Pip Vaughan-Hughes - Relics

'Platanos,' Anna told me. 'I don't know what you call them in your country. Here every village has one in the square for shade. Often they are older than the village itself. And those other trees you are gawping at are lemons. Limoni – how this place got its name.'

She sat beside me at the head of the table – that is to say, she sat at the head of the table, the Captain on one side, myself on the other. It seemed unfair to me that Gilles or another, more senior crewman should be placed below me, but Gilles himself insisted, waving away my protests. Anna, he explained, had been presented to the village as Eleni, the daughter of a Macedonian duke. She was being married off to a Flemish lord living in Venice – myself, as it turned out – who had come to fetch his bride and carry her back to the Serenissima. The Lady Eleni had heard of the shrine of Saint Tula from her old nursemaid, and had come to make an offering and pray for many sons. That had overjoyed the folk of Limonohori. They loved their saint, they told us, and everyone who came to visit her was sent by God to bring joy to the island. But of course, few had come while the pirates (may their intestines be chewed by wild pigs) had held sway. Now pilgrims were coming again, thanks be to the Frankish lords, but never often enough.

The food was wonderful. Chargers of red earthenware piled high with the hacked-apart meat passed from hand to hand. There were bitter greens, little grilled fish, strange and rich stews of vegetables, some of which I recognised, some not. 'Melitzana,' Anna would explain. 'Bamyes; fasolyes.' I finally tasted a lemon, squeezing a half into my mouth and almost choking on the knife-like sourness while the villagers roared. A boorish Frank, but at least he's trying, they seemed to think, and that was fine. Anna and I were at the very centre of a constant swirl of bustle and noise: we, the noble lovers, were the guests of honour. Every new dish came to us for a first taste, every speech – and there were many, each one more eloquent and wine-loosened than the last – began with a toast to us. I took a guilty joy in the thought that these poor people, so profligate with their hospitality, had no idea just how lowly one of us was, and how truly imperial the other. We did not have to play-act very much, there being small likelihood of anyone in Limonohori knowing much about the social life of Antwerp – not that I knew much more than them. I kept my chin up and my manner as lordly as I could under the determined siege of the strange pine-soaked wine. Anna, meanwhile, seemed to be in paradise. They brought her babies to bless, and I blanched at first when she spat on the little swaddled things until she explained that it warded off evil. She pinched children's cheeks and had her own pinched beet-red by an endless line of old women who would have loved to get their claws on my own jowls had they dared. Rank evidently had its advantages.

The wine flowed as if from a fountain. It was honey-coloured and tasted strongly of freshly cut pine wood, a flavour so unexpected that I forgot to be repelled. By the second cup I hardly noticed it, by the third I welcomed it, and then I ceased keeping count. How Will would have loved this, I thought: the wine, the laughter, the proud dark women. Gradually the rumpus of the party faded and I sat staring up at the glowing night sky, the most sublime, unearthly blue I had ever seen. Big bats flitted about up there, and the sharp edge of the mountain shone faintly, a silver thread below the stars.

Someone was nudging me. It was Anna, and she was drawing my attention to a big red bowl brimming with spiny black balls held by a grinning, toothless village woman. At last, the echinoos,' she said, picking one of the terrible things out with a light touch. She laid it on the table and with her knife jabbed vigorously at the centre, loosening the vicious spines and opening a hole in what I saw was a fragile, bony shell. She poured water into the hole and with a swirl and a flourish tipped the urchin's guts out onto the ground. Another flick of the knife, and there on its point was a bright orange slug. 'This is the bit you eat,' she said. 'Go on, then.'

'It's a slug,' I protested, my tongue suddenly thick with wine.

'No it isn't. It's the eggs. Go on – the village is watching, my lord.'

Head reeling, I bent and licked the ghastly morsel from the steel. There was a burst of salty, fishy, bloody pleasure on my tongue. I took a long swallow of the pungent wine.

'So that's the secret of the echinoos’ I heard myself say, as the table rose up fast to meet me. 'They taste just like…'

I awoke the next morning to the realisation that every bat in Limonohori was roosting in my head. Many of them seemed to have relieved themselves in my mouth. I was back on the Cormaran, under the Captain's table, wrapped in the Egyptian carpet. It was early, and only Fafner saw me as I crawled to the water butt and ladled merciful, brackish water down my throat. After a few rough swallows I had the energy to pull myself up on the rail. Beneath me the sea was a dark mirror. The stars were just beginning to fade before the sun, still far below the horizon, and the trees and edges of the island were sharp purple outlines. My clothes felt clinging and stale, so without thinking I stripped and swung myself over the side. For a moment I was hanging in the lambent air and heard a single note of birdsong before the shock of the cold water swallowed me. I let myself sink, knowing I would not touch bottom, then opened my eyes to the sting of salt and looked up. The false sky of the surface trembled like disturbed quicksilver. I kicked and rose slowly, letting the air bubble from my mouth, more quicksilver streaming around me. The bats were leaving their roost in my skull. 'To work, drunken lord!'

A coil of rope dropped around me, and grabbing it, I found myself being hauled back aboard, until I stood, naked, dripping and sheepish, before the Captain. 'Feeling full of life? Humours all in agreement?' 'Oh, Christ, sir. I am so sorry. I must…'

'Nonsense. Greek wine, my boy, is one of the world's great deceivers. Goes down like water, and waits for you with a giant's club. You were almost the soberest there: you passed out early enough. Very good thinking on your part.'

Yes, well, I had everything carefully planned. So dare I ask where everyone else is?'

'Mostly in a heap under the trees of Limonohori. The Vassileia is below – she has an armoured gut, that one. No, after you went down – you just missed ramming your face into that bowl of sea urchins, by the by – things got a good deal more spirited. God alone knows how they have such an endless supply of retsina. Anyway, there were no fights, no angry words – a miracle, you might say. The Greeks are very, very good at being hospitable, though. They had us under control.' 'And how…'

'Gilles and I lugged you back in the gig. We were going to leave you in it, and the Vassileia agreed, but you came to life enough to climb the ladder.' 'Thank you,' I said.

You are entirely welcome. And now, shall we step into my cabin? I think the fumes have dissipated a little.'

Gilles sat at the Captain's table, and I was happy to note the green tinge to his cheeks.

'How do you fare, Master de Peyrolles?' I enquired, all innocence. 'I am as fresh as a little foal, dear Master Auneford.' 'And that is exactly how you appear.'

'Enough, lads: you can compare hangovers later. Meanwhile, drink this.' And he poured us all a cup of some dark wine from an old clay jar. 'This is the good stuff,' he assured us. 'Choke it down. We have much work to do, and I need your heads clear.'

The wine was good indeed, and once the wave of nausea had passed I began to feel quite alive.

We cannot draw out our time here, pleasant as it is,' the Captain began. 'The village loves us now, and we will trade today, so they will love us more. But the moment one of us gets too drunk and pinches the wrong bottom, let alone tups the wrong daughter, they will drive us off. These are kind folk, but they are as hard as the rock of this land and have suffered many lifetimes under people like us. So we will do what we came to do and leave, today if possible, tomorrow more likely. However.' And he poured himself another finger of wine and drank it off. 'There is a complication.' 'Ah, yes,' said Gilles. 'Tell him.'