The Bloody Crown Read online

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  1081. And so the battle for the crown of the Holy Roman Empire begins . . .

  Within the city of Constantinople itself, three factions will go to any lengths – will, it seems, kill any who might stand in their way – to seize the throne.

  And outside the city’s walls, two very different but equally ambitious armies gather, threatening a siege that would crush this once-mighty empire forever. To the west, wait the voracious forces of the most feared Norman warlord of his day. In the east, the Turkish hordes are massing. These would be at war with each other but for their shared lust for slaughter – and for Constantinople’s gold.

  And in the midst of this incipient maelstrom of brutality and betrayal, Hereward and his spear-brothers ready themselves for what could be their final stand . . .

  Hereward: The Bloody Crown is the dramatic final chapter in James Wilde’s bestselling series that chronicles the brutal, bloody and thrilling story of this great and no-longer forgotten hero of British history.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Author’s Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by James Wilde

  Copyright

  HEREWARD

  The Bloody Crown

  James Wilde

  For Elizabeth, Betsy, Joe and Eve

  PROLOGUE

  4 May 1079

  RAIN LASHED DOWN. In the suffocating darkness, the Roman warriors surged into the camp. Full-throated battle-cries drowned out the roar of the wind and the rumble of God’s drums deep in the heavens.

  From billowing tents, bleary-eyed fighting men scrambled out to look death in the face. In that moment, they knew that they had been too confident by far.

  Axes swept down, blades limned with the ruddy glow from pitch-soaked torches sizzling in the downpour. Swords stabbed, spears jabbed.

  One storm had masked another.

  On the edge of the camp, Wulfrun of the Varangian Guard slid his axe out of the lookout’s gut. He grunted with contempt at his enemy’s failings. Too slow, too dulled by sleep. The man had seen nothing until the blade had torn into him.

  Wulfrun wiped the rain from his eyes with his leather gauntlet and peered through the drifting clouds from the steaming campfires. The night heaved with battle. The thunder of running feet, the screams of the dying. Horses rearing, hooves ripping tents. And everywhere the constant thrumming of the rain on the too-dry ground, and on the trees that had masked the approach of the emperor’s forces.

  All was going as planned.

  Shaking the droplets of blood from his blade, Wulfrun ploughed into the turmoil. Ahead of him, the men he commanded drove like a spear into the heart of the camp. In their crimson capes, with their circular shields marked with their sigils and their long-hafted Dane-axes in hand, the Varangian Guard showed no mercy. They were terrifying, to friend and foe alike. Wulfrun nodded. Here was why every man and woman in the whole of the empire knew the fearsome reputation of the emperor’s elite force.

  As he plunged into the churning mass on the edge of the tents, he drank in the chaos framed by the eye-holes of his helm.

  In the wavering glow of a torch, one of the enemy’s mercenaries broke free from the fight and pounded towards him. A Sclavenian by the look of him, from one of the Slav tribes on the edge of the empire, with his long braided hair and the spirals tattooed on the left side of his face. Baring his teeth, he swung his spear up. But Wulfrun could see the glint of fear in the man’s eyes. The shock of the attack had dulled his battle-wits.

  Without slowing his step, Wulfrun spun round the spear’s tip. Whisking his axe up, he continued to turn full circle and hacked the blade into the Sclavenian’s neck. He had wrenched his weapon free and was loping on before the other man knew he was dead.

  And then the maelstrom swallowed him.

  As the roiling sea of warriors swirled, he pushed on towards the centre of the camp where the tent of the traitor Basilakios waited. In his mind’s eye, he fixed the location. The purple canvas, the dragon flag flying above framed against the ruddy sunset glinting off the Vardar river as he lay on his belly spying on the oblivious enemy army just before the storm broke.

  Streams of black blood flooded into the swelling puddles. Wulfrun hacked down another warrior. The enemy showed little resistance, but he had expected no less. Not from the Frankish, Sclavenian and Arvanite mercenaries, nor from the faithless Romans who had flocked to the treacherous general’s standard when he had risen up against the emperor.

  Steaming in the deluge, one of the tents burned fiercely. In that glare, the night swooped away to reveal the clash of warriors seething through the camp. Axes flashed, hacking and slashing. Helms and hauberks glowed in the flickering light.

  When he darted round the conflagration, Wulfrun felt a cold pang of shock at the sight that met his eyes. Painted red in the firelight, a figure from the very depths of hell loomed before him. A beast, it was, eyes white and wide in a face drenched in blood. The commander of the guard jerked back. He had felt no fear since he had taken the oath, yet still his axe froze in his hand.

  But then the apparition bared its teeth in a grin. No monster this, but a man, though one yet born of hell. Hereward of Mercia swung up his dripping axe from the bodies littered around his feet and with a nod of recognition bounded away towards the general’s tent.

  Wulfrun grimaced. It clawed at his gut that the man he hated most in the world now fought alongside him as a member of this elite force. But as he watched his rival slash a path through the enemy soldiers as if they were boys on their first day with a weapon in hand, he could not deny that he was a skilled and powerful warrior.

  Hereward’s English allies followed in their leader’s wake. They had joined the Guard at the same time, the ones he called his spear-brothers. Kraki the Viking. Guthrinc, the giant of a man. Sighard the red-headed you
th. Wulfrun narrowed his eyes in suspicion. They were good, all of them. But though each man had sworn the Varangian oath to protect the emperor, they acted like a force within a force, their own tight-knit group serving their own ends.

  Shaking off his thoughts, Wulfrun ran on. He would not have that English bastard claim credit for the capture of the treacherous general, or, more likely, the kill.

  A moment before he closed on Hereward’s men, they threw themselves aside across the swimming mud. Driving through them came four men on horseback. They leaned across the necks of their mounts, digging their heels in to force the steeds to their limits. Wulfrun threw himself back too, just in time to avoid being crushed under the hooves – these men would stop for naught.

  As he reeled back, he locked eyes with the lead rider, taking in the leathery, scarred features of a seasoned warrior. It was Basilakios. No doubt the traitor and his closest aides were saving their own necks. Their destination could only be Thessalonica, a day away, where the rest of Basilakios’ army waited and he could hope to defend the city against the emperor’s forces.

  Cursing, Wulfrun watched the four horsemen until they were swallowed by the night. Basilakios had only bought himself a brief respite. After this battle his days were numbered, he must know that.

  As news of the disappearance of their leader spread, Wulfrun watched the resistance slow, then still. Heads bowed, shoulders sagged; weapons splashed into the swelling puddles. Triumphant, the soldiers of the empire began to round up the dejected survivors, ready for whatever justice would be meted out upon the emperor’s orders.

  Wulfrun stalked back towards the edge of the camp. The rest of the Varangian Guard tramped in his wake. Their work was done here. Let the foot soldiers clean up Basilakios’ mess. He wanted nothing more than to be out of this endless driving rain before it soaked into his bones.

  ‘Wulfrun. Hold.’

  The commander turned to see his aide, Ricbert, weaving among the tents like a riverbank rat. ‘The news is not good,’ the smaller man said when he splashed to a halt. ‘Brynstan is dead, cornered and cut down by five men so that bastard Basilakios could make good his escape.’

  Wulfrun grimaced. Brynstan had been a good man, one of the Guard’s best, and Wulfrun had made him second in command the moment he had become commander. ‘Tonight we will mourn. Then I will think on the best man to take his place. The Guard cannot be left leaderless were I to die.’

  ‘The emperor agrees. He has sent word that he would speak to you. Now.’

  ‘Nikephoros is here?’

  Ricbert pulled off his helm, the more easily to wipe the rainwater sluicing into his eyes. ‘It seems our young general, Alexios Comnenos, arranged for him to oversee our great victory. Or not,’ he said in a sardonic tone.

  Wulfrun gritted his teeth. ‘More games. What does Alexios intend in bringing the emperor here?’

  ‘Who can tell? There are more plots and rumours circling the court than in the lowest pox-ridden brothel.’

  ‘I cannot read Alexios’ mind, but he circles always like a hawk waiting to fall upon its prey.’

  ‘Blame his mother. She holds his reins.’ Ricbert walked away, beckoning. ‘I will take you to him.’

  Wulfrun strode up to the emperor’s tent on the ridge overlooking the camp. Two torches spat at the entrance. From inside came the glow of a brazier set up to dispel the rain-chill. With a smile etched with irony, Ricbert swept out one hand to usher his commander across the threshold. He waited outside, silently cursing the gusting downpour.

  The warmth from the brazier was welcome. Wulfrun eased off his helm and shook the water from his face. He sensed other presences hovering in the gloom at the back of the tent: counsellors and lackeys, he guessed. The emperor would not be here without the ones who wiped his arse.

  Nikephoros hunched over the brazier, warming his hands. Once he had been a potent general, with more than one great victory to his name, but many failures and humiliations too. Yet now he looked much older than his seventy-seven years, and frail also. The burden of ruling an empire brought to its knees by a litany of threats, and a daily assault of plots and curses and attempts upon his life, had taken their toll. His hair, what little remained, had turned the colour of hoar-frost, his face sagging and wrinkled, his back hunched. He no longer looked as if he had the strength to lift a loaf of bread, never mind an axe.

  ‘The bastard has escaped.’ Nikephoros looked up, his eyes glittering with the red glow of the fire.

  In that moment, Wulfrun could see how the old man had clawed himself an empire. Weak-willed he might be, spineless, dull-witted, and a temple to poor judgement, but he was as vicious as a wounded wolf. And in his heart the furnace of ambition burned white-hot.

  Under the last leader, the pale-faced boy-emperor Michael, Nikephoros had governed Anatolia as the strategos, and had commanded the army in the far east. His rise had been slow, but sure. But the first time he had been truly tested he had failed, and that failure had cost the empire much of its eastern lands. When the Norman adventurer Roussel de Bailleul had risen up, Nikephoros had fled like the coward he was, leaving the Caesar, John Doukas, to be captured and the army humiliated. The Caesar was only saved, and peace restored, with the aid of the Seljuk Turks, who demanded land – and lots of it – as their price.

  Yet as was the way with the power-hungry, Nikephoros suffered no shame in his cowardice. One year gone, he had amassed his warriors and marched on the throne. Michael gave up with barely a whimper. How could he not? He had never had the heart to rule, and the empire’s power had been ebbing away by the day under his weak command. If he had not gone, the people would have risen up and hanged him from the Milion mile-post.

  ‘Basilakios’ days are numbered,’ Wulfrun replied. ‘If it takes a week, a month, or a year, we will batter down the walls of Thessalonica and drag him back to Constantinople for his punishment.’

  Nikephoros’ mouth was a cruel slash in his wrinkled face. ‘I have already given thought to that. Basilakios will have his eyes put out. Let my face be the last sight he sees.’

  Wulfrun nodded. First a boy-emperor, then a savage old fool. The empire was destroying itself by degrees. His thoughts flew back to the day when Nikephoros was crowned by the Patriarch, Kosmas. Even then, everyone knew nothing would change. The people battled with starvation. Grain was too costly, coins contained so little gold they had the weight of an autumn leaf. The coffers were emptying, power was ebbing, and, unchallenged, the Turks drew ever closer. When he peered into days yet to come, he saw only darkness. But what could a man do?

  ‘Draw closer,’ Nikephoros said, beckoning with a wavering hand. ‘Warm yourself. Will this fucking rain never end?’

  Wulfrun stepped forward, but gave no sign of enjoying the heat. ‘You wished to see me?’

  ‘Aye. I am heartily sick of these rebellions against my rule. First Bryennios, now Basilakios. I am here by the will of God. Can no one see that?’ He clenched fists that barely looked to have the strength to crush a sparrow. ‘The battles . . . the constant battles, they weary me. But while we tear chunks out of each other, the enemies beyond the walls creep nearer. The empire must not fall, Wulfrun. That is why I seized the throne from that weak cur Michael: to save it.’ Beatific, he pressed his palms together as if he were praying. ‘Not for my own glory, whatever folk say. I will be the empire’s saviour.’

  Though he showed a cold face, Wulfrun made a silent plea to be saved from would-be saviours. Did Nikephoros truly believe the easy lies that fell from his lips?

  ‘There must be changes if I am to carry on with God’s plan,’ the emperor continued. ‘This opposition to my rule must end. We must show strength against our enemies, both within and without the walls. To that end, Karas Verinus will now advise me on our strategies to fight the Turks and the Normans. He is a seasoned general with a mind as keen as a knife’s edge. Some would say cruel . . .’ Nikephoros shrugged. ‘But he is a man I would want at my side.’

  Wulfru
n winced. Karas was despised by all who knew him. A snake that could be trusted by none, like all his kin. This decision would come back to bite Nikephoros on the arse.

  ‘A good choice,’ he said.

  ‘I have plans, too, for Falkon Cephalas . . .’

  This time Wulfrun could not hide the tremor in his face.

  ‘You do not value him?’

  ‘I would not question your wisdom.’ Wulfrun paused, steadying his voice. ‘It is hard to find a space in my heart for a man who would have had me executed for treason.’

  Nikephoros fluttered a dismissive hand. ‘Days gone by, Wulfrun. Days gone by. Falkon is a bastard, but bastards are what is needed. And to lead our armies into battle . . .’ The emperor raised his arm and snapped his hand forward.

  From the shadows at the rear of the tent where the counsellors waited, a figure emerged. The face was spattered with blood, and the hauberk too, the long black hair rain-sodden. But the eyes burned with a sharp intelligence. Even covered with the filth of battle, Wulfrun thought how young Alexios Comnenos looked. And yet for all his youth there was no doubt that he was the finest war-leader in the empire, a worthy man to hold the title of commander-in-chief of the western armies. He had been born with a sword in his hand, Ricbert said.

  ‘From this day on, Alexios will command all our warriors, and he will answer only to Karas,’ the emperor said. ‘This is how we will bring honour back to Constantinople, Wulfrun, through men like this.’

  Alexios gave the faintest bow, seemingly at ease with his elevation to the highest military role. ‘I serve at the pleasure of the emperor.’

  Wulfrun felt a wash of relief. He could not fault Alexios Comnenos. His military leadership would take some of the sting out of the influence of Karas Verinus and Falkon Cephalas. Another appointment in that vein could have meant disaster.

  ‘And through men like you, Wulfrun,’ Nikephoros continued, wagging his finger. ‘The Varangian Guard is my right hand, as always. No emperor could wish for better protection.’

  ‘Our lives are yours.’ Wulfrun bowed his head.

  ‘I have heard the sad news that Brynstan died this day.’