The Golden Horn

by Judith Tarr

  It was grave, absorbed, yet otherwise unreadable. She struggled to decipher it.

  The coughing eased. Alf knelt now very still, one hand on Bardas’ chest, the other smoothing the sparse white hair with absent tenderness. His face froze into a mask, white as death but with burning eyes.

  Thea moved softly to stand behind him, hands resting on his shoulders. Sophia waited, hardly breathing, for she knew not what. The only sound was the rattle of Bardas’ breath and the creak of Corinna’s aging bones as she lowered herself to her knees. She crossed herself and began to pray.

  A priest, Sophia thought. I have to send for a priest. But she did not move or speak.

  Alf’s face tensed. Sweat beaded his brow; almost invisibly he began to tremble. Light shimmered about him, a faint sheen like stars on silver.

  A sound brought her eyes about. The door opened barely enough to admit a child. Nikki crept into her lap, blinking sleepily but holding her hand in a warm firm clasp. She held him to her and rocked him, knowing full well that it was not for his comfort that she did it but for her own.

  The long night wheeled into dawn. The lamp flickered and failed; cold grey light crept into the room.

  Alf sank back on his heels. The rumble of Corinna’s prayer caught and died. Bardas lay still, gasping but no longer coughing.

  Sophia had no voice to speak. Alf raised his face to her, the same white mask, but with eyes bereft of all fire. “I cannot heal him,” he said softly and clearly, with all the weariness in the world.

  She rose, setting Nikki on his feet. Slowly she made her way to the bed.

  Bardas turned his head a fraction. His eyes were clear but a little remote, as if his soul had already begun to withdraw from his body. He smiled at her; his lips moved with only the breath of a whisper. “It doesn’t hurt any more. It’s just…a little hard to breathe.”

  Alf slid an arm beneath his shoulders and raised him a little, propping him with a cushion.

  “Better,” he sighed. “Come here, Sophia.” She came and took his hand. It returned her clasp with a faint pressure, soon let go. All his strength bent on the battle for breath.

  Yet he was losing it, inch by inch. It was not only the corpse-light of the winter dawn that touched his face with death. Slowly it spread, robbing his limbs of their warmth, advancing inexorably toward his heart.

  His breathing faltered, rallied, caught. She covered his lips with hers. His eyes smiled his old, private smile. As she straightened, the smile touched his mouth. Slowly she drew back.

  His body convulsed. Even before the spasm had ended in a torrent of blood, she knew that he was dead.

  24.

  Sophia had no use for the extravagance of Eastern grief. She would dress all in black as befit a widow; she would forsake her perfumes and her jewels and refrain from painting her face.

  But the servants had their orders. No wailing; no excesses of lamentation. The house was still and silent, even the children muted, stunned. Later, when she thought of the day that followed Bardas’ death, her first memory would be of Anna’s face when she heard that her father was dead: the huge shocked eyes and the cheeks draining slowly of color, leaving her as pale as the corpse upon its bier.

  Irene wept immediately and wildly. Anna did not. She looked long at Bardas; touched his cold hand, half in love, half in revulsion; and went away without a word.

  o0o

  Alf found her in the stable, currying her pony till the dust flew up in clouds. It was warm there from the bodies of the beasts in their stalls: the pony, and the mules that drew Sophia’s carriage, and the old dun mare which Bardas had ridden in his travels outside of the City. She whickered as Alf passed; he paused to stroke her soft nose and feed her a bit of bread.

  Anna ignored him resolutely. She laid down the currycomb; he took it up and began to groom the mare. There was a moment’s pause before she reached for the brush.

  He kept his back to her, working diligently. As he bent to inspect the mare’s hoof, Anna sneezed. He did not glance at her. She had stopped her brushing altogether; he felt her eyes on him.

  He released the hoof and straightened. “Are you going to ride?” he asked.

  “It’s raining,” she said flatly.

  “Not any more.”

  “I don’t feel like it.” Yet she clambered onto the pony’s back, tethered as he was, and sat there stroking his neck.

  Alf left the mare and brought out a crust or two for the pony.

  “All he cares about is food,” Anna said almost angrily.

  “He likes his ease, too. And you, when you spoil him.”

  “When I feed him.” Carefully she unraveled a knot in the thick mane. Her brows were knit; her mouth was tight. She looked very much like her mother.

  “Alf,” she said abruptly, “what happens when somebody dies?”

  He sat on the grain bin while the pony nosed his hands, searching for another tidbit. “Many things,” he answered. “The body doesn’t work any more. The heart stops; the flesh grows cold. The soul—the self—goes away.”

  “Where?”

  Under her hard stare, he raised his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve never been allowed to follow the whole way. After a while, the light is too bright. I have to turn back.”

  “Is that a story?” she demanded.

  “No. I don’t tell stories.”

  “Except true ones.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why do people die?”

  “The world is made so. Man lives his life as he wills, and if he is good, as God wills, too. When the time comes, God takes him. Life, you see, is both a gift and a test. A gift because it’s sweet, and there’s only one of it for every man. A test because it can be very bitter, and a man’s worth is judged by how well he faces the bitterness. At the end of it he gains Heaven, which is all sweet and no bitter, and wholly free from death.”

  “Father died.” She said it as if she were telling him a new thing. “He went to Heaven.”

  “Yes. He went to the light.”

  “Everyone dies. Everyone goes to Heaven if he’s good. Mother will die. Irene will die, and Nikki, and Corinna. I’ll die. When I get old, I’ll die.” She studied her hands. Small narrow child-hands, sorely in need of a washing. “I’m not old yet. Father was old. Mother’s not quite old. I don’t want her to die, too. She won’t die. Will she, Alf? Will she?”

  Despite the stable’s warmth, Alf was suddenly cold. He spoke with an effort, keeping his voice quiet. “That is in God’s hands.”

  Anna slid from the pony’s back and stood in front of him. She was very pale. “Father died and went away. That’s not him back there on the bed. Mother will go away, too. I’ll be alone.”

  “No.” He took her cold hands in his warm ones. “Your mother will take care of you. If ever she can’t, I’ll be there. I promised your father that. And I keep my promises.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Everybody dies. You’ll die, too.”

  His fingers tightened. He relaxed them carefully and drew a deep breath. “Anna, I’m not like other people.”

  “I know that,” she snapped impatiently. “You and Thea. You can talk to Nikki. You can make sick people well. But not Father. Why not Father?”

  “God wouldn’t let me.”

  “Then God is bad.”

  She glared at him in defiance, heart thudding, half expecting to be struck dead for the blasphemy. He regarded her with a quiet level stare. “God cannot be bad,” he said, “but He can let bad things happen for His own reasons. Death is only evil for those who love the dead. For the dead themselves, it’s a joy beyond our conceiving. Imagine, Anna. No more sorrow and no more pain. No more sickness and no more fear. Only joy.”

  “You were crying, too. I saw you.”

  “Of course I was. I loved him, and I’ll miss him sorely. It was myself I cried for. Not your father.”

  She freed her hands and buried them in the skirts of her gown. He was silent. She wanted to hit him, to make him angry, to rid hi
m of that maddening calm.

  “I’m not calm,” he said. “I’m only pretending. What good would it do if I screamed and cried and upset the horses?”

  “I’d feel better.”

  “Would you?”

  “Yes!” she lied stubbornly. But she added, “You’re always pretending?

  “Most of the time. Monks learn how to do that.”

  “Monks are horrid. You’re horrid. I hate you!’

  “Why?” he asked.

  She stared openmouthed. He stared back with wide pale-grey eyes. She plunged toward him, hands fisted to strike him; but her fingers laced behind his waist and her face buried itself in his lap, and all the dammed-up tears burst forth.

  He gathered her up and rocked her, not speaking. It was a long while before she stopped.

  She lay against him. He was warm and strong and more solid than he looked. “I’ve got your coat wet,” she said in a muffled voice.

  “It will dry.” He set a handkerchief in her hand; she wiped her face with it, sniffing loudly.

  Her hair was in a tangle. He smoothed it with a light hand. She blinked up at him, her eyes wet still, but her mouth set in its old firm line. “If you go away,” she said, “or die, after what you promised Father, I really will hate you.”

  “I swear to you, I’ll neither die nor leave you. Not while you need me.” .

  “You had better not.” She slid from his lap and stood a moment. The likeness to her mother was stronger than ever. “I think I’ll ride after all. Will you come?”

  He nodded. “For a little while.” He reached for the mare’s bridle and turned toward her stall as Anna began to saddle the pony.

  o0o

  Bardas lay in his tomb beyond the City’s walls. The long rite of grief was ended, the funeral feast consumed; the guests and the mourners had gone back to their houses. There remained only the Akestas, family and servants, in a house gone strangely empty.

  Alf was the last to go up to bed. He had spent a long evening with Sophia, most of it in silence. There had been no need of words.

  He bathed slowly, weary to the bone. They crowded him, all these humans, clinging to him, barely letting him out of their sight. He had not even been able to sleep in peace; Nikki had shared his bed every night since Bardas died.

  But it was not Nikki he found there tonight. Thea sat in his usual place, combing her long free hair. She looked up as Alf hesitated in the doorway, but did not smile.

  His heart thudded against his ribs. He quelled an urge to turn and bolt. “Where is Nikephoros?”

  “I sent him to keep his mother company. She needs him. You,” said Thea, “have me.”

  He tried to swallow. His mouth was dry.

  “I know,” she said. “I’ve left you alone too long. You’ve had time to think.”

  Carefully he closed the door behind him.

  She laughed a shade too shrilly. “Poor little Brother. Has guilt struck at last? Thou shalt not look on a woman with lust in thine eye; thou shalt not know her carnally; and most of all, thou shalt not enjoy it.”

  “Particularly,” he said, “when thine host is dying in thine absence.”

  “He would have died no matter where you were. He should have died months ago. But you kept him alive. In the end, God lost patience and came to claim His own.”

  Alf left the door to stand near the bed, but not close enough to touch. Her eyes upon him were bright and bitter. “When I was most off guard,” he agreed, “God struck. It was His right.”

  “And now, in atonement, you’ve vowed to cast me off.”

  He advanced a step. She tilted her head back, the better to see his face. He spoke with care. “The nights have been long and dark. I haven’t slept much. Mostly, I’ve been thinking. I’ve pondered sin and guilt and repentance. I’ve considered all that I am and all that I’ve taught and all that I’ve been taught.”

  Her lip curled; her eyes mocked him.

  He continued quietly, weighing each word. “Yes, it is a lot of thinking, even for a scholar. I can’t help it; it’s the way I’m made. Just as you were made with mind and body in balance, thought and action proceeding almost as one. But even I can come in time to a decision.”

  “This time,” she said, “when I leave, I won’t come back. Ever.”

  He looked long at her. She could not hold his gaze; she glared fiercely at her hands, turning the ivory comb in her lap.

  She was all defiance over a hurt and a fear which she would not let herself acknowledge. So well she fancied she knew him.

  “Thea.” She would not raise her eyes. His voice firmed. “Althea, look at me.”

  She obeyed, a flash of gold-rimmed green.

  He met it with cool silver and ember-red. “You know me very well, Thea. Yet you don’t know me at all. What makes you think, now I’ve had all of you, that I’ll ever let you go?”

  She drew her breath in sharply, a gasp, almost a sob.

  “Beloved.” His voice was gentle. “Oh, I had all the thoughts you blame me for, and others besides. After all, I was sworn to chastity for a man’s whole lifetime. But I was also trained in logic. And logic told me that nothing so sweet, indeed so blessed, could truly be a sin. I found light in it, but no darkness. Not where there was love.”

  She searched his face and the mind behind it, open wide for her to see. Suddenly, almost painfully, she laughed. “See, even I can be a fool! I knew how you would be. I knew.”

  “I was. I flogged myself with guilt. But I must have imbibed a drop or two of your good sense. In the end, early this morning when you stood night watch with the Guard, it won. I was going to make Nikki sleep tonight and come to you.” He kissed her lightly, with a touch of shyness, for he was a novice still. “It’s been a long while.”

  “Too long.” She laughed again, more freely, as he dropped his robe and lay beside her. “How could I have forgotten? You were not only a monk; you were a theologian.”

  “And the theologian, though late in emerging, always gains the victory. An agile mind in a willing body, and the fairest lady in all the world. So much has God blessed me.” He loosed the lacing of her gown. “I love you, Thea.”

  Her answer had no words, and needed none.

  25.

  At Candlemas, as you know, Your Holiness, our forces took two great and holy trophies: the standard of the Roman Empire and the blessed icon of the Virgin which bears with it the luck of Constantinople. Shortly thereafter we received word that the usurping Doukas had disposed of his rivals, the young Emperor strangled in his prison cell, his father slain soon after by age, sickness, and grief.

  No bond of honor or treaty now compels us to keep peace. As Lent draws to its end in fasting and abstinence no less devout for that our circumstances force it upon us, we advance inexorably toward the conclusion of this conflict. Count Baudouin has sworn to celebrate Easter in Hagia Sophia. That, he will do, by God’s will and the will of our army.

  Jehan set down his pen and flexed his fingers. A few sentences more, and that would be the end of His Excellency the Cardinal Legate’s latest epistle to the Pope; and His Excellency’s secretary would be free for an hour to do as he pleased. The sun was gloriously warm, as if the past bitter winter had never been; he gazed longingly at it from the stifling prison of the Cardinal’s tent, and swallowed a sigh.

  Soon, he promised himself. Grimly he took up the pen again. Its tip was beginning to splay already after only a line.

  He needed a new quill. And none in his writing case; he had been meaning to replenish his supply and had kept forgetting.

  A shadow blocked the sunlight in the tent’s opening. That would be Brother Willibrord returning most opportunely from one of his endless Benedictine Offices. He had little love to spare for a sword-bearing Jeromite priest with pretensions to scholarship, but he carried an exceedingly well-stocked writing case.

  “Good day, Brother,” Jehan said, squinting at the robed shadow against the sun. “Could you spare a new quill for God’s c
harity, or at least for the Pope’s letter?”

  Brother Willibrord said nothing. That was one of his few virtues: silence. Even as Jehan turned back to his letter, the monk set the pen in his hand, a fresh one, well and newly sharpened.

  “Deo gratias,” Jehan said sincerely but rather absently, eyes on the parchment. Now, where was he? …The will of our army. Yes. After much deliberation, the captains have determined to assault the City with all the forces they can muster. The attack will commence before—

  He stopped. Brother Willibrord stood over him still, a silent and hopeless distraction. He looked up, barely concealing his irritation. “Yes, Brother?”

  Alf smiled down at him, a smile that turned to laughter as Jehan’s jaw dropped. “Indeed, Brother! Has all your labor made you blind?”

  “Alf,” Jehan said. He leaped up, scattering pen and parchment. “Alf! What are you doing here?”

  “Fetching my hat,” Alf answered. “Didn’t I say I would?”

  “That was months ago. Months! With every rumor imaginable coming out of the City, and some of them declaring you dead.”

  “You knew I wasn’t.”

  “I did,” Jehan admitted grudgingly. He pulled Alf into a tight embrace. “By all the saints! Next time you commit imaginary suicide, mind that you do it where I can get at you.”

  “If I can,” said Alf, “I will.”

  “That’s no promise.” Jehan held him at arm’s length and inspected him critically. “You look magnificent. A little tired, maybe. But magnificent.”

  Alf returned his scrutiny with a keen eye, running a hand down his side. Under the brown habit there were ribs to count. “You, on the other hand, could use a month or two of good feeding.”

  “It’s Lent. I’m fasting.” Jehan dismissed himself with a shrug. “All’s well in the City?”

  “As well as it may be,” Alf answered soberly. And after a pause: “Bardas died just after Candlemas.”

  Jehan’s jaw tightened. “I…couldn’t have known. He was a good man. His family—are they—”

  “The Akestas refuse to be daunted by so feeble a power as death. I’m the weak one. Do you know what Bardas did, keeping it secret even from me? Adopted me as his son and made me the guardian of his estate, to hold it in trust for his lady and his children. Not,” Alf added, “that Sophia needs my help. She has a better head for business than I’ll ever have.”