The Lady Sophia Chrysolora yawned and wished that there were a better way for a lady to travel. This jolting carriage was worse than a ship in a storm, and hotter than a smithy in summer. Her maid dabbed at her brow with a scented cloth; she pushed it away irritably. Her mounted guards looked hot and discontented, but at least they had the wind on their faces.
She settled a little less uncomfortably on the cushions. So close to noon the road was less crowded than it had been earlier although thronged still, little disturbed it seemed by the invaders in the city across the Bosporus.
Once again she brought out her husband’s letter, although she knew it by heart. The City was quiet, the children well; she was not to worry, she could remain in Nicaea until her mother was recovered, surely the Latins would be gone by then. Irene had written a poem in the pastoral mode, which was enclosed; Anna had had a touch of fever but was well again and teaching her pony to jump in the garden; and Nikki had outgrown another set of clothes. Sophia smiled at that last with a touch of sadness and let her veil fall a moment to fan her streaming face.
The walls and towers of Chalcedon had begun to rise before her. The countryside, never rich, now seemed more barren than ever, all dun and dust with no gentling touch of green.
The Franks’ mark, she thought darkly, straining to look ahead. The land’s rising hid the sea and the City on the other side. The changes would be greater the closer she came to it, and in the City itself the greatest change of all. Latin barbarians would be swarming everywhere, with two new emperors on the throne and a wide swath of the City leveled by fire. Their own house was safe, Bardas had written, although others nearby had been all but destroyed.
She wished she had wings to fly to see, or at least that she could ride like one of the imperial messengers, racing swiftly into Constantinople. But she was a lady, and a lady sat in hard-won patience with her veil modestly concealing her face and her hands folded in her lap.
The mules slowed from a trot to a walk and then to a halt. A laden wagon had stopped short some distance ahead; the oxen would not advance for all the driver’s whipping and cursing. Opposite them milled a mounted company, the riders struggling with their horses. There seemed to be a space between, filled with something terrible.
Without thinking Sophia gathered up her skirts and stepped down from the carriage. Her maid’s protests passed unheard.
She walked calmly past the startled faces of her guards, one or two of whom had the presence of mind to dismount and follow her, and threaded her way through a herd of sheep, milling and bleating, and a cluster of pilgrims doing much the same, and a group of mounted Turks who stared and murmured as she walked by. The curses were clear now, and inventive.
The wagon reeked of onions. She skirted it and paused. In the road lay the cause of it all: a huddled shape, no more than a bundle of rags. As she stared it stirred, resolving into a huddled form, a long narrow body in a pilgrim’s mantle rent and torn and covered with dust. Ignoring the sudden silence as farmer and riders stopped to gape at her, she knelt beside the fallen man. Carefully she turned him onto his back.
She caught her breath. His face was horribly burned and blistered as if he had stood in a fire. Yet his brows and lashes remained intact, very white against the livid skin.
His lips moved. They were cracked and bleeding, his voice no more than a whisper, breathing words she could not understand. “Hush,” she commanded him as if he had been one of her children. Her eyes flashed to the men on horseback. “You—sirs. Your water flasks, if you please.”
She received them, and promptly. She poured a little into the pilgrim and soaked her veil to bathe the terrible face. In doing it she had to loosen his mantle; the skin under it was the whitest she had ever seen, and smooth, no old man’s. Nor was there any age in the hands that tried to fend off her own: long hands, burned not as badly as his face but beginning to blister. One bore deep parallel scratches like the marks of claws.
He could not lie in the road in that merciless sun. She beckoned to the guards who had followed her; they raised him in spite of his feeble struggles. As she led them to the carriage, horses and oxen started forward docilely; the traffic of the empire began to flow again.
o0o
The keeper of the best inn in Chalcedon received the travelers with becoming courtesy and sent at once for a doctor. Servants, meanwhile, ministered to milady and her escort and most especially to her guest who had been taken ill on the road; undressed him and bathed him in cool water from the well, and laid him in bed covered with a sheet.
His face seemed all the more terrible against his white smooth body, that in his robe had looked light and slender, even frail. But under it he had proved panther-lean, smooth-muscled, and surprisingly broad in the shoulder.
And very young. Little more than a boy, Sophia thought as she sat beside him waiting for the doctor. His hair, water-darkened, was not white as she had thought, but palest gold.
Yet he was no child. His hat lay in her lap, brushed clean; its band was a braid of palm fronds, mark of the greatest of all pilgrimages, the journey to Jerusalem. And she had seen a terrible thing when the servants lifted him. His back was a sight more tormented even than his face, a mass of ridged and twisted scars, white with age.
She laid his hat aside and took up his wallet. It was worn, patched here and there, like all he owned. It held very little. No money, no food. A water flask, empty. A book as worn as the wallet but beautiful within, illuminated with gold and silver and myriad colors, written in Latin letters. A small wooden crucifix, exquisitely carved, the suffering Christ so real that he seemed almost to breathe. A heavy ring of silver and moonstone wrought in intricate fashion. And a folded parchment with seals which, with a belated stab of conscience, she did not pause to examine. That was all.
She folded each treasure away again. Penniless Latin pilgrims were common enough, and sun-sickness their eternal companion. But she had never seen one so young or so pale or so badly burned.
The doctor arrived as she sat wondering: a stately Arab, very grave and very learned, escorted by a boy with a box of medicines. He frowned when Sophia revealed her knowledge of the patient’s condition, frowned more deeply when it became apparent that she knew neither his name nor his nation, and scowled blackly at the sufferer himself, who had begun to stir and murmur. Grimly he bent to his examination.
At length he straightened. His eyes were cold.
“Can anything be done?” Sophia asked of him.
“You may summon a priest.”
Her breath caught. “He’s dying?”
The man’s thin lips tightened. “He will not die.”
“Then why—”
“To be rid of him.” He bowed stiffly, conveying with eloquence his opinion of a woman who traveled about without husband or kinsman to ward her, and who took up from the roadside such a creature as this. “By your leave, madam…”
“You do not have it!” She startled herself with her own sharpness. “This boy is ill. Can you treat him or can you not?”
She had angered him, but she had also touched his pride. “I can heal him. But I am bound only to the care of men. This” —He made a sign over the pilgrim, as if to avert some evil— “can better be dealt with by a man of God.”
“I shall see to that. You,” she said coldly, “may do your office.”
For a moment she thought that he would leave. But he bowed even more stiffly than before, and did as she bade.
When he had gone, Sophia left her chair to stand over the pilgrim. His face was salved and lightly bandaged; his breathing seemed to have eased. He did not look evil.
She slipped the carven crucifix from his wallet and crossed herself with it. Half in apprehension, half in defiance, she laid it on his breast. After an interminable moment he stirred. His groping hand found the cross, closed over it. He sighed a little and lay still.
Sophia remained with him. They brought her supper there; she ate only enough to quiet hunger and set the rest aside.
Perhaps she dozed. She was stiff and her head ached, and something had changed. She glanced about, puzzled. It was dark, the lamps lit, but that was not the strangeness.
From amid the bandages his eyes watched her. Great calm eyes the color of silver-gilt.
She smiled. “Good evening,” she said. “How do you feel?”
“Foolish.” His Greek was accented but excellent. “You’re most kind to me, my lady.”
“Sophia Chrysolora.”
“Alfred of Saint Ruan’s in Anglia.”
“You’ve come a long way, Alfred of—Saint Ruan’s?”
“Alf.” His eyes took in the room. “And this?”
“The Inn of Saint Christopher in Chalcedon.”
“Ah.” It was a sigh. “Then I’m deeply in your debt.”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “I shouldn’t be tiring you with talking.”
He shook his head slightly. “I want to talk. I don’t remember much. How did I come here?”
“I found you in the road.” There was water in a jar by the bed; she supported his head and helped him to drink. “Are you hungry?”
“No. Thank you.” He lay back. His hands explored the bandages, fumbling with them. Before she could stop him, he had them off.
It was not a pleasant sight. He must have seen it in her face, for his hand half lifted as if to cover it. But he did not complete the gesture. “The air will heal it,” he said, “if you can bear to look.”
“I can bear it. It’s only…the doctor…”
“He knows his trade, I’m sure, and he concocts an excellent salve. But his wrappings will strangle me and do my skin no good at all.”
She looked at him: the young man’s body, the flayed mask, the bright eyes that seemed to know so much. Under the swollen and blistered skin, she thought his features might be very fine. “You know a little of healing?” she asked.
“A little,” he admitted. “I worked in Saint Luke’s hospital in Jerusalem.”
“Then you know a good deal more than a little.”
He shrugged, one-sided. “It didn’t keep me from making a fool of myself.” He inspected his hands, raw and red as they were, and on one palm the deep scratches. His eyes flinched; he closed them. Yet his words were quiet. “You must be very tired with caring for such a great idiot as I am, and you an utter stranger. Please don’t let me keep you from your rest.”
“I don’t mind,” she said. “I have a daughter who’s not so very much younger than you. She’ll be fourteen next month.”
There was no way to read his face. “I’m…somewhat…older than that. Is she living in the City?”
“With the rest of my family. My husband would find you interesting; he’s His Imperial Majesty’s Overseer of the Hospitals.”
“Is he a doctor?”
She smiled. “Bardas? No, only a bureaucrat. He sees to it that the doctors have places to work and people to work on and the wherewithal for both.”
Was that an answering smile? “A most essential personage.”
He did not seem weary, but she rose briskly, smoothing her skirts. “I’ve been keeping you awake. Would you sleep better if I left?”
“If I knew that you yourself would sleep.”
This, she reflected as she left him, was a very pleasant young man. Clever certainly, and old for his years. But no demon’s get. The doctor was a superstitious fool.
When she looked in later, he lay deep in sleep, his cross on the pillow next to his cheek. She withdrew softly and went to her own bed.
o0o
Sophia was up with the sun, but she found Alf awake before her. Up, in fact, and dressed in his rags that the servants had cleaned and mended as much as they might, and eating with good appetite.
In the morning light his face seemed much better, the swelling subsided, the blisters broken or fading. His smile was recognizable as such, as he rose and bowed and offered her his cup. “Will you eat with me? There’s enough for two.”
For a moment she could do no more than stare. At last she managed a smile and sat where she had sat in the night. “You seem to have mended very quickly,” she said.
He paused in filling a plate for her. “Sometimes a hurt can look worse than it is. And you cared for me well and promptly. So you see, I’ve learned a much-needed lesson and am only a little the worse for it.”
“A lesson?”
“About walking unprotected in the sun. About Greek charity. And,” he added, setting the plate before her and lowering his eyes, “about my own vanity. If my face were my fortune, I’d have lost it yesterday.”
“You’ll get it back,” she assured him.
His smile turned wry, but he only said, “Please eat. I’ve had all I need.”
She discovered that she was hungry. Between bites she said, “I’ve arranged for you to stay here until you’ve recovered. The innkeeper has orders not to let you go without a doctor’s approval, and to tend you like a prince.”
He seemed taken aback. “Lady…you’re most generous. But I can’t accept so great a gift.”
She waved that away. “Call it my debt to God and man.”
“You’ve paid that in full already.” He stood close to her, so that she had to tilt her head back to see his face. As if he sensed her discomfort, he dropped to one knee, setting his head lower than hers. “My lady, I’m most grateful for what you’ve done. I’ll pray for you if you’ll accept the prayers of a Latin heretic. But I can’t take your gift.”
She looked hard at him. He moved with striking grace, but he was not quite steady; his breath came a shade too rapidly. And there was his face. “You’re not as well as you pretend.”
“I’m well enough to travel.”
“I don’t think so.” She regarded him sternly. “You were dangerously ill when I found you. You’re shaking now though you think you can hide it. Go back to bed.”
He sat on his heels. “I’m sorry, my lady. I can’t.”
If he had been one of her offspring, she would have fetched him a sharp slap to teach him sense. “You are a stubborn boy. Must I call my men to put you to bed by force?”
“It wouldn’t be very wise,” he said.
“Arrogant too.”
His head bowed. “I’m sorry. But I have to go to the City.”
“Why? Are you one of the Crusaders?”
“God forbid!” His vehemence startled her; he went on more quietly, “I’m as filthy a Latin as any. But not…of that kind. No; I want to see the City and learn from its wise men and worship in its holy places. While there is time. There’s so little left. So very little.”
She shivered though the morning was already hot. His eyes were wide and luminous, the color of water poured out in the sun, his voice soft and rather sad. “Understand,” he said. “Those are not monsters camped across the Horn, but men like any others. Most of them think they’ve only paused on their way to free the Holy Sepulcher. They can’t see what must happen now they’ve come so far into such hostile country, led on by a foolish prince’s promises. Both greed and honor will have their due. And then—” He stopped. Perhaps, at last, he had seen her fear.
“And then?” she asked through a dry throat.
He turned away, fists clenched at his sides. “Nothing. Nothing. I’ve been listening to too many doomsayers.”
Her voice came hard and harsh. “You are mad. And you’re coming with me. We’ll be sailing well before noon; we’ll be sheltered from the sun; and you can rest a little. And when we come to the City—have you a place to stay?”
“I’ll find one.”
“‘The lilies of the field…’” she murmured. “You need a keeper, do you know that? You’ll stay with us.”
He faced her. “What will people say?”
“That I’m as much a fool as ever.”
“And your husband?”
“Precisely the same.”
“But I can’t—”
“Do you object to the hospitality of the perfidious Greeks?”
She was half jesting. But only half. He spread his hands. “I could be a thief, or—or a murderer. I could slay you all in your beds and make off with everything you own.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Oh, Lady!” He seemed caught between laughter and tears. “The doctor was right, you know. You’d do well to be rid of me.”
“Are you a demon?”
He shook his head. “But—”
“So,” Sophia said brusquely. “I’ve things to see to. I’ll send for you when it’s time to leave.”