Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

We left the city by the Blachernae Gate, trotting out past unshaven guardsmen scratching their fundaments while the smoke from their breakfast fires seeped thickly from the arrow-slits in the guardhouse. The alaunt hounds sniffed them curiously and were driven away with boots and curses.

'The chimney s blocked’ I observed to my companion. He laughed.

'There's no chimney. Those are Catalans from the high mountains. They miss their stinking turf huts, and so they light their fires on the floor.' 'But they will burn themselves out of doors!' 'Good Christ, man, they do that with some regularity.'

Pondering upon the quality, or lack thereof, of the men who guarded the great city of Constantinople, I rode along in silence. The land began to slope upwards almost immediately. It was a patchy mix of houses, abandoned and fast tumbling down, fields that were reverting to wilderness, and scrubby copses of turkey oak and olive trees. We were on a wide paved road, which we had all to ourselves. It was becoming a jolly party now that we had left the city. The annoying young man with the long hood had pulled a rebec from his saddlebag and was sawing away at it, singing French love songs in a high, somewhat cracked voice. In truth he was not bad, and pulled some sweet tones from the strings, although his throat seemed in need of lubrication. However, when this was provided, in the form of wine, it had no effect save to turn his songs bawdy. The others began to join in one by one, until the whole party – save myself, who did not know the words – were singing lustily. Every so often a dog would give tongue, perhaps in protest, and his fellows would join in, to the merriment of all. I had to admit that this was not, perhaps, the worst use of a day, and by the time we came to a fork in the road and left the wide highway for a narrower track, I was in quite high spirits myself. I had not let my guard down, not quite; but I was beginning to feel loose-limbed and hot-blooded, and I was looking forward to the chase.

We had come no more than two miles, riding slowly, passing flasks of wine to and fro. The woods were thicker now. Plane trees, their leaves dead and dry, spread their great canopies for the starlings, and cypresses grew straight in deep green spinneys. We had seen almost no one since passing through the gate, and passed a very few mean habitations – hovels amidst patches of bare earth in which bald, mite-gnawed chickens scratched resignedly – but here we had entered a desert. No smoke rose, and no one seemed to use the road, which, although it too was paved with good Roman stone, had been left to the mud and colonising grass. But I began to notice that the beasts had found this lack of men much to their liking. Rabbits shot across our path, and I saw how well trained our hounds were, for they did not so much as twitch in their direction. A fox loped away and then sat on his haunches like a tame dog and regarded us from an outcropping of rock. Pheasants and partridges burst away from us in whirring explosions. Birds shrilled and gossiped everywhere. In all, this empty heath was a livelier place by far than the city of men we had left behind us.

At last we came upon evidence of man's presence. A great tangle of furze had been hacked down and burned, and beyond the black and ash-heaped circle left by the fire stood a wall into which a gateway had been let. Gateless now, the archway had been overrun with vines, and a thatch of caper plants grew from its apex like a badly made wig.

'Here is the Philopation,' said Aimery. 'Hunting park of the great Roman emperors. Fucking mess, isn't it?' 'It does not look very imperial,' I agreed.

'What does, eh? What does,' Aimery agreed. 'Too near the walls. We wrecked the place when we took the city. There are palaces in there, all fallen down. Terrible waste, really. But who would make their home out here? Not I.' 'Does anyone live here, then?'

'Vagabonds – nay, not vagabonds…' It was one of the others, a tall man in green who wore a fine, old-looking horn over his shoulder. He had been riding at the front, and seemed to have some authority. Now he clicked his fingers in search of a word. 'Rollo, what do they call them? The conjuring folk?' 'Athingani,' answered Rollo, tucking away his rebec. 'Lori,' added another. 'Aigupti,' a man with a crossbow chimed in.

'There you have it,' said the man. "They are wanderers, and have power over beasts, particularly snakes. The men have a snake tattooed across their chests, the savages! Their women are dark 'And fuck like a basketful of vipers,' said Rollo.

'Into which I would sooner stick my cock,' Aimery said. 'But we will not see them. They do not like us, nor we them. In fact, a florin for any man who kills an Athingani! Eh?' He winked at me, perhaps to signify that he did not mean it. Or perhaps that he did. In any event I thought no more of it. The park looked utterly deserted, and any conjurors would surely have sense enough to steer clear of a pack of buffoons such as us.

Beyond the walls the land began to roll away in a lazy ripple of knolls, little crags and shallow, wooded ravines. I could see that it had once been cared for, as it was overgrown but not wild. Not far away stood a little stone lodge, gutted by fire. There had been a group of marble fountains in front of it, and these were cracked and choked with moss. The ruin of Constantinople could not be contained, plainly, and must spread its tendrils outwards like dry rot to consume everything within its reach. I felt someone walk across my grave, as I often did in the city's smashed and fouled streets, but resolved not to let the day be spoiled by melancholic thoughts. I was free, at least for the day; in jolly company, and with the prospect of fine sport ahead.

Well, lead on, boys!' I called. Aimery whooped and set spurs to his horse, and we crashed through the gate and into the park.

We had gone no more than two bow-shots from the gate when the land closed in around us. The gate and the lodge were invisible, swallowed up in a haze of cypresses and young oaks. Aimery declared that we would split up into pairs and hunt until lunchtime, but the tall man thought it would be better sport to divide into two groups. Thus we would have company as well as sport, and perhaps after lunch we could go off in pairs. We had dismounted in a clearing, and the servant had opened his oilskin bundle to reveal short spears with broad, leaf-shaped heads and stout iron cross-guards. There were bows too, short, curved Saracen ones with quivers full of red-fletched arrows. The alaunts sniffed about, cocking their legs and dropping huge, reeking turds wherever they pleased, while we hunters fortified ourselves with wine and dried sausage. To my chagrin, Rollo singled me out and cast his arm around my neck.

'Let us bring each other luck, friend Petrus’ he said. I agreed with what I hoped was good grace. His puppy-like quality grated upon me, as did his somewhat desperate need to be loved – unnecessary, for his companions seemed to love him to distraction – and the prospect of wandering through gulley and thicket while he jabbered and jested dampened my mood. But I put my best face upon the situation, for I was a guest and a gentleman (for all they knew) and must show my breeding.

Will you sing the beasts out of their lairs for us?' I asked him, with my best grin. 'And on to the points of our spears!' he crowed.

'Aye, and who could blame them’I told him. His eyebrows shot up, but then he treated me to another of his laughs. Aimery, who had heard my poor joke, joined in, and soon the whole party was cackling like a building of rooks. I joined in while making sure my wine flask was full, for I feared it would be a long time until lunch.

Our party chose to take a narrow goat-path that led off to the south, towards the river. The others decided to try their luck in the higher ground to the north, where the park rose to overlook the Golden Horn. But we had been riding no more than five minutes when Rollo signalled to me and dropped behind the others. Then, when we were a horse's length behind the last man, Rollo whistled out his four dogs from the pack, then wheeled his horse with a mad cry and set off into the trees to our left. My horse, whether scared or excited, took to her heels after him. We were off into the wild. I was intensely grateful to Horst, for my merciless riding instructor had made sure I could ride and use a weapon. Finally Rollo slowed his horse and let me catch up.