Imperial Fire (7 page)

No doorways, nowhere to run or hide. Cursing the girl who’d stolen his knife, Lucas stripped off his tunic and wrapped it around his left arm. He backed against the wall and sidled towards the edge of a step, his gaze darting between his assailants. They stopped a few yards short and one of them spoke, making beckoning gestures.

Lucas’s voice shook. ‘You’re on the wrong trail. I haven’t got any money.’ He gave a cracked laugh. ‘Somebody got to me before you.’

Very slowly the two men closed in, their knives steady, their eyes alert to any move. Lucas forced himself to stay still. Perhaps when they discovered he had only a scrap of loose change, they’d let him go. Wishful thinking. They’d slit his throat out of sheer vindictiveness. His breath rasped in his throat, impelled by rage as much as fear. Neither of the men matched him in height. The one behind him seemed hesitant, waiting for his accomplice to take the initiative. Go for him first. Use your training, use your feet.

Closer and closer. Lucas stood on the edge of the step, braced to spring, when a roar swung everyone around. A squat figure blocked the entrance to the alley, a huge blade in his hand. He roared again and came lumbering down the lane. The footpads exchanged glances and bolted, the uphill one sprinting past Lucas as if he’d ceased to exist. He sagged against the wall, legs fluttering, and blinked at his saviour.

‘Thank you.’

The man said something, broken and cavernous teeth glinting in a shaggy black beard. He cradled Lucas’s chin and his grin widened. He held up the blade for Lucas to admire. It was the sort of cleaver used in a slaughterhouse. The man stank of rancid flesh and sour wine.

‘Come,’ he said. That’s what Lucas thought he said. The man didn’t speak Greek or any other language Lucas recognised. He put a brawny arm around Lucas’s waist. ‘Come.’

The man talked continuously as they threaded the empty streets, Lucas too shocked to do anything but follow. He put on his tunic and stood rocking in a daze when the man stopped outside the entrance to a degraded tenement. The man opened it and beckoned. ‘Come.’

Lucas followed him up a dirty stairway, hesitated when the man opened a door. ‘Come.’

The room was filthy, the atmosphere so frowzy that Lucas fingered his throat. The man laid his cleaver on a table and lit a candle. In one corner stood a cot with rumpled linen that looked as if it had been stripped from a corpse a week in the grave. An icon hung at a wonky angle on the wall. Something stirred in a corner and Lucas saw eyes glowing red in a hole. Verminous feet scrabbled behind him. The man grinned at Lucas. It seemed to be the only expression he had. He unstoppered a bottle, filled two earthenware beakers and held one out.

Lucas grimaced. ‘Wine on an empty stomach isn’t a good idea.’ He patted his belly to get his meaning across. The man’s grin took on an expectant air. Lucas sipped, the sulphurous brew making him splutter.

The man laughed and tossed back his drink. He regarded Lucas afresh, his grin softening into something like ardent speculation. Lucas forced a smile.

The man tapped his chest. ‘Krum,’ he said, then gestured at Lucas with an enquiring expression.

‘My name’s Lucas.’

Krum or whatever his name was pointed at something behind Lucas. The Frank turned and saw that the man was indicating the cot. A cold feeling ran down Lucas’s spine. ‘I’m not tired. I’m hungry. Let’s go and find something to eat.’

The man’s expression changed again, fixed in yearning expectation. He reached out one hand, its back furred by black hairs, placed it on Lucas’s shoulder and tried to guide him towards the cot. Lucas resisted, teetering on his heels. The man pushed harder. Lucas grabbed his hand and threw it off.

‘Look, I’m grateful, but I have to be going.’

The man mumbled to himself and began loosening his breeches. Lucas measured the distance to the door and was gathering himself to make a bolt when the man caught his eye and saw his intention. Fast as thought, he picked up the cleaver and aimed the point between Lucas’s eyes.

Lucas held up his hands. ‘All right. But first, let’s have another drink. Here, let me.’

He fought to keep his hands from shaking as he poured. The man watched, cleaver dangling. Lucas swallowed the contents of his beaker, coughed and grinned. The man reached out with tenderness and cupped Lucas’s genitals with his free hand.

Lucas rammed his cup into the man’s face, aimed a kick at his balls, made only glancing contact and followed up by hurling himself bodily against him, trying to get inside the arc of the cleaver and block the man’s arm with his elbow. He didn’t quite succeed and felt a searing pain in his scalp as the blade cut. He managed to grab the man’s right wrist before he could deliver another blow and both of them went tumbling over the table. Lucas heard the cleaver clatter to the ground. His assailant scrambled after it. Lucas threw himself on him from behind, wrapped his left arm around his opponent’s neck and formed a lock by gripping the biceps with his right hand. He applied pressure on the back of his foe’s neck. Lucas felt blood running down his cheek. The man lay on his side, flailing his limbs to break the lock. Lucas knew that if he could apply pressure to the arteries, the man would soon pass out. His hold was wrong, though, most of the pressure against his opponent’s Adam’s apple. By an immense effort the man heaved himself to his feet and swung Lucas round. The Frank clung on and ran him head-first into the wall. The man spun, trying to fling Lucas off. Lucas hooked a foot under his ankle and both of them crashed to the floor. In his huge effort to maintain his grip, Lucas bit through his bottom lip. He clung on, eyes closed, squeezed against his opponent to deny him any purchase. The man made another gigantic effort, bucking and heaving like a beached fish. Lucas maintained his stranglehold. The man stopped struggling and gave a gurgling moan. Lucas couldn’t see his face and kept his hold, squeezing after the man went limp beneath him and his muscles could no longer take the strain. When he released his grip, the man didn’t move. Lucas staggered to his feet, his breath coming in great whoops. Blood ran down his chin and spattered on the floor. Chest heaving, he rolled the man over. He lay dead and horrible, eyes bulging out of his black face.

Fists pounded on the door. Voices shouted. Lucas picked up the cleaver, lurched to the door and unbolted it. Faces started back in terror. A woman screamed. He barged through the crowd and stumbled down the stairs into the street. He took the first turning he came to and when he’d put two more behind him he threw the cleaver away.

He slowed to an exhausted walk, holding his ribs, staggering as if one leg were longer than the other. His head was still bleeding. When he felt his scalp he could feel bone exposed by the gash. You’ve just killed a man, he thought. How does it feel? Disgusting. But so simple. Desperation is all it takes. The day’s events galloped through his mind, all funnelling towards that foul deed in that foul room. If that girl hadn’t robbed him, if that overseer hadn’t cheated him, if those two thieves hadn’t menaced him… he would never have been able to summon the animal rage to throttle the man. He leaned and retched, coughing up strings of bile. He’d imagined killing, but only during a glorious encounter on the field of battle, trumpets blowing and banners whipping, a worthy opponent asking his name as they wheeled on their chargers.

Lucas slumped against a wall, threw back his head and groaned. His mind emptied. A shrill whistle brought him upright. It came again, from the vicinity of his crime. The man’s neighbours had seen him; they had his description. His wound was all the evidence they’d need. He pushed away and went reeling down the empty streets, taking turns at random.

One of them led him into a market square lit by a single lamp at the far end. The sweet rot of decaying vegetables clogged his senses. Even injured and hurting, he couldn’t deny his hunger. He advanced, scanning the ground, and then stopped, alerted by faint crepitations and squeaks. The place wasn’t empty. It seethed with rats, a horde without number swarming in clots and clumps and streams.

Trapped in a waking nightmare, he ghost-walked through the silent city, the only living soul abroad in Constantinople. He must have gone half a mile when a shout behind him made him whirl. A watchman with a drawn sword and flaming torch straddled the path. Another silhouette appeared and Lucas took to his heels. Whistles shrilled and feet pattered in pursuit. He darted down an alley.

The wall on one side was about eight feet high, reinforced by buttresses with an angled step about three feet off the ground. The urgent slap of feet drew nearer. Bracing himself against the opposite wall, he sprang forward, leaped onto a step and crooked his arms over the top of the wall. With one heart-bursting heave he dragged himself up just as one of the watchmen ran past the entrance to the alley. Sobbing with effort, Lucas wriggled over the wall and dropped to the ground.

From the other side came voices and the clinking of metal. Lucas pressed against the wall. The voices faded. Lucas waited. He couldn’t work out what manner of place he was in. Perhaps a private garden or paved courtyard. He shuffled into the blackness and had gone about twenty yards when the ground opened beneath him. He tripped down a couple of steps before recovering his balance. He was in pitch black, unable to see a hand before his face. Water dripped with cavernous echoes. He groped his way down the steps until he reached level ground. The atmosphere was cold and aqueous. He felt around until he found a pebble. He tossed it ahead and heard it plop into water.

He was in a cistern, one of Constantinople’s underground reservoirs. He backed away and collided with a pillar. He slid down it, too exhausted to make another move. His bottom jaw juddered with cold. He wrapped his arms about his chest and stared into the dripping blackness.

He slept in fits and starts. When at last he opened his eyes, the cistern had filled with a spectral light just bright enough to show the lacquered surface of the water and colonnades soaring up to shadowy vaults.

His skull throbbed. He felt his scalp. The bleeding had stopped, leaving his hair a congealed and treacly mat. He knelt by the water’s edge and ducked his head under. The pain made him cry out. Three times he immersed his head before he’d washed away the gore. The collar and shoulder of his tunic was stiff with the stuff. He took it off and rinsed it and wrung it out. Quaking with cold, he put it on wet then mounted the steps. Dawn had just broken. The yard around the cistern lay empty. A faint hum told him that the city was coming awake. On this side, the wall offered no footholds. Lucas’s gaze fixed on a flat-roofed hut built into one of the angles of the yard. A window ledge gave him a step up. He crept towards the wall and looked over, ducking down as a man walked by. Next time he looked, the street was empty. He rolled over the parapet, dropped down and set off walking as soon as his feet hit the ground.

A workman walking towards him shied in alarm and gave him the widest berth possible. Lucas glanced back and saw the man staring after him. Lucas understood why when he looked down. His tunic was stained and blotched pink, his breeches smeared red. His wound had opened again. Blood wormed down his neck. He kept his head down.

He passed through a smiths’ quarter where the workmen left off their hammering to watch him pass. He found himself in a thoroughfare where merchants were setting up stalls. He didn’t meet their eye and kept walking. He climbed a hill and saw through a gap in the skyline the dome of St Sophia to the right. The traffic was growing heavier and he tried to blend into it – just another labourer off to a day’s toil.

Three soldiers pushed through the crowd ahead of him. He stopped. They hadn’t seen him yet, but when they did… By now news of the murder would have circulated. He swung on his heel and had retreated only a few yards when the gleam of iron revealed more soldiers. To his right was a taverna – a few tables under an awning and a shadowy room open to the street. He walked in. Faces looked up from platters and backgammon boards. As he walked to the counter, the proprietor watched him with a dark frown. Lucas smiled and grimaced, rubbing his head to indicate that his ruinous appearance was the consequence of a night’s debauch gone wrong. He produced the four miserable coins he’d earned at the docks.

The keeper of the tavern looked at them, then transferred his disbelieving gaze to Lucas’s face. He shook his head in slow finality.

‘It’s all I have. Christ, I worked hard enough for it.’

The taverner poked out his cheek with his tongue and studied Lucas afresh before motioning him towards a table in a corner. Lucas slumped with his back to the entrance. Two curvy young serving girls weaved between the tables, their arms piled with dishes, smiling and chatting to the regulars. After a long interval, one of them appeared before Lucas and set down half a loaf of white bread, an omelette and a jug of wine. Her smile was so pleasant that he almost burst into tears.

He abandoned himself to hunger. It was all he could do to resist tearing at the bread and cramming it down in throat-straining gobbets. When he’d finished, his head felt as if it were floating off his shoulders.

‘I hope you gave the other fellow something to remember you by.’

Lucas started awake. A man had plonked himself down opposite. Lucas realised that the man had spoken in French.

The man waggled a toothpick between his lips. He nodded at Lucas’s head. ‘You’ve been in the wars, my friend.’

Lucas tried to frame a rueful smile, but his mouth just wobbled. ‘I was set upon by thieves.’

‘New to the city, I’ll wager.’

‘I landed yesterday,’ Lucas said, his voice small.

The man was a veteran, his military calling evidenced by a scar from temple to eyebrow and a knot of gristle where his right eye had been. His pugnacious bearing was softened by the humorous set of his mouth.

‘Come to go a-soldiering for the emperor?’

Lucas nodded.

‘Got any friends in Constantinople?’

‘No,’ said Lucas, then looked up. ‘I’m looking for a Frankish officer called Vallon.’

The veteran removed the toothpick from his mouth. ‘Vallon?’