“Now, mind you,” Bardas said as the litter bore the two of them through the crowds of the Middle Way, “Master Dionysios is the best physician in the City, and he knows it. He’ll give you this one day’s trial; if you can satisfy him, he’ll put you to work. It might be menial labor, boy, be warned of that. I’m only His Majesty’s overseer, not Saint Luke himself, to tell Master Dionysios what to do with you once he has you.”
Alf watched as a troop of Varangians swung past, fair-haired giants in scarlet and gold with great axes on their shoulders. One or two, younger than the rest, looked very much like Jehan. “I don’t mind servants’ work. I did it in Saint Ruan’s, and in Jerusalem.”
“You’ll do it for Dionysios. A rare thing, Dionysios: a doctor who can look after his own hospital. He works his people like slaves, from the brat who sweeps the kitchen all the way to the senior surgeon—and himself harder than any.”
“I think I shall admire him.”
“Or hate him,” Bardas said.
o0o
Master Dionysios took Alf’s measure with the air of an officer inspecting a raw recruit. “This,” he snarled at Bardas, “is your prodigy of medical erudition?”
Bardas bore his wrath with unruffled calm. “This is Alfred.”
Dionysios circled Alf slowly, lip curled. “You. Boy. What do you know?”
“Little,” Alf answered, “but of that, enough.”
The Master had come round to face Alf again. “So. You fancy yourself clever. Let me see your hands.” He examined them, turning them in fastidious, surgeon’s fingers. “Soft as a girl’s. Have you been cut, boy?”
Alf’s lips tightened. “No, sir,” he replied levelly, “I have not.”
“Pity. You’d please the women.” Abruptly Dionysios turned his back on him. “Come with me.
“We tend anyone who can be treated,” Dionysios said as they walked, “and some who can’t, but who have nowhere else to die in peace. Poor, most of them. Filthy. Are you afraid of dirt, boy?”
Alf shook his head.
“Well then,” the Master said, pausing in a doorway. In the room beyond, many ragged figures sat on benches against the wall or squatted on the floor. At the far end a man in healer’s blue, aided by a student in brown, examined a particularly scabrous specimen. The air reeked of disease and of unwashed humanity.
Alf followed the other, picking his way among the waiting bodies. The eyes that watched him pass were bright and scornful or dull and hostile or, once, languidly wanton; hands plucked at his robe, feeling of its fine fabric, inching toward the purse at his belt.
The blue-clad physician did not pause as his Master approached, although the student looked up in apprehension.
“Thomas,” said Dionysios, “rest yourself. This young gentleman will finish for you.”
It said much for Dionysios’ discipline that the man stepped back at once, without protest, although he regarded Alf in open and cheerful curiosity. Alf took his place quietly, well aware of the eyes upon him. But he had stood so, been watched so, more often than he could remember; and the first time, when he was truly the boy he looked, Master Dionysios had been drowsing at his mother’s breast. He drew a breath to steady himself, and bent to the task.
o0o
“Well?” Bardas asked as Alf settled in the litter.
Alf regarded him for a moment, hardly seeing him. “You weren’t there?” His gaze cleared; he shook himself. “Of course. You had other things to do. Did I see you leave?”
“As I recall,” said Bardas, “you were lancing a boil and arguing with Master Dionysios: Was it God’s will for a healer to quiet pain with wine or poppy, rather than to let the patient bear it unaided?”
“We weren’t arguing. We were considering possibilities.” Alf lay back against the cushions. “I’m to come back tomorrow.”
“So you satisfied him.”
“Not really. My name, says he, will not do at all. Since the Greek of ‘Alf’ is ‘Theo,’ then Theo I shall be; half a Greek name is infinitely preferable to the whole of a Saxon one. Moreover, we disagree on several crucial points. Bleeding, for instance. It’s useless, I think, and often dangerous. I’m an abomination, Master Dionysios has decided: a twofold heretic, religious and medical. But I know which end of a lancet is which, and I have light hands. He’ll suffer me to keep you quiet.”
Bardas folded his hands over his ample stomach and allowed himself a brief smile. “You’ll do. I don’t suppose he mentioned payment.”
“Of course not. I’m to wear a blue gown. Do I have one?”
“You will. You’ll also have a salary.”
Alf’s eyes widened in shock. “Money? For healing?”
“This is Constantinople, lad.”
“But—”
Bardas’ raised hand cut him off. “No, boy. No Western scruples. If Dionysios has taken you on, by law he has to pay you according to your rank. Master physician, I should think, since he wants you to wear blue. Students wear brown and pay him; assistants get servants’ wages. In one stroke you’ve become a man of substance.”
“I don’t want to be—”
“Boy,” said Bardas, “this isn’t your monastery. You do your healing. I’ll look after your money.”
“You can keep it. I owe it to you for all you’ve done for me.”
“I’ll keep it. Until you need it.”
Alf framed a further protest; paused; closed his mouth. They rode on in silence.
o0o
Anna and Nikki were at the gate with the air of people who had waited a very long while. Even before the litter had stopped, Nikki was in it, pummeling Alf with his fists, moaning in a strange strangled voice. His face was red and furious, wet with tears.
Alf let Nikki’s anger run its course, until he suffered Alf’s touch and let himself be held, though struggling still, fierce in his wrath.
“He’s been here all day,” Anna was saying, “crying and yelling and hitting the gate. He hit Corinna when she tried to take him away. He hit me. He even hit Mother.”
Nikki quieted slowly, enough to sit in Alf’s lap, fists clenched on his knees. Alf took the small scarlet face in his hands, smoothing away the tears of rage. Very quietly he said, “I told you that I would come back. I will always come back. Always, Nikephoros.”
Nikki’s black eyes were angry still. He raised a fist as if to strike again.
Alf caught it and unfolded it. “I promise, Nikki.”
For yet a while he clung to his outrage. But Alf smiled, and he plunged forward, burrowing into the limp and bloodstained robe.
There was a silence. Bardas cleared his throat. “Where’s your mother, Anna?”
“In the garden,” Anna replied, “with the lady who came a little while ago.”
“A friend? Lady Phoebe? Aunt Theodora?”
“Oh, no. We’ve never met her before. She came to see Alf.”
He froze in the act of rising; swayed under Nikki’s weight; drew himself erect by force of will.
Anna babbled on. “Her name is Althea. She comes from Petreia. She’s been to the West and to Jerusalem. Her tales are as good as Alf’s. Better, because she puts him in them and doesn’t try to make him look modest. Did you really save your Abbot’s life, Alf? And kill a man with his own sword?”
All color had drained from his face. “Yes,” he said in a harsher voice than they had ever heard from him, “I killed a man. In the chapel of my abbey. The Abbot died, but not before he’d sent me to Jerusalem.”
“They call you a saint in Anglia, she said. Are you really—”
“Anna.” Bardas spoke softly, but she stopped short. “Go and tell the ladies that we’ll be with them shortly. Alf will bathe and change first.”
Alf shook his head. “I’ll go directly.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Bardas said. “Put the boy down and let him walk like a man, and go to your bath.”
o0o
In the coolest corner of the garden where an almond tree shaded a small stony waterfall, Bardas and the ladies had settled with sweets and wine. Alf came to them scrubbed clean, wearing his best coat over a tunic of fine linen no paler than his face.
Thea sat with her back to the tree trunk, demure in a plain gown, her pilgrim’s mantle laid aside in the heat; she had braided her hair and coiled it about her head and covered it with a light veil. She looked very young.
As he approached, she rose with her own inimitable grace, smiling as if there had been no quarrel between them at all. “Little Brother! How well you look.”
“And you.” He took her hands like one in a dream. “I’m... very glad to see you.”
“No more so than I. You’ve been ill, my lady tells me; and Jehan in the camp.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“He told me where to find you. I’d meant to stay in Petreia, but there was nothing there for me after all except a ghost or two. So I came to the City. I met Jehan as he was coming back from here.” And spent the night with him, she added in her mind. Everyone was fiercely jealous. Such a lovely white hound, I was.
Alf smiled without thinking, and remembered at last to let go her hands. Both Bardas and Sophia were drawing alarming conclusions. The blood rose to scald his cheeks; he sat down too quickly in the chair she had left, refusing to meet her bright relentless stare. She stood between him and the sun and said, “It’s a fine haven you’ve come to, little Brother. I’m delighted to see you so well looked after.”
“It’s generally agreed that I need a keeper.” The fire had fled as quickly as it came. He had her hand again, God help him, and her mockery upon him like a lash of cold rain. “Have you unveiled all my black past yet? Murder, sorcery, heresy, and plain lust—have I forgotten anything?”
“As a matter of fact you have. The worst of all: burying your brilliance in a monastery for longer than I care to think, and hiding it with humility forever after.”
“A failing you certainly are free of.”
She laughed. “Certainly! I know what you’re worth. As does the heir of House Akestas. How is he now?”
Her concern was genuine, and it eased his tension. “He’s asleep in my bed.”
A good place to be. Mercifully she did not say it aloud. She sat at his feet; he looked down at the smooth bronze braids, knotted his hands in his lap and forced himself to be calm.
This was her revenge, this utter ease with its implications that even Anna could read. But he would not make it any sweeter than he could help.
He accepted the wine a servant offered, and sipped it, hardly tasting its spiced sweetness, listening to the flow of conversation and saying very little. It tormented him to have her here so close after what they both had said and done and thought. Yet when she glanced up at him, he found himself smiling like the veriest, most besotted of fools.
Far too soon she rose again, saying words that meant nothing but that she must go.
“No, no,” Sophia said, “there’s no need. We have ample room, and a friend of Alfred’s is more than welcome.”
“Even when you know—” He had said that; he bit back the rest. They knew nothing that mattered. Yet they knew everything, down below reason where the great choices were made.
“Hospitality is sacred here,” said Bardas. “You know that, Lady; you’re one of us. Honor us by honoring it. Stay with us.”
It would be best if they both went far away, from the Akestas and from each other. But when Thea nodded and bowed and acquiesced, his heart turned traitor and began to sing.