barbarity when the Normans captured Dyrrachium and Avlona ten years earlier.
‘When do we go?’
‘So that you reach the walls of Galata at dawn, when they are least prepared. You will leave by the Blacherna gate and take the road around the Golden Horn.’
‘Boats would be faster — and would make our escape easier if we met resistance,’ I objected.
‘But you could not cross the Horn until daylight. Then they would see your approach and prepare for it. By road, you will be hidden from them until you arrive. And I have already ordered the grain carts to meet you by the Blacherna gate.’
‘Then it’s as well we have two hundred men and a cloak of darkness,’ I told him. ‘The mob will slaughter us if they see wagons of food being taken from the city granaries to the barbarians.’
Krysaphios ignored my words. ‘You will sleep in the palace tonight; I have ordered the slaves to prepare you a bed in the guard quarters. There are few enough hours already before you must leave.’
‘I will sleep at home tonight.’ I bridled against his dictating my least movement. ‘I would rather half a night’s sleep in my own bed than a full night in another’s. I can meet the Patzinaks by the gate.’
Krysaphios flashed a look of petulance, but waved his hand carelessly. ‘As you will. I had thought you would abhor distractions now that the monk is so near your grasp.’
‘There will be no distractions.’ Nor would there be any satisfaction, not until the monk was in chains in the dungeon. Even with two hundred Patzinaks to guard me, entering the barbarian camp would be walking into the jaws of a lion. I could scarcely believe that after this long chase, these many months’ hunting, I might finally trap the monk. But even if I did, would it justify bringing the two great armies of East and West into open war?
I left Krysaphios under the shadows of those great pillars, beside the moon pool, and hurried out of the palace. The slave who had led me there appeared as soundlessly as before, and took me quickly to the outer courtyard. The scribe was still there, writing in the lamplight, and Sigurd with him, dozing on a bench.
‘Is your axe still sharp?’ I asked quietly, nudging his shoulder.
His eyes opened slowly, and I repeated my question. ‘Or have long days on the rainswept walls rusted it?’
He growled. ‘The only thing which blunts my blade is bone, and it has felt none of that these last two months. Why?’
‘I am going on a dangerous errand tomorrow, and I would welcome a stout axe beside me.’
‘What errand?’ Sigurd watched me suspiciously.
‘A dangerous one. It would be more dangerous for you to know more, though you can probably guess where the greatest dangers are to be found at the moment. Will you come?’
‘I should be on the walls.’
‘As you told me once before, the walls have stood seven hundred years without you. They might survive one more morning.’ I spoke light-heartedly, but with Krysaphios’ warning of the Normans ringing in my mind, the jest no longer held so much of its wit.
Sigurd rubbed his shoulder, then stood up. ‘Very well, Demetrios. You make a habit of needing my help in dangerous places, and my conscience has too much to trouble it already. When do we go?’
I arranged to meet him at the Blacherna gate at the end of the midnight watch, then slipped out of the palace and hastened home. The night was already old, and I began to doubt my wisdom in refusing Krysaphios’ offer of a bed. I could not afford a tired mistake in the barbarian camp in the morning, for I might pay for it with my life.
I was now well known to the Watch, after so many weeks walking home from the palace after dark, and I passed through the streets undisturbed. The thought of the Normans still worried me, and the darkness of the shadows preyed on my fears all the way to my own door, so much that I felt a flood of relief when I had locked it behind me, mounted the stairs, and gained the safety of my own bedroom.
My frugal daughters had not left a light burning, but I knew my home well enough to navigate it blind. I stood there in the dark and pulled off my tunic and cloak, letting them drop unheeded to the floor. The air was cold about me, and I felt my skin pinch at the chill. Thinking I would have to rely on my soldier’s habit of waking when I was needed, I felt for the edge of the bed and pulled myself under the covers.
Where I was not alone. I almost yelped in terror, a second before remembering my careless folly. Of course — I had asked Anna to stay with my daughters, had offered her the use of my bed while I was gone. How could I have forgotten, even with a hundred images of Franks and Patzinaks and Normans and war consuming my thoughts? And — worse — she was as naked as I, to judge from the smooth warmth of her skin against me. For a moment I could hardly move, paralysed by shock, embarrassment and a desire I had not felt in years. And to my further mortification, I was responding to her presence, firming and stiffening, pressing towards the hollows of her body.
I tried to pull away, but she mumbled something in her sleep and threw out an arm, crooking it around my shoulders and drawing me closer. Christ forgive me.
And she was not asleep, for the words she spoke next, though tinged with drowsiness, were perfectly clear. ‘Demetrios? Is this your tactic, to lure unsuspecting women to your bed and then leap in unannounced?’
‘I forgot you were here,’ I said, desperately aware how false I sounded. ‘In the dark, and with many worries troubling my mind, I. .’
She put a hand over my lips. ‘Be quiet, Demetrios. A woman wants a man who desires her. Not one who stumbles on her in the dark by accident as though she were the corner of a table.’
‘But this is. .’
‘Sinful?’ She laughed. ‘I have spent my life probing the secrets of the flesh: I’ve found blood, bile, bone and sinew, but never anything that looked like sin. You were in the army — did you never seek company when you were far from home?’
Her plain speaking shocked me, but the way her fingers played over the small of my back beat down my consternation. ‘A young man may find himself a slave to his urges,’ I admitted.
‘So may a woman.’
‘I confessed it and was absolved. That does not license me to make it a habit.’
‘But you have fought men, sometimes killed them. Why do you submit to anger but resist pleasure?’
Her manner was bewitching, and her persistent arguments inescapable. Nor was the resolve of my spirit constant in my flesh, for I had begun stroking my hand between her breasts, running it up to her throat and down the curve of her neck. I thought of my wife, Maria, and faltered a second, but the memory of her touch redoubled my desire, and I pushed harder against Anna’s yielding body. She wrapped her arms around my head and pulled me towards her chest, dragging my lips over her in a welter of tiny kisses.
In my body there was now no resistance; every part of me was tugging, kissing or squeezing her, but my mind held out. Was this blasphemy? Did I defile Maria’s memory, our marriage before God? But the Lord had not condemned me to the celibate life of a widower forever. And Maria, who had matched her elder daughter’s pragmatism with her younger daughter’s playfulness, would not, I thought, want me living the life of a monk in her name.
Perhaps that was true, or perhaps circumstance made me wish it true, but I was in no place for reasoned moral argument. I surrendered and sank into Anna’s embrace, clutching her against me in our silent coupling.
24
The Blacherna gate was cold when I reached it, and colder still for the sleep I had lost. Leaving Anna’s caressing warmth behind had been hard enough, but as I plodded through empty streets to the walls, doubt and guilt and shame overtook me. How could I have surrendered to such abandon, and in the most sacred week of the year? What would my confessor say? How would the Lord God treat with me? With a long march through darkness ahead of us, and nothing but ten thousand hostile barbarians at the end of it, I had chosen a poor time to offend His laws.
Sigurd was already there. He had his axe on his shoulder, his mace by his side, and a short sword in his belt, yet still had the strength to carry two shields and another sword in his arms.
