I asked which direction Armenia lay, and how best to get there. Roupen explained that it was in the low Taurus mountains to the north, and that there were several routes. 'The best way, however, is through Mamistra,' he said. 'We can get there by boat from Famagusta.'
'Mamistra is a sea port?' asked Padraig.
'No, it is inland-on a river. But the water is deep enough for boats and small ships. It serves as the nearest sea port to Anazarbus.'
When the strength of the sun began to wane somewhat, we pushed on again, walking until dusk deepened around us. I remained wary of any pursuit, but saw no one until coming upon a group of Venetian merchants camped beside the road for the night. The merchants, seven in all, had been exploring trading opportunities in Antioch, and were on their way to Ascalon in the south. They greeted us pleasantly and invited us to share their evening meal, and asked how we found life in the Holy Land. Padraig would have talked to them all day long, but I thought it best not to encourage their interest too far, so after wishing them well, I begged to be excused, explaining that we had walked all day and were very tired.
I scraped out a place among the rocks and thorns, lay down, and dozed contentedly until Padraig nudged me awake at daybreak. 'Someone is coming,' he whispered. 'I was just praying and heard horses on the road.'
'Bohemond's men?'
'Maybe. They are still too far away to tell.'
'Then we still have a chance.'
We woke Roupen and crept quietly away from the camp, hiding in a dry ditch of a ravine a few hundred paces from the camp. Shortly, there appeared three riders. They reined up when they came upon the sleeping Venetians. Although we could not hear what was said, I could guess readily enough. The riders roused the merchants with demands and questions; the Venetians looked around, and shrugged as if to say, 'We do not know if they are the men you are looking for. They were here with us last night, but they are gone now. We cannot tell you more.'
The riders did not linger, but rode on quickly-no doubt in the hope of catching us a little further up the road. After they were gone, we waited in the ravine until the merchants departed as well, and then continued on, keeping a sharp watch on the road ahead for the returning soldiers.
We walked until midday, and then stopped for another rest, thinking to move on at dusk and walk through the night so that we could reach the harbour with a good chance of getting a ship before any sailed the next day.
This we did, spending a quiet night out on the road beneath the stars, so that we arrived at the little port town of Saint Symeon just after sunrise. We saw no sign of the soldiers, but two of the roundships were still in the bay, dwarfing the smaller fishing vessels riding peacefully at anchor off shore. We hurried down through the single narrow street to the harbour, where Roupen made a good account of himself by undertaking negotiations with a local fisherman for the hire of his boat to take us across to Famagusta. The sailor knew the place well, and was pleased to have ready payment in silver for his services. He called his son and one of his idle friends to help with the boat and, after providing ourselves with a few loaves of bread, a little wine, and some boiled eggs and hard lumps of goat cheese, we cast off.
As the boat slid out into the bay, I scanned the road and hills for the last time for any sign of our pursuers. There was nothing. I decided that Bohemond had made but a half-hearted attempt at apprehending us; if he had been in deadly earnest, his men would have caught us long since. Thus, I concluded that he had directed his main efforts elsewhere, and relaxed my vigilance. The race, I decided, would not be to outrun pursuers, but to reach Anazarbus first. Towards this end, I dedicated myself.
All that can be said of the voyage is that it was short and blessedly uneventful. We reached the deep-water harbour on the eastern edge of Cyprus on the evening of the second day, and set to work seeking out the fellow named Yordanus. There was little harm in doing so, I thought. If, for some reason, we disliked the man, or determined that making his acquaintance would be of little value to us, we would simply move on and make our way to Anazarbus by ourselves.
That evening, as the moon rose over the quiet harbour, nothing could have been more simple and straightforward. But, as I was learning, nothing was ever simple and straightforward in Outremer. Our search quickly ran aground on the fact that, as night closed in, no one would speak to strangers in the street. In the end, we were forced to take a room from a local wool merchant who put out part of his large house to visitors for a small fee, for which he also provided an excellent meal. We ate heartily, and slept well in soft beds piled deep with fleeces, and rose early next morning to renew our search for Yordanus-with an ever-increasing sense of urgency. For, every day we spent dallying along the trail, Bohemond was that much closer to launching his attack on Anazarbus.
Before leaving the wool merchant's house, we asked if he knew where we might find this Yordanus Hippolytus. Our good-natured host had heard of the fellow. 'Oh, yes,' he assured us. 'He lives in the upper town-the old town. He is a goldsmith-fine man, a very saint, and given to many good works-if he is the man I am thinking of.'
'The man you are thinking of,' said the wool merchant's wife, 'does not live in the old town. He lives in the big house at the end of the road behind the hill.'
The sunny merchant's face clouded. 'How do you know who I am thinking of?' he demanded. 'Be quiet, woman, you will confuse these good men.'
'No more than you have confused them already,' she replied tartly. 'Take my advice and ask someone to show you the way to the house behind the hill.'
'The old town,' the wool man assured us. 'Pay no attention to my wife. She is obviously thinking of someone else.'
Armed with this conflicting information, we began our search in the old town as the merchant suggested. For the price of a seed cake, we hired a young boy at the harbour to show us the way to the old town. He led us to the central market square where many of the artisans and traders had stalls from which they sold their wares. They spoke Greek in Famagusta and, since Padraig's Greek was better than mine, he undertook to find out if anyone knew the man we sought.
'Oh, yes,' said a maker of brass bowls, 'he is well known. He owns many ships. If you wish to find him, you must look down by the harbour, for he is always there tending his fleet.'
'I thank you,' said Padraig, 'but we were given to understand that he was a goldsmith who owned a house in the old town.'
Seeing that strangers had come into the market, several of the more idle traders gathered around to see if we might require anything they could supply.
'Oh, no,' said the man, 'I fear you were told a lie. He owns no house, but sleeps aboard his ship. Look for the biggest ship in the harbour. That is Yordanus' ship.'
'What are you telling these men, Adonis? The man you are talking about died last winter.'
'Impossible!' cried the brass merchant. 'I saw him only two days ago down at the harbour.'
'You saw a ghost perhaps,' said a second man, a potter with large, bare hairy arms covered in dried clay. 'The ships are for sale. Do you wish to buy a ship?' he asked hopefully.
'Not just now,' Padraig said. 'Later, perhaps.'
'Yordanus Hippolytus did you say?' inquired another man, pushing in. His hands were red from the dye he used to stain the leather from which he made sandals and belts. 'I know this man. But he was never a ship owner. He came from Damascus where he grew figs.'
'A fig grower from Damascus?' said the first man. 'There is no such person in all of Famagusta!'
'There is,' replied the sandal maker with admirable confidence. 'He has a daughter who buys in the market. I sold her a pair of sandals once and she said they were the best she had ever seen -better even than Damascus. Perhaps when you are finished here,' he offered helpfully, 'you would like to buy some sandals. Or a belt, maybe.'