by Judith Tarr
An uproar brought him away from a woman who had taken a dagger in the breast, to collide with Thomas in the passage.
“Latins!” the small man panted. “They’re beating down the door, I can tell by the sound.”
Alf shook his head. “Not yet. It’s something else. I think…” His eyes went strange; he leaped forward, nearly toppling the other.
o0o
The guards had braced themselves against the gate. Heavy fists hammered upon it; a deep voice roared, “Let us in, damn you! We’re friends!”
“Let them in,” Alf said.
One of the men whipped about. “Have you seen them? They’re—”
“I know them.” With that strength of his which seemed to come from no visible source, Alf set the men aside and shot the heavy bolts.
Half an army tumbled in. Later, when Alf counted, there were only nine, but they were massive, huge tawny men in scarlet, armed with axes. But he had eyes only for the foremost.
The Varangian with Thea’s eyes was blessedly unhurt, grinning as he stared, sweeping him into a vast embrace. “Little Brother! It took you long enough to open up.”
Alf wanted to crush her close, even as she was. But there were eyes upon them. Her companions stood in a circle about them, eyeing him with interest and a touch of contempt.
It amused him, but it angered Thea. “This,” she said in Saxon, “is Master Alfred. Any man who says an ill word of him will have my axe to face.”
No one argued with her, although her fierce glare challenged them all to try. After a moment she named them for him: “Ulf, Grettir, Sigurd, Wulfmaer; Eirik, Haakon, and Halldor, and the downy chick is Edmund Thurlafing. I, of course, am your own dear brother Aelfric. Can your guards” —Her glance at them was scornful— “use reinforcements?”
o0o
Dionysios contemplated the invasion with a total lack of surprise. “Where you are,” he said to Alf acidly, “all manner of prodigies follow. If they can feed themselves, you can keep them. They’ll billet on the roof.”
They had brought all their gear, and food with it, enough for several days. The roof suited them admirably, although young Edmund gnashed his teeth as the enemy rioted below.
He would have plunged into the midst of them, even from that height, had not burly Grettir wrestled him down and sat on him. “We guard,” the big man rumbled. “Not fight.”
“Guard!” The boy spat. “That’s all we’ve ever done. Guarding and no fighting. Look where it’s got us.”
“Edmund,” Thea explained, “still has a few ideals intact.”
“That seems to be true of all of you,” said Alf.
Haakon shrugged. He was the eldest of them and the only one with a wound, a deep slash in his arm that Alf had bound up over his protests. “Our company has always been the odd one. Heming—that was our decurion—died in the fighting on g the walls. We were called back to guard the Emperor. When he bolted, most of the Guard surrendered or bolted after him. We didn’t. We swore an oath: We’ll hold off the damned Normans, or die trying.”
“And I knew exactly the place to do it,” Thea said.
“This one.” Alf touched her arm, the most he could allow himself. “I have duties, and I can’t shirk them any longer. You’ll be well?”
“Perfectly, little Brother. Go on, work your miracles. When Edmund is ready to be human again, we’ll see about coming to terms with the idiots at the gate.”
As Alf left her, he heard Grettir’s hoarse whisper. “So that’s your famous brother.” He laughed like a rumbling in the earth. “It’s easy to see who’s the beauty in your family.”
Thea’s reply was lower still, the words indistinguishable. But her flare of temper was as bright as a beacon. Alf smiled wryly and descended the stair into Saint Basil’s.
o0o
The Latins’ madness abated not at all with the sun’s sinking; rather, it worsened as they drained the City’s vast store of liquors. Wine ran in the streets, mingled with beer and ale and Greek blood.
Somewhat after midnight Alf withdrew for a moment to one of the few quiet places in Saint Basil’s, a room just beyond Master Dionysios’ study, no more than a closet. Books lined its every wall, save where a slit of window looked down on the inner court; he leaned against the frame and closed his eyes.
Strong slender arms circled his waist; Thea kissed the nape of his neck and laid her cheek against his back, between his shoulders.
He turned in her embrace. She was in her own shape, clad in something dark and loose, with her hair free. She smiled up at him.
He kissed her hungrily. “God, how I’ve missed you!”
“It’s only been a few days.”
“Years.” He kissed her again. She dropped her robe, but he withdrew a little, reaching for it. “Not here. Not like... like…a soldier and his doxy.”
Her hand stopped his. “Certainly not. We’re a soldier and her handsome lad.”
His answer was a gasp. And, much later: “We’re utterly depraved.”
“Aren’t we?” She raised herself on her elbow, looking down at him, her cat’s-eyes flashing green. He lay on his back, knees drawn up in the small space, his robe spread beneath him like a pool of silver. Even as she gazed at him, he drew down his undertunic.
She caught his hand and kissed it. With a sudden movement he drew her to him, holding tightly. “Thea, beloved,” he whispered, “don’t ever—don’t ever—”
She felt his tears hot and wet on her breast. “There now,” she crooned, stroking his hair. “There.”
He pulled away sharply. His cheeks were wet, but his eyes glittered diamond-hard. “Promise me, Thea. You won’t go out of Saint Basil’s for anything.”
“Why,” she said startled, “you sound like an anxious nursemaid. What’s got into you?”
“Promise me,” he repeated.
“What for? I won’t bind myself just to keep you quiet.”
“You won’t—-” He broke off and rose, pulling on his robe. His eyes were unwontedly angry. “Not even if I tell you that your death is waiting for you?”
She blanched. But she laughed. “You worry too much. Don’t you know how hard it is to kill one of us?”
“It’s as easy as a dagger in the heart.” He tossed his hair out of his face. “As God is my witness, woman, if you get yourself killed, I’ll slaughter every Latin thereafter who comes within reach of my hands, and myself at the end of it.”
Thea was silent. She knew his gentleness, which was clear to see, and his strength, which was not. She had thought she knew his temper, which could be terrible. But now he frightened her.
He knew it; he softened not at all.
Nor, fear or no fear, would she. “I can’t promise,” she said. “I can only try my best to do as you ask. Can you accept that?”
For a long moment he said nothing. He looked proud and cold and hard. His cheek, when Thea laid her palm against it, was rigid.
Little by little it softened into flesh. “Why,” he asked softly and reasonably, “can you not be like any other woman?”
“If I were, would you want me?”
He regarded her long and steadily, weighing her words.
“No,” he said at last. “Unfortunately for my sanity, I would not.”
“Love me, then,” she commanded him, “and leave the rest to God.”
o0o
The hammering began in the early morning; hammering and shouting, with sword hilts and spearshafts and drunken Flemish voices.
Alf, lying flat on the roof beside Thea in her Varangian guise, peered cautiously down. A large company of men-at-arms massed in the narrow street, growing slowly as more of them staggered out of broken doorways. They were strange fantastic figures, burly and whiskered, wrapped in costly silks over their mail, with rings on their thick fingers and gold about their necks and wrists, and jewelled brooches fastened to caps and cloaks and boot-tops, swilling ale from glittering cups and singing in raucous voices.
The first r
ank endeavored to batter down the gate of Saint Basil’s. It was of oak strengthened with iron, triply barred within; it yielded not at all to their blows.
On the other side of Thea, Edmund hissed. His mind was full of strategies, stones and arrows, boiling oil, even brimming chamberpots.
Thea dragged him back. Well before it was safe, he leaped to his feet. “Quick,” he said, “while they’re too fuddled to look up. If we can pick off a few—”
“We’ll bring them swarming onto the roof,” Thea finished for him. “The longer it takes them to think of that, the better we’ll be. Go down now and lend a hand at the gate.”
Edmund balked and glowered. “I came here to fight!”
“You’ll have your chance,” Alf said. “And soon.”
Thea nodded. “You can believe him, too; he’s Sighted.” She took Edmund’s arm. “Meanwhile you can exercise that outsize carcass of yours and help us build a barricade.”
Come now, Alf said as she dragged Edmund away, he’s but a lad.
Oh aye, she agreed with a touch of malice. He looks almost as young as you.
Alf laughed, undismayed.
o0o
Having failed to break down the door with brute force, most of the Latins wandered away in search of easier prey. But a tenacious few remained, one of whom wielded an axe. The heavy oak splintered under his blows but held.
Within, Master Dionysios had built a second gate all of iron, with narrow bars. Beyond this, several of the guards and Varangians heaped up a barricade of` timber, breaking up whatever furnishings the Master would spare. Others meanwhile kept watch on the roof and prowled vigilantly along the garden wall.
The walls of Saint Basil’s were thick, the rooms of the sick turned inward, so that the uproar was muted even to Alf’s ears. With the gate beset, no more of the wounded ventured in; those who had come before tossed uneasily in dread of the enemy without. The air was thick with fear.
As the hours advanced, one of the healers broke. He left his binding up of a man’s wounds and fled, weeping in terror.
Alf saw him go. Leaving his own labors, he followed swiftly.
The man made straight for the gate. The outer door was broken through, but the inner barrier of iron defeated the enemy’s axes; the wooden barricade caught the arrows that pierced the bars. Alf’s quarry tore at the heap of timber, beating off the guards with a makeshift club.
Panic lent him strength; even as Alf halted, a blow hurled one of the guards to the ground. It was young Edmund, bolder than the rest but reluctant to draw weapon on one of his own. He crouched on the stones, shaking his head groggily, while the madman attacked the barricade.
“John!” Alf said.
At the sound of his name, the man stiffened and paused. Alf leaped.
He spun, whirling his club. It whistled past Alf’s ear as he writhed aside, swooping beneath it, catching John’s wrist.
The man fought like a cornered beast. His free hand flailed at Alf’s face; Alf caught it and held it in a grip no human could break. “John,” he said quietly. “John, you have duties. Why are you neglecting them?”
John struggled and bit, and kicked, a foul, futile blow.
An arrow sang between their bodies to lodge quivering in a fragment of the broken barrier. John stared at it in horrified fascination, and suddenly collapsed.
Alf gathered him up as if he had been a child and not a tall, rather portly man. “You had better rebuild your wall,” he said to the speechless guards, “and cushion it somehow. Carpets, I think. Or hangings. Ask the Master.”
Edmund staggered up. “I’ll ask,” he said. “Where is he?”
Alf paused, the healer a dead weight in his arms. “In the men’s quarters.” His eyes took in the other’s face. One cheek was swelling and blackening, and the cheekbone had split, sending a trickle of blood through the young beard. “Have someone see to you when you’re done.”
Edmund grinned, ignoring the pain. “What’s a bruise? Here, let me carry the man for you.”
Alf was already moving. “I have him. Hurry now, before the Franks bring up a crossbow.”
o0o
Alf saw John settled in a quiet place, where he would be watched but not troubled. He had fallen from panic into a kind of stupor; his mind was dull, his thoughts lost in a grey fog of despair that neither voice nor power could dispel.
Alf drew back at last, defeated. Edmund was standing near him, watching him. The bruise on his cheek was in full flower; the cut had begun to close.
“Shouldn’t you be on guard?” Alf asked.
The Varangian shrugged. “We made a wall of carpets. Your Master was none too pleased, but he came to lend us a hand. To make sure we did it properly, he said. Just when we were done, they started with crossbows. I saw that our wall was holding and left it to the others.” His eyes on Alf were bright and fascinated. “You aren’t half the dainty lass you look, are you?”
Alf dipped a sponge in water and began to cleanse the blood from the other’s cheek. Edmund tried to evade him, failed, submitted with a growl. Alf set him on a stool and continued, saying, “To each man his own skills.”
“In the palace they’d have marked you out for the angels’ choir.”
“I sing well, they tell me.” Alf` set down the sponge and reached for a pot of ointment. “Next time you set out to stop a club with your head, put on your helmet first.”
The ointment stung. Edmund’s eyes watered, but he was too proud to flinch. “Why didn’t you go for the Guard? You’re fast enough. Strong enough, too, though you don’t look it.”
“Of the two of us,” Alf said, “Aelfric is the fighter. He makes wounds. I heal them.”
“And keep lunatics from making them.”
“That, too.” Alf straightened, wiping his hands. It struck him then. “Aelfric. I didn’t see him with the others. I can’t sense—” He caught himself. “Where did he go?”
“I don’t know,” Edmund said. “He was there till just before you came. Then he muttered something that sounded like a curse and bolted. I haven’t seen him since.”
He—she—was nowhere in Saint Basil’s. Alf cast his mind wide, thrusting it into the roiling horror that was the City, hurling back fear with grim determination. She would not promise. She would not. And she had gone out into that, without a word to him.
“God in heaven!” he cried aloud. He hurtled past the stunned Varangian, making blindly for the rear of Saint Basil’s, away from the beleaguered gate. The enemy had resorted to fire; the guards held it off with water and the same carpets that had foiled the arrows.
They could defend themselves He came to the bolthole, a postern in the garden wall. Thea’s presence was a beacon before him. He slid lithely round the startled and babbling guard and out into pandemonium.
He paid no heed to it. Later it would come back in snatches, like remnants of a nightmare. All around the edge of a great square, men in mail struck at the marble gods with hammers, with axes, or with clubs of wood or iron, shattering the stone, grinding the shards underfoot.
A woman lay sprawled in the street, weeping silently, with her skirts above her waist and blood streaming down her thighs. A man-at-arms, running past, stopped and fell upon her like a beast in rut.
Within the broken doors of a church, a mule brayed, laden with spoil; beyond it, men hacked at the altar with their swords. A sergeant rode down the street on an ass, with a priest’s vestments over his armor and a jewelled crown on his head and in his hand a chalice filled to the brim with ale. He was chanting, with dolorous piety, the responses of the Drunkards’ Mass.
Swift as Alf was, and strange, and wild-eyed, few ventured to molest him. Someone snatched at his robe, half tearing it from his body; he pulled free and ran on, circling a troop of Franks clustered about a silent woman and a shrieking, struggling boy. One of those on the edge, glimpsing Alf as he passed, flung out an arm, overbalancing him.
He had a brief and terrible vision of a bearded face over his and a b
reath that reeked of wine, and hard hands groping under his torn tunic. The heel of Alf’s hand drove into the man’s jaw, snapping his head back. He rolled away, convulsed, his soul shrieking into the dark.
They had broken down the gate of House Akestas over the body of the feeble old porter and swarmed into the courtyard, a company of men who shouted and cursed in the accents of Champagne. All the precious things in the house, all those that did not lie hidden in a chest under the almond tree in the garden, tottered in an untidy heap in the center of the court.
Close by it like a broken doll lay Irene. Her mother crouched beside her; and Sophia’s face was terrible.
Beyond them a battle raged. Thea, in full Varangian gear, stood back to back with Corinna, who wielded a bloody sword.
But there were over a score of Franks and a rich prize to fight for; and Corinna, for all her formidable strength, was no swordsman. A tall Frank struck past her awkward guard to open a long gash in her forehead; blood streamed from it into her eyes, blinding her. She stumbled; the Frankish blade bit deep. She went down like a tower falling into massive ruin.
No one watched the gate. Alf poised in it, all his world centered on this that had brought him from Saint Basil’s. His mind had room only for wrath. He could not flay Thea with it for blinding his power to her escape, for blocking him when he would have come direct to her by witchery, for striving even to fuddle his mind as he ran until he circled back to his starting place; but that, he had conquered. He called to himself all the forces of his power and shaped them to his bidding.
Thea cried out in her man’s voice, a great roar of wonder and of challenge. The Latins, looking back, saw all the far end of the courtyard filled with shining warriors, and at their head a figure of white light. He advanced, raising his hands. He bore no weapon, yet such was the terror of him that the Franks shrieked and fled, running wildly, striking at one another in a blind passion of horror.
There was silence. The last man gasped out his life on his comrade’s sword. The warriors melted into the sunlight; Alf stood alone, half naked, pale and tired.