Read Online The Mosaic of Shadows by Tom Harper - Free Book Online Page B

Varangians sat and diced. Even seated, they had to take care to keep their heads from cracking on the black lamps above them.
    Sigurd threw a handful of coins onto the table and looked up. ‘You’re here,’ he grunted. ‘Finished playing the Samaritan, have you?’
    ‘The boy’s with a doctor,’ I answered coolly. ‘Where’s the Bulgar?’
    Sigurd tossed his head towards a low archway behind him. ‘In there. Strung up by his arms. We haven’t touched him yet.’
    ‘You shouldn’t have waited for me. His knowledge may be urgent.’
    Sigurd’s face stiffened. ‘I thought the eunuch paid you by the day. Anyway, we didn’t wait for you – we waited for the interpreter. Unless, of course, you speak the Bulgars’ language?’
    I shrugged my surrender, though Sigurd had already turned back to his game. He did not invite me to join it, and after a moment of awkward pause I retreated out of the lamplight into a dim corner. There I kept silent, and tried not to hear the dismal sounds drifting into the guardroom.
    You could not measure time in that mournful place, but I must have spent almost an hour watching Sigurd’s humour rise and fall in balance with the number of coins in the pile before him. Then there came a sound from above, and I peered up the curling stair to see a constellation of tiny flames descending, dozens of lamps processing down like a swarm of fireflies. Slaves in silken robes held them aloft, unwavering despite the uneven ground beneath: they filed along the periphery of the vault until they were like an inner wall of shimmering silk and fire around us. At their tail came two who did not carry lamps, one in the crimson mantle of a priest; the other in a rich gown of blazing gold threads: Krysaphios.
    All the Varangians were on their feet, the silver and dice swept invisibly into their pouches.
    ‘My Lord,’ said Sigurd with a bow. He wore humility clumsily, I thought.
    ‘Captain,’ answered Krysaphios. ‘Where is the prisoner?’
    ‘In the next room. Contemplating his wickedness alone. We need an interpreter.’
    ‘Brother Gregorias has devoted his life to the Bulgar tongue.’ Krysaphios indicated the priest beside him. ‘He has transcribed the lives of no fewer than three hundred saints for their edification.’ That, I thought, should give him the requisite vocabulary of torment. ‘If your prisoner has anything to say, he will decipher it.’
    ‘The prisoner will talk,’ said Sigurd grimly. ‘Once I’m done with him.’
    We left the eunuch’s silent retinue in the main chamber, and stooping passed through a low tunnel into the adjoining cell. I followed Sigurd, Krysaphios and the priest Gregorias in. Here the air was closer and more unpleasant; but more uncomfortable still, I suspected, was the prisoner. His arms were hung on thick hooks above him in the ceiling, so that only his toes touched the floor: he swayed a little backwards and forwards, and moaned gently. His clothes had been torn away, leaving only a narrow strip of linen around his hips, and his wrists bled where the shackles bit into them so that he seemed to me uncannily like Christ in torment on his cross. I shivered, and banished that blasphemous thought immediately.
    ‘Demetrios.’ I saw Krysaphios staring at me. ‘You are the paid expert in these matters – find out what the man knows.’
    I was an expert in quizzing petty thieves and informers in the marketplace, not tearing out confessions in the imperial dungeons. But before my patron I could not be seen to falter. I stepped forward and immediately found that I did not know where to look, whether to the priest or the prisoner. My eyes darted dumbly from one to the other, and I could mask my confusion only by crossing my arms over my chest and taking deep, contemplative breaths.
    ‘A monk hired you from a man named Vassos,’ I began at last, addressing the wretched Bulgar. No sooner had I spoken, though, than my thought was disrupted by the quiet monotone