Tom Harper - The mosaic of shadows

‘A boy?’ I said at last. ‘The assassin was a boy? Has the Bulgar seen him since?’

It seemed an age while my words were echoed into the Bulgar tongue, then while the interpreter frowned in concentration at the long answer he was given. He curled a finger through his beard and eyed me nervously, sensing the importance that had settled on this last question, though in no way understanding it.

‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘He did see him again. He says he tried to kill him this morning.’

I was running out of the dungeon almost before the priest had spoken, out past the blank ranks of lamplit slaves, up the twisted steps, and into the mercy of the cool air in the courtyard above. There were shouts and footsteps behind me but I did not care: I had held the assassin in my arms only hours ago, had saved him from an almost certain death. I looked about at the great columns enclosing me like a giant cage, and realised I did not even know my way out of the palace.

‘Where did you take him?’

I spun around to see Sigurd emerging from the stair behind me. He was breathing heavily, though still could hold his axe with a single hand.

‘To a monastery.’ I hesitated, suddenly thinking what he might do to the boy who had tried to kill the Emperor. Of course a murderer deserved death — but I had saved his life, and I had not shaken the soldier’s superstition that you buy a man’s life only with a small piece of your own.

‘Which monastery?’ Sigurd demanded. ‘Christ! The boy might already be gone. There’s no time.’

‘The monastery of Saint Andrew. In the Sigma district.’

‘Follow me.’

His armour jangling like shackles, he led me at a run through the corridors of the palace. The scribes and noblemen we passed stared but said nothing; no guards challenged us. Doors opened before us as if by some unseen hand, and sometimes it seemed that a room which I had seen cast in darkness as we approached was bathed in light when we arrived. Then the lamps became scarcer, the stairs steeper. There was little life in this part of the palace, and that, mostly furtive-faced slaves scurrying past with their eyes cast down. I hastened to keep close to Sigurd.

At length the columns and marble floors gave out and we came into a low tunnel. Sigurd nodded to the brick vaults above our heads.

‘The hippodrome.’

We passed under it in silence, our footsteps mute on the sandy floor. There was a gate at the end and Sigurd had the key: beyond it I could hear sounds of life, of laughter and labour, and smell the warm odour of horses.

‘Hipparch!’ bellowed Sigurd. ‘Hipparch! We need two horses, saddled and bridled.’

‘Late for your mistress again?’ A tall man, elegantly dressed, stepped into the square of the stable yard.

‘At least I have a woman, you horse-fucker.’ Sigurd clapped him on the shoulder. ‘But she will have to wait.’

The hipparch raised his eyebrows. ‘So urgent? I have two mounts awaiting the logothete’s dispatches.’

‘Then the dispatches can wait too. Send a boy to the chamberlain and tell him we’ve gone to the monastery of Saint Andrew, in Sigma.’ A thought struck him. ‘You can ride, can you, Demetrios?’

I could, although galloping a horse bred for the imperial post through the darkening streets of the megapolis was not something I was practised in. It taxed all my luck and concentration merely staying upright on the beast, and it was a mercy that with the day ending the crowds were gone, and that the emerging watchmen had the wit to retreat into the arcades as Sigurd and I thundered past.

We arrived at the monastery, Sigurd sliding off his horse and crossing swiftly to the gates. They were locked, but the butt of his axe-shaft was soon pounding out notice of our arrival loud enough to reach the ears of the dead in the distant necropolis.

A small door set within the gate cracked open a finger’s breadth.

‘Who’s there?’ Suspicion and fear had driven all trace of sleep from the speaker’s mouth.

‘Sigurd, captain of Varangians and guardian of Emperors. You keep a boy with you who I need to see.’ Sigurd shouted the words like a challenge in the arena.

The monk, to my surprise, found sufficient moral indignation to resist.

‘The monastery is closed for contemplation and prayer. You may return in the morning. No-one passes the gate during the hours of darkness.’

‘I have almost lamed two of the logothete’s finest horses to come here.’ Sigurd was working himself into a powerful frenzy. ‘I will not now sit on your doorstep.’ Without warning, he lifted his boot and slammed it into the wooden door; there was a yelp of pain as it swung inwards.

We stepped through, Sigurd scraping his shoulders on the frame. Inside a monk was rubbing a bruised shoulder, and cursing us with words that no man of God should know, but we ignored him as I led the way across the courtyard to the arched doorway where I had left the boy. Forestalling Sigurd’s axe, I knocked.

‘One day your patience will betray you,’ Sigurd fretted as we waited in the cold darkness. ‘If this doctor’s in there, let me call him out.’

‘One day you’ll knock down the wrong door,’ I told him, ‘and find so many enemies your axe will be blunted before you can kill all of them.’

Sigurd shrugged. ‘Then I’ll beat their heads in with the haft.’

‘And leave another to clean their wounds.’

We both looked to the door, which had silently opened to reveal the woman doctor to whom I’d entrusted the boy. She held a candle, and wore only a long woollen shift which left her arms and feet entirely bare. There were rises in the fabric where her nipples pressed against it: the sight of them stirred something within me, but the look on her face was of pure anger.

‘What do you mean by hammering down the monastery gates at this hour, and then calling me from my work? If you must profane the laws of God, you might at the least respect the business of healing.’

‘We seek the boy who was brought here this morning,’ said Sigurd, before I could offer an apology. ‘Is he here?’

She gazed at him contemptuously, while my heart raced to hear the answer. Had we come so close, only to be denied our prize by my compassion?

She tossed her head. ‘He’s here. He could hardly have left. He cannot stand, let alone walk. At the moment he sleeps.’

‘We must see him. Immediately.’ Sigurd’s voice was heavy with menace. ‘We come on palace business.’

Two flames were reflected back in the doctor’s dark eyes. ‘The Emperor himself cannot raise a sick boy to health simply by his command. The boy is feverish and delirious. At the moment he is sleeping, and that is probably the most wholesome thing he has done in a month. Unless you are the man who sliced so deeply into his leg, you would tremble to wake him.’

‘Lady, I am the man who stopped the Bulgar from killing him.’ Sigurd’s voice was loud now, and he stepped forward so that he almost touched her. She was minute before him, like Andromeda beneath the Kraken, but she did not waver.

‘No,’ she said. ‘While the boy sleeps, you wait.’

‘What if he escapes by the back door?’ Sigurd was in retreat, now, but he would not surrender until he was satisfied.

‘There is no back door, Captain — only two high windows through which you would struggle to fit your forearm. Good night.’ And blowing out the candle, she left us in darkness. On the far side of the door I heard a bolt shoot home.

Sigurd stood very still, staring at his axe where it caught the moonlight.

‘You can’t chop your way in,’ I warned wearily. I sat down on the step and leaned my back against the base of a column. ‘And the boy won’t move. What can we do but wait?’