Robert Lyndon - Imperial Fire

Night came down fast. One minute the streets were busy with home-goers and merchants dismantling their stalls, the next they were almost empty. Lucas took a wrong turning and found himself shut in by dark alleys that wound through canyons of solid masonry. The other pedestrians he met travelled in groups and moved at a hurry, as if fearful of overstepping some sinister deadline. The authorities must have imposed a curfew.

It wasn’t completely dark. Here and there lamps glowed in windows and torches guttered in sconces above iron-barred posterns. Several times he encountered armed watchmen making their rounds in pairs.

Lucas was going the wrong way, heading downhill towards the sea walls. He turned left and stopped halfway down the alley, his passage blocked by a pack of bat-eared dogs snarling over carrion. He retreated, took another turning and halted, a vague sense of threat tickling his senses. The alley behind him crooked into darkness. A child cried and cooking pans clattered somewhere in a tenement apartment. He went on, ascending a lane that rose in shallow steps, glancing back occasionally.

He was almost at the end of the alley when a man stepped around the corner like someone meeting an appointment. What little light there was struck cold shards from his knife. Lucas whirled and saw another man pushing out of the shadows only fifteen yards behind him.

No doorways, nowhere to run or hide. Cursing the girl who’d stolen his knife, Lucas stripped off his tunic and wrapped it around his left arm. He backed against the wall and sidled towards the edge of a step, his gaze darting between his assailants. They stopped a few yards short and one of them spoke, making beckoning gestures.

Lucas’s voice shook. ‘You’re on the wrong trail. I haven’t got any money.’ He gave a cracked laugh. ‘Somebody got to me before you.’

Very slowly the two men closed in, their knives steady, their eyes alert to any move. Lucas forced himself to stay still. Perhaps when they discovered he had only a scrap of loose change, they’d let him go. Wishful thinking. They’d slit his throat out of sheer vindictiveness. His breath rasped in his throat, impelled by rage as much as fear. Neither of the men matched him in height. The one behind him seemed hesitant, waiting for his accomplice to take the initiative. Go for him first. Use your training, use your feet.

Closer and closer. Lucas stood on the edge of the step, braced to spring, when a roar swung everyone around. A squat figure blocked the entrance to the alley, a huge blade in his hand. He roared again and came lumbering down the lane. The footpads exchanged glances and bolted, the uphill one sprinting past Lucas as if he’d ceased to exist. He sagged against the wall, legs fluttering, and blinked at his saviour.

‘Thank you.’

The man said something, broken and cavernous teeth glinting in a shaggy black beard. He cradled Lucas’s chin and his grin widened. He held up the blade for Lucas to admire. It was the sort of cleaver used in a slaughterhouse. The man stank of rancid flesh and sour wine.

‘Come,’ he said. That’s what Lucas thought he said. The man didn’t speak Greek or any other language Lucas recognised. He put a brawny arm around Lucas’s waist. ‘Come.’

The man talked continuously as they threaded the empty streets, Lucas too shocked to do anything but follow. He put on his tunic and stood rocking in a daze when the man stopped outside the entrance to a degraded tenement. The man opened it and beckoned. ‘Come.’

Lucas followed him up a dirty stairway, hesitated when the man opened a door. ‘Come.’

The room was filthy, the atmosphere so frowzy that Lucas fingered his throat. The man laid his cleaver on a table and lit a candle. In one corner stood a cot with rumpled linen that looked as if it had been stripped from a corpse a week in the grave. An icon hung at a wonky angle on the wall. Something stirred in a corner and Lucas saw eyes glowing red in a hole. Verminous feet scrabbled behind him. The man grinned at Lucas. It seemed to be the only expression he had. He unstoppered a bottle, filled two earthenware beakers and held one out.

Lucas grimaced. ‘Wine on an empty stomach isn’t a good idea.’ He patted his belly to get his meaning across. The man’s grin took on an expectant air. Lucas sipped, the sulphurous brew making him splutter.

The man laughed and tossed back his drink. He regarded Lucas afresh, his grin softening into something like ardent speculation. Lucas forced a smile.

The man tapped his chest. ‘Krum,’ he said, then gestured at Lucas with an enquiring expression.

‘My name’s Lucas.’

Krum or whatever his name was pointed at something behind Lucas. The Frank turned and saw that the man was indicating the cot. A cold feeling ran down Lucas’s spine. ‘I’m not tired. I’m hungry. Let’s go and find something to eat.’

The man’s expression changed again, fixed in yearning expectation. He reached out one hand, its back furred by black hairs, placed it on Lucas’s shoulder and tried to guide him towards the cot. Lucas resisted, teetering on his heels. The man pushed harder. Lucas grabbed his hand and threw it off.

‘Look, I’m grateful, but I have to be going.’

The man mumbled to himself and began loosening his breeches. Lucas measured the distance to the door and was gathering himself to make a bolt when the man caught his eye and saw his intention. Fast as thought, he picked up the cleaver and aimed the point between Lucas’s eyes.

Lucas held up his hands. ‘All right. But first, let’s have another drink. Here, let me.’

He fought to keep his hands from shaking as he poured. The man watched, cleaver dangling. Lucas swallowed the contents of his beaker, coughed and grinned. The man reached out with tenderness and cupped Lucas’s genitals with his free hand.

Lucas rammed his cup into the man’s face, aimed a kick at his balls, made only glancing contact and followed up by hurling himself bodily against him, trying to get inside the arc of the cleaver and block the man’s arm with his elbow. He didn’t quite succeed and felt a searing pain in his scalp as the blade cut. He managed to grab the man’s right wrist before he could deliver another blow and both of them went tumbling over the table. Lucas heard the cleaver clatter to the ground. His assailant scrambled after it. Lucas threw himself on him from behind, wrapped his left arm around his opponent’s neck and formed a lock by gripping the biceps with his right hand. He applied pressure on the back of his foe’s neck. Lucas felt blood running down his cheek. The man lay on his side, flailing his limbs to break the lock. Lucas knew that if he could apply pressure to the arteries, the man would soon pass out. His hold was wrong, though, most of the pressure against his opponent’s Adam’s apple. By an immense effort the man heaved himself to his feet and swung Lucas round. The Frank clung on and ran him head-first into the wall. The man spun, trying to fling Lucas off. Lucas hooked a foot under his ankle and both of them crashed to the floor. In his huge effort to maintain his grip, Lucas bit through his bottom lip. He clung on, eyes closed, squeezed against his opponent to deny him any purchase. The man made another gigantic effort, bucking and heaving like a beached fish. Lucas maintained his stranglehold. The man stopped struggling and gave a gurgling moan. Lucas couldn’t see his face and kept his hold, squeezing after the man went limp beneath him and his muscles could no longer take the strain. When he released his grip, the man didn’t move. Lucas staggered to his feet, his breath coming in great whoops. Blood ran down his chin and spattered on the floor. Chest heaving, he rolled the man over. He lay dead and horrible, eyes bulging out of his black face.