Relics

Chapter Fifteen

The candle had burned down until the wick floated in a pool of tallow, guttering. Anna and I lay and watched the mothy shadows flitter about the rafters. We had taken the trouble to strip, eventually, and now a scratchy, smelly coverlet kept the chill from our skin.

'If my uncle could see us now…' said Anna, wriggling against me. 'The Emperor? What would he do?' I replied, lazily.

'He would make you stare at a white-hot iron until you were blind. Then he would have you castrated. Then he would lock you away somewhere, blind and ball-less, and let you think about matters. Then he would have you strangled.' 'Oh.' 'He would do the same to me, minus the castration of course. If that makes you feel any better.' 'I can't say that it does.'

'Don't trouble yourself, my precious love. I am not going to tell him. Are you?'

'Just as long as it doesn't come up at my next audience with him.' She cackled. 'He thinks I'm dead, of course.'

I stared at the struggling candlelight playing along a beam. Someone had tried to paint a lewd scene on it, but had given up half-way. I could make out the odd breast here and there in the scrawl of flaking pink paint, and a man's face, the eyes bulging in a ludicrous portrayal of ecstasy. I hoped I hadn't been making that face earlier.

Earlier, as I made love to the niece of the Emperor of Byzantium. And as she made love to me. The immensity of it hit me like a stone from a sling. I, Petroc of Auneford, renegade monk, outlaw and accused murderer, sheep-farmer's son from the peaty wastes of Dartmoor. How had this come to pass? The Emperor's niece! Somehow I had put that fact from my mind. The thin, hollow-eyed creature whom the crew knew as the boy Mikal had simply become my dearest friend.

And now we were sated, lying warm against each other. I turned and brushed my hand down her breast to her belly, feeling goose bumps start at my touch. I ran my fingers along the edge of the springy curls below her navel, which now I knew smelled of gillyflowers, Anna's true scent, but more powerful here. I pushed my nose into the softer hair on the pillow, and closed my eyes. Her lips found mine and we kissed, soft and quiet. I felt the heat of her skin seep into mine and found I cared nothing for Anna the Emperor's niece. It was this Anna, the girl of flesh and hot, wild blood, who lived inside me now, and she would never leave so long as I still drew breath. Your nose is cold,' I said. She rose up on one elbow and looked down on me. A breast fell free of the coverlet, the nipple almost black in the shadows. Well, my ganymede, are you ready to kill Mikal?' she said.

We decided that it would be better to leave the brothel as men, if only to avoid more questions. Although Anna had said that her uncle believed her as good as dead, I noticed that a new caution – the merest tint, like a drop of dye in clear water – had entered her mood. Perhaps she had realised only now that she was back in the civilised world, and that someone as powerful as her uncle – let alone her erstwhile husband – could have ears and eyes in a big port like Bordeaux. A bold sodomite who suddenly became a noble lady would be something that was remembered, even in a place such as this.

So we dressed and made our way downstairs. It was the dead of the night, just after the watch had rung four bells, and the house was quiet, but not silent. The sounds of rut still came from the room by the landing. Downstairs only two women were still awake, and they had thrown on some clothes. A man sat slumped at one of the tables and tried to fondle one of them, but he was very drunk and could do no more than pluck pathetically at her rumpled shift. Only the bulbous-nosed doorman noticed us. He unlatched the door and accepted a small gold coin with a simper empty of sincerity. It was clear that we disgusted him. That a man who made his living in a place like this could allow himself the luxury of disgust made me smile, and I laid a hand, deliberately, on his shoulder.

'Thank you, good fellow. I look forward to seeing you again very soon.'

He tried to shake me off while still appearing obsequious, but it was an ugly performance. I was glad when the door closed and left us alone in the street. It was very cold and dark, and reeked of beery piss.

We needed to find some abandoned place where Anna could change into her woman's garb. Now that we were alone in the cold, I wanted it done and over with. We had to get back to the ship and face the wrath of Elia and Pavlos, if indeed they had yet woken. I wished we had changed in the brothel after all. That foul old goblin of a doorman wouldn't have noticed or cared, surely? Where would we go now?

'Could you not just slip whatever clothing you have over your tunic and hose?' I ventured. Who would know?'

'I would,' she said, firmly. 'Mikal is finished. I want no more of him. I feel my womanhood rushing through me, which is all your fault, by the way.' Well then, what now?' 'Let's find a nice church,' said Anna.

It wasn't a bad idea. There would be no one about in a small church at this hour, and the doors would not be locked. St Pierre was close to the Great Gate, but was big enough to perhaps have a verger in attendance. But I remembered a smaller church in its own square a little further in to the heart of the town. That would have to do.

I thought I could remember how to get back to the cathedral, which I believed was at the opposite end of the town from the river. If we kept the west door of the cathedral to our backs and followed the inner wall of the town, we should arrive at the wharf before long. But we needed to hurry and to be cautious, for now we were breaking the curfew, and would have to keep a sharp eye out for the Watch. I told this to Anna, and she gave me a crooked grin and rattled her sword. I did not find this a comfort, but kept my thoughts to myself.

It was easy to find the street of the cook-shops from the trails of bread, bones and vomit that led to it from all points of the compass. We crept past the shuttered storefronts that had been so full of life and cheer just a little time past. From there I tried to remember the twists and turns we had taken. After finding a couple of dead ends and streets we had no recollection of, we burst into a square, from which we could see the cathedral spire looming off to our right. Soon we were back beneath the scaffolding around the door.

Why not in here?' hissed Anna. I remembered the last time I had been inside a great cathedral such as this. Nothing, not the foulest demons of hell clacking red hot pincers, could drive me into such a place again. I shook my head and led the way to the west door. Sure enough, the old wall of the town stretched away before us. It would be easy to find our way from here. We set off once again, keeping to the thickest shadows and stepping lightly.

The church of St Projet was smaller than St Pierre, and the square it stood in was smaller too. We padded around the dark shell until we reached the door. I tried it: it was unlocked, and we stepped into the dim, candlelit nave. The place smelled like all churches: old stone, polished wood and incense. We listened, our ears pricking like hounds, but there was no one there. I noticed that some of the candles before the various altars had long since burned out. A verger would have relit them. We would be alone for another hour or so.

It was a grand place, in its way. Enough wealthy families had lavished money on altars and tombs and windows to fill the modest space with carved wood and stone, gleaming plate and brass. Nevertheless I felt the same hollowness within that had come to me first in Gardar, and I almost turned on my heel and walked out. Instead I muttered to Anna that we should be quick as lightning.

A door led up to the bell-tower, and it was not locked. We slipped through it and pulled it to behind us, leaving a narrow crack through which I could see the main entrance. Behind me, Anna unbuckled her sword-belt and sank down onto the steps that wound up into the spider-guarded shadows. I heard the sough and hiss of doffed clothing, and a faint Greek oath directed at an over-tight knot. Two clinks as her garters dropped onto stone.

She was leaning back on silk-draped steps, her body glimmering, pearl-like, in the faint candle-glow from beyond the door. I looked from her face to the darkness between her legs, sprawled wantonly. Into the cold air crept the scent of gillyflowers. And then for a timeless instant I was back in Balecester, in the church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. The painted hell had blossomed into life. The pink, naked housewives pranced as the devils jabbed away with their toasting-forks, but I saw that the points were soft and gave delight, not pain. All these jolly folk, ladies and devils, romped and laughed until all were entwined in a heaving, happy knot, and dissolved before my eyes.

Anna was rummaging in her satchel, pulling out pieces of clothing and strewing them on the stairs. I gathered up an armful of her nobleman's costume and began to fold it, running the fiery silk of Anna's tunic through my fingers. How immediate were the pleasures of the senses, but how real also. The church, I now realised, was a place of beauty. I could admit that much to myself. It had given delight to those who had built it and wrought its fine decorations, the delight of creation, the delight that the eyes and hands convey to the heart. That delight, it seemed to me now, was enough, all, perhaps, that we earthly beings had a right to expect. The glow of love was still upon me, and joy still flowed through my limbs. How many times had I knelt on cold stone in a place like this and waited in vain for some divine sensation to flood me? And now it had happened.

Anna had put on a long, tight-sleeved tunic of deep-blue silk and drawn a sleeveless surcoat of deep red over it. Her back was turned and when she turned back to me I gasped. I had never seen her attired as a woman, and I had never seen a woman attired as she was now. The fine ladies of Balecester had gone about like columns of drapery: elegant, modest sometimes, and often severe. But Anna was revealed as much as she was hid, at least from throat to waist. She was pushing her hair into a net of golden threads. Seeing me stare, she pouted fetchingly and twisted so that the loose folds of tunic and surcoat swirled around her legs.

'Do you like it?' she asked. I nodded. 'Venetian – the very latest style. So says de Montalhac, anyway. He picked it up in Dublin, I believe. It fits, doesn't it?' I nodded again. 'For heaven's sake, Petroc. You look thunderstruck. Have you never seen a lady before?'

'In truth, I never did see a lady before this moment,' I said at last.

She had thrown a green cloak around her shoulders and fastened the jewelled clasp across her breast, drawing it close. Now she picked up her sword-belt, buckled it and slung it over her left shoulder so that the point of the sword hung mid-way down her thigh. Then she swung her heavy man's cloak around her. The sword was hidden from sight.

'Can I wear your hood?' she asked. You can have my hat. And since I am, at long last, one of the gentler sex, you can carry my satchel as well.'

With the hood over her head, clasped tight beneath her chin, she was all but masked. I put on the green hat, feeling a little ridiculous. 'If you are ready, we had better go,' I said.

We crept back across the aisle and peered round the main door. There was no one in the square, so we slithered out and hurried into the shadows. There was no light yet in the sky, no false dawn. We still had time.

We walked as before, slipping from shadow to shadow, slinking over cross-streets, keeping silent. I calculated that we had only a little way to go. I saw St Pierre before us, and surely that must be the bulk of the Great Gate away in the distance? I took Anna's hand and quickened my pace.

We crossed over another street and heard loud voices and singing not so far away. Anna squeezed my hand. 'That's good,' I muttered. 'They will draw the Watch.'

We had reached the next line of buildings when Anna tripped over something and cursed softly. From the doorway of the shuttered house came a loud rasping and scuffling. I pulled Anna to me and was about to set off running, believing we had disturbed a dog or worse, a sleeping pig, when a voice, the slur of Bristol made thicker with drink, lashed out of the darkness. 'Bloodworm!'

The bowman from the wharf stepped out. The rasping had been the iron-bound haft of his axe scraping on the doorstep. Now he clasped it and half-drew it from his belt. His other hand was on his misericorde dagger. Whatever entertainment the night had held for him had not improved his visage. Behind him another form stepped out, and another.

'I've my mates with me now, little boy, and you have only your tart.' "What is it, Benno?' The second man was a bowman too from his leather wrist-guards. He wore a short-sword. The third man had a nail-studded cudgel already swinging in his hands.

'It's the little foreign sodomite who I was telling you about. And a whore. You little prick! Where are your lovely friends now, eh?'

'I don't know what you mean,' I said. My mouth was bone-dry. I felt Anna's hand slip from mine.

You do. You know what I mean,' said the bowman. 'I mean this.' And he pulled axe and dagger from his belt with an apelike jerk. The other man's sword scraped from its sheath. Not oiled for a spell, I thought, with a part of my mind that seemed already to be leaving my body. The other part had, it seemed, taken over, and I found I was holding Thorn against my leg as I had earlier, when Anna had played her game with me. Then I was entirely there again. I saw that Benno wore a thick old leather jerkin and some sort of padded under-tunic. His mate with the sword wore a sheepskin surcoat. The third man had a mailed hood pushed down around his neck. 'Come on then, you little shit,' croaked Benno.

'Anna, run for the boat,' I yelled, and, tearing my cloak from my shoulders, wrapped it around my left arm with a couple of flicks. But Anna did not run.

'Leave us be, filth,' she said, and her voice was as cold as the Sea of Darkness.

'Ho ho!' cackled the man with the sword. 'Hark to your mouth! When we're done with your precious little customer I'll put that mouth to use, darling.'

Benno rolled his shoulders and drew a deep breath. It was coming. I settled myself on my feet and brought Thorn up, loose at the end of a straight arm, as Rassoul had taught me. 'Run, Anna!'

But it was too late. The three stepped towards us in one movement. With a sudden shout, Benno swung his axe. I stepped back and stooped to get inside his reach. And then the axe was no longer in his hand, but jumping away down the cobblestones. Pale light seemed to shoot out of his throat, but it was Anna's sword, and she held him upright on its tip as the blood poured down the blade and onto her hand. Then she jerked it out and Benno's life hissed wetly out of the hole and away into the darkness above us. He tottered, and sat down suddenly on his arse. Then he was on his back, his eyes as blind as boiled eggs. His friends stopped. Everything stopped. The tart's killed Benno,' whined the cudgel-man.

'Fuck!' screamed the man with the sword, and leaped at us. Perhaps he was going for Anna, perhaps for me, but she stepped wide and he rammed me with his shoulder, spinning me round. He had his balance again, and the point of his sword was up and pointing at my chest. He stamped.

'Ha!' he yelled, and stamped again. He meant to back me against the wall and skewer me there. He lunged, and I brought up my cloak-wrapped arm like a shield. The blade caught in its folds and, twisting, I trapped it. He tried to tug it out, his eyes on Thorn, pointed now at his face, just out of my reach. With his free hand he tried to grab the blade, but I saw his move and lashed out. The blade bit between two fingers and parted his hand almost to the wrist-bone. He howled, and threw himself back, trying again to free his sword. He was strong, but the blade must have been notched, for it was held fast by the cloth. I felt the full weight of him through the sword lashed to my arm, and felt his balance go. I swung with all my might, and he staggered sideways and crashed into the wall. He let go his sword, but too late. I punched Thorn up under his breast-bone, and hit him with the length of my body. The breath burst from him, rotting teeth and rotten wine, and the stink of his sheepskin like a cloud around my face. I felt his chest convulse once, twice, and rammed the knife in harder. I wanted this to end. I wanted him to end. And with another heave he died, and slumped against me. I tugged on Thorn but the blade was stuck fast, so I stepped back and let him crash to the ground. As I stooped to take his sword I heard the scuffling of feet behind me, and a guttural curse.

Anna and the cudgel-man were circling each other in the middle of the street, some way away. She had thrown off her cloak. The man was scared, but fear was leaving him, and something like murderous amusement was taking over. I saw that he had picked up Benno's misericorde, and held it in his left hand. He seemed oblivious to me and to his friend. Anna's face was a blank. I dared not move, in case I distracted her attention. She held her sword stiff and steady. Every now and again she gave the end a flick. But I saw that her feet were in danger of being wound up in the hem of her tunic. She knew it too, for she kept her steps small and precise. The cudgel-man, though, was growing brave. He began feinting at her, now with the cudgel, now the knife, making her step back and risk a fall. All at once she seemed to decide that this must end. Waiting for a feint with the knife, she stepped to the side and flicked again with her blade. The knife-arm went limp and the man cursed and stepped backwards. Anna shifted her grip and lunged, but too far: her tunic caught at last and she sprawled.

But she still held the sword, and the man was hurt. He was not quick enough and she rose to one knee, the blade up again and pointing. And then another shape erupted from the dark side street and hurtled into the cudgel-man, who one instant was choosing his blow and the next was flat on his back. I was there in another instant, and Anna behind me, but by that time the rescuer from the shadows had stuck his thick, narrow knife through the cudgel-man's eye.

I stepped back. Anna's sword was up and ready for the stranger, who rose to his feet after working his knife back out of the dead man's skull. He wore a plain black surcoat and a hooded cape. The hood was up. He wiped the dagger on the cudgel-man's shirt.

'Turn around, if you please, friend,' said Anna, her voice as empty of friendship as the cudgel-man's body was of life. 'Certainly, my lady,' said the Northerner.

He straightened up and turned to face us, dagger carelessly dangled from loose fingers. Then he dropped it.

'For fuck's sake!' he said, and pushed back the hood with both hands.

'For…' he started to say again, but by that time I had him round the waist and was laughing and sobbing in turn. When at last I was able to speak, it was to Anna.

'My love,' I said, Will has come back from the dead to save us: my dear friend Will.'

Will and I stood there, beyond speech, deaf to the sounds of the world. Not so Anna, to whom my friend was nothing more than a name from a long tale. She bent down and retrieved Will's dagger, pushing the hilt briskly back into his palm. 'Put your weapons away, boys,' she snapped.

I looked down at the corpse at my feet. Not much blood had flowed from his wound – the thrust had killed him outright -but the sight of one pale eye staring up beside a dark pool where its twin should be brought my own senses back. Will was staring at the other two corpses. I tottered over to the man I had killed. His lips were drawn back, and through a sheen of black blood his teeth glimmered yellow. I felt my gorge rise. Anna was looking around at the other two corpses. 'Drop that,' she ordered, pointing to the sword which dangled in my limp hand. Her own sword was already back in hiding beneath her cloak. 'There are three men dead, and we must not be here when they are discovered. Come now!' And she grabbed me by the elbows and shook hard.

We'll drag this one into the doorway over there, next to his mate,' she said briskly. I didn't argue, and Will and I grabbed an ankle apiece. I could not help staring, a stupid grin on my face despite the horror all around, at my friend. Short minutes ago he had been as dead to me as the corpse we now hauled, skull bouncing on stone, over to where Benno lay. There was blood here, to be sure. We dumped the cudgel-man across Benno. I bent over the crumpled swordsman and pulled at Thorn. I had to put my foot on his chest and wrench the blade out. When I stood up again, Anna and Will were looking at the corpses as if they were cabbages on a market stand. 'If we hew at this fellow with the other's axe, it might seem as if they killed each other,' Will said, as if discussing a grammatical point in the Epistles. Anna was nodding thoughtfully. Then we heard footsteps and voices, and above us a rusty shutter was wrestled open.

'Leave them!' I had found my voice. 'Hurry, for God's sake -we'll be seen.'

She grabbed my hand. And you,' she said, turning to Will. 'Stay if you like or come with us to the river, but come now!'

I turned to Will. He cocked his head towards the fast-approaching voices. Then his face broke into the wolfish grin I remembered so well.

'The river? Let's run, then,' he said, and without another word took off down the street. Anna shoved her satchel at me. 'And there,' she hissed, pointing to where her absurd green hat lay next to the dead swordsman. I snatched it up and then we were chasing Will pell-mell along the cobbles. He ducked into another side street, still running, and we followed. Will knew his way through the maze of the city, and cut up and down three more alleys. Anna ran alongside me, her clothes hitched up around her knees. All too soon I felt my chest tighten and my limbs grow heavy. From Anna's tight grimace I knew she was flagging too. We had spent too long cramped aboard the Cormaran. Our limbs had all but withered on our bodies. I knew that, very soon, I would be able to run no further. Then Will ducked out of sight again, and following, we almost ran into him. He had stopped and was peering round a corner. Looking over his shoulder, I saw we had reached a broad street at the end of which, and very near, a gate rose against the lightening sky.

'The Porte Saint Eloi,' whispered Will. 'It will be opening in a minute or so. We'll walk through nice and quietly. You two are the lord and lady, and I'm your bodyguard, just behind you with my head down. If they hail us, perhaps the lady-' and he nodded politely at Anna,'-should answer. And cover yourself up, Patch. You're a mite bloody.'

I had no idea how far we had just run, but there were no sounds of pursuit. The bodies had surely been discovered by now, though, and it would be to the gates that the Watch would first send word. We had to slip through before that happened. I looked down at myself. Dimitri would curse me for sure when he saw what I had done to my tunic. I wrapped myself in my cloak, shuddering as the blood-dampened clothing pressed against my skin. I still had Anna's hat scrunched in my fist. I hid it away in the satchel. Anna did not look like one who had just run for her life through strange alleyways. Her cheeks were alive with colour, but when she dropped the hem of her robe and drew herself up I almost gasped at the way the princess emerged from the panting fugitive. She unclasped her hood and pushed it back. Gold mesh shone against black hair. I doubted, all of a sudden, that if anyone had witnessed the fight, they would believe that this regal creature could have been within a mile of such vulgar goings-on. I hoped I looked like enough of a gentleman to be her escort. I doubted it. And Will: Will was the perfect cutthroat. I studied him for a moment. He wore a hood with a long, trailing point that hung far down his back. His black surcoat was unadorned. He wore it over a long, leather cuirass the colour of old blood that hung down to his knees. Muddy high-boots were drawn over undyed wool hose.

What do you say, Patch?' he asked, feeling my eyes upon him.

I grabbed the front of his surcoat and shook it gently. You are a soldier,' I said, wondering.

'I am,' he said. 'And a sergeant-at-arms, no less. My company is the black boar, under Sir Andrew Hardie.' 'I thought you were dead, Will!' I blurted.

Well, I knew you must be.' He reached out and prodded me in the stomach. 'Real enough, though,' he said. When Kervezey… But let's wait. I am a stranger to your lady, and that must be remedied.' He turned to Anna, and made a perfect courtier's bow that sent his hood flopping down over his eyes.

Anna looked at me over Will's back, her eyebrows high arches of bemused enquiry.

Will,' I said, before he could open his mouth, 'This is Anna Doukaina Komnena, Princess Royal, niece of the Emperor John Doukas of Byzantium.'

He straightened up with a jerk and looked from Anna to me and back again, his face a study in bemusement.

'Oh, come on, Patch, I never…' he started, but a sound from the street behind us cut him off. There were shouts, a creaking and groaning, thuds.

Anna peeped around the corner. 'The gates are open,' she said.

'Right,' I said. They would hang us all three times over while we explained everything to each other. Anna, your cloak. Straighten your tunic. Can you see any blood on me? Good. Will, two paces behind, I think, don't you?'

'Right you are,' said Will. 'Give me that bag, Patch. Chin up, and act the nobleman, for Jesus' sake.'

I hooked my arm through Anna's and we stepped out into the wide street. It was decidedly lighter now, and the sky had cleared. The last stars were burning fiercely overhead, but a glow was creeping in from the east. I did raise my chin and tried to look regal. Beside me, Anna paced calmly. Her face was an utter blank. I could hear Will pad along behind us. The gate was close. It was set in a slender tower in the city's curtain wall, a minor entryway but still guarded, I saw, by three or four helmeted men armed with halberds. A trickle of folk were already seeping in, pushing carts or staggering under sacks and bales, traders hoping to steal a march on the competition. There seemed to be no one leaving. There were four guards, I saw, sleepy and leaning on their halberds. They paid little heed to the traders, but they noticed us. The tallest straightened and nudged his fellows. I heard our shoes scrape, tap, scrape on the stones. Perhaps we could fight our way through… but these men were armoured. I saw mail shirts and leggings. I chewed on the inside of my cheek and prayed that I looked lordly.

As we reached the gate, the tallest guard, whom I took to be the sergeant, shouldered his halberd and stepped towards us.

'Good morrow to you, my lord, my lady,' he said. 'It is an early morning to be setting off, to be sure.'

'Early it is, but we are late,' I said, in the best French I could muster, looking at the soldier down my nose. I am decieving no one, I thought wildly to myself. And indeed the guard's look seemed to sharpen.

Just as I thought his fingers were tightening on his pikestaff, Anna swept off her hood, revealing her hair in its golden prison. In the half-dawn her skin was very white.

'Do they presume to bandy words with you, my lord?' she asked me, turning her head deliberately from the guards.

'So it seems,' I said. Anna's gaze was drilling into me. I understood what was required.

We have no time to waste with fools,' I barked. 'You will bow down before the Princess Doukaina Komnena, and keep your eyes on the ground where they belong as we pass by.'

The sergeant stared, slack-jawed, at Anna. She did not flinch, but drew her right hand slowly from her cloak. For a horrible moment I thought she was drawing her sword. But instead she held out her hand to the man. On her third finger, huge and heavy, was a ring I had never seen before. The man gawped at it, and dropped to his knees with a crunch of chain-mail. The others, watching, followed suit.

"Your pardon, Highness,' he mumbled. 'My men are good boys, and this is only the Porte Saint Eloi – we don't get…' The poor man was almost wringing his hands. We beg your forgiveness.'

And so we passed through, killers, defilers of churches, fornicators and outlaws, as armed men grovelled in the dung. I felt their eyes on our backs as we paced on, turning to our right towards the grander turrets of the Porte de Cailhau. There was a wide open space before us, over which a few figures were moving. A little way ahead, tents had sprung up and men were milling about, lighting fires and coughing noisily. Beyond them the wharves began. I could barely keep my steps even as we strolled over the well-trodden marsh-grass, breathing in the soft air of morning and the salt of the Gironde. It seemed like a thousand years before we reached the clutch of tents and passed among them. Will was at my side at once.

That was well done, my boy,' he said. I saw that he was as white as a sheet, but still grinning. 'It was lovely, the way those bastards got down in the stink.' We aren't safe yet,' I muttered.

'From them we are,' he replied. 'They won't say a solitary word about this to anyone. They're town men. If the town got wind that they'd shamed a great lady and her retinue, there would be whippings all round. No, they'll keep mum.'

'Not much of a retinue, though,' I said. 'They must have been suspicious of us on foot – Anna should have been aboard a snow-white palfrey at the very least.'

And I on a mule, I suppose,' said Will. 'No, we fooled everyone. By the way, I forgot to tell you about the crossbowmen. Two at least, above the gate in the tower. I'll bet their eyes were out on stalks.' 'Crossbowmen?' Anna and I said together.

"They clean slipped my mind,' Will said happily. Then his face grew serious. ‘Your Highness, you truly are… a princess?'

She fixed Will with her most imperious stare, the one that could reduce Pavlos to tears. Then she smiled. 'I am. And you, if my guess is right, are a Northumbrian. Alnwick?' 'Morpeth,' stammered Will, aghast. 'How on earth…?' 'I am a princess,' she said, happily.

Will was still gawping, so I linked arms with him as I had done so many times in another life. 'She is indeed a princess,' I explained, 'But she had English guards – what do you call them, Anna? Valerians?' 'Varangians, idiot,' she laughed.

'Anyway, she speaks better English than… than you, certainly, you sheep-shagger.'

'Christ!' muttered Will, awestruck. I had never seen him so amazed and, feeling a great surge of joy, I grabbed Anna with my other arm and, three abreast, we tripped through the dewy grass like milkmaids on their way to the fair.

When we were beyond the tents and breathing a little more easily, Anna picked up her trailing hems and I pushed back my hood. The day was arriving, and the sun crept up behind us and flooded the river with gold. We were coming to a part of the wharf I recognised. There were the sea-steps where the long-boat had dropped us off yesterday. This was the spot where the bowman had run into Anna. A wave of nausea hit me suddenly, and I put my hand on Anna's shoulder. Beyond the nausea I felt a black cloud of guilt, of horror, crawling towards me. I looked out into the river. There was the Cormaran, radiant in the new light. And there, sitting on the sea-steps, were Pavlos and Elia, with the long-boat bobbing below them.

Pavlos saw us first. He leaped to his feet, almost lost his footing on the slimy weed, and staggered up onto the wharf. His face looked like a skull, so dark were the hollows around his eyes, put there by worry and, I had no doubt, the work of the poppy. Never taking his eyes from Anna, he reeled towards us and threw himself to the ground at her feet. He seemed to be trying to kiss her shoes. Anna tried to pull them away.

' Vassileia’. Before the Panayia I beg you, forgive your servant Pavlos… I have abandoned you like a Judas! False friend and false servant! Holy mother and all the holy saints believe me, I…'

'Come now, Pavlos,' said Anna, in the tone that I had come to think of as her Vassileia voice – regal and a trifle exasperated. 'Let us put it from our minds. You must have been tired, dear man. But I was in good hands, and quite safe. You are quite forgiven. Let us put it from our minds and never speak of it again.' And she patted him on the head. He looked up adoringly and only then did he notice Will.

My friend was standing at my side, staring unconcernedly out to sea. He saw Pavlos jump to his feet and turned to face him with a look I had never seen before: blandly pleasant with an inner flickering of alertness, even menace. He gave Pavlos a curt nod. 'G'morrow,' he said.

Pavlos narrowed his eyes. The same dangerous flicker played over his face. 'Who are you, then, my friend?' he asked.

I hastily laid a hand on Will's shoulder, as if to claim him. 'Pavlos, it has been a night of horrors and wonders, but there has never been a wonder like this: my greatest friend in the world, whom I saw die, has returned to life. This is William of Morpeth, former scholar and cleric, now… what would you call yourself, Will?'

'Hungry!' he said, and the spell was broken. The Greek smiled a little, then held out his hand. To my enormous relief Will took it and gave it a good warm shake. 'To answer Patch's question properly, I would call myself a soldier, which is what I take you for, friend Pavlos.' 'Returned from the dead? Is this so?' Pavlos asked. Will chuckled. The Greek was opening his satchel and offering Will a hunk of bread. I let out a deep sigh and looked about me. Elia peered sheepishly over the edge of the dock. Anna waved regally in his direction. It was rather dreadful to see his face light up. I walked carefully over to the sea-wall and sat down, dangling my legs over the edge. The memory of the swordsman's innards clenching and unclenching around my blade had come back to me unbidden, and for a moment I felt faint. What had I done? I looked at my hands and they were streaked and stained with red. My fingernails were black. I wanted to wash them, but the wall was too high, so I tucked them beneath my legs instead. The sharp brine-soaked air felt clean and reviving, and in a few moments I could look at the Cormaran in the distance without the urge to puke.

You do not look well, my friend,' said Elia from the gig. I shook my head.

My mind was starting to turn again, slowly, and I forced myself to think. There must be witnesses to the fight, although would the deaths of three murderous rogues cause any great upset? I must talk to the Captain, and soon, I decided, and stood up.

'Pavlos,' I said, 'There is something you must know. Hardly an hour ago, the lady Anna and I were attacked by… three men, English archers. One of them was the fellow who had words with us last morning. They are dead. Anna – I mean the Vassileia – killed one, I another, Will the last. We ran, but we must, must have been seen. The gatemen did not suspect us and dared not obstruct the princess. But there will surely be a hue and cry. I think we should make our way back to the Cormaran now, if we can.'

As I said my piece, Pavlos' eyes had widened, then narrowed. Now he looked me up and down, and I believe I saw something like admiration in his stare. 'Killed, you say,' he snapped. You know this?' Yes,' I nodded. "Where were they wounded? Tell me quick.' 'One in the throat, one in the chest, one in the eye.' 'The chest-wound – he died?' "Yes… he died.' You are sure.' 'I am sure.' Why? Hard to be sure, with a chest-wound.'

'Because,' I said through clenched teeth, the sickness rising once again from my stomach, 'I cut him all to pieces inside. I felt him die.' Pavlos nodded, all business. 'The eye – he was dead.' 'For certain,' said Will, cheerfully. You are sure?' Will shrugged. 'I stirred his brains around a bit.' 'Good lad. And the throat?' Pavlos cocked his head at Anna. 'Oh, yes,' said Anna.

'I am sorry, Vassileia. But it is important that none of these creatures lived, even for a little while, to tell tales. And… Petroc said you killed him, this bowman?' It was plain he did not believe that such a thing might be possible.

'She did, Pavlos. One thrust. And fought the other like a…' I paused. I had been about to say 'like a man', but that seemed, I thought, inadequate. She had fought like a flame, like an archangel with a fiery sword. 'She is a warrior,' I said instead. 'Truly.' 'Vassileia?' asked Pavlos.

Anna shrugged. 'I was raised by our Varangians,' she said. You know that. They let me watch while they trained. I would join in. They thought I showed promise, I suppose, so they taught me.' 'I knew many Varangians,' said Pavlos, wistfully.

'My fencing master was a Hereford man,' said Anna. 'Fourth son of a knight. The best swordsman in Greece – his name was John de Couville.' 'Eh!' gasped Pavlos, crossing himself. 'Kovils! He taught you? Po po po…' He ran a thumb back and forth across his mouth.

The sun is getting high,' prompted Anna. Pavlos dragged his hand across his eyes, and looked up. He was smiling -faintly and with a certain lack of conviction, but smiling nonetheless.

'Well, my Vassileia,' he said, 'perhaps some fencing lessons? If, that is, you are taking on new pupils.' He blinked like an owl in the daylight, and we blinked back at him in surprised relief. 'Meanwhile, back to the ship with us all, before difficult questions are asked.' He paused and turned to Will, then jerked his chin up and regarded him down the length of his lordly nose. And you. What shall we do with you, O risen one?'

'He cannot stay here,' I said. 'He will be pursued along with us. They will kill him if he does not come with us on the Cormaran.'

'They?' Pavlos said, sharply. It was incredible that he could be so unbelievably, terrifyingly calm. I waved my hand frantically towards the walls. 'The Watch,' I almost yelled. Pavlos rubbed his red-rimmed eyes in exasperation, then pressed his hands to his forehead.

'I cannot… Come, then. You will talk to the Captain and he will decide. Now we will go. Now!' And he snapped his fingers at Elia, who began to pull the gig in towards the wharf. Will turned to me, his face slack with relief.

As the drug-fuddled Greeks dipped and pulled their oars, a great joy at being free and alive rushed over me. I glanced over at Anna and caught her eye, then Will's, and then we were laughing with sheer relief, as Bordeaux drew away from us and the sun warmed our faces.

The reckoning I feared never came. We were not even late back, I realised, and there were bloody, bruised faces aplenty amongst the crew who had returned before us. Mirko had his arm in a sling, and one of the Italians seemed to be missing an ear. I thought I would puke on the scrubbed deck as Pavlos reported to the Captain, who merely looked at us over the Greek's slumped shoulder. When he strolled over, it was merely to shake me by the arm in an almost fatherly way.

'Where did you find her, Pavlos?' There was a commotion behind me. Anna stood in a circle of crewmen, Pavlos at her side like the palace guard he was. She seemed to have grown -she rose above the men like a huntsman among a pack of hounds. How gnarled and villainous they seemed in comparison, jostling and nudging one another as they crowded round, uncertain what to make of this radiant apparition. I knew, though, that they could not be happy. Women aboard a ship: it was bad luck, it meant trouble. The men, ragged, mauled and hung-over from their night ashore, were not in the best of tempers. They were turning into a mob. Pavlos' knuckles were beginning to whiten around the pommel of his sword as I elbowed my way to his side, but then Anna's voice, clear and deep, froze us in place.

Well, O Stefano, did you find your plump Spanish girl, your little Cabretta? By your sour face I would guess not. And Carlo, what happened to your ear? Did you hear Dimitri's confession?'

The bark from the back of the crowd was Dimitri's laugh. The one-eared master-at-arms was forever making as if to whisper secrets to us, then grabbing the proffered ear in his teeth and growling like, as he put it, a hungry Tartar. Stefano had a taste for a certain type of women he called his 'little goats'. And Carlo was a defrocked priest from Ancona who had killed his mistress's lover in a duel after fate had brought the man to his confessional. Who is she, Pavlos? She knows us,' said Horst. 'A sorceress!' hissed Guthlaf.

'Right enough – put her over the side,' called Latchna, the sailmaker from Galway.

'Oh, silence, Lak! You're still sour because you missed your cockfight in Dublin,' Anna shot back.

‘You go over the side, Lak, you fucking seamstress,' growled Dimitri. 'Let the woman be.'

I saw that half the men were simply enthralled by Anna and gawped like netted carp. Others clearly wished to make her acquaintance in the usual ungentle ways, but a few, those like Guthlaf, who were born to the sea and knew it as their only home, were truly angry and frightened to the same degree. Superstition runs as deep as the dark ocean in the lives of sailors, and their worlds can be as small as the curved walls of their ship. To them, Anna might be a woman, but she might also be a thing from that place where the cold tide rolls drowned men's bones forever over black sand. It was clearly not something they felt like chancing. "Who is she?' Horst demanded.

'The Princess Anna Doukaina Komnena of the house of Nicea, under the Captain's protection and mine,' said Pavlos, coolly.

'I am she,' said Anna, catching her hair and pulling it tight behind her head. 'But you know me already.'

The crowd went dead quiet. Guthlaf’s jaw hung open like a broken shutter. Then Dimitri's harsh laughter grated over us. 'Mikal? My God, boy, what have they done to you?'

The tension broke in an instant as one by one, the crew caught on and began to smile, then laugh. Pavlos caught my eye and we grinned queasily. But it seemed that, although the joke was on them, the men were finding it hilariously funny. They swarmed around us, eagerly staring into Anna's face for a glimpse of their favourite Basque castaway.

What a boy you made,' they cried. And what a sailor! Come back to us, princess, come back to us!'

Anna was laughing too. She held out her hands, and her rings flashed and sparkled. "You taught me well, friends, and made me welcome – the warmest welcome I have had for… for many a year. I cannot be Mikal again, alas – I cannot bind my chest a day longer, for one thing. But I will be Anna, if our Captain doesn't object.'

'I have no objections,' said the Captain. You do us honour with your presence, Vassileia, and you, men of the Cormaran, should be glad of it: it seems this lady can swing a sword as well as she can reef in a sail. Now back to work, boys. We sail in an hour. There is too much trouble in this town for us, and we have trouble to make elsewhere.'

He turned and walked back towards his cabin, pausing at my shoulder. A word, if you please, Petroc.'

So I had not escaped after all. With a stricken glance at Will I dragged myself after him like a hog to the butchering table. He closed the door behind me and motioned me to a chair while he paced.

'Pavlos has told me what happened. Now I will hear it from you.'

So I told him. You could not lie to the Captain – that is to say, I could not. He wanted details about the men who had confronted us on the riverside, and who we had seen in the city. To my great relief he made me gloss over the night's revelries – 'your affair and yours only' – but I had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew everything. Meanwhile, he drew forth every last shred I could give him of the fight, and I forced the tale from me, shuddering and queasy with the telling of it. 'These were Englishmen, you say.' Yes, sir. Rough bowmen.' 'Did they bear any crest, any insignia?' 'None. Though one was from Bristol, I would swear.'

'Mercenaries, very likely. That would make sense. And none escaped you?' I shook my head. 'That is good. You did well. Are you worried about consequences? Do not be. There was more blood spilt last night than at your hand.' What do you mean?' 'Two other parties of my men were attacked by men such as you met, and…' 'I saw Mirko.' 'Mirko had his arm shattered by a stave. He was carousing with Jens and Hanno. You will not see Jens again, alas.' Jens…

'They cut his throat. Mirko was lucky: Hanno did for the one with the stave. The others – English, all of them – got away. And Gilles had a small set-to also. An Englishman tried to stick him with a poignard. This was at midnight near the cathedral.' 'Is he hurt?'

'Gilles? No, no. The man with the knife… the city fathers will be scratching their beards today over a pile of dead Englishmen, it is certain.' He fell silent, and suddenly his gaze was eating into me like vitriol. 'This William, this miraculous, resurrected savior, is the friend you thought Kervezey had killed, yes?' I nodded, dumbly. Yet he is alive, and in Bordeaux, and at the right spot to be of service to you and the Princess Anna. Do you know how that might be possible?' I shook my head. Looking up, I met the Captain's eyes.

'He was following us. So he says, and I believe him. He was roving – that is his nature – and thought he glimpsed me. Thinking he had seen a ghost, he trailed us through the streets, and… As he said, he was not the only rogue abroad that night.'

If anything, the Captain's stare grew more intense, and he leaned towards me like a great, hungry bird of prey. I felt like Saint Bartholomew, slowly flayed alive.

'In that great city of – what? Ten thousand souls, he found you?'

'He is a mercenary, sir! The city is full of them. The Company of the Boar's Head… no, the Black Boar – he serves with them. He's been here for weeks. And he's no respecter of curfews or nightwatchmen, and…' I swallowed. '… He chases whores. I know Will as if he were my own brother, sir. Again, I swear that he saved us.'

'That at least is clear. But not much else is. It seems that none of this was accidental, does it not? Someone was having the riverside watched – by your bowman, among others. And then some – perhaps all – who came ashore from the Cormaran were followed.'

'But we met those men by chance. Anna actually stumbled over one of them.'

'There was nothing of chance about it. Think. Bordeaux is a big town, and full of soldiers. What kind of coincidence would it be to run into this same fellow, in the dead of night, and him with armed and willing friends?' A very ill-mannered one, to be sure.'

'So you begin to see. We were expected, and traps were set. Not for you in particular, Patch, but for anyone from the Cormaran. And there is more. The client I came to see could not receive me, and my other business… I was to meet a friend I had great need of talking to, and he was not there. Indeed he was long gone. And that is why we are leaving immediately.' Who is behind this, do you know?' 'I do not know; I suspect.' And Will? We cannot leave him here!'

The Captain sighed, mildly, as if someone had told him that his dinner would be a little late. 'I need to have a very long talk with Master Will,' he said. 'He was a scholar, like you. I would like to hear him discourse on the nature of coincidence.'

I dropped my head into my hands. Would I find peace ever again? I felt as if my skull was cracking like a clay pot filled with hot embers. I had killed a man. Anna and I… I could not think of that now. And Will. I wished the deck would open and let me drop down into the cold, deep darkness of the river. Then I felt the Captain's hand on my shoulder once more.

'Peace, Patch. I believe you. Your friend has an honest face. A very villainous face, to be sure, but honest. He will tell me his tale, and perhaps we will know a little more. But one thing I know: someone is trying to take over our business. I have been feeling it for a while now, more intuition than certainty. Then I had some news in Dublin: enquiries were being made about us. My contacts there were uncomfortable, and I decided then to press on for Bordeaux. Sometimes troubles like that disappear of their own accord, but now…'

He stood up suddenly and stretched, pressing his palms against the dark wood of the ceiling. Towering above me, he seemed to fill the cabin.

'Now cheer up, Petroc my friend,' he said, briskly. 'At least this time we are sailing towards the sun.'