The Walls of Byzantium (14 page)

Finding a saddle leaning against the wall, and a bridle
hanging above it, she moved quietly down the aisle until she was at the stall. A minute later she was leading the horse back towards the open doors, silently cursing the ring of its hooves on the stone. Then she heard a snort to her right, one she recognised. She walked over to Eskalon and pressed her cheek to the felt of his nose.

‘Wish us luck,’ she whispered.

The moon disappeared.

Someone was silhouetted in the doorway and whoever it was had armour and a sword. The figure was swaying. Anna could smell the beer from where she was standing.

‘Who’s in there?’

Anna decided to bluff. ‘How dare you speak to me like that!’ she hissed from the darkness. ‘I suppose you can’t see who I am?’

She strode forward, still leading the horse, waving him out of her way as she passed into the moonlight. The man staggered back and stared stupidly.

Anna dropped the palfrey’s reins and walked up to the man, who towered over her. She sniffed. ‘I believe you are drunk,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘I wonder what the Archon will do when I tell him. What do you think he’ll do?’

The man scratched his beard.

‘What do you think he’ll do?’ she asked again.

There was a long pause while the man thought and Anna’s spirits began to rise.

This is working
.

‘I think we both know what he’ll do,’ said Anna softly. ‘So I suggest you let me ride out of here and we’ll forget what has happened.’

Then the man found his voice. With an effort, he straightened himself and adjusted the sword at his side. He cleared his
throat noisily and a sly look entered his eyes. ‘Lady, I know the Archon will punish me for abandoning my post. But he would do worse if he found that I’d let you ride out.’

Anna bit her lip. So she was indeed a prisoner. She decided to take a different tack. ‘Soldier, do you have a brother?’

The man looked bewildered. ‘I have three brothers, lady.’

‘And do you love them?’

‘I love them enough,’ he answered.

‘Well,’ said Anna, ‘my brother … my only brother, is lying at Geraki Castle and is badly wounded. He may die. I have to be with him.’

The soldier looked unpersuaded.

‘If you let me go to him,’ she went on, ‘I promise that you will take a rich reward from the Despot.’

The soldier said nothing and Anna felt her temper rising. ‘What must I do for you to let me go?’ she asked.

There was a long pause.

‘Well, lady …’ the soldier said slowly. The sly look had returned to his eyes. ‘… you’re a pretty thing and—’

He got no further.

There was a deep thud as something heavy connected with the back of his head. He pitched forward and lay senseless on the ground.

‘I didn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence,’ said Luke as he stepped forward into the moonlight. He looked with disgust at the body beneath him.

‘Have you killed him?’

‘I’m afraid not, lady, but he’ll have a sore head for some days. Come, help me to bind him. The guard is due to change in less than an hour.’

As they pulled the body away, Luke said, ‘That was a pretty speech. I almost thought you would win him over.’

‘I think I did, didn’t I?’

Luke smiled and stripped some linen from a hanging cloth to stuff in the man’s mouth. He took his sword and tucked it into his belt. Then he tied his hands. In the moonlight his own seemed oversized. Anna put her hand on his and saw how small it was in comparison. It was trembling.

‘Will you ride with me to Geraki, Luke?’

An hour later, the two of them were riding hard across open country. The moon was almost full and clouds straddled its face like worn curtains. The land was mostly scrub and rock for they were steering clear of the road. The landscape came and went around them, one moment a ghostly apparition, the next a mass of shadow.

The noise of the night had long since given way to the pounding of their horses’ hooves on the earth. But its smell was everywhere, and Luke filled his lungs with the aroma of flower, herb, vine and salt that was Mistra. He felt more alive than he had for months and thrilled to the feel of the air rushing past his temples, lifting his hair behind.

Beside him, Anna’s smaller horse was trying hard to keep up with Eskalon. Luke looked across and saw the dread in her eyes and he thought about the courage of this girl who’d been so badly used by those meant to protect her. Then he thought about what had happened at Geraki. Anna had told him what she knew as they’d ridden. But why would a Mamonas garrison want to hurt the son of the Protostrator so soon after their alliance had been sealed in marriage? It didn’t make sense.

Anna’s thoughts were only of her brother. She had no idea how badly wounded he was or who was tending to him but she knew that being with him, now, was the most important thing she had ever wished for.

He cannot die
.

They crested a hill and Luke pulled Eskalon up to get his bearings. The road was beneath them, snaking dimly into the distance, and he could just see the hill of Geraki on the horizon. He thought they should probably return to the road since he knew that they were close to the deep gulley and he wasn’t sure exactly where it was.

Anna had stopped next to him, but before she could kick her palfrey into the descent, he held up his hand to stop her. He was leaning forward in his saddle, listening hard.

‘Did you hear something?’ she whispered.

‘The sound of a horse, maybe more than one. On the road ahead.’

She could hear it now. There was more than one.

Luke said, ‘We’ll have to let them go by. We can’t risk keeping from the road any more. Let’s hope they pass quickly.’

They turned their horses back down the lee of the hill and rode back to some trees where they dismounted and tethered them. Then they walked back to the crest and fell to their bellies to watch the travellers pass. The moon was behind a thick cloud and there was no sign of the approaching riders except the snort of horses and the jangle of bridles. They didn’t seem to be travelling at more than a walk. Then they heard something else: the squeak of wheels turning and the movement of heavier harness.

‘They’ve got a cart,’ whispered Luke. A horrifying thought was beginning to form in his mind.

Anna had had it too. ‘They couldn’t be
moving
him!’ she whispered in disbelief. She began to crawl forward.

Luke put his hand on her shoulder. ‘It might not be them. It could be anyone.’

‘Out here, at dead of night, with no lights?’ asked Anna. ‘I think it’s them.’

Just then the moon reappeared. Below them were four mounted soldiers, all with the unmistakable crest of the Mamonas on their hauberks, and a man driving a low cart. There was a dark shape in the back of the cart.

Anna gave a little cry and lifted her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror. She tried to stand but Luke took her arm. He forced her gently to the ground and began to crawl back down the slope in the direction of the horses.

Luke had no plan. He had no idea what they would do when they got to the cart but he knew Anna had to be there and that every second counted. When they were clear of the crest, they got to their feet and ran back to their mounts. In seconds, they were spurring their horses back up the hill, Anna in front.

Suddenly she stopped and wheeled round to face Luke. ‘You can’t come with me. If they see you they’ll know you hit the guard and helped me to escape. You cannot come.’

Luke ignored her and kicked Eskalon to pass. She grabbed his bridle and pulled hard so that Eskalon was forced to turn his head and stop beside her. She held it tight and looked directly into Luke’s eyes.

‘Luke, you’ve done enough,’ she said. ‘He’s
my
brother.’

‘And it’s
my
empire,’ said Luke quietly. ‘I’m a Varangian, Anna.’ He leant forward. ‘If Alexis was shot, he was shot for a reason. I want to know why.’

He turned Eskalon and crested the hill, Anna behind him.

Richard Mamonas heard them before he saw them. He was talking to the wagon-driver when he heard a cry and the sound of hooves approaching fast from the hill to his left.

He pulled his horse to a halt and drew his sword. He could see two shapes galloping towards him, both with long hair strung out in the moonlight. One was a woman.

‘Why are you moving him?’ the woman screamed.

Mamonas cursed. She was supposed to be imprisoned in the palace. He didn’t recognise the man that rode beside her.

Anna had reined in her horse. ‘Why have you moved my brother from Geraki?’

‘We are taking him to Monemvasia,’ Mamonas said. ‘To a surgeon.’

‘But you’ll
kill
him!’ Anna spurred her horse over to the wagon and leapt to the ground. She ran to the back of the cart and climbed, as gently as she could, into it, kneeling in the straw beside her brother and taking his head in her hands with infinite care.

Richard Mamonas made a move to follow her but found himself looking at the tip of Luke’s sword.

‘Who did it?’

Mamonas glanced around. His men were too far away to intervene. He shook his head. ‘It was an accident,’ he said. ‘A simple mistake.’

‘Not so simple,’ said Luke.

He backed over to the wagon, his sword raking the air to left and right. He looked over its side.

Anna was sitting with Alexis’s head in her lap. The moon had re-emerged to bathe everything in a wash of grey and Alexis’s skin was as candle wax. Anna bent forward to kiss his
cold brow. ‘What have they done to you?’ she murmured, tears rolling down her cheeks as she smoothed the hair at his temple. ‘My darling, what have they done to you?’

Alexis could hear her, but only just. The arrow was still in his neck and the sway of the cart had caused such searing agony that he had slipped in and out of consciousness until he no longer knew where he was.

But he knew that voice.

‘Anna …’ he murmured. ‘Can you … get me some … water?’

Anna looked up and found Luke. He swung his sword round to the wagon driver.

‘Water this instant or I’ll put this through you.’

The man hurried to find his pigskin sack. Luke passed it to Anna. She pulled out the stopper and brought it to Alexis’s lips, tilting his head forward to help him drink. She looked down into the face she loved more than anything on earth.

Alexis was drenched in sweat, his face shining in the moonlight. There were dark shadows around his eyes and he was feverish, his body shaking in spasms. His breathing was coming in rasps. Anna saw a clumsy bandage wrapped around his neck, its cotton black with congealed blood. She dared not remove it, yet she feared infection would set in if she didn’t.

‘Luke, we need a surgeon.’

Luke nodded. He turned to the wagon-driver. ‘Tell your officer to come here. Now!’

A moment later, Richard Mamonas was standing next to the cart.

‘We can’t move him any further. It’s killing him,’ Luke said. ‘Is there anywhere nearby that we can take him?’

Richard Mamonas thought quickly. This was unexpected and the man looked as if he knew how to use his sword.

‘I believe there is a barn where they store hay up ahead, perhaps half a mile,’ he said.

‘Good,’ said Luke. ‘We’ll take him there.’ He turned to Anna. ‘I know of a surgeon. I’ll ride back and get him.’

For a moment Richard Mamonas thought about stopping him, but Luke lifted his sword. There was an unmistakable challenge in his eyes.

‘I
will
go,’ he said quietly.

Mamonas stepped aside.

Then Anna reached over the side of the cart and took his arm. ‘Ride fast, Luke.’