The Bloody Crown

by James Wilde

  Reeling from shock, Juliana suddenly felt very afraid. When hot tears burned her eyes, her senses flooded back and she spun, desperate to scramble away from that terrible vision.

  But there was no escape.

  Caught on the small olive tree in the shadows by the side of the door, unnoticed when she entered the garden, was another blood eagle. Her mother. Simonis, too, was naked. Her dead eyes were white in the gloom. There was something almost of beauty in the way she had been presented. The curve of her arms, her hips, the line of her legs, all showed grace, like a swan taking flight. If Juliana had not been sickened to the point of madness, she would have thought that this had been a work of love.

  As the fog of shock began to drift away, Juliana felt a rush of fear for her own life. She scrambled back to the house, almost stumbling in her desperation. But she knew she was not alone, even before she jerked her head up to see the figure blocking her escape.

  Silhouetted in the doorway was a giant figure holding an axe. Varin. And in the silence that enveloped her, Juliana could hear the drip, drip, drip of blood on to the marble floor.

  His face showed no emotion, his gaze strangely reminiscent of the saints in the mosaics in the Hagia Sophia. Caught in that fierce attention, she froze. But then he spoke and the spell was broken.

  ‘Hereward sends his greetings.’

  The Blood Eagle loomed over her and now his eyes were like fire.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  ALRIC STOPPED STRUGGLING with his bonds to listen to the screams and the clash of steel upon steel echoing through the stone. The fighting away in the night was drawing closer by the moment. He had no idea what could be happening, but he feared the worst.

  Glancing around his cell in the thin light from a single oil lamp, he cursed his lot. It was not so filthy as that foul hole beneath the Great Palace, and he should give thanks to God that he still lived, but he would not die here while the city burned around him. Though he strained his arms against the bonds that bound his wrists to his ankles, they were as tight as ever. He could not even cry out for help through the cloth tied across his mouth.

  But then hurrying footsteps echoed outside the cramped chamber and he jerked himself upright. When the door was flung open, he breathed in the sweet-scented blast of incense. This time he heard none of the chanting of the monks, only sounds of fury.

  In the doorway, the huge bulk of Neophytos loomed. Beyond him, Alric glimpsed the sumptuous mosaics running just below the vast dome of the Hagia Sophia, the tiles shimmering in the flickering torchlight.

  The eunuch did not look so confident now. There was none of the grinning and the mockery that had taunted Alric when the corpulent monk had bribed the guards to allow him to be taken away from the cell beneath the palace. Now fear gripped the other man, and he appeared to be trembling.

  Wheezing from the exertion, Neophytos leaned down and yanked the rag from Alric’s mouth. ‘Do not think to cry out,’ he said between breaths. ‘No one will heed you.’

  This hiding place had been chosen well, the eunuch had told him when he had first been dragged here. He was high up in the church, off one of the walkways that circled beneath the dome. With Anna Dalassene seeking sanctuary far below, the guards had kept the Hagia Sophia near deserted.

  ‘What is happening?’ Alric demanded. ‘The fighting—’

  ‘Silence.’

  Alric narrowed his eyes. ‘The time has come, then. The Nepotes are rising. Or you would not be here to take me to the prophet so that we can proclaim that you and your filthy kin have been chosen by the Lord.’

  ‘Still your tongue, I say,’ Neophytos snapped in his reedy voice. He cocked his head, listening. Alric watched his expression and realized that perhaps the outcome of this matter was not as certain as the Nepotes had once believed.

  Neophytos grabbed Alric’s tunic and began to drag him to the door. ‘You will do as you are told,’ he said. ‘When my kin have seized the prophet from Karas Verinus’ hands we will be ready.’

  Alric laughed at the uncertain tone he heard in the other man’s voice. But before he could goad the eunuch further, he was blinded by a spray of warm crimson.

  Gasping, he blinked away the gore. Neophytos stood clutching at his throat, a gurgling sound bubbling from his mouth. Blood frothed between his fingers. Alric could only gape as the eunuch’s eyes rolled back, white, and the sickening mewling died in his throat. Like a mountain being shaken by God’s wrath, he slipped to one side and crashed to the flagstones.

  A knife glinted in the torchlight. The blade was clutched in the hand of a figure half-crouched in the doorway. Shaking the blood from his eyes, he recognized the form. Ragener, the half-man.

  Crumpling his ruined features, the Hawk spat on the dead man at his feet. ‘I followed this cur thinking he would lead me to Leo Nepos, so I could slay him myself and prove to Karas once and for all that I am worthy of his trust. But no, he has led me only to you. The source of so much of my misery.’

  Alric felt a chill when he saw the grin creep across the sea wolf’s face. Madness glinted in his eyes.

  Ragener cocked his head on one side, but his ragged grimace twisted his mocking smile. ‘No kind words? Yet we are so alike, you and I. Almost like brothers.’

  ‘I have nothing in common with you, and if I did, I would slit my own throat.’

  Ragener held up the stump of his right arm. ‘See? God has judged us equally.’

  Alric felt his rage simmering. ‘God did not judge me. This hand was taken by a friend who saved my life, after you had cut off my fingers.’

  ‘My life has been blighted by fate,’ the Hawk cried. ‘This is no fault of my own. No, it is men like you and Hereward who caused my suffering, for no good reason. But your master is food for the maggots now. And soon you will follow. But I will still be here. I will be the victorious one.’

  Dashing forward, Ragener slashed with the knife. Alric flinched. He felt a flood of relief when he realized the blade had only sliced through his bonds. As he rubbed his aching wrists, the Hawk waved the knife at him. ‘Stand.’

  But this was surely no gift of freedom. The sea wolf no doubt wanted to deliver him back to Karas Verinus to earn the general’s favour. Anger bubbled up inside him. How many times had he and his brothers suffered at the hands of men like this, men without honour? He was sick of it.

  The anger became rage, erupting out of him. With a roar, Alric dropped his head and hurled himself forward. Drawing on strength he never knew he had, the monk rammed Ragener out of the chamber, across the narrow walkway that circled the dome and into the low rail. His roar thundered across the ringing space beneath the dome, drowning out the sea wolf’s pathetic squealing.

  Ragener’s one good arm flailed, the knife falling to the floor.

  In the haze of his fury, Alric’s wits fled him. Only when Ragener flipped over the rail did he jerk to his senses.

  Screaming, the sea wolf grabbed the monk’s tunic, dragging him half over the stone wall. Alric felt fire burn in his joints as he clung desperately to the rail with his good hand. But he could feel his fingers trembling from the strain, his grip weakening. The Hawk’s weight was too great, pulling him over into the void, and he could not break that grip without loosing the hand that anchored him.

  Tears of frustration stung his eyes. He peered down past the shrieking Ragener, past the glittering gold, cold statues, to the flagstones so far below. There, a tiny figure, a woman, Anna, craned her neck up at him, her mouth open. She was crying out, he was sure, but her voice was drowned by Ragener’s furious cursing.

  To die like this, shattered on that floor, after all his struggles. He felt bitter at the unfairness.

  ‘Pull me up,’ Ragener screamed. ‘Or you will be damned.’ Alric saw fear burning in the sea wolf’s scarred face.

  ‘I have killed once before. I have betrayed God for the sake of my friends. My soul is already tainted. There is no going back for me.’ Alric half closed his eyes and muttered a prayer.
He was ready.

  On the edge of his vision, movement flashed.

  A sword hacked down. The blade sliced through Ragener’s wrist. And then the sea wolf was falling, tumbling, turning, growing smaller as his shriek spiralled up. And then the sickening crack, and silence.

  Alric reeled back, so dazed by his brush with death he thought he would faint.

  Words reached him through the mist, a voice he had half convinced himself he would never hear again.

  ‘See. You have two hands again. I work miracles.’

  Glancing down, he saw Ragener’s hand still frozen in a death-grasp in the folds of his tunic. His dumbfounded laughter turned to a juddering sob of relief. After a moment, he looked up.

  Hereward loomed over him.

  His friend’s face swam before his eyes and for a moment he could almost believe this was a ghost.

  Hereward, risen from the dead.

  Finally.

  Alric felt such a flood of relief that their plan had worked, he fainted into the Mercian’s arms.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  ‘THE CITY IS at war.’ In the nave, Hereward’s voice echoed through the vast empty space of the Hagia Sophia. ‘Stay safe here with Anna Dalassene.’

  ‘You will need help,’ Alric protested. The Mercian watched his friend’s eyes flicker to dead Ragener and the spray of blood across the flagstones surrounding the shattered body. Through the walls, the clamour of battle throbbed ever closer.

  ‘With God’s will, Hereward will have all the aid he needs,’ Anna said softly, resting one hand on the monk’s shoulder. ‘We have work to do here.’

  ‘It seems there is much I do not know.’ Alric narrowed his eyes and Hereward felt a pang of guilt for not taking his friend into his confidence, in spite of all they had been through together.

  ‘Do not be stung. This plan has been years in the making. No man, and only one woman, was privy to all of it, except me. You and Varin had a part. The prophet, the death I feigned to hide away from my enemies. Only Anna knew the whole. But I vow I will tell you all. If we live through this night.’

  He glanced towards the door, hoping he still had an unimpeded path to the palace. His mind was racing after so long lying low, plotting, allowing only fragments of his ultimate aim to be seen by each of his co-conspirators so that no one ally could reveal all if they were captured and tortured, by Nikephoros, by Karas, by any one of the myriad other enemies that seemed to shadow his path across this earth.

  ‘You did well,’ Anna said. ‘The whole of the city believed you dead.’

  ‘I only pray that Kraki and the other spear-brothers will forgive me,’ he replied, ‘but I could take no risks. This plot would only succeed if all thought I no longer had any part to play.’

  ‘Aye, you have done well,’ Alric added pointedly. ‘Since we first met you have always learned the ways of your enemies and turned them back upon them. But who would ever have thought you had such a talent for deceit.’

  ‘In a pit of vipers, the one who wins is the greatest viper of all.’ Hereward tried to smile, but he could not help being stung by the bitterness in his friend’s voice. In this game, only winning counted. Too many people were relying upon him. ‘Now is not the time to explain. Time is against us. Find the Patriarch,’ he commanded, ‘and make ready.’

  Drawing his great sword, he ran out into the raging night. Pausing on the steps, he took in the chaos before him: some soldiers fighting, others carrying armfuls of loot, citizens fleeing for their lives.

  If God had smiled upon them, Alexios and Isaac would have won the support of the armies in the west and they would now be carving a path through whatever resistance Nikephoros could throw at them, and the remnants of Karas’ force of axes-for-hire and cut-throats. There was no way through this without bloodshed, and only God knew who would survive to see the dawn. If he was not one of them, so be it. Death had become a friend to him in recent days.

  Forcing his way across the square, Hereward reached the palace and raced through the deserted corridors. The guards had all fled. The kitchens were silent, the torches along the walls illuminating a jumble of fallen fruit, scattered olives and spilled wine, smashed pots and shattered amphorae. He presumed they must have been cast aside when what few servants would have been there at that time of night had fled.

  The palace appeared abandoned, empty, but he knew better. Putting his thumb and forefinger in his mouth, he whistled. Three short bursts, one long. A sign that he had last used in the rain-soaked fenlands of England. He felt a momentary sense of sadness as he remembered his homeland.

  An answering whistle sang back to him. Moments later came the sound of something heavy being dragged across the flagstones, and a figure rose up among the stores in the shadows on the far side of the kitchen. Rowena slipped out into the flickering light.

  ‘The hour has come?’

  Hereward nodded.

  He watched her hesitant smile appear. She seemed torn between excitement and apprehension. But then she nodded eagerly and said, ‘My heart has near burst at keeping these secrets.’

  ‘My trust was always well placed.’

  Gathering up her flour-streaked skirt, Rowena swept away.

  ‘Take care,’ Hereward cautioned. ‘The night is filled with enemies.’

  At the door to the kitchen gardens, Rowena paused and glanced back. ‘For England,’ she murmured. And then she was gone.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  THE NIGHT WAS torn by screams, a hundred, a thousand, all merging into one howl of despair. Along the narrow streets, a torrent of bodies flowed away from the worst of the fighting. Men, women and children buffeted each other, clawing their way past their neighbours, their faces ragged with terror.

  Keeping a firm grip on the sack he held in his left hand, Kraki pushed aside anyone who blocked his way.

  ‘This is madness,’ Sighard yelled above the din.

  ‘Feel the blood thunder in your heart. This is life. Now bring me our enemies. I am ready for them.’

  The Viking tried to push aside his churning emotions. At first confusion had enveloped him when he had stared down into that grave and realized it was not Hereward who was interred there. Then he had felt anger that he had been lied to by someone, he was not yet sure who. Then worry that Hereward might yet be dead, his body lost in the sea. But now, as he ran, he was beginning to feel a sense of hope, that something beyond his ken was unfolding in front of him.

  Yet as the two men crossed the second hill towards the Mese, they ground to a halt, aghast.

  ‘You are right,’ Kraki growled. ‘This is madness.’

  In the swell of fighting in the forum of Constantinople, they saw Roman warriors, and Constantinople’s standard. But these men were running wild. The Viking watched them knock down merchants in front of their wives to rob them of purses stuffed with coin. Others smashed open doors and looted riches. The blood of innocents streamed across the flagstones. The city was being ransacked by those who should have been its saviours.

  On the two men ran, heading east.

  Sighard had feared they would never find their brothers in the surging field of battle, but Kraki knew better. No warriors had greater courage. Guthrinc and the others would always be in the thick of any fighting, no doubt honouring their oath and defending the main route to the palace. Rounding a corner, he saw the torches that lit the hippodrome ahead and knew that he was right.

  In the shade of the Milion monument at the eastern end of the Mese, a line of Varangians held fast as wave after wave of fighting men crashed against their shields. Kraki could see that the attackers were not Roman troops, and for that he thanked the gods. No, undisciplined and dressed in rags, these must be Karas Verinus’ men.

  Roaring their battle-cries, he and Sighard flung themselves into the fighting. Kraki felt the fire in his heart swell as, still holding tight to the sack, he hacked and slashed, splitting heads and severing limbs.

  ‘Now you come,’ Guthrinc bellowed as the
two warriors carved a path through the enemy ranks, ‘once all the hard work has been done.’

  ‘We are here to save your necks,’ Kraki snarled back. ‘I will hear your thanks once we are done.’

  The line of spear-brothers opened, and Kraki and Sighard leapt the dead and the dying to slip among their friends.

  Unseasoned as they were, Karas’ men began to hold back, waiting for an advantage. Kraki eased himself into line beside Guthrinc. It felt good to be back with his comrades and he joined in the chorus of insults with which they taunted the enemy.

  Kraki looked along the row of his brothers and decided to seize the lull. ‘We found Hereward’s grave. His body was not in it,’ he shouted. Even as he heard his own words, he still felt unsure. Could he begin to hope? Dare he?

  Kraki heard gasps of disbelief, then questions, too many, all tumbling over each other. Shaking his head, he said with a grimace, ‘I know no more than that.’

  But his reticence did not seem to hold back the rush of emotion. ‘Hereward!’ the spear-brothers roared with one voice, fists and weapons pumping the air. A battle-cry, an outpouring of relief or jubilation, the Viking could not be sure.

  ‘He has risen,’ Mad Hengist exulted, throwing his hands towards the heavens.

  ‘A plot, more like.’ Guthrinc grinned at him. ‘He is a cunning dog. When all think him dead, he can make his plans unnoticed.’

  ‘Aye. And when I find that Mercian bastard, I will carve out of his flesh every secret he has kept from me.’ Snarling with pent-up rage, Kraki lunged at one of their foes who had strayed too close. His blade ripped open the man’s chest and he fell back, howling, among his allies. Stepping back, Kraki weighed the sack he clutched in his left hand and felt the glow of relief. Hearing Guthrinc’s words, he could believe Hereward was alive. Only that sly Mercian dog would concoct such a deception.

  ‘And what part do we play in this?’ Hiroc complained. ‘Are we fodder for Alexios’ enemies, dying to buy him time?’