‘I swear it on my soul.’ The enormity of the pledge swallowed Haraldr, and he felt himself plunge towards a distant, unseen fate.
The Jarl paused, his grip slackened, and Haraldr thought he was gone. But his ghost-lips parted slightly and he continued. ‘Yes, I know you will keep your pledge; Odin is telling me that right now. But you’ll need wealth. You can get that from the Griks. And allies. Probably Yaroslav. With money he can be bought.’
The Jarl started to go off again, but his grip was suddenly fierce, as if all his life were now transferred to Haraldr’s touch. ‘Remember what you promised your brother on the last day of his life,’ he said raspily. ‘It is more important now than ever. You know about the bounty on your head, and how many Norsemen hope to win it. But you must also protect yourself against discovery by the Griks. They have a prophecy that a fair-haired race will destroy them, and they have good reason to fear that a Norse leader might assemble a great force against them. It has happened before. They will never allow a Norse king to come among them, much less serve their Emperor. And now you have men under your keeping. If you are careless with your name, you may condemn them as well. I die knowing that you are Haraldr Sigurdarson again, which is why you must be all the more vigilant in denying him.’
The Jarl seemed to collapse inwardly with the huge effort of his admonition. ‘I promise you, as I promised Olaf,’ murmured Haraldr.
Jarl Rognvald coughed blood. His last words were like leaves rattled by the barest summer breeze. ’Goodbye, my . . . son . . . I’ll see you next at the benches--’ Then his pale lips froze and the spirit visibly fled from his face.
When all human warmth had vanished from the Jarl’s body, Haraldr released him from his embrace and gently folded the lids shut over the old man’s empty eyes.
‘Hakon. Pah.’ Gleb spat angrily into the black water.
Haraldr stomped over to the pile of gear he had left on the deck. His sword was beside his old Slav breastplate. He strapped his sword belt on over Emma. ‘Get the dinghy ready,’ he snapped to a Rus oarsman.
‘No!’ Gleb shook his head. ‘We’ve still got three cataracts and the ford at Krarion ahead of us before we reach St Gregory’s Island. You might kill Hakon, but what about the five hundred with him? We all need to work together for now.’ Gleb spat and looked off into the night. ‘Then when we get to St Gregory’s Island we’ll think of some way to feed Hakon to the pelicans.’
After Gleb retired, Haraldr said he would take the early watch and he stood for a long time at the stern of the ship, looking down the faintly stirring, deceptively tranquil Dnieper, trying to make sense of a day in which he had freed his own lost soul and had lost the dearest soul left to him on earth. He sobbed quietly for a long while, but eventually his agony lightened with the thought of the Jarl already seated at the benches with Odin’s chosen champions, hoisting his mead horn with Olaf and Sigurd Syr. Now Haraldr would have to earn his seat alongside them in the Valhol. He had stood before the beast of his own spirit but he had not slain it. And now he would also have to slay the demon who stood before him in the flesh. Hakon.
Haraldr started. What was out there? Pechenegs? They would not go out on the water. He searched for the point where he had heard the faint inconsistency in the rippling of the river. Merely a fish?
A dinghy. Haraldr tightened his hand on the pommel of his sword.
The shape took on contrast against the black Dnieper. Two men, from the size of them Varangians. Haraldr slowly and soundlessly slipped his sword out of its greased scabbard. With his left hand he removed his dagger from his belt.
The dinghy impacted the river ship with a light thud.
‘Watch. You!’ came the urgent whisper from the water. ‘We want to see Jarl Rognvald and Haraldr Nordbrikt.’
‘What do you want with them?’ Better to let them guess about the Jarl’s fate. Bastards. Their treachery had been the deadly blade today, not the Pecheneg spear. Haraldr’s grip tightened on the steel that would mete his vengeance. He was not afraid. He would enjoy this.
There was a long pause. Haraldr heard whispering below. ‘With whom do we speak?’
‘A man trusted by Jarl Rognvald and Haraldr Nordbrikt as themselves.’
Another pause and a brief whispering. ‘You pledge it, Norseman?’
‘I pledge it on the soul of the Jarl.’ What ruse were they about?
The two Varangians engaged in a lengthy, hissing discussion. Finally Haraldr snapped, ‘Tell me your business. Except for the handful who fought with them today, Jarl Rognvald and Haraldr Nordbrikt have only cold breasts and colder steel for you Varangians.’
‘I’m one of the men who fought with them today. Ask them to come and see.’
Haraldr peered warily over the railing. A man was standing in the dinghy, face up. Kristr’s Mother! It was the fine-looking, laconic Varangian who had been with them in the river.
Haraldr was still uncertain. Hakon could easily be this clever, and a Varangian this treacherous. ‘I’m Haraldr Nordbrikt. If I’m wrong, excuse the indignity. Strip!’
The handsome man grumbled, but both men complied. There were no byrnnies hidden under their tunics. ‘Put them back on and climb aboard.’
With his sword Haraldr motioned the two to sit on the deck.
‘My name is Halldor Snorrason,’ began the handsome one. In his tunic he seemed even more powerful than he had in his byrnnie, but his features would have made a woman happy; he had a thin, graceful nose and the finest silken hair. ‘This is Ulfr Uspaksson.’ The smaller man nodded. He had a strong, blocky face with big, sensitive eyes. ‘We’re comrades from Iceland. From the same village.’
Haraldr nodded silently. Let them announce their intentions.
‘Where is Jarl Rognvald?’ asked Halldor.
Haraldr quickly decided that he needed a reaction, a gauge of Halldor’s sincerity. He watched his face carefully. ‘Jarl Rognvald is at the ale benches. In the Valhol.’
Halldor’s face registered nothing. Then he said, ‘That shames us. I, and the men with me who survived, owe our lives to the Jarl. And you.’ But Halldor’s voice was a dry drone, as if he were idly passing off some clever, ironic remark.
Haraldr stared coldly, and his grip welded his hand to his sword. Hakon could at least have sent an able performer.
Ulfr looked nervously at Haraldr and then at Halldor. ‘Halldor,’ he said, ‘I think you had better let me empty our breasts.’ Ulfr’s voice had the low-key resonance of the careful-tongued, sincere sort of skald. Haraldr guessed that he might be a fellow poet.
Ulfr turned anxiously to Haraldr. ‘Excuse my friend. His voice is like a road in Rus Land. Never up, never down, just straight on for ever. But as I’m sure you know, the melody of a man’s voice has little to do with the music in his breast.’
Halldor just shrugged at the comments. In spite of himself, Haraldr was charmed by the relationship between the two men. They weren’t lying when they said they were friends. He went off his guard a bit and wished that he had been able to enjoy companions his age these past years. But his only friend was an old man now lying under a canvas shroud.
‘What we would like to say,’ Ulfr went on, ‘is that we are all ashamed. Hakon easily could have saved your Jarl. And our own men. The Pecheneg helmet-hail did not pursue Hakon. He spent the afternoon executing prisoners, and with the exception of Halldor and those few who were with you, we Varangians spent the day kicking sand. Hakon never told us that there was any trouble up the beach. He deliberately let those men die. And we are ashamed to be pledged to such a man.’
‘Most of you seemed to enjoy your employment in Kiev,’ snapped Haraldr angrily. ‘But now that a few of you have been offered up to the gulls of fray, you come whining to me.’ His tone implied the obvious question. Why?
‘We’re not all loudmouths and strand-wanderers,’ answered Ulfr. ‘Why, you won’t find better men. Certainly they scorned you that night in Kiev, but I can assure you they laughed the way the rooster laughs when the axe is over its neck--’
‘Well, you did look foolish that night,’ interrupted Halldor. Ulfr shot him an uncomfortable glance. ‘But then’ - he shrugged - ‘the mead horn has cut down more men than the sword.’
Haraldr cocked his eyebrow. He liked this Halldor’s tart candour. If Hakon had been interested in concealing a treachery behind flattery, he wouldn’t have sent this one.
‘What we’re saying--’ began Ulfr.
‘What we’re saying is this,’ droned Halldor. ‘There’s not a man among us who enjoys the leadership of Hakon. He disgraced us all today, and believe me, none of us admire his oafish behaviour. We’re not simple bumpkins. But we are pledge-men and we made our oath to him, and that pledge is the single honour we must preserve. Otherwise we are not Varangians.’
Haraldr deliberately made no response. Halldor searched Haraldr’s face for a moment and then smiled. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘Hakon is an important man in Miklagardr. We don’t want to be known as the unit that mutinied against an officer of the court. The only honourable and acceptable way for us to eliminate Hakon would be for one of us to challenge him to an island-going.’ Halldor looked over at Ulfr. ‘But there isn’t a man among our five hundred who would return from such an excursion with his head still attached to his neck.’
‘So I shovel the Varangians’ dung heap,’ said Haraldr evenly. ‘A spade carved from green-wood.’
Halldor looked Haraldr right in the eyes. ‘Yes.’ Then he smiled at Haraldr’s barbed jest.
‘I would think the main requirement for fighting your Hakon would be feet swift in pursuit,’ said Haraldr.
Halldor fixed Haraldr with eyes as implacable as slate. ‘Hakon did not run with fear dribbling from his breeches. You know that. Ulfr says that after he deserted you today he deliberately let himself be surrounded, and then killed a dozen Pechenegs by ripping their windpipes out with his bare hands. I will be honest with you. I think you alone have a chance against him. But a very slender chance. Still, our honour commands us to risk a wager on your chance.’
Haraldr returned Halldor’s obdurate stare. ‘It seems as if
my
life is a small enough risk for you. What
do you
risk?’
Halldor paused, making sure of his next words. ‘If you challenge Hakon to single combat, Ulfr and I will stand as your seconds. If you lose, so will we, but in that way our deaths will ensure that the honour of our unit will remain unstained.’
Haraldr nodded. A few minutes ago he would have suspected that these men would second him with a dagger in his back. Now, almost instinctively, he believed he could trust them. They had just placed their lives in his hands.
‘And if I win?’
Halldor and Ulfr both grinned broadly. ‘If you win,’ said Halldor, ‘you take everything that is Hakon’s. His tunics, weapons, coins, treasures, slaves.’ Halldor’s laconic tone took on a droll hint. ‘His women too.’ Then he paused and his voice became grimly earnest. ‘And also the command of his five hundred Varangians.’
When Maria awoke, she smelled the sea. She had left the arcade of her summer bedchamber unshuttered, and the breeze, warmed by the morning sun, was already sultry. The light flooded the open balcony overlooking the silver-spangled water and blurred the white columns of the arcade into molten shafts. She turned away. Giorgios was looking at her, his fawnish eyes intent and adoring. Alexandros was still asleep.
She kissed Giorgios and pressed her body fully along his, revelling in his tension, his heat, and the steely erection against her thigh. When he tried to enter her, she pushed him away. ‘Don’t.’ Giorgios’s eyes were wounded; she had not allowed him to make love to her the previous night, though she had let his hands explore wherever he had wished.
Maria turned back into the morning’s flaring apocalypse, wrapped her hand around Alexandros’s priapic, dream-swollen shaft, and squeezed tightly. Alexandros’s eyes shot open. She mounted him swiftly and began a low, churning ride, her breasts swaying to the rhythm of her pleasure. She looked down at Giorgios and smiled.
Her paroxysm came even before Alexandros’s, and she quickly dismounted and walked naked out onto her balcony. Giorgios squinted and could no longer see her; it was as if she had been consumed by the white fire of the new day.
‘Yes,
silki.
I could well pay that toll. I could afford a hundred of you, in fact. Hakon is no mean diminisher of ice-of-arm.’ Hakon’s skald, Grettir, pointed to the silver arm bracelets that coiled up his left arm. The girl smiled. She was young, and her healthy white teeth sparkled against her thin flushed lips. ‘Of course,’ continued Grettir, resuming his caress of her fine blond hair, ‘I would first have to see if Freyja’s pleasure hut is as well thatched as this, and make sure that a good fire awaits me within.’ With oily stealth Grettir lowered his hand and stroked her linen-cloaked flank. ‘Well, there will be time for that after our Hakon finishes his woodcutting.’
He turned and gestured at the arena that had been prepared for the morning’s combat. A burlap cloth ten ells on a side had been spread over flat ground, surrounded on three sides by trenches and then a rope fence. Outside the rope, the enormous throng was already assembling; despite the carnage on the river, seven, perhaps even eight, thousand Rus had reached St Gregory’s Island. As Hakon had requested, Grettir had seen to it that the prettiest slaves were brought up closest to the rope. Hakon had mentioned something about wanting to see ‘their white skins speckled with raven’s-wine’.
No trench or rope ringed in the fourth side of the cloth. At the suggestion of Hakon - and strangely enough, the condition had been acceded to by that eagle-meat, Green-wood - the fourth border of the arena was a drop of one hundred ells off the sheer rock cliffs that thrust the island up from the Dnieper.
Haraldr had ordered everyone out of his tent. If his hands shook, he’d just as soon keep that to himself. A high-pitched, steadily whining ring filled his head. He had not slept all night; over the past few days he had confirmed too many grisly tales of Hakon’s prowess to think he could still defeat the demon who waited for him at the black centre of being. He remembered an old saying: ‘No man lives to evening whom the fates condemn at morning.’