by Tom Harper
‘Krysaphios had his own encounter with the Normans,’ Aelric explained, subduing his merriment. ‘When he was a young man, he lived in Nicomedia.’
‘It was Malagina,’ Sigurd interrupted.
‘I heard Nicomedia, but it does not matter. It was in the reign of Michael Ducas, more than twenty years ago. One of the Emperor’s Norman mercenaries named Urselius proved treacherous, as is their habit, and turned against the man who paid him. He took many of the Asian provinces before he was finally captured, and during his rising there was much looting and barbarity. The rumour I have heard is that one night some of Urselius’ Norman army captured Krysaphios, then just a boy, and took him to their camp.’ There was no humour in Aelric’s face now. ‘When they released him in the morning, he had become a eunuch.’
It was not the first time I had heard such a story, for I knew that the western barbarians found the third sex at once fascinating and repellent; that many derided us for our reliance on them, and believed our whole race to be tainted by their manlessness. It needed little imagination to think what torment a gang of mercenaries, filled with drink and such beliefs, might effect on a hapless prisoner. If that had been the ordeal Krysaphios suffered, I could only admire the will he must have had to turn it to his advantage, to attain the rank he now enjoyed.
Sigurd’s voice broke into my thoughts. ‘You know that the Emperor relies on the Varangians because of the hatred we bear the Normans. You may guess how he relies on the eunuch.’
Such tales of horror dampened further conversation, and we rode on in silence, save for Father Gregorias grumbling at the back of our column: that his horse was lame, that his saddle chafed, that the water in his flask was brackish. It seemed he did not number horsemanship among his accomplishments. After a time, we splashed through a ford in the shallow river and joined the main northerly road. A high-arched aqueduct rose about half a mile away on our right, mimicking the line of the road, and we followed it as the land grew wilder. The sporadic clusters of trees we passed became more frequent, then began to reach into each other, and finally merged into a forest which pressed constantly against our path, stretching away deep into the hills. The sound of running water was never far off, and sometimes we could see the moss-covered brickwork of a cistern or channel through the branches. A few hardy wood birds whistled their song, and occasionally we would meet a lone pilgrim or merchant, but otherwise the forest seemed deserted. Pines and oaks and beech trees towered over us, and it did not take long for my fears to begin preying on me. Every snapping twig or falling branch or rustling animal had me jerking awkwardly around, scanning the underbrush for the first signs of attack. As generations of careless travellers had found to their cost, it was the perfect place for an ambush, remote and hemmed in.
Sigurd must have shared my apprehension, for at lunchtime he posted four of his men as pickets on the edge of the glade where we halted. Our horses chewed contentedly on the grass, but even the sight of open sky above us did not lift my oppressed mood, and we ate our bread in haste.
‘I’ll be glad of Christmas,’ muttered Sigurd, eyeing his meagre meal with disdain. ‘The feast of the Nativity, as you call it. If man doesn’t live by bread alone, a soldier certainly can’t.’
‘Ten days,’ agreed Aelric. ‘Then we’ll have feasting.’
‘If we’re out of this forsaken wood by then.’ Sigurd spat an olive stone into the bushes. ‘If the boy can lead us to this house we’re told of, and doesn’t run off into the trees when we’re not looking.’
Thomas, oblivious to our words, sucked on the dried dates I’d brought him. The dressing that Anna had wrapped around his leg seemed to be holding up under the strain of riding — I could see no new blood seeping through it — and I fancied that the clean air and fresh surroundings had brought a new vigour to his cheeks. It was the first time I had seen him not poised on the brink of death, and it struck me how he seemed now both younger and older. Younger in his limbs, which all seemed a half-inch too long for him, though clearly they were strong enough to wield the arbalest; younger also in his beardless cheeks, which in a year or two might be ruggedly handsome, and in his fair, uncombed hair which blew wild in the wind. But there was a hurt in his blue eyes which, even in our pastoral surroundings, was never truly gone; a heaviness in the way he carried his broad shoulders. He had known pain, I guessed, and not merely the physical kind of a Bulgar’s sword. Though he seemed placid enough for now.
‘Well?’
I looked up from my thoughts. Sigurd had been speaking all the while, his words drifting past me, and now he was staring expectantly at Father Gregorias.
The priest turned on the boy and uttered a string of incomprehensible syllables, to which the reply came in more abbreviated kind.
‘He confirms that he will find where the house was,’ said Father Gregorias sulkily. ‘He will remember the way.’
‘Did he unwind a ball of string behind him then, like your Theseus in his maze?’ Sigurd was scornful. ‘Or can he speak with the birds?’
Gregorias put the question to the boy. Without the sarcasm, I assumed.
‘He says he did not survive in the slums of the megapolis by daydreaming. He watched the path closely, in the hope that he might escape.’
‘Then we’d best get on. Dusk never lingers in the woods.’ Sigurd hoisted himself back onto his horse. ‘Even a boy with memories painted like icons might not find this house in the dark.’
We rode on another two hours, meeting ever less traffic on our lonely road. Our beasts began to tire, and even Father Gregorias eventually lost the energy to complain; so much, indeed, that twice I had to turn back to be sure his horse had not thrown him into a thicket. Light was fading from the sky, and although most of the trees were leafless, their canopy still brought on premature darkness.
A sharp elbow against my ribs interrupted my thoughts; I pulled back on the reins, alive to the possibility that Thomas intended to use the gloom to escape. But he had jostled me intentionally, and now had an arm stretched out — as much as the rope would allow — towards an oak tree. Its massive girth was swathed in ivy, and wrinkled roots had begun to tear the roadstead beneath us, but otherwise it seemed unremarkable.
I called a halt, and beckoned Father Gregorias forward.
‘Ask him what he wants.’
I’endured the usual frustrating pause.
‘He recognises the tree. He says that the path to the house is around the next corner, on the left.’
‘Is it?’ Sigurd swayed in the saddle as his horse pawed at the ground. ‘Does he also recognise the shape of the pine-needles?’
But his suspicion was misplaced; we rounded a curve on the murky road and there, just as Thomas had said, a path forked away. We had passed many like it that day, some little more than animal tracks, some so broad we had struggled to discern the true road. This one was wider than most, but rutted and broken by rain. Whoever owned it clearly cared little for its upkeep. Perhaps, in this wild place, he hoped to avoid the attentions of brigands.
Nonetheless, it had clearly been used recently. As we rode up it I could see small heaps of stale dung, and the traces of hooves imprinted in the mud. The forest was silent here, and more ominous for it. Sigurd, I saw, had his axe in his hand, and several others of the Varangian company had followed his lead. I felt a chill of fear as I realised that the boy in front of me would be wholly defenceless and an obvious target, the sort I would have relished in my days as a bounty hunter. And any blow aimed at him would be as likely to strike me.
But no-one assailed us. We passed between a pair of stone columns, surmounted with carved basilisks, and the path began to rise steeply up a hill whose summit was lost in the trees. I touched Thomas on the shoulder, gesturing at the pillars, and he nodded recognition. The foliage around us thinned, and looking through it I could see the sky drawing steadily nearer the ground. For a good quarter hour I could have sworn that the brow of the ridge was just ahead of us, but every crick and twist in
the path yielded nothing but a further climb.
And then, without preamble, we came between an opening in a wall and into a broad clearing, shaved off the crown of the hill like a monk’s tonsure. It had the feel of a high place, but the tall trees growing close against the encircling wall blocked out any view we might have had beyond. The wall ran around the entire perimeter, save where we had entered, and within the enclosure there stood half a dozen outbuildings, including a stable block and, on the far side, a large, two-storied house. We rode towards it.
‘It’s quiet.’ We were all glad to have clear space around us, but the lonely solitude was still unnerving. Even to Sigurd. ‘Wulfric, Helm — see if anyone will fodder our horses.’
Two of the Varangians broke away and crossed to the stables. One dismounted, unsheathed his axe, and pushed through the unlocked door. Weeds grew around it, I saw — as indeed across much of the open ground.
I motioned Father Gregorias forward. ‘Is this the place? The place where the monk and the Bulgars brought Thomas?’
I hardly needed the answer. The way that the boy’s shoulders hunched forward as we saw the house, that his knuckles whitened around the rim of the saddle, told me everything.
‘Empty, Captain.’ The two Varangians were walking back from the stables. ‘It’s been completely swept out.’
We continued towards the house. It must have taken a Heraklean effort to erect it in this remote place, and you might have thought that whoever did so would have troubled himself to maintain it. But the closer we came, the more derelict it appeared. Ivy and creepers grew up its walls, and the glass in its windows was broken. The plaster was mottled and cracked; in some places it had peeled away completely to reveal the dull brickwork underneath. A short flight of steps led up to the arch of the main doorway, but there too the marble was chipped away, uneven.
Sigurd slid off his horse and threw the reins to one of his men.
‘Was this the place where you came?’ he asked the boy.
Thomas nodded.
‘Were any others here?’
‘Only those he came with,’ translated the priest. ‘The monk, and the four Bulgars. Otherwise the house was as abandoned as it is now.’
‘We’ll judge how empty that is when we’ve seen it.’ Sigurd lifted his axe and thumped the butt against the wooden door. It resounded with a low rumbling, ominous in those lonely surroundings, but did not open.
Sigurd tried the handle, a brass knob shaped like a howling boar. It gave readily.
‘Did you see the monk lock the door when he left?’ I asked, alive to any clue that it might have been occupied since. But the boy did not remember.
‘We’ll see if anyone’s here soon enough.’ Sigurd pushed open the door, and ducked under the low, fractured lintel. ‘Wulfric stay with the horses. The rest — follow me.’
We crossed the threshold, glancing nervously about as we entered a narrow hallway, which almost immediately gave out into a square peristyle. This too bore a dilapidated air: the tiled images on the floor — bare-chested warriors sticking bears and lions — were faded and uneven. Rainwater had collected in pools in the depressions, and in one corner a small shrub had forced its way up through the stone. Doorways in each wall led on to further dark rooms.
‘Search it,’ Sigurd ordered. ‘Four men each way. Demetrios and Aelric can stay here with the boy and the priest. If anyone finds trouble, regroup here at once.’
Thomas and I seated ourselves on a marble bench, while Aelric paced around the courtyard and Father Gregorias looked worriedly at the mosaics. The slapping of the Varangians’ boots faded away, and we were alone. From somewhere within, I heard the steady dripping of water.
I turned to Thomas. He rested his chin on his knuckles, and stared mournfully at the floor.
‘Where did you stay?’
He looked up, listened to the priest’s translation, then pointed to our left.
‘Did you all stay there?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did the monk leave anything when you departed?’
The boy shook his head. I could have guessed, of course: a monk who tried to leave no living witnesses to his plot was unlikely to have left anything to identify him in this ruin.
‘Demetrios!’
I looked up. Sigurd had appeared in the gallery above me, flanked by two of his men.
‘There’s nobody here. A few beds, a table, some stools — all of them rotting, by the smell of them. Nothing else.’
‘Nor here.’ One of Sigurd’s lieutenants had appeared on the balcony opposite. ‘House is as quiet as the tomb. Nice view though.’
Indeed there was. The third corridor led from the peristyle onto a wide terrace at the back of the house, projecting out over the steep hillside. We stood there in silence and gazed onto the furrowed landscape of hills and wooded valleys before us. On the western horizon was an orange smear where the sun was setting, while to the south-east I fancied we could just see the glittering domes of Constantinople. It was a magnificent vantage point, ingeniously constructed so that the trees would block any sight of it from below, while leaving the view from above unconstrained.
A cold breeze played over our faces, and we were turning to go indoors when Thomas surprised us all by speaking unprompted, and at such length that Father Gregorias was pressed to remember it all.
‘He says the monk often came here,’ he said. ‘He would stare out at the queen of cities, and beseech God to annihilate her, as He did Sodom and Jericho.’
‘He said all this in Frankish?’ It seemed strange that a monk would address his God in a foreign tongue.
Gregorias conferred with Thomas. ‘In the language of Old Rome, Latin. Thomas knew the words because the Franks and Normans use it in their worship.’
This was more curious still, and I shook my head in defeat. At every turn I found a dozen new questions, but never a single answer.
Sigurd looked up at the sky. ‘We’ll spend the night in the stables,’ he announced. ‘With the beasts. I don’t want to find myself stranded here by some poacher turning his hand to horseflesh. And there’s only one door to guard.’
A peal of thunder rippled through the valley.
‘And,’ he added moodily, ‘the roof’s intact.’
I spent another half hour exploring that mournful house, but found no answers among the crumbling fabric and mouldering furniture. The thunder was moving slowly nearer, and every time it sounded I would snap my head around, unsettled by the surroundings. I was glad at last to escape the building, to return to the company of the Varangians, who had tethered our horses in the stable and made a small fire in a ring of stones outside. On it they roasted salt fish and vegetables which we gulped down in haste: there was little of the usual banter of soldiers on a march that night.
We settled down on the hard floor, cursing whoever had swept out all the straw before abandoning it. As I closed my eyes, I heard the first drops of rain beginning to strike on the lead tiles above us.
It was still raining when I awoke, and still dark. A horse was snuffling somewhere on my right, but otherwise nothing moved. I lay there a second reminding myself where I was, allaying the natural fears of night with the knowledge that I was surrounded by a dozen of the stoutest warriors in the empire. That was comforting. I put my hand under the balled-up cloak I used as a pillow and felt the haft of my knife still there; then, almost from superstition, I reached out to touch Thomas on the shoulder.
My hand felt cold air, then cold stone. I stretched further, my heart whipping itself into a panic, but again felt only the slap of my hand on the hard floor. Where was he? I threw off my blanket and stood, picking my way between the sleeping Varangians to the doorway. Warriors they might have been, but none of them, I noticed, stirred as I stole like a thief between them.
None, at least, save Aelric: but he could not help it. He was sitting in the doorway, his back against the frame, and as I reached it to look outside I fell sprawling over him. He cursed, a
nd staggered to his feet, his hand fastening around the axe at his side.
‘It’s me, Demetrios,’ I hissed. Old though he was for his calling, I suspected I would not survive more than a single blow of his axe. ‘The boy’s missing.’
‘Christ.’ Aelric rubbed his eyes. ‘Oh Christ.’
A clap of thunder exploded over our heads, and almost simultaneously a shaft of lightning cracked through the clouds.
‘There!’ I had been peering out into the rain, searching in vain desperation for any sign of the boy; by the white glare of the lightning, I thought I had seen something. ‘Someone moving, over by the house.’
‘And what’s to say it’s the boy?’ demanded Aelric. ‘Are you armed?’
‘I have my knife.’ His words struck a fresh wave of dread into me, as all my fears of brigands and bandits and the monk’s adepts in this desolate place came flooding back, but there was no time. I launched myself out into the rain, flinching under the barrage of the water, and began running across the open ground to the house, with Aelric’s footsteps close behind me. My feet dragged in the mud and puddles, and my clinging tunic hobbled me. Rain ran off my sodden hair into my eyes, which I had to keep squeezed close together, but another flash of lightning guided me on towards the house. The door, I saw, was open.
‘Follow me in,’ I shouted, looking back over my shoulder. Aelric was invisible, and any sound he made was now drowned out by the torrent of winds around us.
The gale stopped as I pushed through the door, and for a second my squelching tread seemed terribly loud in the small hallway. Then there was rain pelting my face again, and I realised I had come into the peristyle. The water rattled on the stone tiles, but I thought that somewhere in the surrounding darkness I could hear a more animate sound, as of someone scraping at something.
I stepped forward, trying to gain a sense of where the noise was strongest. My effort was thwarted, though, as thunder boomed out over me, resounding off the walls and galleries in a dizzying, deafening roll. I tried to steady myself against a pillar but found none; then, for an instant, lightning burst across the square of sky overhead. The entire courtyard was held in its cold brilliance, and by the light I saw the boy, Thomas, crouched in the far corner by the bush which grew through the mosaics.