Though the sun shone almost with summer’s brilliance, the wind that scoured the City was icy cold. Alf drew his hat down lower and huddled into his cloak.
“The worst thing about this city,” his companion said, “is its climate. A furnace all summer; then before you can get your breath it’s winter, with a wind howling right out of Scythia.”
Alf smiled. The other’s tone was as cheerful as his words were glum, his round cheeks bright red with the cold; he grinned up at Alf and clutched at the hat that threatened to take flight and leave his bald crown bare. “There’s your turning. I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
“Wait.” On impulse Alf said, “Let me walk you home.”
The smaller man’s grin widened. “Are you being protective, then? Eh, brother? They aren’t hunting doctors today, only Latins.”
“I want to walk,” Alf said, “and I’m not expected home quite yet.”
“First time you’ve ever left Saint Basil’s when you’re supposed to, isn’t it? Trust Master Dionysios to know when you’re working too hard.”
“I’m not—”
“Oh, no. Thin as a lath and white as a ghost, and you’re not overworking. Of course not. And half the people who come in insist that no one but Master Theo tend them. If we weren’t so fond of your pretty face, my friend, we’d all hate you with a passion.”
“I can’t understand why you don’t.”
“Didn’t I just tell you? It’s your face. Besides the fact that you’re the best doctor we’ve got. And don’t glower at me like that. Fat old Thomas is babbling on again as usual, but it’s the truth and you know it. There are some who’d gladly see the last of you, but most of us are happy enough; you do all the work, and we get to watch and collect some credit.” Thomas grinned and patted Alf’s shoulder, which was as high as he could reach, for he was a very small man. “Look, I’ve talked us right up to my doorstep. Come in and warm up before you go back.”
Somewhat later, Alf strode away from Thomas’ house with a cup of wine warming his belly and a smile on his lips. Strange that in this half-burned and crumbling city he should have found more and better friends than he had in his own country.
What’s strange about it? I’ve always known you’re a Greek at heart.
He looked about. In the throngs about him he could not see Thea’s face. Though perhaps the striped cat in the doorway, or the pigeon that took wing in front of him—
Close by him scarlet blazed, a pair of Varangians leaving an alehouse. They were big men and young; he had seen faces like theirs on many a villein in Anglia, long Saxon faces thatched with straw-fair hair.
As he paused, one stared full at him and grinned. The eyes under the blond brows were startling, golden bronze.
He knew he was gaping like a fool. The Varangians parted almost within his reach; the one whose eyes and mind were Thea’s stopped short in front of him and swept him into a muscular embrace. “By all the saints! Alfred! What are you doing abroad at this hour?”
Behind the strange male face, the deep voice, Thea laughed at his discomfiture. Her mockery steadied him. “I’m walking home from Saint Basil’s,” he answered her. He looked her over and laughed a little. “No wonder you were angry when I read you my lecture on mingling with guardsmen. What a pompous fool I was!”
“Weren’t you?” Thea drew him into a passageway away from prying eyes. Almost at once she was herself again, stripping off her bright gear and bundling it together, dressing in the gown she had worn when he saw her that morning, drawn it seemed from air. The trappings of the Guard vanished as the gown had appeared; she turned about with dancing eyes. “How do I look?”
“Beautiful, of course,” he said. “You’ll have to show me how you do that.”
She paused in adjusting cloak and veil. “What? Shape-change?”
“No. Make things vanish.”
“It’s easy enough.” She took his arm and entered the throng again. “Tonight after everyone’s abed, I’ll show you.”
He smiled.
“You’re cheerful today,” she said.
He shrugged slightly. “There’s a man at Saint Basil’s who seems to have decided that I’m worth troubling with.”
“Don’t tell me you honestly doubted it.” He did not respond; she added, “He can make you smile. That’s a power to equal any of mine.”
“Am I always so morose, then?”
“Not morose. Preoccupied, mostly. It’s a game in House Akestas to get a smile out of you; the day someone tricks you into an honest-to-God grin, we’ll have a festival.”
He stared at her in dismay, until he caught the mirth behind her eyes. “On me,” he said, “a grin would be a disgrace.”
“You’re vain.”
“Surely.” A vendor passed them, balancing a tray laden with hot and fragrant cakes. Alf tossed him a coin and gained a napkinful that warmed his hands and set his mouth to watering.
“Here,” he said to Thea, “aren’t you hungry?”
They ate as they walked, Alf more than usual but still very little. The rest of his share he wrapped and secreted in his robe.
“Nikki will have a feast tonight,” Thea said.
“And Anna, and Irene if her dignity will allow it.”
“You should have had a dozen brothers and sisters and an army of cousins.”
“I had hundreds. Fellow novices when I was a child, and pupils for years thereafter.”
They paused on the steps of Holy Apostles. Over the roar and reek of the City, they heard chanting and caught the sweet strong scent of incense. “Novices and pupils aren’t the same,” she said.
“Close enough.”
“Did you ever know any girls? Or teach any?”
“A few,” he said. “Enough to learn that girls need be no less intelligent than boys. Though most change when womanhood comes, forget logic and philosophy and think only on husbands and children.”
“Or at least on young men and on what gets children.” Thea stood a little apart from him with a cold space between. “I have been rebuked.”
“I said most. Not all.”
“There is Sophia,” she agreed.
“And there is you.”
“I don’t know any philosophy. And as for logic, Aristotle would be appalled. All I know is the pleasure of the body.”
A sigh escaped him. “You know a great deal more than that. But if you think you have any need at all for what l can teach, I’ll be glad to be your master. If you will teach me—”
She leaned forward, breathless.
“If you will teach me the ways of power.”
There was a silence in the midst of the City. Suddenly Thea laughed. “It’s a bargain. Power for philosophy, and we’ll see who makes the better student.” She linked arms with him again and plunged into the crowd.
o0o
“Filthy Latins!”
With an effort of will Jehan kept his hand away from his sword. It was as much as any Frank’s life was worth to walk unconcealed in the City, but both he and his companion were well cloaked and hooded. The cry of hatred had not been meant for them.
He stopped to get his bearings. Left here around the bulk of the church. The wind was cruel. He shivered and wrapped his cloak a little tighter; turned to speak to the man beside him, and caught too late at his hood.
“Barbarians! Murderers!”
Something whistled past his ear. He whipped about, sword half drawn. An iron grip stayed his hand. “No!” hissed the other.
Jehan fought free. The crowd had thickened around him, the murmur of their passing turned to a snarl. In the instant before he let go the hilt, they had seen naked steel.
He drew up the deep hood and made himself advance. Left past Holy Apostles. Left—
o0o
Alf stopped short as if he had struck a wall. Thea whirled, every muscle taut. Behind them the crowd eddied, drawing in those who paused on its edges, rumbling ominously.
A shout won free. “Frankish bastards!”
Without a word, both sprang toward the uproar.
Two men filled its center. One lay in a pool of black and blood-red. The other stood astride him, holding off blows and missiles with the flat of his sword.
“Hold!” bellowed a deep voice. “What goes on here?”
A giant in scarlet shouldered through the mob, ignoring blows and curses, wrenching a stone from a man’s hand, roaring for silence. His uniform and his rage and the axe which he carried lightly in his great hands cowed all but the boldest.
Those he faced, bulking before the Frank with the sword; his beard bristled and his tawny eyes blazed. A stone flew; he caught it with his axehead, shattering it.
“One more,” he growled. “Just one more. Who fancies a year or six with the Emperor’s jailers?”
For a long moment the balance wavered. Teeth bared; hands drew back to throw. The Varangian shifted his grip on his axe and braced his feet.
Slowly the mob melted away. A figure in healer’s blue slipped a round the Guardsman and dropped beside the fallen man. Blood stained the tonsured crown, pouring from a deep gash there.
Alf looked up into the eyes of the Lord Henry of Flanders. “Sheathe your sword,” he said, “my lord.”
As Henry obeyed, Alf explored Jehan’s wound with light skilled fingers. The young priest stirred under his hands and groaned.
His touch stilled both voice and movement; he probed the gash again. It was deep though not mortal, and bloody. He wiped the blood away with a corner of his mantle, drew up his outer robe and tore ruthlessly at the fine linen of his undertunic.
Without his willing it, his power gathered and focused. He could only slow it, turn it aside from full healing as he bound up the wound.
He slid one arm beneath Jehan’s shoulders. “Help me,” he said, breathing hard for Henry’s benefit. Together they raised the great inert body, supporting it on either side, its arms about their necks. But Henry hesitated, glancing about. “The Guardsman. Where did he go?”
“Back to his barracks, I suppose, my lord.” Alf bent his head and stepped forward. The young lord followed perforce.
o0o
Jehan swam up out of darkness to a raging headache and Alf’s calm face hovering over him. “What did you keep me under for?” he demanded of it, fretfully.
“Convenience,” Alf answered.
Jehan glared and winced. “Did someone hit me over the head with a mace?”
“A stone with sharp edges.” Alf laid a cool hand on his brow.
The pain faded; his sight cleared. He could see other faces: Thea’s, Sophia’s, Henry’s. He reached out to the last. “You’re all right? You’re not hurt?”
Henry smiled. “Scarcely a bruise,” he said. “They tell me you’ll live.”
“Maybe,” Jehan muttered. He sat up dizzily, saw that they had stripped him down to his shirt. His head was bandaged, his hair damp from a washing. “How long was I out?”
“About an hour,” said Alf, propping him with pillows. This, he realized, was Alf’s own bed.
They settled around him, Alf at his side, an arm about his shoulders. The support was somewhat more welcome than he had thought it would be. You’re all but healed, Alf’s soft voice said in his mind, but the shock to your body was severe. You’ll need to sleep, and sleep deep.
Jehan yawned, thinking of it, and clenched his jaw. He would not sleep like a baby while the others talked. And none of your sorcery! he thought at Alf.
His friend smiled, perhaps at him, perhaps at Henry. “Well, my lord, how is it that we see you here of all places?”
One of the servants entered with wine. Henry accepted a cup with a murmured courtesy, all the Greek he knew. As he spoke, Thea whispered in Sophia’s ear, the Greek of his langue d’oeil.
“I came back from Thrace a week and more ago with the rest of our forces and the young Emperor. Life in camp can be stifling after one’s been on the march. When my priestly friend told me he was going to dare the City—which is more than anyone else will do—I invited myself.”
Alf’s smile faded. Henry met his level stare for a moment, then looked away.
“I am no one’s prophet,” Alf said very softly.
“I do not ask,” Henry responded more softly still.
“You,” said Alf, “no.” His voice changed; a hint of his smile returned, then flickered away. “You were foolhardy, both of you, to venture here in so poor a set of disguises. Next time you should have the sense to dress as Greeks, and you, Jehan, to wear a hat. If anything maddens the City more than a Latin knight, it’s a Latin priest.”
“It is bad,” Henry agreed soberly. “I hadn’t known precisely how bad. Out in Thrace we were victors; here we’re monsters. Pierre de Bracieux and his men quit the palace this morning in terror of their lives, though milord is howling for revenge.”
“He’s too brave for his own good.” Jehan caught Alf’s eye and flushed. “I know what I am, damn it! and he’s a fighting fool. He had plenty of tales to tell. People are strengthening the City’s walls, do you know that? Quietly, without fanfare, and without asking anyone’s leave.”
“Neither Emperor seems to be objecting,” Henry said. “Isaac’s mind is at least half gone, and Alexios has immured himself in his palace where neither we nor his own people can come near him. If my lady will pardon my saying it, this city is not well ruled.”
Sophia’s eyes sparked. “I know it,” she said through Thea, “and I deplore it. But not all of us are cowards. Some of the nobles are beginning to take matters into their own hands.”
“You among them, my lady?”
Her lips met in a thin line. “I’m only a woman, and my husband is a bureaucrat, not a prince. I have no power. Only anger.”
Henry bowed to her in sincere respect. “I regret that we’ve come to this, my lady. If I had my wish, we would be in Jerusalem and your city would stand intact.”
“Regret!” she snapped. “You should have thought of regret when you sailed up the Horn. Admit it, sir Frank; your holy war has turned into a merchants’ quarrel, and this is the richest city in the world. Now you’ve seen how rich it is, you’ll not be bought off except with all we have.”
He did not deny it. But he said, “We’ve done as we contracted to do. His Majesty has not. He owes his throne to us; and we need food and money, and winter is coming. What little he’s given us is far from enough. Already many of us are urging that we put aside our patience and take what we need.”
“And in the City,” Thea said on her own account, “they say that enough is enough. They never chose the Emperor you’ve set over them, and the one of their own choosing is beneath contempt. They’ve endured for nigh a thousand years by discarding rulers who can’t rule and setting up those who can. One morning, my lord, you’ll wake and find that there’s a new head under the crown.”
“Will it be any better than the ones before it?”
“Who can tell?” She glanced at Alf, who listened without expression, offering nothing. “The walls aren’t repairing themselves. There’s a man commanding it, one of the Doukas; people call him Mourtzouphlos, Beetle-brows, an alarming man to meet in a dark corridor. He married a daughter of the Emperor you so valiantly cut down in Thrace, and he hasn’t forgotten it; and he’s far enough into the new emperors’ confidence that they’ve made him Protovestiarios. That, my lord, is more than a noble valet and esquire or even a steward; he controls the Private Treasury, and through it the imperial favor. You’d do well to watch him.”
“So we do,” Henry said. “Why do you think we took Alexios off to Thrace?”
“You’re giving away state secrets,” Sophia murmured.
“No, Lady. I’m saying what everyone knows. Before I left we were more allies than enemies. Now the balance has shifted. I’d like to see it change again.”
Alf stirred beside Jehan. “It was the fire. Whichever side kindled it, no one has forgotten that the Latins struck first that day. No one will forget. The hate is too strong and runs too deep.”
“On both sides,” said Thea. Her face twisted in sudden, fierce anger. “By God and all His angels! Can’t a one of you think of anything but hating?”
Alf reached out to touch her clenched fist. Face to face, they looked startlingly alike. Gently he said, “The root of it isn’t hate. It’s fear. Every stranger is an enemy, and every friend could turn traitor. Yet each side shares the same thoughts, all unknowing.”
Light dawned in her eyes. “If they could know—if their minds could be opened—”
He shook his head. “No, Thea. No. They’re not made for it. It would drive them mad.”
“They’re sane now?”
“Perfectly sane. Only blind and afraid. Yet there are some who see.” His eye caught Sophia, who had just begun to understand through Jehan’s translation, and Henry, whose face displayed a mingling of confusion and fascination. “We can pray that they may rule.”
“When has good sense ever had the upper hand?” She pulled away from him. “We women aren’t pleasant to listen to, are we? A pity there isn’t a lady or two of sense and breeding in the camp. We’d put an end to all this idiocy, and quickly, too.”
“What can a woman do that a man can’t?” All demanded of her.
“Make a peace we can all live with. And we’d have done it long since, too. Held off the Fleet, talked them around, and saved more lives and property than anyone can count. Unfortunately,” she added bitterly, “there was neither woman nor wise man at the head of either side that day.”
“There was Dandolo,” said Henry, “who knows what he wants; and Marquis Boniface, who wants what he can get; and my brother, who won’t settle for the leavings. And for the Greeks, a mindless mob and a coward. The usurper died of wounds taken in battle, and every one was in his back.”
She faced him. “Why don’t you rule?”
“I?” He seemed truly shocked. “My lady, I’m my brother’s loyal vassal. Whatever he commands me to do, I do, for honor of my oath.” .
“Regardless of the dishonor of the command?”
Jehan sighed heavily. “Yes, there’s the rub. Thea, if you can persuade the people to elect you Emperor, I’ll be your most avid supporter. But at the moment I have a splitting headache, and it must be past time for us to go back.”
“Yes,” she said tartly, “go back and try to open some eyes. If the sight of your bandages doesn’t rouse the whole army.”
“No fear of that. More likely they’ll cheer the marksman who brought down the Pope’s varlet.”
“Go to the Doge,” Alf said, cutting short her sharpness and Jehan’s bitter levity. “Tell him what we’ve said here. Tell him too that he can win this war, but it will bring him no joy. And if he loses, his death will most cruelly hard.”
Jehan paused with his cotte half on. Before he could speak, Henry said, “Those are perilous words to say to the Master of Saint Mark.”
“He asked for them. Did he not?”
Henry was silent. Slowly, with Alf’s help, Jehan finished dressing. His headache, feigned when he spoke of it, had begun to approach agony. “We’ll tell him though it kills us.”
Alf’s fingers brushed his brow. They were warm and cool at once, drawing away the pain, lending him strength. “Dear friend,” Alf said, “I’d never send you to your death. Nor do I ask you to come back here. It’s too much danger for too little cause.”
“I hardly saw you at all.” Even to himself Jehan sounded faint and fretful, like a tired child.
“But you did see me.” Alf eased something over Jehan’s bandage: a hat, broad-brimmed and much worn.
Jehan’s groping hand found the braided band and froze. “I can’t take this away from you!”
“You can keep it till I come for it. Now, your cloak. You’d best be quick; it will be dark soon, and you won’t be able to find a boat to take you across the Horn.”
Jehan grasped at the little that mattered. “You’ll come for it?”
“Or you’ll bring it. When it’s safe, and only when.” Alf embraced him briefly, tightly. “Take care of yourself, Jehan.”