by Tom Harper
‘What other things?’
Asgard raised his chin in rare defiance. ‘The monk did not leave instructions – but that does not mean I was fool enough not to make enquiries. Asgard always seeks new business.’
I stood very still. ‘What did your enquiries reveal?’
‘That a man who values knowledge will pay for it.’
‘You were involved in a plot to murder the Emperor,’ I reminded him, ‘and your life will be forfeit unless you ransom it with something of singular value. Is your knowledge enough to buy your soul?’
Asgard looked miserably unhappy, but with a knife at his throat and Sigurd’s vengeance to follow, he had little choice.
‘I paid a boy to follow the monk when he left the tavern. A clever lad, and sly. He knew how to find the shadows when the monk looked around. Which he did often, apparently – a suspicious man. But the boy tracked him like a deer, back to a tenement in Libos.’
‘Where in Libos? When was this?’ I raised my knife so that it hovered before Asgard’s eyes. It seemed to make the words come faster.
‘Two weeks ago, perhaps three. I do not know if he has been there since. But that you can find out yourself. It is west from the column of Marcian, near the north bank of the Lycus. A grocer named Vichos keeps his shop on the ground floor.’
I stared into his eyes, trying to judge the truth of his words, but fear had long stripped all honesty from his face and I could not tell.
‘If we find the monk, you will live.’ Though not in the least comfort. ‘For now, you will come with me to the palace, until I can judge the truth of your tale.’
Asgard’s eyes widened, and he sank to his knees. ‘No,’ he implored me. ‘Not to the palace. If I go there they will kill me. I have helped you all I can – have mercy on me now. Let me go – give me only an hour to escape, and that will be a fair bargain.’
‘I will decide what is a fair bargain,’ I told him, feeling no pity for this traitor. If he had hoped to win mercy by grovelling, he had misjudged me. ‘Get up.’
But Asgard’s serpent mind had a final draught of venom in it. I must have edged back a little as he rose, and those few inches were all the room he needed to spring forward, crashing into my legs and driving me away. My feet kicked and slipped on the wet stone beneath and I fell, landing heavily on my back. There was a terrible pain in my lungs and throat where the air had been forced out, and by the time I regained my feet Asgard was gone.
I cursed, though it was of little moment. I disbelieved at least half his story, and suspected there was another half as yet untold, but that could wait: doubtless the Watch would have him before nightfall, if the monk did not find him first. For now, the highest imperative was to reach the house in Libos, the house of Vichos the grocer. If the monk truly was there, then even Asgard’s escape would be a small price to have paid.
I climbed back up to the palace and summoned the guard. It was strange to meet Patzinaks, with their short swords and pointed helmets, in the places where Varangians should have been, and my unfamiliarity with them meant further delay until I could explain myself to their captain. He listened to my story with ever greater concern, and rattled off orders to his subordinates as soon as I was finished.
‘We will call out the Watch to find this Asgard, and take a company of men down to the house in Libos.’
I nodded my approval. ‘Good. I will go with you.’
For all that we needed haste it took some time to assemble his men, while I wandered the courtyard and fretted that the monk might even now be fleeing his house, again just a few paces beyond our grasp. I tried to goad the Patzinaks to swiftness, but they treated me with indifference and ignored my pleas. Only when the captain was satisfied that all his men were correctly arrayed and equipped did we march out through the Augusteion.
The crowds in the streets were surging as thick as ever, despite the persistent rain, and a column of a hundred guardsmen in their midst brought constant friction. Feet were trampled, baskets spilled and clothing muddied as the Patzinaks rammed their path through. Sigurd had spoken of their single-minded devotion to the Emperor, but here they seemed like automata, like the lions in the palace whose apparent obedience was entirely free of will or reason. It felt strange, unsettling to be in their company; I would much rather have been with Sigurd and his men. Coarse and wild though the Varangians were, I could at least admire their passion, the unbridled currents which ruled them. There was nothing of that in the unmoving Patzinak faces which followed me.
Nor were they as physically arresting as the giants of Thule. If Sigurd was a bear, then his Patzinak counterpart was more a mule: shorter and stockier, but with a stride I suspected would never falter in a month of hard marches. His arms swung freely at his side, and his head jerked erratically as he walked. He had the face of a man who would prefer to knife his enemy in the back than meet him in a head-on duel, but in a fight, I guessed, he would have the guile and will to wear down mightier opponents. If once he was on the field of battle, I did not think he would leave it lightly.
We passed under the column of Constantine and through the arch of Theodosius, and further along the road to the small square where the Emperor Marcian had found a space for his own monument. No doubt walking in the shadows of the past should have inspired us to rival its legend, but with rain trickling in my ear and the carved figures in the sky almost invisible, it only depressed me. Even the prospect of finding the monk could not inspire me: I had seen too many broken men and women in the last hours for that. And it was hard to lift my mood on the strength of a traitor’s desperate lies.
Past the column of Marcian, as Asgard had said, we turned left. It was a narrow, unpaved street, turned to mire by the rain and with streaming water gouging a new course down its centre. The buildings were of unpainted wood, dark and rotten with all the moisture they had absorbed, tottering over us like drunken giants. We progressed slowly down the road. The Patzinaks had their swords out, alert for any danger, but there was little life to be seen around us, and the only sound was the constant rattle of raindrops on the puddles and tiles. Though marching soldiers were a common enough sight on the Mesi, a hundred of them prowling through a private neighbourhood would sweep every resident, honest or otherwise, out of their path. With nothing to obstruct us, the grocer’s shop was plain to see, and the faded paint on the lintel – just visible through the gloom – gave me the name: Vichos.
‘So far your informant does not lie,’ muttered the captain. ‘But I wonder what he keeps in his shop.’
‘You should array your men around it before we find out. It will do us no good if there are a hundred of us inside the house while the monk jumps from a window and makes his escape.’
The captain gestured to his sergeants to deploy the men as I had suggested, keeping a dozen close about us. The grocer’s shutters and door were fastened shut, as tight as their skewed hinges would admit, but I thought I saw a shadow within moving across one of the cracks. Was he watching us? Did he realise that he had failed, that soon the Emperor’s torturers would be heating their irons before his eyes? Or did he have a plan, another gambit to outwit us? Was he even there?
‘My men are ready,’ the captain told me. Though there was nothing the least secretive about our actions, his voice was hushed. ‘Shall I send for the stone-throwers and ballistas, or do you think we can break this siege ourselves?’
I ignored his sarcasm. ‘This monk commands weapons whose power you could not conceive. Tell your men to beware, for their armour may be no protection.’
The captain shrugged, and fell silent as his men moved towards the building. The sergeant at their head banged on the door but there was no answer.
‘Break it,’ said the captain.
Water was dribbling behind my ear and off my nose; my breaths emerged in ragged clouds, but despite all the misery of cold and damp I felt my heart beating faster, my mind awakening with the hope of success. At the door, the sergeant now had a mattock in his hands,
and was swinging it hard against the fractured timbers. The wood did not groan or crack under the impact, for it was too sodden and rotten for that; instead the blow knocked one of the panels clean out of the frame. The sergeant bellowed an order and his men piled forward, driving their boots and shoulders against the flimsy barrier. It did not hold for more than a second. With swords outstretched and shields held before their faces the men charged in, disappearing into the dim room beyond. I heard shouts and the screams of women, the crash and clatter of upturned tables, then the curt staccato of commands.
I could not stay in the street. I ran across to the house, stepped heedlessly over the broken threshold and took in the carnage before me. Two soldiers were kneeling over an elderly man and his wife, pinning them to the ground amid a sea of broken pottery and scattered vegetables. Dried fish lay in pools of olive-oil, while pickled sauces were splashed across the earthen floor. In less than a minute, the soldiers had left barely a single thing in that room untouched.
‘Where is the rest of your company?’ I demanded.
One of the Patzinaks jerked a thumb towards the spindly ladder in the corner. I climbed it two rungs at a time, hoping it would not crack apart under me, and hauled myself through a narrow gap onto the floor above. Frayed curtains had once shielded the room from the stairs, but they were pulled down and bunched on the floor, revealing more carnage: rudimentary pieces of furniture overturned, clothes and keepsakes tipped out of trunks, and even an icon of the holy virgin ripped off the wall. But no Patzinaks.
A second ladder continued the ascent to the topmost level, from where I could hear shouts of triumph and anger. Without another thought I leapt up the ladder, vaulted into the room above, and set my eyes on our new prisoner.
Two Patzinaks were holding his arms, their fingers squeezed tight into his skin as he writhed and struggled between them. He was not dressed as a monk, but in a nondescript woollen tunic which reached almost to his ankles; there was fresh mud on his boots, and dampness on his clothes which suggested he was only recently returned here. His skin was dark and his features hard, set with black eyes which flickered desperately around the room. He was thinner than I had expected; his garments hung from his shoulders like shrouds, and there was a stoop which had not seemed so obvious when I chased him through the snowbound streets. He gave no sign of recognising me.
In a corner, the sergeant stood with his arms crossed over his chest, surveying his achievement. ‘Is this the one?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Suddenly, after the energy and momentum of the chase, I felt a stab of uncertainty. Surely this was the right man – how could it not be? Feeling my limbs shivering with sudden tension, I walked slowly around the captive until I could see the back of his head.
He did not have a tonsure.
I cringed; I felt as though someone had kicked me in the groin, or punched my throat. Black bile flooded my stomach, and I stepped away from the prisoner. Yet still I clung to my belief, like a drowning sailor to his flotsam. It was weeks since I had caught the monk outside my house, more than sufficient time for his hair to grow back. Indeed, a man so attuned to his safety would hardly have done otherwise, especially once he knew I had seen him.
The Patzinak captain had arrived now. I could see his head just emerging from the hole in the floor where the ladder protruded.
‘Send two of your soldiers to the monastery of Saint Andrew,’ I told him, ‘and have them bring back a boy named Thomas who is living there.’ I brushed aside his puzzled objection. ‘He is the only one who can tell if this is the man we seek.’
That next hour was an aching ordeal, my every hope hostage to Thomas’s arrival. We searched the house, the top room particularly, but found nothing of import: our prisoner had a low bed, a crude table and a pair of stools, and little else. He did not speak, and I could not summon the strength to interrogate him, so we left him sitting against the wall with his hands tied before him and four Patzinaks surrounding him. Most of the guards were dispatched back to the palace, while others rummaged through the shopkeeper’s rooms below. Every sound they made caused me to start, to peer down the ladder to see if Thomas had arrived, and every time I felt a fool for revealing my agitation.
Predictably, I hardly noticed when he did finally arrive; I was standing at the window looking out over a wasteland of broken tenements, and only when I heard the sentry’s challenge did I turn to see him.
He was looking well. Anna must have seen to it that the monks who cared for him did not take their ascetism too rigorously, and in the weeks since I had seen him his chest and shoulders had swelled out like a warrior’s. His pale hair was brushed and trimmed, and his young beard was beginning to close in over his chin. He looked uncertainly about the room, unsure perhaps as to why he had come.
Even before I could ask my question, his eyes told me the answer. I had seen him notice our prisoner, sitting bound and guarded, had seen the curiosity which the sight engendered. There had been confusion, certainly, and perhaps a little fear, for it was not so long since he had been in that position. But not, to my furious frustration, the least hint of recognition.
κ
‘This is not him.’ A month in the monastery had worked miracles on Thomas’s Greek, though I was in no mood to appreciate it. Thomas looked closer, his hesitant lips moving silently as he rehearsed his next words. ‘But like.’
‘Like? Like what? This man is like the monk?’
A look of pain furrowed Thomas’s face, and I forced myself to repeat my questions more slowly.
He nodded. ‘Like. Like him.’
‘Like a brother, perhaps?’ I turned to our cowering captive, who had heard every word. ‘Is your brother a monk? Does he stay with you?’
I was tense enough to shake an answer out of him, but he merely snivelled a little and rested his head on his knees. One of the Patzinaks slapped the side of his face.
I looked to the sergeant. ‘Go downstairs and ask the grocer whether this man received visitors: a monk. Apologise for the damage you have done his house; tell him that the Eparch will see he is well paid for his trouble.’
The sergeant looked doubtful, but I was the only man in that room who could vouch for the Eparch. We waited in silence while the sergeant thudded down the ladders; then we heard raised voices, the sound of the grocer’s wife screaming accusations, and the crash of some clay vessel shattering.
The sergeant returned, flushed.
‘There was another man who often stayed here. The grocer’s wife had many rows with the tenant, who she calls Paul, over whether he should pay more rent for this guest. She was outraged that a man of God was taking advantage of them. “Why can he not stay in the monastery, with his brethren?” she asked.’
A flood of elation burst through me, but I tried to remain methodical. ‘What did this Paul say in return?’
‘That the man was his brother, brought to our city on a pilgrimage ordained by God. Who was he to deny him hospitality?’
‘And when was the last time this monk visited?’
The sergeant smiled in triumph. ‘Two days ago.’
I turned back to look at our prisoner. ‘Your brother is the monk I seek, the man who would kill the Emperor.’ I did not know whether to feel joy or anger that I had come so close. ‘Sergeant, take him to the palace for the torturers to start their work. Leave six of your men here in case the monk returns.’
As I had hoped, I saw the prisoner Paul go pale when I mentioned the torturers. ‘You will not snare my brother here,’ he protested. ‘He is gone.’
I watched him coolly. ‘Of course you say that. We will see what you say after a month in the dungeons.’
The prisoner went silent and bit his lip; his fingers were now wrapped tight about each other, and his nails gouged white weals in his skin. ‘He is escaped,’ he insisted. ‘I swear it. I saw him yesterday evening, in the forum of Arcadius, and he told me he would be gone by dawn. Whatever you want with him, you will not get it now.’
‘But what more could I tell you there?’ The prisoner threw his gaze desperately around the room, beseeching pity, though the watching Patzinaks evinced nothing but menace. ‘He is gone, curse him, and he will not come back. You say he wanted to kill the Emperor, whom I pray to live a thousand years. Maybe he did. He was much changed, my brother, when he came here, and I think evil had blossomed in his heart, but what could I do? I could not bar my brother from my door: he would not let me – and he was my kin. “Do not be slow to entertain wayfarers,” he told me, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”’
I snorted. ‘He was far from an angel.’
‘He did not think so.’ The prisoner Paul shuffled his shoulders a little, trying to smooth out his tunic. ‘How many nights did I listen to him, his sermons of how the empire needed a purifying fire to descend and burn away its withered branches.’ Paul looked at me imploringly. ‘He was not like this when we were young.’
After his earlier silence, the torrent of Paul’s story left so many fragments I could scarce begin to think what to examine first. I settled on the beginning.
‘When you were young,’ I repeated. ‘When was that?’
‘Thirty years ago?’ Paul shrugged. ‘I have not counted. We grew up in the mountains of Macedonia, the sons of a farmer. Michael and I . . .’
‘Michael? Your brother’s name is Michael?’
Paul shook his head. ‘It was then. But when I greeted him by it after he returned, he chastised me for it. “I am reborn in Christ,” he said. “And I have taken the name Odo.” After that he insisted I call him by this new, barbarian name.’
Once again the story was flowing away from me. ‘After he returned . . . from where? When did he go?’
‘He went not long after he was grown to manhood. He and our father . . . disagreed.’
‘Disagreed about what?’
Paul lifted his bound hands and wiped his wrists across his forehead. ‘Our father had arranged a bride for him, but Michael did not want to marry the girl. When my father insisted, Michael refused. Afterwards he left our village and came here, to the queen of cities. He said he would make a pilgrimage to the relics of Saint John the Baptist, and find absolution.’
