Hereward 04 - Wolves of New Rome (7 page)

Alric gripped his forearm. ‘What about the others? If any have survived—’

‘We will return when we can,’ Hereward snapped. It was an inadequate reply, and all there knew it, but there was nothing else he could say. His missing spear-brothers deserved more than to be abandoned while enemies roamed all around. But he had no doubt that Kraki, or Guthrinc, or any of them would have insisted that he follow the same course.

As he began to climb towards the rocks at the shore’s edge, Hereward felt Alric tense beside him. The monk’s gaze was turned to the approaching ships. From the bellows and jeers that echoed across the sea, there could be no doubt that the small band of men on the shore had been seen. On the lead vessel, a dragon-headed craft in the style of the Northmen, the oars plunged into the swell to guide it home. One of the pirates danced along the row of poles, pausing only to shake his axe at the English.

‘A forest of spears at our backs, a sea of sand and rock ahead,’ Hengist muttered. ‘I do not like this choice.’

‘It will keep your mind off your empty belly,’ Hereward replied with dark humour.

When the woman stood before the Mercian, she looked into his face with the same fierce defiance he had seen when she had leapt out from beneath the bloody sailcloth. Here was someone as strong as the good wives who had stood firmly at Ely while the vast army of William the Bastard waited beyond the walls, threatening to end their days. He pointed towards the ships. ‘Them,’ he said. ‘Or us.’

She looked back and seemed to understand his meaning. She nodded.

Hereward bowed his head. ‘You need have no worry here,’ he said. ‘We shall protect you with our lives.’

Her brow knitted for a moment and she flashed him a curious look. But then she lowered her eyes, pulled the hood of the cloak over her black hair and strode over the ridge and into the baked landscape. With his eyes, Hereward urged Hengist and Sighard to accompany her. Dropping to his haunches, he snatched up three small slivers of driftwood that he had ordered his men to bring up from the tideline. He embedded them in the sand in an N shape and nodded. It was the sign they had used in the dense, intractable fenlands to mark the secret paths that wound among the treacherous bogs out of sight of the king’s men. ‘If Kraki or Herrig or any of the others yet live, they will see this and know we have gone on ahead,’ he said, hoping against hope.

But when he looked up, he saw that Alric was frowning, distracted. He looked from the wall of colourful sails to the knot of men trudging into the arid land.

‘What ails you, monk?’

‘Ragener’s words,’ the churchman muttered. ‘That the woman is cursed. The Hawk said she would bring a host of enemies upon our heads. What if this army will pursue us to the ends of the earth to get her?’

CONSTANTINOPLE BOILED UNDER
the merciless sun. The narrow streets throbbed with life, too many people pressed into too small a space, red-faced, sweating, tempers fraying. Forges and abattoirs, steaming dyeworks and cesspits, all pumped their reek into the haze that hovered over the cluttered buildings. From every corner, the din boomed up to the heavens: the thunder of hammers, the rattle of looms, the voices roaring to be heard, whether slavers at the blocks, merchants and market traders, guildmasters and apprentices, or sailors unloading the ships at the quaysides. In Constantinople a man could find anything, so they said, except peace.

And yet, even then, Wulfrun could not help but think it was the greatest city on earth. He had been to Eoferwic, and to Wincestre, but they were like villages compared to this heaving, ceaseless mass. Here, on the high west wall above the Kharisios Gate, he could look down upon the grandeur, far removed from the grit of life.

Shielding his eyes against the glare, the captain of the Varangian Guard peered into the distance. Even then he could not see the far side of the sprawling city. Everywhere he looked, great stone buildings reached up towards the sun, the likes of which he had never seen in England. The monasteries and palaces, the great monuments to great men whose names were unknown to him, the hippodrome, the bath-houses, the zoo with its strange beasts that screeched and yowled and roared. And above it all, the magnificent dome of the Hagia Sophia floating against the blue sky. When he had first arrived from the west, he had knelt in that church to give thanks to God and had been almost blinded by the glittering of the gold which covered every surface like pebbles on a beach.

He felt his chest swell with pride. His father would have cried tears of joy to see his boy serving in the defence of such a place. ‘All who are lost will find a place here in Constantinople,’ he had been told when he sought a position in the Varangian Guard, and that surely was true.

‘Use those things with points on the end!’ The voice rang out along the top of the wall. The captain turned and saw his aide, Ricbert, leaning over the edge. He was shouting down to the guards who massed by the gate, watching the new arrivals streaming along the road that crossed the moat and the smaller walls into the city proper.

Ricbert came to meet him. ‘These days they hire children, not men,’ the smaller man sighed. ‘Old women could beat them with sharpened sticks and rotting fruit.’

‘There was a time when a toothless old hag could have laid you on your back with one blow.’ A smile flickered on Wulfrun’s lips. He remembered the callow youth fighting like a dog in the marketplace, more skin and bone than muscle. Ricbert didn’t have much to commend him – no brawn, no skill with axe or sword, and a tongue that was too quick to mockery – but Wulfrun had seen something in him. He had dragged the smaller man along the streets by the scruff of his neck and thrown him at the feet of Hakon the Grim, who was recruiting to fill the Guard’s depleted ranks. Hakon had turned up his nose, but he had bowed to Wulfrun’s wishes. Many did not survive the ordeal of proving their worth. They now rested in the boneyard by the Petrion Gate, their graves unmarked, their names forgotten. But Ricbert surprised all except Wulfrun. He was flattened, beaten, broken, his wits kicked out of him, the lobe of his left ear and the tip of a finger lost to sharp teeth, but still he clawed his way back from the brink. And now he had found a role at which he excelled. The Varangian Guard had never seen a better master of spies. No whisper escaped his ears. His eyes were like a hawk’s.

Ricbert sniffed. ‘Some of those old hags would afrit even Hakon the Grim,’ he said in an indignant tone. His face darkened as he glanced along the great Land Wall behind him. Four spear-lengths wide, it towered the height of seven men above the ground. From the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara it stretched, guarded by ninety-six towers with views across the rolling landscape to the west and north. No enemy could ever breach it.

‘What is wrong?’ Wulfrun asked.

‘Not all enemies are beyond the Land Wall, as you well know,’ Ricbert replied. ‘And there are enemies and enemies. Enemies of the emperor, enemies of the empire. And we have our own enemies too. Watch your back, Wulfrun.’

‘You speak in riddles.’

Along the wall, beyond the red banner of Constantinople with its white crescent of Diana, goddess of the hunt, and the white star of the virgin Mary, he glimpsed a throng approaching. The wall guards parted as if a sword carved through them. Ahead of a group of well-armed warriors strode a towering man, a good head or two above Wulfrun, who was himself taller than most of the local men. Long hair the colour of iron streamed out behind him. Despite his age – he had seen more than fifty summers – his chest was broad and his jaw was square. His lined face was tanned the colour of leather.

‘Victor Verinus,’ Wulfrun muttered.

‘Aye. The Stallion. The man with a horse’s cock, so they say. At least, I think that is where his name comes from. Victor is a cock, one way or another.’

‘He is the enemy of which you speak?’

An uneasy gaze flickered up towards Wulfrun. ‘I hear he has designs upon Juliana.’

The captain could not hide his distaste. ‘She is but a child to him.’

‘Victor conquers women as he conquers land. He takes what he sees. All is about power to him. I say this as a friend. Keep your eyes upon her.’

‘Has he not brought enough misery to the Nepotes?’ Wulfrun watched the tall man approach. Victor’s chin was raised, his stare supercilious as he surveyed the wall warriors, who would not meet his eye. His private guard kept close at his back. They were a pack of savage dogs, but they would die before they let an enemy reach their master.

‘He plunged the knife into the skull of Juliana’s father?’ Ricbert asked.

‘Aye. And that ended their struggle for power in one blow. Victor was victor, and he took the spoils, everything the Nepotes valued. All of Kalamdios’ kin paid a high price.’
But Juliana will not be one of them
, he silently vowed.

Victor came to a halt in front of the two men. A sly smile danced on his lips. ‘Wulfrun. The wolf of the Varangian Guard,’ he said in a low, rich voice. ‘In all the Guard, they say you have the coldest heart.’

‘I have heard that.’

‘And does that woman of yours not warm your icy depths?’ His lips pulled back from his yellowing teeth. ‘I hear you have not yet fucked her, Wulfrun. Surely that cannot be. Women need to be broken, and a woman that fine needs to have a man’s mark put upon her.’

Wulfrun felt the heat grow, but he showed only a cold face. ‘Juliana is chaste, and will remain so until we wed.’

Victor threw back his head and laughed. Overhead, the gulls wheeled, shrieking. ‘You English are a strange breed. All the women want your meat inside them, you and your Viking brothers.
So handsome! So brave!
I have seen them waiting in their multitudes outside the homes of the Varangian Guard in the Vlanga, begging for your tokens. Begging to be bedded.’ He fluttered one hand, shaking his head incredulously. ‘And yet you do not have your fill of their delights. Is killing all that weighs upon your minds?’

‘Some say.’

‘You are a man of few words. That is wise.’ Victor’s flat tone suggested a contempt that was not evident in the words. Wulfrun cared little. ‘I am to pay a visit to the house of the Nepotes this even. I will pass your good wishes to the girl, if I should see her.’ Folding his huge hands behind his back, the tall man strode away.

Wulfrun watched him go. ‘You see and hear all, as always, Ricbert. I am in your debt.’

An outcry rose from the gate beneath them. The two men stepped to the edge and peered down the dizzying drop. The long column of refugees arriving from the conflicts in the west stretched into the hazy distance. Too many by far, and more arriving by the day, Wulfrun thought. The finances of Constantinople already creaked from having to accommodate them all.

‘There,’ Ricbert said, pointing.

His back to the Kharisios Gate, a warrior waved a sword in an arc to fend off an angry mob. A woman stood behind him, shouting. Wulfrun thought he heard the English tongue. ‘Come,’ he muttered. ‘Before we have a war upon our own doorstep.’

Wulfrun and Ricbert dashed down the steep steps to the hubbub at the gate. Leaning on their spears, the guards stood back. Better to let the rabble fight it out amongst themselves than risk a knife in the ribs. Wulfrun shouldered his way through the throng till he reached the front of the semicircle facing the man and the woman. Once they saw his scarlet cape and gilded helm, the raucous crowd fell silent. Some stared in awe, at the riches shown by the golden hilt of his sword, or because word of the fearsome Varangian Guard had spread far beyond Constantinople’s walls.

Though the cornered man lowered his sword in deference, Wulfrun could see no fear in those coal-black eyes. His hair was a mass of dark curls and he was taller than most, and slender, but strong, Wulfrun could see. His stance was that of a fighting man. A faint smile played on his lips. At ease, even when threatened by a mob.

Wulfrun hid his curiosity. ‘What is the meaning of this outcry?’ he demanded, one hand upon the haft of his axe.

‘He is Norman,’ someone spat.

The captain turned back to the stranger. ‘Is this true?’

The man bowed his head. ‘’Tis true. I am Deda, a knight.’ With a flamboyant swing of his hand, he indicated the woman at his back. ‘This is my wife, Rowena.’

The woman was not unattractive, her eyes large and dark and filled with intelligence. Wulfrun saw a defiance there that warmed him. ‘English?’ he asked.

Her eyes lit up in delight at hearing her own tongue. ‘And you,’ she said, beaming.

The captain nodded, a greeting of familiars in a strange land. Glancing back at the knight, he said, ‘You thought you could walk through the Kharisios Gate when your kind attack our lands in the west, and burn the villages, and drive the people out in their floods to us here?’

‘I see how that could be a problem,’ Deda said in a wry tone, ‘if I were not being driven out by my own kind.’

‘Listen to him,’ Rowena pleaded. ‘There is nothing William the Bastard would like more than to see my husband’s head upon a spike.’ She stepped closer to the knight, as ready to fight for his safety as to comfort him, Wulfrun could see.

‘And why would Normans hunt a Norman?’

‘Because I killed an ally of the king—’

‘Who would have harmed me!’ Rowena interjected, her eyes blazing. ‘He is an honourable man who saved a woman in need.’

‘I would expect no more from a knight,’ Wulfrun said.

‘And I aided the English rebels,’ Deda continued. ‘Not in battle against my own, never that, but when they were fleeing for their lives. The king could never forgive that, for they had wounded his pride, if not his body.’

Wulfrun stiffened, but he hid his emotions. ‘The English rebels?’

‘Aye, in Ely, in the east, where they made their stand.’

Choosing his words carefully, the captain enquired, ‘And their leader …’ He touched his forehead, pretending to have forgotten the name of the man he hated more than any other.

‘Hereward. He is the reason we are here.’