I asked.
He was a tall, dark man, she explained among a mass of irrelevant detail, with a scar and an eye patch. ‘He was ever so polite. He knew your names and where you’d gone, and everything. I had no reason on earth to believe he could be a common thief.’
She fell into a chair, fanning herself with a battered ostrich feather. ‘Gretel! Gretel!’ she screamed. ‘Where are you? Where have you gone, you lazy good-for-nothing bitch?’
The little maid I’d earlier seen scrubbing the step came silently into the room. She was a stunner – and by the sideways look she threw me, I could see she thought the same of me. The moment I heard Maximin snoring across the corridor, I told myself, I’d have her. For a moment, I clean forgot the matter in hand.
‘Gretel, you little Lombard bitch, you hear me well. You don’t never let strangers into the house again. You hear me? You don’t let no one in. I say who comes and goes in this house, and don’t you forget – else I’ll sell you into the brothel God made you to furnish.’ She heaved herself up. ‘O fie, sirs! Just look at the refuse we have to buy nowadays. Even persons of quality – such as I myself – is hard put to find slaves what aren’t uppity. Shall I have her whipped for you?’
‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ said Maximin. He could have added it wasn’t Gretel in any event who’d let One-Eye into our rooms.
‘Where is the relic?’ I asked quietly.
With a look of concern, Maximin took me down to the stable beside the toilets. Except for the gold, he’d left his share of the loot in his saddlebag. There it still was. The groom told us One-Eye had been in, but had only time to check my bags before an Ethiopian diplomat had come in and started demanding who he was. He’d gone off pretty directly.
‘There was something furtive about him,’ the diplomat said to me. ‘I hadn’t seen him in the house before, and I didn’t think he was a new guest. If I’d thought he was trying to steal one of my horses, of course I’d have killed him on the spot. As it was, I challenged him, and he sloped off without saying anything.’
I’d met the diplomat earlier in the day. We’d bumped into each other as I was going in to try out the toilets. He’d smiled at me and bowed most politely as I’d passed him. Of medium height, very thin and black all over, he was the first person of his sort I’d ever seen. Assuming you, my Dear Reader, are English, I imagine you’ve never seen people like him. But I assure you, there are people who are black all over. They come from parts of the world where perpetual exposure to the sun causes the skin to blacken with permanent effect. And for some reason I can’t explain, their skin burns not only in the exposed areas.
For all his physical oddities, though, he spoke excellent Latin. I later found he also knew Greek and several Eastern languages beside his own. Now we lounged together just inside the stables, quietly comparing notes on the delights of Rome. He’d been here about a month longer, and had found his way round pretty well. We agreed I should let him take me soon on one of his ‘missions of pleasure’. From the way he grinned and rolled his eyes, these missions were rather less than spiritual.
Just as we were turning back to a discussion of what One-Eye might have been after, Maximin was calling me over.
‘God be praised,’ he said. ‘This Ethiopian has saved the Church from a second violation. But for him, the relic would surely have been stolen again.’
He showed us the leather bag into which the English mercenaries had stuffed things. It was undisturbed. Maximin explained to the diplomat about the relic and its significance. There followed an interminable flourish of crossings and mutual flattery.
‘So he followed us all the way back to Rome,’ I broke in, ‘to steal Saint Vexilla’s
He was a tall, dark man, she explained among a mass of irrelevant detail, with a scar and an eye patch. ‘He was ever so polite. He knew your names and where you’d gone, and everything. I had no reason on earth to believe he could be a common thief.’
She fell into a chair, fanning herself with a battered ostrich feather. ‘Gretel! Gretel!’ she screamed. ‘Where are you? Where have you gone, you lazy good-for-nothing bitch?’
The little maid I’d earlier seen scrubbing the step came silently into the room. She was a stunner – and by the sideways look she threw me, I could see she thought the same of me. The moment I heard Maximin snoring across the corridor, I told myself, I’d have her. For a moment, I clean forgot the matter in hand.
‘Gretel, you little Lombard bitch, you hear me well. You don’t never let strangers into the house again. You hear me? You don’t let no one in. I say who comes and goes in this house, and don’t you forget – else I’ll sell you into the brothel God made you to furnish.’ She heaved herself up. ‘O fie, sirs! Just look at the refuse we have to buy nowadays. Even persons of quality – such as I myself – is hard put to find slaves what aren’t uppity. Shall I have her whipped for you?’
‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ said Maximin. He could have added it wasn’t Gretel in any event who’d let One-Eye into our rooms.
‘Where is the relic?’ I asked quietly.
With a look of concern, Maximin took me down to the stable beside the toilets. Except for the gold, he’d left his share of the loot in his saddlebag. There it still was. The groom told us One-Eye had been in, but had only time to check my bags before an Ethiopian diplomat had come in and started demanding who he was. He’d gone off pretty directly.
‘There was something furtive about him,’ the diplomat said to me. ‘I hadn’t seen him in the house before, and I didn’t think he was a new guest. If I’d thought he was trying to steal one of my horses, of course I’d have killed him on the spot. As it was, I challenged him, and he sloped off without saying anything.’
I’d met the diplomat earlier in the day. We’d bumped into each other as I was going in to try out the toilets. He’d smiled at me and bowed most politely as I’d passed him. Of medium height, very thin and black all over, he was the first person of his sort I’d ever seen. Assuming you, my Dear Reader, are English, I imagine you’ve never seen people like him. But I assure you, there are people who are black all over. They come from parts of the world where perpetual exposure to the sun causes the skin to blacken with permanent effect. And for some reason I can’t explain, their skin burns not only in the exposed areas.
For all his physical oddities, though, he spoke excellent Latin. I later found he also knew Greek and several Eastern languages beside his own. Now we lounged together just inside the stables, quietly comparing notes on the delights of Rome. He’d been here about a month longer, and had found his way round pretty well. We agreed I should let him take me soon on one of his ‘missions of pleasure’. From the way he grinned and rolled his eyes, these missions were rather less than spiritual.
Just as we were turning back to a discussion of what One-Eye might have been after, Maximin was calling me over.
‘God be praised,’ he said. ‘This Ethiopian has saved the Church from a second violation. But for him, the relic would surely have been stolen again.’
He showed us the leather bag into which the English mercenaries had stuffed things. It was undisturbed. Maximin explained to the diplomat about the relic and its significance. There followed an interminable flourish of crossings and mutual flattery.
‘So he followed us all the way back to Rome,’ I broke in, ‘to steal Saint Vexilla’s
Similar Books
