A Place Called Armageddon (20 page)

‘Do so. The crisis is nearly upon us.’ He smiled. ‘And it will take me some time to break you of all your crossbowman’s bad habits.’ He punched the arm he’d lately held and followed Constantine.

The men that passed through the archway had their own concerns. They were not seeking traitors. Even Giustiniani did not glance at him. So Gregoras was able to study, unobserved, all the faces – those he did not know. Those he did.

Theon. His proximity caused a cramp in Gregoras’s stomach, a surge of bile to reach his mouth. His hands rose, not to grip a dagger this time, but a throat. In sleepless dreams he had considered a thousand ways to kill Theon. Strangling, watching life slowly leave the hated face, had always seemed the best.

And yet that face! With Sphrantzes whispering in his ear, his brother nodding, tight-mouthed, suddenly Gregoras saw another mouth there, a different face, far younger. An imagined one, for he had never properly seen the boy that Theon called son.

His hands dropped. From their looks he knew that the discussions ahead would be long and stormy. It would give him time to ride back into the city, to stare up again at familiar windows, to glimpse, perhaps, the product of love and hatred.

John Grant tried to delay him. ‘Will you take a cup with me?’ the Scot asked.

Gregoras was already moving past him. ‘Later,’ he replied. ‘I will find you.’

He would. The Scot was one of the very few he still cared about in doomed Constantinople. Another was his commander. But if Giustiniani did not pay him what was promised, Gregoras would wish him to the devil. And the city with him.

He ran back along the battlements, descended the stair. His horse was there. He mounted. ‘Yah,’ he cried, and galloped into the rain.

–
THIRTEEN
–
The Love of Two Brothers

By the time he reined in at the Genoan barracks, the steam from his galloping mount had almost warmed him. Leaving the mare with a groom there, he went into the tavern. It was too late for some of the mercenaries who would frequent it, too early for some others, and he had it to himself. Slowly he drank his way through a flagon and rid himself of his last chill by the fireplace. Then he left, hunched against the rain, and walked towards the gate of Theodosia, and his old family house close by it.

He was not there for his ghosts now. He saw lights, shadows moving against whitewashed walls within. Hoping one of them was the shadow he sought, he stepped up to the door, lifted the brass knocker, struck.

Sofia knew who it was. She had been expecting his visit from the moment they’d parted three days before. She knew he would not be able to keep away. Not after what she had told him. But who would come? The Gregoras of their youth? Or the one she’d just encountered? The laugher or the avenger? When she was not attending to her duties, she would kneel before the household altar and pray. Not for one to appear and not the other. For the grace to handle whoever came.

She was praying when he knocked. Crossing herself, she rose swiftly, bent for a moment as the blood returned to her legs, then descended the stairs. ‘Who’s there?’ she called.

‘I.’

She shot the bolts, opened the door. She could not see his face, but his voice was quiet within its shroud. ‘Do you open your own doors? Where are your servants?’

‘We have just one. I sent her out. Let her go visit her sweetheart. Times are … different now.’

‘They are.’ He did not move. ‘And your children?’

‘My daughter is asleep upstairs. My son … is elsewhere.’

‘Did you send him out too?’

‘No. He … he visits a tutor. Mathematics. He is … not gifted.’

‘Like his father, then.’

She did not know whom he meant. And still he made no move. ‘Will you enter?’

‘I will.’

He followed her up the familiar stairs. They opened onto the large central room where his family had always gathered. It had changed, different furniture, an altar against one wall. Yet it was the same room.

‘Will you …?’ Sofia pointed to some slippers beside the entranceway. Some would be for guests. Some would be her husband’s. After a moment’s hesitation, he bent, removed his boots, put on a soft pair.

‘Would you …?’ She opened her hands, to chairs around a table before the fireplace, its funnel-shaped chimney disappearing into the rooms above.

‘Yes.’ He moved slowly to it. He had come with demands. Here, in a room of ghosts, he could not remember any of them.

He sat, she stood. They looked at each other. The silence extended. And then a cat jumped into his lap. ‘Jesu!’ he cried.

‘Ulvikul!’

She came forward to shoo the cat away. But Gregoras had already found its weak point, fingers rubbing rhythmically under its chin, the animal bending to his touch.

‘A handsome beast,’ he murmured. ‘And you call him …?’

‘Ulvikul. A Turkish envoy who came, he gave him the name. It is because …’

‘Of this.’ Gregoras changed his stroking to the spot. ‘The “M” above his eyes. He is beloved of Muhammad.’

‘Yes.’ She bent, rubbed her hand up the belly that was now exposed. The cat, in double assault, purred in ecstasy. Their fingers touched. Both stopped rubbing. She turned, walked a few steps away and the cat leapt off to follow her.

‘He has a limp, your beloved.’

‘Yes. He had an accident.’

‘What kind?’

‘Broke his leg. Fell out of a window.’

‘You and your animals, Sofitra.’ He paused as he used her childhood name, then went on quickly, ‘What was that dog you had, the bitch from the street? It had skin like a leper’s.’

‘Pistotatos!’ she cried. ‘I loved her.’

‘I know. You were the only one. She had a litter of puppies, each even uglier than herself, fit only for drowning.’

‘Which you did not do, did you, Gregor? You and Th …’ She hesitated, went on. ‘You found a home for each one.’

‘We did, my brother and I.’ He licked his lips. ‘But it was I alone who found other beasts for you when you decided to build the Ark.’

She came, sat opposite him. ‘It had rained worse than this, for months it seemed. I was sure the flood was coming.’

‘What were we? Eight? You convinced me, enough to send me down rat holes and up trees to squirrels’ nests.’ He held out a forefinger. ‘You see that? That crescent-moon scar?’

She took the finger, peered. ‘Yes?’

‘You needed a parrot. I tried to steal it from that Circassian trader’s shop. It took the top of my finger off.’ He laughed. ‘I don’t know which hurt worse. That, or the thrashing my father gave me for thievery.’

She laughed too, still held his finger – until the cat rose onto its hind legs, thrust its head up, seeking strokes, breaking the grip.

‘My first scar for you. Not my last.’

He had meant all scars. Thought he had, anyway. She took it differently. ‘Gregor, I am so sorry …’

He held up his scarred hand. ‘As am I. For what I said … the other day. It was not what I felt. No, it was, for it was my anger. But not my belief.’

‘I know.’ Sofia leaned forward. ‘You have reason for your anger.’

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ He sat back, the cat craning up to look at him. Gregoras was aware again of what was between them. Actually between them, the mask and all it hid.

It was as if she spoke then to his thoughts. ‘May I see again … your other scar?’

She raised her hand, reached towards his face. He caught it. ‘Why?’ he rasped, his throat dry. ‘Curiosity? Is it not said that it will be the death of cats?’

‘Not curiosity. Perhaps I wish to see again what fate wrought for us.’

‘Then see,’ he said, and released her hand.

He had seen the shock there before, the pity. He had recoiled from it. Now, as she reached and slipped the mask down, he saw only study, a woman’s concern. ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked, her fingertips hovering near the ivory replica.

‘No. It aches sometimes. But that is from its absence, not its presence.’ He closed his eyes, as her fingers ran lightly down the side, where ivory met skin. Opened them again, spoke part of the question that had been there from the beginning. ‘Does he …
he
have my nose? Our son?’

‘Oh.’ She sat back, looked away, to the cat, busy with something in the corner. ‘He is young. Seven. His nose … it is not yet fully shaped.’

‘Is that so?’ He shook his head. ‘I know little about children. ‘I have not …’

He broke off, as the cat gave a little jump, landed. They both saw something else there, something small that tried to dart away, then froze as claws descended fast.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘a mouse.’

‘Yes.’ He watched the cat release the mouse, corner it again. ‘He is fast, despite his injury.’

‘Yes.’

‘There was a time when you would have saved it.’

‘Yes.’

She watched the death game. He watched her, her eyes in the fire glow, the lines that ran from them. There were things missing that he used to see there. Her joy, that could light rooms, was gone. But he had seen caring there before, when she looked at his maiming. She was the same person, for all her travails. He leaned forward, spoke low and urgently what he’d come to say. ‘That mouse is this city, Sofitra. The cat is the Turk, except the Turk when he comes will not limp. He will toy with us for a while and then he will swallow us whole.’

‘You cannot know this.’

‘I can! For I know him, have fought him on a dozen grounds. He is hard to beat when the numbers are close to even. But when he is bringing ten, twenty times our strength, to a city that is already almost dead …’ He shook his head. ‘He will not be stopped. And he will come up those stairs, and he will take whatever he wants.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You and my … your children must not be here when he does.’

She stared back at him. ‘Where would we go?’

‘Anywhere but here. I would accompany you, if you let me. See you safe.’

‘You would desert our city? Our home? Now when she needs you most?’

‘It is not my home any more,’ he replied, hotly. ‘I owe her nothing and I did not return to fight for her.’

‘So why did you come back?’

He did not answer. For a moment he thought it was because he was ashamed to say that he was there for gold. And then he realised – and the realisation shocked him – that gold may have been the excuse. But it was not the reason. The reason sat before him. The reason was her.

‘It is strange,’ she said after a moment. ‘But though you are so different, your brother and you, you are alike in this.’

He stiffened. ‘How?’

‘You both want me gone. He has tried to send me from the city, as so many of the richer families have sent their kin. And I know that a wife is subject to her husband, how she should always obey …’ She swallowed. ‘But I could not in this. And nothing he could say or … or do would persuade me.’

‘Why not? What can you do here?’

‘Little enough, sure. But if the Turk batters down our walls by day, I can go to them at night and help to patch them. I can take care of the wounded, bring them water and solace. Most of all, I can pray.’

Gregoras sat back. ‘Pray?’ he echoed.

‘God loves us, Gregoras. He will forgive our sins, even those of this sinful city. And Our Lady who watches over us closely, she will not let her own city fall to the heathen. At the last, in our hour of most desperate need, she will guide heaven’s holy fire down upon our enemies.’

He leaned forward, took her hand. ‘But, Sofia,’ he said softly, ‘do you not think that the Turk is praying for exactly the same thing?’

She took her hand back. ‘You cannot liken an infidel’s prayer to ours.’

‘And if God, Whose ways are mysterious, has decided that we should be punished and not forgiven?’

She shrugged. ‘Then His will be done.’

Gregoras did not reply. It was an argument he had given up having years before. His own faith had been taken along with his nose. But he knew that no words of his would convince a believer. He would have to try different persuasion. ‘And your children? They cannot choose as you choose. And you know the fate that may befall them if God has turned His back.’ He shuddered, for he had seen what happened when the Muslims took a town that had failed to surrender. He had seen what Christians did too. Exactly the same. ‘What then?’

‘She rose, went to the fireplace, where the logs had burned low. Stooping, she piled two more on before she spoke again. ‘My parents had a Turkish maid once. She always said, “
Inshallah
.”’

‘It means, “As God wills it.”’

‘I know.’ She rose, turned back to him. ‘
Inshallah
.’

She looked so lost. He stood, stepped close to her. ‘Sofitra,’ he whispered.

There was a hammering on the front door. ‘Your son?’ he said, turning towards the sound.

‘No. His knock is gentle, like himself.’ She bit her lip. ‘It is my husband.’ He started, turned. ‘There is a back way. Take it.’

Gregoras took a step, then stopped. He had discovered earlier that there was one reason beyond gold he had come to the city. Now he realised there was a second. ‘No.’

She came to him, anguish on her face. ‘You cannot stay! You are an exile. It is death if you are found here.’

‘It is death only if I am revealed.’

‘But …’ Her eyes grew wider. ‘You … you will not hurt him?’

It was all his dreams, for years, the hurting of Theon. He shuddered. ‘I will not hurt him … within these walls. That much I will promise you. You have my word. Open the door.’

She did not move. ‘And you will not … not tell him what I told you upon the rock?’

He took a breath. ‘I will not.’ He watched her hesitate. ‘It is not for me to tell him, Sofia, however much I wish to hurt him. It is for you, if you so choose. If you do not, well …’ He straightened. ‘You have my word again. Now, go and open the door.’

She looked at him for a moment, then stepped away. When she reached the first step, he called her. ‘Do not tell him I am here,’ he said. ‘I want to see his face when he sees mine. Give me that at least.’

She did not turn round. But he could see her nod, before she descended the stair, as he tied his mask back in place.