I took myself off to my room to get dressed and mull things over. I had heard that the Captain owned a house in Venice, but it had not occurred to me that our company – which I had always likened to that bird, the petrel, whose fate it is to fly endlessly across the wild ocean, alighting only in death – could have a permanent home on terra firma. It was then that I realised that I had not been paying attention, that my world had been filled with my own desires and fears and with Anna, and that no doubt my employers found me an exasperating, if not dull young fellow. Chastened, I found a bottle of Isaac's foul but potent tonic and forced some down. It warmed me, and I got ready for dinner feeling very young and unworthy.
I gave Gilles all my news in the greatest detail. I noticed that he stiffened when I related our meal with Peter the Dominican, and that the poor Captain must perforce be suffering his company at this moment, and at least until they had reached the plains of Lombardia, but pressed on, for I assumed that the details of this must be in the long letter he had read. Still, our gentle abduction made a jolly story now that it was over, and Gilles pressed me for every minute detail of our audience with the pope.
'That reminds me: shall we examine our gift from His Holiness?' said Gilles at last, when I had all but run out of words. He drew out a square of vellum, which I recognised with a start as the one that Gregory had entrusted to the Captain. His eyes raced across the page, and in his excitement his face became quite red. Finally he looked up, and his eyes shone.
'By… by Origen's ballocks! I am amazed. This is the Inventarium of Bucoleon!' 'That it is’ I agreed.
'How did His Holiness get his hands on this wonder?' breathed Gilles, studying it again. 'I have heard of such a list, but 'Baldwin de Courtenay gave it to him’ I said. Why on earth would he do such a thing?' 'The emperor tried to bribe the pope’ I told him. 'And…'
'He failed. Now Gregory is trying to arrange for Baldwin to bribe – forgive me, to freely give as a gift – Louis Capet of France with these treasures, in return for aid to prop up his tottering empire’ I explained.
With your humble servants as intermediary?' asked Gilles, grinning like a child.
'God wills it’ I said piously, and we woke the spiders in the ceiling with our amazed laughter. I slept fitfully that night, sleep eluding me in the way it does when one is utterly exhausted: another of nature's merry jests. So I was up and about early, and just about to set out for Baldwin de Courtenay's lodgings to deliver the papal bull, when Gilles found me as I was helping myself to some bread and bacon. I told him what I was about, and he shook his head, smiling.
'No, no. This is a high, high matter of state. It wouldn't look right for you to just trundle up to Baldwin's door and hand that thing over as if it were a tradesman's receipt. No, send Piero to announce your intentions. Request an audience. Tweak the man's pride a little. He is worth it to us.'
So Piero was sent off in his most respectable clothes, only to return within the hour with the annoying news that Baldwin and his retinue – if two men may be called such – had departed on a hunting trip with the Count of Tivoli. They would be gone for at least ten days.
'So what shall I do with this thing, then?' I asked Gilles, brandishing the letter with its absurdly heavy seal. 'Leave it with his landlady? I jest, by the way.'
Gilles puffed out his cheeks in exasperation. ‘You are right: it is exceedingly vexatious,' he said. 'Sit with me: I have made my plans according to Captain de Montalhac's instructions.'
'Then tell me, please, for I wish to know if I must expose my tender English flesh to Rome's summer poison.'
Gilles laughed. 'No. Listen. I am being sent to Byzantium to open negotiations with Baldwin's new Regent, one Anseau de Cayeux. Meanwhile we shall dissolve the present company for the time being. I plan to set out as soon as I can – tomorrow, I hope – for Brundisium, to find a fast ship bound for Greece. I am sending the Cormaran to Venice as per Captain de Montalhac's instructions, where Roussel will set up our winter lodgings. Now then. Patch, you have been at loose ends these past weeks, yes?' I nodded ruefully.
'Then perhaps you would like to make yourself useful?' I nodded again, eagerly this time. 'Excellent. I would like you to go ahead to Venice and make things ready for the Cormaran. There will be much to occupy you, and many vital things to learn. Indeed, this has been my task until now, so it bears a deal of responsibility. Are you equal to it?'
'Of course I am,' I said proudly. 'I thank you all for your confidence, and I promise to reward it, many times over.' Flowery words, perhaps, but I was overjoyed. I had become a supernumerary to the Cormaran s affairs, and now I was being offered a chance to get back into the heart of things. 'I am at your service, sir!'
Gilles nodded gravely. ‘I – neither the Captain or myself – have never doubted that. That is why I have more to tell you. We would like to establish a permanent base here, Patch’ he said. 'Rome is the very heart of our trade, as you must understand. It would be valuable to us if we had a representative here. After Venice, we – this has been in our thoughts for some time, you might like to know – would like you to look into that matter for us’ I must have been gaping like a codfish, for he laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed companionably.
'Everything in time, Petroc. These sound like mighty affairs, but they are not, necessarily. We want you to stretch your legs, see a little of the world, and hopefully divine your place in it. Still as sanguine?'
I pulled on an earlobe. 'He is considering!' cried Gilles, merrily. I slapped my hands on the table.
'No, sir, I have considered. I am your man, whatever the task. I owe you and Captain de Montalhac my life, and it is at your service.'
'Done’ said Gilles. 'Very well. We are leaving this place. Horst is finding you a room in the English Borgo, where you will stay for the next few days.' 'But I thought I was leaving at once?' I said, confused.
'Ah. You must deliver Gregory's decree to young Baldwin de Courtenay, or have you forgotten already? And as for Venice, do you know the way?' I shook my head. 'Easily remedied. The Captain has a map, of course. And there is the small matter of transport’ he went on. You can, of course, ride?'
I felt my ears redden. 'Only mules’ I muttered, mortified. 'Mules, and the horse I rode up to Viterbo and back’ I added hastily, hoping to salvage a little dignity.
Yes, that is rather what I meant. Michel mentions in his letter that you were a little… gingerly, he put it, upon your mount. Well, with your new-found rank we will not send you out into the world on an ancient mule, lad’ said Gilles. You will ride a horse, like a gentleman – for that is what you are, make no mistake – and you will ride it well. Horst will teach you, I think’ 'Horn?'
'He was once a knight in his own land’ Gilles said, 'and a warrior who rode out to battle many times. He will teach you, all right, probably far more than you will ever need to know. And now, let us find that map’
Thus the day settled into the more comforting and familiar rituals of route-planning, timetables, and all those other ways in which men seek to impose form and order on the trackless future. At last I had a purpose. And more: I was to be the Captain's agent in Rome, perhaps – and that, at last, was purpose indeed, and although the Captain and his lieutenant had seemingly tossed it my way like a scrap to a dog, it was a scrap that I kept returning to, each time finding it more savoury.
My new quarters turned out to be two plain rooms two flights up above a narrow street in the English Borgo. I loved this quarter, with its ancient, crumbling buildings and teeming, polyglot inhabitants. Like all of Rome it seemed to have stood forever, quietly wearing away like a great stone outcrop, while men came and went, leaving no more impression than ants. But of course the reverse was also true, sometimes in spectacular ways. Buildings seemingly disappeared overnight, collapsing in dusty mounds, their stones pillaged instantly for new buildings that sprang up as if conjured out of the ground. Everywhere was noise, hubbub, commotion, bustle, laughter, strife, argument, song. I call i
t the English Borgo, and indeed there were others – Frankish, Frisian, Langobard and more – but in truth the northerners mixed promiscuously, or at least as promiscuously as pilgrims and clerics may.
All this delighted me. I loved to hear the voices of my homeland, of course, for I was an exile, and exile is a sickness for which there is no cure, only balms to assuage the worst pangs. I had, perforce, to assume a false name, for – as I had discovered during my short time in London, and much to my horror – the crime of which I had been accused had given me the sort of notoriety that has maids all a-flutter, their dads growling about nooses and their mothers loosening their stays. I had not, thank the Lord, been accorded the honour of a ballad, but I had a new name, the Gurt Dog of Balecester, a beast who ripped out the throat of the bishop on the altar of his own cathedral and then ran, naked and bloody, through the streets of the city, killing and maiming as he went, before vanishing into the night. The Gurt Dog is what we Dartmoor folk call the Yes Hound, the Devil's own hunting-hound, a sight of which is a sure foreteller of death.
I was a little amused at how my legend had grown, and a great deal more distressed that I had become a beast and a devil in the minds of my erstwhile countrymen. I wondered, of course, how the memory of Hugh de Kervezey was honoured in Balecester. For it had been Kervezey, the bastard son of the Bishop of Balecester and a cold, demon-hearted schemer and murderer, whom I had met, as I believed by chance, one night in a tavern in the city where I was a scholar, and who had cut the throat of deacon Jean de Nointot before my horrified eyes. I had fled, painted with the deacon's steaming blood, and Kervezey, feigning the innocent, had led the hue and cry that had driven me, after long and miserable wanderings, to seek the protection of Captain de Montalhac. Only much later had I learned that I had merely been a very minor pawn in Kervezey's long and cunning game to ensnare the Captain and usurp his business and his power. Fate – I will call it fate, although it is long since I believed in fate, and could as well call it destiny, or chance, or a flaw at the heart of a madman's flawless plan – led Kervezey and me to a distant beach, where, beyond all hope, he died at my hand, slain by his own knife. Thus I saved myself, and avenged my dear friend William of Morpeth, who had been drawn into Kervezey s net alongside me but who had not survived. Now I wore that knife, that was called Thorn, to remind me of William, and so that I could remember the young novice monk who, coming back from a piss, met a pale-eyed man who, with a wave of this same narrow blade of washed steel, had transformed him into what I now was: the Gurt Dog, Petrus Zennorius, Patch to those who knew me well, and Petroc of Auneford never more in this life.
So it was as Petrus Zennorius that I made my way about the Borgo and the greater city around it. It served its purpose, and Patch was as likely a nickname for Peter as for Petroc, so I would not easily be caught out from that quarter. My habitual roaming and prowling about the place, poking into the oldest nooks and seeking out all that was ancient and odd, led me into many chance conversations with other Englishmen, and while I was delighted to fret the air with the usual useless but irresistible discourse on the weather back home (worse than Rome) and the food (far better than all this foreign poison), what I really desired was to ask about Balecester and its grisly hound. I knew better, rest assured, and contented myself with seeking out men from Devon or Cornwall, for simply to hear their homely voices was more refreshing to me than a draught from Jacob's Well. I spent more than one evening in the taverns and cook-shops of the Borgo, keeping myself to myself for the most part, listening and avoiding trouble, for even amongst pilgrims there is conflict, and it was not rare to find blood in the cobbles come morning-time.
Alas for me, although I was simply waiting for the return of Baldwin de Courtenay, my days were not entirely without purpose. Gilles stayed true to his intentions and left the day after our conversation. And I moved the day after that, for the company was leaving the Palazzo Frangipani. Horst, my Brandenburger friend, came for me before I had even unpacked my few belongings. I thought of making some excuse and dodging my obligations, but one look at his set jaw was enough to tell me that my first riding lesson was about to take place, whether I was willing or not. And I was not, for I was, frankly, terrified. It was one thing to ride a corpulent old abbey donkey, quite another to climb aboard a proper horse like the one Horst was holding by the bridle as he stood in the street and shouted for me to come down. Even from three storeys up the beast looked vast and dangerous. I pulled on my travelling boots, buckled on a stout belt – in my panic I believed this was crucial – and descended the stairs with infinite reluctance.
'His name is Iblis,' said Horst, sidestepping the usual niceties and shoving the reins at me. I took them, gingerly. 'He is a Saracen horse, very beautiful. Aren't you?' he enquired of the horse, who nodded and bared massive teeth. 'Fit for a prince, Patch, so do not disappoint him. He is smaller than our Frankish war-mounts, but he is a warrior nonetheless. You will ride him with pride.' It was a command, delivered with Pomeranian finality.
'Iblis… What, pray, does his name signify?' I asked, patting the beast experimentally on the muzzle, which was soft and slightly moist. Then it nodded again, and I snatched my hand away. ‘I believe it is what the Mussulmen call the Devil,' said Horst, absently. 'Don't do that, Patch. He'll bite you.' What, don't pat him? But you were…'
'No! No, do not treat him as if he were a lion, or red-hot, or whatever ridiculous fancy you have concocted. He is a horse, a kindly, gentle beast who wishes to be your friend. Think of him as a dog, if you like.' 'A gurt dog’ I muttered. What?'
'Nothing. So now must I clamber up on his back, for God's sake?'
'Not here. I do not want you falling on cobbles.' And with that hopeful remark he set off down the street and I followed, leading the horse. He was undeniably cooperative, although I suspected he was saving his energy for some appalling savagery later on.
We left the Borgo and ascended the Janiculum hill past the crumbling remains of the ancient wall and into an area of gardens and meadows – meadows in the Roman sense of a wide expanse of sun-killed grass, thistles, dust and stones, haunted by feral goats – where we halted, and my riding lesson commenced.
I will draw a veil over these proceedings, and those that came after, for the sake of brevity and to preserve that which I laughably call my dignity. For the arse-bruised, thistle-pricked and, if memory serves, goat-nibbled fool who limped back to his quarters that evening was as broken in spirit as any newly mastered horse. It was with dread that I greeted Horst's implacable summons the next morning and the morning after that, and on and on for an entire week of torment. I fell, more than once. I sobbed into the beast's rough and pungent mane. I was ignored, and then obeyed far too vigorously. He stepped on my foot and ate a fistful of my hair. Finally, late on the seventh day, as I guided Iblis around an improvised course of boulders and dead olive branches, Horst clapped his hands loudly. Iblis started and reared, and instead of flying off and landing on some unsuspecting goat I dug in my knees, shortened the reins and told him, in no uncertain terms, to settle himself down at once. Then I trotted over to where Horst stood, grinning.
What the fuck, Herr von Tantow, was that?' I enquired. I had had enough: of Iblis, of goats and the hard and thistly Roman ground, and above all of the unbending, tyrannical Horst.
'That was you finally learning how to ride a fucking horse’ he told me. 'Now let us go and get very drunk’
'Amen’ I breathed. And so Horst von Tantow walked at my side as I rode Iblis, the Devil's horse, back down the Janiculum and through the Borgo to the stable, where we left him to his oats and barley mash. Horst knew a drinking-house run by a Saxon who brewed fine beer, and so we took ourselves off to it and dived headlong into the beer.
We had supped a brace of mugs apiece when Horst, wiping the foam from his lips, said, almost absently, 'Does it pain you to ride Iblis?'
'Do you mean my ballocks?' I asked. Yes, but it has got better’ 'No, no! I meant… after London’
You mean Anna.. ‘ I paused, considering. 'Perhaps at first, but I do not fear Iblis very much now, and… and what happened to Anna could have happened to anybody’
'Hmm. This has been troubling me since that day, Patch. Do you remember, this afternoon, how I made Iblis rear up?' I was about to give him a friendly cursing for it, but he shook his head. 'Listen. If I had been under his hooves he would not have come down upon me. He would have thrown himself sideways, or… the point is, he is a trained riding horse. If you were lying upon the ground and I galloped at you, he would jump or swerve. Riding horses will not hurt a man if they can avoid it.'
What are you saying?' I asked, for I could not make him out at all.
'I am saying that a horse that rears up, strikes a human being and does it again is either a wild animal, in which case it could not be ridden out in the street, or it is a destrier, a warhorse. Such a beast is a weapon, as much as a sword or a lance.'
'Then it was a knight's horse, my friend,' I told him, growing impatient, for his words were beginning to trouble me.
'But such a horse will not strike unless his rider tells him to. Once, perhaps, but he will not go on until he has… Listen, Patch: forgive me. I should not have dragged this out. But I used to ride such horses, and I know them well…'
'It was an accident,' I said, for my friend had clearly been torturing himself. 'It was fate.' And although I did not believe in fate I said it eagerly, desperately, willing it to be so.
'Oh well, you may be right,' said Horst gently, although he had turned quite pale and seemed to be searching for something in my face as he snapped his fingers for more beer.
It came, and kept coming, and I sucked it down to wash away the thoughts that my friend had seeded in my mind. We supped so freely that only the haziest memory of that evening remains: Horst, deep in his cups, telling of a battle fought against the idol-worshipping Letts on the borders of his country. And of that, all I have is an image: of fresh bright blood flung across snow. It haunted my sodden dreams that night, the snow turning to London mud streaked with black hair, and I woke up the next morning wrapped tight in my bed linens, although the day was already sweltering.
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