A Burning Sea

by Theodore Brun

  ‘Aye,’ she murmured. ‘Sleep.’ As if a few hours of oblivion would wipe away her troubles.

  Just then there was a knock at the door, faint as a whisper. The three exchanged glances. Lilla nodded and Einar went to the door and opened it a crack.

  ‘You?’ Lilla heard him say. ‘What do you want?’

  Over the sound of the rain, she heard a small voice, a child’s voice, and after it a deeper, warmer sound, muffled by the door. Einar’s hand moved briefly to the seax-sheath on his back, then away again as he opened the door and admitted two very different figures.

  The first was the thrall-girl who had served them supper, now wrapped up against the night, the damp wool of her cloak sparkling in the light of the fire. After her entered a tall, broad-shouldered man. He seemed old at first – his hair and beard were white – but his eyes had steel in them and he moved easily.

  ‘This one claims he knows where Erlan is,’ Einar said, closing the door.

  The whitebeard chuckled. ‘I said I reckon I know which way he went.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing,’ said Lilla.

  ‘No. But it’s the best I’ve got.’ The man’s voice was deep and rich as Frankish wine. He was a handsome rogue too, and likely knew it.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘This one’s father.’ He nodded at the girl. ‘She said you want information about Erlan Aurvandil’s whereabouts—’

  ‘I do. Tell us what you know.’

  ‘She also said you’d a mind to reward whoever gave it you.’

  Lilla sighed. Of course. ‘Give him a gold ring,’ she said to Einar.

  ‘But he’s told us nothing—’

  ‘Give it to him!’

  Einar shrugged and went to the chest, dug around inside for a moment, then sent a gobbet of gold spinning across the room. The man plucked the ring from the air with a rakish chuckle.

  ‘There’s more for you if what you say is useful.’

  ‘Ah, you’re a generous soul, Lady,’ he said, examining the gold in his palm. ‘Just like your grandfather.’

  ‘My grandfather?’ Lilla frowned. ‘You knew him?’

  ‘I fought alongside him for nearly five years in the Estland Wars.’

  ‘That was twenty-five years ago.’

  ‘Aye. I was a younger man back then.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Valrik Viggorsson.’

  ‘Well, Valrik Viggorsson. While you may wish to waste time reminiscing about your youth, I have paid you for information.’

  ‘So you have.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘It was about a moon ago. He left one night by the river in the same boat he sailed here. He would have slipped away unnoticed is my guess. Except for one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He took my lads with him.’

  ‘Your lads?’

  ‘My sons. They deserve a thrashing, the pair of them – and they’ll get one next time I catch up with them. But they left a thread behind them, see.’ He nodded at the little girl.

  Lilla listened as Valrik told her how his daughter was the only one who knew of Erlan’s departure with the boys. Valrik was ashamed to admit that he had beaten it out of her since it was obvious she knew something though her brothers had sworn her to secrecy. Eventually she gave up what she knew – that the boys had thrown in their lot with the Aurvandil and gone in search of the king of kings in the south.

  ‘The king of kings?’ repeated Lilla. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘That’s all they said. Best I can tell, that’s all they knew.’

  ‘Perhaps they meant Ringast,’ said Gerutha. ‘If they didn’t know he was already dead.’

  Valrik shook his head. ‘Ringast was west. They were heading south.’

  ‘The king of kings. Bah!’ scoffed Einar. ‘Well, that ain’t worth a stale turd, let alone a gold ring.’

  But Lilla was watching Valrik’s face, and the smile playing at the corners of his mouth. ‘He knows more. Or he thinks he does.’

  Valrik chuckled. ‘I can’t be certain. But you’re right – I’ve a notion where they’re headed.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Happens that I’ve travelled further than any other man you’ll meet in this place. Far to the south, beyond the great rivers to the Black Sea. Do that and you get to hear many stories. And I heard tell of a kingdom in the south greater than any other – a kingdom, they said, that ruled the world.’

  ‘Well, that’s a lie,’ said Gerutha. ‘The north has its own kings. And queens,’ she added, glancing at Lilla.

  ‘True, merchants and travellers are prone to exaggeration. But you hear a name enough times and you begin to think maybe there’s a grain of truth to it.’

  ‘What name?’ said Lilla.

  ‘The Great City,’ said Valrik. ‘Miklagard.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘Byzantium,’ said the Goth beside him.

  Erlan dipped his head, still pulling the oar, his curiosity outweighing the pain in his hands. But the flashes of white stone he glimpsed through the oar-hole were too fleeting to make much sense of. Only that there was a lot of it.

  ‘Where will they take us?’ he asked the Goth in Greek. He’d learned as much of the language as he could from the man to whom Ramedios had chained him, mostly in whispers in the dead of night. The Goth had taught him willingly, as much to keep his own sanity as to help the northern stranger. His name was Ildur. He had a hooked nose, a tuft of beard and a head completely shaven, but for a rat’s tail hanging off the back of his skull.

  ‘Straight to market,’ Ildur grunted. ‘Or else a lock-up till they can get rid of us.’

  The whip crack came from nowhere and bit painfully across Erlan’s forearm, drawing blood.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, you sack of sheep shit,’ snarled the overseer above them. Erlan kept rowing. He understood more of the crew’s language now, not that much of it was worth the hearing.

  ‘No more with the whip, you witless fool,’ Ramedios yelled. ‘We want them unmarked on the block.’

  The air was stifling, and hot as a forge-fire under the decking of the ship. If Ramedios was concerned for their welfare now, he’d shown little enough over the last two weeks, sparing barely enough food and water on his human chattels to keep them alive.

  When they weren’t called upon to row, the slaves were left to fester in the slop of bilge water and urine and vomit and worse which remained despite the token efforts every couple of days to flush it out.

  Since Erlan had lost his freedom, they’d seen three other ports on their progress around the Black Sea – or Friendly Sea, as the Greeks called it – and the number of slaves in the hold had grown. Finally, their prow swung due south into a narrow strait that Ildur called the Bosporus. Here, the sea traffic increased, and the shores rose up into a narrow bottleneck of leafy hilltops and steep-backed bays.

  In the straits, even the smaller towns were bigger than anything Erlan had ever seen, their tiled roofs spreading inland like blooms of pink moss. It was early summer now. The nights were shorter and a cool relief from the long, hot days of blazing sunshine. And all the while, the bitter irony that his quest for freedom had made him a slave chaffed as sore as the chains around his wrists.

  The ship changed course, its bows swinging to the west. The order was given to cease rowing. The sails were lowered. There was a new smell on the air.

  ‘Stinks, doesn’t it?’ muttered Ildur.

  ‘What is it?’

  Ildur chuckled. ‘The city. What else?’

  He still couldn’t see much. Peering through the oar-hole, he glimpsed a huge pillar of stone and beyond it a mishmash of shapes – spikes, towers, arches, domes as big as giants’ skulls – each appeared and vanished from view in an instant. The noise also grew, crewmen shouting at each other, laughing and calling out to sailors on other ships and the smaller craft bustling around them.

  ‘Must be coming into harbour,’ replied Ildur.

/>   Some of the crew were bantering in animated voices on the steer-board side of the ship. ‘What are they saying?’

  Ildur listened a while. ‘They’re asking about the Arabs.’

  ‘Arabs?’ He didn’t know this word.

  ‘The enemy of the Byzantines. They say an army is on its way here. I heard the same rumours back in Krim.’

  ‘An army? Is it war then?’

  ‘Worse.’ Ildur gave a grim chuckle. ‘It’s the end of the world.’

  There was a bang as another smaller craft came alongside the ship. ‘Get them on deck,’ shouted Ramedios, appearing above the hold. ‘We’ll lower them down in pairs, then ferry them over a dozen at a time.’

  Two by two the slaves were unchained from the benches and dragged up on deck. This wasn’t how Erlan had imagined arriving at this almost mythical place, but still he couldn’t suppress the rising anticipation he felt. The chain slipped angrily through the iron hoops holding them to the bench and Erlan and his row-mate were jerked up and out of their festering pit. For a second, the brightness of the sun blinded him; the chain around his ankles caught on something, and he tripped and fell hard on his knees.

  ‘On your feet, cripple.’ Rough hands seized him and pulled him up again. As they did, his gaze was drawn beyond them, beyond the ship, out over the water and upwards. In that instant, everything and everyone around him vanished. He was transfixed. Stretching upwards towards a jagged skyline was a mountain of stone. He saw white walls striped with bands of red, huge houses of stone of three, four, even five storeys, vast temples of red and white with domes that bulged up into the sky. And everywhere people. Swarms of them on land and on water. Dozens atop the walls armed with shield and spear. Hundreds on the stone quayside, moving up and down the stairs leading to the choppy harbour water which stank of rotten fish and tar and human waste.

  ‘Welcome to the centre of the world, slave,’ Ramedios sneered, and shoved him towards the gangway.

  He felt a strange mixture of humiliation and indifference, being sized up like a bull at a fair. As if he were a mere observer, looking out from the top of the auction block over the sea of faces, with no say in the matter, nothing to do but stand there.

  Most faces were uninterested. But some eyes darted and glanced sidelong, shifting from him to the crowd. He noticed a new bidder, a dark-skinned fellow, thin on hair with a shocking red beard, wrapped in a sky-blue robe like a woman. The best Erlan could tell, this man was the fourth bidder. Four different fates beckoned, and as the price rose he wondered which the Norns had chosen.

  Earlier, he had watched with impotent rage as Aska was paraded back and forth until eventually a man in a wide-brimmed fur hat had won the bid. The last he’d seen of his one-eyed companion was the fur hat bobbing through the crowd. The gods only knew what fate awaited Aska. Perhaps he was destined for the man’s cooking pot.

  Later, he saw Ildur sold. Now it was his turn.

  The sun beat down with its merciless heat. He felt he would melt away entirely if he had to stand there much longer. There was a stick wedged between his back and his elbows, meant to control him and make him stand up straight. He rolled his shoulders, trying to find some relief from its sharp bite, but all that did was earn him a jab in his ribs from the overseer’s staff. He jerked away, his foot turned, grating the misshapen spur of bone in his ankle. The old wound. His old weakness. His knee crumpled in pain.

  Silanos wasn’t surprised. He had already noticed the way the Northman favoured his right leg and the slightly twisted angle of his left foot. The barbarian hadn’t shifted it once, not until this moment, and as soon as he did his left leg gave way like the stem of a wine glass. In truth, it was rather pathetic to see how easily he was felled.

  ‘That man is a cripple,’ he yelled. It hardly needed saying but there had been an uncomfortable amount of interest in this one and the price was getting too high. Here was his chance to shake off the competition. ‘What do you take us for!’ He pushed forward, swelling with sham indignation. ‘Are we a herd of peasants to be gulled out of our gold?’

  The slaver had been content, thus far, to watch proceedings from the back of the auctioneer’s platform, slouched under an awning. ‘I assure you, friend,’ he called back, ‘whatever the man’s defects, you’ll never find a warrior more deadly with a sword.’

  ‘Horse shit!’ Silanos cried. ‘I know ten street-sweepers could best this fellow in a fight.’ He turned to the crowd. ‘This man is playing us for fools. This cripple can’t fight. He’s damaged goods. Great God, he can hardly stand!’ Silanos felt the sparks of his outrage take. Other bidders were complaining now, and the Northman wasn’t helping the slaver’s cause any; his face was a grimace of pain.

  The slaver was arguing now, trying to quell the growing jeers of the crowd. At last the auctioneer tugged the Northman off the block. Angry words flew about. Then Silanos saw his moment of triumph; the rich Armenian, his main rival in the bid, turned away in disgust. The auctioneer was already pulling forward the next lot and the slaver’s men were dragging away the Northman.

  Silanos smiled and followed them through the crowd.

  Erlan wasn’t sure what had just happened. But the result was clear enough: he was still in chains and still a captive of Ramedios. He felt cheated. One day, he promised himself, he would pay the double-dealing Greek back in kind but right now any fate was better than remaining his prisoner.

  They threw him back in the lock-up Ramedios had hired for his slaves. Erlan slumped down in the filthy sawdust. He was exhausted, his mind most of all, and for a while he let sleep slip over him like a welcome shroud. . .

  He was recalled to his senses by a sharp kick to his ankle. ‘Get up, cripple. He wants you.’

  He was dragged to his feet and led back outside to where Ramedios had set up a booth for the day. The slaver was reclining in the shade on a makeshift couch, quaffing wine out of a silver goblet. There was another man with him, also with goblet in hand. To Erlan’s surprise, he recognized the sky-blue robe and red beard of the bidder who had reduced the auction to farce.

  ‘Strip him,’ Ramedios ordered.

  ‘Just the tunic will do,’ added the newcomer. ‘The smell round here is bad enough.’

  One of the sailors took a knife to Erlan’s tunic – at least the rags that were left of it – and a moment later he stood naked to the waist. The redbeard came closer, looking him over with careful brown eyes. He had a half-amused air about him, as if this were all just a game he liked to play. Erlan flinched as he prodded at various scars, some old, some more recent.

  ‘What about his ankle?’

  Ramedios shrugged and ordered that he be made to walk, which he did after some goading from the guard’s spear-butt.

  All the while, Ramedios and the bidder were conversing in Greek, too fast for him to understand. At last the buyer pulled his hand down the length of his beard and rummaged in the folds of his robe till he produced a fat leather purse and dumped it on the table. Erlan saw no scales. Instead of weighing out silver, the man counted out a number of small round pieces of gold.

  Thirteen of them. Erlan knew not whether to be flattered or insulted, only that it was an oddly precise number to be valued at. But Ramedios scraped the gold into his own leather pouch, apparently satisfied. There was another quick exchange. This time Erlan caught the word spathí.

  Sword.

  Erlan’s heart rose in his chest when, a moment later, Wrathling was produced from somewhere. The newcomer looked it over for barely a few seconds, affecting indifference to the intricate metalwork of its hilt. He nodded, then tossed it to a big man standing nearby and threw down another three gold pieces on the table.

  Ramedios gave a flick of his hand. ‘You’re his now.’ The sailor gripping his chain tossed it to the oversized servant, who gave it a tug. Erlan didn’t move.

  ‘Watch your back, Ramedios,’ he growled. ‘One day I’m going to be there.’

  Ramedios gave a derisive snort in reply.
‘You brainless barbarian. You think you’re the first man I’ve sold who’s threatened me? But I’m still here, aren’t I?’ He spat at Erlan’s feet. ‘Devil take you, cripple.’

  And with these words, it seemed his fate was sealed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  By Lilla’s count it was four weeks since they had left Dunsgard and every day she wondered whether she had made the right decision. But right or wrong, she didn’t regret leaving Osvald behind, nor his offer. And now other words filled her thoughts. The king of kings. Miklagard. . . Erlan.

  Perhaps they were nothing but phantom hopes she was chasing which would mock her in the end. But she refused to settle for the mediocrity of Dunsgard and its slithering lord. If there was a greater alliance to be made with a greater king, she would find it. After which, she would return, and her revenge on Thrand would be cold and furious.

  ‘You’ll come back here, vagabond queen,’ Osvald had jeered when she gave him her refusal. ‘There’ll always be a place here among my bed-slaves when you do.’ She had swallowed the insult and made her choice.

  Valrik, on the other hand, had proved a gift from the gods. A sea-skipper, he had two things she needed: experience and a willing crew. Their service cost her half the gold in Einar’s sea-chest, but if it delivered what she hoped, it was worth every ounce. In a few days they were ready and set a course upstream in defiance of the spring meltwaters rushing out of the Dagava valley.

  Defiance was a fuel that burned hot and burned long. But after four weeks even Lilla had to admit she’d had no notion of the scale of their undertaking. On and on they had rowed into a vastness of strange landscapes and stranger people. Valrik told her that to reach the Dnipar, they must cross the uplands not of the Dagava, but of a tributary river named the Kaspja that turned south. Beyond lay a portage of several days over which they would have to haul not only Valrik’s ship but also the cargo which he had insisted on assembling before their departure. But once they made the Dnipar, he assured her, their voyage would become easier.