Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

'Get up. Get up!' Aimery was almost shrieking now. He sounded almost like a woman. Was he a woman? I was not really sure what was happening. But I hauled myself up until I was kneeling, body propped on my bound hands.

'Now then, you Cornish maggot, I'm going to cut off your balls and make you eat them’ There was the neat little hiss of a well-oiled blade being drawn. Then the hand let go of my hair.

‘For God's sake!' Aimery screeched again. 'Cannot a man be alone in this fucking place for one moment? Let me have my due!' And a door crashed shut behind me. I blinked, but all I could see was fire. Then through the fire I saw a dark blur. Flames and tentacles of black hair whirled and melded, and there, at the centre of that halo, a white face, a skull: only the eternal insignia of eye sockets, nose and mouth. The calm had returned. So this was what Michael Scotus had meant me to see: my death. I gave a little sob of relief, and felt tears begin to sting the gash on my cheek. Then Aimery seized me under the arms and pulled me upright. 'I am sorry, Petrus,' he hissed. 'No, it is all right now. I am ready,' I said.

'I am not,' he said, and I felt a brush of cold against my wrists. Suddenly my hands were free, and the blood began to rush back into them, agonisingly.

'Zoe! Take our friend, and hurry.' From behind the fire – it burned on a kind of plinth, and I saw we were in a brew-house, for huge copper kettles stood all about us – stepped the little Greek serving girl.

'Ah, fuck,' said Aimery. You will have to hit me. Wait…' and he pulled off his tunic and waved it over the fire until the hem and one sleeve caught fire. He hastily trod them out and drew the charred thing back on. 'Now, hit me.' He stood before me, palms up, impatient. Why are you…?' I asked him.

'Because to take an innocent life is a sin. And because to butcher you would dishonour Rollo. For fuck's sake, hit me!'

I could no more have hit a man at that moment than I could have laid a golden egg, but fortunately Zoe stepped smartly around me and before I could stop her, she raised a huge wooden pestle above her head and brought it down on Aimery s skull.

Zoe seized my hand and tugged at it. 'Come’ she said. I looked down at Aimery. He was still and his mouth was open, though he still breathed. 'I think you broke his skull’ I said, stupidly. 'No. If his skull was broken he would be dead, or snoring like a pig as he died.' She gave an ugly snort. 'He is asleep. Come. Now. The rest of them are just behind us.'

So I followed her. There was a narrow doorway at the back of the brew-house, and the door had a bolt. Zoe struggled with the heavy, rusted iron, so I slammed it home and looked about me. We were in another corridor, this one much decayed. There was moss on the floor and rubble in heaps. Zoe bent down to snatch up a small bundle that lay just outside the door, and then, without waiting for me, she took to her heels, and I hobbled after as fast as I could go, for my ballocks felt like burning coals and I thought that a rib was surely broken, for there was a burning in my side worse than any stitch. And besides, I had not the faintest idea what had just happened. How did Aimery and this Zoe know each other? The girl, lean and dark as a shadow, darted around the fallen beams and turned a corner, then another. Growling through clenched teeth against the pain, I found her standing next to a door which she opened for me.

'Go in there’ she said. She followed me in and shut the door.

We were in a small, high-walled room with no roof. Rags of cloud were scudding past the stars high overhead. On two sides, the room was lined with stone benches into which round holes had been cut. 'A privy?' I asked Zoe, puzzled.

Yes. Unlike you Franks, we do not shit in the corridors’ she said, haughtily. Wait.' She stepped over to the nearest bench, grabbed the edge of one of the holes and heaved. With a dull scraping, the whole stone top moved, until a gap had appeared between it and the wall.

'Climb down there’ said Zoe, folding her arms and fixing me with her dark glare. What? Into the'..’

'There's nothing down there!' she hissed, exasperated. 'No one has used this place for forty years – more. No one knows it is even here. In another year or so, it will not be’ she added, glancing up at the ragged tops of the walls. 'This is how the palace folk come in and out when there is trouble. Climb down – you will find a tunnel. It goes straight and does not divide. Follow it. You will come out in an old cistern outside the palace. It is under a chapel to which no one goes. There is a trap-door up to the crypt. And take this.'

She thrust her bundle at me. It unravelled in my hands: my old travelling cloak, and a dagger – no, not a dagger, a cook's knife. I looked at it, stupidly. A single edge, pitted grey steel, and a much worn handle of whittled wood. But its single edge was sharp, and it had a point, of sorts. In that way it was as good as Thorn, as good as any blade. And there, heavy and officious, the leaden disc of the pope's decree. I opened my mouth to yell out with relief, but a small foot kicked me hard on the shin. When I looked up, Zoe was pointing, imperiously, to the latrine. Under her gaze I had no choice but to clamber up on to the teetering slab and sit down where countless ancient bums had sat, legs dangling down into the unpromising hole beneath. I tucked the knife into my belt so that the handle lay against the small of my back. Zoe came up behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders. I flinched, but she did not move.

'My debt is paid. I thank you, Master Frank. Find your way to Hagia Sophia tomorrow evening and go up to the south gallery. Wait by the mosaic of the Deesis – O Frankish dog, Christ with the Theotokos and the Baptist at his side. Someone will come for you’

I turned, mouth forming a question, but she put her finger to her lips. I suddenly wondered how old she was, for in that instant she could have been a child or some ancient spirit of this cursed city. Then she smiled, and pushed me in.

It was a short drop, only my body's length and a little more, and I did not have time to protest. I landed on what felt like old turf but I knew was not. There was a grinding above me and I looked up in time to see a hand, framed against the stars by the rim of a latrine hole. It waved once and was gone. I heard the door clank shut. For a moment I considered hoisting myself out of this ghastly place and finding another way out, but then I reasoned that I might as well die on my own terms in a quiet jakes than be flayed in front of a gang of laughing fools. So I dropped on to all fours and felt about me. I soon found the mouth of the tunnel, and indeed a faint breeze came from within, so, wincing, I crawled in.

Immediately there was utter darkness. I was in a space perhaps a hand's span wider than my body on each side and above. The floor was dry and spongy, and felt like peat. I tried not to think about it, but in truth it smelled somewhat like a peat-bog: raw and ripe, but not fetid. I crawled on, keeping a hand outstretched before me, barking my elbows against the sides at first and once, when my hand found a thick skein of cobweb, banging my head when I raised it, startled. Like a badger or some other plodding, subterranean beast I blundered, losing all sense of time and distance, until my hand came down and found nothing. I almost pitched forward but stopped myself. I had reached the cistern.

It was utterly dark in here as well, and I did not wish to discover by touch what might be lurking around me, so I decided to stay in the tunnel. I hoped that the light of day would show me at least a glimmer of where the trap-door might be. Meanwhile, I had decided that the encrusted shit of millennia was as comfortable a bed as I could hope for this night. I curled up, hugging myself for warmth, and fell, suddenly, into a deep, stunned sleep.