‘Go a long way away from this place,’ said his double, ‘and never come back here, no matter how you are drawn to do so.’
‘Kill me here,’ said Azémar. ‘Kill me here!’
‘I cannot.’
‘Why not?’
The double sprang at Azémar, putting one hand on his chest to locate him before he went for his neck. Immensely strong fingers squeezed Azémar’s windpipe but he had no fear of death. In that place, his body stewing in its own secretions, bitten by rats and fleas, rubbed raw by the rough floor, his mind falling into madness, he welcomed the end. And yet it would not come.
The pale man whose body lit the dark moved his hand in a gesture of calm, and the fingers let go of Azémar’s throat. His attacker fell back and sat down. He looked around him with the hopeless gaze of a blind man. Azémar sensed his double couldn’t see, despite the glowing figure behind him. Then he was gone, swallowed by the gloom.
The pale figure came forward to cradle Azémar in his arms.
‘Who are you? An angel?’
‘No. I am of the older earth.’
‘A devil then?’
‘Men make devils. For what is a devil but an angel of whom men disapprove?’
‘Of whom God disapproves. The father of creation cast out the bad angels and they fell to hell, where they became devils.’
The strange man laughed. ‘Then I am a devil. But what of you? The father of creation shakes to hear your name.’
‘That is blasphemy.’
‘It is the truth, Fenrisulfr.’
Azémar knew that myth. Loki had had a son who was a wolf and grew so powerful that the gods tricked and chained him to a rock, where he waits to the final day when he will break his fetters and consume the gods. His father had told such stories; though he had been sincere in his new Christianity the stories of the old land were still dear to him. Azémar had been close to his father. He would see him in heaven.
‘I would be with my father now,’ he said, ‘my holy father and my earthly one.’
‘I am here.’
‘You are not my father.’
‘I am your father and your mother both.’
The knowledge poured in on him, words and visions whispering and flashing in his mind. He had been a foundling. His brothers were all so blond and big, he skinny and dark. A vision entered his mind – a woman, scarred and gaunt with a baby at her breast. His brother – or the boy he had called his brother – lay sick in a longhouse, more likely to die than make the sea journey to a new life in Neustria. The woman was at the door. She could cure the boy but there was a price to pay – they must take the baby she had and raise it. His mother, who had loved her newest son more than all the others put together, had agreed straight away. The child had recovered and, because Azémar had brought such good fortune, they made the effort to have him accepted by the monastery when they arrived in Neustria.
‘What is to become of me?’ said Azémar.
‘My son, you have great things to do. You must drink of the waters.’
‘What waters?’
‘The waters that the dead god gave his eye to drink. Vision for vision, sight for sight in the waters of wisdom at the centre of the earth.’
‘And what will they tell me?’
‘I cannot know. Only that you must go there if we are to have any chance at all of getting rid of the old hater.’
‘Of who?’
‘Old Grimnir, the gallows god, mad King Glapsvithr, the lord of the corpses, Odin.’
‘I …’ Azémar felt as if his head lay beneath a crushing stone, that enormous pressure was building within him. The name Odin moved him to fury, to hatred that went far beyond that of a holy man for a pagan devil. He had no idea why. He growled and spat, cried out. Around him the dying men of the Numera seemed to answer his calls, howling and cursing and begging to be free.
Azémar looked up into the eyes of the man who held him, the pale, burning beautiful being who had called him son.
‘Father?’
‘Yes.’
‘Save me,’ said Azémar.
‘You are such a prodigy among horrors, you do not need me to save you, Fenrisulfr. Come, before you can drink, you need to eat.’
Blood dripped from the strange fellow’s fingers, and Azémar lapped at it, then bit. The skin ripped and more blood flowed. Still the bright, glowing man cradled Azémar, and as he did so, he sang – a song of lovers caught in a story told by a god to please the fates.
The song intoxicated Azémar, filled him with ecstasy, but was it the song in the blood that seemed to draw him on to drink ever more deeply? His own fingers ran down to the man’s belly, tearing it open and pulling out the bowels, the liver, the slick wet liver, which he chewed and swallowed with delight.
‘Mother. Father. Release me.’
‘You are released.’
The song went on as he ate.
And then it stopped, and Azémar realised that, far from lying in the figure’s arms, he held something in his own. He let go and it fell limp to the floor.
The beautiful burning figure was gone and beside him was the torn corpse of a man who had died of thirst. A weak light filtered in. The door at the top of the stairs had a small space beneath it and a faint lamplight now shone through.
There rises my sun, he thought. How soon before it sinks? The words surprised him. Azémar was a plain man and given to plain speaking. Such thoughts were alien to him.
He moved his feet. The manacles that had restrained him lay empty on the floor. How had that happened? They weren’t bent or buckled but the locks had been smashed.
He lay on the ground weeping for a while, asking God to forgive him for what he had done. But strange thoughts sprouted in him now, thoughts no words could contain.
The cries of the prisoners no longer disturbed him. They were … He searched for a word. Interesting. Intriguing. He had a deep desire to investigate them, to go to the stricken and the dying and … what? He almost laughed as he imagined himself poking the bodies with his nose. He wanted to establish something about them, to discover something. This morbid curiosity was divorced from any moral sense at all and it chilled him.
He crawled forward. He was neither hungry nor thirsty and, after so long with little water and no food, this fact seemed extremely important to him. He remembered the wolfman, the thing that had put its hand around his throat. That fellow had to have some sort of explanation for this – he would know what was what. His mind was not his own. His pompous old abbot had used those phrases – ‘that fellow’, ‘what was what’ – they were echoes of a previous existence. Words jangled in his mind. A beggar is a silent preacher, reproaching us for the corruption of wealth. A lazybones who will not work, a cripple cursed by God. No sense, no reason. Just words.
To his side was a gap where the wall didn’t quite meet the floor, a darkness within the darkness. The wolfman had come from there, he was sure. Could he speak to him? He touched his neck. It was painful where the man had grasped him, but he had no fear of him now. Should he leave this place? He thought he could wait behind the door and slip through when it opened.
He wept. He was himself again. No, no, I cannot escape. Yet in the next instant he felt strong and lithe, fast as the shadow of a bird. Yes, he was a shadow, something defined by what it was not, an expression and a simplification of another, complex thing.
He crawled to the gap at the bottom of the wall. There was something in there, a deepness – he sensed it. He breathed in, drawing a heavy draught of air through his nose. Beneath the prison stink was another smell. Wolf. He was down there, his strange double.
Devils gibbered in his head. What was happening to him? Who was that extraordinary man who had visited him and comforted him? The dark in the crack of the wall held no fear for him. He could smell, he could feel. He rolled into the sightless caves seeking to cool the torment that was raging in his head.
23 Outside the Walls
Loys strode out, surprised a
t the cold of the sunless streets. Inside the palace was always warm and pleasant, heated by the hot-air hypocaust system beneath the floors. Outside it was freezing. The sky had disappeared completely and the fine ash lay thick on every surface. He had to carry a lamp at midday – not to see so much as to be seen. Fewer people ventured out under the unnatural fog, but those who did moved no more slowly – horses and carriages looming suddenly out of nowhere, clattering past on the cobbles, unmindful of who or what they rode down.
The one business unaffected by the awful weather was that of the soothsayers on the Middle Way. They crowded in the murk under the grand porches and spilled out into the side-streets – dice throwers, palm readers, entrail burners and head feelers. Loys had never seen so many – but he quickly came to the conclusion these people were frauds. For a start, one man he had seen operating as a shoemaker when he first came to the city now sat throwing handfuls of coins into a box and using them to offer predictions. Still, Loys opted to question them in passing, but they wanted money for everything and the explanations they gave of their skills failed to convince. One woman told him he was born into riches, noting his expensive robe, another said he longed for his homeland. Loys thought he could do better than that himself. He asked for charms to help him in his quest for promotion. He was offered all sorts of things – the feet of animals and birds, potions, salves and medallions. Did these things work? He doubted it – they were just tokens sold by charlatans to fools. Loys quickly realised if magicians capable of producing effective magic did exist, he would not find them on the Middle Way.
Magic, though, was not his immediate interest. Rather, it was the beliefs that informed it. The chamberlain had spoken of old cold tides in the city. Loys needed to dip his toe in them to assess how they might have pulled and pushed at people. He spent longer than he had intended outside the palace – a week in all. His strategy was simple. He needed to gather whatever knowledge he could of the city’s pagan practices before he made a judgement on the cause of the black sky. This was not a subterfuge; he genuinely did want this information to arm himself in his quest for an answer.
He also wanted to hear rumours about Styliane and the chamberlain. His official robes would silence anyone he questioned, so he returned to the waterfront where he had lived with Beatrice, found the landlord and rented a tiny room. He changed his clothes there, entering wrapped in his big cloak and leaving the same way. The only difference was what he wore underneath – scholar’s rags instead of imperial silks.
He used his letter of engagement with its chamberlain’s seal to get him outside the city. The guard on the gate made a record of his leaving.
Down towards the water sprawled the Varangian camp, its black banners limp in the cold wet air. It was enormous but not as enormous as the shanty town that spread out from the walls on that side, seemingly as big as the sea that surrounded it on the other. All manner of materials had been used to construct houses here – some stone, some wood, some no more than tents or planks nailed together and propped up into lean-tos. Native Greeks mingled with men of many nations – Arabs and Bulgars, Turks and Moors, even the small, hard horsemen of the Mongolian steppes with their sallow skin and tear-shaped eyes. The camp was full of squabbles and fights. The people were united only by poverty.
Loys gripped the little knife at his belt and felt faintly ridiculous. If these people wanted to set on him, a sword, shield and breastplate wouldn’t stop them. The dogs were threat enough, roaming in packs and starved to skeletons. He could not risk wandering in that place alone, so he went to the Varangian camp and hired four men to accompany him with their axes and shields. Loys said his name was Michael, in a bid to put at least a small difficulty in the way of anyone who was trying to discover his business and he offered a daily rate, conspicuously emptying his purse when he paid them. If they wanted more money they would need to keep him safe – robbing him would end the arrangement.
A tall man called Galti took up his offer and brought his brothers. Loys was pleased with them – giants with impressive tattoos and scars. They might be overwhelmed by a mob, but it would be a brave man who attacked first. The Norsemen had no idea what he was doing, had no curiosity and did not speak Greek. They were ideal. He would be conspicuous with his guards but not obviously associated with authority. In his Norman clothes he even passed for another Norseman to anyone who wasn’t familiar with the difference between Normans and Vikings.
Loys began by asking for a charm to help him gain promotion. He made it clear he had no money with him but would return should he find such a thing. Loys wore his poverty ostentatiously and visibly, pulling a tear in his trousers, muddying his cloak and – despite the fact it numbed his toes – wearing only his monk’s sandals. Plenty of people offered him things, but some were no more than pebbles scratched quickly from the earth, pieces of twig, even.
‘Not these,’ he said. ‘Is there no one here who can call on the old goddess of the city? We are near enough to the walls she blesses.’
There was evidence enough of the worship of Hecate. Her symbol was daubed on walls. At places where three roads – or rather tracks through the debris – met, there were occasional posts, rough things carved with three heads at the top. This too was the goddess’s symbol. But who would own up to carving it? And even if anyone did, they could say it was just a post to mark the junction, the faces representing winds or angels.
He asked about the goddess indirectly, but if people knew anything then no one confessed to it or they missed his hints. After the third day anyone following him would have got bored, made their report and gone to buy wine, he thought. So he became a little bolder.
He had located an old man who claimed to have lived in the shanty all his life. ‘We make our fortunes by copying great men,’ said Loys. ‘Tell me, where was the chamberlain Karas born? I wish to offer a prayer of thanks for his success at the place he grew up.’
The old man said he didn’t know but knew a man who might. The man who might didn’t know either but he said it was possible a neighbour would. The neighbour thought he knew but, when they arrived at the spot, no one there could remember the chamberlain being there at all.
A crowd of children had formed around Loys on his first day in the slum, tugging at his clothes, asking him for money. He shouted at them to go away but they only stood further off, calling to him, offering him women, recommending themselves as excellent and diligent servants. By the third day, they concluded he had no money and was probably a madman. Now they left him largely alone.
Loys stood in the midst of the broken-down shacks, the human stink around him – cooking smells, dirt, urine and worse.
‘You’re lost, sir?’
It was a small boy. The child was thin and his eyes seemed ridiculously big in his head. He wore a loincloth and his body was red with scabies.
‘No.’
‘Then can I help you in any way? A woman is easy to find.’
‘That’s not what I’m looking for.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘Are you a clever lad?’ He had noticed the boy spoke quite well.
‘I don’t know. My mother says I am useful.’
‘Then what will you be when you are older? What will you do?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Will you have a profession? Will you be a soldier or a bureaucrat?’
‘I can’t read, sir. A bureaucrat needs to read.’
‘Do you know anyone who can read?’
‘I would say you can.’
Loys smiled.
‘So you will be a soldier?’
‘If I live so long and am strong enough by the time the army will have me. They eat well, those men.’
‘But they die too.’
‘Here we die but do not eat.’
‘You live on this street?’
‘Yes.’
‘I heard it said the chamberlain of all the empire grew up here.’
‘So it’s said.’
> ‘So why don’t you follow him? Why don’t you go to the court and become a servant of the emperor. Be diligent and work hard, and you may rise to that splendour.’
The boy laughed. ‘I don’t go because I can stay here and get beaten. The city guards would not even let me in.’
‘And yet the chamberlain went there.’
‘He was blessed by God.’
‘By God?’
‘By God, sir.’ The boy put up his chin, defying Loys to say different.
Loys gave him a coin.
‘And only by God?’
The boy put out his hand. Loys gave him another coin.
‘Will you give me another if I tell you?’ said the boy.
‘You’ve had two; I will not.’
The boy ran away.
Loys shrugged.
Galti laughed. ‘These people live like rats.’
‘They might say the same of you.’
‘I grew up on a farm,’ said Galti. ‘In winter we sat in the hot spring all day. The Greeks are not clean.’
‘No.’ Loys had a thought. ‘Did you never consider another life, Galti, other than that of a warrior?’
Galti looked at him as though he had sprouted troll ears. ‘Not where I come from. The sheep don’t always have enough to eat and you get a good crop only every third year if you’re lucky.’
‘You never thought to come somewhere like here, to study, to be a merchant, to be a bureaucrat?’
‘A what?’
‘A scribe, a writer.’
Galti laughed. ‘The great emperor wants Norsemen for one thing. The same as you do. Our muscle and the swords we carry.’
‘You didn’t have to follow that life.’
Galti seemed genuinely puzzled. Clearly Loys made no sense to him.
It was the same with the people who lived in the slum, Loys thought. Beyond the wall, in the city, opportunity awaited the diligent man. But here that world was almost unreachable. The children didn’t read, they had no manners, and even the cleverest saw no way out beyond the army, were they lucky enough to live long enough to join.
Lord of Slaughter (Claw Trilogy 3) Page 17