The Bloody Crown

by James Wilde

  ‘Worry not. I will find a good man to take his place in no time.’

  ‘No need. I have already made that decision . . . with Alexios’ guidance.’ Nikephoros swept out a hand to the young warrior.

  Wulfrun saw that Alexios was smiling. So soon? The young Roman must have raced from the battlefield to offer the emperor his advice.

  Alexios stepped aside so that another figure lurking at the rear of the tent could step forward. Wulfrun stiffened when he saw Hereward. This was the worst blow of all. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This cannot—’

  ‘The emperor agreed there is no better man for the job,’ Alexios interjected.

  Wulfrun tasted acid. Hereward and Alexios had been in deep for many a moon, and he could see that this had been planned for some time. Even had Brynstan not been killed no doubt Hereward would have been rushed here to take the credit for Basilakios’ fall.

  ‘Hereward the Bloody,’ Nikephoros said with an approving nod. ‘That is what they are calling you these days, is it not?’

  ‘It is better than some of the names that have followed me.’

  Nikephoros chuckled, clearly in awe of this warrior. He turned back to Wulfrun. ‘You are old friends, are you not? From your days in England?’

  Wulfrun fought to steady himself. Friends. He held the Mercian responsible for the death of his father. Though he had done his best to make peace with that, he would never forget it. ‘We ran together as boys,’ he replied in a wintry voice.

  If the emperor heard the chill in those words, he did not show it. ‘Good, good. Then the Varangian Guard will only be stronger with two such great warriors at its head.’

  Soaked in gore, Hereward still looked like some apparition from the depths of the night. Aye, Hereward the Bloody, Wulfrun thought. Since that bastard English exile had joined the Varangian Guard, it was as if he had set free the devil that lurked inside him. No other warrior could match him for slaughter in battle, nor, Wulfrun had to accept, for courage. Hereward, the man he had hated since they were both boys in Barholme, had become a hero, even among the ferocious ranks of the Guard.

  Wulfrun sensed plots forming around him, though he could not see the weave of them. But there was no doubt that they were bad business.

  Hereward strode over and held out his hand. Under the watchful gaze of the emperor, Wulfrun could do naught but take it.

  ‘You cannot forgive me for the poison that was spread in days long gone,’ the Mercian said in a low voice, so that the emperor could not hear. ‘But I will be a loyal ally, you have my word on that. And you will need me, be in no doubt.’ His voice became little more than a whisper as he added, ‘There are worse days yet to come.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  East of Constantinople, Christmas 1080

  THE AIR REEKED of death.

  Droplets of blood spattered the face of the running man. Squinting through the sea of dark swelling among the trees, he tried without luck to see where the wind had caught that black rain. But he could not afford to pause to wipe the stains away.

  At his back, the howls of the hunting band rang to even greater heights. They smelled blood too: his blood. Glancing into the gulf behind him, Hereward could see a constellation of tiny flames dancing nearer, always nearer.

  Death was coming, and coming fast.

  Branches tore at his face and snagged in his hair. Snarling roots clutched for his feet. Beneath the forest canopy, the night was so deep he knew it was only a matter of time until he fell. Then the pack would be upon him.

  Skidding down a bank, he winced as thorns ripped the bare flesh of his arm. He was travelling light. The crimson cloak of the Varangian Guard had been left behind in the city when he had set off into the east five days gone. He wore but an oiled leather breastplate, grey woollen leggings and leather shoes. His Dane-axe was still under his bed in Constantinople. He carried only his gold-hilted sword, Brainbiter, his constant companion since he had been a boy, and a long-bladed knife. And on his left forearm, his round wooden shield painted red with his raven sigil in black.

  The slope ended at a patch of marshy ground. He squelched through it and splashed into the chill water of a babbling stream. Keeping low, he darted along the course, hoping that he might buy himself some time.

  Fifty Turks lay at his back, he guessed, all of them dressed in their felt boerk bowl hats and thick woollen yalmas fastened tightly across their chests. Some carried single-edged swords. Others were armed with bows, and those archers were so skilled they could take the life of a bird in flight. He could not afford to give them a clear shot. And there would be reinforcements nearby. Blood-crazed and hungry for vengeance, they roamed the lands even here, close to Constantinople.

  As the banks on either side flattened out, he glimpsed more torches flickering on either side. Gritting his teeth, he lunged to his left, across the boggy ground and back on to the dry leaf-mould of the forest floor. Within moments, he had closed on the nearest torch. His enemies had formed a crescent around him, and this Seljuk warrior was ahead of the left flank.

  Slowing his step, Hereward padded from tree to tree, never taking his eyes off that wavering light.

  When the Turk wandered near to his hiding place, Hereward drew his long-bladed knife and ghosted out behind him. His arm flexed as fast as a striking viper, hooking the crook of his elbow under the warrior’s chin and yanking his head back. With one fluid movement, he ripped the blade across the bared throat. So quick was the attack, the man could only let out a dying sigh.

  As his victim slumped to the ground, Hereward sheathed the knife and snatched the falling torch. His enemies would be peering deep into the dark for their prey, not following the path of another light.

  Before he could take another step, footsteps pounded near. Whirling, he glimpsed a contorted face in the torchlight. A glint of steel whirled towards him. Somehow he thrust himself aside. The sword whisked by a finger’s breadth away from slicing open his skull.

  Brainbiter leapt into his hand. As the Turk swung round for another strike, Hereward felt his chest tighten. If he allowed this foe to cry out even once, the entire hunting band would be upon him.

  The Mercian thrust the brand towards the other man’s face. Shocked, his assailant reeled away from the trail of flames. That was all Hereward needed. Lunging forward, he rammed his sword deep into the warrior’s gut.

  As he raced away, Hereward felt the weariness in his legs start to burn. He had been running from this hunting band since dawn, when they had spotted him on the edge of one of their burned-out villages. Their teeth had gleamed white among the black bristles of their beards as they wailed and beat their chests at the loss of their women and children, friends and neighbours. They would never have cared that he could not be blamed for this slaughter. To them, he was just another bloodthirsty Roman bastard.

  Kraki had been right, he thought grimly. The Viking had mocked him for being so foolish as to venture alone into land the Turks had occupied. But the need had been great.

  His nostrils wrinkled at the reek of smoke on the wind and he tasted bitter ashes on his tongue. As he crested a ridge, he looked down upon several fires flickering in the blackness below him. The dying remains of another Turkish settlement, perhaps the newest, and the one closest to Constantinople. How could they have advanced so far, so quickly? Why had the Romans not fought back sooner?

  Hereward beat the torch upon the dry ground until it was extinguished. There would be light enough here. And perhaps, too, he would finally find the object of his quest.

  Skidding down the bank, he prowled into the village. Clouds of smoke drifted before him, obscuring then revealing the massacre. Bodies sprawled everywhere, farmers mostly, but women too, and children. The attack had moved from hut to hut, he guessed, with stealth at first, until it had been impossible to muffle the screams. Hereward felt his stomach knot at the slaughter of so many innocents. This was murder, not war.

  For a moment, his thoughts flashed back to another burning village in t
he frozen forest of Northumbria when he had been little more than a murderous youth. That was the moment when his life had changed, for the better, he hoped, and he had been led away from the road to hell.

  But then his eyes watered and he jolted back into the present. Pressing on through the billowing smoke, he focused on the carnage around him. The embers of the houses still glowed red. This destruction had not been long in the making. Cocking his head, he listened for any sign that he was not alone, but the crackle of the lingering fires and the snap of the wood were too loud.

  With his skin blooming from the heat, he reached the other side of the small settlement. The smoke folded back, and for a moment he was in a place of silence and stillness. Ahead of him, a pale shape glowed in the gloom, hovering just above the height of his head. He stiffened as he tried to understand what he was seeing. His sword slowly fell to his side.

  As he stepped forward, the pale shape took on the form of a man, but something more than a man. Wings reached out on either side.

  An angel.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘DO YOU LIKE my handiwork?’

  The wintry voice rolled out. Hereward whirled, but whoever had spoken was lost to the swirling smoke. Yet for all his wariness that vision hovering in the dark burned too brightly in his mind, and he could not stop himself from looking back. His neck prickling, he took a step towards the angel. As it gained definition in the gloom, the true nature of the thing revealed itself to him.

  It was not one of God’s messengers.

  Here was what had driven the Turks to such fury. Here was the horror that had fomented a tide of blood, one that could drown all Constantinople if left unchecked.

  On a great blackthorn, a dead man had been suspended. Stripped naked, his arms stretched out, his legs crossed at the ankle, his head lolling to one side. Hereward narrowed his eyes. This body had been arranged by careful hands, a warning, aye, and mockery too, that spoke to both Turk and Roman in its echo of the Saviour upon the cross.

  Hereward found his gaze drawn inexorably to those wings. While his victim was still alive, the killer had plunged his sword into the back and severed the ribs down to the loin. Then those narrow bones had been cracked back and the lungs jerked out and exposed in fans of pink flesh.

  The Blood Eagle.

  Hereward had always thought it naught but a story told by Christians to damn the heathen Vikings who were supposed to inflict this torture upon the defeated. He had never witnessed it on the field of battle, never heard of its being enacted, until rumours had surfaced of one who had indeed committed this torture, and had been named after it.

  A shuffling echoed at his back and Hereward turned. Surrounded by the orange glow of the fires, a towering figure began to emerge from the cloud of smoke.

  ‘You have hunted me for days. Now you have found me,’ the Blood Eagle growled.

  His true name was Varin. Hereward had heard the older members of the Varangian Guard talk of him in whispers. One of their own, who had been consumed by such a blood-lust he had been driven mad, and disappeared from their ranks into the wilder reaches of the empire.

  The Mercian drank in the disturbing sight. A head taller than Hereward, Varin still wore his crimson cloak, its colour dulled by the filth of the road and the cloth ripped into tatters so that when he walked it fluttered behind him like feathers. A mail-shirt, tarnished by age and beaten from battle, covered a leather breastplate. In his right hand he gripped his Dane-axe, the blade nicked and smeared with blood, and on his left arm he wore a blistered, faded shield marked with his sigil, the black silhouette of an eagle. Both his hands were stained red.

  Hereward looked up into the orbs glowing within the shadowed eye-holes of his helm. ‘Your reign of terror is over. You will return with me to Constantinople and face justice for your crimes.’

  Varin’s stare did not waver as he took the measure of the man standing in front of him. ‘I have run with the wolves in the frozen wastes of the north. I have fought the Rus on lakes of ice and slaughtered Normans under a sun so hot their spilled blood boiled. I have walked with death all my life. And you would command me?’

  ‘I too have walked with death.’ Hereward held the Viking’s unblinking gaze.

  ‘Who sent you to claim me?’

  ‘No one. I am here of my own will. The Romans had problem enough with the Turks before you began to whip them into a frenzy with your slaughter. The emperor and his greybeards could not let you kill and kill until the Seljuks laid siege to the city itself in their anger. But their plan to stop you was not good.’ The Mercian remembered his frustration when the strategy had been described to him. ‘Fifty men or more to ride into this newly lost land to bring you home, axes-for-hire captained by a handful of the Varangian Guard. The Turks would never have let such a force drive into their heart, not after you had cut a swathe through them. Many lives would have been lost. I could not allow that to happen.’

  Varin laughed, so low it was barely more than an exhalation. ‘So, you disobeyed the orders of your betters.’

  ‘One man working alone stood the best chance of capturing you. One man who could track you through these forests without drawing too many eyes. And I was the best man for that work.’ He stiffened, hearing the cries of the hunting band as the warriors crested the ridge. Time was short.

  Showing his jagged teeth, the Blood Eagle said, ‘One man.’

  ‘And if you will not come with me, I will kill you here.’ Hereward drew his sword.

  Unmoved by the threat, Varin cocked his head, listening to the horde sweeping down towards them. ‘If my days are to end, so be it. I have done good work. But should we fight each other while all hell breaks loose around us? You may take my life, but the Turks will have yours.’

  Hereward peered through the drifting smoke. ‘I am sick of running.’

  Varin shook his axe over his head. Droplets of blood flew from the blade. ‘Then let us make a stand here. Odin will decide if we still walk this earth at dawn, or if we travel to Valhalla.’

  ‘You and I against an army?’

  ‘I like those odds,’ the Blood Eagle roared. ‘How many are coming for us? Thirty?’

  ‘Aye, about that.’

  The Viking’s eyes glinted in the firelight. ‘I have met these Turks. One on one and one on ten. Most are not seasoned warriors. They are farmers . . . wandering tribesmen who have scraped together enough gold to buy a sword or an axe. Many have never been on the field of battle and seen their brothers cut down around them. They do not fight to the last. They fight until they are afrit and then they run like frightened rabbits. And if there is one thing I know, it is how to make men afrit.’

  ‘I am no novice at that myself.’

  Varin narrowed his eyes. ‘Good. Then we are in agreement. We leave our fight until our business here is done.’

  Hereward nodded, pleased to accept the terms. With a man like Varin at his side, there was some hope. He raised his head to face the smouldering village. The howls of the Turks broke through the sounds of destruction. The hunting band was about to move among what remained of the houses. He glanced over to signal to Varin that it was time to begin their attack, but the Blood Eagle was already gone.

  Sucking in a deep breath, Hereward let peace settle upon him. He was ready. Deep inside, he felt his devil stir, the part of him that lived for blood, for battle, for death. For a long time, he had thought it his curse: the thing that had made him hated by all he met, that had allowed anger to consume his wits and driven him to slaughter when a good man would have walked away.

  But now he had made an accommodation with it. In battle, he fed that devil well and it kept him alive. In peace, it left him alone.

  When he raised Brainbiter, the blade shimmered orange with the reflected light of the fires. His stomach prickling with anticipation, he bounded into the deep bank of smoke.

  In that dense grey wall, muffled sounds came and went. A call and response rang out. The Turks sensed some threat. They were
entering the village with caution.

  When the sound of pounding hooves rumbled near, Hereward stepped close to a burning barn. He felt his skin scorch in the heat. Crouching down, he waited for the horseman. Instead it was a riderless steed that careered out of the smoke, its eyes wide and white with terror as it raced through its former home. As it thundered by, he glimpsed two Turks moving slowly in his direction. They looked right and left, their swords levelled.

  Hereward stooped to pick up a stone and hurled it against the remnants of a timber wall afire across the street. The crack rang out even above the crackling of the flames, and the two men jerked towards the source.

  The Mercian was moving the moment they turned away.

  Darting across the baked earth, he rammed his blade into the back of the nearest man. Convulsing, his enemy pitched forward as the sword came free. The other warrior whirled at the death-cry, just in time for Brainbiter to rip across his bared throat. He fell back in a shower of blood, clutching for his neck.

  Hereward was already moving past him, alongside a burning cottage.

  Two more Turks fell in rapid measure.

  In the glowing embers of another house sprawled the blackened remains of the innocents Varin had slaughtered when he had put this village to the torch. Hereward felt a jolt of disgust. For all that they were both warriors and members of the Varangian Guard, he must never forget that they were not alike.

  As he rounded the corner, he glimpsed a band of ten men stalking towards him through the smoke. They cried out when they saw him and launched into a run. They thought him alone, a running dog waiting to be cornered.

  Choking on the smoke, Hereward darted back the way he had come. More cries echoed when the hunting band came across his victims. That would only whip them into more of a frenzy. They would throw caution to the wind now, and that was what he wanted.

  A house collapsed with a sound like thunder. An eruption of sparks whirled on the breeze towards the stars. Weaving around it, Hereward caught sight of three headless warriors – more of Varin’s handiwork – but he did not slow his step.