Relics (24 page)

'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.