A Burning Sea

by Theodore Brun

  ‘I knew it,’ she scowled, her jaw hardening in disgust. ‘You’re still bound as tight as ever you were. Whatever strange magic just occurred, even if you’re free from the Witch King, you’re still not free from yourself. I just don’t understand why. Why?’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ve all lost ones we loved. We grieve, we say goodbye. Then we get on with living—’

  ‘Is it not living here? Is this not life?’

  ‘Not our life, no.’

  Erlan slumped into a chair. ‘I’m sorry, Lilla.’

  She sank down on a couch opposite him. ‘Who was she then?’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘This love. . . I need to know.’

  He looked up, could see the sympathy in her eyes, could see how she wanted so badly to understand. Didn’t she deserve to? After all that had happened?

  So slowly he began to tell her. He told her the whole story from the beginning – who Inga was to him, why he could not stay. And why he could never go back. She listened to every word gripped in silence, a silence that endured long after he had finished speaking. He stood. ‘There, you see. Huh. That look on your face. That’s why I never should have told you. Why I swore I would never tell anyone.’ He went to pick his sword and scabbard from the corner of the room. ‘I will live, Lilla. And I will come back to you. If you still want me.’

  His hand was on the door handle when at last she spoke. ‘Erlan.’ He stopped but didn’t turn. ‘Until you forgive yourself for what happened, you’ll always be a stranger. Even to yourself.’

  He paused for a long moment. And then, without another word, he went to fight the emperor’s war.

  After he had gone, Lilla sat in the gloom, thinking, listening to the toll of a hundred bells resounding around the city. It was too much, all of it. Too exhausting to untangle the web of his past. Her own past weighed heavy upon her. The debts of her dead. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she had to walk her path alone after all. But she knew it did not lie here.

  It was not long after Erlan had left when a sentinel called at her chambers with a message from the emperor, asking her to join him.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For your protection. He says he believes you.’

  ‘Believes me? What about?’

  ‘He said you would know, my lady.’

  It could only be Katāros. She was glad, except that his change of heart probably meant the chamberlain had already escaped. ‘And he says you should wear something warm.’

  ‘Warm? Where are you taking us?’

  ‘You will see.’

  A short time later, she and Gerutha were following the sentinel, wrapped in their woollen travel cloaks. The guard led them to the sea wall in the south-eastern corner of the city promontory. He led them up to the top of the wall, then inside a stone tower and up again to the upper platform. There, they found Emperor Leo, no longer dressed in purple, but in his general’s uniform.

  ‘A strange day,’ he said, after greeting her. The excitement was rising off him like a wolf’s scent. ‘One of great portent, I think. There is a struggle for the soul of this city, far beyond what can be seen with human eyes.’

  ‘You sound like one of your priests.’

  He chuckled softly. ‘Do you not have such mystics where you come from? Ones who see ahead?’

  ‘We do. Their methods are rather different, of course.’ She had often thought of herself as one gifted with the far sight. But here, in the dusty lands of the south, she had been proven deaf and blind.

  ‘No doubt. Tell me, is Erlan—’

  ‘He’s gone to do his duty,’ she said.

  ‘Good, good,’ he muttered. He sucked in a deep sigh and dismissed the guard with a wave of his hand. ‘You were right in that other matter, it seems. Katāros has vanished. I thought you safer here with me, and we have no time to find him just now. But we will, I promise you. And we will deal with the wretch as he deserves.’ He beckoned her forward. ‘But first we have more pressing matters. Come.’

  He moved aside so that she could see out between the battlements to the south-east. Gerutha lingered at a respectful distance behind them. ‘We saw the new fleet arrive,’ Lilla said. ‘Then it turned away. We didn’t know why.’

  ‘Perhaps they heard what awaits them in the straits.’ He smiled drily. ‘They sailed past that point there, you see, to Chalcedon. We counted four hundred ships.’

  ‘Four hundred? And all war-ships?’

  ‘Most. Transports and war-galleys, also cargo ships, no doubt laden with Egyptian grain. God willing, Maslama will never taste a grain of it,’ he added.

  ‘Will you deploy your fire-ships?’

  ‘Patience, Lady, patience. Things must develop first.’ He pointed west. ‘Maslama’s forces began their attack against the land walls some hours ago.’

  ‘Yet you are here. Aren’t you concerned?’

  ‘Our men on the walls can hold them for now. But I have a surprise coming for my old friend.’ He glanced back over the rooftops of the palace at the falling sun. ‘Soon.’

  ‘Basíleus!’ cried a nearby guard. ‘Sails to the south!’

  That way, the sun was on its slow descent, sending light bouncing over the glassy waves of the Marmara. Lilla had to shield her eyes from the dazzle and then, slowly, she watched the horizon fragment into smaller pieces. Out of the golden blur she saw ten sails, then twenty, then more, until dozens of ships filled the approach to the straits.

  ‘They’ll turn away as well.’ Leo’s chest was pressed tight against the stone in his excitement.

  She was about to ask him how he knew this when she heard her own name cried behind her. She turned to see Princess Anna mounting the last step onto the platform. Despite the girl’s robes, she ran to Lilla and threw her arms around her, engulfing her in a cloud of perfume. ‘My poor sister! I heard about the terrible trials you have suffered. You poor, poor thing.’ She sounded as if she might burst into tears herself, then suddenly she pulled away and her face was beaming. ‘And still you’re as beautiful as ever!’ As if that were the sum of the whole matter.

  Lilla smiled, hiding her irritation. ‘As are you, dear Anna. Is your husband well?’ Not that she gave a damn.

  The princess gave a sullen little pout. ‘How would I know? I never see him, he’s so busy.’

  ‘He’s an important man,’ said her father. ‘With important matters to attend to.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Anna rolled her eyes.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you to bring something warm, child?’

  ‘Oh, Father, you do fuss so. See, I can share Lilla’s cloak if it gets too cold. Can’t I, sister?’ Lilla found her exuberance hard to endure. But of course she agreed readily enough.

  ‘Where is your mother?’ asked Leo.

  ‘Oh, I meant to tell you – she’s feeling unwell. You know her, Father! Especially in her condition.’

  The empress was carrying a child, expected later that year – but the sickness of her early pregnancy seemed to weigh hard on her. Lilla remembered the feeling. It was only a distant memory now. And a bitter one.

  ‘I’m sorry she’ll miss the spectacle.’ Leo turned again towards the sun now slanting from the west. ‘D’you see now, daughter, the angle at which the sun lies?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘It means the time has come.’

  ‘For what, Father?’

  He laid his hand against his daughter’s cheek and smiled. ‘To unleash chaos.’ Then he turned and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Ignite the beacon fires!’

  The Bulgars were about to earn their gold.

  ‘I thought you could use a new belt,’ said Einar, tossing Erlan a long strip of leather.

  ‘Much obliged to you.’ He fastened the buckle, wincing as the leather squeezed the burns circling his waist. ‘Gerutha says I have you to thank for this banging headache, too.’

  ‘Well,’ drawled Einar, ‘what are friends for?’ He sniffed. ‘Anyhow, are you. . . all right?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Truth is
, I don’t know what to think in this den of madmen any more. I’ve seen things I never thought possible in this place, but I grant you – nothing so queer as what came out of you.’

  ‘You and me both.’

  ‘But you’re. . . changed, like.’

  ‘I think so.’

  The Fat-Belly pulled a face. ‘Well, if whatever magic that priest worked on you stops you spewing up purple any time someone gives you wine to drink, that’s got to be a good thing. Stank something bloody awful.’

  ‘Aye. Sorry about that.’

  The two Northmen hurried down the hill towards the Prosphorion Harbour. Below them, the narrow neck of water that formed the Golden Horn was so crowded with ships a man could have walked from the south bank to the north without getting his feet wet.

  Even so, only a few of the big beasts – the chelandions – were off their anchor. Most of the fleet manoeuvring close to the great chain that protected the mouth of the Horn were the smaller dromons, the attack ships, each one armed with a deadly fire-syphon mounted high in the bows.

  ‘Arbasdos should be marshalling the fleet from the Karabisianon,’ said Erlan. That was the naval headquarters that stood overlooking the harbour. ‘Don’t expect a warm welcome.’

  ‘You’re late, slave,’ barked Arbasdos when at length they climbed the stairs to the wooden balcony where the general and his retinue of spatharioi were gathered, among whom stood Davit, who gave them a grudging nod. ‘And your fat friend, too.’

  ‘Not heard that one before,’ Einar sighed in Norse.

  ‘Let’s be clear.’ Arbasdos prodded Erlan with the baton that marked his high office. ‘I indulge you only because the basíleus orders it. But understand this – I don’t need you. I don’t want you. And when this is over you can scuttle back to the palace where you cock-suckers in white belong.’

  ‘Friendly fella, ain’t he?’ muttered Einar.

  ‘Did I say you could speak, you sack of offal?’

  Einar hefted his axe menacingly but held his tongue.

  ‘What’s past is past,’ said Erlan. ‘I have no quarrel with you. We have a common enemy now.’

  ‘Hah. If only life were so simple. Debts are debts, even in war.’ Arbasdos suddenly laughed. ‘No matter. For my part, at least, I consider myself amply repaid.’ Erlan figured he meant the gold Lilla had paid for his freedom. He never had got out of her what price he had fetched. ‘Just be sure not to get in my way,’ he added. ‘I have work to do.’

  Dusk was growing thicker now. The flares at either end of the balcony burned brighter in the deepening dark. Arbasdos looked out over the harbour and spread his hands along the balustrade. ‘They say the Mother of God protects this city. That victory rests in her hands.’

  ‘Then let’s hope the old bitch is still awake,’ growled Einar.

  The general turned and glared at the Fat-Belly. And then, all of a sudden, his face cracked into a smile. ‘Amen,’ he said, and threw back his head and laughed. ‘Amen. . .’

  Lilla watched the last of the second fleet disappear around the point. A hazy blanket of darkness was settling over the straits and the distant hills of Asia.

  ‘Three hundred and sixty sails by my count,’ said Leo.

  ‘Where have they gone?’ asked Lilla.

  ‘There’s a bay beyond the headland. My guess is they’re there, unloading as fast as they can.’

  ‘Then what are you waiting for? Why don’t you release the fleet?’

  He smiled at her. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  Lilla felt suddenly awkward, the way he was looking at her.

  ‘Listen.’ Anna’s voice broke the moment. ‘Can you hear it?’ She turned back to the city. ‘They’re singing.’ Sure enough, a chorus of voices came floating down from the galleries of the Great Church on the hill behind them.

  ‘Sad that men are dying while something so beautiful is going on.’ It was Gerutha who had spoken, her voice wistful. The emperor turned and looked at her. ‘Forgive me,’ she added, her gaze dropping demurely. ‘It’s not my place to say so.’

  ‘Sometimes men must die to preserve what is beautiful,’ the emperor replied.

  ‘Majesty, look!’ One of the guards was pointing excitedly across the straits. ‘Around the point. See!’

  Lilla strained her eyes but could see nothing at first. Then, after a few moments, she caught a wink of gold in the blue-black gloom, then another, and another – lights shining constantly now and fanning outwards.

  ‘What is it?’ Anna whispered.

  Leo was gripping the stones, eyes wide with wonder. ‘That, my child, is the hand of God.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  ‘There’s the signal,’ said Arbasdos, his voice calm. The beacon fire on the promontory blazed fiercely against the hungering dark. ‘Make ready.’

  Shouts of command rippled down from the sterncastle to the oarsmen amidships. The trumpeters along the rail blasted their brass horns over Erlan’s head, making his ears ring.

  ‘Odin’s arse!’ said Einar, wiggling an irritable finger in his ear. ‘We’ll all be deaf as deadwood before the night’s out.’ The fanfare blared on through the ranks of the fleet behind them, each vessel waiting its turn to advance.

  ‘Release the chain,’ said the general. An archer touched his arrow-tip to the torch in Davit’s hand, then loosed his shaft in a flaming arc towards the promontory. In answer, there was a shriek of metal as the massive chain spilled over the harbour edge into the sea.

  ‘Sound the advance.’

  More trumpeting. Erlan felt the stir of the wooden hulk beneath him. The oarsmen reached forward, oar-tips covered in the ink-black water. He felt his heart beat faster. Ahead of them were three ranks of ‘fire-runners’ – the smaller dromons. Thirty-six in all. Their sails were ashore: there was no wind tonight. Anyway, once they closed with the enemy, all would be settled by oar.

  And by fire.

  Arbasdos’s command ship was the Belisarius, a dromon of middling size, powered by fifty oars. Not as nimble as the fire-runners, but like them it was armed with a syphon mounted under the elevated foredeck in the bows. The bigger galleys, the chelandions – with their lantern sails and double bank of oars – would remain in harbour. Tonight, everything would depend on the fire-runners.

  The vanguard of the fleet moved forward, oars dipping and feathering in time with the drums. The Belisarius squeezed on against its own inertia, slowly gaining momentum. ‘She ain’t no sea-wolf, that’s for sure,’ grunted Einar.

  ‘Maybe not. But from what I’ve seen they’d make firewood of any drakkar that crossed their bows.’ Erlan drew his sword in readiness.

  ‘I know you’re easily excited, Northman,’ said a sneering voice behind him. ‘But you can put that thing away.’ He gave an ugly snigger. ‘Save it for your royal whore.’

  ‘What did you call her?’

  Arbasdos snorted. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Hah! I mean, I’ve sold slaves before but I’ve never had so much fun doing it.’

  Erlan felt the bile rise in his gullet. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your barbarian queen. Didn’t she tell you? How she preferred to keep her gold and buy you like any whore. A royal whore, as I said,’ he snarled.

  ‘You lying, shit-eating son of a bitch!’ Erlan’s hand squeezed around Wrathling’s hilt. His arm was rising when Einar’s fist closed on his and clamped it to his side.

  ‘Am I?’ Arbasdos stepped close, squaring up to him. ‘Go ahead, fat man, let him strike. See how close he gets before he’s skewered five ways through his stinking guts. And one up the arse for good measure.’

  Einar shoved Erlan further back, while the other spatharioi closed in front of the general. ‘Just the way your queen liked it,’ he laughed. ‘Didn’t you swear an oath to the emperor, Northman? To obey his every command? And that means protecting me. . .’ His face was an ugly sneer. ‘Back to your post, slave.’

 
; ‘Watch your step, Strategos.’ Erlan pushed Einar away and slid Wrathling back into its sheath. ‘You don’t know what Leo’s orders were.’

  Arbasdos frowned uncertainly, but then turned his back on the Northmen with a scowl.

  ‘Leave it.’ Einar’s eyes shifted warily between the other guards arrayed around the general. ‘Now isn’t the time.’

  ‘Piss on him,’ Erlan spat, and thundered down the stairs to the main deck. Einar followed him, and soon after him, Davit.

  ‘A word of advice, Northman,’ said the spatharios in a low voice. ‘Keep a leash on that temper of yours. He’s a tricky bastard, I know, but we all need him just now.’

  Erlan glared ahead, his gaze drawn to the fire-cauldrons under their wooden shelter in the bows. His mind flashed to thoughts of Lilla and Arbasdos. Together. Is that a price she would pay for him? Is that the price she did pay? The heat in his blood was hot as that oil, but. . . was that what she had been keeping from him?

  He could see the main syphon and the piping that fed into the bronze figurehead mounted in the bows. A lion’s head, its mouth gaping wide in a brazen roar, hungry for the enemy’s blood. Lilla had laid down all she had, he thought. There was nothing she wouldn’t give, hadn’t already given, for him, or for her dream of winning back her kingdom. Why should he pay any less a price? What right had he to hold anything back from her when she had given all for him? Even if it was to a man like Arbasdos.

  Davit saw he was staring at the fire-syphon. ‘You seen them before?’

  ‘Only from a distance.’

  ‘Best place for it,’ he chuckled. ‘Any man gets caught in the way of that thing, his friends will be sweeping him up with a brush.’

  ‘How secure are those other things?’ asked Einar. ‘The little pots.’ There were several baskets of these stowed in the bows as well, each pot the size of a man’s fist and filled with the fire-makers’ deadly concoction.

  ‘Feeling nervous, Northman?’ grinned Davit.

  ‘Of you clumsy Greek bastards, aye.’

  ‘Relax,’ he said, with a friendly pat on the shoulder-plate of his scale armour. ‘No one handles fire better than those men.’