Pip Vaughan-Hughes - Relics

We are too near the beach,' she muttered. It was true that I had all but forgotten the Cormaran, but peering over the stone I saw that the beach was perhaps half a mile distant, the boat lying at an absurd angle on the wet sand, a fine commotion of sailors all around its hull.

'Petroc, I cannot return like this, in daylight. I am… Only de Montalhac, Gilles de Peyrolles, Pavlos and the Cretan boys know I am aboard.'

'How long have you been on the ship?' I interrupted, my own mind racing. 'Since we left England?' She shook her head, a tiny movement. 'The Faeroes? No – Gardar!' I snapped my fingers. ‘You were in a bundle of whalebone. And kept secret ever since. How?'

'It has been hard – no, it has been a foretaste of hell,' she whispered. 'I have not stirred from that stinking little hole for -1 cannot say.' 'Mary's sweet – I mean, God's blood…' 'By the by, Petroc, how do your teeth feel?'

'Loose as nails in rotten wood,' I admitted, then looked at her more closely. How strange – I saw now how thin she was, and how deeply ringed with shadow were her eyes. She had suffered whatever I and my fellows had, and perhaps much more, imprisoned in the dark. Without thinking, I reached out and took her hand. She smiled, a little sadly, and I noticed a tooth was missing, up near the corner of her mouth. Now I smelled the familiar sour reek on her breath. 'It is the scorbutus, Isaac says,' I offered.

'And he has no cure. Isaac is an angel, isn't he? But he couldn't keep his own teeth in his head.' She sighed. 'Petroc, I do not wish my presence to be known. I am fleeing for my life-' 'As we all are,' I put in.

'Just so, just so. But, if I can be truthful with you, the crew frighten me out of my wits, what I have spied of them from behind that bloody curtain. Christ upon the cross! Those men would eat me up, vomit, and eat me all over again…'

'Princess!' I yelped, shocked. This was no way for a lady of royal birth to be talking. 'But it's true! Oh my, have I upset you?'

You… you are a great lady! You should not speak in this way, Your Majesty!'

'Please do not call me Majesty, or Princess, or Highness, or any of that worthless chatter!' she spat, suddenly taut with fury, or perhaps pain. You find me harsh, I think? Not very royal? Well, you are right. I have no throne. To the world I am a dead woman. But look, doubting boy!' And she thrust her hand into my face. 'See this ring. This one!'

It was by no means the brightest trinket on that hand. A drab brown stone, with the lighter outline of a head in profile standing out upon it. The band, heavy and golden, was more impressive.

A queen wore this in Rome in the ancient times, when my forefathers ruled the whole world. That was my birthright. And then… I was thrown away.' Her voice had faded to a bitter whisper, and her eyes were hidden. 'So do not call me Princess, or Majesty, or Lady. I have nothing but the blood in my veins.' She fell silent. And I do not wish to let that be spilled, Petroc. It runs hot, and I covet the heat.' She looked up and caught my eyes in her own gaze. I saw that tears ran down like tiny rivulets through the sand that dusted her cheeks. You saved my life, and that is all I have that can be saved. So, I suppose you had better call me Anna.'

Before I had even come within a hundred paces of the ship, Pavlos hailed me and ran out from the shadows under the hull. He reached me in a state of clear agitation, and I knew that it was not on my account. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me gently. Where…' He swallowed. Where have you been?' 'Up there.' I waved behind me.

'And did you see anything – anyone "up there"?' Pavlos was a tall man, with dark curly hair that he kept shorn so that it hung a little above his shoulders. He cut a fine figure, and his bright green eyes and broken nose lent him the air of a fierce warrior, which was indeed the truth of the matter. But now he was sweating and trembling like a blown horse. He had run towards me as soon as I had jumped down onto the beach. I had planned to taunt him a little with the secret he could not know we shared, but now I did not have the heart.

'She is safe, and watches us from up there.' I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. Pavlos grabbed my hand and brought his face close to mine.

‘Who?' He breathed, the sour stench of failing gums too close for comfort.

'Anna, of course. The Princess Anna.' I grasped his hand in turn. 'She is unhurt.'

To my horror, Pavlos dropped to his knees and began crossing himself like a madman, in the backwards fashion of his religion. I made sure that no one else planned to join us, and knelt down myself.

'Be calm, Pavlos,' I whispered. 'She has come to no great harm. There was a man-'

‘A man?' Pavlos's head jerked up as if pulled by an invisible string. 'M'efayen ta jiyerya!' A stream of Greek curses followed, more plaintive than angry.

'-But I rescued her,' I broke in, impatient. 'Nothing happened. She has pulled a muscle in her leg, I think. But she does not wish to come back to the ship in daylight – she fears the men.'

'Fear? That one fears nothing,' said Pavlos. He seemed to be recovering. Rubbing his jaw, he stood up. 'She ran away from me before dawn. I managed to get her off the ship without anyone seeing, and she bolted, laughing. Laughing! I have heard nothing but that laughter since.' He spat. 'The Captain is in an ill humour about this, I can assure you.'

'Did you all think you could keep her hidden for the whole voyage?' I shook my head in disbelief. 'She would have faded away to nothing in that pit.'

'By all the saints and their pox-rotten mothers, Petroc! Do I not know that? She is a princess-royal of Byzantium! I have taken oaths to lay down my life for her kind. The man I served in Epiros, the Despot, is her cousin. None of us wished to confine her, but what else could be done? The crew would never allow a woman aboard – there are some among them, and you know who they are – who would use her like a common whore of the bath-houses before they pitched her over the side.' A new thought seemed suddenly to bite him like a gadfly. You did not… lay hands upon her?'

Yes, indeed!' This was too much. 'I had my hands all over her! I all but carried her down a fucking mountain, after, after I saved her life-'

'Peace, Petroc! Peace. Forgive me. The girl was in my care, and I failed her. I am overwrought. I owe you a debt of thanks, not vulgar suspicion. But now, if you please, take me to her.'

So we clambered back up the hill, Pavlos striding far ahead of me in his haste. Anna waited for us behind her rock. She lay on her belly, covered by her cloak, with only a slender crescent of her pale face showing beneath the cowl. At our approach she sat up, the cloth falling from her hair, which sent forth a bluish glint in the sunlight. She watched us for a moment, then grinned broadly and clapped her hands. 'My rescuers! Brave Pavlos, and my knight of Devonshire.'

Pavlos hurried to her and, to my astonishment – but what, today, was not astonishing? – knelt before her and took one of her bare feet in his hand.

'Vassileia,' he moaned. He writhed like a fish in air, gasping what I took to be the most abject apologies in his tongue, until Anna tapped him on the head with a finger, like a baker testing a loaf of bread.

'Get up, Pavlos,' she said in Occitan. 'I ran away from you, if you remember. I am very sorry, my dear guardsman.'

"Why, Vassileia? How could you do such a thing?' The poor man was wringing his hands now.

'I wanted to stretch my limbs, to breathe fresh air. I wanted to be alone! I have not stirred from that… that charnel house for a lifetime. You saw me, Pavlos. I could hardly stand upright! And when I felt my legs begin to work again, I had to use them. So of course I ran.'

'And the lunatic? Petroc told me, dear Highness. Did he…?'