Lord of Slaughter

by M. D. Lachlan

  ‘He will find me,’ said Beatrice, ‘because I have seen him. He is here.’

  ‘Then identify him to your father and that is the end of it,’ said Loys.

  ‘It won’t do any good,’ said Beatrice. ‘I’m not even sure he is one person or a demon that inhabits many people, as he chooses. He watches me and I know he will not rest until he has me.’

  ‘Then ask to go to your cousins,’ said Loys.

  ‘No. I would be with you. I want you to take me away from this place.’

  ‘I have my vows, lady,’ he said. ‘What will I do if I break them?’

  ‘I will give you new ones,’ she said, and he understood she was asking him to marry her. He looked into her eyes and knew he bore a passion for her before which his monastic vows, his studies, his security, were pale and insubstantial things, mere candles to the light of the sun. It had led to where it had to lead – a little room somewhere away from the vengeful gaze of her father and away from the monastery.

  Now they were in that little room, in Constantinople, the city chosen because they both knew Greek, he as a serious student, she because there had been a fashion for learning among the ladies of the court, who had taken it up as a pastime while their husbands were away at the wars. He came to her and said, ‘One day this love will fade, I promise it, and we will live properly and free of unreasonable passion. Free of love. Until that day we can only pray. Let me kiss you.’

  She put up her mouth to him and he bent to take a long kiss.

  ‘Behind me,’ he said, ‘is dawn in a city of marvels. The mighty churches, the domes, the spires and the schools, the statues and the Hippodrome, ships and galleys from a hundred lands bobbing on the bright water, all I have longed to see for all my life. In front of me, you naked in the morning light. I cannot turn around and, it is my shame before God to say it, but neither do I want to.’

  She drew him to her and he put his hand to her breast.

  ‘You have to go,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but in the offices and schoolrooms, when I sit with grand philosophers and debate the nature of God’s earth, it is of you I shall be thinking.’

  ‘Think on your philosophies and your work,’ she said, ‘the sooner you might be with me in something resembling our former comfort.’

  He broke from her. Then he dressed.

  ‘Come to the window,’ he said when he was done, ‘and watch me go.’

  He held her again, her human warmth like a current pulling him into the comfort of the bed. He tore free of it and went to the door.

  ‘Bolt it behind me.’

  ‘Yes, Loys, I’m not stupid.’ She smiled at him and gave a little wave of goodbye.

  He blundered his way down the dark stairs, careful with his hand on the splintery wooden wall, and then stepped out into the light of the summer morning, the jabber of the streets. His put his hand up to shield his eyes and was jostled by a gaggle of high-hatted priests who squeezed past him to avoid a cart that rattled by, its horses at the trot. If unreasonable passions governed him, then how much more did they govern Constantinople? So different even to Rouen. Men moved about their everyday business here at the pace of a Norman responding to a fire.

  He went to the man selling peaches and bought one. Beatrice leaned out of the window. She had dressed and had her wimple on now, as demure as any wife emptying a piss pot into the street. He laughed to himself as the thought occurred to him. They’d received a visit from the neighbour the first time they’d done that. It was against the law in Constantinople. It still seemed odd to him to make the wives of the town parade along with pots of shit to throw into the sea when they could have kept their dignity and saved their efforts by just pitching them outside.

  ‘Here!’ he shouted and threw the peach to her.

  It flew up through the chilly dawn light, a little sun rising to noon in her hands as she caught it.

  A line from a psalm came into his head.

  ‘You send forth your spirit. They are created and you renew the face of the earth.’

  ‘An apple!’ she shouted. ‘Thank you, serpent!’

  He smiled and waved and then went on his way to the university.

  3 Profitable Murder

  The emperor picked up the sword. The wolfman went down onto his haunches while the boy lay limp on the ground. The sound of the rain and the singing of soldiers filled the tent. The emperor turned to his right. The back of his guard was just visible through the slit in the tent flap.

  Basileios walked to it and opened it. The man jerked around, his soaking face staring up in surprise at the emperor’s sudden appearance. He shook with cold. The emperor beheaded him.

  Then he turned back inside the tent.

  ‘It’s a fine slave who tells the Roman ruler what to do,’ he said to the crouching figure. ‘Look at you, in your mud and your dye. Why should I do anything you ask me?’

  ‘Kill me,’ said the wolfman, ‘or kill you.’

  The man’s Greek was appalling and Basileios hardly understood what he was trying to say. On the floor the boy coughed and hacked, sucking breath back into his lungs.

  ‘How did you get in here?’

  The wolfman’s face was uncomprehending.

  The emperor studied the wolfman in the glow of the weak coals. He was gaunt, almost starved in appearance, but wiry and strong-looking, smeared with mud on his belly, chest and knees from where he had crawled through the night. Matted black hair stuck wet to his face and a soaking wolfskin lay across his shoulders, its head sitting on top of his.

  ‘Kill me. Kill you.’

  A shout from outside. The Hetaereia had found the head of their companion. A man poked his head into the tent. He had the smooth skin and delicate features of a eunuch. His short sword was free in his hand.

  ‘Alarm!’

  ‘Stand down, soldier,’ said the emperor. ‘The moment for alarm is long past. Remain at the entrance to prevent people coming in: I don’t want the tent demolished by men rushing to make themselves my protector. On your present showing it would be better if I guarded you.’

  ‘You know this foreigner, sir?’

  ‘No, but I intend to, and the task will be made much harder if your men kill him.’

  ‘One of us is dead here already, sir. I—’

  ‘By my hand. If you are more vigilant you will not suffer the same fate, now do as I say!’

  The man disappeared outside. Shouting, footsteps nearly indistinguishable from the fall of the mighty rain. The wolfman stood and the emperor backed away.

  ‘Kill me. Kill you,’ he said again.

  Snake in the Eye sat up. He said several words, separate, staccato. Basileios heard Greek, Roman and some in a language he didn’t recognise. The boy was saying one word in different tongues – ‘brother’. He was appealing to the wolfman, trying to become his friend.

  The wolfman spoke slowly to the boy.

  Snake in the Eye translated. ‘He is a wildman of the Varangian people. He says you have to kill him. He is deadly bad luck to you. Use that sword. It is poisoned with the dreams of witches and can end your trouble.’

  ‘Is he Bollason’s man?’

  Bollason was chief of the Varangians. Snake in the Eye wanted to make himself important to the emperor for the moment so he thought not to involve Bollason. He just asked the wolfman if he could speak Greek any better. The man shook his head and waved his arms.

  ‘He is working alone, sir, and despises Bollason.’

  ‘Ask him when wildmen became so interested in the emperor’s health. Why does he value my life above his own? Ask him why.’

  The man spoke again.

  ‘A wolf is coming for you. You are a god but a wolf is coming to kill you.’

  The boy translated, his voice hoarse.

  ‘Well, it’s a tame wolf who bends down and asks you to chop off his head,’ said the emperor.

  ‘You are part of a great magic. A very great magic. Your part in the spell is to kill him. He m
ust die, and by your hand. Otherwise you are in mortal peril.’

  The emperor paled when he heard this translation and his lips pursed in anger, not fear.

  ‘I’ve had enough of sorceries and witch work,’ he said, ‘and I will take part in no spell, nor be a conjurer’s fool. Is this the price, Satan, of what happened today, the death of my enemy, a human sacrifice? Is this some trick to obtain my soul?’

  ‘He says he will kill you if you do not strike him down,’ said Snake in the Eye.

  Basileios sneered at the wolfman then threw the strange curved sword so it landed flat beside him.

  ‘Tell him to go on then,’ said the emperor. ‘He had the chance while I was lying asleep. Tell him to do it.’

  The boy repeated the words to the wolfman, who trembled, violently shaking his head. ‘Kill me! Kill me!’

  ‘Guardsmen!’ shouted the emperor.

  Eight men crashed inside the tent, crowding around the emperor, threatening to knock down the whole sodden structure.

  ‘Take the pagan. Don’t harm him. I need to get more learned men than me to speak to him and I want to have him in a fit state to answer their questions. Those scholars sit on their arses all day doing nothing; let them earn their keep for once and get to the bottom of this. Tie him, watch him and, when we get back to that stinking shit hole of a capital city of ours, chuck him in the Numera and await further instructions. Take him, go on!’

  The men advanced on the wolfman, who offered no resistance as they dragged him outside.

  The emperor dismissed his guards and again only Snake in the Eye remained.

  ‘The guards are incompetent,’ said the Emperor, ‘or rather treacherous. They must have let him in. I cannot trust my own people any more, nor any Greek because all of them are eligible to take my throne if they can get the army’s backing. Yet, if I move against the Hetaereians it may spark them into rebellion.’

  Snake in the Eye said nothing. He looked out of the tent. A weak dawn – the damp light of a hidden sun. The rain had stopped. No more singing but the cries of the untended wounded, the squabbling of the soldiers as they looted.

  ‘What would you do?’ the emperor asked the boy.

  ‘You got your answer on the battlefield today – kill the leaders and their men will not oppose you. Cut off the head and the snake cannot bite.’

  The emperor stretched out his neck.

  ‘No need to send for the chamberlain when you’re here, eh?’

  ‘Shall I send for him?’

  ‘He’s going ahead of the army and very likely moving already. He doesn’t like life in the field, that one. He mourns a week without a bath in the way most men do the loss of a limb.’

  ‘Then how shall I serve you?’

  ‘Send for your Bollason. Alert him that the Hetaereian generals will be brought here. When they enter the tent, his men should surround it and he should come to me. Your counsel is apt.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Then after that you can take a message to the chamberlain. Take my banner and fly it from one of your ships. You’ll bring news of the victory. It’s important you Varangians do so; you must take the credit.’

  Heat came to Snake in the Eye’s cheeks. Here was his chance. ‘Will you need a man to kill for you? I could do that work if you require it.’

  ‘You truly do have a snake in your eye, don’t you, boy? You are a venomous creature.’

  ‘So my mother told me. Men like me are useful to kings, are we not?’

  The emperor nodded. ‘Very useful. Though do not fool yourself into thinking you are in short supply. All men can do all things if required. The only difference is the level of enthusiasm they bring to each task. Do not take pride when I confide in you. I only speak to you as I would speak to a monkey, no more. You are too young to scheme and plot, too naive and foreign and stupid. You imagine yourself subtle, Snake in the Eye – I read it in your face – but you are not. That is why your company is pleasant to me. I tire of subtle men.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Get Bollason, and when you’ve brought him here you can sail on after the chamberlain. There are too many odd doings for my liking and I want them stopped. Tell him I’ll brook no resistance this time: these things are to be investigated and investigated properly, no matter the stir it causes. I want him to look into them in person. Fireballs, unexplained deaths, wolfmen babbling of prophecies – I want to know what it’s about and I want an end to it, you tell him that. Speak no word of this man coming to the tent tonight to anyone but the chamberlain. I don’t want people thinking they can walk in here as easy as into a church on a Sunday. Here.’ The emperor took something from a bag at his side. He passed it to Snake in the Eye. It was a small medal marked with the emperor’s head and some writing. It meant nothing to the boy. He could speak many languages but read none.

  ‘This will give you safe passage if you are questioned more closely. The chamberlain, as quick as you can.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Snake in the Eye left the tent. The guard outside the flap gave him a simmering stare. Snake in the Eye ignored it and ran to bring the Viking chief to a profitable murder.

  4 A Reluctant Assassin

  From the moment the two monks arrived at the lighthouse sea gate it was a race between the mildly dishonest, the very fraudulent and the plain violent to secure their trust. Both men were clearly foreigners by the leggings they wore; no Greek bothered with such things beneath his robe.

  ‘Lodgings, sirs, lodgings. You are monks, yes, monks of the north. I can help you here. What are you, my friends, what is your tongue?’

  The man was short and thin and a tiger’s smile lit up his face. He spoke Latin, which was a rare language in those parts, known only to scholars and those who wished to part them from their money.

  The younger of the two monks spoke: ‘We are from Neustria, friend.’

  ‘I have met many men from there,’ said the man, instantly sliding into French. ‘We have many of your mercenaries here. They are like brothers to me. Please, come with me. I have very good lodgings at a very good price. I will be your guide to Constantinople, your friend in this new Rome.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘See the room and then see what you think. You have money to pay?’

  ‘We have money.’

  ‘Come on then.

  The young monk glanced at the older one, who lowered his eyes in assent. They followed the little man.

  The monks were of different orders, it appeared. They both wore black robes but the younger one had his head tonsured with the familiar circular baldness of the western Church, his hair reduced to a band about his temples. The other, however, had his white hair cut short at the back but left longer on top. A tattoo of a dragon’s head leered from the back of his neck. The con men and thieves of the dockside thought nothing of this – they were used to seeing all sorts on their quay and used to taking their money.

  The monks walked, shaking off their sea legs as they passed into the hubbub of the streets, quickly moving out of the broad plaza of the port and towards the tumble of back alleys. The one with the white hair shouldered a rolled blanket, while the younger man carried a bag on his back. At the opening of a narrow alley the monks hesitated.

  Their guide reassured them: ‘Don’t worry, friends, this is Constantinople. It is the world’s city and it can frighten the mightiest man, but come, let me guide you. You have a friend here in me. What are your names?’

  ‘I am Azémar,’ said the young monk, ‘and this is Mauger.’

  ‘Welcome, then, Azémar and Mauger! Let me take your bags.’

  ‘You leave our bags,’ said Mauger. His accent was thick, not like the younger monk’s.

  ‘Very wise, very wise. It’s good to hold on to your valuable things. But you have nothing to fear from me. Come on.’

  The two monks exchanged a glance. Mauger put his hand on Azémar’s arm. ‘We have to sleep somewhere.’

  They followed the man
into the lighthouse quarter, through the root-mass of backstreets that insinuated its way down the hill.

  ‘The houses are so strange,’ said Azémar. ‘One on top of another. Why do they do that?’

  ‘They build them up into the air to save space,’ said Mauger. ‘Not all is as it is at home. You may one day think these tall houses as common as any in Francia.’

  Azémar crossed himself.

  ‘Down here.’ The alley would have been dark even on a bright day. It was scarcely wide enough for two people to pass each other.

  They went in, the big scholar first, the Greek behind him, the young monk bringing up the rear.

  ‘I fear I shall never find my way out from here,’ said Azémar.

  ‘That won’t be a problem.’ The Greek grabbed a knife from his belt and plunged it into the older monk’s back. Screams from the dark and men leaped at them. One bore a club, another just a plank of wood, a third a rough spear.

  The knife went through Mauger’s robe with a crack. The Greek stepped back, his eyes wide as he looked down at his shattered blade.

  Mauger span and punched the robber hard in the face, a pulverising blow that collapsed him limp as a coshed eel to the cobbles. Azémar stepped back against the wall, quickly crossing himself. Mauger’s thoughts were not on piety. He strode towards their attackers, coming between them and his companion.

  The club swung at the monk’s head but too slow. Mauger stepped into the arc of the swing, enveloped the arm that held the weapon, seized the Greek’s throat and drove his head into the wall.

  The man slumped lifeless. Mauger didn’t let him go; he charged at the men behind, using the robber as a shield to block a swinging blow from the plank of wood. The monk threw the dead man into the remaining two robbers and followed him in, smashing another hideous punch into the face of the first, dropping him to the stones. The final man let his spear fall and fled, but Mauger took a small axe from his belt, hidden beneath his robes, and hurled it through the gloom of the narrow street. It caught the robber on the back of the head and sent him flailing to the floor. Then Mauger was on him, wrapping his arms around the man’s head, pulling and twisting to break his neck.