The Golden Horn Read Online Free Page B

been
seen to. Get in.”
    He looked down at the woman. She was small even for an easterner;
her head came barely to his shoulder. “I’ll walk,” he said.
    “You’ll do no such thing. Get in.”
    “But—”
    “Get in!”
    She was small, but she had a giant’s strength of will.
He smiled his wry smile, bowed and obeyed. She settled opposite him. With a
smooth concerted motion the bearers raised the litter to their shoulders and
paced forward. The escort fell into place about it with Sophia’s maid
trudging sullenly behind.
    The house of Bardas Akestas stood at the higher end of a narrow
twisting street in the shadow of the Church of the Apostles, a bleak forbidding
wall broken only by a grating or two and a gate of gilded iron. Even as the
bearers paused before it, the gate burst open, releasing a flood of people.
    There were, Alf realized afterward, less than half a dozen
in all: three children of various sizes and sexes, an elderly porter, and a
mountainous woman with a voice as deep as a man’s.
    They overwhelmed the arrivals with shouts and cries,
sweeping them into a sunlit courtyard. The light was dazzling after the high-walled
dimness of the street, the children’s joy dizzyingly loud. Alf made
himself invisible in his corner of the litter and waited for his head to stop
reeling.
    “Come now,” a new voice said over the uproar,
deep and quiet. “What is all this?”
    At once there was silence. The speaker came forward, a short
broad man in a grey gown. The servants stepped back; the children leaped to
attention. Sophia stepped from the litter, smoothed her skirts, and said, “Good
day, Bardas.”
    “Sophia.” He was as unruffled as she. “How
was your journey?”
    “Bearable,” she replied.
    The smaller of the two girl-children wriggled with
impatience. “Father,” she burst out at last. “Mother’s
home. Mother’s home! ”
    Sophia swayed under a new assault. Over the children’s
heads she smiled at her husband; he nodded back briskly, but there was a smile
in his eyes.
    The elder girl had greeted her mother with a warm embrace, but
dignity forbade her to join in the others’ exuberance. While Nikki clung
tightly to his mother’s skirts and Anna babbled whole months’ worth
of happenings in one breathless rush, she stood aloof, trying to imitate her
father’s lofty calm. Her eyes were taking it all in, litter, bearers, and
escort; the servants coming from everywhere to greet their mistress; plump
Katya the maid deep in colloquy with the towering nurse; and if that was not
she sitting in the litter, then—
    “Mother,” she said suddenly, “who is this?”
    Sophia nodded in response to Anna’s flood of news,
lifted Nikki in her arms, and turned toward the litter. Its occupant emerged
slowly and somewhat unsteadily: a tall thin figure in pilgrim’s dress,
with a terribly ravaged face and clear pale eyes gazing out of it. Irene forgot
her dignity and loosed a little shriek; Nikki hid his face in his mother’s
shoulder.
    “My guest,” said Sophia. “Alfred of Saint
Ruan’s in Anglia, who has come up from Jerusalem to see our City.”
    They all stared, save Bardas who bowed and said, “Be
welcome to House Akestas.”
    Alf returned the bow with grace and precision; straightened and
swayed. Several of the servants sprang to his aid. Gently but firmly they bore
him into the cool shade of the house.

4.
    Anna opened the door as quietly as she could and peered around
it. The room was dim and cool and smelled of the roses that grew up over the
window from the garden outside. There was no one there except the stranger in
the bed.
    He seemed to be asleep. She edged into the room, her bare feet
silent on the carpet that had come from Persia, and tiptoed to the bed. Her
heart was hammering. But curiosity was stronger than fear, even fear of her
father’s reprimand.
    She looked at the pilgrim’s face. It glistened with
the salve the servants had spread on it over a patchwork of purple and