The guard went pale.
‘Let him go,’ said the other one. ‘He’s a quaestor appointed by the chamberlain. That gives him a lot of clout.’
The guard with the beard lowered his eyes. ‘Go on then,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Loys, ‘you come with me. You can lead us out.’
‘If I must.’
‘You must.’
They passed through the building. The presence of the guard removed further questions and soon a patch of weak daylight appeared at the end of the corridor. Freedom.
‘You need to wait for the formalities,’ said the guard as he approached the little office at the side of the corridor.
‘Handle them yourself,’ said Loys and led Azémar out into the courtyard.
The guards there looked twice at his dirty official robes and dithered before the gate.
‘Open it,’ said Loys. ‘Now.’
The guards did as they were told and Loys took Azémar’s hand and led him out of the prison. Loys’ two palace guards came trotting to meet him with expressions of broad relief.
Azemar stopped, gazing up in wonder at the black skies. ‘The world is a prison,’ he said, ‘with prisons within it. Boxes of darkness, one inside another.’
‘Come on.’
They went to the palace, around the back curtain wall to the courtiers’ entrance rather than the public reception area of the Room of Nineteen Couches.
Loys was very aware of how dirty his robes had become and of the terrible state of Azémar. He put his cloak around his friend and bundled him on, telling the guard on the palace door to mind his own business when he asked who the beggar was. The man was cowed by the force of Loys’ rebuttal and immediately let them through.
Loys had succeeded in his aim of acquiring a terrifying reputation and commanding respect. He hated what he was becoming – a barking, snarling dog who could not even trust his own master.
They made their way through the corridors of the palace to Loys’ room. He strode in.
‘Servant, bring food and water for our guest. Get them now!’
Only then did he focus on who was in the room. There was the servant; there was Beatrice drinking from a cup, but opposite her on the couch reserved for guests sat a very strange figure. A boy, but not quite a boy. His skin was smooth and his muscles undefined. Despite this he wore an iron breastplate and an empty scabbard on his belt. Odd. Weapons had to be handed to the palace guards on entering but most people gave over their swords and scabbards complete. Not this boy. It seemed he was keen to emphasise he normally wore a sword.
‘Loys, what’s happened? Who is this?’ Beatrice was full of concern.
‘A friend,’ he said, ‘my friend Azémar, from home.’
‘What’s happened to him?’
‘Never mind. Bring him a drink, servant, bring him a drink.’
The servant rushed to scoop water from a bowl and Azémar’s eyes roamed the room.
‘There are snakes here,’ he said.
‘Only paintings, my friend, only paintings.’ Loys had not taken his eyes from the figure on the couch.
‘Who is this?’ said Loys.
‘One of the emperor’s men,’ said Beatrice. Azémar gulped at the water.
Snake in the Eye stood and bowed. ‘Is it the scholar Loys I have the honour of addressing?’
‘This is not the right time,’ said Loys, gesturing to Azémar.
‘I have an important question.’ He produced the medal the emperor had given him.
‘I’ve had enough of charms for today,’ said Loys.
‘It is the emperor’s badge of responsibility. It’s only given to those he trusts very deeply.’
‘Well, good for you,’ said Loys, ‘but …’ A thought struck him. He was looking for access to the emperor. This boy might be useful.
‘I’d be pleased to see you later, or tomorrow,’ said Loys, ‘but for the moment …’ He gestured to his filthy clothes and then to Azémar.
‘I would be seen now,’ said Snake in the Eye.
Loys had encountered some odd behaviour in his time in the palace but this was truly strange. The boy seemed almost deranged. Azémar had collapsed on the floor; Beatrice and the servant were bending over him, but the boy acted as though nothing at all was out of the ordinary. His stood with a stiff formality, waiting for Loys’ response.
‘Let’s get Azémar to the bed,’ said Loys.
Between them they lifted Azémar up and carried him across the room and into the bedroom at the rear while the boy stood watching them with an expression of intense concentration. He stared at Loys, making him feel uncomfortable.
‘The lady must leave the room before we can strip him, sir,’ said the servant.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Loys. ‘Our families are only one generation out of the longhouse. Do you think she’s never seen a man naked before?’
‘People will talk.’
‘Not if you don’t. Now let’s get these rags off him. And send for a doctor – can’t you see he’s wounded?’
The servant bowed and left the room while Loys pulled the filthy clothes from Azémar and Beatrice went to fetch clean water and a towel with which to wash him. He threw the clothes to the floor and they hit it with a wet smack – blood soaked into every fibre. Azémar’s whole body too was stained dark red, but he wasn’t hurt. Loys found no cuts.
‘When can I expect my audience?’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘I would like to carry report of your fame and skill to our emperor.’
Loys ran his fingers over Azémar’s torso and arms, then his legs, searching for wounds. Nothing. His friend had suffered no obvious injury at all.
‘Shall I say the emperor’s man was rudely received? The wolfman in the emperor’s tent received better welcome than I here.’
Now it was Loys’ turn to stare.
‘You know about the wolfman?’
‘I was there when he entered the emperor’s tent. I defended the emperor, not like these weakling Greeks.’
Beatrice returned with the servant and the court physician. She was careful not to approach the bed out of respect for the sensibilities of the Greeks.
‘Can you handle this?’ said Loys. ‘I do need to speak to this young man.’
‘Yes, Loys,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘This is Azémar. You know, the one I told you about. My friend from the monastery. He’s a brilliant man and he has risked a lot to come here for me, I think. We owe it to him to do whatever we can.’
‘I’ll stay with him.’
‘I’ll be back as quick as I can.’ Loys turned to Snake in the Eye. ‘We’ll walk,’ he said.
‘As you wish,’ said Snake in the Eye.
They went out of the room and down the corridor to where the window to the garden should have been. It had been boarded up as if for winter owing to the unseasonal weather.
‘Do you mind the cold?’ said Loys. After his time in the suffocating prison he needed the air.
‘I am a mighty man and can endure anything,’ said Snake in the Eye.
Loys was beginning to believe he was dealing with a lunatic or at least someone from a very alien culture. But the boy spoke Greek with a harsh, northern edge to it. He was a Viking, he was sure, as Loys’ own father had been.
‘Good, then we’ll go to the garden.’
They went out into a cloister which looked out on a statue of a satyr. A light rain fell and he imagined the satyr trying to run off. It had more chance of escape than he did.
‘You are a northern man?’ said Loys in Norse.
‘A Varangian, true,’ said Snake in the Eye ‘We are noted for our fierceness.’
‘Indeed,’ said Loys. ‘I have questions for you, but as you came to me, you clearly have something you want to tell me.’
‘You are an expert in removing curses?’
‘Yes.’ Loys saw no need to correct him. Reputation was everything in the court and epithets such as ‘expert’ and ‘famou
s’ were highly valued.
‘The emperor has a curse.’
‘That is treason,’ said Loys.
‘No, it is true,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘I heard him say as much.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That he was cursed. That demons were trying to trick him.’
‘This wolfman was one of them?’
‘I think so. He tried to trick the emperor, for sure.’
‘How?’
‘He gave him a sword and told him to kill him.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘The wildmen know many things about the gods. He said a wolf was coming for the emperor. It’s part of a great magic. I think he must be the wolf because he threatened to kill the emperor if the emperor didn’t strike him down.’
‘He wanted to die?’
‘He said it was the only way to avert what was coming.’
‘What was coming?’
‘Death in his glory.’ Snake in the Eye gave a big smile, like another man might wear on his face hearing he had a favourite meal for dinner.
‘And what did the emperor do?’
‘He ordered him confined and questioned. He ordered the chamberlain to tell the best scholars to question the wolfman and find out what was happening. I carried the message myself.’
Loys swallowed. He was the newest scholar in the Magnaura, a foreigner, untested and raw. Not the greatest scholar, though the master had named him so. The chamberlain had carried out the letter of the order.
‘Do you believe what the wolfman said?’
‘We have many stories. Some of them are true and some are not. I have many stories in my family. They are not dissimilar. Perhaps he believes them too much. The holy men spend so long alone their brains curdle.’
‘What stories?’
‘I only tell my tales in the hope or expectation of reward.’
‘What reward do you want?’
‘A service from you.’
‘I am always ready to help the emperor’s men.’
‘Then I’ll tell you my story.’
Snake in the Eye told the story he had told on the steps of Hagia Sophia, the one the strange traveller had paid a wolf pelt to hear as he travelled with the Varangian army from Kiev. He told how the slave had two sons who were caught in the schemes of the gods, how she had hidden them away but how the woman who bore the howling rune had brought them back together, as she always did, as she always must.
The boys came back to kill and to die, one to be a wolf, one to feed the wolf and give him the sustenance he required to kill the old god Odin in his human form. Odin embraces this fate as it gives the Norns – who the Greeks call the fates – the death they demand in this realm so he might live on in his heaven. The boys were a sacrifice, an eternal sacrifice, part of a story that had played out through history and would play out again and again, until Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods. Then the boys would avoid their fates: brother would not kill brother, and the dread wolf Fenrir, whom the gods had bound, would break free and the old gods would die by his teeth.
‘A man told me this story would bring me luck,’ said Snake in the Eye.
‘Did it?’
‘I met a useful fellow through it.’
‘This story is common to your people.’
‘Parts of it. They know their gods must die. The part about the slave girl and her sons is told in our family. It is passed down from my grandfather, I think.’
Loys took this in. The wolfman may have approached the emperor believing this tale to be true, believing he was a part of that destiny in some way. The chamberlain’s concealment of the wolfman alone marked him as important.
But the sky, the death of the rebel. How did that fit in? He would dearly love to have interviewed this wolfman.
‘He can speak, the wolfman?’
‘Yes. He is a Varangian but not of our army.’
‘I would like to find him.’
‘Is he not in the prison?’
‘He has escaped to the lower tunnels.’
‘He could be found,’ said Snake in the Eye.
‘How?’
‘You need the right trackers. Our Vikings are rare wolf hunters. You should hire a few and take them down there. They’d flush him out.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘If you want to, send for me at the Varangian camp. I am a terror to my enemies and will gladly escort you to the depths. I have men I can bring with me. One of them is a mighty man indeed. Ragnar, of the far north, newly come to the camp, the one who fought Arnulf in hölmgang. He would find your wolf.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ said Loys.
‘I have given you a service,’ said Snake in the Eye, ‘now will you repay it?’
‘What do you want?’
‘How do you remove an enchantment of …’ He couldn’t finish the sentence.
‘What? Impotence?’ Loys almost laughed. The boy had coloured to his boots.
‘Like that, yes. Not that, but like it.’
‘Of what then?’
The boy rocked back and forth, staring at the satyr as if he thought it might say what he could not.
‘It’s not manly for me to admit it.’
‘What are the effects of this enchantment?’
‘It is a battle fetter, so my father said, bestowed by Odin. The best and bravest warriors he wants for his own and afflicts them on the field of conflict so they cannot move, cannot fight or defend themselves. This is the fetter. I have a fetter on me.’
Loys smiled. ‘Not everything is an enchantment. Those who God made gentle cannot be unmade and reformed.’
‘I was not born gentle,’ said Snake in the Eye with a conviction that Loys found unpleasantly convincing. ‘I have a wolf inside me but he cannot get out.’
‘Perhaps he is content to stay where he is.’
Snake in the Eye clenched his fist and for a moment Loys thought the boy was going to hit him.
Loys put up his hands. ‘I cannot help you. I have never heard of this condition before.’
‘Then what of other afflictions? How do you remove a curse of the smallpox or of bad luck?’
‘The way to salvation of all sorts is through Christ,’ said Loys. ‘If you meddle with devils then devils will meddle with you. What is it you wear at your neck?’
‘A gift from my father, and to him from his father. It is a magical stone.’
‘What magic does it hold?’
‘Luck and defence from witches.’
‘To put your faith in such things is to put your faith in demons,’ said Loys.
‘It is a gift. A birthright. I cannot relinquish it.’
‘Then you have had my advice and rejected it,’ said Loys. ‘When you turn to Christ you will find all enchantments fall away. Magic, true magic, has no power against true faith.’
‘Then what of the emperor,’ said Snake in the Eye, ‘and the powerful men who fear this sky? What of this city under a curse of black heavens? It has built the greatest houses to your God the world has ever seen and yet it labours under this. Fimbulwinter. Fimbulwinter!’
‘What is Fimbulwinter?’
‘The barren and frozen time before Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods. The end of the gods is happening here, so the men say, and the city will fall when it does.’
Loys thought deeply. Enchantment could not touch the true man of faith. Christ drives out all demons. Yet the emperor was afflicted; the chamberlain had indicated he was suffering too. He tried to recall precedents of truly holy men who had been plagued by demons. Job, who God had set Satan upon? But demons always failed before the power of God. James 2:19 was the obvious reference: ‘Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.’
He considered the boy’s medallion, the one marking him as a servant of the emperor. This strange boy could be a useful source of information. It would not hurt for it to be known Loys had direct contact with the emperor’s man, though
he couldn’t have too close an association with a pagan. That was permissible for the emperor because no one would question him. For Loys it was a more perilous course. If he brought the boy to Jesus it would look very good for him. He knew how to appeal to these people. The Norsemen in Rouen were impressed not by learning or cleverness but by gold, weapons and fine buildings.
‘You have a distressing and intriguing malady,’ said Loys. ‘It’s not right a warrior should suffer so. Boy, I tell you this. While you put your faith in idols, you will never be cured. Look at your people in their huts and their hovels. Even your greatest lords live less grandly than the merchants of the Middle Way here. Look at the church of Hagia Sofia. Did Odin ever raise something so magnificent? Look at the riches of our emperor and priests, the triumphs of our armies. When the rebel fell at Abydos it was God who struck him down, for God hates rebels – rebellion is Lucifer’s sin. Relinquish your idol and come to Christ.’
‘Bollason and his army do well enough following Odin.’
‘They will never be allowed into the city, never allowed to serve the emperor as they might, if they persist in idolatry. You are an ambitious man. Give up the stone and your troubles will end.’
Snake in the Eye put his hand up to the pendant. He tried to remove it, or rather his hand lifted the stone and then put it down again.
‘I have never taken it off,’ he said, ‘or only for a moment when the leather rots and the cord breaks. I think it bad luck to cut it away. It has been off my neck twice since I was a child and not for long. It is a blessing against magic, so all my kinsmen have said.’
‘Yet you consider yourself afflicted by a curse.’
Snake in the Eye cast down his head. The light in the garden was dropping, the quick dusk of the grey skies. Loys glanced back towards his chamber. He needed to get to Azémar.
‘I will cut it free – if you like,’ said Loys.
The boy said nothing, just stood with bowed head.
Loys drew the boy’s knife from his belt. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I will set you free.’
The boy tensed for an instant, as if he would resist.
‘I’m tired,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘I’m tired of the scorn and my own cowardice. I’m tired of not being a man. Why should other fellows get fame and glory while I stand fettered and mocked, unable to prove myself? If Jesus can give me release, if he can make me a killer, then I will follow him.’
Lord of Slaughter Page 22