Relics

Chapter Fourteen

So it was that Mikal came aboard the Cormaran. It was as the Captain had predicted: the castaway boy was welcomed like a long-lost mate. He set to with a will, and if he wasn't the most expert seaman, he was excused – after all, it was his first voyage, and he hadn't got very far into the bargain. He had to endure the usual filth about sheep-shagging, and endless seagull jokes, but after a few days he blended, unsuspected, into the general melee.

As the two new boys, it was natural that we should be friends, especially as I had found Mikal somewhere on the other side of the Godforsaken island and brought him back to the world. And the truth is that we were inseparable. Although I was the more experienced seaman – a strange thought, this, to one whose only experience of water had been paddling in mountain streams – then Mikal's ferocious energy more than made up for his lack of skills. I taught him what little I knew, but he was precocious, and soon the crew found they had an insatiable student on their hands. By the time we passed the isle of Rathlin, off the north-east tip of Ireland, he was prattling about knots and broad reaches with all the joy of the newly converted.

Anna had folded and twisted her black mane into three short ropes, which she plaited at the nape of her neck. It was a little strange, but she passed it off as the fashion in her village and that seemed to suffice. Mikal was too young to shave, fortunately, and as Anna had starved with the rest of us her face was gaunt and quite mannish. As I have said, we were inseparable, but in ways that the rest of the crew could never know about. There are precious few private moments on a ship at sea, but Anna and I sought them out like gold dust in the bed of a river. Since that first, night-hidden kiss on the island – the first of my young and so far celibate life – my mind and flesh had been consumed by Anna. We would brush past each other, her touch striking sparks from me that I half-imagined were visible to the crew. Sometimes we could hold hands for minutes at a time, the desperate lock of our fingers the only outlet for passion. Often she would whisper such things to me in her dark voice – she took an endless delight in shocking my hopelessly innocent self – that I felt the deck lurch beneath me even though the sea was calm. And three times – no more – we kissed, hesitant with fear of discovery but full of heat and urgency, only to fly apart at the smallest hint of an approaching footstep. It was torture, but of the most wonderful kind. In truth I thought that, if this was to be the height of my earthly pleasure, it would almost be enough. But once the flesh has awakened, only death can still it, and Anna had awakened me as the sun awakens the earth in springtime. As an odd counterpoint to all this – salt to temper the honey – Pavlos got it into his head that I would have to be schooled in those warlike arts which I had never so much as considered. It was sheer luck, he told me sternly, that I had bested the island madman, and my clumsy attack could just as easily have brought about the death of Anna or – and he emphasised that this, under the circumstances, would have been the preferable outcome – my own demise. So I found myself being tutored, every morning, by a terrifying college of teachers: Horst, Dimitri and Pavlos himself. Dimitri was the ship's unofficial fencing master and held his classes – I saw them as such, but they were both less and more than that: vicious games that honed skills and headed off any ill-feeling or rage that might otherwise have festered into real bloodshed – as soon as the sun had risen and the day was fair. In time I would join in these melees, but, as the first lesson proved, at my present level of accomplishment I would lose a duel with Fafner the cat. I faced Horst, both of us armed with a blunt sword and a round wooden buckler shield. Copying my opponent, I dropped into a crouch, shield before me, sword up. Then, in the blinking of an eye, Horst dropped his sword, knocked mine from my hand with the edge of his shield and felled me with his shoulder. Before I had even squawked in surprise he was sitting on my chest, the rim of his buckler pressing into my throat.

'Now you are dead,' he told me, smiling icily. And for the better part of an hour he showed me the many ways I could expect to die in the short moments between drawing my blade and deciding what on earth I should do with it next. It was not a cheering experience, but the next day I was a little quicker, and the day after that, faced with Dimitri – who had already tripped me three times and pretended to skewer my cods with his knife – I felt myself vanish – that is to say, the bumbling, anxious, flinching Petroc vanished – and when I came to my senses again, Dimitri was howling with laughter as blood poured in a torrent from his nose. "Yes, yes! Magnificent, O Petroc! You have it! Again!'

This time I did not lose myself, but it was as if the scared, inept Petroc was trapped in the same skin as a man who could act on nothing more than brute instinct. In time I would lose this sense of division and realise that I was simply allowing myself to be free, to use my body as freely as I had when I was a child. But at first, although I learned fast and faster still, I was uneasy, and worried, for a while, that I was being posessed by some maleficent, violent spirit.

Off the mouth of the Liffey the Captain ordered the Cormaran hove to. He took Gilles off in the gig, and the little boat went bobbing off over an agitated grey sea. It was late in the day when they returned, and several large bundles wrapped in well-greased hides followed them on board. To our surprise we were ordered to make sail on a southerly course. We would not be stopping in Dublin after all. The crew muttered darkly but stuck, white-lipped, to their work.

On a muggy, grey morning a week later, we entered the mouth of the Gironde and, after a pleasant enough sail upstream past low hills stitched with the coarse green lines of vineyards, drew near to the wharves of Bordeaux. It had been an uneventful passage, save for a hail-filled squall that lashed at us as we coasted past the He d'Oleron. Now the walls and spires of the city danced against the sky, which had cleared as if in welcome.

The port was full. Ships of all shapes and sizes jostled against one another all along the great length of the quay and at anchorages further out into the river, and we drifted past them under a wisp of sail. Big cogs bumped tarry hulls with fishing smacks and barges. Pilot boats and gigs bustled to and fro, ferrying people and goods from ship to shore. Many vessels flew warlike pennants and gonfalons, and bright shields hung on their sides. Between the swaying masts, the quayside was swarming, not just with the loading, unloading and portering of trade but with groups of armed men standing, sitting of running about with no seeming purpose. Pikes and halberds bristled in clumps, and the sound of drums and shouting came over the water.

I stood beside the Captain on the bridge. The crew, those who were not handling the sail, lined the sides and the forecastle. They saw the soldiers on the quay, and like hounds they scented blood. I glanced at the Captain, and saw that a wolfish look had settled there as well. "What is happening over there?' I asked Gilles.

He shrugged. 'The English King and the French King, going at it like scorpions. When has it been different? But-' he paused, and I saw a look of sour disdain pass over his face, '-the English scorpion seems to be annoyed. An army is landing – a real one. It'll be battles this time, not skirmishes.'

Nizam wove us through the tangle of ships and anchor-lines until, at a signal from de Montalhac, the sail dropped and we weighed our own anchor between two fat-bellied cobs that bobbed and rolled like huge pitch-caulked barrels. Soon the gig was pulling away towards the wharf, the Captain sitting alert in the prow. I watched the men ply their oars, and wished myself among them. Here was life again as I knew it: the smell of real food drifting from good stone houses, bells chiming from proud steeples, the yelling and bantering of Englishmen. Anna had slipped to my side and was gripping the rail tightly as she gazed hungrily at the shore. She was quivering like a hound on a leash.

'If I could swim, I would be on dry land by now,' she muttered.

'I can swim,' I told her, 'and I would gladly pull you along, Mikal. But much as I would love a mug of beer and some good red meat, our balls would shrivel and drop off in that water.'

"Well, I agree we wouldn't want anything to happen to those balls of yours,' she breathed, leaning in close. I felt a familiar quickening below. 'But it is summer, you oaf – the water is warm. They have beds over there, you know,' she added. And doors. With locks.' I cleared my throat somewhat dramatically. 'Well, what do you say, brother?' she added loudly in her croaky man-voice. Will we see what trouble there is to find? I fancy a fight, a fuck and…' she waved her hand, as if to pluck words from the seagull-loud air, '… and a fried… a fried fowl,' she finished, and glanced at me, pleased with herself.

'Don't overdo it, brother,' I hissed. Nizam was chatting to Dimitri right behind us, after all. But they seemed unaware of our presence.

In truth, this might be Mikal's last day on earth. Mikal the luckless Basque boy would disappear into the stews of Bordeaux. The crew would think he had slipped away homewards, or that his purse and gizzard had been cut and his body flung into the harbour. Sad, but such things happened. Either way he would be gone, and soon afterwards I would introduce Anna Doukaina, mysterious adventurer in need of our protection. The masquerade would be over, and not before time. Anna had been wearing her Mikal disguise ever lighter, and I had begun to feel a constant knot of anxiety lest she give herself away.

I felt her frustration, of course. It came off her in waves, like heat from coals. Her bound breasts were a constant torment. She was in a state of permanent fury about the fuss involved in a simple thing like pissing – having to wait until no one was looking, so that the crew would not notice how hard it was for her to make water standing up with her back to the boat like the rest of us. Neither of us could believe that Mikal's secret had not come to light, but, I believe now, that was due to the intense focus of a long sea journey, when everyone's world shrinks, through boredom or discomfort, to the task in hand, and to one's own tormented body. Although I would not have dared to think such a thing then, I suspect that, if Anna had climbed the mast and stripped stark naked, as she had often threatened to do, not one of the scorbutic, half-starved, salt-burned wretches below her on the deck would have turned so much as an eyelash. They would have spit a little more blood over the side and gone back, grumbling, to their mindless work. But that picture – Anna standing bare amidst a snarl of wild-eyed men, her skin glimmering white through the half-light of an approaching squall – floated through my dreams and woke me more than once as we made our way south from Scotland.

The Captain had urgent business ashore. There were deliveries to be made, and cargo taken on, as in every port. But further, there was a man in Bordeaux who had availed himself of de Montalhac's special services, and who, the Captain assured me, was waiting most anxiously for the Cormaran's arrival. A prince of the Church, a man of power. No seedy, passed-over failure like the Bishop of Gardar, but a person of rank and wealth, who was expecting an item that befitted that rank. The Captain was happy to oblige, as ever, but this was not the matter, I was sure, that had stirred him up and lit the eerie foxfire which had been nickering in his eyes since we left Dublin. It was not just war he had scented as we made our way up the great water-road of the Gironde. I had no proof, but something about his mood had put me in mind of the night we had passed in Greenland.

Thus I was not surprised when the gig returned without him, to collect Gilles and Rassoul. Before he swung himself over the rail, Gilles gathered the crew around him.

There will be shore-leave when I return,' he announced. The men were silent, but I could feel their taut excitement. 'Pavlos will organise a roster for the watch. I will be back shortly.' And with that he was gone.

The crew burst into life. We had felt the scorbutus lift its foulness from the ship as soon as the fresh meat and good kale of the island was inside us, and our gums were beginning to heal. Not so stiff and agued now, the men almost danced about the deck. Good clothing appeared magically from sea-chests, satchels, even parcels of oil-cloth that had been wedged God knew where for the past months. Beards were trimmed or shaved. Men stood in little clusters, untangling each other's hair with combs of whale-bone. Sword-belts were greased until they shone, weapons polished and, I noticed, given a new edge. Although not one of us had more on his mind than the taverns and bath-houses that awaited us on shore, the men of the Cormaran were preparing as if for a fine tournament.

I was no exception. The blue tunic that Gilles had given me that night at the White Swan, and which had come off worst from my last meeting with Sir Hugh, emerged from Dimitri's sea-chest, miraculously restored. 'A little sea-water,' he grunted, 'and a deal of scrubbing. Too good to throw away,' he added, watching with a flicker of pride as I fingered the place where Thorn had stabbed me, now all but invisible save for a faint spider's web of tiny stitches. I almost hugged the man in my joy, but did not dare. Instead I took his hand and wrung it while I poured forth a veritable fountain of thanks, and I swear that his butchered face almost blushed. So now I wore my tunic, a cloak of deep blue edged in red silk, a good long-caped hood of black wool, some fine black hose that Abu offered to lend me and my soft leather shoes, given to me by the Captain my first day aboard but never worn for fear the salt-spray would devour them. Thorn rode upon my hip, her hilt of green stone glimmering with a vaguely malign light. You look like a Rostock pimp,' Horst said, approvingly.

Anna was fretting. Poor doomed Mikal seemed fated to spend his last night on earth dressed in the same shabby sailor-rags he had worn to cross the Sea of Darkness.

'I will not go ashore in this shoddy,' she hissed to me. 'I am a princess – I wish to pass at least this one evening in the guise of a prince. Instead I will be spat upon and mocked by every whore in this pox-ridden village, kicked and sent upon errands. I will not do it, I say!' And she stamped her foot. I trod upon it, hard.

'Shut up!' I hissed in turn. 'In a few hours you will be rid of Mikal for good. You will be the precious Princess Anna again, never fear. Now put your tongue back in its scabbard and be easy. The trick is almost played.'

She harrumphed, and gave me a look sour as bad vinegar. Nevertheless she took my counsel and bit back the anger that was ready to master her. 'Be easy yourself,' she sniffed. Then she looked me up and down. 'For a monk and a sheep-worrying peasant, you look almost gentle-bred. Don't get too cosy with the wenches on shore, my fighting-cock. Tonight, you may meet a noblewoman down on her luck. And she might well be very, very grateful for your help.' With that, she pinched my behind, not gently, and slipped away towards the bridge.

Anna and I were in the party chosen to go ashore first, as we knew we would be. So were Elia and Pavlos, who had vowed not to let their princess out of their sight, although to myself I wondered how soon she would put that vow to the test. We stood in a gaggle waiting to climb into the boat, the other men, those who had to wait their turn, thronging around us and filling our ears with bad advice and filthy jokes. But they were not in good humour, and we lucky ones merely nodded and chuckled, knowing that men so long at sea might be glad to vent their frustrations then and there, a brawl in sight of land being almost as good as one on solid ground.

Once aboard the overloaded gig, it seemed we were running the keel up the river-beach in an instant, so frenzied were the oarsmen to escape the Cormaran. Anna was the first to scramble up onto the wharf, slinging her fat canvas satchel, which I knew held her woman's clothing, up ahead of her.

"Whoa, Mikal!' bellowed Snorri. 'Leave some trollops for us!'

'Make do with my leavings,' she laughed back, swinging the bag over her shoulder. I clambered up the weed-smothered sea-steps, feeling the bladder-wrack squish and pop beneath my feet. Then I was beside Anna. I looked around to get my bearings.

This Bordeaux was a comely city, built of yellow stone, with many proud buildings rising behind the wood and plaster warehouses that lined the river. Smoke rose from countless chimneys. Weathervanes of bright copper and brass flashed against the dimming sky. And everywhere, far and near, armed men were strolling, marching, running. Here came a band of foot-soldiers with long pikes across their shoulders and kettle helms upon their heads. They carried short-swords as well, and by the look on each hard face they would delight in close work with those swords when the time came. A couple of knights perched high on their great war-mounts cut across the pikemen's route, ignoring them. These men wore bright sur-coats and each had a long-sword at his side. Out of habit I noted their crests: a green oak-tree on one, three crows over a red arrow on the other. I did not recognise either device, of course, but to see English heraldry again after so long made my heart race a little. Now a bigger band of men-at-arms approached. They marched in step, and were led by a tall, proud-stepping man in a suit of bright steel mail. On his surcoat of pale blue shone a yellow bird. The same device fluttered gaily on a banner that whipped above the men. These were yeomen at least, not the murderous cutthroats who carried pikes. They were well armed and dressed. Some wore kettle-helms, others old-fashioned pointed helmets with nose-guards. Most of them seemed to possess at least one piece of chain-mail. They marched as proudly as their leader, and for a moment I thought that there must be worse occupations than that of man-at-arms.

Then a gnarled bowman carrying a heavy sack knocked into Anna.

'Out of the road, you little bloodworm,' he hissed in the fiat voice of a Bristol-man. I saw that he carried his unstrung bow like a fighting stave, and my hand dropped to Thorn's hilt. Glancing about me, I saw that we all had weapons to hand, and the bowman saw it too, and backed off hurriedly.

'Foreign fucking bloodworms, all of you,' he growled. 'Fucking cowards and sodomites.' He spat towards Elia's feet. 'Stick together with your thumbs up each other's arse-holes, don't you? If my mates were here…'

'But they are not here. So fuck off before I show you what your kidneys look like,' said Snorri calmly, for all the world like a man giving directions in the street.

To his credit, the ugly Bristol-man stood his ground for a moment, glaring. Then he shrugged his shoulders. 'I'll be looking out for you, boys,' he informed us, and walked away.

'Fucking English,' muttered Snorri. 'Begging your pardon, Petroc.' 'I liked him,' I said, nudging Anna. 'He had an honest face.'

That set us all laughing, and we forgot the scowling bowman. There were more interesting sights to entertain us as we left the teeming wharves and entered the narrow streets of the city itself, choosing a little opening some way to the left of the looming, crenellated jaws of the Great Gate, which dominated the wharves like a castle in its own right. Almost at once, Snorri and John of Metz disappeared into a tavern, the first one we passed. Before long I was left with Anna and the Greeks, the others having darted into bath-house and alehouse, cook-shop and knocking-shop. I had a mind to defer my pleasures a little longer, and I could not believe that sheer convenience would be a substitute for quality. I required the finest ale in Bordeaux. I had dreamed of it, rolled its ghost over my tongue and around my mouth day after thirsty day for months, and I determined to let nothing past my lips until I had the object of my quest before me.

Elia was silent, fretting over his brother, who had not felt strong enough to come ashore. Luckily Pavlos knew the town, and thought that the best ale might be found at the Red Angel, nearby in the Rue de la Rousselle. Anna, who had dropped all pretence now that she was alone with those who knew her secret, flounced and pouted. She did not want to drink reeking beer, she said. She wished us to escort her to a place where she might find courtesans of high price, a fine table and exquisite wines. And, she declared, she would go in as a man. Pavlos ran his hands through his hair in exasperation.

'How can we take you such a place, Vassileia? With all the filth of the world, all the sinners? And besides, you look like an urchin. Impossible, my lady.' 'Then leave me!' Her eyes flashed in the shadowy alley where we stood. 'Petroc will see to it that I come to no harm.' She tugged at my sleeve. 'Come along now.'

But the Greeks would not allow the Vassileia out of their sight. Anna stood there fretting and baiting like a bored hawk. In the end it was I who broke the deadlock.

‘Well, it is still daylight, and the fine courtesans are still abed, asleep. Let us continue our sulking at the Red Angel at least. For the love of God, Pavlos, lead on.'

This, at least, Pavlos could agree upon, and we set off down the alley. He was true to his word. The Red Angel – L'Ange Rouge – lay up a side street a little way from the Church of St Pierre. It looked a little drab from the outside, simply another building of plaster and timber that leaned far out over the street. But a wondrous carved angel, with wings outstretched and brandishing a flaming sword, painted all over in differing shades of red, hovered over the doorway, and I felt a strong tingle of excitement as I followed the three Greeks over the threshold.

The Red Angel's beer was a wonder indeed. As I took a deep swig of my second mug, I thought that St Michael himself must have stirred the wort with his fiery blade. The brew was almost smoky, dark and pungent. I would happily have drunk it until it flowed in my veins in place of blood. I barely noticed the other three. Pavlos and Elia were drinking the red wine of Bergerac, and expressing their satisfaction. Anna had sipped my beer, made a face, and called for the finest wine in the house, which proved to be golden, sweet and strong. She attacked it like a cat with a bird, biting, so it seemed, mouthfuls of wine from the goblet, chewing them murderously, and dipping straight back down for more. Glancing up from my mug, I saw her staring at the table with hooded eyes. She had closed herself off from the world around her.

I ordered another mug of beer, then another. I listened to my companions chatter away in their own tongue, then allowed the drink to carry me away down its dark current. I felt the floor beneath me shift, the remembered motion of the ship that my body could not forget. I saw clear green wave-tips; the terrible void of the Sea of Darkness. Then the golden waters of my own river Aune appeared to me. I followed a freckled trout as it flitted over the sand and between rocks overgrown with spongy moss. I was a little boy again, and I knelt down and picked up a stone, a jagged fistful of granite the colour of the sky before a snowstorm, and lobbed it into the pool. The ripples spread, out and out and ever out.

'See, he dreams. You bloody carpenters: your minds are full of wood-shavings. You should let them soar as high as the trees you cut to pieces. I will talk to one with loftier thoughts -so good day to you, gents.'

I felt a tug on my sleeve, and looked up, into a pair of kindly but red-rimmed eyes. A skinny man in a threadbare cleric's costume stood over me, his body working slightly as if not entirely under his control. He held an almost-empty goblet. His fingernails were long and dirty.

'Give me the pleasure of your company, good master,' he said in a pleasant enough voice, in which education and wine fought for mastery. He was speaking French. 'I can find no spark in those rude fellows.' I looked behind him. A pair of craggy-featured men sat talking earnestly to each other, relief on their faces. I glanced back at the skinny man and blinked, still half in my dream of home. Taking this for my agreement to his company, the man sat down beside me and called loudly for more wine.

'I should not disturb you, but I see you are a man who uses his head for more than battering a path through life. And by your garb I see you are from the city – the real city, not this backwater, yes?'

'I am from no city, sir. I am a travelling man. You are welcome to join me if you must, but you will find my French and my wits a trifle lacking, I am afraid.' In truth I had no wish to make the acquaintance of a stranger, but the man missed my hint, or in any event ignored it. I looked around for my companions, but the three Greeks were huddled close, talking fast and furiously in their own tongue. Before I could interrupt them, the man's rich, somewhat cracked voice started so close to my ear that I felt his spittle. I turned and met his red eyes.

'A travelling man, sir? And an educated one, by Jesus! Wonder of wonders. Allow me to introduce my humble self: Robert of Nogent – Robertus Nogensis – late of the great Universities of Paris and Bologna. A travelling man myself, you see, and my cargo is learning.'

I bit down to kill a smile. The man was clearly half-starved. I hoped he had packed something more edible than learning for his travels. Meanwhile, how was I to introduce myself? This was the first time I had been asked my name by a stranger since the inn at Dartmouth. I thought for an instant. 'Peter,' I replied at last. 'Peter Swan of Zennor.' 'Zennor, Zennor…' pondered Robertus. A Breton, then?' 'Cornish,' I replied hastily. 'Zennor is hard by Falmouth.'

'But educated, surely? You have drunk deeply at the fountain of learning, I can tell.'

'My family were wealthy. I had private masters. But tell me of Paris,' I said, to steer things away from my flimsy subterfuge.

Robertus threw up his hands. 'Paris!' he breathed. 'Greatest city in creation. And within it, another city, built on thought, walled around with wisdom, peopled by scholars: the city of Pierre Abelard. Words are its coin.' He sighed deeply and examined his empty goblet. I waved my arm for the serving girl, who was happy to serve me at least: she knew I had more than words in my purse.

'The greatest masters in Christendom are gathered there,' my companion went on after a goodly slurp of wine. 'A man may travel from one teacher to another as a bee travels from flower to flower, sipping the nectar of knowledge – a little here, a little there…'

Robertus rattled on in this vein, gulping wine to punctuate his utterances, which grew longer and more flowery until I felt I was being smothered by a vine of words, a twining ivy that threatened to send me off into oblivion.

I had ordered another mug of beer, then another. The effort of keeping myself courteous to Robertus, indeed of keeping myself awake, was growing ever more difficult. The Greeks had long since grown quiet. But Robertus burbled on implacably. His words seemed to drift away, faint and then loud again. Then he tapped my arm.

You have seen the cathedral of St Andre, of course?' I shook my head. They have almost finished work on the great door. Beautiful craftsmanship, to be sure: a worthy offering to the Almighty. But as I was saying to those worthy carpenters-' I saw that Robertus' previous victims had long since slipped away,'-building in stone and wood is but one way to raise an edifice to the glory of God and the spirit of Man. I have written on the subject, a slim volume – you are interested, I see. Excellent! Worthy Peter, I make no claims to the mystic life, but such a vision came to me as I slept one night in Paris. So strange and wonderful a vision it was that I have been certain ever since that it came not from within but from without! He lowered his voice and pointed a bony finger at the ceiling. As I say, I set it down, but the authorities frowned upon it – unsound, they said; seditious! I ask you. The vision was of a great cathedral that rose high above a fair, golden city. Angels flew about the spire, which touched the very clouds. But, and hark to me now, this great building was wrought not of stone, nor wood, nor brick, but…food!'

'Fancy that,' I said curtly. Robertus did not notice. His red eyes seemed to glow even redder as he leaned towards me. I smelled sour wine. Yes, yes… The floor was laid in wondrous patterns, formed of blood sausage opposed with the finest white lard. The walls were great blocks of golden butter, raised between towering buttresses of bread. The windows seemed like the finest stained glass, fairer than those of Notre-Dame, but were composed of the thinnest slices of Basque ham that let the light of the sun through in rosy shades of red and pink. The leading was anchovies. The choir stalls…'

'Peace, good Robertas; enough, enough!' I cried. You are making me famished.'

'The choir stalls were of salted codfish, the cushions plump rounded cheeses,' he went on relentlessly. 'The rafters were honeycombs, the roof was tiled with cinnamon. Upon the altar, which was hewn from one enormous goose liver, stood golden reliquaries of spun Cyprus sugar. And in them, the relics themselves were ossi di morti… bones of the dead, do you see? But these ossi di morti are a sort of sweetmeat I dined upon in Bologna. Now where was I?' His eyes shone ever brighter. 'Ah, yes. The doors…'

But alas, I will never know of what delicacy the doors of the great cathedral of Robertas Nogensis were crafted, for at that moment I looked up and saw that Elia and Pavlos were snoring face-down on the table and that Anna, and her satchel, were gone. I leaped up, all but knocking Robertus off the bench. I shook the Greeks, but they did not stir. The serving girl was passing by. I grabbed her arm. She squeaked.

Where is my other friend,' I demanded, 'the thin dark one? Drinking the sweet wine?' 'Sir, truly I do not know! Let me go! You are hurting me.'

I released her, fumbled in my purse for a gold bezant and held it out.

'There's for our drinks, and that mad drone there, his too -and the rest is for you if you take care of the sleeping ones. Good care: if one hair of their heads is missing, or one coin from their purses, I'll be back to burn this place down.' She clutched at the gold, and I spun away and ran through the tap-room, knocking shoulders and spilling beer and wine to left and right.

Furious curses followed me, but I was already through the door and into the street.

It was dark. Night had fallen as we drank. Christ alone knew how long that diabolical bore had been babbling. Anna could have slipped away hours ago. Out here, the cooler air rapidly draining the warmth of the beer from me, I felt no surprise at all, only rage. Damn her! Damn her, and damn her airs, her caprices, her hellish stubbornness. She could not play along, not for one hour. Now she was off somewhere, getting into deep water, probably looking to get herself killed, or worse. I shoved my knuckles into my eyes.

'How now – crying, sirrah?' said a strange voice from the shadows. I turned, and my hand went to Thorn.

'Lost your sheep?' said the voice. I eased Thorn out a little further. 'Flashing a fat purse in a strange town… you need someone to watch your back, shepherd.'

I could duck back into the sanctuary of the Red Angel, or I could make my stand. I stood. A slender figure drifted out of a dark archway. The light from the lantern over the inn door picked out silver and gold on a short sword, belt, doublet. There were rings on a hand that gripped the sword's hilt. I drew Thorn and let her hang down against my leg. The tip pressed into the side of my knee, and I felt the first shudders of the ague of battle. Into the light stepped a young nobleman. I saw silk and cloth of gold shimmer softly. The ringed hand stroked a silver pommel. 'Sheep-worrier.' The voice cracked. Anna… Anna.'

We stood in silence, looking up at the great door of St Andre's cathedral. Some wooden scaffolding was still in place, but it was easy to pick out the layers of carving, arcs of saints and kings piled one upon the other. Making a small concession to the insufferable Robertus, I had to admit that it did look a little like honey-cake.

Anna had revealed herself just in time. Afire with nerves and beer, I had been about to throw myself at the menacing stranger. My thumb had pressed down so hard on the flat top of Thorn's blade that I could still feel the channel in the hard skin. Anna had allowed me no time to compose myself, grabbing my hand and pulling me at a dead run down the street, laughing like a madwoman. Only the wall of St Pierre's church brought us to a halt. We leaned our backs to it and struggled to catch our breath. Finally Anna turned to me.

'Did I not tell you that I meant to make Mikal a prince for his last night on earth? Quite the bravo, am I not?' 'I nearly killed you.' 'Oh, yes. I was quite scared.' A grin belied her words. 'I mean it, Anna. I have a violent aversion to well-dressed lurkers. You know very well who I thought you were.' 'I do not.' You do: the devil who chased me across half of England.'

'Peace! Petroc, peace. I did not mean to scare you at all, just to have a little fun.'

'Fun! I would have killed you. I swear it: I would not have let you live, had you not…'

'Stop. Stop it.' No longer smiling, she took my right hand and held it to her heart, which knocked fast and steady against her ribs. I shuddered. My knife could have been buried in that heart. Would I have felt its dying twitches through the cool green hilt? I pulled her head down to my shoulder and buried my face in its spicy tresses. Then we hurriedly broke off our clinch, each realising at the same time that, to the watching eye, we were two men caught in a lover's embrace, and by the church wall, no less.

So we set off strolling, and wandered through the streets of the city, oblivious for the moment of the crowds that pressed about us. It was still early, and many soldiers and sailors were going about the serious business of pleasure. Before long we found ourselves before the cathedral. It was only then that I remembered our companions, whom I had abandoned, stupefied in a public tavern.

Tincture of poppy,' Anna explained happily. 'I found it in Isaac's magical chest. A couple of drops each. I know my medicines,' she added, seeing me aghast. An ancient Arab gentleman taught me when I was a girl. I would have used henbane, but Pavlos fears it as a witch's poison and besides, the poppy is gentler. They are dreaming sweetly, I promise. And I used so little that they will wake very soon.' 'Pavlos will kill me,' I said. 'Nonsense. It is I he should kill, but I am his precious Vassileia. You are just keeping me out of mischief. Or are you?' Am I what?' 'Keeping me out of mischief.'

'That would depend on what mischief you were considering.'

'A fight, a fuck, and some food is what I said, and that is what I intend to have.' She rattled her sword in its sheath. 'I suppose we've had the fight, so that leaves…'

'Food,' I said quickly. 'I'm starving. I was listening to some old fool ramble on about a cathedral built of sausages and sweetmeats and the like. I've just remembered how ravenous he made me.'

'Oh, the drunkard! He was a lucky interruption. He saved you from the poppy, my dear.' You wouldn't have drugged me as well?' Why not? I haven't anything to lose. I'm a dying man.'

So we strolled a while more, following our noses until we found a street full of cook-shops and eating-houses. Here the crowds were thicker still, jostling and shouldering up and down. Knots of men-at-arms lingered here and there, tearing at meat and bread. We halted before an open shop-front in which a sheep and a pig turned on spits, throwing off clouds of steam spiked with pepper, thyme and fennel. Racks of trussed squab grilled slowly, oil dripping and exploding on glowing charcoal. It looked busy inside, but I could not resist the fennel-scented pork, and Anna agreed with a wolfish nod.

We forced ourselves inside, squeezed our behinds onto a packed bench before a long table, and feasted until I thought I would burst. The pork was hot, sweet and spicy, and fat dripped down our chins. We gulped down draughts of cool, sharp red wine. Our companions at table ignored us. They were mainly soldiers, and must have taken us for young gentlemen entertaining themselves with a night out amongst the poor folk. For Anna, I had to admit, looked magnificent. Her cloak was edged with golden thread, worked into swirls of grape-heavy vines. Her tunic fell to her knees in the soldier's manner and was made of the finest cloth I had ever seen. Over a field of emerald silk romped sinuous beasts the colour of flame, and yellow flowers sprang up between them. The fabric shimmered with its own light. It- was outlandish, almost barbaric, and I noticed that the man sitting next to Anna edged away from her, as if the strange tunic scared him. Beneath it, she wore hose of lustrous green wool, caught below the knee with garters of a deep pink studded with gold. On her feet were pointed shoes of deep red leather. She had gathered her hair under a coif of green linen, over which she had donned a green felt hat, the brim pulled up all around.

"Where did you find such stuff?' I asked, at the same time marvelling how she seemed able to cram pig-meat and bread into her mouth and spill nothing on her clothes: my own were lamentably spotted with grease.

'There are enough clothes on the Cormaran to dress the court of Sicily,' she replied. 'The Virgin alone knows where they all came from – I suppose de Montalhac gives and takes them in trade. This silk is Syrian: rare stuff to you benighted Franks, but not to me. I've been rummaging, off and on, since we left Iceland, and there's all manner of strange costumes: Saracen, Moor, Roman, some silks so rich and wonderful even I was afraid to touch them.'

When we could not force down one more melting, silky mouthful we drained our goblets, threw some coins to the host and ducked back into the crowd outside.

I was full, fuller than I had been for months. I felt a little dizzy and a little sick, but also buoyed up on a wave of excitement, a rushing of blood about my limbs. I was breathing hard. I turned to Anna, and she met my gaze with her own level stare. I felt myself redden to the roots of my hair, and sweat broke out on my upper lip. I brushed at it distractedly. Anna rubbed a hand lazily over her greasy lips. 'Let us find a bed,' she said.

I followed her out of the street of cook-shops and into another busy thoroughfare. I had no idea where we were. The food had, it seemed, destroyed my sense of direction for the time being. No landmarks showed themselves in the narrow strip of black sky above us. Where was the Red Angel? Where, for that matter, was the river and the ship? I was lost in a strange town that had the air of an armed camp, and now, it seemed, I had to find a room in which two men could lie with each other in privacy. I needed another drink. I needed, all of a sudden, to postpone what I had yearned for since… since I had first heard her voice, or seen the gap in her teeth, or felt her body on mine in the warm heather. Long days of furtive touches and whispered promises in corners of the ship had not prepared me. I wished that Will were here. He, of all people, would know what to do.

'Let us follow them,' said Anna at my side. She pointed to a group of well-appointed soldiers, gentlemen to judge by their clothes and weapons, who, very drunk, were stumbling along, arms around each other's waists and shoulders, singing a lewd song I recalled from the lower taverns of Balecester.

'Those are fellows in search of a bawdy-house, or I know nothing of men,' Anna said, tugging at my sleeve. I shrugged.

Why a bawdy-house? I do not want a trollop.' I paused; there was a choice here, and I had to make the right decision. My mouth was dry as sand. 'I want you,' I told her.

I felt as if I had stepped off a high ledge with this admission, but Anna seemed oblivious.

'Perhaps I would like a trollop myself… a lusty young bravo has such desires, you know.' I laughed dubiously. You are playing games again,' I said.

'I am not! Why should you men have all the fun? I have worn breeches and pissed standing up for weeks. I am half a man now, I think. Perhaps more. Do you want to check?' I blushed and shuffled my feet, lost for words.

'Tra la! What would be the penance for that, Petroc, my priest?' 'For sodomy? Seven years,' I muttered.

She whistled. 'Seven years without Communion. How will we stand it?' She cocked a hip and winked. 'Come along, then.' I hesitated. 'Look,' she said. 'In a brothel flesh is paid for with money. If there is gold on the table, no questions are asked. If we pay, we will get a bed. If we pay a little more, we have never been seen.'

She was right, of course. I felt my blood rise despite myself. All I wanted was Anna, but the prospect of entering one of those places… All Will's stories flashed through my mind. I swallowed dryly. 'After you,' I said.

The men seemed to know where they were going – at least their leader did. A stocky man who wore a short-sword and a dagger, with a long pheasant feather in his hat, he bellowed out the coarse words in a strong North Country accent, turning now and again to urge his comrades on. We hung back, although I doubted any amongst this sorry crowd would notice were they being pursued by Beelzebub himself. Anna was muttering.

'Seven years. For two men doing it? How about for two women?'

I thought back to my lessons. The Decretum of Burchard of Worms, a terrifyingly detailed penitentiary full of sins I had never even dreamed existed, had been drummed into us in the Abbey. Now it came flooding back. 'Seven years for doing it with beasts,' I said. 'I don't want to do it with a beast, you odd man,' Anna said.

'Five years if a woman does it with another woman, I think. A year for wanking – for women. Less for men. That's lucky,' I added. Let me see. Two years for adultery-' 'Oh dear.' '-seven years if a man gives it to his wife up the arse-' 'Petroc!'

'-and for dorsal – that's with you on top – it's three years.' It felt good to rattle on like this: I was beginning to feel a little hysterical. 'From behind is three years too. And that's if we were married. Did you learn none of this when you were in Holy Orders? Now if…'

We may have to keep a tally,' Anna said. 'Now be quiet, O master of penances. They're turning.'

The street we now entered was crooked and barely wide enough for the men ahead of us to squeeze through three abreast. The houses all but met overhead, and from the shadowy eaves hung lamps whose flames shone through red glass. Our quarry had burst into a new song which extolled the praises of 'Rose Street', with much play on the plucking of roses, rosy petals and sweet nectar. The voices had a more urgent tone now. Then the group halted in front of a door. The leader knocked, exchanged words through a grille. Then the men filed in. The door clicked shut behind them. 'So here we are in Rose Street,' Anna said.

'Every city has one,' I said. Balecester's own Rose Street, street of the red lamps, had been down near the Crozier, and I had studiously avoided it, of course. I heard a rapping, and turned. Anna was knocking on another door. 'What are you doing?' I hissed. 'I think this one looks promising,' she replied, and knocked again. I tried to pull her away. 'Not yet,' I said desperately.

'No time for cold feet,' she sang. 'Or rather, let me warm those cold feet for you in a nice warm bed. How many years' penance is that, by the way?'

Then the door opened a crack and a bulbous nose appeared. A man's face followed, livid with burst veins. He looked us up and down through rheumy eyes. "Yes, noble gents?' he said at last. 'I…' I began.

We seek a little sport, my good fellow,' said Anna in her deepest voice. The man's eyes narrowed. Anna tapped the purse that hung from her belt. It clanked, the smug tone of gold upon gold.

'Oh, sport! That we have, that we have, dear lords,' said the man, his face lighting up. I was afraid more veins might burst. He threw open the door and ushered us inside.

A fire burned in a big fireplace, tables were scattered about, at which a few men sat with goblets before them. Women bustled about, fetching drinks and food. We might have been in an ordinary tavern, save that the women were all naked but for the elaborate headpieces that a few wore, and which made them look even more unclothed. Some were young, some not so young. I stood as if turned to stone. So many breasts, so many bums! And that patch of hair at the base of the belly: here thick, there sparse; dark on one, fair on another.

'What's the matter, brother, never seen a naked wench before?' said Anna from the corner of her mouth.

'No,' I hissed. It was true. And now here were… how many? Ten? Twelve? I almost crossed myself, such was my agitation.

A couple of women approached and took us by the hands, exclaiming over our youth and fine clothes, almost as if we were not present. They led us to a table. Anna ordered wine, and drew two bezants from her purse.

Take these to your mistress,' she said, 'and say that we desire to speak to her.'

We sat back and sipped our wine. The fire was warm and its light danced over the bare flesh of the women. Anna and I slipped into a conversation that had nothing to do with anything, a comfortable chewing-over of some minor event back on the Cormaran. We would break off now and again to admire our hosts, and I found the sensation of Anna watching me watching the whores oddly arousing. I thought of Burchard, and how one of his strictures governed masturbation with the aid of a pierced wooden board. Twenty days on bread and water for that. It struck me with crystal certainty that Burchard must have had leanings, of a lewd nature, towards wood. To him a carpenter's shop had been a brothel. I burst out laughing, a lovely warm laugh that started deep within and seemed to swell my soul until it burst free of all the dark, dismal threads stitched into it by Burchard and all his grim, cheerless crew. I threw back my head and hooted at the ceiling.

What's the matter, my love?' Anna asked, a flicker of worry in her face. 'Nothing. Nothing in the world, my love.'

When the madam arrived, a large, fully clothed personage with the apple cheeks of a farmer's wife and the gimlet eyes of a usurer, Anna came straight to business.

'My friend and I are here under false pretences, my good woman,' she said. 'I told your doorman we were after some sport. Indeed we are, but we play the Game, and fair as your girls undoubtedly are, we have other plans.'

'The Game, eh?' said the madam, crossing her arms and regarding us with pursed lips. Then understanding dawned. 'A couple of ganymedes! Boys, boys, what are you doing here? There are plenty of bath-houses near the cathedral. You are wasting your money, and my time.'

'Not at all,' said Anna, leaning forward. We have money to waste. And this city is alive with men of war who might think it a great laugh to hunt a pair of ganymedes like us. You can provide a bed and a door that locks, and we will pay you over the odds for it. And who knows? Maybe we will feel the urge to convert, and you can send a brace of your fairest wenches up to us.' The madam pondered. Then she smiled, almost warmly.

'Oh, well… and why not? I've always had a soft spot for your kind, after all. There's a couple of girls upstairs already. If you go up now, no one will bat an eyelash.'

She reached deep into her bodice and thrust a warm key into my hand. 'Fourth room off the second landing,' she whispered loudly, and winked. You naughty young things – and so handsome! What a waste, eh? I'll bring up some wine myself, shall I? Well, get along with you!'

We grabbed up our goblets and the flagon and picked our way through the whores to the stairs. Anna went up first. I lifted her tunic as she climbed. Her bottom swayed before me, wrapped tight in white breeches and framed by the dark hose. She reached up and undid her hair and it fell about her shoulders like a storm cloud.

The hallway was dim. Regular grunts and squeals came from behind the first door. A woman sang in the second room, a low, soft song, the words unclear. Silence behind the third door, and then our room. In a frenzy I grappled with the handle. A single candle burned inside. I kicked the door shut with my heel. The crash brought me to my senses: here we were at last. Here I was, after weeks of longing and a lifetime of confused and guilty lust. I stood, feeling like a lump of stone, as Anna skipped to the big, crudely carved bed, unbuckling her belt as she went. The sword clattered on the floor.

'Come to me, my love,' she said hoarsely, fingers nimble at the ties of her tunic. Then in one great swoop of her arms she threw it off and it collapsed slowly on the dusty floor. There she sat, her skin very white between the darkness of her hair and the green of her hose. Still whiter was the band of linen that wrapped her chest. She dropped her head to her shoulder and regarded me. All at once her face seemed not her own, suffused by a heat and a hunger that set my own face burning. I took a step back towards the door. What is it, Petroc?' she asked, her voice tight.

My stomach was clenched. My skin crawled and burned and I blushed so hard I felt heat crackle from my hair. Desire, it seemed, felt like plain terror. All at once I felt my hands rise and touch, palm to palm, a reflex forgotten all these long months. In confusion I pushed them against me and felt my heart beating itself against its cage. 'I do not know what to do,' I said at long last.

My eyes met hers and we stood, locked, my heart counting out the eternity of my shame. Then Anna's face softened and she began to smile. She reached out her hands to me. 'All you need do is come here to me, my lovely man.'

And so I did, almost tripping in the folds of Anna's tunic, and sat beside her on the bed. I was shivering as if with an ague, and she pulled me to her, holding me tight and tighter until the fit had passed. Then without words she unbuckled my belt and, as if undressing a child, pulled my tunic over my head.

'Now,' she murmured, taking my hands and guiding them back to where the linen was knotted behind her. I tugged and an end came free. Anna raised her arms and slowly I unwound the long band until it fell away and we embraced, warm skin against warm skin at last. Then I was myself again, and the dance of our hands, as we untied laces and garters and found the places hidden beneath, did not seem strange any more. We fell back on the raddled old bed and I let my world become Anna: her hair, her scent, freckles that came and went in the candlelight, flesh that rose and puckered to my wondering touch. And so we drifted until we found where the heat of our two bodies and souls could safely burn, the refiner's fire of life and love.

Some time later, Anna stirred, her face still deep in a pillow. 'How much was that worth, penance-wise, Brother Petroc?' 'Three years, my child. At the very least.'