The river wouldn’t settle on an even note. Each splash and gurgle strung Hero’s nerves tighter. The snow had fattened into flakes. A thread of ice-water trickled down his spine. He sagged over the mule’s neck and groaned. This was punishment for pride, he decided, recalling how he’d ridden out from Salerno convinced that he was destined to witness a thousand wonders to impress his fellow scholars when he returned home.
Home. Longing clogged his throat. He saw the white house above the busy harbour. He hovered above it like a ghost, looking in at his careworn mother and his five sisters. The Five Furies he used to call them, but what he would give to be back in their company. There they were, chattering like starlings and applying make-up until Theodora, the youngest and least cruel, said, peering into the polished brass mirror, ‘I wonder where our dear Hero is.’
He gulped on his heartsickness.
‘Not so loud,’ Vallon hissed at his side. ‘We’re within bowshot of the walls and there are watchmen above the gate.’
‘What will we do?’
‘Tell me what Sir Walter looks like. Come on.’
Hero gathered his wits. ‘Master Cosmas said that he was handsome and had an engaging wit.’
‘You mentioned a younger brother.’
‘Richard, a weakling.’
Vallon brooded for a while. ‘Well, we accomplish nothing by standing here.’ He stepped forward a pace and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Peace! Two travellers carrying urgent news for Count Olbec.’
Shouts of alarm overhead and the hiss of an arrow flying wild. A horn blared and a bell began to clang. When it stopped, Hero heard the distant counterpoint of cushioned hoofbeats.
He wrenched the mule around. ‘Mount up. We still have time to reach the trees.’
Vallon dragged him to earth. ‘They’ll follow our trail. Stand close and hide your fear. Normans despise weakness.’
More shouts. The gate grated open and cavalry bearing torches crashed out.
Hero crossed himself. Vallon gripped his arm.
‘Leave the talking to me. One wrong answer and we could end up twisting in the wind like that poor soul on the hill.’
I won’t flinch, Hero vowed. I’ll face death as bravely as noble Archimedes.
The squadron descended on them like a machine welded by flames, the torches roaring in the wind of their passing. The horses’ armoured heads swung like hammers; the concussion of hooves shivered Hero’s chest. They were going to ride over him. Pound him into a smear of gristle.
He whimpered and covered his eyes.
The charge stopped so close that he could feel the horses’ snorting breath on his face. When the anticipated blow didn’t fall, he peered between his fingers to find himself walled in by a picket of swords with flames dancing along their blades.
A face thrust forward, hot eyes glinting each side of beaked iron.
‘Take his sword.’
One of the soldiers vaulted from his horse and advanced on Vallon. Hero held his breath. He knew that the sword was sacred. Each night, no matter how hard the day’s journey had been, Vallon carefully
polished it with oil and Tripoli powder. Surely he wouldn’t surrender it without resistance.
Vallon didn’t even glance round as the soldier drew the weapon and handed it over. The leader held the watered steel blade to the light. ‘Where did you obtain a sword of this quality?’
‘From a Moor outside the walls of Zaragoza.’
‘Stole it, I warrant.’
‘After a fashion. I had to kill him before he consented to part with it.’
The beaked face craned forward again.
‘There’s a curfew. You know the penalty for breaking it.’
‘My business with Count Olbec is too important to brook delay. I’d be obliged if you’d take me to your lord.’
The Norman braced one foot against Vallon’s shoulder. ‘My father’s drunk. I’m Drogo, his son. You can state your business to me.’
Hero’s stomach churned. Drogo? Master Cosmas hadn’t mentioned any Drogo.
Vallon patted his chest. ‘I’ve been burdened with it since last summer. It will keep for one more night.’
Drogo straightened his leg, shoving Vallon back. ‘You’ll tell me now or I’ll string the pair of you up by the balls.’
Hero’s testicles leaped. It wasn’t an empty threat. In York, three days ago, he’d seen a howling man separated from the parts that should have given him most pleasure.
‘Your brother’s alive!’ he squeaked.
Drogo waved down the murmur of astonishment. ‘The rogue’s lying and I’ll flay anyone who repeats the falsehood.’ His tongue flickered. ‘There may be more of them. Fulk, Drax, Roussel – stay with me. The rest of you, cross the river and spread out. They’re probably hiding in the woods. Don’t return until you’ve found them.’
He waited until the riders had been absorbed by the snow, then spurred in a circle around the travellers.
‘My brother’s dead. He died fighting under the Emperor’s banner at Manzikert.’
Hero filched a look at Vallon.
‘A false report,’ said the Frank. ‘I visited Sir Walter two weeks after the battle. He’s in good health. He took a blow to the head in the fighting, but suffered no lasting injury.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Do you think I’d waste half a year carrying a lie to this dismal frontier?’
Drogo angled his sword under Vallon’s chin. ‘Give me proof.’
‘Before the proper audience.’
Drogo drew back his sword. ‘I’ll send you to the rightful audience.’
‘Inside the saddlepack,’ Hero blurted. ‘Ransom terms.’
The soldiers ransacked their goods. One of them found the seal ring and passed it to Drogo.
‘Where did you steal this?’
‘Your brother gave it to me.’
‘Liar. You cut it from his dead hand.’
A soldier held up the documents. Drogo crammed them under his surcoat. He hooked the astrolabe on the tip of his sword. ‘Devil’s baubles,’ he said, flicking it away.
A soldier tried to wrench the ring off Vallon’s hand. When it wouldn’t budge, he drew his knife.
‘Wait,’ Drogo said, and hunched forward. ‘What do they call you? What’s your profession?’
‘Vallon, a Frank who fought with Norman mercenaries in Anatolia. And this is my servant, Hero, a Greek from Sicily.’
‘How did you save your skin, Frank?’
‘I was on a reconnaissance to the north when the Seljuks attacked. No one knew they were so close. After the disaster, word reached us that they wanted men to negotiate ransoms for the prisoners. I went out of Christian duty.’
Drogo snorted. ‘Describe my brother.’
‘Fair, well made. His quick wit has made him a favourite at the Emir’s court.’
Drogo breathed in through his nose. Far away and lonely came the faint note of a bugle. Drogo twisted in his saddle as if alerted by another sound, but Hero knew there was no other sound – only the creaking of leather and the sputtering of torches and the thumping of his heart. Snow was collecting between the links of Drogo’s mail and Hero knew what he was thinking. They were hidden from mortal sight. This circle in the night was the place where they would die.
‘Take them across the river and kill them. I’ll stay here with the horses. When the others return, tell them you cut down the foreigners as they tried to escape.’
Two of the soldiers prodded Vallon forward at swordpoint. The one called Drax grasped Hero by his neck and began hustling him over the bridge.
‘And fetch me that ring,’ Drogo bellowed.
Why hadn’t Vallon heeded his warning? Hero agonised as he stumbled after his master. It had been an act of suicide to go barging into the castle at night.
He was halfway across the bridge when a wordless shout ahead of him made Drax stop and tighten his grip. All Hero could see were the torches carried by Vallon’s escort swinging in the snow-filled night. One of them fell and fizzled out. Hero heard a succession of cryptic thumps and exclamations, the clash of metal, a cry of pain and then a faint splash. A moment later the other torch died, leaving everything on the far bank a mystery.
Drax shook Hero. ‘Move and you’re dead.’ He released his hold and raised his sword and torch, making futile fanning movements to clear his vision. ‘Fulk? Roussel?’
Someone moaned.
‘Fulk, is that you? For Christ’s sake, answer.’
‘
I think my wrist’s broken.
’
‘Where’s Roussel?’
‘
The Frank has my sword across his throat.
’
‘Oh, shit!’
‘What’s going on?’ Drogo shouted.
Drax turned his head. Hero heard him swallow. ‘The Frank must have broken free and seized Fulk’s sword.’
Vallon’s voice carried from the void.
‘
Drogo, I have your men at my mercy. Release my servant
.’
‘Do nothing without my order,’ Drogo roared. The bridge began to tremble, a seismic forewarning of his rage. Hero shrank aside as he swept past. When he reached the other side, he stood in his stirrups and held his torch high. By its puny light Hero saw Vallon armed with a sword, holding Roussel in a necklock, Fulk doubled over, nursing one hand under his shoulder.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he groaned. ‘Roussel slipped and barged into me. The Frank took advantage of the—’
‘Silence! I’ll deal with you poltroon idiots later.’ Drogo spurred his horse towards Vallon. ‘As for you …’
Vallon retreated, using Roussel as a shield. ‘We have no quarrel.’
‘No quarrel?’ The gulf between this statement and the enormity of Drogo’s wrath rendered him speechless. When Drogo found his voice, it came from a different register, guttural, as if thickened by blood. ‘I’ll make you repeat those words when I’m standing with my foot on your neck.’
Vallon shoved his hostage away and took guard. Encumbered by torch, sword and shield, Drogo had to guide his horse with his knees. He circled one way, then the other, the snow falling so thickly that Hero could only make out fitful shapes.
‘You’d better dismount,’ Vallon said. ‘You can’t fight with your hands full.’
Drogo acknowledged his handicap. ‘Drax, get up here with your light.’
Drax cursed and dragged Hero forward. Drogo backed up to him and leaned to hand him his torch.
‘Sir, I can guard the prisoner or hold the torches, but I can’t do both.’
Drogo kicked out. ‘God’s veins, am I entirely surrounded by cretins? Cut his throat.’
Drax eyed Hero, shaking his head, then brought his sword up.
‘Stay your hand,’ Vallon said. ‘Here come more lights.’
Hero risked a backward look. A glow approaching through the snow resolved itself into several bobbing torches.
‘Let them come,’ Drogo snarled. ‘There’s no need for concealment now. Assault on a Norman is a capital crime. The more witnesses the better.’
‘Including your mother?’ Vallon said.
‘My mother? What about my mother?’
Vallon relaxed his stance. ‘I think she’s about to join us.’
Five riders filed past Hero. Four were soldiers, the last a small shape muffled from head to toe. Drogo swore under his breath.
‘What’s the cause of the alarm?’ the woman demanded. ‘Who is that man? What’s happening here?’
Drogo rode towards her. ‘My lady, you shouldn’t be out in such foul weather. You’ll catch a flux.’
‘Answer my question.’
‘They’re thieves. Foreign fly-by-nights with stolen relics.’
‘Ransom terms for your son,’ Vallon said.
‘A forgery. As soon as I challenged him for proof, he made a bolt for it. He injured Fulk and robbed him of his sword. Look there if you don’t believe me.’
‘Show me the documents.’
‘My lady, false hopes will only aggravate old wounds. I have too much respect for your grief to allow scum to—’
‘I’ll nurse my sorrows. You will attend your father. Now give me the documents.’
Drogo slapped the packet into her hand.
‘If any harm comes to these strangers, you’ll answer to the Count.’ She drifted back into the snow. ‘Don’t keep him waiting. You know what he’s like when he’s taken drink.’
Drogo rammed his sword into its scabbard and rode back towards Vallon. He looked down on the Frank, breathing heavily, then swung a mailed arm into his face with a force that sent Vallon sprawling.
‘Don’t imagine it’s over between us.’
Vallon picked himself up. He spat blood, wiped his mouth and gave a wolfish grin. ‘I see where you get your temper from.’
Drogo regarded him with naked hatred. ‘Lady Margaret’s no blood relative of mine.’ He raked his spurs down his horse’s flanks. ‘And nor is Walter.’
Stumbling across the bailey at swordpoint, Hero glimpsed men dishevelled by sleep peering from the doorway of the great hall. Then his escort prodded him through another gate and up the castle mound to a stairway at the base of the keep. Beasts lowed behind its wooden walls. So this is where my journey of discovery ends, he thought. At a glorified cowshed.
A knee shunted him up the steps. He climbed blind through the snow. Hands shoved him into a chamber. The door slammed behind him. He gasped for breath and wiped snow from his eyes. At the far end of the room, vaguely lit by tapers stuck into wall sconces, a group
of figures waited in front of a tapestry screen. At their centre a burly man with a round, cropped head leaned his weight on a stick and pushed up from his seat. Hero winced. A hideous scar running from temple to jaw bisected the man’s face into two misaligned halves – the mouth askew, one eye fixed in a bolting stare, the other narrowed in a drowsy squint.
Lady Margaret sat beside him fidgeting with Sir Walter’s seal ring, her mouth compressed into a determined little bud that belied her girlish figure. A priest with pouchy cheeks shuffled attendance, one hand clutching the documents, the other fiddling with a crucifix. Behind them stood another man, his face blotched by shadow.
Drogo strode past, pulling off his helmet to reveal a meaty face wealed by the imprint of cold metal. His eyes, glittering under pale lashes, projected fury but also bafflement, as if events had a habit of slipping out of his control. Even when he stopped before his father, he couldn’t stay still, tapping his feet, slapping his sword hilt. He was an engine lacking a brake.
‘My lord, I intended bringing you these men as soon as I’d finished questioning them.’