Scramasax (10 page)

‘You will fight alongside Georgios – my commander-in-chief,' Empress Zoe continued. ‘I've sent out messengers to find him, wherever the man is, and instruct him to set sail for Sicily. Be sure you're even-handed in your dealings with each other. Misfortune always follows on the heels of greed.'

This time, Harald jerked his chin upward and, watching him closely, Solveig thought it almost looked like a gesture of contempt.

‘If you meet Saracen pirates on your way,' the Empress went on, ‘and board their dung-pits …'

‘Dhows,' volunteered Harald.

‘I know what they're called,' replied the Empress in a cold voice. ‘I require one hundred marks for each …
dhow. If there's a surplus, you and your men may divide it between you.'

‘My men,' said Harald in a strong voice, ‘and my women.'

At once Solveig stiffened. Her neck. Her shoulders. Her arms. Every muscle in her body.

‘Women?' demanded the Empress.

He's not going to tell her, Solveig thought. Surely he's not.

‘The stable girls,' Harald said, ‘the women working in our kitchens, washerwomen … aren't they entitled to anything?'

Empress Zoe sighed. ‘You Varangians, you Vikings, you treat your women differently to us. You give them greater freedom. You embolden them.'

Solveig took a deep breath and blew it all out again.

Now the Empress surveyed the guards massed in front of her. Her eyes glittered; the corners of her thin lips tightened and twitched.

‘Not all of you will come back to Miklagard,' she announced, though only the front few rows of guards could hear her. ‘This is how life is – how death is. Sometimes speedy, sometimes slow. But all of you, you're bearing shields, you're swinging your axes in a just cause. The cause of Christendom! The glory of Byzantium!'

Then Empress Zoe spoke directly to Harald again.

‘I expect you,' she said, ‘to punish wrongdoers in your own ranks. You Varangians are subject to my laws.'

‘Empress,' replied Harald, ‘my men know very well how I punish them without fear or favour.'

‘If you regain Sicily,' the Empress told him, ‘each man who returns will be well rewarded, over and above his pickings in the field. As for you, Harald …' her voice softened, ‘I will give you my treasures … and grant you favours …' The Empress tailed off and bestowed a smile
on Harald Sigurdsson. Her withered face crinkled, and Harald lowered his eyes.

‘Errch!' moaned Maria.

‘Shh … shh … shhhhh!' Solveig whispered, soft as a summer wave spreading out along the shoreline.

The Empress turned to the Emperor. ‘Won't we, Michael?' she asked in a cutting voice.

Emperor Michael inclined his head.

‘I trust you, Harald,' the Empress continued. ‘And I have a gift for you.' She raised her right arm and two eunuchs stepped forward side by side, bearing a pole between them.

Empress Zoe closed and opened the claw of her hand.

‘Open it!' she instructed them. ‘Fly it!'

Then the hairless eunuchs stood one end of the pole on the tiled floor, and they loosed and displayed the square silk banner attached to it. It was copper. It was saffron crocus, woven with little crimson dots and crosses.

‘This banner,' the Empress told Harald, ‘was made by witches fifteen generations ago. Prayers are sewn into it, spells are stitched into it. For as long as it flies before you, you'll come to no harm in battle.'

Harald Sigurdsson got to his feet. He glared at the banner. He grasped it and swirled it.

‘Land-Ravager!' he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Land-Ravager!'

Everyone held their breath and looked at the Empress Zoe. But the Empress, she simply nodded.

‘My best men,' Harald Sigurdsson declared, ‘Snorri and Skarp and Halfdan, they'll fly it before me. Land-Ravager! I'll lay siege to the towns of Sicily, and sail your island back to you!'

As if guided by the unseen hand of God, an unseen choir of men and eunuchs massed behind the high altar
began to chant a hymn of praise. They sang in four-part harmony and Solveig listened, astonished and entranced.

Are they light-spirits? she wondered. Or angels? What are they?

No sooner had the choir fallen silent than away up in the gallery the trumpeters blew dozens of short, sharp bursts. Their instruments blazed in the sunlight shafting through all the strip windows.

Solveig's heart pounded. To her ears, they were spurring troops into battle. And no sooner had the trumpets, and the echoes of their echoes, wound into the dark than Empress Zoe and Emperor Michael rose from their seats. First they showed the great crowd their open hands, then they both reached up, as if they were grasping for the edge of heaven.

The Varangian guards shouted, more than one thousand of them. One explosive, fierce, barbaric shout.

The old walls of Hagia Sophia shuddered. Its doors rattled on their hinges and the high windows shook in their frames.

At once the priests began to disperse through the huge crowd, brandishing their silver crosses like swords and axes, sprinkling water from their pyxes, singing-and-saying blessings.

A few guards reached out to touch their white garments, a few murmured, ‘Amen! Amen! Amen.' But most simply ignored the priests.

They're Vikings, thought Solveig. They'd rather say one prayer to Odin than one hundred prayers to Christ. How can Christ help them – the God who tells us to forgive and turn the other cheek? That's what they're thinking.

At that moment Solveig caught sight of Halfdan for the very first time: there he was in the middle of the throng, unstooping, enduring; one man in a thousand;
her own father. Solveig half-waved to him, then quickly remembered where she was.

Maria turned to Solveig, and her dark eyes were glowing, her sallow cheeks flushed.

‘What is it?' Solveig asked her.

‘Harald!' she breathed. ‘Was there ever such a man?'

‘W
ho is it?'

Whoever it was, whoever they were, said nothing.

Solveig struggled to sit upright in her feather bed. ‘Who is it?'

Now the oil lamp advanced towards her.

‘Who?' Solveig tried to sound strong, but the walls could hear, the palace night could hear, the whoever-itwas could hear how anxious she was.

The lamp was lifted, and Solveig could see eyes. Dark searchlights. She scrambled to her feet.

‘Who are you?' she demanded.

‘It is!' said a familiar, husky voice in broad Norwegian. ‘It's Solveig.'

Then the man held his oil lamp right up and danced the dark away.

‘Father!' cried Solveig, and she threw herself into his arms.

‘And me,' said the other man. ‘Snorri.'

‘Oh!' exclaimed Solveig. ‘You've taken my breath away.'

‘Come on!' Halfdan told her. ‘You'll never win fame by lying on a feather bed.'

‘I'd rather have my straw mattress,' Solveig protested.

‘Get some clothes on.'

‘Why didn't you answer? When I asked who you were.'

‘We wanted to be certain,' her father replied. ‘We thought this might be Maria's chamber.'

‘You can never be too careful,' Snorri told her.

Solveig kept shaking her head, and yawning, and screwing up her eyes. Part of me is still asleep, she thought. My head, not my limbs.

‘Come on!' Halfdan said impatiently. ‘First your own clothes, then these.' He stooped and picked up something: a scarlet cloak and helmet.

‘Me? Those?'

‘Until we're out of the palace.'

‘Oh! My servants. Where are they? They always sleep outside my door.'

‘You'll see,' said Snorri. He harrumphed.

‘Which is more than they can do,' added her father.

‘No!' gasped Solveig. ‘You haven't …'

‘For the third time, Solveig, hurry up! First your own clothes, then this cloak, and then whatever you're bringing with you.'

Solveig rubbed her eyes. ‘My bone-bag, yes, and the bog cotton in it and … you know.'

‘I know,' Halfdan said curtly.

‘There's only one thing you don't want in a bag,' observed Snorri.

Neither Solveig nor her father asked him what it was, but Snorri told them anyhow. ‘A hole,' he said. ‘A hole in your bucket, your pocket, your bag, and they're no more use than a hobbled nag.'

‘What else?' asked Halfdan. ‘Come on, Solva!'

‘My files … my saw … my carving knife …' rehearsed Solveig, speaking more to herself than the two men. ‘My third eye … oh! my grindstone … and the fish-hooks Vigot gave me, I'll need those … my
linen shift, the spare one … my felt cloak, my reindeer skin … oh! my leggings, and my soft shoes—'

‘In the name of the Norns,' complained Halfdan, ‘what else? If you bring much more, you'll need your own boat.'

‘Father!' Solveig reproached him.

‘When you set out on a journey, the best thing you can bring weighs the least,' pronounced Halfdan.

‘Your wits,' replied Solveig, and she gave the most enormous yawn. ‘Well, they'll have to just follow me.'

As soon as Solveig had gathered her few possessions, her father swung the Varangian cloak round her shoulders and secured the handsome silver clasp.

‘It's too long,' complained Solveig.

‘Grow taller!' Snorri growled.

‘Now your helmet,' said Halfdan, grinning. He handed the lamp to Snorri and told Solveig, ‘Hold back your hair. Bunch it up as high as you can.'

Then Solveig's father lowered the conical iron helmet over the crown of his daughter's head until the nosepiece was resting on her nose, gently squashing it.

Snorri held up the oil lamp and both men chuckled.

‘A man-woman,' Halfdan declared. ‘A boy-girl.'

Snorri shook his head. ‘More like a light-elf, I'd say. A light-elf from Asgard.'

‘I'm not!' said Solveig.

‘Or a wood nymph.'

‘Except,' said Halfdan, ‘she hasn't got a cow's tail. Not that I know of. Now, Solva!'

‘I'm ready!'

‘Come on! Follow me.'

In the passage outside Solveig's bedchamber, another oil lamp was sitting on a stone shelf, and by its light Solveig saw her two servants, but neither of them could see her. They were both blindfolded with strips of rag.
Their arms and legs were trussed with rope so that they couldn't even roll over, and they were both gagged – their mouths stuffed with wodges of linen so they were unable to call for help but could only give the most piteous little cheeps and squeaks.

‘They won't come to harm,' Snorri said. ‘Poor chicks!'

‘Just a feather or two,' agreed Halfdan. ‘Right, my daughter, you've left nothing behind you – nothing but dust.'

No, that's not true, thought Solveig. I'm leaving Maria, and her friendship, and all her hopes and fears. ‘Maria!' she exclaimed. ‘I must tell her!'

‘Come on!' Halfdan growled.

‘I must.'

Solveig's father rounded on her. ‘Are you mad?'

‘I can't just leave her.'

‘Solveig!' barked Halfdan. ‘Once Maria knows, everyone will know. Come on! Down to the Golden Horn before anyone can do a thing about it.'

The sickle and the beehive and the lion's tail, the whale, the sail and the keel, sparkling and dim, large and small, the astonishing stars seemed to rain down on Solveig as she struggled to keep up with her father and Snorri. As she struggled and began to weep.

Solveig didn't know why she was weeping. Because she wasn't losing her father for a second time. Because Harald had honoured his word. Because it was all too sudden, this arriving in Miklagard and double leave-taking of Edith and Edwin, this first making of a friendship with Maria only to break it, this rough waking from deep sleep before dawn and rushing down to the Golden Horn.

‘What is it, girl?' Halfdan asked.

Solveig didn't answer.

‘Come on! Out with it!'

‘Nothing,' gulped Solveig. ‘Everything. All the stars showering down on me.'

The three of them hurried through the deserted Hippodrome and up the rise past the huge dark hulk of Hagia Sophia.

‘Not all of them, I hope,' Snorri observed. ‘The stars.'

Solveig sniffed.

‘We'll be needing them as soon as we set sail.'

‘Quite right,' agreed Halfdan. ‘The full moon won't get you far, but you can navigate by the smallest star.'

‘I've never heard that one before,' Snorri said.

‘Saracen,' Halfdan told him.

The cool of the night chilled Solveig's damp cheeks. She blinked away her tears, then hoicked up her scarlet cloak and rubbed her face against it.

‘I'll tell Tamas,' Snorri gently teased her. ‘I will.'

‘What?' Solveig sniffed again.

‘You've been weeping into his cloak,' her father explained.