Byzantium's Crown (24 page)

"The bird died," she said. "At the blows of stallion and bear, the ice walls shattered. Your shaman saw truth. Shall I complete his vision?"

She raised her eyes to Marric's, a look more intimate and more reassuring than a caress, then poured water into the bowl. She cupped her hands over it. Her lips moved soundlessly in an invocation of the powers she served.

Shadows began to move in the water. Marric leaned over the bowl, trying to give Stephana his strength.

"The bird . . . dead. Blood in the snow, far too much blood, but look, above it! The hawk. The hawk flies free and perches on the greatest tower of the city," she whispered. Another shadow formed: a woman in a fair room, twisting in pain from the dagger in her breast. Marric leaned closer. Did Stephana foresee Irene's assassination?

The sorceress breathed on the water and broke the vision.

"So much is true: the bird's death means victory," she said. "But the bird is Irene—red, not golden: certainly not the hawk of my lord's house. Dying, she stabs with her beak and wounds the city, as we have all seen. Then it turns for healing to its new ruler and his allies—but without conquest.

"Seize the city as you now plan, lord of the steppe, and can you truly promise you will not destroy what you hope to rule?"

A muttering came from the Huns. Stephana fell silent. Ellac himself poured her a cup of water. When Marric moved a saddle into place behind her back, she leaned against it gratefully.

"I cannot rule the city as a puppet." Marric took over Stephana's line of reasoning. "Stallion and bear aid the hawk; they do not destroy. The empire needs its rightful lord or . . . you have seen what Irene has become. Her ambition has destroyed her, and her evil reaches out to touch the whole world. Once you gave me clan-right. Give me help now, or at least, give me leave to depart unharmed."

Deliberately exploiting the length of limb that made him tower over the Huns, Marric rose.

"Uldin, when we raced our ponies to Cherson, neither losing to the other, you called me brother. There are no losers or victors between us. As brother to the clans, I shall deliver the stallion's blow to the bird the shaman saw die. Will that content you?"

The torches guttered while the khagans thought.

"Let him go, great lords," cackled the shaman. "Let him bear your burden for you."

Uldin nodded, then leaned over to speak to Ellac. The other khagan still scowled, unconvinced. "Let him shed his own men's blood, not ours. Why should we care?" At that Ellac nodded assent, too.

Uldin clapped his hands, ushering in a procession of slaves bearing gifts. Apparently he had waited to present them until after it was decided that and his people were guests, not captives.

Marric received a spear with a blue horsetail dangling from it, the insignia of the hordes, and a gold-hilted blade. Stephana received bracelets of heavy gold. Nicephorus received a jade statue that had come from the Lands of Gold. Each of the soldiers took up daggers with finely chased hilts.

Marric saluted the khagans and began farewell courtesies.

"Where now, lord?" asked the dekarch.

"To the bearmaster."

He reached out to pull Stephana to her feet. She brushed free of his hand and stood poised, listening to some inner voice. Her face was very pale, and her eyes gleamed the mad blue that dances at a flame's core.

"Say you so, Prince?" The voice was not her own. "You will have your trip for nothing." Robust laughter burst from her, and she rushed in a tangle of skirts, cloak, and glistening hair out into the camp. The shaman chuckled and whispered to the khagans.

All the men followed Stephana outside. Stephana walked down the long aisle that divided the Huns' tents. Her earlier, febrile energy was gone, but she raised arms in greeting to a party of twelve riders whose horses' bridles and, bits gleamed with silver.

Riding in the van was a man Marric had not seen for years. By now, he thought, Audun Bearmaster must be vastly old. The last year of his father's life when Audun had come to court, his hair had been gray and gold. Now the beard that swept his byrnie, the braided long hair that shone in the light was the white of northern snows: fit match for the bears that he alone of the Aescir nobles could master. He glistened with jewelry—belt pouch, bracelets, a torque, and, hanging far down his chest, a magnificent braided rope of heavy gold.

Marric turned to the khagans. "Are you such friends with the Aescir that so small a party dares enter your camp?"

"There is no great friendship, brother, but no feud either. We thought perhaps that they might join us in an attack. But the whitebeard who rides the red steed told us that the bearmaster wears no man's collar."

Stephana walked toward the bearmaster. Bowmen Stood with arrows ready to fire tried to go to her, but found his path blocked by the men of his command. They would not allow him to risk himself, swear as he might.

Audun Bearmaster swung off his horse and let his reins fall to the ground. He walked over to Stephana. Composed as a queen receiving guests in her own hall, she drew herself up to meet him.

"He will not harm her," Marric told the soldiers. "Let me go. By all the gods," he cried, angered by their protectiveness, "will you have my curse?"

Reluctantly they allowed him to go to the bearmaster.

"So you heard us," Stephana asked, unsurprised. She spoke to him, a man she had never before met, as if to a long-time friend.

"I heard the bear invoked," Audun answered. "So I came. I knew it traveled over mountain in company with the stallion and the hawk. So I came here. But I know other things too: chief among them the fact that a grain ship from Alexandria landed rich cargo: food for the city and a man who calls himself a merchant. He is no merchant but a princeling I once knew."

"And still do, by Horus!" Marric cried. "Audun Bearmaster, well met! Have you brought me my white bear?"

"A bear," Audun bellowed, "A bear for a man of the city that demands tribute of us, then raids our way stations at Birka and Staraja Ladoga when we refuse—as we have a right to do? A bear for a man of the city that wounds its princess—"

"Before all the gods," Marric interrupted, "how fares my sister? Alexa fell before I could help." To his horror he heard his voice roughen. Let Audun understand that even if Alexa and he had fought, he would have died trying to save her.

"Her wounds are healed," Audun said, "and she is well settled in the Isles of the Mists."

The golden king and queen Stephana had revealed to him in the water of vision the night in Taran's hut would preserve her safe until Marric came to claim her.

"If you seek her there at all, seek her soon," the Bearmaster said. "But you ask me if I have a bear for you. Have you a crown to show me, eh? You are ruler by blood: become ruler in deed, and I shall bring you a bear that will not bite the hand into which I give it.

"Let me look at you, Prince," Audun ordered, the way he had done ever since Marric was a child. He nodded approvingly, then reached out a hand to Stephana. "We're among friends here," he bellowed at his men, to the astonishment of Marric's soldiers, the bemused Huns, and—possibly—the horses. "Dis-mount!"

Stephana took Audun's outstretched hand. He smiled at her, his face softening. Taking off one of the chains he wore, from which hung an agate medallion carved into a woman's face, he flung it over her neck.

"Daughter of fate, that is what you are," he spoke softly to her. "Wife perhaps, but not queen; heart's solace, and heart's breaking. Am I right, lady?"

Stephana raised her hand to touch Audun's gift. It was so heavy that her neck almost bent beneath it. "Have you a bear for my lord?" she asked.

"Yes, but he must earn it! And he will, he will. Are you content, little seeress?"

How could he know so much about her?

"I am content."

"When we next meet, you shall guide me," Audun declared. His words rang with significance Marric could not understand.

"Your name, lady?"

"She is Stephana," said Marric. "In Alexandria she and Nicephorus saved my life several times."

"They are welcome to me for your sake, then, as well as theft own," Audun said ceremoniously. Nicephorus greeted him in his own tongue, and he grinned at the courtesy.

Now Ellac and Uldin came up with offers of hospitality. Audun would accept only water for the horses and—to avert ill-feeling—a drink taken out under the stars.

"You would have ridden in search of me," he told Marric. "I thought the time had come when I should search for you. Some of my men are kin to those in Miklagard."

"Do they inform on their city?" raised his eyebrows.

"Why should our aims conflict?" asked Audun.

This was true, and in a healthy empire they would not.

"Only imagine how ill it could have gone in our river cities if we had had no warning of Irene's attacks. We evacuated all we could. But now is no place to speak of that. You would ride to my camp, I understand. I come to bear you company, my bears and I." He roared with appreciation of his own pun. Enchanted, Nicephorus joined in. After an instant, so did Marric.

The soldiers murmured in surprise at a majesty so little like the hieratic dignities to which imperial service had accustomed them. What was Audun? Marric wondered, not for the first time. No one knew what his source of authority was, or where he found the white bears that his whim—or destiny—made him give ruling kings. But he could not doubt that Audun, in some way, did have the loyalty of most Aescir.

It was almost dawn when they finally left the Huns' camp. One of the soldiers had to lead Stephana's horse; she was too weary to ride alone. Audun himself lifted her into Marric's arms.

"Try to sleep," he urged her. "Aescir hospitality can be about as overpowering as Audun."

"I have noticed," she said. She nestled against him with a contented sigh. What had Audun meant by his description of her anyhow? Daughter of fate. Heart's solace and heart's breaking. Like many Aescir nobles, Audun was a poet. Given Aescir poetry, he was also a master of riddles. Marric could not decipher them. Still, if Stephana accepted them, he too might as well call himself satisfied.

The dawn wind tugged at Marric's hair and he brought his cloak around to wrap Stephana more warmly. Violet and scarlet banners flamed at the horizon, heralds of dawn and of victory.

Hostile looks and more hostile mutters attended their entry into the bearmaster's camp at mid-morning. Beyond it the sun dashed sparks from the water of the harbor, and picked out the bright trimmings on the high-prowed ships beached nearby.

"Red Empress' men."

"Does she think us such nithings that she sends such a tiny force against us?"

Marric loosened his sword in his sheath. He was glad that Stephana had insisted she could ride her own horse at the last rest stop. Audun shook his head briefly, reproving his caution.

"Have you brought us here to betray us?" Marric asked.

"You know better than that," Audun snorted.

They rose past a high-fenced pen. Within, white bears weaved about or napped. One rose on its mammoth haunches as they passed and roared at the Byzantines. One of the guard watching the bears bristled and reached for his axe.

"They killed Ivar at the ford! Who will provide for my sister Ingebjorg now, and her far gone with a third child?" he yelled. Brandishing his axe, he rushed toward the dekarch.

"Hold!" Marric grabbed his officer's bridle and grappled him for his sword as Audun leapt from his horse. The smack of a fist against a stubborn jaw ended that scuffle, and Audun faced Marric, holding the man's axe and rubbing his knuckles against his scarlet cloak.

"He has a hard head," observed the bearmaster. "One grain of sense remains in it. His sister's man was killed by imperials, and Ingvi here isn't wealthy. You're too hotheaded to be a rich man, Ingvi. Attack guests of mine again, and so help me, I'll put the greater outlawry on you. Understand?" He faced the man down. "Well, do you?"

Ingvi shook his head, spat out blood and several broken teeth, and nodded sullen assent.

Audun swung back easily into the saddle. "If these were Jomsborgers, I doubt I could bring you into my camp and expect to see you ride out alive. The Reaver of Jomsborg doesn't answer to me, you see. But these men do. What do you say, Prince, about Ingvi's brother-in-law?"

Marric had been giving urgent orders to his men. The bearmaster's question turned him around. "I say your discipline is worthy of the imperial regiments themselves."

"Aye, but are your regiments worthy of me? Consider Ingvi's family, prince. The Jomsborgers would swear you blood feuds on their account and they'd be enough to make the Huns look like puppy dogs."

Marric looked over the Aescir. Many had assembled in a flat space before the bearmaster's shelter. Two men walked the unfortunate Ingvi up and down. Aescir could be commanded only after they had been convinced, Marric remembered his father saying. These Aescir, many still bandaged or limping, would take a lot of convincing.

"Why did you stop him?" he asked Audun.

"You are my guests. I came to the city not for vengeance but for law. Your father Alexander always dealt fairly."

"And so shall I," Marric promised. "Warrior's oath on it. Will you share blood with me?" He walked over to Audun. "Then, even if I might withhold compensation from your men as emperor—Horus forbid I do such a thing!—I could not deny them their rightful wergeld as a fellow warrior."

He walked out into the clearing. "Men and lawspeakers of the Aescir, witness that I, Marric Antonius Alexander, acknowledge all debts of the empire incurred in my service or out of it."

"Will that content you?" he asked Audun.

The bearmaster threw a burly arm around Marric's shoulder, then stripped off his tunic. "Draw," he ordered, "and make the first cut."

Aescir surrounded them as Marric's knife slashed first the bearmaster's arm, then his own. They clasped forearms and let their blood mingle and drip on the earth.

"When may we expect our wergeld?" asked a lawspeaker.