Scramasax (5 page)

‘Now then,' continued Empress Zoe, ‘when you were in Kiev, King Yaroslav granted you an audience?'

‘Yes,' replied Solveig. ‘Princess.'

‘Of Peace.'

‘Of Peace.'

‘So Edwin told me. And what did the King of the Rus say to you?'

‘He said … he knew my father had saved Harald Sigurdsson's life.'

‘Of course he did! Why else would he have granted you an audience?'

‘Loyal and honourable. That's what the king called him.'

‘What else?'

‘He told me he'd given my father a sabre made by one of his own smiths.'

‘Yes,' said the Empress. ‘I allow your father to wear it. What else?'

‘He warned Red Ottar – he was our skipper – that the Pechenegs were massing on the banks of the Dnieper, north of the Snake Ramparts. He said he'd have to fight the greatest battle in the eighteen years he had sat on the throne.'

Empress Zoe and Emperor Michael were both listening intently.

‘King Yaroslav told Red Ottar he needed to send a messenger to Miklagard as a matter of urgency.'

‘To Miklagard?' the Empress repeated.

‘Yes.'

‘Not to me?'

‘To you, yes. That's what he meant. He praised you, Princess. Princess of Peace.'

‘He did, did he?' said the Empress in an expressionless voice.

‘And then he gave us cranberry juice. It tasted so sour.'

‘Solveig,' said Empress Zoe, ‘can you remember King Yaroslav's exact words? About the messenger?'

Solveig frowned. ‘“I'm asking you to carry my messenger to Miklagard as quickly as you can.” I think that's what he said. “For me – my family, my followers, my kingdom – I believe it's now or never.”'

Empress Zoe nodded. ‘You heard that?' she asked.

‘I did,' said the Emperor Michael, and at last Solveig allowed herself to look at him. He was tall, though not as tall as her father, let alone Harald, and he had short, prickly black hair. So far as she could see, his eyes were dark and he was just starting to grow a moustache and beard.

‘The Englishman Edwin, he was King Yaroslav's messenger,' Solveig volunteered.

‘I'm aware of that,' replied the Empress.

‘And he told me he was coming to see you,' Solveig added, sounding puzzled.

Empress Zoe waved a hand and a servant stepped forward carrying a tray with a jug and two small glasses on it.

‘Sour, was it?' said the Empress. ‘The cranberry juice. Try this wine instead.'

It did just cross Solveig's mind that the Empress might be giving her poison but, following Snorri's example, she took a glass and tossed it back.

Solveig coughed and the Empress pursed her cracked lips into a kind of smile.

‘Well?' she asked.

‘Fire,' croaked Solveig. ‘And … I don't know.' She coughed again. ‘Resin, I think. Pine resin.'

Empress Zoe nodded. ‘It is.'

‘Something dark too. Like pitch for caulking boats.'

The Empress lost interest in Solveig's attempts to describe the wine.

It's disgusting, thought Solveig. Worse than bilge water. But I'd better drink it anyhow.

Emperor Michael caught Solveig's eye, and she could see he was grinning. Then he threw back his head and laughed out loud.

‘Well, now,' said the Empress. ‘Harald Sigurdsson's request.' She pinched her nose. And then with both hands she smoothed back her wrinkles. ‘You're … what are you? A farmer's daughter. The daughter of one of my guards. Still! You've found your way alone across half the world …' The Empress hesitated, as if she were still making up her mind.

‘Not alone,' said Solveig, ‘Princess of Peace.'

Empress Zoe raised her right hand to silence Solveig. ‘I summoned you here without your father because I didn't want him to speak for you, as fathers often do. I didn't want you to hide behind him. I wanted to see you for who you are.'

Solveig gazed up at the Empress, unblinking.

‘You've got your wits about you,' Empress Zoe continued. ‘You've got a tongue! Yes … yes. I require much of Harald, and expect more. I see no reason not to grant his request.'

Solveig frowned.

‘I mean, girl, that I grant you rooms here in this palace. The servants who wait on my niece, Maria, can wait on you too.'

‘Thank her,' whispered Snorri out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Praise her.'

‘Princess of Peace,' Solveig began in a measured voice, ‘I'm most grateful to you. I won't stay long.'

Empress Zoe arched one plucked eyebrow. ‘Evidently,' she replied, ‘you know more than I do.'

‘I mean, I'm resolved to sail with my father to Sicily.'

‘Pff!' spat the Empress.

‘I must.'

‘Must? Must? No one speaks to me like that.'

Solveig lowered her eyes.

‘Secure your hood!'

Solveig pulled her hood forward and downward.

‘Sail to Sicily?' hissed Empress Zoe. ‘Certainly not. It's out of the question. I shall tell Harald so.'

‘But …'

‘Girl,' said the Empress, ‘I'm aware you've travelled here because of your father, and you're stubborn as a mule, I can see that.'

‘How long?' asked Solveig. ‘I mean … when will …?'

‘How should I know? One year. Two. But in the meantime Maria will teach you court manners. And no doubt she'll tell you all about her … scheming mother, and her wretched, sickly father.'

Solveig felt herself beginning to shake.

‘And she will teach you some Greek,' added the Empress, and she leaned forward and pointed at Solveig with her hooked right forefinger. ‘Harald would never dare to defy me. He owes his position and all he is … he owes his whole self to me. He does as I say. And so will you.'

Empress Zoe snapped her right finger and thumb. She beckoned, and at once a young woman detached herself from a small group of courtiers and glided forward.

Solveig could see that she was quite short, quite plump,
and had a great wave of luxuriant, almost luscious dark hair.

The girl just glanced at Solveig and then bowed to the Empress and Emperor.

‘Maria,' said Empress Zoe, ‘you speak some Norwegian.'

‘Harald is a good teacher,' Maria replied.

‘This is Solveig, Halfdan's daughter. ‘Teach her court manners. And instruct your servants to wait on her.'

‘Gladly,' said Maria, and Solveig could hear that she meant it.

Then the Empress raised both hands from her lap to signal that the audience was over.

‘Do as I do,' Snorri said hoarsely.

The Viking guard bowed until his forehead touched the ground, and Solveig copied him. Then they both stood up and backed away, so that not for one moment were their backs turned on the Empress and Emperor.

Snorri hadn't even passed through the next hall before he began to growl.

‘Shhhhh!' Solveig cautioned him.

‘The ghastly hag! The old tombstone!'

‘Shhhhh!'

‘The miserable burnt-out lump of coal!'

‘Snorri!'

‘“Harald does as I say … he owes me his position … all he is … he owes his whole self to me.” Just wait until I tell him what she said!'

As they walked through the next hall into the one with the fountain, Snorri went on spluttering to himself. ‘Princess of Peace! Tongue-slicer! Ghastly!'

I've got no choice, Solveig thought miserably. None. How can I change her mind? How can I?

My father. It's the same for him. He doesn't want to leave me. I know that.

Solveig bit her lower lip. Her brow was furrowed.

I keep thinking of our brooch. The two of us, one in the bows, one in the stern. Both in one boat, under one sail. What am I to do?

S
ervants kept circling round Solveig's spacious quarters, removing imaginary specks of dust, plumping up cushions, smoothing silken carpets, bringing sherbet for Solveig and Maria to sip, and then fanning them until Maria dismissed them.

I don't belong here, thought Solveig. I never will. This place is too grand for me. And I don't like the way Maria's servants keep buzzing and hovering around me.

Then a beardless man who might have been thirty or fifty or even seventy was admitted with a message for Maria, but after this the two girls were left on their own for a while.

Or so Solveig supposed.

Maria widened her cinnamon eyes, dark and shining.

‘Behind tapestries,' she warned Solveig. ‘At keyholes. Always eyes, always ears.' Except that the way Maria pronounced the word sounded more like ‘yezz'.

‘Always speak in a low voice,' Maria murmured.

I wish I had a voice like yours, thought Solveig. Like summer bees in a meadow.

‘Your father,' said Maria. ‘You come because of him?'

Solveig nodded. ‘I had to,' she replied. ‘I was so lonely. I missed him.'

Maria nodded, and Solveig noticed how, when she did so, the muscles in her graceful neck twitched.

Maria waited for Solveig to say more and, for just a moment, Solveig found herself wondering whether Maria herself could be a spy, working for the Empress and waiting for Solveig to incriminate herself. But then she felt guilty at having such a thought. It's only because of all the suspicion and fear in this palace, she told herself. It's the place's fault.

‘I miss the same,' Maria said sadly.

‘What do you mean?'

‘My father.'

‘Your father?'

‘He is ill, he is weak. I am his daughter.' Maria's voice was still low and controlled but Solveig could hear her strength of feeling. ‘I should look after him.'

‘I don't understand,' said Solveig. ‘Why can't you?'

Maria took a deep breath and then let it all out again in hot, jagged spurts. ‘I cannot say.'

Solveig bit her upper lip.

‘Do not ask,' Maria told her. ‘Not now.'

‘And my father, he's going away again.'

‘Your father,' repeated Maria slowly, ‘and Harald.' Her voice lifted, as if she had just glimpsed the Morning Star. She pushed out her puffy lower lip. ‘He told me how your father saved his life.'

Solveig nodded. ‘At Stiklestad.'

‘And how he hid in your farm until his wounds healed. And you're his almost-sister.'

‘I know. But he's the son of a queen, and the half-brother of King Olaf. Me … I'm just Solveig. A farmer's daughter.'

‘Sun-Strong,' said Maria.

Solveig gave a start. ‘Who told you that?'

‘Harald. He said our names can show us who we are.'

Solveig narrowed her eyes. ‘When did you talk like this?'

‘Last year,' Maria replied. ‘The Empress allowed my mother and me to make a pilgrimage.'

‘What's that?'

‘A pilgrimage!'

Solveig shook her head.

‘It's a journey to a holy place. Sometimes a long journey. The greatest one of all is to the Holy Land. Jerusalem.'

‘Is that where you went?'

Maria nodded. ‘Harald Sigurdsson escorted us. From here across the Great Sea, as far as Antioch. And from Antioch overland through Syria and Palestine. We were away from Miklagard for more than three months. Harald taught me Norwegian …' Maria paused, recalling something, and gave a wistful smile. ‘. . . and other things.'

‘Did he tell you about his name?'

Maria shook her head.

‘It means a great army and it means power.'

‘He's so ambitious,' said Maria, wide-eyed. ‘So single-minded. His heart batters his chest.'

‘When he was only three, he thumped the chest of King Olaf, his half-brother, and pulled his moustache. I'll tell you some time.'

‘And so tall,' added Maria dreamily.

Solveig looked puzzled. ‘But your mother, why can't she …'

‘You heard,' Maria replied in a low voice. ‘You heard Empress Zoe. Her hatred. She and my mother argued, they screamed.'

‘What about?'

‘And then the Empress exiled her to a nunnery.'

‘But … your father. Her own husband. Didn't he …'

Maria lowered her eyes. ‘Not her husband,' she said. ‘My mother has no husband.'

‘Ohh!' exclaimed Solveig, and she slowly nodded.

‘I told you,' Maria went on, her voice throbbing. ‘He is ill, but I cannot look after him, or bring him food and medicine. One time each week! That's all.'

‘Is he here? In this palace?'

Maria shook her head. Her whole body shook.

‘In Miklagard?'

‘In a damp stone house. It kills him.'

‘Oh, Maria!' said Solveig gently, and she boldly took the princess's warm, plump hands between her own.

‘She is a monster,' Maria whispered.

Solveig squeezed her hands. ‘I'll help you.'

Maria shook her head.