All that can be said of the voyage is that it was short and blessedly uneventful. We reached the deep-water harbour on the eastern edge of Cyprus on the evening of the second day, and set to work seeking out the fellow named Yordanus. There was little harm in doing so, I thought. If, for some reason, we disliked the man, or determined that making his acquaintance would be of little value to us, we would simply move on and make our way to Anazarbus by ourselves.

That evening, as the moon rose over the quiet harbour, nothing could have been more simple and straightforward. But, as I was learning, nothing was ever simple and straightforward in Outremer. Our search quickly ran aground on the fact that, as night closed in, no one would speak to strangers in the street. In the end, we were forced to take a room from a local wool merchant who put out part of his large house to visitors for a small fee, for which he also provided an excellent meal. We ate heartily, and slept well in soft beds piled deep with fleeces, and rose early next morning to renew our search for Yordanus-with an ever-increasing sense of urgency. For, every day we spent dallying along the trail, Bohemond was that much closer to launching his attack on Anazarbus.

Before leaving the wool merchant's house, we asked if he knew where we might find this Yordanus Hippolytus. Our good-natured host had heard of the fellow. 'Oh, yes,' he assured us. 'He lives in the upper town-the old town. He is a goldsmith-fine man, a very saint, and given to many good works-if he is the man I am thinking of.'

'The man you are thinking of,' said the wool merchant's wife, 'does not live in the old town. He lives in the big house at the end of the road behind the hill.'

The sunny merchant's face clouded. 'How do you know who I am thinking of?' he demanded. 'Be quiet, woman, you will confuse these good men.'

'No more than you have confused them already,' she replied tartly. 'Take my advice and ask someone to show you the way to the house behind the hill.'

'The old town,' the wool man assured us. 'Pay no attention to my wife. She is obviously thinking of someone else.'

Armed with this conflicting information, we began our search in the old town as the merchant suggested. For the price of a seed cake, we hired a young boy at the harbour to show us the way to the old town. He led us to the central market square where many of the artisans and traders had stalls from which they sold their wares. They spoke Greek in Famagusta and, since Padraig's Greek was better than mine, he undertook to find out if anyone knew the man we sought.

'Oh, yes,' said a maker of brass bowls, 'he is well known. He owns many ships. If you wish to find him, you must look down by the harbour, for he is always there tending his fleet.'

'I thank you,' said Padraig, 'but we were given to understand that he was a goldsmith who owned a house in the old town.'

Seeing that strangers had come into the market, several of the more idle traders gathered around to see if we might require anything they could supply.

'Oh, no,' said the man, 'I fear you were told a lie. He owns no house, but sleeps aboard his ship. Look for the biggest ship in the harbour. That is Yordanus' ship.'

'What are you telling these men, Adonis? The man you are talking about died last winter.'

'Impossible!' cried the brass merchant. 'I saw him only two days ago down at the harbour.'

'You saw a ghost perhaps,' said a second man, a potter with large, bare hairy arms covered in dried clay. 'The ships are for sale. Do you wish to buy a ship?' he asked hopefully.

'Not just now,' Padraig said. 'Later, perhaps.'

'Yordanus Hippolytus did you say?' inquired another man, pushing in. His hands were red from the dye he used to stain the leather from which he made sandals and belts. 'I know this man. But he was never a ship owner. He came from Damascus where he grew figs.'

'A fig grower from Damascus?' said the first man. 'There is no such person in all of Famagusta!'

'There is,' replied the sandal maker with admirable confidence. 'He has a daughter who buys in the market. I sold her a pair of sandals once and she said they were the best she had ever seen -better even than Damascus. Perhaps when you are finished here,' he offered helpfully, 'you would like to buy some sandals. Or a belt, maybe.'

'By the beard of Saint Peter!' sighed the potter. 'These men are looking for their friend. They do not want your sandals.'

'I make very good sandals,' insisted the craftsman. 'And belts as well. You should come and see them.'

'Look here, my friend,' said another, 'there is no goldsmith by the name of Yordanus-or a ship owner, either. I have been selling for twenty-three years in this market and I know everyone. There is no one by that name.'

The market traders fell to arguing with one another over the particularities of the man's identity. Turning to us, Padraig said, 'I am thinking the wool merchant's wife was right. Perhaps we should try to find the house behind the hill."

Again, what should have been a simple task took on unimagined difficulties. No one we asked could tell us where this house might be. As one of our cheerful guides told us, 'The problem is not so much the house, as the hill. There are a great many hills in Cyprus, and most have houses.'

Roupen lost heart and was for returning to the harbour, hiring a boat, and leaving Famagusta behind forever. But, having come this far, and with the day already speeding from us, I was growing more determined than ever to find this Yordanus Hippolytus. Padraig agreed with me. 'If we do not find him today,' I promised Roupen, 'we will be on our way again tomorrow.' So, we tramped around the hills above the port, trying first one house and then another, and came at last to a fine old Roman villa surrounded by a crumbling wall.

In the road ahead I saw a woman carrying a jar in her arms. She turned aside and entered through a low door in the wall. It was hot and we were tired. Thinking merely to ask her for a drink-or at least for directions to a nearby well, I quickened my step and followed her through the doorway and immediately found myself standing in the shaded courtyard of a once-handsome villa. There were large, leafy plants in great earthenware pots around the perimeter of the yard, and a small, finely-formed fig tree growing in the centre beside a rock-rimmed pool. Instantly, the blazing heat of the day vanished, and I felt as if I had entered a haven of peace and calm.

Padraig and Roupen appeared in the doorway behind me, and stepped cautiously into the yard.

'So!' came a voice from the shadows, 'I was right. You were following me.'

I turned to see the woman watching us from behind one of the plants, the jar still in her arms.

'Your pardon, good lady,' I said quickly, hoping to reassure her. 'It was never my intention to alarm you.'

'It would take more than the sight of a ragged traveller to alarm me,' she replied, stepping boldly into the courtyard. Tall and willowy, with long dark hair, her simple blue mantle hung in fresh folds, except where she cradled the jar against the fullness of her breasts and the long curve of her hip. 'What do you want here?' she demanded. She spoke Latin, not Greek, but curiously accented, each word taking on a flattened quality.

'Please, we do not mean to intrude -'

'And yet you do intrude.' Her gaze was direct and unsettling.

'Again, I beg your pardon,' I replied, somewhat abashed. I had hardly spoken a dozen words and already I had apologized twice. I returned her gaze, almost daring her to interrupt again before I finished. 'We are looking for the house of a man called Yordanus.'

'Why?'

'We have business with him.'

'Liar!' she said. 'He does not know you.'

'My lady?'

'Be gone with you at once-before I call the servants to send you away.'