Hereward 05 - The Immortals Read online

  Together, the two men heaved. The cart lifted up on one wheel, hovered for a second, then crashed on its side, spilling its wares across the mud. The merchant who had been leading the cart roared his anger, torn between calming his skittish horse and watching that no one stole his possessions. Men and women milled around, their curiosity caught by the disturbance. And then the guards too were hurrying over.

  Hereward flicked one hand towards the now unguarded gate. With Tiberius close behind, he darted away from the cart and slipped into the surging crowd. Within a moment they were through the gate and hurrying along the track back through the mountains. Only then did Hereward allow himself to breathe easily.

  He was troubled by the presence of Ragener. It seemed like fate speaking to him, perhaps warning him. The last he had heard the ruined man had been hiding in Constantinople, but when his patron Victor Verinus was murdered he had disappeared from sight. The sea wolf was savage and cunning and there was no vile act he would not consider to gain advantage for himself. If he was here in Amaseia, with Roussel, then no good could come of it.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  AN ARC OF blue sky filled the warrior’s vision. On the fringes he could glimpse the jagged peaks of brown mountains and daggers of light as the sun slipped towards the horizon. The dip and splash of oars echoed rhythmically on all sides, and the creak of timbers as the hull flexed against the river currents. His nostrils wrinkled at the spicy sweat of the Turks as they rowed in the heat. Every now and then they would break into song in their strange throaty tongue.

  But he lived, he yet lived. That in itself was a miracle.

  Kraki was lying on his back, his hands bound behind him – his punishment after he had attempted to claw out the throat of one of his captors. His ankles too were strapped together with a leather thong – his reward for kicking one of the Seljuk warriors in the balls. And he tasted a filthy rag stuffed deep into his mouth to stop his stream of curses and abuse.

  But he still lived.

  Lances of pain stabbed his ribs. Blood was crusted around his left eye and his right had closed up. His lips were split. He grinned to himself. He had had worse.

  The Turks’ song started up again, a lilting refrain that matched the rhythm of the oars. As he drifted with the music, his thoughts flew back to the battle in the forest. If he had been quicker, he would not have been separated from Hereward and the others. He was a poor excuse for a warrior these days. Too many nights yearning for Acha, the only woman to tame his wild heart, that was what had taken the edge off his battle skills. If his father had been there, the old man would have clubbed him round the head with the haft of his axe and told him he was a mewling child.

  The Turks had surrounded him in an instant. Three had fallen under his blade. But then the flat of a blade had clattered against the back of his head and that was all he remembered of the fight. The gods had little time for the affairs of men, but that day they must have been watching over him. If the sword had been turned even the slightest degree it would have taken off the top of his skull, and he would have been swilling mead with his ancestors in the ringing halls of Valhalla.

  When he had woken beside a campfire under the night sky, his first sight had been of a Turk holding a sword above his bared neck. The others had been laughing and dancing around him, tearing at chunks of lamb from their victory feast. For long moments they had barked questions at him, but he could not understand a word. The warrior had waved the sword, threatening to bring it down time and again. But the Viking had not shown any fear, and that seemed to have angered them further.

  Once the blows had stopped raining down upon him, he had spied another captive on the other side of the campfire, one of the Romans. He was young and frightened. These were probably the first enemies he had ever looked in the face.

  Kraki closed his eyes. The painful memory was easier in the dark of his head. He recalled yelling words of encouragement to the lad. But when the Turks had realized what he was doing, their swordsman had swung up his blade and taken the Roman’s head to show they meant business. Even now he could feel the burning as his rage surged through him like wildfire. He had thrown himself at his captors, and not for the last time. He felt proud that he had drawn blood and broken bones before they had beaten him into unconsciousness again.

  ‘Are you dead yet?’

  The Viking opened his eyes at the oddly inflected words. At first the sun’s glare blinded him. Then a head hove into view. Suleiman ibn Qutalmish was the only Turk Kraki had ever heard speak English. His teeth were white among the black bristles of his beard, his grin was wide, and his eyes sparkled with humour. His broad shoulders and the way he balanced on the balls of his feet as he moved showed he was a warrior, used to wielding a sword. Even if the other Turks had not bowed their heads in deference whenever he neared, Kraki would have known he was a leader from his fine clothes. Gold thread glimmered in the swirls of embroidery on his purple coat, and his bowl cap was studded with rubies. When the Viking’s captors had taken him on horseback across the plain to a vast tent city and thrown him on to the ground in front of this man, Kraki had thought his head would soon be resting beside the poor Roman lad’s. But Suleiman had been wise. He knew death was only the right course when it served a purpose, and some men were worth more alive.

  The Turk crouched beside him, prodding Kraki’s leathers with a finger. ‘No, dead men do not scowl so,’ he grinned.

  ‘Set me free,’ the Viking growled. ‘I will show you that the fire still burns in my chest.’

  Suleiman threw back his head and laughed. ‘You Northmen. You are bags of wrath, as bad-tempered as a wolf with a thorn in its paw. Life is good, Viking. Open your eyes and you will see it.’

  Kraki snorted and looked away. He would not give this enemy any satisfaction.

  ‘You slaughtered my people, Viking,’ the Turk said, his grin falling away.

  ‘I had no part in that.’

  ‘A man is judged by the ones who stand at his side.’

  ‘The Romans are like frightened children. They lashed out.’

  Suleiman peered at the mountains. ‘They will lose this land because they do not know how to fight for it,’ he mused, almost to himself. ‘I know how to fight, Viking. My father Qutalmish craved the throne of the Seljuks and he fought his cousin Alp Arsan for the right to sit upon it. He did not fight hard enough. And when he fell, I was made to flee with my three brothers into the mountains. We lived with the Qguzes, the tribes who did not bow their heads to Alp Arsan, but we did not forget our father’s desire, and we plotted and we waited. And Alp Arsan did not forget. He sent war-band after war-band to hunt us down. My brothers are all dead now. But I still live. And now Alp Arsan is dead too, and the tribes fall in step behind me, one by one.’ He smiled. ‘Your god smiled upon you when you were brought to me, Viking. Others might have taken your head without a second thought. But I see the currents of this great river of life, and I know where to steer to get where I want. There are many different ways to fight. The Romans would do well to learn that lesson.’

  Suleiman stood up, stretching. Kraki eyed him. He had seen worse leaders. The Turk was not cruel, like William the Bastard, nor was he weak like the Roman emperor. But still he could not understand why his captor had not killed him.

  The ship plunged through cool shadow, the spray dousing him. After a moment, he drifted with the rhythm of the oars and found himself back in England, in a glade with Acha. She was caressing his brow and telling him all would be well. More than gold, more than glory, he yearned for her. It made him feel weak, like a babe crying for his mother. He should be stronger than that, strong like his father, who had trudged across frozen wastes after his wife had died, carrying her body to the hill where they burned it and offered up her soul to the gods. His father did not yearn. He fought hard, all his life, and put meat in the pot for his son, and instructed him in the ways of the world. Kraki never saw him shed a tear, or complain about his lot. He was a good man, who did his
best for his kin. Sometimes, though, Kraki thought he remembered his mother’s face, though it was as if she were looking at him through the autumn mist.

  The ship jolted and he jerked awake. As the oars dragged up the side and clattered on the boards, the Turks stood up, stretching their weary muscles. They had arrived at their destination.

  Kraki pushed aside a glimmer of apprehension. His end-days were near, he knew that, and he would face them like a man. Rough hands dragged him to his feet. Swaying on the bobbing deck as two men tied the mooring rope to a post on the quayside, he looked out across a town of white-painted wooden houses at the foot of soaring cliffs.

  ‘Amaseia welcomes you,’ Suleiman said at his side. ‘And soon, Roussel de Bailleul will too.’

  The Turk was clever, Kraki acknowledged. He knew the Athanatoi had been riding to confront the Norman warlord. Now Suleiman would trade his captive for favour or gold, and Kraki would face days of torture while Rome’s enemy tried to extract all that he could of the emperor’s plans to defeat him. Kraki owed the Romans nothing. They had heaped misery upon misery upon him since he had washed up in Constantinople. But he would never speak, however much of him they sliced off. No man of honour would betray his spear-brothers, no matter the degree of suffering.

  One of the Turks sawed through the bonds at his ankles. Two men gripped his arms and all but carried him over the side and on to the quay. Grunting, he thought of tearing at one of his guards’ throats with his teeth. Better to die now than suffer days of agony. But the Turks seemed to sense his thoughts, for they stepped back, one of them pressing the tip of a sword into his back.

  As he strode up the uneven path to the gate, he glanced back and saw Suleiman walking just behind him. The leader had his hands behind his back, a smile ghosting on his lips as he surveyed the merchants and their wares. Never had a man seemed more at ease. Here was a leader who feared nothing, Kraki thought.

  His captors prodded him through the gate on to a busy street. The Norman guards paid them no heed, as if these new arrivals were old friends. Kraki pushed his chin up, baring his teeth at anyone who dared look at him. Suleiman laughed, amused by this display.

  ‘You are not like the Romans, I will give you that,’ he called. ‘I see now why they need you to fight their battles.’

  Wincing from the dull throb of his bruises, Kraki trudged along a winding street to a courtyard in front of what he took to be the warlord’s palace. Two of Suleiman’s men had hurried ahead to announce their leader’s arrival, and the Turkish band was beckoned inside by a fierce-looking warrior with a mass of red hair and one empty socket.

  Looking around, Kraki saw that the palace lacked the opulence the Romans enjoyed. Though it seemed to have been raised up by the same hands that built Constantinople, with its columns and large windows that flooded the chambers with light, the stone was cracked and blistered, the floor crumbling. A pool of dark water gleamed where the roof had leaked. But no gold plate shone like the sun; no ornate tapestries hung on the walls. There were no comforts at all. This was a warrior’s home, not a king’s.

  Within moments, three men marched in. One was the red-haired man with the missing eye, his hand never straying far from his axe. Kraki smelled a seasoned war-leader, perhaps the commander of the Norman warriors. The one at the front could be none other than Roussel de Bailleul. His clothes were finer, silver leaves emblazoned on a tunic of purple, the colour of emperors. But it was the way he moved, with the confidence of a man used to victory, that betrayed his station. Tanned, tall and strong, his chin was raised and he sported the grin of a man who did not need to hide his thoughts for fear of attack.

  But Kraki stiffened when his gaze fell upon the third man, someone he had thought he would never see again. Drogo Vavasour was tall and muscular, with a swaggering gait, but his eyes still skittered with an uneasy movement that carried a light Kraki had only seen before in Hengist’s gaze. The Viking’s thoughts flew back to the sweltering heat of northern Afrique and the glaring sun of Sabta, where this Norman bastard had lured the spear-brothers into what he believed was a trap. Fired by his hatred of Hereward, who had killed his brother during the English rebellion, Drogo had been too confident on that day. His men had been slaughtered and Drogo himself had fled to save his miserable neck. It was only fitting that he had found his way here, to Amaseia. These Norman dogs always ran in packs. And in this part of the world, Roussel’s reputation was rising fast.

  From under his heavy brow, Kraki studied Drogo. The warrior was unlikely to recognize him; the fighting had been too fierce. For now Kraki was safe from threat, he knew. But Vavasour was wild, unpredictable, and dangerous. His hatred of Hereward made Roussel’s army an even greater threat when they encountered the English.

  Suleiman and Roussel embraced, laughing as they clapped each other on the back like old friends. Talking quietly in each other’s ears, nodding and grinning, they renewed bonds with memories of shared times. Then they both looked to Kraki.

  ‘I bring you a gift,’ the Turk said with a sweep of his arm.

  Roussel feigned turning up his nose. ‘It is not much of a gift, brother. Is it a bear? A wounded wolf?’ Roussel began to circle the Viking, a smile dancing on his lips as he enjoyed his game. ‘A bedraggled wretch, perhaps? What have you caught yourself, Suleiman ibn Qutalmish?’

  Kraki pushed down his defiance. Even now, when hope seemed so thin, he could not find it within himself to take any course that would cause his doom. Fighting to the last, that was in his blood. It was there in all his father had taught him in the cold wastes as they ran from the packs of enemies who hunted them. He could never forget that life-lesson. And now he had to live to warn Hereward of Drogo Vavasour’s presence here. He gritted his teeth. The warrior’s way was never easy. He would endure.

  ‘Gold mined from the earth seems no more than rock, brother. But once it has been polished, it gleams,’ the Turk replied. ‘This bedraggled wretch has a fire in him. But he also has knowledge of an attack set to strike at you, by the Romans. A war-band has picked its way east. At first they wailed like a child demanding attention …’ Suleiman shook his head, unimpressed. ‘These are not warriors like your own good men, brother, ones who know how to carry themselves into battle. But they learned fear on the road, and now they creep through valleys and forests, drawing towards Amaseia.’

  ‘Is this true?’ Roussel demanded, stepping in front of his captive. Kraki watched the warlord’s eyes. They were calm, perhaps even amused.

  ‘Aye. A storm of steel is about to break over you,’ Kraki told him. ‘Be afraid.’

  The Norman laughed. ‘The Romans have grown fat and lazy through their long rule. They have known victory and wealth for so many years, they think it their God-given right. But men have to fight, always, for the things they value. Let us see, then, who fights the hardest.’

  The Viking spat on the floor. ‘Cut these bonds. Then I will show you all I know about your days yet to come.’

  ‘You will speak. In time.’ Turning away, Roussel raised one hand and snapped his fingers. The warrior with the missing eye held out a leather pouch. Kraki heard the clink of coin.

  Suleiman grinned. ‘You are too kind, brother,’ he said, taking the pouch.

  Kraki showed a cold face, hoping it would hide his thoughts. The Normans seemed distracted, as if they had larger game to hunt than the Athanatoi. And the longer Roussel waited to get answers, the more chance there would be to escape.

  ‘Take him away, Drogo,’ the warlord said with a dismissive flap of his hand. But as Vavasour unsheathed his sword to prod the captive out of the chamber, the sound of approaching feet echoed.

  Three figures emerged from the shadowy depths of the palace. At the front was a moon-faced lad with dead, unblinking eyes. But Kraki found his gaze drawn to the man who towered over him. He was big, bigger than Guthrinc, with shoulders broad enough to carry a mule. His tanned skin was like leather, but he was not young, for all the power that was revealed in even the
slightest movement. Deep lines were carved into his face, and his hair was the colour of steel, sweeping from his brow and falling down the back of his neck. Yet he had lost none of his potency, Kraki could see. Here was a warrior who would give a good account of himself on any field of battle.

  ‘How much longer must we wait?’ he demanded, the voice of a man used to being obeyed.

  ‘All goes to plan, Karas Verinus—’

  But a snarl of anger from Suleiman cut off Roussel’s words. The Turkish leader whisked out his sword, all humour draining from his face. His men swept up their own weapons. ‘You side with this devil?’ he barked.

  Roussel held out his arms. ‘There is no need for argument here—’

  ‘No need?’ Suleiman spat. He narrowed his eyes. ‘This Roman dog slaughters my people. Men, women, children. He straps their remains to crosses to warn off others, as if they were crows on a gibbet.’

  Karas did not flinch from the accusation. ‘My land is my own,’ he said, his voice low and rumbling. ‘I am not like the other Romans you meet, who roll over and bare their throats when you Turks sweep in and steal every patch of earth you cross. Come in your tens, your hundreds, your thousands – the soil will run red with your blood and still you will not gain what is mine.’

  Kraki frowned. He knew the name of the Verini from his time in Constantinople. Their head, Victor, had had his cock torn off and his body dumped in the street, a feast for the wild dogs and the rats. Was this warrior then kin?

  ‘Stay your arm, brother,’ Roussel insisted. This time Kraki heard an edge to his voice. ‘This is talk for another day.’

  Suleiman finally drew his hard gaze away from the man he loathed. Nodding to the warlord, he sheathed his sword. ‘Another day.’ But as he strode towards the door without any other pretence at pleasantries, he flashed one murderous backward glance at Karas.

  Kraki almost grinned. Already they were fighting among themselves. These cracks would only get deeper.