“How lucky we are to have you, Odd Thorvaldsson.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “So in a crisis John turns to Harald and his Varangians, as we expected he would. And he’ll do it again. I don’t like this Harald of yours.”
“We can always hope he never comes back from Sicily,” Psellus offered.
“We can do more than hope. You’re going with him, Odd? Accidents can happen on a campaign, can’t they?”
“I can’t promise you that, sir.”
“No, of course not. Still, you can keep an eye on him for us. By God, never was a war more opportune than this! The Emperor is completely taken up with it. I’ve been meeting with him every day, going over reports from my agents, planning our diplomatic moves. Zoe is far from his thoughts, which means that, for the moment, she’s safe. And now the decision to invade has been made, we’re not going to waste a moment. The home fleet—as many ships as are seaworthy—will sail the day after tomorrow with the Household Cavalry and your Varangians aboard. General Maniakes will pick up other troops and supplies at the depots on the Thracian coast and in Italy. Let us pray that Stephen doesn’t manage to drown them all. The man’s an idiot, a pygmy who fancies himself a Hercules, but I’m glad to see him leaving the city. John must be feeling pretty naked now without Stephen or Harald to shield him—may the man rot!And, as for you, Odd, I’ve told you already that I want you to be my Varangian someday. But first you must do military service with us, gain a reputation, impress Maniakes, fill your purse with gold. Make the most of it, my boy. I’m sure your new wife will be proud of you.”
At that, Psellus shot him a warning look.
The first rays of the dawning sun streamed through the windows of the Golden Banquet Hall. Under its high, octagonal dome a council of war was gathered. I had not slept all night, torn between love, anger, and remorse, no longer sure of what I felt for Selene, or she for me. But I was here as Harald’s skald and translator and so I forced my tired brain to work. The fleet would sail in a few hours’ time and we were already in our armor. Harald had outfitted me with a Varangian hauberk and weapons, white leggings and red cloak. Most of the Guardsmen accepted this without comment but Halldor, who was now appointed his standard bearer, and Bolli looked as though they would choke on their tongues.
We sat at the head table with the Emperor, his brother Constantine, the Logothete, Stephen, and General George Maniakes, whom I was seeing for the first time. At other tables sat the ships’ captains and the colonels of the Household Cavalry regiments. Servants passed among us with quiet efficiency carrying platters of boiled meat and jugs of watered wine.
Everyone tried not to notice Michael’s sad condition. The once handsome young face and athletic figure that had fluttered Zoe’s heart were now grotesquely swollen by the dropsy, which, in addition to his epilepsy, was ravaging him. He moved like a man of sixty, not thirty. He was apparently too weak to support the weight of his crown and jewels and wore only a light cotton robe with a shawl around his shoulders. He spoke little and it seemed a struggle for him just to follow what was being said.
It was our strategos autokrator, our commanding general, who was the cynosure of all eyes. George Maniakes had ridden all night from his Anatolian estate to be here and still had the dust of travel on his gilded corselet. He seemed to fill the whole room. He was as big as a troll, easily as tall as Harald and bigger in the chest, with a pockmarked face, deep set eyes, a large nose, black hair, and a beard that jutted straight from his face like the prow of a warship. His only expression was a scowl. According to Harald (who, as I have said, served under him in Syria) he was a Turk by birth who had started life as a camp waiter—a fact that, far from concealing, he boasted of. He had risen to command armies by sheer force of personality and an explosive temper that made strong men quail. Behind him stood the captain of his bodyguard of Khazar archers, a man called Moses the Hawk, armed with scimitar, bow, and quiver, his hair in two long braids, his caftan hanging to his boot tops.
Maniakes noticed Harald at once and called out in a booming voice that could be heard to the back of the hall. “Eh, what’s this? Where is Sveinn Gudleifsson, then, the Commandant of the Guard?” They surveyed each other in mutual dislike. “You’re taking his place, Harald Sigurdsson? By Christ, you’ve risen mighty damn fast in the ranks. You must have a powerful patron.”
Of course, Harald did have a powerful patron, but this was not a fact to be acknowledged. Before I could finish translating Maniakes’s words, Stephen leapt in, praising Harald’s youth and vigor and deprecating poor old Sveinn, who could barely get around anymore. The admiral never knew when to shut up. Finding himself being listened to (which almost never happened), he took the opportunity to ask for our prayers for poor brother John, who would be with us today if not for his untimely bout of fever. This was greeted with fervent murmurs of assent from everyone except Maniakes, who belched loudly.
Hereupon, the Logothete stood up and, with a bow to the Emperor, called us to order. His eye swept over us. When his glance fell momentarily on me, you would not have guessed we had ever met before. He spoke with his characteristic quiet precision. “Forgive me, gentlemen, but time is short and there is much to discuss. As everyone here is aware, the Saracens invaded Sicily from Africa two centuries ago. First Palermo fell, then Messina and Taormina and Syracuse and all the other Greek cities. The Emirs of Palermo have grown rich and powerful off the fat of this island that once sent its grain and fruits to us. The eastern half of Sicily is still Greek in language and religion but in another generation it will not be, unless we make a stand now. It was the intention of the Great Basil to reconquer it, but he died and Constantine, his successor, abandoned the project. In my opinion, we have only one more chance to rescue our people from annihilation. Fortunately, the Saracens are deeply riven by factions—Arab against Berber, old settlers against newer ones, one religious sect against another—and some of them are willing to ally themselves with us.
“The present Emir of Palermo, Al-Hasan Ibn Yusuf, is supported by an army of six thousand Arabs newly arrived from Africa under the command of Abdallah, the son of the Caliph of Kairouan. But there are still loyal adherents of the former Emir, Al-Hasan’s brother, a friend of ours, who was overthrown and killed two years ago. In addition there are the Lombards of Apulia. For the moment, young Duke Gaimar of Capua supports us. Time is crucial, gentlemen. We must strike while we still have any allies left.” His words were greeted with somber silence. “I turn the floor over now,” he concluded, “to our general.”
Maniakes was clearly in a foul mood, or should I say a worse mood than usual because he was never in a good one. His face was like a thundercloud. It was folly to rush off half-prepared like this he growled. He needed more time, more men, more ships or he would not vouch for the outcome.
But he knew he had lost that argument already. He would lay out his plans for us. He had brought a map with him and unrolled it on the table, shoving plates and goblets onto the floor with a sweep of his arm. All of us at the head table huddled around it, and my eyes widened as he smoothed it flat for I had never seen such a thing in my life—a picture of the land as a bird might see it! Rivers, mountains, cities, all inscribed on it. How was it possible? Not for the first—or last—time I felt like an ignorant fool.
“Your Majesty,” he addressed himself to Michael, ignoring everyone else, “let no one tell you that this campaign will be either easy or short. The Saracens have built strongholds all over the island. They are resourceful and fanatical fighters, as we have learned to our cost many times. As for our allies, I don’t give a donkey’s hind end for’em, they’ll all desert us when it suits them. But I will enlist Lombards at Salerno and make a landing at Messina. I will drive the enemy out of Rametta, which must be done to secure our rear, and then fight my way down the east coast, city by city,” he stabbed each one with a thick forefinger, “until I reach Syracuse, which I will lay siege to. The fleet will sail parallel to us, to resupply us and take off wounded. Si
mple, straightforward, and—”
“And cowardly!” All heads jerked around. Need I say that this was Harald? “Translate,” he barked at me, for I had hesitated a moment.
I searched my vocabulary for something that came closer to ‘cautious’ than ‘cowardly.’
Harald struck the map with his fist. “If Palermo is the head, then chop off the head—wherever the filthy place is.”
I translated.
There was a general intake of breath around the room.
Maniakes’s jaw muscles bulged. Violence flickered in his eyes.
Moses the Hawk’s hand moved to his sword hilt.
The Emperor looked as though he would faint.
Stephen smirked.
“Harald Sigurdsson,” the Logothete spoke rapidly, spreading his hands wide. “If only we could understand your words as you speak them. I’m sure this young man who interprets for you has made some mistake. With your permission, Majesty—” he turned to Michael—“I will call the meeting adjourned. I believe the patriarch is waiting for us in the cathedral. Prayer will do us all good.”
The man was a diplomat.
And pray we did (although I to a different god than theirs.) Under the Holy Wisdom’s stupendous dome, choruses chanted, incense billowed, icons and gospel books were paraded, platoons of clergy performed their offices, and Patriarch Alexius asked for God’s blessing on us and death to the Infidel.
Then, to the booming of gongs, we marched down to the Harbor of Boukoleon.
This harbor, on the Propontis at the foot of the Great Palace, is named for a large and striking bronze sculpture of a bull (bous) and a lion (leon) locked together in a death struggle, the one biting, the other goring. Harald and Maniakes? It struck me as a bad omen.
Now the waterfront echoed with the blare of trumpets, the shouts of sergeants and the bosuns’ whistles, the tramp of thousands of feet going up the gangways, the rattle of yardarms coming down and of anchor chains hauled up, the whinnying of cavalry horses and the braying of pack mules hanging in their canvas slings in the holds of the transports, the rumble of carts loaded with water casks and sacks of hard biscuit and dried fish, with bales of fodder, with sheaves of arrows and bundles of lances, and with strongboxes full of gold and silver coin with which to pay our troops and our mercenary allies. Everywhere banners floated and snapped in the wind, gold and silver crucifixes atop their tall standards caught the light of the rising sun. The great triangular sails of the warships luffed and filled, clouds of incense from the priests’ censers drifted over us. Thousands of rowers took their places at the benches, flexed their shoulders, and spat in their hands. Here, the encumbering armor of the heavy cavalry, carefully wrapped against the salt air, was carried aboard and stowed; and there, barrels of Greek fire, concocted in secret in the arsenal of Mangana, were rolled—very carefully—up the gangways. Constantinople hadn’t seen a spectacle like this since the days of the great Basil Bulgar-Slayer. There were forty great warships, which the Greeks call dromons, their decks bristling with catapults and bronze fire siphons. The dromons were accompanied by two hundred and twenty transports carrying fifteen thousand troops, mostly heavy lancers and swift-galloping Khazar archers plus another ten thousand sailors and rowers—free men, these, not slaves—and the Varangians, mailed and helmeted, with their axes on their shoulders.
The whole city had turned out to see us, crowding the parapet of the sea wall, spilling down onto the quay despite the efforts of soldiers to keep them back. And from the palace that rose tier on tier beyond the wall? Did the Empress Zoe, frightened, disheveled, half-mad, peer down on us from one of those curtained windows? What would become of her? Did they execute empresses in this country?
I stood, waiting for the order to board the Pantocrator, the admiral’s flagship. It was a magnificent vessel with two lateen sails of purple silk bearing golden eagles, and a hundred oars in two banks of fifty. The admiral’s pennant bearing the image of crossed fire-siphons flew from the masthead.
I searched the crowd for Selene’s face. Since returning from Psellus’s house, I had been constantly at Harald’s side. Surely, I thought, she would put aside her anger and come to see me off. Instead, here came Melampus, with Psellus trotting beside him. The old man embraced me, with tears in his eyes.
“Forgive her, Odd, she’s a willful girl, heaven knows. I could have ordered her to come but I’ve never ordered her to do anything in her life. She’s used to having her own way. But she’s crying her eyes out. She does love you. She’s a good girl, Odd.”
“I know she is. I love her. But whether we can have a life together is her choice to make. I must be the man I am.”
“You have a precious child together, never forget that.”
“One who won’t know me by the time I come back—if I come back.”
“That’s in the hands of the gods. I’ve sacrificed and prayed to Hermes, he’ll protect you. I’ve brought you this, put it on.” He held in the palm of his hand a small onyx carved with mystical symbols and attached to a silver chain. I hung it round my neck. “Be brave now. Eh? Listen to me, an unwarlike old fool like me, telling you that.” He forced a little laugh.
We embraced again. Perhaps I should have resented Melampus for having a greater claim on his daughter’s affections than I did. But I couldn’t. Instead a great feeling of tenderness for him swept over me.
“And Odd,” Psellus broke in, “I have the Logothete’s promise that your family will be provided for while you’re away, it’s the least we can do. I shall make it my personal responsibility.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
“Here, I’ve brought you a present, read it when you have time.” He handed me a slim volume wrapped in oil paper.
“More poetry?”
“Hardly. It’s a military handbook, The Strategikon, written by the Emperor Maurice nearly five hundred years ago. Advice on marshalling an army, conducting a campaign; filled with tricks and stratagems for every contingency. Written by a soldier for soldiers. The Greek isn’t hard.”
“Friend Psellus, I’m not going to command an army.”
“You never know,” he smiled. Keep it to yourself—and take good care of it, it’s my own copy.”
“I didn’t think warfare was one of your interests.”
“No subject is alien to me,” he said loftily. “And one more thing, Odd. Step away with me—excuse us, Melampus.” We pushed our way through the crowd to the sea wall and stood in its shadow. He spoke in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the general uproar. “The Logothete would like your views on the campaign, Odd—the sort of things that aren’t mentioned in official dispatches—personalities, ambitions, private agendas, whatever you think we might want to know.”
“Harald, you mean.”
“But not only him. George Maniakes wouldn’t be the first rough soldier to aim at the throne—and gain it.”
“He might be better than the invalid we’ve got.”
“That’s not for us to decide. Now, we have agents on the ground, in Messina, Catania, Syracuse, perhaps elsewhere, I don’t know. From time to time, one of them will approach you and ask you to write something for us—not to go in the official pouch, we have other methods. He’ll give you papyrus and a pen, I don’t imagine those items are easy to find in a camp. And if you want to include letters to Selene, I will see that she gets them and that her letters get to you.”
“My handwriting isn’t much.”
“It will suffice. Can you do this for us?”
“Of course.”
“Just don’t get caught.”
“Tangle-Hair!” Harald bellowed at me from the deck of the Pantokrator. He was standing next to Maniakes, two angry giants back to back, towering over lesser men. I had better be on hand to translate—or not, as the case required. I turned and ran up the gangway.
“Cast off,” ordered Stephen, trying hard to sound as though he deserved to command this splendid fleet. Cast off, cast off. The cry was echoe
d down the line.
Rowers grunted, oars rose and dipped and churned the sea. Once out of the harbor, the breeze caught us and bellied our sails. The wind sang in the rigging. It had been a long time since I’d stood in the prow of a warship—and never one like this. The power of it! I felt it surge with each stroke of the oars, felt the sting of sea spray in my face. It was thrilling to have a deck under me again. We heeled over and shot ahead—over the wine dark sea, as Homer would have said it, bound for an island that Odysseus knew well. Would I be gone from home as long as he? Would my Penelope be faithful? Would my son someday come searching for me? I turned my face to the wind and tried to put those thoughts away.
Their leader was a villainous-looking character with a squint in one eye.
PART TWO SICILY 1038-1040
18
I Go to War
The Norns do us both good and evil, they measure out our portions of victory and defeat, of joy and pain, and no man can see the end. In the soil of far-off Sicily grew the seeds of my fate—of the Empire’s fate—and only the Norns knew it.
Driven by the strong summer winds that blow out of the north, we crossed the Propontis, passed through the Hellespont, under the eyes of the forts that dot its slopes, and out into the blue Aegean. Here we hopped, like frogs in a pond, from island to island—Lesbos, Chios, Andros, and others I never learned the names of—making our way west. The poor inhabitants of these islands were never glad to see us; we ate everything in sight, drank their wells dry, and left nothing behind but the litter of a great mob of men and animals.
The Greeks are skillful sailors, but not as brave as us Northmen. They never spend whole weeks in the open sea the way we do but beach their ships every night and build a camp on the shore. With a fleet as big as ours this was the work of half a day, every day. And so, despite the fact that we were in such haste to meet the enemy, our progress was slow. I was impressed by the discipline and order of this great host, watching them build their camps, each one with its palisade and ditch and tents arranged in even rows. They reminded me of ants in an anthill, all scurrying here and there, everyone knowing his place and his duties. I was impressed too with the cleanliness of the camps. Maniakes insisted that latrines be dug at a distance, that food scraps be buried or burned, that drinking water be purified with wine or vinegar. He would say that the killing of a fly or mosquito was as meritorious a deed as the killing of an Unbeliever. But even despite these precautions, fever and dysentery were never far from us.
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