Pip Vaughan-Hughes - Relics

'Brother, I feel I have tumbled into quite a different world. My old friend Patch, the great Captain and an imperial princess! But what were you doing in the dead hours of the night with her in the city, eh?' His eyes were twinkling. I shook my head grimly. The last thing I wished to do was besmirch Anna's name any more than it surely was already.

'Nothing. Escorting her back to the ship. I don't know. For fuck's sake, Will, tell me your story, or must I beg you?'

I knew him well, and he was desperate with curiosity. But he saw my unease and rolled his eyes. Tou wish to hear it so badly? You will find it very thin gruel in comparison to yours,' he said, resignedly. 'I doubt that, brother.'

'But I swear it!' He held up both hands in his old familiar protest of innocence. It had always made him seem more roguish and guilty, and it did now. I told him so. But he shook his head. 'Truly, Patch. You will see.' He took a long swig from the jar and cleared his throat like a mountebank at a village fair.

'Kervezey's flail – it was Kervezey, wasn't it? I have never been completely certain…' I nodded. 'The flail caught me a good whack-' 'I thought I heard your skull shatter,' I put in. He winced.

'Not quite, brother. It caught me high on the shoulders, in the main, although it laid me open from here to here.' He leaned forward and parted his hair to show a tangle of thick scars like pink twine that ran at a slant from his left shoulder-blade up his neck and almost to the crown of his head. 'You heard bone break, sure enough, but that was my shoulder. I lay like a dead man in the mud, and it was the mud that stopped the bleeding, I think. When I woke up there was no one to be seen. You were gone, and I remember a horse in the water, thrashing. I dragged myself into the hedge and left the world again for a while. I heard people pass by, and I think they were searching, but they did not find me. I would hear things from a long way off, then the world would be dark again. I may have slept for days, I don't know. When I finally came to myself, though, I was as hungry as a wolf and every inch of me burned or ached or stung. I had been raked over by a fever, it seems, as my clothes were salty with old sweat and – Christ's stones! – I stank. There was nothing for it but to set out up the road, although I found myself to be quite safe, for everyone I chanced to meet could not so much as glance at me, foul and stinking as I was. To make things worse I could not move my head or neck – for weeks, in fact, which made me seem even more lunatic, I suppose. Finally, towards night, as I was staggering along all giddy with pain and starvation, some fine church-prince on a grey horse came up with his companions and saw fit to throw me a fistful of coin to demonstrate his Christianity. Very Christian it was to take his amusement as I grovelled, all crippled, in the dust for his charity, but no matter. I bought food and drink at the next village, stole some clothes, cleaned myself as best as I could in the river, and set out for London a new man – a man without the use of his neck, true enough, but at least there was a head still upon it, brother!' 'Indeed. And next?' I said, all impatience. 'Next I thieved my way to London, found my father's business acquaintances, and set off to Flanders, where I took up with a mercenary company. It was the plan I made for you, Patch, do you remember? But I knew that it would not be safe to go home, and I am afraid I did not relish explaining matters to my old papa. It was the right choice, though, was it not? The path that should have been yours led me back to you!' He shook his head in wonder. 'You are not done, brother,' I said, exasperated.

'Nothing else to tell. I found Sir Andrew Hardie's company, the Black Boar, in Antwerp, and they took a shine to me – I could move my head again by then, which was a help. I… truly, nothing has happened since then, Patch. The soldier's lot I have found to be an exceedingly dull one. We lazed about in Flanders, growing fat and poxy; we made our slow and easy way south at the first sniff of war, and we have been lolling around Bordeaux for a good month, doing nothing but eat, drink and feel fat French rumps.' He sighed and looked at his hands. 'These soft things are about to get a shock, by the looks of it,' he said wistfully. 'I understand I may be required to do what they call-' he made a ridiculously foppish motion and twisted his face into a mockery of noble horror,'-work!

'Oh aye, work you shall, boy! Work you shall!' I grabbed the wine from him. 'No more of this, for a start.' We grappled for it as I tried to drain it dry, choking and coughing wine all over the deck and myself, then we were laughing until the tears came. As we were drying our eyes I had a thought and asked: 'But hold up, brother. You know how to fight well enough. You skewered that man's eyeball like a matron threading a darning-needle. You didn't learn that in Balecester. I never knew you to carry a blade.'

Well, they taught me. And they found I had a natural… aptitude. The thing about mercenaries is that they fight for money. And they fight over money. There are all sorts of little wars, Patch, flaring up like grass fires anywhere that mercenaries come together. The Black Boar had it out with a band of Catalans who had been thrown out of Greece and thought we'd slighted them over some contract or other. It… it wasn't like Balecester, right enough. No drunken scholars dodging fat watchmen. My company wanted me blooded. They started a fight at a little Flemish market fair and pushed me into the thick of it. My choice was kill or be a corpse, and here I am. It happened again, more than once. I have been blooded, all right. But you know what it is like, too. I am…' He looked at me and smiled: rueful, bitter, the most honest look he had given me all day. 'I am good at it, Patch. I do not enjoy the killing. I enjoy the fight, but to kill…' he shook his head. 'More wine, if you please. Last night, brother – that was the first time for you?'

For a ghastly moment I did not know what he meant. How could he possibly know about the bawdy-house? Then I realised.

'Not my first fight, but the first…' I put my hands to my temples. 'I never killed a man before last night. I wish with all my heart I had not done it. I wish he lived and it was I lying dead…'

'But you live. You are here drinking wine under the great blue roof of heaven. And is it not sweet? Kill, Patch, or be a corpse. I would rather be alive, brother. And from the many rough miles you have travelled, I think you would, too.' 'It cannot be as simple as you put it.'

'But it is, brother. It truly is.' And he put his arms behind his head, lay back and closed his eyes. The sun shone down on us both, but as I too stretched out to bask in its warmth a chill whispered through me, although the day held no shadows. I went on watch at five bells and Dimitri put Will to cleaning the blades that had found so much work on shore. There was still no sign of Anna, but there was plenty to be done as the Cormaran sailed out of the Gironde and into a perfect sea, and I was glad to empty my mind of anything but the wind and the ropes. We rounded the Pointe de Grave and turned south, gliding past the long dune of Arcachon towards Bayonne. The sun fell slowly towards the forests away to the west and at last, as the brazier was lit to heat our dinner, Anna appeared on deck. We were about to put the ship about, and I could not leave my station, but she saw me and raised her hand. She wore a simple tunic of some dark, rich-looking stuff, and her black hair was pulled back and hidden under a simple white coif. She looked both pure and alluring and my blood began to whisper softly in my ears. That is your woman,' it said. I shook my head in happy disbelief, then as the sail cracked and bellied there was a minute of wild activity, and when I made fast my rope and turned to her again, she was stepping into the cabin and did not look back. Gilles followed and closed the door behind them. It was no more than I had expected. Mikal had eaten with the crew, but the Princess Anna Doukaina Komnena could hardly be expected to squat around a cauldron and bandy words with the likes of us, although I knew she would probably prefer to. But all the same my dark humours crept over me again, and when someone tapped me on the shoulder to relieve me of the watch I could hardly bring myself to make the few paces over to the brazier.