Tom Harper - The mosaic of shadows

‘And will you spend your day asking every shopkeeper on the street whether he saw a fearsome assassin wander up his stairs, with a mythical weapon and a bunch of dates?’

I thought on this. ‘No,’ I decided. For three gold coins a day, I reasoned, such errands should be beneath me: Krysaphios would not want his treasure squandered. ‘You can do it.’

The captain’s red face flushed darker, and with a sudden movement he drove the chisel hard into the table. The fine point snapped at the impact. ‘Take care, Master Askiates,’ he bellowed, hurling the broken tool into a corner. ‘The Varangians serve to protect the Emperor’s life and to destroy his enemies. I have fought at his side in a dozen desperate battles, where the blood ran like rivers in the wilderness and the carrion-birds feasted for weeks. I will not be found begging gossip off merchants.’

Sunlight shone through the windows, and myriad fragments of dust and ivory swirled in the light as the Varangian and I stared at each other in silence. He glared at me with fury, one hand on the mace at his belt, while I levelled my eyes and tensed my shoulders. And in the brittle hush between us, there came the slight sound of an unguarded sneeze.

We both spun to the stairs from where it had come. There, just beyond a shaft of light and dust, was one of the carver’s young daughters, sitting on the bottom step and chewing a length of her dark hair. She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her dress, and twisted her hands in her skirt as she looked shyly across at me.

‘I was on the roof yesterday,’ she said quietly. ‘Mamma doesn’t let me, but I was.’

At these simple words I almost jumped across the room, but I controlled myself enough to walk slowly over to her, a broad smile fixed intently on my face. I knelt down in front of her so that our heads were almost level, stroked her arm, and pushed some of the hair out of her face.

‘You were on the roof yesterday,’ I repeated. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Miriam,’ she said, looking down at her hands.

‘And what did you see on the roof yesterday, Miriam?’ Although I had assumed an easy, carefree tone, my face must have shown that every sinew in my body was tensed with expectation.

And doomed to frustration; she shook her head, and giggled softly to herself. ‘My friends,’ she said. ‘We play.’

‘Your friends,’ I echoed. ‘Other children? How about a man, a man carrying a big bow and arrow, like a soldier. Like him, perhaps,’ I added, gesturing to the Varangian behind me.

But again she shook her head, more vigorously this time. ‘Not like him. We played. Then Mamma found me and was cross. She hit me. I got a bruise.’ She began to lift her skirts to show me, but I hastily tugged them down over her legs: there were certain things I did not need evidenced.

‘And was this long before you watched the big procession?’

She considered this seriously for a moment. ‘No. She hit me and then we looked at the purple man on the horse.’

She seemed as though she might say more, but at that moment we heard her name being called from above, her mother sounding far less demure than when she’d spoken with me. Miriam hopped up off her seat, opened her eyes very wide and put a finger to her lips, then turned and ran up the stairs. Her bare feet made no sound on the smooth stone.

‘Well,’ said the captain, folding his arms over his barrel of a chest. ‘He shoots like lightning, he eats dates — and he’s invisible. How do you unveil an invisible man, Askiates?’

‘I’m leaving,’ I said shortly, ignoring his taunts. ‘There are men I must see.’

‘Not invisible men, then?’ Clearly he found this infinitely amusing.

‘Not invisible men.’

‘Aelric and Sweyn will go with you. The eunuch commands that you be guarded at all times.’

‘That’s impossible.’ I wondered how much Krysaphios wanted me guarded, and how much watched. ‘The men I am seeing are not those who would speak freely in front of palace guards.’ Nor indeed welcome their company at all.

I expected the captain to protest, to offer the argument that those who would avoid the guards were those who ought most encounter them, but he did not; instead he merely shrugged his shoulders.

‘As you choose,’ he grunted. ‘But if you want to give the eunuch his report, you will be back at the palace by nightfall. Otherwise the Watch will have you — and have you flogged for breaking the curfew.’

The thought did not appear to trouble him.

I crossed the road, turned onto a side-street and plunged down the hill, heading for the merchant quarters and the Golden Horn. The path was steep and winding, frequently breaking into short flights of stairs where the slope was too treacherous, and I was grateful that the ashen skies had not yet delivered up their rain or I would have been upended many a time. The walls around me were sheer and tall, broken seldom by doors and never by windows: they were the fortified courtyards of Venetian traders, who kept their wares, like their lives, locked away from sight. Occasionally a slave or a servant slipped through one of the stout bronze gates, but more often the street was deserted.

Gradually, though, my surroundings became less imposing, the buildings first unassuming, then modest, and finally humble. Shops appeared, crowding the alley with wares and smoke and the shouts of their owners, boasts of quality and promises of bargains unimaginable. Now I had to push my way through, resisting every manner of blandishment and enticement, while the upper storeys of the buildings reached closer and closer together, until I could imagine myself in the high basilica of an enormous church. So, at last, I came to the house of the fletcher.

‘Demetrios!’ As I stooped under his lintel, he put down the fistful of feathers he held and rose, limping out from behind his table to embrace me like a brother.

‘Lukas.’ I clapped my arms around his back, then retreated a step to let him take the weight off his twisted leg. ‘How does the trade go?’

Lukas laughed, pulling a bottle and two cracked mugs from under his table and splashing out generous measures of wine. ‘Well enough to give you a drink. As long as Turks and Normans keep their women mothering sons, there’ll be targets enough for my arrows.’ He leaned forward. ‘And there are rumours, Demetrios — rumours of a new war, of a great barbarian army coming to drive the Turks back to Persia.’

‘I’ve heard those rumours too,’ I acknowledged. ‘But I’ve heard them every month since you and I fought by the Lake of Forty Martyrs, and all I’ve ever seen come were adventurers who turned on us as soon as they had our gold, or visionary peasants.’

Lukas shrugged, and poured more wine. ‘Barbarians or no, I’ll still have a living. My masters at the palace have never reduced their order in a dozen years.’

We talked on for some minutes, swapping memories old and new, some shared but mostly separate, until — in a silence — I pulled Krysaphios’ mysterious missile from the folds of my cloak.

‘What do you make of this?’ I passed it to Lukas. ‘Could you make me a bow that could fire it, and with enough venom to pierce a steel hauberk?’

Lukas took the arrow in his hands and examined it closely, squinting in the dull light. ‘A bowyer could build you a bow that would fire it,’ he said, carefully. ‘If you wanted a toy, a plaything for your daughter. Perhaps she needs to fend off importunate suitors?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘But this arrow would make a dangerous toy — someone could injure themselves on it.’ He stroked a finger over the encrusted blood. ‘Indeed, it seems someone has.’

‘Someone has,’ I agreed.