The Golden Horn Read online

  “Is he as wonderful a warrior as you thought he was?”

  “Wonderful? More than wonderful! I followed him about like an overgrown pup; he condescended to teach me a little now and then. I’ve never seen a better swordsman. But do you know what he said? He was nothing; I should have seen his brother. Imagine; modesty, in the Flame-bearer.”

  Alf smiled.

  Jehan smote his hands together. “What are we doing, talking about somebody you don’t even know? Tell me about yourself!”

  “Tell me first how you came to be here.”

  “They were preaching a Crusade; my head was full of grand ideas; I begged and I threatened, and Bishop Aylmer sent me to the Pope, and the Pope let me go with his legate.” Jehan paused for breath. “Now, Brother Alf, stop evading and tell me. Why did you come here? How did you manage to get yourself up as a Greek gentleman? Where’s Thea?”

  “I came to see the City,” Alf answered. “I’m dressed as a Greek because it was a Greek who took me in after my clash with the sun, and the servants burned my old clothes. They weren’t even fit for rags, it seemed, although they covered me well enough.”

  He was keeping a tight rein on his vanity, Jehan could see. But he knew how very well he looked. “And Thea? Is she here?”

  “No,” Alf said, “she isn’t here.”

  Something in his voice brought Jehan about sharply. “What’s wrong? She hasn’t—she’s not dead, is she?”

  Alf laughed more in pain than in mirth. “Thea? Dear God, no! She was with me until a few days ago. She was the best of companions, too, whatever shape she chose. A hound most often. In Jerusalem when I worked in the hospital, she used to sit at my feet and laugh in her mind when people petted her and admired her beauty. Sometimes she’d put on a gown and be herself and walk about the city. She marveled at it, though she pretended to be cool and worldly-wise, that she was there in the holiest place in the world.”

  The other gripped his arm. “What happened? Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. We…disagreed. She went away. I’ve searched, but I can’t find her. She doesn’t want me to.”

  Jehan was young and a priest, but he was neither a child nor an innocent; and he had been as close to Alf as a brother. He read the quiet voice and the expressionless face, yet he offered no pity. “She’ll come back.”

  “Will she?” Alf asked, but calmly. “In some things we were never well matched. I only wish…I would be more at ease if I knew where she was.”

  “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself when you want to cry?”

  “I never cry.”

  “You should. It would do you good.”

  Alf shook his head slightly. “Come, explore the City with me. And after, if there’s time, you can meet my hosts.” His smile was no more than half forced. “I wasn’t even to leave my room for a day or two yet. But I escaped this morning and left a message to assure my benefactors that I hadn’t abandoned them. Maybe, if I come back with a friend—a very old and very dear friend who also happens to be very large—they’ll be inclined to forgive me.”

  “Will they welcome a Latin?”

  “They’ll be mildly disappointed. Like me, you know what hot water is for, and you speak Greek. And you aren’t wearing your armor.”

  “My squire’s cleaning it, poor lad. Should I go back and get it?”

  Alf laughed and shook his head, and led the other away.

  o0o

  Jehan was not, after all, a disappointment. Pound for pound and inch for inch, he was as close a match for Corinna as any man could be; when he promised to show Anna his armor, she clapped her hands with delight.

  But she was far from content. She watched him warily all the while he set himself to charm the household. Nikki, she noticed with satisfaction, eyed him in deep distrust. But everyone else was completely smitten.

  “He’s not at all handsome,” Irene whispered to her, “but he has beautiful eyes. I love blue eyes. And his voice. I wonder if he can sing?”

  Anna glared at her, but she was too far gone to notice. Could no one even see? He was sitting side by side with Alf. Every now and then he touched his friend lightly, familiarly; or Alf would lay an arm about his shoulders, holding him in a brief half-embrace. They were like brothers long parted, not quite believing yet that they had met again.

  Her throat felt tight. This was a man from Alf’s own country. He talked about Anglia, and about a king named Richard whom people called Lionheart and whom they both had loved; he talked about Rome and Saint Mark’s citadel and the Latin princes camped across the Horn; and when he smiled, Alf would smile back, as proud as a cat with its lone kitten.

  Then, when Jehan had begun to think of leaving, he said it. “Alf, why don’t you come with me? There’s always a place among us for a good man.”

  “What would I do?” Alf asked, not in protest but as if he truly wanted to know. “I’m neither knight nor priest.”

  “You’ve been a clerk and a healer and a king’s squire. Any of those, even the last, we’ve dire need of. And…” Jehan hesitated, suddenly shy. “I…I’d like it very much if you could be with me.”

  Anna held her breath. Irene, she noticed, had caught on at last; she was looking stricken. Mother looked merely interested, watching their faces as they talked.

  Alf was tempted. She could see it. He wanted to see his own people again and to live with his friend.

  “I’ll come,” he said. Jehan began to grin; Anna gathered to fling herself at one of them, she was not sure which. But Alf was not done. “I’ll come,” he repeated, “to visit you. For a little while. But not today. I’m in trouble enough as it is for being out when I should have been in bed.”

  Jehan’s face fell. Anna hurtled into Alf’s lap, though Nikki was there already, and hugged the breath out of him. He smiled. “You see why I have to stay.”

  Slowly Jehan nodded, battling a sudden, fierce, and irrational jealousy. “I see,” he said a shade coldly. With an effort he returned Alf’s smile. “I’m singing Mass in camp on the Sabbath. Will you come and hear me?”

  “Gladly,” Alf answered. Jehan had risen from his seat; he rose likewise, setting Anna on her feet. But Nikki’s arms had locked about his neck. He was still so the last Jehan saw of him, standing in the gateway with the dark-eyed child in his arms and the rest of the household a blur behind.

  6.

  “Now, mind you,” Bardas said as the litter bore the two of them through the crowds of the Middle Way, “Master Dionysios is the best physician in the City, and he knows it. He’ll give you this one day’s trial; if you can satisfy him, he’ll put you to work. It might be menial labor, boy, be warned of that. I’m only His Majesty’s overseer, not Saint Luke himself, to tell Master Dionysios what to do with you once he has you.”

  Alf watched as a troop of Varangians swung past, fair-haired giants in scarlet and gold with great axes on their shoulders. One or two, younger than the rest, looked very much like Jehan. “I don’t mind servants’ work. I did it in Saint Ruan’s, and in Jerusalem.”

  “You’ll do it for Dionysios. A rare thing, Dionysios: a doctor who can look after his own hospital. He works his people like slaves, from the brat who sweeps the kitchen all the way to the senior surgeon—and himself harder than any.”

  “I think I shall admire him.”

  “Or hate him,” Bardas said.

  o0o

  Master Dionysios took Alf’s measure with the air of an officer inspecting a raw recruit. “This,” he snarled at Bardas, “is your prodigy of medical erudition?”

  Bardas bore his wrath with unruffled calm. “This is Alfred.”

  Dionysios circled Alf slowly, lip curled. “You. Boy. What do you know?”

  “Little,” Alf answered, “but of that, enough.”

  The Master had come round to face Alf again. “So. You fancy yourself clever. Let me see your hands.” He examined them, turning them in fastidious, surgeon’s fingers. “Soft as a girl’s. Have you been cut, b
oy?”

  Alf’s lips tightened. “No, sir,” he replied levelly, “I have not.”

  “Pity. You’d please the women.” Abruptly Dionysios turned his back on him. “Come with me.

  “We tend anyone who can be treated,” Dionysios said as they walked, “and some who can’t, but who have nowhere else to die in peace. Poor, most of them. Filthy. Are you afraid of dirt, boy?”

  Alf shook his head.

  “Well then,” the Master said, pausing in a doorway. In the room beyond, many ragged figures sat on benches against the wall or squatted on the floor. At the far end a man in healer’s blue, aided by a student in brown, examined a particularly scabrous specimen. The air reeked of disease and of unwashed humanity.

  Alf followed the other, picking his way among the waiting bodies. The eyes that watched him pass were bright and scornful or dull and hostile or, once, languidly wanton; hands plucked at his robe, feeling of its fine fabric, inching toward the purse at his belt.

  The blue-clad physician did not pause as his Master approached, although the student looked up in apprehension.

  “Thomas,” said Dionysios, “rest yourself. This young gentleman will finish for you.”

  It said much for Dionysios’ discipline that the man stepped back at once, without protest, although he regarded Alf in open and cheerful curiosity. Alf took his place quietly, well aware of the eyes upon him. But he had stood so, been watched so, more often than he could remember; and the first time, when he was truly the boy he looked, Master Dionysios had been drowsing at his mother’s breast. He drew a breath to steady himself, and bent to the task.

  o0o

  “Well?” Bardas asked as Alf settled in the litter.

  Alf regarded him for a moment, hardly seeing him. “You weren’t there?” His gaze cleared; he shook himself. “Of course. You had other things to do. Did I see you leave?”

  “As I recall,” said Bardas, “you were lancing a boil and arguing with Master Dionysios: Was it God’s will for a healer to quiet pain with wine or poppy, rather than to let the patient bear it unaided?”

  “We weren’t arguing. We were considering possibilities.” Alf lay back against the cushions. “I’m to come back tomorrow.”

  “So you satisfied him.”

  “Not really. My name, says he, will not do at all. Since the Greek of ‘Alf’ is ‘Theo,’ then Theo I shall be; half a Greek name is infinitely preferable to the whole of a Saxon one. Moreover, we disagree on several crucial points. Bleeding, for instance. It’s useless, I think, and often dangerous. I’m an abomination, Master Dionysios has decided: a twofold heretic, religious and medical. But I know which end of a lancet is which, and I have light hands. He’ll suffer me to keep you quiet.”

  Bardas folded his hands over his ample stomach and allowed himself a brief smile. “You’ll do. I don’t suppose he mentioned payment.”

  “Of course not. I’m to wear a blue gown. Do I have one?”

  “You will. You’ll also have a salary.”

  Alf’s eyes widened in shock. “Money? For healing?”

  “This is Constantinople, lad.”

  “But—”

  Bardas’ raised hand cut him off. “No, boy. No Western scruples. If Dionysios has taken you on, by law he has to pay you according to your rank. Master physician, I should think, since he wants you to wear blue. Students wear brown and pay him; assistants get servants’ wages. In one stroke you’ve become a man of substance.”

  “I don’t want to be—”

  “Boy,” said Bardas, “this isn’t your monastery. You do your healing. I’ll look after your money.”

  “You can keep it. I owe it to you for all you’ve done for me.”

  “I’ll keep it. Until you need it.”

  Alf framed a further protest; paused; closed his mouth. They rode on in silence.

  o0o

  Anna and Nikki were at the gate with the air of people who had waited a very long while. Even before the litter had stopped, Nikki was in it, pummeling Alf with his fists, moaning in a strange strangled voice. His face was red and furious, wet with tears.

  Alf let Nikki’s anger run its course, until he suffered Alf’s touch and let himself be held, though struggling still, fierce in his wrath.

  “He’s been here all day,” Anna was saying, “crying and yelling and hitting the gate. He hit Corinna when she tried to take him away. He hit me. He even hit Mother.”

  Nikki quieted slowly, enough to sit in Alf’s lap, fists clenched on his knees. Alf took the small scarlet face in his hands, smoothing away the tears of rage. Very quietly he said, “I told you that I would come back. I will always come back. Always, Nikephoros.”

  Nikki’s black eyes were angry still. He raised a fist as if to strike again.

  Alf caught it and unfolded it. “I promise, Nikki.”

  For yet a while he clung to his outrage. But Alf smiled, and he plunged forward, burrowing into the limp and bloodstained robe.

  There was a silence. Bardas cleared his throat. “Where’s your mother, Anna?”

  “In the garden,” Anna replied, “with the lady who came a little while ago.”

  “A friend? Lady Phoebe? Aunt Theodora?”

  “Oh, no. We’ve never met her before. She came to see Alf.”

  He froze in the act of rising; swayed under Nikki’s weight; drew himself erect by force of will.

  Anna babbled on. “Her name is Althea. She comes from Petreia. She’s been to the West and to Jerusalem. Her tales are as good as Alf’s. Better, because she puts him in them and doesn’t try to make him look modest. Did you really save your Abbot’s life, Alf? And kill a man with his own sword?”

  All color had drained from his face. “Yes,” he said in a harsher voice than they had ever heard from him, “I killed a man. In the chapel of my abbey. The Abbot died, but not before he’d sent me to Jerusalem.”

  “They call you a saint in Anglia, she said. Are you really—”

  “Anna.” Bardas spoke softly, but she stopped short. “Go and tell the ladies that we’ll be with them shortly. Alf will bathe and change first.”

  Alf shook his head. “I’ll go directly.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Bardas said. “Put the boy down and let him walk like a man, and go to your bath.”

  o0o

  In the coolest corner of the garden where an almond tree shaded a small stony waterfall, Bardas and the ladies had settled with sweets and wine. Alf came to them scrubbed clean, wearing his best coat over a tunic of fine linen no paler than his face.

  Thea sat with her back to the tree trunk, demure in a plain gown, her pilgrim’s mantle laid aside in the heat; she had braided her hair and coiled it about her head and covered it with a light veil. She looked very young.

  As he approached, she rose with her own inimitable grace, smiling as if there had been no quarrel between them at all. “Little Brother! How well you look.”

  “And you.” He took her hands like one in a dream. “I’m... very glad to see you.”

  “No more so than I. You’ve been ill, my lady tells me; and Jehan in the camp.”

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “He told me where to find you. I’d meant to stay in Petreia, but there was nothing there for me after all except a ghost or two. So I came to the City. I met Jehan as he was coming back from here.” And spent the night with him, she added in her mind. Everyone was fiercely jealous. Such a lovely white hound, I was.

  Alf smiled without thinking, and remembered at last to let go her hands. Both Bardas and Sophia were drawing alarming conclusions. The blood rose to scald his cheeks; he sat down too quickly in the chair she had left, refusing to meet her bright relentless stare. She stood between him and the sun and said, “It’s a fine haven you’ve come to, little Brother. I’m delighted to see you so well looked after.”

  “It’s generally agreed that I need a keeper.” The fire had fled as quickly as it came. He had her hand again, God help him, and her mockery upon him like a
lash of cold rain. “Have you unveiled all my black past yet? Murder, sorcery, heresy, and plain lust—have I forgotten anything?”

  “As a matter of fact you have. The worst of all: burying your brilliance in a monastery for longer than I care to think, and hiding it with humility forever after.”

  “A failing you certainly are free of.”

  She laughed. “Certainly! I know what you’re worth. As does the heir of House Akestas. How is he now?”

  Her concern was genuine, and it eased his tension. “He’s asleep in my bed.”

  A good place to be. Mercifully she did not say it aloud. She sat at his feet; he looked down at the smooth bronze braids, knotted his hands in his lap and forced himself to be calm.

  This was her revenge, this utter ease with its implications that even Anna could read. But he would not make it any sweeter than he could help.

  He accepted the wine a servant offered, and sipped it, hardly tasting its spiced sweetness, listening to the flow of conversation and saying very little. It tormented him to have her here so close after what they both had said and done and thought. Yet when she glanced up at him, he found himself smiling like the veriest, most besotted of fools.

  Far too soon she rose again, saying words that meant nothing but that she must go.

  “No, no,” Sophia said, “there’s no need. We have ample room, and a friend of Alfred’s is more than welcome.”

  “Even when you know—” He had said that; he bit back the rest. They knew nothing that mattered. Yet they knew everything, down below reason where the great choices were made.

  “Hospitality is sacred here,” said Bardas. “You know that, Lady; you’re one of us. Honor us by honoring it. Stay with us.”

  It would be best if they both went far away, from the Akestas and from each other. But when Thea nodded and bowed and acquiesced, his heart turned traitor and began to sing.