Dearest Mother,

I fondly remember the long evenings we spent discussing the pilgrimage you took to the Basilica of Saint Justine the Optimist, leaving me for six months in the care of your maid and groom. Imagine my delight, many years later, to find myself retracing your steps, and accompanying no less a personage than that celebrated theologist and philanthropist, Bishop Apollonia of Acci!

I confess the great figures I have recently encountered have not always measured up to their reputations, but I feel sure even you would admire Her Excellency. She strikes me as the very model of a servant of the Almighty, not only eloquently preaching, but stoically practising all Twelve Virtues and – dare I say – many more besides. On several occasions now she has asked me to contribute to her thrice-daily improving lectures, delivered from the remarkable innovation of a portable pulpit – what a time to be alive!

I pray to the Saviour and our own Saint Beatrix for the strength to follow the bishop’s example, and fear I may need it in the days to come, for we have now reached Venice and

Brother Diaz paused, pen hovering over paper, and looked towards the city.

The river flared out across the plain, splitting into a hundred channels, flowing sluggishly about a thousand islands, all encrusted with red roofs, stitched together by bridges of stately stone and ramshackle wood. He could just make out the crooked twigs of wharves at the swarming docks, the shifting forest made by the masts of moored ships, the pinprick spires of the many churches, the white spike of the Campanile of Saint Michael’s. He could hear the city’s voice, when the salty wind shifted. A distant hum of commerce and industry over the outraged squawking of the gulls.

Boats plied the wide lagoon. Distant specks, leaving streaks of wake on the blue water, under the blue sky. He wondered what passengers they were carrying to what ports. Not princesses to Troy in the company of monsters, that was sure. He issued a long-suffering sigh. In through the nose, and out through the mouth. The way his mother taught him.

‘That’s Venice, then?’

Princess Alexia stood above him, at the top of the rise, hands on her hips, unremarkably coloured hair flicking about her pilgrim’s hood in the breeze.

‘Unless we’ve lost our way entirely,’ he said, reflecting that he’d lost his way entirely.

‘Pretty.’

‘Surprisingly so, given her ill reputation.’

‘Guess things aren’t always what they seem.’

‘I’m beginning to realise that.’

‘Who’s the letter to?’

Brother Diaz wondered about lying but he’d never been any good at it. Even in his misspent youth, when he’d been called on to do it all too often. ‘My mother. I confess I haven’t shared all the details.’

‘Doubt you’d be believed. Doubt anyone I know would believe it.’ And she snorted in a thoroughly unregal manner. ‘Princess Alexia.’

‘You should write and give them the news.’

‘No one wants to hear from me. Even if they could read. Even if I could write.’

‘You never learned?’

‘Who’d teach me?’

‘I could.’ They blinked at each other, equally surprised by the offer. ‘I am – I was – a librarian, after all, and someone who is to be … with any luck … Empress of Troy should, probably, know her letters?’

She frowned at him with her customary suspicion.

‘I’m here, you’re here.’ He glanced towards the track, where the candleholders that topped the portable pulpit were only now wobbling into view. ‘We have some time before the Blessed Company catches up. Why don’t we make use of it?’

With the watchful reluctance of a mouse approaching a trap, Alex perched on the rock beside him. He slid a sheet of paper from his satchel and handed her the pen.

‘Hold it loosely, resting on the middle finger, like so. Exactly. Now dip it in the ink, not too deep, good. Make a line at an angle, yes, then another, so they meet, like a mountain, don’t worry, everyone spatters at first, now a third line joining the two, halfway up, straight across, like that, and … there! You have formed the letter “A.” The first letter of your name. Alex.’

She looked at him, then at the paper, then snorted up a surprisingly girlish little giggle. ‘Easy as that?’

‘It isn’t magic.’

‘Feels like magic.’ She dipped pen in ink and tried again, tongue-tip pressed between her teeth with concentration, and Brother Diaz smiled. She looked very young, suddenly, and very much in need of guidance, and he felt oddly pleased to be able to give it. He wondered when he last felt truly useful. He wondered if he ever had.

‘You couldn’t keep your legs closed for one day?’

There was no mistaking the most gravelly voice in all creation. Jakob of Thorn was limping over with Vigga and Balthazar, a peculiar trio of pilgrims indeed.

‘I could not,’ answered Vigga, proudly. ‘When the mood’s on me they spring apart. I’ve got desires and refuse to be shamed.’

Brother Diaz shifted uncomfortably. God help him, he’d got desires, too. Desires he had fondly imagined smothered in the tomb-like atmosphere of the monastery, but which turned out merely to have been throttled unconscious and were now starting to awaken, sharper than ever after their long torpor. Only last night he’d dreamed of something powerful and tattooed and woken with a raging stiffness of the member.

‘One could more easily shame a gatepost,’ Balthazar was saying. ‘Venice?’

‘Venice.’ Alex handed Brother Diaz back the pen. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Our werewolf has been …’ Balthazar lifted the holy circefix Brother Diaz wore around his neck, and poked two fingers through it in a gesture more eloquent than any words. ‘Doing what werewolves do.’

‘Again?’ asked Brother Diaz, snatching it back, clearly outraged, and absolutely neither jealous nor aroused.

‘This …’ Jakob rubbed wearily at the crooked bridge of his nose, ‘person you—’

‘People.’ Vigga jerked her head down the track. ‘From the back. Lot more fun than these fools at the front.’

‘Venice?’ asked Baptiste, strolling up. She had the sleeves of her pilgrim’s habit carelessly rolled to display a selection of dangling bracelets. Brother Diaz suspected she’d won them gambling, but wouldn’t have been shocked had theft or murder played a role.

‘Venice.’ Alex proudly held up the paper. ‘I wrote an “A.”’

‘And it’s a beauty. What’s Vigga done?’

‘What Vigga does.’

‘Again?’ asked Baptiste, sounding impressed.

‘These people saw …’ Jakob waved a hand at Vigga, whose pilgrim’s habit was far from fully fastened, displaying rune-covered collarbones and no small quantity of rune-covered chest into the bargain, ‘all this?’

‘It wasn’t dark,’ growled Vigga, ‘and all this makes an impression.’ It was certainly making an impression on Brother Diaz’s restless member, he was obliged to shift his satchel into his lap and avert his eyes lest it be noticed. Sadly, however, one cannot avert one’s ears. ‘Let me tell you the story—’

‘Should Alex hear the story?’ he asked, somewhat shrilly, though in truth he was more worried about the danger to his own immortal soul.

‘How can one choose a life of virtue,’ asked Baptiste, piously clasping her hands, ‘without understanding the alternative?’

‘I grew up on the streets,’ said Alex, waving him away. ‘This won’t shock me.’

Vigga cracked her tattooed knuckles. ‘Don’t fucking count on it. So the tall one caught my eye first but I got a feeling about the short one …’

‘Morning, Brother Lopez!’

‘Your Excellency!’ Brother Diaz jumped up, deeply grateful for the distraction, though he suspected his imagination would be filling in the details for the rest of the day regardless.

‘Pray dispense with the honorifics.’ Bishop Apollonia flashed that humble smile Brother Diaz had determined to practise the moment he had access to a mirror. ‘They feel inappropriate at the cathedral in Acci, doubly so out here, where we are all siblings in faith, striving to save our souls.’

‘Fine words!’ Brother Diaz drew the bishop away, fumbling his writing things back into his satchel and laughing awkwardly in a futile attempt to drown out Vigga’s rapidly progressing tale of sexual conquest. ‘As yours always are.’

‘I could say the same of yours, my son.’ The bishop headed for the portable pulpit, which her guards were in the process of unhitching so the horses could graze beside the track. ‘I hoped you might help me lead our Blessed Company in midday prayers again? I had in mind the Saviour’s exhortation on the Twelve Virtues.’

‘I only wish I could, today and every day, but it pains me to say I and my companions must leave the Blessed Company here.’ To step from the path to redemption and skulk off with the devils towards who knew what depths of depravity. ‘Important … indeed vital business calls us away.’

‘Try as we might, duty will find us out. You leave with my blessing.’ The bishop had an almost apologetic quirk to her brows. ‘All of you but one.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The Princess Alexia Pyrogennetos must come with me.’

Brother Diaz actually felt the colour drain from his face as he glanced towards Alex, who chose that unfortunate moment to give a splutter of high-pitched laughter. At least any stiffening of the member was swiftly put to rest. ‘I … but … don’t … isn’t … Princess?’

The bishop sighed. ‘Must we?’ Brother Diaz realised her six well-armed guards were all close by. Closing in, one might almost have said.

‘Your Excellency—’

‘Plain Bishop Apollonia, please.’

‘I beg you,’ and Brother Diaz held up a calming hand as he backed towards the others. That same calming hand which had so utterly failed to prevent a massacre at the inn. ‘In the name of the Saviour, can we not avoid violence?’

‘I am giving you the chance to do exactly that, Brother Lopez,’ said the bishop mildly, ‘or should I say Diaz.’

‘Oh God,’ he murmured. He was starting to think he might not be the best judge of character.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Jakob, frowning over.

‘Bishop Apollonia … would like Alex … to stay with her.’

There was a pregnant silence. Vigga straightened, eyes narrowing. Alex paled, eyes widening. Most people would have perceived no change in Jakob of Thorn’s flinty features, but having known the man for several of the least pleasant weeks of his life, Brother Diaz was sensitive to the tiny adjustments in his frown that bespoke deep displeasure.

‘That will not be happening.’ And he eased back his habit to reveal the battered pommel of his sword.

‘I fear I must insist,’ said the bishop, and her guards lowered spears, put gauntleted hands on hilts, in one case levelled a wicked-looking crossbow. Most likely no crossbows look nice when they’re pointed right at you.

‘Please …’ Brother Diaz tried raising the other hand, as if his own empty palms might somehow prevent everyone else from filling theirs with ironware. ‘My companions are very dangerous people.’

‘I have some dangerous people of my own,’ said Bishop Apollonia.

Perhaps a dozen denizens of the rear section of their company were closing in from the other direction, as slouched and ragged as the bishop’s men were polished and upright. Among them were the moneylender, three pimps, and a fellow with a big facial boil who earned a living chopping wood for the evening fires. At the fore were two of the moneylender’s thugs, one very tall and the other exceedingly short.

‘Ah!’ Vigga grinned over at them. ‘Back for seconds?’

‘I reckon it’s a different kind of rough and tumble they’ve come for,’ said Baptiste.

‘You should know that a very great reward has been offered,’ said Her Excellency. ‘By Duke Constans of Troy.’

‘One of my fucking cousins,’ muttered Alex, peering out from behind Vigga’s arm.

‘Money?’ Brother Diaz could only stare at the bishop. A woman who, until a few moments before, he had thought destined for future sainthood. ‘Where is your faith?’

‘Gold might not follow one to heaven,’ and Bishop Apollonia nodded to the rogues spreading out around them, ‘but it can make a very great difference to these gentlemen while yet on earth. My own motives are not so base, of course. Duke Constans has promised me relics of the highest order, currently held in the Basilica of the Angelic Visitation in Troy. A fragment from the wheel on which our Saviour died. A scrap from her robe and a lock of her hair.’ She put a hand to the holy circle on her breast, looking to heaven with pious self-satisfaction. ‘Relics that will bring glory to our beloved Church.’

‘Not to mention their custodian,’ breathed Brother Diaz. ‘That might see her to a cardinal’s chair, perhaps? Or can it be that your ambitions reach higher yet?’

Bishop Apollonia did not even have the decency to look guilty. ‘Setting our corrupted Church back on the righteous path is worth any sacrifice.’ She turned her scorn on Alex. ‘And do you really believe you can install this ferrety creature on the Throne of the East?’

‘Ferrety?’ snapped Alex.

‘Hand her over now and you can all just … go home.’

Brother Diaz stood with his mouth open. To just … go home. Ever since leaving the Holy City that was everything he had wanted. Perhaps it was because he wanted so much to accept it that the offer made him so utterly furious.

‘And to think,’ he breathed, ‘I saw in you the model of what a priest should be. I praised you in a letter. To my mother! What a fraud you prove to be! What a penny hypocrite! Rather than prating from your moving pulpit in the vanguard of our sacred company you should’ve been bringing up the rear with the rest of the whores!’

‘Ouch,’ said Vigga with a snort.

‘We have been entrusted with a sacred mission by Her Holiness—’

‘Her Holiness?’ Bishop Apollonia’s lip curled. ‘Cardinal Bock has stuffed an infant into the Throne of Saint Simon! Your ilk have made of our Holy Church a laughing stock and of the Celestial Palace a shameful sty! Better to have a piglet for a Pope—’

‘How dare you!’ bellowed Brother Diaz. ‘Her Holiness may be …’

‘Inexperienced?’ offered Baptiste.

‘… but she is the Mother of the Church!’ An odd phrase applied to a ten-year-old, but the thought only threw fuel on the fire of his righteous fury. ‘She doesn’t suit you? The arrogance. The insolence. The self-serving hubris! Bishop, cardinal, or King of fucking Araby, you don’t get to choose a Pope.’ He stabbed at the sky with a finger. ‘That choice is for God!’

‘Think Brother Diaz found his balls,’ murmured Vigga.

‘The thing about God, my son,’ sneered Bishop Apollonia, ‘is that he often needs a nudge in the right direction. Brothers and Sisters!’ she called, turning towards the track.

Caught up in his sermonising, Brother Diaz had failed to notice that many of the richer members of the fellowship had reached them and were drifting over to see what the shouting was about.

‘There are monsters among us!’ The bishop’s voice rang out as clearly as the bell for midday prayers, her accusing finger outstretched. Brother Diaz was not the only one who could work himself up into a righteous fury, it seemed. In fact, he was nowhere near the best at it. ‘Heretics and heathens, recreants and recusants!’

‘She’s not exactly wrong,’ murmured Baptiste, sliding one hand into her habit and the other behind her back.

One of the portrait carriers set down his painting and produced a stick. It was a large stick, with a distinct knobble on the end.

‘We’re … very fine people!’ ventured Brother Diaz, but as he looked across the scarred, tattooed, and ferrety faces of his companions his conviction ebbed away like holy water from a broken font. ‘The best people …’

More of the company was filtering up to join what was steadily taking on the character of a mob, pressing in on three sides, grumbling and jostling. Brother Diaz saw an old woman he’d been cheerfully discussing footwear with that morning pick up a rock.

‘Here’s a pickle,’ muttered Jakob.

The Chapel of the Holy Expediency had formed a little knot, facing outwards, with Princess Alexia at the centre. Balthazar and Baptiste were pressed shoulder to shoulder which, given how much they despised each other, didn’t seem a good sign.

‘They are malefactors and fugitives!’ called Her Excellency, and the crowd edged in. ‘It is every pilgrim’s duty to bring them to the righteous justice of our Mother Church!’

‘Take another step and I will make ashes of you!’ And Balthazar whipped something from his habit.

‘Ugh!’ Brother Diaz took a horrified step away, realised that took him towards the bishop’s guards and was obliged to step the other way, realised that took him almost into Vigga’s arms and was obliged to sidle awkwardly around her. Balthazar had produced what appeared to be a severed hand, the skin mottled and the nails black.

‘Where’d you get that?’ asked Vigga, no more than curious.

‘From a sorceress who no longer needed it.’ Balthazar waved it towards the pilgrims like a torch at wolves and it jerked horribly into life, fingers wriggling.

‘Ugh!’ said Brother Diaz and Alex at the same time, shrinking back against each other. A little flame puffed from the blackened fingertips and there was a strong odour of sulphur.

‘Sweet Saviour,’ whispered one of the pilgrims, making the sign of the circle over her heart. ‘He’s a sorcerer!’ A round of gasps, curses, angry jeers.

‘Magician, God damn it!’ snarled Balthazar.

Vigga had begun to growl in the back of her throat as poorer pilgrims shuffled up to join the rest, first curious, then furious, the anger spreading from the bishop like a plague.

‘Witness!’ she thundered. ‘Do you need any further proof of the debasement of our holy Church? Cardinal Bock has lain down with monsters!’

‘You want monsters?’ Vigga ripped her habit off and flung it aside, crouching in her vest with her fists clenched and muscle popping from her tattooed arms. ‘I’ll show you monsters.’

‘Take the girl alive but – urgh!’ The bishop’s head was wrenched back by the hair and Sunny stepped from nowhere, pressing the curved blade of a dagger into her throat.

There was a moment of breathless silence, the pulse thudding almost painfully hard in Brother Diaz’s head, the air heavy with the promise of violence.

‘What’s your plan here, Sunny?’ murmured Jakob.

‘Hadn’t got to that,’ she murmured back.

‘An elf!’ someone screamed. ‘A fucking elf!’

‘Drop the knife!’ squawked the chief of Her Excellency’s guards, waving his crossbow around in a frankly dangerous manner.

Baptiste’s eyes darted from one of the thugs to another as they closed in, her hands sliding from her habit with the telltale gleam of steel.

‘Kill it!’ screeched one of the pilgrims, pointing at Sunny.

‘Wait!’ gasped the bishop as Sunny’s knife pressed into her throat. ‘Wait!’

A mild-mannered shoemaker who’d been hoping for a cure for his piles prepared to use a holy circle on a pole as a bludgeon.

‘Oh God,’ whispered Alex, clutching tight to Brother Diaz’s sleeve.

‘Oh God,’ whispered Brother Diaz, clutching tight to hers.

The pimps, the guards, the pilgrims all edged forwards. Jakob eased an inch of steel from his scabbard.

‘Who’s got the good meat …’ hissed Vigga, drool spilling from her lips as they twisted back from lengthening fangs.

Brother Diaz shut his eyes and turned his face away—

‘Your attention, please, everyone!’

He looked around. He couldn’t help it. The prayers died on his lips and his mouth dropped foolishly open.

A figure stood in the portable pulpit, hands gripping the lectern. A handsome man in his late fifties. A man of astonishing dignity and presence. A man from whom no one could for a moment tear their wondering eyes away.

‘My name is Baron Rikard,’ he said, placing a humble palm on his breast. ‘I have been with you on the road since we gathered near Spoleto.’

‘He has!’ gasped one of the pimps, and a hatchet dropped from his limp hand as he raised it to point. ‘I recognise him!’

‘I was not born a nobleman.’ Rikard’s voice overflowed with quiet authority and rich compassion. ‘The position was in some ways thrust upon me. By my wife, Lucrezia. A woman it was … very hard to say no to.’

‘What’s he doing?’ muttered Alex.

‘Hush!’ snapped Brother Diaz. He couldn’t afford to miss a breath of this. He knew these were the most important words he would ever hear. The pilgrims had turned as one, attending more closely than they ever had to the bishop’s sermons.

‘When she first brought me to Krosno I was … so naïve. Frankly, I was no better than a pretty idiot. Perhaps I am unfair. A very pretty idiot. I think it was late spring, maybe early summer …’ The baron frowned, scratching his neck. ‘No! Mid-spring, definitely, I remember the trees were coming into leaf …’

‘My God,’ breathed Brother Diaz. The revelation burst upon him, a mind-expanding epiphany. If the trees had been coming into leaf … that would have been mid-spring!

Bishop Apollonia was similarly moved. ‘Trees … in leaf.’ Tears ran freely down her cheeks. Sunny took the blade from her throat and stepped back. No one even seemed to notice, so transported were they by the oration. One of the portraits fell from nerveless fingers and splashed into a puddle.

‘… though a lot of evergreens, also, in that part of Poland, of course, sometimes referred to as the garden of Eastern Europe. Perhaps you would like to put down your weapons while I talk?’

There was a clattering as guards, thugs, and pilgrims instantly divested themselves of swords, spears, axes, and knives. One pimp hopped around as he struggled to tug a dagger from his boot. People began to fall to their knees as the baron’s awe-inspiring address continued.

‘Lucrezia’s castle was a bit of a pile if I’m honest. Been in the family for generations – that wallpaper in the dining room, ugh – and I was set on bringing the place up to scratch. Bit of plastering, new paint, the roofs were in need of attention but there’s a certain kind of slate they use that had to be shipped in. Then there was a whole to-do over a new chandelier, the people there were exceptionally set in their ways …’

Someone was pulling at Brother Diaz’s shoulder hissing, ‘Let’s go,’ in a gravelly voice, but he tore free. He understood now how it must have felt to hear the Saviour speak. Baron Rikard was close to touching the very secret of existence. Everyone there knew it. One woman – a coal merchant from Grosseto – was making a whimper of almost sexual ecstasy with every breath.

‘… my favourite food had been a stew of beans and sausage my father made with goose fat, but it soon became the dumplings local to my wife’s estates.’ The baron’s eyes were fixed on the far horizon. Fixed beyond the banal and everyday, fixed upon a divine revelation he was somehow moulding into earthly words. ‘Pork, I believe. Done with a little oil … some onion … those were the days.’ He gave a sad smile that cut right to the heart and left Brother Diaz breathless. ‘When I still chewed things.’

‘Merciful heaven, it’s true,’ whispered the moneylender, hands clasped.

‘It is the truth.’ One of the pimps had wet himself, standing transfixed while a dark stain spread across the front of his trousers. ‘The only truth.’

Brother Diaz understood. What did it matter? What did anything matter, but to hear Baron Rikard’s next words?

‘So, everyone, if I have your absolute attention …’ The vampire scanned the gathering to make sure all eyes were turned towards him, and they were, unerringly, in awestruck reverence. ‘And I believe I do … coming to my point.’ His beard had turned white, and his hair had turned white, and his face looked very lined, but those eyes … it was as if he stared directly into Brother Diaz’s soul. There was utter silence. Even the birds and the insects were still. ‘You will continue to Cyprus, forgetting this speech, forgetting me, definitely forgetting the elf and any suggestion of sorcery, forgetting that any person such as I or my associates or anyone faintly resembling a princess, even a ferrety one, were ever members of your Blessed Company. Yes?’

There was a kind of wave through what had recently been a bloodthirsty mob as every person eagerly nodded their heads.

‘Yes,’ gasped the coal merchant, eyelids fluttering. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes …’

‘I wish you joy of the journey,’ said the baron. ‘May you all find what you are looking for.’ He turned away, then turned back. ‘Apart from you, Bishop Apollonia.’

‘Me?’ asked the bishop, tears still streaming down her face.

‘You will experience a frustrating itch that you cannot quite reach, all the way to Cyprus and back.’

‘I will,’ said the bishop, and she dropped on her knees in the mud and raised her hands joyously to the heavens. ‘God love me, I will!’

‘Thank you, everyone.’ And the baron clambered down – a difficult undertaking at his advanced age, knotted knuckles wobbling on the handle of his cane.

And so they left the Blessed Company behind, most of them still staring at the empty pulpit, others gazing blankly about, still others wandering off, directionless. Brother Diaz allowed himself to be steered away, stumbling down the long slope towards Venice, into the dappled shade of the trees, most of his mind still lost in the sublime wonders of the baron’s address.

‘What was that?’ Alex was asking.

‘Glamour,’ said Baptiste through tight lips, glancing back up the slope with a dagger in one hand. ‘It’ll fade in an hour or two.’

‘Should’ve let me kill the bastards,’ said Vigga, kicking through the brush.

‘Not everything must be killed or fucked,’ observed Balthazar, tossing the severed hand away into the bushes and wiping his own on the front of his habit. ‘It was turning ripe anyway.’ And he shrugged the habit off and left it draped over a bush.

Brother Diaz had no time for such weightless distractions. ‘The most profound oration I have ever heard,’ he breathed. He was actually plucking at the vampire’s sleeve, so desperate was he to understand. ‘Could you tell me more, Baron Rikard, about those dumplings?’

‘Perhaps later.’ The aged vampire winced as he gently peeled Brother Diaz’s hand away. ‘I am feeling quite fatigued.’