Byzantium - A Novel

by Michael Ennis

  ‘Haraldr. My father married no less than the daughter of the Greek Emperor. Do you know what he gave the Emperor in exchange for his bride? Kherson. The entire city of Kherson.’

  Haraldr stared maniacally at Yaroslav. It was all he could do to keep from shouting, ‘I’ll give you a nation! Denmark or Angle-Land or Bulgaria!’

  ‘Haraldr. It would be enough for me to know that Norway was a grandson’s birthright. But presently you are sovereign of nothing beyond your own boots. And I cannot worry about defending you against your legions of enemies when my own cities are besieged by Pechenegs and I need the cooperation of all Norsemen in ridding Rus of the eternally menacing pagan horde.’ Yaroslav’s throat rattled, and he sighed as if he could hardly go on. ‘You are aware, of course, how valuable your corpse is. I feel that if you stay here, it is only a matter of time before you are found out. Yesterday I received a correspondence from a Jarl of Denmark who has served me ably in my Druzhina in Novgorod - I won’t reveal his name to you, as I will not reveal yours to him - a correspondence inquiring if I harbour the Prince of Norway at my court. A week ago my own podiezdnoi asked me if I had heard rumours that the lost Prince of Norway, the one who ran from Stiklestad, is a fugitive in Kiev.’ Yaroslav paused and looked at Haraldr searchingly. ‘Are you beginning to understand?’

  Haraldr was too stunned to think. An alarming metallic buzzing echoed in his ears.

  Yaroslav sucked in a weary, rattling breath. ‘Haraldr, my concerns are those of statecraft.’ He glanced surreptitiously at his Queen. ‘Had your brother paid more attention to that discipline and less to . . .’ He hesitated. ‘Well, yes, had your brother been more careful, he would not have confronted King Knut when he did in the way he did, and perhaps I would not at this time be concerned with your enemies--’ He stopped, distracted. ‘I forget myself . . . Yes. Well, then, as you might know, the Pechenegs have blocked the Dnieper for eight years now. So now my primary concern is to open the river to commerce once again, employ our profits to summon additional military assistance, and exterminate the Pechenegs as we have the Avars and Chuds and, most recently, the Poles. Your countryman Jarl Rognvald has gratefully accepted my commission to lead the trade flotilla to Constantinople. Perhaps you could in some small fashion contribute to the success of this enterprise.’

  The words were like an axe thudding into Haraldr’s neck. The journey down the Dnieper was a game of chance that few would win; even Jarl Rognvald admitted that he, himself, would be unlikely to see the walls of Constantinople. The Jarl would risk the deadly voyage on the slimmest wager that Norway might profit, but he did not think Norway would gain if her Prince slept in the Dnieper. Haraldr had in turn hardly pushed to go, and not simply for her. Since Stiklestad he had known sorrow and loneliness until they were like faces before him. And even as his breast ached at the thought of leaving Elisevett, he knew that he could somehow endure this terrible extra measure of longing. But on the river he would have to look at a face he knew he could never confront again. He would have to look again at fear. And fear would humble him before the whole world, because fear had been with him that day at Stiklestad - even now the blood-dark nightmare flew before his eyes - and fear knew him for what he was. A coward.

  Yaroslav’s small ragged teeth appeared briefly. ‘Cheer, boy. Many rewards wait at the river’s end. Surely even an idler like yourself has dreamed of service in the Emperor’s Varangian Guard. Indeed, we have received an eminent representative of the Emperor’s guard this very afternoon, a man of Greek subtlety and refinement. Hakon, called Fire-Eyes. You would do well to emulate his industry.’

  Haraldr turned from the nightmare past to the nightmares that waited ahead on the river. Hakon Fire-Eyes. Second in rank to Mar Hunrodarson, the wide-famed commander of the Great King’s Varangian Guard, and next to Mar himself the most feared and brutal warrior in the world. For weeks now it had been rumoured that Hakon would join the expedition to Miklagardr, and that he would bring with him five hundred hand-picked candidates for the Varangian Guard. Now fear would have five hundred faces. And a demon to lead them.

  ‘So there,’ said Yaroslav, rising and holding his stubby fingers out to Haraldr. ‘Lesser men than you have ventured to Constantinople and returned with a king’s endowment. So might you. So. Goodbye to Haraldr Nordbrikt. Let us hope that if we see you again, you will be someone else.’

  Ingigerd followed Haraldr into the ante-chamber. She caught his arms and turned him, the long, wilted stems of her fingers about his wrists. ‘You know it is the only way now. Jarl Rognvald will care for you, and Elisevett and I will pray for you.’ She surprised Haraldr with a wiry, intense embrace; she had never even touched him before, always staying back, as if his flesh might rouse some banished spectre. ‘I will miss you more than Elisevett shall. She is young. I am . . . finished.’ Her irises were like melting blue ice. She took his face in her hands and gazed into his eyes, as if this were the last time she would ever consume that life-giving draught. Her throat corded with a sob. ‘Your eyes . . .’ said Ingigerd, Queen of Rus, as softly as a deathbed prayer. ‘In your eyes he lives.’

  The slap on the back of his head was playful, but Haraldr wrestled for his sword with hands clumsied by wine.

  ‘Leave that in your scabbard. River-farers and woman-praisers need their fingers.’ Jarl Rognvald grinned. He had also been busy at the mead trenches. But the Jarl lost only his melancholy in the ale.

  ‘Jarl . . .’ Haraldr held up his sloshing wine bag in mute apology.

  ‘I know. I talked with Yaroslav. But you’re sailing with me! Tomorrow we’ll be on the Dnieper! You leave nothing here, my boy, nothing. But think what you might return to!’

  Haraldr tried to focus. ‘Jarl, do you think that Yaroslav will really consider my suit--’

  ‘Haraldr, my boy! In the morning we put out for Miklagardr. Miklagardr! To seek the widest fame and goldest glory a man can seek. The Grik Emperor can bestow a princess’s dower as easily as a Norse king might give his man an arm ring. Your dreams await you there!’

  Yes, my dreams, thought Haraldr, for a chilling instant sobered.

  Jarl Rognvald observed the shadow on his ward’s face and grinned foolishly while the demons of his own mind soughed and shrieked. Tomorrow morning he would lead almost five hundred ships and twenty thousand men down the Dnieper. If Odin were extraordinarily lavish with his favours, a third of those ships and men might return to Kiev. Jarl Rognvald had accepted Yaroslav’s onerous charge through the same rigid sense of duty that had driven him throughout his life; he was the best man, Norse or Slav, to command the flotilla, and as far as he was concerned, that alone obligated him to lead, however ill advised the Great Prince’s venture might be. But that was before Norway’s fate had been cast upon the murderous Dnieper.

  ‘Haraldr. We all fear the river.’ The Jarl wrapped a big rough hand around Haraldr’s neck. ‘Why do you think that every man of us has tonight summoned the heron of forgetful-ness?’ He grabbed Haraldr’s arm. ‘Let’s walk. I must find the Grik trade ambassador. And the entire world is here to see!’

  The flat, sandy plain just north of the bluff-walled Citadel of Kiev was strewn with acres of cargo lit by moving torches: corded stacks of furs; endless buckets of beeswax and honey; and groups of predominantly dark-hued, resigned slaves, enough for an army, roped together at the feet. Farmers dragged their sledges full of cabbages, turnips and onions. Barrels of ale and salted meat were rolled along the maze of timber paths to the Dnieper. Screeching from their canvas booths, merchants did a lucrative last-minute business in tools, armour, and burlap for tents and awnings. Strange foreign tongues clashed like flocks of exotic birds. Yaroslav’s military band filled the air with the whirling, tinny melodies of pipes, tambourines and horns. The fat-bodied river ships lined the ghostly grey sand-shore like an enormous herd of beached leviathans.

  The Jarl pointed out two silk-sheathed figures. He straightened his own tunic and fastened the top two buttons of Haraldr’s jacket.
His voice returned to its usual gravity. ‘Haraldr, the Grik trade ambassador will have an interpreter with him, a Grik likewise, but this man speaks our tongue as well as you or I. Like many Grik court-men, this interpreter has been gelded so that he may serve the Emperor without aspiring to his throne. He will have a face as smooth as a woman’s. Please do not stare at him. He still has his dignity.’

  The Byzantine trade ambassador wore an ankle-length tunic of red silk; dark, tightly-ringed hair and a curling beard framed his high, feminine cheek-bones. He seemed to peer through the Norseman as if he were looking through a pane of glass. The little hairless man beside the ambassador, robed in plainer silk, smiled broadly. The ambassador still evidenced no awareness of the two Norsemen. After an awkward moment the eunuch spoke in a high, humming voice. ‘Greetings, Jarl Rognvald.’ Haraldr was astonished at the flawless pronunciation and undetectable accent. The eunuch cleared his throat for ironic emphasis and his eyes sparkled conspiratorially. ‘We both greet you. At least I am certain that the august ambassador would greet you if he were not so busily engaged in ignoring you.’

  ‘Gregory,’ offered Jarl Rognvald, ‘I want you to meet Haraldr Nordbrikt. I ask you to treat him as you would my son. You’ll find him different from most young men of our race. He has a special passion’ - Jarl Rognvald pounded his breast - ‘strong but gentle. He writes verse.’ The Jarl rustled Haraldr’s long silky hair. ‘Sometimes we say that our skalds “drink the ale of Odin.” Well, tonight Haraldr has drunk only ale.’

  ‘A poet,’ said Gregory appreciatively. ‘Then he must learn of Homer.’

  The ambassador wiped his mouth, as if trying to remove some contamination, and spoke sharply to Gregory in the flowing, interminably circuitous rhythm of the Greek tongue. His comments went on for several minutes. Gregory nodded respectfully from time to time.

  ‘Jarl Rognvald, it is sometimes argued that in our government a man rises on the accumulation of his words,’ said Gregory when the ambassador had finished. The little eunuch struggled to combat a smile. ‘Of course, that is not true. If it were, our august ambassador already would have ascended to the Imperial throne. What he has said is this. First, I am not to exchange inessential pleasantries with you “northern barbaroi”. Forgive me, but I am afraid you will have to become accustomed to that term. More pertinently, the documents for the entire fleet of four hundred and eighty-six ships are now in order. There is nothing to prevent our departure. Unless, of course, the august ambassador decides to deliver an address to inaugurate our voyage.’

  Jarl Rognvald forced himself not to laugh; he presumed that the ambassador would be only too eager to take offence. ‘Have you seen Hakon? I don’t want to wait until the morning to speak with him.’

  Gregory lifted a wry eyebrow. ‘I am afraid I have seen more of the Manglavite than I had hoped.’

  ‘Manglavite?’ asked Haraldr.

  ‘Hakon Fire-Eyes holds the official title of Manglavite. He symbolically clears the path for the Emperor in official processions,’ said Gregory. ‘It is an extraordinary honour.’ He did not add that it was a particularly extraordinary honour for a barbaros, and a frightening testament to the enormous, malignant power of Hakon’s patron, Mar Hunrodarson.

  Gregory led the Jarl and Haraldr to the Varangian encampment. It seemed as if all of the five hundred swaggering young warriors had assembled in a rollicking mob around some central attraction. Haraldr reluctantly followed the Jarl into their midst; though he was taller and broader than all but a few, he felt as if his cowardice were a physical defect they would immediately recognize and ridicule.

  At the centre of the crowd was a naked woman, a coarsely ruddy farm girl with short-cropped slave’s hair, firm heavy buttocks, and small breasts with boyish nipples. She stared numbly at a man sitting on an ale barrel; he was huge even by Norse standards. He wore a short lacquered gold byrnnie but was naked below the waist; his legs were so thickly muscled, they seemed like the pillars of some colossal temple. His head slumped towards his chest, and his long golden hair concealed his face. He held a hand to his crotch, as if he had been injured. It was a moment before Haraldr realized that the giant was actually stroking his own genitals, apparently trying to coax an erection so that he could publicly penetrate the unfortunate slave girl. Then Haraldr noticed the other naked slave, a slender girl who sat forlornly in the sand; blood smeared her inner thighs. She was no doubt the reason for the giant’s temporary impotence. Several more slave girls, roped together and wearing coarse wool tunics, stood behind her, dreadfully waiting their turn.

  The giant looked up. His long golden beard was plaited into dozens of tiny braids and spangled with shimmering bits of gold. The eponymous orange flecks in his blue irises were clearly visible. Hakon’s fire-eyes swept about crazily, as dangerous as weapons, and finally targeted Jarl Rognvald. Hakon’s thick, brutish lips parted, offering a huge ivory grin. ‘Jarl Rognvald,’ he said casually. ‘It seems my quiver is temporarily empty.’ His head slumped again, and he returned his attention to his limp penis.

  Jarl Rognvald was rigid with disgust. To capture, own and trade in slaves was accepted in the north, but to abuse them, particularly in this fashion, was an outrage. But there was trouble enough waiting for him on the Dnieper, and he could not afford a row with the leader of the five hundred most able warriors under his overall command. ‘I’ll speak with Hakon in the morning,’ he told Haraldr wearily.

  A young man with wispy chin whiskers bounded from the crowd and began a recitation in the strident tones of the skald. ‘Sater-of-ravens! Full-strong arm of the Great King! He whose forehead-moons glow with the stars-of-hearth!’ He raised his arm and flourished his hand as if scattering gold dust into the sky.

  Hakon looked up at the young skald. ‘Grettir!’ He chortled. ‘Have you found me fresh meat? Something to temper my Frey-spike?’

  ‘Yes, heretic-hewer.’ Grettir moved his hands in suggestion of a woman’s curves. ‘Itrvaxinn!’ Good lines, like a well-crafted Norse dragon-ship.

  The naked farm girl was pushed aside. Two Varangians dragged the next victim through the crowd. At the sight of her Haraldr knew he could not leave.

  Though she was cloaked in a dirty burlap tunic and bound at her wrists and ankles, this young woman obviously had not been born to accept slavery. Her skin was as lustrously white as her uncropped hair was black. She snapped like a badger at Grettir’s hand, and he had to wrestle her chin up for Hakon’s inspection. Her agate eyes were brightly polished with anger; her nose was long and fine with a delicate, sharp tip. Even in the face of the humiliation that awaited her, she had an unmistakable nobility. Haraldr’s breast ached with her loveliness and her terrible fate. A voice whispered at him, then faded. He did not know what it said. A torrent of obscene speculation followed from the crowd.

  ‘Imagine the dark foliage that garlands her thigh-gorge, heretic-hewer.’ Grettir grimaced as he struggled to steady the girl’s writhing head. ‘You had better expect a fight if you try to sail up this fjord.’

  Hakon grinned. ‘The blood from the wound Freyja hews will bless our journey!’ His disproportionately small penis now stood with plum-hued stiffness. He reached out with an enormous apelike arm, seized the girl’s long black mane, and forced her to stumble between his massive, spread thighs; she became curiously acquiescent, and merely glared as he brought her mouth to his. There was a moment of contact, and then her head jerked violently. Hakon bellowed and almost pitched backwards off his perch. Blood streamed from his lacerated nose.

  Hakon dabbed at his nose with one hand. The other wrapped almost entirely around the girl’s neck. Jarl Rognvald decided that he would intercede if Hakon tried to kill the girl. The lewd chorusing of the Varangians quieted. Hakon’s eyes wandered, as if he were looking for a signal. The clearly voiced verses lilted over the crowd.

  Sable-haired

  Plundered from the strand that is sea

  Dauntless to spill the wine of ravens

  Swan-white stands
she.

  A fair snippet of verse, thought Haraldr as he savoured the skald’s words. The poet has imagined her coming from the desert, which is said to be a sea of beaches, and because she has spilled the brute’s blood she can yet wear her hair uncovered, like a maiden, and so is still white and pure . . . Why are they all looking at me? Haraldr wondered. Then he realised what had happened, and his veins iced. He was the poet. He had spoken aloud, perhaps not in his own voice, but the words had certainly come out of his mouth.

  ‘Hvat?’ bellowed Hakon, as astounded as he was furious. Grettir took two slow paces towards Haraldr and looked at him as if he had just seen a serpent talk. Jarl Rognvald’s heart soared in the instant before he furiously began to reason how to get Haraldr out of there alive.

  Haraldr felt the pressure of Hakon’s dagger against his windpipe almost before he saw the gleam of steel. ‘I’m sorry, Jarl Rognvald, but your bodyguard has mocked me,’ Hakon growled; there was no sorrow in his voice. ‘I’m going to have to ask him if his sword is as sharp as his tongue.’