‘Perhaps. I confess that he was in my bed last night after your conversation with him.’ Maria’s eyes widened as she recalled the vision. ‘May I tell you?’
‘Oh, yes, little daughter,’ said Zoe, all weariness forgotten.
‘He came to me, quite naked, his chest covered with hair like golden threads, his arms as hard and smooth as sculpted stone. He ripped my gown away. I submitted totally, willing it. Mother, it embarrasses even our confidence to mention my shamelessness - I begged him to enter every orifice with the most savage thrusts. I screamed at him to break my flesh with his teeth, to bite my lips and nipples, and blood and sweat mixed to a hot oil spread between our merciless breasts. And then I rose above him, now pulling his hair, then clawing his eyes, and he knew my pleasure. We rose, conjoined in ecstasy, towards a golden dome, and in my hand I discovered a knife, a cold, icy blade, and at the moment of supreme passion I plunged it with all my force into his neck and he faded, he died as I was transported, raised by the last warmth of his burning member as his body froze, and the arms of the sun held me. When I awakened from the dream, I was drenched in my own effluxions.’
‘Maria! You exceed yourself! Your nocturnal musings would make our esteemed specialist in sexual disorders faint away like a maiden at the sight of her first unsheathed column! So you see, you can have your pleasure of him. But I think we can ultimately dispose of our overweening Tauro-Scythian in a fashion that might be less . . . provocative, but more useful to our cause.’
Maria nodded, her jaw still tense. Yes, she could finally admit that the desire existed; after all, it was of the type easiest to assuage. What she could not confess, even to her beloved Empress mother, was that her dream had demonstrated to her a frightening but essential truth. Her desire could only be quenched in the moment that its object was destroyed.
If Constantinople was the Queen of Cities, stately and elegant, then Antioch was a ravishing courtesan. The walls, golden in the late-afternoon sun, were almost as vast and proud as those of the Empress City; studded at intervals of a bowshot with huge round towers, they rose from a glowing emerald-and-ochre valley to the pine-dotted heights of a mountain ridge thousands of ells above. The city tumbled down the slopes; beneath rocky heights were terraced fields, rowed vineyards, and gardens dotted with lemon and orange and ivy, interspersed with the white domes of vast palaces. The buildings thickened as the incline graduated to the flat plain before the river, crowding together in fantastic arrays of domes and spires and colonnades that faded into the southern horizon.
For almost a rowing-spell the people of the surrounding villages had come out to stand by the road; they were simple farmers in brown tunics brightened by vivid shawls and sashes. They threw flowers and aromatic herbs beneath the wheels of the Imperial carriages and chanted in Greek mixed with a tongue Haraldr did not know. The women held their children and pointed, saying, ‘Theotokos’; apparently many of the peasants could not distinguish between the Mother of the Romans and the Mother of God.
The city became more distinct as the Imperial party advanced parallel to the looping, sluggish yellow river that flowed towards the city’s eastern flank. The buildings seemed more open than those of Constantinople, with rows of wide arches and canopied balconies to draw the breeze that wandered idly through the valley. Banners fluttered and glazed domes sparkled.
‘It does not have the aspect of a virtuous city,’ said Halldor lightly.
‘She is a whore,’ offered Ulfr admiringly. ‘Goddess of neck-ice, golden-haired shaker of the limb of Frey’s orchard.’
‘Please repeat that,’ asked Gregory. ‘That was a very difficult kenning.’
‘He means that this whore is both very beautiful and very skilled,’ said Halldor. He gave his horse a little spur and came up beside Haraldr. ‘You haven’t had a woman in some time. I think abstinence has made you despondent. Your comrades have decided to plunder this wanton city until we find a woman who will put the fire back in your eyes.’
Haraldr struggled to smile. ‘I can always count on you to be blunt.’ He thought for a moment. Halldor had bedded a woman in Nicomedia, one in Nicaea, one in Ancyra, one in Adana. None of them whores, either, but seemingly well-born women prominent in provincial courts. The one in Nicaea, with dark hair and dark eyes and a waist like a wasp, had rivalled even Maria in Haraldr’s fancy for several restless nights. Why had he not considered this before? If a man’s arrows consistently missed their target, should he not ask the advice of an archer who inerrantly struck that at which he aimed? Haraldr asked Halldor to join him in riding up ahead of the Varangian ranks.
‘I knew you were lovesick,’ said Halldor when Haraldr had finished his tale, ‘but I thought it was still that Khazar girl.’ Halldor rubbed his fine nose with his forefinger as he thought for a moment. ‘Haraldr, do you know why I drink a full cup of love for every drop that dampens your lips?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Because you approach love like a poet, your breast bared for all to see, while I approach love like a trader with his hacksilver hidden in the lining of his girdle.’
‘But you have never had to pay for a woman’s favours.’
‘Exactly. Look. The wise trader sees an object he must acquire. He does not run pell-mell to the merchant’s booth, swoop the desired merchandise into his arms, with heaving chest declare that his life will end if he cannot have this exquisite item, and then offer to hack off a limb to place on top of the merchant’s price so that he may have it. No. The wise trader in fact strolls idly by this merchant’s booth, then looks for hours, perhaps days, into the booths of the neighbouring merchants. He examines their wares and sets his praise-tongue wagging over the quality of
their
merchandise. Then, his bag already full of items he has purchased at the other booths, he walks by, almost walks on, thinks better of it, and pauses to poke here and there among the wares that surround his treasure. He asks the price of this and that, and then, well, since he is here, what about this? And then of course he haggles, as if this treasure is nothing more than dried dung to be burned, and how could he possibly pay such a price and so on. Soon the merchant is so convinced he will never be relieved of this worthless item that he virtually gives it away. So as I see it, this Maria is a wiser trader playing games with you. Now all you need to do is turn the tables on her.’
That is remarkable, Halldor,’ said Haraldr with genuine respect. It had never occurred to him that one needed to deal as hard with a woman he hoped to clutch gently to his breast as he did with a man with whom he was doing business. The wise trader indeed. The next time he saw Maria, he would not offer so much as a sideways glance at the wares in her booth.
‘Haraldr Nordbrikt! Of course! Haraldr Nordbrikt!’
Constantine, the Strategus of Antioch, virtually leapt from behind his ivory-surfaced writing table. Haraldr observed that Constantine was a beardless eunuch like his brother, Joannes, though he had been spared the grotesque giantism of his brother’s features. In fact, there was more of the Emperor himself in Constantine’s look. As he came closer, though, Haraldr noticed the glaze of nervous perspiration on the Strategus’s forehead and upper lip, and he wondered if this man was so daunted by his brother that he grew anxious in the presence of someone merely bearing a letter from him.
‘Welcome, welcome, welcome. My brother, Joannes, has not only told me to expect you, but word of your fame has already begun to buzz about my city. We are verily beneath the blade of the Saracens here, so your proficiency in exterminating heretics is particularly well valued in fair Antioch.’ Constantine fluttered his hands and hated himself for it.
Mother of God, what a monstrous thug,
he thought,
albeit splendidly formed. The scar over his eye gives him the sinister aspect. Certainly the type of delinquent my brother would enlist in his employ.
‘Thank you, Strategus,’ said Haraldr in Greek; he had specially prepared this address. ‘I wish ... I hope I may serve you well ... as well as I am devoted ... to serve your brother, Orphanotrophus Joannes, and . . . our father. And may I ... present this.’ Haraldr handed the rolled and sealed letter to Constantine.
Constantine thanked Haraldr and returned to his seat behind his writing table before unsealing the document.
I wonder if my omniscient brother knows that his pet brute is acquiring the power of speech,
he thought as he nervously peeled the embossed lead from the string.
Is Joannes’s ambition making him careless? And if he plots an errant course, to what end will the rest of us be led?
Constantine unrolled the letter, apprehension already lurking in his stomach.
Haraldr watched carefully as Constantine read. Kristr! For a moment Haraldr wondered if someone hiding beneath the table had just knifed Constantine in the groin; he was suddenly virtually chalk-faced. Haraldr’s own skin crawled. Had his patron, Joannes, been entirely sincere? This could not be simply a friendly letter of introduction. And wasn’t it considerably longer than it would need to be for that purpose? On the other hand, perhaps Joannes sensibly appended other news to the letter, and perhaps not all of it was good. But the reaction was most curious, and Constantine did not seem to be recovering well. This was doing nothing to allay Haraldr’s doubts about Joannes’s credibility.
Constantine put the letter down with trembling hands; he had not needed to finish it to be virtually numb with shock, and he certainly could not read on in front of this brute. He grinned forcibly, sweat beading his brow. ‘Well, Haraldr Nordbrikt, I am afraid official duties beckon me to return to them. But I understand that I will see you this evening. We are both seated at the Imperial Table.’
When Haraldr had left, Constantine picked up the letter again and studied it for almost an hour, forcing himself to consider carefully all of the details. The plan was astonishing in concept and would be exceedingly taxing to execute; it was certainly more than just another of Joannes’s elaborate schemes. And yet Joannes promised far more reward than he had ever offered before the complicity he now desired. It was incredible, but yes, it could be done. And, of course, now there was no question. It would have to be done.
‘Get your face away, swine-breath!’ shouted Grettir, though he knew these beetle-faces could not understand Norse. At every street they swarmed around him, touching his tunic and the white skin of his arms with their filth-blackened fingers, then abandoning him to the rabble that assumed the chase at the next block. This was a mistake, Grettir told himself, in every way. Haraldr Nordbrikt was no longer his enemy. After months of a woman’s scullery work, Grettir now rode with the skalds again; few other masters would have been as generous, particularly not Grettir’s former patron, Hakon. Grettir cursed the impulse that had led him, those long months ago, to contact the Hetamark, or whatever they called that Icelandic devil. Well, the ogre had him by the belly purse now, and he would have to ransom his own soul to shake him loose. If these nut-faced demons did not take him first.
The beggars crawled from their rag nests, set against the scum-coated walls. Empty eyes, legless torsos, lipless mouths, jabbing stumps. The sores, the stench, the pall of fat, lazy flies. Grettir swatted the attacking human miasma around him and looked for the landmark, as he had been instructed. There. Odin be praised. The blue tiles, the tower rising. How he had found the place through this rat’s warren in this vast, strange city, he did not know. Perhaps fortune was still with him.
It was the place indeed; as he turned the corner Grettir saw the golden-tipped spires rising above the blue dome. The street in front was blocked with every damned soul Kristr had cast into Hel. They wailed and beseeched like screeching birds and chattering rodents, rags hanging off their scabrous, desiccated limbs. Men with cloud-white eyes, a woman with ragged black hair pulled out in angry red patches, children with pox-eaten faces. They saw him, and they came after him.
Instinct took over, and Grettir struggled for his knife against the probing of skeletal, slimy fingers. He waved the blade, and the man in front of him pressed his hands to his bleeding chest. The rest hesitated, a wolf pack deciding if hunger or fear would command their guts. Grettir wheeled, crouched, let them all see the blade. They stood dull-eyed and sightless, moaning and jabbering.
Grettir took one step. No one moved. He thrust ahead with the knife. A man with a huge, swollen, oozing leg stepped back. Another step. The pack responded. Slowly, step by thrusting step, Grettir passed beneath the blue-tiled dome. Suddenly they were gone, vanished like malignant
fylgya
returning to the spirit world. Grettir looked down the dark, narrow alley ahead with tears in his eyes.
The absence of traffic was as disconcerting as the mob. The crumbling mud walls almost met overhead, and a dank smell pervaded the chilly air. A rat scurried across the narrow dirt path. He listened to the faint cries of the mob; the once hideous wails were seemingly sponged from the air by the ancient earthen walls. He squinted into the darkness.
A man. Bent over a sort of crude stone table. He worked at something; edging closer, Grettir saw a boot, a few scraps of hide. He gasped; the man was huge! But the enormous figure did not turn from his table. He was filing something, slowly, wearily, as if for the rest of his life he would file away in this strange dungeon.
Grettir fought the gorge in his throat and nostrils as the man looked up. No nose, only gaping, wheezing slits. Yet the eyes were light blue, and the filth-encrusted hair had once been golden. Odin, what caprice of yours condemned this Norseman to this Hel? The giant’s tunic hung in greasy tatters.
The man spoke. ‘You have business here?’ The language was Norse, the accent Icelandic.
‘Wh-what?’ mumbled Grettir.
The eyes burned in the darkness, ice beneath a haunted moon. ‘You have business here?’ The voice was strangely passive, yet Grettir’s tuned ear detected the strong current of menace beneath the calm surface. Quickly reveal your errand, he told himself. ‘I am told to give you this.’ Grettir dug the ring from the lining of his belt and cautiously placed it on the stone table. The next thing he knew, he was on his back, the dankness suffocating, the pale luminescence of the eyes above him, the sharp point at his throat. ‘What does Mar Hunrodarson want?’ The voice was the wolf’s.