Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

You going to finish that?' she enquired, nodding at the cup which I was gripping with pale knuckles. What?' I said, surprise making a mooncalf of me.

'Because I wouldn't. Finish it. Honest.' To my mangled wits came the information that she was speaking English, London English. Why not?' I stammered 'It'll kill you. Now then, time to go. Come on, love.' I looked at her, bereft of words.

'Has this stuff burned your tongue out? Because you don't say much. I took you for a clever one.' With cool fingers she prised my own from the cup. 'Makes no odds. Time to go outside.'

I stood up, for it struck me that one woman could be overpowered, or merely run from. But she followed me with those eyes. Where is the bag?' she asked, mildly curious, or so it sounded. I watched her for an instant.

'I took it back to the Lateran,' I said. 'After the Pantheon. I thought you meant to rob me, and it was not enough of my affair to…'

'Have I put you to any bother?' she asked, sweetly. 'Come on. You are not in the pay of the Curia. You are Jean de Sol's man.'

What makes you think so? And who is this Jean de Sol?' I added hurriedly.

'The man in whose company you visited His Majesty Baldwin of Romania a couple of weeks ago.' 'I don't know-'

'Please. Put a stopper in it. Innkeepers talk. Servants never stop talking. And surly Frenchies, even, if you ask them nice enough. We know, all right?'

You don't. You cannot. And what have you done with Baldwin, for God's sake? What was that blood you were scrubbing away?' 'Not that you care, of course, for you know nothing, do you? Someone had a nosebleed, my sweet. Do not worry: Baldwin is our guest. And now, out. We are upsetting these nice people.'

I saw no evidence of that, save for the looks that the serving girl was giving us, enough to curdle milk. I stood up. We would walk to the door, and I would run. This girl would not catch me in her skirts. And I still had my knife.

Well done – oh, don't forget to pay!' she scolded, blue eyes flaying me. Flustered again, I threw a handful of pennies on to the table, turned on my heel and made for the door. I heard her chair scrape behind me, but I was pushing past the fat serving maid, now positively squinting with displeasure, and lifting the latch I stepped out into the warm dusk. Except that it was not dusk. While I had sat there in the tavern the sun had departed and night had fallen. I hesitated, confused, trying to get my bearings. A fisherman's fire burned on the river bank to my left, and torches flickered in the street. I took off, heading for the river, thinking to sprint for the bridge, but as I rounded the corner of the tavern wall I slammed into something and fell back hard on to my arse.

‘Pick him up, Dardi,' called the blue-eyed woman in broad Venetian. I looked up into a broad, bearded face, smiling nastily. Hands like farriers' tongs grabbed me under the armpits and hoisted me upright.

'Salve’ said Dardi, not letting go. A hand snaked round my waist, fingers just brushing the top of my groin, and relieved me of Thorn. The woman took the knife and admired it. 'Ooh, how pretty,' she exclaimed. 'Thank you, gentle sir!'

'Don't cut yourself,' I said in English, through gritted teeth.

'I'll try not to,' she whispered back. She stepped in front of me. I saw that she had two companions: the man called Dardi, who released me, and another man, tall and slim, who in the same moment produced a long, slim, double-edged dagger.

‘Please give us the pope's document’ he said pleasantly. We have no quarrel with you, boy.' 'I don't have it’ I told him, hoarsely. 'Ask her.' Well, Signora Letitia?'

'He claims he took it back to the Lateran. I don't believe him. In any event he does not have it now’ said the fair woman.

'Then you will fetch it,' said the man with the knife, his voice tighter. ‘I will not. I cannot’ I muttered.

At that, Dardi drew back and punched me hard in the stomach. I bent double, meeting his knee with my chin. Quicksilver flooded into my eye sockets as I reeled, fighting to keep on my feet. You will fetch it’ Dardi grunted.

'Fetch it yourself’ I told him. I reasoned, very foggily, that if they were beating me up they probably would not kill me, at least right now. If I could just stay upright…

'Stop it, Dardi’ said the woman, impatiently. 'Listen, boy. You are wasting our time. No, actually’ she said, shifting her feet and crossing her arms resignedly across her chest, 'you are wasting our master's time. Much worse.'

Who is your master, then? Not that blustering coxcomb Querini?' I gasped.

'Nicholas Querini of Venice. Hardly a coxcomb: an extremely wealthy and reputable gentleman. Ask anyone about him. Jean de Sol, for instance.'

Wasn't he the one who knocked you down in the street the other day?' I shot back. 'I felt sorrow for you then, fair maid, all sprawled out in the market square.' I straightened up carefully. She was scowling. ‘I would have offered you my hand.' 'I didn't need it,' she hissed.

'Letitia's not your real name,' I went on, babbling to stay alive a minute longer. You're no Venetian. You hail from London, I'd wager, and I'll further wager that your tongue got its edge somewhere lovely like New Gate.'

'Aha! And under your Venetian silks you are a little Wessex sheep-shagger,' she told me. Perhaps I imagined the hint of amusement in her voice.

'Devon, ma'am,' I told her, as proudly as I could. 'I know of no man called Sol. I am clerk to a lazy swine at the Curia who promised me a silver coin if I delivered that letter while he went off and fucked his mistress. Now I have no coin, and you are about to remove my giblets. A very poor bargain all round.'

What is your wish, Signora Letitia?' asked the one called Facio. He raised his blade and pointed it at my throat.

'Listen, you,' she said. 'My master is a great friend of little Baldwin de Courtenay – his very best friend, I would dare say. The emperor needs to be protected from scum like de Sol. Last chance. The letter – tell us where it is.' I shook my head, feigning ignorance but not desperation. She leaned forward, until her chin almost touched my shoulder. 'This is your last chance,' she whispered in her London drawl. 'I did see you in the market: 'twas a kind thought you had. And you had me nearly right: it was Smooth Field, not New Gate.' Her breath smelled of fennel seeds. She stepped back and scratched thoughtfully at her nose, where this morning I had seen a spot breaking out – this morning, an eternity ago. Then she smiled.

Well then. Nice to meet you, Master Devonshire,' she said briskly. You must have been the best-dressed suitor a sheep ever had. Pity you ever left your bog, though, innit?' She brushed past me, cupped her hand around Facio's ear and whispered something. Then she took to her heels, and in a moment she was gone, lost amongst the pools of light and dark between the city and its river.

'Allora’ said Facio, pleasantly. He tapped Dardi on the shoulder and gave some guttural command in Venetian, and in the next instant Dardi's booted foot had caught me squarely between the fork of my legs and I was retching on my hands and knees, aware of nothing but churning agony and bile searing my nose and throat. Then those tong-like hands had hoisted me up again and I was half-walking, half being dragged towards the river. I dimly felt my legs snag in some low brambles. Then Dardi stepped back and Facio was standing there. I could barely see his face, but he might have been smiling. Then he nodded briskly, placed the palm of his left hand square upon my breast-bone, and drew back his knife hand. I barely had time to draw in a rasping gulp of air when I felt a terrible blow on my left breast and a splinter of frigid pain. Then my head burst into stars and I was falling down, down, blows striking me from left and right. But I could not feel my body, for I was no longer the tenant of that destroyed shell of flesh. I was dissolving into the night, the fetid, marsh-stinking night.