The Vault of Bones by Pip Vaughan-Hughes Page A

swept in a petulant fuss of purple silk.
    So it was out to another yard with us, where our escort - the same officer, but different men - waited with a pair of horses for us. Now here was mortification indeed, for I was forced to admit I had not ridden a horse since I was a lad, and then only Dartmoor ponies and mules. The soldiers exchanged looks of amused disbelief, and even the Captain permitted himself a little smile as he scribbled a message for Gilles on a hastily procured scrap of parchment, but at last a kindly guard took pity upon me and offered to lead my mount until I felt at ease on her back, and so we set off. It was strange to see the Captain swing himself up on to his horse as if he rode every day of his life, when in truth I had never, in two years, seen him mount so much as a dog-cart. I myself was very frightened, up there upon the back of my mare, but it was a fear based upon concrete circumstances - the danger of a broken limb or at least humiliation - and so allowed me to forget, for a few miles, what fate must have in store for us. And although I sat stiff with fear for a mile or so, after I saw that I was not to be thrown or devoured by the great creature I began to grow more confident, and after an hour I was trotting along unaided.
    Of the journey to Viterbo there is little to tell, save that it began to rain as we left the city and poured the rest of that day and the second too, and the sky was so low that the skirts of the clouds trailed upon the sodden ground. My world shrank to that portion of grey misery that was framed by the dripping window of my hood. We rode all day, and my arse, besieged by hard saddle and sodden britches, was chafed raw. That night we took our rest at Sutri, in a rich pilgrims' way station where our status as guests of His Holiness brought us abundant food and a comfortable bed, but we were not at ease, despite our escort's attempts to draw us out. For the Captain was polite but distant, and I was so caught between indignation and terror that I could muster up nothing but the sorriest parlour-talk.
    There were not sufficient beds, it being a busy time on the Pilgrims' Way, and so while the Captain was invited to bed down with the captain of our guards - Captain with captain: there would be a song about that, I vowed, should I ever make it back to the Cormaran - I had to make do with a straw pallet in the corridor, along with the other soldiers and a heap of pilgrims, all snoring, farting and reeking of wet clothes and feet. It was no worse than sleeping below decks on a ship, though, and once I had overcome my damp shivers and made myself a little warmth, it occurred to me that, if the pope intended us any harm, his men would hardly be allowing us this casual freedom on the way to his lair. So I did sleep, after a fashion, and awoke with a stiff neck and a sleeping pilgrim hugging my legs as if they were his wife.
    We set out again into the weather, and reached the town of Viterbo midway between lunch and dinner - or so we guessed, for we had seen neither glimpse nor glimmer of the sun's face the whole long, wet day. I was not cheered by the town, for it hid behind forbidding walls of some ominous grey stone, and the houses within those walls were all of a kind: grey and dour. There was no one about, and the rain poured from roofs and made brooks of the streets. Up these our party splashed, up to the walls of a building, half church, half fortress, that hunkered down amongst the grey houses like a defeated titan.
    'The palace of the pope!' exclaimed our officer, trying to sound haughty, no doubt, but merely seeming wet and out of sorts.
    'Mayhap they have lit a fire for us’ muttered the Captain, and seeing my expression, he added: 'Not that kind of fire, Petroc! We are safe, I promise.'
    The gates thudded wetly behind us. I looked around and saw a large open space that looked something like a builder's yard: some grand project had got under way, and blocks and carved