chaos within the ranks of the ghost fleet, most of the ships had been rigged to run with the wind, and the flagship cruised smartly ahead of the long, swell-tossed files. Haraldr observed the lead ship carefully. Odin enjoyed tricks. He squinted for resolution, and as they approached the flagship his hopes plunged in sickening concert with the pitching deck. He had indeed offered the one-eyed god a premature thanksgiving. A full crew manned the top frame of the Saracen flagship, as well as the half dozen ships to her stern. Steel jerkins glinted over white robes and flashing spearheads and curved, silvery steel swords pointed to attention in immaculate rows.
‘We change the orders?’ asked Halldor.
‘No,’ said Haraldr raptly, as if he suffered from some narcosis of fear. ‘Odin has led me here. If Odin intends to offer me to the ravens this day, not ten thousand men could save me.’ Is it the heat? he wondered as he distantly contemplated his deadly folly. Or was fate so thick around him that it had charged the air with the heat of its vast cauldron?
‘Boarding ropes!’ shouted Ulfr. The galley swung parallel to the hull of the flagship and prepared to drift into position for a fast boarding. Ulfr and Halldor worked frantically with the boarding ropes, too mesmerized with Haraldr’s god-driven fury to try to stop him. But why was he laughing? The heat. The heat and the fear had driven him mad; the line between madness that saved a man and that which doomed him was finer than the finest silk filament. Odin had finally forsaken their hero, and they would joyfully share his fate.
‘Look!’ shouted Haraldr. He was still laughing. ‘My foes will have to dismiss their unbidden supper guests before they can fight!’ Halldor and Ulfr raised their heads, at first bewildered by Haraldr’s babble, then incredulous at what they saw at the railing of the Saracen ship. Ulfr coughed, revulsion gagging his throat. Dozens of seagulls had descended upon the Saracen warriors; they perched on unmoving shoulders and pecked the eyes from unprotesting heads. The ghost fleet had also been provided a ghost crew.
Haraldr leapt to the deck of the Saracen ship. The stench was appalling; he had never imagined such decay, but then he had never known such a sun. The Saracens had their backs strapped straight against their spears and were lashed to the railing. As he walked the deck, slimy with the foul droppings of the carrion birds, Haraldr felt the spirits of the dead hovering about their unburied corpses; their sighing plaints were a hot miasma in his nostrils. He looked straight ahead as he went aft, but he could not ignore the awful cooing and clucking of the birds, an obscene satiation worse even than the cawing of hungry ravens. He saw the door to the cabin at the stern of the ship; he now only wished to escape the sun and the spirits that were sucking away the air around him. He wondered at the strange, partially peeling blue script that bordered the rose-enamelled wood. The door rattled as the ship pitched, then suddenly swung open.
The scimitar raked Emma with a dry screech; the sound was far more alarming than the impact. Haraldr lashed out with his shield and felt as if he had crushed a bird’s chest. He stepped back and with his sword probed the blue-black pall inside. A spear jutted past him and he snapped it like a twig. He placed his shield beneath his chin and tried to adjust his eyes to the darkness. Then he saw the nimbus of light around the curtains and ripped the fabric away with his sword.
The Saracen sat at a large table of carved wood inlaid with rosettes of pearl and ivory. He was coal- bearded, still almost as juicily plump as a fat partridge; a clean white cloth covered his head. Beside him stood a single wraithlike guard in a filthy, stained smock, a curving dagger swaying in his withered grip. The Saracen pushed the guard back and immediately opened a black lacquered box set before him on the table. The light from the portals glossed a small, flat, gold ingot, then another, then another, until the Saracen had placed twenty ingots on the table. Haraldr extended his sword and pricked the man’s windpipe. He held up his other hand and flashed his fingers to signal ‘five’ four times. Then he shook his head no, and began to flash five again and again and again, until it seemed he had done it a hundred times. When he was finished, he cut a small nick on the Saracen’s well-fleshed throat.
The Saracen shrugged, turned up sausage-thick fingers almost immobilized with gem-encrusted rings, and waved Haraldr to a latticed hatch at mid-deck. He opened it and climbed into the hold at the point of Haraldr’s sword.
Light from the oar-ports sliced the hold with hot white blades that flickered as the ship gently rocked. The Saracen very slowly pulled aside a dingy canvas, revealing seven large wooden chests bound with bright brass fittings. The Saracen hiked up his billowing cotton robe, shrugged at Haraldr, and assumed a ridiculous posture as he probed his bowels. He winced as he withdrew the key.
The Saracen unlocked all the chests before opening any of them. When he began to lift the lids, he went about it so quickly and dramatically that Haraldr expected a ruse, Saracen warriors springing from their last hiding place. But it was not ice-of-battle that glimmered in the thrusting light, it was Roman gold. Enough shimmering solidi and golden ingots to buy all of Europe. For a moment Haraldr saw Olaf’s last moments at Stiklestad, heard the dying words from Jarl Rognvald’s sky-blue lips, and saw the ice-white swords of retribution bloody the northern horizon. And then, in a blinding epiphany, all he could see was the Empress City, luminous in her aureate mantle, receiving him into her scented arms.
Maria asked her guard to have the carriage stopped; brakes whined and the enclosed compartment pitched and canted slightly back. She slid across the cushioned satin upholstery and nudged aside the shell-pink brocade shade. She could see over the queued-up crowd at the news bulletins posted by the great bronze gate to the Imperial Palace complex.
‘What is it, Maria?’ asked Anna Dalassena, daughter of the Grand Domestic, in her chiming voice.
‘Look. Remember the Tauro-Scythian we saw last summer – where was it? – the nervous one with the clumsy hands and the agile tongue?’
‘No,’ demurred Anna with a leisurely folding of her thick dark lashes. She indeed remembered the towering
‘Oh,’ said Maria, the elegant line of her lips scrolling with amusement, ‘I had rather a fantasy of the Tauro- Scythian that night. As I recall, I saw to it that he was rough with his hands.’
Anna blushed profoundly. ‘Please, Lady, tell me what this man has done for his name to be posted by the Chalke gate. They haven’t cut off his hands, I beseech the Holy Mother.’
Maria smiled, thinking that it was time that bright, spirited little Anna learn a woman’s pleasures. She needed to think of someone suitable, someone gentle yet vigorous. Perhaps Isaac would know.
Anna’s face pressed next to Maria’s, and the braided loops at the sides of their heads touched. ‘Holy Mother!’
The bulletin was framed and set in the usual marble niche. Maria read the florid script with mock gravity. ‘Varangian champions defend Christendom at edge of the world; restore Roman riches to furtherance of Glory of Christ the King. Varangian Nordbrikt, his arm strengthened by the Mother of God, single-handedly vanquished the infidel.’
‘They say he’s now rich enough to buy Nicephorus Argyrus’s palace!’ blurted Anna.
‘Anna,’ said Maria musically, ‘you suddenly recall the man?’
Anna smirked. ‘Yes.’ Then her face dropped. ‘My father isn’t happy about this Tauro-Scythian’s success. I heard him.’ She sighed, trying to imitate the mysterious note of melancholy that so often crept into Maria’s discourse. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever have him to a banquet in our chambers.’
‘No,’ answered Maria. She pulled the shade back and motioned the carriage on. ‘I fear the Tauro-Scythian’s enemies have multiplied as rapidly as his riches.’
Maria settled back against the cushions and closed her eyes as the carriage rumbled up the Mese, the city’s main artery. Extraordinary. The dream had been months ago. And how vivid it had been. Perhaps more than a dream. Perhaps a vision like those of the prophet Daniel: the fair-hair, the fleet of ships manned by spectres, a chest of gold as brilliant as the sun. But there were other dreams. No. She could not recall them. Would not. Fair- hair haloed by horrible black flocking creatures, frozen waters dark as onyx, awakening with fear on her tongue. Had she some gift of prophecy? There were many in the city who claimed it, but, as with virtue, that gift was much more often claimed than possessed.
Maria opened her eyes and clutched her hands tightly together. Yes. The fair-haired
