King's Man

'Grab as many of those as you can carry,' I told my men, 'and take them back up to the ramparts, and get some of those bows from that rack over there and as many arrows as you can handle. Tell Halfdan that there are plenty more bows and arrows if he needs them.'

Meanwhile I had spotted the heavier weapons in the far corner of the store. I recognised the wooden stocks, the iron winding handles, and the thick stubby arms of the bows of at least a dozen scorpions neatly arranged. Looped around a wooden frame were the special bowstrings made of animal sinew. Trying to recall exactly what I had seen in Syracuse when Nikephorus had shown me round his siege tower, and again during the battle at Traina, I began to select enough items to assemble three scorpions. To the strongest man in my squad, an ox-like Swede, I gave all three tripods to carry. To the others I handed out the remainder of the parts as well as two large bags full of iron bolts. I personally took charge of the trigger mechanisms, as they looked fragile and easily damaged.

'Hail to the new technicians,' joked Lars as my men laid out the items on the walkway behind the parapet and I began to experiment how they would fit together.

As it turned out, the scorpions were easy to assemble. Anyone who knew how to lock together the complicated joints in shipwright's carpentry could do it, and several of my Varangians had that skill. Only the trigger mechanisms were puzzling, and it took one or two false attempts before I finally got them correctly installed and the scorpions were ready for use.

'Here, Thorgils, you get to release the first bolt,' offered Halfdan as he hoisted the completed weapon up on its tripod.

'No thanks,' I said. 'You wind up and pull the trigger. I want to watch and make sure that I have the tension right.'

Halfdan cranked the handle, drawing back the arms of the bow, placed a metal bolt in its groove, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. To my satisfaction the bolt flew straight, though Halfdan had overcompensated for the angle and the metal bolt whizzed over the heads of the crowd and smacked into the facade of the buildings opposite.

'Powerful stuff, eh?' commented Halfdan contentedly. 'Still, if I was going to kill someone, I would prefer to do it from close-up, where I can see exactly whom I despatch.'

My satisfaction at assembling the ballistae was replaced by dismay. Looking down into the crowd, I saw Harald. Standing a full head taller than those around him, his long hair and moustaches were unmistakable. Then I identified Halldor and several others of Harald's war band right behind their leader, pushing their way through the crowd to reach the front rank. All of them were wearing helmets and carrying their axes. Obviously the mob had broken into the jails and released all the prisoners. The insurrection had also found a common scapegoat. The mob was chanting, 'Give us the Caulker! Give us the Caulker!'

'Don't fire into the crowd,' I begged Halfdan.

'Are you crazy?' he demanded. 'Why go to the trouble of providing these weapons and not use them?' He reloaded, swivelled the scorpion on its mounting and took aim. The chances that he would hit Harald were remote, but I removed his hand from the trigger.

'Over there to the left,' I said. 'That's Harald of Norway, and behind him, Varangians.'

'So they've broken their oath and joined the rebels,' grunted Halfdan.

'You can't shoot down your own people.'

'No,' said Halfdan. 'That would be cowardly. Hand to hand is the only way. They're traitors.'

He abandoned the scorpion and unslung his axe. 'Time for a sortie, men. Show them that we mean business,' he announced.

I watched the reaction of my comrades. They looked as if they were in two minds whether to follow Halfdan or ignore him.

There was an awkward pause, which was interrupted by the sound of feet on the stone steps leading to the parapet. A Greek officer appeared, a man I recognised vaguely from the siege of Syracuse. He seemed competent, and there was no doubt about what he intended. He gestured for us to leave the parapet.

'We're taking over now,' he said in Greek, and I translated for Halfdan's benefit.

'Ask him what he wants us to do,' Halfdan asked.

The Greek muttered something about the Varangians being held as a strategic reserve, and that we were to wait in the open courtyard behind the Bronze Gate in case a frontal attack was launched. Halfdan seemed disappointed, but obediently he led our platoon down into the courtyard.

'That does it,' said one of our men as we watched a file of Greek heavy infantry mount the stairway to take up the positions we had just left. 'That was a lie about needing a strategic reserve. They don't trust us. They think we will join up with our countrymen outside the palace and throw in our lot with the rebels.' Angrily he stumped over to a bench, dropped his axe on the paving slabs and sat down. 'I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to wait here until the Greeks sort out among themselves who is really running this place.'

I knew that the platoon agreed with him, and that in a few moments Halfdan would entirely lose his authority. I had always judged Halfdan to be a decent type, if unimaginative; to save his dignity, I said, 'Maybe I could locate someone in charge who can decide where we can be most useful. It will save time if Halfdan comes with me so that he can explain the tactical situation.'

Without waiting for a response, I set off for Psellus's office in the chancellery. He was the only person in the palace whom I trusted to give me an honest answer: something odd was going on. The mob outside the walls was hanging back, as if waiting for something, and I did not know what it was. The Greek infantry who had replaced us on the parapet had appeared strangely complacent. They were not as bellicose as I had expected, and I did not know why. Perhaps Psellus could explain.

Halfdan and I met him in the corridor long before we reached his office, and to my astonishment he greeted us as his saviours. 'The blessed Demetrios himself must have sent you,' he exclaimed. 'The Pechenegs have abandoned their posts and fled, every last one of them, just when the Basileus needed them most. Are there any more of you Varangians?'

'There are,' I said, 'but they are back near the Bronze Gate, awaiting orders, and frankly I'm not sure that they will obey them. Please tell me what is going on. Why aren't the household troops defending the palace more actively, and why hasn't the mob launched an all-out attack?'

'The emperor has renounced his title,' said Psellus urbanely. 'He wishes to retire to a life of peaceful contemplation. He is to become a monk.'

I must have looked dumbfounded, because Psellus went on, 'he has abdicated in favour of his "mother", the empress Zoe, and her sister, the empress Theodora.'

'But I thought that Theodora was in a nunnery.'

'Until yesterday evening,' said Psellus. 'The Patriarch Alexis suggested that she should renounce her vows and enter political life. She is, after all, born to the purple. To Theodora's credit she resisted the idea at first, but was eventually persuaded. The Patriarch crowned her empress a few minutes after midnight. I expect that she and her sister Zoe will be co-rulers of the empire of the Romans as soon as they can come to a suitable arrangement.'

'What about Michael? Where is he now?' My mind was in a whirl as I tried to grasp the sudden change in the politics of imperial rule.

'Close by, and that is why I am so pleased to see you and your colleague. Michael and his uncle, the Nobelissimus, are awaiting immediate departure to the monastery of the Studius.'

By this stage my mind was reeling. 'But isn't the Studius monastery the residence of the Patriarch Alexis? And wasn't he the man who led the uprising against the Basileus?'

'Thorgils, for a barbarian you are unusually well informed. However, the Studius monastery is the only one which the former Basileus can reach without being molested by the mob, which, as you have observed, is baying for his blood. From the Bucephalon harbour he can reach the monastery by boat before the crowd knows that he has departed. I presume that you can handle a small boat.'

'Of course.'

'There will be only three passengers: Michael, his uncle Constantine, and a chamberlain. The rest of his staff will go on foot to the monastery, discreetly and in small groups, so that they can arrange Michael's reception. In recent weeks I have been privileged to act as the Basileus's private secretary, so I see it as my duty to intercede on his behalf with the new empresses and organise a smooth handover of the imperial government. As soon as I have their majesties' decision, I will come to the monastery with the news. In the meantime I know that I can trust you and your colleague to transport their highnesses safely to the Studius.'

So that is how it came about that I, Thorgils Leifsson, and my company commander, Halfdan, became a boat crew for the former Basileus, Michael V, as he evaded capture by the mob of Constantinople. It felt strange to be rowing a man who, only the previous day, had been considered semi-divine, so that even his closest attendants were obliged to wear gloves when approaching his presence in case they touched his consecrated flesh. Now he and his uncle, disguised as simple monks, sat an arm's length away in the stern of the small rowing boat we commandeered for the short journey. Their chamberlain was in the bows, directing our course as we picked our way between the mass of fishing boats and the cargo ships at anchor off the city. It seemed that all their crews were ashore, joining the insurrection.

Throughout our brief journey Michael kept his head down, staring silently into the bilge of the boat, and I noticed that water was soaking into his purple boots, which he had not yet removed. His uncle, by contrast, took a more intelligent interest in our surroundings. Surreptitiously I watched him as I heaved on the loom of the oar. There was no mistaking his resemblance to his brother, the Orphanotrophus. They both had the same deep-sunk eyes and shrewd gaze, and they shared an aura of knowing exactly how to set about obtaining what they wanted. What a remarkably talented family, I thought to myself. It had supplied an emperor, a Nobelissimus, and, in the Orphanotrophus, a gifted civil administrator. The mob was wrong to dismiss them as nobodies. The family were adventurers, certainly, but no more so than the giant Maniakes whom the citizenry adored. Only Michael the nephew, sitting in a fog of self-pity, had let them down. He had thrown away his inheritance through inexperience in the wielding of power and his unbridled ambition.

The chamberlain called out that we were to steer for shore. Glancing over my shoulder I saw that we were level with the Studius monastery. Its massive walls of red and grey brick loomed over the landing place, a complex of chapels and cloisters crowned by an array of tiled domes, each topped by a cross. The monastery had its own landing steps, and Halfdan and I grabbed on to the mooring chains as our passengers disembarked. By force of habit I refrained from reaching out and touching the ex-Basileus, even when he slipped on the weed-covered steps and nearly fell.

A reception party of monks and courtiers was waiting, and they ushered the two men away.

'Tie up the boat,' the chamberlain ordered, 'and accompany their highnesses. You may be needed.'

Halfdan and I followed the little group into the monastery and then on to the great chapel, entering through a side door half hidden within an angle of the wall.

I gazed around me with interest. The main worship hall was certainly impressive. Above my head rose a great dome, lined with mosaics. Staring down at me from within the vault was a gigantic image of the White Christ, gaunt and stern, with great dark eyes. He looked stiff and sad. In one hand he held his holy book; the other hand was held up in what I supposed was a gesture of blessing or admonition. The light from hundreds of candles in iron holders suspended by chains flickered across his severe expression. The dome rested on great pillars from which hung wooden boards painted with images of the White Christ's most famous followers. The windows were small and set high up in the building, and the shafts of light reached only the upper part of the huge chamber. At ground level illumination depended on many more candles set in huge candlesticks, some as tall as a man, some arranged in banks of at least a hundred at a time. The general impression was of darkness and shadow interspersed with pools of radiant light. The air smelled strongly of incense. At the far end of the church stood the altar, and on each side were yet more masses of candles, as well as two carved and gilded wooden platforms where I supposed the priests of the White Christ stood during their devotions. These two platforms were now occupied by several dozen courtiers, monks, and various bureaucrats. I was reminded of the audience who, in a market square, clamber up on carts to get a better view when jugglers or hucksters perform. They were all looking at Michael and his uncle Constantine as they crossed the floor of the church towards the altar itself.

'I claim the sanctuary of the monastery!' Michael cried out shrilly. He reached the altar and turned towards a monk standing a little in advance of his fellows. The man was, I presumed, the chief priest.

'I claim sanctuary,' Michael repeated, 'and wish to offer myself humbly to the service of our Lord.'

There was a long, long silence, and then the shadows all around the sides of the chapel moved. The walls, I realised, were lined with men. They had been standing there waiting silently, whether in respect or in ambush I could not tell. They stood three or four deep, and now they produced an exasperated sound, a collective, angry muttering. Peering into the shadows I saw that several hundred of the citizens of Constantinople were already in the chapel. They must have been told, or guessed, where the ex-Basileus and his uncle had been heading when they left the palace, and they had got here before us.

Hearing the sound, Michael gave a frightened glance and edged closer to the altar.

'Sanctuary,' he cried again, almost shrieking. 'I have a right to sanctuary.'

Again came angry muttering, and Michael sank to his knees in supplication and seized hold of the cloth that covered the altar. His uncle moved to be beside him, but remained standing.

'Respect the Church!' cried Michael.

Then a man stepped out from the crowd. He appeared to be a minor official, a city employee perhaps. Evidently he was a spokesman.

'You are to stand trial for your crimes—' he began, but Michael interrupted frantically, 'How dare you address me in this fashion?'

Clearly he had forgotten that he was now meant to be a humble monk. He looked round and saw Halfdan and myself standing there.

'Guardsmen,' he ordered, his voice cracking with fear, 'protect me from this lunatic'

Halfdan took several paces forward and placed himself between the cringing ex-Basileus and the leader of the crowd. I followed him, thinking to myself how ridiculous it was for just two men to attempt to serve as a shield. But for the moment, at least, our presence was effective. The crowd held back, and to my relief I saw Psellus enter the chapel by the main door and come hurrying towards us. With him was a delegation of officials.

'With the authority of the empress Zoe,' he announced loudly so all could hear, 'I bring an order for the detention of His Highness Michael and the Nobelissimus. They are to be brought to the palace for due judgement of their actions. They must not be harmed.'

'He'll only smooth-talk his way out of trouble. Let's deal with him now, our own justice,' an angry voice shouted from the back of the crowd. The onlookers stirred, closing in. Behind us I heard Michael's yelp of fear, and I sensed that the two groups of onlookers on each side of the altar were spellbound by the scene being played out before them.

Psellus was soothing. 'I assure you, your highness, no harm will come to you if you accompany us,' he told him. Then, addressing the crowd's spokesman, he said, 'I promise you that the people will have justice. The empress Zoe is discussing with her sister Theodora how best to restore peace to the city. The people, through their representatives, will be consulted before any decision is reached. For the moment it would be prudent for His Highness Michael and the Nobelissimus to be held within the palace.'

After some hesitation the crowd began to move aside so that the group of officials with Psellus could approach the altar. Michael was still petrified. 'They'll kill me if I leave the church,' he sobbed. 'I refuse to go with you. I won't get a fair trial.' Watching his craven response, I remembered how little mercy he had shown his uncle the Orphanotrophus, and thought to myself that though John the Eunuch might have been ruthless and menacing, he at least had had courage. His nephew was a coward.

'These two guardsmen will accompany us,' said Psellus. 'They will see you safely back to the palace. Just as they brought you here.' He glanced across at me. 'Thorgils, perhaps you and your colleague would be so good as to accompany us on the way to the palace.'

Reluctantly Michael released his grip on the altar cloth and rose to his feet. Then he and his uncle walked down the length of the chapel, surrounded by Psellus's delegation. I noted that several courtiers descended from their vantage point and joined our little procession. I guessed that they were loyal members of Michael's faction.

We emerged from the gloom of the chapel and into daylight, and I realised that it was mid-afternoon. The overthrow of the Basileus had taken less than three days from the moment he had unwisely sent his eunuchs to arrest Zoe until his desperate plea for sanctuary in the monastery.

We started along the broad avenue of the Triumphal Way leading to the heart of the city. I remembered how I had marched the route with the Hetaira, escorting the corpse of Romanus, and later to bid farewell to Maniakes's army as it left for the Sicilian campaign. On the first occasion the crowd had been silent; the second time they had been cheering and shouting encouragement. Now, the crowd was resentful. They pushed in on us from each side, shouting abuse and spitting. We had to thrust our way forward.

We had got as far as the open space called the Sigma, named because it had the same shape as the Greek letter, when I became aware of another agitated group elbowing its way through the crowd towards us. A few steps later I recognised its leader: Harald. With him were at least a dozen of his men, including Halldor. He was escorting a high official of the court, dressed in his formal silk robe of blue and white and carrying his badge of office, an ivory baton. He made a vivid contrast to the shabby figures of Michael and his uncle in their rumpled monks' gowns.

Harald and his men barred our path. We halted, and the crowd drew back to give us a little space. The brilliantly clad official stepped forward and opened a scroll. A silver and purple seal dangled from the lower edge.

'By the authority of their joint Augustae, Zoe and Theodora,' he began. 'Punishment is to be carried out on the former Basileus Michael and the Nobelissimus Constantine.'

Michael let out a shout of protest. 'You have no right. I was promised safe conduct,' he screamed.

From the crowd came a muted growl of approval.

'The punishment is to be carried out with immediate effect,' concluded the official, rolling up his scroll and nodding to his Varangian escort.

Four of Harald's men stepped forward and took hold of Michael and his uncle by their arms. Halfdan and I did not interfere. We were outnumbered, and besides, I felt exhausted. Events had moved beyond anything I could have imagined, and I was tired of the whole business. I no longer cared who held the reins of power in the Queen of Cities. As far as I was concerned, this was a matter for the Greeks to sort out among themselves.

Michael continued pleading and sobbing. He was writhing in the grasp of the two Varangians, begging to be spared. 'Let me go! Let me go! I was promised safe conduct,' he repeated over and over again. He knew what would happen next.

Later it would be said that Harald of Norway carried out the mutilation, but that was not so. The little group had brought their own specialist with them, and he had with him the tools of his trade. A small, rather effeminate-looking man came forward and asked for a brazier.

We waited for a short while before someone came back with a brazier of the common household sort normally used for cooking. Its embers were glowing and it was placed on the ground. The executioner, for that was his role, I now realised, placed the tip of a long thin iron bar, in the centre of the fire and blew delicately on the embers. The crowd pushed around so closely that he had to ask them to move back to allow him space to work. When the tip of the rod was glowing red-hot, the little man looked up at his victims. He was expressionless. I remembered Pelagia's warning that the torturers and interrogators of the palace took a pride in their work.

Michael was in hysterics, thrashing from side to side, begging to be spared. His uncle Constantine, the Nobelissimus, calmly took a pace forward.

'Let me go first,' he said quietly. Then, turning towards the crowd, he said firmly: 'I ask you to step back a little further still, so that there may be sufficient witnesses to the fact that I met my fate with courage.' Then he calmly lay down on the paving slabs, flat on his back, face to the sky, eyes wide open.

I wanted to look away, but found that I was too appalled. The executioner came forward with his iron rod and deftly pressed the tip into Constantine's right eye. The man's body arched back in agony, and at almost the same moment the iron rod was dipped into the left eye. A little hiss of steam came with each movement. Constantine rolled over on to his front, his hands pressed against his sightless eyes. He let out a deep, agonised groan. Hands reached down to help him back on his feet. Someone had produced a silk scarf, which was quickly bound around his head, and I saw two courtiers, themselves weeping, support the Nobelissimus, who was unable to stand unaided.

The executioner now turned towards Michael. He was squirming in the grip of the two Varangians and blubbering with terror. His gown was wet where he had soiled himself. The executioner nodded, indicating that the ex-Basileus was to be forced to the ground and held there, face up. The two Varangians pressed Michael to his knees, then pulled him over backwards. Michael still flailed about, twisting and turning, trying to escape. Two more of Harald's men knelt down and took a grip of his legs, pinning them to the paving stones. The Varangians who held his arms pulled them out straight, then pressed down on his wrists so that he was pinioned in the shape of a cross.

Michael's howls had risen to a desperate pitch, and he whipped his head from side to side. The executioner was reheating the iron, blowing gently on the charcoal. When he was ready, he sidled softly across to the spread-eagled ex-Basileus, and, without bothering to clamp the head steady, he again made a double dart with the burning spit. A sound rose from deep within Michael's throat and burst out in a terrible howl.

The executioner stepped back, his face still expressionless, and the Varangians released their grip. Michael curled up in a sobbing ball, his arms wrapped around his head. Mercifully, his courtiers picked him up. Then they turned and carried him away, as the crowd, silenced by the terrible punishment, parted to let them through.

NINE

LIKE A SHIP BUFFETED by a sudden great wave, the empire of the Romans heeled, almost capsized, then began to right itself when the ballast of centuries of obedience to the throne made itself felt. During the days which followed the blinding of Michael and his uncle, there was widespread disquiet in Constantinople. The citizens asked themselves whether it was possible that two elderly women could run an empire. Surely the machinery of the administration would stutter and come to a halt. Foreign foes would then take the chance to attack the imperial frontiers. There would be civil war. But as day followed day and nothing dire occurred, tensions eased. In the chancellery, in the tribunals, and in the myriad offices of state, the bureaucrats returned to their records and ledgers, and the government of the empire resumed its normal course. Yet not everything was quite as it had been before. During the insurrection the mob had broken into the Great Palace. Most of the crowd had hunted for valuables to loot, but a small and determined band had headed for the archives and burned the tax records, as those officials who came back to the treasury discovered.

'Simeon the money changer suggested that we torch the files,' Halldor told me in the guardroom where the Varangians had once again taken up their duties. 'I doubt that Harald himself would

have thought of it, but Simeon sought us out during the uproar. He too had been released from jail by the mob, and he gave us directions as to where to find the archives.' And with a chuckle he added, 'It means, of course, that now there is no evidence against those accused of collusion with the tax collectors.'

'I'm surprised that you found time to destroy tax records when you were also carrying out the instructions to arrest Michael and the Nobelissimus.'

'There was time enough,' said Halldor. 'The sister empresses argued for hours over what should be done with the former Basileus. Zoe wanted him imprisoned, awaiting trial. But Theodora was all for having his eyes put out, and as quick as possible.'

'Surely it was the other way round? Theodora was a nun, or at least had been.'

'No,' said Halldor. 'Theodora was the bloodthirsty one.'

I murmured something about the idea that the Christians, especially the nuns and monks, were meant to practise forgiveness and charity, but that evening, when I crossed over to Galata to spend the evening at Pelagia's villa, my friend soon set me straight.

'You still don't understand, do you, Thorgils? When it comes to the pursuit of power, nothing matters to those who are really ambitious. Take the example of Araltes. You think so highly of him and you assist in every way you can. Yet he will stop at nothing to achieve his ambitions, and one day you may regret being so loyal to him.'

I was thinking to myself that Pelagia probably resented my allegiance to Harald, when abruptly she changed the subject: 'Next time you are on ceremonial guard duty, take a good look at the two empresses for me, will you? I'd be interested to hear what you make of them.'

I did as she asked, and at the next meeting of the supreme state council in the Golden Hall I made sure that my position in the circle of Life Guards was right beside the imperial throne. In fact there were now two thrones, one for each of the empresses, and Theodora's throne was set back a fraction, signifying that Theodora was very slightly junior to her sister. I could see that court protocol had adapted remarkably smoothly to the novel arrangement of twin female rulers. All the usual high functionaries were present, dressed in their official robes of silk brocade and holding their emblems of office. Standing nearest to the empresses were their special favourites, and behind them were the most senior ministers. Then came an outer ring of senators and patricians, and finally, in the background, a group of ranking civil servants. Among them, I identified Psellus who, judging by his green and gold robe, was now a senior official of the chancery.

I took careful note of details to tell Pelagia. Zoe was more plump than her sister, and had managed to retain a remarkable youthfulness, perhaps as a result of all those ointments and perfumes I had heard about. Her skin was smooth and unlined, and it was difficult to equate the harassed supplicant whom I had turned away from her husband's deathbed with the poised and immaculately manicured woman who now sat on the throne in front of me. Interestingly, when Zoe was bored she amused herself by eyeing the more handsome men in the room, and so I judged that she was still man-hungry. Theodora, by contrast, fidgeted as she sat. Taller than her sister, she was rather scrawny, with a head that seemed too small for her body, and I had the impression that she was unintelligent and frivolous.

While I was wondering which of the two sisters was dominant in their partnership, I heard Harald's name mentioned. The akolouthos, the commander of the Hetaira, was making a formal request on behalf of spatharokandidatus Araltes. He had asked permission to leave the imperial service. The logothete of the dromos who was hearing the petition turned to consult Zoe, bowed obsequiously and asked for her decision. Zoe had been gazing at a handsome young senator, and I doubt that she even knew what the subject was. 'Denied,' she said absently. The logothete bowed a second time and turned back to face the akolouthos. 'Denied,' he repeated. The business of the day moved on.

'Harald won't like that at all,' said Halldor when I told him the decision that evening. 'He's heard that his nephew Magnus has been declared King of Norway.'

'What difference does that make?'

Halldor looked at me as though I was a dimwit. 'Harald has as good a claim to the throne as his nephew, probably better. That's what all this has been about - the amassing of loot, the gathering in of valuables. The money will be his war chest if he has to fight for what he considers rightfully his. Sooner or later he will seek his inheritance, and the longer he delays, the more difficult it will be to press his case. My guess is that he will ignore the government's decision and leave.'

'But where will he find the ships to take him back up the straits to the Pontic Sea and along the rivers to Gardariki? ' I objected. 'It is not like when he sent those three ships back with the emir's ransom from Sicily. What's left of his war band is now a land force, without ships. If he tries to leave without permission, he'll be arrested again. Then he'll never get to claim the throne.'

'They'll have to catch him first,' said Halldor stubbornly, but I could see that he lacked a solution to the problem.

'Let me see what I can come up with,' I said, for something told me that this was my chance to make myself indispensable to Harald and win his trust for the future.

Psellus was so swamped with work that I had to sweeten the chartularius of his office with a small bribe to give me an appointment.

'It's all very well having two empresses,' Psellus complained when I finally got to see him, 'but it doubles the workload of the officials. Everything must be prepared in duplicate. Every document has to be written out twice so that a copy can be sent to the staff of each empress, but frankly neither woman seems much interested in dealing with the chores of government when the papers do arrive. They prefer the more frivolous aspects of their role. It's very pleasant having so many banquets, receptions, pageants and the like, but the administration moves very slowly, mired in honey, you might say.' He sighed and shifted the pile of paperwork on his desk. 'How's your friend the spatharokandidatos doing?'

'You've guessed correctly,' I said. 'My visit is about Araltes.' I lowered my voice. There was no one else in the room, but I knew that very little was truly private in the Great Palace. 'Araltes urgently needs to resign his post and leave Constantinople. It is very important that he does so. But he has been forbidden permission by Zoe. '

Psellus got up from his seat and went over to check that there was no one loitering outside.

'Thorgils,' he said seriously, 'it was one thing to suggest how Araltes might be cleared of charges for tax fraud. That could have been arranged with some judicious bribes. It is entirely another matter to connive at the direct disobedience of an imperial decision. It could lead to my impeachment and — at worst — the death penalty. I have no wish to be scourged, tied up in a sack and thrown into the sea.'

'I know,' I said. 'It gets worse. It's not just Araltes who should be allowed to leave. The surviving members of his war band — there are about eighty men - will want to depart with him. They've got what they came for. They've made their fortunes.'

Psellus sighed. 'That's outright desertion. Army regulations call for punishment by mutilation or death.'

'I know,' I said. 'But don't you have any suggestions as to how Araltes and his men can get away?'

Psellus thought for a while. 'Right now I don't have any idea,' he said, 'but I can assure you that if Araltes does succeed in leaving without permission, there will be a violent hue and cry. There will be a hunt for those who might have helped him. His close associates will be picked up and interrogated. You have worked with Araltes for several years now, and you would be the first to fall under suspicion. I suggest that if Araltes does leave the city, you make sure that you leave with him.'

'That's something that I've already been thinking about,' I said.

Psellus came to a decision. 'Thorgils, I promised that I would assist you. But this request of yours goes beyond anything I had expected. I have to protect myself. If the scheme fails and you, Araltes and the others are caught, I must not be traceable. If an opportunity for Harald's departure with his men presents itself, I will contact you, but not in person. That would be too dangerous. Even your visit here today is now a risk to me. I do not want you to come to this office again. Instead I will write to you, and that message will be the last you will hear from me.'

'I understand,' I said. 'I'll wait for your contact.'

'It may never arrive,' Psellus warned. 'Anything could happen. I may get transferred out of this office, or I may never see the opportunity for Araltes to slip away. And if the letter falls into the wrong hands, that would be a disaster for all of us.'

By now I had guessed what Psellus was leading up to. I remembered how Harald had used rune symbols as a private code to set up the ambush of the Arab pirate, anticipating that his letter would be intercepted.

'You will use code?' I asked.

Psellus blinked in surprise. 'As I've noted before, Thorgils, for a barbarian you are remarkably astute. Here, let me show you.' He reached for a sheet of paper and wrote out the Greek alphabet, arranging the twenty-seven letters in three equal lines. 'The principle is simple,' he said. 'One letter substitutes for another that falls on the same line but in the mirror position. Thus, the second letter on the first line, beta, is substituted with the second to last letter on the same line, eta. Similarly with the other letters. It's a very basic code, and any senior bureaucrat would recognise it immediately. But it would baffle a mere messenger who might open the letter and read it out of curiosity.'

'I understand,' I said. 'I'm very grateful.'

I HAD TO WAIT nearly five weeks for Psellus's coded message to arrive, and it was a bitter-sweet interval. As Psellus had remarked, the reign of the Augustae, the two empresses, was characterised by frivolity. It was as if the terrible events of the fall of the Basileus Michael had to be followed by a period of gaiety so that the people could expunge the memory of the rebellion. Apparently, when Halfdan and I had been taking the Basileus to the Studius monastery, hundreds had died in the streets during skirmishes between the rebels and the troops loyal to the Basileus, as well as among the bands of looters fighting over the spoils. Now the populace wanted to be distracted, and Zoe and Theodora dipped into the treasury reserves to pay for parades and spectacles in the hippodrome. They gave lavish banquets, and even allowed selected members of the public to visit the Great Palace and see its marvels.

This gave me the opportunity to repay Pelagia for her kindness and hospitality, and I showed her as much of the Great Palace as was permitted. As a commoner she was banned from the great apartments of state, of course, but I took her to see the private zoo with its collection of exotic animals, including a hippopotamus and a long-necked African cameleopard, and in the Tzykanisterion sports ground we watched a horseback tournament. Young patricians were playing a game which involved using long-handled mallets to hit a leather ball the size of an apple into a goal. The game bored Pelagia, but she was fascinated by the horologion, a Saracen-made contraption which calculated hours by measuring water draining from a bowl and opened and closed small doors from which carved figures emerged according to the time of day.

'Isn't it strange,' she commented 'that the palace tries to make sure that everything endures and remains the same as it has always been. Yet it is also the place that measures how time is passing. It is almost as if the palace believes that one day they will discover how time could be stopped.'

At that moment I should have told Pelagia that my own time in that city might soon be coming to an end, that I would be leaving Constantinople. But I shirked the opportunity, and we went instead to visit the gynaeceum, where Pelagia's sister was waiting to show her around. I was forbidden from entering. As I stood in the courtyard of the beardless ones, the guardian eunuchs, I agonised that perhaps I had been too hasty in seeking Psellus's help in extricating Harald and the others from their service to the emperor. Maybe, instead, I should make my life in the Queen of Cities, just as Halfdan had done. I was now forty-two years of age, past the prime of life, and the attractions of Constantinople with its luxurious lifestyle and pleasant climate had a strong appeal. Pelagia had never remarried since the death of her husband, and the two of us had become very close, so there was every chance that she would accept me as her partner, if that was what I proposed. There was no doubt that life with Pelagia, whom I respected deeply, would be very agreeable. I would retire from the Life Guard, live harmoniously with her in the villa in Galata, and give up my ambition to restore the Old Gods in the northern lands. All I had to do was ignore Psellus's message, if it ever came.

I was on the verge of making this decision when Pelagia emerged from the gynaeceum. She was marvelling at the luxury with which Zoe had surrounded herself, yet dismayed by the tedium of life within the women's quarters. 'They eat their meals with golden forks in there,' she said, 'but the food must taste like the ashes of the living dead.' Her remark, following so closely on my thoughts about my dilemma, made me wonder if, by taking the more comfortable path, my life would become a hollow shell; and whether, should Pelagia ever learn that I had abandoned my deeply held ambition, she would blame herself.

Even so, perhaps I would have stayed in Constantinople had not Loki strained at his bonds. There was a shaking of the ground on the evening after Pelagia and I visited the Great Palace. It was only a minor tremor, scarcely felt in the Varangian barracks. A few statues fell from their plinths along the Mese, several apartment blocks were damaged, and the city engineers had to come with ladders and hooks the next day to pull down the structures that were too dangerous. But on the Galata side of the Golden Horn the damage was far more severe. Several of the new houses collapsed as a result of shoddy workmanship. One of them was Pelagia's villa. She had just returned to her house, and she and several of her servants were crushed. I heard of her death from her sister Maria, who came to fetch me the next morning, and the two of us crossed the Golden Horn to visit the scene of the calamity. As I looked on the tumbled ruins of her house, I felt as desolate as if I was standing on the edge of a great void into which Pelagia had disappeared and from which she would never return. Numbed, I was overcome by a profound sadness that someone so full of spirit had gone, and I wondered whether Pelagia, who had believed neither in the salvation promised by the White Christ nor in my Old Gods, now existed in some other world.

Her death broke the only real link that I had with the Great City, and persuaded me that Odinn had other plans for the remaining years of my life.

Pelagia's family gathered to settle her affairs, and from them I learned that she had been very astute in investing my guardsman's salary for me. Thanks to her I was now reasonably wealthy, even without my secret share of the emir's ransom and the salvage of the Arab pirate galea, most of which had already been carried northward in Harald's ships returning from the Sicilian campaign. The following week I went discreetly to see the financier, a member of the banker's guild, to whom Pelagia had entrusted the safekeeping of my funds and asked him if I could withdraw the money as I was thinking of travelling abroad.

'No need to do that,' he replied. 'If you carry too much coin, you might be waylaid and robbed. I can arrange for you to collect your money at your destination from my fellow bankers, if the place is not too distant.'

'Would the city of Kiev be too far?' I asked.

'Not at all. I could manage to have your funds made available to you in Kiev. We have been doing an increasing amount of business there these past few years, transferring money for the Rus traders who come annually to this city. Not all of them want to travel back burdened with trade goods, struggling to haul them back upstream over the portages. They get notes of credit from me, which they redeem in Kiev.'

The banker's assurance removed my worry that Harald's departure from Constantinople might be hampered by financial complications. He too could use the bankers to move his assets from Constantinople. Now everything depended on Psellus to come up with some scheme whereby we could escape.

His cryptogram, when it finally arrived in late May, was so terse that there were just six words. It read, 'Two ousiai, Neiron, peach silk, Nativity.'

The first part was clear to me. Ousiai are small dromons, about the size of our Norse ships. Each normally carries a crew of about fifty men and they serve as fast escort vessels. The Neiron was the naval arsenal on the Golden Horn, so presumably the two ousiai would be docked there at the time of the feast of the Nativity. But I was puzzled and disappointed by Psellus's mention of the Nativity. If this was the date when he thought Harald and his men would have their chance to leave Constantinople, then my friend was more of a cloistered bureaucrat than I thought. The Nativity, the birth of the White Christ, occurs in mid-winter, and surely, I told myself, Psellus knew that December was far too late for a departure from Constantinople. The sailing weather was atrocious, and by the time we reached the river leading towards Kiev it would be in flood or frozen over. We had to leave in the summer or early autumn at the latest.

The reference to peach silk was a complete enigma. I could see no connection with warships at the arsenal.

So I went to the House of Lights. This was the most luxurious shopping emporium in the capital. Occupying a prime site on the most fashionable stretch of the Mese, it stayed open day and night, its arcades lit by hundreds upon hundreds of candles. Only one item was on sale - silk. The precious fabric was available in every grade and style and colour, whether as lengths of cloth, as complete garments, or cut and part-finished ready to be sewn together. In all the known world the House of Lights was the largest single market for silk, and the market dealers there were among the wealthiest merchants in the city, as well as the most rigorously controlled. They were obliged to report every single transaction over ten nomisma in value to the eparch of the city so that his officials knew exactly where each length of material came from and to whom it went. If a foreigner wished to buy silk, the dealer was only allowed to offer the lower grades of fabric, and he was obliged to report his customer's departure from Constantinople so that his baggage could be searched for contraband. Failure to do so would mean that the silk merchant was flogged, his head shaved in public humiliation, and all his goods confiscated.

Mindful of this strict regime, I chose the most discreet of the silk merchants' shops in the House of Lights and asked to speak with the owner. A white-haired man with a sleek, prosperous appearance came out from a back room, and the moment he saw I was a foreigner suggested that we discuss our business in private, in a back alcove.

'I'm enquiring about the price and availability of good quality silks for export,' I explained.

He complimented me on my excellent Greek and asked where I had learned to speak the language with such fluency.

'In trade,' I answered evasively. 'Mostly the shipping business.'

'Then you will already be familiar with the restrictions forbidding me to sell certain categories of silk to those who are not resident in this city,' he murmured, 'but alternative arrangements can sometimes be made. Did you have any particular goods in mind?'

'Highly coloured silks make more profit for me when I sell them on. It depends what is available.'

'At this moment I have good stocks of dark green and yellow in half-tint.'

"What about other colours? Orange, for example? That's popular where I come from.'

'It depends on the depth of the hue. I can probably find a pale lemon orange, close to the yellow I have. But the more dye stuff used in colouring the material, the more difficult it is to obtain. And, of course, more expensive.'

'If I placed an order for a specific colour, could you prepare it for me?'

He shook his head. 'The law forbids silk dealers from exercising the craft of dyeing silk. That is a separate craft. Nor can I handle raw silk. That too is a separate profession.'

I adopted a disappointed look. 'I had particularly hoped to find peach-coloured silk, for a very special client. And I could pay a premium price.'

'Let me send someone to check.'

He called a servant, gave him his instructions, and while we waited for the man to return from his errand, he showed me various samples of his stock.

'I'm sorry to say,' reported the silk merchant when his servant came back with the information he needed, 'that peach-coloured silk will be impossible to obtain, at least for some time.' He looked knowing, and continued, 'There's a rumour that the Augusta Zoe is due to get married again ... for the third time, can you imagine! The royal workshops are working at full stretch to produce all the garments and hangings needed for the ceremony, and peach-coloured silk is a major item on their list of requirements.'

'But I thought purple was the imperial colour?'

'It is,' said the silk merchant, 'and so too is deep red and those shades of violet which border on purple. All those hues are strictly reserved for the palace. Anyone making or selling such material would be in serious trouble. Peach-coloured silk is made with the same dyestuff that produces the forbidden shades. It is a matter of precisely how much of the dye is mixed with certain tinting herbs, the temperature in the dyer's vat, and other craft secrets. Because of this association, peach is considered to be very exclusive and is customarily sent as a present to foreign rulers to inform them of important palace events such as weddings or coronations.'

I sighed. 'How very disappointing. I don't suppose it is worth my waiting in the city for peach-coloured silk to become available again?'

'Preparing the gifts for the foreign potentates will not be a high priority,' the silk dealer said. 'The royal workshops will want to get all the ceremonial material out of the way first, then use up the last stocks of dye to make the peach silk for shipment.'

'And when might that be? I need to leave well before the celebration of the Nativity.'

'It depends which Nativity you mean,' he replied. 'I presume you are from Venice, or Genoa perhaps. In the west you celebrate the Nativity of our Lord, and so do we. But this city celebrates another very special Nativity, that of Mary, our protectress. And her Nativity falls in September.'

My sudden intake of breath must have puzzled the silk merchant, for I saw that I had given Psellus too little credit for his secret intelligence, and even as I hurried away from the House of Lights, I was busy recalculating how much time I had to prepare Harald's escape from Constantinople. If Psellus's information about the two galleys was correct, then I had three months to get everything ready.

IT COST ME five nomisma to bribe a clerk working in the dromos to keep me supplied with further details of the silk shipment as they emerged. Psellus must have had an excellent contact in the royal silk factory, because on June the eleventh Zoe did get married again — to a patrician by the name of Constantine who was acclaimed as the new Basileus the next day — and it was a little less than three months later that the corrupt clerk in the

dromos informed me that the thirty bolts of peach-coloured silk were ready for despatch as gifts to the Caliph of Egypt. The silk was to be taken there by the imperial envoy carrying the official news of the acclamation of a new Basileus.

'According to my information,' I told Harald, 'two ousiai have been ordered to the Neiron to pick up the silk and other gifts. They are on standby to receive the imperial ambassador. He will come aboard as soon as the chancery has prepared the official letters announcing the coronation of the new Basileus.'

'You suggest that we seize the vessels?'

'Yes, my lord. They would suit your purpose. Ousiai are fast and manoeuvrable, and they can carry you and your men up to the Pontic Sea.'

'And how do you propose that we acquire these vessels? The arsenal is heavily guarded.'

'My lord, you remember your mission to the Holy Land as an escort for the architect Trdat?'

'Of course.'

'I suggest that you and your men present yourselves at the gates of the Neiron as the escort for this new ambassador.'

I could see that Harald immediately liked the idea of this deception. 'And what makes you think that the authorities in the dockyard will be tricked?'

'Leave that to me, my lord. All I ask is that you and your men act like a formal escort, and that you are ready to seize the two dromons when the time is right.'

'That part of the plan will not be a problem.'

Never before had I forged an official document, but I had retained the official orders I received when we had accompanied Trdat, and now I used them as my model. I found myself thanking the Irish monks who had taught me penmanship in my youth as I drew up an official-looking document stating that Harald and his men were to escort the envoy bearing gifts to the Caliph of Egypt. For paper I used a sheet of parchment which I purchased from my contact in the dromos. I paid him another two nomisma extra for the right colour ink - black for the text, red for the invocation to the Holy Trinity which is placed at the beginning of every official order. The ministerial signature I copied from my genuine original, and the seal with its grey silk ribbon I merely cut off and transferred. Finally I carefully folded the fake document, with exactly the same creases, as I had heard that this was a secret method by which the clerks guaranteed the authenticity of a document.

Then, on the day before the feast of the Nativity of Mary, Harald, the remainder of his war band and I arrived at the main gate of the Neiron and requested permission to stow our gear aboard the two dromons. Fortunately the archon, the director of the dockyard, was absent as he was preparing for the feast day, and his deputy was too nervous to question why so many men were needed as an embassy escort. Also, Harald's imperious manner cowed him. The official barely glanced at the forged orders before handing us over to a junior assistant to take us to the dromons. We made our way past the shipwrights, riggers and painters, who glanced at us curiously, surprised to see so many foreigners within the arsenal, and eventually came to a short wooden pier where the two ousiai were moored. As I had anticipated, their crews had been given leave to prepare for the festival, and they had left their vessels in care of the dockyard. There was no one aboard.

'Sweeps and sails left on deck, thank the Gods,' muttered Halldor, looking around the vessels, and I realised that in my enthusiasm as a forger I had forgotten that the dromons might not be fully ready for sea.

'We'll stow our gear on board and stay the night,' I told the archon's assistant.

He looked surprised. 'Are you not attending the festivities tomorrow?' he asked.

'No,' I said. 'These men are unbelievers. Also the sekreton of the dromos informs me that the ambassador himself may arrive

tomorrow evening, and we could be getting under way without delay.'

'But the regular crews are on shore leave,' the man objected.

'And if they are found to have neglected their duty, they will be reprimanded,' I added.

The dockyard assistant took the hint. 'Very well. I will make arrangements for additional fresh water and stores to be brought aboard tomorrow. But as it is a feast day, I cannot guarantee that it will be possible to provide all that is needed. I was not made aware that the ambassador would have such a numerous escort.'

'Do your best,' I assured him. 'We've brought enough rations with us to last the next few days.'

By mid-afternoon the activity of the dockyard was already subsiding. The sounds of hammering and sawing and the shouts of workers faded as the shipwrights left their tasks and went home early to prepare for the festival. Soon the only people left in the Neiron were the members of the fire watch, whose duty was to keep an eye on the highly combustible stores, and a night guard of about a dozen men who patrolled the slipways and quays.

Harald's men made pretence of settling down for the night aboard the two ousiai, but many of us were too nervous to sleep, and I worried that the night guard would become suspicious. Their patrol was random, and there was no way of anticipating their visits, so I told the young officer in charge that we would post our own sentries, as this was our custom, and persuaded him that his own men needed to come no closer than the foot of the jetty.

Everything now depended on the timing of our next move.

At the first glimmer of dawn, Harald quietly gave the order to unmoor our vessel from the quay. Astern of us, the second ousiai followed us. As silently as possible we pushed off from the pier and began to row out into the Golden Horn. We could feel the ripples slapping against the thin wooden hulls of the lightly built dromons. A fresh breeze from the north was raising waves in the straits outside, but in the sheltered waters of the great harbour the waves had little effect.

We were a long bowshot from the shore when a trumpet sounded the alarm from the Neiron behind us. The nightwatch had discovered we were missing.

'Put your backs into it!' roared Halldor, who was at the helm. 'Show those Greeks what real rowing is like.'

Each ousiai had a single bank of oars, identical to a longship, and Harald's Norsemen, two men to each oar handle, were relishing the return to their old ways. Harald himself was not too proud to seat himself on the oar bench nearest to the helm and row alongside his men.

'Row your guts out, men!' urged Halldor. From astern we could hear the shouts of the helmsman of the second ousiai following in our wake. Further in the distance was the clamour of alarm bells and more trumpet calls.

We picked up speed. The light was strengthening, and soon we would be in full view of anyone watching from the harbour walls. If the alarm was passed quickly enough, the signal mirrors on the harbour wall would begin to flash a message to the guard boats in the bay.

Halldor grabbed my arm and pointed ahead. 'Look!' he said. 'The chain is still in place.'

I squinted forward through the grey light of dawn and knew that my plan was in ruins. Directly across our path stretched a line of wooden rafts, evenly spaced, about fifteen paces apart. Low in the water, so that even the smallest wave broke across them, they bobbed and gleamed blackly. Hanging below them was the chain which closed off the Golden Horn each night and turned it into a lake. It was supposed to be removed at first light so that the harbour was open to traffic, and our way to the straits should have been clear, but I had failed to anticipate that, on the feast day of the Nativity, the chain-keepers would be slow in carrying out their duties. We were trapped.

Seeing my dismay, Harald left his oar handle to his neighbour on the bench and stepped up to the stern deck. 'What's the trouble?' he demanded.

There was no need to explain, I pointed at the line of rafts.

Coolly he surveyed the obstacle. 'How deep does the chain hang?' he asked.

'I don't know. The shoreward end is fastened to land, and it is floated out with the rafts each sunset.' In the days when I had stayed in Pelagia's house overlooking the bay, I had often seen the teams of workboats struggling out with the chain at dusk and closing off the harbour.

Harald looked up at the sky. There was enough light for us to see the links of the chain where they crossed each raft. 'What do you think, Halldor?' he said, turning to the Icelander.

'Can't say to be sure,' Halldor replied. 'Must sag a bit between each raft. Stands to reason.'

Again we heard alarm signals from the shore. A fire gong was being beaten, its clangour carrying unmistakably across the water.

Harald stepped to the edge of the steersman's platform and looked down the length of our ousiai. Ahead of him forty or more Norsemen were rowing steadily. They had the vessel moving sweetly through the water, so they had dropped the rhythm of the oar strokes to a measured beat. To an observer it might have looked as if they were relaxing their effort, but every man aboard knew that it was a waste of effort to tug dramatically at the oar handles. What was needed now was disciplined, powerful rowing to keep our vessel cruising forward.

'When I give the word,' called Harald, 'every man takes twenty oar strokes with all his strength. When I shout a second time, the oarsmen on the first five benches drop their oars, leave their benches and run to the stern. The others are to keep rowing. Is that understood?'

The labouring oarsmen looked up at their leader standing on the deck above them and nodded. Every last one of them knew what Harald had in mind.

The line of rafts was very close now. 'Get ready,' Harald warned.

I jumped down from the stern deck and took the place at the oar bench that Harald had vacated. Next to me sat a Swede, a scarred veteran from the Sicilian campaign. 'So they've finally got you at an oar handle, rowing and not scheming,' he grunted at me. 'That's a change worth waiting for.'

'Now!' shouted Harald, and we began to count our twenty strokes, roaring out the numbers before Harald shouted out again, and behind me I heard the clatter of oar handles as the men in the forward benches dropped their oars and ran back down the length of the galley. I felt the angle of the vessel alter, the bow rising as the weight of the extra men came on the stern. Three strokes later there was a grinding, slithering wrench as the keel of our little dromon struck the chain with a crash. In a few paces we came to a complete stop. The force of our collision had sent the galley sliding up on the hidden links; we hung there, stranded on the chain.

'Now! Every man forward!' yelled Harald, and all of us left our benches and scrambled into the bows. Slowly, very slowly, the galley tilted forward. For a moment I feared the vessel would capsize, as she teetered half out of the water. Then the added weight in her bows pulled her forward, and with a creaking groan the ousiai slid forward over the chain and into the open water on the far side. We all lost our balance, trod on one another, and grabbed for oars that were sliding overboard as we cheered with relief. We had forced the barrier, and now the open sea lay ahead.

As we settled again to the oar benches, we looked back to see our second galley approaching the chain. She followed the same technique. We watched the ousiai accelerate, heard the shout of her helmsman and saw the men jump up from the forward benches and run towards the stern. We could clearly see the bow lift, then the sudden tilt as the vessel struck the hidden chain and come to a halt, straddled across the links. Like us, the crew then ran forward and we held our breath as the vessel rocked forward, only this time the ousiai did not slip clear; she was too firmly stuck. Another command, and the crew, forty or more men, scrambled back towards the stern, then turned and threw their weight forward, striving to break the grip of the chain. The ousiai rocked again, but still stayed fast.

'Guard boats!' Halldor shouted, and pointed. Close to the shore where the chain was attached to the land, five or six harbour guard boats were putting out to intercept us.

Once more our comrades on the stranded ousiai tried to rock their vessel clear. This time their frantic effort brought disaster. As the crew applied their weight, first in the bow and then at the stern, the strain proved too great. Like a stick which breaks when overloaded, the keel of the ousiai snapped. Perhaps the vessel was older and weaker than ours, or less well built, or maybe by ill fortune the chain lay directly under a joint in her main timbers where the shipwrights had scarfed the keel. The result was that the ousiai cracked in half. The long narrow hull broke apart, her planks sprang open, and her men fell into the sea.

'Backwater with your blades,' called Halldor. 'We must save those we can.'

We reversed our vessel, and began hauling men from the water. Dragging them aboard was easy — our ousiai was built low to the water — but there was nothing we could do to reach those unfortunates from the stern of the shattered vessel; they had slipped into the sea on the far side of the chain. A few of them managed to swim and reach us. Others clung to the wooden rafts, and we collected as many as we could, but the guard boats were closing in and there was no time to save them all.

'Row on!' ordered Harald, and we began to pull away from the approaching guard boats.

'Poor bastards,' muttered the Swede next to me. 'I don't fancy their chances as prisoners

His voice died away as I glanced up.

Harald was standing on the stern deck, hard-faced and glaring down at us. The flash of anger in his eyes told us that it was time we shut our mouths, concentrated at the oar handles, and carried him towards his destiny.

TEN

WE ENTERED KIEV in great style. Harald led our column on horseback, dressed in his finest court robes from Constantinople and wearing the ceremonial sword with its gold handle and enamelled scabbard which marked his rank as spatharokandidatos. Behind him marched his war band, all in their best costumes and adorned with their silver and gold jewellery. A column of porters and slaves, loaded with the bales of peach silk and the other valuables we had stripped from the ousiai, brought up the rear. I too was on horseback, riding with Halldor and the other members of Harald's inner council. After our escape from the Queen of Cities, Harald had formally appointed me as his adviser. In return I promised to be his liegeman, to serve and support him as my superior lord, even to the day he took his rightful place upon the Norwegian throne.

'Cheer up!' Halldor said to me as we clattered through the city gate and King Jaroslav's guards cheered us. News of Harald's prowess had gone ahead, and the guards, many of them Norse mercenaries, were eager to lay eyes on the man who had been sending back such a mass of treasure for safe keeping.

I gestured towards the red-tiled domes of a large monastery on the hill ahead of us. 'I hadn't expected to see so much of the White Christ here,' I said morosely, for I was in low spirits.

'You'll have to get used to it,' said Halldor. 'I expect Harald will soon be getting married in a place just like that.' His remark took me aback.

'Thorgils, you've forgotten that on his way to Constantinople, Harald asked for the hand in marriage of the king's second daughter, Elizabeth. He was sent away with a flea in his ear. Told to come back when he had riches and renown. Well, now he's got just that, and more. Elizabeth and her family are devout Christians. They'll insist on a wedding in the White Christ manner.'

I listened without enthusiasm. I had been congratulating myself that my appointment as councillor to Harald would give me the chance to shape his policies in favour of the Old Ways. Now, it appeared, I would find myself competing with the views of his wife and the retinue of advisers she would surely bring with her. The thought made me more depressed than I was already. Pelagia's death had hit me hard, depriving me of both a friend and a confidante, and on the way to Kiev I had been feeling more and more isolated amidst the often ribald company of Harald's followers.

'Then this is not the sort of place where I'll be comfortable,' I concluded. 'If I'm to serve Harald, I can be of more use to him in the northlands. I'll ask his permission to go ahead and prepare for his arrival in Norway. I can try to find out which of the powerful nobles might support him, and who would be against him when he makes his claim for the throne.'

'You'll be a spy again?' asked Halldor, to whom I had related my role as an informant for John the Eunuch. 'Harald will like that. He's always in favour of subterfuge and trickery.'

'Part spy, part envoy,' I answered.

Harald agreed to my proposal, and as soon as I had collected the money arranged for me by the banker in Constantinople, I headed onward with those of Harald's ex-Varangians who had asked to go home early. By the time Halldor and the others were celebrating the glittering wedding of the Prince of Norway to King Yaroslav's second daughter, I was back in the northlands where my own Gods belonged.

My first impression was how little had changed in the twelve years I had been away. Among the three main kingdoms, Norway and Denmark still regarded one another with suspicion, while Sweden stood aside and quietly fanned the flames of rivalry between her neighbours. Norwegian raided Dane and was raided in return. Alliances shifted. Leading families squabbled, and wherever Norsemen had seized land across the sea — in England, Scotland or Ireland — there were great magnates who nominally owed allegiance to an overlord in the homeland, but acted independently. Through these turbulent waters I had to plot a course for Harald when he returned.

I made a start by visiting the court of Harald's nephew, Magnus. He held the Norwegian throne, and also claimed the kingship of Denmark. I found him to be personable, energetic, proud, and shrewd beyond his years. He was only twenty-five years old, yet had won the affection of his people by his fairness and his habit of winning his battles against the Danes. Harald, I concluded, would find it difficult to dislodge the man his people called Magnus the Good.

I came to Magnus's court posing as an Icelander returning after service in Constantinople and wealthy enough to dawdle on the way. It was near enough to the truth, and no one questioned me too closely about my background. The only time I nearly dropped my guard was when I heard that the dowager queen Aelfgifu had died. She was the woman who had first taken me to bed. 'Good riddance, for all that she was the great Knut's first wife,' commented the man who told me of her death. 'Her husband sent her to us as co-regent, along with that callous son of hers. They weren't popular, and we drove them out. Can't say I'm sorry that she's gone.' His remark made me feel old. No one likes to think that their first lover is in the grave. Not when you remember their warmth and beauty.

IT WAS TO be nearly two years before I was able to tell Harald of my impression of Magnus, because King Jaroslav insisted that his new son-in-law stay on in Kiev for longer than Harald had intended. But I scarcely noticed the delay, for I had at last found a place where the Old Gods were revered, and I was happy.

I was travelling from Magnus's capital at Nidaros on my way to Denmark to assess the strength and character of Earl Svein Estrithson, who ruled there, and it was autumn. I had taken the land route over the mountain passes and reached the area known as Vaster Gotland. It lies on the border between Norway and Sweden, but is such a bleak and unforgiving region that no one really cares about the exact position of the frontier. It is a place of rock and forest, small lakes and shallow streams, and a large expanse of inland water — the Vaner Lake - which, like everything else, freezes over in winter because the climate is very harsh. I was on foot because the trail is difficult for horses and there is no fodder to be found. Nor did I have a servant to accompany me, but was travelling alone. Vaster Gotland has a reputation for outlawry, so I was beginning to wonder whether I was wise to carry so much gold and silver with me when I came across a memorial stone beside the track. On the rock was carved an epitaph to a lost warrior who, according to the runes, had ended his life in Serkland, 'the land of silk'. The mason who had cut the inscription was no rune master, for the gouges left by the chisel were plain to see, and the lettering was crudely done. Nor could I tell who was commemorated, for the rock had split away where the dead man's name had been written, and I could not find the broken piece. But I took it as a sign from Odinn, and after clearing away the undergrowth I buried half my hoard.

There were no villages along the trail, only an occasional farmhouse set well back from the path. The land was so poor and grudging that these dwellings were no more than small log cabins with roofs of wooden shingles and perhaps a shed or two. I was expecting to encounter the farmers returning home, as it would soon be dusk. But I saw no one. Whenever I passed a house, and that was rare enough, the door was shut tight and nothing stirred. It was as if the plague had struck, and everyone had retreated indoors or died.

The chill in the evening air warned of a cold night to come, and I had already caught a glimpse of a wolf in the forest, so I left the track when I saw the next house and went towards it, intending to ask for shelter for the night. I knocked on the heavy wooden door planks and called out. For a moment there was no response. Then, from deep within the house, a low voice said urgently, 'Go away! You disturb us! Go away!' I was as shocked as if someone had struck me in the face. The country folk had always been hospitable. That was their tradition. They enjoyed hearing a traveller's news and they appreciated the small coins paid for food and lodging. To turn away a stranger on a cold evening seemed unthinkable. I knocked again, more insistently, and called out that I was a traveller, on my own, hungry, and would pay for my lodging. This time I heard the shuffle of feet, and very slowly the door opened, just enough for me to see that the interior of the cabin was in darkness. Someone had covered over the small windows. From the gloom within, a voice said, 'Go away, please leave. This is not the right time to visit us.'

Something about the atmosphere of the place made me say, 'In the name of Odinn the Roadwise I ask for shelter.'

There was a long pause, and then the door pulled back a hand's breadth and the voice asked softly, 'Tell me, stranger, what is the name of the steed who westward draws night over the glorious Gods?'

The accent was local and strong, but the rhythm of the words was unmistakable. The man, whoever he was, was reciting lines of poetry. Long ago my tutors in the Old Ways had taught me the next verse, so I answered:

'Hrimfaxi's his name who draws the nights

Over the glorious gods

Each morning he dribbles down the flakes of foam

That brings dew upon the dales.'

The heavy door eased back, just wide enough to allow me to step inside, and the moment I had entered, it was closed behind me. I found myself in total darkness.

A hand took my wrist, and I felt myself carefully guided forward. Then the pressure of the hand indicated that I was to stop where I stood. I felt something touch the back of my knees, and knew that someone had placed a stool behind me. I sat down quietly. Not a word had been said, and still I could see only blackness.

There, were people in the room: not many of them, though I could sense their presence. The floor beneath my boots was plain beaten earth. This was a humble home. I heard the rusde of clothing, light breathing. Then a point of dull red appeared a few feet away, close to the ground. Someone had uncovered an ember. I guessed that it lay in the family hearth. The glow vanished as a shadow moved between me and the fireplace. There was the sound of a person blowing gently on the ember, and then the shadow moved aside and I could see the hearth again. Now there was a small dance of flame in the fireplace, which gave just enough light for me to make out that there were half a dozen people in the room, three adults and three children, all dressed in the plain dun and brown garments of farming people. It was difficult to distinguish whether the children were girls or boys, but the adults were two women and a man. I guessed he was the person who had brought me into the house.

One of the women was moving towards the fireplace. She placed something on the ground in front of the hearth. It was a small bowl. She tilted a jug and I heard the splash of liquid. I sat completely still. Now I knew what was happening. This was the alfablot, the household's annual sacrifice to honour the spirits which live in every home. As landvaettir, they also exist among the trees and rocks and underground. They are the spirits of place, the ancient inhabitants who were there before men came, and they will be there long after men have gone. Their approval helps men prosper, their hostility brings ruin.

There were soft footfalls as the woman moved away from the fire, and her dark shape moved around the room, pausing in each corner. She held something. I guessed it was a small offering of food for the alfar.

I felt a nudge on my fingers. It was the rough crust of a hunk of bread. Then I was passed a wooden cup of beer. I tasted the bread. It was peasant's rye bread, coarse but wholesome. The beer was thin and watery. I ate and drank, taking care to move gently and carefully. Alfar are easily frightened away. I left a few dregs of beer in the cup, leaned forward when I had finished, and tipped the last few drops on the earthen floor. I knew that my offering had been observed by my hosts.

Not a word had been said from the moment that I had entered the house, and I knew that, out of respect for the spirits, all would be silent until daylight came. When the family completed their offerings, they retired to their communal bed, a wooden box against one wall, like a large manger. I wrapped myself in my travelling cloak and quietly lay down on the floor to sleep.

'WE ARE ALL pagans here,' were the first words of the farmer next morning. He spoke apologetically. 'Otherwise you would have had a kinder welcome.'

'Old Believers,' I corrected him gently.

He was a middle-aged man, unremarkable except for the bright blue eyes in his weather-beaten face and an unruly fringe of almost pure white hair around his bald scalp. He had the careworn look of someone who laboured hard to support his family. Behind him his wife, a handsome woman who also showed signs of an exacting life, was washing the children's faces. The second woman appeared to be her sister, for she had the same thick reddish-brown hair and fine bone structure, as well as a gracefulness in the way she was collecting up the small offerings that had been set out during the night. The milk that had been left in the bowl for the alfr, I noticed, was poured back into the jug after a few drops had been sprinkled on the hearth. There was no surplus food in this household.

'You are a devotee of Odinn?' the farmer asked in a deep, quiet voice. He was probing, wanting to know more about me and to establish some sort of common ground between us. I liked him.

'From childhood. I have followed Odinn since I was a boy. And you?'

'Here we worship Frey. We are farmers, not warriors or sailors. We need Frey's generosity.' I knew what he spoke of. Frey is the God of fertility. He multiplies the seed that is planted in the soil, brings the rain and warmth which ripens crops, and makes good harvests. With Frey's help the cattle thrive, lambs and calves are plentiful, sows farrow generously. Even the milk we were drinking we owed ultimately to Frey's bounty.

'Last evening you invoked Odinn Vegtamr,' the farmer continued. 'Do you travel far?'

'Only as far as the Danish lands, if the rain holds off for another week or so. I don't like squelching through mud.'

'Many berries on the bushes this year,' the man said. 'And the swallows left early. Snow will come sooner than rain, I'd say. Not that it means much to us in these parts. We don't travel except to the great Hof, and it's a three-day walk to reach anywhere worth visiting.'

'Yet I saw a memorial back along the road to a man who died in Serkland. That's a great distance.'

There was a sudden tension in the room. The farmer looked uneasy.

'Have you been to Serkland?' he enquired.

'I have, or at least close to it,' I said. 'I served with the emperor's guard in Miklagard, and he sent me to their Holy Land. That's close by. It's the place where the White Christ God lived.'

'Don't know about this Holy Land. We're too remote to see the White Christ priests. One of them did visit a few years back, but found us too set in our ways. He left and never came back.'

'Perhaps you were fortunate,' I commented.

The farmer seemed to reach a decision. 'It was I who cut that memorial stone,' he acknowledged. 'Did my best, though the work is rough. Should have picked a better rock. A corner broke off in the winter frost two years later. We wanted to have something to remember him by. He was married to my wife's sister.'

He glanced across the room towards the woman who had been cleaning up the hearth. She was standing still, staring at me, hanging on every word.

'News reached us, third or fourth hand, that he had died in Serkland. But there were no details. He had set out from here to make his fortune, and never came back. Vanished. We don't know anything of the place where he met his end, or how it happened. His name was Thorald.'

'I didn't know anyone by that name when I was in Miklagard,' I said, 'but if it will repay your hospitality, perhaps I could tell you what I know of Serkland.'

The farmer nodded to his sister-in-law, and she stepped closer. Her eyes were still fixed on me as I began to describe my time in the Hetaira, my visit to the Holy Land, and how I had met Saracens both as friends and enemies. It was a lengthy tale, and I tried to tell it briefly. But the farmer soon detected that I was leaving much unsaid, and he interrupted.

'There is so much we want to know. Would you not stay with us a few days and tell us your tale more fully? It would help Runa here.'

I hesitated. The family lived in such straitened circumstances that I was reluctant to impose myself on their kindness. But then the farmer, whose name was Folkmar, insisted, and I agreed to stay one more day.

It was among the best decisions of my life. That one day became a week, and by the end of it I knew that Folkmar's home was my haven. Nothing could have been a greater contrast to the sophistication and luxury of Constantinople with its broad avenues, well-stocked markets, and teeming crowds. There I had enjoyed the comforts of fine food, public bathhouses, and lavish entertainment on a scale unimaginable to my hosts in the harsh barrens of Vaster Gotland, where much of each day was spent in routine labour to achieve the basics of everyday life, whether drawing water, mending farm tools or grinding grain. Yet Folk-mar and his wife were content to place their trust in the Gods, and in consequence there was nothing fearful in their lives. They were deeply fond of one another and their children; they lived simply and frugally, and they were sure of where they stood in relation to the land and the seasons of the year. Every time I accompanied Folkmar to his work in one of his small fields or to gather firewood in the forest, I saw how he respected the unseen spirits around him. He laid small tokens, even if they were no more than a broken twig or a leaf, on the isolated boulders which we passed, and if the children were with us he would insist they hushed their voices, and he forbade them to play games close by the sacred rocks. To him the deep forest was home to skogsra, female woodland deities who, if respected, would return a cow or calf that wandered from the meadow. If insulted, they would feed the stray to the wolves.

Folkmar's devotion to his main Gods, Frey and his sister Freyja, was uncomplicated. He kept their statuettes in his home, Frey with his enormous phallus, and Freyja voluptuous and sensual, but he knew little of their lore other than the popular tales.

'Cats,' he said. 'Freyja's chariot is drawn by cats. Just like a woman to be able to harness cats. That would be something to see. Hereabouts in mid-summer a man and woman dress up as

Frey and his sister and travel from farm to farm in a cart to collect offerings, but they are drawn along by a working nag.' He paused before saying, 'I'll be bringing those offerings to the Great Hof next week. Care to come with me? It means delaying your trip to Denmark, but Odinn has his own place in the Hof as well. It would be a chance for you to honour him.' 'How far is it to the Hof?' I asked.

'About ten days. Lots of people will be going. The king himself could be there.'

This time I did not hesitate. My trip to Denmark could wait. I had heard about the Great Hof from the Swedish Varangians I had met in Miklagard, who had told me about the festivals held near a place they called Uppsala where, since time out of mind, there had been a temple to the Old Gods. Here, in spring and just before the onset of winter, appeared great gatherings of Old Believers, who came in multitudes to make their sacrifices and pray for all the blessings that the Old Gods can bestow: health, prosperity, victory, a good life. The Swedish king himself often attended, because his ancestors traced their line back to Frey himself. I decided that after many years of living among the followers of the White Christ, now, at last, I could immerse myself again in the celebration of the Old Ways.

Folkmar was delighted when I agreed to accompany him, and our journey proved to be what the Christians would have called a pilgrimage. We were like a master and disciple as we trudged along and I answered his questions about the Gods, for he was keen to learn more and I was slowly coming to realise that my knowledge of the Old Ways was more profound than most possessed. I told him how Frey and Freyja belonged to the Vanir, the primal Gods who had at first resisted the Aesir under Odinn and fought against them. When peace was agreed, they had gone to join the Aesir as hostages and had been with them ever since.

'Pity the Norwegians and the Danes can't do the same. Make peace with one another, I mean,' Folkmar observed. 'It would put an end to this constant warring between them which does no one any good. I often think how fortunate it is that my people live so far out of the way. The quarrels of the outer world usually pass us by.'

'Perhaps that is why Frey and his sister chose not to live under Odinn's roof in Valhol. They have a space to themselves,' I answered. 'Frey has his own hall in Alfheim where the light elves live. And he and his sister have their special privileges. Frey is near equal to Odinn, and his sister in some ways is superior. After battle she takes half of those who have died honourably and brings them back to her hall, Sessrumnir, leaving Odinn and the Valkyries to select the rest. Freyja gets to make the first choice among the dead.'

'You would need to be a God to share power like that, never quarrelling over precedence,' observed Folkmar.

'I saw it done back in the Great City,' I said. 'Two empresses sharing the same throne. But I admit, it was unusual.'

'It's against nature. Sooner or later, there must be a contest for power,' said Folkmar. With his native shrewdness he had forecast what was to follow.

THE GREAT TEMPLE at Uppsala was worth our ten-day walk. It was the largest hof I had ever seen, an enormous hall of timber built close beside three large barrow graves which contained the bodies of the early kings. In front of the hof grew a huge tree, the very symbol of Yggdrasil, the world tree where the Aesir meet. This giant was even more remarkable because its leaves never faded, but remained green throughout even the hardest winter. To one side, clustering like attendants, smaller trees formed a sacred grove. These trees too were very ancient, and each was hallowed. On them were displayed the sacrifices made to the Gods whose images were within the Hof itself. Folkmar told me that at the great spring festival, the temple priests celebrated nine successive days of ritual, nine being their sacred number. Each day they emerged from the Hof and hung on the branches of the sacred trees the heads of the nine animals they had sacrificed to the Gods as proof of their devotion. Ritual demanded that each animal was a male, and that there was one from each type of living creature.

'Does that include human sacrifice as well?' I asked.

'In earlier times, that was so,' explained Folkmar, 'But no longer.'

He led me inside the Hof. Even though the autumn festival was of less importance than the spring celebration, the dark interior of the temple was crowded with worshippers bringing gifts. The builders of the temple had left openings in the high roof so that the daylight fell in shafts, illuminating the statues of the Gods. And today, despite the fact that it was cloudy, the three Gods seemed to loom over the congregation. Thor was in the centre — powerful, bearded, and holding his hammer aloft. To his right stood my own God, Odinn. Carved from a single enormous block of wood, and black with the smoke of centuries of sacrifices, Odinn squinted down with his single eye. To Thor's left stood Frey's image. This statue too was of wood, but brightly painted with the colours of the bountiful earth — ochre, red, brown, gold and green. Frey was seated cross-legged, a conical helmet on his head, one hand clutching his pointed beard, which jutted forward, the other hand on his knee. His eyes bulged. He was stark naked, and from his loins rose the gigantic phallus that was the symbol of the fertility he controlled, and also of physical joy.

Folkmar approached one of the Frey priests and handed over the package he had carried on his back all the way during our walk. I had no idea what the package contained, but knowing the poverty of Folkmar and his neighbours I doubted it was anything more than a few items of farmer's produce, yet the priest took the package as if it was of great value and thanked the farmer graciously. He beckoned to an assistant, and a moment later a small pig was dragged out from the shadows, and with a quick movement the priest cut its throat. The assistant already had a bowl in place, and as the blood drained into it, the priest took a whisk of twigs and, dipping it into the blood, nicked the drops towards the image of the God, then over Folkmar, who stood with bowed head.

I had expected the priest to set the pig's carcass aside, but instead he handed it to Folkmar and said, 'Feast well tonight.'

His duty done, Folkmar turned and began to leave when he remembered that I had not yet honoured Odinn. 'I am sorry, Thorgils, I did not think to keep something back that you could offer to your God.'

'Your people collected for Frey's honour,' I said as we moved through the crowd towards the soot-black image of the father of the Gods. 'It would not have been right to divert the slightest morsel of it elsewhere.'

We had reached the foot of Odinn's statue. It towered above us, twice the height of a man. The image was so old that the timber from which it had been carved was split and dry, and I wondered how many centuries it had stood there. Apart from the closed eye, the details of the God's face were blurred with age. I reached inside my shirt where my money pouch hung on a leather thong around my neck, then laid my offering at the God's feet. Folkmar's eyes opened wide in surprise. I had set down a solid gold coin, an imperial nomisma, worth more than all the farmer's worldly possessions. To me, it was a small token of my gratitude to Odinn for having brought me to Folkmar and his home.

'You SAY THAT you follow Harald Sigurdsson and are sworn to serve him,' said Folkmar to me that evening as we roasted the sacrificial pig, 'but it is too late in the season for Harald to arrive. The earliest he can be expected is in the spring. Why don't you spend the winter with us. I know that would please my wife and her sister.'

'First I must visit Svein Estrithson in Denmark so that later I can tell Harald what the man is like,' I answered cautiously, though Folkmar's invitation had forced me to acknowledge that

perhaps I was not as solitary and self-possessed as I had always imagined myself to be. During the days I had spent with him and his family, I had experienced a sense of quiet harmony that I had never expected. Gazing into the flames of our cooking fire, I found myself wondering if my advancing years were having their effect, and whether the time had come when I should consider forsaking my rootless life and, if not settling down, at least having a place where I could stay and rest. So I allowed myself the luxury of calculating just how quickly I could complete my mission to Denmark and get back to Vaster Gotland.

Odinn must have favoured me because snow fell the very next morning and the ground froze hard. Travelling across a frozen landscape is far easier and quicker than in spring or autumn mud, and I made the journey to Denmark in less than two weeks' travel. I found that I neither liked nor trusted Svein Estrithson. He was stout, foul-mouthed and a great womaniser. He was also a powerful advocate for the White Christ, whose priests overlooked his lewd behaviour. For some reason, the Danes were very loyal to him, and rallied to his cause whenever Magnus's Norwegians threatened. I judged that Harald would find it almost as hard to dislodge Svein as to replace Magnus.

It was no hardship to cut short my visit and retrace my steps to Vaster Gotland. On the way there I stopped in a trading station to make some purchases and hire a carter. The man demanded a substantial sum to make such a long journey, but I was wealthy and his payment barely touched my store of ready funds. Thus, soon after I was once again back with Folkmar's family, a shout brought them to the door. Outside stood two small and sturdy horses with shaggy winter coats, their breath steaming in the cold air. Fitted to their hooves were the spiked shoes that had allowed them to traverse the icy ground as they dragged the sled that contained the furs, cloth, utensils and extra food that I now presented to Folkmar and his family as my guest offering.

Runa and I were joined as man and wife soon after the Jol festival, and no one in that remote community was in the least surprised. Runa and I had discovered that we were quietly suited, as if we had known one another for many years. We shared a mutual understanding, which neither of us mentioned because we already knew that the other was equally sensitive to it. In the confines of the little cabin our harmony occasionally revealed itself in a shared glance, or a half smile that passed between us. But more often it was simply that Runa and I were gladdened by each other's presence, and savoured the contentment that flowed from being together. Naturally Folkmar and his wife had noticed what was happening, and took care not to intrude.

Our wedding was not, of course, a marriage in the Christian rite, all priest and prayers. As a young man I had married that way in Iceland, and the union had been a humiliating failure. This time Folkmar himself performed the ceremony, because Runa and her sister had been orphaned at an early age and this left him as her senior male relative. Folkmar made a simple declaration to the Gods, and then, standing before the images of Frey and Freyja, took steel and flint, and, striking one against the other, produced a trail of sparks. It was to show that within each substance, stone and metal, as in man and woman, lived a vital element which, when brought together, provided life.

Next day he hosted a feast for our immediate neighbours, at which they consumed the smoked and salted delicacies that I had earlier provided, and toasted our happiness in mead made from forest honey and shoots of bog myrtle in place of hops. During their toasts, several guests gave praise to Frey and Freyja, saying that the Gods had surely arranged for Runa to marry me. The Gods had taken her first husband when he was far away in Serkland, they said, and from Serkland they had sent his successor. They were fulsome in their congratulations, and during the winter months several of them came to help to construct the small extension that was built on Folkmar's cabin where Runa and I had our bedchamber. I could have told them to wait until the spring, when I could hire professional builders and purchase costly materials because I was rich. But I desisted. I liked my haven and I feared to disturb its equilibrium.

From the outset Runa herself took great comfort from her sister's open approval of our union, and she went on to make me very happy. She was to prove to be an ideal wife, loving and supportive. On our wedding night she told me that when she heard of her first husband's death, she had prayed to Freyja, pleading that she did not wish to spend the rest of her life as a widow. 'Freyja heard my prayers,' she said quietly, looking down at the earthen floor.

'But I'm fifteen years older than you,' I pointed out. 'Don't you worry that you will again be a widow one day?'

'That is for the Gods to decide. Some men they bless with health and allow to live. To others they give a life of drudgery which brings them to an early death. To me you seem no older than men of my own age, for already they are half worn out by toil.' Then she snuggled down against me, and proved that Freyja was indeed the goddess of sensual joy.

I was so utterly content all that winter and the following spring that I might have set aside my promise to serve Harald had not Odinn reminded me of my duty. He did so with a dream that was both shocking and, as it turned out much later, a deception. In my sleep I saw a fleet of ships coming across the sea and disembarking an army whose commander sought to seize a throne. The leader's face was never visible but always turned away from me, and I took him to be my liege lord Harald, for the man was uncommonly tall. He boldly led his army inland, his troops marching across baked and barren fields until they were brought to battle by their enemy. The fighting was intense, but gradually the invaders were gaining the upper hand. Then, just on the point of victory, an arrow flew out from nowhere and struck the tall commander in the throat. I saw his hands go up — his face was still turned away — and I heard the breath whistle in his torn windpipe. Then he fell, dying.

I woke in a cold sweat of alarm. Beside me Runa reached out to comfort me. 'What is the matter?' she asked.

'I have just seen my lord Harald die,' I said, still shivering. 'Perhaps I can avert catastrophe. I must warn him.'

'Of course you must,' she agreed soothingly. 'That is your duty. But sleep now and rest, so that in the morning you have a clearer head.'

Next day she was just as sensible and made me repeat the details of the dream, then asked, 'Is this the first time that you have seen omens in your dreams?'

'No, there was a time when I had many dreams that hinted at the future if they were correctly understood. It's something that I have inherited from my mother. I hardly knew her, but she was a volva, a seeress gifted with the second sight. When I was in Miklagard among the Christians, such dreams were very rare, and certainly there was nothing so disturbing as what I saw last night.'

'Maybe your dreaming has returned because you are among people who still hold to the Old Ways. The Gods reveal themselves more readily in such places.'

'A wise woman once told me something similar. She herself possessed second sight and said I was a spirit mirror, and that I was more likely to have visions when I was in the company of others who also possessed the same ability. I suppose that being among Old Believers has the same effect.'

'Then you already know that we would want you to heed what the Gods are trying to tell you. You should seek Harald out and try to warn him. I am content to wait here for your return. I don't have to have second sight to know that you will surely come back to me. The sooner you set out, the sooner you will return.'

I left that same afternoon, taking the same eastward path that Folkmar and I had followed when we went to the Great Hof. On the third day I found someone to sell me a horse, and within a week I had reached the coast, and just in time. A fisherman mending his nets on the beach told me there was a rumour that a remarkable warship was under construction somewhere in the north, the like of which had never been seen before. The builders had been told to use only the finest timber and to install the best fittings, and that no imperfection would be tolerated. 'Must be costing someone a fortune,' said the fisherman, spitting towards his grubby little skiff as if to emphasise his point. 'Don't know who the client is, but he must be made of money.'

'Is the vessel launched yet, do you know?'

'Can't say as I do,' he replied, 'but it will be a sight to see.'

'I'll pay you to take me to see it.'

'Beats hauling on lines and baiting hooks,' he answered readily. 'Give me a couple of hours to pick up some extra gear and a bit of food and water, and off we go. Mind if my lad accompanies us? He's handy in a boat, and could come in useful. Breeze is in the north so it'll be rowing to start with.'

WE HAD BARELY cleared the bay when Harald's ship came into view, sailing southward and less than a mile offshore, and silently I thanked Runa for insisting that I hurried. Another couple of hours and I would have missed him.

There was no mistaking that it was Harald's ship. No one else would have required that his vessel be so extravagant and colourful. In later years, during frontier raids on the Danes, I was to sail aboard the largest vessel Harald ever commissioned, his Great Dragon, which had thirty-five oar benches, making her one of the biggest longships ever known. But that giant still does not compare in my memory with the vessel I saw that pleasant summer afternoon as Harald sailed to claim his inheritance. His longship was a blaze of colour. Immaculate display shields of red and white were slotted in the shield rack. The snarling serpent's head on the prow was gilded bronze, and flashed back the sun as the ship eased across the swells. A long scarlet pennant floated from her masthead, her rigging had been whitened, and the upper plank along her entire length had been decorated with gold leaf.

But that was not the reason why I knew for sure that she was Harald's ship. Who else would have ordered his sailmakers to use a cloth that, weight for weight, was as expensive as gold: every third panel of the mainsail had been cut and stitched from peach silk.

I stood up on the thwart of the fishing skiff and waved an oar. An alert lookout on the longship saw me, and a moment later the vessel altered course. Soon I was scrambling over the side and making my way to the stern deck where Harald stood with his councillors. I knew all of them - Halldor, his marshal Ulf Ospaksson, and the others.

'Welcome aboard, councillor. What do you have to report?' Harald demanded as if I had seen him only yesterday.

'I have visited both Magnus of Norway and Earl Estrithson, my lord,' I began, when Harald interrupted me.

'We have already met the Danish earl. He came north to ask help from the Swedes in his conflict with Magnus, and by chance we encountered him. How did he impress you?'

I paused, not wanting to sound pessimistic. But there was no getting round my opinion. 'He's not to be trusted,' I said bluntly.

'And my nephew Magnus?'

'My lord, he seems to be well regarded by his people.'

It was a tactless thing to say, and Harald rudely turned to look out across the sea, ignoring me. I suppose he felt that I was hinting he might not be so popular. Meekly I crossed the deck to join the other councillors.

Halldor commiserated. 'He needs someone to tell him the true facts from time to time.'

'There's more,' I said. 'I wanted to give him a warning, but now is not the moment.' 'What's the warning?'

'A dream I had recently, a portent.'

'You were always an odd one, Thorgils. Even when you first came to my father's house, my brothers and I wondered why he took you in and gave you such special treatment. Is it to do with your second sight? What have you seen?' 'Harald's death,' I answered.

Halldor shot me a sideways glance. 'How will it happen?' 'An arrow in the throat during a great battle.' 'When?'

'I don't know. The dreams are never precise. It could happen soon, or many years from now.'

'You had better tell me the details. Together we might be able to persuade Harald to avoid an open battle, if not now then at least for some time.'

So I told Halldor what I had dreamed. I described the fleet, the invading army, the tall man, the march across a dry land under a blazing sun, and his death.

When I finished, Halldor was looking at me with a mixture of relief and awe.

'Thorgils,' he said, 'my father was right. You really do have the second sight. But this time you have misinterpreted your vision. Harald is safe.'

'What do you mean?'

'It was not Harald you saw die. It was Maniakes, the tall Greek general who led us in the campaign in Sicily.'

'But that's not possible. I haven't seen Maniakes for years, and in all that time I've never given him a thought.'

'Why should you,' said the Icelander. 'You've been in the northlands these two years past and you could not know the news. A year ago Maniakes rebelled against the new Basileus. That man-eating old empress Zoe had got herself married for a third time and handed over most of the power to her new husband, and Maniakes tried to seize the throne for himself. He was commanding the imperial army in Italy at the time, and he led an invasion into Greece. That's the parched landscape you saw. The Basileus assembled all the troops he could muster, including the garrison of Constantinople, and marched out to confront him. The two armies met - and it was on a hot sunny day on a barren plain -and there was a great battle which was to decide the fate of the empire. Maniakes had victory within his grasp, his troops had the enemy soundly beaten when a chance arrow struck him in the throat, killing him. It was all over. His army fled, and there was a great slaughter. This took place just a few months ago. We heard the news in Kiev just before we left to come here. Maniakes, not Harald, was the man in your vision.'

I was dumbfounded and relieved at the same time. I remembered how very alike the two men had been in height and manner, and that I had never seen the face of the dead commander in my dream. It had all been a mistake: I had been spirit-flying. At various times in my life I had been in the presence of certain seidrmanna, the seers of the northlands who were capable of leaving their bodies while in a trance and flying to other regions far away. That was what had happened in my dream. I had been transported to another place and another time, and there I had seen Maniakes die. It had never happened to me before. I felt bewildered and a little dizzy. But at least I had not made a fool of myself in Harald's eyes by telling him of my fears.

Yet I failed to ask myself why Odinn had brought me to Harald's ship, if indeed it was Maniakes's death I had seen. Had I posed myself that simple question, matters might have turned out differently. But then, deception was always Odinn's way.

ELEVEN

WHAT WAS IT like to be councillor to the wealthiest ruler in the northlands? For that is what Harald became in less than three years.

Initially he had to accept his nephew's offer to share the throne of Norway, but it was an uneasy arrangement and would certainly have ended in civil war, had Magnus not been killed in a freak accident when he was out hunting. A hare leaped up in front of his horse, the horse bolted, and a low branch swept Magnus out of his saddle. He broke his neck. The hare, like her cats, is another familiar of Freyja, so I thought at the time that the king's accident was a sign that the Old Gods were acting in my favour, because Magnus's death left Harald as the sole ruler of Norway. But I soon had my doubts when Harald's elevation to the undisputed kingship changed him. He became even more difficult and high-handed.

I measured his change through his treatment of Halldor. The bluff Icelander had been at Harald's side throughout his foreign travels, and in Sicily had received a face wound which had left him badly scarred, yet his record of loyalty did not protect him from Harald's vainglory. Halldor had always been outspoken. He gave his opinions without mincing his words, and the more powerful Harald became, the less he liked to hear blunt speaking, even from a favoured adviser. One example will suffice: during one of Harald's frequent seaborne raids on Earl Svein's Danish lands, Halldor was the lookout on the foredeck of Harald's longship, a position of honour and great responsibility. As the vessel sailed along the coast, Halldor called out that there were rocks ahead. Harald, standing near the helmsman, chose to ignore the warning. Minutes later the longship crashed upon the rocks and was badly damaged. Exasperated, Halldor informed Harald that there was little point in serving as a lookout if his advice was ignored. Angrily Harald retorted that he had no need of men like Halldor.

There had been countless incidents of a similar nature, but from that time forward relations between them cooled, and I was sorry to see how Harald took pleasure in baiting Halldor. It was a rule at Harald's court that every member of his entourage had to be dressed and ready for attendance upon the king by the time the royal herald sounded the trumpet announcing that the king was about to emerge from his bedchamber. One morning, to make mischief, Harald paid the herald to sound the trumpet at the crack of dawn, much earlier than usual. Halldor and his friends had been carousing the night before and were caught unprepared. Harald then made Halldor and the others sit on the floor of the banqueting hall, in the foul straw, and gulp down full horns of ale while the other courtiers mocked them. Another royal rule was that at meals no one should continue to eat after the king himself had finished eating. To mark that moment, Harald would rap on the table with the handle of his knife. One day Halldor ignored the signal and continued to chew on his food. Harald called out down the length of the hall that Halldor was growing fat from too much food and too little exercise, and once again insisted that the Icelander pay a drinking forfeit.

Matters came to a head on the day of Harald's coinage. This was the occasion each year on the eighth day after Jol festival when the king gave his retainers their annual bounty. Though his wealth was still vast - it took ten strong men to lift Harald's treasure chests - Harald paid Halldor, myself and his other sworn men with copper coin instead of the usual silver. Only Halldor was bold enough to complain. He announced that he could no longer serve such a penny-pinching lord and preferred to return home to Iceland. He sold off all his possessions in Norway and had an ugly confrontation with Harald, when he demanded that the king pay the proper price for a ship he had agreed to buy from Halldor. The whole sorry affair ended with Halldor storming into the king's private chambers and, at sword point, demanding that Harald hand over one of his wife's gold rings to settle the debt. Then Halldor sailed off for Iceland, never to return.

His departure saddened me. He had been a friend from the first, and I valued his good sense. But I did not follow his example and leave Harald's service because I was still hoping that Harald would champion the Old Ways, and, in some matters, Harald was living up to my expectations. He married again, without divorcing Elizabeth, his first wife. His new bride, Thora, the daughter of a Norwegian magnate, was a robust Old Believer. When the Christian priests at court objected, claiming that Harald was committing bigamy, Harald bluntly told them to mind their own business. Equally, when a brace of new bishops arrived in Norway sent by the Archbishop of Bremen in the German lands, Harald promptly despatched them back to the Archbishop with a curt message that the king alone decided Church appointments. Unfortunately for me, Harald also displayed Christian tendencies whenever it suited him. He refurbished the church where the bodies of his half-brother 'Saint' Olaf and his nephew Magnus lay, and whenever he dealt with the followers of the White Christ he made a point of reminding them that St Olaf was his close relative. It was to be several years before I had finally to admit to myself that Halldor had been right from the beginning. Harald was serving only one God — himself.

Yet I persevered. Life at Harald's court was the closest to the ideals that I had heard about when I was a child growing up in Greenland, and I reassured myself that Harald genuinely respected the traditions of the north. He surrounded himself with royal skalds and paid them handsomely for verses which celebrated past glories. His chief skald was another Icelander, Thjodolf, but his other poets - Valgard, Illugi, Bolverk, Halli, known as the Sarcastic, and Stuf the Blind — were almost as deft at producing intricate poems in the courtly style, whose quality Harald himself was capable of judging for he was a competent versifier himself. For lighter moments he employed a court dwarf, a Frisian by the name of Tuta, who had a long broad back and very stumpy legs and who made us laugh by parading around the great hall of the palace dressed in Harald's full-length coat of mail. This armour had been specially made for him in Constantinople and was so famous that it even had its own name — 'Emma'. Harald himself always dressed stylishly, sporting a red and gold headband when not wearing his crown, and on formal occasions the glittering sword that he had been awarded as a spatharokandidatos in Miklagard.

Regrettably, the sword and mail coat were not the only reminders of his days at the Basileus's court. In Miklagard Harald had observed how to wield power pitilessly and to remove rivals without warning. Now I watched as Harald eliminated one potential threat after another, suddenly and without mercy. A nobleman who grew too powerful was summoned to a conference and rashly entered the council hall without his own bodyguard in attendance. He found the hall in darkness — Harald had ordered the shutters closed - and was murdered in the dark. Another rival was promoted to command of Harald's army vanguard and sent to lead an attack on a strong enemy position. Harald then delayed his own arrival on the battlefield so the vanguard and its commander were slaughtered. Before very long those who called Harald a 'hard ruler' were outnumbered by those who knew him more plainly as 'Harald the Bad'.

This, then, was the man I continued to serve faithfully, and to whom I acknowledged myself as 'king's man' while I clung stubbornly to the hope that he would stem the steady advance of the White Christ faith and lead his people back to the happier days of the Elder Way. Had I been more honest with myself, I might have admitted that my dream was unlikely ever to be realised. Yet I lacked the courage to change my way of thinking. The truth was that my own life had reached a plateau and I was set in my ways. I was forty-six when Harald ascended the Norwegian throne, but instead of accepting that I was at a time of life when most men would have been considered to have entered old age, I still felt I might have a hand in shaping events. And Runa was keeping me young.

For six months of every year, I put Harald's court behind me and went back to my beloved Vaster Gotland. I timed my arrival for mid-autumn when it was time to harvest the meagre crops grown in the rocky fields wrested from the forest around our settlement, and my return soon acquired its own small ritual. I would come home on foot and dressed in sombre travelling clothes, not my expensive court dress, and in a leather pouch I carried a special gift for Runa - a pair of gilt brooches worked with interlaced patterns to fasten the straps of her outer tunic, a silver belt, a necklace of amber beads, a bracelet of black jet cunningly carved in the likeness of a snake. The two of us would go inside the small wooden house that I had built for us close beside her sister's home, and, the moment we were away from curious onlookers, her eyes would sparkle with anticipation. Handing her the present, I would stand back and watch with delight as she unwrapped the item I had folded inside a length of coloured silk which later she would sew into trimmings for her best garments. After she had admired the gift, Runa would reach up and give me a long and tender kiss, then she would carefully put the item into the treasure casket that she kept hidden in a cavity in the wall.

Only after that reassuring welcome would I report to Folkmar and ask what farm work needed to be done. He would set me to cutting grain, helping slaughter and skin cattle for which we would have no winter feed, or salting down the meat. Then there was firewood to be cut, gathered and stacked, and the roofs of our houses had to be checked for wooden shingles that had come loose or needed replacing. As a young man I had detested the repetition and stern rigour of this country life, but now I found the physical labour to be reinvigorating, and I enjoyed testing just how much of my youthful strength remained, pacing myself as I worked, and finding satisfaction in completing the tasks allocated to me. In the evenings as I prepared to go to bed beside Runa, I would say a prayer of thanks to Odinn for having brought me from an orphaned childhood through battle, slavery and near death to the arms and warmth of a woman that I deeply loved.

To my surprise I found that my neighbours regarded me as some sort of sage, a man deeply learned in the ancient wisdom, and they would come to me for instruction. I responded readily because I was beginning to understand that the future for the Old Ways might not lie with great princes like Harald, but among the ordinary country folk. I reminded myself that 'pagan', the word the Christian priests used disparagingly to describe non-believers, meant no more than someone who was of the countryside, so I taught the villagers what I had learned in my own youth: about the Gods, how to observe the Elder Way, how to live in harmony with the unseen world. In return my neighbours made me a sort of priest, and one year I came back to find that they had constructed a small hof for me. It was no more than a little circular hut set in a grove of trees, a short walk from the house where Runa and I lived. Here I could sacrifice and pray to Odinn undisturbed. And once again Odinn heard me, for in the eighth year of Harald's kingship, Runa delighted me by informing that she was with child, and in due course she gave birth to a boy and a girl, both healthy and strong. We named them Freyvid and Freygerd in honour of the Gods who were also twins.

BEFORE THE TWINS had learned to walk, Harald sent me on a mission which was a foretaste of his grand ambition - nothing less than to become a second Knut by achieving mastery over all the Norse lands. He summoned me, alone, to his council room, and stated bluntly, 'Thorgils, you speak the language of the Scots.'

'No, my lord,' I answered. 'As a youth I learned the language of the Irish when I was a slave among them.'

'But the Irish language is close enough to the Scots tongue for you to conduct secret negotiations without the need for interpreters?'

'Probably, my lord, though I have never put it to the test.'

'Then you are to travel to Scotland on my behalf, to visit the King of the Scots, and sound out whether he would be willing to make an alliance with me.'

'An alliance for what purpose?' I dared to enquire.

Harald watched me closely for my response as he said, 'To conquer England. He has no love for his southern neighbours.'

I said nothing, but waited for Harald to go on.

'The king's name is Magbjothr, and he has held the throne of Scotland for fourteen years. By all accounts he's skilled in warfare. He would make a powerful ally. There's only one problem: he mistrusts the Norse. His father fought our Norse cousins in the Orkneys, when Sigurd the Stout was earl there.'

Harald's mention of Sigurd the Stout brought a twinge of pain to my left hand. It was an involuntary response to the familiar stiffness of an old wound.

'I fought at Earl Sigurd's side in the great battle of Clontarf in Ireland, where he died trying to overthrow the Irish High King,' I said, choosing my words carefully. I refrained from adding that I was the last man to hold aloft Sigurd's famous raven banner, and had received a smashing blow to my hand when the banner's pole was wrenched from my grasp.

'It's England's High King I plan to overthrow this time, with

Magbjothr's support,' Harald declared. 'Your task is to persuade him to make common cause with us. There's a vessel ready to take you to Scotland. It's only a two-day sail.'

I arrived in Scotland expecting to find Magbjothr at his stronghold on the southern shore of what the Scots call the Firth of Moray, but when I got there, his steward told me that the king was on a royal progress around his domains, and not expected back for several weeks. He added, 'The queen has gone with him. May the Lord preserve her.' I must have looked blank because the steward went on, 'She's been getting worse these past few months, and no one seems able to help. And such a fine lady, too. I'm not sure she's fit to travel.'

Finding that my spoken Irish was readily understood, I made discreet enquiries and learned that the queen, whose name was Gruoch, was suffering from some sort of mysterious illness. 'Elf shot,' was how one informant put it, and another said flatly, 'Demons have entered her head.' Everyone I spoke to made it clear that Gruoch was highly esteemed. Apparently she was a direct descendant of Scots kings, and by marrying Magbjothr had greatly strengthened his claim to the throne. Magbjothr was also of royal blood, but had held the lesser rank of Mormaer of Moray, a title equivalent to Earl, before he came to the throne by deposing the previous king in circumstances that my informants were reluctant to describe. Some said he had defeated the king in open battle, others claimed that he killed him in a man-to-man duel, while a third account hinted that Magbjothr had treacherously assassinated his king while he was his guest. Listening to their conflicting stories, one thing became clear: Magbjothr was a man to be reckoned with. Not only had he won the throne of Scotland through violence, but he had also acquired his wife by force of arms. Gruoch had been married to the previous Mormaer of Moray, who was burned to death along with his retinue of fifty men in a dispute with Magbjothr. What made the outcome all the more remarkable was that Magbjothr had married the widow, and then agreed that her son by her previous husband was to be his heir. The King and Queen of the Scots, I thought to myself, must be a very unusual pair.

My route southward to find Magbjothr took me across a wild landscape of moor and rocky highland. Called the Mounth, the region was often swathed in mist and cut through with narrow valleys choked with dense brush and woodland. It was perfect country for an ambush, and I understood why so much of what I had heard about the quarrels of the Scots involved surprise attacks and sudden raids. When I finally caught up with the king, I thought he was wise to have installed himself and his entourage in an easily defended fortress. Sited on a hilltop with a clear view on all sides, the building was protected by a triple ring of earth banks topped with wooden palisades which, even as I plodded up the slope, were being reinforced by his soldiers.

I was greeted with suspicion. A sentry stopped me at the outer gate and searched me for hidden weapons before demanding to know my business. I told him that I had come on an embassy from Harald of Norway and sought an audience with the king. The soldier looked doubtful. No strangers were allowed into the inner citadel, he said. These were his standing orders now that the Northumbrians were threatening to invade across the border. I might be a spy for them. I pointed out that the Northumbrians' traditional allies were the Danes, and that King Harald and his Norwegians had been fighting the Danes ever since Harald came to the throne. 'That's as may be,' retorted the sentry, as he escorted me to see his captain, 'but as far as I'm concerned, all you Norsemen are alike. Bandits, best kept out of places where you don't belong.'

His captain cross-examined me before leaving me to wait in an antechamber, and it was only after a delay of several hours that I was finally ushered into the presence of a tall, soldierly looking man, perhaps a decade younger than myself, with a ruddy wind-scoured complexion and long yellow hair. It was the King of the Scots, known to the Norsemen as Magbjothr, but to his own people as Mac Bethad mac Findlaech.

'Where did you learn to speak our language?' he asked, tapping the table in front of him with the naked blade of a dagger. I guessed that the weapon was not just there for show. The king mistrusted strangers.

'In Ireland, your majesty. In a monastery.'

The king frowned. 'You don't look like a Christian.'

'I'm not. I entered the monastery under duress. Initially as a slave. But I never accepted the faith.'

'A pity,' said Mac Bethad. 'I myself am a Christian. How come you were a slave?'

'I was taken prisoner in battle.'

'And where was that?'

'At a place called Clontarf, your majesty.'

The rhythmic tapping of the dagger suddenly slowed.

'At Clontarf? That was a long time ago. You don't look old enough to have been there.'

'I was only a lad, not more than fifteen years old.'

'Then you would have known the Mormaer of Mar. He fought and died in that battle.'

'No, your majesty. I did not know him. I was in the company of Earl Sigurd.'

Mac Bethad looked at me, trying to judge whether I was telling the truth. Pensively, he continued to tap the knife blade on the pitted surface of the wooden table.

'I'm surprised,' he said, 'that Harald of Norway should send me as his spokesman someone who served Fat Sigurd. The Earl of Orkney was a mortal enemy to my father all his life. They fought at least three battles, and thanks to that magic banner of his, Sigurd always came out best. Then the Orkney men stole our lands.'

My first meeting with Mac Bethad had got off to a very poor start, I thought to myself. I would never make a successful diplomat.

'The banner was useless to Sigurd at Clontarf,' I observed, trying to sound conciliatory. 'He died with it tied around his waist.'

'And how do you know that?' This time the question was aggressive.

'He took the banner from me when the fight was going against us, and no one else would carry it. He wrapped it around him, saying that the beggar must carry his own purse. Then he walked into the thick of the fight. To certain death. I did not see the moment when he fell.'

Yet again Mac Bethad was looking at me with disbelief.

'Are you telling me that you were Sigurd's standard-bearer, and yet you survived?'

'Yes, your majesty.'

'And you did not know the prophecy that whoever flew the raven banner in battle would be victorious, but the man who actually held the raven banner would die in the moment of victory?'

'I had heard that prophecy, your majesty. But at Clontarf it turned out to be wrong. My fate was different. The Norns decreed that I should survive and that the earl would be defeated.'

When I mentioned the Norns, Mac Bethad grew very still. The tip of the dagger slowed its rhythm and stopped. There was a silence. 'You believe in the Norns?' he asked softly.

'I do, your majesty. I am an Old Believer. The Norns decide our fate when we are born.'

'And at other times? Do they decide our fate in later years?'

'That I do not know. But whatever the Norns decree for us will eventually come about. We can delay the outcome of their decision, but we cannot escape it.'

Mac Bethad laid the weapon gently on the table. 'I was about to send you away without hearing the message you bring from Harald of Norway. But maybe your arrival here was also decided by Fate. This evening I would like you to meet with my wife and me in private. Maybe you can help us. You have probably heard that my wife is ill.'

'I am not a physician, your majesty,' I warned.

'It is not a physician that she needs,' said the king. 'Perhaps it is someone who can explain what seems to be against all reason. I am a devout Christian. Yet I have seen the Norns.'

This time it was I who fell silent.

The Royal Chamberlain found a place for me to sleep, a small alcove scarcely more than a cupboard, close to the king's apartments, and left me to eat my midday meal with the garrison of the fortress. Listening to their conversation, I gathered that they were all members of Mac Bethad's personal retinue and that they had a high opinion of their leader's generalship. The only time I heard any doubt expressed was in reference to the queen. One veteran complained that Mac Bethad was so distracted by the queen's illness that he was paying insufficient attention to preparing his defence against the expected invasion. The Earl of Northumbria, Siward, had given sanctuary to two sons of the previous Scottish king, the man Mac Bethad had killed, and was using their claim to the throne to justify his attack.

When the chamberlain fetched me that evening and brought me to the king's private apartments, I was shown into a small room furnished only with a table and several plain wooden chairs. The light came from a single candle on the table, positioned well away from the woman in a long dark cloak seated at the far end of the room. She sat in the shadows, her hands in her lap, and she was twisting her fingers together nervously. The only other person in the room was Mac Bethad, and he was looking troubled.

'You must excuse the darkness,' he began, after the chamberlain had withdrawn and closed the door behind him. 'The queen finds too much light to be painful.'

I glanced towards the woman. Her cloak had a hood which she had drawn up over her head, almost concealing her face. Just at that moment the candle flared briefly, and I caught a glimpse of a taut, strained face, dark-rimmed eyes peering out, a pale skin and high cheek bones. Even in that brief instant the cheek nearest to me gave a small, distinct twitch. Simultaneously I felt a tingling shock as though I had accidentally knocked the point of my elbow against a rock, the sort of impact that leaves the arm numb. But the shock was not to my arm, it was to my mind. I knew that I was in the presence of someone with otherworldly powers.

It was a familiar sensation. I had experienced it whenever I encountered men and women skilled in seidr, the art of magic. Usually I reacted strongly, because there were times when I too was gifted with what the Norse call ofreskir, second sight. But this occasion was different. The power emanating from the woman in the cloak was unmistakably that of a volva, a woman with seidr ability, but it was disturbed and irregular. It came at me in waves in the same way that a distant horizon shimmers on a summer's evening with lightning. Not the harsh and shattering flash when Thor hurls his hammer Mjollnir, but the insistent and irregular flicker that country folk who live far inland say is the silver reflection of great shoals of fish in the ocean rising to the surface and reflecting off the belly of the clouds.

Again I noticed the woman's hands. She was twisting and rubbing them together as if she was washing them in water, not the empty air.

'People here know them as the three Wyrds,' Mac Bethad suddenly blurted out. There was anguish in his voice. 'As a Christian I thought it was just a heathen belief, a superstition. Until I met the three of them, dressed in their rags. It was in Moray, when I was still the Mormaer there, not yet king.'

The king was speaking of the Norns, launching directly upon the subject without any introduction. Obviously the topic had been preying on his mind.

'They appeared as three hags, clustered by the roadside. I would have ridden on if they had not called out for my attention. Perhaps if I had not stopped to listen, my wife would have been spared.'

'You saw the Norns in Moray?' I asked, filling the awkward

gap. 'They were seen nearby, in Caithness, at the time of Clontarf. Weaving a shroud and using the entrails of men as the threads. They were celebrating the battle's slaughter. When you saw them, what did they say?'

'Their words were garbled and indistinct. They were short of teeth and mumbled. But one of them was prophesying. Said I would become the king of the Scots, and warned me of treachery among my nobles. At the time I thought it was all nonsense. Trite stuff that any fool would dream up.'

'If they were indeed the Norns, that would be Verdhandi who spoke to you. She is that-which-is-becoming. Her two sisters, Urhr and Skuld, concern themselves with what is and what should be.'

'As a Christian I know nothing of their names or attributes. Indeed I would have paid no heed to their words, if Gruoch had not encouraged me.'

I looked again towards the hooded woman. Now she was rocking back and forth in her seat, her hands still twisting together ceaselessly. She must have heard everything we had said, but she had not uttered a word since I had entered the room.

'Gruoch is as good a Christian as I am,' Mac Bethad went on, speaking more gently. 'A better one, in fact. She is charitable and kind. No one could ask for a better consort.'

I realised, a little belatedly, that Mac Bethad truly loved his queen. It was an unexpected revelation, and it explained his present concern for her, even as his next words revealed how his love for his wife had ensnared them both.

'When I told Gruoch what the Wyrds had said, she too dismissed their prophecies as heathen babbling. But she did point out that I had a better right to the throne of Scotland than the weakling who held it - I mean my cousin, Duncan. She left unsaid that she herself is equally well born. Maybe that was not what she was thinking, but I imagined it was so. Her words made me determined to overthrow the king. Not for my own sake, though everyone knows that the stronger the king, the happier will be his realm. That's "the king's truth". For the sake of my wife I made up my mind that one day I would be seated on the sacred stone and acclaimed as the King of Scots. Then Gruoch would be a queen. It was her birthright, which was to be my gift to her.'

'And did it turn out as the Norns predicted?'

'I challenged King Duncan and defeated him in open battle. I was not alone in wanting him gone. More than half the other Mormaers and thegns supported me.'

'I have heard it said that the king was murdered while he was your guest.'

Mac Bethad grimaced. 'That's a well-rehearsed tale, a black rumour spread by those who would like to see one of Duncan's sons on the throne. They would be puppets of the Northumbrians, of course. Duncan was not murdered. He died because he was a poor tactician and a careless commander. He led his men into Moray to attack me, and his scouts were incompetent. They failed to detect the ambush we had set. After the battle I had the scouts executed for failing in their duty. If anyone was responsible for Duncan's death it was them.'

'And was it then that your wife fell ill?'

Mac Bethad shook his head. 'No. She is a king's granddaughter, and she knows the price that must be paid for gaining or maintaining power. Her sickness began less than three years ago. But it is getting worse, slowly and inexorably, and that is what I hope you may be able to explain, for I fear it has something to do with your Elder Ways.'

He turned to face his wife. She had raised her head, and the look which passed between them made it clear that Gruoch loved her husband as much as he loved her.

'I was too occupied with my duties as king to appreciate what was happening,' explained Mac Bethad slowly. 'After I gained the throne, she began to question why the Wyrds had appeared, and if they were no more than a heathen superstition, how it was that what they said had come true. The doubts preyed on her mind.

Our Christian priests told us that it was the work of the devil. They persuaded her that she had unknowingly become an agent of the dark one. She began to think of herself as unclean. That is why she constantly washes her hands, as you must have noted.'

'And did the priests suggest a cure?' I asked, unable to resist adding, 'They seem to think they have the answers to every human condition.'

Mac Bethad stood up and went across to where his wife sat. He bent and kissed her gently, then eased back her hood so he could reach down and remove an amulet hanging on a leather thong around her neck. As the hood fell back, I saw that Queen Gruoch must have once possessed a striking beauty. Her hair was unkempt and wild, but it was still thick and luxuriant and shot through with glints of reddish gold, though most of it was faded to a dull bronze. From her left temple a strange white streak extended back through her hair, giving her a strange and unsettling appearance.

Mac Bethad laid the amulet upon the table in front of me. It was a small tube of brass. I teased out the tightly rolled scrap of paper and smoothed it on the table so that I could read the words written there. They were penned in a combination of three scripts - runes, Greek and Roman lettering. 'In nomine domini summi sit benedictum, thine hand vexeth, thine hand troubles thee, Veronica aid thee,' I read.

'The priest who prepared this note said that my wife should wear this close to her left breast,' explained Mac Bethad, 'and for it to be effective she must remain silent. But as you observe, it has had little effect. At least it is less harmful than the other cures that have been suggested. A different priest claimed that my wife's affliction could be controlled if I used a whip made of porpoise skin to beat her every day and expel the demons that have possessed her.' He grimaced with distaste.

I recalled the twitch that had passed across the queen's cheek, and remembered how the young Basileus Michael in Miklagard had trembled uncontrollably in the moments before his spirit had strayed. In Miklagard, too, ignorant priests had diagnosed devilish intervention. Other physicians, however, had been more practical. Long ago, in Ireland, I had seen a drui use herbs and potions to treat convulsions among his patients.

'There are no devils, nor dark elves in possession of your queen,' I assured the king. 'What is written on that paper is worse than foolishness. If you wish to ease your queen's suffering, throw away the amulet, let her speak when she wishes, and if she is distressed, give her potions to drink of warm vinegar in which henbane or cowbane has been soaked, or a light infusion of the plant called deadly nightshade.'

Mac Bethad paled. 'But those are plants known to be favoured by witches and warlocks — and the Wyrds,' he said accusingly. 'You are leading her towards that dark world, not away from it.'

I shrugged. 'I am an Old Believer,' I reminded him, 'and I find no fault in using them if they are effective.' As I spoke, I found myself wondering if Gruoch knew that she had seidr powers. And if she did know, whether she had suppressed or denied them because she was a Christian. If that was the case, the tension within her must have become insupportable.

'Will the medicine cure my wife, as well as ease her suffering?' he asked.

'That I cannot say,' I warned him. 'I believe that her spirit is in turmoil. Divided between the White Christ and the Elder Way.'

'The White Christ has been no help,' said Mac Bethad. 'Four years ago, when I was really worried about the queen's condition, I took her to Rome on pilgrimage. Sought out all the holy men, prayed, gave alms in abundance, but with no result. Maybe I should now turn to the Elder Way. If it cured my wife, I would give up my Christian faith, knowing that no harm can ever come to me.'

His words sent an alarm signal. I knew there was something not quite right.

'What do you mean by "that no harm will come to you"?'

'The final prophecy of the Wyrds was that I could not be killed by mortal man, and that my throne was secure.'

'And did they offer some sort of guarantee or proof?'

'They stated that I would not lose a battle until the wood of Birnam came to this stronghold. But Birnam is half a day's travel away. That is impossible.'

But I knew that it was possible. Even as Mac Bethad told me the prophecy, I understood that his kingship was doomed. Perhaps the country folk back in Vaster Gotland were right and I was some sort of sage, because I already knew that a prophecy of a moving wood had proved to be a sure sign of defeat to come. Travelling in Denmark some years earlier, I had come to a place known locally as the Spring of Carnage. Intrigued, I had enquired the reason for the name. I was told it was the spot where a king of Denmark lost his final battle to an enemy who advanced into their attack carrying the leaves and shrubs of trees to hide their numbers. The place where they had cut the fronds was still called the Deadly Marsh.

Composing my features to hide my consternation, I looked at the king of the Scots in the half darkness. There was no doubt in my mind that the prophecy of the Norns was an augury for Mac Bethad, not a surety. Odinn had allowed me a glimpse into Mac Bethad's future, but had denied it to the king. There was nothing that I could do to alter Mac Bethad's fate. It was his orlog, his destiny. I wondered what to say to him. I chose the coward's course.

'Be careful,' I cautioned Mac Bethad, rising to my feet. 'A single tree can destroy a king. Magnus of Norway who shared the throne with my liege lord Harald was killed by a single branch which swept him from the saddle. He too was a Christian.'

Then, burdened with a sense of foreboding, I said I was tired, asked Mac Bethad for permission to return to my chamber, and left the room.

Next morning I did not trouble to request for a second audience with the king, because I knew that any alliance I made between Mac Bethad and King Harald would prove futile. Instead I asked for permission to return to Norway for further consultations with my liege lord, and even as I was waiting on the coast for the ship that would carry me back to Nidaros, I heard that Siward and his Northumbrians had made a sudden strike across the border and overrun Mac Bethad's stronghold on the hill. I did not doubt that the advancing troops had carried branches from the wood of Birnam. Mac Bethad himself escaped the battle, and was to survive for two more years before he was hunted down and killed in the glens of the Mounth. How he was killed when he had been assured that no man born of a woman could kill him, I never found out. Nor did I hear what happened to his Queen Gruoch and whether she converted to the Old Ways or remained torn between the two faiths, tormented by her doubts.

'You COULD ALSO have warned Magbjothr that even the divine Baldr, whom the Gods thought was unassailable, was killed by a branch of mistletoe,' Harald observed shrewdly when I reported the failure of my mission to him.