by Tom Harper
Anna laughed. ‘Perhaps that would have been easier. As for the monks, their typikon commands them to provide a hospice with doctors who can minister to all the sexes. Usually there are two of us, but my colleague died last spring and they have not replaced him. So I do the work of two.’
I nodded. ‘And is that better than marriage?’
Again she laughed. ‘Mostly. Sometimes men propose it, but it is hard to be stirred by a man when you have searched the contents of his bowels for evil humours. The monks, of course, fear that I will pollute their thoughts, and keep their distance as much as they can.’
Probably they thought her a perfect succubus, hovering in their tormented dreams, but I did not say so.
‘And what of you?’ she asked. ‘The strange man who brings me dying youths in the morning, and demands them back in the evening. Do you work for the Emperor, like your companion?’
‘I work for myself,’ I said stoutly.
‘No man works for himself.’ I was surprised by the force of her statement. ‘Men work for greed, or for love, or for vengeance or for shame.’
‘Then I must work for greed, I suppose. And for other men’s revenge.’ I thought on this. ‘In this case, the Emperor’s.’
‘And how, Demetrios, did you become the angel of the Emperor’s vengeance?’
I gestured to the monastic walls around us. ‘I started in a place much like this, a monastery in Isauria. My parents sent me.’
‘Did the life of a novice agree with you?’
‘The food was plentiful, and regular. I had a taste for butter, which my parents could not provide, so I stayed.’
‘But not forever?’
I shook my head. ‘When I was fifteen I ran away to join the army. I wanted to kill Turks and Ishmaelites.’
‘And did you?’
‘No. The generals were too busy using their armies against each other, trying to put themselves on the imperial throne. The only chance I had to kill Turks was when we fought a lord who had hired them as mercenaries. I did not want to die with an arrow in my throat because our noble families had carried their feuds across the empire, so I went to work for myself. At least I could choose my causes. A merchant hired me to guard him and I failed, so to save my reputation I found his killers and killed them myself. Then I discovered others needed similar services.’
‘So you were a bounty hunter?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘Not a proud occupation, but a lucrative one. And as my name spread and my clients grew more illustrious, the burden of the work moved from exacting revenge to revealing the guilty. Clerks who stole from their masters, uncles who abducted their nieces and held them hostage, sons who killed their fathers for the inheritance.’
‘And how did your wife view your profession?’
I looked up sharply. ‘What of my wife?’
‘What of the ring on your finger?’
She pointed to my right hand, where I still wore the thin lover’s band I had first put on sixteen years ago. I had been nineteen, flushed with love and excitement and the weight of my first-earned coins in my pocket: I had insisted we go to the grandest goldsmith on the Mesi, though all my new riches afforded only the least of his jewellery. Later I found that he had swindled me even of that, that it was merely a cheap alloy coated with gold, but by then it was on my finger and I was too proud to take it off. Even now.
‘My wife is dead. She died seven years ago, haemorrhaging from her womb.’
Unexpectedly, Anna reached over and took my hand in hers, stroking it softly. ‘I’m sorry. I should not pry.’
‘You wouldn’t know where not to pry if you didn’t ask,’ I said struggling with the calm and discomfort I felt in her touch. There was a stab of disappointment when she let go.
‘Besides,’ I said. ‘I’m speaking too much.’ That was a rare complaint, but – like the touch of her hands – I was finding it at once unnatural and relieving. There was something about this woman’s confidence that invited confession. ‘Sigurd must be bored hearing me prattle about my past.’
We both looked over to him, and Anna stifled a giggle. It seemed I had indeed bored the Varangian, so much so that he lay with his head against the column, fast asleep.
I thought Anna would be cold, or tired, but she made no move to leave; we talked on through the night in hushed voices, until at length even my eyes began to drift closed. The pauses between my sentences lengthened, and once it was only a playful slap on my knee that kept me from joining Sigurd in the world of dreams. Anna stood, stretching her arms above her so that her body pressed tight against her cloak.
‘I should sleep,’ she said. ‘There will be other patients to see tomorrow, as well as the boy. There is a spare bed in the infirmary if you want to come in out of the cold, Demetrios.’
Though there was not the least implication of lewdness in her plain words, I still blushed.
‘What about Sigurd?’ I asked.
Anna leaned over and put the back of her hand against his cheek. ‘He’s warm enough.’
‘He comes from a frozen island at the edge of the world.’ I wondered why I stiffened when I saw her touch his face. ‘He probably grew up in castles built of ice.’
‘I’ll lay a few more blankets over him. He’ll come inside if he wakes up cold.’
Anna left me in the infirmary, having assured me that there were no lepers or plague-ridden unfortunates beside me. Huddling under the covers I was soon lost in dreams, until the cock crowed and the monks filed into their chapel, and Sigurd came thundering through the door swearing he would be delayed no more.
η
The boy lay motionless on his bed, wearing only a plain tunic over his bandages. A damp cloth was stretched over his forehead so that he looked almost like a corpse prepared for burial, though his blue eyes opened wide with fear when he saw Sigurd and me looming over him. I was disconcerted to see that I had slept in the bed next to his all night.
Sigurd frowned at Anna, who stood at the boy’s feet and showed no intention of leaving.
‘We won’t torture him,’ he said. ‘Just talk.’ He rubbed the back of his neck; I guessed it was stiff from a cold night on a stone pillow. ‘But there are things to say which you should not hear.’
To my relief, in all our talk the night before Anna had never pressed me for what we wanted with the boy. Now, though, she folded her arms across her chest and met Sigurd’s ill-temper square on.
‘You cannot talk to him,’ she told him. ‘Not without me.’
‘I will talk to him, lady, whether you want it or no.’ Fatigue and frustration did not sit well with Sigurd. ‘And if I say that you will not be part of it, then either you will go outside until I call for you, or I will have my men drag you down to the imperial dungeon to learn obedience.’ A dozen Varangians had come to the monastery at dawn, taking up stations at the doors and gates to the obvious alarm of the monks.
Anna hardened her grip on the bedstead. ‘And which of you speaks Frankish?’
Now both of us stared at her in confusion. ‘Frankish?’ I echoed. ‘Why should either of us speak Frankish?’ I could see from Sigurd’s silence that he no more knew the tongue than I.
‘Because if you don’t, you may as well talk to a fish. I spent all day with the boy yesterday, and all he spoke or understood was Frankish.’
‘And you, of course, spoke and understood it too.’ Sigurd’s face boiled with fury, but Anna simply shrugged.
‘Enough. So near to the gates I see many pilgrims in my work; many are Franks. A doctor who cannot get her patient to tell her their ailments is unlikely to work many cures.’
There was a hostile silence. Curse the monk, I thought, for employing this barbarian rabble of Bulgars and Franks. Whether he’d worked deliberately, or with the only men he could find, he had thrown every possible obstacle into our path.
‘We’ll take him to the palace,’ said Sigurd at last, his voice alive with anger. ‘One of the secretaries will speak Frankish. And we sho
uld keep the boy somewhere he can’t escape.’
‘If you move that boy, least of all into a prison, he will be dead before sunset.’ Anna was unmoved by Sigurd’s temper; indeed, she seemed to draw strength from it and breathe it straight back at him.
‘He should die anyway.’ Sigurd was now squeezing his fist around his axe-shaft, as if crushing a man’s neck; I feared that soon the violence in his words would manifest itself in his hands. ‘For his crime, death is the only justice.’
‘We do not want the boy to die.’ I spoke forcefully, glaring at Sigurd and Anna together. ‘If the doctor says we cannot move him, then we will not move him.’ I gestured around the room: its few windows were small enough that a bird could hardly have flown through them. ‘If we have a guard on the door, and another within, the boy will be safe from harm and barred from escape. Now as we have waited a long night to speak with him, and as every minute we waste gives time and aid to the Emperor’s enemies – with whom this boy is our only link – I propose we use Anna’s gifts immediately.’
Sigurd’s chest swelled so tight I thought he might burst free of his armour. He clashed the greaves on his forearms together, then slammed a fist onto the wooden table beside him.
‘I will go to the palace and find someone who speaks Frankish,’ he said, his voice brittle with bridled anger. ‘Someone trustworthy. What you choose to do before I return is your own business, Askiates, but you will answer for it alone.’
‘I will answer to the man who pays me,’ I said. I was growing bored of Sigurd’s rages, though I never imagined he did it in bluff. ‘And he does not pay me for dallying.’
With a final, derisive snort Sigurd stormed out of the room, berating his men for imagined inadequacies as he passed them in the courtyard. Then all was still: through the window I heard the low tenor of the monks’ liturgy.
I looked at Anna, shame clouding my face. ‘I apologise for his temper. He has too much faith in fists and swords, and a consuming regard for his duty.’
She gave a thin smile. ‘You’re not to blame. But if you want to make best use of your time, you had better leave too.’
‘What? Did you not hear what I told him? I need to speak with the boy immediately.’
‘You’ll learn more from the boy if you sit out there on the steps. Look at him. You and the guard have frightened him half to death – and death was already far too near for comfort.’
It was true. While we talked the boy had shrunk beneath his blanket, and now he clutched at the pillow like a mother. His eyes were clenched shut.
‘Tell me what you want to ask him,’ Anna insisted. ‘Tell me, then leave me alone with him.’
For a moment I hesitated, searching her face for signs of treachery. Could I trust her? If word escaped that a boy had come within a hand’s breadth of murdering the Emperor, and was now quartered here in the monastery, there would be uproar. None of us would be safe, myself not least. But by facing down Sigurd I had committed myself – and my trust – to Anna: she would have to know all, unless I wanted him to return triumphant. That was not something my pride would admit.
With a deep breath and a pounding heart, I told Anna everything. The assault on the Emperor; the pimp Vassos; Kaloyan the Bulgar and the strange monk who employed him; and how we had found the boy. I even told her about the tzangra, the barbarian weapon of miraculous strength, for I was particularly eager to learn what the boy knew of it. When at last I had finished I took her advice: I walked outside, staved away the suspicious glances of Sigurd’s guardsmen, and settled myself on the steps in the fresh morning air. There I waited.
Anna reappeared before Sigurd, thankfully. She smiled her greeting, but much of the playfulness had gone from her face, and she grew more serious still as she began to speak. I listened with few interruptions, prompting her only for the occasional detail. The story was dismally unexceptional, almost mundane, and I had few doubts that whatever the constraints of her language, it was in essence the truth. Only one facet of it struck me as false, and I had Anna go back and press the boy until I was satisfied with his answer. Then I rose to leave.
‘Won’t you wait for your friend?’ Anna asked. ‘He should be back soon.’
Or not. I doubted he would have the loan of any more of the hipparch’s beasts after the use we had given them in the night.
‘I think it would be wiser to leave. There are elements of the boy’s story I must investigate.’ And it would irritate Sigurd immeasurably to find me gone. ‘I suppose Sigurd will tell you exactly what he demands, but on no account let him take the boy away from here.’
Anna bared her teeth. ‘Let him try.’
‘Good.’ The boy was too valuable to be left in the care of gaolers and torturers, and wounds like his would rot into his bones in the foetid dungeon air. Nor could I shake off the mounting sense that part of my life was now invested in his.
‘I will be back this evening, or maybe tomorrow.’
‘I shall look forward to it.’
Strangely warmed by those parting words, I left the monastery and hastened towards the city, keeping off the main road to avoid any encounter with Sigurd. I visited the docks, the workshop of Lukas the fletcher, and a man who sold me three withered gourds; then I retired to the fields near the western walls, where I passed the afternoon straining my shoulders and frightening a watching flock of crows. Finally, weary but satisfied, I made my way back to the palace.
Aelric, the grey-haired Varangian, was at the gate; he smiled when he saw me.
‘It’s as well you came to my door, Demetrios. Your name has been spoken often in the palace today, and rarely with favour.’
‘Sigurd?’
‘Indeed.’ Aelric shifted the weight of his axe a little. ‘He swears you are an agent of those who would harm the Emperor. That is, when he does not curse you for a mercenary intent only on impoverishing the treasury.’
I snorted; I had heard enough gibes about money. ‘And why does Sigurd fight for the Emperor? Is he a Roman, fighting to preserve his ruler and his nation? No. He fights for the same motives as all the other Patzinaks, Turks, Venetians and Norsemen in our legions: gold, and glory. Many would say they were the only things worth fighting for.’
A dark look crossed Aelric’s lined face. ‘Do not doubt Sigurd’s devotion to Byzantium, Demetrios. He takes the gold and cherishes his glory, as every warrior should, but he loves the Emperor like a monk loves his God. If the Emperor was hemmed in by countless hosts of enemies, and all was lost, Sigurd would be the last man left standing beside him – whether there was gold to pay him or not. Of how many Turks and Patzinaks could you say that?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘A believer may be blessed, but a zealot is dangerous – and his love too easily turns against itself. Anyway, I came to speak with the chamberlain, Krysaphios, not with Sigurd.’
‘You have a gift for him, do you?’ Aelric peered at the bundle I held under my arm. It was broad and flat, and wrapped about with sackcloth; it might have been a painted icon, though it was not.
‘Something he will want to see,’ I said. ‘If I am not banned from the palace for wanting to keep valuable witnesses alive until they have told their tale.’
Aelric nodded. ‘Krysaphios will see you.’
With a last suspicious glance at my package, he opened the gate and led me within the palace. Again we passed through myriad courtyards and burnished chambers, but it was different to my last visit: now none of it felt quite so magnificent as it had before. The splash of the fountains seemed quieter, the perfumes in the air less fragrant, the faces on those we met more tightly drawn.
I never saw Aelric speak to anyone, but Krysaphios was waiting for me. He stood where we had last met, in a colonnade lined with the marble heads of antique dynasties. His lips were thin with anger, and even before I had crossed the open square he met me with sharp words.
‘The Varangian captain swears you have done great mischief, Demetrios. You were hired to discover the Emperor’s would-b
e assassin, not hide him in the sanctuary of a monastery. If, indeed, this barbarian catamite is truly the one we seek.’
I had had enough of this sort of talk for one day. Without deigning to reply, I pulled the sacking from my bundle, lifted it to my shoulder and pressed on the lever. The eunuch’s eyes widened in terror as he guessed my purpose; he prostrated himself on the floor in an undignified sprawl, as – with a humming crack – the bolt from my weapon sprang into the air. It went many paces wide of him and struck a bust, shattering the stone face into countless broken fragments.
I could hear the running footsteps of guards behind me, but I had made my point. I lowered the weapon, and spread my arms wide in innocence.
Krysaphios raised himself to his feet, his shimmering robes creased and streaked with dust, his golden hat knocked crooked. His smooth face was ridged with fury.
‘Do you presume to enter this sacred place and murder me?’ he shrieked. ‘Shall I have you chained in the dungeons, for the torturers to tear you apart inch from inch? How dare you aim such a weapon at me, I who sleep at the feet of Emperors and guide the fate of nations? You might as well turn it on my master himself.’
‘Did you shit yourself?’ I had intended my antic to get his attention, but now we were both beyond the control of our feelings. ‘This is the weapon which was turned on your master, which came within a hand’s breadth of breaking open his skull like that marble head. I, Demetrios, discovered it. Just as I discovered the boy who wielded it against the Emperor four days ago. If you think a barbarian berserker would have done so well, one who would sooner slice off men’s heads than hear their secrets, then employ him next time.’
I turned my back and looked to the bronze doors. A line of Varangians – not Sigurd, thank God – barred it, their axes raised before them. Suddenly I wondered if I had not made a terrible miscalculation.
‘Demetrios.’
Krysaphios’ call stilled me, but I kept my gaze away from him.
‘Demetrios.’
The timbre of his voice was moderated now; he seemed to have mastered his anger. Reluctantly, I turned to face him.
