sword struck his neck and his head tilted freakishly to the side and blood pumped onto his shoulder.
The blow knocked Haraldr on his back and something flew swiftly into his eye like an angry bird, and his vision flooded with warm serum.
The Hound was above him. The huge nostrils, the horrible sucking. Haraldr lay there, frozen with terror, his head screaming with the dark poetry of the last instant in time. The Hound’s sword rose high, lost in blood-tinted night; it was no sword, it was a creature, a raven’s beak descending, falling from night into night. Then there was a terrific concussion, as if the sun had exploded in its final dying fury, and Haraldr fell away from its heat and light, falling, falling endlessly into the vast, airless, utterly black craw of the last dragon.
The man from Denmark grasped the jaw and turned the corpse’s puffy claret face towards him; the head flopped as if no longer attached to the neck. He fanned away the flies and slipped open the livid eyelids for a moment; the blue eyes glared in a ghostly fury. He stood and faced the Hound. This is King Olaf. Now show me the Prince. Haraldr Sigurdarson.’
The Hound’s chest heaved and the air wheezed through his gaping nostrils. ‘I struck him on the helm. There was blood all over his face. Then two men attacked me. When I finished with them, I saw him still lying there. I don’t see how he could have got away.’
‘But some men were able to flee?’
‘No more than two or three. Cowards.’
‘Or men intent on saving their Prince.’ The man from Denmark removed a bulging leather wallet from his expensive Frisian wool cloak and shook out four gold bezants. ‘My King said he would pay you the bounty for the King of Norway and his heir. I give you partial payment as the task has yet to be completed. But consider how much easier your errand has become.’ The man from Denmark hefted the wallet. ‘Before today, you had to kill a King and a Prince to earn this. Now you only have to kill a fugitive boy.’
The Hound held the gold coins in his flat palm and gently prodded them with his scarred, blood-smeared fingers, almost as if they were small, delicate creatures of a species he had never imagined existed. ‘Haraldr Sigurdarson,’ he said quietly, and then he closed his huge fist.
Isle of Prote, Sea of Marmara September 1030
‘ “Learning is but foliage compared to the fruits of a holy life, and the tree that bears nothing but foliage must be cut down and burned. But the finest result is when the fruit is set amongst its foliage.” ‘ Father Katalakon permitted himself the vanity of a slight smile as he finished his impromptu recitation. He was a tall man, his long but neatly combed hair and beard the colour of the grey sea mist that on this bright day was, blessedly, still only a dreary memory of winters past and a foreboding of the cold months ahead. Indeed, all of the fruits the Pantocrator had delivered to his Holy Brethren on the Isle of Prote were on this day brightly lit by the brilliant candle of Our Lord’s glorious vault. The September sun gleamed off the floor of rose-veined Proconesian marble and burnished the gold acanthus-leaf pattern that bordered the lacquered, coffered ceiling of the library. Father Katalakon turned to the man next to him. ‘Of course I do not intend to convey that your intimacy with the words of Theodore the Studite requires a restorative from my lips, Brother Symeon.’
‘Wisdom is never disgraced by repetition, Father Abbot, as holiness is only cultured by our efforts to emulate it.’ Brother Symeon, the new Chartophylax, or archivist, of the Monastery at Prote, was content to allow the Father Abbot to meander towards their objective. After all, Brother Symeon reminded himself, he would not have been summoned here to Prote had he not long ago achieved the state of
Father Katalakon appraised his new archivist; like the Father Abbot, Brother Symeon wore the long black wool frock and high round cap common to all the monastic orders of the One True Oecumenical, Orthodox and Catholic Faith. Yes, Father Katalakon was satisfied that his careful inquiries had indeed been rewarded. The aged Brother Symeon had manifested no impatience on this deliberately circumlocutional tour of the facilities, nor had he evidenced any curiosity as to the source of this magnificence. Of course, Brother Symeon had become noticeably weary of the walking, his thin shoulders slumping and his lips purpling against his snowy beard. Hopefully the new Chartophylax would live long enough to finish his archival research here on Prote; most certainly he would not live long enough to speak of those labours elsewhere even if his worldly passions were somehow revived by what he might find amid the late Father Abbot Giorgios’s voluminous archives.
Well, it was time. ‘One could linger here in contemplation of these glories until the Trumpet of Judgement sounded.’ Father Katalakon graciously extended his hand to Brother Symeon. ‘But I am sure you are curious to see the documents of which I have written to you.’
The carved wooden door slid noiselessly to reveal a chamber lit by an ornate glass-and-gold candelabra and a single window looking onto an enclosed, private court. Brother Symeon virtually gasped in astonishment. The floor, paved with moss-coloured Thessalian marble, was almost entirely obscured by dozens of stacks of unbound parchments; some of the bundles, wrapped in silk cords, rose almost to Father Katalakon’s lofty chin. Surrounded by these thousands upon thousands of documents was a marvellous little writing cabinet with an ivory and niello top and gold fittings on the lacquered wooden drawers.
‘Yes, you see that I did not embellish fact when I wrote to you that Father Abbot Giorgios, may Christ the Pantocrator bless and sanctify his soul, was an extraordinarily prodigious correspondent. And certainly you can see why a Chartophylax of your eminent repute was required.’ Father Katalakon slid the door closed. His hazel eyes took on a flinty texture in the light from the window; his voice lowered and lost its unctuous buoyancy. ‘Father Abbot Giorgios was a man of unusual energies and occupations. Not only did he correspond copiously with other Holy Men from places as distant as Cappadocia and Rome, but he also exchanged letters with many eminent persons in the world our Lord has inveighed us to turn our backs upon. No doubt he diverted many souls from the foul paths of perdition to less errant if more arduously inclined avenues of righteousness.’
Father Katalakon looked out on the courtyard. A blue-and-gold-tiled fountain lofted pearly spray. ‘Father Abbot Giorgios gave these weary souls the accumulation of his own holy wisdom, and they in turn gave to his holy establishment at Prote from their wordly accumulations.’ Father Katalakon looked directly into Brother Symeon’s eyes. If he saw any retreat there, he would send the man away.
‘The foremost patron of Prote was the purple-born Eudocia,’ resumed Father Katalakon after his searching pause. ‘Niece of the late Emperor and Autocrator Basil called the Bulgar-Slayer, daughter of the late Emperor and Autocrator Constantine, sister of the Empress and Basilissa Zoe the purple-born, and sister of the Augusta Theodora. Under the blessed Eudocia’s generous auspices, the
The fountain in the little courtyard faintly gurgled over the long pause. ‘I am not a
‘Yes,’ said Father Katalakon as he slid the door open and prepared to leave his new Chartophylax to his holy duties. ‘I knew that when I asked the Pantocrator to send you to us.’
Father Katalakon quickly left the library and walked past the towering domed apse of Prote’s splendid
