Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

'Just some red rocks beyond the bridge. Don't you know your history, boy? In hoc signo vinces. Let us hope that they will mean victory for you. One more thing. Do you know what is in there?' He nodded at my valise. I hesitated, and shook my head. 'A… a letter, for someone else’ I said.

'If you are risking your liver for it, I would read what it says, if I were you,' he said. 'Might not be worth it.' With a gruff nod he left me there and shut the door behind me.

I thought for a while, and then drew out the letter with the great leaden bull. It was sealed with wax, and I opened it carefully with Thorn, taking care to keep the seal intact. The candles threw their yellow light over illuminations and letters in a beautiful, snaking hand. There was much courtly and legal stuff, and I searched impatiently for the meat. It was a decree all right, a mandamentum, and it had to do with Baldwin. But it was not addressed to him. It appeared – I could not entirely make sense of the legal curlicues – to be made out to the Captain himself, or to the company of the Cormaran. It is the business of the pope to look after the interests of the Latin empire of Constantinople, I read, since it was taken from the schismatic Greeks with the approval of the papacy, and since it is the papacy s bulwark in the East against the Greeks and the Infidel. There were more niceties, and then: In support of the eastern province, in addition to the forgiveness of sins which we promise to those who, at their own expense, set out thither, and beside the papal protection which we give to those who aid that land, we hereby decree by the paternal love which we have for you that whosoever offers for sale, sells, seeks to purchase or does purchase any and all of the holy relics of Our Lord and of His saints yet remaining in the city of Constantinople and its territories under the aegis of this decree shall have, by the power vested in us, dispensation to make any such transactions and absolution from simony, that the eastern province may accrue such riches as will shore up its defences and so carry out Gods will. And there was the signature of Pope Gregory. I leaned back against the cobwebby bricks, my heart pounding. No wonder they were after me. I found an awl and heated its tip in the lantern flame, melted the wax and resealed the letter. Marso was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. He studied my face, but took the valise without a word and stood aside to let me pass. As I crept south through the narrowest, stench-plagued alleys I could find, I sent up a thousand wordless prayers – to whom I knew not, for the god of the Cathars was a puzzle to me, and the god I had once served had ceased to listen to my prayers some time ago – for Marcho Antonio Marso. I had no doubt that he would be waiting for me in the morning with my valise and the papal bull. But whether or not I would make our rendezvous was another matter entirely. My predicament was now beginning to reveal itself to me, although I was still guessing as to the details. It was plain that something bad had befallen the hapless Baldwin de Courtenay. I doubted that he was dead: one did not kill an emperor, however petty, and stay to clear up the blood. So he might have been taken, against his will: hence the blood.

The man in the shadows had been Venetian. What had Baldwin said that day? I racked my brains, and fought my way down through hazy memories of the Captain aloof in his chair while Baldwin squirmed, and how young the emperor had looked, young and frantic. There: I had it. 'Very solidly in debt to Venice’ he had told us. Very anxious that the Republic did not know he was in Rome – or perhaps he had meant Italy. So the man was a creditor. But why abduct Baldwin, unless… I sighed. He meant to hold the emperor as security, or ransom him. Christ's foreskin: Venice had repossessed Baldwin de Courtenay.

By this time I was drawing near to the fish market again, for I was back in the Jewish quarter. It was a good place to hide, for there was much to and fro of people, much noise and commerce. I found a rag-pickers' market set up in a little piazza and let myself fade into the corner. I needed to think. There was a stone bench on which two old men were sleeping, spittle crusting on their bristly chins. I sat down next to them and leaned back against the brick wall behind me.

The bull: there was no reason to believe that the Venetian knew anything about it. Baldwin had not been expecting any such thing, and the Captain had not known of it until Gregory had entrusted it to us. But to Baldwin's captor, any document from the pope might signify money, and that was why he had sent his creatures to pursue me. Or perhaps he believed I was a witness to his crime, whatever it had been, and had decided to silence me. If so, I was in mortal danger, for they would kill me out of hand. I preferred to believe that the document was drawing them on, if only to quell the icy fear that had settled in the pit of my belly.

It was late in the afternoon, and the little square had fallen into shadow. I had been keeping watch on the main entrance, but no one worrisome had come in or out. The rag-sellers were packing up now, but I realised that in my bright Venetian costume I was an easy mark and so I bought a ragged old traveller's cloak for a few pennies and threw it about my shoulders, much to the amusement of the gimlet-eyed merchant, who offered me silver for my cycladibus and tunic, and more if I would strip off my hose into the bargain.. I hesitated, though, for they were Anna's gift, and left the man shaking his head in disappointment.

So I lurked in my cloak, which carried the whiff of night-soil in its folds and made me feel somewhat unlike myself: a true disguise, I suppose, for as I slunk about, stinking, I began to feel as if I were sinking down into the understorey of the city: the human detritus that lies, like leaf mould in a wood, unnoticed underfoot as the better sort of folk go about their business with their noses turned up. I wandered the streets, keeping to the shadows, pausing once to take a cup of wine at a fisherman's tavern near the river, but not yet daring to step out on to the open ground that lay between the buildings and the water. I had already decided that I would take the Jews' Bridge, for the bridges over to the Tiber Island were less crowded, and I did not like the look of the towers that guarded them. I found another tavern, barely worthy of the name and haunted only by broken-down folk to whom my vile cloak no doubt seemed like a king’s ermine. It stank of unwashed tripe and forgotten fish-heads. I was served wine, of a sort, by a young wench with limp whitish hair and a double chin who made sheep's eyes at me and dangled her tits in my face as she poured out my vinegary drink. But I could, by craning my neck, see the end of the Jews' Bridge and the traffic going to and fro upon it, still busy as dusk came on with folk going back to their houses in Trastevere. I thought I would cross with the crowds, but as I watched I knew I had missed my chance for that. Courage would have seized the moment, but instead I had skulked in a dead man's cloak. Tra-la. I would have to wait until dark, then.

I pretended to drink my wine, but then bought myself some more time by draining my cup of its foul contents and suffering a second helping. The wine was scouring my insides, and as my guts were already roiling in fear and anticipation I was starting to feel quite horrible. But the sun was setting at last behind the Janiculum and now the shadows on the banks of the Tiber were growing. Another cup of infernal wine and I could leave.

My stomach was beginning to feel as if it were filled with burning coals, and the pain was making me wince. A wave of it struck me and I screwed my eyes shut against the raw agony. When I looked up I was staring into the face of the woman from the White Hound.