Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

I awoke from a black and dreamless sleep that had brought true rest for the first time in many weeks. The day was gone, and the shadows were gathering outside my window. As soon as I beheld the cobwebbed beams of my room I sat upright with a gasp of shock, for my last clear memory was of standing in the Coliseum at night, while someone lit a fire. Then, as with shaking hands I found a flask of water and drained it, I remembered that Michael Scot had called on me and led me through the streets to that terrible place, and what he had caused to appear. But the apparition he had conjured, for I knew now that I had witnessed some manner of necromancy, was not altogether clear in my mind, and after it everything faded into the haze of a dream. I recalled, with the effort with which one pieces together the events of a night when one has drunk oneself near-insensible, that Michael had led me back through the pitch-dark tunnel and out into the city where our mules and escort awaited, and that I had ridden in silence back to my lodgings, where I had allowed myself to be laid in bed. I thought perhaps that Michael Scot had sat at my bedside for a time before I had fallen asleep, but nothing was clear. But it was not, I found, a worry to me that I had all but lost the events of the night, for then, as indeed now, when I try to summon their memory, what had seemed ominous and then frightening had shed its fearfulness. Michael seemed a wise friend, our excursion a great adventure. And what I had seen in the flames – whom, rather – had not been a spirit or demon. Strange as it may seem, it was clear then, as it is even now, that a window was opened for me, and I was given the great gift of being able to look beyond this world, and in doing so to be healed of a dolorous wound. And when I try to discern the taint of magic or the hand of Satan I cannot, for it left me feeling as clean and whole as a bathe in a Dartmoor brook, and I knew with utter certainty that Anna was gone from me as a wounded ghost, but had returned, whole once more, to my heart.

I wandered over to the window. Evening was turning the shadows blue outside, and the air was cool, although the stone of the windowsill still held the sun's warmth. I looked down into the street. People ambled and scuttled, lounged and slumped. I took a deep breath and stretched, and found to my surprise that I was better. Where there had been searing pain there was only a dull ache upon my spirit, and the tight, fickle rawness of a new-healed scar. And there was the prospect of a journey ahead. It was time to leave this city, at least for a while. The landlady knocked on the door to tell me that the parties I had been waiting for had returned to the White Hound. That news put the final touch to my spirits. I called for some fresh water, and the landlady fetched it, beaming at my recovery, as if I had shaken off some mortal illness, and took my sweat-fouled clothes away to wash. I sluiced the staleness from my body, dressed in clean clothes and went out to find some supper. As I was opening the street door, the landlady startled me when she all but leaped from her own doorway.

I entirely forgot!' she exclaimed. ‘Your friend the Frenchman left this for you.' From the upland of her bosom she produced a fat letter. 'Oh, and some money; rather a lot… it is all there!' she added hastily.

‘I am sure it is’ I told her, and waited for her to retreat into her chambers before I hefted the little purse. It was stuffed full of coin, which proved to be all of gold, and I doubted she had robbed me of very much. I was tucking the letter into my wallet when I felt the crackle of something already there. I pulled it out: a piece of parchment, quite old and mellowing into the colour of autumn oak leaves. Curious, I unfolded it. It was nothing but a few lines of Greek, a crabbed, hurried scrawl. I frowned at it for a full minute before the words began to come into focus. As they did so I gasped, for what I read there was this: The Mandylion of Edessa The Keramion The Crown of Thorns The Swaddling Bands Sandals of Our Lord The Cross of Basileus Constantine A portion of the Cross Another part of the True Cross The miraculous Reed The Spear of Longinus A Chain, that bound Our Lord The Sponge, from which he drank A Stone, that came from the holy Sepulchre The Shrouds Holy Cloth in a sacred icon The Grave-Clothes of Our Lord The Syndon of Christ The miraculous Tunic of Our Lord A Towel from the washing of the Apostles' feet Blood of Our Lord Milk of the Theotokos Maphorion of the Theotokos Saint Bias, his head Saint Clement, his head Saint Simeon, his head The Baptist, his arm, and also a portion of his head Moses, his Staff Baffled, I stared at the paper. I seemed to be holding a copy of the Inventarium of the Pharos Chapel, but it was not Baldwin's, not the one given to us by Pope Gregory. This had not come from Gilles, and it certainly had not come from the landlady. I remembered Michael Scotus standing over me as I fell off the high cliff of sleep: of course. It must have been Michael, but why should he give me such a gift?

I studied the list again. Some words I understood: Theotokos was the Virgin, the Syndon was, I guessed, something like the Sudarium, the cloth placed over the face of the dead Christ, that I remembered from the Gospel of St John, and that was on Baldwins inventory. But what of Keramion? What was this Mandylion? Like a sleepwalker I stepped out into the cool Roman night. I found food and walked for a while through the noisy crowds, my mind on the baffling list, and on the journey ahead. When I returned to my lodgings I stayed up, the map spread out on the bed, until the bells of the city chimed out the third hour of the night. I counted the Captain's money – there was a, princely amount of it, as the landlady had guessed. I thought to read his letter, but as I was about to, sleep began to creep over me at last. At last I laid my head upon the pillow, but my dreams were shallow and fretted with disturbing visitors: horse-teeth, the gibbets of the Tor di Nona, and the smoke from a greasy, raging fire, which grew until it overhung Rome like a storm cloud.

When I rose the next day I was as fresh as an adder who has left his old skin lying upon a rock. I would be leaving tomorrow, I thought, for my clothes were still being washed; so I had better deliver the pope's letter to the cursed, annoying Baldwin de Courtenay.

This time there were no guards at the door of the White Hound. Without the angry presence of my lords of Grez and Bussac, the place seemed defiantly ordinary, and I wondered how a man who called himself an emperor could bring himself to accept such lodgings. The serving-maid whom I recognised from my last visit blushed in a comely way when she saw me, but a fat older woman who I took to be the mistress of the inn shoved her aside, looked me up and down and waved her hand impatiently towards the stairs.

'They're up there,' she said shortly. I assumed she recognised me, for I was wearing my outlandish Venetian clothes again, so I said nothing; yet I wondered again at the grim circumstances that had befallen the young emperor. I climbed the stairs and, when I reached the landing, pulled out the pope's letter, the better to make a grand entrance – for I winced at the thought of fumbling in my satchel while Baldwin and his two gladiators smirked. So I stood before the emperor's closed door, arranging the letter in my hand so that the bulla hung majestically – or so I hoped – over my forearm, before giving the door a sharp, efficient rap.

The wood sounded hollow, and I realised that the door was unlatched. It opened slightly. To my surprise, I heard no one within: no answer to my knock, no summons to enter. Feeling like a jackanapes, I hesitated. Then I thought to myself how odd it was that the Emperor of Romania should leave his door unlocked. Perhaps, I reasoned, it was deliberate. Christ, now I suddenly wished to get this business over with straight away.