by James Wilde
‘You hear God, lad?’
‘Sometimes. He whispers to me. He guides me.’
‘Then you are blessed.’ Wulfrun did not want to dash any hopes – they had suffered enough as it was – but he knew that almost all those who had been with her brother when he disappeared had now returned to Constantinople. None could say for certain if he lived or died, but with each day that passed there was less chance of his ever coming home.
Victor’s braying laughter echoed from the depths of the house and both Juliana and Leo flinched. Wulfrun glimpsed the shadows that crossed their faces, and he felt their hidden pain. He could stand by no longer. It was not in his nature.
Snatching up Juliana’s hand, he knelt before her and said, ‘I swear an oath to you this day. On my honour, I will protect you against all harm, though my own life is forfeit. I swear my axe to your service, so help me God.’
A dim part of him called out in protest, for a man of the Varangian Guard must only have one master, the emperor himself, but when he looked into her bright face he felt all his doubts fall away. If Victor Verinus dared take even one step towards this woman, this innocent and pure creature, there would be blood.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE HOT WIND licked across the dusty land. Whorls of sand whisked up over brown rock as the column of men trudged under the cruel sun. Their heads were bowed from the weight of that infernal heat, their throats as dry as the lifeless plain.
‘Where are the foul-smelling bogs, and the willows and the insects and the rushing waters?’ Mad Hengist whined. ‘I would be home, in the fens, not in this hell.’
‘I never thought I would be yearning for that damp, miserable place,’ Alric agreed. ‘This is hell indeed. Will the sun never set? And the dust … it tears at your eyes, and fills your nose and ears and mouth, even when the wind is not blowing.’ He caught the arm of the one next to him. ‘These men were raised with moss on their backs and rain in their faces. They were not prepared for this.’
‘They are warriors,’ Hereward growled. ‘They fight. No matter where … in the snow of the north, or the heat, here. If they cannot survive a little sun, they will be no good when we get to Constantinople. What then for the glory and the gold?’
The Mercian watched the woman stride a few paces ahead of the shambling, sweating war-band. She seemed to float over that hard land, untouched by the heat or the dust. Her hood had been pulled up, her woollen cloak wrapped around her, while the men were all stripped to the waist, their skin reddening. Hereward hid his doubts from the others. Was he right to trust her? Once they had left the cooling breeze of the shore, she had indicated with gestures and mime that she should lead them, to water, to food, to safety. And before he could acknowledge her she had marched away with confidence. But what if Ragener was right and she was only leading them to their doom?
‘She is used to this land,’ Alric whispered as if he could read his friend’s thoughts, ‘while we sweat and burn. We need water, soon, or we will die.’
Hereward glanced behind him along the trail of footprints. He cocked his head against the wind and thought he could hear yells in the distance. ‘We are still being hunted down like deer,’ he replied. ‘We cannot go back, we cannot stay here. We have no choice but to follow her.’
‘How has it come to this?’ the monk said with a despairing shake of his head. ‘Constantinople! Glory! And now hell.’
The Mercian knew his friend was right. Despite the heat, the sweating had started to fade and his skin was growing dry. His mouth felt like the sand beneath his feet. How much longer before their bodies were drained of all water? And his worries for Kraki, Guthrinc and the others lay heavy on him. Even if the rest of his men had survived the shipwreck, how long could they last in this inhospitable place?
Sighard strode up, sullen, as he always seemed to be these days. ‘I must speak my mind,’ he said.
Hereward nodded.
‘Take my tongue if you will, but this woman will be the death of us.’ He wiped dust from his eyes. ‘The sea wolves want her; they must. Why else would they follow a band of shipwrecked English curs with nothing but a few axes and swords into this oven? We have nothing worth their effort.’
Alric frowned. ‘But what value can she have to that fleet of pirates? One woman!’
‘It matters little,’ Sighard snapped. ‘It has to be her. And they will have bread and skins of water. While the sand covers our lifeless forms, they will keep coming. We should leave her to them. They will take what they want and we can—’
‘What?’ Hereward interjected. ‘Call down water from the heavens? Monk, can you summon rain with your prayers? Will God save his poor lambs?’
‘We could trade her for water,’ Sighard said. How bitter he had become since the death of his brother, Hereward thought. Yet he had a good heart; he had shown that time and again. If only he could find that joy of living that had once brought a smile to his lips.
The Mercian slammed his fist into the man’s jaw. Sighard flew back on the hard ground, dazed. Alric gasped. The other men stared, uneasy.
Snarling his fist in the long hair, Hereward jerked Sighard’s head up. ‘Your tongue is the least of your worries.’
‘You would see us all die to save her?’ the young warrior croaked.
‘I would not throw an innocent to the wolves to save your miserable life. Or any of our lives.’ The Mercian flung him back to the sand and turned away. ‘All a man truly has is his honour. Never give that up, even in the face of death.’ He glanced back. ‘Your brother knew that. You did, once.’
Alric caught his friend’s arm and pulled him to one side. ‘Fists will not cure the black-heart,’ he hissed.
‘He needs to learn,’ the Mercian muttered, pulling away. His thoughts flashed back to his own father laying fists upon him whenever he showed weakness, and he winced.
The woman was watching, her piercing eyes glinting in the depths of her hood. Did she understand the nature of the argument, or did she think them fools, fighting among each other while their enemies drew closer? He strode over to her. ‘Water,’ he said, miming putting a cup to his lips. ‘We need water or we will die.’
The woman frowned, and then she turned and pointed in the direction in which they had been travelling. Across the distant horizon, purple mountains shimmered in the haze. Hereward followed the line of her arm and noticed a small mound rising an arm’s length above the flat, rocky plain.
‘Khettara,’ she said. Her voice was musical. Hereward liked the sound of it.
He looked to Alric, then Hengist. They both shrugged. ‘Khettara,’ he repeated. He glanced down at Sighard, then offered a hand. ‘Khettara.’
The red-haired warrior shook his head, grumbling to himself as he took the hand and clambered to his feet.
Setting a pace that was exhausting in the heat, the woman strode towards the mound. The English stumbled after her, coughing in the swirls of dust as they made futile attempts to cover their mouths and noses. Even as they neared it, Hereward sometimes lost sight of their goal. Whatever it meant to the woman, on his own he would not have given it a second look, even if he had seen it in the first place.
But when they reached it, he leapt up the side and looked down upon a fissure in the top, barely wider than a man’s shoulders. Dropping to his knees, he peered inside. After the glare of the sun, the dark was impenetrable. His nostrils wrinkled at the scent of dank air. He dropped a stone into the hole and heard a splash.
Turning to the woman, he grinned. ‘Khettara.’ She smiled back at him, the first softness he had seen in her face.
Hereward set Sighard to keep watch for their approaching enemies and eased himself into the hole. Feeling around, he found rough footholds. He lowered himself into the cool dark. As he passed the lip, he glimpsed tool marks. The hole had been cut through the very rock of the desert floor.
The makers had left numerous ledges in the well and he descended with ease. When he reached the bottom, he splashed into gu
shing water glimmering in a circle of light illuminated from the hole above. Echoes rebounded off the rock around him and he found the dark refreshing after the constant glare. Dropping to his knees, he plunged his face into the icy water, sucking up huge mouthfuls to soothe his arid throat. How sweet it tasted.
Once he had drunk his fill, he flopped back into the stream and let the water flow over his burning limbs. After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the dark. When he sat up, he glimpsed a tunnel through which the stream cascaded. Hereward couldn’t tell if the channel was man-made or natural, but he marvelled at how the well-makers had managed to find life-giving water in that inhospitable place. If this was created by the woman’s people, they were great indeed.
When he looked up, he saw Alric’s worried face framed against the brilliant blue sky. Hereward’s laughter boomed up the well.
The monk gaped in shock. ‘Have you gone mad?’
‘We have found ourselves in a mad world, monk.’ His words reverberated off the rock. ‘Not too long ago we were fighting to keep the water out of our throats. Now we cannot swallow enough of it. Too much water, not enough water! A mad world!’
He pushed aside his relief. Their enemies were drawing closer by the moment and they could not afford to tarry. He scrambled back up the footholds, squinting when he pushed his head back out into the baking heat. The others stared in amazement when they saw his dripping clothes. Grabbing Alric’s arm, he said, ‘Our spear-brothers can climb down and drink their fill, one at a time. But make sure those in most need go first.’
When Alric went to round up the men, Hereward strode over to the woman, who was as still and unbowed as the rocks themselves. When he mimed if she wanted to drink, she shook her head. He tried to find some way to thank her, but she only smiled at his babbling.
Sighard stood to one side, glowering. ‘Let this be a lesson,’ Hereward said to him quietly. ‘Without this woman, we would soon be dead, either from thirst or on the spears of our enemies. Let honour be your guide and good fortune will present itself.’
Sighard nodded, ashamed.
Once the men had all drunk their fill, the woman set off. The sun was slipping towards the horizon and the heat was easing. Hereward looked back in the direction of the coast. They had wasted too much time. He thought he could see movement now. His men had gone too long without sleep and they were all weary from the exertions of the shipwreck, but they would not be able to rest for even a moment.
‘Stay strong,’ he called. ‘We will find a safe haven soon enough.’ When he eyed the woman’s decisive path, he decided that must be true.
The night came down hard.
‘It is cold,’ Alric grumbled, shivering. He wrapped his arms around himself and stamped his feet as he trudged.
‘Too hot, too cold. Nothing is ever right for you, monk,’ Hereward sighed.
‘And some food for my belly would not go amiss,’ the churchman muttered.
The Mercian looked up to the vault of the heavens where a milky river of stars flowed across the sable sky. The moon glowed bright enough to light their way across the vast, arid plain. Still featureless, he noted. No berries or roots to feed upon, not even the hope of a rabbit or a bird. Nor any place to hide.
‘Are we to walk to those mountains?’ Alric hissed. ‘That is … two days’ march?’
‘More like three or four. In this flat land, all seems much closer than it is.’ Hereward glanced back at his men. Their heads were bowed, their shoulders sagging. Their privations had taken a toll. They would be lucky to see out another day.
‘How much longer will those sea wolves hunt us down? Can this woman be worth that much to them?’ the churchman asked with a note of exasperation.
Hereward ignored the questions. He was watching Hengist, who had returned to the land of the sane after quenching his thirst. His wits came and went without any seeming pattern, but now he was bounding back and forth along the column of men, pausing every now and then to throw his head back and sniff the air.
‘He thinks he is a dog,’ Alric said, following his friend’s gaze.
‘Perhaps. Sometimes I think Hengist knows more than any of us. The mad are wise, they say. Touched by God, yes?’
‘Some say, aye. And some say touched by the Devil.’
After racing around for a few moments longer, Hengist loped over. ‘I smell death,’ he blurted, his eyes rolling from side to side. When Hereward glanced in the direction of their pursuers, Mad Hengist shook his head furiously and pointed ahead. ‘No, there. We walk towards death.’
The Mercian’s eyes narrowed. Was the woman leading them into a trap? Had Hengist, with senses made keen by his madness, heard or smelled something that the rest of them had missed? He darted to the woman, holding up a hand. She frowned and tried to push by, but he stepped in front of her again. When she ground to a halt, he glanced over his shoulder across the moonlit landscape. Nothing moved.
‘Keep her here,’ he commanded. Alric and Hiroc flanked the woman. Her eyes glittered, seemingly hearing the suspicion in his voice.
Hereward turned and dropped low. The moon was too bright and he missed the shelter of the fens’ woods and ditches. He squinted, scanning the rock-littered landscape. If anyone waited to attack them, they would have to be lying belly-down like snakes. His muscles tense, he crept forward.
The wind began to moan across the plain. Curls of dust whisked up, growing higher by the moment as the breeze strengthened. Hereward cursed under his breath. Even the elements conspired against him.
As he loped across the rocks, his hand never far from the hilt of Brainbiter, he looked up and saw that the mountains had faded from view. A haze now hung across the horizon. The breeze had become a gale, tearing at his hair and driving needles of sand into his face. Lowering his head, he threw his left arm across his nose and mouth. Tears blurred his eyes. He would not see any attacker until the last.
Soon the wind was howling so loud he could not hear his own voice. A bank of dust swirled, as dense as any of the fogs that blanketed the fens. Glancing back, he realized he could no longer see the others. The sand had swallowed his tracks. He had been too confident, he could see that now. Buffeted, he stood his ground, trying to get his bearings.
As he turned, he thought he glimpsed movement in the corner of his eye. Whipping out his sword, he whirled, but if anyone had been there, they were lost to the dust-storm. For a moment, he waited, doing his best to pierce the haze.
After a while, the wind dropped a little. Hereward realized he could see shapes at least two spear-lengths away. A jagged rock loomed up with an edge like a shark’s fin, one he had spied before. Deciding to wait beside it until the gale passed, he prowled towards it, but as he neared it his nose wrinkled at the reek of rot.
Beyond the rock, he glimpsed what looked like a large cross lying on the desert floor. His face twisted with distaste as he smelled the foul odour again. The remains of a man were staked out in front of him, the arms and legs stretched, the wrists and ankles lashed to what seemed to be the shattered remnants of a spear-haft hammered into the ground. Hereward stiffened, shocked to see such a sight in that lonely place. Covering his mouth against the stench, he crouched down to inspect the body. Birds had feasted upon the face and stolen the eyes. What skin remained on the legs had blackened. The Mercian could see little to distinguish the fallen man’s origin. Rats or some such had devoured the flesh upon the arms down to the bone. On one finger, a gold signet ring gleamed. The victim had not been slain by thieves. The corpse’s tunic was patterned with black squares at the hem, and stained on the left side where a blade had stabbed. The wound would not have been lethal, and Hereward guessed the victim had then been tied up and left to die in the hot sun. An act of cruelty.
‘A man wandering in the desert alone finds only death.’
Hereward whirled at the rich, musical voice that rolled out at his back. At first he could not see who had spoken those deeply accented words. But then the swirling dust seemed to pa
rt and a figure revealed itself, a man, tall and slender, black bristles framing the slash of his mouth. He was dressed in black robes and had a black scarf wrapped around his head. Only the lower part of his face was visible. He carried a gnarled staff, taller even than himself, and hanging on a sash at his waist was a long, curved knife in a silver scabbard. When he tilted his head back, Hereward saw eyes that burned with a fierce intelligence. Though the stranger smiled in greeting, those eyes were like knives, peeling Hereward open.
Undeterred, the Mercian swung his sword up to the man’s chest. The stranger did not flinch. ‘Who are you?’ Hereward growled.
‘My name is Salih ibn Ziyad,’ he replied with a deep bow. ‘And you will do as I say or you will join that poor soul in death.’
CHAPTER NINE
OUT OF THE clouds of dust, the sea wolves stormed. Hoods pulled low to shield their eyes, they swung their axes high and prodded the air with their spears, as if bared throats were only a moment away. But it was only anger at play. Though the wind howled, their frustrated calls and responses rang out across the desert plain as they roamed back and forth.
A knot of pirates came together. Their cloaks lashed around them. They were big men, faces like the rocks of that place, features carved from lives of hardship.
‘This godforsaken storm has hidden their tracks,’ one bellowed, gesticulating.
Another leaned in, shouting into the depths of the other man’s hood. ‘Siward will have our balls if we go back empty-handed.’
A third jabbed a finger to one side. ‘They cannot be far ahead. Let us keep on—’
‘And what?’ The fourth shook his axe in the other man’s face. ‘Stumble across them by chance? Has the pox rotted your brain? If we are turned around out here, we will be dead before we know it.’
You will be dead before you know it, Hereward thought.
Squinting through the crack in the rocks heaped upon him by Salih ibn Ziyad, he studied his prey. The sun had started to rise, its thin light reaching through the storm to draw grey shapes out of the gloom. The warrior estimated the enemy numbered around thirty. They were better armed than his men, but no more fresh. Salih’s information had been correct, he could see that now, and he felt pleased that he had decided to trust the stranger.
