They held each other, unspeaking, until the lights of the
dhromons
came over them like terrible stars in a dark universe.
The Droungarios John Moschus stuck his powerful hands into the ivory casket and pulled up fistfuls of gold. The solidi fell back into the pile, the sound a dull clink in the shrieking wind. He fixed his cold grey eyes on Haraldr. ‘It’s a hundred times more than I could expect to leave this office with,’ he said. ‘But my life is ships. It would be death for me to live on some estate in Armenikoi after I am relieved of my command.’
‘You could buy your own ships. Pursue Saracen brigands. Sail when you please and fight when you please, instead of waiting on the docks until your Emperor decides to frighten some naked children on the beaches of Kherson.’ The
dhromon
lifted in the mounting sea. ‘Look at this. Is this an effective sortie for thirty fire-ships? To bring back Her Majesty’s Mistress of the Robes? Next you will be asked to send twenty
dhromons
to Libya to capture a black man to fan the Empress’s face. Besides, she doesn’t make the ultimate decisions. The Monomach knows you are an able commander.’ Haraldr reached in his cloak, produced a large leather purse full of gold coins, and set it on top of the gleaming contents of the casket. ‘Here. Give this to a dwarf named Theodocranus. Tell him that you want the Emperor to preserve your command.’
Moschus rubbed his scratchy black beard. ‘I’ve heard of this dwarf,’ he said as he shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head again.
‘Look,’ said Haraldr, ‘my men will come back for me. A lot of your men and my men will die. For what? For a glorified serving girl. If I did not love her so much with the head that doesn’t think, I probably would just give her back to you and shrug it off. But I burn every time I think of her. Why don’t you keep the money and let me keep the Mistress?’
Moschus looked at Maria and then at Haraldr. ‘I think you might misunderstand. I have orders to let you go. Maybe you should try to forget her.’
‘Look at her,’ said Haraldr. ‘Could you forget her? She’s not a woman, she’s a demon. She possesses the soul. You know what they say about her.’
Moschus laughed. Maria’s eyes never flinched. ‘I’ve heard about her as well.’ He cocked his head at Haraldr. ‘You’re certain that it isn’t the Emperor who really wants her back? I mean . . .’He lifted his wiry eyebrows suggestively and threw his hands up.
‘She’s faithful to me. I keep her locked up.’
Moschus dug his hands into the gold again and then stood up. He stamped the deck. ‘Damn! Women! That’s the beauty and the curse of the sea. No women. Damn!’ He looked at Haraldr. ‘I need to think about this.’
‘Halldor, your eyes are intoxicated with their earlier success.’ Ulfr winced into the screaming north wind and flying spray. Hord Stefnirson leaned over his shoulder. They silently studied the sea for a long while.
‘Odin!’ Hord jerked erect as if he had been struck by an arrow. ‘Odin! No! Who?’
Ulfr looked at Hord and shook his head as if to say, ‘Don’t tell me you are as mad as Halldor is.’ Halldor shook his head back at Ulfr. ‘You’re not talking about that squall line?’ said Ulfr, still peering at the sea. ‘That . . .’ Ulfr went rigid. ‘Holy Mother of Christ. Holy, Holy Mother of Christ. That is no squall line. That is . . .’ He turned and looked at Halldor. ‘That is the fleet.’
‘Yes. I think about three hundred ships,’ said Halldor, not at all enjoying his triumph. ‘Now let us see,’ he said grimly. ‘Who can be the first to discover whether they are merchantmen or warships?’
Maria pressed her chin to Haraldr’s chest. ‘If he does not accept, I will threaten to kill myself. I will. His mission could hardly be considered successful then.’
‘He will accept,’ whispered Haraldr. ‘The fact that a man like Moschus says he must think about it convinces me that he has already accepted. He knows that he could do exactly as ordered and still be dismissed because of some Imperial caprice. Rome does not reward loyalty sufficiently well to be accorded loyalty. The only thing I am worried about now is this storm that is coming.’
‘A mere hurricane,’ said Maria with a wry smile. The call from the look-out high above blasted through the wind. Haraldr turned to the mast and saw Moschus pulling himself up the rope ladder. Moschus hung about halfway up the enormous mast and looked into the night. His body yawed as the wind whipped at the ropes; then he jerked abruptly with alarm or astonishment or both. He shouted down the deck. Haraldr heard part of the command but it was too late. The Imperial Marines, spears lowered, were already encircling Maria and him. Haraldr thought of leaping the railing at his back but instantly knew he was defeated. He could not leave Maria to an unknown fate.
Moschus came back down the rope ladder like a huge, thick-bodied spider clambering through its web. His face was livid. He shouldered through the arc of his marines. ‘If you think you can coerce me, think again, Varangian!’ he shouted, clenching his powerful fists. ‘I don’t understand your game, but while I have been hesitant to quarrel with you over this woman, I will be more than eager to accept a challenge from your fleet! You cannot see them yet, but I ordered another three dozen
dhromons
and support vessels to follow behind this group, simply as an exercise. I will crush you!’
Haraldr looked at Moschus in astonishment. ‘Droungarios, my fleet, as you put it, was reduced by a third when one ship foundered on the boom. And why would I ask that fleet to challenge you now? You were about to accept my offer, were you not?’
‘I was,’ snapped Moschus, ‘until I discovered this treachery. By my count it would take a hundred wrecks to reduce your fleet by a third. Do you plan an invasion? Perhaps the Empress had good purpose in putting my fleet in your pursuit, and I better Fortune by ordering my strength to sea.’
Haraldr looked to the north. His two galleys had approached to within less than a bowshot of the
dhromon,
which surprised him, but not as much as the fact that that was all he saw. ‘I left with two ships,’ he said in bewilderment. ‘I don’t know why they are coming up, but I can assure you they do not intend to attack without my signal.’
Moschus stepped forward and seized Haraldr’s arm. ‘Very well! You climb up there, and if you can still maintain there are only two ships, I will turn over my baton to you!’
Haraldr was only a third of the way up the swaying rope ladder when he looked out and gasped. The dark hulls virtually spanned the width of the Bosporus and disappeared back into a lowering mist. Haraldr hoped that what he saw was only a small wrinkle in the fabric of fate. He shouted down to Moschus. ‘Those are Rus ships!’
Haraldr studied the ships for a few more moments before he climbed back to the deck. The Imperial Marines surrounded him again. He faced Moschus. ‘I swear to you I have no collusion in this. But those are the hulls of Rus merchantmen.’
‘Which can also be used as warships!’ growled Moschus. ‘It’s late in the year for a trade flotilla, don’t you think?’
‘Perhaps they have been delayed by the Pechenegs,’ said Haraldr. ‘I am certain their business is peaceful.’
‘Droungarios!’ Haraldr’s galley had come within fifty ells of the larboard, and Halldor hailed from the stern. ‘Droungarios! Permission to come alongside!’
Moschus barked orders and the lion-shaped bronze spout at the stern of the
dhromon
swivelled to address the Varangian galley. Then he gave Halldor his permission. The ships drifted to within ten ells and pitched alongside each other in the heavy chop. ‘Haraldr,’ shouted Halldor, ‘the fleet is Rus, commanded by Vladimir, Prince of Kiev.’ Haraldr sighed with relief; Elisevett’s brother, Vladimir, had been a puny Idler the last time Haraldr had seen him. He couldn’t attack a nest of mice. ‘Droungarios!’ shouted Halldor. ‘The leader of the Rus fleet wants to negotiate with the commander of the Imperial Fleet.’
‘I know this Vladimir,’ said Haraldr. ‘Believe me, he is without hostile capability.’
Moschus shook his head. ‘This is all too neatly contrived.’ He scratched his beard. ‘Here is what I will offer you in good faith. You go and bring this Vladimir to me as my hostage, and I will not attack his fleet pending inquiries to the Prefect and the Logothete of the Dromus. In the meanwhile I will keep the Mistress of the Robes in my custody.’
Haraldr looked at Maria. It was clear she liked this compromise less than he did, and he wondered if she was at last losing her courage; he would not blame her. How many times could they dance on the needle of fate? He nodded to her that they must play this out.
Maria rushed to him and clutched him with stunning power. ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘You cannot go out there!’ She shuddered violently. ‘Hold me,’ she pleaded, ‘hold me. I am so cold. I am so cold.’ Her teeth chattered and she grimaced so that she could speak. ‘You must not go out there. I will never see you again.’ She began to cry and her entire body trembled.
Haraldr could not fathom her premonition. It was only Vladimir. This would be settled in an hour. He rocked her and stroked her hair. ‘I must,’ he said. ‘The sooner I begin, the sooner I will be back for you.’ He forced her chin up. ‘Darling, remember my promise. If Satan himself is out there, I will still come back for you.’
Haraldr’s galleys pulled north through the pitching rows of Rus ships. According to the slit-eyed little Rus functionary Halldor had taken aboard, Prince Vladimir was tucked safely in the middle of his enormous fleet. Haraldr wondered how the hapless scamp had ever got this far, with so many ships still intact.
The functionary pointed to a fat river ship identical to the dozens around it. Haraldr told Ulfr to stay aboard and take command if anything happened, though he was confident nothing untoward was about. He strapped on his sword and laughed. ‘I would tell you to wear your byrnnie, Halldor, but when you see this Prince of Rus, you will be so frightened that you will leap into the sea, and I don’t want you to sink.’
Haraldr rowed the Rus functionary and Halldor across in the functionary’s dinghy. He helped the other two over the railing of the fat merchantman and then swung himself over. For some strange reason the ship smelled like Rus, though he couldn’t say exactly what scent produced that effect. He looked up. Raindrops hurtled out of the darkness.
Vladimir waited by the mast. He wore a bronze breastplate and was surrounded by several wispy-bearded, heavily armoured Rus Boyer whelps no more impressive than himself. Vladimir, observed Haraldr, had his father’s unimpressive height and extensive girth, his mother’s fair skin, and his sister’s delicate hands; his blotchy, adolescent face had at last been overgrown by thin blond whiskers. In addition to his armoured retainers, Vladimir also employed several hulking Norse bodyguards who lounged in the darkness at the stern of the vessel.
‘So,’ said Vladimir with a smirk and a nonchalant flip of his head. ‘Haraldr Nordbrikt Sigurdarson. The coward of Stiklestad. Running errands for the Greeks, I see.’
‘How is your Mother, Vladimir?’ asked Haraldr genially. He had nothing to prove to this pathetic lot.
‘She misses your cock-hound brother.’
Haraldr struggled for control. ‘And is Elisevett well?’
‘She is still sitting on her little twat and waiting for you to come back and marry her, even when she heard that you are the famous coward. You must have fucked the wits out of her.’
Haraldr stepped forward and jammed his fingers under the lower lip of Vladimir’s breastplate and lifted him off the ground with one hand. ‘Your sister was very dear to me. If you speak about her again in such a fashion, I will make you swim back to Kiev to apologize to her. Now, I can help you gain entry to Byzantium if you promise to watch your manners.’ He set Vladimir down slowly. ‘The Droungarios of the Imperial Fleet--’
‘I didn’t come to beg my way in,’ interrupted Vladimir, apparently undeterred by his humiliation. ‘I came to ask the city to surrender.’ Halldor burst into laughter.
Haraldr was less amused. ‘You little fool. Have some of your Norse bodyguards blown you up with dreams of conquest, or is this a self-invented folly? Whatever the source, I suggest you reconsider. There are enough fire-ships waiting for you out there in the night to turn the Bosporus into a river of flame.’
Another voice responded from the darkness. ‘And there are enough Norsemen here to bring down the walls of the Great City.’ The shrouded Norseman came forward along the catwalk and drew back the hood that concealed his steel helm. Haraldr immediately recognized him.
Thorvald Ostenson,’ said Haraldr, greeting the former Centurion of the Grand Hetairia. ‘I should have known that the hand of Mar Hunrodarson was in this.’ Haraldr recalled Mar’s cryptic words upon dying.
Ostenson bowed. ‘We have three thousand Norsemen and five thousand Rus. This morning Mar will attack the walls from within the city and open the gates for us. Apparently he has spared you to flee from our triumph. So go. And leave the pillage of Rome to true warriors.’
Halldor looked at Haraldr with a rare expression of uncontainable mirth. He laughed again and looked at Ostenson. ‘The last time I saw your Mar Hunrodarson, he was trying to imitate a pigeon taking wing. Unsuccessfully.’
Ostenson drew his sword. ‘You crow-shit eater! I’ll take you back to Mar and let you share your jest with him.’
Halldor stepped forward and sent Ostenson plunging into the hold with a single shove. ‘I’ll wait to jest with your Mar when the Valkyrja take me to him, boy-lover,’ Halldor called down to Ostenson. ‘Your Mar is drinking with Odin tonight.’
‘Liar!’ shouted Ostenson. He struggled to his feet and his head emerged above the catwalk. ‘No man could have vanquished Odin’s champion!’
Halldor pointed to Haraldr. ‘This man did. He hugged him to death. Broke his back with one squeeze.’
This time the laughter, a soft, quiet chuckle, came from the vicinity of the cowed young Rus nobles. Haraldr wondered which of these hapless whelps could possibly find their situation amusing. Then he saw the second Norseman. The bear-like giant wore a hide cape. He came round in front of Vladimir and his retainers. Haraldr knew the face at once and felt the sudden lightness and liquid knees of terror. The hacked-away eyebrows, the white-streaked beard, the horrible truncated nose and huge, sucking nostrils. ‘I am Thorir, called the Hound,’ said the Berserk in his curious, quiet voice. ‘The Haraldr Sigurdarson I remember soiled his breeches when I killed his brother. He was then a coward, he is now a coward. And a liar. Mar Hunrodarson is one of us.’