Hereward 04 - Wolves of New Rome (37 page)

The Mercian felt the edge of a sword bite into his throat. Ricbert stepped forward and looked up into his eyes. ‘It will do no good. We are the Varangian Guard. We will not rest until your men are captured or dead.’ He looked round his men and commanded, ‘Take them away from here and prepare them for execution.’

THE BLADE STABBED
towards the heavens. Victor Verinus looked along the notched edge of his sword, turning it slightly so that the candlelight danced along the steel. The hilt was carved ivory capped by a gold dragon, the blazing eyes inlaid rubies.

Ragener watched his master’s admiring nod and felt a pang of envy. Surely he too deserved a weapon as fine as that. But the woman seated upon the bench in front of him showed only contempt. Meghigda’s face was swollen and bruised from the beating he had inflicted upon her. Blood crusted her nostrils and one eye had half closed. But still she refused to bow her head.

‘I am al-Kahina,’ she murmured through split lips. ‘You can break my body, but you can never crush my spirit.’

Ragener cracked his knuckles across her head once more, then waited for Victor to voice approval. When the Roman said nothing, did not even look his way, the sea wolf silently vowed to try harder still.

Meghigda spat a clot of blood on to the marble floor. Her cold, murderous gaze fell upon Victor and then rose to Ragener himself as he prowled round her. ‘My life means nothing,’ she uttered. ‘My fight will be carried on. If not by me, then by some other brave soul who raises my standard.’

‘You
are
nothing,’ Ragener snarled. ‘Bow your head.’

‘Never.’

‘You would rather die?’

‘There is no victory for you in my death, only in my surrender.’ She showed a bloody grin, and Ragener felt uneasy at what he saw there. ‘My life was given up long ago, when I was a child, and my days yet to come were stolen from me by those who slayed my mother and father. After that, every day was a gift. Every day was used to fight, against men like you, who would steal the joy from others. Strike me again. Cut me, burn me. There is nothing you can do to bring fear into my heart. Kill me and know that you have lost. Your own death will come soon enough, and I will be waiting in hell to greet you.’

Ragener gripped her throat and squeezed, but she held her chin up and her eyes still burned with contempt. He glanced at his master once again, but Victor only admired his blade.

‘This sword was given to me by my father, and it was given to him by his father, and so on,’ the Stallion mused. The sea wolf thought there was an odd note of wistfulness in that voice, unexpected at such a moment of victory. ‘This is how we do things here,’ the general continued. ‘So that we never forget that days long gone still shape our lives, and the days yet to come. There is a skein to all things, one that we cannot see. Lines drawn from then to now. One thread is pulled there, another life is lost here.’

Lowering the blade, he weighed it on the palms of his hands. ‘I wielded this sword at Manzikert, the scene of our most crushing defeat, when so many of our men from the western and eastern
tagmata
were slaughtered. It has always been a part of me. With it, I have killed the bravest men, the fiercest warriors. I forged my mind in the furnace of battle, made myself better than the weak and sickly child who would receive the back of his father’s hand for his failings.’

Ragener narrowed his good eye. Victor seemed to be talking to himself. He could not understand why his master was not slaking his thirst with the finest wine instead of musing over ancient days.

‘Strength, you see. That is what this sword means,’ the Stallion continued. He laid the blade on the table next to the candle. ‘Without strength, you are nothing.’

‘I am strong,’ Ragener ventured. ‘My body might have taken more blows than most men could bear, but my heart is strong. My fire burns bright.’

Victor seemed not to hear him. ‘Every death … every drop of blood spilled by this blade … led to this night.’

The sea wolf flexed his fingers tighter still.

‘Our empire has grown weak. The glory of our long gone days has been frittered away. Once, when we whispered, the world listened. And when we roared the world quaked. Now we have an emperor who is little more than a boy. He mewls, he dribbles, he spits his food. Now we are a people who count the grains of gold in a coin while our enemies creep ever closer to our walls. If my father were here now … if I had not stabbed this sword through his breast when he was too weak to raise a hand against me … he would be sickened by the weakness he would see around him. Constantinople is in the grip of an illness. Only death will wipe it away. Then we can heal, and grow strong once more.’

A sound rustled out across the chamber. A whisper. A prayer. Filled with regret, or hope, or defiance, Ragener could not tell, but he did not look down.

Victor prowled to his window, closing his eyes as he inhaled the sweet scents rising from his night-garden. After a moment, he murmured, ‘The Varangian Guard is distracted. Hunting down the rest of the English. Thinking this plot has been caught in good time and the emperor is safe once more. And thus I am free to strike. When the emperor dies, I will be far away, with those who will attest I had nothing to do with the slaughter.’ He smiled to himself. ‘Whipped curs, broken to my will.’

‘And the Verini will hold power,’ Ragener murmured, ‘and I will be raised up.’

‘The Verini,’ Victor mused. ‘All but my brother.’

‘Nathaniel?’

‘My other brother. Karas.’ The Stallion’s eyes flickered down. For the first time, Ragener thought he glimpsed some weakness. Unease? Fear? Could it be? ‘His land lies to the east. But once he learns what power I wield, he will have no choice but to come and bow before me. No doubt. No doubt.’

Desperation rose up in Ragener and his hand jerked involuntarily. He heard the snap of Meghigda’s neck. ‘She is dead,’ he said. The queen’s head lolled forward. ‘Ah,’ the sea wolf continued with a shrug. ‘It is what it is. I did not mean to kill her, but she defied me. She thought I was nothing. And now she is nothing.’

He removed his hand from Meghigda’s throat and gave her a gentle shove between the shoulders. She toppled from the bench and sprawled across the marble floor. The Hawk rested the tip of his boot on her side and rocked her, just to be sure.

She was dead.

Now Victor deigned to glance at him. The general looked irritated, not because the woman was dead, Ragener knew, but because here was another inconvenience, and he needed none of it on this night of nights. ‘She has served her purpose. When you brought her to me, I knew she would have some use, and so it presented itself. A lure for the English. A chance to drive the Varangian Guard away from where they could do harm to my plans.’ He fluttered a hand. ‘Do not leave the body here. Dump it somewhere where the dogs can eat it. She will be forgotten soon enough, and no trouble to us.’

Ragener turned up his nose as he looked down at the still form. They said she was a queen, a warrior, but she had died as easily as any woman he had killed. And yet her final words hung over him. Fear flickered in his heart and he found he could not look into her face.

‘When you are done, go to Justin. He waits for you,’ the Stallion continued. ‘Prepare him to take the crown tonight. It should have been Arcadius, but that was not to be.’ He shook his head. ‘But first find my finest cloak and some gold to wear at my neck. I would be well dressed for what is to come.’

The sea wolf nodded, realizing that when Victor had set a price on Meghigda’s head it had not been out of grief, or vengeance. Only fury that his plans had been disrupted.

The Stallion clapped his hands together. ‘And now I am triumphant. There is only the waiting. All that is left is to claim the spoils of battle.’ Ragener saw a hungry look cross his master’s face. ‘How fitting that tonight of all nights the fair Juliana will be mine.’

Once the two men had stepped out of the chamber, Ariadne crept in and threw herself across the fallen form of Meghigda. Tears streamed down the young girl’s face and grief burned in her heart. Part of her wished she had not returned to her father’s house en route to warn the English. But the queen would still be dead. Every word had echoed through to her hiding place in the other room, and when she had heard Meghigda’s neck break it had taken all her strength not to cry out in despair. She was surprised by the heights of the desolation she felt. But in the time she had watched over the queen, and listened to her words, she had felt a rare thing grow in her heart: hope. Hope that there was more to life than the miserable existence that was her lot, more than pain and suffering. Hope, too, that there were better people in the world than her father.

Ariadne raised her red eyes up to the heavens and made a silent vow. Meghigda and all that she represented would live on. Hope would not die with her.

‘
MEGHIGDA IS DEAD
. They have left her body near the church of the Forty Martyrs.’ Choking back a sob, the red-headed girl plucked at the flesh of her bony wrists. ‘My father has won.’

Rowena felt her heart go out to the urchin. Ariadne was her name. She looked so frail and poor, and now consumed with a terrible sadness. But then the girl pulled herself up, her face hardening. Rowena was shocked by the transformation. ‘She will live on in me,’ Ariadne said. A fire lit her pale eyes. ‘We cannot let it end here.’

‘We can do nothing.’ Simonis Nepa levelled a wintry stare at the girl. From the courtyard at the back of the silent house, a cool breeze blew.

‘The woman is dead,’ Juliana repeated. ‘And Victor Verinus has won.’ She held her mother’s gaze for a long moment. Rowena tried to decipher that odd look. As their tormentor ascended to even higher power, were they afraid that he had not yet plumbed the depths of the agonies he would inflict on them?

‘He has won? Won what?’ she asked.

Ariadne rubbed at her cheeks to dry the tears. ‘I do not know the nature of his plot. But he has arranged for your friends, the English, to be captured by the Varangian Guard – some of them at least. I must warn the others. Tell me where they are—’

Rowena grabbed the girl’s shoulders. ‘Captured, you say? Is my husband with them?’

‘The Norman? He is.’

‘It is too late for them,’ Simonis said before Rowena could ask for help. ‘If the Varangian Guard have taken them, they must believe your friends were plotting against the emperor. They will be executed on the morrow.’

‘No. I cannot accept that.’

‘We can do nothing,’ Simonis repeated.

Rowena could see there was no point arguing. Mother and daughter seemed resigned to whatever fate awaited them.

‘My father is coming here,’ Ariadne said, as if to confirm all their thoughts. ‘To claim his spoils, he said.’

Juliana and Simonis clutched each other’s shoulders, their gazes locked. Trying to find strength, Rowena thought. ‘The time has come,’ Juliana murmured. ‘There is no backing out now.’

‘We must defend ourselves,’ Rowena began.

Anger flared in Simonis’ face and she lashed out, striking Rowena across the cheek. ‘Do not speak to me,’ she snarled. ‘Your duty here is done.’

Rowena was stunned by the change in her mistress. But as she eyed Simonis’ icy features, she felt realization dawn upon her. Until this moment, she had only seen the face that Simonis had wanted her to see.

‘Did you hear my mother? Leave this house, and do not return,’ Juliana snapped.

Nodding, Rowena turned towards the door, but her mind was racing. If Victor Verinus was on his way, there was much she could learn here. When she heard the mother and daughter leave the courtyard, she whispered, ‘I do not accept this is an ending.’

‘Nor I,’ Ariadne said with defiance. ‘What will you do?’

Rowena weighed her response. In the past she had been too headstrong, she saw that now. She had thrown herself into danger without considering the consequences, and had paid a harsh price. However much she wanted to race to the Varangian Guard and plead for Deda’s release, she had to keep a calm head. ‘I must know what Victor plans,’ she whispered, glancing back to be sure that Simonis had not returned. ‘You must warn the rest of Hereward’s men. They are good at hiding, especially if Herrig the Rat is with them. Then we shall see.’

She told Ariadne where the English warriors waited for their leader, and the girl slipped away. Rowena crept into the dark house. From a far corner, she could hear the women talking. They were bathing. How strange, she thought. In the chamber near to where she hid, Kalamdios’ mewlings reached a high pitch. He seemed to sense something was amiss.

The door on to the street creaked open. Rowena shivered despite herself. She would never admit to fear, but Victor made her skin crawl. He looked at her as he looked at every woman, with a hunger that seemed as if it could never be sated. Once Simonis had led Victor through to the chamber where Kalamdios sat on his wooden throne, she crept from her hiding place and moved softly to the door.

Candles flickered all around the chamber. It looked as if Simonis had prepared it for a ritual, Rowena thought. Kalamdios was agitated. His eyes rolled, his mouth worked furiously and his fingers snapped and plucked at the air. In front of the master of the house, Victor stood tall and proud, his iron-grey hair hanging around his shoulders. A smile played across his lips as he studied the two women who stood before him. Juliana could only stare at the floor. But Simonis bit her lip as she held the gaze of the visitor. The Stallion paid no heed to Kalamdios at all.

‘Tonight I am triumphant,’ he said, ‘and Constantinople enters a new age. When my son wears the crown, our strength and pride will be restored. In the days when you fought against me, did you ever think I would be standing here on the cusp of such power?’