hulls of Rus merchantmen.’
‘Which can also be used as warships!’ growled Moschus. ‘It’s late in the year for a trade flotilla, don’t you think?’
‘Perhaps they have been delayed by the Pechenegs,’ said Haraldr. ‘I am certain their business is peaceful.’
‘Droungarios!’ Haraldr’s galley had come within fifty ells of the larboard, and Halldor hailed from the stern. ‘Droungarios! Permission to come alongside!’
Moschus barked orders and the lion-shaped bronze spout at the stern of the
‘I know this Vladimir,’ said Haraldr. ‘Believe me, he is without hostile capability.’
Moschus shook his head. ‘This is all too neatly contrived.’ He scratched his beard. ‘Here is what I will offer you in good faith. You go and bring this Vladimir to me as my hostage, and I will not attack his fleet pending inquiries to the Prefect and the Logothete of the Dromus. In the meanwhile I will keep the Mistress of the Robes in my custody.’
Haraldr looked at Maria. It was clear she liked this compromise less than he did, and he wondered if she was at last losing her courage; he would not blame her. How many times could they dance on the needle of fate? He nodded to her that they must play this out.
Maria rushed to him and clutched him with stunning power. ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘You cannot go out there!’ She shuddered violently. ‘Hold me,’ she pleaded, ‘hold me. I am so cold. I am so cold.’ Her teeth chattered and she grimaced so that she could speak. ‘You must not go out there. I will never see you again.’ She began to cry and her entire body trembled.
Haraldr could not fathom her premonition. It was only Vladimir. This would be settled in an hour. He rocked her and stroked her hair. ‘I must,’ he said. ‘The sooner I begin, the sooner I will be back for you.’ He forced her chin up. ‘Darling, remember my promise. If Satan himself is out there, I will still come back for you.’
Haraldr’s galleys pulled north through the pitching rows of Rus ships. According to the slit-eyed little Rus functionary Halldor had taken aboard, Prince Vladimir was tucked safely in the middle of his enormous fleet. Haraldr wondered how the hapless scamp had ever got this far, with so many ships still intact.
The functionary pointed to a fat river ship identical to the dozens around it. Haraldr told Ulfr to stay aboard and take command if anything happened, though he was confident nothing untoward was about. He strapped on his sword and laughed. ‘I would tell you to wear your byrnnie, Halldor, but when you see this Prince of Rus, you will be so frightened that you will leap into the sea, and I don’t want you to sink.’
Haraldr rowed the Rus functionary and Halldor across in the functionary’s dinghy. He helped the other two over the railing of the fat merchantman and then swung himself over. For some strange reason the ship smelled like Rus, though he couldn’t say exactly what scent produced that effect. He looked up. Raindrops hurtled out of the darkness.
Vladimir waited by the mast. He wore a bronze breastplate and was surrounded by several wispy-bearded, heavily armoured Rus Boyer whelps no more impressive than himself. Vladimir, observed Haraldr, had his father’s unimpressive height and extensive girth, his mother’s fair skin, and his sister’s delicate hands; his blotchy, adolescent face had at last been overgrown by thin blond whiskers. In addition to his armoured retainers, Vladimir also employed several hulking Norse bodyguards who lounged in the darkness at the stern of the vessel.
‘So,’ said Vladimir with a smirk and a nonchalant flip of his head. ‘Haraldr Nordbrikt Sigurdarson. The coward of Stiklestad. Running errands for the Greeks, I see.’
‘How is your Mother, Vladimir?’ asked Haraldr genially. He had nothing to prove to this pathetic lot.
‘She misses your cock-hound brother.’
Haraldr struggled for control. ‘And is Elisevett well?’
‘She is still sitting on her little twat and waiting for you to come back and marry her, even when she heard that you are the famous coward. You must have fucked the wits out of her.’
Haraldr stepped forward and jammed his fingers under the lower lip of Vladimir’s breastplate and lifted him off the ground with one hand. ‘Your sister was very dear to me. If you speak about her again in such a fashion, I will make you swim back to Kiev to apologize to her. Now, I can help you gain entry to Byzantium if you promise to watch your manners.’ He set Vladimir down slowly. ‘The Droungarios of the Imperial Fleet--’
‘I didn’t come to beg my way in,’ interrupted Vladimir, apparently undeterred by his humiliation. ‘I came to ask the city to surrender.’ Halldor burst into laughter.
Haraldr was less amused. ‘You little fool. Have some of your Norse bodyguards blown you up with dreams of conquest, or is this a self-invented folly? Whatever the source, I suggest you reconsider. There are enough fire- ships waiting for you out there in the night to turn the Bosporus into a river of flame.’
Another voice responded from the darkness. ‘And there are enough Norsemen here to bring down the walls of the Great City.’ The shrouded Norseman came forward along the catwalk and drew back the hood that concealed his steel helm. Haraldr immediately recognized him.
Thorvald Ostenson,’ said Haraldr, greeting the former Centurion of the Grand Hetairia. ‘I should have known that the hand of Mar Hunrodarson was in this.’ Haraldr recalled Mar’s cryptic words upon dying.
Ostenson bowed. ‘We have three thousand Norsemen and five thousand Rus. This morning Mar will attack the walls from within the city and open the gates for us. Apparently he has spared you to flee from our triumph. So go. And leave the pillage of Rome to true warriors.’
Halldor looked at Haraldr with a rare expression of uncontainable mirth. He laughed again and looked at Ostenson. ‘The last time I saw your Mar Hunrodarson, he was trying to imitate a pigeon taking wing. Unsuccessfully.’
Ostenson drew his sword. ‘You crow-shit eater! I’ll take you back to Mar and let you share your jest with him.’
Halldor stepped forward and sent Ostenson plunging into the hold with a single shove. ‘I’ll wait to jest with your Mar when the Valkyrja take me to him, boy-lover,’ Halldor called down to Ostenson. ‘Your Mar is drinking with Odin tonight.’
‘Liar!’ shouted Ostenson. He struggled to his feet and his head emerged above the catwalk. ‘No man could have vanquished Odin’s champion!’
Halldor pointed to Haraldr. ‘This man did. He hugged him to death. Broke his back with one squeeze.’
This time the laughter, a soft, quiet chuckle, came from the vicinity of the cowed young Rus nobles. Haraldr wondered which of these hapless whelps could possibly find their situation amusing. Then he saw the second Norseman. The bear-like giant wore a hide cape. He came round in front of Vladimir and his retainers. Haraldr knew the face at once and felt the sudden lightness and liquid knees of terror. The hacked-away eyebrows, the white-streaked beard, the horrible truncated nose and huge, sucking nostrils. ‘I am Thorir, called the Hound,’ said the Berserk in his curious, quiet voice. ‘The Haraldr Sigurdarson I remember soiled his breeches when I killed his brother. He was then a coward, he is now a coward. And a liar. Mar Hunrodarson is one of us.’
Haraldr and Halldor stood transfixed by the fearsome Hound. Ostenson seized the opportunity and pulled Halldor’s legs out from under him, pitching him into the hold; he cracked Halldor on the head with a loaded bucket and stunned him and drew his knife to finish him off. Haraldr jumped down into the hold and grabbed Ostenson’s arm with both hands and snapped it; the crack was like an old, dry tree trunk snapping. He dragged the astonished Ostenson to the catwalk and clamped his hands on either side of his face and picked him up. ‘Ostenson!’ he demanded, ‘were you privy to Mar’s plan to abandon the Middle Hetairia to the Bulgars? If you were not, I give you this chance to beg for your life!’ Ostenson’s face reddened and he glared with defiance. Haraldr roared from the blackest pit of the spirit world and snapped Ostenson’s neck instantly. He seized the suddenly limp body and, almost unseeing from inside some red-hued haze, flung the huge, fresh corpse into the mast; the vehemence of the throw was so great that the sturdy wooden trunk fractured with yet another crack and began to tilt towards starboard. The mast cracked again, came down with a huge boom, and fell over the starboard side of the boat. Ostenson’s mangled body lay beneath a web of toppled rigging.
The utterly dumbfounded Rus nobles leapt for the sanctuary of the hold. Haraldr turned to the Hound with a
