Lord of Slaughter (21 page)

He turned, disturbed by… by what? Something followed him.
What?
Nothing but a movement in the shadow cast by the lamp. Was it behind him again.
What?
Was that the dream wolf, slinking in the dark?

He kissed his sister, lifting her to a shelf of rock in the pool so she sat as if bathing.

‘The symbols are here,’ he said, ‘in me now. They needed to leave this place and you would not take them. They had to leave; there was no choice. If he finds them here, he’ll be born again. We must hide them from him.’

He pulled his mother through the water to the shelf and sat her beside his sister, kissed her too.

‘I have given what you could not,’ he said, ‘and now a great magic dwells within me. But it is only mine for a little time, so I must never be a man. I do this to honour the goddess and you are with her now. I am good and I have acted for good.’

He pulled himself out of the pool up towards the lamp. As he took it the shadows made wolves on the walls which seemed to stretch eager jaws towards him, but he was not afraid. The symbols protected him. But how long would they stay?

He climbed up the tunnel, towards the light, towards the hillside. He would run to Constantinople and go to the administrator of the palace to ask to be apprenticed to him as a eunuch and servant of the emperor. A symbol expressed itself inside him and said its name in a strange language that seemed magical and beautiful to Karas.
Fehu
. The name brought images of the bountiful baskets of the harvest, of sunshine, of gold, and it brought the thought of good luck. The palace would not refuse him. He would be cut, he would be prosperous and he would never be a man, so he would keep the magic he had earned at the well.

In his bedchamber the chamberlain put his hands to his face and wept.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He recalled the dream that had come to him after the incident at the pool, after he was cut and entered the Office of the Palace. In it, he flew over clouds that stretched out like silver cities in the moonlight, cities that burst into flame with the red dawn. He was pursued. By what? A wolf. He saw it sometimes, no more than a shape made by the rising plumes of storm clouds, white teeth that snapped towards him as the moonbeams split in the sodden air.

A wolf really had come – the wolfman who had been taken to the Numera – like a dream made flesh. The chamberlain had ordered him killed by another inmate – it was dangerous to move against one of the emperor’s prisoners directly – but the man had escaped before that plan had been put into effect. Now he was down in the caves below the prison doing who knew what? Could he find his way to the chamber where the rocks sweated red light and where the hungry waters sparkled like blood? Of course not. It was too far, the route too difficult to find from that side. The spirits that haunted those depths, that kept the curious guards away, that led prisoners to deaths of starvation and thirst in places unseen, would protect him.

But the presence of Norsemen at all worried him. He was a learned man and knew what the symbols he’d taken from the well were, or rather how they appeared to him. Runes, the Norsemen’s magic writing. He shared a common ancestry with the Vikings, he thought, through Odoacer who burned the forum. Perhaps that was why the shapes appeared that way to him.

Karas tried to think of a way forwards. He’d resisted an investigation for so long but the emperor, who had taken it he was born to greatness and never thought to question where his remarkable good fortune came from, had now insisted. It seemed wise to employ the Magnaura’s greenest and least qualified student for the task – the master of the university was no fool and had inferred exactly what sort of man he sought for the job – ‘fresh, unencumbered by too much detailed knowledge of the town, able to provide a new perspective, not tied to any faction’. An idiot, in other words. But now the chamberlain almost wanted to confide in Loys, to see if he really could suggest a way forward, a road other than the goddess’ old road – the road of blood, of death, of misery. He would not confide in him, of course. Instead he would wait, pray and hope no further sacrifice would be required.

He wiped the tears from his face, rang his little bell and called for his servant to dress him for bed.

20
A Champion for Snake in the Eye

Mauger had killed two of his attackers and now fled through the tight backstreets as quickly as he could. The time for subterfuge was over and he needed to put a good distance between him and the people who had taken Azémar.

The streets were not crowded – only the poor stayed outside now, huddled into porches or doorways, fearful faces watching him as he ran, his naked sword drawing too much attention. All of them were potential informants, he thought. He had to hide before either the men who had been chasing him caught him or the city guard noticed him. The light was dropping, the dim day giving up its struggle with the engulfing black clouds. All he had to do was keep moving until night fell.

He ducked around a corner into a narrow alley. It was deserted, so he took the opportunity to put his sword back into his sleeping roll.

He stood still to listen for a while. No sounds of pursuit, just some voices from the houses, a woman and a man arguing and children shouting as they played.

Then steps. And more steps. He put his hand to the hilt of his sword, ready to pull it from the roll.

His pursuers came to the top of the alley. There were two of them.

One of the men spoke. Mauger couldn’t understand what he said but could tell the words were designed to soothe him. The speaker was a slight man but in his hand he carried a sling. Mauger glanced behind him. Another man, this one with an axe. His way out was blocked, no way of telling how many men stood behind those he could see.

Mauger gestured for the sling man to come forward. The man fitted a lead shot to his weapon. Two swings of the sling and Mauger barged through the door of the house at his side as the bullet whistled past his head.

The room burst into uproar as he crashed in – three families all together, children and animals. Two men grabbed him, a small dog bit at his heels. He threw them off but then others had him – the men from outside and everyone who lived in the house. He kicked and fought but he was hopelessly outnumbered in the tiny space. His legs began to buckle. The dog at his feet would not relent and five men held him, though he would not let them take him down.

‘Hold!’

The voice was in Greek but Mauger recognised it – the boy Snake in the Eye.

No one paid any attention to him whatever.

‘Hold in the name of Basileios, who is king of all the world!’

Snake in the Eye held up something in his hand, a medal of some sort.

The Greeks shouted at the youth. Although Mauger did not understand what they said, he guessed they were unwilling to release such a violent man, fearful of what he might do to them.

‘If I make them let you go will you vouch not to harm them?’ said Snake in the Eye.

‘I swear it,’ said Mauger.

Snake in the Eye spoke again in Greek. Three of the men let him go, one pulling the dog free. The two from the group who had taken Azémar, however, clung on – rough-looking Greeks, one tall and muscular the other short and squat.

Mauger was no oathbreaker but he had sworn not to harm anyone who let him go. He stamped down on the side of the tall man’s knee, snapping it like kindling wood. The man fell screaming and Mauger drove his shoulder into the squat man’s side, shoving him back over a stool and sending him crashing down. The man stood quickly, drawing a knife, but Mauger had picked up a chair and thrust it at his opponent, catching him in the eye with the chair’s foot and putting him down again. Mauger stepped on the man’s throat on his way to the door. The sling man, who had stayed out of the fight in the doorway, bolted away down the alley.

The combination of Snake in the Eye’s medal and Mauger’s belligerence meant none of the householders tried to intervene and the warrior made the street easily, Snake in the Eye close behind. Mauger looked around. No sign of the sling man.

‘Other men can’t be far away,’ said Mauger. ‘Is there a place I can go that’s beyond their reach?’

‘Come to our camp outside the walls. You are a brother northerner and a mighty man. You will be welcomed there.’

‘Very well,’ said Mauger. For the moment it seemed the wisest option. He was known in the city. He couldn’t hope to stage an attack on Loys at the university or the palace now. So a subterfuge was called for, and the boy who had rescued him could be useful.

‘Take me to the camp,’ said Mauger, ‘and you have my thanks for making those low men release me.’

Snake in the Eye grinned. ‘We may yet perform for each other many services,’ he said. ‘Follow me. These Greeks cannot harm you there.’

Mauger glanced back at the house, where the fearful inhabitants watched them leave. He would remember their faces, though they would also remember his. Should he return and kill the injured men who had attacked him? No time. He had been seen by their companions anyway.

It was night now, and few lights shone from the windows and doors of the alleys. The clouds were a shroud, blanking out the stars and the moon, reducing vision to no more than twenty paces where lamps or candlelight broke through doorways or windows, to nothing where it did not. Some people lingered on the streets – soldiers carrying torches in the main. Here and there a whore sat by a window, nearer or further from its light as her age or beauty made advisable.

Mauger followed Snake in the Eye towards the walls, glad of the dark.

‘You’re worried, friend,’ said Snake in the Eye.

‘It’s not your concern,’ said Mauger, ‘but I think it best if I do not use my true name in this camp. I will be accepted as a Norseman more quickly, and if Azémar gives up my name they will not find me as easily.’

‘Then what is your name?’

‘Ragnar,’ said Mauger. It was his real name – the one his father had given him, and not the one he had adopted when he came to Normandy, and a common one.

‘I still want to help you,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘I’m eager for honour. Let me be your friend. I can find this man, surely I can kill him for you.’

‘No,’ said Mauger, ‘that must be done by me. I need to know I have the right man, and it’s a matter of honour that I do it with my own hand. I have vowed to my lord to kill him and I can’t let another do it for me.’

‘You still want me to find out where he is?’

‘Yes. The university may still be the best place to look. He used to be a monk but that profession has closed to him.’

‘What is his name?’

‘Loys, the scholar Loys. He is with a woman, a noble lady. They may not be travelling under their own names, though I think they will. It would be too shameful for a high born woman to disguise her rank.’

‘Let me look into it,’ said Snake in the Eye.

‘I will. But why are you so eager to help me?’

‘I have something I need you to do for me,’ said Snake in the Eye.

21
Friend Fear

Loys had decided on a two-pronged approach – the first of which would be to spread fear.

He began by calling in members of the postal service – Isais’ men. That risked invoking the spymaster’s displeasure – a possibly lethal course of action – but he would be buffeted no longer. In Constantinople, he had realised, you either pushed or got pushed.

The work wearied him. He interviewed a variety of men from straightforward courtiers to hardened spymasters who smiled too much and drank too much of his wine while he spoke to them. The interviews were painstaking and had to be conducted according to strict court protocol. Loys, on the advice of his eunuch servant, had ordered a fan of office and learned a five-minute official greeting. His visitors had to bring fans appropriate to their rank and station, and there were four chairs in the room – one for himself, one for low men and one for high men. The most splendid chair sat beside him, empty. It was for the emperor and a signal to those who visited that the investigation took place on his behalf.

At first no one gave up anything, and Loys began to see the whole process as simply an exercise in marking out his territory, showing the court he was a man to be reckoned with. Then, after a month of wearying interviews, he summoned one of the palace ostiarioi, the ceremonial doorkeepers who kept the lists of people to be admitted to the palace and saw to it that the proper protocols of greeting and introduction were observed.

The man reminded Loys of a richly embroidered cushion, he was so fat and so colourful.

‘Do you know or have you ever known of anyone striking bargains with devils, demons or other maleficent powers?’ said Loys.

‘No one at all,’ said the ostiarios. He smiled in a jolly way.

‘Do you know, or have you ever known, of anyone involved in the production of magical amulets, charms or spells?’ said Loys.

‘No one,’ he said, again with a smile. ‘If you are looking to trap me, you shall fail.’

Loys glanced down at his notepaper and scribbled ‘defensive’ on it. Then he looked up.

‘Why would I be looking to trap you? Surely if you have nothing to hide you cannot be trapped.’