by Anton Gill
Frid waited, patiently, confidently, for the time to pass. An old proverb came into his mind then: ‘Man says, Time passes. Time says, Man passes.’ And then, without warning, he felt a strange impulse shudder through him – what another man would have recognized as fear. Dandolo must not die. The doge must achieve what Destiny had prescribed for him.
Frid did not know that the power which swept through the room was affecting him too. Only his simple nature, his innocence, protected him.
Then, disappearing more quickly than it had arrived, the strange light dissolved. The room resumed its normal appearance.
Frid shook himself like a water-spaniel. Dandolo faced him. The blind eye was a withered socket, a scar, the opening of a narrow cave in a yellow rockface.
But the other eye held him with a milky regard.
70
The camp of the rebel Crusaders was on a low hill, sloping down to the sea, four kilometres north of the town. It was late afternoon, and the sandy countryside turned golden in the light of the setting sun when the procession arrived at its gates.
All were on foot, their rich garments and their boots dusty from the road. At its head was the doge, stooping, weary with the effort of the walk, leaning on a stick, supported on his other side by the giant Norseman. Behind him, bareheaded, Count Baldwin of Flanders, the Marquess de Montferrat, and the emperor-elect, Alexus Angelus, walked, overshadowed by a giant cross, carried by five monks, with Leporo leading them. Twenty choirboys followed, chanting, their voices tossed away in the breeze, but singing on. No military retinue. No one bore arms.
Watching from the wooden ramparts of the camp, the rebels looked at one another uncertainly.
Ten metres short of the gates, the procession came to a halt. Dandolo raised his head to the men on the stockade.
‘What is he doing?’ whispered one.
‘What does he see?’
Unease amounting to fear grew in them as the old man scanned their faces. Could he see them? It seemed he could. See them, and see through them. One of them thought he could detect a red glint in the depths of the black socket of the right eye, and recoiled.
His reaction was infectious. The rebels were already wavering. All consultations, all negotiations, had broken down in the last days. Anger had been replaced by uncertainty, uncertainty by inertia. But they had expected an attack and were prepared for one. But they got this – this embassy of peace. This pious procession.
Now, the hands that held their swords and spears hesitated.
‘Open the gates!’ someone inside the camp suddenly commanded.
The leaders, followed by their holy companions, walked slowly into the camp, and came to a halt in its centre. The circular stockade enclosed an open space like a parade ground, yellow earth floor, a handful of gaudy tents and hastily constructed wooden shacks for the cookhouses and washrooms. The rebel Crusaders gathered around the embassy.
They had not lowered their arms.
Leporo stood close to his master.
There were two circles now. Dandolo and his followers faced outwards, a loose formation with the choirboys, now silent, at their centre.
Dandolo stood furthest from the gate. Confronting him were the rebel leaders, among them the stubborn Guy de Chappes and the dour Richard de Dampierre. You could, Leporo thought, have cut the atmosphere as you might cut cake, it was so thick. They didn’t even have armed backup hidden on the blind side of the hill, ready to move in at the first sound of a fight. He hoped Dandolo knew what he was doing.
Not a word was spoken. Then, very softly, the boys began to sing an Agnus Dei. The palisade provided a good acoustic for their clear voices, which rose through the darkening sky as if the sounds strained to reach heaven. As they sang, Dandolo flung off Frid’s supporting arm and, leaning on his stick, sank heavily and painfully to his knees. The count and the marquess followed suit, heads humbly bowed.
With tears coursing down his cheeks, the doge raised his head towards Guy, Richard and the rest, and spoke, his old voice quavering in an effort to remain firm, in control: ‘Do not leave us, companions in Christ’s Cause,’ he said. ‘Do not leave us, I beg you, noblemen of France! I swear by the spirit of our great enterprise that I will never rise from this ground again – until you reassure us, comfort us, grace us with your continued allegiance. Our venture against the Great City is just: witness this innocent boy, Alexus, with justice also named Angelus, who has been barbarously deprived of his rightful inheritance, and who, if we aid him, will aid us in turn, with such recompense that Jerusalem will tremble at the sound of our approaching march. Shoulder to shoulder, comrades in Christ together, with a righted wrong to commend us further to Our Lord, our banners of the red cross will fly at last from the turrets usurped by the infidels!’
In the silence which followed, the rebel leaders looked at one another in consternation. Then Richard de Dampierre, his chain-mail stained red by the sunset, stepped forward and helped the old man to his feet.
They embraced, each man covering the other’s shoulder with his tears. Guy de Chappes eagerly followed.
A great cry went up, drowning the voices of the choristers.
Dandolo clutched the tablet to him under his robe, and smiled.
A week later later, Geoffrey de Villehardouin and Conon de Béthune sat on horseback on a low rise above the harbour. They watched the fleet revictualling, and the busy sail-menders, ropemen and carpenters. Galleys, transports and warships teemed with sailors. On land, the army, after two days’ drinking to celebrate its reunification, was cleaning and sharpening spears, swords and daggers, restringing bows and re-fletching arrows. Squires buffed mail until it shone bright as the sun. Horses were exercised with and without their armour on, rubbed down, fed apples, pampered and examined for the slightest defect, any sign of malady. The united Fourth Crusade, the Army of Christ Enthroned, in all its dazzling majesty, would embark and leave Corfu on St Theodosia’s Day.
On the hill which sloped down to the shore, goats trespassed idly in the abandoned stockade of the former rebels, foraging. The only sounds were the dull clinking of their bells and the endless chirruping of the crickets. Richard de Dampierre, Guy de Chappes, clear-eyed, had forgotten the grudges they had held against the noble Marquess Boniface and Baldwin, the great lord of Flanders.
Geoffrey and Conon exchanged a look and a warm smile of comradeship. Above all, their minds were full of the piety and glory of their spiritual and temporal leader, the great Doge Dandolo, to whose forgiveness and compassion they owed their lives. They buckled down to the task of organizing their troops with a will, and with an inexplicable relief. Their way forward was plain now – a child could have grasped it, it was so simple: follow Dandolo. Follow him. Follow him always. Follow him into the very mouth of hell, if he commanded it.
Unquestioningly.
71
Paris, the Present
The weather had improved in their absence. The leaves on the planes which lined the boulevards were fresh and green. Locals and tourists crowded the café terraces, avoiding the cramped, dingy interiors despite news of another increase in street robbery and handbag-snatching from the marble-topped tables where sacs à main from Prada and Louis Vuitton were the preferred targets of the street kids from the banlieue who’d pounce like birds of prey and be off down side-streets before you had time to put down your express and raise the alarm – for all the good that did.
Su-Lin didn’t show her disappointment when they told her she was again to be placed in the safe apartment. But her face fell when she learned that Dr Duff was to remain in attendance.
‘I don’t like that man,’ she told Marlow as he helped her move back in. ‘He digs too deep. There’s nothing left to find.’
‘There are still gaps to fill.’
‘I don’t know if I want to fill them. Not after what happened to Brad and Rick.’ She looked at him.
Marlow wanted to put his arm round her. ‘You’re safe here.’
‘But no
t from the past. What’s going on? Why did my colleagues have to die like that? Why did they have to die at all?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’
‘Something we found in at the dig? Something whose value we didn’t recognize?’
‘We think so,’ he said. ‘But what it is …’
‘That’s what you want me to remember.’
‘Yes.’
‘What if I never can?’
‘Then we’ll have to find another way.’
Suddenly, she clung to him. ‘I want to help.’
‘I know.’
‘Even more now. Now they are dead. I want to find the people who did it.’ There was a vehemence in her voice he hadn’t heard before.
‘Try to remember what might have been taken from the tomb.’ Marlow disengaged himself gently, but his nostrils were filled with her scent.
Su-Lin sat down, thinking.
‘Cuneiform?’ she confirmed. ‘You mentioned cuneiform script, didn’t you?’
Marlow waited.
She concentrated. But her face fell again. ‘I cannot remember. Did you find anything?’
‘We found nothing.’
She drew her long legs up. ‘You still don’t trust me, do you?’
‘If we keep anything from you, it’s for your own good. You know what these people are capable of.’
Silence fell between them again.
‘What about the key?’
Her eyes were dark pools. ‘Small. Iron, I think. The key to a box, a small coffer.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I can only think of what’s happened! If I hadn’t managed to get away, I would have shared the same fate as Brad and Rick.’
Marlow watched her.
At that moment they heard footsteps in the corridor outside; then there was a knock at the door. Marlow unlocked it, and Ben Duff entered the apartment.
‘Just wanted to welcome you back,’ said the psychologist to Su-Lin, while nodding at Marlow. ‘But I see Jack’s beaten me to it.’
He was holding a bottle of champagne.
‘Duff’s not going to get any more out of her,’ Marlow told Graves later. ‘And it was a mistake to tell her about her colleagues.’
‘Then why don’t we get rid of her?’
Marlow shook his head. ‘Believe in strong measures, don’t you?’
‘Only what’s necessary. She’s been no use to us so far.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. She’s focused on the key they found at the dig.’
Graves looked at him in surprise. ‘Could she describe it?’
‘It’s the one.’
‘Have we anything else?’
Marlow pressed his lips together, looked out of the window, down at the street. People were walking up and down the boulevard, some hurrying; others – tourists – dawdling. There were several couples, some entwined, others talking. A plump, middle-aged woman dressed like a hippie with a tall, thin companion; a scrawny blonde on the arm of a short, slight man in a tweed cap that was too big for him; a pair of American teenagers, dumbstruck for a moment at the reality of a place they’d only known before from their computer screens. The Starbucks opposite full of men and women in anoraks and jeans consulting maps and guidebooks and looking around at the street-life.
All those people. Not twenty metres away. A different world.
‘If we had a clue who we’re competing with …’ He was silent, then said: ‘It’s not another power, anyway. It’s a private organization.’
Graves considered this. It was true that there was nothing on the grapevine that Leon had been able to trace. But she’d already decided there was a different line of approach. Not that she’d tell anyone yet. Not until she was certain of her ground.
‘Chase Leon,’ said Marlow. ‘He ought to have something on that inscription by now.’
But two days passed before Lopez came back to them.
‘There’s nothing,’ he said, as Marlow and Graves sat at the screen in the office.
‘What do you mean – nothing?’
‘They can’t decipher it.’
‘What are you saying?’ Marlow exploded. ‘They’re supposed to be the sodding experts.’
‘Not in this case. It’s mathematical, in some way. They think it’s to do with astronomy but, beyond that, they say it deals with research which they’re not familiar with. Hudson’s been raising hell, but the people at Yale just close ranks, he says.’
‘Hudson knows about this? In detail?’
‘He is department head. He has a direct line to the Pentagon. And the Oval Office. He okayed Su-Lin, dammit. I had no choice.’
Marlow said, ‘OK, Leon. See what you can do with the forensics from Haki on the deaths.’
‘Already done. Confirmed manner and means. But no leads.’
Marlow had expected nothing else. ‘OK.’
The screen went black.
‘There’s something wrong,’ said Graves immediately.
Marlow looked at her sharply. ‘Meaning?’
‘Yale say they can’t decipher it.’
‘Yes?’
‘Can’t be true.’
‘What?’
‘Got any more out of Dr de Montferrat in the last two days?’
‘Deaths of Adkins and Taylor have knocked her back.’
‘We’ve got to give up on her,’ she said.
‘If I find I agree, I’ll arrange for her to be put in protective custody in the States,’ he replied crisply. What was it with Laura and Su-Lin? ‘What makes you say Leon’s Yale report can’t be true?’ he continued.
‘Because I’ve cracked the code in the inscription. I watched what you did on the other code. Learned something from your methods. You’ve been a good teacher.’
‘What have you got?’
She looked at him. ‘We’d better think hard about just why the guys at Yale couldn’t manage it. If they couldn’t.’
‘Explain.’
‘Because it’s dynamite.’
72
Back at his flat that night, Marlow nursed a Jameson’s, smoked a rare cigarette and disentangled his thoughts. What Laura had told him brought a whole new dimension to the problem.
He’d told her to pass nothing on. No one else within INTERSEC was to know what he and she now knew.
Who else might know was the question that would keep him awake all night.
And could he even trust Laura? She seemed to be shaping up well. After the abduction, she’d gone on a week’s intensive fieldwork retraining, but that hadn’t been the real problem. There was something else he couldn’t fathom.
Whatever it was, it had no bearing on her professionalism. And if it was personal, her training would see to it that she kept it separate. As they all had to.
To help him think, he dug out his chess board and set up the pieces on the low table by his sofa. A problem from Graham Burgess’s Gambit Book. Black king’s knight to check in two – mate, if he could solve it, in four. But he could see that the white king still had the opportunity to castle.
That was the trouble with playing against yourself – you could always second-guess; that was the liability, and also the asset, of solitude.
Despite the attempted discipline of the chess problem, his thoughts drifted. At the back of his mind, the demons still lurked. Why had she come into his mind, an unwanted tenant, at a moment like this?
There must be a reason. He’d measured the time that had passed since the break-up and compared his feelings now with what they had been. He knew she was losing her grip on him. He’d deleted the handful of emails she’d sent him afterwards, unread. What would she have written? What could she have written? And what was the point? She’d casually dropped a bomb on his love and now she was gone for good. She’d cared less than nothing for him, no matter what she’d said.
Trust. How it could mislead.
Impatiently, he put the thoughts away. It was time to stop poking the corpse.
He finished his whiskey and looked at the bottle. It was the same bottle he’d started a few nights earlier, hadn’t touched since, and there were still a good two shots in it. He decided against it; it never helped. And the cigarette tasted dry and foul in his mouth.
But the taste in his mouth really had nothing to do with the cigarette.
He leaned over and stubbed it out, and suddenly realized why the image of that bitch of a lost love had come into his mind.
Whoever had succeeded him in her life had it coming too, sooner or later. The next victim. There are some people in the world who have a gene missing, a vital part of the machinery that makes a human being work properly – the gene that controls conscience. They use other people, then they throw them away, and find their own way of telling themselves that the shit wasn’t down to them.
People incapable of expressing or experiencing normal emotions, normal humanity. People like her. Like one hell of a lot of politicians. Like criminals. Like spies.
Like the people he was up against now.
He snapped out of it and solved the chess problem. Later, after another two hours’ work, he wandered into sleep, for he was shaken out of a bad dream – dead fish floating in dark water – by his phone.
He looked at his watch. Four a.m. The city was silent. He pushed himself out of his chair and grabbed the phone. The INTERSEC night commander’s voice.
‘Sir?’
‘Yes?’
‘You’d better get over here now.’
73
There was no sign of a struggle. Ben Duff had been hit hard once, on the back of the head, with something spiked. His cranium had one deep, neat hole in it. There wasn’t much blood, but a little had trickled down on to the carpet. He was dressed in a bathrobe and looked, somehow, pathetic.
‘Must have heard something, gone to the rescue,’ said the night commander.
‘Where were your guys?’ asked Marlow. He was thinking of the bottle of champagne Duff had brought that other time, and of another possible reason for him to have been there, dressed only in a bathrobe.
