Relics

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  'Well, where should I begin?' I asked.

  At the beginning, of course,' said she.

  So I told her everything, from my boyhood on the moors, to the abbey, to gloomy Balecester and all the blood that had flowed there, to Dartmouth and, finally, to this place, this little rock in the ocean. I found I could tell of Will's murder, although my hands began to tremble, and I was glad when Pavlos interrupted me, loping up to drop a longbow and quiver of good, goose-fletched arrows beside me. I saw him appraise the situation, hands on hips, measuring in his mind the distance between his Vassileia and my common self. Apparently satisfied, he left us in peace. Then my tale flowed untrammelled to its ending on this island, hearing Anna's laugh on the wind. When I had finished, I looked up, for I had been gazing at my feet as I spoke, caught up despite myself in the tale I had not wished to drag forth. Anna was staring at me, hugging herself as if to ward off a chill, although the sun was scorching us. Her eyes were red.

  'How great is the misery of this world,' she murmured. 'And how little it seems that the Almighty cares for his creations.'

  I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came. She had touched upon the darkest shadow within me; the empty niche that had once held my faith. I wondered if that secret were written on my skin like leprosy, but then Anna grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

  'I have wronged you, Petroc,' she said. 'I took you for yet another pirate, although, granted, with a gentle demeanour. But it seems that we are more alike than I thought, you and I. We are both clerics, for a start . . .' And she laughed, mirthlessly.

  'Clerics?' I was startled.

  'Renegade clerics, to be sure,' she agreed. 'Both plucked from the hfe that fate intended for us and cast adrift. Don't I look like a nun? I assure you that I am one.'

  I nodded, confused. 'But be of good cheer, Your Holiness!' she continued. 'Now you must hear my tale, and a good one it is, to all who have not lived it for themselves. I too will start at the very beginning, very far away from your sweet land of Devon.'

  'How do you know of Devon?' I burst out, my curiosity smothering good manners.

  'From the palace guards, the Varangians. There are many English lads among them, and always have been. And that is how I speak your tongue.'

  'I had a suspicion you did not learn it from a nun,' I ventured. She snorted.

  'No, indeed not. But you interrupted. Do you know anything of Byzantium?'

  I shook my head. 'Very little, apart from where it is and the nature of - forgive me - its Schismatic faith.'

  She clicked her tongue in disapproval. 'But do you know how the crusade of the Franks was seduced by the blind serpent Doge Dandolo and took our city from us?' Her breast was heaving, and she had flushed dark pink. I noticed with a disquieting thrill how the glow crept down her neck and beneath her cloak.

  'But, peace on us both,' she sighed, and seemed to compose herself with great effort. She swallowed and began again.

  'Give me an arrow,' she demanded. She used the point to scratch a map into a patch of granite dust between us.

  'This is Greece,' she said, 'And here Anatolia and the Holy Land. Here is Serbia and the lands of the Bulgars. All this—' and she waved a wide circle over the map, '—was the Empire of Byzantium, and the city is here.' She jabbed the arrow point-down into the ground. The Franks took all this,' she went on, scratching away at most of Greece and some of Anatolia, 'and the city itself. And Venice helped herself to our islands.' The arrow was waving alarmingly close to my feet now.

  The Romans set up an Empire in exile here, at Nicea.' She stabbed again, this time at a spot in Anatolia, near to her left knee. 'Do you follow? Now.' The arrow flickered. 'The Despot of Epiros, the Roman prince whose house Pavlos served, held out here, in the west of Greece. I was born in Nicea, here, for I was cheated by the Franks out of my birthright, which was to be born in the Palace of Constantine.' She waved the arrow at me. The sun glinted nastily from the tip. Then she lowered it.

  'I am sorry, Petroc - truly I am. How could you be to blame? But you will find me ill-disposed towards Franks of any sort, I am afraid. With you as the exception . . . and the Captain, and Gilles. There is something most un-Frankish about those men.'

  'There you are right,' I said. Then, catching her eye, I risked all. Will you get to it, then?'

  'As you wish,' she said, looking daggers at me. Then she grinned, and I saw once more where she had lost a tooth.

  You will be spared the full horror,' she said. She pointed behind me with the arrow, then stuck it in the ground between us. 'The Captain is here. But I will not cheat you out of my tale, for I had yours in good faith. So, quickly then. As I said, I was born in Nicea. I am the third child of the Emperor's brother - the Emperor John Doukas Vatatzes. As is the fate of royal girls, I was destined to be . . . to find an expedient husband. I was only three years old when the King of Norway, Haakon, whom his subjects called The Old, decided that I would make a fine match for his second son. I was betrothed to a surrogate, and as I grew older I hardly thought about my husband - whom I knew only from his image on a medal: a handsome boy ten years my elder - until my thirteenth year when the Norse ambassador came for me.

  'The journey ... I am sure you can imagine it. And when I came to Trondheim castle, a great mossy kennel, I found that my handsome princeling had died of the pox six months before and now, waste not want not, I would marry the next son in line, Stefan, a pallid, holy worm. He had been intended for the Church and the finest bishopric in Norway, and I had spoiled everything. Oh Christ, Petroc, there is so much to tell, yet there is no time.'

  Her eyes were beginning to redden, so without thinking I took her hand. She squeezed it gratefully.

  'So I was married to this . . . this cold, slimy . . .'

  'Toad?' I suggested, helpfully.

  'No! Toads are wise, they carry a jewel in their heads. My husband ... he hated me. He would not share our bed. He lay on the stone floor and prayed and cursed me by turns, and when at last I tried to reason with him he struck me on the ear and left. I never saw him again. Good. But the ladies of the court found my blood on the bed-linen the next day, and they declared the marriage consummated. Then . . .' she looked up, and now I could hear footsteps crunching through the heather.

  When it was clear I was not with child, they exiled me,' she said, 'to a nunnery in Greenland. Worse than death - and that was why. But I escaped. I made friends with the Bishop, and . . . Anyway, he has a thread of kindness in him, and he is an exile too, of course. He told me of the Seigneur de Montalhac, and after I had survived another winter your ship arrived. The Captain agreed to carry me to Venice, where many of my people dwell in exile. Then I slipped from the nunnery, met Pavlos, who kissed my feet! Dear God! They bundled me up in a load of whalebone — most uncomfortable -and here I am.'

  We were holding hands, our fingers wound tighdy together so that the hot sand scratched. She looked into my eyes.

  'Two dead children, fallen off the edge of the world,' she murmured, and bit her lip. I saw that she was about to cry.

  'I would say that you are a woman and a princess, and very much alive,' I said. 'And for a poor drowned monk, I feel quite cheerful as well.'

  And so we sat, hand in hand, until the Captain and Pavlos strode up between the boulders. I slid a seemly distance from Anna and picked up the bow, hoping that I looked diligent and dangerous. I could tell by the way the skin between her eyebrows puckered that I was convincing no one. We were both choking down laughter by the time the two men came up to us.

  'No demons to report,' I told them.

  'Good, good,' said the Captain. 'So, Petroc, it seems we owe you for the life of our royal guest. But now we have difficulties. How do we get Kyria Anna back on board? We have a rowdy crew and no whalebone handy.'

  'Captain de Montalhac, I will not be smuggled or hidden any more. I would rather take my chances with your crew.' Anna's face was set once more in its imperial mask.

  'My God, Vassileia, do you know what
you are saying?' gasped Pavlos.

  'Pavlos is right,' the Captain agreed. 'The men are in a vile temper. I have kept them too close to heel these past months. They have had no proper shore leave—'

  'What about Gardar?' Anna broke in. The Captain winced.

  'Gardar can hardly keep its own people alive, let alone entertain a company of villains like mine. No, they are apt to take very badly to the arrival of a lady on board, no matter how high-born or needy. I will not risk it.' And he folded his arms across his chest and regarded Anna down the length of his nose.

  'Seigneur de Montalhac, if I am shut away in that corpse-hole again I shall die anyway. Unless you want to crack my skull and keep me insensible, you must announce a new crew member. How long until we reach Venice?'

  Weeks, Kyria Anna, long weeks, even if the winds are kind to us,' said the Captain.

  Well, I am sure I can tie knots or whatever it is you do to sail a ship, good Monsieur de Montalhac.' She spoke flippantly, but from the jut of her chin it was clear that she meant every word. The Captain saw it too. He sat down beside her.

  'Let me see your hands,' he said gently. She held them out to him and he took each one and turned it over. I saw his expression change from amusement to surprise.

  'Not the ivory hands of a princess, I'm afraid,' said Anna. At the convent we washed clothes for the poor, even if we had to break the ice with an axe to do so.'

  The Captain stared at her for a long moment, then at me. You don't, by any chance, speak Basque?' he asked hopefully.

  So it was that Mikal joined the Cormaran. He was a poor, half-starved Basque fisherman's son, only survivor of a ship that had foundered in a storm. For three months he had lived on gull's eggs, and had all but abandoned hope when our sail came into sight.

  'The Basques have plied the ocean for generations,' the Captain told us. 'They tell no one where they go - it is the greatest secret in the wide world. So if a shipwrecked sailor appears among them, the crew will not be so surprised. You must have a disguise, and you must have a reason for being here. This is the only way I can see that solves both problems. And this mummery need only last until we leave Dublin. I believe the men will be more cheerful after a few nights of hard-earned riot, and I will re-introduce you as a wealthy passenger.'

  'I cannot speak a word of Basque, however,' said Anna. It was plain she was already enthralled by the idea. 'But are there any Basques aboard?'

  'That's the point,' said the Captain. 'There are none - dare I say it, the only language of the world not represented. I believe that Gilles speaks a little Euskadi, but that is all. You will be respected, believed - the Basques keep their own counsel, that is well known - and can retreat into silence whenever you wish. On the other hand, you will have to speak something.'

  'I am speaking your Occitan now,' she answered. Will that do?'

  'Indeed it will,' said the Captain with a little bow that was part mockery and part undeniable respect. Well, you have a man's clothes already. But you will have to cut your hair.'

  'Certainly not!' she snapped. 'The silent sisters could not cut it, and nor shall you or anyone else. I shall plait it. My teeth may drop out, but my hair stays put.' And she wound a black, defiant rope around her neck.

  'A female Samson, no less,' laughed de Montalhac. 'Very well. Here is what we shall do.'

  After the Captain left, Pavlos stayed with us until it grew dark. Then we crept down to the ship and slipped inside the Captain's tent. The next morning I would make a pretence of climbing back to the high point, something none of the other crewmen were likely to want to join in, and come back with Mikal. I hoped the plan would work. I could not see Anna as anything but intensely, wonderfully female, as I discovered when I tried to picture her as a boy. It was as if a strand of that ink-black hair had begun to wind itself about my heart. As I watched her sup with the Captain and Gilles I remembered my hands under her tunic and nearly choked on the succulent morsel of fresh mutton I was mumbling at with my rickety teeth.

  Later, as the Captain, Gilles and I left the tent to sleep by the fire outside, she was stretching out on the bright rugs that covered the sand. 'Good night, Petroc of Devonshire,' she said. 'Sweet dreams - if the dead can dream.'

  'I believe this is a dream, and I am only afraid that I will wake from it,' I said, without knowing where the words had sprung from.

  'Am I in yours, or you in mine?' She spoke softly behind me. 'Death in life, life in death. We are the same, you and I.' I looked back, but she had blown out the lamp and I could not tell where she ended and the night began. Then, soft as a moth's wings, her lips brushed mine and cool fingers rested for an instant on my cheek. Another instant passed and I felt her leave me.

  I stepped outside. Under the great sky the fire seemed like a little spark. The stars danced their old, solemn dance above me, far, far away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  S

  o it was that Mikal came aboard the Cormaran. It was as the Captain had predicted: the castaway boy was welcomed like a long-lost mate. He set to with a will, and if he wasn't the most expert seaman, he was excused - after all, it was his first voyage, and he hadn't got very far into the bargain. He had to endure the usual filth about sheep-shagging, and endless seagull jokes, but after a few days he blended, unsuspected, into the general melee.

  As the two new boys, it was natural that we should be friends, especially as I had found Mikal somewhere on the other side of the Godforsaken island and brought him back to the world. And the truth is that we were inseparable. Although I was the more experienced seaman - a strange thought, this, to one whose only experience of water had been paddling in mountain streams - then Mikal's ferocious energy more than made up for his lack of skills. I taught him what little I knew, but he was precocious, and soon the crew found they had an insatiable student on their hands. By the time we passed the isle of Rathlin, off the north-east tip of Ireland, he was prattling about knots and broad reaches with all the joy of the newly converted.

  Anna had folded and twisted her black mane into three short ropes, which she plaited at the nape of her neck. It was a little strange, but she passed it off as the fashion in her village and that seemed to suffice. Mikal was too young to shave, fortunately, and as Anna had starved with the rest of us her face was gaunt and quite mannish. As I have said, we were inseparable, but in ways that the rest of the crew could never know about. There are precious few private moments on a ship at sea, but Anna and I sought them out like gold dust in the bed of a river. Since that first, night-hidden kiss on the island - the first of my young and so far celibate life - my mind and flesh had been consumed by Anna. We would brush past each other, her touch striking sparks from me that I half-imagined were visible to the crew. Sometimes we could hold hands for minutes at a time, the desperate lock of our fingers the only outlet for passion. Often she would whisper such things to me in her dark voice - she took an endless delight in shocking my hopelessly innocent self - that I felt the deck lurch beneath me even though the sea was calm. And three times - no more — we kissed, hesitant with fear of discovery but full of heat and urgency, only to fly apart at the smallest hint of an approaching footstep. It was torture, but of the most wonderful kind. In truth I thought that, if this was to be the height of my earthly pleasure, it would almost be enough. But once the flesh has awakened, only death can still it, and Anna had awakened me as the sun awakens the earth in springtime.

  As an odd counterpoint to all this - salt to temper the honey - Pavlos got it into his head that I would have to be schooled in those warlike arts which I had never so much as considered. It was sheer luck, he told me sternly, that I had bested the island madman, and my clumsy attack could just as easily have brought about the death of Anna or - and he emphasised that this, under the circumstances, would have been the preferable outcome - my own demise. So I found myself being tutored, every morning, by a terrifying college of teachers: Horst, Dimitri and Pavlos himself. Dimitri was the ship's unofficial fencing master a
nd held his classes - I saw them as such, but they were both less and more than that: vicious games that honed skills and headed off any ill-feeling or rage that might otherwise have festered into real bloodshed — as soon as the sun had risen and the day was fair. In time I would join in these melees, but, as the first lesson proved, at my present level of accomplishment I would lose a duel with Fafner the cat. I faced Horst, both of us armed with a blunt sword and a round wooden buckler shield. Copying my opponent, I dropped into a crouch, shield before me, sword up. Then, in the blinking of an eye, Horst dropped his sword, knocked mine from my hand with the edge of his shield and felled me with his shoulder. Before I had even squawked in surprise he was sitting on my chest, the rim of his buckler pressing into my throat.

  'Now you are dead,' he told me, smiling icily. And for the better part of an hour he showed me the many ways I could expect to die in the short moments between drawing my blade and deciding what on earth I should do with it next. It was not a cheering experience, but the next day I was a little quicker, and the day after that, faced with Dimitri - who had already tripped me three times and pretended to skewer my cods with his knife - I felt myself vanish - that is to say, the bumbling, anxious, flinching Petroc vanished - and when I came to my senses again, Dimitri was howling with laughter as blood poured in a torrent from his nose.

  "Yes, yes! Magnificent, O Petroc! You have it! Again!'

  This time I did not lose myself, but it was as if the scared, inept Petroc was trapped in the same skin as a man who could act on nothing more than brute instinct. In time I would lose this sense of division and realise that I was simply allowing myself to be free, to use my body as freely as I had when I was a child. But at first, although I learned fast and faster still, I was uneasy, and worried, for a while, that I was being posessed by some maleficent, violent spirit.