was brackish. It seemed he did not number horsemanship among his accomplishments. After a time, we splashed through a ford in the shallow river and joined the main northerly road. A high-arched aqueduct rose about half a mile away on our right, mimicking the line of the road, and we followed it as the land grew wilder. The sporadic clusters of trees we passed became more frequent, then began to reach into each other, and finally merged into a forest which pressed constantly against our path, stretching away deep into the hills. The sound of running water was never far off, and sometimes we could see the moss-covered brickwork of a cistern or channel through the branches. A few hardy wood birds whistled their song, and occasionally we would meet a lone pilgrim or merchant, but otherwise the forest seemed deserted. Pines and oaks and beech trees towered over us, and it did not take long for my fears to begin preying on me. Every snapping twig or falling branch or rustling animal had me jerking awkwardly around, scanning the underbrush for the first signs of attack. As generations of careless travellers had found to their cost, it was the perfect place for an ambush, remote and hemmed in.
Sigurd must have shared my apprehension, for at lunchtime he posted four of his men as pickets on the edge of the glade where we halted. Our horses chewed contentedly on the grass, but even the sight of open sky above us did not lift my oppressed mood, and we ate our bread in haste.
‘I’ll be glad of Christmas,’ muttered Sigurd, eyeing his meagre meal with disdain. ‘The feast of the Nativity, as you call it. If man doesn’t live by bread alone, a soldier certainly can’t.’
‘Ten days,’ agreed Aelric. ‘Then we’ll have feasting.’
‘If we’re out of this forsaken wood by then.’ Sigurd spat an olive stone into the bushes. ‘If the boy can lead us to this house we’re told of, and doesn’t run off into the trees when we’re not looking.’
Thomas, oblivious to our words, sucked on the dried dates I’d brought him. The dressing that Anna had wrapped around his leg seemed to be holding up under the strain of riding — I could see no new blood seeping through it — and I fancied that the clean air and fresh surroundings had brought a new vigour to his cheeks. It was the first time I had seen him not poised on the brink of death, and it struck me how he seemed now both younger and older. Younger in his limbs, which all seemed a half-inch too long for him, though clearly they were strong enough to wield the arbalest; younger also in his beardless cheeks, which in a year or two might be ruggedly handsome, and in his fair, uncombed hair which blew wild in the wind. But there was a hurt in his blue eyes which, even in our pastoral surroundings, was never truly gone; a heaviness in the way he carried his broad shoulders. He had known pain, I guessed, and not merely the physical kind of a Bulgar’s sword. Though he seemed placid enough for now.
‘Well?’
I looked up from my thoughts. Sigurd had been speaking all the while, his words drifting past me, and now he was staring expectantly at Father Gregorias.
The priest turned on the boy and uttered a string of incomprehensible syllables, to which the reply came in more abbreviated kind.
‘He confirms that he will find where the house was,’ said Father Gregorias sulkily. ‘He will remember the way.’
‘Did he unwind a ball of string behind him then, like your Theseus in his maze?’ Sigurd was scornful. ‘Or can he speak with the birds?’
Gregorias put the question to the boy. Without the sarcasm, I assumed.
‘He says he did not survive in the slums of the megapolis by daydreaming. He watched the path closely, in the hope that he might escape.’
‘Then we’d best get on. Dusk never lingers in the woods.’ Sigurd hoisted himself back onto his horse. ‘Even a boy with memories painted like icons might not find this house in the dark.’
We rode on another two hours, meeting ever less traffic on our lonely road. Our beasts began to tire, and even Father Gregorias eventually lost the energy to complain; so much, indeed, that twice I had to turn back to be sure his horse had not thrown him into a thicket. Light was fading from the sky, and although most of the trees were leafless, their canopy still brought on premature darkness.
A sharp elbow against my ribs interrupted my thoughts; I pulled back on the reins, alive to the possibility that Thomas intended to use the gloom to escape. But he had jostled me intentionally, and now had an arm stretched out — as much as the rope would allow — towards an oak tree. Its massive girth was swathed in ivy, and wrinkled roots had begun to tear the roadstead beneath us, but otherwise it seemed unremarkable.
I called a halt, and beckoned Father Gregorias forward.
‘Ask him what he wants.’
I’endured the usual frustrating pause.
‘He recognises the tree. He says that the path to the house is around the next corner, on the left.’
‘Is it?’ Sigurd swayed in the saddle as his horse pawed at the ground. ‘Does he also recognise the shape of the pine-needles?’
But his suspicion was misplaced; we rounded a curve on the murky road and there, just as Thomas had said, a path forked away. We had passed many like it that day, some little more than animal tracks, some so broad we had struggled to discern the true road. This one was wider than most, but rutted and broken by rain. Whoever owned it clearly cared little for its upkeep. Perhaps, in this wild place, he hoped to avoid the attentions of brigands.
Nonetheless, it had clearly been used recently. As we rode up it I could see small heaps of stale dung, and the traces of hooves imprinted in the mud. The forest was silent here, and more ominous for it. Sigurd, I saw, had his axe in his hand, and several others of the Varangian company had followed his lead. I felt a chill of fear as I realised that the boy in front of me would be wholly defenceless and an obvious target, the sort I would have relished in my days as a bounty hunter. And any blow aimed at him would be as likely to strike me.
But no-one assailed us. We passed between a pair of stone columns, surmounted with carved basilisks, and the path began to rise steeply up a hill whose summit was lost in the trees. I touched Thomas on the shoulder, gesturing at the pillars, and he nodded recognition. The foliage around us thinned, and looking through it I could see the sky drawing steadily nearer the ground. For a good quarter hour I could have sworn that the brow of the ridge was just ahead of us, but every crick and twist in the path yielded nothing but a further climb.
And then, without preamble, we came between an opening in a wall and into a broad clearing, shaved off the crown of the hill like a monk’s tonsure. It had the feel of a high place, but the tall trees growing close against the encircling wall blocked out any view we might have had beyond. The wall ran around the entire perimeter, save where we had entered, and within the enclosure there stood half a dozen outbuildings, including a stable block and, on the far side, a large, two-storied house. We rode towards it.
‘It’s quiet.’ We were all glad to have clear space around us, but the lonely solitude was still unnerving. Even to Sigurd. ‘Wulfric, Helm — see if anyone will fodder our horses.’
Two of the Varangians broke away and crossed to the stables. One dismounted, unsheathed his axe, and pushed through the unlocked door. Weeds grew around it, I saw — as indeed across much of the open ground.
I motioned Father Gregorias forward. ‘Is this the place? The place where the monk and the Bulgars brought Thomas?’
I hardly needed the answer. The way that the boy’s shoulders hunched forward as we saw the house, that his knuckles whitened around the rim of the saddle, told me everything.
‘Empty, Captain.’ The two Varangians were walking back from the stables. ‘It’s been completely swept out.’
We continued towards the house. It must have taken a Heraklean effort to erect it in this remote place, and you might have thought that whoever did so would have troubled himself to maintain it. But the closer we came, the more derelict it appeared. Ivy and creepers grew up its walls, and the glass in its windows was broken. The plaster was mottled and cracked; in some places it had peeled away completely to reveal the dull brickwork underneath. A short flight of steps led up to the arch of the main doorway, but there too the marble was chipped away, uneven.
Sigurd slid off his horse and threw the reins to one of his men.
‘Was this the place where you came?’ he asked the boy.
Thomas nodded.
‘Were any others here?’
‘Only those he came with,’ translated the priest. ‘The monk, and the four Bulgars. Otherwise the house was as abandoned as it is now.’
