Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

I was silent, remembering Sir Hugh de Kervezey, and the first words he had ever spoken to me: This is how you kill someone quickly and efficiently. Knife forward, your thumb on the blade. Strike upwards under the ribs, and keep pushing upwards.' And I remembered how the light had gone out of his eyes after I had killed him. He had proved a good teacher after all, and I a fine student. I found that I had clenched my fists so tightly that they had gone numb, and that the terrible agonising rage I had felt was quenched, although I could not have said why, or what was taking its place.

'Not hard?' I said at last. 'I suppose it isn't. But it makes everything else impossible.'

She gave me that sidelong look again. 'Depends on who it is, doesn't it?' 'Those who believe in the immortal soul would disagree.'

'Fuck. Of course, you used to be a priest. You aren't squeamish, though, Gurt Dog…'

'Do you not listen? I was never a priest,' I growled. 'As for my soul, it is destroyed, beyond a doubt, but I have ceased to believe in salvation or a loving Saviour. I will not give myself that luxury, to be a murderer and a thief and still under His protection. I leave that to the soldier-priests and the crusaders.'

'I didn't kill your friend,' she said, suddenly. 'The German, in Foligno. That was Facio. You want to know if my arms are bloody to the shoulders? I will tell you. I killed a man in Venice, when I was a girl, and all alone. He beat me and fucked me in an alley, and when he had had his way he fell asleep from all the drink in him, and I stove his head in with a brick.' I heard her swallow hard, as if her mouth had gone dry.

Will you hear my confession, Master I-was-never-a-priest? Here it is anyway: I have stood by while men were killed. I have brought a man to his death, once. In Smooth Field life was not accounted very high, and in Venice they will kill a man over the cut of his clothes. But Dardi was the second one I have slain, and he fucking deserved it,' she said through clenched teeth. Tuck! Fuck it! Ach…' she sniffed, and I suddenly realised she was weeping. Reluctantly I raised my hand to comfort her, and she flinched. My anger flooded back.

'He deserved it, did he? Anna did not deserve it, but he did: you are as just as Solomon, aren't you? You kill your friend, and betray your master, as easy as…' I shook my fist, as if to beat the words out of the air.

'The betrayal was not mine,' said Letice fiercely. 'Nicholas had thrown me aside.'

'He gave you to Dardi,' I said, all of a sudden remembering her hurried words in the chapel. I had not really listened then, for I had been awash with terror, confusion and relief, but now I began to recall that she had given me some explanation that had been enough for me then. 'But, really, what of it? You are a whore: you said so yourself'

Yes, I should not care, should I?' she was saying. 'Nor be surprised, for Nicholas bought me like a sword or a horse. Something to ride. But give me to Dardi? To Dardi! He knew it would mean my death. He had just made Dardi the warden of his island, and I was to sweeten the pot. Stampalia – it is a hideous, dry place, and the castle is-'

'This is nonsense! You would have had your own little kingdom,' I interrupted. 'Not with Dardi. He would have killed me sooner or later – no doubt sooner. Torture was what he really liked. Nicholas, Facio even – they are not cruel, not in that way. They do not hurt for pleasure, except when that might bring gain. They want what they want, and they will do the necessary. They have enough in their heads to keep them occupied: Dardi's head was empty: he must needs keep it filled with a store of horrors inflicted upon others’

Despite the scorn I was trying to keep hold of, I shuddered, remembering all too well the smell of his breath that night by the Tiber. 'He looked too stupid for that’ I said.

'No, no. You men: so arrogant about your cruelty. You do not need to be clever to be cruel, you just do what your flesh tells you. Dardi – suffice to say he once fucked a girl to death, and she was a friend, and I had to clean her up. He wanted me to see’ 'But did Querini know what he was about, when he.. ‘ 'Oh, he knew all right. He'd had enough of me. I think Facio was grown clever and bold enough that Nicholas could lean upon him – he didn't need me any more. And there's many a foreign whore in Venice, cleverer ones than me.'

'But… but didn't he care about you? After all those years?'

'He put me clear out of his mind the moment he left me’ she said. Tm sure he doesn't remember me at all.' We had fair weather and a fair wind out of the north, and so we quickly threaded our way down through the islands of Greece, past Scio and Scopello, between Icaria and Micono and down into the Duchy of the Archipelago, Venetian castles nailing Venetian rule on to barren hillsides and whitewashed villages cowering in their shadow. Late on the third day we raised Stampalia, and not wanting to arrive at night, the captain took the Seynt Victor into the lee of Amorgo. I passed a restless night, for, whatever the Dominicans intended to do should we find Querini at home, I – for all my eagerness to come here – had but one thought in my head. If Messer Nicholas were there, then to avenge my master, and Horst, I must try and take his life from him. This thought had been seeded on that last day in the Bucoleon Palace, and had grown slowly, in darkness, ever since. Out here in the pure light of the Greek seas, however, it had begun to uncurl and to darken, like a shoot pushing its way up from underground, and since the lady Letice and I had reached some strange, uneasy truce its full strength had been turned upon her erstwhile master. I had no idea how my need to avenge Captain de Montalhac could be squared with the extraordinary – nay, stupendous – opportunity offered by Andrew of Longjumeau's revelation. I had never before planned to hurt anyone and I did not wish to now, but there did not seem to be a choice if I were ever to return to the fellowship of the Cormaran. As the boat bobbed gently beneath a dazzling net of stars, I bitterly regretted that I had ever come eastward in the first place.

Letice, on the other hand, was seething with excitement. She had been acting her part with aplomb, so much so that she kept herself sharply to herself and had allowed the captain of the Seynt Victor to appoint himself her chaperon, which office he fulfilled in an absurdly grave manner, no doubt because he felt the eyes of the friars upon him. I had not passed more than the time of day with her since our disagreement, and I found myself urgently wishing that I could divine whatever it was she had going on in her head. I knew little more about her now than I had when I first beheld her in Rome. She fascinated and repelled me, and I did not trust her one hairs breadth. So I was startled to find her at my side as I leaned upon the rail, gazing out at the black silhouette of the island. 'Hello, Master Dog’ she murmured. I looked around, and saw her sharp yet sensual profile outlined against the faint star-sheen on the water.

'Good evening’ I said. Dear God, could I do no better than that? I wished she would leave me be, to my dark and bloody thoughts.

You're a well-mannered dog, aren't you?' she answered. 'I mean, for a blaspheming priest-killer and all.'

'Mistress Letice, you should not be here’I said vehemently. 'The captain, the brothers.. ‘

'Bugger the brothers’ she said. 'Or, mayhap, they are buggering each other as we speak. That is what you get up to, isn't it, you priests?'

'I told you, I was never a priest!' I burst out, then saw she was chuckling.

'Like I said before, you must have done something’ she said.

There was nothing for it but to tell her. I thought perhaps then she might leave me alone. So I hurried through my sad tale, from the night I had met Sir Hugh de Kervezey in the Crozier tavern to that bloody morning on the Koskino beach.