by Yury Nikitin
Chapter 22
The taverns and brothels in the port are swarmed with low-class spies who are paid an extra salary by prefects, questers, komeses, praetors, or inquisitors – everyone wants to know secrets. The secret messages are valued very much as a foundation of any policy. Should a spy conceal, soften, or distort even a bit of it, his poor lot is to be eaten by crabs at the bottom of the Golden Bay. They would leave only a bare skeleton with a stone tied to the legs.
The higher class of spies would report to the Emperor himself, allowed to see him if they could show a secret sign. There were spies of double or triple subordination. But the most sophisticated ones, as Thomas felt now, were servants to the Secret Seven first, and only then to the Emperor and other rulers of limited power.
Spies were kept even by eunuchs, whom the Emperor’s palace was stuffed with. Eunuchs were considered to be as free of sin as angels: they had no sex, while Satan was thought of as a man in his full strength, eager to visit women on hot southern nights and doing it at every occasion. Oleg glanced askance at gloomy Thomas, thinking with a jeer that this was a weak point of Christianity, a defect in it. Eunuchs inspire disgust. People should not be reminded that castrates are made in the image and likeness of angels, or a common man will find the devil more fathomable or even closer to himself.
There were flagstones underfoot and houses of grey stone, five or six floors tall, on both sides. They could not see the end of the street. In places it was crossed by other broad roads. Every step ahead made Thomas shrink, so enormous was the city, so rich in people so different, that no one looked twice, neither at him nor at the wonderer in his open wolfskin jerkin, his bare chest wide and bronzed.
People seemed to be loafing their time away, though many were purposeful in their hurry, elbowing and cursing passers-by. The noise and clamor made ears ring. At the foot of the thick stone walls, warmed up by the morning sun, children were crawling and playing. They chinked copper coins against the walls, measured the way to them with their fingers stretched, quarreled and scuffled in an adult way, spitting in each other’s eyes and shouting out who of them, noble Romays, was in truth a filthy Greek, a dump Slav, or a mean Jew.
They often met beggars, cripples, sick men. Once they bumped into a whole procession of ragged paupers who moaned in different voices. Thomas felt sick at the sight of their huge sores, dripping with pus and swarmed with flies. They turned into another street. The wonderer seemed no stranger to the city; as they went, he told Thomas the names of taverns, their prices, ways, and food quality.
Thrice they crossed market squares, each big enough to house the whole tribe of Herulians or Gepids. Merchants reached for Thomas from their tents, adorned with gold and silk, or from behind their counters heaped up with goods. He was invited, persuaded, begged to buy, seized by his armor, things tucked in his hands.
Stunned and tired, as though after a good fight or a stormy night, they got to the inns. For some reason, Oleg passed by the first three, despite exhausted Thomas tugging him by the sleeve. Near the fourth inn, the wonderer stopped, looked around closely, counted the horses at the tethering pole, but dragged Thomas farther on. They only entered the gate of the sixth inn on their way.
They had dinner in the tavern on the ground floor, then went upstairs; their room was on the fifth floor. Oleg lay down and lapsed into reflection, but Thomas stood by the window for a long while, with enviable stamina, still in his armor. “Even the streets here are paved with flagstones! And so smoothly, one by one! And people! As many as ants on a sunny day… after the rain.”
“The capital of the world,” Oleg grumbled.
“Not to everybody,” Thomas shot back at once, with a faint note of jealousy. “For us, the capital of the world is Rome.”
“And the mouth of Don… London, I mean? Does it submit?”
“It’s a different thing.” Thomas was insulted. “Rome is the capital of all the world save Britain.”
“Take care not to say this in Kiev,” Oleg warned.
“Why?”
“Kievins bow to no one but their gods.”
Thomas said nothing. The wonderer was a true friend and a reliable companion in everything save faith. His stupid Paganism. And he was good company, never imposing his opinion, never arguing, always immersed in his own thoughts. He would almost never begin a conversation. He seems to dwell in some other world and come to this one only when called.
The knight came to another window and lingered, watching the huge tall towers that flanked the strait of sea closely. “Is there a chain stretched between them? To block the sea for night?”
“Only in hard times,” Oleg assured. “Now the chain is at the bottom of the sea. But I feel its huge winches will soon have to move… I remember times when the chain stayed up even for daytime…”
He smiled at his far memories, while Thomas wondered what the winches to stretch the monstrously thick chain across the sea would be like. Each one as large as a mountain? Which fairy smiths could have made such things?
The wonderer lay on the bed on his back, his eyes closed, as though in peaceful sleep, but his right hand fingered his charms without pause, felt them, lingered at this or that figure… Thomas turned grim. If the wonderer was right and the cup was pursued by the Secret Seven Lords of the World, there was hardly a chain to keep them away.
In the evening, Thomas decided to visit the crusader knights; there were two knightly orders that occupied a whole quarter in Constantinople. Oleg winced but said nothing against it and went for supper alone. Before leaving the room, he powdered the threshold with dust and put some hairs from his wolfskin into the door slit.
Thomas looked at the wonderer anxiously, came back to the bed and put a dagger on his belt, in supplement to the huge sword he had on his back. He was in full armor, but the city streets were strolled by people of far stranger and odder looks, from half-naked and all but naked slaves of southern lands to northern islanders clad in furs.
Oleg sat at the corner table alone, trying to keep all the room within eyesight. He saw men drinking and having fun: hired warriors, small chieftains, of both far and near tribes, who had come to sign peace pacts. Merchants and traders were also there, feasting openly, but the most flaunting revelers were unremarkable types, as grey as mice. They seemed unable to pose any danger even to a chicken, and were taking care of nothing but themselves. Oleg was the only one to see (and the innkeeper, probably, the only one to know) their true nature. Those men were a fear even to the imperial generals, intrepid and hardened in many battles. They were the spies of basileus.
“Are you bored, chieftain?” A young foxy girl with bright make-up, in a short frivolous dress with low neck, leaned on his shoulder, pretending a stumble. With interest, both professional and plain woman’s, she slid a keen glance over his muscular body, bare shoulders.
Oleg clapped on her hand. Her tender white skin knew no work. He nodded at the bench near him. “Sit down. What will you drink?”
She sat down willingly, laughed, baring her dazzling white teeth. “I see you have been to our sumptuous pigpen before, chieftain?”
“You see?” Oleg was surprised.
“Of course I do! You neither gaped nor jumped up to paw me straight away. As though you have known all of it for ages.”
“I’ve been here before,” he confirmed. “By the way, my name is Oleg.”
“And mine is Helen. I’m working here.”
“Have you had a good day today?”
She wrinkled her nose prettily. “Not really. Clients are either poor or greedy or too… repulsive.”
He gave her a sharp glance. “Are you picky?”
She laughed merrily, screw up her eyes archly. “It depends. If I have the chance, why not? In other cities, one has to accept everyone, even drunken soldiers, and Constantinople has a thousand merchants a day coming through each of her gates. I’ve had no one today and would like to start the day with pleasure.”
Oleg waved for a servant who hurried up to
them with a jug of wine and two glasses. “You start a day when I finish it,” he told Helen.
“I’m a night bird,” she said easily. “But I hope this time you won’t finish it that early!”
He took a sip of wine. He had grasped the concealed meaning of her arch words; the sinister one. He poured her some wine, observing her manner to take a glass, touch its edge with her lips, to sit and cross her legs. At the same time, he said her words again and again in his mind, making her voice softer and louder, changing it to bass or descant. He felt there was something different about her, other than the nature of a plain prostitute. She constructed overly correct sentences, her pronunciation was clear, she was even too beautiful for a wench in such a place. Smart and good-looking whores do not linger at harbor taverns, yielding to drunken sailors on a pitch of rotten hay. They make their way up fast, some of their sort have even become empresses, like the peerless Theodora16. Could this beauty be just beginning her way?
She chattered, plucked the tightest grapes from big bunches, pressed her sharp clean teeth into a huge peach. It sprinkled with juice, she laughed. Her eyes were shiny, her cheeks had a natural high color under the rough layer of rouge.
When the jug of wine was half-empty (though Helen drank very little of it), Oleg tossed a golden dinar on the table and stood up. “Let’s go?”
She rose to her feet lightly. “Why not?”
Oleg, tensed as though he was to plunge into cold water, noticed a strange stealing look from the innkeeper and – in the big motley crowd, gobbling and jabbering – two sullen merchants who fell silent at once and moved their heads together to follow Oleg and the girl with slanting glances.
They went up, the broad wooden stairs squeaked. Oleg let Helen go first, as though to feast his eyes on her seductive body and inflame his lust. He laughed loudly and joked while watching the curves of her slender body, listening to the music of her moves, spotting her lithe muscle, well hidden by roundish feminine shapes. Helen (he was no fool to think it was her real name) did not look like a girl ascending from the very bottom to the bedroom of basileus. She was evidently born atop, brought up under the care of nurses, tutors, masseurs, doctors, and experts on the codes of behavior of courtiers, small folk, and barbarian chieftains.
In his small room, she shot a quick glance at the window, touched the hilt of his huge sword, which stood in the corner near the head of the bed, with interest.
The window shutters were quivering, the cold night air bursting into the room. Helen shivered. Oleg made a step towards the window to close it. “Wait!” Helen cried briskly. “I have a better idea!”
Smiling seductively and looking in his eyes, she started to untie her broad silk girdle with deliberately slow moves. Her plump ripe lips curved in a promising smile, her eyes laughed. Oleg smiled back to her; he had grasped the whole thing of it.
Helen came to the window and, with the same slowed moves, tied her girdle on the hooks to prevent the shutters from flying open. Oleg feasted his eyes on her lissome body, slim waist, wide hips seated on long slender legs – especially because she was expecting such an intent look and fast breathing from him.
“I think that will be better…” she said, still smiling, as she turned to him. Even a fool who failed to see her girdle can now have a good view of her figure in the lit window.
Oleg sat down on the edge of the bed, the one closer to the door, to miss no rustle outside. Helen stood near the window. “What have you been before, Helen?” he asked peacefully.
Surprise flickered in her beautiful eyes. “Do you want to talk?”
“Don’t you?”
“Surely I do! But I heard you, northern guests, behave like beasts and bed a woman straight off!”
Oleg smiled. “Do you want me to prove the opposite? To chat with you on philosophy all the night long?”
She burst with merry laughter. Her pretty head jerked up, baring the beautiful white neck made for kisses. “It would be a severe disappointment to me!”
“Come to me then,” Oleg called. “Let’s make love and discuss philosophy in the pauses… if there are any.”
She nodded, laughter still flickering in her radiant eyes. Slowly, she stepped to Oleg and, standing in front of him, started to strip off her dress. Oleg kept on his face the look of admiration for her young slender body, but he was all ears. He heard wooden floorboards in the corridor creaking louder and nearer.
Helen also heard it. Her smile grew broader, her eyes opened wider, more seductively. She had her undershirt off in hand and looked teasingly at him.
“Someone coming to the door!” Oleg told her quickly. “Get behind that door, quickly!”
She opened her eyes wide. “What’s there?”
“A closet,” he replied impatiently. “A crumpled space but you won’t spend much time in. Just until I get rid of my friend and companion. It must be him.”
With an indignant look, she made her way to the closet door, sniffing, moving her hips in a provocative way, her undershirt still in hand. Like a marrowbone before the nose of a dog who’s led to the knacker’s, Oleg thought.
She vanished behind the door. Oleg latched the entrance, threw his cloak hastily on his bow and quiver, fingered the hilts of his knives.
There was a loud knock on the door. Oleg hurried to spill wine over the table and scatter the remnants of food. “Who the devil is there at night?” he shouted in a hoarse angry voice.
“What night, dear?” a merry, cheerful male voice cried back through the door.
Oleg walked to the door slowly, stamping and dragging his feet. He dawdled with the latch, grumbled loudly, posing as a drunken barbarian. Standing in the corridor, there was a stocky man in light armor tempered by winds and sea. He had a broad smile on his face, his teeth white and shiny, but his eyes took in the whole room at a glance over Oleg’s shoulder: the spilled wine, picked bones, an amphora lying on its side and another one standing on the windowsill.
Oleg stepped aside, reeled, asked the visitor in with a broad gesture. The man entered eagerly, with his broad smile. He was merry, full of strength and health, belted with a short sword in ornate scabbard.
“I only have wine of Chios,” Oleg told him hoarsely. “Would you?”
“I’d rather have mead,” the visitor replied after a brief pause. “Or a gulp of beer.”
The barrel of dark beer was at the closet where Thomas had thrust it. “Drink wine,” Oleg grumbled. “It won’t kill you. Or get out.”
“Well, I’ll have wine,” the guest agreed easily. He swept the crumbs off the bench with disgust and sat down at it. “My name is Fish. I’m a professional soldier, a mercenary. I left the legion for a better job. Now, for instance, I’m at command of three score of cutthroats whom I chose myself. This house is surrounded by them. Reckless lads – and skilled, which is more. I know people, so I’ve picked the best men, believe it! As we are paid highly, that was no problem. They won’t let a fly out, not to mention you and your friend. By the way, where’s he?”
He cast a keen glance around, which stopped on the closet door. Oleg scratched himself lazily, hemmed, as if he had difficulty in digesting Fish’s words. Suddenly, his fist darted ahead. Fish was incredibly fast; he managed to toss his head and, at the same time, slap on the sword hilt loudly. Oleg’s fist sent him flying across the room. In his fall, Fish smashed the table to splinters with his back.
Oleg raised him by his collar, flung him onto the bench. Fish was half-stunned. Oleg tied him up with the rope prepared beforehand, took his sword and the two hidden knives with heavy ends.
Fish shook his head, coming to himself. His tongue felt bleeding gums. “You knocked out my foretooth, barbarian!”
“Don’t twitch,” Oleg muttered. “I could strike you like a rabbit, between the ears, no marks then. You can have a golden tooth instead.”
“You are quick,” Fish remarked. His sharp eyes searched the mighty figure of the barbarian who showed not a trace of drunken sluggishness. �
��And strong. I’d hire you. For a double salary. That’s really a lot!”
“I am hired already,” Oleg told him. “You see, I didn’t want to smash your lips.”
“It’s what I’m paid for,” Fish said philosophically. “But the inn is surrounded, as you know, and my lads wait for me to get back. With a reply.”
“Which reply?”
“The cup.”
“And us?”
“You pose no interest to our master,” Fish told him with displeasure. “It’s none of my concern, though. The cup is mine, and you may go to hell!”
Oleg frowned. The names of the supreme magicians of Secret Seven flashed in gallop across his memory. Veterans don’t count. It must be one of the fresh ones. The new generation of the Secret Seven can be cruel, much more brutal than the elder, but they don’t kill without need. They would only kill for business, not for vengeance or any other emotion. “Is your true master waiting somewhere in the street?” he asked slowly.
Fish spat a dark clot of blood at the floor, felt his bleeding gums anxiously with the apex of his tongue again. “The one who made the order. Whether true or not, it’s no concern of ours, is it?”
Oleg moved the bench, with Fish tied to it, closer to the window, for those in the street to see his head and shoulders. Fisk looked derisively, grinned, baring his teeth. He still had plenty of them, good and beautiful.
Oleg filled a cup with wine, held it out to Fish. “Take it.”
Fish played his brows in surprise. “It seems I have my hands tied. Who could have done it? Do you know?”
“I won’t force you to drink,” Oleg snapped, “but take it. Your elbows are tied, but your fingers are free. When the door opens, let them see you sitting peacefully with a cup of wine in hand!”
“Why would I hold a cup on my knee?”
“Because you are loaded full but still want more of it.”
“That does seem like me,” Fish agreed. “What if I don’t take it?”
At once, Oleg set a knifepoint against his right eye. “I’ll put out one of your eyes, then another, and then…”
“Give me the cup,” Fish interrupted. “But mind, you will be in our hands then! The master has no interest in you, but I feel like starting to have some myself… How do you, barbarians of North, put it, a tooth for a tooth? So you better treat me with respect.”
Oleg listened to the steps in the corridor; they sounded at the other end of it and died away quickly. “You need to take us first,” he reminded.
“I have the soldiers whom I passed the Saracen war with!”
“What are Saracen against Drevlyans? I think you’ve seen no true war.” He smirked, baring his wolfish teeth, and saw distrust in the mercenary’s face. Fish was holding the cup, its long stem set on his thigh, his gaze shifted between the window, with the silk girdle on it, and the door.
They had a short wait before there were resolute steps in the corridor, then the door flew open, as though kicked, and clanged against the wall. Two men with bare swords emerged in the doorway. When they stepped into the room and saw Fish sitting in a casual pose, a cup of wine in hand, one said something back over his shoulder. The third man entered, kicked the door closed without looking back. He had a drawn crossbow in his hands, its metal pieces gleaming.
Fish sat with his back to the window, his face in shadow. The two men came almost close to him when the first of them gasped, wheeled round with raised sword to Oleg who was sitting on the bed with a drowsy look. Oleg threw both knives at once, with both hands. A difficult trick, but missing the target in five steps is more difficult. The next moment he ducked, as though plunged into water; an iron arrow from the crossbow swished over. He snatched the sword from the corner.
The crossbowman drew a saber. Oleg leapt over the corpses, in a hurry to finish fighting as fast as possible. His first blow was parried by a saber, which slipped deftly under his arm: Oleg barely had time to recoil. Yelling, he landed a terrible blow. The soldier dodged skillfully, but Oleg caught him at that; the wonderer’s knee crunched into his lower jaw. The hireling jumped, feeling the hash of teeth in his mouth. Oleg’s punch sent him flying into the corner.
As Oleg took a breath, some strange feeling made him duck. Steel swished overhead, clanged on the sword he held up. Blindly, he elbowed at the place where the enemy should have been, heard a crunch and a sob, but strong fingers clasped at his throat. Gasping for air, Oleg snatched the invisible enemy by the head and pulled, twisting his neck. A crunch, and the fingers on his throat went limp at once. Oleg wheeled round, released his grip on the attacker.
The body that collapsed on the floor was Fish, his legs still tied to the bench. The ropes on his arms had been cut by a sharp blade. One of his soldiers was wriggling on the floor, Oleg’s knife in his throat, a saber in hand. Dying, he’d used it to cut the arms of his boss free.
“You had good soldiers,” Oleg agreed, breathing heavily. “But I didn’t want to kill you, fool!”
There were three corpses in the room, among scattered things and broken fragments of the table and chairs. The fourth man, if he lived, would never taste again the manly joy of picking bones, getting the sweet marrow out, spitting out such tiny, bony splinters that even a starving dog would not gnaw at them.
Oleg picked up the cup from the puddle of wine and blood, shook it off and put on the windowsill. Suddenly he heard a groan. A recollection made him dash to the locked closet. The short iron tail of a crossbow bolt was stuck in the thick wooden door, in the very middle of it, the oak board splintered with that mighty strike. The tail was looking up, as if the bolt were shot from the ceiling.
“Helen!” Oleg cried anxiously. “It’s all over!”
Hurriedly, he removed the bar, opened the door. He felt it too heavy, that was wrong. Helen all but hung on it, she was shot with a bolt. Trying to miss not a single word, she had pressed against the door. When the crossbowman pushed the trigger, his iron bolt went, with a terrible force, through both the dead wood and the live body made for kisses.
With disgust, Oleg looked over the room. It was spilled over with blood and wine. Corpses, broken furniture… The crossbowman did his best to pretend dead. Oleg heard his quiet sigh behind him when the young woman, bathed in hot blood, fell out from the closet. A stinker. He grasped her life had been taken by his hand… though not his will.
He threw the blanket off the bed, took his strong lamellar bow, selected one of the three special arrows in his quiver. That one was iron, more of a short spear than an arrow, large as a dart and thick as a finger, with a head of tempered steel. He rummaged in the bag for a thick rope of very durable fabric; in that land, it was called silk. The worms that spin these wonderful fibers must have a good appetite.
He heard heavy steps behind the door, as if a stone pillar were walking, then a strong cheerful voice. “Sir wonderer, don’t sock me on my head!”
Thomas stepped into the room, reeled and shrunk back. His back slammed the door shut, his blue eyes widened. “Sir wonderer! What’s this?”
“A different sort of entertainment.”
“Sir wonderer…” Thomas said again. He twisted his head round madly. “It’s not the monkish way! I mean, not the way of men like you. You have more to do with prayers, fasts…”
“My prayers did for them,” Oleg grumbled as he tied the rope hastily to the arrow. “Be sure they’ll have a very long fast! Even that one, who’s just acting a sham beetle…”
Thomas walked round the bodies with disgust, on tiptoe, gripped the crossbowman’s neck, slapped him on the back of his head with other hand. There was a click. Oleg nodded with approval; the punch with iron fist made the crossbowman’s soul pass out of his body for some half an hour, enough time to get far away.
“Four,” Thomas grumbled, “and the woman, poor thing… You could earn a knighthood, sir wonderer! Though a noble origin is required, you could figure out something. Find somebody among your ancestors, as they do everywhere…”
“I’ll do without it,” Oleg replied, “but thank you for the idea all the same. Prop up the door with beds. In the closet, there’s a chest with stones. Drag it here!”
“Are we to hold a defense?” Thomas asked with distrust.
“Yes. Like in the Tower of David.”
“Aren’t they all here?”
“More to come,” Oleg assured. “We must run, sir knight.”
Thomas straightened up with pride, his armor made a grating sound. “Sir wonderer, I ask you!” he snapped with dignity. “A knight never runs.”
“Well, retreat. Withdraw, if you like. We have to win, don’t we?”
“Sometimes a fine death is worth more than a puny victory!”
“It’s not the case,” Oleg assured and tightened the knot. Thomas’s eyes goggled, his eyebrows flew up to hide under the helmet. The arrow is giant, unbelievable, the rope tied not on its end, where the feathering should be, but on its middle where a circular furrow in the iron is seen.
Oleg drew the bow with effort, Thomas saw the bulging bumps of his monstrous muscle. For the first time, he thought with doubt whether he could draw such a bow. Fortunately he was a knight and had nothing to do with this inhuman weapon. His codex bound him to be noble even to mortal enemies. “Are we going to hunt elephants?”
Oleg did not reply. He sat down on the windowsill, kicked the shutters open. Heavy steps were heard from the corridor. Oleg smiled faintly; just in time. The thirty cutthroats whom Fish had threatened him with were not in the street at that moment, but walking upstairs, searching the landings, the best ones coming up to the door…