Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

Gilles nodded gravely. ‘I – neither the Captain or myself – have never doubted that. That is why I have more to tell you. We would like to establish a permanent base here, Patch’ he said. 'Rome is the very heart of our trade, as you must understand. It would be valuable to us if we had a representative here. After Venice, we – this has been in our thoughts for some time, you might like to know – would like you to look into that matter for us’ I must have been gaping like a codfish, for he laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed companionably.

'Everything in time, Petroc. These sound like mighty affairs, but they are not, necessarily. We want you to stretch your legs, see a little of the world, and hopefully divine your place in it. Still as sanguine?'

I pulled on an earlobe. 'He is considering!' cried Gilles, merrily. I slapped my hands on the table.

'No, sir, I have considered. I am your man, whatever the task. I owe you and Captain de Montalhac my life, and it is at your service.'

'Done’ said Gilles. 'Very well. We are leaving this place. Horst is finding you a room in the English Borgo, where you will stay for the next few days.' 'But I thought I was leaving at once?' I said, confused.

'Ah. You must deliver Gregory's decree to young Baldwin de Courtenay, or have you forgotten already? And as for Venice, do you know the way?' I shook my head. 'Easily remedied. The Captain has a map, of course. And there is the small matter of transport’ he went on. You can, of course, ride?'

I felt my ears redden. 'Only mules’ I muttered, mortified. 'Mules, and the horse I rode up to Viterbo and back’ I added hastily, hoping to salvage a little dignity.

Yes, that is rather what I meant. Michel mentions in his letter that you were a little… gingerly, he put it, upon your mount. Well, with your new-found rank we will not send you out into the world on an ancient mule, lad’ said Gilles. You will ride a horse, like a gentleman – for that is what you are, make no mistake – and you will ride it well. Horst will teach you, I think’ 'Horn?'

'He was once a knight in his own land’ Gilles said, 'and a warrior who rode out to battle many times. He will teach you, all right, probably far more than you will ever need to know. And now, let us find that map’

Thus the day settled into the more comforting and familiar rituals of route-planning, timetables, and all those other ways in which men seek to impose form and order on the trackless future. At last I had a purpose. And more: I was to be the Captain's agent in Rome, perhaps – and that, at last, was purpose indeed, and although the Captain and his lieutenant had seemingly tossed it my way like a scrap to a dog, it was a scrap that I kept returning to, each time finding it more savoury.

My new quarters turned out to be two plain rooms two flights up above a narrow street in the English Borgo. I loved this quarter, with its ancient, crumbling buildings and teeming, polyglot inhabitants. Like all of Rome it seemed to have stood forever, quietly wearing away like a great stone outcrop, while men came and went, leaving no more impression than ants. But of course the reverse was also true, sometimes in spectacular ways. Buildings seemingly disappeared overnight, collapsing in dusty mounds, their stones pillaged instantly for new buildings that sprang up as if conjured out of the ground. Everywhere was noise, hubbub, commotion, bustle, laughter, strife, argument, song. I call it the English Borgo, and indeed there were others – Frankish, Frisian, Langobard and more – but in truth the northerners mixed promiscuously, or at least as promiscuously as pilgrims and clerics may.

All this delighted me. I loved to hear the voices of my homeland, of course, for I was an exile, and exile is a sickness for which there is no cure, only balms to assuage the worst pangs. I had, perforce, to assume a false name, for – as I had discovered during my short time in London, and much to my horror – the crime of which I had been accused had given me the sort of notoriety that has maids all a-flutter, their dads growling about nooses and their mothers loosening their stays. I had not, thank the Lord, been accorded the honour of a ballad, but I had a new name, the Gurt Dog of Balecester, a beast who ripped out the throat of the bishop on the altar of his own cathedral and then ran, naked and bloody, through the streets of the city, killing and maiming as he went, before vanishing into the night. The Gurt Dog is what we Dartmoor folk call the Yes Hound, the Devil's own hunting-hound, a sight of which is a sure foreteller of death.

I was a little amused at how my legend had grown, and a great deal more distressed that I had become a beast and a devil in the minds of my erstwhile countrymen. I wondered, of course, how the memory of Hugh de Kervezey was honoured in Balecester. For it had been Kervezey, the bastard son of the Bishop of Balecester and a cold, demon-hearted schemer and murderer, whom I had met, as I believed by chance, one night in a tavern in the city where I was a scholar, and who had cut the throat of deacon Jean de Nointot before my horrified eyes. I had fled, painted with the deacon's steaming blood, and Kervezey, feigning the innocent, had led the hue and cry that had driven me, after long and miserable wanderings, to seek the protection of Captain de Montalhac. Only much later had I learned that I had merely been a very minor pawn in Kervezey's long and cunning game to ensnare the Captain and usurp his business and his power. Fate – I will call it fate, although it is long since I believed in fate, and could as well call it destiny, or chance, or a flaw at the heart of a madman's flawless plan – led Kervezey and me to a distant beach, where, beyond all hope, he died at my hand, slain by his own knife. Thus I saved myself, and avenged my dear friend William of Morpeth, who had been drawn into Kervezey s net alongside me but who had not survived. Now I wore that knife, that was called Thorn, to remind me of William, and so that I could remember the young novice monk who, coming back from a piss, met a pale-eyed man who, with a wave of this same narrow blade of washed steel, had transformed him into what I now was: the Gurt Dog, Petrus Zennorius, Patch to those who knew me well, and Petroc of Auneford never more in this life.

So it was as Petrus Zennorius that I made my way about the Borgo and the greater city around it. It served its purpose, and Patch was as likely a nickname for Peter as for Petroc, so I would not easily be caught out from that quarter. My habitual roaming and prowling about the place, poking into the oldest nooks and seeking out all that was ancient and odd, led me into many chance conversations with other Englishmen, and while I was delighted to fret the air with the usual useless but irresistible discourse on the weather back home (worse than Rome) and the food (far better than all this foreign poison), what I really desired was to ask about Balecester and its grisly hound. I knew better, rest assured, and contented myself with seeking out men from Devon or Cornwall, for simply to hear their homely voices was more refreshing to me than a draught from Jacob's Well. I spent more than one evening in the taverns and cook-shops of the Borgo, keeping myself to myself for the most part, listening and avoiding trouble, for even amongst pilgrims there is conflict, and it was not rare to find blood in the cobbles come morning-time.

Alas for me, although I was simply waiting for the return of Baldwin de Courtenay, my days were not entirely without purpose. Gilles stayed true to his intentions and left the day after our conversation. And I moved the day after that, for the company was leaving the Palazzo Frangipani. Horst, my Brandenburger friend, came for me before I had even unpacked my few belongings. I thought of making some excuse and dodging my obligations, but one look at his set jaw was enough to tell me that my first riding lesson was about to take place, whether I was willing or not. And I was not, for I was, frankly, terrified. It was one thing to ride a corpulent old abbey donkey, quite another to climb aboard a proper horse like the one Horst was holding by the bridle as he stood in the street and shouted for me to come down. Even from three storeys up the beast looked vast and dangerous. I pulled on my travelling boots, buckled on a stout belt – in my panic I believed this was crucial – and descended the stairs with infinite reluctance.