The Varangian

by Bruce Macbain

  “And didn’t think to invite me,” Harald frowned. “I call that unfriendly, Tangle-Hair.”

  I stood in John’s office, facing the two of them and trying to put a bold expression on my face. The air crackled with tension. I was in danger and I knew it. I had been rudely hauled out of my bed early in the morning after my wedding night by none other than Halldor and Bolli with a summons from Harald. They didn’t put a hand on me, barely spoke, but the threat was plain. I went quietly, leaving Selene standing in the doorway and looking scared. They were on horseback but they made me walk between them all the way back to the city. I was expecting to be taken to the barracks, but instead they’d brought me to the orphanage.

  Besides John and Harald, the other person in the room was the orphan, Loucas, still with a bruise on his cheek where I had kicked him that night when I caught him following me. It had been him, I realized now, whom I’d glimpsed in the crowd at my wedding. I grabbed him by his shirtfront and snarled in his face, “I said if you followed me again I’d kill you—” I shoved him hard against the wall.

  John, speaking low, almost without moving his lips, said, “You will take your hand off Loucas or you will not leave here alive.” I let him go. With a nod from John, he scurried out the door, shooting me a look of pure hate as he brushed past me.

  “Why does he follow me?”

  “Because I tell him to. We lost track of you for a while after you left your lodging in the city. But Loucas doesn’t give up easily. It happens he saw you in a wine shop conversing with a certain junior clerk in the Logothete’s office by the name of—” he glanced at a paper lying on his desk—“yes, Constantine Psellus. So, we’ve taken to following this fellow—it wasn’t hard to learn who he is. His movements are painfully regular: home to office, office to home—but with a foray once a week to unfamiliar parts of town—to meet with you. We thought that was curious. Possibly some reason to hide? And imagine where he led us yesterday: your wedding party. And such guests! Heretics and pagans thick as flies on a dung heap. And who exactly is your bride’s father? Don’t bother answering, we’ll soon find out. I smell the odor of treason on you—on all of you. I swear it’ll cost you your necks.”

  I reckoned I may as well take the wolf by the ears. I turned to Harald, whose brows were contracted in an effort to follow the conversation, and told him in rapid Norse what John had just said. “I’m your man, Harald Sigurdsson. Nobody can touch me or my family without your leave. Where do you stand?” I had only one ally in this room, at most. If Harald abandoned me then I was a dead man.

  “What is this person to you,” he demanded, “this Constantine what’shis-name”?

  “It’s quite harmless, Harald. He was assigned to me when I first arrived. Since then he’s been helping me improve my Greek—the better to serve you. We talk about poetry as a matter of fact. It’s what skalds do. I’ll recite some for you one night, you’ll like it.”

  But John’s eyes bored into me; he shook his head slowly from side to side. “If it’s as innocent as you say, then why the elaborate secrecy?”

  “So as not to put him wrong with his boss. It seems the Logothete warned him away from me when I fell out of favor with the court at Kiev.”

  John chewed on this for a very long moment while I held my breath. Then he shrugged and let it go.

  I translated this exchange for Harald, who shot back, “What have you told this fellow about us, damn you?”

  “Not a thing. And if you don’t believe me you can look for a new translator or start working on your Greek.” One thing I’ve learned in life is when you’re trapped, get angry. I started to pull his ring off my arm.

  “Hold on!” His complexion was dangerously red, and he rose half out of his chair. “If you’re fishing from both sides of the stream like you did back in Novgorod…”

  “What I have learned from Psellus,” I broke in quickly, “is that Eustathius the Logothete wants to send Zoe into hiding for her protection. No one’s to know about it.” Psellus had never said anything of the sort, but it came to me in a moment of desperate inspiration: I had to throw them something. If there were consequences to this false intelligence, well that was a problem for another day. I repeated it in Greek for John’s benefit.

  “I knew it!” John exclaimed, slapping the table. “The sly bastard. So, this Psellus talks to you about the Logothete’s business, does he?”

  “Well, just occasionally.” Back up a little; don’t promise too much.

  “And if you encouraged him, he might tell more?”

  “It’s possible. The fellow likes to brag when he’s drunk too much wine.”

  “So there might be a point in your meeting with him again.” John leaned back in his chair. He made a temple of his fingers and rested his hairless chin on them.

  “If you say so, Guardian.”

  I translated all this for Harald, who was lost again.

  “Goddammit, Tangle-Hair, why does everything with you have to be so fucking complicated?”

  “Life is complicated, Harald. I want it understood: no more following me or my friends, and no one is to approach my family. Do I have your word on it?” He stared at me long and hard before giving a curt nod of his head.

  “From now on,” he said, “I want to see more of you at the barracks and less of you anywhere else. Bring your wife if you like.”

  “I’ll do that. She’s a gambler, you know. She’ll win the shirt off you.”

  At that Harald laughed out loud. “Will she, by God! Well, then we’ll get on. Ha, ha.”

  Now it was John’s turn to look lost; he drummed his fingers on the desktop. “What’s the big oaf laughing at? What’d you say?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just a private joke.” Let him wonder. Any way that I could drive a wedge between those two was all to the good. “And now, if you have no further use for me this morning, gentlemen, you’ve taken me from my wedding breakfast. And—oh—as long as I’m here, Harald, I need more money.” Attack, always attack.

  Outside the orphanage, I found Halldor and Bolli had gone. I leaned against a wall and tried to take deep breaths. Sweat trickled down my sides. This had been too close. From now on, I must be doubly careful. And I must get word to Psellus, too.

  I soon had more reason to be frightened. Not finding Selene at home, I went down the lane to her father’s house. Everything was in turmoil: furniture overturned, glassware smashed in the laboratory, its precious contents puddled on the floor. And Melampus, sitting in the midst of it with his head in his hands. Selene was in a fury. “Police were here! Looking for heathen books, they said. Thank god, a neighbor warned us when he saw them coming; we just had time to hide some things in a hole under the bed and hang a crucifix on the wall. They slapped him, shoved him, my father. We’ve never had anything like this before. And meanwhile where were you, Odd? What were those men doing with you?”

  “Darling, I’m sorry—I don’t know what—listen to me…”

  “No, you listen.” She raised a white-knuckled fist to my face. “My father imagined a strong young man like you would protect us. Instead, you’ve brought your troubles to our doorstep. Now, either you tell me exactly who you are and what you’re doing here or we’re finished. And it’s not that I don’t love you, Odd. I do love you—too much—but you must tell me the truth, no more lies.” Tears trembled on her eyelids.

  Melampus stirred himself. “Daughter, don’t talk so to your husband. Odd doesn’t have to—”

  “No,” I said. “She’s right. I do.”

  I told them everything.

  16

  From Barbarian To Greek

  Thor’s Day; four days after my meeting with John and Harald.

  The setting sun at my back cast a red glow on the bronze statue of Theodosius atop his column as I made my way toward our meeting place. While I walked, I stole glances at every face that passed me, stretched my ears to catch the sound of footfalls at my back. That dirty-faced youth unloading a cart across the road? That gi
rl walking carefully with a water jug on her shoulder? Were they orphans? Were they watching me? I could never go to a rendezvous with Psellus again without that itching feeling that unseen eyes were on me. Seeing me approach, he fell into step behind me and we walked in silence up one street and down another until we turned a corner and came to a little wine shop off a quiet alley. We took a table in the corner from where we could see the door. This was our invariable routine, although we chose a different place every time from a prearranged list. We sat close together and spoke in low voices.

  “They’ve been following you. Followed you to my wedding.”

  “What?” He nearly knocked the stool over, leaping up.

  “Sit!” I hissed, and gripped him by the wrist. He gave me a stricken look. Among Psellus’s many fine qualities, physical bravery was not one. In a few words, I described the police raid on Melampus’s house and my interrogation by Harald and John.

  He writhed on his stool. “We must stop meeting.”

  “That would look worse. I think I persuaded them that you’re doing no more than teaching me Greek.”

  “You think?”

  “And I said that you’re indiscreet, you talk about the Logothete, let things drop that you shouldn’t. That got their attention.”

  “What things?”

  “I made up some nonsense about smuggling Zoe out of the palace for her protection. If I’d had more time to think—”

  “Oh, Christ!” He dropped his face into his hands. “John has doubled the guard on her. No one can get in to see her now without being searched right down to their skin—and the guards aren’t gentle.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to have made things worse for her. But the point is John will be looking for more tidbits like that. Do you understand? We can tell him anything Eustathius wants him to believe.”

  “Disinformation?” He peered between his fingers, then smiled. “Tangle-Hair, you must have some Greek blood in you somewhere; you’re revealing a genuine talent for duplicity.”

  I returned his smile and poured both of us some more to drink. “What else is happening in the palace?”

  “The Emperor’s in Thessaloniki, praying at the shrine of the Holy Martyr Demetrios for a cure for his falling sickness and his dropsy—which are getting worse by the day.”

  “And in his absence John is in charge?”

  He nodded.

  “And what about your boss? What can he do? Does he have any power at all?

  “It’s a delicate situation. Eustathius is an old and trusted retainer, and very good at what he does—foreign affairs, diplomacy, intelligence. John can’t move openly against him, Michael wouldn’t allow it. For all his family feeling, the Emperor doesn’t entirely trust his brothers. But for the moment, John has the upper hand.”

  “What might change that?”

  “War. In a war the Logothete is indispensable.”

  “It sounds to me like war might solve a lot of problems.”

  This brought a chuckle. “We don’t relish war the way you barbarians do. We do everything we can to avoid it. We pay bribes, hand out titles, crawl when we have to.”

  “Then you’re not the men Homer sings about.” And so saying, I unwrapped the copy of the Iliad he had given me and opened it on the table between us.

  We spent the next hour happily lost in poetry.

  Over the next months my life settled into a pleasant routine. Winter came on with weeks of rain and muffling fog, punctuated by crashing storms on the Bosporus and swirling snowstorms. And then it was spring again. During all this time, I had no more trouble with the police, nor any more orphans spying on me—or none that I caught anyway. When I wasn’t patching my leaky roof or planting cabbages and onions in my garden, I was at Melampus’s house, helping him to restore his laboratory, which the police had wrecked. I felt for the dear old man; he’d been badly shaken; it seemed that spark of optimism had been extinguished in him. The other alchemists were afraid to visit anymore and he felt terribly alone despite all that Selene and I could do to cheer him up. He aged visibly that winter, and his tremor grew worse.

  But my wife flourished. The baby growing in her absorbed all her thoughts. She happily admitted to becoming a person she never imagined she would be. As her breasts and belly swelled, the sharp planes of her face softened, and she grew her hair out. She soon stopped going to the tavernas to gamble. This was her choice; we didn’t argue about it. Instead, we spent our evenings reading aloud (I now owned four books besides my Homer), or entertaining the neighbors. I told stories—the ones my father had taught me long ago--and became a favorite of the neighborhood children.

  To be a ‘proper wife’, Selene pestered our housekeeper Chloris to teach her to spin wool, though the old woman’s eyesight was so bad she could hardly see her hands in front of her face. But Selene, alas, had no talent in this direction. It ended with her flinging the distaff and its tangled threads across the room with a curse. She was much better at decorating the cradle and other furniture I built, covering everything with beautifully painted wild flowers. She also loved to milk our goats and tend the garden. And she was an enthusiastic cook. She and Chloris spent hours together in our big kitchen, consuming olive oil and spices at a rate I wouldn’t have believed. After so many years of poverty, Selene developed an appetite that would have done credit to a Norseman. And I, between idleness and her cooking, felt my belt getting too tight.

  I continued my weekly meetings with Psellus. I had nothing much to report about John and Harald except that Harald was getting impatient for a new promotion or a new command but that John kept putting him off, saying the moment wasn’t right yet. On one occasion, Harald flew into a rage and started smashing things in John’s office. He could be terrifying when he was like that. It was the first time I ever saw fear in John’s eyes. After that, they seldom spoke.

  Psellus, too, had little to report. The Emperor was still in Thessaloniki and Zoe confined to her quarters. Almost no one got in to see her. The unspoken question on everyone’s mind was how much longer it would be until Michael died and what would happen then. The palace seemed frozen in a kind of suspended animation as though a spell had been cast over it.

  I spent more time at the Varangian barracks, as Harald had ordered me to. His restlessness and ill temper seemed to have infected them all, but there were some pleasant times, too, when I could divert him with poetry, which he loved. I had translated some of Homer’s scenes—the anger of Achilles, battles on the plain of Troy, the adventures of Odysseus. The Emperor’s Wineskins were astonished to learn that the despised Greeks had once been as manly as themselves.

  Sometimes I brought Selene along—with her game board. I was anxious about her in that crowd, but I shouldn’t have been; she knew how to handle herself. She spoke Greek with the other soldiers’ women and began to pick up a smattering of Norse too. I was proud of her. Halldor and Bolli ignored her although I don’t think she noticed. But Gorm pounced on her like a big, friendly dog. He knew how to play the game (who would have thought?) and even beat her a few times, which made them friends. She was fascinated to learn that his brother, my old shipmate, had been a werewolf berserker. Lycanthropy was a subject she knew something about.

  With the coming of spring, the Rus trading fleet arrived. Had it been a whole year since I had sailed in on it? It didn’t seem possible. Of course, I was curious. I went down to the quayside to see if I could find Stavko. But the slaver was not very interested in talking to me. All I could get out of him was that Yelisaveta was still unmarried at the shockingly old age of twenty, that Inge was said to be ailing, and that Yaroslav was, well, Yaroslav—vague, indecisive, and dithering. What I really wanted to know was whether another assassin had been sent along to do the job I had failed to do. But this Stavko couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say. He tore away from me in a flurry of swinging braids and flying spittle. I let him go. When I reported this to Harald, he shot me a triumphant grin, showing all his big teeth. Princess Yelisaveta was still hi
s! And would stay his until he went back to scoop her up and take her to Norway. The possibility of another assassin bothered him not at all. If there was one, we never saw him.

  On the last day in May, our baby was born. Selene leaned back in the birthing chair, her hair sticking damply to her cheek, and smiled at me. “I promised you a son.”

  I kissed her forehead. “How are you?”

  “Tired. Happy.”

  We named him Gunnar Hermius Oddsson. Gunnar after my dead brother and Hermius in honor of the god we worshipped—Odin by another name. I held him, red-faced and bawling, in my arms and swore that I would be a better father to him than my poor, mad father had ever been to me. Whether he grew up to be magician or warrior, I would do everything in my power to make his life a happy one.

  Melampus came to purify the house from the pollution of childbirth, and he hung an amulet of great power, a carved amethyst on a silver chain, around the baby’s neck and murmured words over him. Seeing his grandson, revived that spark of joy in the old man that had been so long dormant. His only sorrow, he said, was that his dear wife couldn’t have lived to see this happy day. He and his daughter both shed a tear for her, and then Selene, who was worn out from a long labor, put little Gunnar to her breast (there would never be a wet-nurse in our house) and soon was asleep.

  Melampus and the neighbors and I stayed up late into the night drinking. When I finally went to bed, I lay thinking about all that had happened to me in the space of a year. I lived almost entirely as a Greek now. Except on my occasional visits to the Varangian barracks, it was the only language I spoke. I had Greek friends, read Greek books. My son would be as much Greek as anything else, and that was all right. It was possible to believe that I was a barbarian no more.

  But my mind is such that permanent happiness is alien to it. I’d named my son for my brother, and how had he died? Holding his guts in with both hands, gushing blood onto the floor of our burning house while our enemies, Strife-Hrut and Snorri—Halldor’s father—and their henchmen howled around us. Could I, I asked myself for the thousandth time, ever let that memory go?