Hereward 05 - The Immortals Page 2

  ‘Save your brawling for the tavern,’ Hereward commanded the Viking. ‘These days you are snapping like a wounded bear.’

  Kraki glared. ‘This coward wants to throw down his spear and become a farmer.’

  Turold held up his hands. ‘’Tis true. I have carried a spear with you ever since I wandered into the camp at Ely with nothing but the mud under my nails. I fought then because the Normans wanted to take everything we held dear. But there is not one here who would truly call me a fighting man.’

  Hereward could not argue. Turold was always quick to smile and for the most part as gentle as a churchman.

  ‘Some Roman girl has stolen his wits,’ Kraki grumbled.

  ‘Leave him be,’ one of the others called. ‘He has done no harm to you.’

  Kraki rounded on them, his fists bunching. ‘We are brothers! We stand together, we die together!’

  Another warrior made a farting noise that only drove the Viking to even greater rage. Hereward stepped forward, placing one hand on Kraki’s chest to hold him back. Beckoning, he walked to where Guthrinc was keeping watch. Still scowling, the Viking followed.

  ‘You would pick a fight with Turold?’ the Mercian said when only Guthrinc could overhear. ‘No. Something else has been gnawing at you for too long now. What truly irks you?’

  For a moment, Kraki chewed down on his anger. Then he swept an arm out towards the lonely countryside. ‘What is there for us here? When we left England, you promised us gold and glory. But gold does not come any easier in Constantinople than anywhere else in this miserable world. We will not be able to buy ourselves a new beginning until we have earned it.’

  ‘The coin will come. We have earned a little.’

  ‘Little. Aye, that is a good word.’ Kraki hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spat at his feet. ‘We are trusted only with work that would not tax a child. The Romans laugh at us, when they are not treating us like the dirt beneath their feet. And for what? Pay that barely stills my rumbling belly.’ He hammered one fist against his chest. ‘We are the warriors who risked all against the fiercest army in the west. Where are our rewards? We came here to join the Varangian Guard. Those bastards have more gold than they can ever spend, and more glory too.’

  Hereward stared across the wide plateau to where the mountains rose up in the distance, trying to find words. Kraki spoke true. For all their sacrifices, they deserved much more than this. Yet only gold, and a lot of it, would buy their way into the ranks of the emperor’s elite guard. He felt the weight of his burden. Without a moment’s doubt, his spear-brothers had followed him into a battle which had seemed unwinnable, and in defeat they had been forced to leave behind kin, friends, home. Where would he find the fortune required to repay them for such loyalty?

  ‘If we stay here, the Romans will destroy us by degrees,’ Kraki said, releasing the words he had kept tight inside him.

  ‘And if we flee, we will be running for ever,’ Hereward countered. ‘Would you be known as the cowards who abandoned England, and then ran from every hardship?’

  The Viking shook his head and looked away, wrestling with his doubts. He would not be easily placated, Hereward could see. This was not like Kraki at all. No battle had ever seemed too great for him to fight.

  Guthrinc glanced over at his friend, a wry smile playing on his lips. ‘Do I hear the whining of a babe in arms?’ he murmured.

  ‘You would be happy hunting fowl with your bow,’ the Viking spat. ‘Some of us want a just reward for the use of our strong right arm.’

  ‘You are full of vinegar,’ Guthrinc replied, chuckling. ‘You would be sour even if the gold came up to the top of your beard.’

  Kraki grunted. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  ‘Wait.’ Guthrinc’s attention snapped towards the horizon. Narrowing his eyes at the dust cloud, he said, ‘There is more than one rider. I count three …’ He squinted. ‘No, four … more. A war-band. It looks to me as though they are chasing the other one down.’

  ‘Turks? Here?’ Hereward furrowed his brow. At first the Seljuks had merely crept across the edges of the empire from the south and the east, but in recent years that trickle had become a deluge. Grown lazy on their wealth, the Romans had done little to fight for their land, as if this problem would somehow fade like the mist under the sun. Facing no resistance, the Turks had grown fearless. But surely any war-band would not venture this far west and risk waking the sleeping beast?

  ‘Ready yourselves,’ he called, turning back to his men. ‘Lie low and wait for my command.’

  As one, the spear-brothers fell silent, dropping down into the long grass so that it seemed they had never been there. Guthrinc kneeled to hide his huge frame. Peeling aside the green curtain, he watched the riders approach.

  ‘If this is none of our business, we let them ride by,’ Hereward breathed beside him.

  At first the English could have been alone for a hundred miles with only the singing wind for company. But then the ground began to throb. The sound of hoofbeats rumbled across the grasslands. When Hereward peered over Guthrinc’s shoulder, he glimpsed a dark smudge taking shape in the dust, gradually coalescing into a man hunched over the neck of his horse.

  ‘A Roman,’ Guthrinc murmured.

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘He carries a standard, the eagle with two heads. Tattered, it is.’

  ‘He has been in a fight, then.’ Hereward weighed this information, then craned his neck back and whistled a sharp blast through his teeth. The grass swished. Deep in their hiding places, his men would be stiffening as they raised their spears and shields.

  If this was a Roman soldier being run down by enemies, Hereward knew they would have no choice but to act. He felt a tremor of passion run through him. It had been too long since his blood had been up, and he had grown afraid that the dullness of the days had taken the edge off him. Deep in his head, he heard a hungry whisper from the part of him that he had grown to hate, the devil that lusted for slaughter and filled him with a rage that made him blind to all reason.

  As the riders left the barren landscape and plunged into the grass, the dust drifted away to reveal eight men hard on the heels of the fleeing Roman. To Hereward’s eyes, they did not look like Turks – they wore hauberks and helms that gleamed in the setting sun.

  Guthrinc cocked his head to one side. ‘Can this be? Normans?’

  ‘They are everywhere,’ Kraki sniffed. ‘They know how to make good coin with their strong right arm.’

  When the leading rider neared, the Mercian could see that the warrior’s face was twisted with terror. His leather armour was filthy with the dirt of the road, and his horse seemed exhausted. Spittle sprayed from its mouth as it veered through the grass. In contrast, the closest pursuer was bearing down upon them fast, sword raised to take the Roman’s head.

  Hereward tapped Guthrinc on the shoulder. The English oak knew the command without looking. Snatching his bow from his back, he nocked an arrow in one fluid movement, took aim, and loosed it. His shaft rammed into the forehead of the attacking warrior, flinging him off the back of his mount. When his horse reared up in shock, confusion erupted among the war-band. Milling in the long grass, the Normans searched this way and that for the enemies they now knew were hidden nearby.

  Hereward felt the blood thunder into his head, and his devil cry out in anticipation, but he was no longer strong enough to resist it. With a roar, he burst into the open, axe in hand. At his heels, the rest of the English surged out, yelling. The Normans fought to keep their mounts under control, shouting warnings.

  Guthrinc towered up, loosing another shaft in a blur, and then another. One arrow splintered harmlessly upon a shield, but the other smacked into the chest of one of the riders. Flailing, the man tried to wrench the arrow out, even as blood bubbled up over his fingers.

  The Normans had the advantage of horseback, and they hacked down with their double-edged swords. But the courage of the English – some would say madness –
had thrown the enemy into disarray. Spears herded their beasts into a frenzy and stabbed at thighs and arms. So many weapons bristled that the Norman shields were not enough.

  As one rider tumbled back with a scream, Hereward thumped his axe down, splitting the man’s face in two before he had even hit the ground. Kraki ripped his blade through the leg of another, and Sighard, Hiroc and Hengist unseated a third.

  The surviving Normans were not stupid. Seeing they were outmatched, they rounded their horses and spat epithets as they thundered away. In response, the English shook their spears in the air and cheered. Hereward could see that even that short battle had been good for them. Grins sprang to lips and cheeks flushed with passion. Men whose spirits had been whittled away suddenly remembered who they were in the thick of a fight. He felt proud. Brave men, all of them. He would give them what they deserved, however much it cost him.

  Sighard, the youngest of the English warriors, was beckoning frantically from where the Roman’s exhausted horse roamed riderless. Under his shock of red hair, his pale face looked worried.

  The Roman lay on his back in the long grass, shaking as if in the grip of a fever. He was barely more than a boy, his cheeks so hollow it seemed he had not eaten in days. Blood caked the corner of his mouth and a gash seeped on his forehead. Delirious, he jabbered as his eyes rolled white.

  ‘What does he say?’ Sighard asked.

  Kraki peered into the lad’s face. ‘And why was he fleeing so hard?’

  Hereward knelt beside the fallen man, noticing how his right fist was gripped tight. Gently prising open the fingers, he revealed the object the rider clutched as if his life depended on it: a gold ring with a large oval engraved with the sign of the two-headed eagle.

  Sighard gaped. ‘That is no warrior’s ring. It can only belong to someone great.’

  The Roman seemed to find peace now that he had delivered his prize. For a moment his eyes swam, and then he looked clearly into Hereward’s face. ‘You must warn the emperor,’ he croaked. ‘We were not prepared. Now doom is coming for all of us.’ And with that his eyes fluttered shut as exhaustion claimed him.

  ‘What did he mean?’ Sighard whispered, his eyes wide.

  Hereward looked up and across the swaying grass into the west, where the red sun dipped towards the horizon. ‘Make ready,’ he said. ‘We return to Constantinople this night.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  IN CONSTANTINOPLE, EVEN the night bowed its head to man. Outside the entrance to the hippodrome two vast stone bowls of oil blazed, and above them, along the whitewashed walls, torches sizzled. In the glare, sharp emotions burned too. Those who had not gained entry to the races haggled over bets, over winners and losers, jostling amid the stink of sweat and pitch. Desperation seethed in the ones who stood to lose more coin than they could afford. Greed, excitement, fury, all of it was at boiling point.

  From within that grand stone building, the roar of the crowd boomed above the rumble of hooves as the horses thundered round the circuit. Riders yelled their encouragement, whips lashed flanks.

  Hereward pushed his way through the throng, weary from the long journey back to the city. In his homeland, the villages would be quiet at this hour. Folk would be gathered with their kin around their hearth-fires, sharing tales of the day. Not here. They did things differently in this vast, greedy, hot, dangerous, scheming city. The Mercian looked round at the feverish men and women, cocking their heads as they tried to make sense of the din of the race. The lure of gold kept men from their beds, drove them out into the streets at first light. Gold was all that mattered to these Romans, and all that mattered to the desperate folk who streamed through the gates every day, fleeing from threat or hungry for a new dawn.

  Sighard hurried up, his pale skin and red hair standing out among the swarthy Romans. ‘The others are inside,’ he said. ‘They bid me wait for you.’ His eyes were questioning.

  ‘The Roman we found will live. The leech is tending to him at the Boukoleon palace.’

  ‘The ring? His warning?’

  ‘Whatever he knows is not for the likes of us,’ the Mercian said, unable to hide his sardonic tone. ‘He is saving it for the emperor’s counsel.’

  Sighard sighed. ‘And a reward?’

  Hereward shook his head, irritated. The guardsmen had shown him the door so fast he had barely had time to speak.

  As the race ended, the cheers of the victorious surged up. Within moments, a knot of men swept out of the entrance. At their heart, Hereward glimpsed the emperor Michael, too bright-faced for a man who carried the burden of empire. He was young, an innocent. But as always the eunuch, Nikephoritzes, stood behind the emperor’s left shoulder with eyes like brass. He was the true power, Hereward knew. Both men were swallowed up by ten warriors of the elite Varangian Guard, their hands never far from their long-hafted Dane-axes, their gaze continually searching the crowd for any sign of threat. They never smiled, rarely spoke.

  Sighard followed the Mercian’s stare. ‘The emperor should thank his god that he has men like that at his back. He would have been torn from his throne and tossed to the wild dogs in the street by now, if not for them.’

  ‘Aye,’ Hereward agreed. ‘This is a troubled city. Plots growing like weeds, the emperor loathed for his weakness. And beyond the walls, more enemies than any man can count.’ He eyed the young Englishman. ‘The emperor needs more men, men like us, to keep him safe. Soon he will see that.’

  ‘I am sick of waiting for fortune to smile upon us.’

  Hereward turned at the gruff voice. Kraki scowled at anyone who dared meet his eye. He and Guthrinc had emerged from the hippodrome with some of the other spear-brothers. The English oak was gnawing on hot lamb that he had bought from one of the street sellers, wiping the grease from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I would be away, in the north,’ Kraki continued. ‘I miss the cold, and the rain, and the wind that cuts right through you. Weather like that keeps you hard. Here they are all too soft.’

  Guthrinc frowned, seemingly sensing something else in his friend’s words. Laying one of his big hands upon Kraki’s shoulder, he said, ‘You need some wine inside you.’

  ‘I need mead.’

  ‘Wine will drown your grumbles as well as anything. Come, we will find what passes for a tavern in these parts.’ He gave the Viking a shove.

  Once the warriors were shouldering their way through the crowd, Sighard leaned in and whispered, ‘I worry for Kraki.’

  ‘He has been walking under a cloud for too long. What troubles him?’

  ‘Why, he misses Acha,’ Sighard replied, surprised that the Mercian did not know.

  Hereward nodded. Now he understood. His thoughts flew back to the first time he had seen Acha, in Earl Tostig’s hall in Eoferwic on that cold, cold winter’s night. Hair the colour of raven wings and skin like snow, she had used her beauty to bend many a man to her will there. But in the end she had given herself to the Viking. Though he hid it well, Hereward knew Kraki had been bereft when they had been forced to part. Acha had returned to her own folk, the Cymri, and the Viking had found himself here, in a strange world, where his worth was rarely appreciated. Little surprise that he yearned for England. ‘Do not let him hear you say that,’ the Mercian cautioned. ‘He will cuff your ear so hard it will grow larger than your head.’

  ‘When the blackness claimed me after the death of my brother, Kraki dragged me back into the light. I would do the same for him.’

  ‘He is a proud man. He does not take help easily.’ Hereward felt concern for the gruff Viking, as he did for all his men. ‘His spirits will recover once we have bought our way into the Varangian Guard.’

  Sighard did not look convinced.

  Curses echoed above the babbling voices and Hereward turned to see a bobbing head thrusting its way through the throng. A moment later, Alric shoved his way next to them. He was a monk who had found himself a companion of warriors and through it had seen as much blood and hardship as any of the other exiles. Hi
s face was flushed with anxiety. ‘I was afrit you would be gone from here.’

  ‘You are late,’ the Mercian said. ‘The others are already drowning themselves in wine.’

  ‘There is talk of war—’

  ‘There is always talk of war.’ Sighard grinned. ‘Have you not yet learned how these Romans are? They talk and talk and then fill their bellies with food and drink and sleep it off. When they are not plotting to murder some rival or other, that is.’

  Alric shook his head. ‘No, the Varangian Guard has been summoned to the palace. And the wise men, and the advisers. Never have I seen so many worried faces.’

  ‘Calm yourself,’ Hereward said, clapping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘We are not dead yet.’

  Sighard grabbed the monk’s left arm and raised it high. A leather sheath capped the wrist where Alric’s hand should be. ‘Tell me, monk,’ the young warrior teased, ‘does God still hear when you pray with one hand? Or do you make as much sense to his ears as the thief who has had his tongue torn out?’

  ‘God hears us all, even you when you have filled your skin with ale and make as much sense as a babe in arms.’ Alric cocked one eyebrow in defiance. His skin had grown thick in the long years since Hereward had first met him, when they were both fleeing from death through that frozen forest in Northumbria.

  Sighard spied Turold entertaining the crowd with one of his songs and wandered over, ready to be caught up in the skein of his friend’s words. Alric beckoned Hereward to one side. From the leather pouch at his hip, he pulled a small object wrapped in a white silk cloth. ‘A gift. For you.’ Glancing around, he unfolded the cloth in the crook of his arm. On the silk lay a sliver of wood, capped with silver and attached to a leather thong. ‘Do not judge,’ the monk said with haste. ‘There are some who say the power of God lies in that splinter. It is from a bowl St George himself once prayed over, which then made a blind woman see when she sipped from it, so it is said.’