The Varangian

by Bruce Macbain

  We spoke in a jumble of languages: Norse between me, Stig and Harald. Greek between me and Maniakes. Slavonic between me and Moses. Arabic between Moses (who, you will recall, had once served in the Caliph’s army) and Stig. To make the story easier to follow, I will omit references to all the cross-translating that went on.

  “I have business contacts in Palermo,” Stig said, “who tell me that fresh troops have arrived from Africa and more are expected. Everyone’s ships, including mine, have been commandeered to transport them. The Emir has sailed with the vanguard from Palermo and landed at Santo Stefano. He’s marching inland now with the idea of skirting the southern slopes of Aetna and taking you in the rear. Right now he is mustering at Mistretta, not so very far from here, while he waits for the new levies to arrive.”

  “Mistretta? How do you know all this?” Harald broke in. “I’m suspicious of a man who seems to know too much.”

  “Stig’s a man who knows things,” I said, “he always has been. Don’t ask how.”

  Maniakes leaned forward and cocked an eyebrow. “Go on.”

  “Now, wouldn’t it help,” said Stig, “if you could be sure when he will march and by what route, so that you can head him off as far west of Syracuse as possible, ambush him if you’re clever. In fact, what you really want to do is tempt him to march before he’s ready. For example, if you could persuade him that your army is getting ready to give up and go home, that if he strikes at once he’ll catch you disorganized and unprepared. If we could just get him to take the bait.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “The oldest trick there is. A deserter from your army. One of your mercenaries, who has run away to escape punishment, say, and whom I apprehended lurking about my estate. Loyal Mohammedan that I am, I take him to the Emir because he claims to know something important.”

  Maniakes eyes lit up. “By God, a ploy right out of Maurice’s Strategikon. And who do you suggest to play the part?”

  Stig slid his eyes toward me—that same probing look he had turned on me once before, when I was lying, burned and brain sick, in Uncle Hoskuld’s hall. The look that said, What are you made of, boy? What are you game for?

  “Stig, you bastard, no.”

  Then Harald jumped in. “I forbid it. Anyone can play deserter, it doesn’t have to be my skald. I need him more than you. I’ll not let his life be thrown away on a hare-brained scheme like this.”

  But Stig said mildly, looking at none of us in particular, “I would trust no one but Tangle-Hair with this mission. He has more wits than any other six men I know.”

  “I agree,” Maniakes said. “It’s Odd or no one. I don’t know that I can trust you—you seem to me too clever by half—but if you mean to betray us then it’s only fair that your friend should pay with his life.”

  My head swung back from one to the other. There was a lump the size of a fist in my throat. As I translated Maniakes’s words for Stig, I felt like I was signing my own death sentence. I was about to protest again when Halldor, with an evil glint in his eye, said, “I agree. Odd should go—unless he’s afraid.”

  I think that decided me. I would go, damn it, and I would come back alive just to spite Halldor.

  Harald glared at all of us, but held his tongue.

  “There’s a flaw in this plan, though,” Maniakes went on. “Getting into the Emir’s camp is one thing, but how do you propose to get word out? How will I know when the Emir starts his march and what route he is taking?”

  We looked at each other. And then, to everyone’s surprise, Moses spoke up. And when he had finished, Maniakes gave one of his rare grins and said, “Pigeons, by God.” And Stig caught my eye and we shared a smile, too. I knew what we were both thinking: One-Eyed Odin’s two talking ravens, Huginn and Muninn—Thought and Memory—who flew far and wide gathering news and reporting it back to him.

  “Now hear me, Moses,” Maniakes said, laying his hand on the Khazar’s shoulder. “Just as Harald doesn’t want to lose Odd, I wouldn’t like to lose you. But it’s the only way. You’ll pose as this man Stig’s Jewish doctor—most of the doctors hereabouts are Jews, and they have little love for the Greeks—and a pigeon handler as well, which you are. Now it can’t appear that Stig and Odd are of the same nation, that would raise suspicions.”

  “I will go back to being Churillo Igorevich,” I said, “one of the Rus Varangians. The ‘Jewish doctor’ here speaks my language, that’s why he’s coming with us.”

  “Excellent.” Maniakes raised his wine cup and took a long pull. “Here’s to success. You’ll leave tomorrow, which, in case you’d forgotten, happens to be Easter Sunday, the luckiest day in the year for a Christian. God will surely give us his blessing.”

  I had forgotten. I could never keep these holidays straight without being reminded. And Stig and Moses certainly didn’t care. But if it gave Maniakes courage, then all the better.

  I only wish it had been my lucky day.

  25

  Among the Saracens

  We traveled for five days, following a track that wound into the high country along the valley of the Simeto, swollen with spring rain. It was all rocky hillsides and steep, bramble-choked gullies, gnarled olive trees, acacia, and cactus. The air was cool and smelled of wild thyme and heather—if I had been in a mood to appreciate it. We were a small cavalcade of seven. Stig and his two sons-in-law rode horses. Moses was mounted on a fine white mule. He had changed his cavalry uniform for a simple long-sleeved robe and a high felt cap and, instead of his bow and saber, he had a physician’s kit slung over one shoulder. The two servants who attended us rode mules as well. And I—the deserter, the prisoner, my face dirtied, my clothing torn, a cut carefully administered to my forehead—was tied to the bony rump of a spavined donkey, like the rest of the baggage. We would pass travelers on the way just often enough, Stig said, that I must keep up this pretense all day long. Only at night, when we camped out under the stars, could I be freed to stretch my legs and rub some feeling into my backside.

  The sons-in-law, Jafar and Othman, handsome, lively young men, kept up a constant chatter in Arabic—about me, I’m sure—and stole glances at me when they thought I wasn’t looking. Stig and I spent our nights in conversation. I had nine years of history to recount: my affair with Princess Ingigerd, betrayal by Harald, escape, enslavement, return to Kiev, my mission to murder Harald.

  “And why didn’t you?” Stig gazed at a distant tree.

  “I’m still asking myself that.”

  “I think one day you’ll wish you had.”

  And Stig, as usual, was right.

  He and the other Mohammedans in the group prayed five times a day. La ilaha illa’lah Muhammadun rasul Allah. I, dirty, sore, and full of doubts as the days stretched on, prayed many more times than that—to Odin, to Thor, and, yes, even to the White Christ, to get me out of this alive. What an idiot I was! And when thunder muttered in the hills, I prayed even harder.

  Around evening of the fifth day, just as I was beginning to think that Stig really had no idea where he was taking us, we broke through a line of trees and found ourselves a bowshot away from the Saracen pickets.

  Stig spoke a few words to a sentry, who frowned and shook his head. But a few coins changed hands and we were led through the camp to the Emir’s pavilion. The camp was a big one, laid out in concentric rings of tents. Everywhere green and black banners, splashed with indecipherable writing, flew from tall flagpoles. Though I kept my eyes cast down, like the humble creature I was supposed to be, I managed to see enough and what I saw worried me. This was a powerful force, very strong in cavalry, not only mounted on horses but on those long-necked, hump-backed beasts that I had heard of but never seen before. The Emir’s army was a jumble of nations—Arabs, Berbers, Turks, Kurds, and Negroes, each in their distinctive costume. And from what I could tell they were well-disciplined and well-armed.

  The pavilion of the Emir, Abdallah ben al-Muizz, son of the Caliph of Africa, beloved of All
ah, was a vast, sky-blue canopy, strewn with carpets of red and pink. Brass lamps in filigree-work hung from its peak and cast moving shadows on the silken walls. As we filed inside, Stig struck me across the back with his riding whip and forced me to my knees. You bastard, you’re enjoying this, I thought.

  Flanked by his Negro guards, who were naked to the waist and armed with golden maces, the Emir Abdallah sat cross-legged on a divan. He wore a white burnoose and a head cloth secured with bands of black and silver thread. His ivory-hilted scimitar and his shield lay beside him. But this dreaded conqueror was, in actual fact, an unprepossessing young man, soft-skinned, pudgy, drowsy-eyed, and giving off a scent that reminded me of Zoe’s perfumery. I began to think better of our chances. At his side, however, stood a lean, hook-nosed man with a white beard. His head supported an immense turban of silk, looped with strands of pearls and adorned with a ruby pin and a spray of egret feathers. The Grand Vizier, as I was to learn.

  Stig and the others knelt and touched their foreheads to the ground. “Bism’illah, ar-rahmani, ar-rahim,” Stig addressed the Emir—In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. (Of course, I didn’t understand any of this jabber; I can only repeat what they told me later.) “I am called Musa Ibn Abihi, your servant, Sidi.” His hand swept backwards. “And these are my sons-in-law, and this other man is my physician, a Jew, a clever man who speaks many tongues, and the one who cringes at your feet is my prisoner, a Rus mercenary, he says, from Kiev. I eat your salt, Sidi, and I have come to do you a service. First, please be gracious enough to receive these poor gifts from me.”

  Along with his religion, Stig had acquired a quite surprising gift for speechifying. We had brought an expensive Koran bound in Morocco leather, a huge carved tusk from an animal called an oliphant (an African beast that uses its nose as a hand, or so Stig claimed), and six snow-white, plump-breasted pigeons, each with a silver capsule the size of my thumb tied to its leg. We had carried them in their coop all this way on donkey back. They belonged to Moses, who fed and watered them and talked softly to them every day. They got far better treatment on our journey than I did. But they were crucial to our plan.

  These treasures were carried in and laid out for inspection.

  “More birds?” the Emir sniffed. “Already have a flock of carrier pigeons. Don’t need any more. Maybe I’ll just let these fly and give my falcons some exercise. Heh? What d’you think, Grand Vizier?”

  The huge turban inclined. “As you command, Sidi.”

  I saw a look of fear flash between Stig and Moses and, before more could be said, Stig launched into the story we had prepared, explaining that I was a deserter from the army of the Unbelievers (may God damn them), that he had caught in the act of stealing a chicken from his farm, that I was willing to trade valuable intelligence to save my wretched life, and that he had wasted not a single moment to bring me here. “Speak now, tell the Emir what you told me.” Stig commanded, not neglecting to shove me with his foot.

  “We’re all hungry and sick and fed up,” I whined, speaking in Slavonic and pausing to sniffle and wipe my nose on my sleeve, while Moses translated my words into Arabic. “Men deserting every day, we can’t stick it any longer. Everyone’s drunk, no one stands guard duty, the Lombards and Normans are mutinous. The general’s given up, ships’ bottoms are rotting, he’s got to leave soon …” And so on and so forth, throwing in every detail I could contrive (and some of them weren’t so far from the truth, either.)

  When I finally ran out of things to say, Stig took over again. “Sidi, heed this man. Though he is a filthy, uncircumcised swine-eater, he is telling the truth, I know it for a fact. If you were to march on Syracuse at once, even with a small force of picked men, the Polytheists would beg for mercy, the cursed Maniakes would grovel in the dust at your feet, the city would be saved, and you would end your jihad with a ringing victory. Think of it.”

  The Emir smiled. But it was the Turban who spoke. “Who are you, Musa. Not Arab, nor Berber from your speech? Where do you come from? And why do you make this long journey with gifts and information? No one does such a thing unless he seeks a favor in return.”

  Though I couldn’t understand a word he said, I didn’t care for the Vizier’s expression. But Stig had his answer ready. He was a ferenghi, a convert, a Believer who enjoyed all the blessings of Allah—that is, up until the present war. But now he was a poor man, his lands overrun, his business interfered with, and, worst of all, members of his wife’s family trapped in Syracuse, starving to death. And so he begged, he implored the Emir in the name of Merciful God to move swiftly to relieve the city.

  “What’s that?” The Emir’s eyes narrowed in anger. He jumped down from the divan and slapped Stig full in the face with his soft palm. “You think to bribe me, you selfish dog, into doing my duty? You think only your relatives are starving? You think I don’t intend to raise the siege? I am not ready yet, these things require time, money, planning. My father the Caliph is already raising fresh levies of mujahedeen to send me.” The Emir now noticed Jafar and Othman. “Your sons-in-law, you say? They look fit for service. Grand Vizier, get them equipped and put them in the infantry. Let them fight to rescue their relatives.”

  “As you command, Sidi.

  The boys looked terrified. Stig tried to speak but a warning look from Moses silenced him. He bowed his head in submission.

  “And,” said the Emir, “how do we know that anything this deserter says is true? A deserter will say anything to save his life.”

  “Indeed, Sidi,” the Turban nodded. “Torture may allow us to make sure.”

  “You mean Musa here?” the Emir looked hesitant. “But God forbid we should torture a Believer.”

  “Of course, Sidi. The physician then?”

  “No, God forbid we should torture a Jew. You’re a Jew yourself, Grand Vizier.”

  “Quite right, Sidi.” His sharp eye fell on me. Crouching on the floor, I tried to make myself as small as possible. Moses spoke up now, rapidly in a language that was neither Slavonic nor Arabic. The Grand Vizier answered him in the same tongue, with an unmistakable warning in his voice. Moses shrugged and looked away.

  “This one, then,” said the Emir. “The falaqa is most effective, I think? We’ll let Turan work on him. See if he sticks to his story when his feet are tickled.”

  “As you command, Sidi. Here?”

  “No, not here, I don’t care to hear screams. Not in my nature. Take him to one of the supply tents—out of earshot. Report to me later.”

  The Grand Vizier bowed. He signaled to two of the Negro guards, who yanked me to my feet and half-dragged, half-carried me from the tent, one on each arm, with a strength I couldn’t resist, though I writhed and struggled. Moses followed a few steps behind.

  In the supply tent, they threw me on my back, pulled off my shoes and tied my feet together with a bowstring. One of them brought over a stool and lifted my legs onto it. A minute later a fat man, heavy-jowled and thick-armed, ducked under the flap. He looked at me and shook his jowls. “Get the feet higher,” he told the guards, “how you expect me to work like this?” The accent was Turkish.

  “What are you doing?” I cried. “I’ve told you everything.”

  The guards dragged over a big box and hoisted my legs over it so that my feet stuck straight up in the air.

  “Better,” said the Turk. He flexed a rod in his hands, about a yard long and thick as my thumb. He glanced at the Grand Vizier. “There’s an art to this, you know. It is possible to cripple a man forever if one isn’t careful. You want me to be careful?”

  “If you can,” the Vizier answered coolly. “We may need him later.”

  I have told in an earlier part of this saga how I questioned Zoe’s servants while they were being beaten and burned, how I made my voice harsh and my eyes like stones while Harald did unspeakable things to them. Maybe there is a fate that comes round and pays us back for the ill we do. Moses now played my part—standing behind me so our eyes could
n’t meet as the Grand Vizier barked questions and the torturer slashed with his rod at the arches of my feet.

  The next hours were very long.

  “What’s your name?”

  Slash.

  “Churillo! Please—don’t hit me again.”

  “What regiment are you in?”

  Slash.

  “Varangians.”

  “Why did you desert?”

  Slash.

  “Charged with rape.”

  “What is the strength of the Greek army?”

  Slash.

  “Eight thousand, I think—ten, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Don’t lie to me.”

  Slash.

  “Not lying … Ahhh.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Slash.

  “I told you … please.”

  “You say the Lombards are disloyal? How do you know this?”

  Slash.

  “Someone said so. Please.”

  “Said so? Only hearsay?”

  Slash.

  “How many dromons are in the harbor?”

  “About fifty-sixty.”

  “You can do better than that. How many?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Slash.

  “Don’t waste my time. Is there sickness in the camp?”

  Slash.

  “Yes, yes, a lot.”

  “Could you draw us a map of the Greek camp, showing the sentry posts, Maniakes’s tent, if we let you live?”

  “Yes, I will, I can do that.”

  “Who are you really?”

  “I told you.”

  “Tell me again.”

  Slash.

  And so it went, until I couldn’t speak for the pain. The Vizier sighed. “There’s no more to be gotten from him. Throw him in the corner. Give him a little water.”

  “Untie his feet?” asked one of the guards.

  “Why not? He’s not going anywhere on those. And you, Doctor”—he gestured to Moses—“come with me. We’ll find a place for those handsome birds of yours. Much too valuable to feed to the falcons.”