She had welcomed the wolf then. Not now. She thought she had revenged herself on the god for taking her children. No. She had done his bidding without knowing it — killed him on earth so he might live on in his heaven.
As Elifr had gone from her, her despair had deepened, opening doors to knowledge in her mind. She had seen the howling rune, the slinking and crawling rune, the rune of the wolf, of the trap and the storm. That was the fetter that held down the wolf god, prevented him from rising and slaying the old deceiver Odin. It lived within a woman, always within a woman. She had seen her before when she lived before. Saitada wept to know how her sons had been drawn on by love. That couldn’t be allowed to happen again. The rune would have to be dug out of the woman who carried it. By death? Very likely. But only the waters could tell her, so the woman who bore the rune inside her would have to be brought to the well.
She had gone into Kiev and Bollason had welcomed her.
‘At the moon and the star is our fortune,’ she had said.
A day later the Prince of Kiev had offered the Varangians to the Emperor of Byzantium and she was on her way down the Dneiper with six thousand men. They would take possession of the Numera when they had worked out the lie of the land. There would be a battle, and it was fitting men should spill blood to oppose the will of the gods, a sacrifice and a statement of will.
‘I do not pretend to understand this,’ said Bollason.
‘There is no understanding it,’ said Saitada, ‘there is only the water. Down there in the earth, where Odin went. We find the girl and we take her there.’
‘How will you recognise her?’
‘I have seen her before.’
‘And what of Elifr?’
‘He must be opposed. I know what is required of me in there, and he will also oppose me. He means me to live.’
‘Don’t you mean to live?’
‘I hope to live. But above all I mean to play my part. That is all I am required to do.’
‘If we find the wolfman, I will kill him. It will strengthen your purpose. You cannot go forward to fight with gods while you have ties to bind you in this realm.’
She shook her head. ‘If anyone is to kill him, it is me.’
‘Why?’
‘You asked what I could give more than my eye. I can give him.’
‘Can you do it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t shirk from your purpose through too soft a heart.’
‘I won’t. But everything must be done according to what I find in the well. There is one clear way forward and around it — thorns and briars.’
‘I would kill him.’
Her face became stern. ‘From boyish jealousy that he has more of my affections than you do. He is my son; you cannot think I would love you more. When I told you there was fortune in the east, you took on the enterprise like a man. See it through as one.’
‘My courage is fine. For myself I will face a thousand enemies. But for you, as you face this magic, I am a coward. I fear for you and I confess I am fond enough of you.’
Saitada smiled.
‘Stem what tender feelings you have. They are a snare to you. I cannot be loved, Bolli. The dead god’s shadow is on me. Don’t let it fall on you too.’
‘My mother gave her life for you. I am ready to do the same.’
‘Then give it well. Do not throw it away through too soft a heart.’
The man laughed. ‘You would have made a fine wife. You are a warrior, Saitada, though your sword is your tongue and your spear your beauty.’
‘I am old, Bolli.’
‘And finer than a girl. You are beautiful.’
‘I am death to you, and any man who gives himself to me.’
‘It’s fifteen years since I first killed a man in battle, and I have sent many to the All Father’s halls in that time. Odin is impatient for my company at the mead bench, I feel it. Warriors know when their time is upon them. So did my father. One day soon I must die — I can’t be lucky for ever. I will give up my life for you. It is no great thing.’
The woman swallowed and stood.
‘It is,’ she said, ‘but I think it leads to peace.’
‘You would find peace with me. I have treasures many and gold enough to please any woman. Marry me, Saitada, for I will place an otter’s ransom at your feet.’
Saitada smiled at Bollason’s attempt to use fine language. She thought of the myth in which the god Loki kills an otter who is not an otter but a man in that form. The man’s father captures Loki and makes him swear to pay weregild for his son’s death. Loki steals a ring from a dwarf, but the dwarf curses the ring and it brings only misery to the mortals when Loki passes it on.
‘I am the otter’s ransom, Bolli. I am the cursed gift. The fates have wed me to the gods not men.’
‘Then divorce them. It can be done with a word.’
‘No word I know how to speak.’ She reached to touch his hair. ‘Who knows, I may find it in the well.’
‘When will you go to the water?’
‘When can you get me in?’
‘My men are ready. I have deals to do first, but I think in two or three days we should take this place.’
‘Deals?’
‘With the emperor. I have sent messengers. His troops are not up to the job — they’re losing control. Even now people are fleeing. We’re working on him to let us replace his bodyguard. Then the city is ours.’
‘The Greek guard will resist.’
Bollason tapped his sword. ‘I said I was ready to die for you.’
‘Just get me in to the building that sits in the shadow of the dome. Your death is not required. We need to hold that place until the time is right.’
‘When will the time be right?’
‘When I have summoned the courage.’
‘Then it will not be long, Vala.’
The woman smiled at him. ‘No, it will not be long.’
18
A Wolf
Azemar tested the bonds behind his back. They were firm, and tight enough to render his fingers numb. He was in some sort of cellar, he thought. It was very dark, though a weak light came through the floorboards that made up its ceiling.
No one had given him any explanation of why he was there or who had taken him.
Then, when the sickly light of the day had faded and the cellar dropped into complete darkness, he heard footsteps. Azemar mentally crossed himself and prayed for deliverance. He knew he had not fallen into the hands of common robbers because he — in his monk’s habit and tonsure — clearly had nothing to steal. Kidnappers then? It wasn’t unheard of for monks to be ransomed back to their monasteries, but he was so far from home that it could take years for a messenger to reach the abbey at Rouen. And Lord Richard certainly wouldn’t pay for his release, not after failing in his mission.
His captors had mentioned sorcery. Perhaps they were just superstitious men seeking to blame foreigners for the strange weather that had afflicted their city. In that case he gave himself no hope at all. They’d kill him just in case he was guilty.
The door opened and light reached out in a sharp triangle across the wall. Azemar came out of his slump and straightened his back. Footsteps on the stairs: two people descended, the taller one behind with a candle. He made out a small figure in a cowled robe attended by the much larger man, who was heavily built, wore a whip at his belt and carried a stool in addition to the candle. The man set the stool on the floor in front of Azemar and the person in the cowl sat down. It was a woman, small and richly dressed, her robe sparkling with gold thread, the elegant hands adorned with glittering rings.
‘Why are you here?’ The woman spoke in Greek.
‘I was captured.’
‘Why are you here in Constantinople?’
Azemar swallowed. In his fear he’d imagined the woman was asking him what he was doing tied up in a house, almost that she might let him go.
‘I’m looking for a friend.’
‘I am here to find the scholar Loys. I was sent by the father of his wife.’
The lady raised her finger and the man hit Azemar across the face with his whip.
A bolt of pain went right through him from his cheek to his boots and he cried out.
‘Sent for what? Don’t make me ask questions of you, monk; volunteer all that you know.’
Azemar saw no reason for any concealment that might bring death closer or make it more painful. He was scared but not as scared as he had expected. His mission was finally at an end, he wouldn’t be responsible for his friend’s death and for that he was glad. Sweat soaked his body and he panted heavily though he had run nowhere.
‘I am here to direct an assassin. I was a friend and confidant of the scholar Loys and I have been told by my lord to find him.’
The guard raised his whip.
Azemar gabbled out everything he could think of: ‘He has eloped with the Lady Beatrice and her father wants me to bring her back to him. Along with the scholar’s head.’
‘Why didn’t he apply to the emperor to have her sent back, along with the scholar for him to behead at his pleasure?’
‘Lord Richard is not a man who enjoys refusal or being in another ruler’s debt. Better we kill the scholar here than he has to go cap in hand to the emperor.’
‘Your friend the assassin, where is he now?’
‘I don’t know.’
The lady raised her finger and the man hit Azemar again with the whip, this time across the other cheek. Azemar screamed and lurched forward on the chair in a hopeless bid to break his bonds.
‘Until he tells us,’ said the lady, and the whip came down on Azemar’s back, then the top of his head, across his legs and his head again, flashes of agony lighting up his skin.
‘I don’t know where he’s gone! He ran away! Our lodgings are by the lighthouse gate, but beyond that he could be anywhere!’
The beating stopped. Azemar coughed. He tasted blood. He was sure his nose was broken.
‘He killed two of my men,’ said the lady.
‘I am sorry, lady, but I do not control him! He is a wildman, a northern cousin of our lord. I can hardly talk to him, let alone account for his actions!’
‘Is he with the Varangians?’
‘No, lady. We’re working alone, I swear.’
‘You were consorting with the emperor’s translator.’
‘We met him on the steps. Mauger asked his help in finding Loys, that’s all.’
‘Again.’
The whip cut into the top of Azemar’s head and he blacked out with the pain. When he recovered his senses, the cowled lady sat very near to him.
‘Have you anything more to tell us?’
‘I’m speaking the truth, I swear.’
‘We will find out. I have seen your face before, scholar — know that.’
‘I have never left my monastery before this, lady.’
‘I have seen you. In places you do not choose to go.’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘The feeling is mutual.’
She clapped her hands and another man appeared on the stairs wearing a thick glove and carrying a bucket of hot coals and a small brazier.
‘No, lady, no!’ Azemar writhed away.
‘Put it in front of him.’
They put the bucket close to his face. Its heat was horrible.
‘I need a closer look at you,’ said the woman. ‘I need to know what you are. Your arrival was foreseen.’
‘How foreseen?’
‘The comet that eats up the sky. It is your sign, I think. The chart was cast that you would be here, and it is too much a coincidence that I recognised you in the church so well.’
‘I am a monk, a simple monk.’
‘Perhaps. But I think not. I think you are worth the effort of divination. And, as you will see, the effort is very great.’
Another servant brought in a small chest, set it on the floor and opened it. It contained nothing sinister — just powders and small bottles. For a mad moment Azemar thought she had brought out her make-up. One of the servants poured the glowing coals into the brazier.
‘The third day,’ said the woman, ‘not before. At the second bell come in and revive me.’
The two men bowed and left.
The woman took off her robe. Underneath it she wore a shift that exposed her shoulders. Even in the poor light the mass of scars made Azemar gasp.
Now she lifted something from the chest — a sort of tray containing the bottles and the powders. From underneath she took a jewelled knife and then replaced the tray. Azemar wriggled but he was held fast.
She took some powder and sprinkled it onto the coals. A noxious smoke filled the little room. She unstoppered a bottle, anointed Azemar’s forehead with the contents and did the same to herself. Then she sat in front of Azemar, almost within touching distance.
She breathed in the smoke and chanted:
‘Mistress of corpses. Entrapper. Reveal here. Reveal and show all the things that have happened, are happening and are to come. Reveal here, corpse mistress, cold lady of the earth’s great deeps, she who rises as the moon and whose light shines out over the lands of the dead. Mistress of the dead, lady of the dead, she who stands at the gateway of death, reveal here. Reveal.’
She took the knife in her right hand and cut herself on her left shoulder. Then she put the knife into her left and cut herself on the other shoulder. She showed no sign of pain, though the cuts were quite deep. Blood flowed out over her white shift.
‘I have honoured you with my blood, lady of the dead. Blood drinker and blood bather, lady of slaughter and death. Reveal, reveal.’
The lady slumped forward, though she continued to mumble.
Time seemed to lose definition for Azemar. He became very sleepy and despite the discomfort of his bonds began to doze. He woke. The lady remained in the same position, but her wounds no longer bled. How long had he been there? A long time, he thought.
He dozed again and this time he dreamed.
He walked in some strange woods by a river at night. They were beautiful and wet, hung in night colours of silver and grey with a fresh scent of growth and decay that he found intoxicating. He wandered, looking for something. A light shone through the trees and he went towards it. What was it? A little brazier just like the one the lady had thrown the powder onto.
He felt cold so he decided to go to it to warm himself. The lady sat next to the brazier, slumped as she had been slumped in the cellar.
Azemar thought he would go to her, tell her he meant no threat, ask for her protection even.
He put his hand to her shoulder. But when he took it away again, it was covered in blood. He licked at his fingers. The taste was delicious. He put his hand back on her shoulder, smeared on more blood and licked at that too. Then he couldn’t stop himself. He bent to the lady and licked at the wound on her shoulder, drinking in its beautiful and strange aroma.
The lady shoved him away, her face contorted in terror. She said one word. ‘Wolf!’ And then there were other presences about him. Other words. ‘He’s broken his bonds!’
Someone unseen struck him across the face and he fell back. He was half in the forest, half in the cellar, it seemed. Or rather the forest was a cellar, a cellar containing a forest. The strangeness of those thoughts struck him and he giggled. His arms were pulled behind his back and he was tied again.
He heard a voice in Greek: ‘Should I kill him, Lady Styliane?’
The woman panted and coughed. She regained her breath and said, ‘That won’t be possible. Get him to the Numera.’
19
Descent
The chamberlain had thought himself safe in his gilded apartment, where he lay — a thing of status on a couch, i
ts hands perfumed with frankincense, its face softened with oil, its body wrapped in a silk robe. But the magic sparked inside him, kindling memories as bright as the fire in his hearth; memories that, like the fire, lived and burned.
In his mind he heard voices and saw people. Two figures in a field of boulders on a hill overlooking the great town below. They began to move, the story began to move in his head, little patters of words coming back to him as a walker in the hills feels the rain of dirt that heralds a rockfall.
‘I’m afraid, mother.’ He saw a young girl peering down into a black space between boulders. He was there, on the hillside, watching — the magic inside him forcing him to see.
‘The fear is part of it. Strengthen yourself, Elai. Nothing is won without effort.’
The taller figure, the mother, held a fish-oil lamp in her hand, though the moon was nearly full and shone bright. She sat on a big boulder at the centre of a wide field of them.
Below, two or three summer hours’ walk away, the lamps and candles of Constantinople twinkled. The city seemed to hang like two shimmering pools of light separated by the deep and encroaching darkness of the invisible sea that surrounded and divided it.
The woman pointed to the huge church of Hagia Sofia. The moon turned its dome to shining metal and the windows that sat beneath it were white in its light. The woman’s thoughts opened to the chamberlain like a flower and he saw how the church reminded her of a squat giant, his helmet pulled low on his forehead, scanning the land for intruders. Well, she thought, it was looking in the wrong place if that’s what it was doing. They would approach by one of the unseen roads that ran for miles through the hills and under the city.
‘That is where we are going,’ she said, ‘under there.’
‘It’s so far,’ said Elai. She was thirteen years old but still a little girl in her fear; the chamberlain sensed as he watched her. He shuddered at the intimacy, the depth to which he knew her heart.
‘I made the journey when I was your age,’ said the mother. ‘Your grandmother made it too, and hers before her. The goddess is in there and will grant you her sight. You just need courage. The tunnels are marked and we have enough lamps and oil. The way is straight enough if you know what you’re doing. The worst we will encounter is a wasps’ nest, and none of those when we’ve gone fifty paces into the dark.’
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