5
ETIENE AND ITERIUS
There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.
II Corinthians 12:7
The morning had moved forward and the warmth was fast becoming heat on the backs and shoulders of the five men upon their horses as they travelled from the little bay towards the house at Famagusta.
Below eyes hooded from the harsh light, Iterius observed the seneschal, riding in front on his Spanish horse. The man was tall and edge-faced with eyes the colour of sky, framed by dark brows in a head that was well placed on broad shoulders uneven in height. The arms were long and ended in hands that expressed good breeding and the clear thoughts of the man who guided them.
The Alexandrian frowned, narrowing his eyes. It was hot. The sweat dripped along his brow under his hair and over his nose. He might not be handsome like his lord, Etienne, but he was quick-witted. Quick-witted men survived whilst handsome ones found themselves on pyres or at the end of swords.
The seneschal must have had an instinct, for he turned around and threw Iterius a suspicious eye. Iterius for his part smiled back and followed as they picked their way through the flat track bordered by a meagre scattering of dying olive trees. The beauty of an aquamarine ocean upon which the sun bent its rays winked at him but it was lost on the Alexandrian, who dragged a hand over his brow to hide from the sun. He did not like Cyprus. It was to his mind a place hot and damned.
He looked behind him to the biggest of the Normans, Gideon, who was singing low a song in his own vulgar language. A little ahead of the seneschal, the younger, whom they called Aubert, was sweating inside the sleeveless skin he wore for a shirt. Both men seemed of violent disposition with their twisted beards and jewellery made of bones and teeth. Iterius shuddered. He would have as little to do with them as he could. Well ahead of the group the tall dark-skinned Catalan, Delgado, rode elegantly, adjusting maggots on a wound upon his arm and riding as he did so, as if the horse were made of his own sinew and muscle. Next to him rode the beautiful Captain Jourdain, with his hair the colour of wheat and his long lashes, brown eyes and perfect mouth uttering verses from Plato or Aristotle. He felt desire rise up and he made it ebb away since he must contrive.
It was his guess that the Catalan was more dangerous than the Normans, in the same way that snakes are more dangerous than bulls. And Jourdain, while beautiful to behold and gentle of voice, had been known to cut the face of a Mameluk in two while reciting something poetic from Virgil. He grunted. From the air descended sweet scents and the promise of swollen fruits. It filled him with romantic notions and he gave a sigh and waited until he could wait no more.
‘That galley,’ he said to the trees and the heat, ‘it seemed weighed down at the finish of it, something heavy in those barrels . . . something very heavy.’
The seneschal stared ahead but his mount lagged behind until it was almost level with Iterius’s horse. ‘Did you not keep your eyes to the road then, Egyptian?’ he said to him.
The sergeant ignored this. ‘What could be so heavy, my lord? Not lead as ballast, surely? Not lead but –’
There was a sudden sharp movement to his right, a blur of images and Iterius felt himself upon the ground with his long face and nose smelling dust, and his limbs having fallen into a complicated tangle with a withering shrub. His head throbbed and from his right ear came the hot sensation of blood.
Beside that ear came the sound of Etienne’s voice. ‘You do not observe the rule!’ he whispered. ‘There are ears in the bushes and in the olive trees, ears even in the wind!’
Iterius gasped and swallowed dirt, something at his back and something else pinning down his arm. The voice came close to his ear again and made a heat in it. ‘Who sends you?’
The Egyptian now observed the plain fact that the voice would have an answer and that even in his state of discomfort he must do so or risk certain unpleasant consequences. ‘Who?’ he prevaricated.
‘Yes . . . by all means!’ the voice said.
‘Who has sent me?’ he said, emitting little gasps. ‘Yes . . . yes . . . I will tell.’ He opened one eye and saw a snake before his nose going about its business. Snakes made good poison, he thought; if only he had such a snake in his hand, one bite could put this nuisance from his back and this voice from his ear. The snake moved like a flash into the undergrowth and was gone. ‘I will tell, but ... Ah! I ... am ... short of ... breath . . .’
There was a sudden relief of pressure that seemed to him twofold: upon his back, what must have been a knee or an elbow was now released, and in front, upon the dry earth, where his fingers drew under his sergeant’s cloak to push up with his hands, there was a hot wetness – urine.