TLV - 01 - The Golden Horn (15 page)

3

Ulf Uspaksson sat on a bench outside the Brazen House, carving, amidst the looped vines, an elephant's tusk and beasts beloved of Northmen. Sunlight rained over him, his shirt clung wetly to the squat powerful frame and his black-furred arms were bare. He looked up as Harald's gigantic form rounded the corner. "Good day," he nodded. "I've not seen you for a while."

"No," said Harald, "I've been busy elsewhere. I only stopped here today to see how things were faring."

"Oh, thus and so." Ulf laid down his knife and mopped his low forehead. "The Caesar asked me yesterday why you had absented yourself from his reception. I lied like Mohammed on your behalf, but he remained ill pleased."

"The Caesar? Bugger him," said Harald shortly.

"Look here," said Ulf, "this cannot go on forever. You got your titles and honors for fighting and standing guard, not for moping about like a bloated bull calf. Beware lest they weary of you."

Harald glared down at the broad ugly face. "Who's the chief of this corps?" he snapped.

"Somebody must speak plain truth to you. It's common gossip that you're so smitten with some girl at court you've even stopped having to do with other women. By the nine thousand lovers of Freyja, why do you not lay her and be done?"

"Enough!" Harald's hand dropped to his sword.

"Well, marry her, then. If I did not care about your good name, and your life, I'd not have said anything."

With an effort, Harald throttled his temper and nodded. "You run off too freely at the mouth, Ulf, but I'll take it as well meant."

"I call you no fool," said the Icelander gently. "Once or twice in a lifetime, if a man is favored by a good Norn, that happens to him which seems to have happened to you. I ask naught but that you take steps to ward what you have won."

"Yes
..."
Harald left him.

He spent the day weighing Ulf's words. Often an outsider has clearer sight. He had been seeing a great deal of Maria Skleraina these past weeks; let him own honestly that he wanted her, and that a hundred years in her company would be too short. Let him then ask her hand, by heaven! He shook his head, awed at the suddenness of his resolution. But why not, why not, why not?

That evening he appeared at the Skleros home. Invitations had quietly stopped being needful some time ago. Nicephorus and Maria were alone in the library, he resting on a couch while she read aloud to him from the
Agamemnon.
Harald stood silent in the doorway, listening.

" 'Now do I swear no more behind a veil

my truth shall hide like a new-wedded girl.

A shining wind shall blow strong to the sunrise,

and like a breaking wave lift to the light

something far g
reater than this pain
of mine . . .' "

She grew aware of him. The book fell from her hand. "Araltes," she said, as if his name belonged to the poem.

Nicephorus rose. "Good evening," he said. "Come join us. Do you know Aeschylus? I swear there will never be another like—Why, what is the matter?"

"Nothing," said Harald. "Nothing wrong."

Maria's eyes widened. Her hand went to her mouth. "Araltes," she whispered, "you're not being sent away
...
to the Serbian war?"

He must grin at that. John had grown much too frightened of revolt at home to dismiss the trusted Varangians. He shook his head and, awkward again, sat down on the edge of a chair."Nicephorus, can we talk freely?" he asked. "I will go," said Maria.

"No, stay." In a rush, like charging a line of pikeman: "I wish to ask for your daughter in marriage."

Harald dared not look at her, he was watching the older man, but he heard how she gulped.

"This is not unexpected," said Nicephorus slowly.

"Well, I suppose I am no good dissembler." Harald's fingers strained against each other. "But I am a king born, and rich, and can take care of my own. I can make her a queen."

Nicephorus bit his lip. "Can you make her happy, though?"

"Can anyone else?" Maria's words wavered.

"So that is how it stands, eh?" Nicephorus sat down again himself. "I could pray for no better son-in-law," he sighed.

Maria went to him. Candlelight and shadow ran across the folds of her dress. "Say what you think, father. This is a time for truth."

His smile was weary. "I had hoped to see your children. But it is selfish of me."

"I can stay here," Harald blurted.

Nicephorus shook his head. "I would not ask that, my friend. I should always think of the lions caged at the Hippodrome. But you, Maria . . . it's a long journey to a barbarous land."

"Do you think that matters?" she cried.

"I had to say it." Nicephorus looked old for a moment, before he shook himself and smiled. "But having done so, why, Christ bless you both."

Maria knelt to embrace him, burying her face in his breast. "Come with us!"

"Now, now, let us remain practical. Perhaps you can send a letter now and again. It's not quite like dying." His thin hand shook as he stroked her hair.

Then he became the scholar once more, observing life from its edge. "Let us consider the other dry necessities at once. How long do you plan to remain here, Araltes?"

The words came from afar as if someone else were speaking through the roar in Harald's head. "Two years, perhaps?"

"Maria cannot quit her service at court overnight. The Empress is so easily offended. And then too, my dear, your mother would be grieved by a hasty wedding. To me it means nothing, but you know what tongues are like in this city. Best we plan upon the marriage next year."

Harald nodded. He could see the sense of that, however it galled him.

"Very good." Gently, Nicephorus freed himself from the girl. "We will forget the proprieties a while, for you two have much to talk about and . . . you are an honorable man, Araltes. Good night."

When he was gone, Maria flung herself into Harald's arms. He caressed her clumsily and wondered aloud why she wept.

"You long-legged idiot," she gasped, raising her face to his, "did you never guess how I was hoping?"

He kissed her, tasting the tears upon her lips.

4

He was often sleepless at night, but the days could be more than sweet. Neither Harald nor Maria might escape their work; oftimes the better part of a week went by without sight of each other, but he found how a man can live on memory. He flung himself back into steering the Guard, as one way to fill such emptinesses.

The year waned in autumn storms and winter chill, the new was rung in by chimes that shuddered through rain. As he came out of Hagia Sophia, Harald felt a raw wind blowing in off the Bosporus, driving a downpour before it that smoked along the streets and gurgled in the sewers. Belike there was snow at home, he thought, white and still. They seldom got snow here. More and more he wanted to go home.

Early in the year he found himself with a free afternoon, and so did Maria, and sainted Olaf—who had himself loved—made it warm and bright. They sat together in the walled garden of Nicephorus, alone except for the needful duenna. Her father had provided the oldest, deafest, dimmest-eyed poor relation he could find; she fell asleep in her chair and Maria came to join Harald on a bower bench.

Her hand lay in his with a trustfulness that turned over the heart inside him, but they talked quietly. She had set herself to learning the Norse tongue, beginning with his name.

"Hah-rrahlt. No, there's a delta on the end, is there not? Hah-rrald!" She wrinkled her nose at him. "What a language! You sound like a bear waking up angry."

"Not angry at you," he said. "I could never be that."

"Well, teach me next to say, 'I love you.' "

He did, and she said it in Norse, and he kissed her for it. She felt how his hands strained not to close on her with their full bone-breaking strength.

"Poor darling." She rumpled his hair. "This betrothal time is not so easy for you, is it?" She flushed. "We have not long to wait. And then . . . And next year, God willing, to travel with you toward the Pole Star. With
youl"

"I'll make you queen over the whole North, Maria."

"It will be enough to be your wife. Truly, I wish no more. Oh, I'm proud as Satan when they talk at court of your victories. Nevertheless—"

"Go on." He lifted her chin in his hand.

"Oh
...
I am being weak and foolish, I know. But I cannot keep from thinking of the other women, whose men never came back. And the peasants dragged off to war, who asked nothing but leave to work their fields in peace. One night I dreamed I stood before the Imperial throne, the Emperor was on it and somehow the Emperor was you, too, but the throne was wet with blood and when you—he—lifted his hand, I saw blood clotted between his fingers."

They had talked somewhat of this erenow. "The Norse throne I must have," he said. "If I take that not, I am a craven who cheats his own sons. But as for the rest, perhaps you can talk me into ways of peace."

Her mood sprang over to lightness. "How many sons shall we have? I hope they will be many. Big noisy boys tramping through the house. And will you give me just one daughter?"

"To be sure. If she has your looks, she'll be wooed by kings. Which will be useful to our throne, eh? But enough of talking. Yonder crone will not nap the whole day, worse luck." He drew her to him. She kissed him with hunger.

Then after a timeless time, feet stamped in the peristyle and a Northern voice cried, "Hoy, there, Harald Sigurdharson! Where the Devil are you?"

"Ulf!" Harald came swiftly from the bower. "What's this?"

The Icelander entered the garden. Teeth gleamed in his dark face. "I thought I'd find you here. News has come."

"Well?" said Harald like a curse.

"A messenger from the palace to the Brazen House. The Bulgarians have risen in force. They're advancing through Dyrrachium, slaying every Greek they can lay hands on. The Emperor is on his way back from Thessalonica to raise a new army. We'll be among them."

Harald stood motionless before he asked, most softly: "How bad is the case?"

"Bad enough. Slavic troops have cast off their allegiance and thrown in with the rebels. The governor in Dyrrachium seems as big an ass as Admiral Stephen, he's being whipped everywhere." Ulf spread his hands. "Well, if the Emperor himself plans to take the field, you can judge for yourself how matters must stand."

"I see." Harald turned back to Maria.

"What were you two saying?" she asked, white-faced.

He told her. "So we cannot be wedded until after this war," he finished, "and the war looks to be a long one."

She had shuddered and he had thought her about to weep. But she drew herself straight instead, and the hands she laid in his did not tremble greatly.

"I'll pray for your safety," she said. "God love you."

VIII

How Emperor Michael Went to his Weird

1

The Imperialists landed at Thessalonica and proceeded on into Macedonia. When Harald looked back over the columns winding up the mountains after him, mile upon mile of lances and banners and knobbed helmets, he might have felt ready to storm Utgardh of the giants. But then his eye traveled to the Emperor, near whom he rode with his choicest guardsmen, and a coldness touched him.

Michael's mount was an ambling fat gelding. He drooped and hung onto the saddlebow as if his cuirassier's armor were about to overbalance him. Swollen with the dropsy,
his face a puffball, his hair
already streaked with gray, he mumbled one steady stream of prayers. Harald wondered if such a presence was heartening to anyone.

God knew the Byzantines needed a rallying sign. The Bulgars had romped through a land which welcomed them as deliverers; Greek and Slav alike had risen; they gripped most of Macedonia and Epirus and on down into the Peloponnesus itself. Yes, he thought, this war would take time, and he might well leave his bones on these gaunt slopes.

Up ahead, from the vanguard, came a sound of yelling. Horses galloped off the road. Harald edged closer to the Emperor. His task was to ward the sacred person, letting Ulf and Halldor lead the Varangian shock troops. He owned he was not sorry for that, however much his nerves were chewed by sitting through the skirmishes thus far. There was no sense in risking needlessly the neck about which Maria's arms had lain.