The Viking Saga Page 24

  Pillar after pillar rose like a forest of rich trees, and surmounted by semicircular arch after semicircular arch, until the mind grew confused with the intricacy of the design – and mosaic work everywhere, from floor to the high domed roof! Harald had long since stopped trying to find out who all the figures were in those delicate pictures; for even when he was told, by Kristion, who had taken the Vikings round explaining everything to them before they were sworn in as guards, Harald had not understood what the names meant. Saints, Bishops, Emperors – they meant little to his mind, and so, in the torpor of the summer heat, he had decided to do the only possible thing, and ignore them, merely letting their magnificence shine down on him as he went about his duties.

  Then, as he stood there in the bright light, his mind clouded with the memory that came back to him. A week before, he had first made the acquaintance of the great lady, Irene, mother of the Emperor-to-be, and the meeting had not been a pleasant one.

  She had stormed into that very hall which lay behind him, a short elderly figure, her wrinkled face painted as brightly as that of a doll, her greying hair dyed an impossible shade of reddish-purple, her clumsy body made enormous by the billowing robes of thick brocade, heavily embroidered in gold and silver thread so that she rustled as she moved, like a forest with the wind blowing through it.

  She had stopped before Harald and Haro and with her lips pinched tightly had said, in her coarse high voice, ‘So these are the two northern fools who brought that Muslim baggage to Byzantium!’

  Then, with a cruel sneer on her face, she had said, ‘But have no fears, Northmen, you will never take her back again! When I have finished with her, she will not be worth taking anywhere!’

  Kristion had been following the lady Irene in her inspection of the Guard and had winked at Harald when the lady was talking to another man. Harald took some comfort from that wink, for he felt that Kristion meant to imply that Irene was merely threatening Marriba in order to impress her own power upon the Vikings. Nevertheless, Harald had been worried, for Irene seemed viciously selfish in all things. His anxiety for Marriba, however, had soon been driven from his mind by what followed afterwards.

  The golden trumpets had blown and then young Constantine had pranced into the great hall, followed by half a Company of his Guards, the men who wore the black plume in their helmets.

  Defiantly he had paced to the centre of the hall, and with his hand on his hip had surveyed his mother as she walked the length of the line of her Guards.

  At last she had turned and, surveying him with a twisted smile, had said, ‘There you are, little one! Your nurses have been looking for you all day! You are really a very bad boy, Constantine, to lead your mother such a dance!’ Turning to her Captain, Kristion, she had then said, ‘See that the little Emperor is tucked away safely, Captain. If he runs wild with rough companions, there is no knowing to what mischief he may get up!’

  Against his will, Kristion had marched to the young Prince and, bowing, had taken him by the arm. Constantine’s own Guards had parted to let the great Kristion escort his prisoner away, out of the hall. The young man’s eyes had turned in anguish on his mother; his lips had tried to give the order to his own Guards to strike her down, there and then. But somehow, nothing had happened. Nothing, except that the boy had been put into a prison cell specially prepared for him, with all necessary comforts, next to his mother’s own bedroom.

  ‘And that,’ said Kristion, mopping his broad brow as he told his own Company, ‘is the end of Constantine, as far as ruling Byzantium is concerned. He stands no more chance of doing that, than I do of being elected King of the Franks! Not so much, perhaps!’

  The Company of Irene’s Guard had laughed loud at this, but in each man’s heart there was a tiny shred of pity for the young man whose mother was willing to kill him, rather than let him thwart her ambitious claims to the throne of the Eastern Empire.

  And so Harald thought of all this, as he stood in the sunshine, at the door of that great hall, that morning. What had happened to Marriba he did not know, and at the moment did not dare inquire, though he and Haro had told each other, whispering at night in their sleeping quarters, that, if the chance arose, they would give the girl what help they could, thoughtless as she had been, both to her father and to themselves.

  Then, as Harald bent to pick up a pebble to throw at a white pigeon which was pecking away at the opal eyes of an alabaster statuette in the courtyard, he heard the sound of the golden trumpets once more, and stood to attention, expecting that some member of Irene’s family might be entering from the city, through the high gates of black marble.

  But another Guardsman, who stood at the corner of the hall, only laughed at him and told him not to stand to attention for a squad of his own Company.

  ‘Where have they been?’ asked Harald, quietly.

  The other man called from behind his hand, ‘Up north, comrade; they’ve been out a month now, escorting a party of merchants who went to do business with the Khazars, trading our silks, gold, and wine for their furs, honey, and wax. Oh yes, and their slaves – I forgot that! But perhaps it’s tactless of me to mention it – since you yourself have only recently shaken off the yoke, as it were!’

  Harald made a violent gesture to the man, pretending to be very angry with him, but the other Guard put his finger to his nose and said, ‘Speak no ill of the Khazars in this Palace, friend, for the last Emperor, Leo, had a Khazar chieftain as his grandfather, so rumour has it!’

  Harald would have asked more of this, for the name Khazar interested him; he knew that they were a great people who inhabited the vast plains far inland, and beyond the Black Sea, a warlike folk who often lived in great skin tents and travelled from place to place at grazing time with their herds, a race of warriors who swept down from time to time on outlying towns, riding their half-wild ponies like demons, to burn and pillage without fear of any man.

  But there was no time to ask about all this, for the squad of Guards marched in smartly, despite their long desert journey, followed by the merchants who had come to pay their tribute to Irene – and then the slaves. There were perhaps a score of these, mainly bent and dispirited Tartar-folk, whose dull eyes proclaimed their defeat; but there was one among them who caught Harald’s eye, for he was an old friend. He stood as tall as a man and half a man, and was as broad in the back as three men standing together. He held himself erect, and so towered over the small folk of the Steppeland.

  Harald started from his post on the steps and called, ‘Why, Grummoch, you old rogue! Why, Grummoch!’

  The giant shambled forward, pushing the Guard aside carelessly, and ran to Harald, who threw down his javelin and embraced the gigantic fellow.

  The squad halted and their Captain did not know what to do; the impatient merchants began to bleat that they had paid good money for this slave and were not going to have him spoiled like this.

  But then Kristion appeared, his face stern, his hand on the hilt of his great sword.

  ‘Sooner or later,’ he said gravely, ‘all the big mice get caught in our mousetrap, my friends. And this is a mouse we shall not let go again. You merchants have provided the great lady Irene with a new Guardsman. He will be the tribute you pay this time. Now you may go about your lawful business; I speak for Irene herself.’

  The merchants began to cry out that they had paid an enormous sum for the giant, as much as they normally paid for three grown men, and were not going to let him go like that. Kristion turned on them such a face as made them quail.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘Irene will accept the rest of your merchandise in the place of this slave. Guard, see that the furs, honey, wax, and other things are delivered to the warehouses immediately.’

  Only then did the merchants change their tune. And so Giant Grummoch came to Miklagard and, because of the great heart of Kristion, the Captain, became a Guard alongside his old friends, Harald and Haro – though it was a week before the smiths could beat out a breastplate a
nd a sword to fit him!

  19. A New Enemy

  Grummoch soon became a great favourite with the Guards, because of his immense strength and his good humour. Nor did he ever take advantage of his size when it came to combat practice – though he always asked for four helpings of anything at mealtimes, and was never refused! Indeed, Kristion sent an order to the cooks that they were to give the giant as many helpings as he asked for, as long as the other men did not go short.

  Strangely enough, Irene hated him from the moment she first set eyes upon him, and he her. She had stood before him, taunting him, until Harald saw that the giant’s temper was almost outworn. Luckily, Irene seemed to have noticed that too, for she moved away from him and vented the rest of her spite on some other unfortunate Guardsman.

  Afterwards, Grummoch said humorously, ‘Captain Kristion, keep a good watch over that old vixen, for one night when I feel reckless I may go to her room and gobble her up, crown and all!’

  But Kristion had only smiled and passed down the line, without punishing the Guard for what, in another man, might have been construed as disloyalty.

  Indeed, few of the men took Grummoch at all seriously. They did not even believe the tale he told of his travels over the last months, though Harald had no doubt that they were true, fantastic as they seemed.

  After the shipwreck, Grummoch said, he had swum towards the shore, even though his legs were fastened with the iron gyves. Then, when his strength was fading and the sea was coming into his mouth, he had floated on to a half-submerged rock, where he had stayed that night, barely holding on with his failing muscles. The next morning he was found by a small fishing smack, and taken ashore to a little village still inhabited by Spaniards and not Moors. There he stayed for some days, getting back his strength and helping in whatever ways he could; and at last had started his great journey back towards the north, walking across country, through the mountains, and hoping to reach the land of the Franks.

  In the mountains he had fallen in with a gang of robbers who had valued him for potentialities as a warrior, and he had helped them too, in certain ways which he would not divulge; but at last the Emperor of the Franks had sent a large party of soldiers to clear these ruffians out of the mountains and they had taken to the sea, hoping to return when the hue and cry had died down.

  But unfortunately, they had been wrecked off Corsica and had lived in the woods like savages for some weeks before being captured by a pirate crew who sold them as slaves to some Bulgars.

  After that, Grummoch’s tale became very confused, for he had escaped many times and had been caught by this tribe and that, until at last, in a final bid for freedom, he had walked right into a camp of foraging Khazars, who had been delighted with their catch.

  And so, many months after his capture, he was exchanged to the Byzantine merchants for forty rolls of silk and five amphora of red wine. And then he came to be a Guard in Irene’s Company!

  It was a great joy to Harald and Haro to see their giant again, for, to tell the truth of it, they had already begun to feel somewhat lonely, out of place, and cut off, in this swarming palace of olive-skinned men and women – courtiers, officials, soldiers, hangers-on round the immensely powerful Irene.

  One evening, when the stars speckled the dark blue sky and the three Guardsmen sat about a small brazier on one of the upper ramparts of the palace, Haro said, ‘This is no place for us, my brothers. Here men speak one thing and think another. You cannot trust their eyes, they are dark-brown and sly; they always slide away from one’s gaze.’

  Grummoch nodded and said in his slow way, ‘Yes, and always they seem to smile when they speak, as though they are already making some new plot to deceive one.’

  Harald was sitting thoughtfully a little away from them. He rose and came over to the brazier slowly.

  ‘I have been thinking,’ he said, ‘that now we are together, we should try to do something for Marriba. She was a foolish girl, I know, but then most girls are foolish, I have been led to understand, so she is no rarity. From the rumours which come into this place daily, I understand that Constantine will never be allowed to marry her. Indeed, a water-seller in the street yesterday called out, in my hearing, to a friend of his on the other side of the road, that Irene had sworn to put the girl to the torture.’

  Haro started and said, ‘How could he know that, a simple water-seller?’

  ‘I took him by the arm,’ said Harald, ‘and held my sword point ever so slightly inclined towards his heart, as I asked him the same question. He was ready enough to answer me, and said that he had it from one of the cooks who usually took the water from him. She had it from a serving-wench who was in Irene’s room at a private feast she gave to some of the counsellors. Irene had been drinking much wine, when suddenly she flung down her crystal goblet, breaking it to a thousand slivers in her anger. Then it was that she had burst out with the threat. Her son, she said, had been tempted to rebel against his mother’s gentle guidance by this young Muslim hussy, and the sooner the girl was shown that it was dangerous to anger the Most High, the better.’

  Grummoch said in his slow voice, ‘Do you know where Marriba may be found, Harald?’

  Harald nodded. ‘Come over here,’ he said. ‘Now look where I am pointing. Can you see where the avenue of cypresses meets that tall white building with the pointed tower, away beyond the market square? Marriba lives on the second floor of a house near there, a house with a silver star painted above its archway. The water-seller showed me where it was, for I threatened him with torments for spreading palace rumours.’

  Suddenly Haro straightened himself and stood up. ‘Could you find your way there in the darkness, Harald?’ he said.

  Harald nodded his head slowly, ‘I could do that, my friend,’ he said. ‘The same thought had come to me as I sat thinking, but I was not sure then whether you two would be prepared to help the girl.’

  Grummoch smiled and answered, ‘I would prefer that she were the daughter of the High King of Erin, for she is, or was, my own betrothed; but in cases like this, a man does not inquire about a girl’s family or attachments before he gives her the help she needs. I am with you, Harald, come what may.’

  ‘And I,’ said Haro simply. ‘You did not need to ask.’

  Harald drew his friends close to him and whispered, ‘Good, then, my brothers. We will start as soon as the Guard at the main gate begins his tour of the outer wall. Then we shall reach the street without anyone knowing.’

  Giant Grummoch rubbed his great hands with glee. ‘I have spent so much time evading capture of one sort and another, such things as this are second nature to me now, friend Viking! But, one thing troubles me, what shall we do when we find her? We cannot bring her back here.’

  ‘No,’ said Haro, ‘nor dare we try to take her away from Miklagard, for if we were caught, we should pay the worst sort of penalty as deserters from the Imperial Guard.’

  Harald nodded and said, ‘I have already thought of that. We shall merely remove her to another place, until such time as we can get her safely away from this city of corruption and intrigue. I had thought that we might get her away to Kristion’s sister in the country, but that would place the Captain in an awkward position, since Irene trusts him entirely. So it will be best to put the girl in some little house in a back street, the house of such a man as my water-seller, for example, where she would never be suspected of hiding.’

  Haro said, with a strange smile, ‘There is one great problem – suppose she refuses to believe us that she is in danger? Suppose she refuses to come with us?’

  Grummoch flexed his great arms and said, ‘In my time, I have carried two grown calves at once. Surely I can manage a young girl!’

  Harald grinned and answered, ‘I do not know, giant. A young girl of this sort might well turn out to be difficult, even for such a man as you.’

  Just then Haro pointed down over the courtyard; the guard was presenting his javelin and coming up to attention, as they did when t
hey were about to set off on a tour of the outer wall.

  ‘Come,’ said Harald, ‘now is our chance!’

  Removing their bright helmets so that the starlight should not give them away, glistening on the burnished metal, they bent their heads and moved along the wall and so down the first staircase that led to the courtyard.

  But before they reached the lower stairway, Harald held up his hand for them to stop. They did so and followed his gaze; he was staring at a small round window in the inner wall of the stairwell. The flicker of candlelight came through the aperture and also the sound of voices – two voices, a woman’s and a boy’s, the first insistent and domineering, the other high and tremulous, the voice of a coward, or one almost out of his wits with terror.

  Harald crept to the window, holding his scabbard tightly lest it should rattle against the wall and give them away. He looked down into a room almost as high and narrow as a water-well. From the many chains and gyves which hung from the walls, he knew what this place was – the torture chamber. But it was not the irons and manacles which caught the Viking’s eye – it was the two people in that horrible room – Irene and her weak son, Constantine. The boy lay grovelling among the straw on the stone floor, his legs chained to the wall, his arms stretched out in supplication.

  ‘I will promise to do anything you say, Mother of Glory,’ he moaned, ‘only do not leave me in this cell another night. I am frightened by the sounds that come in through the window when all the Palace is asleep. They seem to gibber and grunt at me, mocking me …’

  Irene smiled bitterly and pushed the boy’s head back with her sandalled foot.

  ‘I should think they do gibber and grunt at you, you fool! That is all the sense you seem to understand, gibberings and grunts!’ she said. She paused for a while then and half-turned away from the weeping Prince. Then so softly that Harald had difficulty in hearing her words, she said, ‘There are ways of preventing such things from troubling you, brave one. There are ways of stopping unpleasant sounds from reaching one’s ears … just as there are ways of stopping a man from seeing things which disturb him. You understand me, O Emperor?’