Imperial Fire

VI

Lucas woke propped against pillows, his skull bandaged, nose taped, one hand splinted, vision reduced to one slitted eye. Light from a shuttered window diffused through the small bare room. A figure stood at the end of the bed, studying him with forensic detachment. It was the youth who’d helped carry him inside.

‘Are you awake?’

Lucas blinked.

‘Can you speak?’

Lucas unstuck his lips and made a swallowing sound.

The youth poured a beaker of water and held it to Lucas’s mouth. Most of the contents dribbled down his chin. The youth set down the vessel. ‘Your head’s swollen to twice its normal size,’ he said. ‘Your own mother wouldn’t recognise you.’

Lucas dabbed at his face. A grating pain in his side made him gasp.

‘That’s your ribs. Two of them are broken. So is your nose and one of your fingers. The wound in your scalp required sixteen stitches. Master Hero also put two stitches in your lip. You were unconscious and didn’t feel a thing.’

‘Where am I?’

‘The gatehouse of General Vallon’s residence.’

‘How long have I been here?’

‘Two days. You’ve been asleep most of that time. What’s your name?’

‘Lucas.’

‘I’m Aiken, Vallon’s son.’

Lucas squinted up, considering this claim. So far as he could tell, he and Aiken were about the same age. ‘No, you’re not.’

‘Not his real son. Vallon adopted me after my father died.’ Aiken sat on the edge of the bed, his movements almost prim. ‘What brought you here?’

‘I came east to join the Byzantine army.’

‘I meant, what led you to Vallon’s house? Wulfstan said you spoke the general’s name.’

‘I met a Frankish veteran in a taverna. When I told him I was from Aquitaine, he suggested I join Vallon’s regiment.’

The bed creaked as Aiken rose. ‘I don’t expect the general will recruit someone who gets beaten up on his first day in Constantinople.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘He’s a general. What do you think he’s like?’

Lucas took a risk. ‘The veteran said that Vallon fled from France after being condemned as an outlaw.’

‘Did he? If I were you, I’d keep such slanders to yourself.’

Aiken closed the door behind him. With geriatric slowness, Lucas extended a hand to the water. When he’d drunk, he lay back considering his situation. Since leaving France, he’d rehearsed his confrontation with Vallon countless times, imagining the shock on the man’s face when he told him he was his son. Sometimes he got no further than that before plunging a sword into Vallon’s belly — plunging it in time after time. That’s for my mother, and that’s for my brother, and that’s for my sister. And this last one’s for me.

Now, though, wasn’t the time to exact revenge. He wanted to be in full health so that he could savour every detail. Time would season the dish, and he had plenty of time. Vallon had no idea that he was his son. No one did. Wait and learn and use the knowledge to inflict maximum pain. Settling into sleep, Lucas had an intimation that Aiken might prove to be a useful lever. Brief though their conversation had been, Lucas already hated him.

Awful dreams chased each other. Lucas started out of one smothering nightmare with a cry to find someone sponging his brow.

‘Hush,’ said Hero. ‘Your body and soul are at war and we must let them make peace.’ He held an aromatic pad under Lucas’s nose. ‘Do you remember me?’

Hero’s volatile physic chased away the demons in Lucas’s skull. He coughed and snorted.

‘If you’d been less stiff-necked, you would have spared yourself a lot of trouble and a great deal of pain.’

‘I’m sorry I rebuffed you on the boat.’

‘I don’t blame you for being wary of strangers. How are you feeling?’

‘About how you’d expect.’

Hero took Lucas’s pulse, examined his uncovered eye, listened to his chest. ‘How’s your vision?’

‘I can see you.’

‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘One.’

‘And now?’

‘Four. You must be a physician?’

‘Fortunately for you, I am.’ Hero slid an arm under Lucas’s shoulder and held a bitter infusion to his lips. ‘Swallow it.’

Lucas forced it down, shuddering at the taste.

Hero lowered him back onto the pillows. ‘Aiken says you’re called Lucas.’

‘Lucas of Osse.’

‘It didn’t take long for you to get into trouble, did it? More than once, it seems. Those Venetian louts didn’t inflict your head wound.’

‘I was attacked by thieves the night before.’

‘How strange that only a day after we spoke, you ended up at the house of the very man to whom I was going to offer you an introduction.’

‘A veteran I ran into — ’

‘I know. Lucas told me. It’s still a remarkable coincidence.’

Lucas lay rigid under Hero’s gaze and didn’t relax until the physician rose.

‘You’ll have your chance to put your request to General Vallon tomorrow,’ Hero said. ‘Good night.’

Lucas’s heart thumped. ‘Before you go, sir, can I ask you something?’

Hero stopped with his hand on the latch.

Lucas wriggled into a semi-upright position. ‘How did you become acquainted with Vallon?’

Hero laughed. ‘That would take all night to tell and you’d be better off spending the time in sleep.’

‘I’m not tired.’

Hero returned and sat at the foot of the bed. ‘Nine years ago, when I was still a student, I was appointed travelling companion to a Byzantine diplomat carrying a ransom demand to the family of a Norman knight whose son had been captured at Manzikert.’

‘I’ve heard of that battle.’

‘My master died in the Alps and I would have turned back if I hadn’t met Vallon. He was travelling south, intending to take service with the Varangian Guard.’

‘Why? I mean, what made him leave France?’

‘What’s that to you?’

‘I just wondered.’

‘It’s not your place to wonder about the man who gave you house space.’ After a moment’s wary contemplation, Hero continued. ‘Vallon agreed to accompany me to the Norman knight’s estate in Northumbria, where we delivered the ransom terms. I can still remember them: “four white gyrfalcons as pale as a virgin’s breasts or the first snows of winter”.’

‘What’s a gyrfalcon?’

‘White falcons that live under the Pole Star, many weeks’ voyage north of Britain. From there we carried them south through Rus and across the Black Sea to Anatolia. The journey took the best part of a year and many of the companions who accompanied us didn’t reach the end.’

‘But you did. You achieved your goal.’

‘A part of me likes to think we did. Another part tells me that the sacrifice wasn’t worth it.’

Lucas sagged back on his pillows. ‘You’re not telling me the half of it, are you?’

‘No. I could never share the joy and heartache of that odyssey with anybody but Vallon and Wayland.’

‘Who’s Wayland?’

‘A remarkable Englishman, a falconer who sleeps tonight in the court of the Sultan Suleyman with his wife, Syth, who travelled every mile of that long journey with us.’

Lucas wanted to know more about his father. ‘Is General Vallon a good commander?’

Hero looked down. ‘I’m not qualified to judge martial prowess. All I can say is that without Vallon’s leadership, cunning and courage, I would be a heap of bones mouldering in some distant wilderness.’

‘How would you rate his skill with arms?’

‘I would say that in his prime, there wasn’t a man alive who had the beating of him.’

Lucas lay still, digesting the claim. ‘It sounds as if you admire him.’

‘I abhor violence, but Vallon is a warrior of honour. I never saw him kill a man wantonly. And no one else could have led us through the wilderness of the world. He’s the only man I’d follow to the ends of the earth.’ Hero snuffed out the lamp. ‘Except I’ve already done that.’

Tomorrow, Hero had said. All day, with rain lashing the shutters, Lucas held himself ready for Vallon’s appearance. He was still waiting, nauseous with anticipation and dread, when the candle died, leaving him in darkness.

The door slamming against its hinges startled him awake. A figure sensed rather than seen forced the door shut, shielding a lamp from the draught. Its light steadied, half-illuminating Vallon’s face.

‘Did I wake you?’

Lucas gargled some response. Vallon beat rain from his cloak, seated himself on a stool too small for him and placed the lamp on a table. Its light threw his face into planes and grooves. Lucas could scarcely breathe. All his bravado leaked away. The general didn’t resemble the blood-dripping monster branded on his memory, but he looked like a killer — a tired and careworn professional slayer. His deep-set gaze was direct, apparently indifferent until one corner of his mouth crooked in a manner that suggested bleak humour.

‘So,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to learn more about the cuckoo in my nest. I understand you travelled from Aquitaine.’

Lucas was glad bandages hid his face. ‘From Osse in the Pyrenees.’

‘I recognise the accent. Your people would be farmers.’

‘Shepherds and horsebreeders, my Lord.’

‘Sir will do. You didn’t have to come all this way to enlist in the military. Why didn’t you find an army closer to home?’

‘I… I’d rather not say. Except that I couldn’t stay in France.’

Another wry twist of the mouth. ‘Well, you wouldn’t be the first outlaw to seek employment in my command. How did you travel to Naples?’

‘I walked, my Lord… sir. It took six months, stopping many times to earn food by my labour.’

Vallon leaned forward, his shadow rearing up the wall. ‘Unnecessary effort. If it’s a soldier’s life you crave, you could have found it in Italy. The Normans have been combing the peninsula for recruits. I’m surprised they didn’t sweep you into their net.’

‘What I saw of the Normans didn’t endear them to me.’

Vallon rocked back. ‘“Endear”? Your speech is more polished than I would expect from a shepherd’s son.’

‘We weren’t peasants, sir. One of my uncles was a priest and saw that I had an education.’

‘Can you read and write?’

‘Tolerably well. That’s to say, poorly by your standards.’

‘Hm. This veteran who pointed you in my direction. What’s his name?’

‘Pepin, sir. He spoke highly of you. He said that your regiment had gained a notable victory at Dyr… at Dyr — ’

‘Dyrrachium, and it wasn’t a regiment and we didn’t win the battle.’ Vallon raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘The only Pepin who served under me lost his life in Castile more than ten years ago.’ Vallon looked down. ‘Horsebreeders, you said.’

‘Yes, sir. And I can break them.’

‘Any experience with weapons? I expect you know how to use a slingshot.’

‘I can handle a sword, sir.’

‘Can you indeed? I don’t suppose many shepherds from Osse can make that claim.’

‘An old soldier who’d fought against the Moors instructed me. From a young age I’ve wanted to follow his calling.’

Vallon grunted. ‘Well, we’ll see how you handle the real thing when your ribs have mended. If you show promise, I’ll find you a place in one of the infantry regiments.’

‘My ambition is to serve in a cavalry unit.’

‘You don’t have the means. A war horse costs two years’ wages, and then there are weapons and armour to purchase. No commander would outfit an unformed youth who’s never seen action.’

‘I’m not as raw as you think.’

‘I take that to mean you’ve taken at least one man’s life.’

Lucas pushed away the sordid image of Krum’s death spasms. ‘I thought I could start as your groom.’

Vallon’s forehead pleated. ‘What makes you think I’d find space for you in my squadron?’

‘You took me into your household.’

‘Not by choice. Why are you so keen to serve under me?’

‘Master Hero described the expedition you led to the north. His account of the way you achieved your goal convinced me that I would like to serve in your Outlanders.’

Vallon picked up the lamp. ‘No, you wouldn’t. That was then. This is now.’