The Golden Horn (5 page)

“And, l trust, until he was cured of the wounds he
took on that venture.”

“Well. His leg had knit by then, and he’d lost
his limp. His hand was taking longer. He could use it, but only just; it was stiff,
and twisted a little. So, he’d say when people looked at it, at least he
still had it, thanks to a witch-priest from Anglia; and he was learning to be a
right-handed man. His brother would scowl whenever he said that, and thunder
would rumble away somewhere. They’re twins, you know, as like to look at
as two peas. But Prince Aidan is as wild as his brother is quiet. Only Gwydion
and that splendid Ifrit princess Aidan brought out of Alamut can even begin to
control him.”

“Is he as wonderful a warrior as you thought he was?”

“Wonderful? More than wonderful! I followed him about like
an overgrown pup; he condescended to teach me a little now and then. I’ve
never seen a better swordsman. But do you know what he said? He was nothing; I
should have seen his brother. Imagine; modesty, in the Flame-bearer.”

Alf smiled.

Jehan smote his hands together. “What are we doing,
talking about somebody you don’t even know? Tell me about yourself!”

“Tell me first how you came to be here.”

“They were preaching a Crusade; my head was full of
grand ideas; I begged and I threatened, and Bishop Aylmer sent me to the Pope,
and the Pope let me go with his legate.” Jehan paused for breath. “Now,
Brother Alf, stop evading and tell me. Why did you come here? How did you
manage to get yourself up as a Greek gentleman? Where’s Thea?”

“I came to see the City,” Alf answered. “I’m
dressed as a Greek because it was a Greek who took me in after my clash with
the sun, and the servants burned my old clothes. They weren’t even fit
for rags, it seemed, although they covered me well enough.”

He was keeping a tight rein on his vanity, Jehan could see. But
he knew how very well he looked. “And Thea? Is she here?”

“No,” Alf said, “she isn’t here.”

Something in his voice brought Jehan about sharply. “What’s
wrong? She hasn’t—she’s not dead, is she?”

Alf laughed more in pain than in mirth. “Thea? Dear
God, no! She was with me until a few days ago. She was the best of companions,
too, whatever shape she chose. A hound most often. In Jerusalem when I worked
in the hospital, she used to sit at my feet and laugh in her mind when people
petted her and admired her beauty. Sometimes she’d put on a gown and be
herself and walk about the city. She marveled at it, though she pretended to be
cool and worldly-wise, that she was there in the holiest place in the world.”

The other gripped his arm. “What happened? Where is
she now?”

“I don’t know. We…disagreed. She went
away. I’ve searched, but I can’t find her. She doesn’t want
me to.”

Jehan was young and a priest, but he was neither a child nor
an innocent; and he had been as close to Alf as a brother. He read the quiet
voice and the expressionless face, yet he offered no pity. “She’ll
come back.”

“Will she?” Alf asked, but calmly. “In
some things we were never well matched. I only wish…I would be more at
ease if I knew where she was.”

“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself when
you want to cry?”

“I never cry.”

“You should. It would do you good.”

Alf shook his head slightly. “Come, explore the City
with me. And after, if there’s time, you can meet my hosts.” His smile
was no more than half forced. “I wasn’t even to leave my room for a
day or two yet. But I escaped this morning and left a message to assure my
benefactors that I hadn’t abandoned them. Maybe, if I come back with a
friend—a very old and very dear friend who also happens to be very large—they’ll
be inclined to forgive me.”

“Will they welcome a Latin?”

“They’ll be mildly disappointed. Like me, you
know what hot water is for, and you speak Greek. And you aren’t wearing your
armor.”

“My squire’s cleaning it, poor lad. Should I go
back and get it?”

Alf laughed and shook his head, and led the other away.

o0o

Jehan was not, after all, a disappointment. Pound for pound and
inch for inch, he was as close a match for Corinna as any man could be; when he
promised to show Anna his armor, she clapped her hands with delight.

But she was far from content. She watched him warily all the
while he set himself to charm the household. Nikki, she noticed with
satisfaction, eyed him in deep distrust. But everyone else was completely
smitten.

“He’s not at all handsome,” Irene
whispered to her, “but he has beautiful eyes. I love blue eyes. And his
voice. I wonder if he can sing?”

Anna glared at her, but she was too far gone to notice.
Could no one even see? He was sitting side by side with Alf. Every now and then
he touched his friend lightly, familiarly; or Alf would lay an arm about his
shoulders, holding him in a brief half-embrace. They were like brothers long
parted, not quite believing yet that they had met again.

Her throat felt tight. This was a man from Alf’s own country.
He talked about Anglia, and about a king named Richard whom people called
Lionheart and whom they both had loved; he talked about Rome and Saint Mark’s
citadel and the Latin princes camped across the Horn; and when he smiled, Alf
would smile back, as proud as a cat with its lone kitten.

Then, when Jehan had begun to think of leaving, he said it. “Alf,
why don’t you come with me? There’s always a place among us for a
good man.”

“What would I do?” Alf asked, not in protest but
as if he truly wanted to know. “I’m neither knight nor priest.”

“You’ve been a clerk and a healer and a king’s
squire. Any of those, even the last, we’ve dire need of. And…”
Jehan hesitated, suddenly shy. “I…I’d like it very much if
you could be with me.”

Anna held her breath. Irene, she noticed, had caught on at last;
she was looking stricken. Mother looked merely interested, watching their faces
as they talked.

Alf was tempted. She could see it. He wanted to see his own people
again and to live with his friend.

“I’ll come,” he said. Jehan began to grin;
Anna gathered to fling herself at one of them, she was not sure which. But Alf was
not done. “I’ll come,” he repeated, “to visit you. For
a little while. But not today. I’m in trouble enough as it is for being
out when I should have been in bed.”

Jehan’s face fell. Anna hurtled into Alf’s lap,
though Nikki was there already, and hugged the breath out of him. He smiled. “You
see why I have to stay.”

Slowly Jehan nodded, battling a sudden, fierce, and irrational
jealousy. “I see,” he said a shade coldly. With an effort he returned
Alf’s smile. “I’m singing Mass in camp on the Sabbath. Will
you come and hear me?”

“Gladly,” Alf answered. Jehan had risen from his
seat; he rose likewise, setting Anna on her feet. But Nikki’s arms had locked
about his neck. He was still so the last Jehan saw of him, standing in the
gateway with the dark-eyed child in his arms and the rest of the household a
blur behind.

“Now, mind you,” Bardas said as the litter bore
the two of them through the crowds of the Middle Way, “Master Dionysios is
the best physician in the City, and he knows it. He’ll give you this one
day’s trial; if you can satisfy him, he’ll put you to work. It
might be menial labor, boy, be warned of that. I’m only His Majesty’s
overseer, not Saint Luke himself, to tell Master Dionysios what to do with you
once he has you.”

Alf watched as a troop of Varangians swung past, fair-haired
giants in scarlet and gold with great axes on their shoulders. One or two,
younger than the rest, looked very much like Jehan. “I don’t mind
servants’ work. I did it in Saint Ruan’s, and in Jerusalem.”

“You’ll do it for Dionysios. A rare thing,
Dionysios: a doctor who can look after his own hospital. He works his people
like slaves, from the brat who sweeps the kitchen all the way to the senior
surgeon—and himself harder than any.”

“I think I shall admire him.”

“Or hate him,” Bardas said.

o0o

Master Dionysios took Alf’s measure with the air of an
officer inspecting a raw recruit. “This,” he snarled at Bardas, “is
your prodigy of medical erudition?”

Bardas bore his wrath with unruffled calm. “This is
Alfred.”

Dionysios circled Alf slowly, lip curled. “You. Boy.
What do you know?”

“Little,” Alf answered, “but of that,
enough.”

The Master had come round to face Alf again. “So. You fancy
yourself clever. Let me see your hands.” He examined them, turning them
in fastidious, surgeon’s fingers. “Soft as a girl’s. Have you
been cut, boy?”

Alf’s lips tightened. “No, sir,” he
replied levelly, “I have not.”

“Pity. You’d please the women.” Abruptly
Dionysios turned his back on him. “Come with me.

“We tend anyone who can be treated,” Dionysios
said as they walked, “and some who can’t, but who have nowhere else
to die in peace. Poor, most of them. Filthy. Are you afraid of dirt, boy?”

Alf shook his head.

“Well then,” the Master said, pausing in a
doorway. In the room beyond, many ragged figures sat on benches against the wall
or squatted on the floor. At the far end a man in healer’s blue, aided by
a student in brown, examined a particularly scabrous specimen. The air reeked
of disease and of unwashed humanity.

Alf followed the other, picking his way among the waiting bodies.
The eyes that watched him pass were bright and scornful or dull and hostile or,
once, languidly wanton; hands plucked at his robe, feeling of its fine fabric,
inching toward the purse at his belt.

The blue-clad physician did not pause as his Master approached,
although the student looked up in apprehension.

“Thomas,” said Dionysios, “rest yourself.
This young gentleman will finish for you.”

It said much for Dionysios’ discipline that the man
stepped back at once, without protest, although he regarded Alf in open and
cheerful curiosity. Alf took his place quietly, well aware of the eyes upon
him. But he had stood so, been watched so, more often than he could remember;
and the first time, when he was truly the boy he looked, Master Dionysios had
been drowsing at his mother’s breast. He drew a breath to steady himself,
and bent to the task.

o0o

“Well?” Bardas asked as Alf settled in the
litter.

Alf regarded him for a moment, hardly seeing him. “You
weren’t there?” His gaze cleared; he shook himself. “Of
course. You had other things to do. Did I see you leave?”

“As I recall,” said Bardas, “you were
lancing a boil and arguing with Master Dionysios: Was it God’s will for a
healer to quiet pain with wine or poppy, rather than to let the patient bear it
unaided?”

“We weren’t arguing. We were considering
possibilities.” Alf lay back against the cushions. “I’m to
come back tomorrow.”

“So you satisfied him.”

“Not really. My name, says he, will not do at all.
Since the Greek of ‘Alf’ is ‘Theo,’ then Theo I shall
be; half a Greek name is infinitely preferable to the whole of a Saxon one. Moreover,
we disagree on several crucial points. Bleeding, for instance. It’s
useless, I think, and often dangerous. I’m an abomination, Master
Dionysios has decided: a twofold heretic, religious and medical. But I know
which end of a lancet is which, and I have light hands. He’ll suffer me
to keep you quiet.”

Bardas folded his hands over his ample stomach and allowed himself
a brief smile. “You’ll do. I don’t suppose he mentioned payment.”

“Of course not. I’m to wear a blue gown. Do I
have one?”

“You will. You’ll also have a salary.”

Alf’s eyes widened in shock. “Money? For healing?”

“This is Constantinople, lad.”

“But—”

Bardas’ raised hand cut him off. “No, boy. No
Western scruples. If Dionysios has taken you on, by law he has to pay you
according to your rank. Master physician, I should think, since he wants you to
wear blue. Students wear brown and pay him; assistants get servants’
wages. In one stroke you’ve become a man of substance.”

“I don’t want to be—”

“Boy,” said Bardas, “this isn’t your
monastery. You do your healing. I’ll look after your money.”

“You can keep it. I owe it to you for all you’ve
done for me.”

“I’ll keep it. Until you need it.”

Alf framed a further protest; paused; closed his mouth. They
rode on in silence.

o0o

Anna and Nikki were at the gate with the air of people who had
waited a very long while. Even before the litter had stopped, Nikki was in it,
pummeling Alf with his fists, moaning in a strange strangled voice. His face
was red and furious, wet with tears.

Alf let Nikki’s anger run its course, until he
suffered Alf’s touch and let himself be held, though struggling still,
fierce in his wrath.

“He’s been here all day,” Anna was saying,
“crying and yelling and hitting the gate. He hit Corinna when she tried
to take him away. He hit me. He even hit Mother.”

Nikki quieted slowly, enough to sit in Alf’s lap, fists
clenched on his knees. Alf took the small scarlet face in his hands, smoothing
away the tears of rage. Very quietly he said, “I told you that I would
come back. I will always come back. Always, Nikephoros.”

Nikki’s black eyes were angry still. He raised a fist
as if to strike again.

Alf caught it and unfolded it. “I promise, Nikki.”

For yet a while he clung to his outrage. But Alf smiled, and
he plunged forward, burrowing into the limp and bloodstained robe.

There was a silence. Bardas cleared his throat. “Where’s
your mother, Anna?”

“In the garden,” Anna replied, “with the
lady who came a little while ago.”

“A friend? Lady Phoebe? Aunt Theodora?”

“Oh, no. We’ve never met her before. She came to
see Alf.”

He froze in the act of rising; swayed under Nikki’s
weight; drew himself erect by force of will.