A Burning Sea

by Theodore Brun

  ‘Very well,’ said the general, leaning back in his chair. ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘Ten lashes with the scourge is more than most men can bear. But I suspect he is equal to it. It will inject the right degree of fear into the other slaves. And the Northman will not forget the lesson.’

  Arbasdos’s temper had cooled a little which was all to the good. He peered at Silanos for a few moments over steepled fingers. ‘So be it. Davit – you can administer the strokes. I know you’re itching to.’

  The Armenian gave a rueful snigger. ‘Thank you, Strategos.’ Silanos was mighty glad that he wouldn’t be under this man’s lash. Although he could easily have been. Arbasdos’s rage had been directed mainly at him when he learned that Erlan had been released from the ‘hole’. That was until Marcellos’s incompetence had been established. That had been a lucky turn and Silanos’s luck was holding. For now.

  ‘One other thing, my lord.’ He was aware that he was on borrowed time. ‘The Northman was armed with this.’ He produced the bone-handled dagger from his robe and handed it over to the general. ‘I’ve never seen it before. Marcellos claimed he knew nothing of it so. . . well, there we are.’

  Arbasdos glared down at the blade in his hand and for a long moment his brow furrowed. ‘Very good,’ he murmured at length. ‘At noon then. See that the slaves are assembled.’

  Erlan was dragged blinking into the sunlight – with one eye, anyway. The other was sealed shut with the swelling.

  His escape had come to a pitifully premature end. And he was still perplexed at where Aska had sprung from. His best guess was that the dog had somehow got loose from his new owner and had been living stray in the city. But he couldn’t explain how his hound had been there at just that moment. At the time, Erlan had thought it a fair omen, some clever stitching of the Norns to change his fate. But now Erlan wondered whether Aska had been a mere trick of the mind, a strange phantom conjured by the substance Lucia had shoved down his throat. Because the stupid animal had led him straight into trouble. Erlan had followed his slinking shadow through a maze of dingy alleys only to spill into the grey light of morning on the embankment overlooking the Horn – and straight into a patrol of nightwatchmen. By then, there was such a hue and cry ringing through the district that they recognized him as a fugitive at once. He stood no chance, one lame man with a dagger against six soldiers with spears and clubs. Aska had vanished – leaving his master to be bludgeoned to the ground. So here he was. . .

  The fountain was chuckling away, oblivious to whatever grim punishment was about to ruffle the courtyard’s careful serenity. A crowd of household servants was assembled. The hum of their voices continued as he was stripped to the waist and bound to a wooden frame at the foot of the marble staircase that led to the floor above.

  Erlan could only wait and wonder. In the north, he would certainly die. A man’s pride could never suffer the insult Erlan had dealt Arbasdos so publicly. But the south was different. People had strange motives he didn’t understand. But whatever fate awaited him, it was going to be unpleasant.

  All eyes rose to the gallery as General Arbasdos appeared from his private chambers, flanked by his spatharios, and descended the grand staircase. He stopped a few steps from the bottom, the spatharios beside him.

  ‘This man has wasted enough of our time already. So listen all of you, and listen well.’ The general’s gaze moved menacingly among his slaves. But Erlan’s attention was gripped by something else. The hideous object trailing from the spatharios’s hand. ‘I make it my business to be generous to you all. You live in conditions many a free man would envy. In return, I expect loyalty. I expect submission. If I permit a man a cup of my wine, I don’t expect him to spit it back in my face.’ His finger rose to point at Erlan. ‘This man has mocked my kindness. So heed his lesson well.’ Kindness, thought Erlan grimly. He must have missed that part. ‘Davit.’ The spatharios trotted down the last two steps, the whip dragging behind him, scraping across the flagstones. He took his place behind Erlan. Glancing under his armpit, Erlan saw long tendrils of leather and threaded amongst them pieces of jagged metal and bone.

  You will bear much pain, but you will never break. The words of the vala, spoken a lifetime ago. To another man. To Hakan. . . But Hakan was dead. So Erlan would have to bear it in his place.

  The shock of it was like nothing he’d ever known. A splice of time, a swipe of the leather, a dozen metal hooks sinking into his flesh and ripping it away.

  He could only gasp and gasp away the pain, his back cloaked with sudden fire. But he did not scream. He would not scream. Would not give these bastards the satisfaction. His eyes rolled madly around him and happened to alight on a column on the shaded side of the gallery above. He saw behind it, pressed against the marble, a small figure. Saw red lips curled in a curious smile, half-sneering, half-sad.

  ‘Again,’ said Arbasdos.

  Another phantom, Erlan thought, and shut his eyes to soak up the pain.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lilla looked up.

  Light splintered in from a hundred different apertures in the ceiling, filling the air, lifting her vision higher. Far above her, she saw domes and half-domes, tiers upon tiers of pillars climbing up and up in a race to reach the sky. Green and purple stone, white and black, and everywhere covering the walls, images. Images all around her, sparkling with golden iridescence and just out of reach a floating sea of candles suspended by chains from the far-off ceiling.

  ‘It’s like being inside the sun,’ whispered Gerutha.

  ‘What did Demetrios call this place?’ Lilla murmured.

  ‘The Holy Wisdom. It must be some kind of temple to their gods.’

  ‘Their god,’ corrected Lilla. ‘They worship only one.’ She had understood that much at least from the Greek.

  The air was heady with some scent, so dense it felt like breathing liquid. Above them a lattice of sunbeams criss-crossed at the base of the great dome, dancing on particles of dust. As she looked she was struck with a strange, preternatural feeling – a sense that the gap between gods and men was narrow here, as if Bifrost, the rainbow bridge to Asgard, were somehow redundant. One had only to reach out and touch. . .

  There were other folk in the great temple. Some standing, some kneeling. She heard singing, too, floating down from the vaulted galleries above. Sweet voices that filled the scented abyss, climbing and falling, weaving between them harmonies as intricate as the tapestries that hung in her father’s hall.

  She had never heard anything so beautiful in her life.

  The music ended, and behind that exalted emotion, she felt a sudden urgent impulse to leave, to run away. ‘Can we go?’ she said to Gerutha.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just. . . I must.’

  Not waiting for an answer, she turned and fled outside, through the enormous doorway and the cavernous atrium into the courtyard beyond. She felt dizzy.

  Gerutha caught her up. ‘Are you all right, Lilla?’

  ‘I need water.’

  Gerutha took her hand. ‘Look, there.’

  They sat together on the stone lip of a fountain in the centre of the courtyard and Lilla scooped up a handful of water. ‘So clean,’ she said, gazing into her palm. ‘But where’s the stream?’ She poured it down her throat. It tasted fresh as mountain meltwater. ‘Don’t you feel terribly stupid, Grusha?’

  ‘Stupid?’ Her servant chuckled. ‘No. Small? Definitely.’

  ‘I used to think myself half-wise.’ Lilla shook her head. ‘Gods, if only. Can you imagine our folk building such a thing?’ The great hall stood as backdrop to her servant, a monumental witness to the backwardness of her people. ‘I keep thinking – what is their secret? What do they have that we do not?’

  ‘Sunshine,’ smiled Gerutha.

  Lilla laughed. ‘Aye – that’s one blessing I envy.’

  Gerutha scooped up a handful of water and cooled her face and neck. ‘Do you think Einar is all right?�
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  The three had agreed to split up. As he put it: they would go high, he would go low. To every tavern and brothel and gaming house in the city if he had to, starting with the military district which they learned was called the Strategion. ‘That’s where a warrior would go,’ he had said.

  ‘You mean that’s where you would go,’ Gerutha had replied.

  ‘I guess we all find our level.’ He’d winked.

  ‘He’ll cope,’ said Lilla in answer to Gerutha’s question. ‘He’s probably happy to be on his own for a while. I got the feeling he was rather sick of the sight of me.’

  ‘Never.’

  Lilla chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t blame him. Gods, I’ve dragged the poor man halfway across the world. I’d say he has a right to gripe now and then. You too.’

  ‘I’ve nowhere else to be,’ said Gerutha. ‘Nowhere else I’d rather be.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re with me,’ Lilla smiled.

  ‘Hm! So – are you ready?’

  ‘Ready.’ Lilla stood and smoothed down the crumples of her dress. ‘How do I look?’

  Gerutha shrugged. ‘Like a queen.’

  ‘Liar.’ But she would have to do.

  It was only a short walk from the Holy Wisdom to the towering gate of bronze and marble that dominated the entrance to the Great Palace. They left behind the shaded gardens and crossed the blinding white expanse of the Augustaion – the ceremonial square that seemed to form the beating heart of the city, with its high columns and splendid, lifelike statues of kings and queens of the past.

  The square was thronging with people and loud with the cries of pedlars selling food or cheap trinkets off the back of handcarts. With every step, Lilla felt her confidence wilt like a flower under the heat of the sun. She tried to loosen the knot of nerves in her throat by running through the precious few phrases of Greek she had to deploy.

  She wondered how many levels of office she would have to break through before she came within even an arrow’s flight of the emperor. Yet the old defiance had not left her. . .

  ‘Vasílissa,’ she said for the twentieth time. ‘Eímai Vasílissa.’ She even resorted to pointing to herself, as if he were some sort of village halfwit. The guard peered out from the eye-holes of his red-plumed helmet, his expression a mixture of incomprehension and growing irritation. Clearly he was losing his patience. So was she.

  The absurdity of standing at the emperor’s threshold, trying to wrangle their way past some lowly gatekeeper, was crushingly humiliating.

  ‘He’s not going to change his mind,’ said Gerutha, tugging at her arm. ‘We’ll have to find another way.’

  ‘No,’ insisted Lilla. ‘I’m not giving up.’ This time her efforts became so heated, her Greek so garbled, that the guard laughed in her face. She made to shove past him but his spear quickly dropped to bar her, and his companion, watching from the other side of the gateway, stepped forward to intervene. The first guard waved him away.

  Lilla could have stamped in frustration except that would only make her seem more ridiculous. How in the Nine Worlds was she to form an alliance with this king if she couldn’t even get in the door?

  Just then something behind her distracted the guard’s attention. His amusement evaporated in a moment.

  ‘Parámera!’ he snarled, shoving them to one side with the butt of his spear, before standing rigidly to attention.

  Lilla glanced back and saw a strange conveyance approaching the cool shade of the archway. It was a sort of box mounted on two long poles carried by four short and burly men – slaves, she assumed, since it looked hot work. The box was ornately decorated, its exterior finished in yellow silk with windows covered by white veils. A kind of carriage for the highborn of the city, she guessed, who were either too lazy to walk or too lofty to mingle with the common herd.

  She stepped back and pulled Gerutha with her. ‘We’ll come back later,’ she said, reverting to her native Norse. ‘The guards will change at some point. The next man may be more biddable. Come.’

  But as they turned away, a command wafted out through the veil. The voice was neither high nor low, soft, almost languorous. But the four litter-bearers came to a smart halt at once and the guard approached. Something about the timing of it made Lilla hesitate. There was some exchange in Greek, and then the guard looked round and, seeing her still there, beckoned to her impatiently. ‘Grígora!’

  She came over to the litter. As she did a face appeared on the other side of the veil. It belonged a woman and, if the shifting folds told no lie, one of startling beauty. Although her features were curiously still, like a mask.

  ‘It’s been a long time since I heard that tongue,’ the painted lips murmured. Lilla was surprised to find the voice was not that of a woman, nor quite that of a man. But most of all that the words were Norse.

  ‘My lady, forgive me,’ she stammered. ‘To hear our own tongue—’

  ‘My lord,’ the woman replied.

  Lilla shook her head, confused. ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘My name is Lord Katāros.’

  Lilla cursed inwardly. This chance sent by the gods and her first words were an insult. ‘How stupid of me.’

  ‘No matter. You must be as surprised as I. Few in the city speak the Norsk language.’

  ‘You are the first we have encountered, Lord Katāros.’

  ‘I am not surprised. We are a long way from home hearths,’ he said. It was a Norse idiom and would only be known to a native speaker or someone who knew the northern lands well.

  ‘How came you to know our language?’

  ‘It was my mother’s tongue.’

  ‘Truly?’ It seemed hard to believe. ‘Yet how came you to be here?’

  The painted mouth flickered, more grimace than smile. ‘It is a long tale, and a tedious one. I would not wish to bore you with it. But I might return the same question. Perhaps a tale equally improbable?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lilla replied. ‘Or else mere fate.’

  ‘Ah, fate.’ The face nodded. ‘The spinner of all our tales. Another question then. What are you doing here before these gates?’

  ‘It must seem as improbable, but we seek an audience with the emperor. I carry a proposal.’

  ‘That’s bold of you,’ Katāros said. ‘And what makes you think the emperor would see you? Aside from your more obvious qualities.’

  Lilla ignored the limp compliment. ‘My name is Lilla Sviggarsdottír,’ she said, standing a little taller. ‘I am Queen of the Twin Kingdoms – of Danmark and Sveäland.’

  Katāros’s marble forehead creased a fraction. ‘A queen, no less. Yet your retinue is a little underwhelming,’ he said, with a disparaging glance at Gerutha.

  ‘It serves me well enough.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Katāros considered her a little longer. ‘You know I heard of a king named Sviggar in my boyhood.’

  ‘Truly?’ blurted Lilla, unable to conceal her delight at this unexpected piece of luck. ‘Why, he was my father.’

  ‘Indeed. . . The Bastard King, they called him. So I recall.’

  Her delight burst. ‘There never was a nobler king in all the north,’ she returned stiffly. ‘He did much for his people. I would do even more.’

  ‘And you’ve come all this way to prove it.’ The painted mouth pursed. ‘Well, either you’re mad,’ he sighed, ‘or else you had better follow me.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The tavern reeked like the breath from a diseased lung. A gloomy room, half-sunk into the ground, stinking of sour wine and stale sweat. Inside, sawdust was spread about the floor and behind a tiled counter stood the proprietor, glowering at his next customer.

  Yet for all its dinginess, the drinkers made it a merry place. Einar rubbed his hands and went inside. His tongue was itching for a drink and by Odin’s beard he’d earned it. He’d spent the last day and a night peering into every hole festering on the underbelly of this town. Cities were, by and large, filthy places, he had concluded. Sure, there were plenty of impressi
ve things, halls worthy of plunder, enough silver and gold to keep a dwarf happy till Ragnarök, but that wasn’t all of it. Not by a long yard.

  He’d found his way down to the naval harbours on the south side of the Horn, wending along narrow streets clogged with drunks and whores. He felt quite at home, truth be told – but he struggled to imagine Erlan lingering in those spots. In the poorer streets, the shit ran in open gutters and the air was thick with a sickly miasma of these and the clouds of cheap perfume wafting from the brothels.

  Eventually he had struck upon the Strategion which – as he’d understood from his halting enquiries – was where he would find any warrior worth his salt. Or soldier, as the Byzantines called them. Sure enough, he noticed more of them. Men, he guessed, serving on the dozens of war-ships at anchor on the Golden Horn.

  As dusk fell, the taverns and slop-houses began to fill up. That first night he had trawled a few drinking shops. He must have started half a hundred conversations. It was thirsty work, that much talk, especially in a language not his own. But by night’s end, all for nothing. Norsk and Danes and Sveärs were rare beasts in this city, that was if anyone had heard of them at all.

  Eventually the taverns closed and the brothels grew more lively. Maybe it was the drink. . . no, it was the drink, that got him to thinking about the last time he’d enjoyed a woman’s touch. The best he could remember, his wife was half a year cold in the ground. And the boy. Gods, was it that long? He had buried them both himself. Still could hear her screams as she tried to push out the little mite stuck inside her. He shook away the memory before his thoughts became too maudlin and distracted himself with the lithe, dusky-skinned creature flashing him a beckoning eye. Well, my lad, he reasoned, it’s the queen’s coin and she wouldn’t want you to sleep on the street, would she. . .?

  The next day his search had continued and proved as fruitless as the night before. Entering the tavern, Einar wished he could believe his luck was about to change. He sighed. Hel, at least it was time for another drink.