Tom Harper - The mosaic of shadows

In my body there was now no resistance; every part of me was tugging, kissing or squeezing her, but my mind held out. Was this blasphemy? Did I defile Maria’s memory, our marriage before God? But the Lord had not condemned me to the celibate life of a widower forever. And Maria, who had matched her elder daughter’s pragmatism with her younger daughter’s playfulness, would not, I thought, want me living the life of a monk in her name.

Perhaps that was true, or perhaps circumstance made me wish it true, but I was in no place for reasoned moral argument. I surrendered and sank into Anna’s embrace, clutching her against me in our silent coupling.

The Blacherna gate was cold when I reached it, and colder still for the sleep I had lost. Leaving Anna’s caressing warmth behind had been hard enough, but as I plodded through empty streets to the walls, doubt and guilt and shame overtook me. How could I have surrendered to such abandon, and in the most sacred week of the year? What would my confessor say? How would the Lord God treat with me? With a long march through darkness ahead of us, and nothing but ten thousand hostile barbarians at the end of it, I had chosen a poor time to offend His laws.

Sigurd was already there. He had his axe on his shoulder, his mace by his side, and a short sword in his belt, yet still had the strength to carry two shields and another sword in his arms.

‘These are for you,’ he muttered. There was something about the night which hushed all our talk. ‘I dug them out of the armoury.’

I strapped the shield onto my arm, and buckled the sword around my waist. The distance ahead of us seemed immediately longer.

‘They’ve made these heavier since I was in the legions,’ I complained. ‘How can any man fight with this?’

‘They’ve made you heavier since you were in the legions, I think.’

‘Who is this?’ The Patzinak captain, the same who had led the expedition to the monk’s brother’s house, jabbed a finger at Sigurd. ‘We’ve no need of Varangians.’

‘Sigurd is my bodyguard,’ I explained tersely. ‘He must accompany me.’

The Patzinak looked unimpressed, but shrugged and moved away to the head of his men.

Sigurd glared at me. ‘Two months ago I was bodyguard to the Emperor. Now it seems I protect only those whom no-one could possibly want to kill.’

‘Maybe.’ I hitched the shield further up my arm. ‘Let’s hope that you can still say that in the afternoon.’

A shout from the front of the line ordered us forward. Two columns of Patzinaks began marching, followed by the squealing rumble of the lumbering grain carts. The oxen pulling them lowed their displeasure; their coats were glossy with the moisture in the air, and breath steamed from their snub-ended noses. Sigurd and I joined the after-guard at the tail of the column. High above us tiny squares of yellow glowed in the windows of the new palace, where perhaps even now the Emperor dreamed of conquests, but they vanished as we passed through the arch and onto the plain ahead. The moon was gone, and clouds had covered the stars, so we travelled almost blind, with only the huffing and squeaking of the ox-carts to break our solitude.

Those carts might have been a wise idea as a disguise, but they were nothing but a hindrance on that dark journey. One got stuck in a rutted stretch of road, and had to be heaved out by Patzinaks; then their weight forced us to pass by all the bridges, and travel to the very tip of the Horn. The shield dragged on my arm, and when I tried lashing it to my back, as I had in the legions, the straps almost strangled me.

‘To think it is Great Thursday,’ I murmured, as much to myself as to Sigurd. ‘We should be at prayer, not warring with our fellow Christians.’

‘If they feel likewise, then you can be at your church by noon.’ Sigurd’s strides were, as ever, a foot longer than my own, and I hurried to stay with him. ‘If not, then you might yet find time to talk with God today.’

We straggled on, and I grew glad of the oxen for they were the only ones of our group whose pace was slower than mine. Now we were heading back along the northern shore of the Horn, following where it curved in to form the harbour. I could see lights across the water here, small fires rising on the crests of the hills, though the greater part of the city still lay in darkness. We should be close to Galata now.

As if to confirm my thought I heard a call from ahead, and the sound of two Patzinaks conversing in their fractured language. We must have reached the picket line surrounding the camp, must be little more than a few hundred yards away. The night was falling away, receding into a grey half-light which opened our surroundings to my eyes, and in the distance I could see the dark shadows of the walls of Galata. We had timed our arrival well: their sentries would be rubbing their eyes and thinking of sleep, thanking their God for another night unharmed, while the rest of the camp would be in their beds. Including, I prayed, the monk, in the small house by the far wall, on the street behind the warehouses.

I threaded my way to the front of the column, with Sigurd close behind. ‘Do you remember the plan?’ I asked the Patzinak captain. ‘As soon as the gates are open we leave the wagons and make straight through the camp along the main street.’

The captain gave an unpleasant smile. ‘If the monk is in there, we will find him.’

‘Alive,’ I reminded him.

We were within twenty paces of the gate before the challenge came, a thin shout from a boy who sounded little older than Thomas.

‘Food from the Emperor,’ I called back. ‘Five wagons of grain. Open the gates.’

‘Why does the grain come before dawn?’ There was doubt in the boy’s voice, but whether from nerves or suspicion I could not tell. ‘And why is it surrounded by men in arms?’

‘So that you can enjoy your breakfast, and so that brigands on the road do not empty the wagons before they reach you. The Emperor does not wish you to be hungry.’

That drew derision, followed by a long wait, perhaps while the boy conferred with his superior. I began to doubt Krysaphios’ plan, to wonder whether we would be left standing at the gate while the Franks took the carts. What would we do then? We could not invest Galata with two hundred men, and we could do nothing which might spark a war unless we were sure of getting the monk.

Without warning, the gates swung open.

Even the Patzinaks, barbarians who would charge the walls of Hell itself if ordered, seemed to shrink as we marched into the camp. As we had hoped, there were few Franks about at that hour, but all those we passed stood by the roadside and watched us in hungry silence. Their arms were folded across their chests, and hate was plain on their gaunt faces. Even the sight of the grain carts rolling in behind us did not soften them, though a few of the children scurried away from their parents’ sides into the alleys behind, doubtless spreading word of our arrival.

‘You have to wonder why the Emperor allowed them to set their camp within a well-fortified colony,’ I said to Sigurd, breaking the hostile silence which surrounded us. ‘They might have been more co-operative with nothing stronger than canvas to protect them.’

‘Perhaps he wanted to prove he trusted them. Or perhaps he wanted them trapped, easily surrounded and watched. Walls make prisons, as well as forts.’

‘Whom do they imprison now?’

We reached a square, the main forum of Galata. There were more Franks here, many of them women and children with baskets for carrying home the grain. They surged forward as the ox-carts halted, but our column of Patzinaks never dropped a step. From somewhere behind us a man shouted that we should halt; we ignored him, and kept marching. I had to credit Krysaphios’ cunning, for the grain served its purpose: with the choice between stopping a company of Patzinaks or eating for the first time in days, every one of the Franks chose to serve his stomach.