Motioning to Faysal, I indicated that I would go up first. Keeping my lamp low, I climbed the steps quickly, and paused at the top to listen. The house was silent; it might have been a tomb. Satisfied that we had not yet alerted the guards to our presence, I gestured to the rest to follow.
The room at the top of the steps was a smaller copy of the vestibule below, but with a door leading to interior rooms. As below, so above: the door was open. I stepped to the door, put my hand to the polished wood, and was about to push it when Faysal put his hand to my arm. “Allow me,” he breathed, drawing his long knife from his belt.
Without the slightest sound, he slipped into the room. I heard a muffled grunt of surprise, and then the door swung wide. Faysal motioned me inside. “Now we know why there are no guards,” he said, taking the lamp from my hands.
In the fitful light I saw Honorius lying on a bed soaked in blood. Eyes wide and bulging, his mouth open in a final, silent scream, his throat had been sliced open from ear to ear. The room stank of urine and faeces, and the sickly-sweet odour of blood. Everything was deathly silent, save for the droning buzz of flies gathering in the darkness.
Sitting next to the body was an old woman. She looked impassively at Faysal and me, then turned her eyes once more to the governor.
“He is dead,” she said softly, and I recognized her then as the washerwoman I had met earlier in the day. “I brought his clothes.”
“Woman, how long have you been here?” I asked, squatting down beside her.
“They killed him,” she said, and put a plump red hand to her face. I heard an odd, strangled sound; she was sobbing.
Leaving her for the moment, I put a hand to the corpse’s cheek; the skin was cold to the touch. Even in the dim and flickering lamplight, I could tell the blood had begun to congeal. His murderers had left nothing to chance: hands bound behind him, his throat had been cut to keep his screams from being heard, and he had been stabbed several times in the chest for good measure.
“He has been dead some time,” Faysal observed.
“I told him we would come for him,” I said, remembering our brief meeting. “He said no one could save him—that it was too late.”
Faysal touched my arm and indicated the old woman. I looked and saw that she was clutching a small white packet to her bosom with her free hand. Bending to her once more, I said, “Mother, what have you there?”
Reaching out, I put my hand to the packet. The old woman raised her face, fearful now. “I am an honest woman!” she cried, growing suddenly agitated. “Three years I have worked in this house! Three years! I have never stolen so much as a thread!”
“I believe you,” I said. “What do you hold there?”
“I am no thief,” she insisted, clutching the packet more tightly. “Ask anyone—ask the governor! He will tell you I am an honest woman.”
“Please?” I asked, tugging the packet gently from her.
“I found it,” she told me. “It was there,” she said, pointing at a pile of clothing folded neatly on the floor. “He left it there for me to find. I swear it! I took nothing! I am no thief.”
“Peace, old woman,” I said, trying to soothe her. “We make no accusations.”
“They try to trick you sometimes,” she told me breathlessly. “They leave things for you to find, and then they say you steal them. I am no thief.” She shook a finger at the packet in my hand. “I found it. I did not steal it.”
Faysal brought the lamp near, and I bent to my examination. “It is parchment,” I said, turning it over in the light, “bound with a strip of cloth…and, here-here is the governor’s seal.” Above the seal, written in a thin, spidery hand were two words: the first was basileus, I could not make out the second. “It may be for the emperor.”
Slipping the cloth band from the packet, I made to break the seal. Faysal counselled against it, saying, “I think we should leave before someone finds us.”
The old laundress had begun sobbing again. “Three years I have worked for this house!” she moaned. “I am an honest woman. Where will I find another house?”
“Come,” Faysal urged, “we can do nothing here.”
Stuffing the packet into my belt, I turned to the old woman. “You do not have to stay here. You can come with us if you wish.”
She looked at me with her damp eyes, then glanced at the governor’s body. “I wash his clothes,” she said. “I am an old woman. I will stay with him.”
Stepping quickly to the door, Faysal motioned me to follow. I rose slowly. “The danger is past,” I said. “I do not think the killers will return. You can get help in the morning.” The old woman made no reply, but turned her gaze once more upon the bloodied body lying beside her.
Back down the stairs, through the corridor and into the vestibule, we fled. With trembling hand, I returned the lamp to its stand, and crept to the door. I put my hand to the handle, pulled open the door slightly, and slipped out.
Sayid appeared at once, stepping from the shadows to motion me forward. “Swiftly!” he hissed. “Someone comes.”
Glancing to where he pointed, I saw a man ambling towards us; he was, perhaps, thirty paces away. Even as I looked, the man halted. “He has seen us,” Faysal said. “Hurry! This way!”
Faysal turned and fled down the street. In the same instant, the man began shouting. “Thieves! Robbers!” he cried, his voice echoing down the empty street. “Help! Thieves! Robbers!”
We ran to the inn where we had left the horses under Nadr’s vigilant eye; he passed me the reins to my mount and I swung up into the saddle. “Lead the way,” I called. “We are behind you.”
At a sign from Faysal, Sayid rode out; I could still hear the fellow crying for help as we clattered back along the deserted street—passing the startled man once more. Despite his cries of robber and thief, the streets remained empty and quiet; save for a skulking dog or two that barked as we passed, Sebastea slept undisturbed.
Upon reaching the north wall, we turned off the main street and continued along a narrow passageway until we came to an unused guard tower, beneath which a small, lean-to hut had been erected beside the low wooden gate. Sayid dismounted before the hut, and slapped the crude door with his hand. A thin weasel of a fellow poked out his head, squinted at the mounted warriors and complained, “I never agreed to so many!”
“Be quiet!” warned Sayid. “Open the gate.”
“But you never said there would be so many,” the gateman protested, stepping cautiously out of his hut.
“You are well paid for the work of a moment,” Sayid said. “Now open the gate.”
The gateman withdrew his keys reluctantly. “Opening the gate is, as you say, the work of a moment,” he allowed. “Forgetting what I have seen this night…whether such a thing is possible, I am far from certain.”
“Perhaps,” said Faysal, jingling coins in his hand, “these will help you to perform the impossible.” Leaning from the saddle, he extended his hand.
The gateman reached expectantly towards the offered coins. Faysal raised his hand. “When the others are through the gate,” he said. “Not before.”
“The others?” wondered the gateman, his eyes growing wide. “I see no one here. Oh, already I am becoming so forgetful.”
The oily fellow turned to his task and, in a few moments, the gate creaked open. A steep road led away from the wall, blue-white in the moonlight against the black of high-mounded banks. The gateway was narrow and low, forcing us to bend double in the saddle. Once beyond the wall and its banked-earth ramparts, the road swung towards the east. We rode west, however, and made our way more slowly across fields and grazing land, arriving back at camp as the last light of a setting moon traced the domes and spires of the city in lingering silver.
When daylight transmuted night’s silver to morning’s red gold, I would, I believed, at last hold the answer to the mystery of Nikos’s betrayal.
66
Your business in Trebizond can wait,” Theodore said
bluntly. “The amir must not be moved.”
“You said he would be able to travel.”
“In a few days, perhaps,” the physician allowed, “and even that is too soon. The amir has survived a most delicate procedure. Now he must rest if his wound is to heal properly. Given time, I have no doubt he will regain his former strength and well-being.”
“Unfortunately, there is no time,” I insisted. “Need is upon us; as you see, we must leave at once.”
We spoke outside the tent as men broke camp and prepared to depart. Faysal stood nearby, a frown deepening on his brown face.
“Then I suggest you leave the amir with me. My house is large; I will care for him there. Never fear, I am well acquainted with the requirements of noblemen. When Lord Sadiq has recovered sufficiently, he can follow.”
“Your offer is tempting as it is gracious,” I replied. “However, we are hard pressed to continue our journey as best we may. The amir himself would agree—indeed, he would demand it if I did not.”
“Then, it is my duty to tell you that the amir will not survive such a journey. If you persist, you will kill him.”
Shouldering this grim responsibility, I replied, “We are grateful for your service.” Motioning Faysal to join us, I said, “Faysal will reward you now. Go in peace.”
The physician accepted his payment and said no more. He collected his tools, woke his slaves, and departed, his dire pronouncement hanging over me like a curse. Once he had gone, I commanded the rafiq to make ready the amir’s riding sling, and by the time the rose-pink sun cleared the eastern ridge, we were well along the Trebizond road. Speed was our most reliable ally, I reckoned, for if we maintained the pace I had begun, we would reach Trebizond before news of the governor’s death. Any messengers would be forced to go by the same road on which we journeyed; to do otherwise would take too long, and should anyone try to overtake us, we would certainly apprehend them long before they could come near. Not forgetting the last time I had travelled this same road, I kept scouts ranging far ahead to prevent us rushing into another ambush.
Though I bitterly regretted the urgency, I pressed ahead relentlessly, my cold heart fixed on Byzantium and the confrontation to come. Time and again, my hand strayed to the folded document beneath my robe. That square scrap of parchment, hastily scrawled in Honorius’s hand, exposed the wicked heart of Nikos’s treachery.
Upon our return to camp, I had immediately opened the packet and read out the letter contained within. That Honorius had written it, I had no doubt; I recognized both the hand and signature from the letter the eparch had received. Faysal, holding a torch near, watched the expression on my face as the dire truth came clear.
Lowering the document, I glanced at Faysal, eager in the torchlight. Even as I spoke the words, my mind was leaping ahead to what must be done to prevent the terrible act they described. “Nikos plans to murder the emperor,” I said.
“For this they killed the governor?” he observed.
“And everyone else who came too near,” I told him, and explained: “Honorius was taken prisoner because he found out about the plot and tried to warn the emperor. They kept him alive because they found his office useful to further their aims.”
“It says this?” wondered Faysal, tapping the parchment with a finger.
“Oh, yes,” I replied, “and much else besides.” I passed the document to Faysal and held the torch while he read.
The letter, signed and sealed by the governor, provided damning evidence of Nikos’s treachery—though even Honorius did not perceive the full extent of the plot. But I knew.
What is more, I was confident that I now possessed all the scattered fragments of the mosaic and that I had assembled them aright. The resulting picture may not have been pleasant; but it was true.
It seems that while making one of his periodic visits to the southern region, word had reached Exarch Honorius of a rumour that the emperor was to be killed by someone close to the throne. Upon further investigation, he had learned that the conspiracy originated in a city called Tephrike, and was thought to be the work of an Armenian named Chrysocheirus. Though I knew neither the city nor the man, I knew the word the governor used to describe them: Paulician.
Upon reading this, I recalled Bishop Arius telling me that after their expulsion from Constantinople, the Paulicians had fled east where their continual raiding, as much as their alliance with the Arabs, had eventually roused the anger of the emperor, who had ordered reprisals against the cult. The emperor was Basil, of course, and from Honorius’s description, I gathered that Tephrike was the central stronghold of the Paulicians, and Chrysocheirus had been their leader; he was, like many of the sect’s members, of Armenian descent. He was also kinsman to a courtier well placed in the imperial palace—an ambitious young man named Nikos.
Thus, the mystery had at last come clear. In order to maintain hostilities between the Sarazens and the empire, from which the cult benefited, the peace initiative had to be stopped; and for his part in the persecution, the emperor had been marked for death.
My brother monks simply had the great misfortune of wandering into Nikos’s elaborate snare. Their unwitting desire to see Honorius had brought them to Nikos’ attention, and they had been eliminated. In much the same way, the eparch had been dealt with as well. When Honorius discovered the plot, he was taken prisoner; and, when his usefulness came to an end, he was killed. So far as Nikos knew, no one remained alive to confront him with his crimes.
Oh, but he had not reckoned on the resilience of the Irish spirit, the determined strength of barbarians, nor the tenacity and resourcefulness of Arab resolve.
True, I had no special concern for the emperor; I confess it freely. My sympathies were entirely otherwise. The poor and powerless—like the blessed Bishop Cadoc, and all those women and children killed in the ambush—claimed my small store of compassion. The emperor had his bodyguard of Farghanese mercenaries; he had his ships and his soldiers and his fortresses. But it was the weak and innocent who always suffered in the clash, and who protected them?
God alone, it seemed; and time and again, he proved himself a highly unreliable defender. If anything were to be done to help those in harm’s way this time, it would be myself, not God, who shouldered the burden.
Still, all my efforts would be worth less than nothing if Nikos’s plot succeeded. I had long ago vowed that if I ever got free, I would see Nikos’s head nailed to the Magnaura Gate and his corpse trampled in the Hippodrome. Driven by my singular desire for revenge—rekindled to a fine and handsome blaze by Honorius’s letter—my thoughts flew towards Trebizond and Harald’s waiting ships. How I ached to be in Byzantium with my hands around Nikos’s throat.
Faysal finished reading and lowered the parchment, his face grim in the flickering torchlight. “The conspiracy against the emperor must not be allowed to succeed,” he intoned softly. “For the sake of the peace treaty, we must expose it. The amir would not be pleased if we allowed anything to stand in our way.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I replied. “Then we agree—it is on to Byzantium as quickly as possible.”
Alas, so many of our number were afoot we could not move with anything near the speed I desired. Indeed, I seriously considered going on ahead myself, perhaps taking a few men for protection, but we would need every available man to help crew the ships and I would gain nothing if, arriving in Trebizond, we were unable to sail at once.
Thus, I had no better alternative than to proceed as best and as fast as circumstances allowed—ever mindful of the amir’s infirmity. Sebastea lay some small distance behind us when we stopped to rest that first day, taking shelter from the hammering sun in an olive grove beside the road. While the rafiq and Danes drew water from the well that supplied the grove, Kazimain and Ddewi tended Lord Sadiq, and Brynach, Dugal, and myself sat down to talk.
“It appears,” Brynach began as soon as we were settled, “that we have embarked on a mission of some urgency.” His gaze was direct a
nd his manner straightforward, as if addressing an equal. “Are we to know its aim?”
“Indeed, and I would value your counsel, brother,” I replied, and began to detail the convoluted path by which we had arrived at the place we now occupied. The elder monk listened, nodding thoughtfully from time to time—as if what I said supplied the answers to questions of longstanding concern. I finished by explaining my speculations on what had happened to the governor. “Regretfully, Honorius was killed before we could rescue him. I have no doubt the deed was carried out by the same faction of which Nikos is a member.”
“This faction,” Brynach asked, “have you discovered its identity?”
“They are Armenians, for the most part,” I told him, “and adherents to a heretical sect known as Paulicians.”
“I have never heard of them,” said Dugal, struggling to imagine why these people should wish him ill.
“Nor I,” replied Brynach. “But then, there are many sects. Not all of them are heretical.”
“Perhaps not,” I conceded. “As it happens, they were cast out of the Holy Church and driven from Constantinople several years ago. Their faith has been anathematized, and their leaders declared enemies of the emperor. Persecution has forced them to become secretive.”
“Granting what you say is true,” Brynach said somewhat doubtfully, “why would these Paulicians concern themselves with us? We have done nothing to rouse either their wrath or interest.”
“So far as I can see,” I answered, “their aim is twofold: they hope to thwart the peace between Byzantium and the Sarazens, and they are also intent on murdering the emperor. Governor Honorius learned of their plans and was preparing to warn the emperor when he was made prisoner.”
“What has that to do with us?” wondered Dugal, still struggling to imagine why people he had never heard of, much less seen, should wish harm on a handful of Irish monks.