He is a northerner, Rollo thought. No one whose blood was purely of the south has eyes that colour.
There was something about him …
For some reason Rollo trusted this man, although he could not have said why: in that first instant, it was pure instinct. Pushing that aside, he made himself think logically. He has tended me to the best of his ability. He is alone, and there has been no indication that this room is guarded. It is not a dark, hidden cellar; we are above the ground, and the street outside is close.
Something else was niggling at him, and, still eating, he picked away until he found it.
He did not lock me in.
And, following on the heels of that, I am therefore not his prisoner.
He proceeded to demolish a plate of figs, dipping them in runny golden honey. The man poured out more water, and he drank it. Then, wiping his fingers on the napkin, he held up his hands to indicate he had eaten enough.
He looked up at the big man. ‘Was it you who held me back when I was about to head out into the square before the Bucoleon Palace?’ he asked. Memory was galloping back now.
‘It was,’ the man acknowledged.
‘I think you saved me from an act of extreme folly.’
The man grinned. ‘I agree.’
‘Why were you following me? To protect me?’
‘You don’t know how this city works,’ the man said. ‘Few do who don’t live here. Little remains secret for long, and when a stranger starts asking questions, people’s ears prick up.’
Which questions? Rollo wondered. The ones he had asked of the Varangians in their guardroom, or the ones he’d posed to the senior official?
‘I heard tell they’re on the lookout for a man answering your description,’ the man continued, ‘and I didn’t think you’d want to go falling into their hands.’
‘Why are you helping me?’ Rollo demanded.
The man eyed him cagily. ‘First, tell me why you are here in the city. And, come to that, why men of the emperor’s most secret and deadly force are after you.’
The moment extended. Rollo, thinking furiously, weighed up his options. They were few, and, on balance, the truth seemed the best. Or, at least, some of it.
‘I’ve been journeying in the south,’ he said in the end. ‘Syria, Palestine; the lands overrun by the Seljuks.’
‘Why?’
‘To assess the strengths and weaknesses of the region.’ He paused, working out how to give this astute, alert man enough to make his actions credible while keeping back the most intimate details, such as the identity of the man who had sent him and exactly what he had been commanded to discover.
‘Again, why?’
‘The Turks have advanced spectacularly in a short time,’ he said, not answering the question directly, ‘but just now they are weak. There is much squabbling and fighting between the many men who would rise up and take the dead sultan’s place, and they take their eyes off their borders.’ He paused, then said, ‘I wanted to speak to someone who had the ear of the emperor, for I wished to know if he too has observed this present frailty. If so, what will he do about it?’
The big man whistled softly. ‘You don’t want much, do you?’ he muttered. ‘The ear of the emperor, indeed.’
‘I-’
But the man stopped him, holding up a hand. ‘You’ve not told me everything,’ he said softly. ‘There’s something else, and you’ve decided to keep it to yourself. You’re someone’s spy, or I’m a Saracen.’
Rollo did not speak.
‘Well,’ the man sighed, ‘I dare say I’d keep that to myself too, in your place. So, you got as far as the inner guard?’
‘Yes. They seemed eager to hear what I had to tell them at first. Then – it changed.’ He held the other man’s eyes. ‘I don’t suppose you know why?’
‘I can provide a pretty good guess,’ the big man said. ‘They keep watch on comings and goings. Well, you can hardly blame them. They have informants everywhere, and especially on the gates. It seems someone saw you arrive, dressed as a Turk.’
‘I’d been travelling in the Turks’ lands, for God’s sake. Is it any wonder?’
‘Don’t be so touchy. You asked, I’m telling you.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Hmm. Anyway, you weren’t as discreet as you thought you were. You were seen going into one of the communal bath houses in one guise and emerging in quite another.’
Rollo was impressed. ‘Someone’s got sharp eyes.’
‘Of course,’ the big man said wearily. ‘What else did you expect? Alexius Comnenus is besieged here, along with all the rest of us. Is it any wonder he keeps a very good lookout for anything out of the ordinary? They think,’ he added, almost as a throwaway, ‘you’re a Turkish spy.’
‘I’m not.’
The big man smiled. ‘No, I don’t believe you are. Like I just said, I reckon you’re someone’s spy, but, unless you’ve turned away from your faith, your kin and your own past, it’s a lot more likely that it’s someone on the other side.’
‘You know nothing about me,’ Rollo countered quickly. The big man’s conclusion was dangerously near the truth.
‘Oh, you’d be surprised how much someone reveals about himself when he’s in the grip of fever,’ the man replied. ‘And I have been nursing you for quite some time.’
‘Again, why?’ Rollo demanded. ‘I asked you before, but you merely said you’d heard I was being hunted and you didn’t want me to be caught. But why? What am I to you?’
Even watching the big man as closely as he was, he only just spotted the split second of reaction, covered up almost before it had happened. Resuming his bland expression, the big man said, ‘I still have many friends and former colleagues among the Varangian Guard. One of them sought me out and said you’d been asking after someone. A man called Harald?’
Instantly Rollo’s senses quickened. ‘I was,’ he agreed.
‘My name’s Harald, as it happens,’ the big man remarked, ‘although I’m only one of many. The way I heard it,’ he went on, ‘this man you’re after left England after the Conquest, and you reckon he ended up here in Miklagard.’
‘That’s what I believe, yes. It’s logical, for a man such as him. His family have had no word of him in twenty-five years, and are at a loss to know where he is or what happened to him.’
The big man was watching him closely. ‘Many who serve with the Varangians could tell a similar tale,’ he remarked.
‘He-’ Rollo began.
But the big man interrupted. ‘England was once my home, too,’ he said, ‘and, for that reason, and because you are hurt, and far from home, and because I rescued you from your own folly, I feel responsible for you.’
Was that a good thing or a bad one? Rollo didn’t speak.
For some time, there was silence in the little room. The big man appeared deep in thought. Rollo guessed he was weighing up the implications of helping a man suspected of spying for the enemy.
Eventually, straightening his shoulders with a firmness that suggested the gesture was intended to restore the backbone in him, the big man said, ‘I am all but certain you’re a Norman, and by rights I should hate you because you’re my former enemy. But I’ve lived too long to allow an old fight to affect what my heart tells me I should do. You have travelled far from home, on a mission, I’m guessing, for some Norman or Frankish lord who fancies his chances of carving out a bit of the eastern Mediterranean as his own personal fiefdom, and, accordingly, wishes to know the strengths, the weaknesses and, most of all, how the emperor Alexius views the situation.’
His summation was so close to the truth that Rollo did not dare reply. He struggled to keep his expression neutral.
The big man grinned. ‘No, I didn’t expect you to confirm or deny it,’ he said lightly. He fixed Rollo’s eyes with his own. ‘I do not see you as a threat to this wonderful city that has become my adopted home,’ he went on, ‘and, I tell you now, if I’m proved wrong, and my actions bring harm to the place and the people I love, then I shall seek you out and kill you with my own two hands. Do we understand one another?’