'—seven years if a man gives it to his wife up the arse—' 'Petroc!'
'—and for dorsal - that's with you on top - it's three years.' It felt good to rattle on like this: I was beginning to feel a little hysterical. 'From behind is three years too. And that's if we were married. Did you learn none of this when you were in Holy Orders? Now if . . .'
We may have to keep a tally,' Anna said. 'Now be quiet, O master of penances. They're turning.'
The street we now entered was crooked and barely wide enough for the men ahead of us to squeeze through three abreast. The houses all but met overhead, and from the shadowy eaves hung lamps whose flames shone through red glass. Our quarry had burst into a new song which extolled the praises of 'Rose Street', with much play on the plucking of roses, rosy petals and sweet nectar. The voices had a more urgent tone now. Then the group halted in front of a door. The leader knocked, exchanged words through a grille. Then the men filed in. The door clicked shut behind them.
'So here we are in Rose Street,' Anna said.
'Every city has one,' I said. Balecester's own Rose Street, street of the red lamps, had been down near the Crozier, and I had studiously avoided it, of course. I heard a rapping, and turned. Anna was knocking on another door. 'What are you doing?' I hissed.
'I think this one looks promising,' she replied, and knocked again. I tried to pull her away. 'Not yet,' I said desperately.
'No time for cold feet,' she sang. 'Or rather, let me warm those cold feet for you in a nice warm bed. How many years' penance is that, by the way?'
Then the door opened a crack and a bulbous nose appeared. A man's face followed, livid with burst veins. He looked us up and down through rheumy eyes.
"Yes, noble gents?' he said at last.
'I . . .' I began.
We seek a little sport, my good fellow,' said Anna in her deepest voice. The man's eyes narrowed. Anna tapped the purse that hung from her belt. It clanked, the smug tone of gold upon gold.
'Oh, sport! That we have, that we have, dear lords,' said the man, his face lighting up. I was afraid more veins might burst. He threw open the door and ushered us inside.
A fire burned in a big fireplace, tables were scattered about, at which a few men sat with goblets before them. Women bustled about, fetching drinks and food. We might have been in an ordinary tavern, save that the women were all naked but for the elaborate headpieces that a few wore, and which made them look even more unclothed. Some were young, some not so young. I stood as if turned to stone. So many breasts, so many bums! And that patch of hair at the base of the belly: here thick, there sparse; dark on one, fair on another.
'What's the matter, brother, never seen a naked wench before?' said Anna from the corner of her mouth.
'No,' I hissed. It was true. And now here were . . . how many? Ten? Twelve? I almost crossed myself, such was my agitation.
A couple of women approached and took us by the hands, exclaiming over our youth and fine clothes, almost as if we were not present. They led us to a table. Anna ordered wine, and drew two bezants from her purse.
Take these to your mistress,' she said, 'and say that we desire to speak to her.'
We sat back and sipped our wine. The fire was warm and its light danced over the bare flesh of the women. Anna and I slipped into a conversation that had nothing to do with anything, a comfortable chewing-over of some minor event back on the Cormaran. We would break off now and again to admire our hosts, and I found the sensation of Anna watching me watching the whores oddly arousing. I thought of Burchard, and how one of his strictures governed masturbation with the aid of a pierced wooden board. Twenty days on bread and water for that. It struck me with crystal certainty that Burchard must have had leanings, of a lewd nature, towards wood. To him a carpenter's shop had been a brothel. I burst out laughing, a lovely warm laugh that started deep within and seemed to swell my soul until it burst free of all the dark, dismal threads stitched into it by Burchard and all his grim, cheerless crew. I threw back my head and hooted at the ceiling.
What's the matter, my love?' Anna asked, a flicker of worry in her face.
'Nothing. Nothing in the world, my love.'
When the madam arrived, a large, fully clothed personage with the apple cheeks of a farmer's wife and the gimlet eyes of a usurer, Anna came straight to business.
'My friend and I are here under false pretences, my good woman,' she said. 'I told your doorman we were after some sport. Indeed we are, but we play the Game, and fair as your girls undoubtedly are, we have other plans.'
'The Game, eh?' said the madam, crossing her arms and regarding us with pursed lips. Then understanding dawned. 'A couple of ganymedes! Boys, boys, what are you doing here?
There are plenty of bath-houses near the cathedral. You are wasting your money, and my time.'
'Not at all,' said Anna, leaning forward. We have money to waste. And this city is alive with men of war who might think it a great laugh to hunt a pair of ganymedes like us. You can provide a bed and a door that locks, and we will pay you over the odds for it. And who knows? Maybe we will feel the urge to convert, and you can send a brace of your fairest wenches up to us.'
The madam pondered. Then she smiled, almost warmly.
'Oh, well . . . and why not? I've always had a soft spot for your kind, after all. There's a couple of girls upstairs already. If you go up now, no one will bat an eyelash.'
She reached deep into her bodice and thrust a warm key into my hand. 'Fourth room off the second landing,' she whispered loudly, and winked. You naughty young things - and so handsome! What a waste, eh? I'll bring up some wine myself, shall I? Well, get along with you!'
We grabbed up our goblets and the flagon and picked our way through the whores to the stairs. Anna went up first. I lifted her tunic as she climbed. Her bottom swayed before me, wrapped tight in white breeches and framed by the dark hose. She reached up and undid her hair and it fell about her shoulders like a storm cloud.
The hallway was dim. Regular grunts and squeals came from behind the first door. A woman sang in the second room, a low, soft song, the words unclear. Silence behind the third door, and then our room. In a frenzy I grappled with the handle. A single candle burned inside. I kicked the door shut with my heel. The crash brought me to my senses: here we were at last. Here I was, after weeks of longing and a lifetime of confused and guilty lust. I stood, feeling like a lump of stone, as Anna skipped to the big, crudely carved bed, unbuckling her belt as she went. The sword clattered on the floor.
'Come to me, my love,' she said hoarsely, fingers nimble at the ties of her tunic. Then in one great swoop of her arms she threw it off and it collapsed slowly on the dusty floor. There she sat, her skin very white between the darkness of her hair and the green of her hose. Still whiter was the band of linen that wrapped her chest. She dropped her head to her shoulder and regarded me. All at once her face seemed not her own, suffused by a heat and a hunger that set my own face burning. I took a step back towards the door.
What is it, Petroc?' she asked, her voice tight.
My stomach was clenched. My skin crawled and burned and I blushed so hard I felt heat crackle from my hair. Desire, it seemed, felt like plain terror. All at once I felt my hands rise and touch, palm to palm, a reflex forgotten all these long months. In confusion I pushed them against me and felt my heart beating itself against its cage.
'I do not know what to do,' I said at long last.
My eyes met hers and we stood, locked, my heart counting out the eternity of my shame. Then Anna's face softened and she began to smile. She reached out her hands to me.
'All you need do is come here to me, my lovely man.'
And so I did, almost tripping in the folds of Anna's tunic, and sat beside her on the bed. I was shivering as if with an ague, and she pulled me to her, holding me tight and tighter until the fit had passed. Then without words she unbuckled my belt and, as if undressing a child, pulled my tunic over my head.
'Now,' she mur
mured, taking my hands and guiding them back to where the linen was knotted behind her. I tugged and an end came free. Anna raised her arms and slowly I unwound the long band until it fell away and we embraced, warm skin against warm skin at last. Then I was myself again, and the dance of our hands, as we untied laces and garters and found the places hidden beneath, did not seem strange any more. We fell back on the raddled old bed and I let my world become Anna: her hair, her scent, freckles that came and went in the candlelight, flesh that rose and puckered to my wondering touch. And so we drifted until we found where the heat of our two bodies and souls could safely burn, the refiner's fire of life and love.
Some time later, Anna stirred, her face still deep in a pillow. 'How much was that worth, penance-wise, Brother Petroc?' 'Three years, my child. At the very least.'
Chapter Fifteen
T
he candle had burned down until the wick floated in a pool of tallow, guttering. Anna and I lay and watched the mothy shadows flitter about the rafters. We had taken the trouble to strip, eventually, and now a scratchy, smelly coverlet kept the chill from our skin.
'If my uncle could see us now . . .' said Anna, wriggling against me.
'The Emperor? What would he do?' I replied, lazily.
'He would make you stare at a white-hot iron until you were blind. Then he would have you castrated. Then he would lock you away somewhere, blind and ball-less, and let you think about matters. Then he would have you strangled.'
'Oh.'
'He would do the same to me, minus the castration of course. If that makes you feel any better.' 'I can't say that it does.'
'Don't trouble yourself, my precious love. I am not going to tell him. Are you?'
'Just as long as it doesn't come up at my next audience with him.'
She cackled. 'He thinks I'm dead, of course.'
I stared at the struggling candlelight playing along a beam. Someone had tried to paint a lewd scene on it, but had given up half-way. I could make out the odd breast here and there in the scrawl of flaking pink paint, and a man's face, the eyes bulging in a ludicrous portrayal of ecstasy. I hoped I hadn't been making that face earlier.
Earlier, as I made love to the niece of the Emperor of Byzantium. And as she made love to me. The immensity of it hit me like a stone from a sling. I, Petroc of Auneford, renegade monk, outlaw and accused murderer, sheep-farmer's son from the peaty wastes of Dartmoor. How had this come to pass? The Emperor's niece! Somehow I had put that fact from my mind. The thin, hollow-eyed creature whom the crew knew as the boy Mikal had simply become my dearest friend.
And now we were sated, lying warm against each other. I turned and brushed my hand down her breast to her belly, feeling goose bumps start at my touch. I ran my fingers along the edge of the springy curls below her navel, which now I knew smelled of gillyflowers, Anna's true scent, but more powerful here. I pushed my nose into the softer hair on the pillow, and closed my eyes. Her lips found mine and we kissed, soft and quiet. I felt the heat of her skin seep into mine and found I cared nothing for Anna the Emperor's niece. It was this Anna, the girl of flesh and hot, wild blood, who lived inside me now, and she would never leave so long as I still drew breath.
Your nose is cold,' I said.
She rose up on one elbow and looked down on me. A breast fell free of the coverlet, the nipple almost black in the shadows. Well, my ganymede, are you ready to kill Mikal?' she said.
We decided that it would be better to leave the brothel as men, if only to avoid more questions. Although Anna had said that her uncle believed her as good as dead, I noticed that a new caution - the merest tint, like a drop of dye in clear water - had entered her mood. Perhaps she had realised only now that she was back in the civilised world, and that someone as powerful as her uncle — let alone her erstwhile husband - could have ears and eyes in a big port like Bordeaux. A bold sodomite who suddenly became a noble lady would be something that was remembered, even in a place such as this.
So we dressed and made our way downstairs. It was the dead of the night, just after the watch had rung four bells, and the house was quiet, but not silent. The sounds of rut still came from the room by the landing. Downstairs only two women were still awake, and they had thrown on some clothes. A man sat slumped at one of the tables and tried to fondle one of them, but he was very drunk and could do no more than pluck pathetically at her rumpled shift. Only the bulbous-nosed doorman noticed us. He unlatched the door and accepted a small gold coin with a simper empty of sincerity. It was clear that we disgusted him. That a man who made his living in a place like this could allow himself the luxury of disgust made me smile, and I laid a hand, deliberately, on his shoulder.
'Thank you, good fellow. I look forward to seeing you again very soon.'
He tried to shake me off while still appearing obsequious, but it was an ugly performance. I was glad when the door closed and left us alone in the street. It was very cold and dark, and reeked of beery piss.
We needed to find some abandoned place where Anna could change into her woman's garb. Now that we were alone in the cold, I wanted it done and over with. We had to get back to the ship and face the wrath of Elia and Pavlos, if indeed they had yet woken. I wished we had changed in the brothel after all. That foul old goblin of a doorman wouldn't have noticed or cared, surely? Where would we go now?
'Could you not just slip whatever clothing you have over your tunic and hose?' I ventured. Who would know?'
'I would,' she said, firmly. 'Mikal is finished. I want no more of him. I feel my womanhood rushing through me, which is all your fault, by the way.'
Well then, what now?'
'Let's find a nice church,' said Anna.
It wasn't a bad idea. There would be no one about in a small church at this hour, and the doors would not be locked. St Pierre was close to the Great Gate, but was big enough to perhaps have a verger in attendance. But I remembered a smaller church in its own square a little further in to the heart of the town. That would have to do.
I thought I could remember how to get back to the cathedral, which I believed was at the opposite end of the town from the river. If we kept the west door of the cathedral to our backs and followed the inner wall of the town, we should arrive at the wharf before long. But we needed to hurry and to be cautious, for now we were breaking the curfew, and would have to keep a sharp eye out for the Watch. I told this to Anna, and she gave me a crooked grin and rattled her sword. I did not find this a comfort, but kept my thoughts to myself.
It was easy to find the street of the cook-shops from the trails of bread, bones and vomit that led to it from all points of the compass. We crept past the shuttered storefronts that had been so full of life and cheer just a little time past. From there I tried to remember the twists and turns we had taken. After finding a couple of dead ends and streets we had no recollection of, we burst into a square, from which we could see the cathedral spire looming off to our right. Soon we were back beneath the scaffolding around the door.
Why not in here?' hissed Anna. I remembered the last time I had been inside a great cathedral such as this. Nothing, not the foulest demons of hell clacking red hot pincers, could drive me into such a place again. I shook my head and led the way to the west door. Sure enough, the old wall of the town stretched away before us. It would be easy to find our way from here. We set off once again, keeping to the thickest shadows and stepping lightly.
The church of St Projet was smaller than St Pierre, and the square it stood in was smaller too. We padded around the dark shell until we reached the door. I tried it: it was unlocked, and we stepped into the dim, candlelit nave. The place smelled like all churches: old stone, polished wood and incense. We listened, our ears pricking like hounds, but there was no one there. I noticed that some of the candles before the various altars had long since burned out. A verger would have relit them. We would be alone for another hour or so.
It was a grand place, in its way. Enough wealthy families had lavished money on
altars and tombs and windows to fill the modest space with carved wood and stone, gleaming plate and brass. Nevertheless I felt the same hollowness within that had come to me first in Gardar, and I almost turned on my heel and walked out. Instead I muttered to Anna that we should be quick as lightning.
A door led up to the bell-tower, and it was not locked. We slipped through it and pulled it to behind us, leaving a narrow crack through which I could see the main entrance. Behind me, Anna unbuckled her sword-belt and sank down onto the steps that wound up into the spider-guarded shadows. I heard the sough and hiss of doffed clothing, and a faint Greek oath directed at an over-tight knot. Two clinks as her garters dropped onto stone.
She was leaning back on silk-draped steps, her body glimmering, pearl-like, in the faint candle-glow from beyond the door. I looked from her face to the darkness between her legs, sprawled wantonly. Into the cold air crept the scent of gillyflowers. And then for a timeless instant I was back in Balecester, in the church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. The painted hell had blossomed into life. The pink, naked housewives pranced as the devils jabbed away with their toasting-forks, but I saw that the points were soft and gave delight, not pain. All these jolly folk, ladies and devils, romped and laughed until all were entwined in a heaving, happy knot, and dissolved before my eyes.
Anna was rummaging in her satchel, pulling out pieces of clothing and strewing them on the stairs. I gathered up an armful of her nobleman's costume and began to fold it, running the fiery silk of Anna's tunic through my fingers. How immediate were the pleasures of the senses, but how real also. The church, I now realised, was a place of beauty. I could admit that much to myself. It had given delight to those who had built it and wrought its fine decorations, the delight of creation, the delight that the eyes and hands convey to the heart. That delight, it seemed to me now, was enough, all, perhaps, that we earthly beings had a right to expect. The glow of love was still upon me, and joy still flowed through my limbs. How many times had I knelt on cold stone in a place like this and waited in vain for some divine sensation to flood me? And now it had happened.
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