by Alys Clare
I squeezed my eyes tight shut, as if that would shut off my inner vision. It didn’t. I wanted to cry my distress, and it took a big effort to hold back.
I knew why my conscience had pushed that image of Rollo out of the shining stone and before my eyes, and it had precious little to do with Skuli and his travels.
It was because Jack Chevestrier had entered my life.
Out at sea, huge waves were being driven hard by the howling wind. The full moon meant a high tide anyway, but, that night, an unremitting gale out of the east-north-east was pushing the waters yet higher. With nowhere for the piled-up waters to go, the Wash was overflowing.
Low-lying coastal villages received the punishment first. Small craft were beaten against the shore, some of them smashed to splinters on breakwaters and quays. Tracks became wet, sodden, then turned into streams. Dwellings of every sort flooded, from great manors to lowly hovels, for the elements are no respecters of a man’s wealth and position. People gathered together, trying to help one another. Trying to protect their property. Trying to save lives.
Seawater began to flow up the fenland rivers. Fresh water gave before the onslaught, as huge and powerful wind-driven waves crashed inland. On the Ouse at Lynn, the lower reaches of the town were swiftly inundated. Boats moored at the quays clashed together, and the sound of smashing wood competed with the howls and screams of the gale. Still the water pushed on, and now it drove before it a tide of wreckage.
The waters of the river were still rising some ten miles inland to the south, and abnormally high waves drove repeatedly upstream. In many places, the water swiftly overcame the muddy, marshy fenland river banks, and the surrounding land was soon flooded. Occasionally, the headlong rush of the torrent and its piled debris met an obstacle. The broken planks of a wrecked boat caught against the underside of a small wooden bridge, and the resulting pile-up of water on the seaward side swiftly spread out into a widening pool.
Caught in the swirling current, the torn and shattered pieces of wood moved in swift circles. From time to time, one would be thrust right up out of the water, before once more being drawn down beneath the surface. Amid the wreckage, something white suddenly appeared, to flash briefly in the faint light of early dawn. It was swept under, then, after a while, it bobbed up again. This time, some random eddy in the hugely swollen river cast it up against the side of the little bridge, where it lodged.
It was pale, shimmering slightly under the pre-dawn sky. Perhaps the waters receded a little: for, slowly, more of it became visible above the flood line.
It was a body. It was naked, and lay face down. Its limbs were long and well-muscled; its hair was soaking wet and muddy but, where it was beginning to dry, could be seen to be fair.
The body was in the very early stages of decomposition. The eyes had gone, and small marine creatures had started to feast on the flesh. It stank.
Dawn broke.
The wind began to abate, and, at long last, the great mass of water that had been forced up the rivers and over the land stopped rising. Infinitesimally, it began to recede. The light grew and the new day began. In the ports, towns and villages where the devastation had hit, people began to clean up and count their losses. Several had been killed, and dozens wounded by water-borne debris they had failed to see in the darkness. Livestock had been carried away. Many dwellings had been damaged beyond repair. Crafts of all sizes had been driven from their moorings, many to be wrecked on the shore.
People began the slow trudge up the rivers, searching for swept-away items. Anything that might come in useful for the hundreds of repairs necessary would be eagerly dragged out of the water and carried home. Not long after dawn, a group of three men – a grandfather, his son and his grandson – came down from their village on the fen edge to inspect the wreckage around the little bridge.
On spotting the body, the grandson – he was just a lad – was sick. The grandfather sent his son to fetch help while he stood vigil.
And, as the morning broke, the man came hurrying into Aelf Fen, where he ran up the track to Lakehall and banged hard on the door.
SIX
The South, autumn 1093
Rollo Guiscard felt as if he’d been travelling for ever.
In the year since he had left England, he had crossed the mainland of Europe and finished up on the island of Sicily; his birthplace, and the area where his kin still lived. He had sailed on eastwards across the Mediterranean, planning to go to Constantinople. A violent storm had interfered with his plans. When at last the savage winds died down, his ship made landfall far to the south, and, rather than head back to Constantinople, he amended his plans and spent a couple of months travelling through Syria, making his way south to Palestine and his ultimate goal: Jerusalem.
He had kept out of sight of any but the poor and the powerless while he made his assessment of the land in which he found himself. Very soon it became clear that, unless you were an important lord, a wealthy merchant or a Christian pilgrim, you attracted little notice and people left you alone. Rollo adopted local dress and proceeded, unchallenged, on his way.
He had been unprepared for the sheer power and the beauty of Jerusalem. He spent several days simply looking. Dressed as he was as a humble rural Turk making the longed-for visit to the Holy City, it was easy to blend in with the hundreds of men, women and children, all doing likewise and all overcome with the same awe. Rollo was moved almost to tears at his first sight of the Dome of the Rock, and his heart went out to the many whose emotions overcame them.
It was a populous city, its narrow streets humming with activity. Since the Turks had captured it in 1065 they had made its character their own, and the place was thriving. The necessities of life were readily available; food and drink were abundant and cheap, and hospitals tended to the sick and the injured. Craftsmen flourished, each trade having its own market. Men’s souls were looked after too, both by the mosques, beautifully decorated with marble and brilliant mosaic, and by the many institutions dedicated to teaching. Intellectual activity was enthusiastically encouraged, and available to everyone.
But there was also a dark side to Jerusalem. Keeping to the shadows and avoiding confrontation, Rollo witnessed the city’s ugly face. He observed with his own eyes the treatment meted out to those whose faith did not accord with that of the majority. That majority had newly adopted Islam, and they had the zeal of new converts. Some of them – the minority, Rollo hoped – were brutal in their mindless violence, and targeted anyone who was not of the same faith, whether or not they had the ability to fight back. There was, it appeared, only one god, and only one approach was deemed permissible.
When he felt he had seen enough, Rollo packed up his few belongings and left. As he set out on the long journey north, he found himself conducting an inner debate: overall, bearing in mind the undoubted benefits and the terrible penalties, was religion, as men currently chose to practise it, beneficial to the world or not?
Now, at last, he was on his way to Constantinople. Although he still had immeasurable miles to go before his mission would finally be completed, nevertheless it felt good to be nearly at the end of the first leg of the long journey.
As he crossed Anatolia and the distance to Constantinople steadily lessened, he fought to suppress his impatience. The late summer sun shone brilliantly out of a clear sky, illuminating the wooded slopes around him. He had been happy to leave the burning temperatures of Syria behind; during all his time in the south, he had been uncomfortably hot. It had helped that the necessity for disguise had forced him to adopt local dress; the long, loose-fitting, pale-coloured robes allowed the air to circulate, keeping his skin relatively cool. The cloth wound round and round his head protected him from the sun, and it had been useful to be able to draw the loose end over his nose and mouth when, as so often happened, the wind suddenly howled and the hot air filled with tiny particles of sand. When, at last, he had brushed off the last of the desert dust as he began to climb up on to the Anatolian plat
eau, the relief had been enormous.
Rollo was weary, with a fatigue that went far beyond his tired body.
Now, as the long day of travelling neared its end, he was at the northern edge of the plateau, and the steep slopes leading down to the Black Sea were ahead. He looked up into the sky, noting the position of the sun. He could not hope to reach Constantinople today; he would not risk arriving after dark. The city was edgy, and all too aware of the aggressively warlike neighbours who dwelt to the south across the Bosphorus. The tough men who manned the walls were more likely to greet a solitary wanderer tapping on the gates by throwing him into a dungeon than by inviting him into some cosy guardroom to take food and drink, and soak his weary body in a scented bath.
When it was too dark to travel any further, Rollo would do as he had done on countless nights before: get off the road, find a safe place to shelter, eat, and, at last, sleep.
As he lay relaxed in his bed roll, staring up at the dazzling stars overhead, he thought about what he had found out; the answers to the questions which his king, all those long miles away in England, had sent him to investigate. He smiled, reflecting that, as usual, so much of King William’s reasoning had been absolutely right. It was going to give Rollo some pleasure in eventually telling him so.
William Rufus, his agile and capable mind ever on the lookout for ways in which to advance both his own fortunes and those of his kingdom, had noted with interest the way in which the Christians of the north had steadily managed to reverse the Muslim conquests of the preceding century. The Byzantines had taken Cyprus and Crete, and then the Normans, following eagerly and ruthlessly in their footsteps, had taken Malta and Sicily; the latter prize had fallen to Rollo’s own kinsmen, the Guiscards.
William had wondered what other lands might be ripe for conquest by the apparently unstoppable forces of the west. As rumour began to filter northwards of a fierce nation of new converts, the Seljuk Turks, word spread of atrocities, particularly against Christians. For centuries, pilgrims had taken it for granted that they could visit the places where Jesus once walked the earth; now, William had been told, these precious sites were barred to them. And, moreover, barred with ferocious cruelty: Christian pilgrims, or so they said, were being attacked, beaten and tortured.
William had observed that it was impossible to say where the truth ended and the wild exaggeration of propaganda began. Not that this troubled him: as Rollo well knew, the king’s interest in the matter was purely pragmatic. The rich and extensive lands that lay on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean were, in his mind, the natural successors to the long list of Christian conquests, and what a prize they would make for the land-grabbing lords of the north.
Nowhere in the king’s planning was there any scheme to join in such a conquest himself. For one thing, he had not the necessary devotion to suffer the myriad hardships, expenses and dangers of a campaign whose sole aim was to free the Holy City from the infidel; he was far too realistic about its chances of success, and he just didn’t care enough. His interest in the matter was for another reason: his brother and rival, Robert, Duke of Normandy, was just the sort of man who would respond to a call to free the Holy Land. Robert, however, was chronically and perpetually short of funds; if the moment came when his soul filled with religious zeal, he would instantly look round for someone from whom to borrow the necessary cash, and his eyes would light on his brother William, across the narrow seas. And what had he to offer as collateral on the loan? Only one thing: his dukedom.
If events were to roll out as King William suspected they might, then his brother, with his eyes shining and his heart high, would set off on the long and perilous road to Jerusalem. If he failed to return – and surely that was so likely as to be almost a certainty? – then Normandy would fall like a sweet, ripe fruit right into William’s hands. He would have won the dukedom he wanted so badly without even having to lift his sword.
Rollo had been the king’s eyes and ears in the Holy Land. He had observed, considered, judged, memorized; names, locations, strengths, weaknesses. He had ventured into dark and dangerous places, and paid dearly for information meant to be kept hidden. He had crawled under men’s defences, winkled out their secrets. He had misled people, lied to them, bribed them, persuaded them to act against their conscience and bent them to his will. He was too good at his job; what he had learned went far beyond his king’s remit. He had, he sensed, left behind in the Holy Land a part of his soul.
He knew exactly what he would say to his king; how he would summarize, in the succinct, brief statements which the chronically impatient king demanded, all that he had seen. Now, though, before he could set out for England, he must find a way to make some sort of contact with the mighty ruler of Constantinople.
His mind leapt ahead to what he must do when he arrived in the city. His prime mission was to discover how Alexius Comnenus viewed the enemy on his doorstep and what he proposed to do about his perilous situation. Besieged as he was by the Seljuk Turks, this race of ferociously devout men who, it appeared, would stop at nothing until the entire world believed exactly as they did, how was Alexius going to react? Would he, as William believed, send out to the kings and the great lords of the west, asking for their help in the inevitable confrontation that was coming? Once Rollo had found out all he could – and, so far, he had only the sketchiest notion of how he was to go about it – he must find the fastest ship heading back to north-west Europe. With luck, he might find a swift craft sailing all the way to England, although that was surely too much to ask.
It was going to be tricky, worming his way into a place where he could have some sort of open exchange with those who ruled the huge Byzantine Empire, but he had something with which to bargain. So recently arrived from the turbulent lands where the Turks were flexing their muscles, he was in possession of certain facts of which Alexius Comnenus was possibly unaware.
One fact in particular stood out; something Rollo knew to be more important than virtually anything else. He hoped it was going to be enough …
In the middle of the following morning, he stood on an elevation on the southern side of the Bosphorus, his eyes fixed on the Queen of Cities across the azure water. It was fortified by thick walls, interspersed at intervals by narrow gates manned with guards. Beyond the walls, on a series of steep hills, rose the buildings of Constantinople. Rollo had an impression of graceful towers and gilded domes, the bright morning light dazzling off stone, metal and paint so that the entire city shimmered.
The waterway dividing the Greek and Turkish halves of the city was hectic with traffic, and he watched ferries darting from north to south and back again, weaving a path among the slow, heavy merchant ships making their way up or down the Bosphorus. To his right, the narrow strait stretched on north-eastwards, towards its meeting with the Black Sea. Almost opposite to where he stood, the Golden Horn flowed out, its quays thick with vessels loading, unloading or waiting their turn to tie up. To his left, the Sea of Marmara opened up, and along its northern shore he saw the life of the city spread out.
He stood in silent thought for some time, then, with a decisive step, made his way down the steep track to the settlement spread out below.
He had at last made up his mind how best to make the approach to Alexius’s inner circle that would enable him to find out what he needed to know. He had concluded that, as he was a foreigner in the city, the logical conduit to Alexius’s ear was via other foreigners. These particular foreigners, indeed, had the additional bonus of being closer to the emperor than any men outside his own kin, for they formed his elite personal bodyguard.
They were men of the north: big, broad, brawny and blond, in a land where men were habitually lean, dark, short and slight. Their loyalty and warrior prowess were beyond question, and far in excess of anything the emperor found among local recruits. The first look at them was enough to terrify lesser opponents, huge and well-equipped as they were, and they attacked with a rage so reckless that even the prospect of
bloodshed and agonizing wounds did not appear to hold them back. They were, the whispered, horrified rumours said, the berserkergang, and they fought in a trance state that gave superhuman strength and the ability to be wounded and feel no pain.
They were known as the Varangian Guard, and Rollo knew quite a lot about them, for his Guiscard kin in Sicily had encountered them in force as these ferocious northern warriors fought to repel the Normans’ advance and ultimate capture of the island. The Varangians might have lost that battle, but they had been more successful in the lower Balkans, where the Guiscards had definitely come off second best. Rollo detected a note of grudging admiration among his kinsmen; as his cousin, Count Roger Guiscard, had remarked, the Varangians were Northmen like themselves, and you knew where you were with a northerner.
Nevertheless, Rollo was aware that he should be cautious. Fellow Northmen the Varangians were, but they had been his kinsmen’s enemy not many years ago, and, when it came to offering the hand of friendship to someone they had once battled against, undoubtedly they would have the long memories of fighting men.
As he stood on the deck of the ferry, watching the Greek half of Constantinople rise up before him, Rollo realized that it was time to change his appearance. The guise of a hard-working, impoverished Turkish merchant was not the way to gain admittance to the emperor’s bodyguard. He needed a bath, haircut, shave, clean linen, fresh clothes. Then, presenting himself not as Rollo Guiscard, Norman adventurer, but instead simply as a lonely and homesick English traveller, he would try his luck in the huge barracks close to the Bucoleon Palace where the Varangian Guard were housed.