Tom Harper - The mosaic of shadows

‘So said Duke Godfrey. But his brother answered him that he had a spy within the walls who would open the city as the Lord opened Jericho to Joshua. He added a few slurs against the prowess of your race which I need not repeat, but the crowd adored it. Especially when he demonstrated the ease with which your soldiers died.’

I poured myself more wine, splashing it over the rim of the cup in my haste. ‘Did he name the spy?’

Domenico looked at me severely. ‘And perhaps reveal when he would strike, and by which ruses he would open the gates? No, he did not. But there were other things he said, which I guess would interest you greatly. A Norman army is coming. .’

‘I know.’ I lifted my hand wearily. ‘In two weeks it will be here, and then there will be twice as many barbarians to contend with. This is not news to me. Surely Baldwin will wait until then.’

Domenico sighed. ‘You do not know how their minds work, Demetrios. Baldwin has not come to see the holy sights of Jerusalem, nor to help his Norman rivals gain a throne. He has come for himself, and he is terrified that if he delays others will snatch his prize. That is why, even as we speak, his army straps on its armour and prepares for battle.’

‘You seem well acquainted with the barbarian’s plans.’ Sigurd curled his fingers into fists, and let them loose again. ‘How does a merchant come to know the minds of our enemies so well?’

‘In the same fashion as I come to have meat and drink on my table when all around me eat rats. I listen for what I want, and pay generously when I find it. Baldwin and his brother hold sway over this colony, so I learn everything I can of them, in the hope that one day the information may avail me something.’

There was a silence in that dim room, while each of us summoned our thoughts. At last I spoke. ‘If the barbarians are marching on the city, in the hope that a traitor will undo us, then we cannot delay. We must get word of this to the palace, and warn the Emperor of their intentions.’

‘You cannot leave this house,’ said Domenico. ‘Baldwin has unleashed the mob in this colony. It is a calculated act, to stir their blood to a frenzy and to affirm their loyalty, but if you venture from here you will be slaughtered. Far better to wait until the rage has subsided and the army has left. Then we can leave in the cover of night.’ He saw the objection rising in me. ‘They have no boats, and it is a long march around the Horn. They will not take the city by surprise.’

‘And their spy?’ In my heart I had already named him as the monk. ‘What if he works his evil before the Emperor is alerted?’

Domenico shrugged his round shoulders. ‘What of it? If you go tonight, he may have acted before you arrive. But if you go now you will certainly be too late, for you will never reach him.’

‘And tonight you will help us escape?’ pressed Sigurd.

‘God willing. If the mob have not burned down my house and looted all I own. Though I hope they will not come this far — the hill should deter them, I think.’

‘And in the meantime?’

‘In the meantime you should stay in here. There is more food if you desire it. Or you could pray. It is, after all, the day for it.’

I did pray in the long hours which followed, repeating the pleas of the prophets again and again until a dark look from Sigurd silenced me. After that I kept my prayers in my heart, while Sigurd prowled around that small room like a bear in its cage. Sometimes we spoke, but neither of us could muster much effort, and our words inevitably fell away unheeded. Domenico’s servant brought some bread and water, which we ate gratefully, and a little after that I managed to hold back the horrors from my thoughts long enough to fall asleep. Once I awoke thinking I heard shouting in the distance, but it came no nearer and soon I slipped back into dreams.

I woke again to a tugging on my arm, and opened my eyes to see Domenico peering down on me.

‘It is dusk,’ he said. ‘In half an hour, when it is dark, we will go.’

I rubbed the grit from my eyes, and took a sip of the water he had brought. ‘Have the barbarians gone?’

‘Their army left many hours ago, but the rest of their camp are still in the streets seeking out what little plunder remains. It will still be dangerous to venture among them.’

‘Not so dangerous as when we came here,’ I said. ‘You have saved our lives today, and I will not forget it.’

The merchant sat down opposite me, the chair creaking under his weight. ‘In truth, my friend, I do not do this because of my love for your people, though I bear them no grudges.’ He peered nervously behind him, where I could see the dim figure of Sigurd sleeping on a bench. ‘The Emperor’s blockade has all but ruined me, while every day from my window I see the ships of my rivals unloading across the bay.’

‘If I reach the palace alive,’ I told him, ‘and if there is a single man in the palace who will listen to me, you will have the grandest mansion which stands in the shadow of the old acropolis.’

‘I hope so, my friend. I hope so. My father in Pisa will be unhappy if I return a beggar.’

We sat there in silence and darkness a few moments, the only sound Sigurd snoring in his corner.

‘Tell me what else you know of Baldwin,’ I said. I was too alert to sleep again, and Domenico was not so well known to me that silences were comfortable.

He shrugged, sucking on a dried fig. ‘Little things, pieces of gossip and hearsay. He has brought his wife and children — did you know that?’

‘I did not,’ I admitted. ‘Does our climate agree with their health?’

Domenico chuckled. ‘It will do, when they are queen and princes in his new kingdom.’

‘He has no lands in the west? In Frankia?’ It was half a question, half a statement, for I remembered the Count Hugh taunting him to such effect in his tent.

‘None. His father was a count, and his mother heir to a duchy, but he was the third son and so got neither. According to rumour, they intended him for the church, but you have seen the temper of his soul. I do not think he was long in the great cathedral school at Rheims. After that. .’

Domenico was never a man to diminish a tale which could be expanded, but he broke off in confusion at my shout of astonishment.

‘Rheims? Baldwin was at Rheims? The barbarian town, where they keep the shrine of their Saint Remigius?’

‘I believe so.’ Domenico was looking up at me in alarm, while behind him Sigurd stirred from his sleep. ‘I have never been there. Why?’

‘Because the monk was at Rheims — that was where he joined his order, and was turned against the Romans. Where Baldwin must have found him.’ I remembered the monk’s brother describing his cruelty. ‘I imagine they found much in common. So when Baldwin came east, and needed a man who could pass for a Roman yet had the barbarian faith in his heart, he chose the monk, Odo.’

Domenico watched me in puzzlement. ‘You believe this monk — the man who once approached me to fund his scheming — is Baldwin’s assassin.’

‘I do. You said he had brought his wife and children, that he wanted to claim a kingdom in the east because he had none in the west. What richer prize than Byzantium itself?’

Much of this I had suspected, or believed, but finally to have a definite connection between Baldwin and the monk made me course with triumph. Though there was no triumph yet, I reminded myself, while the monk walked free and the barbarians were in arms.

‘We must go and tell the Emperor,’ I said.

Domenico edged open the door. It must have been as dark outside as within, for it admitted no light.

‘We can go,’ he announced.

‘Then we had better move quickly.’