The Walls of Byzantium (18 page)

Luke got up. ‘Anyway, it’s not important next to what you have to do.’

Anna rose and went to the cave entrance. She turned to face him. ‘I know about Eskalon, Luke. I’m sorry.’

‘I loved him, Anna,’ he said simply.

Anna stepped forward and hugged him hard. ‘I know,’ she said.

When Luke had gone, Anna sat on the ground and thought. So much had happened in the last few months, so much that was bad. One by one, the good things of her existence had
fallen away and her future seemed saddled with guilt and uncertainty. A week ago, she’d feared for her sanity.

Then had come Luke. Yet again, when she’d needed him most, he’d been there. And his only intention seemed to be to do what was right.

From almost her first consciousness, Anna had known about intention, other people’s intentions. With the Despot childless, she’d always known that her hand in marriage was the most important in the despotate and that it would only be given away for the highest of prices. Now she was married to Damian, a marriage that, with luck, might be annulled. After all, it had hardly been consummated. But that didn’t mean that she’d then be free to place her heart where she wanted. No, it would then be her duty to make another expedient marriage, for her family, for her despot.

For Mistra
.

Anna decided she must cast Luke from her mind. They could never be together so there was no point in thinking about him. Instead she picked up Zoe’s book and began to read from where she’d stopped with Luke. And it was only when the weak flame of the lamp was the only light left in the cave that she put the book down.

She lay down on the blanket and looked up at the pitted roof of the cave, its shadows moving in the light. She would ask Luke to give her a second lamp. She didn’t like the dark. A sudden gust of wind caused the flame to leap and then nearly go out and she moved her body quickly to shield the lamp. She shuddered at the thought of a night with no light.

When will you be back?

Two nights later, at the Mamonas Palace, Zoe was standing naked in front of the open window of her bedroom, looking out into the gathering night. The sun had just set and giant black clouds were scudding across the sky. The first spits of rain touched her cheek and she shivered, hugging her arms and lifting her head to feel the caress of wind on her forehead.

‘There’s going to be a storm,’ she said.

There was no answer from the man lying on the bed. He was admiring the curve of her back and the swell of her buttocks and remembering them above him moments ago, moving in urgent rhythm to the rise and fall of his hips. That was certainly the best ride he’d had with any woman, including the most expensive whores in Constantinople, and he wondered whether his reward extended to another one. Probably not, he concluded.

Richard Mamonas had always desired his young cousin but had never allowed it to develop into anything more. He didn’t believe that love was part of her repertoire of feelings. Nevertheless her ruthless determination intrigued and excited him in equal measure and he was glad that he’d finally earned his way into her bed.

‘Have you ever loved anyone, cousin?’ he asked her back.

Zoe turned around and eyed him warily. ‘Why is that important to you?’ she asked.

‘It’s not particularly.’ He yawned. ‘I just wondered, that’s all.’

‘What if I told you there was someone I wanted, someone who rejected me?’

Mamonas laughed. ‘I wouldn’t believe you.’

‘Well, there was.’ she said quietly.

Zoe moved to a chair where a silk gown lay sprawled. ‘I think you should go,’ she said, putting on the gown and tying its sash. ‘And be careful when you leave.’

Without waiting for an answer, she walked back through the window and on to the balcony. Another gust of wind pressed the silk against her breasts and she gathered the material around her, tightening the sash. She shivered again.

Someone who rejected me
.

Far below, beyond the sea wall of the lower town, she saw the same sight she’d seen for the past four nights. The three friends of Luke’s were loading a small boat to go fishing. One was holding a lantern above his head while the other two were lifting a large crate into the vessel.

Zoe smiled.

Clever. Very clever
.

In the cave, Anna was starting to worry. The wind was definitely rising outside and great gusts were breaking through the laurel bush, scattering the flame of her lamp. She had tried to use the blanket as a screen, huddling over the light beneath it, but the oil fumes had made her choke. Now she did the best she could to shield it with her body and prayed that it wouldn’t go out.

If only Luke was here
.

No. That way lay pain. Instead, she considered Anna Komnene’s descriptions of the Varangians. Luke had told her of Siward Godwinson and his five hundred followers who’d formed the first English Varangians. Like their lost treasure, Anna had always thought it myth but here, in this book, was the story of the first battle they’d fought for Alexios at Dyrrachium.

She’d described how the Byzantines had used Greek fire against the Normans, something else the Empire seemed to have lost. She described it as made of sulphur and shot through tubes of reed, falling ‘like a fiery whirlwind on the faces of the
enemies’. It was said to burn on water. But where was it now? The secret of how to make it had gone, disappeared into the fog of time.

Greek fire, Varangians, gold. Three things the Empire needed.

Anna thought of Luke and his refusal to answer the question of why he needed to go to Mistra. She knew it wasn’t the gold, it was the duty. The duty of every Varangian, since the time of Siward, to fight for his emperor.

Something that Luke cannot do in Monemvasia
.

Lost in this thought, Anna hadn’t noticed that the screech of the wind outside had risen and that the gusts entering the cave were getting stronger and more frequent. She shivered as a savage blast tore through the laurel bush and spilled over her back. The oil lamp spluttered.

Then it went out.

It was suddenly very dark in the cave, and colder, and the sounds of the wind and rain seemed much nearer. Anna felt the first clutch of fear enter her soul. She stretched out her arm to find the wall but felt nothing. She inched to the side until her hand touched the rock. She sank to the ground, feeling for the blanket to wrap herself in. Instead, her hand knocked over the pitcher of water and she felt cold liquid against her knee. Where was the book? The water must not reach the book he’d brought her.

She spread both hands out across the earth, only finding the lamp, which scalded her. Her hands met the crossbow and then,
thank God
, the book, and she clutched it to her breast like a relic. Eventually she found the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She sat there, with book and crossbow, willing herself to endure.

Fear was all around her now, and it was growing.

Luke
.

What was that? She’d heard a scratching noise from the laurel bush, outside the cave, but close. It came again. Was it the bush moving against the rock? No, this was a different sound, not a natural one. Anna froze in terror.

Go away
!

The sound came again, closer, just the other side of the laurel.

Please, I will be good. Not lie to my mother
.

Anna was paralysed with fear, her body rigid and hunched, her eyes raking the darkness for the first sign of what was coming for her. She found some movement in her hands and gripped the crossbow with one while the other felt along its top. The bolt groove was empty.

Then it came. She heard the laurel branches roughly parted and a sudden rush of wind enter the cave, flattening the blanket against her legs and letting fly the pages of the book. She closed her eyes and screamed.

‘Anna!’

Luke
.

It was Luke. There. In the cave. Luke. But she couldn’t move.

‘Anna, help me in!’

The wash of relief had swept past her now and her mind was clearing, her limbs beginning to respond. She put down the crossbow and book and moved towards the voice. She could just make out the black mass of a body half inside the cave. She reached out her hand.

‘Take it. There!’

Luke’s hands were in hers. She rocked backwards to help him climb in. Then he was there, somewhere, in front of her, his breathing filling the cave. She felt for him, and then threw herself into his embarce, sobbing with relief.

‘Whoa!’ said Luke from the darkness. ‘You’ll have me out of the cave again!’

Still she held him, her face buried in his chest, her tears coursing down his tunic and her breath hot against his shoulder. She held him tighter than she had that first day on the plain below Geraki. She held him so closely that, in the suspension of his breath, she could feel the pounding of his heart against hers.

‘
You’ve come
,’ she whispered into his shoulder, feeling his hair against her cheek and looking up to where she thought his face to be.

‘Of course I came,’ said Luke softly. ‘The storm. I thought your lamp might go out. I thought that you’d be afraid.’

Anna lifted her fingers to his face, feeling for his lips. Then she raised her head and kissed him, a brush of a kiss at first and then deeper, more urgent.

She lay back on the floor of the cave, pulling Luke to her. She covered his lips, cheeks, hair with kisses as she held his head in her hands, lifting her chin when his own moved to her neck. All thoughts of the future had left the cave as Luke had entered it and Anna felt nothing but the urgency of
now
. In this world of storm and terror, here was a living thing she could trust, she could depend on, she could hold on to.

Then Luke gently pulled away from her, holding her shoulders in his hands, searching for her face in the blackness.

‘Anna … what is this?’ he said, his voice full of wonder. ‘Should we light the lamp?’

‘No,’ she answered. ‘Just hold me. Please.’

Much later, they lay in the darkness listening to the storm die outside the cave, both deep in their thoughts. They lay on one
blanket and another covered their bodies, Anna’s back pressed against the comfort of Luke’s chest, one leg curled around his like a mooring rope. His arm held her close to him, his hand resting on the curve of her breast and his face lost in the mass of her hair, breathing in its scent of salt and musk.