Pip Vaughan-Hughes - Relics

As we reached the gate, the tallest guard, whom I took to be the sergeant, shouldered his halberd and stepped towards us.

'Good morrow to you, my lord, my lady,' he said. 'It is an early morning to be setting off, to be sure.'

'Early it is, but we are late,' I said, in the best French I could muster, looking at the soldier down my nose. I am decieving no one, I thought wildly to myself. And indeed the guard's look seemed to sharpen.

Just as I thought his fingers were tightening on his pikestaff, Anna swept off her hood, revealing her hair in its golden prison. In the half-dawn her skin was very white.

'Do they presume to bandy words with you, my lord?' she asked me, turning her head deliberately from the guards.

'So it seems,' I said. Anna's gaze was drilling into me. I understood what was required.

We have no time to waste with fools,' I barked. 'You will bow down before the Princess Doukaina Komnena, and keep your eyes on the ground where they belong as we pass by.'

The sergeant stared, slack-jawed, at Anna. She did not flinch, but drew her right hand slowly from her cloak. For a horrible moment I thought she was drawing her sword. But instead she held out her hand to the man. On her third finger, huge and heavy, was a ring I had never seen before. The man gawped at it, and dropped to his knees with a crunch of chain-mail. The others, watching, followed suit.

"Your pardon, Highness,' he mumbled. 'My men are good boys, and this is only the Porte Saint Eloi – we don't get…' The poor man was almost wringing his hands. We beg your forgiveness.'

And so we passed through, killers, defilers of churches, fornicators and outlaws, as armed men grovelled in the dung. I felt their eyes on our backs as we paced on, turning to our right towards the grander turrets of the Porte de Cailhau. There was a wide open space before us, over which a few figures were moving. A little way ahead, tents had sprung up and men were milling about, lighting fires and coughing noisily. Beyond them the wharves began. I could barely keep my steps even as we strolled over the well-trodden marsh-grass, breathing in the soft air of morning and the salt of the Gironde. It seemed like a thousand years before we reached the clutch of tents and passed among them. Will was at my side at once.

That was well done, my boy,' he said. I saw that he was as white as a sheet, but still grinning. 'It was lovely, the way those bastards got down in the stink.' We aren't safe yet,' I muttered.

'From them we are,' he replied. 'They won't say a solitary word about this to anyone. They're town men. If the town got wind that they'd shamed a great lady and her retinue, there would be whippings all round. No, they'll keep mum.'

'Not much of a retinue, though,' I said. 'They must have been suspicious of us on foot – Anna should have been aboard a snow-white palfrey at the very least.'

And I on a mule, I suppose,' said Will. 'No, we fooled everyone. By the way, I forgot to tell you about the crossbowmen. Two at least, above the gate in the tower. I'll bet their eyes were out on stalks.' 'Crossbowmen?' Anna and I said together.

"They clean slipped my mind,' Will said happily. Then his face grew serious. ‘Your Highness, you truly are… a princess?'

She fixed Will with her most imperious stare, the one that could reduce Pavlos to tears. Then she smiled. 'I am. And you, if my guess is right, are a Northumbrian. Alnwick?' 'Morpeth,' stammered Will, aghast. 'How on earth…?' 'I am a princess,' she said, happily.

Will was still gawping, so I linked arms with him as I had done so many times in another life. 'She is indeed a princess,' I explained, 'But she had English guards – what do you call them, Anna? Valerians?' 'Varangians, idiot,' she laughed.

'Anyway, she speaks better English than… than you, certainly, you sheep-shagger.'

'Christ!' muttered Will, awestruck. I had never seen him so amazed and, feeling a great surge of joy, I grabbed Anna with my other arm and, three abreast, we tripped through the dewy grass like milkmaids on their way to the fair.

When we were beyond the tents and breathing a little more easily, Anna picked up her trailing hems and I pushed back my hood. The day was arriving, and the sun crept up behind us and flooded the river with gold. We were coming to a part of the wharf I recognised. There were the sea-steps where the long-boat had dropped us off yesterday. This was the spot where the bowman had run into Anna. A wave of nausea hit me suddenly, and I put my hand on Anna's shoulder. Beyond the nausea I felt a black cloud of guilt, of horror, crawling towards me. I looked out into the river. There was the Cormaran, radiant in the new light. And there, sitting on the sea-steps, were Pavlos and Elia, with the long-boat bobbing below them.

Pavlos saw us first. He leaped to his feet, almost lost his footing on the slimy weed, and staggered up onto the wharf. His face looked like a skull, so dark were the hollows around his eyes, put there by worry and, I had no doubt, the work of the poppy. Never taking his eyes from Anna, he reeled towards us and threw himself to the ground at her feet. He seemed to be trying to kiss her shoes. Anna tried to pull them away.

' Vassileia’. Before the Panayia I beg you, forgive your servant Pavlos… I have abandoned you like a Judas! False friend and false servant! Holy mother and all the holy saints believe me, I…'

'Come now, Pavlos,' said Anna, in the tone that I had come to think of as her Vassileia voice – regal and a trifle exasperated. 'Let us put it from our minds. You must have been tired, dear man. But I was in good hands, and quite safe. You are quite forgiven. Let us put it from our minds and never speak of it again.' And she patted him on the head. He looked up adoringly and only then did he notice Will.

My friend was standing at my side, staring unconcernedly out to sea. He saw Pavlos jump to his feet and turned to face him with a look I had never seen before: blandly pleasant with an inner flickering of alertness, even menace. He gave Pavlos a curt nod. 'G'morrow,' he said.

Pavlos narrowed his eyes. The same dangerous flicker played over his face. 'Who are you, then, my friend?' he asked.

I hastily laid a hand on Will's shoulder, as if to claim him. 'Pavlos, it has been a night of horrors and wonders, but there has never been a wonder like this: my greatest friend in the world, whom I saw die, has returned to life. This is William of Morpeth, former scholar and cleric, now… what would you call yourself, Will?'

'Hungry!' he said, and the spell was broken. The Greek smiled a little, then held out his hand. To my enormous relief Will took it and gave it a good warm shake. 'To answer Patch's question properly, I would call myself a soldier, which is what I take you for, friend Pavlos.' 'Returned from the dead? Is this so?' Pavlos asked. Will chuckled. The Greek was opening his satchel and offering Will a hunk of bread. I let out a deep sigh and looked about me. Elia peered sheepishly over the edge of the dock. Anna waved regally in his direction. It was rather dreadful to see his face light up. I walked carefully over to the sea-wall and sat down, dangling my legs over the edge. The memory of the swordsman's innards clenching and unclenching around my blade had come back to me unbidden, and for a moment I felt faint. What had I done? I looked at my hands and they were streaked and stained with red. My fingernails were black. I wanted to wash them, but the wall was too high, so I tucked them beneath my legs instead. The sharp brine-soaked air felt clean and reviving, and in a few moments I could look at the Cormaran in the distance without the urge to puke.

You do not look well, my friend,' said Elia from the gig. I shook my head.

My mind was starting to turn again, slowly, and I forced myself to think. There must be witnesses to the fight, although would the deaths of three murderous rogues cause any great upset? I must talk to the Captain, and soon, I decided, and stood up.