Byzantium's Crown

by Susan Shwartz

  Marric turned to the khagans. "Are you such friends with the Aescir that so small a party dares enter your camp?"

  "There is no great friendship, brother, but no feud either. We thought perhaps that they might join us in an attack. But the whitebeard who rides the red steed told us that the bearmaster wears no man's collar."

  Stephana walked toward the bearmaster. Bowmen Stood with arrows ready to fire tried to go to her, but found his path blocked by the men of his command. They would not allow him to risk himself, swear as he might.

  Audun Bearmaster swung off his horse and let his reins fall to the ground. He walked over to Stephana. Composed as a queen receiving guests in her own hall, she drew herself up to meet him.

  "He will not harm her," Marric told the soldiers. "Let me go. By all the gods," he cried, angered by their protectiveness, "will you have my curse?"

  Reluctantly they allowed him to go to the bearmaster.

  "So you heard us," Stephana asked, unsurprised. She spoke to him, a man she had never before met, as if to a long-time friend.

  "I heard the bear invoked," Audun answered. "So I came. I knew it traveled over mountain in company with the stallion and the hawk. So I came here. But I know other things too: chief among them the fact that a grain ship from Alexandria landed rich cargo: food for the city and a man who calls himself a merchant. He is no merchant but a princeling I once knew."

  "And still do, by Horus!" Marric cried. "Audun Bearmaster, well met! Have you brought me my white bear?"

  "A bear," Audun bellowed, "A bear for a man of the city that demands tribute of us, then raids our way stations at Birka and Staraja Ladoga when we refuse—as we have a right to do? A bear for a man of the city that wounds its princess—"

  "Before all the gods," Marric interrupted, "how fares my sister? Alexa fell before I could help." To his horror he heard his voice roughen. Let Audun understand that even if Alexa and he had fought, he would have died trying to save her.

  "Her wounds are healed," Audun said, "and she is well settled in the Isles of the Mists."

  The golden king and queen Stephana had revealed to him in the water of vision the night in Taran's hut would preserve her safe until Marric came to claim her.

  "If you seek her there at all, seek her soon," the Bearmaster said. "But you ask me if I have a bear for you. Have you a crown to show me, eh? You are ruler by blood: become ruler in deed, and I shall bring you a bear that will not bite the hand into which I give it.

  "Let me look at you, Prince," Audun ordered, the way he had done ever since Marric was a child. He nodded approvingly, then reached out a hand to Stephana. "We're among friends here," he bellowed at his men, to the astonishment of Marric's soldiers, the bemused Huns, and—possibly—the horses. "Dis-mount!"

  Stephana took Audun's outstretched hand. He smiled at her, his face softening. Taking off one of the chains he wore, from which hung an agate medallion carved into a woman's face, he flung it over her neck.

  "Daughter of fate, that is what you are," he spoke softly to her. "Wife perhaps, but not queen; heart's solace, and heart's breaking. Am I right, lady?"

  Stephana raised her hand to touch Audun's gift. It was so heavy that her neck almost bent beneath it. "Have you a bear for my lord?" she asked.

  "Yes, but he must earn it! And he will, he will. Are you content, little seeress?"

  How could he know so much about her?

  "I am content."

  "When we next meet, you shall guide me," Audun declared. His words rang with significance Marric could not understand.

  "Your name, lady?"

  "She is Stephana," said Marric. "In Alexandria she and Nicephorus saved my life several times."

  "They are welcome to me for your sake, then, as well as theft own," Audun said ceremoniously. Nicephorus greeted him in his own tongue, and he grinned at the courtesy.

  Now Ellac and Uldin came up with offers of hospitality. Audun would accept only water for the horses and—to avert ill-feeling—a drink taken out under the stars.

  "You would have ridden in search of me," he told Marric. "I thought the time had come when I should search for you. Some of my men are kin to those in Miklagard."

  "Do they inform on their city?" raised his eyebrows.

  "Why should our aims conflict?" asked Audun.

  This was true, and in a healthy empire they would not.

  "Only imagine how ill it could have gone in our river cities if we had had no warning of Irene's attacks. We evacuated all we could. But now is no place to speak of that. You would ride to my camp, I understand. I come to bear you company, my bears and I." He roared with appreciation of his own pun. Enchanted, Nicephorus joined in. After an instant, so did Marric.

  The soldiers murmured in surprise at a majesty so little like the hieratic dignities to which imperial service had accustomed them. What was Audun? Marric wondered, not for the first time. No one knew what his source of authority was, or where he found the white bears that his whim—or destiny—made him give ruling kings. But he could not doubt that Audun, in some way, did have the loyalty of most Aescir.

  It was almost dawn when they finally left the Huns' camp. One of the soldiers had to lead Stephana's horse; she was too weary to ride alone. Audun himself lifted her into Marric's arms.

  "Try to sleep," he urged her. "Aescir hospitality can be about as overpowering as Audun."

  "I have noticed," she said. She nestled against him with a contented sigh. What had Audun meant by his description of her anyhow? Daughter of fate. Heart's solace and heart's breaking. Like many Aescir nobles, Audun was a poet. Given Aescir poetry, he was also a master of riddles. Marric could not decipher them. Still, if Stephana accepted them, he too might as well call himself satisfied.

  The dawn wind tugged at Marric's hair and he brought his cloak around to wrap Stephana more warmly. Violet and scarlet banners flamed at the horizon, heralds of dawn and of victory.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hostile looks and more hostile mutters attended their entry into the bearmaster's camp at mid-morning. Beyond it the sun dashed sparks from the water of the harbor, and picked out the bright trimmings on the high-prowed ships beached nearby.

  "Red Empress' men."

  "Does she think us such nithings that she sends such a tiny force against us?"

  Marric loosened his sword in his sheath. He was glad that Stephana had insisted she could ride her own horse at the last rest stop. Audun shook his head briefly, reproving his caution.

  "Have you brought us here to betray us?" Marric asked.

  "You know better than that," Audun snorted.

  They rose past a high-fenced pen. Within, white bears weaved about or napped. One rose on its mammoth haunches as they passed and roared at the Byzantines. One of the guard watching the bears bristled and reached for his axe.

  "They killed Ivar at the ford! Who will provide for my sister Ingebjorg now, and her far gone with a third child?" he yelled. Brandishing his axe, he rushed toward the dekarch.

  "Hold!" Marric grabbed his officer's bridle and grappled him for his sword as Audun leapt from his horse. The smack of a fist against a stubborn jaw ended that scuffle, and Audun faced Marric, holding the man's axe and rubbing his knuckles against his scarlet cloak.

  "He has a hard head," observed the bearmaster. "One grain of sense remains in it. His sister's man was killed by imperials, and Ingvi here isn't wealthy. You're too hotheaded to be a rich man, Ingvi. Attack guests of mine again, and so help me, I'll put the greater outlawry on you. Understand?" He faced the man down. "Well, do you?"

  Ingvi shook his head, spat out blood and several broken teeth, and nodded sullen assent.

  Audun swung back easily into the saddle. "If these were Jomsborgers, I doubt I could bring you into my camp and expect to see you ride out alive. The Reaver of Jomsborg doesn't answer to me, you see. But these men do. What do you say, Prince, about Ingvi's brother-in-law?"

  Marric had been giving urgent orders to his men. The b
earmaster's question turned him around. "I say your discipline is worthy of the imperial regiments themselves."

  "Aye, but are your regiments worthy of me? Consider Ingvi's family, prince. The Jomsborgers would swear you blood feuds on their account and they'd be enough to make the Huns look like puppy dogs."

  Marric looked over the Aescir. Many had assembled in a flat space before the bearmaster's shelter. Two men walked the unfortunate Ingvi up and down. Aescir could be commanded only after they had been convinced, Marric remembered his father saying. These Aescir, many still bandaged or limping, would take a lot of convincing.

  "Why did you stop him?" he asked Audun.

  "You are my guests. I came to the city not for vengeance but for law. Your father Alexander always dealt fairly."

  "And so shall I," Marric promised. "Warrior's oath on it. Will you share blood with me?" He walked over to Audun. "Then, even if I might withhold compensation from your men as emperor—Horus forbid I do such a thing!—I could not deny them their rightful wergeld as a fellow warrior."

  He walked out into the clearing. "Men and lawspeakers of the Aescir, witness that I, Marric Antonius Alexander, acknowledge all debts of the empire incurred in my service or out of it."

  "Will that content you?" he asked Audun.

  The bearmaster threw a burly arm around Marric's shoulder, then stripped off his tunic. "Draw," he ordered, "and make the first cut."

  Aescir surrounded them as Marric's knife slashed first the bearmaster's arm, then his own. They clasped forearms and let their blood mingle and drip on the earth.

  "When may we expect our wergeld?" asked a lawspeaker.

  "When I have my throne," Marric said bluntly. "Help me gain what is mine, and you'll have it that much sooner."

  "Fellow trader!" Audun bellowed his huge laugh.

  He led them all within his shelter. A woman almost as old and large as the bearmaster served them ale, boiled grain, meat, bread, and honey.

  Marric tore at the food with gusto and matched Audun horn for horn of the strong ale. Finally both men leaned back and grinned.

  "You will be wanting to know about your sister, won't you?" Audun asked. He set his horn down and wiped his lips with the gold-furred back of his hand. "Her wounds were messy, not deep, and she healed rapidly. Except—" He looked closely at Marric.

  The prince felt his food turn to lead in his belly. Was Alexa disfigured or so damaged in mind that she had less wit than a child?

  "I last saw that look—conscience-stricken, I suppose you'd call it—on the princess herself," said Audun. "Oh, never fear, prince, the lady is well enough now. In our first days out of the city, she had some fever. She tossed and wept in her blankets and cried out that she had turned on you when you'd meant her only good. I left a much daunted lady with Queen Olwen, that let me tell you."

  "But she is well!" Marric raised glowing eyes to the Bearmaster. "Stephana said so, but to have actual word of her—that is all that matters." Tears scalded down his face, and he was unashamed of them. Imhotep's rebuke, "Master of no man, least of yourself," could not apply at such a moment.

  "We will get her back," he said, his face lighting up. Then he turned to Stephana and took her hand. "You and she," he said. "I know how it is when women live too closely together, but she will come to love you."

  The seeress raised Marric's hand to her cheek.

  Audun's face was somber as he looked at them.

  "Time to think of this later." Marric regained his composure. "Were Alexa here, she would share my counsel. I have a throne to win, Audun. Let me ask you once more: do you come here for compensation?"

  "No," said the bearmaster, "but I shall be glad of it. I came here, as I said, for law. One land, one lord." His voice took on the chanting tone of an Aescir harpist. "Otherwise the land fails, as even now the empire wanes.

  "Irene stretches her nets wide, Prince. About the East you have heard from Ellac and Uldin. The news from the West is graver. Irene has proposed to the reaver-jarl in his island fortress that they ally and offers him marriage."

  If the Jomsborgers entered Byzantium, the Varangian guard would never declare for Marric against distant kin. "And the reaver's answer?"

  "Grettir can return no answer yet. The northern seas are full of fogs. Winter approaches. Irene can expect no word for months."

  "Jomsborg has attempted the city before," Marric said. "But they have no high opinion of women there. By spring, then, I will wear the Horus crown or my grave wrappings."

  Audun watched Marric, the older man's candid blue eyes turning deep and thoughtful. Once again Marric thought of Imhotep, of all the other priests who examined him, who demanded things of him, and who so often found him deficient. Finally Audun nodded. "What would you have of me, Prince?"

  "Your vow not to move against the city. Let Irene fear attack, but receive none. Once I rule, though, I shall bargain for shipwrights. I must teach the pirates a strong lesson. Will you aid me?"

  "Many of my folk will," said the bearmaster. "But I am old. I will stay at home and nourish my bears. Would you see the one I have reared for you?"

  Loving his bears, Audun would not make this offer if he still had doubts of Marric. Nicephorus caught his eye and made a small victory sign.

  Audun rose. Out of respect the others rose with him.

  "What does this mean, lord?" the dekarch asked.

  "It means acceptance," said Marric. "You heard the bearmaster: one land, one lord. Audun only gives bears to such men or women. Irene failed his test, but I will not."

  "Don't misjudge Audun Bearmaster," warned Nicephorus. "That bluff manner of his is largely a mask. Stephana, do you read aught of him?"

  "He called me 'daughter of fate,'" she said, "but he himself is one of its agents." She huddled into her cloak and drew nearer the fire.

  She is a priestess, not a warrior, Marric thought. This life taxes her strength too greatly. But she will continue because she loves me, long after her strength is gone. I must protect her even from her love—and I will!

  Scrabblings broke in upon his thoughts.

  "Now then, brother mine, no need, no need. You go to greet a prince. Remember your manners." A coughing bark answered Audun. He entered, followed by the bear.

  It was a male in magnificent condition, large but without the massiveness characterizing a fully grown beast. Its fur was white, of course, and incredibly thick. About its neck shone a necklace of ancient gold coins. This Audun flipped off, his hand inches from the bear's gleaming muzzle and sharp fangs. He tossed the necklace over Marric's head. It clattered against his armor.

  "My guest gift to you, Prince. When you have housing for your bear, summon me, and I shall bring him to you."

  Intelligence gleamed in the bear's eyes. Fascinated by the beast, Marric rose to his feet. As a child he had always imagined that his father's white bear understood human speech.

  Knowing that the Aescir watched him, Marric moved slowly toward the bear. He extended one hand to touch jaws that could easily bite it off. The beast's head wagged as it surveyed Marric with equal curiosity.

  "Friend?" Marric asked tentatively.

  With a joyous bellow the bear knocked Marric's hand aside. He exclaimed in shock at the coldness of its nose before he was engulfed in the most powerful hug of his life. It was like being awash in white fur, or wrestling with the tide. The bear's great paws rested on his shoulders.

  He found himself doing an absurd dance merely to keep his balance, so he flung both arms about the bear and hung on for support.

  Audun calls this creature my bear? As well say that I am its man! Marric laughed. The sound of his laughter, with slightly wild overtones as if tension too suddenly had snapped, made him laugh even harder.

  "Back, brother," commanded Audun. "Back! You will join your master soon enough."

  With immense strength he pried the bear away from Marric. The prince stood laughing and trying to regain his breath. Groaning mournfully at being deprived, the bear shamb
led outside. "Quiet, brother, quiet," they heard its keepers say.

  "Love at first sight, my prince?" Nicephorus asked.

  "Something like that." Marric shook himself. Bears that size could snap spines, crush flesh, hurl grown men across clearings. This bear had merely—merely!—hugged him until his ribs had almost cracked. As well for me that I wear armor, thought Marric.

  Stephana turned to him when he sat down once more. "Would you like me to hold you that tightly?"

  "I wish you could." She looked better than she had, but he knew how tired she was. She seemed to like the bearmaster and he, her. Good. By the time Audun returned, Marric had made his plans.

  "Was my father's bear as fine a fellow?"

  "Almost," said Audun. "What was it you really wished to say?"

  "About Stephana, here." Marric touched her hair. "This life of mine—hiding, plotting, riding into danger—is no good for her. Could you give her safe haven here?"

  "Marric, no!"

  "But yes," Marric told her, and clasped her hands. "You are exhausted. How often you will have to endure this . . . It is only for a while, Stephana. I will return for you."

  She shook her head. "I want to stay with you."

  "But I want you safe. Audun, will you grant my lady hospitality?"

  "The lady has a voice, remember?" asked Audun. "She can well judge for herself. Let her."

  "You know what I am," Stephana said to Audun. "And you know that I do what I must do. I will stay with my lord."

  Audun bent his head in acquiescence and deep respect. "You are answered, prince."

  "I would have you safe, cherished," Marric pleaded with her. "How can I make you reconsider?"