The Mosaic of Shadows by Tom Harper Page B

understood, but I think I have the bones of his story. He came here as a pilgrim some time ago; with his parents, I think, though they are dead now. After their death he survived in the slums by thieving and begging as he could. Then, a month back, a man found him and offered gold to accompany him. He was led to a meeting with a monk, who took him with four Bulgar mercenaries to a villa deep in the forest. For two weeks there the monk trained him in the use of the arbalest – as you have seen, it takes to men’s hands with miraculous ease. When they returned, he was told to climb atop a building on the Mesi and murder the Emperor as he passed. Yesterday he received a message that he should collect his payment by a certain fountain, but as he arrived he was attacked by a Bulgar and almost killed. There we found him.’
    ‘Why the boy? Why use him for this task when four stout mercenaries were at hand? Surely they would have been more suited to wielding this weapon?’
    I had pondered the same question through the afternoon. ‘There are places a boy can go unnoticed where full-grown men would be challenged. Many children played on the roof of the carver’s house – one other making his way there would have aroused no suspicion. And after the event, he would have been easier to be rid of.’
    Krysaphios seemed satisfied with my theory, though he said nothing. Instead, he raised a finger on his right hand and a slave appeared from behind a column.
    ‘Send word to the gaoler. Tell him to extract from the Bulgar prisoner everything he knows of the boy; also the location of this villa in the forest where he was trained. It may be that this foreign monk still has business there.’ The slave bowed low and ran off, and Krysaphios turned back to me. ‘Did the boy describe the monk?’
    ‘He said he had dark hair, like mine, but tonsured. His nose was crooked, as if he had once brawled, but the rest of his features were square and harsh. He said they spoke the same tongue. I did not press him more, for he was still weak from his wounds. I thought there would be time for that later.’
    ‘Less time than you think.’ Krysaphios folded his arms. ‘A great danger is approaching our city, Demetrios, and when it breaks over us we will need all our strength to defy it. If we do not find this monk within the fortnight, he may work a mischief that will ruin us all. The Emperor is the head atop the body of our nation, and if he is gone we are merely a carcass before carrion.’
    ‘What danger?’ Krysaphios had spoken almost as though the seven angels had sounded their trumpets, and the ten-horned beast was risen to engulf us. ‘Are the Normans coming again? I have not heard the armies assembled on the Hebdomon, nor seen the Emperor ride out to war. Surely if such a terrible danger was near, he would go to meet it, not invite it upon us?’
    ‘The nature of the threat, and how the Emperor forestalls it, are not your concern,’ said Krysaphios darkly. ‘You should address yourself to finding those who would kill him.’
    ‘I have.’ No eunuch was going to unsettle me with dire mutterings, and I have ever bridled at being told I am unworthy of knowing tantalising secrets. That, perhaps, is why I took up my profession. ‘I have found the boy who would have played the assassin, and the weapon he used in the attempt. By doing it so promptly, I have even saved your purse a little.’
    ‘My purse is deep enough. And do you really think you have succeeded, by finding a frightened boy and his barbarian plaything? What of the monk? Do you think this was a mere whim of his, and that having failed he will now trudge back to Frankia? He had money enough to buy four bodyguards, a villa and this marvellous weapon – did he collect that from alms-givers? And what would he profit from the death of the Emperor? Someone must have supplied him the money – someone who would gain much if the throne was empty. Someone who is unlikely to change