Relics

Chapter Thirteen

‘I… beg your pardon?' I squawked. 'I say again: stop your pawing, and let me up.' But my fingers seemed to be trapped in the folds of the cloak. I tugged desperately. A knuckle popped: I was free. All the while, the Princess Anna Doukaina Komneria regarded me, one black eyebrow arched. She grinned suddenly, and I saw the gap between her front teeth. I find it strange to relate now, but at that moment I had no doubt that this strange creature was exactly who she said she was. She sat up. Two thick coils of heavy, midnight-dark hair fell from the cloak. In an agony of shamed confusion, I cast down my eyes and shuffled backwards on my arse. My insides had turned to frogspawn.

'Forgive me,' I mumbled. Oh, sweet blood of martyrs! Could I set my feet nowhere without a chasm of hell opening beneath them? My mind, a little more nimble than hands or tongue, whirled. How did one address a lady of royal birth? Fragments of rhymes and songs beat around my skull. Bright shards of paintings, borders from ancient tomes in dusty libraries, knights with their lady-loves… Suddenly, light burst in. I rose to one knee and, carefully pulling Thorn from her sheath, held the knife out, hilt first, to the Princess. Risking a look, I saw that she still wore a wide, bemused smile.

'My life is yours,' I began. Somehow this sounded right and proper. 'I am your servant. I fear I have given you great offence, so take my blade and do with me what you will.'

'Oh, bloody hell!' the princess was laughing now. You are English! You… you really are very English, aren't you?'

'Madam-' I held Thorn out a little further. The princess waved her hand, which I could not help noticing was slender and pale, an imperious hand, a fine hand…

'Do not call me madam! I don't want your knife – your blade. You seem to know how to use it: keep it. Who are you, anyway?' 'Petroc of Auneford, Your Majesty.'

'Petroc. From Cornwall?' she asked, and her eyes came alive with interest.

'Devonshire, Your Majesty.' I stood up and brushed heather twigs from my clothing.

'Devonshire! How far we both are from our homes. You have saved me from a demon, Petroc of Auneford. It is I who am your servant. And now, perhaps you can escort me back to the ship.' The princess tried to stand, but winced and held her hand out to me. She was very pale. 'Who was he, the madman?' I asked, gently.

'I don't know – obviously. What was he? Some manner of hermit, I think. I stumbled across him at prayer. There's a little shrine of some sort back there, a cross carved into a stone in a little dip. I actually fell over him. Like a demon from the fiery caverns, I suppose, poor old bastard. He seems to have had an aversion to the gentler sex – I thought he was going to rape me, but he was more keen on bashing my head in.'

'I hurt him badly,' I said. To myself, I was beginning to wonder how badly.

'Good. I hope you killed him.' Her eyes gleamed in their dark hollows.

I did not reply. I could still hear the stone landing on his shoulder. I thought I rembered that it had all but torn his ear off as well. He would most likely die if it festered. What a dreadful irony – that a holy man should seek out such utter desolation only to fall foul of another monk, albeit a retired one. And to save… whom? How did she know of the ship? Or of Devonshire, for that matter?

'So you came here on the Cormaran?' I said at last, feeling like a mooncalf.

'Don't look so bewildered,' she said, as if reading my thoughts. 'Pavlos will be quite frantic by now, so let us make haste. Here, take my hand. I think my leg is hurt.'

So I grasped her cool hand in my own hot paw and steadied her as she tested one leg and then the other.

'It's not so bad,' she decided. 'I will lean upon your shoulder.' And she flung an arm about my neck and drew herself to me. I flinched, and yet again she was laughing at me.

'Gama to Theo! Petroc, I am not a basilisk! Grab, hold here-' and she took my left hand and guided it around her shoulders until it lodged beneath her armpit. 'Now don't let go-'

She started walking briskly towards the east, and nearly pulled me over. I stopped her, and turned us in the opposite direction. 'This way, Your Majesty,' I said. 'The ship is this way, and I'm afraid we have to climb down this great crag.'

'Are you sure?' she said, and fixed me with those eyes. I nodded furiously, feeling like a trained ape.

'Oh, yes,' I burbled. 'I ran down this slope, and the crag is up there behind us, so we…' The Princess stopped me with a gentle squeeze.

'Indeed, O Petroc,' she said gently. 'But your crag is quite small. I walked around it. There is a path… that way.'

We set off through the heather, and it was as she said. A well-worn sheep-track skirted the granite, an easy walk. That was fortunate: it was getting very hot as the sun rose towards its zenith, and sweat was beginning to soak my tunic, especially where the Princess held herself against me. I could smell myself, and her as well. My mouth was very dry.

The track began to slope steeply as we came under the lee of the cliffs. It was hard to keep hold of the limping girl and to keep my pace steady. We were perhaps a third of the way down the hill when she misjudged a step, tripped on a root and fell forward, pulling me down with her. For one moment I felt our bodies lying upon the air, and then we struck sheep-trimmed turf and were rolling. We were still grasping each other tightly, and I rolled beneath her, my one thought being to save her leg from more pain. As we began to tumble through bilberries, bracken, heather, I flailed with my own legs to keep her on top, and so we came to a halt against a wind-blasted rowan tree, I with my head all but buried in bracken, eyes tight shut, the Princess lying full-stretch upon my body. I could feel her chest heave, and worse, the decided fullness of her breasts. I tried to wriggle free, but she held me fast. Then I felt fingertips upon my face, gently brushing dirt away from my eyelids and lips. Looking up, I saw she was staring at me intently, her brow furrowed with concern. Then, seeing my open eyes, she grinned.

'My goodness! Holy Panayia! I thought I had smothered you, my Petroc!'

'Not one whit, Your Majesty,' I rasped. (Oh! gallant, I thought to myself, ruefully). 'Then if you would just release my arm…'

Lord, it was true: I had her pinned. I rolled one way, and she grimaced, so I tried to rise a little. She wriggled, I jerked, and in a few moments she began to chuckle. I imagined how we must appear to some watcher high above us, and began to smile. Then we were both laughing, desperate joy rising up, in me at least, like bubbles in ale. Somehow we undid the tangle of our limbs and rose shakily to our feet, still laughing, bent over like an old gaffer and his crone until the fit left us.

No sooner had I come to my right mind than I stiffened in shame. What a brute I had made myself before this great lady! But she stretched out her hand once more, and silently we went on down the slope. We had reached the boulder-field where I had first heard her laughter when I felt the Princess holding me back. She sank to the ground behind a stone and drew me down with her.

We are too near the beach,' she muttered. It was true that I had all but forgotten the Cormaran, but peering over the stone I saw that the beach was perhaps half a mile distant, the boat lying at an absurd angle on the wet sand, a fine commotion of sailors all around its hull.

'Petroc, I cannot return like this, in daylight. I am… Only de Montalhac, Gilles de Peyrolles, Pavlos and the Cretan boys know I am aboard.'

'How long have you been on the ship?' I interrupted, my own mind racing. 'Since we left England?' She shook her head, a tiny movement. 'The Faeroes? No – Gardar!' I snapped my fingers. ‘You were in a bundle of whalebone. And kept secret ever since. How?'

'It has been hard – no, it has been a foretaste of hell,' she whispered. 'I have not stirred from that stinking little hole for -1 cannot say.' 'Mary's sweet – I mean, God's blood…' 'By the by, Petroc, how do your teeth feel?'

'Loose as nails in rotten wood,' I admitted, then looked at her more closely. How strange – I saw now how thin she was, and how deeply ringed with shadow were her eyes. She had suffered whatever I and my fellows had, and perhaps much more, imprisoned in the dark. Without thinking, I reached out and took her hand. She smiled, a little sadly, and I noticed a tooth was missing, up near the corner of her mouth. Now I smelled the familiar sour reek on her breath. 'It is the scorbutus, Isaac says,' I offered.

'And he has no cure. Isaac is an angel, isn't he? But he couldn't keep his own teeth in his head.' She sighed. 'Petroc, I do not wish my presence to be known. I am fleeing for my life-' 'As we all are,' I put in.

'Just so, just so. But, if I can be truthful with you, the crew frighten me out of my wits, what I have spied of them from behind that bloody curtain. Christ upon the cross! Those men would eat me up, vomit, and eat me all over again…'

'Princess!' I yelped, shocked. This was no way for a lady of royal birth to be talking. 'But it's true! Oh my, have I upset you?'

You… you are a great lady! You should not speak in this way, Your Majesty!'

'Please do not call me Majesty, or Princess, or Highness, or any of that worthless chatter!' she spat, suddenly taut with fury, or perhaps pain. You find me harsh, I think? Not very royal? Well, you are right. I have no throne. To the world I am a dead woman. But look, doubting boy!' And she thrust her hand into my face. 'See this ring. This one!'

It was by no means the brightest trinket on that hand. A drab brown stone, with the lighter outline of a head in profile standing out upon it. The band, heavy and golden, was more impressive.

A queen wore this in Rome in the ancient times, when my forefathers ruled the whole world. That was my birthright. And then… I was thrown away.' Her voice had faded to a bitter whisper, and her eyes were hidden. 'So do not call me Princess, or Majesty, or Lady. I have nothing but the blood in my veins.' She fell silent. And I do not wish to let that be spilled, Petroc. It runs hot, and I covet the heat.' She looked up and caught my eyes in her own gaze. I saw that tears ran down like tiny rivulets through the sand that dusted her cheeks. You saved my life, and that is all I have that can be saved. So, I suppose you had better call me Anna.'

Before I had even come within a hundred paces of the ship, Pavlos hailed me and ran out from the shadows under the hull. He reached me in a state of clear agitation, and I knew that it was not on my account. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me gently. Where…' He swallowed. Where have you been?' 'Up there.' I waved behind me.

'And did you see anything – anyone "up there"?' Pavlos was a tall man, with dark curly hair that he kept shorn so that it hung a little above his shoulders. He cut a fine figure, and his bright green eyes and broken nose lent him the air of a fierce warrior, which was indeed the truth of the matter. But now he was sweating and trembling like a blown horse. He had run towards me as soon as I had jumped down onto the beach. I had planned to taunt him a little with the secret he could not know we shared, but now I did not have the heart.

'She is safe, and watches us from up there.' I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. Pavlos grabbed my hand and brought his face close to mine.

‘Who?' He breathed, the sour stench of failing gums too close for comfort.

'Anna, of course. The Princess Anna.' I grasped his hand in turn. 'She is unhurt.'

To my horror, Pavlos dropped to his knees and began crossing himself like a madman, in the backwards fashion of his religion. I made sure that no one else planned to join us, and knelt down myself.

'Be calm, Pavlos,' I whispered. 'She has come to no great harm. There was a man-'

‘A man?' Pavlos's head jerked up as if pulled by an invisible string. 'M'efayen ta jiyerya!' A stream of Greek curses followed, more plaintive than angry.

'-But I rescued her,' I broke in, impatient. 'Nothing happened. She has pulled a muscle in her leg, I think. But she does not wish to come back to the ship in daylight – she fears the men.'

'Fear? That one fears nothing,' said Pavlos. He seemed to be recovering. Rubbing his jaw, he stood up. 'She ran away from me before dawn. I managed to get her off the ship without anyone seeing, and she bolted, laughing. Laughing! I have heard nothing but that laughter since.' He spat. 'The Captain is in an ill humour about this, I can assure you.'

'Did you all think you could keep her hidden for the whole voyage?' I shook my head in disbelief. 'She would have faded away to nothing in that pit.'

'By all the saints and their pox-rotten mothers, Petroc! Do I not know that? She is a princess-royal of Byzantium! I have taken oaths to lay down my life for her kind. The man I served in Epiros, the Despot, is her cousin. None of us wished to confine her, but what else could be done? The crew would never allow a woman aboard – there are some among them, and you know who they are – who would use her like a common whore of the bath-houses before they pitched her over the side.' A new thought seemed suddenly to bite him like a gadfly. You did not… lay hands upon her?'

Yes, indeed!' This was too much. 'I had my hands all over her! I all but carried her down a fucking mountain, after, after I saved her life-'

'Peace, Petroc! Peace. Forgive me. The girl was in my care, and I failed her. I am overwrought. I owe you a debt of thanks, not vulgar suspicion. But now, if you please, take me to her.'

So we clambered back up the hill, Pavlos striding far ahead of me in his haste. Anna waited for us behind her rock. She lay on her belly, covered by her cloak, with only a slender crescent of her pale face showing beneath the cowl. At our approach she sat up, the cloth falling from her hair, which sent forth a bluish glint in the sunlight. She watched us for a moment, then grinned broadly and clapped her hands. 'My rescuers! Brave Pavlos, and my knight of Devonshire.'

Pavlos hurried to her and, to my astonishment – but what, today, was not astonishing? – knelt before her and took one of her bare feet in his hand.

'Vassileia,' he moaned. He writhed like a fish in air, gasping what I took to be the most abject apologies in his tongue, until Anna tapped him on the head with a finger, like a baker testing a loaf of bread.

'Get up, Pavlos,' she said in Occitan. 'I ran away from you, if you remember. I am very sorry, my dear guardsman.'

"Why, Vassileia? How could you do such a thing?' The poor man was wringing his hands now.

'I wanted to stretch my limbs, to breathe fresh air. I wanted to be alone! I have not stirred from that… that charnel house for a lifetime. You saw me, Pavlos. I could hardly stand upright! And when I felt my legs begin to work again, I had to use them. So of course I ran.'

'And the lunatic? Petroc told me, dear Highness. Did he…?'

'I was wandering about up there, picking heather flowers-' and here she darted me a look, swift as quicksilver, '-simply gathering flowers, and he crept up behind me. I thought I'd had it, I can tell you! God, how he stank. He gave me a good pinching and pawing, I screamed, and then my brave Petroc drove him away, bloody and weeping.' She clapped her hands joyfully once more, like a little girl at play. I blushed at the look of admiration that Pavlos turned upon me. 'I don't know about weeping,' I muttered.

'Nonsense! You bold warriors, always so very modest. Drove him away, I say, drove him off to die,' Anna insisted, her face all but twitching with mischief. I held up both hands, hoping to change the subject. 'And your leg, how does it feel?' I asked.

'It is serviceable,' she replied. 'Sore when I lean upon it. It will be stiff tomorrow.'

We must get you back to the Cormaran,' broke in Pavlos. The Captain is in a mighty rage – although I believe his anger is a disguise for concern. But…' 'I will not go back while the sun shines,' Anna snapped. 'But, Vassileia…' 'I will not, I say!' 'Aghia Panayia… Come, Vassileia, you must.'

'Here I stay,' Anna repeated, kicking her feet into the grass so that she indeed appeared rooted in place.

'I will stay here while you warn de Montalhac,' I ventured. 'It is not far to the ship.' I threw a warning look at Anna, who had turned her stubborn glare on me. 'If all is well, we shall come in at nightfall, on any signal you choose.'

'Did you hurt him to death, Petroc?' Pavlos turned to me. I shrugged, feeling horrible.

'No!' I said. 'I only kicked his ballocks for him. But he was holding aloft a great boulder, and he dropped it on his own shoulder. I heard it break, like piece of kindling.' 'Exactly where was it?'

I showed him on my own shoulder. 'I think the stone carried away his ear, too,' I added. He wanted to know how much blood I had seen. For a minute he paced in a tight circle, staring at us through narrowed eyes. Finally he stopped, and dragged his hands across his face.

'So be it,' he sighed. You will stay here. I do not think your lunatic will be back, and it seems unlikely that there are more of his like about. But, Petroc, I shall bring you something more useful than that,' and he waved a finger at Thorn. 'Can you use a bow?' I nodded – it was true, I had been a fair shot at the abbey, shooting at the butts set up by the river for sport and preparation, for it was not unknown for the monks to go forth armed to drive folk off abbey land. 'Good,' said Pavlos doubtfully. 'I will arrange a signal with the Captain. But if you see one hair of a stranger's head, you will shoot to kill, then run for your lives. Do you swear it?' 'I swear it,' I agreed.

'I swear nothing,' said Anna stiffly. 'But I will do as Petroc advises me, as he has guided me well thus far.' And she stared at Pavlos down her fine, narrow nose.

'Thanks be to God,' said the Greek, fervently, and crossed himself once more. 'I shall return with all speed.'

And he turned and all but ran down the hill. I felt Anna at my side, and heard her laughter, the same laughter that had disturbed my morning bath.

'Pavlos is a good man,' she said finally, 'but he does fuss over me like an old hen. He has the habits of a palace guard, you see – he can no more break them than… than I can resist making sport of him. I have the habits of the palace too.'

Where is your palace – your home?' I asked her, hearing the sadness in her voice.

'In Nicea, which is in Asia Minor, in that part we call Anatolia,' she replied. She looked at me quizzically. 'Do you know where that is?'

'It is on the eastern shore of the Mare Mediterraneum,' I said, 'above the lands of Outremer, and east of Byzantium.'

Well, well! A scholar! My Devonshire boy, you are deeper than the Sea of Darkness,' she said. You did not come by such map-learning amongst that band of cutthroats, I think.'

'No, you are right,' I said, still watching the small figure of Pavlos as it hurried across the beach. Now he had reached the ship, and disappeared behind the hull. 'But, my lady, very little aboard the Cormaran is what it seems – like bundles of whalebone, for instance,' I added.

She snorted disparagingly – a most unladylike sound – and, taking my hand, drew me down to the heather. She sat back and crossed her legs like a tailor. Feeling awkward, I knelt before her, as if at prayer.

You at least are not who you seem to be,' she said. You are too gentle. Oh, I know…' and she held up a hand as if to silence my protest. "You are fearless, I have the proof of it. But you do not seem like one of them… like a pirate, for that is what they are, isn't that true?' 'They are traders,' I mumbled.

'Oh, rubbish! That de Montalhac is a rogue through and through – a wolf. But a gentleman,' she admitted.

'And more,' I said. 'They are all… most of them are good men. They saved my life, and took me in like a long-lost brother.'

'Lord! That ship is manned by a veritable guild of life-savers! And from what did they save yours?'

'From a man…' I began reluctantly. 'From being hanged for a thing I had no part in.' I hung my head, still sickened at the memory of it all.

'Peace, Petroc. I have a mocking tongue, but a loving heart. Listen. It is but a little past noon, and we shall be sitting on this great dry mountain for hours to come. As I have fallen amongst traders', and she reached out one leg and prodded me in the thigh with a dirty toe, 'I will trade you my history for yours. And I wager that you get the better bargain, although we shall see. So, is it yes? Do you agree?'

I considered. I had no great wish to pick over my dark time. The long sea-voyage had healed much, though I could sense Sir Hugh somewhere in the background, lurking like unclean smoke. But looking at this girl, who regarded me so coolly from under those arching brows, and past her at the strange shore upon which we had been thrown together, I realised that I longed to tell my story to someone – all of it, not just the fragments I had let fall in conversation aboard the Cormaran. Only the Captain knew it all, and confiding in the Captain was like consigning a secret to a deep, black pool in which countless other sorrows lay sleeping. '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.