Adrianople road, where there were plenty of witnesses who could remember a bare-headed monk and a half- dressed madman chasing him. From there we searched the side-streets until we found you.’
‘And the monk?’
‘We saw him trying to drown you at the bottom of that hole, but as I came down the ladder he fled. I let him go; only a fool would follow a man into that abyss. My men are guarding the entrance. If he comes out, we’ll catch him.’ He looked theatrically at the sky, though the sun was veiled in cloud. ‘If he’s still down there, he’ll already be dead.’
‘We should go and see.’ I stood, feeling the trembling in my legs as they took my weight. I was weak, but the food which Anna had sent gave me strength, and the hunger to see the monk who had almost killed me was all consuming.
‘Will the doctor let you go?’ Sigurd asked with a smile. ‘She protects her patients like a tiger, you know.’
That was only half true. Some she protected like a tiger; me she waved away with a dismissive snort.
‘If you choose to risk your health and your strength running around the city, trying to do the monk’s work for him, then do so,’ she said briskly. ‘I need your bed for the more deserving anyway.’
Sigurd and I walked out of the monastery. It was late afternoon, and the road was almost solid with the humanity herded onto it. The snow, so pristine that morning, was now ground to a grey slush and mixed with grit and mud. It was well that the ground stayed frozen, or many might have sunk into an inescapable mire.
‘I must go to the walls first,’ said Sigurd. He had seemed cheerful at my bedside, but now his mood was grim. ‘I need to check on the garrison. The monk will wait an extra half hour — whether he’s under, on or in the ground.’
I did not argue, but pushed my way after him through the tide of men and beasts which flowed against us. It was straining work, and if I had not had Sigurd’s commanding bulk to follow I doubt I would have progressed a step. There was an intensity in the crowd now which I had not noticed previously: a hunch to their shoulders and a desperation in their gaunt faces. Perhaps it was the burden of snow and cold added to their already straitened condition, or perhaps they knew that the city was ill able to provide for them after the many others who had preceded them.
Sigurd had anticipated an extra half an hour, but it was almost an hour later, near dusk, when we at last reached the walls. Along them the Watch had kept a corridor free for messengers and heralds to gallop through, and I was glad of the space to breathe as we came into it.
‘My men are up that tower,’ Sigurd told me. ‘Will you wait?’
A squadron of cavalry thundered past, drowning my reply and spraying me with mud. Above me, a ballista was being winched up a tower on a scaffold, straining at the thick ropes which held it.
‘I’ll come up.’ I did not want to end that day crushed under a horse or a falling siege weapon.
As ever, Sigurd was recognised, and we were waved up by the guard at the foot of the stairs. It was not an arduous climb, but my head ached again and my legs begged for rest. About me, I could see sentries scurrying about, shouting and calling, though I could not hear what they said.
We came onto the broad rampart and my interest rose. A hush had fallen, and the guards were still, their faces pressed against the embrasures as if watching for a miracle. Sigurd ignored them and continued up the steps to the turret, but — drawn to the spectacle — I crossed to the battlements and stared.
Out across the snow-swept fields the sun had sunk beneath the rim of the clouds, facing us like a glowing eye. The sky and land alike were caught in its crimson glare, shimmering red, but that was not what had silenced the watchmen. On the ridge across the plain, some two miles distant, an army had appeared. They rode towards us with the sun behind them, their spears like pricks of flame and their banners dark above them. They were moving forward, but as one row passed into the shadows below the ridge another came up on their heels and took its place. It was a host of thousands — tens of thousands — and the snow turned black underfoot as they marched towards our gate.
The barbarians had come.
15
‘This changes everything.’ I had waited three days for an audience with Krysaphios, and now that I had it I was giving full vent to my feelings. ‘Can you believe it is merely chance that not three weeks after the Emperor was almost murdered, an army of barbarians arrives at our walls?’
Krysaphios stroked his beardless chin. ‘This changes nothing,’ he said calmly. ‘Except to raise the penalties should you fail.’
‘The man who directed the assassin was a monk who prayed according to the western rites, and used a barbarian weapon unknown to our people. Now ten thousand of his kinsmen, armed for war, are camped just across the Golden Horn. Can it be happenstance?’
‘You disappoint me, Demetrios. You had a reputation for insight, for seeing the hidden truths which other men did not. Not for pouncing on chance.’
‘I may see deeper than other men, but if I find a man standing over a corpse, with a knife dripping blood and a stolen purse in his hand, I do not presume that there must be a more subtle explanation and let him go.’
‘This time you should.’ Krysaphios clapped his hands together. ‘The barbarian army had barely crossed our frontier three weeks ago. Even if the attempt on the Emperor’s life had succeeded, they would have profited nothing from it. And besides, they are come to aid us, to drive the Turks and Saracens from our lands in Asia and restore them to their rightful owners. For all the mob may fear them, they are our allies, our allies, our welcome guests.’ He did not try to hide the scepticism which underpinned his words. ‘It is on that understanding that the Emperor tolerates them, that he gives them food for their bellies and straw for their horses.’
‘Nonetheless,’ I pressed, ‘I would like to see these men. Even if it is a foolish fancy, you know that I prefer to be thorough.’
‘As thorough as you were in the cistern?’
Krysaphios mocked me. Aelric and his companions had spent a day and a night standing watch over the cistern’s entrance, but no-one had emerged. They had concluded that the monk must be dead, but I had insisted on finding a body, and had led many men down there with nets and torches to scour it. We found nothing except fish: the monk, it seemed, had dissolved into the water like powder. Or more likely, as the hydrarch suggested, crawled out through one of the pipes which fed it.
‘As thorough as I was in the cistern.’ I had not been deterred by the complaining doubts of the Varangians, and I would not defer to the eunuch’s scorn. ‘My instincts are sound, Krysaphios, if not always true. I need a pass into the barbarian camp, and perhaps an introduction to their captains.’
Krysaphios’ eyes dipped in thought.
‘After all,’ I added, ‘even if — as you presume — the man who would kill the Emperor rests within our city, it cannot have escaped his notice that a foreign army will give him great scope for mischief.’
Krysaphios looked up. ‘I fear you are too easily tempted by digressions, Demetrios, and succumb to fancy.’
‘My fancies have served well enough.’
‘That is why I will give you the opportunity you seek. The Emperor will send an envoy to the barbarian captains tomorrow, and you may accompany him. If, of course, you can stand their stink. Report to me in the new palace by the walls when you return.’
The path out of that courtyard had grown familiar in the past weeks, and my face was now known well enough that the sentries did not challenge me. Winter had at last entered the palace; the gaiety and laughter which I remembered from my first visit were replaced with grim intent, and the gilded walls seemed dulled.
‘Demetrios.’
One man at least could muster some warmth: Sigurd, striding toward me along the arcade. The hollows of his eyes were dark, all the more so against the pale skin, but his greeting was hearty enough.
‘I thought you were at the walls.’
‘I was. But the Franks are keeping quiet enough in their camp, and without siege engines or boats there’s little they can do to trouble us.’
