Tom Harper: The mosaic of shadows

At length Aelric brought me to a stone courtyard. It seemed older than the parts we had been through: here the mosaics were cracked and the walls were bare, save for the carved heads of imperial ancestors in their shallow niches. The sounds of the palace were dulled, and the perfumes in the air now had to contend with the stink of the city. The arcades were empty, excepting a lonely figure sitting on a marble bench, who rose gracefully to his feet as I approached. Aelric, I suddenly realised, had vanished.

‘The Varangian captain thinks you are a fool, who dissipates his time in conversation with tradesmen.’ Krysaphios stepped languidly towards me. A lamp burned from its bracket in a pillar beside him. ‘And then provokes his employer by abandoning the escort I ordered.’

‘If the Varangian captain knew the least thing about finding a murderer,’ I said slowly, ‘then I might have cause to care what he thought.’

‘He says you had his men banging on doors asking futile questions all afternoon,’ Krysaphios pressed. ‘The imperial bodyguard. I wonder, Askiates, if you have sufficient imagination for your task.’

‘Imagination enough to find a weapon that no-one else knew.’ Briefly I described the tzangra of which the Genoese Cabo had spoken. ‘And I imagine that this foreign weapon had foreign hands on the string.’

‘A mercenary?’ Krysaphios thought on this. ‘Possibly. You yourself would know of such things, would you not?’ He watched the guarded anger sweep my face. ‘I know your story, Demetrios Askiates. I may not know the least thing about finding a murderer, but I am accomplished in the art of pinning a man to his past. Even a past he would rather forget — or hide.’

I said nothing.

‘However it may be.’ Krysaphios opened his palms to show me he did not care. ‘The hands on the bowstring may have been foreign, but the spirit that willed them there, I am certain, is of far closer origins.’ He reached into an alcove, where a roll of parchment lay scrolled up next to a statue. ‘I have had my clerks prepare a list of all who might profit from an empty throne.’

I took it.

‘A long list.’ Headed, I noticed with a shiver, by the Sebastokrator himself, the Emperor’s elder brother and the penultimate power in the empire. Perhaps Krysaphios and Sigurd were right — perhaps I should keep to the company of the merchants and shopkeepers I knew.

‘A long list,’ Krysaphios agreed. ‘A list that could incite riot and rebellion if it were seen by those whose names appear. Look on it closely, and commend it to your memory.’

I held the paper close to the light and studied it with a furious intensity. Many of the names were familiar to me, though others were wholly anonymous. All the while Krysaphios stood silent, watching me, until at last I handed the list back.

‘Repeat it,’ he commanded.

‘I can remember well enough, without reciting it like a schoolboy.’

‘Repeat it,’ he insisted, his eyes flashing. ‘I have paid you for your mind, Askiates, and I will know what is in it.’

‘You have paid me for the results I will bring you. And what am I supposed to ask of these people? “Are you responsible for the attempted murder of the Emperor? Do you own a fantastical Genoese invention called a tzangra ?” Besides, what nobleman would even deign to speak with me?’

‘You will be given the necessary introductions. As for what you should say, I would not dream to instruct you. You, after all, know all that can be known about finding murderers. Come and tell me tomorrow. Now if you will not recite my list, go. One of the guards will see you home.’

He balled up the paper in his hands and dropped it into the bowl of the lamp. It burst into flames and blazed in the glass, then quickly crumbled to ash.

In the halls of the palace I had thought myself in heaven; the next morning, I was in Paradise. Or at least the place which bore its name: it did not merit the comparison. Once, I’m told, there had been fields here sloping up the long hill, green with wheat and fat with pasture, but those were long gone. The crops had been ground into dust, the grazing beasts slaughtered, and the extremities of the bloated city had spread inexorably over them. It was not a slum, but more a wilderness of shacks and broken shelters, where those who had used all their resources of strength and money to reach the city could collapse within its walls. Many never left, and with the watchtowers of the garrison so close at hand, it was inevitable that certain trades, those which always thrive among the poor and desperate, would flourish.

Such was its reputation, but it seemed unremarkable enough as I picked my way over the ruts and broken stones of the Selymbrian road. Children played in the roadside; wizened women hobbled along with great mounds of cloth on their backs, and every few paces there would be a gaunt, sun-scorched man sitting in front of a tray of nuts or dates or dried figs. One of these I approached, squatting down to look him in the eye.

‘I seek a man for a dangerous task,’ I said, using the age-old formula of the profession.

The man squinted at me, while a beetle crawled over his leg and onto the tray of figs. He seemed to be concentrating, grappling with a silent dilemma; then suddenly a fistful of fruit was thrust before my face.

I shook my head impatiently. ‘No, thank you. I seek a man. .’

I ceased talking as a second handful of figs appeared beside the first. The man was scowling now, shaking his arms in frustration.

A belated thought struck me. ‘Do you speak Greek?’

The continued silence was answer enough. I raised my hands in apology, pushed the fruit away from me, and rose to leave. Ten paces away I felt a sharp stinging as a pebble struck me on the back of my leg, but I let it pass.

I walked slowly on down the road. Three or four times I tried to raise a passing traveller or hawker in conversation, but I was beyond the frontiers of civilisation: none spoke anything but barbarian tongues. I would have to return with a translator, I thought; I knew a few who frequented the harbours and sold their services to merchants. Though that would leave little of the day for visiting Krysaphios’ dignitaries, and he would likely hear of it if I did not.

A tugging on the hem of my cloak returned me to the moment, and instinctively I clapped a hand on my purse to ensure it was safe. It was, and I earned a reproachful gaze from the ragged eyes of the child who had appeared beside me.

‘Do you understand me?’ I asked, more in bemusement than hope.

To my surprise, he nodded.

‘You do?’ Another nod, and the flash of white teeth. ‘Do you know where I can find a man? A dangerous man?’ I mimed a couple of sword strokes through the air.

The boy considered this, then nodded a third time. ‘Elymas,’ he said, his voice chirping like a young chick’s. ‘You see Elymas.’

‘Elymas?’

‘Yes. You see Elymas.’

I had kept a wary distance from him, but now I allowed him to grab my hand and tug me away, off the road and down a thin alley between rough rows of dwellings. I tensed, my eyes darting in all directions in anticipation of an ambush, a robbery. I had too many of Krysaphios’ gold coins with me for comfort, and I was unarmed save for the dagger in my boot. But the urchin before me, in his tattered tunic and bare feet, skipped on heedless, leading me deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of ramshackle homes. Now I began to feel the weight of the area’s reputation, began to feel the hostile eyes examining me from behind the splintered planks and frayed sheets which served for doors and windows. The groups of men we passed at the roadside would stop their conversation and stare insolently, while women sat with their legs lying open and offered indecent suggestions. My only solace was that none of it showed the least effect on the boy.