Relics bp-1

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  'He cannot stay here,' I said. 'He will be pursued along with us. They will kill him if he does not come with us on the Cormaran.'

  'They?' Pavlos said, sharply. It was incredible that he could be so unbelievably, terrifyingly calm. I waved my hand frantically towards the walls. 'The Watch,' I almost yelled. Pavlos rubbed his red-rimmed eyes in exasperation, then pressed his hands to his forehead.

  'I cannot… Come, then. You will talk to the Captain and he will decide. Now we will go. Now!' And he snapped his fingers at Elia, who began to pull the gig in towards the wharf. Will turned to me, his face slack with relief.

  As the drug-fuddled Greeks dipped and pulled their oars, a great joy at being free and alive rushed over me. I glanced over at Anna and caught her eye, then Will's, and then we were laughing with sheer relief, as Bordeaux drew away from us and the sun warmed our faces.

  The reckoning I feared never came. We were not even late back, I realised, and there were bloody, bruised faces aplenty amongst the crew who had returned before us. Mirko had his arm in a sling, and one of the Italians seemed to be missing an ear. I thought I would puke on the scrubbed deck as Pavlos reported to the Captain, who merely looked at us over the Greek's slumped shoulder. When he strolled over, it was merely to shake me by the arm in an almost fatherly way.

  'Where did you find her, Pavlos?' There was a commotion behind me. Anna stood in a circle of crewmen, Pavlos at her side like the palace guard he was. She seemed to have grown -she rose above the men like a huntsman among a pack of hounds. How gnarled and villainous they seemed in comparison, jostling and nudging one another as they crowded round, uncertain what to make of this radiant apparition. I knew, though, that they could not be happy. Women aboard a ship: it was bad luck, it meant trouble. The men, ragged, mauled and hung-over from their night ashore, were not in the best of tempers. They were turning into a mob. Pavlos' knuckles were beginning to whiten around the pommel of his sword as I elbowed my way to his side, but then Anna's voice, clear and deep, froze us in place.

  Well, O Stefano, did you find your plump Spanish girl, your little Cabretta? By your sour face I would guess not. And Carlo, what happened to your ear? Did you hear Dimitri's confession?'

  The bark from the back of the crowd was Dimitri's laugh. The one-eared master-at-arms was forever making as if to whisper secrets to us, then grabbing the proffered ear in his teeth and growling like, as he put it, a hungry Tartar. Stefano had a taste for a certain type of women he called his 'little goats'. And Carlo was a defrocked priest from Ancona who had killed his mistress's lover in a duel after fate had brought the man to his confessional. Who is she, Pavlos? She knows us,' said Horst. 'A sorceress!' hissed Guthlaf.

  'Right enough – put her over the side,' called Latchna, the sailmaker from Galway.

  'Oh, silence, Lak! You're still sour because you missed your cockfight in Dublin,' Anna shot back.

  ‘You go over the side, Lak, you fucking seamstress,' growled Dimitri. 'Let the woman be.'

  I saw that half the men were simply enthralled by Anna and gawped like netted carp. Others clearly wished to make her acquaintance in the usual ungentle ways, but a few, those like Guthlaf, who were born to the sea and knew it as their only home, were truly angry and frightened to the same degree. Superstition runs as deep as the dark ocean in the lives of sailors, and their worlds can be as small as the curved walls of their ship. To them, Anna might be a woman, but she might also be a thing from that place where the cold tide rolls drowned men's bones forever over black sand. It was clearly not something they felt like chancing. "Who is she?' Horst demanded.

  'The Princess Anna Doukaina Komnena of the house of Nicea, under the Captain's protection and mine,' said Pavlos, coolly.

  'I am she,' said Anna, catching her hair and pulling it tight behind her head. 'But you know me already.'

  The crowd went dead quiet. Guthlaf’s jaw hung open like a broken shutter. Then Dimitri's harsh laughter grated over us. 'Mikal? My God, boy, what have they done to you?'

  The tension broke in an instant as one by one, the crew caught on and began to smile, then laugh. Pavlos caught my eye and we grinned queasily. But it seemed that, although the joke was on them, the men were finding it hilariously funny. They swarmed around us, eagerly staring into Anna's face for a glimpse of their favourite Basque castaway.

  What a boy you made,' they cried. And what a sailor! Come back to us, princess, come back to us!'

  Anna was laughing too. She held out her hands, and her rings flashed and sparkled. "You taught me well, friends, and made me welcome – the warmest welcome I have had for… for many a year. I cannot be Mikal again, alas – I cannot bind my chest a day longer, for one thing. But I will be Anna, if our Captain doesn't object.'

  'I have no objections,' said the Captain. You do us honour with your presence, Vassileia, and you, men of the Cormaran, should be glad of it: it seems this lady can swing a sword as well as she can reef in a sail. Now back to work, boys. We sail in an hour. There is too much trouble in this town for us, and we have trouble to make elsewhere.'

  He turned and walked back towards his cabin, pausing at my shoulder. A word, if you please, Petroc.'

  So I had not escaped after all. With a stricken glance at Will I dragged myself after him like a hog to the butchering table. He closed the door behind me and motioned me to a chair while he paced.

  'Pavlos has told me what happened. Now I will hear it from you.'

  So I told him. You could not lie to the Captain – that is to say, I could not. He wanted details about the men who had confronted us on the riverside, and who we had seen in the city. To my great relief he made me gloss over the night's revelries – 'your affair and yours only' – but I had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew everything. Meanwhile, he drew forth every last shred I could give him of the fight, and I forced the tale from me, shuddering and queasy with the telling of it. 'These were Englishmen, you say.' Yes, sir. Rough bowmen.' 'Did they bear any crest, any insignia?' 'None. Though one was from Bristol, I would swear.'

  'Mercenaries, very likely. That would make sense. And none escaped you?' I shook my head. 'That is good. You did well. Are you worried about consequences? Do not be. There was more blood spilt last night than at your hand.' What do you mean?' 'Two other parties of my men were attacked by men such as you met, and…' 'I saw Mirko.' 'Mirko had his arm shattered by a stave. He was carousing with Jens and Hanno. You will not see Jens again, alas.' Jens…

  'They cut his throat. Mirko was lucky: Hanno did for the one with the stave. The others – English, all of them – got away. And Gilles had a small set-to also. An Englishman tried to stick him with a poignard. This was at midnight near the cathedral.' 'Is he hurt?'

  'Gilles? No, no. The man with the knife… the city fathers will be scratching their beards today over a pile of dead Englishmen, it is certain.' He fell silent, and suddenly his gaze was eating into me like vitriol. 'This William, this miraculous, resurrected savior, is the friend you thought Kervezey had killed, yes?' I nodded, dumbly. Yet he is alive, and in Bordeaux, and at the right spot to be of service to you and the Princess Anna. Do you know how that might be possible?' I shook my head. Looking up, I met the Captain's eyes.

  'He was following us. So he says, and I believe him. He was roving – that is his nature – and thought he glimpsed me. Thinking he had seen a ghost, he trailed us through the streets, and… As he said, he was not the only rogue abroad that night.'

  If anything, the Captain's stare grew more intense, and he leaned towards me like a great, hungry bird of prey. I felt like Saint Bartholomew, slowly flayed alive.

  'In that great city of – what? Ten thousand souls, he found you?'

  'He is a mercenary, sir! The city is full of them. The Company of the Boar's Head… no, the Black Boar – he serves with them. He's been here for weeks. And he's no respecter of curfews or nightwatchmen, and…' I swallowed. '… He chases whores. I know Will as if he were my own brother, sir. Again, I swear that he sav
ed us.'

  'That at least is clear. But not much else is. It seems that none of this was accidental, does it not? Someone was having the riverside watched – by your bowman, among others. And then some – perhaps all – who came ashore from the Cormaran were followed.'

  'But we met those men by chance. Anna actually stumbled over one of them.'

  'There was nothing of chance about it. Think. Bordeaux is a big town, and full of soldiers. What kind of coincidence would it be to run into this same fellow, in the dead of night, and him with armed and willing friends?' A very ill-mannered one, to be sure.'

  'So you begin to see. We were expected, and traps were set. Not for you in particular, Patch, but for anyone from the Cormaran. And there is more. The client I came to see could not receive me, and my other business… I was to meet a friend I had great need of talking to, and he was not there. Indeed he was long gone. And that is why we are leaving immediately.' Who is behind this, do you know?' 'I do not know; I suspect.' And Will? We cannot leave him here!'

  The Captain sighed, mildly, as if someone had told him that his dinner would be a little late. 'I need to have a very long talk with Master Will,' he said. 'He was a scholar, like you. I would like to hear him discourse on the nature of coincidence.'

  I dropped my head into my hands. Would I find peace ever again? I felt as if my skull was cracking like a clay pot filled with hot embers. I had killed a man. Anna and I… I could not think of that now. And Will. I wished the deck would open and let me drop down into the cold, deep darkness of the river. Then I felt the Captain's hand on my shoulder once more.

  'Peace, Patch. I believe you. Your friend has an honest face. A very villainous face, to be sure, but honest. He will tell me his tale, and perhaps we will know a little more. But one thing I know: someone is trying to take over our business. I have been feeling it for a while now, more intuition than certainty. Then I had some news in Dublin: enquiries were being made about us. My contacts there were uncomfortable, and I decided then to press on for Bordeaux. Sometimes troubles like that disappear of their own accord, but now…'

  He stood up suddenly and stretched, pressing his palms against the dark wood of the ceiling. Towering above me, he seemed to fill the cabin.

  'Now cheer up, Petroc my friend,' he said, briskly. 'At least this time we are sailing towards the sun.'

  Chapter Sixteen

  I brushed shoulders with Will as I emerged, blinking like Lazarus, from the Captain's lair. Gilles had him by the arm and was leading him through the door. He had time to wink at me, for all the world as if he were going for a tutorial with some fat old Latin master. The door clicked shut ominously behind them. Out here the sun was quite high, and the Cormaran was slipping down the Gironde, Bordeaux dropping away behind. The kites were already wheeling above the towers. It looked a lovely place today, warm and golden in the sunlight, and it was strange to think corpses lay in its alleys, black clots fouling the stones. Anna was nowhere to be seen, and I guessed she had taken refuge below. My innards were not right and my skin prickled with a nasty, hot sweat. I hauled up a bucket of river water and set to work scouring the blood from my hands and arms. Then I stripped and found that even my breechclout was bloody. I scrubbed every inch of naked skin and put on my old sailing clothes. My beautiful silk tunic, all stiff with dried gore, I gathered into a ball and dropped overboard. No doubt Dimitri could resurrect it once again but too much had soaked into its beautiful threads, first my blood and now a man's whole life. It unravelled and found its shape again on the surface, bleeding a dark stain that gathered around it like a thundercloud. As I watched it drift away, I heard a breath behind me.

  It was Anna. She was still in her finery, but she had thrown her cloak about her and held it close, although the day was growing hot. Her face was ashen. Great shadows wreathed her eyes, and her lips were dry and pale. I had a great desire to take her in my arms, but I imagined – imagined more than felt -the eyes of the crew upon me and so instead I attempted to look respectful, like the humble sailor I was, greeted by a great lady. I believe that Anna would have been quick to shake me from my stupidity had she not been somewhat stupefied herself by all that had happened, but instead she drew back a little.

  'How does it go with you, Patch?' she asked, shyly: a voice I had not heard before.

  'It goes better. Better, now that I have scoured every speck, every mote of last night from me,' I said, without thinking. 'Every trace of last night?'

  'Everything,' I said passionately. It was true: I had been desperate to free myself from the blood that had drenched me, dry and flaking where it had dried on my face and hands, still horribly wet where it had run under my arms and even between my legs. Its salty fetor had kept me on the verge of retching as I sat before the Captain. Now all I could smell was the familiar mustiness of long-worn clothes and my own clean skin. But Anna had hung her head a little, and her eyes seemed to follow something across the deck at our feet.

  'I took sand and rubbed myself raw,' I blabbed on. 'Mother of God! I feel clean, at least, but…' I trailed off, thinking yet again of the swordsman's last breath. 'I doubt I shall ever feel pure again.'

  'Petroc, look at me!' Her voice was tight, almost desperate. Her cloak had fallen open and there was the blue tunic and red surcoat she had put on in the church. The sunlight glimmered over the magical complexities of the silk and picked out where the cloth was stiff and lifeless. Blood had stained it in gouts from neck to hem, and there was a black smear on the skin of her throat.

  'Please help me, Patch.' She was pleading. 'I do not want to touch these clothes,' she whispered, and reached out for my arm. Her hand was bloody to the wrist. I flinched, meaning no more than to keep the gore from my skin, but she snatched her hand back and held it to herself as if it burned. Before I could reach for her in turn she whirled away from me and hurried off across the deck to the hatch, where Pavlos happened to be standing. He began to help her down the ladder. I shrugged, not at all sure what had just occurred. I was going to help her. I wanted more than anything to talk, to take both her hands in mine and hold my cheek against hers. But the ghastly sheen of the crimson silk and those dark clots in the fine hair of her arm had unbalanced me for a moment. I thought I remembered that her eyes had widened with shock, almost terror, in the instant before she had turned from me. All at once everything – every taste, pleasure, pain, sound, sight and smell – from the past day and night came back to me, whirling about my head like rooks around a ruined tower, and I barely groped for the rail before I was sicker than I had ever been. I emptied myself into the river until my throat bled. I had no thought of Anna, and whether she watched me before ducking down into the peaceful gloom of the hold I do not know.

  When I was done I picked my way aft and pissed into the wake, watching the city blend into the haze. Although there was no wind and the river was flat as a counter-pane I nearly lost my footing and found myself hugging a rope, forehead rasping on the bristly hemp. I realised that, on top of the bane afflicting my soul, I had a ghastly hangover made worse by a sleepless night. So I staggered off in search of Isaac, who gave me a revolting tincture thoughtfully diluted in a little cup of wine. The wine, at least, helped, and in a little while I was dipping into a pot of beans and pork fat that Dimitri had thrown together for all who had returned from last night's bloody carouse.

  Mirko was there, pallid and drained, his arm in a splint. By the slow, stunned look on his face I guessed that Isaac's poppy was working in him, for he did not seem in pain. The same was not true for Hanno, who had a ragged cut down one thigh and was cursing hot enough to boil the river beneath us. Others were bruised from other, less ominous brawls, the kind that can kill a man any night of any week with no reason or meaning at all. We all were sick from drink and sleeplessness, and Dimitri fussed over us like a great ugly hen, giving us swigs from a goatskin full of harsh wine laced with some bitter herb and feeding Mirko with a horn spoon as tenderly as any nursemaid. I had no chores and no watch for a
while and so, soon enough, my belly full of beans and warmed by the wine, I curled up behind a coil of rope and fell asleep.

  Time passed, measured by the slow rocking of the deck. I slept, drifting in soft, empty darkness, until a foot prodded me awake and I looked up blearily from my tar-scented nest. Will peered down at me. 'I was worried about you,' I croaked.

  'Indeed. The suffering is plain to see in your face. Now move over.' He dropped down next to me and we sat, leaning on the rope and each other, watching the gulls. We shared the silence of old friends, and for a brief while it seemed as if it might at least be possible that the horrors and wonders of the past few months had never happened, and that we were two careless students stealing an afternoon away from our books. But then Will stretched out a lazy hand, pointing something out to me on shore, and I saw the blood staining his fingernails. There was no escape, then. Time could not be made to retreat, the shadows chased backwards around the dial until we regained our innocence. I sighed and wished for another swallow of Dimitri's wine. 'So what did you make of the Captain?' I said at last.

  Will stared at the distant riverbank. After a long silence, he said, 'It would be a foolish man who tried to hide anything from him.' "What do you mean?'

  He paused again, then laughed a little hollowly. 'I only meant that he is like a great owl and you are a rat scuttling across the floor of his bam. Does it not seem as if he sees where you are, where you have been and where you will go?' He shook his head. 'I… I like him, I think. He scared my guts near out of my breech, but I like him very much.' 'Is that the right word? "Like?"'

  Well, "fear" would be another word. And, I think, "trust". Do you trust him, Patch?' 'I have done. I do. With my life.' 'And I have done the same, gladly.' 'He had your story from you, then?' 'He did.' 'Then so will I – and you will have mine in return.'