knew nothing of the monk’s whereabouts, the Bulgar might be our only link with him.
The buildings around us were now grown larger. Before, we had been in a shanty town of houses that never were, but here was a place where old houses had fallen from respectability into disrepair and ruin. The streets were narrower, and the lowering ramparts hid the pale December sun from our sight. I could see faces all around us, peering out from behind broken windows and rubbled walls, but the street remained empty. Perhaps the sound of the Varangians’ boots had driven the populace indoors, but I doubted they would fear us when they saw how few we were. Sigurd looked back at me, and I saw my own thoughts mirrored in his worried eyes: this long, narrow road was like a mountain pass, the perfect situation for an ambush. And in Vassos we followed a treacherous guide.
We walked on, and I had begun to convince myself that I was imagining dangers where there were none, when a desperate scream tore through the silence of the alley. In an instant I was in a crouch, my hands raised with Sigurd’s mace; ahead of me the three Varangians had their axes poised to strike. I stared into the dark doorways and alcoves around me but saw nothing; no arrows raining down from above, and no attackers charging against us. I remembered Sigurd’s jest two days ago about the invisible assassin, and suddenly it was not so funny: perhaps after all we did face an enemy from beyond this world.
The scream came again, echoing in our ears, and I knew that — whatever else might await us — this was someone very much of our world. It had come from further along the road, and without pausing to think I broke into a run. The mace was light in my hands now, borne along by the surge of danger and excitement in my veins, and I was past my companions before they had even begun to move.
The houses ended abruptly, and the road emerged into what might once have been a pretty square. A round fountain was at its centre, seemingly dried up long ago, for weeds and mosses grew around it and the basin was riven with cracks. But it was not abandoned: a man stood on its rim, dressed in a leather tunic and standing almost as tall as Sigurd. He had his back to me, and was looking down into the fountain where another figure lay. A bloodied sword dangled from his hand.
I shouted a challenge and hurtled towards him. He spun around, surprise giving way to a snarl of defiance on his round face, and raised his sword to meet me. He was faster than I’d expected, but I was committed to my attack: as I came near I dropped my right arm back and swung it hard over my shoulder, aiming to smash my mace into his knee and fell him. But I was too slow; it was ten years and more since I had plied my trade on the battlefield, and the occasional brawl had kept neither my speed nor my strength at a pitch for defeating a mercenary. He parried my swing, crushing his sword down onto the handle of my mace and driving it clear of his body. He missed my hand by inches, but the blow served his purpose. My arm was jarred numb by the stinging impact of his blade, and the mace fell from my fingers.
Now I was exposed, too close to my opponent to retreat and without defence. Anticipating a second blow from his sword I looked up, but again he outwitted me: pain exploded through my jaw as he kneed me hard on the chin. I reeled back a step and fell flat on my back, feeling the ache in my spine and tasting blood in my mouth.
My enemy leapt down from his perch on the fountain and stepped towards me, his sword humming in the air as he took two expert swipes to steady his arm. I scrabbled desperately for the dagger at my ankle, but he saw what I did and stamped his foot down on my hand. Two fingers cracked, and I screamed, even as I saw him lift his sword over my neck for the killing stroke.
But he never struck. A new sound bellowed out in the square around us, a savage cry howled forth with a terrible anger. It was the cry Quinctilius Varus must have heard as he saw his legions hacked apart in the German forests, the cry that met the Caesar Julius as he sailed up the great rivers of Britannia, the cry of an unconquerable warrior revelling in his barbarity. A giant axe-blade sliced through the air above me and swept the waiting sword from my enemy’s grip. It clattered harmless to the ground a few feet away, and the hands which had held it were still clasped empty above me as the second blow struck, knocking the mercenary backwards so that now it was he who lay winded on the ground. Strong arms held him down, while a red-faced Sigurd stood over him and held an axe to his throat.
‘Move, and you lose your head,’ he said, breathing hard.
I looked around, dazed. ‘Is this the Bulgar? Is this the man Vassos brought us to find?’ I shook my head, trying to clear some of the pain. ‘Where is Vassos?’
Sigurd glanced around the square, and swore so angrily that I thought he might decapitate the captive in sheer frustration. Vassos was gone, presumably slipped away in the struggle.
‘This is the Bulgar,’ said Sigurd. ‘Or at least, so the pimp told us. That was when we started running. None too soon,’ he added, with a reproving glance in my direction.
I was heartfelt in my agreement. ‘Not a moment too soon. You saved my life.’
‘Saved you from yourself,’ muttered Sigurd. ‘Carrying a mace doesn’t make you a Varangian, Demetrios. You were a fool to charge in.’
A groan from within the fountain reminded me what had prompted my impulse; I crossed to where the Bulgar had stood on its lip and peered down. The figure I had seen was still there, and I doubt he had moved an inch since I joined the battle, for his bare limbs and white tunic were covered in blood, and there were deep gashes in his leg. He lay with his knees pulled into his chest and his arms clasped about his head, making not the least sound.
‘I saved someone in my turn, at least.’ I stepped into the fountain and knelt beside him, lifting one shoulder as tenderly as I could to glimpse his face. He whimpered as I prised his hand from his eyes, but as it came away I almost lost my grip so great was my shock. This creature, this man whom the Bulgar warrior had been dismembering when I attacked, was not a man at all, but a mere boy whose hollow cheeks still bore the downy hairs of the first beard. He was solidly built for his years, but those must have been fewer even than the girl Ephrosene’s.
‘A child,’ I murmured, astounded. ‘The Bulgar was trying to kill a child.’
‘Maybe he tried to pick his pocket,’ said Sigurd. ‘There’s a purse on the ground over here.’ He stooped to pick up the leather bag and hooked it onto his belt. ‘Not that the whoreson will be needing it now. Maybe the boy fucked his sister. Who cares.’
I was about to argue the point, but Sigurd had already forgotten the boy in the fountain and stepped back to regard his captive.
‘Get him to his feet,’ he ordered. ‘And bind his arms behind his back. I’m going to march you all the way to the palace with my axe at your neck,’ he told the Bulgar. ‘If you so much as stumble your head will lose the company of its shoulders.’
‘What about the boy?’ I asked. ‘He needs help — he’ll bleed to death otherwise.’
‘What about the boy?’ Sigurd shrugged. ‘I’ve already detached one of my men trying to redeem a petty whore, and had that pimp Vassos escape from me. I’ll see this Bulgar at the palace in chains whether he’s the man who tried to kill the Emperor or a pilgrim who got lost on his way to the shrine. I won’t lose him by using my men as stretcher-bearers for a pickpocket who chose his target poorly. And you,’ he added, stabbing a finger into my chest, ‘should clean that blood off your face and come with us, if you want the eunuch to think he spends his gold wisely.’
‘I’ll come to the palace in my own time,’ I said fiercely, taking a step backwards. ‘And that will be when I’ve found this boy a clean bed and a doctor. On my own, if I have to.’
‘On your own, then. If you go south down that street, you should meet the Mesi.’ Sigurd picked his mace out of the dust, scowling to see the gash in its handle, and returned it to his belt before prodding the prisoner forward. With his lieutenants flanking the captive, he marched away, and I was alone in the square.
My head was wracked with pain, and my right arm still numb, but I somehow managed to lift the boy into my arms and carry him out of the basin where he lay. My steps were awkward and faltering; I feared that at any moment I would topple forward and do the child yet worse injury, but with frequent recourse to the support of the surrounding walls I made some headway out of the square and down the hill. Now I could see a sliver of the main road at the end of the alley, and I hurried as best I could to reach it. Although it was a cool day and I was still in the shade of the buildings, sweat began to sting my eyes and trickle down my nose; my beard itched unbearably. My arms and back too demanded that I pause, that I sit down and rest them if only for a minute, but I suspected that once the boy was on the ground I would never raise him up again. I cursed Sigurd and his heartlessness; I cursed Vassos and his Bulgarian thug, and I cursed myself for risking my commission with the palace just to carry a dying boy a hundred paces closer to death.
In a haze of pain and fury, I reached the road. There I succumbed, and collapsed against a stone which
