had never seen her attired as a woman, and I had never seen a woman attired as she was now. The fine ladies of Balecester had gone about like columns of drapery: elegant, modest sometimes, and often severe. But Anna was revealed as much as she was hid, at least from throat to waist. She was pushing her hair into a net of golden threads. Seeing me stare, she pouted fetchingly and twisted so that the loose folds of tunic and surcoat swirled around her legs.

  'Do you like it?' she asked. I nodded. 'Venetian – the very latest style. So says de Montalhac, anyway. He picked it up in Dublin, I believe. It fits, doesn't it?' I nodded again. 'For heaven's sake, Petroc. You look thunderstruck. Have you never seen a lady before?'

  'In truth, I never did see a lady before this moment,' I said at last.

  She had thrown a green cloak around her shoulders and fastened the jewelled clasp across her breast, drawing it close. Now she picked up her sword-belt, buckled it and slung it over her left shoulder so that the point of the sword hung mid-way down her thigh. Then she swung her heavy man's cloak around her. The sword was hidden from sight.

  'Can I wear your hood?' she asked. You can have my hat. And since I am, at long last, one of the gentler sex, you can carry my satchel as well.'

  With the hood over her head, clasped tight beneath her chin, she was all but masked. I put on the green hat, feeling a little ridiculous. 'If you are ready, we had better go,' I said.

  We crept back across the aisle and peered round the main door. There was no one in the square, so we slithered out and hurried into the shadows. There was no light yet in the sky, no false dawn. We still had time.

  We walked as before, slipping from shadow to shadow, slinking over cross-streets, keeping silent. I calculated that we had only a little way to go. I saw St Pierre before us, and surely that must be the bulk of the Great Gate away in the distance? I took Anna's hand and quickened my pace.

  We crossed over another street and heard loud voices and singing not so far away. Anna squeezed my hand. 'That's good,' I muttered. 'They will draw the Watch.'

  We had reached the next line of buildings when Anna tripped over something and cursed softly. From the doorway of the shuttered house came a loud rasping and scuffling. I pulled Anna to me and was about to set off running, believing we had disturbed a dog or worse, a sleeping pig, when a voice, the slur of Bristol made thicker with drink, lashed out of the darkness. 'Bloodworm!'

  The bowman from the wharf stepped out. The rasping had been the iron-bound haft of his axe scraping on the doorstep. Now he clasped it and half-drew it from his belt. His other hand was on his misericorde dagger. Whatever entertainment the night had held for him had not improved his visage. Behind him another form stepped out, and another.

  'I've my mates with me now, little boy, and you have only your tart.' "What is it, Benno?' The second man was a bowman too from his leather wrist-guards. He wore a short-sword. The third man had a nail-studded cudgel already swinging in his hands.

  'It's the little foreign sodomite who I was telling you about. And a whore. You little prick! Where are your lovely friends now, eh?'

  'I don't know what you mean,' I said. My mouth was bone-dry. I felt Anna's hand slip from mine.

  You do. You know what I mean,' said the bowman. 'I mean this.' And he pulled axe and dagger from his belt with an apelike jerk. The other man's sword scraped from its sheath. Not oiled for a spell, I thought, with a part of my mind that seemed already to be leaving my body. The other part had, it seemed, taken over, and I found I was holding Thorn against my leg as I had earlier, when Anna had played her game with me. Then I was entirely there again. I saw that Benno wore a thick old leather jerkin and some sort of padded under-tunic. His mate with the sword wore a sheepskin surcoat. The third man had a mailed hood pushed down around his neck. 'Come on then, you little shit,' croaked Benno.

  'Anna, run for the boat,' I yelled, and, tearing my cloak from my shoulders, wrapped it around my left arm with a couple of flicks. But Anna did not run.

  'Leave us be, filth,' she said, and her voice was as cold as the Sea of Darkness.

  'Ho ho!' cackled the man with the sword. 'Hark to your mouth! When we're done with your precious little customer I'll put that mouth to use, darling.'

  Benno rolled his shoulders and drew a deep breath. It was coming. I settled myself on my feet and brought Thorn up, loose at the end of a straight arm, as Rassoul had taught me. 'Run, Anna!'

  But it was too late. The three stepped towards us in one movement. With a sudden shout, Benno swung his axe. I stepped back and stooped to get inside his reach. And then the axe was no longer in his hand, but jumping away down the cobblestones. Pale light seemed to shoot out of his throat, but it was Anna's sword, and she held him upright on its tip as the blood poured down the blade and onto her hand. Then she jerked it out and Benno's life hissed wetly out of the hole and away into the darkness above us. He tottered, and sat down suddenly on his arse. Then he was on his back, his eyes as blind as boiled eggs. His friends stopped. Everything stopped. The tart's killed Benno,' whined the cudgel-man.

  'Fuck!' screamed the man with the sword, and leaped at us. Perhaps he was going for Anna, perhaps for me, but she stepped wide and he rammed me with his shoulder, spinning me round. He had his balance again, and the point of his sword was up and pointing at my chest. He stamped.

  'Ha!' he yelled, and stamped again. He meant to back me against the wall and skewer me there. He lunged, and I brought up my cloak-wrapped arm like a shield. The blade caught in its folds and, twisting, I trapped it. He tried to tug it out, his eyes on Thorn, pointed now at his face, just out of my reach. With his free hand he tried to grab the blade, but I saw his move and lashed out. The blade bit between two fingers and parted his hand almost to the wrist-bone. He howled, and threw himself back, trying again to free his sword. He was strong, but the blade must have been notched, for it was held fast by the cloth. I felt the full weight of him through the sword lashed to my arm, and felt his balance go. I swung with all my might, and he staggered sideways and crashed into the wall. He let go his sword, but too late. I punched Thorn up under his breast-bone, and hit him with the length of my body. The breath burst from him, rotting teeth and rotten wine, and the stink of his sheepskin like a cloud around my face. I felt his chest convulse once, twice, and rammed the knife in harder. I wanted this to end. I wanted him to end. And with another heave he died, and slumped against me. I tugged on Thorn but the blade was stuck fast, so I stepped back and let him crash to the ground. As I stooped to take his swor
d I heard the scuffling of feet behind me, and a guttural curse.

  Anna and the cudgel-man were circling each other in the middle of the street, some way away. She had thrown off her cloak. The man was scared, but fear was leaving him, and something like murderous amusement was taking over. I saw that he had picked up Benno's misericorde, and held it in his left hand. He seemed oblivious to me and to his friend. Anna's face was a blank. I dared not move, in case I distracted her attention. She held her sword stiff and steady. Every now and again she gave the end a flick. But I saw that her feet were in danger of being wound up in the hem of her tunic. She knew it too, for she kept her steps small and precise. The cudgel-man, though, was growing brave. He began feinting at her, now with the cudgel, now the knife, making her step back and risk a fall. All at once she seemed to decide that this must end. Waiting for a feint with the knife, she stepped to the side and flicked again with her blade. The knife-arm went limp and the man cursed and stepped backwards. Anna shifted her grip and lunged, but too far: her tunic caught at last and she sprawled.

  But she still held the sword, and the man was hurt. He was not quick enough and she rose to one knee, the blade up again and pointing. And then another shape erupted from the dark side street and hurtled into the cudgel-man, who one instant was choosing his blow and the next was flat on his back. I was there in another instant, and Anna behind me, but by that time the rescuer from the shadows had stuck his thick, narrow knife through the cudgel-man's eye.

  I stepped back. Anna's sword was up and ready for the stranger, who rose to his feet after working his knife back out of the dead man's skull. He wore a plain black surcoat and a hooded cape. The hood was up. He wiped the dagger on the cudgel-man's shirt.

  'Turn around, if you please, friend,' said Anna, her voice as empty of friendship as the cudgel-man's body was of life. 'Certainly, my lady,' said the Northerner.