by Henry Treece
The Empress Zoe stood to her full height and said, ‘Because that is what you are now, viking. All the Varangers met in the night and elected you as their captain. They threatened me that if you were not set free and made captain, then they would burn the imperial palace and all in it.’
Harald laughed and said, ‘Ah, they are great jesters, these north folk. You should not take them seriously. They will say anything for a joke, woman.’
Zoe frowned and answered, ‘It is a stark jest when they bring the torches into the state rooms, viking. It is rather more than a jest when they tip over five marble fountains and pick the ruby eyes out of the carved lions with their dagger-points.’ Harald nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘they carry it a bit too far at times, I know. But I must say, I thought of taking those rubies myself.’
‘Too far,’ she echoed. ‘If I did not wish to marry you, I should have had them all hanged for mutiny, and you blinded for inciting it.’
Now it was Harald’s turn to frown. He said, ‘I do not hear very well first thing in the morning. It is something to do with a blow I took on the head outside Kiev, collecting taxes.’
Zoe came forward again and said stiffly, ‘Then I will help your deafness, Harald, and I will repeat - Byzantium has lost its emperor. Byzantium, which is the centre of the whole world and of Christendom, urgently needs a strong man to guard it. Who better than Harald Sigurdson, a great captain and a man of royal blood? I ask again, will you marry me and become the first man in all the world?’
Now Harald suddenly sat on the mosaic floor and began to laugh so loudly that Wulf and Haldor ran in with their swords out, thinking he was in pain. He saw them and said, pointing at the empress, ‘Do you know what she has just asked me?’
But before he could tell them he had gone off into a fit of laughter again.
Wulf said, ‘He is suffering from his night in the bullock-pen. It was enough to turn any man’s head. Come on, up you get, brother, and we’ll put some good food into you.’
Haldor turned to ask permission of the empress to carry the captain through the private passageway to the barracks, but she had already run out, ashamed at Harald’s laughter.
The next day just at dawn forty heralds went through the city announcing to all the people that their Serene Majesty Zoe had consented to marry Michael Catalactus of Paphlagonia and to elevate him to the state of emperor.
Two days after that the same heralds went out again and this time proclaimed that it was the wish of the new emperor that his armies under the joint command of Georgios Maniakes and Harald Sigurdson should sail down through the Aegean Islands to show all the world the new might that had come to Byzantium.
When Harald heard this news he was on his way to draw pay for all his men from the Grand Domestic in the Paymaster’s office of the palace. He halted and smiled at the herald who told him, then, turning suddenly, caught sight of a little dark-robed figure he knew, peering at him with wide eyes from behind a curtain. Quickly he bent forward and switched the curtain away and there stood the Lady Maria Anastasia Argyra.
‘Well, well, sweetheart!’ he shouted in high glee. ‘So you have heard the good news? We are off to smell the sea again and maybe to fight a few good battles instead of kicking our heels in this smelly old city.’
The Lady Maria began to weep then and to mumble that battles were terrible and most un-Christian. Harald bent before her and dried her eyes on the bright scarlet sleeve of his new captain’s tunic. Then he said suddenly, ‘Hey, it was wrong for a rough Outlander to touch a princess, remember? But for an equal of the great General Maniakes, what? For the one and only Captain of Varangers, what?’
She smiled up at him now, so he swung her on to his shoulders and galloped off down the dim corridors, neighing like a war horse, with the princess laughing louder than she had ever done in her life before.
When word of this was taken to Theodora in her grey cell, she drew her white lips together and said, ‘So, it is as I thought. The viking has set himself out to make the child a bigger fool than she already was. Well, there is nothing we can do about it at the moment; but as soon as the ships sail out there shall be a reckoning. I will make that silly little girl sorry that she ever lowered herself to talk to a Norseman.’
All the ladies-in-waiting bowed at this and the Chamberlains with their black wands shook their heads as though Harald had indeed brought devil’s disaster and the wrath of God upon their eternal city.
8. Council Chamber
The new emperor Michael Catalactus was in most ways different from Romanus. His family had come from the southern shores of the Black Sea and he himself looked more like a Syrian of the deserts than a Greek. His skin was dark and his body wiry but strong. Although he was still in his prime the hair at his temples and above his ears had turned to white. The deep lines that reached from his nostrils down either side of his thin mouth gave him a sombre, even cruel look. He spoke Greek with a strong Armenian accent which caused certain of the palace Council to shake their heads as though a barbarian had been allowed into their midst. One of the first things he did was to have the high crown of Basileus, last worn by Romanus, melted down and remoulded into another shape to fit his own head. The new design was drawn by a travelling artist from Tiflis and conveyed the shape of an eagle crouching with wings held down, over the carcass of a lion. Neither the artist nor the emperor could say what this design meant; but with the wings on either side of his fine head and the lion’s tail jutting as stiffly behind him as the predatory beak jutted before, he looked a splendid sight as he strode, two days after Good Friday, to his wedding with the ageing empress.
This was the last state occasion in which Harald’s Varangers took a part before they set out for the distant islands; so they put on a very good show and avoided becoming drunk until the sun had set. This was difficult for them since the Bulgar Regiment had started to celebrate the wedding almost from early morning.
Eystein came to Harald in the Mess at noon and said, ‘If we had any scores to settle with those black-faced apes now would be the time. They were lying in every street and corner, unable to lift a finger, let alone a lance.’
And Harald gazed at him sternly and said, ‘Eystein, dear comrade, I can well understand your opinion. And do not think that I am ungrateful. But when the day comes that I choose to settle scores with these Bulgars, I shall see to it that they are sober and in their right minds and that they outnumber the Northmen by three to one. Only in that way do I settle my scores.’
Then Eystein Baardson fell to his knees and put his forehead on his captain’s shoe and said, ‘I am ashamed, Harald. If I ever speak so again I beg that you will point out my stupidity to me as you did to Gyric of Lichfield.’
Harald Sigurdson raised him up and said merrily, ‘Old Eystein, together, you and I will see many things in this world. But one thing we shall never see is the breaking of our great friendship. Now go and tell the Varangers of the third company to set their helmets on straight this afternoon. They are all Danes and like to look a little different from the Englishmen, and so they will wear their gear at the back of their fat heads. I do not dare tell them myself or they might knock me down. But you can do it for me.’
Eystein clenched his jaws and said, ‘If any Dane questions your order I will see that there is one Dane less in the world inside a breathing-space.’
Harald called after him, ‘Do not be too rough with them. They are good enough fellows, though a little stubborn.’
That evening when the city was quietening, Michael Catalactus sent for Harald Sigurdson, into an inner room which had no windows. He was sitting at a silver table inlaid with amethysts and jade but had taken off his heavy robes and sat among his papers dressed only in a thin white linen shirt. He had even laid his new crown aside.
And when the Varanger captain strode in, the emperor smiled and said, ‘Do not bow, Harald; and excuse me if I do not rise to greet you. Today has been a great trial to me with all that parading and speech-maki
ng and ceremonial. I intend to cut it down if I am allowed to be emperor for long. It grows tedious and it makes our people the laughing-stock of the world. What do you think?’
Harald was just about to tell him what he honestly thought when he saw in the emperor’s eyes a curious amber glint that reminded him of a wolf he had watched once, waiting for its prey above a sheep-pen in Kurland. So he drew back his words, bowed his head gently and said, ‘Each people has the right to its own customs, Majesty. I know more about axe-play than ceremonial, so who am I to advise such as you?’
Michael Catalactus smiled wryly, then with his own hand poured out a glass of wine for Harald; but the Norseman shook his head and said, ‘Majesty, I should die of shame to set my lips to the cup before you. I beg you do not dishonour me but drink first.’
He held out the cup to the emperor, who looked startled for a moment, then shook his head and said, ‘You are wise, Hardrada. Why do we need to drink, and of such a poor thin vintage, we who are sworn friends? See, I will cast this miserable wine away.’
Harald moved his feet secretly so that the wine should not splash over his legs and feet.
Then suddenly that wolf look came back into Michael’s eyes and he said, ‘Hardrada, as one man to another, if in the future you hear the rumour that I gave poison to old Romanus to drink, what will you think of me?’
Harald looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘I shall think that I would trust you exactly as much as I have trusted you before. Such rumours would make no difference to what I think of my emperor.’
Then Michael Catalactus rose and said, ‘That is all I wished to be sure of, captain. I can see that my Varangers have a worthy leader in all their strategy. Now good night and may you sleep well before your long voyage.’
As Harald bowed from the room he saw that where the wine had fallen on to parchments on the tiled floor, the thin sheepskin had gone shrivelled and brown.
He said, ‘Good night, my lord. And may you sleep as soundly as I intend to do.’
He shut the door on that wolf look again, then turned sharply in time to swing sideways as the Bulgar guard struck out at him with a curved sword. The blade passed over his head and Harald took the man by the neck of his mesh shirt and flung him hard against the stone wall. He fell senseless to the floor. Then Harald picked up that man’s sword and bent it over his knee until it looked like a horse-shoe. This he wound round the man’s neck as a collar that he would find when he woke much later.
So Harald went back to the barracks and joined his men.
9. The Gold Chain
Wulf and Haldor were awake and sitting on their pallets, staring moodily at their weapons hanging on the wall beside them. When they saw Harald they jumped up and greeted him with relief.
Wulf said, ‘We are glad to see you back here in one piece. It is our opinion that you should not trust that man, the emperor.’
Harald drew off his mail coat and lay upon his bed laughing. ‘You are like two hens clucking at my heels,’ he said. ‘Do you think I am your chicken? As for the emperor, he seems a quiet enough little man to me. You must learn to be more charitable in your judgement, brothers.’
Then he rolled over with his face to the wall and went to sleep.
Now, the next morning, when the Varangers were making ready to go down to the galleys at Contoscalium Port, the High Chamberlain, accompanied by a Protostrator carrying a box of black ebony, entered the barracks and bowed before Hardrada. He was struggling to lace on a thigh-piece and so paid small attention to them, only nodding in a friendly way.
The High Chamberlain said gravely, ‘We come from the Emperor of the World, who regrets that you were waylaid last night and has since had the Bulgar ruffian punished as he deserves.’
Harald paused in his lacing and said, ‘That is a shame, for now the poor fellow has suffered twice for one mistake. No man, even a Bulgar, should be expected to pay double. Anyway, I hope he is well now.’
The Protostrator, aware of his importance as an imperial messenger, said drily, ‘He is as well as can be expected. By the Grace of God he may walk again in a few weeks.’ Then in a more official tone he said, ‘I am here from the Most Serene Majesty to give you this box in which you will find a token of his esteem for you.’
Wulf stepped forward and said, ‘Don’t open it, brother. There may be a snake in it that will bring your death on you.’
But Harald smiled at him and flicked open the lid with his great thumb. Inside on a bed of gleaming crimson silk lay a broad gold chain, each section of which was inlaid with precious stones in blue and red and green. At the end of this chain hung an enormous medallion showing the head of Michael Catalactus wearing his new crown.
Harald nodded his head gently and said, ‘I have seen worse things than this.’ He threw it across to Eystein, who glanced at it, then flung it down the line of Varangers so that they should see it too.
The Protostrator watched this in horror. He said, ‘Ten goldsmiths worked all night to make this for you, captain. It is the new Order of Catalactus, created in your honour, and you are the first to wear it.’
Harald went back to his lacing. He said, ‘I shall not wear it, my friend, make no mistake. It will go into my coffer with the other pretty things and one day will buy me a few longships when I go back to Norway. Tell your master that before we sail Georgios Maniakes should be given one of these things too. Otherwise he may think that I am being set above him and that would not do. Captains must be treated equally. That is my rule.’
The High Chamberlain bit his lips but said, ‘We shall convey your thanks and your wise advice to the Most Serene Majesty.’
Harald shrugged his shoulders. ‘The thanks do not matter,’ he said, ‘but the advice is of importance. Do not forget it.’
And when they had gone away, frowning at the Norseman’s ill manners, Harald turned to Wulf and said, ‘Well, brother, did I not tell you to be more charitable in your judgements? As you see now, this emperor is a pleasant little fellow who only wishes to make friends with us.’
10. The Sailing
Later that day the emperor’s galleys set sail westward through the Sea of Marmara towards the Hellespont. By special imperial dispensation Harald was allowed to sail in Stallion and Eystein Baardson in War Hawk, though they had to be repainted in the Byzantine purple for this occasion. This disgusted the Northmen, who believed that the proper colour for a longship was black and no other.
The high-pooped and gilded galley of Maniakes went first with Hardrada’s longship three cable-lengths after it. Then followed the Greeks and the Varangers sailing in line astern, parallel to each other so that neither should feel insulted.
The sunlit air was full of the high screaming of silver trumpets. The people of Byzantium, in great crowds on the walls, thought they had never seen so many flags and banners and pennants before. It was as though the whole blue sea was aflame with jewels. They felt proud to be Greeks once more.
And when the fleet had come out into more open water the trumpets howled again and steersmen pulled hard upon their helms so that the two lines arranged themselves abreast behind their leaders. An old man on the Marble Tower by the inner wall saw this and cried out, ‘Look, look! They are going to sweep all the seas of the world clear for us. Now the barbarians shall learn what it is to be a Greek!’
One of the Bulgars who were now left in charge of the city snarled at this and pushed the old man away from the parapet with the butt-end of his lance. He said, ‘Why, you old sheep, can you not see that Catalactus is just getting rid of a few hundred battle-crazy fools so that he can let some air into this fusty city, so that he can make some changes that have needed making for a thousand years?’
The old man muttered, ‘If he makes too many changes in the Holy City he will not last long on this earth.’
He did not speak his thoughts aloud because he did not know whose side this fiercely bearded Bulgar was on.
But there was one watcher of this sailing who did n
ot think that the Varangers were fools. She had been up since dawn at her high balcony praying for a glimpse of Hardrada - only a glimpse of one instant, no more. And she had seen him stride down to the wharfside with Haldor and Wulf on either side of him, and Eystein and Gyric behind him, all bearing their great axes over their shoulders, their golden hair floating behind them in the breeze that swept up from the sea.
When she had been granted such a sight she fell to her knees and prayed for them to come back safely. She promised to go without food or water for three days if God would let them come back unharmed. If she had known, she was to go without food and water for three days anyway since this was the lady Theodora’s decree.
Of course Harald did not know this. Indeed his travel-hungry mind was filled with nothing but the journey in hand. He saw the great crowds of folk upon the walls, cheering and shouting, but such things meant little to him for he knew well enough that if ever he fell from favour those same crowds would jeer and snarl down at him from the high-tiered seats of the Hippodrome as the torturers went to work on him.
Once, as his eagle eyes swept over the city he was about to leave, he did notice for an instant a small black-robed girl with a white face, on her knees and seeming to pray from a balcony. But Byzantium was full of black-robed people praying at all times of the day and night, so this sight caused him no concern.
He went down to the ships as gay as a spring lark.
11. The Corsairs
After the first week time hung heavy over the Northmen and they wished that there was more to do than row and haul sails and gaze across the dazzling water at the dusty land on either side of them. Sometimes to amuse themselves they shouted insults at the Greek galleys nearest them, hoping that their allies would pull alongside and challenge them to fight. But when Harald got to hear of this he called to all the Varangers down a speaking-horn of leather, warning them to save their energies for fighting their enemies and not their friends.
