Byzantium

desperately demands your return. You, yourself, spoke of the threat to Zoe’s own status if a more fecund Macedonian were to become available. I don’t think Zoe is yet as mad as you think.’

Maria looked at Haraldr with sparkling astonishment. Then her white teeth flashed and she reached up and touched his face. ‘Why do I sometimes forget, my darling, that you are a very wise man?’ She drew her arms around him. ‘You won’t even have to offer him a chestful of gold. A Mistress of the Robes, particularly a discredited wanton like myself, is probably only worth a bag of silver.’

The hulls of the Varangian galleys vanished behind the dark waves. Spray whistled along with the wind and soon drenched the passengers in the wildly pitching dinghy. Maria’s teeth chattered and Haraldr used one oar to steady the dinghy and the other to hold her. ‘Darling, I must tell you something. This wager may be lost. There is a chance that I am wrong about Zoe.’

Maria spoke firmly in spite of her quaking body. ‘Feel this.’ She guided his hand to the lining of her cape. The hard blade of a knife lay beneath the soft fur. ‘If they threaten to take you, I will use this. You know I will.’

‘No. I will get in the water somehow. Halldor and Ulfr will come back to look for me. I will live and you must not die.’ A wave picked the dinghy up and dropped it with bowel-numbing suddenness. ‘What I must say is what I did not have a chance to say the other times we have taken such risks. There is so much that can happen now if this does not work. We could … it could be a long time before we hold each other again. Years. I could die in the north before . . .’ He shook his drenched head as if in flinging away the drops of seawater he could cast off that destiny. ‘Fate is suspended, that is all I know. And I may not have this reprieve again.’ He turned to her with blue lightning in his eyes. ‘Wherever you are, I will find you again. I will hold back the last dragon for all eternity if I must to hold you again. I promise that. I will keep that promise beyond my own grave. I will find you and hold you again. This will not be our last embrace.’

They held each other, unspeaking, until the lights of the dhromons came over them like terrible stars in a dark universe.

The Droungarios John Moschus stuck his powerful hands into the ivory casket and pulled up fistfuls of gold. The solidi fell back into the pile, the sound a dull clink in the shrieking wind. He fixed his cold grey eyes on Haraldr. ‘It’s a hundred times more than I could expect to leave this office with,’ he said. ‘But my life is ships. It would be death for me to live on some estate in Armenikoi after I am relieved of my command.’

‘You could buy your own ships. Pursue Saracen brigands. Sail when you please and fight when you please, instead of waiting on the docks until your Emperor decides to frighten some naked children on the beaches of Kherson.’ The dhromon lifted in the mounting sea. ‘Look at this. Is this an effective sortie for thirty fire-ships? To bring back Her Majesty’s Mistress of the Robes? Next you will be asked to send twenty dhromons to Libya to capture a black man to fan the Empress’s face. Besides, she doesn’t make the ultimate decisions. The Monomach knows you are an able commander.’ Haraldr reached in his cloak, produced a large leather purse full of gold coins, and set it on top of the gleaming contents of the casket. ‘Here. Give this to a dwarf named Theodocranus. Tell him that you want the Emperor to preserve your command.’

Moschus rubbed his scratchy black beard. ‘I’ve heard of this dwarf,’ he said as he shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head again.

‘Look,’ said Haraldr, ‘my men will come back for me. A lot of your men and my men will die. For what? For a glorified serving girl. If I did not love her so much with the head that doesn’t think, I probably would just give her back to you and shrug it off. But I burn every time I think of her. Why don’t you keep the money and let me keep the Mistress?’

Moschus looked at Maria and then at Haraldr. ‘I think you might misunderstand. I have orders to let you go. Maybe you should try to forget her.’

‘Look at her,’ said Haraldr. ‘Could you forget her? She’s not a woman, she’s a demon. She possesses the soul. You know what they say about her.’

Moschus laughed. Maria’s eyes never flinched. ‘I’ve heard about her as well.’ He cocked his head at Haraldr. ‘You’re certain that it isn’t the Emperor who really wants her back? I mean . . .’He lifted his wiry eyebrows suggestively and threw his hands up.

‘She’s faithful to me. I keep her locked up.’

Moschus dug his hands into the gold again and then stood up. He stamped the deck. ‘Damn! Women! That’s the beauty and the curse of the sea. No women. Damn!’ He looked at Haraldr. ‘I need to think about this.’

‘Halldor, your eyes are intoxicated with their earlier success.’ Ulfr winced into the screaming north wind and flying spray. Hord Stefnirson leaned over his shoulder. They silently studied the sea for a long while.

‘Odin!’ Hord jerked erect as if he had been struck by an arrow. ‘Odin! No! Who?’

Ulfr looked at Hord and shook his head as if to say, ‘Don’t tell me you are as mad as Halldor is.’ Halldor shook his head back at Ulfr. ‘You’re not talking about that squall line?’ said Ulfr, still peering at the sea. ‘That . . .’ Ulfr went rigid. ‘Holy Mother of Christ. Holy, Holy Mother of Christ. That is no squall line. That is . . .’ He turned and looked at Halldor. ‘That is the fleet.’

‘Yes. I think about three hundred ships,’ said Halldor, not at all enjoying his triumph. ‘Now let us see,’ he said grimly. ‘Who can be the first to discover whether they are merchantmen or warships?’

Maria pressed her chin to Haraldr’s chest. ‘If he does not accept, I will threaten to kill myself. I will. His mission could hardly be considered successful then.’

‘He will accept,’ whispered Haraldr. ‘The fact that a man like Moschus says he must think about it convinces me that he has already accepted. He knows that he could do exactly as ordered and still be dismissed because of some Imperial caprice. Rome does not reward loyalty sufficiently well to be accorded loyalty. The only thing I am worried about now is this storm that is coming.’

‘A mere hurricane,’ said Maria with a wry smile. The call from the look-out high above blasted through the wind. Haraldr turned to the mast and saw Moschus pulling himself up the rope ladder. Moschus hung about halfway up the enormous mast and looked into the night. His body yawed as the wind whipped at the ropes; then he jerked abruptly with alarm or astonishment or both. He shouted down the deck. Haraldr heard part of the command but it was too late. The Imperial Marines, spears lowered, were already encircling Maria and him. Haraldr thought of leaping the railing at his back but instantly knew he was defeated. He could not leave Maria to an unknown fate.

Moschus came back down the rope ladder like a huge, thick-bodied spider clambering through its web. His face was livid. He shouldered through the arc of his marines. ‘If you think you can coerce me, think again, Varangian!’ he shouted, clenching his powerful fists. ‘I don’t understand your game, but while I have been hesitant to quarrel with you over this woman, I will be more than eager to accept a challenge from your fleet! You cannot see them yet, but I ordered another three dozen dhromons and support vessels to follow behind this group, simply as an exercise. I will crush you!’

Haraldr looked at Moschus in astonishment. ‘Droungarios, my fleet, as you put it, was reduced by a third when one ship foundered on the boom. And why would I ask that fleet to challenge you now? You were about to accept my offer, were you not?’

‘I was,’ snapped Moschus, ‘until I discovered this treachery. By my count it would take a hundred wrecks to reduce your fleet by a third. Do you plan an invasion? Perhaps the Empress had good purpose in putting my fleet in your pursuit, and I better Fortune by ordering my strength to sea.’

Haraldr looked to the north. His two galleys had approached to within less than a bowshot of the dhromon, which surprised him, but not as much as the fact that that was all he saw. ‘I left with two ships,’ he said in bewilderment. ‘I don’t know why they are coming up, but I can assure you they do not intend to attack without my signal.’

Moschus stepped forward and seized Haraldr’s arm. ‘Very well! You climb up there, and if you can still maintain there are only two ships, I will turn over my baton to you!’

Haraldr was only a third of the way up the swaying rope ladder when he looked out and gasped. The dark hulls virtually spanned the width of the Bosporus and disappeared back into a lowering mist. Haraldr hoped that what he saw was only a small wrinkle in the fabric of fate. He shouted down to Moschus. ‘Those are Rus ships!’

Haraldr studied the ships for a few more moments before he climbed back to the deck. The Imperial Marines surrounded him again. He faced Moschus. ‘I swear to you I have no collusion in this. But those are the