Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

'Gladly. The gentleman you mistook for me – and I am most flattered that you would suppose me to be so elegant – is Signor Giovanni Canal. This is der Junker Horst von Tantow. And this other young dandy here is Petrus Zennorius.'

Well met indeed,' said Baldwin graciously. 'Allow me to beg your forgiveness for my earlier rudeness. My eagerness to make your acquaintance overcame my manners. And I am most eager, Monsieur de Sol, to be acquainted with you.'

'So I have gathered,' said the Captain. 'If you would care to speak a little of your reasons for this eagerness, I assure you that these men are my trusted confidants, and I could not keep my private matters from them even if I so wanted.'

Baldwin took a thoughtful sip of wine. Horst, as a peace offering, pushed a dish of rice balls in his direction and the boy took one, bit into it and made a face. 'Rather dry, are they not?' I asked sympathetically.

'Somewhat,' he agreed, finishing the thing and reaching for another. I saw that he was very hungry.

'Monsieur, you said that the world believes me to be in France, and indeed it has been my misfortune – my life's misfortune – to have the world taking an interest in my affairs. I was, until lately, indeed in France, a guest of my cousin Louis. I believe that most think I am still there. I pleaded urgent business and left Paris for my fief of Namur, from whence I slipped away.'

You had a hard ride, then’ said the Captain. 'How did you get through Lombardy? The Holy Roman Emperor holds everything from the mountains to the shores of the Venetian lagoon, and Emperor Frederick is no friend of Louis’

'Frederick von Hohenstaufen is also a cousin of mine’ said Baldwin, a little pompously. 'But I felt it prudent to go in disguise, nonetheless. His captain in those parts is a monster, so one hears’

'Ah, yes – Ezzolino da Romano. But it is his job to be monstrous: he is merely very good at what he does’

You jest with me again, monsieur. If you had ridden through the burning towns and seen the butchered corpses he leaves behind him

Yes, yes. You can see the smoke from the campanile on a fine day, so I hear’ said the Captain dismissively. 'Given all that, finding your way past the monster's army was no mean feat.'

'Well, I decided it was too dangerous to pass myself off as a simple Ghibelline, as allegiances change every furlong or so between the mountains and the sea. Besides, I am, as you know, rather well known as a Guelf, and my personal affairs are all over fleurs de lys. No, that is a dangerous game to play, so I posed as a knight journeying to the East to save Constantinople from the Turks. As that is the truth, I was not putting my immortal soul at risk.'

I poured myself some more wine. This evening had taken a strange turn indeed. A simple fight would have been quite a normal end to the night's proceedings; fights, although I did not enjoy them, had ceased to surprise me, and I knew how to look after myself. But this: this was something so far outside my ken that I might as well have been supping with the man in the moon. Here, seated at my right hand, was a real emperor, and a hungry one at that, gossiping about his royal cousins and about the great war that had burned up half of Italy as if it were nothing of greater moment than a day at the fair. What I knew about the Empire of Romania was slight: Anna had fizzed with rage at the very thought of Frankish Constantinople, but let me know that the thieves who had captured the greatest of all cities were no better than beggars, paupers who held her uncle – who was, of course, the true emperor of the Romans, although at present he ruled from Nicea – at bay only through luck and by prostituting themselves to any barbarian or infidel who rattled their purses.

It confused me that, while he was cousin to both Louis of France and Frederick von Hohenstaufen, he put himself in the Guelf camp, that is, a supporter of the pope's cause against the claims of the emperor, rather than an ally of Frederick, or Ghibelline, as they have begun to call themselves. Fleur de lys and eagle: this war between flowers and birds had already spilled blood enough to redden every whitewashed wall in Italy. Indeed I could not quite see why an emperor would have to take sides at all. It did not seem prudent to ask, however. Baldwin had finished the rice balls and was delving deep into a stack of ham, and although he was trying to seem courtly it was plain that hunger had mastered rank, at least for the moment. The Captain was letting him eat and watching carefully. He was wearing the look that had reminded my friend Will of a great owl watching mice scurry below him on the floor of his barn, and not for the first time that evening I felt a – very small – tug of pity for Baldwin de Courtenay.

'Good sir, I can perhaps guess what you are hoping to talk to me about’ said the Captain after Baldwin had polished off the ham and sat back, looking rather stunned and wiping greasy hands on the wondrous tunic. ‘Your cousin Louis is a collector, of course.'

'Monsieur, by your leave! You speak of the King of France, the heir of Charlemagne, not some… some ploughboy!'

'Peace, dear friend,' said the Captain calmly. 'That most pious king and I have a long acquaintanceship: I daresay I know him better than you do yourself.' He held up a hand to silence more protest. 'Louis Capet is not a proud man, nor overbearing, nor is he a zealot for pomp and ceremony. I have conducted most of my dealings with him seated at his side beneath an oak tree, and he would not wish me to dissemble otherwise.'

Baldwin sighed. You are right. The King of France has ways and habits that are beyond the understanding of…' he glanced nervously around the table. 'Beyond my understanding, certainly. But as to piety, there, sir, do we have the matter itself.' He sighed again, and placing his right hand on the table, seemed to fall into sad contemplation of it.

'Baldwin de Courtenay, I believe I can find the heart of this matter that plainly weighs heavily upon you.' The Captain was leaning forward, looking past me into Baldwin's eyes. It was like watching a baby rabbit mesmerised by a stoat. The boy swallowed painfully. His eyes were very wide.

'In your palace of Bucoleon in Constantinople, there is a chapel. That chapel's name is Pharos. I know every single thing, great and small, that resides within the Pharos Chapel.'

Baldwin looked for an instant as if he had been run through the heart with Zianni's stiletto. Then, as the shadow of a cloud moves across and leaves a summer hillside, his face crumpled into a grimace of the most intense relief. His shoulders slumped and he put his two hands together as if in prayer and kissed his fingertips.

'I knew it, gracious Lord’ he whispered, finally. 'I knew You would bring me to this man. Thank You for guiding me this night’ I was puzzled for a moment, then I realised that the boy really was praying. I had not seen a man pray in earnest in many, many days and it struck me that prayer, a habit I had learned at my mothers breast and had performed as naturally as breathing every day, every hour of my life until I had joined the Cormaran, was now as strange to me as the habits of some grotesque from the pages of Herodotus. I looked around at my fellows. Zianni was smiling indulgently and a little wolfishly at Baldwin; Horst was scowling. The Captain's face was unreadable. Baldwin de Courtenay finished his prayer and crossed himself extravagantly. I believe the Captain was the only one of us who did not flinch.

'I am most flattered to be taken for an answered prayer’ he said. 'However, I am usually thought by most to be a businessman. I would be delighted to talk business with you tomorrow – I will come to your lodgings, if you would care to name a time’

Baldwin blinked in surprise. He was forever being taken by surprise, this one, I thought. 'As you wish, monsieur’ he said. 'But I.. ‘