The Golden Horn (11 page)

“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.”