by Tom Harper
‘I forgot you were here,’ I said, desperately aware how false I sounded. ‘In the dark, and with many worries troubling my mind, I . . .’
She put a hand over my lips. ‘Be quiet, Demetrios. A woman wants a man who desires her. Not one who stumbles on her in the dark by accident as though she were the corner of a table.’
‘But this is . . .’
‘Sinful?’ She laughed. ‘I have spent my life probing the secrets of the flesh: I’ve found blood, bile, bone and sinew, but never anything that looked like sin. You were in the army – did you never seek company when you were far from home?’
Her plain speaking shocked me, but the way her fingers played over the small of my back beat down my consternation. ‘A young man may find himself a slave to his urges,’ I admitted.
‘So may a woman.’
‘I confessed it and was absolved. That does not license me to make it a habit.’
‘But you have fought men, sometimes killed them. Why do you submit to anger but resist pleasure?’
Her manner was bewitching, and her persistent arguments inescapable. Nor was the resolve of my spirit constant in my flesh, for I had begun stroking my hand between her breasts, running it up to her throat and down the curve of her neck. I thought of my wife, Maria, and faltered a second, but the memory of her touch redoubled my desire, and I pushed harder against Anna’s yielding body. She wrapped her arms around my head and pulled me towards her chest, dragging my lips over her in a welter of tiny kisses.
In my body there was now no resistance; every part of me was tugging, kissing or squeezing her, but my mind held out. Was this blasphemy? Did I defile Maria’s memory, our marriage before God? But the Lord had not condemned me to the celibate life of a widower forever. And Maria, who had matched her elder daughter’s pragmatism with her younger daughter’s playfulness, would not, I thought, want me living the life of a monk in her name.
Perhaps that was true, or perhaps circumstance made me wish it true, but I was in no place for reasoned moral argument. I surrendered and sank into Anna’s embrace, clutching her against me in our silent coupling.
κ δ
The Blacherna gate was cold when I reached it, and colder still for the sleep I had lost. Leaving Anna’s caressing warmth behind had been hard enough, but as I plodded through empty streets to the walls, doubt and guilt and shame overtook me. How could I have surrendered to such abandon, and in the most sacred week of the year? What would my confessor say? How would the Lord God treat with me? With a long march through darkness ahead of us, and nothing but ten thousand hostile barbarians at the end of it, I had chosen a poor time to offend His laws.
Sigurd was already there. He had his axe on his shoulder, his mace by his side, and a short sword in his belt, yet still had the strength to carry two shields and another sword in his arms.
‘These are for you,’ he muttered. There was something about the night which hushed all our talk. ‘I dug them out of the armoury.’
I strapped the shield onto my arm, and buckled the sword around my waist. The distance ahead of us seemed immediately longer.
‘They’ve made these heavier since I was in the legions,’ I complained. ‘How can any man fight with this?’
‘They’ve made you heavier since you were in the legions, I think.’
‘Who is this?’ The Patzinak captain, the same who had led the expedition to the monk’s brother’s house, jabbed a finger at Sigurd. ‘We’ve no need of Varangians.’
‘Sigurd is my bodyguard,’ I explained tersely. ‘He must accompany me.’
The Patzinak looked unimpressed, but shrugged and moved away to the head of his men.
Sigurd glared at me. ‘Two months ago I was bodyguard to the Emperor. Now it seems I protect only those whom no-one could possibly want to kill.’
‘Maybe.’ I hitched the shield further up my arm. ‘Let’s hope that you can still say that in the afternoon.’
A shout from the front of the line ordered us forward. Two columns of Patzinaks began marching, followed by the squealing rumble of the lumbering grain carts. The oxen pulling them lowed their displeasure; their coats were glossy with the moisture in the air, and breath steamed from their snub-ended noses. Sigurd and I joined the after-guard at the tail of the column. High above us tiny squares of yellow glowed in the windows of the new palace, where perhaps even now the Emperor dreamed of conquests, but they vanished as we passed through the arch and onto the plain ahead. The moon was gone, and clouds had covered the stars, so we travelled almost blind, with only the huffing and squeaking of the ox-carts to break our solitude.
Those carts might have been a wise idea as a disguise, but they were nothing but a hindrance on that dark journey. One got stuck in a rutted stretch of road, and had to be heaved out by Patzinaks; then their weight forced us to pass by all the bridges, and travel to the very tip of the Horn. The shield dragged on my arm, and when I tried lashing it to my back, as I had in the legions, the straps almost strangled me.
‘To think it is Great Thursday,’ I murmured, as much to myself as to Sigurd. ‘We should be at prayer, not warring with our fellow Christians.’
‘If they feel likewise, then you can be at your church by noon.’ Sigurd’s strides were, as ever, a foot longer than my own, and I hurried to stay with him. ‘If not, then you might yet find time to talk with God today.’
We straggled on, and I grew glad of the oxen for they were the only ones of our group whose pace was slower than mine. Now we were heading back along the northern shore of the Horn, following where it curved in to form the harbour. I could see lights across the water here, small fires rising on the crests of the hills, though the greater part of the city still lay in darkness. We should be close to Galata now.
As if to confirm my thought I heard a call from ahead, and the sound of two Patzinaks conversing in their fractured language. We must have reached the picket line surrounding the camp, must be little more than a few hundred yards away. The night was falling away, receding into a grey half-light which opened our surroundings to my eyes, and in the distance I could see the dark shadows of the walls of Galata. We had timed our arrival well: their sentries would be rubbing their eyes and thinking of sleep, thanking their God for another night unharmed, while the rest of the camp would be in their beds. Including, I prayed, the monk, in the small house by the far wall, on the street behind the warehouses.
I threaded my way to the front of the column, with Sigurd close behind. ‘Do you remember the plan?’ I asked the Patzinak captain. ‘As soon as the gates are open we leave the wagons and make straight through the camp along the main street.’
The captain gave an unpleasant smile. ‘If the monk is in there, we will find him.’
‘Alive,’ I reminded him.
We were within twenty paces of the gate before the challenge came, a thin shout from a boy who sounded little older than Thomas.
‘Food from the Emperor,’ I called back. ‘Five wagons of grain. Open the gates.’
‘Why does the grain come before dawn?’ There was doubt in the boy’s voice, but whether from nerves or suspicion I could not tell. ‘And why is it surrounded by men in arms?’
‘So that you can enjoy your breakfast, and so that brigands on the road do not empty the wagons before they reach you. The Emperor does not wish you to be hungry.’
That drew derision, followed by a long wait, perhaps while the boy conferred with his superior. I began to doubt Krysaphios’ plan, to wonder whether we would be left standing at the gate while the Franks took the carts. What would we do then? We could not invest Galata with two hundred men, and we could do nothing which might spark a war unless we were sure of getting the monk.
Without warning, the gates swung open.
Even the Patzinaks, barbarians who would charge the walls of Hell itself if ordered, seemed to shrink as we marched into the camp. As we had hoped, there were few Franks about at that hour, but all those we passed stood by the roadside and watched us in
hungry silence. Their arms were folded across their chests, and hate was plain on their gaunt faces. Even the sight of the grain carts rolling in behind us did not soften them, though a few of the children scurried away from their parents’ sides into the alleys behind, doubtless spreading word of our arrival.
‘You have to wonder why the Emperor allowed them to set their camp within a well-fortified colony,’ I said to Sigurd, breaking the hostile silence which surrounded us. ‘They might have been more co-operative with nothing stronger than canvas to protect them.’
‘Perhaps he wanted to prove he trusted them. Or perhaps he wanted them trapped, easily surrounded and watched. Walls make prisons, as well as forts.’
‘Whom do they imprison now?’
We reached a square, the main forum of Galata. There were more Franks here, many of them women and children with baskets for carrying home the grain. They surged forward as the ox-carts halted, but our column of Patzinaks never dropped a step. From somewhere behind us a man shouted that we should halt; we ignored him, and kept marching. I had to credit Krysaphios’ cunning, for the grain served its purpose: with the choice between stopping a company of Patzinaks or eating for the first time in days, every one of the Franks chose to serve his stomach.
Unhindered, we crossed over the square and entered the twisting road which the Sebastokrator’s spy had described. It followed the line of the coast a few dozen yards away, but so thick were the buildings against it we caught only the merest glimpses of water. It seemed almost deserted, perhaps because of the hour or perhaps because all its occupants were gorging themselves in the forum. Whichever: the fewer people who saw us capture the monk, the safer we would be.
As we progressed deeper into the town, the shops and taverns which had lined the road gave way to warehouses, taller and heavier buildings which pressed against the sides of the street. They had few windows and fewer doors, and none of the wondrous smells that surrounded their counterparts on the far side of the Horn. I had heard that the business of trade had almost died since the barbarians arrived, and since the Emperor began his blockade. Certainly there was none of the industry of stevedores, factors and merchants I remembered from my last visit.
We had now come clear across the town of Galata; ahead of us I could see the bulwark of the western walls barricading the end of the street. And just before it, tucked into a crevice between two warehouses, in what must once have been an alley, a thin house.
I tapped the Patzinak captain on his armoured shoulder, and started at the speed with which he spun about. He was broad and squat, almost like a boar, and the links of his scale armour strained against each other, but there was a worry in his grizzled eyes which unsettled me.
‘That is the house,’ I told him, pointing to the thin building. ‘We should get some men behind it, but there seems little point garrisoning the roofs of the warehouses.’ They towered over it on either side, and it would have taken the leap of Herakles to escape that way.
The captain jerked his head, and I heard the rattle of armour as two dozen men turned down an alley behind us to guard any retreat the monk might attempt.
‘Do we knock on the door?’ he asked slyly.
‘We knock it down.’
He shouted an order and six men ran forward. Instead of swords they carried axes – not great battle-axes, like Sigurd’s, but woodsmen’s tools for hewing trees. The core of our company assembled opposite, ready to charge the moment the door was broken, while the rest broke into two parties guarding either end of the street. It seemed a ridiculous force to apprehend a single man, but I knew him too well to think it extravagant.
‘Now.’
Two axes swung against the door, their blades biting into the wood and gouging deep rifts out of it. I saw the Patzinaks heave to get them free, then sweep them round again into the timber. It splintered and trembled, but did not give. Its strength must have frustrated the assailants, for they pulled their axes clear again and struck a third, thundering blow.
One of the men swore and turned to his captain. He shouted something angrily in his own tongue, which I could not understand.
‘What did he say?’
‘He says . . .’ The captain’s words choked off inexplicably; he clutched his neck, and turned to look at me, as my eyes opened wide in horror. An arrow had transfixed his throat, and blood streamed out of it down over his hands. He sank to his knees in silence and I stared, uncomprehending, but even as I looked I heard more cries around me, and the buzz and rattle of arrows in flight.
‘They’re on the roof!’ Sigurd shouted. ‘Get into the building! And get your shield over your face,’ he added. He charged across the street and slammed his shoulder against the scarred door of the house. It was a blow to topple an ox, let alone the ramshackle door of a makeshift tenement, but Sigurd recoiled from it as if he had struck stone.
‘They’ve barricaded it,’ he called. ‘It’s a trap. Raise your shield, curse you.’
Still reeling, I found the wit to lift my shield arm across my eyes as I crouched on the ground. It was not a second too soon, for even as I did so I felt the blow of an arrow thudding into the leather, inches from my head. The impact threw me off my balance, and I tumbled onto my side, before thick arms dragged me to my feet and pulled me into the shadow of the warehouse.
‘Their archers are on the roofs,’ said Sigurd grimly. ‘They were expecting us.’
‘But they cannot have had time since we arrived to assemble . . .’
Sigurd cut me short. ‘Time enough. And for who knows what else besides. We must escape before they bring reinforcements.’
Keeping my shield over my head, I peered out. A dozen corpses already lay spilled out in the road, but the rest of the Patzinaks had managed to huddle themselves into four circles, holding their shields above them and warding off the worst of the onslaught of arrows.
‘If they keep that formation, they can retreat to the docks,’ I thought aloud. ‘We can find a ship to evacuate us.’
I would have crossed to the nearest cluster of men and explained my plan, but Sigurd held me back. ‘We won’t find a craft that can hold two hundred of us and just sail away. We’ll be trapped with our backs to the sea – we’ll be driven into the water or massacred. We have to make for the square, for the gate.’
‘That’s half a mile away,’ I protested ‘We can’t go that far scuttling like crabs.’
‘We can if the alternative is death. And once we get away from these warehouses, the archers will be behind us. Unless they have more further along the route.’
Who knew where the barbarians would be? But I could not ponder it, for suddenly – as quickly as it had begun – the chattering of arrows on the walls behind me stopped. Nor was it just where we stood, for I could see the Patzinaks in the street relaxing their locked shields a little, peering out from their makeshift shelters.
‘Have they run out of arrows?’ I wondered.
‘All at once?’ Sigurd glanced up grimly. ‘I doubt it. This will be some new devilment. We should move now.’
Even as he spoke I heard a rumbling in the ground, as tremors before the earth shakes. Was even God against us now? The Patzinaks in their circles looked about nervously, shields half lowered. The rumbling grew louder, and Sigurd must have recognised it a second before the rest of us, for I heard him shouting for the men to form a line just as the barbarian cavalry galloped around the bend in the road. Some of the Patzinaks gaped, petrified with horror, but discipline and instinct triumphed in the majority and they began spreading across the street with their shields before them. We did not have spears, but it takes more than spurs to force a horse into a line of men, and if a single beast pulled up it would throw the others into disarray, opening a gap for us to charge into.
But we were undone. The archers above unleashed a fresh volley of arrows, striking down those Patzinaks whose attention was on the oncoming knights: they were caught between the two onslaughts, unsure where to face, and died helplessly. Sig
urd strode among them, trying to marshal some form of order, but confusion frustrated his commands and there were too many spaces in the line to check the cavalry.
They broke over us in a wave of spears and blades, thrusting and chopping and hacking at any who withstood them. One galloped inches past my face, but the wall behind me broke his swing and forced his sword away from me. I lunged blindly with my own weapon, but he was already gone and I stabbed nothing but air. Then the space about us was clear again, and I stumbled forward into the street. The ground was littered with blood and shields and broken men, some of whom lifted themselves to their feet, but many more of whom did not. Sigurd still stood, a mountain above the carnage, pulling his axe from the chest of a Frank he had unhorsed and bellowing orders, but there were few who listened. An arrow struck the road by my foot and I ducked down again, but the archers must have had their fill of easy slaughter for their shots were sporadic now.
I waved my arm to the far end of the street, where the cavalry were regrouping. ‘Their next charge will surely sweep us away,’ I called. ‘We cannot withstand them.’
‘I will fight to the death,’ Sigurd answered, his face crimson with blood and anger. ‘There is no honour in surrender.’
‘There is less honour in leaving my daughters orphaned. Die for the Emperor, if you must, but do not waste your last strength in some skirmish of no account. The barbarians will value us far more as hostages than as corpses.’
The keenest of the Frankish cavalry were already beginning to urge their mounts forward, kicking at their flanks and bellowing the war-cries of their race. Lances tilted down; they would be upon us in seconds.
‘The Varangians never surrender,’ Sigurd shouted wildly. ‘We do not leave the battlefield before our enemy, except in shrouds. Stand and fight!’
But his was a lonely voice in a lonely place. Whether Varangians would indeed have fought to the last I do not know; the Patzinaks would not. All around me, those who could still stand cast down their swords and shields and lifted their arms to show they were finished. For a moment I thought the Franks would ride them down even then, but at the last they divided themselves and rode into a circle around us. Sigurd alone resisted the inevitable defeat, snarling and prowling and hurling challenges at our captors, but at length even his head dropped, and his axe fell to the ground.