Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

Whatever business we had in London was concluded, I presume, and days later, or perhaps weeks afterward, the Cormaran slipped down the Thames, past the brown marshes, the desert of hissing reeds, the frost-painted meadows grazed by sheep, the towns where folk were living and dying; and out into the bleak oblivion, the cold comfort of the sea.

Rome, April 1237

‘Do you not mean "Where am I?" or perhaps "Who are you?"? asked the man. I shook my head. Thoughts were whirling around my skull like flying ants around a summer lantern. I took another draught of water. One by one my thoughts began to take hold of one another. Faster and faster they spun until they were one thought, and at that instant my reason returned to me.

‘You are Isaac’ I told him. I am.. My mind throbbed. I thought of the city of Balecester, that was destroyed. No, not destroyed: that had been a dream. But I had been in those water meadows, once. I had washed up there, after a madman had killed my best friend – or so I had believed – and knocked me senseless into the river. Balecester was lost to me, sure enough, as certainly as if it had indeed been consumed by fire. I had stolen a holy relic and been accused of murdering a priest. Then I knew myself. I was Petroc of Auneford, monk of the Abbey of Buckfast in Devon, erstwhile scholar, fugitive, outcast. My home was a ship called the Cormaran, and for two years I had known no other.

‘I know who I am’ I said. And we… but this is not London, is it?' My last memories were of that great, stinking town, of rummaging through a market with the Lady Anna Doukaina at my side.

The man put down the cup and clapped his hands, then raised them, palms up, towards the ceiling. 'God be praised!' he laughed. 'Praised indeed! I did not know if it was the fever that had broken, or your spirit. No, we are not in London. We are in Rome.'

'But that is… oh.' I tried to sit up, and found my backbone as weak as a poppy-stalk. 'How long have I been…'

'Ten days. There was a storm off Oran, and you fell from the mast. You landed on your head – a hard head, to be sure, as it did not break. But you fell into a deathly sleep. My dear friend, I feared we would be burying you in the blue water.' 'Ten days? From a knock on the head?'

Isaac shrugged. You developed a brain fever.' I shuddered. A brain fever had carried off both my parents when I was very young. 'That I could treat, and the lump on your pate. But there was something else working in you, I think. You really remember nothing?'

'No,' I said impatiently. Then I did recall the ghost of a memory, Is Anna nearby?'

Even in my addled state I saw that Isaac's smile had frozen on his face. He grimaced, and feigned an itch alongside his nose. I jerked upright, and my head swum horribly. But I seized him by the sleeve and feebly shook his arm. Isaac said nothing, but looked grave, the way doctors do when they must tell you that your running nose will kill you within the day. He gently eased his arm from my grasp and, going over to a table in the corner of the chamber, poured a dark liquid into a goblet. To this he added something from a small vial. When he held it to my mouth I found it was wine, with something bitter and sharp mixed in. But the wine was strong and gave me some warmth, so I drank down half of it. To my surprise, Isaac drained the goblet himself and sank down on to the pallet next to me with a sigh.

The wine was closing in on my reason like thick ivy around an old ruin, and I felt my eyes grow heavy, although I desperately willed them to stay open. Perhaps I had not heard Isaac properly. I opened my mouth to speak, but he placed his palm on my forehead, and his fingers pressed gently into my temples.

'Sleep a little, and then things may be a little more clear,' he murmured.

I tried to protest, but a deep, soft darkness was engulfing me. It was the friendliest oblivion, and I gave up struggling against it. But just as the last spark of light went out in my skull I glimpsed an image. It was Anna, a dark cloak about her shoulders, tears painting streaks of kohl down her cheeks. She turned from me. Turned away, and stepped through a great stone doorway into shadow. Darkness swallowed her, and then it swallowed me. When I woke next, it was morning. At least, I supposed it was morning, for the light was coming in through the window at a sharp angle and lighting up the walls of my room. Without thinking I swung myself out of bed, only to find that I had no strength in my legs. I slumped on to the bedcovers, and then managed to haul myself upright. Leaning against the wall, I shuffled over to the window. The sunlight was strong, and blinded me for a moment. I blinked, and saw, stretching away below me, a field of tumbled stones and ruined walls. My heart gave a lurch as I remembered how I had seen Balecester destroyed. Had it really happened? Then I blinked and saw goats clambering over the stones, and the silver-green of olive trees. I rested my elbows on the cold stone of the windowsill. Tears started to prick my dry eyes, and then I heard a noise behind me. I turned and found that I had not been alone. Captain de Montalhac was seated in a narrow chair, his long legs thrust out before him. He had been sleeping, I supposed, for now he yawned and rubbed his hands through his greying hair.

'Good morrow, young Patch’ he said thickly. 'I suppose it is the morrow? I believe you had a better slumber than me.' 'I did not see… How long have you been there, sir?'

'Since Isaac put you out with his finest sleeping draught. And that was a little after sunset yesterday’ 'Isaac took a little of his own medicine’ I said absently.

'And well he might’ said the Captain, standing up and stretching. 'He had not left your side for nearly two days and nights. We thought we were losing you, boy. Your life was smouldering like wet peat, and Isaac tended you without pause.' 'When I awoke then, I could remember nothing’ I whispered. 'But now… everything is pain.' You nearly died’ said the Captain.

Would that I had!' I cried. 'I understand nothing, and yet she is dead, which I seem to know, and I… I am alive? Dear God, how has it come to this?'

'Pain is to be expected. But Isaac told me that your pain might be beyond the reach of his skills. Indeed we both wondered whether your body was sick at all, for it seemed that, even though you were hurt from your fall, you grew far more sick than your injury merited. Isaac wondered if you had lost your will to live.' 'I wish to die.' 'Indeed. But you still live…'

I sat down heavily on the bed. 'I can see Anna turning away from me, and a door closing. Then nothing until I woke last night. Yet I know she is dead.'

Well, you seem to have lost a full three weeks of your life’ said the Captain. Then he attempted a grin. 'Good riddance, ‘I’d say. They were unalloyed misery for you, lad. You had been sunk in a deathly gloom since we left London’ Then the grin vanished as he dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes cheerlessly.

I did not reply, but lay down and turned my face to the wall. I hardly cared that the Captain was still talking, indeed his voice faded away into a thin, distant hiss, for I had been engulfed by a swift, searing tide of pain. It was the returning memory of all that I had forgotten, and it travelled like cold fire along every nerve, every vein, every bone in my body. I shook as if with the ague, and tears dropped from my eyes and soaked into the sheets. Perhaps I might die now, I thought feebly. Please, let this be death.

But it was not death, at least not mine. As one feels a knife-thrust first as simply a dull blow, the pain coming along with the realisation that there is a blade in one's flesh, so I was first stunned by the remembering of my loss, then pinned and writhing, the blade of memory twisting in my heart. I closed my streaming eyes, and through the tears, as if in a scrying glass, I saw it all. I came to my senses later. The room was empty, and the day was fading outside. Sparrows were chatting on the windowsill. I raised my face from the wet bolster, to find something there that shone warm in the dimming light. I reached for it.