The Golden Horn (28 page)

“John!” Alf said.

At the sound of his name, the man stiffened and paused. Alf
leaped.

He spun, whirling his club. It whistled past Alf’s ear
as he writhed aside, swooping beneath it, catching John’s wrist.

The man fought like a cornered beast. His free hand flailed at
Alf’s face; Alf caught it and held it in a grip no human could break. “John,”
he said quietly. “John, you have duties. Why are you neglecting them?”

John struggled and bit, and kicked, a foul, futile blow.

An arrow sang between their bodies to lodge quivering in a fragment
of the broken barrier. John stared at it in horrified fascination, and suddenly
collapsed.

Alf gathered him up as if he had been a child and not a
tall, rather portly man. “You had better rebuild your wall,” he
said to the speechless guards, “and cushion it somehow. Carpets, I think.
Or hangings. Ask the Master.”

Edmund staggered up. “I’ll ask,” he said. “Where
is he?”

Alf paused, the healer a dead weight in his arms. “In
the men’s quarters.” His eyes took in the other’s face. One
cheek was swelling and blackening, and the cheekbone had split, sending a
trickle of blood through the young beard. “Have someone see to you when
you’re done.”

Edmund grinned, ignoring the pain. “What’s a
bruise? Here, let me carry the man for you.”

Alf was already moving. “I have him. Hurry now, before
the Franks bring up a crossbow.”

o0o

Alf saw John settled in a quiet place, where he would be
watched but not troubled. He had fallen from panic into a kind of stupor; his
mind was dull, his thoughts lost in a grey fog of despair that neither voice
nor power could dispel.

Alf drew back at last, defeated. Edmund was standing near him,
watching him. The bruise on his cheek was in full flower; the cut had begun to
close.

“Shouldn’t you be on guard?” Alf asked.

The Varangian shrugged. “We made a wall of carpets.
Your Master was none too pleased, but he came to lend us a hand. To make sure
we did it properly, he said. Just when we were done, they started with
crossbows. I saw that our wall was holding and left it to the others.”
His eyes on Alf were bright and fascinated. “You aren’t half the
dainty lass you look, are you?”

Alf dipped a sponge in water and began to cleanse the blood from
the other’s cheek. Edmund tried to evade him, failed, submitted with a
growl. Alf set him on a stool and continued, saying, “To each man his own
skills.”

“In the palace they’d have marked you out for
the angels’ choir.”

“I sing well, they tell me.” Alf` set down the
sponge and reached for a pot of ointment. “Next time you set out to stop
a club with your head, put on your helmet first.”

The ointment stung. Edmund’s eyes watered, but he was
too proud to flinch. “Why didn’t you go for the Guard? You’re
fast enough. Strong enough, too, though you don’t look it.”

“Of the two of us,” Alf said, “Aelfric is the
fighter. He makes wounds. I heal them.”

“And keep lunatics from making them.”

“That, too.” Alf straightened, wiping his hands.
It struck him then. “Aelfric. I didn’t see him with the others. I
can’t sense—” He caught himself. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know,” Edmund said. “He was
there till just before you came. Then he muttered something that sounded like a
curse and bolted. I haven’t seen him since.”

He—she—was nowhere in Saint Basil’s. Alf
cast his mind wide, thrusting it into the roiling horror that was the City,
hurling back fear with grim determination. She would not promise. She would
not. And she had gone out into that, without a word to him.

“God in heaven!” he cried aloud. He hurtled past
the stunned Varangian, making blindly for the rear of Saint Basil’s, away
from the beleaguered gate. The enemy had resorted to fire; the guards held it
off with water and the same carpets that had foiled the arrows.

They could defend themselves He came to the bolthole, a postern
in the garden wall. Thea’s presence was a beacon before him. He slid
lithely round the startled and babbling guard and out into pandemonium.

He paid no heed to it. Later it would come back in snatches,
like remnants of a nightmare. All around the edge of a great square, men in
mail struck at the marble gods with hammers, with axes, or with clubs of wood
or iron, shattering the stone, grinding the shards underfoot.

A woman lay sprawled in the street, weeping silently, with her
skirts above her waist and blood streaming down her thighs. A man-at-arms,
running past, stopped and fell upon her like a beast in rut.

Within the broken doors of a church, a mule brayed, laden with
spoil; beyond it, men hacked at the altar with their swords. A sergeant rode
down the street on an ass, with a priest’s vestments over his armor and a
jewelled crown on his head and in his hand a chalice filled to the brim with
ale. He was chanting, with dolorous piety, the responses of the
Drunkards’ Mass.

Swift as Alf was, and strange, and wild-eyed, few ventured
to molest him. Someone snatched at his robe, half tearing it from his body; he
pulled free and ran on, circling a troop of Franks clustered about a silent
woman and a shrieking, struggling boy. One of those on the edge, glimpsing Alf
as he passed, flung out an arm, overbalancing him.

He had a brief and terrible vision of a bearded face over
his and a breath that reeked of wine, and hard hands groping under his torn
tunic. The heel of Alf’s hand drove into the man’s jaw, snapping
his head back. He rolled away, convulsed, his soul shrieking into the dark.

They had broken down the gate of House Akestas over the body
of the feeble old porter and swarmed into the courtyard, a company of men who
shouted and cursed in the accents of Champagne. All the precious things in the
house, all those that did not lie hidden in a chest under the almond tree in
the garden, tottered in an untidy heap in the center of the court.

Close by it like a broken doll lay Irene. Her mother crouched
beside her; and Sophia’s face was terrible.

Beyond them a battle raged. Thea, in full Varangian gear, stood
back to back with Corinna, who wielded a bloody sword.

But there were over a score of Franks and a rich prize to
fight for; and Corinna, for all her formidable strength, was no swordsman. A
tall Frank struck past her awkward guard to open a long gash in her forehead;
blood streamed from it into her eyes, blinding her. She stumbled; the Frankish
blade bit deep. She went down like a tower falling into massive ruin.

No one watched the gate. Alf poised in it, all his world centered
on this that had brought him from Saint Basil’s. His mind had room only
for wrath. He could not flay Thea with it for blinding his power to her escape,
for blocking him when he would have come direct to her by witchery, for
striving even to fuddle his mind as he ran until he circled back to his
starting place; but that, he had conquered. He called to himself all the forces
of his power and shaped them to his bidding.

Thea cried out in her man’s voice, a great roar of
wonder and of challenge. The Latins, looking back, saw all the far end of the
courtyard filled with shining warriors, and at their head a figure of white
light. He advanced, raising his hands. He bore no weapon, yet such was the
terror of him that the Franks shrieked and fled, running wildly, striking at
one another in a blind passion of horror.

There was silence. The last man gasped out his life on his comrade’s
sword. The warriors melted into the sunlight; Alf stood alone, half naked, pale
and tired.

He sank to his knees beside Irene. She was dead, her neck broken,
her eyes staring up at him in innocent surprise. Tenderly he closed them.

Sophia sagged against him. “They didn’t touch
her,” she whispered. “They tried, but she fought; one of them
struck too hard. That—that one came then.” Her eyes found Thea,
whom she did not know in that shape. “He fought well. So well, and for
nothing. You... both of you. Oh, you were wonderful in your power!”

Alf’s arm circled her shoulders. She felt thin and
cold, trembling in spasms. His mind brushed hers; he gasped.

“Yes,” she said, “I offered to trade
myself for her. Perfidious, they call us Greeks. And what are they? They... accepted…and
thought to have both of us. And Corinna after. It took three of them to hold
her back, till the stranger came and she broke free. But she died. She... died.
Who will nurse the children now?”

Alf moved as if to lift her. “You will,” he
answered her, “after I’ve healed you.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s too late even for
a miracle. I’m all torn. I’ve lost too much blood already. And
there’s this.”

Her hands had been clasped tightly to her belly. She opened
her fingers. Blood oozed between them. “One of them had a dagger in his
hand. It won’t be much longer now.”

Alf covered her hands with his own, summoning the last of
his power.

She smiled and shook her head, as a mother will whose child
persists in some endearing folly. Her lips were white, but her will was
indomitable. By it alone she clung to her body. “My beloved enchanter.
Tend my children well for me.”

He nodded mutely. Her smile softened. She laid her head on
his shoulder; closed her eyes and sighed.

Gently Alf laid her down. Her hands, loosening, bared what she
had hidden. He swallowed bile. Behind him he heard Thea’s catch of
breath.

From the heap of plunder he freed an armful of richness, the
carpet that had lain in his room. He spread it over them all, mother and
daughter and the body of the servant who had died for them, and knelt for a
long while, head bowed. At last he rose.

The courtyard was like a charnel house. All beyond was stripped
bare, stained with the blood of its defenders. Even the stable lay open and
plundered, the old mare slaughtered in her stall, the mules and the pony gone.

Yet one creature remained alive. Nikki’s kitten wove
among the bodies, mewing plaintively. Alf gathered it up. It clung to him with
needle claws and cried, until he stroked it into calmness.

His eyes met Thea’s. They were as bleak as his own,
and as implacable. Minutely she nodded.

For a little while the street was quiet, littered with
flotsam. In the center of it, Alf turned. House Akestas loomed before him,
brooding over its dead.

He called the lightnings down upon it.

“They’re gone.”

The defenders of Saint Basil’s stared dully at one
another, blinking in the torchlight. The hospital stood intact, its defenses unbreached.

“They’re gone,” Edmund repeated. “They’ve
given up. We’re safe.”

“For the night.” Thea leaned on her axe and
mopped her brow. “Why should they wear themselves out in the dark, and on
our territory at that? We should follow their example. Short watches for all of
us, and plenty of sleep.”

One of Dionysios’ men frowned. “There are a
thousand easier prizes in the City. Maybe they won’t come back.”

”Don’t lay wagers on it,” she said. “Edmund,
you look lively enough. Relieve the men in the garden and send them to bed. I’ll
take the first watch on the roof.”

In the unwonted quiet, even Master Dionysios succumbed to sleep.
Thea walked the dim ways on soft feet, her watch over, her man-shape laid
aside.

Alf lay on his pallet with open eyes. Nikki clung to him
even in sleep, cheeks damp, eyes swollen with weeping; the kitten crouched like
a tiny lion in the curve of his arm, wide-eyed and watchful. In the far corner
of her own bed Anna huddled awake, oblivious to all save her own terrible
grief.

Softly Thea lay on Alf’s free side, stroking his hair
away from his face. He shivered under her hand; his wide eyes closed.
I can’t weep
, he said silently.
I try and I try, but no tears come. Thea, if I don’t
weep I’ll go mad.

She kissed his eyelids, his lips, the hollow of his
throat. You grieve. I feel it in you.

It goes too deep. Irene—I let her go. When I could
have fetched her back again, I tarried to play avenging angel before the
Emperor; and after, I let myself forget. I could have forced them both to my will,
Irene and her mother. Her mother... oh, dear God, the agony I let her suffer!

You, Alf? Thea raised her head from his breast. No. It
was God. As well you know.

Anna hates Him, he said.

But not you. You, she loves.

Alf’s breath caught as he drew it in, almost a sob.
I’m all she has left. Her mother is dead. I burned down her house. It was
dead and it was a horror, but it was hers. I never asked her what she wanted to
do with it.

You did the only thing you could have done.

He was silent, mind and voice. When at length she slept, he was
still awake. Even she could not follow where his mind had gone.

o0o

Morning dawned damp and grey: the third day of the sack of Constantinople.
As the light grew sluggishly, the guardians of Saint Basil’s looked about
them and swallowed cries of despair.

Around the walls on all sides massed an army of Franks, knights
and men-at-arms in full array. And each company bore a ladder cut to the height
of the hospital.

A horn sounded, short and sharp. The ladders swung up.

Varangian axes met them. But there were only nine of the old
Guard, and a dozen ladders, and sixscore men swarming up them; and on the roof
across the way, a company of bowmen rising from concealment behind a parapet.

Edmund thrust back a laden ladder with the haft of his axe, and
laughed as it fell. “Ha! Here’s a fight at last!” He wheeled,
struck aside a Flemish sword, clove helm and head together with a single sweeping
blow.

In the garden below, Dionysios’ guards fought hand to
hand with men who had scaled the wall and strove now to throw open the postern.

Edmund began to sing.