The Wolf Sea

earring.

He admired her skill and had her show him how to do it, while the rest of us marvelled at the tart sticky sweetness of the seeds in what she called a rumman fruit.

`What is this place?' asked Finn, wiping juice from his beard.

An amphitheatre,' answered Brother John, 'where the old Romans used to have gladiator shows.'

I have heard of them,' Radoslav said. 'They were fighting contests, sometimes men against wild beasts as well as other men.'

`That sounds like more fun than the chariot races in Miklagard,' Finn growled.

Brother John scowled at him. 'It was banned in the time of the Emperor Justinian. It is the death penalty for anyone staging such contests now.'

`They do it all the same,' Svala said and we all looked at her. 'There are contests held in secret and bets laid,' she told us. 'If you know someone, they will tell you where they are to be held that night and give you a ticket to get in.'

`Bets?' said Finn and then fell silent, thinking about it.

We strolled and gawped and finally I thought it was time we went back to the ship, which would take us all day. I had arranged for food and drink for the men there and knew they would have rigged the sail as a tent, but if I did not fix ways by which some could go to the city and some stay behind, they would all take it into their heads to abandon the Elk to the Norns and go humping and drinking.

So we sat in a shaded taberna near the amphitheatre for one last wine and my head swam from the night before, so that all I wanted was to close my eyes and listen to Radoslav flirt with Svala, while Brother John and Finn argued about who could spit olive seeds furthest.

I saw myself back on the Elk, rowing hard away from Cyprus and was not sure whether the harsh whistle of breathing was my own or the Goat Boy's. But someone, somewhere was beating time for the oarsmen and each blow was a question, over and over. . where was Starkad? Where were our oarmates? Where was Starkad? Where were our oarmates?

Adrift on a black sea, I stood at the prow of a dead ship, with the sails flapping, ragged and torn, though there was no wind at all. Ahead, bergs had calved off a glacier and moved like ponderous white bears. Ahead, a pale face surrounded by rags of hair, eyes so sunken and dark they looked like the accusing pits of little Vlasios. Ahead, a face I knew and, in that dark place, bright as a tear, sharp as a sliver of moonlight, the curved sword she raised. .

`Heya, Trader. . enough.'

The voice snapped me back to the taberna, where concerned faces loomed, pale as butter and swimming until I managed to focus.

`Bad head right enough,' said Radoslav and Brother John offered me watered wine, which I drank, suddenly parched.

`Who is Hild?' asked Svala archly and my stomach heaved, so that I couldn't speak. She waited for an answer and, when it was clear none was forthcoming, shrugged, pouted and walked off. Even long gone, the mad woman who had led us first to Atil's treasure still managed to poison my life.

`The sun has boiled your head,' Brother John offered helpfully. 'We'd better return to the Elk.'

And you can go and boil yours,' announced Finn cheerfully, striding back into the company, tossing something in his hand, 'for it would be a shame to leave now and miss seeing the fighting men.'

Then he showed us the carved wooden token he had been given and the information that, when a bell was sounded, all those with tokens would make for the main entrance to the amphitheatre.

A bell?' scoffed Brother John. 'What bell?'

Did you part with money for this, Finn Horsehead?' demanded Radoslav with a chuckle. 'I fancy the man that took it is now wearing out shoe leather heading for a drinking place on the other side of the city.'

`No, no,' said Svala. 'It will be the vespers bell he is speaking of.'

Radoslav had to be told that the vespers bell was the one calling the faithful to prayer. We had already heard the Mussulman wailings that called their faithful to prayer five times a day. That seemed excessive to us, who did not pray to our gods at all unless we needed to, an arrangement, I thought, that served both sides well.

`Surely they cannot mean to hold fights in the amphitheatre,' Brother John declared and Finn stroked his beard and pointed out that the market would probably close at night, leaving it empty.

It is death to hold such fights,' Brother John retorted scornfully. 'This arena is not a secret place, is it?

You can hardly avoid attracting the Watch soldiers with hundreds of cheering people and the clash of steel.'

Finn swore, for he saw Brother John had the right of it and it came to him then that he had been gulled.

This made him all the more determined to wait and, knowing him well enough, I sighed and said I would wait with him. Radoslav announced he was willing, at which point Brother John said he would take Svala back to her hov and return, hopefully before vespers.

Naturally she protested and had to be huckled off, furious at me, though it had not been my idea. So we settled down and stayed near the market in the shadow of the Iron Gate until the day sank slowly behind the citadel mound they called Silpius in a strange, cloud-wisped glory of red and gold.

Brother John came back, as planned, and we ate a couple of roast fowl with greasy flatbread and olives, while Finn searched all the faces in case he saw the man who had sold him the token. We watched the stalls pack up and the people in the market trail off one by one, listened to the muezzin calling the Arabs to their god, talked quietly of this and that and nothing at all.

Then the bell rang out for vespers, echoed by all the others in the city and, almost at once, we saw people move, quiet and flitting as moths.

Oh-ho,' said Finn, rubbing his hands with glee, 'perhaps I have not lost at all.'

We followed what looked like a good group, half a dozen Greeks who might have been off-duty soldiers or merchants, to the main entrance of the amphitheatre, where now two burly men stood, all scarred fists and neck- rolling, armed with clubs. In almost total darkness we stood in a line and shuffled to the arched gate, the excitement sneaking from one to another in that milling crowd.

The guards took the token and searched us for weapons, but we only had our eating knives thanks to Skarpheddin, for it was only polite to attend his feast without serious blades.

Under the arch, three more men, holding dim lanterns, directed us sideways to where a door was now open in the side wall of the arena. In there, where torches guttered, a short passage led to steps and then down, a spiral that spilled us into a huge underground chamber, dank and cold.

`Where are we?' Finn demanded and Brother John looked round.

Under the arena,' he declared. 'Here is perhaps where the animals were prepared. This would have been sectioned off. .'

I didn't think so, for I smelled old rot and damp and saw the huge, rust-streaked pipe and its wheel. When I pointed it out, Brother John gave a low whistle of amazement.

`You have it right, Orm. This was where they stored the water to turn the arena into a lake. If we looked around, we could probably find the old pumps.'

`Lake? What lake?' demanded Radoslay.

Brother John explained that sometimes the men fought sharks or whales, or from boats, and then the arena above could be flooded to make a lake, and drained away again afterwards. This left both Radoslav and Finn drop- jawed at the deep-minded cunning of the old Romans.

Then Finn spotted an odds-maker and I did not know how he did that, for the man looked like any scarred- armed, bent-nosed ugly I had ever seen. Finn spoke to him, hauled out some coins and handed them over, then took a new wooden token. It was then I saw the marked-off area and the buckets and brooms to wash away the blood.

The crowds were milling and had even gone up the stairs to what had been the gallery walkway where the pumps and inlet valves were worked. They sounded like bees in the echoing chamber. Then the humming grew louder and, as Finn strolled back, we could all hear the sound of dragging chains.