Porphyry and Blood

by Peter Sandham

  ‘You are mistaken,’ said the Captain. ‘We are riding to the Istrian coast.’

  ‘Oh?’ Lueger cocked an eyebrow. ‘You’d best speak with your quartermaster then. He seemed certain you were bound for Gradec.’

  The Captain’s jaw twitched with irritation, but before he could answer, Sphrantzes spoke up. ‘You seem rather keen to impose your company upon us Messer Lueger, I would expect a knight to demonstrate finer breeding.’

  The tall Austrian snorted. ‘You must be the money. It would have been better to have hired me as an escort instead of pinching pennies with this pauper’s condotierro. It’s a dangerous road out there. Plenty of travellers come to grief. I wish you luck.’ He stood up and gave a mock bow to the table before stepping away.

  ‘We should get on the road,’ the Captain said almost as soon as Lueger was gone.

  ‘Am I to understand this sudden haste is due to that exchange with Messer Lueger?’ said Sphrantzes.

  ‘He’s infamous in these parts,’ said the Ambassador. ‘A robber baron.’

  ‘Should we be worried?’ asked Anna.

  The Captain rubbed his jaw. ‘He’s more likely to favour ambushing a merchant caravan on its way to the Laibach summer fair, but it would do no harm to put a few miles between ourselves and his men.’

  ‘How funny,’ Eudokia said to Anna a little later as they were mustering in the courtyard to ride off. ‘He thought I was the lady under escort. He seemed to hardly notice you at all.’

  It took Anna a moment to understand whom Eudokia was speaking of, but then, following the girl’s glance, she saw the tall figure silhouetted in the tavern doorway. Lueger was watching their departure closely.

  The Captain chose to keep off the main road for a time and instead picked up a young river and followed its bank. They rode among the fleurs-de-lys of white iris stems, watching sleek-winged swallows dart and flash over the water, just skimming the surface with their wingtips. A kingfisher with bright plumage laughed in the wind and plunged for a fish among the river weeds. For a time, the journey felt no hardship at all.

  Eudokia picked a clump of Star-of-Bethlehem and Anna helped her lace them among the ribbons binding the coils of her hair. For almost the first time since leaving Ca Notaras, her niece’s brow was not split by a frown. Anna began to hope for a permanent thaw in Eudokia’s temper. She hardly blamed her. It had been a sudden upheaval for Anna but to Eudokia this journey must have come so unexpectedly as to feel like a banishment. Anna had no intention of playing matchmaker on Helena’s behalf. Eudokia had still been a child when her mother - inspired, she claimed, by a vision - had left her with Helena at Ainos and taken monastic vows. Theodora was still alive and well, as far as Anna knew but neither Helena nor Anna could forgive their other sister for choosing God over her child. They had tried between them to raise Eudokia as best they could but maternal instinct appeared to be something entirely absent from the family tree. Anna had never managed to feel particularly close to her niece but now she resolved to change that.

  The Captain said he planned to make time by crossing straight over the low ridge of the nearest mountains and had them in the saddle until near dusk. There was no track to follow as they picked their way slowly up a wooded gully and as the day’s light began to fade, they made out the whisper of a small cataract tumbling nearby. The Captain judged the gully summit as a good place as any to strike camp for the night.

  By now even Anna and Eudokia knew the routine: the horses were hobbled under the canopy of a nearby oak while the men set to pitching the tents. The ladies were not excused from duties. Anna and Eudokia took the largest of the good pots and set off towards the sound of the cataract to fill it.

  They found a crystal-clear stream of water tumbling from the rock a meter down into a pond and then on down the hillside in a series of stepped falls and pools. Gingerly Anna picked her way down the large boulders to the first pond. She marked the dark shadows of trout beneath the glassy surface, splashed her face and drank a cupped handful. Then she dipped the pot into the water and carefully passed it back up to Eudokia.

  ‘I could kill for a bath in that,’ said her niece, as Anna clambered back up to the first boulder.

  ‘Go on then,’ said Anna. ‘I’ll wait at the top to make sure no one disturbs you.’

  While Eudokia undressed, Anna walked back with the water to the top of the gully and settled against the trunk of a large beech tree. Their camp lay a little way on through the dense stand of trees and underbrush. She could just make out the sound of the tents still being raised. Lazily Anna slid a deck of cards from her leather pouch and began to arrange them on the leaves.

  The game of tarrocchi had become quite the fashion across Italy in recent years but Anna had been familiar with these cards long before she left Constantinople. It had been her tutor, Plethon, who first explained to her the allegories depicted on the trionfi cards. He taught her how one might decode their divinations, claiming his own knowledge of it came from a codex written by Hermes Trismegistus.

  She had put little faith in any of it at the time. He was an eccentric old man, too impressed by pagan things simply because they were ancient. She had listened and been enchanted by the strange, beautiful pictures on the cards, then forgotten all about them until one day in Venice, among a circle of bored ladies, a deck was produced and a hand of tarrocchi played. She had felt a mixture of amusement and horror to see the occult reduced to a parlour game. It was like coming across barbarians using a bible for a doorstop. She had acquired her own deck and without fully believing in it, begun to privately practice the readings.

  Now, as the night’s first stars appeared above the forest canopy, she finished her arrangement: ten cards drawn from the shuffled pile; four in a column to one side, the others forming a cross pattern with two cards stacked at the centre of the cross. She turned the first card over in the position representing the present and saw it was the Page of Swords. She nodded. Here was a messenger bringing an opportunity, a challenge. The sword suit suggested it required fortitude and clarity of thought. It seemed perfectly appropriate.

  The second card, representing the factor for change, was the two of cups, a card which symbolised a connection. The third card was the ace of cups, fourth came the six of pentacles. Both seemed fair. In position five lay the five of pentacles - an unwelcome card representing hard times, but better to find such a card in this position than the next, which pointed to the future. She was about to turn that card over when she heard movement in the underbrush close by.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she said and stood up. Anna stepped towards the thick screen of shrubs and had the sense of a tremendous number of the leaves shaking together before the furred muzzle of a bear poked through, followed immediately by the rest of its shambling bulk.

  Anna leapt back in fright, sending the water spilling from the pan. She began to slowly back away. The animal’s jaws were smeared with honey, its tongue lolled out and licked at the sticky clumps of fur. The bear didn’t seem to pay her any attention as it sniffed at the ground. She began to wonder if it might be too blind to see her.

  That feeling did not last.

  The bear raised its head and its eyes locked with dreadful clarity onto her. It sniffed at the air and scored the ground with its claws. Then without moving its jaws it gave a deep, menacing growl and rocked back onto its haunches. Gaping its mouth, it displayed the six-inch talons of its claws.

  Anna thought of the cards lying at her feet and the one she had been about to turn over. She wondered if that unseen card was the trump known as Death.

  ‘Bear!’ she called out. ‘There’s a bear over here!’

  She launched herself in the direction of the camp. It was too sudden a move, but fear was in full control of her. She knew these creatures were fast, too fast for a human to outrun, but she wasn’t going to stand still and be eaten.

  She felt the ground thud as the bear dropped onto its front paws and charged after her. It was like trying to ou
trun an arrow. That thought made her veer behind a tree trunk in the hope a sudden change of direction might check the big creature’s momentum. It felt so close behind her. She half turned to glance, tripped on a root and was sent tumbling down the gully incline just as a paw slammed into the bark.

  Prone among the leaflitter, Anna looked back up the slope in the direction of the camp. Between her and safety stood the bear. It growled at her again and rocked back onto its haunches, as if to demonstrate the powerful claws it was going to shred her with.

  ***

  After so many days riding, George Sphrantzes felt the ache in his old limbs. Not a quarter gone, it had been a gruelling journey already but as a man who had known kidnap and incarceration more than once while on missions for his Emperor, Sphrantzes was hardier than any imperial courtier had a right to be.

  The tent he had been assigned since their first night in Istria was shared with the cripple. He could not help but take that as a slight against himself. Still, he may as well have been given a solo tent – the boy seemed to sleep late and rise early. Sphrantzes never saw him in there. Pitching the tents was a chore better suited to a servant, so Sphrantzes kept himself busy at these moments and allowed Nikolaos to set it up by himself. It was probably good exercise for that gammy leg. Today the Captain had called a small council of senior men to sketch out the remaining route from this hillside to the river at Gradec. Sphrantzes attached himself to the meeting while the canvas shelters were being rigged.

  ‘We shall discover at Belgrade if the Danube is clear,’ said the Captain.

  The Ambassador nodded. ‘God willing, the Turks will have sent their army elsewhere this summer.’

  ‘The odds are not as good as before,’ said Sphrantzes. ‘Last summer the Sultan occupied himself taking Trebizond and mopping up rebels in the Morea. Both those distant distractions are gone.’

  ‘There remains Skanderbeg in Albania and Uzum Hasan in Persia,’ said the Ambassador. ‘The Turks could throw themselves against either this year leaving our path clear.’

  ‘There is also Matthias Corvinus in Hungary and Vlad Dracula in Wallachia,’ said Sphrantzes, ‘both of whom lie across the Danube. So, it would appear the chances are perhaps half that our route is not clear. Where is that boy going?’

  Throughout the discussion Sphrantzes had found himself half-watching Nikolaos gamely struggle to pitch their tent. He could not escape the nagging sense of guilt. Then the lad had let the wooden pole fall to the ground and limped off into the bushes leaving their shelter in an unpitched mess on the grass.

  He abandoned the meeting and set off across the clearing, ready to box the boy’s ears. Lazy toad! Did he expect Sphrantzes to do all the work? Passing beyond the treeline of the clearing, the forest closed in, dimming the twilight to near darkness until his eyes adjusted, but Nikolaos was still easy to spot. That slow, jerky outline was unmissable. As the slope of the gully began to steepen, Nikolaos stopped in his tracks and crouched against a sapling. He almost appeared to be hiding. Or spying.

  Instinctively, Sphrantzes concealed himself behind another tree but Nikolaos did not look back up towards him, the boy’s full attention was on something down slope. Sphrantzes moved carefully closer as Nikolaos began hauling himself up into the branches of a tall forest giant. It made for a curious sight to see a human climb using two arms and only one leg. At first it seemed almost comical to Sphrantzes, but as Nikolaos went higher the amusement died, replaced with grudging appreciation for the strength the boy must possess in his arms; and his fearlessness. How is he going to get down?

  From the position Nikolaos took among the branches, it was clear to Sphrantzes that he had climbed to get a better view of something or someone without being detected. Drawn forward by mounting curiosity, Sphrantzes had taken one hesitant step further when the screaming began.

  He froze in his tracks. Through the evening haze he first sensed, and then saw the figure running up the gully slope at him. In the instant he recognised Anna his eyes took in the larger shape bounding at her heels. ‘Holy Theotokos,’ he muttered out loud.

  The next moment was a blur.

  The bear closed in. Anna tried to dart behind a tall sentinel, tripped and fell. Triumphant, the bear towered over her and was suddenly struck across its shoulders by a body. Nikolaos had dropped from the branches above.

  Startled, the bear staggered and turned from its victim, allowing Anna to scramble a little further away. The blow had done more damage to Nikolaos than the bear, which now had a new target for its anger.

  ‘Play dead Nikolaos!’ Sphrantzes called out. He picked up a stick and flung it. ‘Hey you ugly thing, over here! Come and get me!’ His shouting managed to draw a glance from the bear, but it seemed to dismiss Sphrantzes as either threat or food and turned back towards the unmoving Nikolaos. Sphrantzes was about to shout again when a figure rushed past, a longsword couched under his arm like a jousting lance. It was Peregrino Bua, the company’s second in command.

  At the last moment the bear heard his approach and began to turn. Bua slammed into it, point first, driving the blade deep into its flank. With a roar of pain, the bear slapped backhanded, catching Bua square in the chest and sending him flying into the underbrush.

  Anna reached Sphrantzes and clung to his arm. ‘Nikolaos!’ she called out. Perhaps she was only now realising what had happened.

  The boy didn’t move. Beside him, the bear was in agony, the metal hilt and pommel of the longsword standing proud of its flank. It thrashed about, trying to paw the weapon out, but its claw could not gain purchase.

  ‘Help me drag him clear,’ said Anna, but before she had moved towards Nikolaos, or Sphrantzes could object, an arrow feathered into the bear’s snout and the Captain with half the company raced past them, ready to finish it off.

  The bear had other ideas. Making a noise somewhere between a moan and a growl, it lurched away. The soldiers slackened bows and puffed out cheeks.

  ‘Don’t just stand there!’ Bua growled at them as he gingerly emerged from the shrubbery. ‘Get after it! That thing has my best sword in it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Anna. It was obvious Bua was hurt. He had been wearing only a padded arming coat, which was not much protection against the powerful swipe of an adult bear.

  ‘It was nothing, Basilissa,’ he said, trying to suppress a wince. ‘I’m surprised it came so close to our camp.’

  Sphrantzes and Anna both went straight across to the other injured rescuer. Nikolaos was sat upright, cradling one arm.

  ‘I’m lucky to have such brave men around me,’ Anna said as she tried to use the strap of her leather pouch to make a rudimentary sling. Nikolaos was beaming, blind to the pain.

  Sphrantzes shook his head. ‘I suppose this means I’ll be pitching our tent on my own now. I’ve seen some ferocious courage in my day, lad, but not much to top that.’

  Anna was moving back down the slope she had fled up.

  Sphrantzes crouched down beside Nikolaos. ‘What were you doing up there?’ he said once she was out of earshot. ‘Thought you’d spy a glance of her bathing?’

  ‘Never! I was keeping watch over her.’

  ‘Well I suppose it’s fortunate for her that you did.’

  Nikolaos shook his head. ‘What kind of escort lets an Empress wonder alone in a forest like that!’

  Young fool she’s no Basilissa, he wanted to say, but Sphrantzes had no heart to shatter the boy’s conceit in that moment. That time would come. At the Vlach palace perhaps, when its public revelation would hurt the cuckoo Empress the most.

  There were tears at the corner of Nikolaos’s eyes. The pain had started to overcome the triumph in his veins. Unbidden, he said, ‘I’d die for her.’

  ‘Yes? Well you almost managed it just then.’ Sphrantzes left Nikolaos sat by the tree and walked to where Anna was bent over. The ground was speckled with cards. She turned one up and gave a dry laugh, then swept up the rest. Seeing Sphrantzes watching her, she brandished the pict
ure card. It was a woman wearing a crown, sat on a cushion in a forest.

  ‘The Empress trump,’ said Anna.

  ‘Empress,’ he said bitterly.

  The smile died on her lips. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. In trifoni it symbolises the natural world. Appropriately I was about to turn it over when the bear appeared.’

  Sphrantzes slashed his hand at the leaves of the nearest sapling. His blood was pounding in his ears. ‘That boy almost died, for a lie.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  There was the old haughtiness he remembered. There was the defiance flashing in her eyes.

  ‘Damn you,’ he said. ‘Pretend all you want in that house on the canal, but we’re out in the real world now. You’ve dragged us into God knows what just so you can play princess!’

  ‘Playing? I’m not…’

  ‘You didn’t marry him! You’re not entitled to call yourself Basilissa!’

  ‘Someone has to!’ she snapped back. ‘Don’t you understand? They need someone to look to. They need to remember what made us a people now that our homeland is gone. We were Byzantines. What did that mean? The church and the Emperor. Well, the Venetians won’t let us have a church of our own, but they’re less fussy about extinct foreign titles.’

  ‘And that justifies lying to gullible dupes in your pretty little head does it? If anyone can be Emperor, you rob it of all meaning. You’ve helped one or two, I grant you, but legitimacy takes more than a handout. Greeks need Greece, not a hovel in your garden.’

  She opened her mouth to speak, but another voice called from behind. ‘Basilissa!’ It was the Captain.

  ‘Here comes another deluded fool,’ muttered Sphrantzes.

  ‘Basilissa, I am deeply sorry.’ Sphrantzes thought the Captain must have come to apologise for his dereliction in protection, but then he spotted the dripping, half-dressed figure looming in his wake. ‘I swear I was merely making sure your niece was safe. I had no idea…’

  ‘You whoremonger!’ Eudokia shouted as she closed in on Anna with as much predatory determination as the bear had shown before. ‘You did it on purpose! You tricked me into bathing and lied about guarding my modesty. Then you slid away and sent him down to leer.’