‘War and death. Here…’ The monk stumbled over his words.
‘Speak clearly, Azemar.’
He took her hand. ‘The city is under attack,’ he said. ‘The Varangians are through the gates. I smell their sweat. I smell their fires. The palace will be locked down.’
Beatrice pulled free of him. ‘I will not stay here with you!’
‘Lady,’ said Azemar, ‘I will defend you.’
‘When I look at you my heart is full of dread.’
‘Do not fear me, do not…’
He held up his hand. It felt strange to him — his fingers longer and more powerful, a power that wanted using. He itched to test those fingers, to feel them crush and tear. He ran his tongue along his teeth and tasted blood. The taste made him clamp shut his jaw and suck at his teeth. Something nagged between two of them. Without minding the presence of the lady he pushed a fingernail into the space and pulled the thing out and examined it. It had the texture of chicken skin. He couldn’t tell what it was but he had the urge to pop it back into his mouth and swallow it down.
He stretched out his neck. Even in the dim light, the colours seemed to burst upon him. Outside he heard cries in the distance; so enticing — the screams of men, curses, prayers, the names of women, mothers, wives and daughters said on dying breaths. He didn’t care. The lady was there and his only desire was to be near her.
Then he saw the knife. She had taken it from beneath her robe.
‘What is that for, lady?’
‘I took it from the woman you attacked on the riverbank. She has no need of it now she cannot open her eyes.’
‘Lady, be careful what you do.’
‘I would kill you. I know what we have been to each other. I remember it as if it happened this morning. You have followed me from beyond the veil of death but I do not want you, Azemar — Jehan — Vali. I do not want you.’
She didn’t know where she got the names from but they came naturally to her lips.
She raised the knife but couldn’t make herself attack him.
‘Leave,’ said Beatrice. ‘Go from here.’
Tears poured down her face.
‘Why?’
‘Because you come from my nightmares, but you have taken flesh and revealed all my dreams as much more than fancies or the terrors of the dark. I remember you and I know what I did to escape you. I called down fevers and tried to die. I immersed myself in the love of a man to spite the will of fate. I have something in my heart and it is calling out for you, but I do not want you.’ She hardly knew what she said; she seemed to be speaking from a place deep within herself, as if she had kept all this knowledge locked inside a dungeon and now its gates were burst open, her prisoner thoughts coming blinking into the day.
‘Can you not hear? Death is in the streets here. Let me protect you.’
‘Go or I will kill you.’
Azemar stood up. ‘My soul feels as though it is on the edge of an abyss,’ he said, ‘and you are a darkness into which I will fall.’
Footsteps hammered down the corridor and voices shouted out:
‘They’re already at the palace!’
‘How did they get inside the city walls?’
‘The emperor has betrayed us.’
A voice was clearly audible through the door. ‘This is it, boys. They’re not coming here to plunder; they’re here to stay. They mean to take our ancient right as protectors of this place. The emperor’s cut us adrift because of all these deaths. There’s no half-measures. We kill them and live, or we die. We won’t be thrown aside by the emperor to live as vagabonds!’
‘We’re outnumbered, we’ll never beat them.’
‘We won’t with that attitude.’
‘We’re going to die. Well, I’ll die happy.’
The door flew open and three of the Hetaereian guard burst into the room. They didn’t pause to say a word; one went straight for Beatrice, grabbing her by the hair, the other was already freeing his cock from his beneath his military skirt. Another charged for Azemar, his sword high to hack the monk down.
Beatrice stabbed at her attacker, but he caught her wrist and punched her hard in the face, knocking her to the ground and the knife out of her grip. Hands mauled her, ripping away her robes, pawing at her body. She only thought of the baby — to defend it, to keep it from harm.
Azemar didn’t think, just responded to the threat as an animal responds. He saw his hand strike the sword from the Greek’s grip, sending it clattering to the floor. The itch he’d had in his fingers was satisfied as he drove them into the man’s eyes and cheeks. He was surprised, intrigued even, by how easy it was to tear off his attacker’s face.
He ripped and bit, sating his curiosity. What would happen if he bit through a neck; what would it feel like to plunge his fingers into a belly and rip out the guts? When the men stopped moving, how easy would it be to reach in and tear out a tongue, to bite into it as if it were a blood-gorged lamprey?
He saw Beatrice pulling her blood-wet robes about her. The fight had disordered his mind. A lady was with him. Should he offer her something from his table to eat? An eye? Some sweet liver?
The lady took up a sword and at first he thought she would strike him. But she ran from the room in great wide strides, weighed down by the baby inside her. Azemar breathed in, the odour of the blood filling his mind. He should follow her. He would follow her later; her trail would be clear. First, he would eat.
40
Snake in the Eye wandered down the Middle Way. The fighting around him was fierce, though it seemed almost an irrelevance to him. He was hot with the fear of the wolf he’d met in his dream.
He’d been by the silver river under the light of the big moon, wandering by the wall that held the candles that were the lives of men. The runes had showed him the way through the labyrinth of his mind. He had seen someone there, he couldn’t remember who, but someone he wanted very much to kill. But the wolf had moved against him, the wolf that snuffled and snarled beyond his vision. It had no candle in the wall; it was not a thing of light. No, it was an enemy of light, an eater, a devourer. Its hunger was so intense it was like a smell the thing exuded, potent as musk. Snake in the Eye did not like the way the creature made him feel. He cringed from it when he should have longed to fight it, and he was loath to look inside himself again, to go to that wall by the river where he was a god who could snuff out men’s lives.
The battle made him dizzy. He found it difficult to understand what was going on. Tiny details seemed incredibly important. A gout of blood bloomed on the head of a fallen Varangian like a rose in a girl’s hair. He noticed the dancing, to-and-fro movements of warriors as they clashed shields, retreated and came on again, the billowing blue robes and scarlet cloaks of the Greeks. What was happening? The best thing, the thing he had wanted for so long. Battle, so beautiful in its flashing silvers, its reds and its whites, vivid even under the muted sun. The sun. He glanced up. A pale disc like a god’s shield. It must have been noon — the sun was not visible at any other time.
Snake in the Eye had his sword drawn and had picked up a fallen shield. He willed himself into the fight, forcing himself to find the aggression he had felt his whole life before that creature had come hot-mouthed through the mind’s night for him.
Three Varangians circled in a stand-off with four Greeks in front of the Bull Market. The wispy mist made it seem like a scene from beneath the sea. Snake in the Eye had heard the tales of Atlantis and now imagined himself there — the buildings looming through silty water, weapons flashing from the murk like quick fish.
