‘So this Plutarch was a Greek ruled by the old Romans and he wrote of both the Greeks and the Romans. But before Plutarch, in the time of Alexander, the Greeks ruled the world.’
‘Yes, Har-aldr,’ said Anna happily.
Haraldr leaned against the stone seat and watched a shaft of sun project a vivid aquamarine stripe over the darkening waters of the semicircular, stone-lined pool. A column, toppled from the row behind him, lay across the seats nearby like a huge recumbent figure. The temple to Jupiter, the old god the Greeks called Zeus, stood ravaged at the far end of the pool; only four delicately fluted columns remained to glow in the dying day. Behind the temple a much larger reservoir sat deep and still; water from the limestone springs beneath Daphne was collected here and sent to Antioch via the soaring-arched aqueducts that sloped away from the far end of the reservoir and disappeared into the distance. All this had been built by the old Romans, yet much of it, according to Anna, in imitation of the style of the ancient Greeks. Haraldr marvelled at these dense, intricate layers of time. The world he had grown up in was so new; in Norway wooden shrines to Thor that could not have been more than two hundred years old were all that could inspire memories of the ancients. Here, amid these giant stone relics, he could reach across time and touch the world of the old gods.
‘It is said that Hadrian, the Emperor of Rome who built this place, also built a wall somewhere near your home in Thule. Is that possible?’
‘Perhaps so. I remember once when my brother returned from Angle-Land, someone talked of a wall.’ Haraldr shook his head in wonder. In Norse the terms for
fool
and
stay-at-home
were the same. Yet as far as he had now come from home, he felt like the fool next to this bright, beautiful girl. He studied Anna’s vivid, almost unreal colour; her face was like a painted statue, her skin so white and her lips so intensely red. And yet, Haraldr reflected, her enchantment was not simply beauty. If the Empress was beauty enhanced by power, and Maria was beauty enhanced by carnal invitation, then Anna was beauty enhanced by knowledge. She had said it was her mother who had insisted she learn of ancient texts that revealed the thoughts and breasts of men who had lived long ago, when the old gods walked the earth and Daphne was new. Incredible. The more he observed them, the more bewildering and beguiling these Roman women became.
‘We must go.’ Anna sighed. The shadows had dissolved into a lustrous twilight and the pillars of Daphne were transforming into towering ghosts. ‘Maria says that every sunset is a tragedy. She does not like the night. And yet . . .’ Anna trailed off with an enigmatic smile.
Maria. A witch who shunned the darkness that Haraldr had seen deep in her own eyes. In spite of Anna, he could not rid her from his mind. He would have to talk to Halldor; what did the wise trader do when the merchant gave him gifts from his competitor’s booths? If he and Maria no longer gamed, what was this?
‘There is one thing I must show you,’ said Anna as they descended from the reservoir. A moment later she turned off the path and entered a small grove thick with vines; here night had already settled. She took his hand and he marvelled at the impossible smoothness and delicacy of her flesh. The vines arched over them. Haraldr peered into the miasma ahead. ‘Wait for your eyes to become more adept,’ said Anna confidently. ‘There.’
The stone architrave, supported by two columns, materialised from deep shadow. Soon Haraldr could even distinguish the Greek letters chiselled onto the crumbling architrave. H-E-C-A-T-E.
‘The Temple of Hecate,’ whispered Anna. ‘The Greeks worshipped her as the goddess of diabolic magic. She could raise the dead and make them appear to the living.’
‘Fylgya,’
said Haraldr with genuine respect. ‘Spirits that wander among men.’
‘You know them,’ whispered Anna. ‘Come. I want to tell Maria we went down there. She will be terrified that we even speak of it.’
‘Down?’ Haraldr’s neck and shoulders tingled.
‘Yes.’ Anna’s whisper had become a mysteriously urgent hiss. ‘Hecate lives in the Underworld. Look. You can see the steps.’
Barely. The narrow stone steps faded into the murk after a few ells.
Gregory crossed himself. ‘Haraldr Nordbrikt, I do not see well in the dark.’
‘Stay here,’ said Haraldr mercifully, ‘in case we become lost.’ Anna clutched Haraldr’s hand tightly and led him down step by step. Behind him, Haraldr could hear Gregory reciting one of the poems, called psalms, that the warrior David had long ago composed for Christ’s Father.
Soon there was an utter stillness, broken only in the instants that foot touched stone. The dampness made Haraldr think of Neorion, the Hell that rose in the sky. Ever down, the smell of ancient stone more and more suffocating. Haraldr counted over a hundred steps, and still they descended. Anna bumped against him and gave a little cry. Haraldr fought the reflex to grip his dagger; he had been the fool once already today. ‘O sky!’ whined Anna. Haraldr heard her hand slap stone. She said something to the effect that they could go no farther.
Haraldr reached out and felt the cold, grainy stone. ‘No farther,’ he said hopefully, in Greek.
‘No farther,’ whispered Anna. ‘Can you see me?’
‘Not well. No.’
Anna lifted Haraldr’s hand and slowly took it to her warm, marble-smooth face. Then she took his fingers away from her cheek and brought them down until he felt the lightest touch of silk. She pressed his hand towards her, and he could feel her hard nipple and small soft breast. She exhaled once, took his hand away, and pulled him behind her as she scampered back up the steps.
Anna smiled impishly in the relative light at the surface and said to Gregory with a sigh, ‘We did not get to see the shrine.’
‘We did not go all the way?’ asked Haraldr in Greek.
Anna smirked. ‘No. The shrine has a step for every day of the year. We only took one hundred and seventy-two steps. The stairs have been blocked. But we will still tell Maria we saw the shrine.’ Anna wrapped both hands around Haraldr’s arm and led him away from the Temple of Hecate.
‘Certainly you may have your leave, Brother.’ Zoe sat in her gilded, portable throne, the rounded back piled high with cushions of scarlet and sky-blue silk. She curled her gold-flecked slippers beneath her. ‘You have provided us with all splendid Daphne has to offer.’ Zoe raised her hand to indicate the marble-revetted hall her throne had been set in; beyond the melon-coloured columns that ringed the courtyard, lanterns played off the waters of a chiming fountain. ‘And our nephew has graciously consented to ... attend to myself and my ladies until we are safe in Tripoli. So go, Brother, defend the trust my husband and your brother has given you. And be assured that the convivial and benign reception accorded by your Antioch will remain a cherished memento in my grateful heart.’
‘Your words are my solace,’ answered Constantine, his brow gushing. ‘For tomorrow I will awake in a city that has lost its sun. Farewell, sister, Mother, Light of the Roman world, chosen of God.’ Constantine crossed his arms over his chest and backed out of the room like a dog sneaking a stolen morsel.
Haraldr stood rigid beside his Mother, wondering if he was able to conceal his shock and dismay. Now it was as plain as the nose on a face. Joannes, through his surrogate, Constantine, was behind a plot against the Empress, one that would surely take place before sun dappled Daphne again, and one that played Haraldr as a dull-witted accomplice in the usurpation of his Empress. But why did his Mother do nothing? She had just permitted Constantine to withdraw his thematic army to Antioch, citing some clearly contrived Saracen threat to the city. And Blymmedes’s Taghmatic forces and Haraldr’s Varangians could not, as the Domestic had warned, defend the entire perimeter of Daphne. They had had to rely on Attalietes’s utterly incompetent, and most likely disloyal, thematic army to complete the cordon. On the road from Antioch that morning Haraldr had had the opportunity to inspect Attalietes’s troops, and he had been astonished to find that most of them were baggage handlers and batmen for the pack mules, and that many of those who were armed did not have proper weapons or healthy mounts. It was a disgrace. How could they all be so blind?
Haraldr looked at Maria and Anna, rolling dice at a table in the corner of the room opposite their mother’s throne. Their laughter fused with the music of the fountains. He was suddenly in the cold embrace of a theory he had never considered. This was all a ruse. There was a plot indeed, but one of Romans devilishly conspiring to rid their Empire of the fair-hair menace. But then why had all these Romans constructed such an elaborate ruse simply to eliminate him? They had already had him in Neorion. Had they since then discovered his identity - there had been so many cryptic allusions -and considered such extravagant measures justified by their morbid prophecies of a fair-hair apocalypse? Did they intend to slaughter his pledge-men as well, once they had eliminated him? Such reasoning was self-inflicted torture. Only one thing was certain: he would not sleep tonight.
A dog barked in the ruins and a cock crowed prematurely. It was still four hours until dawn. The fountain in the courtyard of the Empress’s villa masked the Norsemen’s words.
‘We wager on both stallions,’ said Ulfr. ‘If it is the Empress who is to be a victim of this plot, I will embrace the Valkyrja at her side.’
‘And if it is you, Haraldr,’ said Halldor, ‘together we will summon every carrion bird in Serkland.’
‘No,’ said Haraldr. ‘That honour is too great for me if I have led you into this. If it is me who is to be attacked, you must live to lead my pledge-men to safety. I know that the Romans have enemies nearby. If you can fight your way out of here, you could parlay with them. My pledge-men may yet see their homes again, with little thanks to their foolish leader. Besides, I have learned an interesting tactic from the Romans: how to bait a snare. And perhaps tonight by offering myself as the bait I may win something more valuable than all the Roman gold we have acquired.’ He paused and looked at his two stem-faced comrades. ‘I may win some answers.’
The white-robed figure emerged like a ghost from the dark hall. Symeon was indeed as indefatigable as a spirit. It seemed as if he could not take the next step, and yet day and night he was there, attending to the smallest detail. The wraithlike eunuch swished to Haraldr’s side. ‘Mother wish to know guard relieved,’ he croaked in a condescending bastardization of good Greek.
‘You may tell my mother yes,’ replied Haraldr as fluently as he could. He nodded to Ulfr, and the grim-faced Norseman followed Symeon into the Hall.
Halldor fixed Haraldr with his implacable stare. ‘Well,’ he said with a faint smile, ‘I have no lady. I guess I will have to spend this night with my sword in my arms.’ He turned to walk away. ‘Oh. In the morning I think I need to tell you some more things the wise trader must know.’ As casually as ever, Halldor vanished through the gate.
Haraldr shook his head in amazement. When the Valkyrja came for him, Halldor would ask them to spread their legs. His bravado bolstered by his friend’s insouciance, Haraldr began to reason where he could best place his snare. He listened to the gurgling fountains. A two-week-old moon silvered the dancing droplets. Here. Of course. Symeon already knew where he was; no doubt others did as well. Wait here and they would come to him. He sat on the damp tile enclosure of the fount. To come behind him, they would have to splash through the water, a variation in the night’s music that he could easily detect.
The dog barked again, more distantly. Lost in this ancient world, Haraldr wondered if the gods had a purpose. Had they spared him at Stiklestad, along the Dnieper, among the Saracen corpses, only that he should die here tonight? That could not be. He was part of their plan. Haraldr felt a strange power surround him in the night, wrapping him like the layers of fur that had armoured the terrible Hound. He was destiny’s instrument. And when fate called him to the last battle, he would come with his sword in hand.
He did not wait for long. Heels clicked on marble and the white robe came into the light. Leo. He reached down and handed Haraldr a tiny slip of paper. The eunuch turned quickly and vanished with his bounding step, heedless to Haraldr’s plaintive ‘Leo!’
The message was in Greek. Apparently the conspirators could not risk asking Gregory to write the runes; he might have warned Haraldr. That was obviously why the Empress had wished to know of the bond between the interpreter and Haraldr. Haraldr studied the brief message. The translation was quite simple, especially since he had seen the name written before. ‘Come to Hecate. Now.’
Haraldr had to compliment the Romans on the elaborate construction of their trap. The girl as the lure, the perfect place for an assassination. He removed his sword and set it by the fountain, then raised his robe and snugged his dagger into his boot. What could be more disarming than a man walking unarmed to his own execution?
Daphne’s shattered face was pearl like in the moonlight. It was bright enough for Haraldr to find the path that turned into the grove easily. Then the ivy bowers closed overhead and the light faded. He walked slowly ahead and almost collided with one of the columns. The inscription was unreadable now, but the impenetrable void just beneath Haraldr’s feet was proof that this was Hecate.
Haraldr descended into the earth, carefully counting each step, his fingers darting against the damp, increasingly slimy wall to maintain his orientation; it seemed to him that if he lost contact with the wall, he would not know up from down -much less right from left - in this inky oblivion. After an eternity he reached the hundredth step. At one hundred and sixty, he would pause and listen for his murderer.
One hundred and forty-eight. A noise! Something brushed past his leg and scurried up. It was not relief that caused Haraldr to shudder. The
fylgya
would often take the form of small beasts.
One hundred and fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. Haraldr waited for his heart to cease echoing off the coffin-like walls. He listened. Nothing, even to ears strengthened by blindness. Nothing. Hecate was as still as death.