Tom Harper - The mosaic of shadows

‘And how did your wife view your profession?’

I looked up sharply. ‘What of my wife?’

‘What of the ring on your finger?’

She pointed to my right hand, where I still wore the thin lover’s band I had first put on sixteen years ago. I had been nineteen, flushed with love and excitement and the weight of my first-earned coins in my pocket: I had insisted we go to the grandest goldsmith on the Mesi, though all my new riches afforded only the least of his jewellery. Later I found that he had swindled me even of that, that it was merely a cheap alloy coated with gold, but by then it was on my finger and I was too proud to take it off. Even now.

‘My wife is dead. She died seven years ago, haemorrhaging from her womb.’

Unexpectedly, Anna reached over and took my hand in hers, stroking it softly. ‘I’m sorry. I should not pry.’

‘You wouldn’t know where not to pry if you didn’t ask,’ I said struggling with the calm and discomfort I felt in her touch. There was a stab of disappointment when she let go.

‘Besides,’ I said. ‘I’m speaking too much.’ That was a rare complaint, but — like the touch of her hands — I was finding it at once unnatural and relieving. There was something about this woman’s confidence that invited confession. ‘Sigurd must be bored hearing me prattle about my past.’

We both looked over to him, and Anna stifled a giggle. It seemed I had indeed bored the Varangian, so much so that he lay with his head against the column, fast asleep.

I thought Anna would be cold, or tired, but she made no move to leave; we talked on through the night in hushed voices, until at length even my eyes began to drift closed. The pauses between my sentences lengthened, and once it was only a playful slap on my knee that kept me from joining Sigurd in the world of dreams. Anna stood, stretching her arms above her so that her body pressed tight against her cloak.

‘I should sleep,’ she said. ‘There will be other patients to see tomorrow, as well as the boy. There is a spare bed in the infirmary if you want to come in out of the cold, Demetrios.’

Though there was not the least implication of lewdness in her plain words, I still blushed.

‘What about Sigurd?’ I asked.

Anna leaned over and put the back of her hand against his cheek. ‘He’s warm enough.’

‘He comes from a frozen island at the edge of the world.’ I wondered why I stiffened when I saw her touch his face. ‘He probably grew up in castles built of ice.’

‘I’ll lay a few more blankets over him. He’ll come inside if he wakes up cold.’

Anna left me in the infirmary, having assured me that there were no lepers or plague-ridden unfortunates beside me. Huddling under the covers I was soon lost in dreams, until the cock crowed and the monks filed into their chapel, and Sigurd came thundering through the door swearing he would be delayed no more.

The boy lay motionless on his bed, wearing only a plain tunic over his bandages. A damp cloth was stretched over his forehead so that he looked almost like a corpse prepared for burial, though his blue eyes opened wide with fear when he saw Sigurd and me looming over him. I was disconcerted to see that I had slept in the bed next to his all night.

Sigurd frowned at Anna, who stood at the boy’s feet and showed no intention of leaving.

‘We won’t torture him,’ he said. ‘Just talk.’ He rubbed the back of his neck; I guessed it was stiff from a cold night on a stone pillow. ‘But there are things to say which you should not hear.’

To my relief, in all our talk the night before Anna had never pressed me for what we wanted with the boy. Now, though, she folded her arms across her chest and met Sigurd’s ill-temper square on.

‘You cannot talk to him,’ she told him. ‘Not without me.’

‘I will talk to him, lady, whether you want it or no.’ Fatigue and frustration did not sit well with Sigurd. ‘And if I say that you will not be part of it, then either you will go outside until I call for you, or I will have my men drag you down to the imperial dungeon to learn obedience.’ A dozen Varangians had come to the monastery at dawn, taking up stations at the doors and gates to the obvious alarm of the monks.

Anna hardened her grip on the bedstead. ‘And which of you speaks Frankish?’

Now both of us stared at her in confusion. ‘Frankish?’ I echoed. ‘Why should either of us speak Frankish?’ I could see from Sigurd’s silence that he no more knew the tongue than I.

‘Because if you don’t, you may as well talk to a fish. I spent all day with the boy yesterday, and all he spoke or understood was Frankish.’

‘And you, of course, spoke and understood it too.’ Sigurd’s face boiled with fury, but Anna simply shrugged.

‘Enough. So near to the gates I see many pilgrims in my work; many are Franks. A doctor who cannot get her patient to tell her their ailments is unlikely to work many cures.’

There was a hostile silence. Curse the monk, I thought, for employing this barbarian rabble of Bulgars and Franks. Whether he’d worked deliberately, or with the only men he could find, he had thrown every possible obstacle into our path.

‘We’ll take him to the palace,’ said Sigurd at last, his voice alive with anger. ‘One of the secretaries will speak Frankish. And we should keep the boy somewhere he can’t escape.’

‘If you move that boy, least of all into a prison, he will be dead before sunset.’ Anna was unmoved by Sigurd’s temper; indeed, she seemed to draw strength from it and breathe it straight back at him.

‘He should die anyway.’ Sigurd was now squeezing his fist around his axe-shaft, as if crushing a man’s neck; I feared that soon the violence in his words would manifest itself in his hands. ‘For his crime, death is the only justice.’

‘We do not want the boy to die.’ I spoke forcefully, glaring at Sigurd and Anna together. ‘If the doctor says we cannot move him, then we will not move him.’ I gestured around the room: its few windows were small enough that a bird could hardly have flown through them. ‘If we have a guard on the door, and another within, the boy will be safe from harm and barred from escape. Now as we have waited a long night to speak with him, and as every minute we waste gives time and aid to the Emperor’s enemies — with whom this boy is our only link — I propose we use Anna’s gifts immediately.’

Sigurd’s chest swelled so tight I thought he might burst free of his armour. He clashed the greaves on his forearms together, then slammed a fist onto the wooden table beside him.

‘I will go to the palace and find someone who speaks Frankish,’ he said, his voice brittle with bridled anger. ‘Someone trustworthy. What you choose to do before I return is your own business, Askiates, but you will answer for it alone.’

‘I will answer to the man who pays me,’ I said. I was growing bored of Sigurd’s rages, though I never imagined he did it in bluff. ‘And he does not pay me for dallying.’

With a final, derisive snort Sigurd stormed out of the room, berating his men for imagined inadequacies as he passed them in the courtyard. Then all was still: through the window I heard the low tenor of the monks’ liturgy.

I looked at Anna, shame clouding my face. ‘I apologise for his temper. He has too much faith in fists and swords, and a consuming regard for his duty.’

She gave a thin smile. ‘You’re not to blame. But if you want to make best use of your time, you had better leave too.’

‘What? Did you not hear what I told him? I need to speak with the boy immediately.’

‘You’ll learn more from the boy if you sit out there on the steps. Look at him. You and the guard have frightened him half to death — and death was already far too near for comfort.’