Jehan prowled the room Henry had given him in Blachernae. It was a chaplain’s cell, with a chapel close by it; in comparison with the rest of the palace it was very small and sternly ascetic. But by the standards of a priest from Anglia, it was almost sinfully opulent.
Anna sat on the large and comfortable bed and watched him. Here in seclusion, she had taken off her cap; her braids hung down, very black and thick on either side of her narrow pointed face.
She tugged at one. “Won’t you let me cut them off?” she begged.
“No!” he snapped. He stopped in front of the saint painted with jewelled tiles upon the wall, and glared into her huge soulful eyes. “‘Holy Saint Helena,’” he read, “‘finder of the True Cross, pray for us.’ If you could find a Cross buried for three hundred years, why in God’s name can’t you find a handful of prisoners lost for a day?”
“Maybe because you haven’t asked her before,” Anna said reasonably.
He growled and began to pace again.
Someone knocked softly at the door. Anna stuffed her braids into her cap. Jehan muttered something in Norman; and louder, in Greek: “Who is it?”
“You ordered food, my lord,” said a light sexless voice.
Jehan shivered a little. These eunuchs made his skin creep, silent gliding creatures, neither male nor female, serving their new masters with obsequiousness that masked deep and utter contempt.
He found his voice. “Come in, then.”
The servant entered with bowed head and laid his burden on a table. Anna, with the perfect ease of the Greek aristocrat, stepped around him as if he had not been there and began to investigate the various plates and bowls.
The eunuch made no move to go. He was a young one, overdressed as they all seemed to be, painted and perfumed like a woman; there were jewels in his ears and on his fingers and everywhere between. As he lifted his face, with a shock Jehan knew him. Either the chief steward of the palace had suffered a great reduction in rank, or there was something afoot.
Without conscious thought, Jehan reached for his sword and drew it and set himself between the eunuch and the child.
Michael Doukas looked from the bright blade to the cold eyes behind it and smiled slightly. “I take it, holy Father, that we know one another.”
“I think,” said Jehan, “that we do. Are you in the habit of running errands for minor clerics when there’s nothing of greater import for you to do?”
“On occasion,” replied Michael Doukas, “I will stoop to it.”
He laid a delicate finger on the flat of Jehan’s blade, just below the point, and moved it fastidiously aside. “Do you mind, my lord? It’s quite vulgar to greet one’s guests with steel.”
“Barbaric, too, of course.” Jehan returned Chanteuse to its sheath and relaxed a little, though ready at a word to cut the eunuch down.
Michael Doukas sighed, relieved. “Ah. Now I can breathe again. Father, will you hear my confession?”
That caught Jehan completely off guard. “But you’re a Greek!”
“So I am. Will you, Father?”
“You know I can’t.”
The eunuch shook his head sadly. “Such injustice. And all for a word or two in an ancient prayer. Where can I go with such a burden as my soul carries?”
“This place is swarming with priests of your persuasion.” Jehan’s eyes narrowed. “All right. Out with it. What did you come here to tell me?”
Michael Doukas inspected him in detail, turning then to examine Anna, who ate hungrily but watchfully. One of Jehan’s daggers had found its way into her belt. “Your boy, Father? Or—no.” He snatched, too quick even for Anna’s quick hands, and brandished her cap, meeting her glare with laughter. He was, Jehan realized, much younger than he looked, hardly more than a boy himself. “Indeed, my lord, you take them up young! and out of hospitals, too, it seems.”
“Saint Basil’s,” she snapped. “Who are you?”
“My name is Michael Doukas. And yours, noble lady?”
She chose not to answer him. “Michael Doukas? Did you smuggle Alf out of the palace?”
“Indeed, lady,” he replied, “and how do you know of that?”
“He’s my brother. We’re looking for him.” Her eyes glittered with eagerness, her anger forgotten. “Do you know where he is?”
“Your brother?” mused Michael Doukas. “Ah, then you are an Akestas.”
“Of course I’m an Akestas! They took him away with Thea, and Nikki too though they didn’t know he was following till it was too late. Now we can’t find him. Where is he?”
“How strange,” Michael Doukas said. “I have a friend, you see. He has a friend who knows a man, who knows a woman who plies a very old trade near the All-seer’s hill. She likes to talk while she works, and her clients, it seems, like to talk to her.”
“Why?” asked Anna. “What does she do?”
“Never mind,” Jehan said quickly, glowering at the eunuch. “Go on. What rumor did she hear?”
Michael Doukas sighed and shook his head sadly. “Business, she asserts, is better than ever before, but the clientele leaves something to be desired. But she has a little Frankish, learned in the trade, and, as I’ve said, she likes to use her tongue. Last night she had a client of somewhat higher rank than usual, a sergeant-at-arms who served one of the Flemish knights. A very handsome man he was, for a Frank, and very proud of it. Our good dame took due note of this. Ah so, quoth he, but he had a rival in beauty. Indeed? said she. Impossible! And he sighed, languishing, and averred that alas, it was so, but certainly she would never see this paragon, seeing that he lay in prison awaiting the hangman’s pleasure.”
Jehan’s fingers locked around the eunuch’s throat. “Where, damn you? Where?”
Michael Doukas swallowed painfully. “My lord—might you—?” Jehan relaxed his grip by a degree. “My lord, if I may continue, our keen-witted woman of affairs, having some liking for her trade and a certain desire to improve its quality, continued to question her client. He was pleased to tell her what he knew, for her persuasions were quite irresistible. Yes, he had seen the man he spoke of; yes, it was certain: he was destined for the gallows, for he, Latin-born, had fought as a Greek; and there was a whisper of darker things, witchery perhaps—certainly he had a familiar, a small fierce cat that had followed him into his prison. And truly he had enemies. Not the least of whom was my lord the Count of Flanders.”
“Baudouin!” Jehan muttered. “I knew he had a hand in this.”
His fingers tightened till the eunuch gasped. “If you don’t tell me now where Alfred is, I’ll choke it out of you.”
Michael Doukas licked his dry lips. He was not precisely afraid, but he was very much concerned for the safety of his skin. “Very well, my lord. He lies not in any proper prison but in a guarded chamber, very close indeed to Madame’s place of business. She, it seems, knows the place well; it was a tavern once before the fires swept past it. Its cellars are intact, and well and strongly bolted.”
Jehan loosed his grip but did not set the eunuch free. “Take me there,” he said. But then, abruptly, “No. Not quite yet. Where is my lord Henry?”
o0o
The City was deathly quiet under the stars, lying stripped and torn upon her hills, her people cowering still in terror of the conquerors. Yet the Latins were quenched at last, exhausted with their three days’ debauch; their lords moved now to rule the realm that they had taken, and to repair the ravages of war and plundering.
Along the shore of the Horn, Saint Mark’s fleet rode at anchor. One galley glowed vermilion in the light of its many lamps; the lion banner of the Republic caught the light with a glimmer of gold.
Enrico Dandolo received his late guests in a cabin as rich as any emperor’s. Weary though he surely was, no less weary than the young men who faced him, he betrayed no sign of it. He listened quietly to the tale Michael Doukas told, lids lowered over the fierce blind eyes, his face revealing no hint of the thoughts behind. The eunuch, for his part, seemed not at all alarmed to be here, face to face with the man who had ordered the conquest of his city.
“What,” asked the Doge when he was done, “have I to do with this market tale?”
“An innocent man is like to die,” Henry answered him. “I know better than to confront my brother in one of these moods of his. You on the other hand, my lord, he plainly respects. If you pleaded Master Alfred’s case, he would be likely to listen.”
“Is he innocent?” asked Dandolo.
Michael Doukas smiled. “As to that, my lord, I know he was no creature of ours. Indeed I would have wagered that he was yours, if anyone’s.”
Anna shook herself awake in Jehan’s lap. “He wasn’t anybody’s! He worked in Saint Basil’s and mended the hurts their fighters made. He only actually hurt anybody when they hurt one of the family. They—they killed Mother, and Irene, and Corinna. And then they shot Thea. He loved Thea better than anything else in the world. If he killed people after that, can you blame him?”
“Of blame,” said the Doge, “I can say nothing. He is a Latin. He slew Latins.”
“Hasn’t there been enough killing?” She was close to tears. “He told you you’d win. I know—he said so.”
“So he told the Emperor Isaac,” said Michael Doukas.
Anna slid out of Jehan’s lap and stood in front of the Doge. “You can save Alf’s life if you want to. Why don’t you?”
“Child,” Dandolo said to her, “I am not all-powerful. Count Baudouin is a great prince, at least as great as I. If he chooses to dispose of a man for whom he has no love to spare, there is nothing I can do.”
“You can try!”
It was a strange sight, the small girl in ill-fitting boy’s clothes and the ancient and terrible Doge of Saint Mark. He, who could not see, yet felt it; a spark kindled deep in his eye.
“Very well, then. If I set your Alfred free, what will you give me?”
“My thanks,” she answered.
The young men and the eunuch exchanged glances, half in alarm, half in laughter.
The Doge nodded gravely. “A fair price, when all is considered. I suppose you expect prompt service?”
“Immediate, sir.”
“So.” He raised his voice slightly. “Paolo! My cloak!”
o0o
With great care and with Nikki’s help, Alf eased Thea out of her armor. The wound in her side seemed a small thing to have brought her so close to death, a circle of scarlet beneath her breast, no wider than her finger. Gently, with water from the jar and a strip torn from his tunic, he washed away the last of the blood.
She sighed a little under his hands. “So much metal,” she said. “It weighed on my soul as much as on my body.”
“You regret your bravery?”
“Of course not!” She had moved too quickly; she winced. “I regret that I didn’t give Edmund a better escort into Hell. He was a fine lad. A fool, but... a fine one.”
Alf touched her cheek. She blinked fiercely. “I’m not crying!” she snapped, although he had not spoken. “I’m giving the dead their due. That’s all. It’s over; we survive, as usual; life goes on. That, dear pilgrim, is the wisdom you came all this way to find.”
He touched his lips to the center of her body’s pain. Let me heal you, he said silently.
No. Her fingers tangled in his hair. I want to do my own mending.
Why?
Because, she said, I want to.
Monk that he had been, he understood. But he was a monk no longer, and he loved her. Let me!
No, she repeated. Aloud she said, “I don’t suppose there’s anything to eat in here?”
It distracted him, as she had meant. Yet he paused. She thought hunger at him; he yielded at last, with reluctance in every movement.
o0o
Jehan’s torch, raised as high as the ceiling would allow, illuminated very little. Other senses than sight told him that the space below was bare of furnishings though not of life.
A pool of scarlet caught the light. For an instant his heart stopped. He all but fell to the stone floor; the torch flared wildly as he fought to keep his feet.
The toe of his sandal nudged dry softness. A cloak the color of blood; and under it, curled together for warmth, three larger bodies and a much smaller one. They opened eyes blurred with sleep; Thea smiled and yawned.
“Good—morning, is it?”
“It’s just after midnight.” Jehan was suddenly and blindingly angry. “Aren’t you even surprised to see me?”
“Not surprised,” Alf said. “Glad, yes. Very, very glad.”
Very carefully Jehan unclenched his fists, then his teeth. “I should have known better. You being what you are, and Thea being what she is... you’ve made a fool of me, do you know that?”
“Of course we haven’t,” Thea said.
Alf was on his feet, hale and calm, embracing Jehan with a quiet joy that slew all his anger.
Light flooded the cell. Henry stepped away from the stair, and after him what seemed to be a great number of men. Some bore torches; others supported a bent figure in rich vermilion, easing his passage down the steep narrow way. Yet, once on the level, he stood alone with but his sheathed sword for a prop.
Alf bowed low. He had barely straightened before a small whirlwind overtook him. “Alf! Is Thea all right? Why didn’t you witch yourself out as soon as you got here? They said Jehan had to go down first, and not me—I don’t know why. I’m angry. Alf!”
He gathered her up. She buried her face in his tunic and babbled into silence.
“Thea,” said that lady, “is quite well. But not, yet, quite up to any greater magic than the healing of her own body. Jehan, help me up.”
He approached her almost fearfully. She looked pale even for one of her kind, and thin, almost transparent; but her eyes were bright. Under the cloak she was all but naked; he draped it around her carefully and helped her to her feet.
She drew a cautious breath. “My lords will have to pardon me if I neither bow nor curtsey. I’m... slightly... indisposed.”
“Please, my lady,” the Doge said, “spare your courtesy and lie down again for your body’s sake.”
She made no objection. By that, Jehan knew truly how ill she was. But she insisted on sitting up and speaking as clearly as ever. “My thanks for my lords’ indulgence. To what do we owe the honor of your presence?”
Jehan eyed her suspiciously. She did not seem to be mocking them. But with Thea, one never knew. “It’s just a little thing,” he said. “A mere rescue. I don’t suppose you either wanted or needed to be rescued?”
“Surely they wanted it,” said Michael Doukas, moving out of the shadow by the stair. He met Alf’s eyes with a smile and a slight bow. “Indeed, master seer, we meet again at Armageddon.”
Alf smiled in response. “And now I owe you my life twice.”
“Oh, no,” said the eunuch, “you owe nothing. You permit us to flatter ourselves that we can aid you. But I owe you all that I am. Had you not foretold this war’s ending, I might not have had the good fortune to serve my new and most noble lord.” He bowed low to Henry. “Surely that was worth my telling a friend of yours where to find you.”
“Just in time, too,” Jehan said. “I was going mad. When I found out that, with your usual talent for putting yourself in your enemies’ power, you were in Count Baudouin’s hands, I was somewhat less than delighted. I went straight to my lord Henry; he took me to the one man who could set you free. And that, Messer Enrico did.”
“Easily,” the Doge said. “Ridiculously so. My lord would not even see me; informed of my errand, he granted what I asked without a word of protest.”
“Not quite, my lord,” Jehan said. “We all heard him shouting. “Take him and be damned! Take them all! Only let me never see or hear of them again!”
Thea smiled. Jehan scowled. “If I’d known you were alive and conscious, I never would have bothered.”
“You would have,” she said calmly, “and we owe you thanks for it.”
Anna snorted, a small defiant sound. “Thank him? What for? He just did the work. Saint Helena did all the rest of it.”
“Then,” said Alf, “when we’ve rendered all proper thanks to her earthly instruments, we’ll sing a Mass of Thanksgiving in her honor. Meanwhile, demoiselle, shall we leave this place?”
“The sooner, the better,” she said.