Swords From the Sea (4 page)

"Let me go!" she whispered.

Slowly Brian shook his head. He would never do that.

It seemed clear, now, to the girl: the Caesar had sent her to this strange ship with the dragon's head to be slain at sea.

"Is-is it thy will," she whispered again, "that I should find my death here?"

Brian could only shake his head. "That," he growled at last, "will never happen while I can hold a weapon."

She let the veil fall from her face and looked into his eyes to read the soul behind them. And in that moment she knew more of Brian than he knew of himself. A flush of blood darkened her cheeks and she spoke shyly, "Then why did they bring me here?"

"First tell me," he bade her, "who thou art."

So it happened that she told him of the capture of Comnenus and the slaying of him, when the Caesar's ax-men hewed her father into five pieces under the eyes of the mob in the Hippodrome. And then of her imprisonment in the Sacred Palace, when the slave girls whispered one day that she might be spared, and the next day that the Caesar would poison her food-until that afternoon when Theophile had ushered Brian into her room.

The Viking listened without moving. At the end he nodded, because he had thought it all over carefully and he knew now what was to be done.

"It is clear to me," he said, "that they are mighty liars. Now, sleep."

Sitting on his chest with the sword on his knee, he kept watch while the tired girl stretched out on the couch. At first she pulled the mantle over her head and cried a little. Then the slapping of the wavelets against the hull and the swaying of the curtain made her drowsy. Not until the last candle had guttered out did the Viking rise and go forth to the deck.

There a shaggy shape croaked at his elbow. "The messmates are saying that harm will come out of taking that mighty dame on the ship."

"I will take her, and I will keep her."

Fiddle Skal sighed. "That is to be seen."

The last thing John Dukas expected was a visit from the master of the dragon ship. He was seated at his noon meal on a terrace overlooking the sea when his chamberlain announced that the Viking demanded admittance. It pleased the Caesar's humor to see him, although Dukas instructed Theophile to have in four stalwarts of the Varangian Guard to stand behind the table. These mercenaries were the Emperor's personal guard, but the Caesar cultivated them against the day when he might feel himself strong enough to seize the imperial palace and the throne of Constantinople. There was a proverb that he who ruled the army would someday rule the empire.

The Caesar looked up indulgently while he selected a bunch of grapes and dipped them into wine. "What says the barbarian?" he asked Theophile.

Brian had his shield on his arm, an iron cap on his head. He gazed about him in wonder, and, obviously, he did not know how to prostrate himself fittingly.

"Your Illustriousness," explained the secretary, "he hath a grievance."

It seemed to the Caesar amusing that a sea rover who had just been given a fair girl should come with a grievance.

"And what is it?" he asked.

"He says your Illustriousness bath dealt churlishly by his bride. He says that the woman who will be his bride was held in captivity here like a slave ... For that reason he comes to challenge your Illustriousness to combat with weapons, ahorse or afoot, on sea or land, with sword or spear or ax."

John Dukas selected a grape, rather regretting that the four Varangian swordsmen should be within hearing. He himself was skilled in handling weapons; he judged himself a match for the slow-moving seafarer who had been mad enough to defy him, but he had no intention of settling a quarrel in this fashion. "Ask him," he responded, "by what right he claims a bride in Constantinople."

Everyone in the room heard Brian's answer. "By two hundred and ten byzants paid down."

With lifted brows the Caesar glanced at Theophile, who fingered his staff uneasily. Then, gently, he shook his dark head. "Tell him a Caesar of the empire does not cross words with a warfarer."

"I am Brian," the Viking said slowly, "Sigurd's son, Earl of Drontheim at the land's end, and I hold myself equal in blood to any man so faint of heart that he will war against a girl. Tell the beardless one so."

This baiting John Dukas had found amusing. He contemplated the earl of a thatched village at the land's end who meant to marry Irene. This dull man was waiting patiently, unmoved as the timbers of his storm-battered dragon ship. And in this patience John Dukas found something disturbing. He had not, it seemed, managed to make Irene disappear without notice. It might be better if she did not join herself to such an outspoken earl.

"Seize him," he ordered his Varangians. "Disarm him."

Not a man moved to obey. Those four mercenaries from the Norse lands had seen the gold ring of a chieftain of their folk; they had heard the broad accents of the north. In their scarlet cloaks and gilded helmets they stood motionless.

Theophile and the slaves cast down their eyes, trembling. Only John Dukas found amusement in the situation.

In another moment, he thought, they might salute the barbarian. A feckless breed, touchy about points of honor, yet dense of brain. So-they served the Byzantine princes for hire. To Brian aloud, he said, "So be it. I will meet this earl on the morrow, when he comes ashore again, and I am armed. Until then, bid him go without harm."

Brian considered, and nodded. "Tell this lordling to arm himself well." And he strode from the hall between the silent guards.

When the Caesar and Theophile were alone, the secretary wiped the sweat covertly from his cheeks. But John Dukas was little concerned about the byzants that had found their way into his wallet. Instead, he reflected that it was necessary now to dispose of this sea-roving earl. After which he could confidently expect that the Viking crew would dispose of the troublesome Irene in their own fashion.

"Theophile," he said, "I do not wish another such conversation with your barbarian. You will go to Phocas and bid him place his spies on the jetty by that dragon ship. He shall observe the movements of the barbarians, and when this Brian, son of Sigurd, comes ashore again, Phocas's men shall set upon him in the market street. They can pick a quarrel with him, and knife him in the back. Then, Theophile, you might reward Phocas with some of your ill-gotten byzants. Do you understand?"

"Your Magnanimity," cried the secretary, "it shall be done."

"I hope so," smiled the Caesar. "This evening I go to the Asia shore to take command of the army encamped there. But I shall hear the gossip of the town. And if there is more bungling, Theophile, you shall be given red gloves to wear."

The secretary looked down at his hands, at the skin upon his hands. When the Caesar smiled, he was quite capable of ordering the skin stripped from the fingers of one who had displeased him.

As for the Caesar, he had many other things to think about that afternoon. The sun telegraph was winking a message to him from the dark hills of the Asia shore, across the blue waters of the Marmora. Officers from distant points waited to talk with him, apart from listeners. Once, indeed, a bearded man in a striped robe appeared like an ominous djinn, at his elbow. The bearded one, the Bokharian spy, prostrated himself before the Caesar and whispered tidings.

"May the star of good fortune never fail your Magnificence. I come at command of Phocas, who serves your-"

"What says he?"

"The barbarians of the ship thou knowest sent men to the market for grain and oil and dried fish. Phocas himself, waiting in a fishing skiff, listened to their talk. He heard the voice of the woman thou knowest in the cabin of the ship. Ai! He heard her voice many times, and she urged the master of the ship to go away from the city in his boat."

"And what said he?"

The oriental spy glanced up shrewdly to judge if his message pleased or not. "Phocas thinks he will not go. Ai-he spoke angrily with the woman, swearing that he had a duel to fight."

With a gesture the Caesar dismissed his spy. If he knew the mind of Sigurd's son, the Viking would never turn his prow away from a combat. But when late that afternoon-when the sun had gone down behind the Golden Horn and lanterns were appearing like sparks in the darkening alleys-he looked out over the waterfront, he noticed that the dragon ship was moving out from its berth. It was turning toward the sea.

At the same time a cortege was proceeding from the Sacred Palace toward the great basilica, the gaunt Emperor was walking in his cloth-ofgold to the place of prayer.

The Caesar liked to overlook the city at this hour of candle-lighting, when the round domes merged into the blue haze, and the sea wall faded against the dark water. It would not be long, he fancied, before he would walk, clad in gold, at the head of his court while the singers intoned hymns of praise. He was thinking then of the four Varangians who had disobeyed his spoken order. Perhaps his cousin the Emperor suspected him-so the Varangians had dared defy him, hoping that he might be struck down by that barbarian.

If so, John Dukas reasoned, he should lose no time in joining his army. By degrees he could move his cataphracts, his mailed cavalry, across the strait, into the city. The Caesar could act swiftly without seeming to hurry. By full starlight he was at his barge, sitting the saddle of his white charger, with a dozen nobles and officers armed at his side. Beneath the tossing flames of torches his Bulgarian archers, twoscore strong, manned the waist of the great barge. ~Dukas had chosen no Varangians to go with him this night.

The barge captain struck a chant and the slaves on their benches heaved at their oars. With a fanfare of trumpets and a waving of torches the barge moved out of the harbor toward the distant shore. The Caesar was aware that with the plumes swaying upon the goldplated helmets, and the purple cloaks of his nobles fluttering in the night breeze, it made a fine sight for the crowds on the shore.

A half-hour and he would be at the head of his army on the Asia side. Then the captain of the slaves cried a warning, and the oars hung motionless. John Dukas heard the thresh of other oars. A shape appeared on the bow.

A wooden dragon head, crudely carved, with its tongue sticking out, loomed above the rail of his barge. The two craft drifted together. Wood crunched against wood. The barge captain shouted furiously, but the deep voice of Brian, Sigurd's son, cut through his complaining.

"I see well that you have come armed for weapon-play, lordling."

It was all absurd, the Caesar thought. That clumsy dragon head that should have been well on its way into the Marmora under the starlight by now. Those twoscore wild figures leaping from the rail of the Viking's ship to the foredeck of his barge-so swiftly that the Bulgarian archers had no time to string and raise their weapons. Absurd, the way the unarmed slaves slid under the rowers' benches or dropped into the water to cling to the oars.

"Shield wall-shield wall!" cried a grotesque bearded man. Roaring their glee, the Vikings pressed into double ranks, shield overlapping shield, stretching from rail to rail of the barge. The shield wall, topped by iron helms, moved forward swiftly over the benches.

The Bulgarians took to their axes, and hewed at it. Steel clanged against iron, as the long swords flicked out among the axes. Several of the Bulgarian mercenaries leaped into the water, and more were trodden down by the Vikings. Blood flecked their arms and heads, but when a man went down the warrior behind him stepped forward to his place.

John Dukas looked to right and left. Far off shone the lights of Con stantinople; no vessels except fishing craft were afloat in the darkness. Over his head, hugging the long wooden neck of the dragon, he made out the slender figure of a girl.

"Stand fast!" John Dukas cried at his men. "Stand-for aid is coming."

Leaning down he snatched a spear from an officer. Rising in his stirrups he hurled it fair at Brian, in the center of the shield wall. The Viking swayed his head aside and the spear went by.

Brian had changed. His eyes were shining. He sang as his sword whirled. The muscles rippled along his bare arm. Here, in the weapon-play, he tasted his joy.

John Dukas flung himself from the saddle of the white horse-for the trembling charger was useless in a boat. In the boat he must fight, for in armor he could not swim through the water. With his nobles he rushed forward.

"Now," cried Brian, "there is little between us, Caesar."

Absurd that John Dukas should be fighting sword in hand, under the last of the guttering torches, under the dragon's head and the eyes of the girl he had put there to make an end of her.

But Brian thrust the boss of his shield into the face of a Byzantine captain; he drove the pommel of his sword into the jaw of another. "Make way," he said between his teeth, and came at Dukas.

The Caesar slashed wide at his head, and Brian's iron cap clanged off, leaving blood flowing down. The Viking's sword crashed full upon the Caesar's unlifted shield, cracking it and driving it back on his arm. And Dukas felt sick, at the power that numbed his arm and drove the links of his mail into his chest. Raising his sword again, he was only in time to parry a second terrible blow that beat down his blade and wrenched his right arm from wrist to shoulder.

He staggered, his crippled arms flapping at his side. A voice was screaming in his ears, and it was his own voice. His jaws snapped together and fell apart, while the Viking's sword was sweeping toward him a third time out of the air.

John Dukas's body lay on the boards of the deck, the knees moving slowly. Apart from it, still fast in the goldplated helmet with the Caesar's crest, lay his head. Above it the Vikings were stripping gear and jewels from the nobles who had thrown down their arms at his fall.

"Well, it cannot be said that he was a great man with his weapons."

Brian leaned on his long sword, staring down at the body, puzzled. It had been a brave encounter, he thought-that of the two boats on the water. But this Caesar had brought with him too many niddering fighters to the duel, and after all he had fallen as easily as a common man.