I gave him a hard look, and left without saying another word.
The Throne Room, one week later
On Harald’s handsome face was a look of triumph, of exultation—the lips curved in a fierce smile, the head high, the eyes on fire—the look of a man who, after seven long years of waiting and plotting, has finally gotten his reward, finally clawed his way to that pinnacle of power that he had always lusted for. Standing at his elbow, John the Guardian of Orphans was smiling too, and for the same reason. These were now the two most powerful men in the empire.
John had organized this ceremony to create three hundred new Varangians, myself among them, to make up for our losses in the Sicilian campaign, and to appoint Harald as the new Commandant. Harald now held the exalted dignity of protospatharios and was given the added post of manglabites, with powers to arrest and imprison, even to have a ring of keys that unlocked the palace gates. Nothing was beyond his reach now—the salary, the bribes, the favors—a bottomless river of gold. Not bad for a man who could barely order a glass of wine in the native language. He stood in the middle of the great hall, resplendent in his scarlet costume and jeweled collar, drinking in the applause of the gathered functionaries, while we Varangians, ranged in a semi-circle around the throne, clashed our axes against our shields.
The organ thundered, the Master of Ceremonies called out our names, the golden lions roared and lashed their tails, the jeweled birds sang, the throne (whose mechanism still mystified me) rose and descended—but with one striking difference: sitting upon it was not the Emperor, but a pimply-faced boy, wearing a set of robes a size too big for him and a diadem that only his ears held up. Our new Caesar, we were informed by John—his nephew, and next in line to the throne, whenever God should see fit to take poor, ailing Michael up to heaven. Before a few weeks ago almost no one at court even knew who this young man was. But then John had organized an investiture ceremony at which, shockingly, the youth was made to sit on Zoe’s lap.
Now, surrounded by guards and an immense throng of courtiers, the boy looked glassy-eyed. Was he thrilled by all this or simply terrified? Beside him, Zoe sat still as a statue, her eyes half-shut, revealing nothing.
Besides the Emperor’s there was one other notable absence—George Maniakes. A name not to be uttered now. He was, in fact, not very far away, in a narrow, airless cell in the bowels of the palace. I wondered if he could feel the distant reverberation of the organ, hear the clashing of our shields, the shouted acclamations. Harald, who was his jailer now, had gone to see him that morning, and I, of course, went along to translate.
Harald held his lantern to the general’s face. Maniakes threw his arm over his eyes and shrank away. After four months of captivity, the great man was nothing but bone, his cheeks hollow, his hair gray at the roots (I always suspected he dyed it). He wore leg irons and an iron band around his waist with a chain fastened to the wall. His clothes hung in rags from his great frame.
“Have you come to kill me?” The old thunderous voice was now a whisper.
“Not today.”
“When?”
Harald shrugged. That wasn’t up to him. Maniakes could be executed tomorrow, or he could lose his nose and ears and be banished to an island, or he could just be left to rot in this cell forever. John would decide.
But if this man should ever be uncaged, I wondered, what violence was he not capable of? What retribution?
Maniakes turned his face to me with a flicker of a smile. “Good to see you on your feet, Odd Tangle-Hair.”
I nodded. “It’s a pity to see you like this, General.”
“Do you want a priest?” Harald asked him sharply.
Maniakes shook his head, no.
“Stephen’s dead, you know.”
“Good.”
There was no more to say, really. We left him.
The ceremony ended and the hall began to empty. You may wonder what thoughts were in my mind at that moment. Someday, I said to myself, Harald will go back to Norway and again there will be room at the top. If Harald could reach so high, why not me? But did I want it badly enough to seize it with both hands, to lick some eunuch’s ass for it, to kill for it? Stop it, I told myself. All that is too far away; for a while just be content with what you have. But, of course, I wasn’t content. My heart ached.
And then, as we were marching out, Psellus appeared at my side. I hadn’t even known he was there. “Congratulations, Varangian. I’ve kept my promise.” He came close and tucked a scrap of parchment in my belt. “The directions to Alypius’s house. I wish you luck, I mean it. And in return I will want a favor from you one day.”
Before I could answer, he had slipped away into the crowd.
32
No Sickness is Worse
No sickness is worse for a man than to have no one to love him. Thus speaks Odin in The Sayings of the High One. I had been sick that way for too long.
I went straight from the palace, in full armor, with my shield on my back and my ax over my shoulder. I was a Varangian. In a city of unarmed men, I could go where I pleased and no one got in my way.
It was an elegant two-story house built around a garden in the fashionable Sphorakion quarter, near the Milion Arch. I hammered on the door with the butt of my ax. The door slave retreated before me, too frightened to speak. The foyer was marble-tiled with tapestries on the walls and expensive vases on little tables.
“Selene!”
A man came running down the circular stairway from the upper floor, pulling on a loose morning gown, his blond hair tousled, eyes puffy like someone who had just woken up, though it was almost noon. He knew instantly who I was.
“Where’s my wife, Alypius?”
“I don’t know who you mean, get out of my house.”
Bold words, but I could smell his fear. I didn’t say anything. I just lifted my ax.
“I’m not afraid of you. You come back after all this time? You threaten me? Selene doesn’t want to see you. She’s very happy here. I don’t permit her to have visitors. She has everything she wants here. Now you will leave my house or I’ll summon the police.”
“I am the police.” I leaned against one of the little tables and sent a large vase crashing to the floor. Now I could see sweat on his forehead.
And then she appeared—coming in from the garden, followed by my son and an older girl and a maid. Her face was white as milk. “Odd?” She put a hand out to the door jamb to steady herself. We just stared at each other. Seeing her again, I realized that my memory of her had grown faint, like a drawing blurred by water. Her cheeks were fuller, her hips a little wider, her hair was long now, not the boyish style she had kept before.
“He keeps you well,” I said. She wore a sheer silk dress of dark green with silver threads, shoes sewn with tiny pearls, and on her arm a gold bracelet set with sapphires.
“Please, Odd, don’t—”
I took a step toward her. “You really thought I wasn’t coming home, to you, to our son?”
“I didn’t know. No one would tell me anything. I did what I had to.” Her eyes flashed, the words tumbled out—words that I think she had been rehearsing to herself for months. “I would have gone back to gambling in the taverns if I could still pass for a boy. How many times have you told me that the women of Iceland are strong and independent. Well, so am I, and you knew it when you married me. So I gave myself to a man. Don’t tell me you didn’t have women in Sicily, because I won’t believe you. What are you going to do now, kill me? You’ve got your ax. Strike!” She thrust out her head.
The two children, goggle-eyed, hid behind the maid’s skirt. I let the ax fall from my hand; the steel rang on the marble floor. “Selene, are you married to this man?”
Alypius, who had lost his voice, found it again. “Don’t be stupid. A man like me doesn’t marry people of her class. I wanted a companion, I was willing to play father to her boy. Look, maybe I’ve wronged you. I have money here, jewels, take what you like…”
I picked up my axe and took a step toward him. Alypius backed away, bumping into one of the little tables. Another vase gone. He held out his arms to ward me off. “All right, I’m not going to fight with a barbarian thug over some woman. Get out, the both of you.”
In an instant, my wife was in my arms, crying, kissing me, begging my pardon.
(If ever anyone reads this saga of mine, I imagine he is smiling now, shaking his head. How impossibly perfect! Did it really happen this way or is it only a lonely old man’s fantasy? No matter, I cherish it. What else have I but these memories to keep me warm at night?)
“Gunnar,” Selene said, taking his small hand, “this is your father, your real father. We’re all going home now.”
He looked like he might cry.
“Ramesses is at home,” I said, smiling at him. “He misses you.” That made his eyes brighten. I put out my hand to touch his curly head. What a handsome boy he was! I thought my heart would burst.
“Take the brat and get out.” Alypius snarled. “And I’ll have that bracelet back, it cost me enough.”
She pulled it off and flung it in his face.
“Myrinna, come and see us whenever you like—” Selene started to say, but Alypius grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her to him. “She will not.”
That night, after we made love, Selene studied my naked body, every inch, and cried over the scars on my feet. And we talked all night long.
“I wish you could have been here when my father died. He loved you.”
“Take me to his grave tomorrow. I will pour a libation to his spirit.”
And after a time she said in a small voice, “Are you going to stay now? Not leave us again?”
“I can’t promise you. I’m a soldier, I go where I’m ordered to. But you must believe that I will always, always come back.”
She lay in my arms, with her head against my chest. Toward dawn we fell asleep.
Within a week we moved to a rented house not far from the Varangian barracks. Several of us came back from Sicily rich enough to live separately, away from the noise and crowding of the barracks. Harald had no objection as long as we were on hand for daily drill in the parade ground and our rotation at sentry duty. He himself took over his predecessor’s splendid mansion. Our house needed painting, repairs inside and out, and the attentions of a gardener. When we were ready to show it off, I invited Psellus and his wife to dinner. I wanted to keep his friendship, though I would make no promises to the Logothete.
And so I settled down with my family to what I expected would be a peaceful life.
33
Halldor’s Tale
Iceland, June, AD 1030
Snorri-godi, fat and bewhiskered, the most powerful chieftain in the Southern Quarter, champion of the Christian Church, pulls off his helmet and wipes a sleeve across his sweating brow. The embers of the house—Black Thorvald’s house—still throw off a quivering heat. The smoke that hangs in the twilight air makes him wheeze. For a big man, he has weak lungs. He views the scene with satisfaction: the charred timber posts; the gaping roof where the sods have fallen in; the corpses of Thorvald’s sons, Odd and Gunnar, and their womenfolk, lying in pools of black blood amid the wreckage, their clothes smoldering. A dozen of his own men dead, too—this was a costly victory, but still sweet. Around him, his henchmen brandish their weapons and do a dance, leaping and shouting. At last, he has destroyed his hated enemy, the heathen renegade, the sorcerer and all his brood. Surely, no one can have escaped this holocaust.
“Halldor, Bolli,” he calls to his son and son-in-law. “Take some men, fill pails from the river and douse all this, then drag the bodies out. I want to see their faces before we leave.” The two young men run to obey.
Constantinople. August, AD 1040
“Halldor, give it up, you’ll never be as good as he is.”
“I don’t have to be as good as he is, Brother-in-law, I just have to be good enough.”
“He said it took him years.”
“Maybe I have more word-wit than he does. I’m not stupid.”
“You’re obsessed, is what you are.” Bolli, scratches his head, exchanges a fretful look with Ulf, leans back in his chair, and watches his brother-in-law pace the floor of their new apartment. Sheets of papyrus scrawled with lists of Greek words cover every wall. On the table a lexicon lies open. Halldor goes back to his reciting. Philomena, a pretty, olive-skinned girl of fifteen, corrects his accent.
Halldor, who has despised Greeks for as long as he’s lived here, is now surrounded by them. He has hired a Greek cook and a Greek man servant and his niece, with orders to speak Greek to him every spare hour of the day. These people have all worked for Varangians before and so know a little Norse. That helps.
“Basileus, Emperor. Basilissa, Empress. Synomotes, conspirator. Prodotikos, traitorous. Pseustes, liar. Machomai, I fight. Phoneuo, I kill…” These words, and so many others, and enough grammar to stitch them together—all this he will need to know when he replaces Odd Thorvaldsson as Harald’s interpreter. The labor of months, but he has time now that the Emperor’s Wineskins do nothing all day but stand sentry duty in the palace. Hours and hours with nothing to do but memorize.
Halldor stops pacing, pours himself some wine and hands the jug round to his brother-in-law and their slow-witted friend, Ulf. He sends the girl away for a while. “He tricked us, Bolli,” he says. “You remember it. Somehow he got out of that house alive. And then years later he turns up here, and suddenly Harald can’t do without him, heathen though he is. And now he’s become a Varangian! Christ Almighty, I wish I’d killed him back in Catania, or a dozen other times when I had the chance. Now, I don’t dare. But he’s playing a double game with us, Bolli—I know it, I can smell it. He’s not really one of us, with his Greek wife and Greek friends, he’s no Norseman anymore. I’ve told Harald this time and again, and he knows I’m right. He only uses him because he’s got no one else who speaks the damn language. Well, that will end one day. And then we’ll just see what becomes of clever Odd Tangle-Hair.”
34
Holding Our Breath
[Odd resumes his narrative]
My peaceful life at home was not fated to last long. Almost at once a rebellion broke out among the Bulgars—the result of John’s overtaxing them. Led by two cousins, Deljan and Alusian, this horde of wild horsemen invaded northern Greece and got as far as Thessaloniki, where the Emperor was. And here an astonishing thing happened: Michael, ill as he was, announced his intention of leading his army in person against the enemy. He was now nearly paralyzed, his legs monstrously swollen and rotten with gangrene. The smallest movement was agony to him. His brothers, John and Constantine, begged him to spare himself. Nevertheless, he mounted his horse and organized the defense of the city.
I had no wish to go to war, but where the Emperor goes the Varangian Guard must follow. And so I soon found myself saying goodbye to Selene and my son once again. This time, though, I was determined not to lose contact with them. I hired couriers of my own to carry letters between us by sea or land, which they were able to do except during the worst months of winter.
I was away for nine months, from the summer of 1040 to the spring of 1041. I will say nothing about the campaign, which was a hard-fought one, except that it was a boon to my career. One of our columns, with the Emperor in the lead, was ambushed in the mountains of Macedonia. The Bulgar horsemen were showering us with arrows and, at that moment, Michael fainted and tumbled out of his saddle, but I was able to hold my shield over him while his grooms dragged him to safety. For this, he rewarded me with the command of the Second Bandon of the Guard, whose captain had been killed in the skirmish. Harald did not look pleased, but there was nothing he could do about it. I asked for Gorm to be my standard-bearer.
I should tell something here about the Guard. At full strength it numbered six hundred men divided into six banda. But it was largely a new Guard, of which we few Sicilian veterans were the hard core. The rest were either old
er men who had not served in Sicily and felt no connection to Harald or they were new recruits—Swedes, Rus, and a handful of Icelanders—who had been serving in the regular infantry, sometimes for years, while saving up their enrollment fee and waiting for an opening. The Second Bandon was made up mostly of these. Good fighters man for man, but not yet a tight unit. It was my job to make them into one. By the time we marched back in triumph to Constantinople, I had a hundred men who would follow me anywhere. If there was to be a showdown with Harald someday, I knew I could depend on them. Meanwhile, I continued to be his praise-singing skald and his translator whenever he needed me. I never suspected I had a rival for that job.
During the campaign, I ran into Moses now and then. No longer a bodyguard, he was serving in a regular regiment of the light cavalry. He asked about Maniakes and I told him.
“Will they ever let him go?” he asked.
“I doubt it.”
Our triumphal procession was a spectacle like no other I have witnessed. We marched in through the great triple arches of the Golden Gate, topped with the gilded statues of Winged Victories. Cheering crowds lined the Mese, which was strewn with garlands, all the way to the Forum of Constantine. There the patriarch and the court gathered to meet us. Michael rode the whole way on a white horse, with a cavalryman either side of him to keep him steady. His fingers were swollen to the size of a man’s wrists. The pain must have been unspeakable, but not a single groan escaped him. We proceeded from the Forum to the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom for a service of thanksgiving and from there to the hippodrome, where our booty and prisoners were displayed. The rebel leader Deljan, minus his nose and eyes, was paraded on the back of an ass. The crowd went wild.
Afterward, there was the awarding of honors and spoils. Harald was given the exalted rank of spatharokandidatos to add to all his other dignities. All of us captains received bags of gold, collars, and swords. But, more important to me than any of that, Selene presented me with a baby daughter, Artemisia, named for her mother. A beautiful child.
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