Relics

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  "Your pardon, Highness,' he mumbled. 'My men are good boys, and this is only the Porte Saint Eloi - we don't get . . .' The poor man was almost wringing his hands. We beg your forgiveness.'

  And so we passed through, killers, defilers of churches, fornicators and outlaws, as armed men grovelled in the dung. I felt their eyes on our backs as we paced on, turning to our right towards the grander turrets of the Porte de Cailhau. There was a wide open space before us, over which a few figures were moving. A little way ahead, tents had sprung up and men were milling about, lighting fires and coughing noisily. Beyond them the wharves began. I could barely keep my steps even as we strolled over the well-trodden marsh-grass, breathing in the soft air of morning and the salt of the Gironde. It seemed like a thousand years before we reached the clutch of tents and passed among them. Will was at my side at once.

  That was well done, my boy,' he said. I saw that he was as white as a sheet, but still grinning. 'It was lovely, the way those bastards got down in the stink.'

  We aren't safe yet,' I muttered.

  'From them we are,' he replied. 'They won't say a solitary word about this to anyone. They're town men. If the town got wind that they'd shamed a great lady and her retinue, there would be whippings all round. No, they'll keep mum.'

  'Not much of a retinue, though,' I said. 'They must have been suspicious of us on foot - Anna should have been aboard a snow-white palfrey at the very least.'

  And I on a mule, I suppose,' said Will. 'No, we fooled everyone. By the way, I forgot to tell you about the crossbowmen. Two at least, above the gate in the tower. I'll bet their eyes were out on stalks.'

  'Crossbowmen?' Anna and I said together.

  "They clean slipped my mind,' Will said happily. Then his face grew serious. ‘Your Highness, you truly are . . . a princess?'

  She fixed Will with her most imperious stare, the one that could reduce Pavlos to tears. Then she smiled. 'I am. And you, if my guess is right, are a Northumbrian. Alnwick?'

  'Morpeth,' stammered Will, aghast. 'How on earth . . . ?'

  'I am a princess,' she said, happily.

  Will was still gawping, so I linked arms with him as I had done so many times in another life. 'She is indeed a princess,' I explained, 'But she had English guards - what do you call them, Anna? Valerians?'

  'Varangians, idiot,' she laughed.

  'Anyway, she speaks better English than . . . than you, certainly, you sheep-shagger.'

  'Christ!' muttered Will, awestruck. I had never seen him so amazed and, feeling a great surge of joy, I grabbed Anna with my other arm and, three abreast, we tripped through the dewy grass like milkmaids on their way to the fair.

  When we were beyond the tents and breathing a little more easily, Anna picked up her trailing hems and I pushed back my hood. The day was arriving, and the sun crept up behind us and flooded the river with gold. We were coming to a part of the wharf I recognised. There were the sea-steps where the long-boat had dropped us off yesterday. This was the spot where the bowman had run into Anna. A wave of nausea hit me suddenly, and I put my hand on Anna's shoulder. Beyond the nausea I felt a black cloud of guilt, of horror, crawling towards me. I looked out into the river. There was the Cormaran, radiant in the new light. And there, sitting on the sea-steps, were Pavlos and Elia, with the long-boat bobbing below them.

  Pavlos saw us first. He leaped to his feet, almost lost his footing on the slimy weed, and staggered up onto the wharf. His face looked like a skull, so dark were the hollows around his eyes, put there by worry and, I had no doubt, the work of the poppy. Never taking his eyes from Anna, he reeled towards us and threw himself to the ground at her feet. He seemed to be trying to kiss her shoes. Anna tried to pull them away.

  ' Vassileia’. Before the Panayia I beg you, forgive your servant Pavlos ... I have abandoned you like a Judas! False friend and false servant! Holy mother and all the holy saints believe me, I...'

  'Come now, Pavlos,' said Anna, in the tone that I had come to think of as her Vassileia voice - regal and a trifle exasperated. 'Let us put it from our minds. You must have been tired, dear man. But I was in good hands, and quite safe. You are quite forgiven. Let us put it from our minds and never speak of it again.' And she patted him on the head. He looked up adoringly and only then did he notice Will.

  My friend was standing at my side, staring unconcernedly out to sea. He saw Pavlos jump to his feet and turned to face him with a look I had never seen before: blandly pleasant with an inner flickering of alertness, even menace. He gave Pavlos a curt nod.

  'G'morrow,' he said.

  Pavlos narrowed his eyes. The same dangerous flicker played over his face. 'Who are you, then, my friend?' he asked.

  I hastily laid a hand on Will's shoulder, as if to claim him. 'Pavlos, it has been a night of horrors and wonders, but there has never been a wonder like this: my greatest friend in the world, whom I saw die, has returned to life. This is William of Morpeth, former scholar and cleric, now . . . what would you call yourself, Will?'

  'Hungry!' he said, and the spell was broken. The Greek smiled a little, then held out his hand. To my enormous relief Will took it and gave it a good warm shake. 'To answer Patch's question properly, I would call myself a soldier, which is what I take you for, friend Pavlos.'

  'Returned from the dead? Is this so?' Pavlos asked. Will chuckled. The Greek was opening his satchel and offering Will a hunk of bread. I let out a deep sigh and looked about me. Elia peered sheepishly over the edge of the dock. Anna waved regally in his direction. It was rather dreadful to see his face light up. I walked carefully over to the sea-wall and sat down, dangling my legs over the edge. The memory of the swordsman's innards clenching and unclenching around my blade had come back to me unbidden, and for a moment I felt faint. What had I done? I looked at my hands and they were streaked and stained with red. My fingernails were black. I wanted to wash them, but the wall was too high, so I tucked them beneath my legs instead. The sharp brine-soaked air felt clean and reviving, and in a few moments I could look at the Cormaran in the distance without the urge to puke.

  You do not look well, my friend,' said Elia from the gig. I shook my head.

  My mind was starting to turn again, slowly, and I forced myself to think. There must be witnesses to the fight, although would the deaths of three murderous rogues cause any great upset? I must talk to the Captain, and soon, I decided, and stood up.

  'Pavlos,' I said, 'There is something you must know. Hardly an hour ago, the lady Anna and I were attacked by . . . three men, English archers. One of them was the fellow who had words with us last morning. They are dead. Anna - I mean the Vassileia — killed one, I another, Will the last. We ran, but we must, must have been seen. The gatemen did not suspect us and dared not obstruct the princess. But there will surely be a hue and cry. I think we should make our way back to the Cormaran now, if we can.'

  As I said my piece, Pavlos' eyes had widened, then narrowed. Now he looked me up and down, and I believe I saw something like admiration in his stare.

  'Killed, you say,' he snapped. You know this?'

  Yes,' I nodded.

  "Where were they wounded? Tell me quick.'

  'One in the throat, one in the chest, one in the eye.'

  'The chest-wound - he died?'

  "Yes ... he died.'

  You are sure.'

  'I am sure.'

  Why? Hard to be sure, with a chest-wound.'

  'Because,' I said through clenched teeth, the sickness rising once again from my stomach, 'I cut him all to pieces inside. I felt him die.'

  Pavlos nodded, all business. 'The eye - he was dead.' 'For certain,' said Will, cheerfully. You are sure?'

  Will shrugged. 'I stirred his brains around a bit.'

  'Good lad. And the throat?' Pavlos cocked his head at Anna.

  'Oh, yes,' said Anna.

  'I am sorry, Vassileia. But it is important that none of these creatures lived, even for a little while, to tell tales. And . . . Petroc said you ki
lled him, this bowman?' It was plain he did not believe that such a thing might be possible.

  'She did, Pavlos. One thrust. And fought the other like a . . .' I paused. I had been about to say 'like a man', but that seemed, I thought, inadequate. She had fought like a flame, like an archangel with a fiery sword. 'She is a warrior,' I said instead. 'Truly.'

  'Vassileia?' asked Pavlos.

  Anna shrugged. 'I was raised by our Varangians,' she said. You know that. They let me watch while they trained. I would join in. They thought I showed promise, I suppose, so they taught me.'

  'I knew many Varangians,' said Pavlos, wistfully.

  'My fencing master was a Hereford man,' said Anna. 'Fourth son of a knight. The best swordsman in Greece - his name was John de Couville.'

  'Eh!' gasped Pavlos, crossing himself. 'Kovils! He taught you? Po po po . . .' He ran a thumb back and forth across his mouth.

  The sun is getting high,' prompted Anna. Pavlos dragged his hand across his eyes, and looked up. He was smiling -faintly and with a certain lack of conviction, but smiling nonetheless.

  'Well, my Vassileia,' he said, 'perhaps some fencing lessons? If, that is, you are taking on new pupils.' He blinked like an owl in the daylight, and we blinked back at him in surprised relief. 'Meanwhile, back to the ship with us all, before difficult questions are asked.' He paused and turned to Will, then jerked his chin up and regarded him down the length of his lordly nose. And you. What shall we do with you, O risen one?'

  'He cannot stay here,' I said. 'He will be pursued along with us. They will kill him if he does not come with us on the Cormaran.'

  'They?' Pavlos said, sharply. It was incredible that he could be so unbelievably, terrifyingly calm. I waved my hand frantically towards the walls. 'The Watch,' I almost yelled. Pavlos rubbed his red-rimmed eyes in exasperation, then pressed his hands to his forehead.

  'I cannot . . . Come, then. You will talk to the Captain and he will decide. Now we will go. Now!' And he snapped his fingers at Elia, who began to pull the gig in towards the wharf. Will turned to me, his face slack with relief.

  As the drug-fuddled Greeks dipped and pulled their oars, a great joy at being free and alive rushed over me. I glanced over at Anna and caught her eye, then Will's, and then we were laughing with sheer relief, as Bordeaux drew away from us and the sun warmed our faces.

  The reckoning I feared never came. We were not even late back, I realised, and there were bloody, bruised faces aplenty amongst the crew who had returned before us. Mirko had his arm in a sling, and one of the Italians seemed to be missing an ear. I thought I would puke on the scrubbed deck as Pavlos reported to the Captain, who merely looked at us over the Greek's slumped shoulder. When he strolled over, it was merely to shake me by the arm in an almost fatherly way.

  'Where did you find her, Pavlos?' There was a commotion behind me. Anna stood in a circle of crewmen, Pavlos at her side like the palace guard he was. She seemed to have grown -she rose above the men like a huntsman among a pack of hounds. How gnarled and villainous they seemed in comparison, jostling and nudging one another as they crowded round, uncertain what to make of this radiant apparition. I knew, though, that they could not be happy. Women aboard a ship: it was bad luck, it meant trouble. The men, ragged, mauled and hung-over from their night ashore, were not in the best of tempers. They were turning into a mob. Pavlos' knuckles were beginning to whiten around the pommel of his sword as I elbowed my way to his side, but then Anna's voice, clear and deep, froze us in place.

  Well, O Stefano, did you find your plump Spanish girl, your little Cabretta? By your sour face I would guess not. And Carlo, what happened to your ear? Did you hear Dimitri's confession?'

  The bark from the back of the crowd was Dimitri's laugh. The one-eared master-at-arms was forever making as if to whisper secrets to us, then grabbing the proffered ear in his teeth and growling like, as he put it, a hungry Tartar. Stefano had a taste for a certain type of women he called his 'little goats'. And Carlo was a defrocked priest from Ancona who had killed his mistress's lover in a duel after fate had brought the man to his confessional.

  Who is she, Pavlos? She knows us,' said Horst.

  'A sorceress!' hissed Guthlaf.

  'Right enough - put her over the side,' called Latchna, the sailmaker from Galway.

  'Oh, silence, Lak! You're still sour because you missed your cockfight in Dublin,' Anna shot back.

  ‘You go over the side, Lak, you fucking seamstress,' growled Dimitri. 'Let the woman be.'

  I saw that half the men were simply enthralled by Anna and gawped like netted carp. Others clearly wished to make her acquaintance in the usual ungentle ways, but a few, those like Guthlaf, who were born to the sea and knew it as their only home, were truly angry and frightened to the same degree. Superstition runs as deep as the dark ocean in the lives of sailors, and their worlds can be as small as the curved walls of their ship. To them, Anna might be a woman, but she might also be a thing from that place where the cold tide rolls drowned men's bones forever over black sand. It was clearly not something they felt like chancing.

  "Who is she?' Horst demanded.

  'The Princess Anna Doukaina Komnena of the house of Nicea, under the Captain's protection and mine,' said Pavlos, coolly.

  'I am she,' said Anna, catching her hair and pulling it tight behind her head. 'But you know me already.'

  The crowd went dead quiet. Guthlaf’s jaw hung open like a broken shutter. Then Dimitri's harsh laughter grated over us.

  'Mikal? My God, boy, what have they done to you?'

  The tension broke in an instant as one by one, the crew caught on and began to smile, then laugh. Pavlos caught my eye and we grinned queasily. But it seemed that, although the joke was on them, the men were finding it hilariously funny. They swarmed around us, eagerly staring into Anna's face for a glimpse of their favourite Basque castaway.

  What a boy you made,' they cried. And what a sailor! Come back to us, princess, come back to us!'

  Anna was laughing too. She held out her hands, and her rings flashed and sparkled. "You taught me well, friends, and made me welcome - the warmest welcome I have had for . . . for many a year. I cannot be Mikal again, alas - I cannot bind my chest a day longer, for one thing. But I will be Anna, if our Captain doesn't object.'

  'I have no objections,' said the Captain. You do us honour with your presence, Vassileia, and you, men of the Cormaran, should be glad of it: it seems this lady can swing a sword as well as she can reef in a sail. Now back to work, boys. We sail in an hour. There is too much trouble in this town for us, and we have trouble to make elsewhere.'

  He turned and walked back towards his cabin, pausing at my shoulder.

  A word, if you please, Petroc.'

  So I had not escaped after all. With a stricken glance at Will I dragged myself after him like a hog to the butchering table. He closed the door behind me and motioned me to a chair while he paced.

  'Pavlos has told me what happened. Now I will hear it from you.'

  So I told him. You could not lie to the Captain - that is to say, I could not. He wanted details about the men who had confronted us on the riverside, and who we had seen in the city. To my great relief he made me gloss over the night's revelries - 'your affair and yours only' - but I had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew everything. Meanwhile, he drew forth every last shred I could give him of the fight, and I forced the tale from me, shuddering and queasy with the telling of it.

  'These were Englishmen, you say.'

  Yes, sir. Rough bowmen.'

  'Did they bear any crest, any insignia?'

  'None. Though one was from Bristol, I would swear.'

  'Mercenaries, very likely. That would make sense. And none escaped you?' I shook my head. 'That is good. You did well. Are you worried about consequences? Do not be. There was more blood spilt last night than at your hand.'

  What do you mean?'

  'Two other parties of my men were attacked by men such as you met, and . . .' '
I saw Mirko.'

  'Mirko had his arm shattered by a stave. He was carousing with Jens and Hanno. You will not see Jens again, alas.' Jens . . .

  'They cut his throat. Mirko was lucky: Hanno did for the one with the stave. The others - English, all of them - got away. And Gilles had a small set-to also. An Englishman tried to stick him with a poignard. This was at midnight near the cathedral.'

  'Is he hurt?'

  'Gilles? No, no. The man with the knife . . . the city fathers will be scratching their beards today over a pile of dead Englishmen, it is certain.' He fell silent, and suddenly his gaze was eating into me like vitriol. 'This William, this miraculous, resurrected savior, is the friend you thought Kervezey had killed, yes?' I nodded, dumbly. Yet he is alive, and in Bordeaux, and at the right spot to be of service to you and the Princess Anna. Do you know how that might be possible?'

  I shook my head. Looking up, I met the Captain's eyes.

  'He was following us. So he says, and I believe him. He was roving - that is his nature - and thought he glimpsed me. Thinking he had seen a ghost, he trailed us through the streets, and ... As he said, he was not the only rogue abroad that night.'

  If anything, the Captain's stare grew more intense, and he leaned towards me like a great, hungry bird of prey. I felt like Saint Bartholomew, slowly flayed alive.

  'In that great city of - what? Ten thousand souls, he found you?'

  'He is a mercenary, sir! The city is full of them. The Company of the Boar's Head ... no, the Black Boar - he serves with them. He's been here for weeks. And he's no respecter of curfews or nightwatchmen, and . . .' I swallowed.