Lord of Slaughter

by M. D. Lachlan

  Words came to him, just the echo of a memory. I am a wolf. He’d spoken those words before, unimaginable years ago. Another word. Mother.

  He remembered his family, the hearth, the little house on the hill with its turf roof and low walls, lying next to his brothers and sisters in the night, breathing in the smell of their hair, listening to the push and pull of their breath. The spirits had called him and he had given up that life without regret but here it seemed precious again. No hearth, no home. Just this black water.

  A dry terror seized his throat, a terror not of death but of the ordeal that would precede it.

  No point delaying. He put a foot into the water. It was cold but he would get used to that. He had endured worse and knew he could survive a long time in there. The waters of this land were cold but nothing compared to the ones of his northern home.

  He propped the torch against a rock, swallowed as if gulping down his fear and offered a prayer to his spirits.

  ‘You that roar in the mountain winds

  You that sparkle in the waters

  Spirits of sunlight and moonlight

  Find your servant in this darkness.’

  The prayer gave scant reassurance. The realm he was moving in was not governed by the spirits of rock and stream. This was the realm of the dark god Odin, the magical, the mad.

  He threw off the loincloth the Greeks had put on him, wishing he still had the pelt that had been torn from him in the emperor’s tent. He would have been more a wolf in that, an animal that did not feel the creeping dread in that place.

  He walked forward into the pool, fighting down an urge to gasp as the water came up to his thighs. The torch stretched its shadows over his head as he went. The pillars seemed a city themselves, stretching out to the limit of the light.

  Each pillar had at its top a carving of a mythological beast, things of bursting eyes and ravening mouths. Reflected in the torchlight, they loomed below him like monsters from a dream.

  Elifr moved forward on instinct, not sure what to do. The pillars went on and on. Tear shapes were carved into some of them, ruder than the carvings at the tops. A strong sense of their meaning came to him. People had died here, lots of them, constructing this place. The tears were the only record of the slaves who had worked to build it.

  The ceiling dipped to meet the pool and he could go no further. Carved eyes, hundreds of them, watched him from the rock there. The water was colder. He walked the width of the wall. Yes, colder streams flowed in at two places. He felt beneath the water. There were inlets in the wall. Big enough to swim through? What to do?

  Again, one of those voices from the dark of his mind: Magic is a puzzle, not a recipe.

  He trembled with the cold. He did not have long. He needed to act.

  Elifr could see nothing beyond twenty paces back in to the cave, the limit of his torchlight. This place hated the light. And light was no use down there where he needed to go. Then what? Only faith. Only belief in the purpose.

  He put out his hands. Childish stories came into his head, of the trolls and monsters who were said to lurk in dark pools such as these. His mother had sung a rhyme to her children in the bleak winter nights.

  Born before, of spirits obscure,

  Where the mountain stream plunges into the dark

  The mere stands, there you will the marvel foul behold

  The heath stepper, fen dweller, war creature

  His talons ungentle, his teeth the heroes’ bane.

  At the time he’d been frightened, then later thought it a tale to warn children away from dark waters. Now it seemed to stir something inside him, a fear in his bones that sparked imaginings of bloody claws reaching out to grab him from the unseen depths of the pool. The fear comforted him. It was familiar. In his rituals on the mountainside the greatest terror had always led to the greatest insights, to an awakening of the senses and the mind of a wolf. Is there anything beyond this wall? He had to know what would be asked of him. A little sacrifice, a little bravery to prepare the way for the great sacrifice to come. This first sacrifice didn’t seem small, though.

  He had to do it, had to risk it. This was the place that had been revealed to him. The torch guttered and went out. Now the dark was absolute and his mind made up. He cast away the useless brand, gulped in three quick breaths of air and kicked down to the smaller of the two inlets, pushing himself into the blind black waters.

  The cold gripped him, his breath left him and he returned gasping to the surface. He tried again and again, but with the same result. He knew this was the way – he had learned that in his visions – but he could not go on, not with his human powers. To continue he would need to summon a wolf inside him, as he had summoned one when he freed himself from the guards. But for that he would need an enemy, a threat to trigger his fury. He would need to draw the guards after him. The wolfman sniffed the air, gaining his bearings in the darkness. Then he started back, up towards the Numera.

  15 An Ambush

  Azémar, Mauger and Snake in the Eye made their way down the steps of Hagia Sophia.

  ‘Here’s someone we can ask,’ said Snake in the Eye. He spoke in Norse, his accent thick, and Azémar felt at a disadvantage. He only knew the language through his parents. He wasn’t as fluent as the boy or as Mauger, who spoke it as natives.

  Snake in the Eye pointed out a monk in dark robes and full beard who hurried up the stairs. From somewhere a lament sounded: ‘Having foolishly abandoned thy paternal glory, I squandered on vices the wealth which thou gavest me. Wherefore, I cry unto thee with the voice of the prodigal: I have sinned before thee, O compassionate father. Receive me as one repentant, and make me as one of thy hired servants.’ The people were asking forgiveness for their sins, convinced the terrible sky was a punishment from God.

  ‘Fellow,’ Snake in the Eye called to the monk in Greek.

  The monk stopped and his eyes darted from man to man. He clearly wanted to be away.

  ‘Do not give my friend the answer he seeks,’ said Azémar in Greek. ‘No good will come of it for any of us.’

  Snake in the Eye ignored him. ‘Where might we find the scholars of this town?’

  ‘You are not the sort for scholarship,’ said the monk. ‘Now let me on my way.’

  ‘It would be a convenience to you to die so near to the house of your god,’ said Snake in the Eye, touching the handle of his sword. ‘I ask a simple question and seek no money or food or anything else it can pain you to part with. Be civil, and we will remain so.’

  The monk glanced about him. No one around, not even a beggar.

  ‘Try the Magnaura,’ he said, ‘for the good it will do you.’

  He moved around them and all but ran up the steps to the great church.

  ‘Do not reveal this to my companion,’ said Azémar, still in Greek. ‘I will pay you to keep this secret.’

  ‘I don’t seek pay,’ said Snake in the Eye, in Norse, ‘but adventure and sword work.’

  Azémar looked to the ground. Why did he have the luck to meet an earnest idiot like this?

  ‘Where do we have to go?’ said Mauger.

  ‘The Magnaura. I have no idea where that is, but it won’t take us a moment to find out. Look, here comes a man of the palace now.’

  Down the street came a man in a scribe’s white tunic.

  Mauger glanced at Azémar and smiled.

  ‘It seems our work here might be shorter than we thought, scholar,’ he said.

  The scribe directed them where they needed to go, and two hundred paces later they came to the door to the compound of the Magnaura.

  ‘Do we go in?’ said Azémar. He really couldn’t think what to do if Mauger saw Loys. Throw himself in front of the knight’s sword, he supposed. But he knew what Mauger was capable of. Azémar would only be putting off the inevitable.

  ‘We watch,’ said Mauger.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I need to know this place, its weaknesses and its strengths, before deciding on my
course of action. I intend to survive my encounter with your friend, and it seems unlikely I will do that if I act too rashly. The soldiers of this land are no fools and there are enough of them. When I strike it must be quickly and in secret.’

  ‘I would take a thousand men,’ said Snake in the Eye.

  Mauger laughed. ‘Perhaps, but we who have seen more wars cannot be so confident.’

  Azémar waited with the two men, not knowing what to do. The sun laboured under the heavy clouds, the light was weak and he was cold. They had been there a long time when he noticed men gathering around them. The weather had kept people indoors but now there was a crowd outside the Magnaura – twenty men at least behind them, in front of them the same number. This was very odd because the streets were otherwise almost deserted.

  ‘Hello, lads. A word, please.’

  A short bald man in pale blue robes spoke. He took Azémar by the arm. Another man tried to grab Mauger but the warrior threw him down, and was running almost as he struck the ground.

  Azémar tried to shake free, but a third man had his other arm. Men went streaming after Mauger, but the knight had a good start on them and ducked into an alleyway.

  ‘What is this?’ said Azémar.

  ‘We just need to talk.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Forty strong,’ said the man, ‘and you are one, so I will ask the questions if you don’t mind.’

  Snake in the Eye had not been approached. ‘Is he a spy?’ said Azémar.

  The man drove a solid punch into Azémar’s guts. The scholar retched, his knees wobbled and he had to sit down on the ground.

  ‘I am the emperor’s man,’ said Snake in the Eye, ‘and no spy. These men are not my equals so would not dare touch me.’

  One of the mob, a heavy man who wore a smith’s apron, pointed at Snake in the Eye. ‘You’re his favourite for now. But when that changes, you’ll get a visit from us, don’t you worry.’

  Snake in the Eye was silent, just stood looking up towards Hagia Sophia as if nothing was happening.

  ‘With us,’ said the bald man. The mob swept Azémar through the backstreets leading him on at the trot up the hill away from the cathedral.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Another meaty blow struck him in the belly, staggering him sideways as he ran.

  ‘Save your energy for answering questions, sorcerer,’ said the man who had hit him, ‘because you are going to need it.’

  16 The Lady Styliane

  Loys had been honoured to be given his own chamber with access to a bath and a slave to tend him. In the salon of the Lady Styliane, however, he felt as though he had been shortchanged.

  The room was immense and decorated like a vine grove – creepers in mosaics rising to the ceiling, great pendulous bunches rendered vivid in purple and red. Slaves were everywhere, bringing food on silver plates, decanters of wine, parchments and books to courtiers on couches and chairs. One slave carried a little brush with which he swept the seat of anyone who rose and bowed their way into the lady’s presence.

  The lady herself was striking. She was in her early twenties, quite small and dark, impeccably dressed in light yellow silk with a permanent marionette’s smile on her face. Beatrice had described her as beautiful, and she was certainly that with her clear complexion and vivid green eyes.

  Loys sat next to Beatrice on a couch, where they were kept waiting interminably while the lady received her guests, who seemed mainly to comprise rich merchants, ladies of the court and various bureaucrats – all in couples. He sat self-consciously still, not quite knowing how to hold himself but glad he had bathed and dressed in fine robes. Here it was safer to be seen as an official than as a distinct person, particularly a foreigner. The court seemed to understand officials. It understood foreigners too – once it had incorporated them, given them their shoes of blue, red or gold and marked them as its own.

  They had watched eight separate audiences when the doors opened and a new person was announced: ‘Logothetes Isais, master of the public post, and his wife the Lady Eudocia.’ Loys fought to control his surprise. It was the man who had accosted him in the corridor, the one who had offered him a way out of the city. Master of the public post? The postal service doubled as the emperor’s intelligence-gathering agency. So this was the head of the Office of Barbarians, the chief spy of the empire, standing so close he could touch him.

  Isais bowed deeply, though he couldn’t help a glance towards Loys. Loys wondered if Isais was here for his benefit or if he was here for Isais’. His feet shifted on the carpet. He wanted to get out of there.

  The lady spoke to Isais and his wife briefly and waved them away. Then she took a little water poured from a golden jug into a fine glass beaker as Isais backed out of the room. If Loys had had any illusions about the power of the woman he was about to meet, he had none now.

  They had waited so long that the call, when it came, took Loys by surprise. ‘The scholar Loys of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office and his wife the Lady Beatrice of Normandy.’ Loys noted a slight hesitancy over ‘Lady’, as if nowhere in the servant’s experience had that ever been linked to ‘scholar’ before. He got to his feet and bowed deeply, all flustered. Beatrice rose effortlessly behind him.

  ‘You bow in front of her,’ whispered Beatrice.

  Loys’ legs seemed made of stone and he approached the lady like a country clot before a king, which was not far from the truth. When he came level with her couch he bowed again, bending his knees and tipping forward at the waist. Beatrice, he noted, did not bow but merely inclined her head.

  ‘Welcome,’ said Styliane. ‘Please, lady, allow your husband to sit beside me. I have heard so very much about him that I’m fascinated to meet him.’

  Beatrice sat down, leaving space for Loys on the couch, but her husband still stood.

  ‘Come, don’t look as if I’ve asked you to sit on an ants’ nest. The rules of plebeian society do not apply to the elite. A man can sit next to a lady without being consumed by lust and a lady can sit next to a man without being a whore. Sit.’ She patted the couch next to her.

  Loys sat down by degrees, lowering himself slowly as if he expected a servant to run him through for his presumption at any moment.

  ‘There you are,’ said Styliane. ‘Still alive and no devils leaping out to punish you.’

  ‘No, lady.’

  She raised a finger, and a slave brought them glasses of wine on a silver plate. Beatrice took hers elegantly, but when Loys picked up his glass, his hand shook and he rested it on his lap to steady it.

  ‘Devils are your speciality, are they not?’

  ‘Lady?’

  ‘The chamberlain has set you to investigate them.’ Around the room people withdrew, the servants melting away, the remaining people on the couches following them.

  ‘I …’ The chamberlain had given him no indication his mission was secret but Loys had no idea how much he was allowed to reveal.

  ‘It concerns the emperor’s affliction, does it not?’

  ‘Those matters are above my station, lady.’

  She waved her hand. ‘I give you permission to speak freely. No one can hear us here.’ It was true: the room was now empty, though a servant stood directly behind him.

  ‘The servants—’

  ‘Are mutes and illiterate. And they are stupid. I am always served by stupid men; I find them more reliable than the intelligent variety.’

  There was a long silence and Loys noticed a slight fading of the lady’s smile.

  ‘Do not make me ask you again, scholar. Perhaps I should ask your pretty wife. She seems amenable to frank conversation. You have said much, haven’t you, lady, but I think your Norman court is more open than is wise or safe here.’

  Beatrice said nothing, just sipped at her wine and smiled. If she was intimidated, she didn’t show it. The threat to Beatrice brought a sharp pain to Loys’ stomach.

  He kept his voice pleasant enough. ‘If you have spoken to
my wife then you have no need of me.’

  ‘Your wife told me you were an intelligent man. You don’t speak like one.’

  ‘I am clever enough to stay out of politics.’ Loys was surprised at his sudden sharpness.

  The lady’s smile brightened again.

  ‘You stand up for yourself. I like that. I didn’t bring you here to quiz you, anyway. The problem with this city is there is sometimes too much information. I confess I don’t know what to make of half of it. Your friends are interesting fellows.’

  She spoke the last sentence almost as a throwaway but, however light her manner, this woman said nothing without calculation.

  ‘I have no friends here.’

  The lady took a sip of her water.

  ‘Really?’ She turned to her servant. ‘That fellow we took today by the Magnaura. He is not a friend of dear Loys here. So he is lying. He will be punished for that.’

  Styliane put her hand on the rear of the couch, almost scandalously close to Loys’ back. He supressed the impulse to writhe away. She went on, ‘I would be your friend. If you tell me a little of your endeavours then I may be able to help you. My husband took a great interest in matters of magic and divination, though it didn’t enable him to predict his death by poison. He was a student of the old religion of this city, that of Hecate – in order to combat the pagan menace, naturally. I have a little knowledge in that area myself. But then, what can my knowledge avail you? Your master the chamberlain knows all about these things. After all, his mother was a witch.’

  Loys actually felt his jaw drop.

  ‘Our mother was a soothsayer, a disciple of the dark lady. Did he not tell you? Don’t look so surprised. Constantinople has always been open to men of ability, no matter how low their birth – though very few from where he and I began. The chamberlain is a remarkable man to rise so high. He was not always so favoured. He’s done his time in the Numera, believe me.’