Hereward 05 - The Immortals (3 page)

Sighard, the youngest of the English warriors, was beckoning frantically from where the Roman’s exhausted horse roamed riderless. Under his shock of red hair, his pale face looked worried.

The Roman lay on his back in the long grass, shaking as if in the grip of a fever. He was barely more than a boy, his cheeks so hollow it seemed he had not eaten in days. Blood caked the corner of his mouth and a gash seeped on his forehead. Delirious, he jabbered as his eyes rolled white.

‘What does he say?’ Sighard asked.

Kraki peered into the lad’s face. ‘And why was he fleeing so hard?’

Hereward knelt beside the fallen man, noticing how his right fist was gripped tight. Gently prising open the fingers, he revealed the object the rider clutched as if his life depended on it: a gold ring with a large oval engraved with the sign of the two-headed eagle.

Sighard gaped. ‘That is no warrior’s ring. It can only belong to someone great.’

The Roman seemed to find peace now that he had delivered his prize. For a moment his eyes swam, and then he looked clearly into Hereward’s face. ‘You must warn the emperor,’ he croaked. ‘We were not prepared. Now doom is coming for all of us.’ And with that his eyes fluttered shut as exhaustion claimed him.

‘What did he mean?’ Sighard whispered, his eyes wide.

Hereward looked up and across the swaying grass into the west, where the red sun dipped towards the horizon. ‘Make ready,’ he said. ‘We return to Constantinople this night.’

IN CONSTANTINOPLE, EVEN
the night bowed its head to man. Outside the entrance to the hippodrome two vast stone bowls of oil blazed, and above them, along the whitewashed walls, torches sizzled. In the glare, sharp emotions burned too. Those who had not gained entry to the races haggled over bets, over winners and losers, jostling amid the stink of sweat and pitch. Desperation seethed in the ones who stood to lose more coin than they could afford. Greed, excitement, fury, all of it was at boiling point.

From within that grand stone building, the roar of the crowd boomed above the rumble of hooves as the horses thundered round the circuit. Riders yelled their encouragement, whips lashed flanks.

Hereward pushed his way through the throng, weary from the long journey back to the city. In his homeland, the villages would be quiet at this hour. Folk would be gathered with their kin around their hearth-fires, sharing tales of the day. Not here. They did things differently in this vast, greedy, hot, dangerous, scheming city. The Mercian looked round at the feverish men and women, cocking their heads as they tried to make sense of the din of the race. The lure of gold kept men from their beds, drove them out into the streets at first light. Gold was all that mattered to these Romans, and all that mattered to the desperate folk who streamed through the gates every day, fleeing from threat or hungry for a new dawn.

Sighard hurried up, his pale skin and red hair standing out among the swarthy Romans. ‘The others are inside,’ he said. ‘They bid me wait for you.’ His eyes were questioning.

‘The Roman we found will live. The leech is tending to him at the Boukoleon palace.’

‘The ring? His warning?’

‘Whatever he knows is not for the likes of us,’ the Mercian said, unable to hide his sardonic tone. ‘He is saving it for the emperor’s counsel.’

Sighard sighed. ‘And a reward?’

Hereward shook his head, irritated. The guardsmen had shown him the door so fast he had barely had time to speak.

As the race ended, the cheers of the victorious surged up. Within moments, a knot of men swept out of the entrance. At their heart, Hereward glimpsed the emperor Michael, too bright-faced for a man who carried the burden of empire. He was young, an innocent. But as always the eunuch, Nikephoritzes, stood behind the emperor’s left shoulder with eyes like brass. He was the true power, Hereward knew. Both men were swallowed up by ten warriors of the elite Varangian Guard, their hands never far from their long-hafted Dane-axes, their gaze continually searching the crowd for any sign of threat. They never smiled, rarely spoke.

Sighard followed the Mercian’s stare. ‘The emperor should thank his god that he has men like that at his back. He would have been torn from his throne and tossed to the wild dogs in the street by now, if not for them.’

‘Aye,’ Hereward agreed. ‘This is a troubled city. Plots growing like weeds, the emperor loathed for his weakness. And beyond the walls, more enemies than any man can count.’ He eyed the young Englishman. ‘The emperor needs more men, men like us, to keep him safe. Soon he will see that.’

‘I am sick of waiting for fortune to smile upon us.’

Hereward turned at the gruff voice. Kraki scowled at anyone who dared meet his eye. He and Guthrinc had emerged from the hippodrome with some of the other spear-brothers. The English oak was gnawing on hot lamb that he had bought from one of the street sellers, wiping the grease from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I would be away, in the north,’ Kraki continued. ‘I miss the cold, and the rain, and the wind that cuts right through you. Weather like that keeps you hard. Here they are all too soft.’

Guthrinc frowned, seemingly sensing something else in his friend’s words. Laying one of his big hands upon Kraki’s shoulder, he said, ‘You need some wine inside you.’

‘I need mead.’

‘Wine will drown your grumbles as well as anything. Come, we will find what passes for a tavern in these parts.’ He gave the Viking a shove.

Once the warriors were shouldering their way through the crowd, Sighard leaned in and whispered, ‘I worry for Kraki.’

‘He has been walking under a cloud for too long. What troubles him?’

‘Why, he misses Acha,’ Sighard replied, surprised that the Mercian did not know.

Hereward nodded. Now he understood. His thoughts flew back to the first time he had seen Acha, in Earl Tostig’s hall in Eoferwic on that cold, cold winter’s night. Hair the colour of raven wings and skin like snow, she had used her beauty to bend many a man to her will there. But in the end she had given herself to the Viking. Though he hid it well, Hereward knew Kraki had been bereft when they had been forced to part. Acha had returned to her own folk, the Cymri, and the Viking had found himself here, in a strange world, where his worth was rarely appreciated. Little surprise that he yearned for England. ‘Do not let him hear you say that,’ the Mercian cautioned. ‘He will cuff your ear so hard it will grow larger than your head.’

‘When the blackness claimed me after the death of my brother, Kraki dragged me back into the light. I would do the same for him.’

‘He is a proud man. He does not take help easily.’ Hereward felt concern for the gruff Viking, as he did for all his men. ‘His spirits will recover once we have bought our way into the Varangian Guard.’

Sighard did not look convinced.

Curses echoed above the babbling voices and Hereward turned to see a bobbing head thrusting its way through the throng. A moment later, Alric shoved his way next to them. He was a monk who had found himself a companion of warriors and through it had seen as much blood and hardship as any of the other exiles. His face was flushed with anxiety. ‘I was afrit you would be gone from here.’

‘You are late,’ the Mercian said. ‘The others are already drowning themselves in wine.’

‘There is talk of war—’

‘There is always talk of war.’ Sighard grinned. ‘Have you not yet learned how these Romans are? They talk and talk and then fill their bellies with food and drink and sleep it off. When they are not plotting to murder some rival or other, that is.’

Alric shook his head. ‘No, the Varangian Guard has been summoned to the palace. And the wise men, and the advisers. Never have I seen so many worried faces.’

‘Calm yourself,’ Hereward said, clapping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘We are not dead yet.’

Sighard grabbed the monk’s left arm and raised it high. A leather sheath capped the wrist where Alric’s hand should be. ‘Tell me, monk,’ the young warrior teased, ‘does God still hear when you pray with one hand? Or do you make as much sense to his ears as the thief who has had his tongue torn out?’

‘God hears us all, even you when you have filled your skin with ale and make as much sense as a babe in arms.’ Alric cocked one eyebrow in defiance. His skin had grown thick in the long years since Hereward had first met him, when they were both fleeing from death through that frozen forest in Northumbria.

Sighard spied Turold entertaining the crowd with one of his songs and wandered over, ready to be caught up in the skein of his friend’s words. Alric beckoned Hereward to one side. From the leather pouch at his hip, he pulled a small object wrapped in a white silk cloth. ‘A gift. For you.’ Glancing around, he unfolded the cloth in the crook of his arm. On the silk lay a sliver of wood, capped with silver and attached to a leather thong. ‘Do not judge,’ the monk said with haste. ‘There are some who say the power of God lies in that splinter. It is from a bowl St George himself once prayed over, which then made a blind woman see when she sipped from it, so it is said.’

The Mercian knew what value Alric’s fellow monks would have placed upon such a relic. His friend must have gone to great lengths to secure it, perhaps even risking his own life. ‘Why do you bring this to me?’

The monk searched for the right words. ‘You have a devil inside you, one that drives you to slaughter like some beast, that puts at risk friend as well as foe when the rage eats your heart. We both know this is true.’

Hereward nodded. That devil had been with him for as long as he could remember. ‘Aye. And with your prayers … your help … I have all but shackled it.’

‘But I will not always be at your side, my friend. Now that you fight in the army beyond these walls, I cannot help keep it in check. You must do it yourself.’ Alric pressed the relic into Hereward’s hand. ‘When you are on your own, when the night is dark, and you feel the devil’s presence, take this in your fingers and ask for God’s help, and he will give you the strength you need.’

Peering down at the fragment of wood, Hereward felt touched by his friend’s concern. But as he murmured his thanks and slipped the thong round his neck, he felt a sudden movement at his side. Furtive fingers were closing about his purse. A blade flashed, cutting the strap.

‘Hold!’ he bellowed. ‘Thief!’ He lashed out, but his own fingers closed on thin air. He caught a glimpse of a young man darting away, his hair matted and his tunic filthy and threadbare. No doubt one of the rogues who preyed upon the rich men and women wandering through the streets.

Hereward barged a path through the stream of bodies. He would get no help from the fine folk of Constantinople, he knew that. They looked after their own business, and be damned to the rest.

The thief weaved through the throng like a rat. When he plunged into one of the narrow tracks that ran between the grand houses in the shade of the emperor’s palace the darkness swallowed him up, but the Mercian’s eyes were used to the fenland nights and he did not slow his pace. Rats fled from his feet. His nose wrinkled at the stink of middens. As the din of the crowd fell away, he fixed his attention on the pounding of feet ahead.

The track led into a maze of silent streets leading towards the Genoese quarter along the north wall, and Hereward began to close upon the fleeing youth. Finally, he found himself close enough to snarl a hand in the rogue’s long hair and with a sharp yank brought him to the ground. His prey snarled and spat and thrashed. Hereward cuffed him once and pinned a hand across his throat. When his fingers flexed, the youth’s furious resistance ceased.

‘My coin,’ the Mercian snarled. ‘Now.’

Before the thief could respond, the night sang with the familiar clash of steel upon steel. An angry cry echoed. A curse. A threat. Hereward glimpsed rapid movement flashing in a street to his right: caught in a shaft of moonlight, a young man of some seventeen summers was surrounded by a gang of four cut-throats. The Mercian could see that the victim was of some standing. His tunic was well cut, and embroidered with gold or silver that glinted as he moved. Long black hair fell in ringlets around a serious face, dark eyes glimmering with sharp intelligence.

Short swords stabbed towards him. The victim whisked his own blade back and forth to hold them at bay, with some skill, Hereward could see. A robbery, no more. The young man had strayed too far from the crowds and now he would pay the price. And yet, as he watched, the Mercian saw that the rogues were hacking with concentrated fury. They seemed intent on ending the young man’s days.

‘Help me,’ the victim called in the Roman tongue, breathless. ‘I will make it worth your while.’

Seizing his moment, the cutpurse squirmed like an eel and broke free of the Mercian’s grip. In an instant, he was up and running once again. Hereward knew that if he delayed for even a moment he would lose him.

In the next street, the rogues slashed with renewed vigour. The victim was outnumbered; not even his skill with a blade could save him. With a curse, Hereward spun away from the disappearing thief. He could not leave a brave man to be cut down.

Unsheathing Brainbiter, he barked, ‘Leave him. Save your own necks.’

From somewhere nearby, another Roman voice said, ‘Kill him too.’

The shadows were too deep for Hereward to see the source of that command, but now he knew one thing for certain. This was no mere robbery. It was murder.

Two of the rogues turned towards him. Their faces were hard, their eyes cold. These were not warriors, but men used to slitting throats in dirty alleys. They would fight like rats to the last.

Gripping his sword tight, Hereward braced himself. ‘Come, then,’ he snarled. ‘You have picked the wrong man this night. My blade is thirsty for your blood.’

MOONLIGHT GLINTED OFF
steel. As Hereward stepped beside him, the young man hissed, ‘Hesitate and you are lost. There is a high price on my head. These snakes will not let it go easily.’

Slow-witted they might be, but Hereward’s two foes were cunning enough to strike as one. When they stabbed their blades towards his chest, he was ready, clashing their weapons aside with his own sword. Sparks glittered. Again they stabbed, one high, one low, growing more confident now they had the measure of him. Or so they thought.