The Mosaic of Shadows

by Tom Harper

  ‘A husband is not everything,’ said Anna gently. ‘I have survived without one.’

  ‘But you chose that it would be so. You did not have a father who would rather see you married, like Persephone, in Hell, than in this life. And you had a noble calling to sustain you – I merely buy vegetables, and prepare them for this table.’

  ‘Very successfully,’ offered Aelric.

  I turned to Anna, desperate to change the tone of the conversation. ‘Talking of your calling, I must congratulate you on the healing you have given Thomas. It seems nearly miraculous. When I found him bleeding to death in that fountain, I thought he would barely survive the afternoon.’

  Anna smiled, her skin golden in the candlelight. ‘Wounds like his are straightforward, and whether he lived or died was more in God’s hands than mine. I simply staunched the bleeding and cleaned away the evil humours which might have grown there. It was as important that you brought him to me so readily. And that you took him into your home afterwards. Few recover in prison air.’

  I shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I acted from selfish motives. I needed him for my work. But . . . I am glad to have helped him. He needed some kindness.’

  ‘Hah.’ Helena had her arms folded, and was glaring at her empty plate.

  I frowned. ‘You disagree? Perhaps, now that I think on it, locking him up with you for company was less of a kindness than I intended.’

  ‘Hah. He was lucky I was here. He needed attention, and understanding. You could not care what he felt, or how he fared in his soul, so long as he stayed tethered here like a sheep. You were barely here to notice.’

  ‘And you have succoured him like a Samaritan, I assume?’

  ‘Like a baby?’ suggested Zoe, giggling.

  Helena tossed her head. ‘Enough to know that he deserves far more sympathy than you would ever show him.’

  I looked angrily at Aelric, uncomfortable with what she implied. ‘You were supposed to be here to ensure that nothing untoward happened between my daughters and the boy. How else could I have conscienced leaving him alone in my house with them?’

  The Varangian lifted his arms in innocence. ‘I watched him every hour of every day, or Sweyn did. Nothing could have happened. Although,’ he added, ‘my task was to guard against anything that might befall him, not safeguard your children’s virtue.’

  Helena hissed like a cat. ‘My virtue is better defended than any walls that Constantine and Theodosius and Severus together could have built. All I did was talk to the boy. Even that, it seems, displeases my father.’

  ‘Talk?’ Now I was quite incredulous. ‘Have you also learned Frankish, then? Or did you hire a priest to come and translate for you?’

  ‘If you had ever bothered to try, you would have discovered that the boy can understand Greek far better than you think. And, with some encouragement, speak it.’

  For a moment I was silent, agape at this revelation and digging desperately through my memories to think what I might have said in front of the boy; searching for confidences revealed or insults unwittingly given. But Helena was not finished.

  ‘And if you had spoken with him, and heard his story, you might genuinely feel for his plight.’

  ‘And what story is that?’

  ‘Do you really care to hear it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said tersely.

  Anna touched Helena’s arm. ‘And even if your father does not, I certainly do. He was, after all, my patient.’

  Helena settled back, triumph written across her young face. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so miserable. His parents were seduced by some charlatan back in their homeland, and as if under a spell left their fields to travel across the world. Their patriarch had preached that every Christian should fight the Ishmaelites, and this mountebank persuaded them that even unarmed, the hand of God would protect them and scatter their enemies.’ She shook her head. ‘I have never heard such stupidity.’

  ‘I have. Go on.’

  ‘They passed through our city last August, two weeks before the feast of the Dormition. Our Emperor gave them food, and ferried them to the far shore of the Bosphorus.’

  ‘I saw them,’ I interrupted. ‘A rabble of peasants and slaves, mostly, with little more than ploughshares and pruning-hooks to fight with. They marched into the Turkish lands in Bithynia, and did not – so far as I know – return. Though I heard rumours that they slaughtered whole villages of our own people in their quest.’

  ‘Thomas did not say that. But his people began to quarrel among themselves. Some went off in search of plunder, while others waited for their leaders to decide what to do. They heard that their vanguard had advanced, even that it had taken Nicaea, and they rejoiced, but then word came that the Turks had slaughtered their expeditions and were camped not ten miles away. Some of the knights rode out to meet them, but they were ambushed and driven back. The Turks followed, and routed their camp in a frenzy of murder. Thomas saw his own parents hacked apart, his sister consumed in the chaos.’

  I saw Helena reach under the table and touch Thomas’s hand, but I did not rebuke her.

  ‘Thomas, and a few others of their company, retreated to an abandoned castle near the coast. Between the mountains and the sea, he said, there was not one inch of land that was not deep with the dead, but he and his companions managed to improvise a defence – using the bones of their kinsmen for masonry – and withstood the Turkish siege. At last the Emperor heard of their peril, and sent a fleet and rescued them, and brought them back to our city. Not one in ten of the original host survived.’

  Some of this I had heard in rumour, and some in gossip, but nothing so terrible, so utterly desolate. And so vividly told: I doubted Helena’s words all came from the boy’s crude, untutored tongue. I have always noticed the poetry in my daughters.

  I looked at Thomas with new compassion, wondering that he had survived such ordeals. He must, as Helena said, have understood much, for his blue eyes were moist with hemmed-in tears, and his hands were tight fists.

  ‘When was this?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Two months ago. A month later he arrived in the city and was forgotten. He survived alone for a week on the streets, before a disreputable man found him and promised him gold to join his sordid designs. What choice did he have?’

  Aelric reached across the table and touched Thomas’s shoulder. ‘You were brave. And lucky, though perhaps you think otherwise now. In my homeland, I saw many boys like you.’

  ‘If that’s his story, then I think you did well to get him to speak of it,’ Anna told Helena. ‘For all we smear them with ointments and wrap them in bandages, most wounds need light and air to heal. The wounds of the mind most especially.’

  Helena looked pleased.

  ‘But you should respect your father. You never could have helped the boy if Demetrios had not rescued Thomas as he did.’

  Now I looked smug. Doubly so, in fact.

  From there the meal relaxed, though several times I saw the others watching Thomas with oblique glances. Anna talked of her profession, with Zoe and Helena a keen audience, and Aelric let them prod him for gossip from the palace, the fashions the ladies wore and the tastes of the empress. They were genial company, and the candle was burned low when at last Anna rose and announced she must go.

  ‘I’ll walk you to the monastery,’ offered Aelric.

  ‘I can manage. The Watch have almost forgotten the curfew these last few nights, since the rumours of the barbarian army spread. The streets are so busy that under a full moon, midnight might be confused for noon.’

  ‘But there’s a new moon tonight, and if the Watch aren’t looking there’ll be more than late guests about.’

  ‘Take Aelric,’ I pressed. ‘Think what satisfaction the moralists would derive if something happened to you after you ignored their precepts on coming to dinner.’

  While Aelric sought out his cloak, I walked Anna down the stairs and helped her wrap her palla over her head. The night was freezing, and in the
orb of the lamp I held I could see a few, tentative snowflakes drifting from the sky.

  ‘That will make the plight of the homeless worse,’ observed Anna. ‘I’ve already seen a dozen families with chills and frostbite, forced to seek medicine when a warm fire would have saved them.’

  ‘Perhaps it will freeze the barbarian army too, if indeed they exist. Then your patients can go back to their villages.’

  Anna was tugging at her cloak. ‘Can you adjust this, Demetrios? My brooch has come unclasped.’

  I reached forward, my hands clumsy on the frozen metal. I had to lean close to see where I worked, but the honeyed perfume on her neck distracted my senses in dizzying fashion. So much that I could scarcely tell afterwards whether, as I fumbled in the dark, I had indeed felt the warmth of her lips brush against my icy cheek.

  ‘There.’ I fastened the clasp and stepped back, as the pounding beat of Aelric’s tread heralded his arrival. ‘Thank you for your company – and for risking the moralists’ reproach. It’s rare that I entertain friends.’

  ‘It was a pleasure.’ A snowflake landed on the tip of her nose, melted, and slid down onto her lip. She licked it away. ‘And a pleasure meeting your family. Strong-willed girls – they do you credit.’

  ‘When they don’t abuse and insult me.’

  Aelric emerged into the street and looked up at the sky. The snow was falling thicker, now: already a soft layer covered the road like goose down.

  ‘I’ll be back in an hour,’ he said. ‘I’ll try not to wake you.’

  He took Anna’s arm, and I felt a burst of jealousy that she did not snatch it away immediately. I tried to laugh at myself – if I could barely think about finding a husband for my daughter, how could I contemplate my own desires? Helena, certainly, would never forgive me.

  I said goodnight, and watched the pair of them disappear into the falling snow.

  ι δ

  I awoke early after strange dreams. The house was achingly cold, and I huddled tight under my blankets to try and generate some warmth. Despite Helena’s efforts of the night before, there was a hunger in my stomach which only made my limbs seem colder; the last two days of the fast would, as ever, be the hardest.

  I raised myself on my elbows and peered over the edge of the bed, to see how Thomas fared on the floor. Anna had scolded me for leaving him there, lecturing that evil vapours lurked near the ground, but Aelric had found a straw mattress and the boy had seemed comfortable enough since then.

  He was not there.

  I rubbed my eyes and looked again. The blankets were thrown back, and there was a depression where he had slept, but of Thomas there was no sign.

  I rose, and brushed past the curtain into the main room. Perhaps he had come to pick over the crusts of the last night’s meal.

  He had not. Nor was Aelric there – his mattress, though recently used, was empty.

  I was growing uneasy, but not yet overly concerned. For the past few mornings Aelric had left early to fetch bread from the baker; I supposed this time he might have taken Thomas with him. I pushed open the shutters on the front window, hoping to see some sign of them in the street.

  The shutters did not give easily – the icy night must have frozen their hinges – but as they at last swung open I was dazzled by the crisp light which poured in. The entire street was turned white, drenched in a sea of snow as far as my eyes could reach. Nothing save the wind had stirred it, and from my high vantage it seemed as smooth as the marble floors of the palace. And as cold.

  Only a single figure broke its pristine coating, a solitary man almost directly below my window. He wore a monk’s habit, but even in the chill of the morning he had pulled back his hood, so that the skin of his tonsure stared up at me. Breath steamed from his lips; he did not move, but seemed to be watching for something.

  I stood for a moment as if the air had frozen my very soul. Was this the monk, I asked, the man who had contrived to murder the Emperor? Why should he be standing in the bleak dawn outside my house? But then, who else would be standing there? And Thomas was missing.

  I shook free my amazement and ran to the girls’ room.

  ‘Helena,’ I said, ‘Zoe. Wake up. The man I seek . . .’

  As my eyes adjusted to the gloom after the brightness of the street, my words fell away. One mystery at least had been solved.

  ‘Thomas! What in all Hell’s dominions are you doing here?’

  He was sitting on the end of their bed, wrapped in a blanket and staring at me with wild, uncomprehending fear.

  ‘Helena! Is this your mischief? Are you mad?’ Outrage and urgency wrestled in my mind. ‘Never mind; we will talk on this later. A dangerous man – the man I seek – is outside our house, and I cannot let him escape. If Aelric comes and I am gone, tell him to follow if he can. And you,’ I said to Thomas, ‘get away from my daughters’ bed and cloister yourself in my room. I will deal with your wickedness presently. And yours likewise, Helena.’

  Battling the confusion that raged within me, I pulled on my boots, grabbed my knife and hurtled down the stairs.

  I came into the street and blinked; the monk was gone. Had I imagined him? No; I could see his footsteps in the snow, the trodden circle where he had waited, and two parallel lines where he had come and gone. I followed them with my eye and there, just at the crossroad, I saw a flash of darkness on the snow disappearing around the buildings.

  With the chill air rasping in my throat, and my sleeping tunic no protection against the cold, I chased after him. Nothing stirred in the snowbound streets, and the tracks were easy to discern, if not to follow. The snow rose above my ankles, tumbling into my boots and trickling down so that my feet were numb and sodden. Even with the effort of forging a path my legs trembled with the cold, and I wished with a burning fervour that I had seized a cloak, perhaps some leggings, before leaving. But then I might have missed him, for those few minutes’ delay with Thomas and Helena had given him a start which I could not close, and for the first half-mile I barely saw him save in fleeting seconds before he turned another corner.

  Mercifully, he did not make for the heart of the city, where the marks of others might have obscured his trail, but seemed instead to aim for the walls. Up winding alleys and treacherous stairs I followed him, sliding and stumbling where the driven snow masked hard contours. Forgotten washing, frozen like lead tiles, hung on taut ropes above me; but no-one appeared at the windows to haul them in. It was as if the winter storm had stilled the entire city, all save me and the man I chased.

  The silence thawed as I came suddenly onto the Adrianople road. A few bold travellers ventured along it, mostly on horseback, but I had seen the monk turn west and now, with the snow thinner and the way straighter, I could lengthen my strides and close my pursuit. For vital seconds I was unseen and unnoticed, but then the monk cast his eyes back over his shoulder, saw me, and began to run. I tried to increase my pace still further, but there was little purchase to be had on that road and my legs were already stiff with cold. Thankfully the way was wide and straight, so there was no losing the monk, but he remained as far beyond my reach as ever. We careered through the trickle of traffic, kicking up plumes of snow behind us, though there was nothing I could summon to gain on him. But soon we would be at the walls, and then he would be trapped. He must have realised this, for at that moment he veered suddenly right down an alleyway. I flailed my arms to keep my balance as I followed him, but too late – he had vanished. I cursed my luck, and his wiles, but did not succumb to misery, for the snow was thicker again and his tracks were fresh.

  And then, it seemed, he flew away, for ahead of me the tracks stopped abruptly in the middle of the road. I came nearer and nearer, looking about for fear that he might have leapt into a doorway to ambush me, but he would have needed a giant’s stride to make that leap and there was nothing. Was there another Genoese invention which would carry men into the air?

  I reached the end of his trail and understood. He had vanished not into th
e air, but into the ground: the footmarks finished at a narrow hole, a dark circle in the spotless snow. The iron disc which had covered it lay discarded a little way away, and at its rim I could see the first rung of a ladder leading down. From the bottom, perhaps thirty feet below, the mirror-gleam of black water told me it was a cistern.

  A more cautious man might have waited there for help, for men with swords and torches to flush out the monk like a hunted boar. But the blood was flowing quick under my skin, and I did not know how many other tunnels might lead out from the chamber. Barely thinking, I lowered my legs into the hole and slid down the ladder. My palms burned with heat and splinters from the coarse wood, but I did not dare descend more slowly for fear that the monk might lurk at its foot, might drive a blade through me as I came down on him. When I could see the water was near, I pressed my foot against a rung and vaulted out into the darkness. The searing chill of the water clenched around me and I howled; had the monk been there he could have felled me at a stroke, for I was frozen in the icy water. I feared I might never move my limbs again so tight was its grip. My scream echoed around the dark hall, resounding off the domed ceilings and ranks of columns whose dim edges I could see in the pool of light shining through from above. Then there was silence. And then, at once some way off and all around, a frantic splashing.

  The monk, I thought, and that sound stirred enough within me to lift my legs and start pushing through the chest-high water. I did not move quickly, but it took only seconds to leave my well of light and pass into utter darkness.

  Was this how Jonah felt in the belly of the whale? I struck out blindly and felt a low wave ripple away from my chest, then slap against the surrounding forest of columns. One by one my senses deserted me: first sight; then sound, as the rushing echoes overrode each other in my ears; then, as the water numbed my soul, touch. I scraped against pillars and their pedestals and barely noticed, though the rough stone tore my shrivelled skin. Once my hand brushed something cold and clammy, and I started with a shout, but it was only a fish carried deep under the city by the aqueduct. I wondered if I had any more chance of escape than he.