Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

'To whom?' said Letice, turning to me. I felt her breath upon my ear. To… to Querini it's plainly worth thirteen thousand livres, and to the Regent, the same. Poor bloody Baldwin would probably be glad of five thousand – less. He is already robbing church roofs, so… Louis will be disappointed, though.' Won't he just?' said Letice, thoughtfully.

I was suddenly attacked, and that is not too strong a word, by a memory. The Captain and I were sitting before Pope Gregory, and he was cackling like a punctured bellows as he handed us our wax-spattered bulls.

‘I am certain that Our Lord will provide,' he had said. And then I thought of Baldwin in his mean lodgings in Rome, and the famished look that had tightened his young face when he spoke of his cousin, the King of France.

'Does Nicholas know about Louis?' I asked, wincing in anticipation.

'Of course. The Regent told him. We arrived after you, remember?' What, exactly, did he tell him?'

'That Louis was going to give Baldwin a present of gold in return for the Crown.' 'How much gold did the Regent mention, do you think?'

‘I don't know. But thirteen thousand pounds of gold is an awful lot of money, don't you think?' 'Thirteen thousand?' I breathed.

'That is what Querini loaned the empire. I expect Nicholas will ask for that, and the same again for his pains. Twenty-six thousand pounds – pounds! – of French gold! Can you even imagine such a sum?' She sighed. That Brother Andrew seemed quite shocked when I told him.' ‘You told Brother Andrew,' I said, as calmly as I could.

'Of course. I mean, he asked me. That was why he came all this way, wasn't it? 'Course he wanted to know. He didn't bat an eyelid, though. Made some pious little remark when I brought up the commission, but nothing else.'

‘You were right, Letice’ I said after a long silence. That will help. I do not think anyone will pitch you overboard. You will like Captain de Montalhac. I think, as a matter of fact, he is going to like you.'

I felt the pressure of her shoulder against mine through the fur rug. I suddenly felt full of light and even, although I would not have dared name it, hope. Should I reach out and take her in my arms, I asked myself? I should, I certainly should. And, shutting my eyes to ponder upon how I should begin, I fell asleep.

Winter sailing is harsh, even as a passenger, and although we had escaped until then, four days out of Stampalia the winds turned strong and icy. The Greek Emperor had his galleys out, preying on Frankish ships. Not until we had passed through the Cyclades did that danger pass, although we were running from the bitter north winds, and beating against them when we turned up into the Adriatic. It was passing miserable, for once again I could not join the crew, but needs must endure endless boredom. Letice might have been an entertaining companion, but she was ill most days, despite all her boasting, for, like James of Paris, she was afflicted by a dreadful seasickness. She kept to herself, wrapped in fur cloak and misery. I was not so callous that I did not understand how she felt, at least somewhat: she had come from nothing, and as far as she knew had returned there. She could not bring herself entirely to trust the Captain, no matter how much I tried to reassure her, and despite all his friendly advances. To her he must have been one more powerful man enmeshed in schemes that did not include her – or worse, that did.

She was often barely civil to me. When she was feeling less poorly we conducted ourselves as friendly acquaintances, and when she was suffering I gave her as wide a berth as I could. That was in a way not hard, because she had grown very cold and inward; but I could not forget how she had first stirred me, that morning in Rome, for as much as I distrusted her, the sight of her milk-white skin, and the soft pout of her upper lip made my mouth dry whenever I beheld her.

Letice Londeneyse did not need me, that was plain. No doubt she needed only herself. And there was the fact, as plain and dismal as a corpse laid out on a kitchen table, that she had had a hand in the death of a friend and of three other men, in the short time since I had first seen her. She had not held the knife that killed Horst, I could admit that much; but she had been in Foligno that night, as she had been in Spoleto. And I had seen with my own eyes how she had put an end to Dardi, I knew she was capable of it. And when I pondered this, I could only say that I had done such things as well: I had killed men who had had friends… but such thoughts were profitless, and I had long since taught myself not to tread that path lest it lead to melancholy.

The Captain began to recover in earnest, although it was another week before Andrew of Longjumeau would let him rise. Andrew had taken over his care, for soon after we had passed Thira, Mesarites, who had hardly stirred from the cabin which he shared with the ship's master and with Doctor Scot, fell ill. At first Michael thought it was no more than the seasickness that had afflicted the others, but on the second day of his illness, when I went to offer my sympathies, I found the old man shockingly changed. He seemed to have lost pounds of weight, his eyes were sunken and his cheeks had fallen in. His gaze darted about, confused, and his lips were caught in a quivering moue. A silver trail of spittle crept across his silvery beard.

What ails him?' I whispered to Michael, although I need not have, for the old Greek seemed not to hear anything.

'He has suffered an apoplexy’ he answered, bluntly. 'It happened in his sleep. I feared that all the disorder that has befallen him might do harm, and so it has’ He bowed his head, and for the first time Michael Scotus, so astute in divining the emotions of others, showed his own.

'Do not blame yourself, Doctor’ I told him. 'It was his great desire to make this journey. To achieve his great work – that is so, is it not?'

Michael nodded. 'It is so. But I came and plucked him from his family. He would have died, at least, in a Greek bed. As it is.. ‘ 'He will die, then’

'Alas. All his higher functions have been destroyed by the apoplexy. He cannot eat or drink. The ancients called it a stroke of God's hand, but I think it is a crueller touch than that’

'Amen’ I muttered, but I was remembering Anna's death throes. Why should God's touch not be cruel? I had seen nothing to the contrary.

I went and searched the old man's face, seeking in its all but abandoned furrows a trace of – what? The old Greece, the fallen empire that had been, whose spirit had run so hot in Anna's blood? I found nothing but the desolation of Constantinople as she had become, for the skull was plain to see under its veil of failing skin. I pressed Anna's ring to his lips, and kissed his forehead. That night, he died while Michael slept at his side.

The day after that, a foul storm swept off the Morea and tore our sail to shreds. We put in at Cerigo to bury Nicholas, and the man who had been Exarch of all Asia was laid in the crypt of the half-ruined Orthodox church, while an awestruck country priest sung him to his rest. We lingered to make good the damage, and then another storm blew up and kept us in port for another week. We did not leave Cerigo until the middle of February, and then it was slow, miserable sailing against icy winds. We were forced to take shelter at Zante, and then the threat of a raiding party of John Vatatzes' ships sent the master running for Patra. And so it was not until the second week of March that we dared set out across the narrow waters of the Adriatic to Italy.

In the long weeks that intervened, Michael Scot had become withdrawn, and ever more wrapped up in his thoughts. He blamed himself for the death of his friend, I guessed, and mourned the old man who would never see his dream, of healing the great schism between Greek and Latin, fulfilled. And he had received some news at Cerigo from a ship's captain from Brindisi. What it was I did not ask, but it upset him greatly. James of Paris and Letice were rendered barely human by seasickness, as I have said, and Andrew of Longjumeau fell to nursing his friend. Only the Captain strengthened while the others declined, and soon, despite the misfortunes and setbacks that battered themselves against the Seynt Victor, he was up and about, weak but with the life slowly coming back into him, and he and I passed most of our time together.