Lord of Slaughter

18

Azemar tested the bonds behind his back. They were firm, and tight enough to render his fingers numb. He was in some sort of cellar, he thought. It was very dark, though a weak light came through the floorboards that made up its ceiling.

No one had given him any explanation of why he was there or who had taken him.

Then, when the sickly light of the day had faded and the cellar dropped into complete darkness, he heard footsteps. Azemar mentally crossed himself and prayed for deliverance. He knew he had not fallen into the hands of common robbers because he — in his monk’s habit and tonsure — clearly had nothing to steal. Kidnappers then? It wasn’t unheard of for monks to be ransomed back to their monasteries, but he was so far from home that it could take years for a messenger to reach the abbey at Rouen. And Lord Richard certainly wouldn’t pay for his release, not after failing in his mission.

His captors had mentioned sorcery. Perhaps they were just superstitious men seeking to blame foreigners for the strange weather that had afflicted their city. In that case he gave himself no hope at all. They’d kill him just in case he was guilty.

The door opened and light reached out in a sharp triangle across the wall. Azemar came out of his slump and straightened his back. Footsteps on the stairs: two people descended, the taller one behind with a candle. He made out a small figure in a cowled robe attended by the much larger man, who was heavily built, wore a whip at his belt and carried a stool in addition to the candle. The man set the stool on the floor in front of Azemar and the person in the cowl sat down. It was a woman, small and richly dressed, her robe sparkling with gold thread, the elegant hands adorned with glittering rings.

‘Why are you here?’ The woman spoke in Greek.

‘I was captured.’

‘Why are you here in Constantinople?’

Azemar swallowed. In his fear he’d imagined the woman was asking him what he was doing tied up in a house, almost that she might let him go.

‘I’m looking for a friend.’

‘If you don’t reveal the whole truth of your purpose here with your next breath I’ll have you beaten,’ she said. Her voice was neutral, pleasant almost, but Azemar did not want to test her threat.

‘I am here to find the scholar Loys. I was sent by the father of his wife.’

The lady raised her finger and the man hit Azemar across the face with his whip.

A bolt of pain went right through him from his cheek to his boots and he cried out.

‘Sent for what? Don’t make me ask questions of you, monk; volunteer all that you know.’

Azemar saw no reason for any concealment that might bring death closer or make it more painful. He was scared but not as scared as he had expected. His mission was finally at an end, he wouldn’t be responsible for his friend’s death and for that he was glad. Sweat soaked his body and he panted heavily though he had run nowhere.

‘I am here to direct an assassin. I was a friend and confidant of the scholar Loys and I have been told by my lord to find him.’

The guard raised his whip.

Azemar gabbled out everything he could think of: ‘He has eloped with the Lady Beatrice and her father wants me to bring her back to him. Along with the scholar’s head.’

‘Why didn’t he apply to the emperor to have her sent back, along with the scholar for him to behead at his pleasure?’

‘Lord Richard is not a man who enjoys refusal or being in another ruler’s debt. Better we kill the scholar here than he has to go cap in hand to the emperor.’

‘Your friend the assassin, where is he now?’

‘I don’t know.’

The lady raised her finger and the man hit Azemar again with the whip, this time across the other cheek. Azemar screamed and lurched forward on the chair in a hopeless bid to break his bonds.

‘Until he tells us,’ said the lady, and the whip came down on Azemar’s back, then the top of his head, across his legs and his head again, flashes of agony lighting up his skin.

‘I don’t know where he’s gone! He ran away! Our lodgings are by the lighthouse gate, but beyond that he could be anywhere!’

The beating stopped. Azemar coughed. He tasted blood. He was sure his nose was broken.

‘He killed two of my men,’ said the lady.

‘I am sorry, lady, but I do not control him! He is a wildman, a northern cousin of our lord. I can hardly talk to him, let alone account for his actions!’

‘Is he with the Varangians?’

‘No, lady. We’re working alone, I swear.’

‘You were consorting with the emperor’s translator.’

‘We met him on the steps. Mauger asked his help in finding Loys, that’s all.’

‘Again.’

The whip cut into the top of Azemar’s head and he blacked out with the pain. When he recovered his senses, the cowled lady sat very near to him.

‘Have you anything more to tell us?’

‘I’m speaking the truth, I swear.’

‘We will find out. I have seen your face before, scholar — know that.’

‘I have never left my monastery before this, lady.’

‘I have seen you. In places you do not choose to go.’

‘I don’t understand you.’

‘The feeling is mutual.’

She clapped her hands and another man appeared on the stairs wearing a thick glove and carrying a bucket of hot coals and a small brazier.

‘No, lady, no!’ Azemar writhed away.

‘Put it in front of him.’

They put the bucket close to his face. Its heat was horrible.

‘I need a closer look at you,’ said the woman. ‘I need to know what you are. Your arrival was foreseen.’

‘How foreseen?’

‘The comet that eats up the sky. It is your sign, I think. The chart was cast that you would be here, and it is too much a coincidence that I recognised you in the church so well.’

‘I am a monk, a simple monk.’

‘Perhaps. But I think not. I think you are worth the effort of divination. And, as you will see, the effort is very great.’

Another servant brought in a small chest, set it on the floor and opened it. It contained nothing sinister — just powders and small bottles. For a mad moment Azemar thought she had brought out her make-up. One of the servants poured the glowing coals into the brazier.

‘The third day,’ said the woman, ‘not before. At the second bell come in and revive me.’

The two men bowed and left.

The woman took off her robe. Underneath it she wore a shift that exposed her shoulders. Even in the poor light the mass of scars made Azemar gasp.

Now she lifted something from the chest — a sort of tray containing the bottles and the powders. From underneath she took a jewelled knife and then replaced the tray. Azemar wriggled but he was held fast.

She took some powder and sprinkled it onto the coals. A noxious smoke filled the little room. She unstoppered a bottle, anointed Azemar’s forehead with the contents and did the same to herself. Then she sat in front of Azemar, almost within touching distance.

She breathed in the smoke and chanted:

‘Mistress of corpses. Entrapper. Reveal here. Reveal and show all the things that have happened, are happening and are to come. Reveal here, corpse mistress, cold lady of the earth’s great deeps, she who rises as the moon and whose light shines out over the lands of the dead. Mistress of the dead, lady of the dead, she who stands at the gateway of death, reveal here. Reveal.’

She took the knife in her right hand and cut herself on her left shoulder. Then she put the knife into her left and cut herself on the other shoulder. She showed no sign of pain, though the cuts were quite deep. Blood flowed out over her white shift.

‘I have honoured you with my blood, lady of the dead. Blood drinker and blood bather, lady of slaughter and death. Reveal, reveal.’

The lady slumped forward, though she continued to mumble.

Time seemed to lose definition for Azemar. He became very sleepy and despite the discomfort of his bonds began to doze. He woke. The lady remained in the same position, but her wounds no longer bled. How long had he been there? A long time, he thought.

He dozed again and this time he dreamed.

He walked in some strange woods by a river at night. They were beautiful and wet, hung in night colours of silver and grey with a fresh scent of growth and decay that he found intoxicating. He wandered, looking for something. A light shone through the trees and he went towards it. What was it? A little brazier just like the one the lady had thrown the powder onto.

He felt cold so he decided to go to it to warm himself. The lady sat next to the brazier, slumped as she had been slumped in the cellar.

Azemar thought he would go to her, tell her he meant no threat, ask for her protection even.

He put his hand to her shoulder. But when he took it away again, it was covered in blood. He licked at his fingers. The taste was delicious. He put his hand back on her shoulder, smeared on more blood and licked at that too. Then he couldn’t stop himself. He bent to the lady and licked at the wound on her shoulder, drinking in its beautiful and strange aroma.

The lady shoved him away, her face contorted in terror. She said one word. ‘Wolf!’ And then there were other presences about him. Other words. ‘He’s broken his bonds!’

Someone unseen struck him across the face and he fell back. He was half in the forest, half in the cellar, it seemed. Or rather the forest was a cellar, a cellar containing a forest. The strangeness of those thoughts struck him and he giggled. His arms were pulled behind his back and he was tied again.

He heard a voice in Greek: ‘Should I kill him, Lady Styliane?’

The woman panted and coughed. She regained her breath and said, ‘That won’t be possible. Get him to the Numera.’