Scramasax (8 page)

Little escaped Leo, and he could see Solveig was anxious.

‘Life is long but time is short!' he exclaimed, and Maria translated his words. ‘That's what people say when they have much to do, or much on their minds. But for me …' Leo said, ‘for me it's the other way round. Life is short but time hangs heavy.'

Solveig understood. She knew Leo meant he had only a little time left to live, and time dragged heavy between the one day each week when his daughter was allowed to come and see him.

Solveig's visit was brought to an unexpected end. Leo had just noticed her third eye and was asking her about it when he began to whiffle and wheeze and belch.

Then he coughed up green phlegm. He coughed up blood.

If he goes on like this, thought Solveig, he'll cough up his guts.

But when it seemed Leo might be about to cough himself to death, he spluttered into silence and, by way of apology, feebly waved his pale hands around like giant moths.

Solveig stood up to leave, and Leo snuffled and murmured something about Solveig coming to see him for a second time. Then Solveig asked Maria to tell her father how she hoped he would soon make a full recovery, but she knew she would never see him again.

When Solveig returned to her own quarters in the palace, one of the servants immediately tried to tell her
something, but she spoke very little Norwegian and Solveig spoke no Greek at all.

‘Wait!' Solveig said. ‘No! Follow me! We must find Maria!'

‘A visitor,' Maria translated. ‘You have had a visitor.'

‘Oh!' yelped Solveig.

‘W
hy are you making a face at me?' asked Solveig. ‘I don't understand.'

The servant stretched his mouth and tapped his teeth.

‘Why is he doing that, Maria?'

Maria spoke to the servant. ‘He says the man has big teeth and came very soon after we left the palace.'

‘Oh, no!'

‘What's wrong? Who were you expecting?'

‘No one.'

Maria looked reproachfully at Solveig.

‘Did he leave a message?' asked Solveig.

The servant pulled a face. ‘He is still here.'

‘Here!'

‘All afternoon, my servant says, she has given him wine and little cakes, and fruit for the lady …'

‘What lady?'

‘English,' the servant said.

‘English!'

‘The man and the lady, both English.'

Solveig cried out in joy and relief. ‘It's Edwin,' she explained. ‘He's the man who came here with me from Kiev. He came with a message from King Yaroslav for Empress Zoe. And Edith, she was Red Ottar's slave. She's carrying his baby.'

When the servant ushered Edwin and Edith into her
receiving room, Solveig cried out for a second time. She half-ran towards them and gathered them both into one long, warm, laughing embrace.

‘What's happened?' she asked, quite breathless. ‘When we met at the water-pool …'

‘The cistern,' said Edwin.

‘You told me you were about to have your audience with the Empress.'

‘That's right.'

‘And would be leaving again for Kiev immediately after.'

‘Many's the plan,' said Edwin, shaking his head.

‘Mihran found us a pilot,' Edith explained, ‘but when we went down to the water-steps to meet him, he wasn't there. We looked for him everywhere; we waited all afternoon.'

‘We couldn't find Mihran either,' Edwin said.

‘Anyhow,' Edith said brightly, ‘we've found another pilot. Well, Edwin has. And this one's trustworthy.'

‘Thin ice can look trustworthy,' Solveig warned her with a smile. ‘That's what my father says. His mouth is full of sayings.'

‘Oh, Solveig!' said Edith. ‘You look so … bright-eyed!'

The two of them embraced again, as best they could with the bump of the baby between them.

‘I've got the ring,' whispered Edith, ‘and when my daughter cuts her teeth on it …'

‘Daughter!' exclaimed Solveig. ‘How do you know?'

‘I just do!'

‘How?'

‘It's not so strange, is it? After all, she's living with me day and night, and I'm living with her.'

‘Oh, Edith!'

‘I won't know what to call her until I see her.'

‘You told me that before,' Solveig said.

‘Not long now. Kata, maybe.'

‘Kata,' repeated Solveig slowly. ‘Kata. I don't know that name.'

‘And when she cuts her teeth … I'll think of you.'

Solveig took a deep breath. ‘But I'll never see her. You'll have gone back to England.'

‘Oh, Solveig!' cried Edith, and the two of them clutched each other.

‘I'll never see her, and I'll never see you again.'

‘You can't know that,' said Edwin.

‘It's our fate,' Solveig replied.

‘Fate …' said Edwin. ‘As I've told you before, fate moves in the mind of God.'

‘Did you meet the Empress?' Solveig asked him.

‘And the Emperor.'

‘She gave me an audience too.'

Each of them met the other's eye but neither said a word. But then Solveig screwed up her face as if she'd sucked a sloe or a lemon, and Edwin laughed so that his buck teeth stuck right out of his mouth.

‘The Empress asked me exactly what King Yaroslav had said to me,' Solveig told them, ‘and when I explained the king wanted to send a messenger to Miklagard as a matter of great urgency, she challenged me.'

‘Oh?'

‘“To Miklagard”, she repeated. ‘“To Miklagard, not to me?”'

Edwin was listening intently, chafing the tip of his tongue against the back of his teeth.

‘I told her the message was for her. I said I was sure King Yaroslav meant that. And I told the Empress how the king had praised her.'

Edwin smiled. ‘You could be an emissary,' he said. He nodded and linked his fingers over his paunch.

‘A what?'

‘A go-between.'

Solveig shook her head. Wordsmiths, she thought. Isn't that what go-betweens are? Pushers and pullers and twisters?

Edith read her thoughts and shook her head. ‘Red Ottar didn't like wordsmiths,' she observed.

‘Neither does my father,' Solveig replied. ‘He says they're dark magicians. They shape-change meanings.'

Edwin smiled. ‘You credit us with more power than we really have,' he told them.

‘King Yaroslav's message,' Solveig pressed him, ‘it was for the Empress, wasn't it?'

‘And the Emperor.'

‘I mean …'

‘I know what you mean, Solveig. My mission was from King Yaroslav to the Empress Zoe and Emperor Michael.'

Solveig narrowed her eyes at him.

Edith laughed. ‘Trying to get Edwin to say something when he doesn't want to is like squeezing a stone for water.'

‘I know,' agreed Solveig, ‘or trying to shove our cows when they dig in their hooves.'

‘What I will say,' Edwin volunteered, ‘is that it would be a strange messenger who travelled for many weeks with only one song in his mouth.'

‘You mean,' Solveig said, ‘a go-between can sing out of both sides of his mouth.'

Edwin raised an eyebrow.

‘So was your other message for …'

Edwin raised his right hand and gently pushed it against Solveig's mouth.

‘It was,' said Solveig in a muffled voice. ‘I know it was.'

‘This won't be my last journey here,' the Englishman told her.

‘You're coming back?'

‘Very possibly.'

Solveig's heart lifted. ‘Then I'll see you again. I will, won't I?'

Edwin smiled. ‘If you're here,' he replied.

Before they left the receiving room, Edith and Edwin stared for a while at a mosaic of two children riding on a strange beast with two humps on its back.

‘A camel,' Edwin told them. ‘They only need to drink once each week, and even then they prefer muddy water.'

Edith shook her head. ‘I feel thirsty the whole time. It's so hot in Miklagard.'

‘And they live for more than one hundred years,' added Edwin.

‘Even older than the Empress,' Solveig said with a smile.

‘And the females fight in battle. They're very brave.'

Females in battle, thought Solveig. I'm telling Harald.

‘Look how long their legs are,' observed Edith, fingering the mosaic's tiny, glittering tiles. ‘Not like our pony.'

‘In Riccall, you mean?' asked Solveig.

Edith nodded.

‘Can Emma and Wulf …'

‘Oh, yes! They ride her. Along the riverbank. Oh, Solveig!' Edith sighed.

‘Tell me,' Solveig said gently.

‘All the water lilies.' Edith gulped and swallowed. ‘I wish you could see them.'

‘It's a bumpy ride,' said Edwin, ‘on a camel.'

‘Have you ridden one?' Solveig asked him.

‘In Africa,' the Englishman told her.

‘I wish I could.'

‘Yes,' said Edwin. ‘And the three of us, we had a bumpy ride on our way here. A very rough ride. We shared hardship. And that makes this leave-taking all the more painful.' Then he began to sing-and-say:

Edwin gave a gentle groan, almost a hum. ‘So, then, may the Lord ordain our return journey is a calm one.'

‘Sineus is waiting for us on Saint Gregorios,' Edith reminded them.

‘Oh!' said Solveig. ‘I hope his foot has healed well.'

Edwin gave her a wry smile. ‘I hope he's got two legs!'

‘Do you remember telling me about that English poem?' Solveig asked Edith. ‘The one that begins “I saw a wonder”.'

‘That's right,' said Edith. ‘When Edwin pointed out the red-breasted geese and water-mint and bald ibis and tamarisks. And I said it's how you see. I said that if you're sharp-eyed, anything and everything becomes a wonder.'

‘Oh, Edie!' exclaimed Solveig. ‘I hope your life's always like that.'

‘What about yours?' Edith said, slipping her arms around Solveig's neck. ‘It's so roomy here. So grand.'

‘Too grand,' said Solveig. ‘I don't belong here. I don't like it.' She gazed at Edwin over Edith's shoulder.

‘Harald Sigurdsson,' said Edwin, ‘he's sailing to Sicily.'

Solveig nodded.

‘With your father, no doubt.'

She nodded again.

‘Yes,' said Edwin in a quiet voice. ‘Well, Solveig, maybe there are camels in Sicily.' Then he puckered his mouth, just like a camel, and winked at her.

Solveig's eyes shone.

‘W
ait until I send you word,' Harald had told her. But three whole days had passed and neither he nor Solveig's father had been in contact with her at all. Not unless the servants she shared with Maria had turned them away.

What if they suspect me? Solveig thought. What if my servants have been instructed not to allow me any more visitors? My father and Harald could sail out of the Horn and halfway across the Great Sea without my knowing anything about it.

‘If anyone finds out, not only will it endanger your life, it might endanger mine.' That's what Harald had said.

But no one's found out anything. Not from me. It's me who needs to find out.

So on the morning of the fourth day, Solveig worked her way back through the warren of the palace to the Varangian guardroom.

This palace, she thought, it's like that grim labyrinth Mihran told me about, and the Empress Zoe is the Minotaur. She eats seven young men and seven young women each year.

Snorri and Skarp and at least a dozen other men were in the spacious guardroom, some standing, some lounging against the walls, some flat on their backs, but
Solveig noticed that none of them, not even Skarp, made so bold as to sit in Harald's high-backed chair.