Imperial Fire

V

Watching the ferry carry Hero away, Lucas felt a stirring of shame at his boorish behaviour. He suspected that he’d misjudged the man. Seeing him board the ship at Naples, he’d assumed from his sober dress and quiet manner that he was a monk. Perhaps he was, though he wasn’t tonsured like the Roman priests or bearded like the eastern clerics. He wore his black hair long, brushed back from a high forehead. His protuberant eyes, quill-like nose and full, almost feminine mouth should have conveyed a comical effect, but in fact he projected a most dignified air. He was certainly a scholar with an uncanny command of languages. Lucas had heard him converse with his fellow passengers in Greek, French, Arabic, Italian and some unknown tongue that might have been English.

One of the touts pestering him tugged his sleeve. Lucas rounded on him. ‘Take your hand off me.’

The tout gauged the level of resistance, flicked his fingers in front of Lucas’s face and strode away muttering. Lucas drew a deep breath and walked through the port gate into a crowded street lined with tenements, picking his way past trundling carts and porters stooped under bales. The city assailed his senses. Tradesmen from a dozen lands shouted their wares. Spices and leather goods scented the air. Overhead, neighbours held bellowed conversations from adjoining balconies that nearly blocked off the sky, their voices almost drowned out by the din up ahead. A legless man scooted alongside on a trolley, begging for alms. Whores in dresses cut low to expose their breasts stuck out their hips and spread their lips in salacious O’s.

The racket increased to a deafening pitch and Lucas found himself at the junction of a thoroughfare packed with a heaving mob — men, women and children all heading in one direction and chanting what sounded like battle cries. Some wore green or blue tabards and when the factions met, the faces of both parties contorted in fury and they stabbed fingers at each other and hurled abuse. Mounted soldiers brandished staves and whips to keep the rival groups apart.

Someone shoved him from behind, propelling him into the mob. It bore him away. Unable to go against the flow, he struggled into a colonnaded walkway on one side of the thoroughfare. Merchants had set up booths and stalls under the arches. A man waved a token in his face.

‘I don’t understand. Where’s everyone going?’

The man pushed him away and plucked another passer-by out of the stream. A shoe barked Lucas’s heel and he stumbled, almost falling. A hand pulled him upright and he turned to see a man carrying on his shoulders a little boy trumpeting through his hands in fierce ecstasy.

‘What’s going on?’ Lucas shouted. ‘Is this a religious procession?’

The man pointed ahead. Lucas heard the word ‘Hippodrome’ and understood: the crowd was on its way to the races.

He went with the flow, buildings sliding past on both sides. Some of them were fine mansions with draped balconies occupied by silk-clad figures who looked down on the stew of humanity with patrician disdain.

The mob must have borne Lucas nearly a mile before it disgorged into a forum, the river dividing around a lofty shaft of purple marble crowned with an imperial statue. The buildings on all sides were the most splendid he’d seen, with dazzling white façades and noble porticoes. The crowd spilled into an even wider thoroughfare. Over the packed heads rose a high arcaded wall similar to the ruined Colosseum he’d seen while passing through Rome. It extended away almost to vanishing point. Slowly the crush moved forward. A hand touched Lucas’s waist, but when he whirled, the faces around him were blank. He patted his purse under his tunic.

The crowd funnelled towards a massive gate surmounted by four life-size rearing bronze horses. Stewards manned the entrance. Lucas thought he saw money changing hands and fumbled for his purse, was still fumbling to remove coins when the crush thrust him forward. A steward held out his hand, but Lucas didn’t know the price of admission, didn’t know the exchange rate for his Italian money, didn’t know the value of the coins that Hero the Greek had given him. Didn’t know anything.

‘Diploma,’ the steward kept shouting. Lucas held out a few coins. The steward threw up his hand in vexation.

‘I don’t understand,’ Lucas shouted, bracing himself against the mob pressing from behind.

Unable to force Lucas back, the steward snatched the coins from his palm and propelled him forward. He stumbled through the gateway into a huge amphitheatre lit by dazzling sunshine. He’d never seen so many people in one place. The stadium could have held the population of Rome with room to spare. All the ringside seats were taken and the spectators spilled up the tiered stands. He climbed thirty steps and worked his way around the Hippodrome before finding a thinly occupied section, below the U-shaped curve at one end of the racetrack. The starting stalls were at the other end, almost a quarter of a mile away. Down the middle of the course, separating the two straights, ran a stone plinth crammed with obelisks, statues and bronze figures of animals and charioteers. Fitful music carried from an orchestra assembled in the centre of the arena. Peering hard, Lucas saw that some of the musicians were playing organs, the bellows operated by teams of children.

His neighbour noticed his astonishment and drew his companions’ attention to it. They grinned with the good-natured condescension of cosmopolitans showing off their sophistication to a foreign hick. They had come prepared for the day, with cushions to pad the stone benches, parasols, baskets of food and flagons of wine. Lucas had to turn his face from all that plenty. He hadn’t eaten a decent meal in three weeks and his stomach had shrunk so that it almost touched his backbone.

By now the Hippodrome was full, the crowd settling into an expectant buzz. Then the noise swelled to a roar that pulsed against Lucas’s ear-drums. Everybody jumped to their feet. His neighbour pulled him upright, pointing at the eastern side of the Hippodrome. Out onto a covered balcony processed a line of god-like figures. The stall must have been more than two hundred yards away, but Lucas could make out the shimmer of silk, the glint of gold, the flash of jewels.

One of the figures, black-bearded and clad in red and purple, advanced to the edge of the box and raised a hand. The crowd bellowed a salutation.

Cupping his ear against the uproar, Lucas leaned towards his neighbour. ‘Is that the emperor?’

The man crossed himself. ‘Basileus Alexius, God preserve him.’

The emperor dropped a white cloth to signal that the games had begun. Out from the stables at the far end of the Hippodrome rolled six chariots, each pulled by four horses. Their riders punched the air and the crowd responded with cheers and boos. The chariots lined up in the stalls, a flag twirled and fell and the horses sprang forward. They galloped straight towards Lucas and it wasn’t until they rounded the first turn directly below him that he appreciated their speed. The chariots drifted and skidded, wheels spraying sand, took the next curve on one rim and went weaving up the far straight.

Lucas’s neighbour nudged him, holding out some nuts. Lucas wolfed them down, the morsels only aggravating his hunger.

On the third lap two of the chariots contested the inside line and collided. One of them kept going, but the other lost a wheel; its axle dug in and flipped it over, hurling its driver ten yards through the air. Stewards ran out, and while some carried the motionless figure away, others caught up the horses and raked the ruts smooth. By the time the chariots raced round again, the track was clear.

Lucas calculated that the race had gone more than two miles before the victorious driver crossed the finishing line below the imperial box to the applause of his supporters and the groans of the punters who’d backed the wrong team.

Between races, musicians and troupes of acrobats performed for the spectators. The sun beat down and Lucas felt increasingly light-headed. ‘How many more races?’ he mimed.

His neighbour held up seven fingers. Lucas couldn’t face a whole day at the races. He had to eat or he would pass out. Touching his neighbour’s shoulder in thanks, he rose on stiff legs and worked his way to the exit.

Outside, the street was nearly empty. He walked through the forum and was heading back towards the port when a waifish girl slipped in front of him, her pretty face screwed up in appeal. She spoke to him and fluttered her eyes, caressing his arms and chest. She couldn’t have been older than twelve, yet it was clear what she was offering. He shifted her aside and walked on. She whimpered and wheedled, matching his pace, then clutched his elbow and burst into tears.

From the odd word and gesture, Lucas understood she was an orphan and perishing of hunger. She wouldn’t leave him alone. He reached inside his tunic and produced a coin. She took it and, overcome by his generosity, threw both hands around his neck and kissed him.

He disentangled himself. ‘There’s no need for that. I had a sister your age and I know what it’s like to go hungry.’

She ran off and he forgot about her, intent on finding a food stall. A heavenly aroma drew him to a booth offering kebabs and flatbread. The fumes from the grilling lamb made him swoon. Ahead of him a customer collected his order, served in a pocket of bread and topped off with a helping of pungent fish sauce. The customer paid with two coins that looked similar to the ones the Greek had given Lucas. He stepped forward. ‘I’ll have the same.’

Watching the lamb sizzle, he could hardly contain his hunger, imagining sinking his teeth into meat and fresh-baked bread for the first time in weeks. When the vendor handed over the fragrant packet, he couldn’t speak for the saliva flooding his mouth.

The vendor held out his other hand for payment.

Lucas felt for his purse, frowned, patted his waist and, with an increasing desperation that would have seemed comical to anyone who didn’t know the reason for it, beat and probed every inch of his body.

‘My purse,’ he said. ‘It’s gone.’

The vendor snatched back the food.

Understanding hit Lucas and he looked down the road where the girl had vanished. ‘I’ve been robbed.’

He ran into the road and scanned both ways. His hand went to his knife and that’s when he discovered that she’d stolen that, too.

The vendor had followed him and was shoving him in the chest. Lucas in a sick daze put up no resistance. In a stupor of disbelief he began walking, so shocked that he didn’t realise he’d taken the wrong direction until he saw a harbour below him and the Sea of Marmara widening out to the horizon.

He sat on a bench by a church and tried to work out what to do. No doubt about it, he was in a bad plight — penniless, friendless, unable to speak the language. Begging went against his nature, and from what he’d seen, the city’s halt and lame practically formed a guild. No one would give alms to a fit and healthy foreign youth. He’d have to find work. That shouldn’t be difficult in a city as large as Constantinople, and the harbour was the obvious place to look. Feeling more positive, he descended to the waterside and worked his way around the semi-circular quay, enquiring of any likely person where he might find employment. Most of them waved him away; some acted as if he were invisible.

He spotted a column of porters bent under bulky loads, ferrying grain from a ship to a granary. An overseer presided over the gang, tapping the side of his shoe with a stick. Lucas presented himself, pointed at the hurrying men, then pointed at himself. The overseer looked him up and down, assessing him as if he were a beast, then turned and shouted. One of the older stevedores set down his load and came over, cringing with anxiety. The foreman dismissed him with a flick of the hand, jerked his chin at Lucas and pointed at the load.

It must have been early afternoon when he began his labour, and he was tottering on caved legs, his back slick with sweat, his throat and eyes sore from the dust in the granary, when the overseer’s whistle signalled the end of the shift. The gang ceased like a machine that had been turned off. At first, Lucas could only move in a tortured stoop. He approached the overseer and held out his hand. The overseer fended it off with his stick.

Lucas pointed towards his mouth and patted his stomach. ‘Please. I haven’t eaten all day.’

A remote smile passed over the overseer’s face. He made to walk away.

Lucas pulled him back. ‘Just give me what you owe.’

The overseer drew back his stick. Lucas kept his grip.

‘What I’ve earned. That’s all.’

Perhaps the overseer saw in Lucas’s gaze the belligerence that had made the tout on the dock back off. With a kind of disgust, he handed over four tiny coins and swaggered away. The coins weighed next to nothing.

The sun was sinking behind the rooftops when Lucas left the harbour. He slaked his thirst at a public drinking fountain and made his way back to the centre, keeping an eye out for a food stall.

Night came down fast. One minute the streets were busy with home-goers and merchants dismantling their stalls, the next they were almost empty. Lucas took a wrong turning and found himself shut in by dark alleys that wound through canyons of solid masonry. The other pedestrians he met travelled in groups and moved at a hurry, as if fearful of overstepping some sinister deadline. The authorities must have imposed a curfew.

It wasn’t completely dark. Here and there lamps glowed in windows and torches guttered in sconces above iron-barred posterns. Several times he encountered armed watchmen making their rounds in pairs.

Lucas was going the wrong way, heading downhill towards the sea walls. He turned left and stopped halfway down the alley, his passage blocked by a pack of bat-eared dogs snarling over carrion. He retreated, took another turning and halted, a vague sense of threat tickling his senses. The alley behind him crooked into darkness. A child cried and cooking pans clattered somewhere in a tenement apartment. He went on, ascending a lane that rose in shallow steps, glancing back occasionally.

He was almost at the end of the alley when a man stepped around the corner like someone meeting an appointment. What little light there was struck cold shards from his knife. Lucas whirled and saw another man pushing out of the shadows only fifteen yards behind him.

No doorways, nowhere to run or hide. Cursing the girl who’d stolen his knife, Lucas stripped off his tunic and wrapped it around his left arm. He backed against the wall and sidled towards the edge of a step, his gaze darting between his assailants. They stopped a few yards short and one of them spoke, making beckoning gestures.

Lucas’s voice shook. ‘You’re on the wrong trail. I haven’t got any money.’ He gave a cracked laugh. ‘Somebody got to me before you.’

Very slowly the two men closed in, their knives steady, their eyes alert to any move. Lucas forced himself to stay still. Perhaps when they discovered he had only a scrap of loose change, they’d let him go. Wishful thinking. They’d slit his throat out of sheer vindictiveness. His breath rasped in his throat, impelled by rage as much as fear. Neither of the men matched him in height. The one behind him seemed hesitant, waiting for his accomplice to take the initiative. Go for him first. Use your training, use your feet.

Closer and closer. Lucas stood on the edge of the step, braced to spring, when a roar swung everyone around. A squat figure blocked the entrance to the alley, a huge blade in his hand. He roared again and came lumbering down the lane. The footpads exchanged glances and bolted, the uphill one sprinting past Lucas as if he’d ceased to exist. He sagged against the wall, legs fluttering, and blinked at his saviour.

‘Thank you.’

The man said something, broken and cavernous teeth glinting in a shaggy black beard. He cradled Lucas’s chin and his grin widened. He held up the blade for Lucas to admire. It was the sort of cleaver used in a slaughterhouse. The man stank of rancid flesh and sour wine.

‘Come,’ he said. That’s what Lucas thought he said. The man didn’t speak Greek or any other language Lucas recognised. He put a brawny arm around Lucas’s waist. ‘Come.’

The man talked continuously as they threaded the empty streets, Lucas too shocked to do anything but follow. He put on his tunic and stood rocking in a daze when the man stopped outside the entrance to a degraded tenement. The man opened it and beckoned. ‘Come.’

Lucas followed him up a dirty stairway, hesitated when the man opened a door. ‘Come.’

The room was filthy, the atmosphere so frowzy that Lucas fingered his throat. The man laid his cleaver on a table and lit a candle. In one corner stood a cot with rumpled linen that looked as if it had been stripped from a corpse a week in the grave. An icon hung at a wonky angle on the wall. Something stirred in a corner and Lucas saw eyes glowing red in a hole. Verminous feet scrabbled behind him. The man grinned at Lucas. It seemed to be the only expression he had. He unstoppered a bottle, filled two earthenware beakers and held one out.

Lucas grimaced. ‘Wine on an empty stomach isn’t a good idea.’ He patted his belly to get his meaning across. The man’s grin took on an expectant air. Lucas sipped, the sulphurous brew making him splutter.

The man laughed and tossed back his drink. He regarded Lucas afresh, his grin softening into something like ardent speculation. Lucas forced a smile.

The man tapped his chest. ‘Krum,’ he said, then gestured at Lucas with an enquiring expression.

‘My name’s Lucas.’

Krum or whatever his name was pointed at something behind Lucas. The Frank turned and saw that the man was indicating the cot. A cold feeling ran down Lucas’s spine. ‘I’m not tired. I’m hungry. Let’s go and find something to eat.’

The man’s expression changed again, fixed in yearning expectation. He reached out one hand, its back furred by black hairs, placed it on Lucas’s shoulder and tried to guide him towards the cot. Lucas resisted, teetering on his heels. The man pushed harder. Lucas grabbed his hand and threw it off.

‘Look, I’m grateful, but I have to be going.’

The man mumbled to himself and began loosening his breeches. Lucas measured the distance to the door and was gathering himself to make a bolt when the man caught his eye and saw his intention. Fast as thought, he picked up the cleaver and aimed the point between Lucas’s eyes.

Lucas held up his hands. ‘All right. But first, let’s have another drink. Here, let me.’

He fought to keep his hands from shaking as he poured. The man watched, cleaver dangling. Lucas swallowed the contents of his beaker, coughed and grinned. The man reached out with tenderness and cupped Lucas’s genitals with his free hand.

Lucas rammed his cup into the man’s face, aimed a kick at his balls, made only glancing contact and followed up by hurling himself bodily against him, trying to get inside the arc of the cleaver and block the man’s arm with his elbow. He didn’t quite succeed and felt a searing pain in his scalp as the blade cut. He managed to grab the man’s right wrist before he could deliver another blow and both of them went tumbling over the table. Lucas heard the cleaver clatter to the ground. His assailant scrambled after it. Lucas threw himself on him from behind, wrapped his left arm around his opponent’s neck and formed a lock by gripping the biceps with his right hand. He applied pressure on the back of his foe’s neck. Lucas felt blood running down his cheek. The man lay on his side, flailing his limbs to break the lock. Lucas knew that if he could apply pressure to the arteries, the man would soon pass out. His hold was wrong, though, most of the pressure against his opponent’s Adam’s apple. By an immense effort the man heaved himself to his feet and swung Lucas round. The Frank clung on and ran him head-first into the wall. The man spun, trying to fling Lucas off. Lucas hooked a foot under his ankle and both of them crashed to the floor. In his huge effort to maintain his grip, Lucas bit through his bottom lip. He clung on, eyes closed, squeezed against his opponent to deny him any purchase. The man made another gigantic effort, bucking and heaving like a beached fish. Lucas maintained his stranglehold. The man stopped struggling and gave a gurgling moan. Lucas couldn’t see his face and kept his hold, squeezing after the man went limp beneath him and his muscles could no longer take the strain. When he released his grip, the man didn’t move. Lucas staggered to his feet, his breath coming in great whoops. Blood ran down his chin and spattered on the floor. Chest heaving, he rolled the man over. He lay dead and horrible, eyes bulging out of his black face.

Fists pounded on the door. Voices shouted. Lucas picked up the cleaver, lurched to the door and unbolted it. Faces started back in terror. A woman screamed. He barged through the crowd and stumbled down the stairs into the street. He took the first turning he came to and when he’d put two more behind him he threw the cleaver away.

He slowed to an exhausted walk, holding his ribs, staggering as if one leg were longer than the other. His head was still bleeding. When he felt his scalp he could feel bone exposed by the gash. You’ve just killed a man, he thought. How does it feel? Disgusting. But so simple. Desperation is all it takes. The day’s events galloped through his mind, all funnelling towards that foul deed in that foul room. If that girl hadn’t robbed him, if that overseer hadn’t cheated him, if those two thieves hadn’t menaced him… he would never have been able to summon the animal rage to throttle the man. He leaned and retched, coughing up strings of bile. He’d imagined killing, but only during a glorious encounter on the field of battle, trumpets blowing and banners whipping, a worthy opponent asking his name as they wheeled on their chargers.

Lucas slumped against a wall, threw back his head and groaned. His mind emptied. A shrill whistle brought him upright. It came again, from the vicinity of his crime. The man’s neighbours had seen him; they had his description. His wound was all the evidence they’d need. He pushed away and went reeling down the empty streets, taking turns at random.

One of them led him into a market square lit by a single lamp at the far end. The sweet rot of decaying vegetables clogged his senses. Even injured and hurting, he couldn’t deny his hunger. He advanced, scanning the ground, and then stopped, alerted by faint crepitations and squeaks. The place wasn’t empty. It seethed with rats, a horde without number swarming in clots and clumps and streams.

Trapped in a waking nightmare, he ghost-walked through the silent city, the only living soul abroad in Constantinople. He must have gone half a mile when a shout behind him made him whirl. A watchman with a drawn sword and flaming torch straddled the path. Another silhouette appeared and Lucas took to his heels. Whistles shrilled and feet pattered in pursuit. He darted down an alley.

The wall on one side was about eight feet high, reinforced by buttresses with an angled step about three feet off the ground. The urgent slap of feet drew nearer. Bracing himself against the opposite wall, he sprang forward, leaped onto a step and crooked his arms over the top of the wall. With one heart-bursting heave he dragged himself up just as one of the watchmen ran past the entrance to the alley. Sobbing with effort, Lucas wriggled over the wall and dropped to the ground.

From the other side came voices and the clinking of metal. Lucas pressed against the wall. The voices faded. Lucas waited. He couldn’t work out what manner of place he was in. Perhaps a private garden or paved courtyard. He shuffled into the blackness and had gone about twenty yards when the ground opened beneath him. He tripped down a couple of steps before recovering his balance. He was in pitch black, unable to see a hand before his face. Water dripped with cavernous echoes. He groped his way down the steps until he reached level ground. The atmosphere was cold and aqueous. He felt around until he found a pebble. He tossed it ahead and heard it plop into water.

He was in a cistern, one of Constantinople’s underground reservoirs. He backed away and collided with a pillar. He slid down it, too exhausted to make another move. His bottom jaw juddered with cold. He wrapped his arms about his chest and stared into the dripping blackness.

He slept in fits and starts. When at last he opened his eyes, the cistern had filled with a spectral light just bright enough to show the lacquered surface of the water and colonnades soaring up to shadowy vaults.

His skull throbbed. He felt his scalp. The bleeding had stopped, leaving his hair a congealed and treacly mat. He knelt by the water’s edge and ducked his head under. The pain made him cry out. Three times he immersed his head before he’d washed away the gore. The collar and shoulder of his tunic was stiff with the stuff. He took it off and rinsed it and wrung it out. Quaking with cold, he put it on wet then mounted the steps. Dawn had just broken. The yard around the cistern lay empty. A faint hum told him that the city was coming awake. On this side, the wall offered no footholds. Lucas’s gaze fixed on a flat-roofed hut built into one of the angles of the yard. A window ledge gave him a step up. He crept towards the wall and looked over, ducking down as a man walked by. Next time he looked, the street was empty. He rolled over the parapet, dropped down and set off walking as soon as his feet hit the ground.

A workman walking towards him shied in alarm and gave him the widest berth possible. Lucas glanced back and saw the man staring after him. Lucas understood why when he looked down. His tunic was stained and blotched pink, his breeches smeared red. His wound had opened again. Blood wormed down his neck. He kept his head down.

He passed through a smiths’ quarter where the workmen left off their hammering to watch him pass. He found himself in a thoroughfare where merchants were setting up stalls. He didn’t meet their eye and kept walking. He climbed a hill and saw through a gap in the skyline the dome of St Sophia to the right. The traffic was growing heavier and he tried to blend into it — just another labourer off to a day’s toil.

Three soldiers pushed through the crowd ahead of him. He stopped. They hadn’t seen him yet, but when they did… By now news of the murder would have circulated. He swung on his heel and had retreated only a few yards when the gleam of iron revealed more soldiers. To his right was a taverna — a few tables under an awning and a shadowy room open to the street. He walked in. Faces looked up from platters and backgammon boards. As he walked to the counter, the proprietor watched him with a dark frown. Lucas smiled and grimaced, rubbing his head to indicate that his ruinous appearance was the consequence of a night’s debauch gone wrong. He produced the four miserable coins he’d earned at the docks.

The keeper of the tavern looked at them, then transferred his disbelieving gaze to Lucas’s face. He shook his head in slow finality.

‘It’s all I have. Christ, I worked hard enough for it.’

The taverner poked out his cheek with his tongue and studied Lucas afresh before motioning him towards a table in a corner. Lucas slumped with his back to the entrance. Two curvy young serving girls weaved between the tables, their arms piled with dishes, smiling and chatting to the regulars. After a long interval, one of them appeared before Lucas and set down half a loaf of white bread, an omelette and a jug of wine. Her smile was so pleasant that he almost burst into tears.

He abandoned himself to hunger. It was all he could do to resist tearing at the bread and cramming it down in throat-straining gobbets. When he’d finished, his head felt as if it were floating off his shoulders.

‘I hope you gave the other fellow something to remember you by.’

Lucas started awake. A man had plonked himself down opposite. Lucas realised that the man had spoken in French.

The man waggled a toothpick between his lips. He nodded at Lucas’s head. ‘You’ve been in the wars, my friend.’

Lucas tried to frame a rueful smile, but his mouth just wobbled. ‘I was set upon by thieves.’

‘New to the city, I’ll wager.’

‘I landed yesterday,’ Lucas said, his voice small.

The man was a veteran, his military calling evidenced by a scar from temple to eyebrow and a knot of gristle where his right eye had been. His pugnacious bearing was softened by the humorous set of his mouth.

‘Come to go a-soldiering for the emperor?’

Lucas nodded.

‘Got any friends in Constantinople?’

‘No,’ said Lucas, then looked up. ‘I’m looking for a Frankish officer called Vallon.’

The veteran removed the toothpick from his mouth. ‘Vallon?’

‘You know him?’

‘Know him by reputation. Never served under him. What’s he to you?’

‘Someone I met said he might find me a place in the ranks. Do you know where I can find him?’

The veteran placed one palm against his forehead. ‘I think he lives in Galata.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Jesus, I can’t believe it.’ The veteran bracketed his hands on the table and stared at Lucas. ‘Galata’s the other side of the Horn. Right opposite where you docked.’

‘Oh.’

The veteran regarded him. He shook his head. ‘Vallon’s too high and mighty to waste time on the likes of you. He’s a general, got promoted after the do at Dyrrachium.’

‘The man I met said Vallon’s from Aquitaine. Same as me.’

The veteran laughed, scraped back the bench and stood. ‘He’ll be all over you. Go ahead, youngster. When Vallon gives you the bum’s rush, come back here — the Bluebird Tavern — and ask for Pepin. If it’s soldiering you want, I can find you all you bloody well want.’

‘Thank you.’

Pepin the veteran looked him over. ‘You can’t go wandering the streets in that state. The watch will think you’ve murdered someone.’

Lucas stared at him and gave a slow swallow. Pepin’s good eye narrowed. ‘You didn’t, did you?’

‘It was him or me. God’s word.’

‘Hell’s teeth,’ Pepin murmured. ‘Stay here.’

He went into close conference with the taverner and the man glanced over, dismayed at being told he was harbouring a murderer. Certain that the proprietor would call the law, Lucas rose, intending to make a bolt for it. Pepin reeled him in just in time.

‘Easy, lad. This way.’

He led Lucas into a backyard occupied by a few chickens scratching in the dust. ‘Take your tunic off,’ he said. He fetched a pail of water and began mopping Lucas’s face and hair with a flannel. The water ran pink. Pepin changed it. ‘That wound will need stitching by a doctor.’ At last he rocked back and appraised his work. ‘You’ll do.’

When Lucas had towelled himself dry, Pepin held out a clean tunic and a cap. ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Lucas whispered.

‘Us Frangoi have to stick together. You got any money?’

Lucas shook his head.

Pepin dug into his purse. ‘That’ll keep you going for a couple of days.’

Lucas stared at the coins. ‘I don’t know how much they’re worth.’

‘There ain’t no limit to your ignorance, is there? Those are folles. Two hundred and eighty folles buys one gold solidus. Two folles is what your meal should have cost. Those coins you handed over were nummi, not worth shit. But the landlord’s an old soldier and took pity on you.’

‘How much is the fare to Galata?’

‘Four folles if you’re the only passenger, less if you share.’ Pepin squinted at Lucas. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got anywhere to stay either.’ He sighed. ‘All right, when you’ve finished wasting your time with Vallon, come back here and we’ll fix you up. Tomorrow, I’ll introduce you to a couple of my old army mates.’

Awash with gratitude, Lucas went out into the street. In his clean tunic and with the hat hiding his wound, no one looked at him twice. He walked down to the harbour, approached a ferryman and pointed across the channel. He made only a feeble attempt to haggle and ended up paying twice the amount stipulated by Pepin. Crossing the Horn, his nerves began to jangle. What was he going to do if he did see Vallon? What would he say?

The ferry landed. Lucas looked up at the settlement, took a shaky breath and set off. Walls surrounded the suburb and a soldier stopped him at a gate and demanded his business. On hearing that Lucas was looking for Vallon, the soldier looked at him with blatant scepticism but let him through.

Warehouses gave way to clean wide streets lined by smart villas behind walls overhung with jasmine and wisteria. The higher Lucas climbed, the more his resolve leaked away until it was all he could do to put one foot in front of another. Pepin’s right, he told himself. Vallon won’t see a peasant from Aquitaine. I won’t even get past his doorman. I’ll find out where he lives and then go back to the taverna and work out what to do next.

Few people were abroad and none of them answered his pleas for directions. He came to a crossroads high on the hill and took the right-hand turning, past a green occupied by four idling youths. One of them nudged his companions’ attention in Lucas’s direction. They stood and pulled their tunics straight. From their smart costume, Lucas guessed they were Venetians, the sons of rich merchants. Their glances and grins suggested that in Lucas they’d found someone to liven up their day.

They drifted across his path in a pack. Lucas slowed for a moment before adopting a confident tread, shoulders rolling. ‘Good morning,’ he said, breaching the line.

A hand fell on his shoulder. The other three youths closed up. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ said the one holding his shoulder.

Lucas shook his head and kept walking. The youth pulled him back. ‘I asked you a question.’

‘I’m looking for General Vallon’s house.’

That raised eyebrows. ‘You’re a Frank,’ one said.

‘From Aquitaine.’

They trailed him like dogs. One of them said something that provoked a burst of laughter. Another ran in front of Lucas, sketched an hour-glass shape, grabbed his crotch and thrust it in and out in lewd pantomime.

Lucas fended him off. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

One of the youths snatched Lucas’s hat off, spat into it and then invited Lucas to put it back on. Lucas stopped, blood rising in a tide that threatened to drown reason. He fought down his rage. ‘I don’t want any trouble.’

‘I don’t want any trouble,’ they mimicked. Their laughter died and their quick glances and hardening expressions showed they were ready to attack. One of them flat-handed Lucas in the chest. ‘We don’t want Frankish beggar scum here.’ He gave Lucas another shove. ‘Fuck off back to Frankland.’

Lucas held his ground and tried to fend off his tormentors. ‘Look, there’s no need for this.’

A hand grabbed him and he snapped, driving his fist into the attacker’s face with meaty impact.

‘Get him!’ someone shouted, and the rest dived in, punching and kicking. Lucas kept his feet for a few seconds before weight of numbers bore him to the ground. And then it started. A foot slammed into his nose, smashing bone and gristle. Another foot drove into his ribs and drew back to deliver another kick. Barely conscious, Lucas seized it by the ankle, sank his teeth into the tendon and sawed like a beast. An awful scream, followed by a blow to his eye that made him see the universe on the day of creation, before everything went black.

Consciousness returned. Gasping and spitting blood, he rolled over to register a vision of violence incarnate bearing down from above — a tawny-haired barbarian with moustaches like the wings of an avenging angel and a stump where his left hand should have been. He clamped his good hand on one of the attackers, nailing him to the spot. The others had fled and now they stopped, condemned to witness the final scene in the play they’d improvised so carelessly.

Lucas looked up through the blurred slot that was all that was left of vision. ‘Vallon?’

The man glanced down. ‘You came to find Vallon?’

Lucas nodded. Pain pulsed from the place where his nose had been.

The captured youth struggled to break loose. The man held him easily and his face took on a rapt expression. The youth whined. His captor drew him forward so they were standing eye to eye, and then with a beatific expression, like one lifting his eyes to a saint in exaltation, he drew back his head and butted the youth full in the face with a sound like a hard-fired pot cracking. When he let go, his victim dropped as if he’d been poleaxed and writhed about with blood squirting through his splayed hands.

Lucas was dimly aware of other people running towards him. He saw a young girl, a statuesque woman who clutched her hands to her throat and called to a steepling figure in clerical grey who bent over Lucas so that his familiar face blotted out everything else. The last thing Lucas remembered was hands lifting him and a jagged tearing in his chest as something vital parted.

He woke in lamplight, his head bursting. The moment he regained consciousness, he vomited. Hands guided a bowl under his mouth. He sank back. Figures drifted in and out. The tall red-headed lady who stared down at him without sympathy. The cleric from the ship who felt his pulse and peered into his eyes. A young man who covered his mouth when he saw the damage inflicted on Lucas’s face. And then — he might have dreamed it — a tall grim man who studied him without expression before turning away. Lucas’s own gaze was blank, the world spinning away down a tunnel, but in a last moment of lucidity, he knew that at long last he’d found what he’d come looking for.

That’s him. Vallon, properly known as Guy de Crion. My father. The man who murdered my mother and brought ruin and death on my family.