Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

'I am going to Constantinople instead of Gilles,' said the Captain. 'I left Louis' friars in Venice and wore out three horses to get here before he left. Gilles can manage whatever nest of snakes has been stirred up against us in Venice, and I know Constantinople a little better, so… but Patch, what has happened to Horst? I must know quickly.'

So I told them my whole tale there and then, before taking off my cloak, before slaking my thirst. From the morning in Rome when I had found Baldwin gone, to finding Horst stretched out upon cold stone. I gave him my suspicions as to what Horst had succeeded in concealing from the Venetians, and what he perhaps had not. When all was said I was exhausted, and would have laid down my head upon the table and slept there and then, had not the Captain's furious excitement kept my eyelids trembling, but open. If Baldwin was taken by the Venetians, then there was no reason for us to continue our mission, he said. But then again, if we reached Constantinople before the news from Venice, we might conclude some business there and salvage a little from the wreckage. I told him I thought it likely that we would be ahead of any message from the Republic. And then I remembered something. You must see this,' I said, taking the Inventarium of Michael Scotus from my valise and holding it out for the Captain. He frowned as he took it, but his eyes widened and widened until he was gawping like a shocked barn owl.

‘Where… where did you get this, Patch, for God's sake?' he stuttered at last. So I told him that, too.

‘I am… I do not know what to think,' said the Captain after a long pause. He had gone pale. 'This is an Inventarium of relics that reside in the Pharos Chapel, et cetera, et cetera. That you know already. But whose inventory is it?' 'Baldwin's?' I said, uncertainly. 'Are there others?'

What we know of the relics of Constantinople come from old texts, but these are useless, for the city was plundered down to the roof-nails by the crusaders’ he replied. ‘For what remained in the Bucoleon Palace, we have the words of Robert de Clari. This might be his list, but it is in Greek, so…' Wait. Robert who?'

'De Clari – a knight of Amiens. One of the crusaders who sacked Byzantium. Another Frankish plunderer, but at least he kept his eyes open and wrote down what he saw. His book is called The Story of Those Who Conquered Constantinople. I have it in my pack. Strangely enough, I received it as a gift from young Baldwin's cousin Louis Capet himself. But I do not think this is de Clari's list.' "Whose, then?'

‘For myself, I am almost certain it was made by one Nicholas Mesarites, a priest who before the sack was Skeuphylax- storekeeper – of the imperial palaces. He stayed on to negotiate between the Greeks and their conquerors and ended up, I believe, as Bishop of Ephesus.'

My mind was racing. The names meant nothing to me. And this list: why was it different? I tried to remember if Scotus had told me anything, for it seemed odd that he had not. Straining my memory, I could see nothing but flames, and the sour face of Pope Gregory.

'I do not see’ I muttered at last, 'how this can be important. It is ancient. And if it pre-dates the sack, the bulk of these things may well be gone.'

'My dear Patch, that is why I hope it was compiled by Mesarites, as he knew the chapel well after the pillaging had ceased. And there are more items on this list than de Clari mentions in his book. Ergo…'

'Ergo? You believe this to be demonstrated, then, Michel?' asked Gilles with a cautious smile.

'Um, probably, yes’ said the Captain, finally. The three of us laughed nervously.

'But what is this Mandylion? I persisted. 'And Keramion? That sounds like something made of clay – a brick. The Mandylion: something "in a holy picture". Is it a relic lodged in an icon? That is common amongst the Greeks’

'No, no. I am not actually sure what it is, if you want the truth’ said the Captain, ruefully. 'It is certainly a relic of incredible age, for it was known in Edessa – the city in Outremer’ he added, while I nodded my head impatiently. 'The Mandylion was supposedly a piece of cloth brought to a king of Edessa during the lifetime of the Christ. It cured him of an illness. The cloth was supposed to bear the imprint of the Christ's wet face’

'Oh, it is the Veronica!' I put in again. 'But that is back in Rome.'

'No, no – the Veronica is something else: perhaps the other True Image, so called’ put in Gilles. ‘This Mandylion is a painting, I suppose, although in all the writings – and there are many on the subject – it is described quite strangely. The impression I have is that the face appears to be picked out in water, as though the cloth were still wet.'

‘It seems as if you both know quite a lot about the thing after all’ I pointed out.

Yes, well… no. You see, the thing has disappeared and reappeared again and again over the years. It came to Constantinople about three centuries ago, and when it did, a couple of people wrote about the occasion, for it was a very mighty one. I do not remember the exact words, but they do not describe a picture of a face. They describe a folded cloth bearing the full imprint of a crucified man, wounds and blood and all’ 'A painting of Christ's whole body?'

'As large as life. And not a painting, remember: a miraculous image. An imprint.' 'I have never heard of any such,' I said, astounded.

And yet it was in Constantinople before the Franks came,' said the Captain. "The same Mesarites who had charge of the Pharos Chapel describes a ceremony held every week in the city – "the naked Lord rises again," he says. And a few crusaders saw it too, including de Clari. Except the Mandylion was meant to have resided in the Church of Blachernae, which was sacked completely.' 'Then…' 'Then nothing. It disappeared.'

'Someone stole it. That's not so astonishing. They seem to have stolen everything else, at least that is what Anna used to say.'

'That is what I believed. But…' He tapped the list again. 'A Mandylion is here. And here: the holy Tile.'

'Tile!' I scoffed, feeling a little more confident about this. 'Another bit of old plaster from Mary and Joseph's palace, that if it were reassembled would dwarf the Tower of London.'

'It isn't,' said Gilles, shaking his head. I peered at him. He seemed to be quite serious. 'Nothing like that. Legend again, but it seems that the Mandylion was walled up somewhere in Edessa, leaning against a tiled wall. And the tile it leaned on received the image of the face of Christ.'

'But…' I began to feel the ground beneath my feet, so secure for the past two years, begin to tremble. These are the True Images, Petroc,' he was saying, 'the…'

‘Yes, I know all that,' I said, worried now. 'The Veronica, the vera icon: True Image. The holiest relics of all. These are things supposed lost, and yet someone – a very strange person, to be precise – has let us know they still exist. And, in fact, where to find them.'

'And the most important thing of all: that their owner may not even know he owns them’ said the Captain. He folded the parchment and handed it back to me. 'Keep it’ I said. But he shook his head.

'I will take a copy’ he said, 'but you should keep it. It was entrusted to you for some reason – something to do with old Gregory, plainly, for it came from his physician. But..’ 'It makes a difference, does it not?' I said, brightly.

'A difference?, he cried, then he mastered himself. 'A difference, yes. Certainly. Ah… perhaps, my lad, things are not as undone as they seem’ He kept rubbing his temples and staring at the little sheet of parchment.

We will leave at once’ he decided. The ship was fitted up and ready, and it was the purest accident – a crewman had lost his hand while loading the cargo and a replacement had just been found – that he was here at all. If I would care to bathe and change my clothes, perhaps we could set off directly? And so we left the shores of Italy. I embraced Gilles, and bid farewell to Iblis the horse, and to the surprise of us both I wet his soft snout with a couple of hot tears. I had grown extremely fond of the beast during the last few weeks. Poor Iblis! It is an onerous task to bear a man’s weight at the best of times, but I had added to his burden with my incessant prattle, for I had not been alone and beyond human company for nigh on two years and found the solitude maddening. The horse suffered my life's tale a score times and more, not to mention my ramblings on birds, beasts, food, theology and, relentlessly, Anna’s death. If a horse can feel relief, no doubt Iblis did when he learned he would be making his slow way back to Rome in the company of other horses, with no bereaved, raving madman bouncing atop his patient back.