Sworn Brother

'Give me some dice and a tray,' I said, trying to sound disdainful.

The remnants of a meal were swept from a heavy brass tray, and I indicated that it should be placed on the carpet in front of me. I held out my hand to the dice players and they gave me the dice they had been using. Seated on his couch Ivarr adopted a bored look as if already unimpressed. I was sure he expected me to claim magical assistance in throwing the dice. Instead I asked for five more pairs of dice. This brought a stir of interest. Each of the Varangs carried his own set and I laid the twelve dice down on the tray, arranging them in the pattern of nine squares, three by three. In the first square I placed a single dice so that the number four showed. In the next square I put two dice whose combined total was nine. In the third square I again laid a single dice showing two. In the second row, the numbers were three, five and seven. The last row was eight, one and six. The pattern looked thus:

4 9 2

3 5 7

8 1 6

I stepped back and said nothing. There was a long, long silence. My audience was puzzled. Perhaps they expected that the dice would move on their own, or that they would burst into flames. They looked long and hard at the dice, then at me, and nothing whatsoever happened. I gazed straight at Ivarr, challenging him. It was for him to see the magic. He looked down at the dice and frowned. Then he looked a second time and I could see the sudden light of understanding. He glanced up at me and we shared the knowledge. My gamble had paid off. I had flattered his raw intelligence.

His lackeys still looked puzzled. None of them dared question their master. They were too frightened of him.

'You learned well,' said Ivarr. He had seen the magic of the pattern: whichever way you read the lines, across, sideways, downwards, or on both diagonals, the total that they gave was always fifteen.

'I am told that you will soon be going to Miklagard,' I said. 'I would like to accompany your boats.'

'If you are as good at trading as you are at numbers, you would be a useful addition,' Ivarr replied, 'but you still have to convince my men.'

The Varangians, still puzzled, were collecting up their dice from the tray. I stopped one of them as he was picking up his two gaming pieces. 'I'll gamble on it. Highest wins.' I said. The Varang smirked, then threw his dice. I was not surprised that they fell showing double six. The dice were almost certainly loaded and I wondered how many games he had won by cheating. His score was unbeatable. I picked up his two dice, made as if to throw them on the tray, then checked myself. I set one of the dice aside and picked up a replacement from the pile. It was a dice that had seen much use. Made of bone, it was old and cracked. Now it was not Rassa's magic that I used, but something that I had learned among the Jomsvikings. As I held the two dice in my hand, I pressed them together hard and felt the older dice begin to split. With a silent prayer to Odinn, I flung the two dice down upon the tray with all my strength. Odinn, who invented dice for man's amusement, heard my plea. As the two dice struck the metal tray, one of them broke apart. My opponent's dice still read its false six, while the other gave a six and a two. 'I win, I think,' I said and the other Varangs broke into guffaws of laughter.

The Varang I had beaten scowled and would have struck me if Ivarr had not said sharply, 'Froygeir! That's enough!' Froygeir snatched up his dice and stalked away, furious and humiliated, and I knew that I had made a dangerous enemy.

The felag had been waiting for the return of Vermundr and Angantyr, and was now ready to depart for Miklagard. I counted nine Varangians of the felag, including Ivarr, and about thirty kholops, whose task was to row the flotilla of light river boats they loaded with our bales of furs. Several of the Varangians also brought along their women as cooks and servants, and it was clear these unfortunates were part slave, part concubine. Ivarr, as befitted his rank, was accompanied by three of his women and also two of his sons, lads no more than seven or eight years old of whom he seemed extremely fond. So our expedition totalled rather more than fifty.

The way to Miklagard lay upriver through Kiev, so I was surprised when our flotilla pushed off from the river landing place and headed downstream in the opposite direction. I thought it best not to ask the reason. I was well aware that I was still unwelcome in Ivarr's felag. It was not just Froygeir who disliked me. His colleagues resented the ease with which I seemed to have won Ivarr's favour and they envied the rich stock of furs that I had brought with me. I had not taken the var, the oath of fellowship, so I was a private trader taking advantage of their journey and this meant that my profit would not be shared. The Varangians grumbled among themselves and pointedly left me to fend for myself when it came to preparing meals or finding a place to sleep. So, by default, I spent most of my time on Ivarr's boat as we travelled the waterways across Gardariki, and I slept in his tent when we stopped at night and pitched camp on the river bank. This only made matters worse because the other Varangs soon saw me as Ivarr's favourite, and sometimes I wondered if it was our leader's deliberate policy to provide his followers with a focus for their malcontent. My travelling companions were a ferocious lot and, like the pack of wild dogs they resembled, they were only partly tamed. They held together only as long as they submitted to Ivarr's savage rule, and the moment that was lifted they would fight amongst themselves to divide the spoils and decide upon their next leader.

Ivarr himself was an unpredictable mixture of viciousness, pride and shrewdness. Twice I saw him stamp his authority on the group by brute violence. He liked to carry a short thick-handled whip, whose strands were weighted with thin strips of lead and the butt decorated with silver. I thought it was a badge of office or perhaps an instrument for striking lazy kholops. But the first time I saw him use it was when a Varangian hesitated in carrying out one of his orders. The man paused for the briefest moment, but it was enough for Ivarr to lash out — the blow was all the more shocking because Ivarr did not give the slightest warning — and the weighted thongs caught the man full across the face. He fell to his knees, clutching his face for fear that he had been blinded. He got back to his feet and stumbled away to carry out his orders, and for a week afterwards a crust of dried blood marked the welts across his cheeks.

On the second occasion the challenge to Ivarr's authority was more serious. One of the Varangians, drunk on too much kvas, openly contested Ivarr's right to lead the group. It happened as we sat around a cooking fire on the river bank eating our evening meal. The Varangian was a head taller than Ivarr and he drew his sword as he rose to his feet and shouted across the fire, calling on Ivarr to fight. The man stood there, swaying slightly, as Ivarr calmly wiped his hands on a towel held out to him by his favourite concubine, then turned as if to reach for his own weapon. In the next instant he had uncoiled from the ground and in a blur of movement ran across the burning fire, scattering the blazing sticks in all directions. Head down, he charged his challenger, who was too drunk and too surprised to save himself. Ivarr butted the man in the chest and the shock threw him flat on his back. Scorning even to remove the contender's sword, Ivarr grabbed his opponent's arm and hauled him across the ground back to the fire. There, in front of the watching Varangians, he thrust the man's arm into the embers and held it there as his enemy howled with pain and we smelled the burning flesh. Only then did Ivarr release his grip and his victim crawled away, his hand a blackened mess. Ivarr calmly returned to his place and beckoned to his slave girl to bring him another plate of food.

The following day I made the mistake of calling Ivarr a Varangian, and he bridled at the name. 'I am a Rus,' he said. 'My father was a Varangian. He came across the western sea with the rops-karlar, the river rowers, to trade or raid, it did not matter which. He liked the country so much that he decided to stay and took a job as captain of the guard at Kiev. He married my mother, who was from Karelia, of royal blood, though she had the misfortune of being taken captive by the Kievans. My father bought her for eighty grivna, a colossal sum which goes to show how beautiful she was. I was their only child.'

'And where's your father now?' I enquired.

'My father abandoned me when my mother died. I was eight years old. So I grew up in the company of whoever would have me, peasants mostly, who saw me as a useful pair of hands to help them gather crops or cut firewood. You know what the Kievans call their peasants? Smerdi. It means "stinkers". They deserve the name. I ran away often.'

'Do you know what happened to your father?'

'Most likely he's dead,' Ivarr answered casually. He was seated on a carpet inside his tent - he liked to travel in style - and was playing some complicated child's game with his younger son. 'He left Kiev with a company of his soldiers who thought they would get better pay from the great emperor in Miklagard. Rumour came back that the entire group was wiped out on their journey by Pechenegs.'

'Are we likely to meet Pechenegs too?'

'I doubt it,' he replied. 'We go a different way.' But he would not say where.

By the fifth day after leaving Aldeigjuborg, we had rowed and sailed our boats around the shores of two lakes, along the river connecting them and turned into yet another river mouth. Now we were heading upstream and progress became more difficult. As the river narrowed we were obliged to get out of the boats and push them across the shallows. Finally we reached a point when we could go no further. There was not enough water to float our craft. We unloaded the boats and set our kholops to cutting down small trees to make rollers. The larger boats and those which leaked badly we deliberately set on fire to destroy them and then searched the ashes to retrieve any rivets or other metal fastenings. To me it seemed a prodigious waste because I had grown up in Iceland and Greenland, countries where no large trees grow. But Ivarr and the felag thought nothing of it. Timber in abundance was all they had known. Their main concern was that we had enough kholops to manhandle our remaining boats across the portage.

There was a track, overgrown with grass and bushes but still discernible, leading eastward through dense forest. Our axemen went ahead to clear the path. The kholops were harnessed like oxen, ten in a team, to ropes attached to the keels of our three remaining boats. The rest of us steadied the boats to keep them level on the rollers, or worked in pairs, picking up the rollers as they passed beneath the hulls and throwing them down ahead of the advancing keels. It took us four days of sweating labour, plagued by flying insects, to drag our boats to the headwaters of a stream that flowed to the east. There we rested for another week while our shipwright - a Varangian originally from Norway -directed the building of four replacement craft. He found what he needed less than an arrow-shot from our camp - four massive trees, which were promptly felled. Then he directed the kholops in hollowing out the trunks with axe and fire to make the keels and lower hulls of our boats. Other kholops split the planks which were attached to the sides of these dugouts, building up the hulls until I recognised the familiar curves of our Norse vessels. I complimented the shipwright on his skill.

He grimaced. 'Call these boats?' he said. 'More like cattle troughs. You need time and care to build proper boats, and skilled carpenters, not these clumsy oafs. Most of them would be better off chopping firewood.'

I pointed out that two of the kholops from the far north had proved useful when the supply of metal rivets for fastening the planks had run out. The men had used lengths of pine-tree root to lash the planks in place, a practice in their own country.

The Norse shipwright was still unimpressed. 'Where I come from, you get only knife and needle.'

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'When you think you are good enough to call yourself a boatbuilder, the master shipwright who taught you gives you a knife and a needle and tells you to make and rig a boat, using no other tools. Until you can do that, you're considered a wood butcher, like this lot here.'

The Norwegian seemed the least vicious of our company. He spoke the best Norse, while all the others mixed so many local words into their sentences that it was often hard to understand them. I asked him how it was that, as a skilled shipwright, he found himself a Varangian. 'I killed a couple of men back home,' he said, 'and the local earl took offence. It turned out that they were his followers, so I had to make myself scarce. Maybe I'll go back home one day, but I doubt it. This life suits me — no need to break your back hauling logs or lose a finger carving planks when there are slaves to do the work, and you can have as many women as you want without marrying them.'

As we recommenced our journey, we saw only the occasional trace of human habitation, a footpath leading from the water's edge into the forest, a tree stump that had been cut with an axe, the faint smell of a fire from somewhere deep in the forest, which stretched without a break along both banks. But we did not meet the natives themselves, though once or twice I thought I saw far in the distance the outline of a small boat disappearing into the reeds as we approached. By the time we reached the spot there was nothing to show, the reeds had sprung back into position and I wondered if I had been imagining it. 'Where are all the people who live here?' I asked Vermundr. He gave a coarse laugh and looked at me as if I was weak in the head.

We did eventually come to a couple of trading posts and a sizeable town. The latter, situated on a river junction, was very like Aldeigjuborg, a cluster of log-built houses sheltering behind a wooden palisade, and protected on at least two sides by the river and a marsh. We did not stop. The inhabitants shut their gates and regarded us warily as we drifted past. I guessed that the reputation of Ivarr's felag had preceded us.

The river was much wider now, and we steered our course in midstream so I saw little of the countryside except the monotonous vista of green forest moving slowly past on either hand. I thought, naively, that we stayed in midstream to take best advantage of the current. Then I began to see plumes of smoke rising from the forest cover. The smoke arose ahead of us or from some vantage point, usually a high bluff overlooking the river. It did not require much intelligence to guess that unseen inhabitants were signalling our progress to one another, keeping track of our flotilla. Now whenever we came ashore for the night we set guards around our camp and, on one occasion when the smoke signals were very frequent, Ivarr refused to let us go ashore at all. We spent the night anchored in the shallows and ate a cold supper.

Finally we left behind the area of watchful natives and the land around us became more level. Here we turned aside into a small river that flowed into the main stream from the north, and began to steer much closer to the left-hand bank. I noticed that Ivarr scanned the shore intently, as if he was searching for a particular sign. He must have seen what he was looking for because at the next suitable landing place he beached our boat. All the other vessels followed.

'Empty the two lightest boats and set up camp here,' Ivarr ordered.

I saw the Varangians glance at one another in anticipation as the kholops unloaded the goods and carried them up to a patch of level ground. Ivarr spoke to the Varangian whose burned hand was still wrapped in rags soaked in bear's grease. 'You stay here till we get back. See to it that no one lights a cooking fire or uses an axe.' The man had learned his lesson well. He dropped his gaze submissively as he accepted his assignment.

'You, you and you.' Ivarr walked amongst the kholops and touched about a dozen of them on the shoulder with the silver butt of his whip. They were the tallest and strongest of our slaves. He pointed to where Vermundr and Angantyr were unwrapping one of the cargo bales. I saw that it contained weapons — cheap swords and a heap of light chain. For a moment I thought it was anchor chain, but then I saw that the links were longer and thinner than any ship's chain, and that it came in sections about an arm's span long. There was a large metal loop at the end of each length and I recognised what they were: fetters.

Ivarr handed each kholop a sword. This was taking a risk, I thought to myself. What if the kholops decided to rebel? Yet Ivarr seemed unconcerned as several of the kholops began to swing their swords through the air to test their weight. He was confident enough to turn his back on them.

'Here, Thorgils,' he said, 'you'd better come with us. You can make yourself useful, if necessary, by making us all disappear.' The rest of the Varangians laughed sycophantically.

With five Varangians and half a dozen kholops aboard each boat, we set off to row upstream. Again, Ivarr was watching the river bank closely. The oarsmen took care to make as little noise as possible, dipping their blades gendy into the water as we glided forward. Both Vermundr and Angantyr were with me in Ivarr's vessel and seemed tense. 'We should have waited until dawn,' said Vermundr under his breath to his companion. Ivarr must have overheard his comment because he turned round from where he stood in the bow and looked at Vermundr. His glance was enough to make Vermundr cringe.

Late in the afternoon Ivarr held up his hand to attract our attention, then silently gestured towards the bank. The slope was marked with footprints leading down to the water's edge. A large, half-submerged log was worn and smooth. Its upper surface had been used as a surface for washing clothes. A broken wooden scoop lay discarded close by. Ivarr made a circular gesture and waved on the second boat, indicating that it was to row further upstream. He pointed to the sun, then brought his arm down towards the horizon and made a chopping motion. The Varangians in the second boat waved in acknowledgement and they and the kholops rowed onwards silently. Very soon they were out of sight round a bend in the river.

Aboard our own vessel, the current carried us gently back back downstream until we were out of sight of the washing place. A few oar strokes and the boat slid under the shelter of some overhanging branches, where we hung on and waited. We sat in silence and listened to the pluck and gurgle of the water on the hull. Occasionally there was the splash of a fish jumping. A heron glided down to settle in the shallows a few paces away from us. It began its fishing, stalking cautiously through the water, step by step until suddenly it noticed our vessel and its human cargo. It gave a sudden twitch of panic, leaped up into the air and flew off, releasing a loud and angry croak once it was safely clear. Beside me Angantyr muttered angrily at the heron's alarm call. Another glance from Ivarr quietened him instantly. Ivarr himself sat motionless. With his glistening shaven head and his squat body, he reminded me of a waterside toad waiting in ambush.

Finally Ivarr rose to his feet and nodded. The sun was about to dip below the treeline. The oarsmen eased their blades into the water and our boat emerged from its hiding place. Within moments we were back at the washing place and this time we landed. The boat was drawn up on the mud and the men formed up into a column, Ivarr at its head, Angantyr right behind him. Vermundr and I brought up the rear, behind the kholops. All of us were armed with swords or axes, and each Varangian carried a set of manacles, wrapped around his waist like an iron sash.

We walked briskly along the track, which led inland. The path was sufficiently well worn for us to make quick progress and we made scarcely any noise. Very soon I heard the shouts of children at play and a sudden burst of barking, indicating that dogs had detected us. Within moments there came the urgent clamour of a horn sounding the alarm. Ivarr broke into a run. We burst out of the forest and found ourselves in open ground where the trees had been cleared to provide space for small plots of farmland and vegetable gardens. A hundred paces away was a native village of forty or fifty log huts. The place was defenceless — it did not even have a palisade. The inhabitants must have thought they were too isolated and well hidden to take any precautions.

In the next few moments they learned their error. Ivarr and the Varangians swept into the settlement, waving their weapons and yelling at the top of their voices to terrorise the villagers. To my surprise the kholops joined in the charge with just as much relish. They ran forward, howling and bellowing and swinging their swords. A man who had been working in his vegetable patch tried to delay our onslaught. He swung his spade at Angantyr, who cut him down with a back-handed swing, barely pausing in his stride. Women and children appeared in the doorways. They took one look at our attack and ran screaming. An old woman hobbled out of a house to see what was the matter. One of our kholops smashed her in the face with the hilt of his sword and she dropped to the ground. A child, no more than three years old, wandered into our path. Dirty and dishevelled, probably woken from sleep, the child gazed at us wonderingly as we raced past. An arrow whizzed past me and struck one of the kholops in the back. He sprawled on the ground. The arrow had come from behind. Vermundr and I turned to see a man armed with a hunting bow setting a second arrow to his bowstring. Vermundr may have been an uncouth brute, but he had his full share of courage. Though he had no shield to protect himself, he gave a bloodcurdling roar as he charged straight at the archer. The sight of the raging Varangian running towards him unnerved the bowman. He missed his second shot and a few strides later Vermundr was on him. The Varangian had chosen an axe for his weapon and now he swung the blade so hard that I heard the thud as he chopped his opponent in the waist. His victim was lifted off his feet and fell sideways in a heap.

'Come on, Thorgils, you arse-licker,' Vermundr yelled in my face as he rushed back past me to continue the sweep through the village. I ran after him, trying to make out what was happening. One or two corpses were lying on the ground. They looked like bundles of abandoned rags until you saw a battered head, a bloody outflung arm, or dirty, shoeless feet. Somewhere in front of me were more shouts and yells and out from a side alley burst the figure of an older man, running for his life. I recognised the short bearskin cape. It must have been the village shaman. He was unarmed and must have doubled back through our cordon. At that moment Ivarr stepped into view. He had a throwing axe in his hand. As smoothly as a boy throws flat pebbles to skip across a pond, he skimmed the axe towards the fugitive. The weapon went whirling across the gap as if the target was standing still.

The axe struck the shaman in the back of his skull and he sprawled forward and lay still. Ivarr saw me standing there, looking appalled. 'Friend of yours, I suppose,' he said.

There was no further resistance from the villagers. The shocking swiftness of our attack had taken them by surprise and they lacked the weapons or skill to defend themselves. We herded those still alive into the central square of their little settlement, where they stood in a huddled and dejected group. They were an unremarkable people, typical of those who scratch a living from the forest. In appearance they were of medium height, with pale skin but dark hair, almost black. They were poorly dressed in homespun clothes of wool and none of them wore any form of jewellery apart from simple amulets on leather thongs around their necks. We knew this because the Varangians promptly searched everyone, looking for valuables, and found nothing.

'Miserable lot of shitheads. Hardly worth the trouble,' complained Vermundr.

I looked at our prisoners. They gazed at the ground dully, knowing what was coming next.

Angmantyr and my particular enemy, Froygeir, whom I had humiliated at dice, strode over to the prisoners and began to divide them into two groups. To one side they shoved the older men and women, the smaller children and anyone who was deformed or blemished in some way. These formed the larger group since many of the villagers had badly pock-marked faces. This left the younger, finer men and children over the age of eight or nine standing where they were. Except for one mother weeping bitterly at being separated from her small child, who had been sent to join the others, this second group contained almost no women. I was puzzling about the reason for this, when the crew of our second raiding boat strode into the square. In front of them they were herding, like a flock of geese, the women of the village. I realised that Vermundr, Froygeir and the rest of us in the first boat had been the beaters. The second boat's crew had been given enough time to circle around behind the village and wait for us to flush out the game. The real prey in our manhunt had fled straight into the trap, as Ivarr had intended.

There were about twenty women in the group. Their faces and arms were scratched and torn from branches, several of them had raw bruises on their faces and all of them had their wrists bound together with leather thongs. With their straggly hair and grimy faces they looked a sorry lot. However, Vermundr, standing next to me, disagreed. 'Not a bad catch,' he said. 'Give them a good scrub and they'll be worth a tidy sum.' He went forward to inspect them more closely. The women huddled together, several looking piteously across towards their children, who had been set aside. Others kept their heads down so that their tangled hair concealed their features. Vermundr was clearly a veteran slave catcher for he now went from one woman to the next, seizing each by the chin, and forcing back her head so that he could look into the woman's face and judge her worth. Suddenly he let out a whoop of delight. 'Ivarr's Luck!' he called, 'Look at this.' He seized two women by their wrists, dragged them out from the group, and made them stand side by side in front of us. Judging by their bodies the girls were aged about sixteen, though with their shapeless gowns it was difficult to tell precisely, and they kept their heads bowed forward so it was impossible to see their faces. Vermundr changed that. He went behind the girls, gathered up their hair in his hands, and like a trader in a market who flaunts his best produce with a flourish, pulled back their heads so we could see straight into their faces. They were identical twins, and even with their tear-streaked faces it was clear that they were astonishingly beautiful. I remembered how I had bribed Vermundr and Angantyr with a pair of marten skins, perfectly matched. Now I saw in front of me the human equivalent: two slave girls of perfect quality, a matching pair. Ivarr's felag had found riches.

We did not linger. The light was fading. 'Back to the boats!' Ivarr ordered. 'These people may have friends, and I want us well clear by the time they get together to launch an attack.' The last rivets were hammered tight on the fetters of the male slaves, and the felag began to withdraw to the sounds of wailing and sobbing from the despairing villagers. Several of the women captives fell to the ground, either because they fainted or because their limbs simply would not carry them away from their children. They were picked up and carried by the kholops. One male captive who refused to budge received a savage blow from the flat of a sword, which sent him stumbling forward. The majority of our captives meekly began to shuffle out of the village.

Ivarr beckoned to me. 'Come with me, Thorgils,' he said. 'Here's where you might be useful.'

He led me back through the empty village to where the corpse of the shaman lay. I thought he had only gone to retrieve his throwing axe.

'That's the same sort of cloak that you wear, isn't it?' he asked.

'Yes,' I said. 'It's a noiade's cloak. What you call a magician. Though I don't know anything about this tribe. They are completely different from the Skridfinni among whom I lived.'

'But if these people had a magician, then that means they had a God. Isn't that so?'

"Very likely,' I said.

'And if they had a god and a magician, that means they probably had a shrine to worship at,' Ivarr looked about us, then asked, 'And as you know so much about these noiades or whatever you call them, where would you guess that shrine is to be found?'

I was at a loss. I genuinely wanted to answer Ivarr's question because, like everyone else, I was frightened of him. But the village we had raided bore no resemblance to a Skridfinni camp. These people were settled forest dwellers, while the Sabme had been nomads. The village shrine could be anywhere nearby, hidden in the forest. 'I really have no idea,' I said, 'but if I were to guess, I would say that the noiade was running towards it, either to seek sanctuary there or to plead to his God for help.'

'That's just what I was thinking,' said Ivarr and set off at a brisk walk towards the edge of the dark forest in the direction that the shaman had been fleeing.

The shrine was less than an arrow flight away once we had left the open, cultivated ground and entered the forest. A tall fence of wooden planks, grey with age, concealed the sacred mystery. We walked around the fence — it was no more than thirty paces in circumference — looking for a gateway, but did not find one. I expected Ivarr simply to batter open a gap, but he was cautious. 'Don't want to make too much noise,' he said. 'We've not much time, and the villagers will soon be gathering their forces. Here, I'll help you over.' I found myself hoisted up to the top of the fence and I dropped down on the other side. As I had expected, the shrine was a simple place, suitable for such a modest settlement. The circular area inside the fence was plain beaten earth. In the centre stood what I first took to be a heavy wooden post set in the ground. Then I saw that the villagers had worshipped what Rassa would have called a sieidde. It was the stump of a tree struck by lightning and left with the vague resemblance to a seated man. The villagers had enhanced the similarity, carving out the shape of knees, and folded arms, and whittling back the neck to emphasise the head. The image was very, very old.

I spotted the latch that allowed a section of the surrounding fence to swing open, and went to let Ivarr in. He approached to within touching distance of the effigy and halted. 'Not as poor a village as it seemed, Thorgils,' he said. He was looking into the plain wooden bowl which the effigy held on its knees. It was where the villagers placed their offerings to their God. I stepped up beside Ivarr and glanced down into the bowl to see what they had given. Abruptly the breath had left my lungs. I felt giddy, not because I saw some gruesome offering, but because a poignant memory came surging into my mind and left me reeling. The bowl was half full of silver coins. Many of them were old and worn and indecipherable. They must have lain there for generations. But several coins on the surface were not yet tarnished and their patterns were instantly readable. All of them bore that strange rippling writing that I had seen during my days in London - a time I would never forget. It was when I had first made love with Aelfgifu and she had worn a necklace of those coins around her graceful neck.

Ivarr ripped the sleeve from his shirt, and knotted the end to create a makeshift sack. 'Here, Thorgils, hold this open,' he said as he lifted the wooden bowl from its place and poured in the cascade of coins. Then he tossed the bowl aside. He looked up at the roughly carved head of the wooden statue. Around its neck was a torc. The neck ring was so weatherbeaten that it was impossible to tell whether it was plain iron or blackened silver. Clearly Ivarr thought it was precious metal because he reached up to tug it free. But the tore remained fast. Ivarr was reaching for his throwing axe when I intervened.

'Don't do it, Ivarr,' I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. I feared his violent reaction to anyone who thwarted him.

He turned to face me, and scowled. 'Why not?'

'It is a sacred thing,' I said. 'It belongs to the sieidde. To steal it will call down his anger. It will bring bad luck.'

'Don't waste my time. What's a sieidde?' he growled, beginning to look angry.

'A God, the local God who controls this place.'

'Their God, not mine,' Ivarr retorted and swung his axe. I was glad the blow was directed at the statue not me, for it decapitated the wooden effigy with a single blow. Ivarr lifted off the tore and slid it up his naked arm. 'You're too timid, Thorgils,' he said. 'Look, it even fits.' Then he ran for the gate.

It was dark by the time we arrived back at the river bank. The crews were already on board the two boats and waiting. They had made the captives lie in the bilges and the moment

Ivarr and I took our places the oarsmen began to row. We fled from that place as fast as we could travel and the darkness hid our withdrawal. No natives intercepted us and as soon as we reached our camp Ivarr stormed up the beach, insisting that everyone make ready to depart at once. By dawn we were already well on our way back to the great river highway.

The success of the slave raid greatly improved the temper of the felag. The underlying feeling of ferocity was still there, but the Varangians showed Ivarr a respect which bordered on admiration. Apparently it was very rare to find girl twins among the tribes, let alone a pair as exquisite as the ones we had captured. There was much talk of 'Ivarr's Luck', and a mood of self-congratulation spread among the Varangians as they preened themselves on their decision to join his felag. Only I was morose, troubled by the desecration of the shrine. Rassa had taught me to respect such places and I had a sense of foreboding.

'Still worrying about that piddling little village idol, Thorgils?' said Ivarr that evening, sitting down beside me on the thwart.

'Don't you respect any God?' I asked.

'How could I?' he answered. 'Look at that lot there.' He nodded towards the Varangians in the nearest accompanying boat. 'Those who don't worship Perun venerate their ancestors. I don't even know who my mother's ancestors were, and certainly not my father's.'

'Why not Perun? From what I've heard he's the same God we call Thor in the Norse country. He is the God of warriors. Couldn't you venerate him?'

'I've no need of Perun's help,' Ivarr said confidently. 'He

didn't assist me when I was a youngster. I made my own way. Let others believe in forest hags with iron teeth and claws, or that Crnobog the black God of death seizes us when we die. When I meet my end, if my body is available for burial and not hacked to pieces, it will be enough for my companions to treat my corpse as they wish. I will no longer be there to be concerned with their superstitions.'

For a brief moment I thought to tell him about my devotion to Odinn the All-Father, but the intensity of his fatalism held me back and I changed the subject.

'How was it,' I asked, 'that our kholops took part in the raid for slaves with such enthusiasm when they themselves are slaves?'

Ivarr shrugged. 'Kholops are prepared to inflict on others what they themselves suffer. It makes them accept their own condition more easily. Of course I took back their weapons once they had completed the task and now they are kholops once again.'

'Aren't you afraid that they, or our new captives, will attempt to escape?'

Ivarr gave a grim laugh. 'Where would they find themselves if they did? They are far from home, they don't know which way to turn, and if they did run away, the first people to find them would merely turn them back into slaves again. So they accept their lot.'

In that opinion, Ivarr was wrong. Two days later he gave our male captives a little more space. The prisoners' wrist and ankle fetters had been fastened to the boats' timbers, so they were forced to crouch in the bilges. Ivarr ordered that the shackles be eased so they could stand and move about. As a precaution he kept them chained in pairs. This did not prevent two of our male captives from taking their chance to leap overboard. They flung themselves into the water and made no attempt to save their lives. They deliberately raised their arms and sank beneath the water, dragged down by the weight of their manacles, so there was no chance that our cursing oarsmen could turn and retrieve them.

The great river was now so wide that it was as if we were floating on an inland sea, and we were able to raise sail and greatly increase the distance we travelled each day. A full cargo of slaves and furs meant we had no reason to halt except to revictual the flotilla at the riverside towns which began to appear with increasing frequency. The townsfolk recognised us from a distance because only the Varangian craft had those curved profiles from the northern lands and the local traders were waiting with what we required.

We bought food for our slaves, mostly salted and dried fish, and cheap jewellery to prettify them. 'A well-turned-out slave girl gets ten times the price than one looking like a slut,' Ivarr told me, 'and if she has a pretty voice and can sing and play an instrument, then there's almost no limit to the money a rich man will pay.' He had taken me to the market in the largest of the river cities where he had a commercial arrangement with a local merchant. This man, a Jewish Khazar, specialised in the slave trade. In exchange for our least favoured slave, a male, he provided us with lengths of brightly coloured fabric for women's clothes, necklaces of green glass, beads and bangles, and an interpreter who knew the languages spoken along the lower river.

'What about the men and children we've captured?' I asked Ivarr as we waited in the Khazar's shop for the goods to be delivered.

'The children, that depends. If they are sprightly and show promise, they are easy to sell. Girls are usually more saleable than boys, though if you have a really intelligent male you can sometimes be lucky in Miklagard, the great city, particularly if the lad has fair skin and blue eyes.'

'You mean for men who like that sort or for their wives?'

'Neither. Their masters arrange to have their stones removed, then educate them. They become trusted servants, secretaries and bookkeepers and such like. Some have been bought for the imperial staff and have risen to power and responsibility. At the highest levels of the emperor's government are men who have been gelded.'

I wondered what was in store for the twins we had captured. The Khazar Jew had offered to buy them, but Ivarr would not hear of it. 'The Jews rival us for mastery of the slave trade,' he said, 'but they are middle men. They don't take the risks of raiding among the tribes. If I can sell the twins direct to a client, the felag will make a far greater profit.'

He had given the two girls into the care of his favourite concubine. She was gentle with them, showing them how best to wash and braid their hair, how to apply unguents to their faces and wear the clothes and jewellery we supplied. When the sun shone brightly, she insisted that the girls wear heavy veils to protect their fair complexions. There was no possibility that the girls would be molested by any of our men. Everyone knew that untarnished twins were far too valuable.

The weather was very much warmer now. We set aside our heavy clothes and took to wearing loose shirts and baggy trousers made of many folds of cotton. The loose trousers meant that we could scramble unhampered about the boat, yet remain cool in the increasing heat of summer. At dusk we landed on sandbanks and slept in the light tents we had purchased so we could take advantage of the night breeze. The river had left behind the dense forests, and now flowed through flat, open country grazed by the cattle of the local tribes whose language, according our interpreter, was spoken by the horse-riding peoples further east. Whenever we encountered the boats of other river travellers, they sheered off like frightened minnows. It did not matter whether people thought of us as Varangian or Rus, it was clear that we had an unsavoury reputation.

'Ivarr! On the river bank! Serklanders!' Vermundr called out one hot afternoon. The excitement in his voice made me look round to see what had made him so eager. In the distance was a small riverside village and beside it a cluster of long, low tents made of dark material. In front of the tents half a dozen river boats were drawn up on the shore.

Ivarr squinted across the glare of the river's surface. 'Thorgils, you bring good fortune with you yet again,' he said. 'I've never known Serklanders so far north.' He ordered the helmsman to steer for land. With our slave raid fresh in my mind, I wondered if Ivarr planned to swoop down on the strangers and rob them like a common pirate.

I said as much to Vermundr, and he sneered back at me. 'Perun knows why Ivarr thinks so much of you. Serklanders travel well protected, by Black Hoods usually.'

As we came closer to the landing place, I saw what he meant. A squad of men, wearing long dark hooded gowns, emerged from the tents and took up positions on the river bank, facing us. They deployed with the discipline of trained fighting men and were armed with powerful-looking double-curved bows, which they trained on us. Ivarr stood up in the bow of our boat, his brawny arms held well away from his body to show that he was unarmed.

'Tell them we come to talk of trade,' he told our interpreter, who shouted the message across the gap. The leader of the Black Hoods brusquely gestured that we were not to land close to the tents, but a little further downriver. To my surprise, Ivarr meekly obeyed. It was the first time I had seen him accept an order.

He then sent our interpreter to talk with the strangers while we set up our camp. On Ivarr's instructions, we took more care than usual. 'Expect to be here for a few days,' he said. 'We need to make a good impression.' By the time the interpreter returned, we had pitched our tents in a neat row and Ivarr's favourite concubine had shepherded our batch of slave girls to their own accommodation, a separate tent set beside our leader's pavilion with its array of rugs and cushions.

'The Serklander says he will visit you tomorrow after his prayers,' our interpreter reported. 'He asks that you prepare your wares for his inspection.'

'The land of silk, that's Serkland.' Ivarr said to me, wiping the beads of sweat from his scalp. He was sweating more than usual. 'I've never been there. It's beyond the mountains, far to the south. Their rulers like to buy slave girls, particularly if they are beautiful and accomplished. And they pay in honest silver.'

Thinking back to my time with Brithmaer the royal moneyer and his clever forgeries, I hoped that Ivarr was right. 'If it's called the land of silk why do they pay in silver?'

Ivarr shrugged. 'We'll be paid in silk when we sell our furs in the great city but the Serklanders prefer to use silver. Sometimes they exchange for gems which they bring from their country, like these.' He tugged at his pearl ear studs and the diamond.

I wondered if, yet again, my life was turning back upon itself. It was Brithmaer who had told me the rumour that fire rubies came from lands beyond the mountains.

So I awaited the arrival of the mysterious Serklander with great interest to see what he was like.

I do not know what I had been expecting, perhaps a giant clad in glistening silks or a gaunt bearded sage. Instead the Serklander proved to be a small, jovial, tubby man with a pale brown skin and dark eyes. He was dressed in a simple white cotton gown, with a cloth of the same material wrapped around his head, and plain leather sandals. To my disappointment he wore no jewellery of any kind. His affable manner was emphasised by the dourness of his escort of Black Hoods, who looked every bit as suspicious as when they had warned us off. By contrast the Serklander smiled at everyone. He trotted round our camp on his short legs, beaming at everyone, kholops and Rus alike. He patted Ivarr's two children on the head in a fatherly way, and even laughed at himself when he tripped over a tent rope and almost went headlong. But I noticed that his alert gaze missed nothing.

Finally Ivarr brought him to where the slave girls were waiting. Their tent was like a market booth and Ivarr had ordered that the front flap should be hanging down as we approached. Our little procession consisted of Ivarr, the Serklander and his guards, the Serklander's interpreter and our own, and myself as Ivarr's lucky mascot. Everyone else was kept well back by the Black Hoods. We came to a halt, facing the curtain. There was a pause and I saw two of the Black Hoods exchange a quick glance. They suspected an ambush and made a move as if to step forward and check. But the little Serklander was too quick for them. He was enjoying Ivarr's showmanship. He made a small restraining gesture and waited expectantly, a cheery smile on his face. Ivarr stepped forward, took hold of the edge of the tent curtain and threw it open, revealing the tableau inside. The slave girls had been arranged so that they stood in a line, hands demurely clasped in front of them. They were dressed in all the finery that Ivarr's concubine had been able to muster — flowing gowns, bright belts, coloured necklaces. Their hair had been washed and combed and arranged to best advantage. Some had flowers braided in their hair.

I watched the Serklander's face. His glance swept along the line of the dozen women on offer and the cheerful smile remained on his lips as if he was highly amused. Then I saw his gaze halt and — just for an instant — his eyes widened a fraction. He was looking at the far end of the line of slave girls where Ivarr's woman had positioned the twins, so that the sunshine filtering through the tent cloth bathed them in a luminous light. Daringly she had decided not to decorate the two girls at all. They wore only plain, cotton gowns, belted with a simple pale blue cord. Their feet were bare. The twins looked virginal and pure.

I knew instantly that Ivarr had made the sale.

Nevertheless, it took a week to settle a price for the girls. Neither the Serklander nor Ivarr were involved directly. The trading custom was that the two interpreters proposed bid and counter-bid, though of course their masters were the ones who dictated the value of their offers. Ivarr mistrusted the man whom the Khazar Jew had provided, so instructed me to accompany our interpreter whenever he visited the Serklander camp to negotiate, to keep an eye on him. I found this difficult because the two men carried on their negotiation entirely by touch, not word. After the usual formalities and a glass of some sweet drink, they would sit down on the ground facing one another and clasp their right hands. A cloth was then placed over the hands to shield them from the gaze of onlookers and the bargaining began. It must have been done by the varying pressures and positions of fingers and palms in a code to signal the offers and responses. All I could do was sit and watch, and try to read their faces.

'It's impossible,' I said to Ivarr after returning back to his camp after one session. 'I can't tell you if the trading is fair and honest, or if the two of them are making a private deal and you are being cheated.'

'Never mind, Thorgils,' he said. 'I still want you to be there. You are my good luck.'

So I continued with my visits to the Serklander's camp, and thus I came to his attention. His name was Salim ibn Hauk, and he was both merchant and diplomat. He was returning from an embassy to the Bolgars of the river on behalf of his master, whom he referred to as Caliph al-Qadir. Meeting with our felag had been as much a stroke of good fortune for him as it had been for us. He had been charged with collecting information about the foreign lands, and wished to know more about the Rus.

A Black Hood was sent to fetch me to ibn Hauk's tent.

'Greetings,' said the cheerful little man, speaking through his interpreter. Ibn Hauk was seated cross-legged on a carpet in his tent, a light airy canopy spread over slender supports which allowed the maximum of breeze. In front of him was a low wooden desk and he held a metal stylus in his hand. 'I would be very grateful if you could tell me something about your people.'

'Your excellency, I'm not sure that I can tell you very much,' I answered.

He looked at me quizzically. 'Don't be alarmed,' he said, 'I only want to learn about your customs. Nothing that would be considered as spying.'

'It's not that, your excellency. I have only lived among the Rus for a few months. I am not one of them.'

He looked disappointed. 'You are a freed slave?'

'No, I joined them of my own wish. I wanted to travel.' 'For profit?'

'To fulfil a vow I made to a friend before his death. They are on their way to the great city, to Miklagard.'

'How remarkable.' He made a note with his stylus on the page in front of him and I saw that he wrote from right to left. Also he used a version of the curving script which had haunted me since I had seen it on Aelfgifu's necklace coins.

'Excuse me, your excellency,' I asked. "What is it that you write?'

'Just a few notes,' he said. 'Never worry. There's nothing magical in making marks on paper. It does not steal away the knowledge.'

He thought me illiterate like most members of the felag.

'No, your excellency. I was wondering just how your script conveys the spoken word. You write in the opposite direction from us, yet you begin at the top of the page just as we do. If there is more than one page of writing, which page is the first? I mean, do you turn the pages from left to right, or in the other direction? Or is there perhaps another system?'

He looked astonished. 'You mean to say that you can read and write!'

'Yes, your excellency, I have been taught the Roman script and the Greek. I know also the rune letters.'

He laid down his stylus with an expression of delight. 'And I thought that I had found only two gems for my master. Now I discover that I have a treasure of my own.' He paused, 'And just for your information, yes, I do write letters from right to left, but numbers in the opposite direction.'

The Serklander summoned me several times to his tent to question me, and he detained me for many hours so I could supply the information he required. That might have been one reason why he did not hurry the negotiations over the sale of the twins, and this meant, in turn, that our felag stayed camped on the river bank for longer than was wise. The Varangians had not troubled to dig latrines, and our original neat encampment grew dirty and foul. As I have noticed in my travels, pestilence soon appears in such conditions, and this time the first victim was Ivarr himself.

His guts turned to water. One day he was healthy, the next he was staggering in his walk and vomiting incessantly. There were small white flecks in his bile and in the liquid that began to pour from his bowels. He retreated to his tent and, despite his bull-like strength, collapsed. His concubines hurried to minister to him, but there was little they could do. Ivarr shrivelled. His cheeks fell in, his skin took on a dull grey pallor and his eyes sank back in their sockets. It was like watching the contents of a full wine skin drain away. Occasionally he groaned and writhed with cramp and his skin was cold to the touch. His breath came in short, shallow gasps and by the third day ceased altogether. I knew that it was the vengeance of the village sieidde he had denied, but the felag thought otherwise. They blamed the Serkander or his servants for poisoning Ivarr and they may have had a point. When I reported the signs of Ivarr's illness to ibn Hauk, he immediately asked me to leave his presence and the Black Hoods struck camp that same evening. Before sunset the Serklander and his people were embarking on their boats and heading downstream, taking the twins with them. The felag took their hasty departure as evidence of their guilt.

Sudden death was commonplace for the felag. Their first response to Ivarr's death was to calculate how much extra profit would accrue to each member of the felag now that he was gone. Then, from respect to his memory or perhaps because it gave an excuse for much drinking, they resolved to celebrate his funeral rites. What followed is scarred into my memory.

They found themselves a gand volva — a black witch — in the nearby village. Who she was or from whom she had learned her seidr I do not know. But her knowledge was partly of things that I had learned from Thrand and Rassa, and partly of other elements more evil and malign. She was a woman perhaps in her sixtieth year, emaciated but still active and possessed of a sinewy strength. When she arrived at our camp I looked for her noiade emblems — such as a sacred staff, a girdle of dried fungi, gloves of fur worn inside out or a string of amulets. But I saw nothing that might signify her calling, except a single large pendant, a polished green and white stone dangling from her belt. But there was no doubting who she was. I felt the presence radiate from her as powerfully as I could smell a rotting carcass and the sensation made me queasy.

She ordered the materials for a scaffold. It was to be built on the shore, and as she drew the outline of the structure in the sand with the point of a stick my fears were calmed. It was to be a wooden platform similar to one Rassa had shown me when he took me through the northern forests. The height of a man, the scaffold was where a noiade often chose to keep vigil when seeking to enter the saivo world, sitting above the earth in the cold air until the spirit chose to leave the body. When the kholops had brought timber for the structure, the volva called for Ivarr's favourite knife. She used it to cut runes on the main cross timber and as I watched her I shivered. I had seen those runes only once before: on the log which had been the cause of Grettir's death, the log that turned the axe to wound him. They were curse runes. Of course the volva sensed my dismay. She turned to look straight at me and the venom in her glance was like a blow to the head. She knew that I possessed the second sight and she dared me to intervene. I was helpless and afraid. Her power, I knew, was far greater than mine.

Ivarr's funeral began an hour before dusk. By then the members of the felag were already well and truly drunk. They had supervised the kholops as they dragged the leakiest of our boats from the river bank up to the scaffold and placed firewood under and around the hull. The crone had then taken charge. She ordered Ivarr's tent to be taken down, then reassembled amidships on the boat. In it the kholops placed his carpets, rugs and cushions. Finally Ivarr's corpse, dressed in a gown of brocade, was carried aboard and laid upon the cushions. When all had been arranged to her satisfaction, the volva went to fetch Ivarr's favourite concubine. She was a plump, obedient girl with long, black braids which she wore coiled round her head. I guessed that she was the mother of at least one of Ivarr's boys, for she wore a heavy neck ring of gold, a sign of her master's favour. I liked her because she had shown kindness when she supervised the preparation of the twins for sale. Now I feared that she would fall into the hands of owners as vicious as Vermundr or Froygeir. When the volva arrived to collect her, she was standing on the patch of bare earth where Ivarr's tent had stood and looking bereft. I saw the volva whisper something in her ear and take her by the wrist.

Walking as if in a dream, the girl was led towards the scaffold. From her wavering steps it seemed to me that she had been drugged or was intoxicated. Certainly every member of the felag was tipsy and I confess I was far from sober myself. Overwhelmed with dread, I had taken several cups of mead to repel the sense of doom.

'You should go with her. You were just as much his favourite,' Vermundr jeered, his drunken breath in my face as we watched the concubine approach the scaffold. Two hefty Varangians took her by the waist and lifted her to the platform. Three times they raised and lowered the girl in some sort of ceremony, and I saw her lips move as she mumbled an incantation or maybe a plea for help. On the third occasion the volva handed her a living cockerel. For a moment, the girl hesitated and I heard the volva scream urgently at her. What language was used I do not know, but the girl put the head of the cockerel in her mouth and bit it off, then flung its corpse, still fluttering, so that it landed upon the funeral ship. I saw the spray of chicken blood scatter through the air.

The girl was lifted from the scaffold one more time and, weaving and stumbling, brought to her master's ship. She slipped and fell as she tried to climb the stacked firewood and the volva had to help her. Four members of the felag, including Vermundr, followed her and so did the volva. The light was fading, which made it difficult to see the details, but the girl lost her balance and toppled into the open door of the tent. Perhaps the volva had deliberately tripped her. She slumped on the cushions and one of the four Varangians began to fumble drunkenly at his trousers. Then he advanced on the girl and raped her. The volva stood to one side, looking on dispassionately. Each of the Varangians took the girl, then stood up and, turning towards us where we were clustered around the campfire, shouted, 'That I have done in honour of Ivarr.' Afterwards he descended from the boat and allowed the next man to take his turn.

When all four men were back on the ground, the volva reached down, seized the girl by the hair and dragged her further into the tent. By that stage the concubine was completely limp. The flickering light of the campfire illuminated the final death rite. I saw the volva make a noose with the cord to which the blue and green stone was attached, and slip it over her victim's head. Next she placed one foot on the girl's face, and leaning back, pulled tight the noose with a powerful jerk. Lastly she took Ivarr's knife from her belt, and repeatedly stabbed down on the human sacrifice.

Only then did the volva descend and, selecting a brand from the camp fire, thrust it into the kindling heaped around the boat. The wood was dry from the summer heat and immediately caught fire. The breeze fanned the flames and within moments the funeral pyre was burning fiercely. As the blaze sucked in more air, I threw up my arm to protect my face from the heat. Flames roared and crackled, sending columns of blazing sparks into the air. In the heart of the conflagration, great holes suddenly appeared in the fabric of the tent sheltering Ivarr's corpse. The holes spread their burning edges, eating away the cloth so rapidly that for an instant the frame of the tent stood alone as if to defy the inferno. Then the tent poles collapsed inwards across the bodies of Ivarr and his murdered concubine.

That night I drank myself into oblivion. The heat radiating from the blaze had brought on a powerful thirst, but I drank to forget what I had just seen. All around me the Varangians caroused and celebrated. They drank until they threw up, wiped their beards and then went back to drink. Two of them came to blows over an imagined insult. They groped for their swords and daggers and made futile stabs and slashes at one another until too weak to continue the dispute. Others guzzled mead and ale until they fell senseless on the ground. Those who could still stand, staggered off to the tent where our slave girls slept, and molested them drunkenly. The volva was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished, gone back to her village, no doubt. Nauseous with too much drink, I crept away to a quiet corner behind some cargo bales and fell asleep.

I awoke with a racking headache, a queasy stomach and a foul taste in my mouth. It was well past daybreak and the sun was already high above the horizon. It promised to be another scorching day. Holding onto the cargo bale for support, I pulled myself to my feet and looked across to where Ivarr's funeral pyre had stood. There was nothing but a heap of charred wood and ash. Only the volva's scaffold remained. Beside it a chicken feather stirred in the breeze on the scorched ground.

A few kholops were moving about the camp in an aimless way, lacking orders. Their masters, those I could see, lay snoring on the ground, motionless after their debauch.

Gingerly I made my way slowly across the camp, then down the river bank to the water's edge. I felt denied and in desperate need of a wash even if the river water looked far from clean. It was a dark brown, almost black. I pulled off my soiled shirt and wrapped it around my waist as a loincloth, and removed my loose Varangian trousers. Slowly and carefully I waded out into the river until the tepid water reached the middle of my thighs. I stopped there for a moment, letting the sun warm my back, feeling the mud ooze up between my toes. I was in a back eddy. The water was barely moving. Cautiously I leaned forward, fearing that a sudden movement would bring on an attack of nausea. Gradually I brought my face closer to the dark water, and got ready to splash water in my face. Just before I plunged my cupped hands into the river, I paused and looked at my reflection. The sun was at such an angle that I saw my head and shoulders as a vague outline. Suddenly I was assailed by a violent swaying sickness. My head spun. A chill washed over me, and I was about to faint. I thought it was the result of my debauchery, but then realised that I had seen the very same reflection before. It was the image I had seen when I peered into the well of prophecy that Edgar the royal huntsman had shown me in the forest at Northampton. Even as I came to that understanding, I saw the flash of something bright in the mirror of the river. For a heartbeat I mistook it for the silver flicker of a fish, then I recognised the reflection of a knife blade and the upraised arm that held it as I fell to one side and the assassin struck.

There was an agonising pain high up in my left shoulder. The blow aimed at my back had missed. A swirl of water, a growl of rage and I felt a hand grab for me, slip on wet skin and then another slash of pain as a second knife stroke sliced my left side. I flung myself forward, desperate to avoid the dagger. Again a hand tried to hold me and this time seized the shirt wrapped around my waist. I ducked underwater, twisted and pushed down with my feet. The ooze gave no grip and I panicked. My flailing feet touched the legs of my attacker. Even without seeing his face, I knew who it was. It had to be Froygeir. He had hated me since the day I humiliated him at dice in front of the other Varangians. Now, with Ivarr dead, the time for his revenge had come.

I wriggled like a salmon trying to avoid the barbs of a fishing spear. Froygeir was a big, agile man, well used to fighting at close quarters with a knife. Normally he would have finished me off with ease. Perhaps he was feeling the effects of his night's debauch or maybe he wanted to haul me out of the water, turn me so I could see my killer and then cut my throat. So, instead of stabbing again, he made the mistake of trying to pull me close by heaving on my loincloth. Its knot came undone and I squirmed free.

As Froygeir stumbled backwards, I seized my chance to swim clear. The pain in my wounded left shoulder was so excruciating that I forgot the cut to my ribs. Terror drove me as I found the strength to move my arms and legs and swim a dozen frenzied strokes. I had no idea in which direction I was going. All I knew was that I had to get away from Froygeir. I thrashed forward blindly, expecting at any moment to feel his hand grasp my ankle and pull me back.

My nakedness saved me. I can think of no other explanation. Froygeir was a river man. He knew how to swim and should have overhauled his wounded prey with no difficulty, but he was wearing Varangian trousers with their many folds of material and, waterlogged, they hampered him. I heard him surge after me, wading at first, then forced to swim in my wake. As my initial panic receded, I took a quick look to see where I was heading — directly away from shore, out into the broad river. I forced myself to breathe deeply and move through the muddy water in some sort of rhythm. Only when I had swum at least two hundred strokes did I risk glancing back. Froygeir had abandoned the chase. I could see the back of his head as he returned towards the shore. There, I knew, he would be waiting for me if I was so foolish as to return to the camp.

Utterly exhausted, I stopped swimming and trod water. A red stain was spreading from my shoulder all around me. I had heard of giant fish in the river — it was said they were longer than a man — and wondered if they fed on flesh and would be attracted by blood. I prayed to Odinn for help.

Slimy and ancient, the log was floating so low in the water that I did not see my salvation until it nuzzled against me and I flinched, thinking of those meat-eating fish. Then I wrapped my arms gratefully around the slippery wood and let the timber take my weight. Another circle of my life was closing, I thought to myself. Driftwood had caused the death of my sworn brother and now another floating log would prolong my life if only I could hang on. Bleeding to death would be better than drowning. I clenched my teeth against the pain from my shoulder, squeezed my eyes tight shut, and deliberately sought the relief of darkness.

I knew nothing more until a sour smell roused me. Fumes stung my nose and brought tears in my eyes. A trickle of liquid, sharp and astringent, ran into my throat and made me cough. Someone was bathing my face with a sponge. I opened my eyes. I must have fainted while clinging to the log - I had no idea how I came to be lying on my back on a carpet and looking up into the chubby face of ibn Hauk. For once, his expression was sombre. He said something in his own language and I heard the voice of his interpreter.

'Why were you floating in the river?'

I licked my lips and tasted vinegar.

'They tried to kill me.'

The Serklander did not even bother to ask who had made the attempt. He knew.

'Then it was lucky that one of my Black Hoods spotted you.'

'You must get away,' I said urgently. 'The man who sold you the slaves, Ivarr, is dead. His comrades think you poisoned him. Now the Varangians are leaderless they are very dangerous and will try to catch up with you to get back the twin girls.'

'No more than I would expect of those savages,' he answered. 'We are already on our way downriver.'

I tried to sit up.

'My master asks you to lie still,' said the interpreter. 'You will disturb the dressing.'

I turned my head and saw that my left shoulder was bandaged. Again I smelled vinegar and wondered why.

Ibn Hauk answered before I had time to enquire.

'The vinegar is against the pestilence,' he said. 'It is to cleanse you from the sickness that killed Ivarr. Rest now. We will not be stopping, but will travel through the darkness. I do not think that your Rus will catch up with us. And if they do the Black Hoods will deal with them.'

I relaxed and thought about this turn of events. Everything I owned — my precious furs, my clothes, even the knife that Thrand had given me and which I treasured — was lost irretrievably. They were in the hands of the Varangians, who would already have divided the spoils amongst themselves. I was glad that I had given away the fire ruby to Allba. I was destitute and now I did not even have clothes to wear. Under the loose cotton sheet which covered me I was naked.

Ibn Hauk personally attended to me as we sailed downriver. He carried a stock of healing drugs from his own country and prepared the poultices of herbs and spices which were applied to my knife wounds. Certainly he was very skilled in their use, for eventually the wounds closed up so cleanly that they left barely the faintest scars. Each time he came to change the dressings he took the chance to question me about the customs of the Varangians and the countries where I had travelled. He had never heard of Iceland or Greenland, and of course he knew nothing of Vinland. But he had heard of King Knut of England and had some vague information about the northern lands.

When I told him how Ivarr's corpse had been burned, he was shocked. 'That is utter barbarism,' he said. 'No wonder the pestilence spreads among those river pirates. My religion demands that we wash before our prayers, but I observed that your former travelling companions are more filthy in their habits than donkeys.'

'Not all are so uncouth,' I said. 'There are men who know the use of herbs and simples just as you do, and the true Varangians, the men who come from the northern lands, are strict about their personal cleanliness. They bathe regularly, keep their hair and fingernails clean and take a pride in their appearance. I know because I have had to wield the heavy stones they use to press their clothes.'

'But burning a corpse to ashes,' ibn Hauk observed, 'that is abominable.'

'In your country what do they do?' I asked.

'We bury our dead,' he answered. 'Often the grave must be shallow because the soil is rocky, but we put the dead into the ground as quickly as possible before putrefaction sets in. Our climate is very hot.'

'That is what the Christians also do - bury the dead,' I said, and found myself repeating what Thrand had said long ago. 'You see, for those who follow the Old Ways that is an insult to the deceased. We - for I am an Old Believer - find it repugnant to let a man's corpse decompose or be eaten by worms. We prefer that it is destroyed neatly and cleanly, so that the soul rises to Valholl.'

Then, of course I had to explain what I meant by Valholl, while ibn Hauk busily made notes. 'Your Valholl sounds very much like the valley that some of our believers, a strange sect, think they will achieve if they die in battle sacrificing their lives for their leader.'

He was so amiable and outgoing that I took the chance to ask him if he had ever seen precious stones that were the colour of pigeon's blood and had a burning fire within them.

He recognised the description instantly.

'Of course. We call them laal. My master owns several — they are among the pride of his royal jewels. The best ones he received as gifts from other great potentates.'

'Do you know where they come from?'

'That's not an easy question to answer. The gem dealers refer to these jewels as badakshi, and this may have something to do with the name of the country where they are found,' he said. 'It is said that the mines lie in high mountains, close to the borders of the country we call al-Hind. Their precise location is kept a secret, but there are rumours. It is reported that the rubies are found encased in lumps of white rock, which are broken open with great care by the miners, using chisels, to reveal the jewel within. If they find a small jewel of poor quality, they call it a foot soldier. A better jewel is known as a horse soldier, and so on up through an amir jewel, a vizier jewel, until the very best - the emperor jewel - which is reserved for royalty.'

In such intelligent and informative company the journey south passed rapidly, and it was with genuine regret that I heard ibn Hauk announce one afternoon that our paths were about to separate.

'Tomorrow we reach the outer frontiers of Rumiyah,' he said. 'I expect we will meet with a border patrol. The great river curves away to the east and the way to Rumiyah, where you want to go, is south and west. You have to cross from this river to another, which takes you to a port from where you take ship and finally, after a passage of two or three weeks, you will arrive at its capital, Constantinople, or Miklagard as you call it.'

I must have looked dejected because he added, 'Don't worry. One traveller should always help another and my religion tells me that acts of charity will be rewarded. I promise that I will see to it that you reach your Miklagard.'

Only when the commander of the frontier guard came to interview ibn Hauk did I fully appreciate how influential was my modest travelling companion. The commander was a Pecheneg mercenary, hired with his troop of tribal cavalry to patrol the buffer zone between the empire and the wilder region to the north. The Pecheneg was either arrogant or looking for a bribe. He spoke to ibn Hauk rudely, demanding proof of his claim that he was an ambassador. Quietly ibn Hauk produced a small metal tablet. It was about the length of my hand and three fingers broad. There were lines of Greek script engraved on it, though I doubted that the Pecheneg could read them. However, the soldier had no need of literacy. The tablet was solid gold. He blenched when he saw it and became very obsequious. Was there anything the ambassador wanted? He asked. He would be happy to oblige.

'Allow myself and my retinue to continue downriver,' answered the Arab gently, 'and provide an escort, if you would be so kind, for this young man. He is carrying a message to his majesty the emperor.'

I had the presence of mind not to gape with astonishment.

The moment the Pecheneg had left the tent, I asked, 'Your excellency, what was meant about a message for Constantinople?'

'Oh, that.' Ibn Hauk waved his hand dismissively. 'It will do no harm if I send the compliments of the caliph to the emperor of Rumiyah. Indeed it would be much appreciated. The imperial court positively relishes the niceties of diplomacy, and the protocol department might take it as an insult if they heard that I had visited a corner of imperial territory without sending a few flattering words to the great emperor of the Romans, for that is how he styles himself. You can carry the note for me. In fact you can help write it out in Greek letters.'

'But I don't understand why the Pecheneg should go to the trouble of arranging my journey.'

'He has little choice,' said ibn Hauk. 'The imperial office only issues gold passport tablets to the representatives of the most important fellow rulers. Each tablet carries the authority of the emperor himself. If the Pecheneg failed in his duty, he would be lucky to hold onto his job, if not thrown into gaol. The bureaucrats of Constantinople are corrupt and conceited, but they hate disobedience. To smooth your passage, I will give you enough silver to sweeten them on arrival. Here, let us compose the message you will carry.'

So it was that I had my first and only lesson in transcribing from Serkland script to Greek. I found the task not that difficult because many of the letters had their close equivalents, and with the help of the interpreter I made what I think was a reasonable translation of ibn Hauk's flowery congratulations and compliments to the basileus, as the Byzantines call their emperor.

'I doubt he will ever see the letter, anyhow,' commented ibn Hauk. 'It will probably get filed away somewhere in the palace archives, and be forgotten. A pity as I'm rather proud of my calligraphy.'

He had taken great care with his penmanship, delicately inking in the lines of script on a fresh, smooth parchment. He reminded me of the monks whom I had seen at work in the scriptorium of the monastery where I had served a brief novitiate. His handwriting was a work of art. I said as much and he looked even more cheerful than usual.

'You will have noted,' he said, 'that I used a different script from the one I wrote when I was making my notes about your travels. That was my everyday working hand. This letter I have penned in our formal lettering, which is reserved for important documents and inscriptions, copies of our holy book and anything which bears my master's name. Which reminds me: you will need money to cover your travelling expenses on the way to Constantinople.'

Which is how I came to travel the final stage of my journey to Miklagard dressed in a cotton Arab gown and carrying coins which I had first seen around the neck of the queen of England, and which I now knew were struck in the name of the great caliph of Baghdad.

Much has been written of the splendours of Constantinople, the city we northerners know as Miklagard and others call Metropolis, the queen or — simply - the great city. Yet nowhere have I read of the phenomenon which intrigued me as I arrived at the mouth of the narrow strait on which Constantinople stands. The phenomenon is this: the sea water runs only one way through the strait. This is against nature. As every sailor knows, if a sea is tidal, there is a regular ebb and flow in such a constricted place. If there is no tide or very little, as at Constantinople, there should be no movement of the water at all. Yet the captain of the cargo vessel which had brought me to the strait, assured me that a sea always flows through in the same direction.

'You can count on it running from north to south,' he said, watching my expression of disbelief, 'and sometimes the current is as swift as a powerful river.' We were passing between the two rocky headlands which mark the northern entrance to the channel. 'In ancient times,' he continued, 'it was said that those rocks could clash together, smashing to splinters any vessel that tried to slip through. That is mere fable, but it is certain that the current always goes one way.'

I watched our speed increase as we came into the current. On the beach a gang of men were man-hauling a vessel upstream, so

to speak, with tow ropes tied to their bodies. They reminded me of our kholops dragging our light boats in the land of the Rus.

'Now I will show you something still more remarkable,' said the captain, pleased to teach an ignorant foreigner the wonders of his home port. 'That vessel over there, the one that looks as if it is anchored in midstream.' He pointed to a tubby little trading ship, which appeared to have dropped anchor far from shore, though quite why its crew were rowing when the ship was at anchor, was a mystery. 'That ship is not anchored at all. You couldn't reach the bottom with the longest line. The skipper is dangling a big basket of stones overboard. He's done it to catch a current deep down. It flows the other way, from south to north, and is helping to drag his vessel in the way he wants.'

I was too astonished to comment, for the strait ahead of us was widening. Its banks, with their villas and country houses, were opening out to frame a spectacle which was nothing like anything I had imagined could be possible. Constantinople had come full into view.

The city was immense. I had seen Dublin from the Black Pool and I had sailed up the Thames to arrive in London's port, but Constantinople far exceeded anything I had ever witnessed. There was no comparison. Constantinople's population was said to number more than half a million citizens, ten times the size of the next largest city in the known world. Judging by the immense number of palaces, public buildings and houses covering the entire width of the peninsula ahead of me, this was no exaggeration. To my right a capacious harbour opened out, an entire gulf crowded with merchant shipping of every shape and description. Looming over the wharves were buildings which I identified as warehouses and arsenals and I could see the outlines of shipyards and dry docks. Beyond the waterfront rose an imposing city wall, whose ramparts encircled the city as far as the eye could see. Yet even this tall city wall was dwarfed by the structures behind it. There was a skyline of lofty towers, columns, high roofs and domes, all built of marble and stone, brick and tile, not of wood, plaster and thatch like the cities with which I was familiar. But it was not the magnitude of the place that silenced me, nor its air of solid permanence, for I had carried a wondrous vision of the city in my head ever since Bolli Bollason had sung the praises of Miklagard, and I had promised Grettir to travel in his memory. The reason for my stunned amazement came from something else: the panorama of the city was dominated by a vast assembly of churches and oratories and monasteries, most of them built to a design that I had never seen before — clusters of domes surmounted by the cross-shaped symbol of the White Christ. Many of the domes were covered with gold leaf and glittered in the sunshine. I had totally failed to realise that my destination was the greatest stronghold of the White Christ faith on earth.

Despite all this magnificence I had little time to gaze. The current rapidly brought our ship into the anchorage, which my captain proudly informed me was known throughout the civilised — and he emphasised the word civilised — world as the Golden Horn for its prosperity and wealth. 'There'll be a customs man waiting on the dock to check my cargo and charge me taxes. Ten per cent for those grasping rogues in the state treasury. I'll ask him to arrange for a clerk to escort you to the imperial chancery, where you can hand over that letter you are carrying.' Then he added meaningfully, 'If you have to deal with the officials there, I wish you luck.'

My monastery-learned Greek, I rapidly discovered, either made people smile or wince. The latter was the reaction of the palace functionary who accepted ibn Hauk's letter on behalf of the court protocol department. He made me wait for an hour in a bleak antechamber before I was ushered into his presence. As ibn Hauk had anticipated, I was greeted with supreme bureaucratic indifference.

'This will be placed before the memoriales in due course,' the functionary said, using only his fingertips to touch ibn Hauk's exquisitely written letter, as if it was tainted.

'Will the memoriales want to send a reply?' I asked politely.

The civil servant curled his lip. 'The memoriales,' he said, 'are the secretaries of the imperial records department. They will study the document and decide if the letter should be placed on file or if it merits onward transmission to the charturalius —' he saw my puzzlement - 'the chief clerk. He in turn will decide whether it should be forwarded to the office of the dromos, the foreign minister, or to the basilikoi, who heads the office of special emissaries. In either case it will require the secretariat's approval and, of course, the consent of the minister himself, before the matter of a response is brought forward for consideration. ' His reply convinced me that my duty towards ibn Hauk had been amply discharged. His letter would be mired in the imperial bureaucracy for months.

'Perhaps you could tell me where I might find the Varangians,' I ventured.

The secretary raised a disdainful eyebrow at my antiquated Greek.

'The Varangians,' I repeated. 'The imperial guardsmen.'

There was a pause as he deliberated over my question, it was as if he was smelling a bad odour. 'Oh, you mean the emperor's wineskins,' he answered. 'That drunken lot of barbarians. I haven't the least idea. You'd better ask someone else.' It was quite plain that he knew the answer to my question, but was not prepared to help.

I had better luck with a passer-by in the street. 'Follow this main avenue,' he said, 'past the porticos and arcades of shops until you come to the Milion — that's a pillar with a heavy iron chain round the base. There's a dome over it, held up on four columns, rather like an upside-down soup bowl. You can't miss it. It's where all the official measurements for distances in the empire start from. Go past the Milion and take the first right. In front of you you'll see a large building, looks like a prison, which is not surprising because that is what it used to be. That's now the barracks for the imperial guard. Ask for the Numera if you get lost.'

I followed his directions. It seemed natural to seek out the Varangians. I knew no one in this immense city. In my purse I had a few silver coins left over from ibn Hauk's generosity, but they would soon be spent. The only northerners whom I knew for certain lived in Miklagard were the soldiers of the emperor's bodyguard. They came from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and some from England. Many, like Ivarr's father, had once served in Kiev before deciding to come on to Constantinople and apply to join the imperial bodyguard. It occurred to me that I might even ask if I could join. After all, I had served with the Jomsvikings.

My scheme, had I known it, was as clumsy and whimsical as my knowledge of spoken Greek, but even in the city of churches Odinn still watched over me.

As I reached the Numera, a man emerged from the doorway to the barracks and started to walk across the large square away from me. He was obviously a guardsman. His height and breadth of shoulder made that much clear. He was a head taller than the majority of the citizens around him. They were small and neat, dark haired and olive skinned, and dressed in the typical Greek costume, loose shirt and trousers for the men, long flowing gowns and veils for the women. By contrast, the guardsman was wearing a tunic of red, and I could see the hilt of a heavy sword hanging from his right shoulder. I noticed too that his long blond hair hung in three plaits down his neck. I was staring at the back of his head as he moved through the crowd, when I recognised something about him. It was the way he walked. He moved like a ship rolling and cresting over the swell of the sea. The faster-moving civilians had to step aside to get past him. They were like a river flowing around a rock. Then I remembered where I had seen that gait before. There was only one man that tall, who walked in that measured way - Grettir's half-brother, Thorstein Galleon.

I broke into a run and chased after him. The coincidence seemed so far-fetched that I did not yet dare say a prayer of thanks to Odinn in case I was deluded. I was still wearing an

Arab gown that ibn Hauk had given me and to the pedestrians I must have looked a strange sight indeed, a fair-haired barbarian in a flapping cotton robe pushing rudely through the crowd in pursuit of one of the imperial guard. 'Thorstein!' I shouted.

He stopped, and turned. I saw his face and knew I would make a sacrifice to Odinn in gratitude.

'Thorstein!' I repeated, coming closer. 'It's me Thorgils, Thorgils Leifsson. I haven't seen you since Grettir and I were at your farmhouse in Tonsberg, on our way to Iceland.'

For a moment Thorstein looked puzzled. My Arab dress must have confused him, and my face was tanned by the sun. 'By Thor and his goats,' he rumbled, 'it is indeed Thorgils. What on earth are you doing here and how did you find your way to Miklagard?' He clapped me on the shoulder and I flinched. His hand had touched the wound left by Froygeir's knife.

'I only arrived today,' I answered. 'It's a long story but I came here through Gardariki and along the rivers with the fur traders.'

'But how is it that you are alone and inside the city itself?' Thorstein asked. 'River traders are not allowed inside the city walls unless they are accompanied by an official.'

'I came as an ambassadorial courier,' I said. 'It's so good to see you.'

'You too,' answered Thorstein heartily. 'I heard that you became Grettir's sworn brother after you got back to Iceland. Which makes a bond between us.' Abruptly he checked himself, as though his initial enthusiasm was misplaced. 'I was on my way to report for duty at the palace guardroom, but there's time for us to go and share a glass of wine in a tavern,' and, strangely, he took me by the arm, and almost pushed me away from the open square and into the shelter of one of the arcades. We turned into the first tavern we came to and he led me to the back of the room. Here he sat us down where we could not be observed from the street.

'I'm sorry to seem so brusque, Thorgils,' he said, 'but no one else knows that Grettir was my half-brother and I want it to stay that way.'

For a moment I was scandalised. I had never imagined that Thorstein would conceal his relationship to Grettir, even though his half-brother had earned such an unsavoury reputation as a brigand and outlaw. But I was misjudging Thorstein badly.

'Thorgils, you remember the promise I made to Grettir at my farm in Norway. On the day that you and he were about to set sail for Iceland?'

'You promised to avenge him if ever he was killed unjustly.'

'That's why I'm here in Constantinople, because of Grettir,' Thorstein went on. His voice had a new intensity. 'I've come here in pursuit of the man who killed him. It's taken a long time to track him down and now I'm very close. In fact I don't want him to know just how close. It's not that I think he will make a run for it, he's come too far for that. What I want is to pick the right moment. When I'm to take my revenge, it won't be a hole-in-the-corner deed. It will be out in the open, something to make men remember.'

'That's exactly what Grettir would have said,' I replied. 'But tell me, how does Thorbjorn Ongul come to be here in Miklagard?'

'So you know it was that one-eyed bastard who caused the deaths of Grettir and Illugi,' said Thorstein. 'That's common knowledge in Iceland but nowhere else. He was condemned to exile by the Althing for employing the help of a black witch to cause Grettir's death. Since then he's taken care to keep out of sight. He went to Norway, then came here to Miklagard, where there's little chance of running into any other Icelanders or being recognised. In fact the other members of the guard know nothing about his background. He applied to the service about a year ago, met the entry requirements, greased a few palms and has established himself as a reliable soldier. That's another reason why I have to strike at the right moment. The regiment won't like it.'

He paused for a moment and then said quietly, 'Thorgils, your arrival has complicated matters for me. I cannot allow anything which might interfere with my promise or risk its outcome. I would prefer if you stayed out of Constantinople, at least until I have settled matters with Thorbjorn Ongul.'

'There's another way, Thorstein,' I said. 'Both of us are honour bound to Grettir's memory, whether as half-brother or sworn brother. As witness to your oath to Grettir I have a duty to support you, should you ever need my help. I am utterly certain that it was Odinn who brought about this meeting between us and that he did it for a purpose. Until that purpose becomes clear, I ask you to reconsider. Try to think how I might remain in Constantinople and be close at hand. For instance, why don't I join the guard as a recruit? Anonymously of course.'

Thorstein shook his head. 'Out of the question. Right now there are many more volunteers than vacancies and a long waiting list. I paid a hefty bribe to get in. Four pounds of gold is the going rate for the greedy officials who maintain the army list. Of course the pay scales are so good that you earn the money back in three or four years. The emperor knows enough to keep his guardsmen happy. They're the only troops he can trust in this city of intrigues and plots.' He thought for a moment, then added, 'Maybe there is a way of arranging for you to be close at hand, but you will have to be very discreet. Each guardsman has the right to have one valet on regimental strength. It's a menial job, but it provides you with a billet in the main barracks. I have not yet exercised my nomination.'

'Won't there be a risk that Ongul will see and recognise me?' I asked.

'Not if you keep in the background,' Thorstein answered. 'The Varangian guard has grown in size. There are nearly five hundred of us nowadays and we no longer all fit into the Numera Barracks. Two or three platoons are quartered in the former barracks of the excubitors — they are the palace regiment of Greek guardsmen. Their regimental strength is in decline, while ours is growing. That's where Thorbjorn Ongul has his room - another reason why it's been difficult for me to find the right moment to challenge him over Grettir's death.'

So it was that I became Thorstein Galleon's valet, not a very demanding task as it turned out. At least not for someone who, as a youngster, had been on the palace staff of that great dandy, King Sigtryggr of Dublin. I had learned a long time ago how to comb and plait hair, wash and press clothes, and polish armour and weapons till they gleamed. And it turned out to be the Varangians' pride in their weapons which provided Thorstein with the opportunity to take revenge, far earlier than he or I had expected.

The Byzantines love pomp. More than any other nation I have seen, they adore pageantry and outward show. I can scarcely recall a single day when they did not have some sort of parade or ceremony in which the basileus took a prominent part. It might be a procession from the palace to attend a service in one of the many churches, a formal parade to commemorate a victory of the army, or a trip to the harbour to inspect the fleet and the arsenal. Even a local excursion to the horse races at the Hippodrome — less than a bow shot from the palace outer wall — was organised by the master of ceremonies and his multitude of officious staff. They kept an immensely long list of precedence, detailing who held what rank in the palace hierarchy, what their precise title was, who was senior to whom, how they must be addressed, and so forth. When an imperial procession formed up to leave the palace grounds, these busybodies could be seen rushing around, making sure that everyone was in their correct place in the column and carried the proper emblem of rank — a jewelled whip, a gold chain, inscribed ivory tablets, a rolled-up diploma, a sword with a golden hilt, a jewelled gold collar, and so forth. For onlookers it was easy to identify the imperial family: only they were allowed to wear the colour purple, and immediately in front and behind of them marched the guards, just in case of trouble.

The Varangians carried the symbols of their trade: battleaxe and sword. The axe had a single blade, often inlaid with expensive silver scrollwork. The haft was waxed as far as the two-handed grip with its fancy, hand-stitched leatherwork. Both blade and shaft were polished until they gleamed. The heavy sword was worn, as I have mentioned, dangling from the right shoulder, but there was a problem when it came to its embellishment because a sword with a gold hilt was the emblem of a spartharios, a court official of middle rank whose rights and privileges were jealously preserved. So the guardsmen found other ways to ornament their weapons. In my time in Constantinople silver sword handles were popular, and some soldiers had their swords fitted with grips made of exotic wood. Nearly all the men had paid the scabbard makers to have their sword sheaths covered in scarlet silk to match their tunics.

Less than a week after I had taken up my duties as Thorstein's valet, a message arrived at the Numera barracks from the logothete, a high official of the chancery. The basileus and his entourage were to process to a service of thanksgiving in the church of Hagia Sophia, and the guard was to provide the usual imperial escort. However, the logothete — he was far too grand to speak for himself but sent a deputy - stressed that the occasion was sufficiently important for the entire guard to be on parade in full regalia. The procession was scheduled to take place in three days' time.

Typically, the first response of the senior officers was to order a dress rehearsal, which took place in the great square before the Numera barracks. I watched from an upper window and had to admit that I was impressed. The Varangian guard looked awe-inspiring, rank upon rank of burly, heavily bearded axemen, fierce enough in appearance to terrify any opposition. Even Thorstein, with his great height, was overtopped by several colleagues, and I spotted Thorbjorn Ongul with his villainous one-eyed look.

The moment the dress rehearsal ended, I and the other orderlies hurried out into the square to collect up the tunics, sword belts and other accoutrements which we would have to keep clean and neat until the procession itself. Naturally a number of the soldiers gathered in groups to gossip and at that point I saw Thorstein walk across and join the group which included Thorbjorn Ongul. Rashly, I followed.

Taking up my position on the edge of the circle, I took care to keep out of Thorbjorn Ongul's sight, but moved close enough to see what was going on. As I had noted with the Jomsvikings, soldiers love nothing better than to compare their weaponry and this is precisely what the guardsmen were doing. They were showing off their swords, axes and daggers to one another and making claims, mostly exaggerated, about the merits of each item - its excellent balance, its sharpness, how it kept an edge when hacking at a wooden shield, the number of enemies the weapon had despatched, and so on. When it came to Ongul's turn, he unhitched his scabbard, withdrew his sword and flourished it proudly.

My mouth went dry. The sword which Ongul held up for all to see was the very same sword which Grettir had looted from the barrow mound in my company. I recognised it at once. It was a unique weapon, beautifully made with that wavy pattern in the metal of the blade that denotes the finest workmanship of the Frankish swordsmiths. It was the sword Ongul had wrenched from Grettir's hand, chopping off his fingers to release his grip as my sworn brother lay dying on the squalid floor of his hideout on Drang. I made a mental note to tell Thorstein how the sword came to be in Ongul's possession, but Grettir's killer did it for me. The guardsman standing next to Ongul asked if he might look more closely at the weapon and Ongul proudly handed over the sword. The guardsman sighted along the blade and pointed out to Ongul that there were two nicks on the cutting edge.

'You should get those attended to. It's a shame that such a fine blade has such marks,' he said.

'Oh no,' announced Ongul boastfully as he took back the sword. 'I made those nicks myself. They come from the day that

I used this sword to put an end to the perverted outlaw, Grettir the Strong. This was his sword. I took it from him and those two nicks were made when I hacked off his head. Grettir the Strong was like no other man. Even his neck bones were like iron. It took four good blows to cut through his neck and that was when the sword edge was chipped. I wouldn't grind out those marks even if the commander-in-chief himself asked me to.'

'Can I see the weapon?' asked a voice. I recognised the deep tones of Thorstein Galleon, and saw Ongul hand over the weapon. Thorstein swung the sword from side to side experimentally to find what a true swordsman calls the sweet spot, the balance point where the edge carries the most impact and a blade should meet its target. The sweep of Thorstein's swing made the crowd move back to give him more space and, to my horror, the man standing in front of me stepped aside and left me exposed to Ongul's view. He glanced round the circle and the gaze of his single eye setded on my face. I knew that he recognised me immediately as the man who had been carried off Drang after Grettir's death. I saw him frown as he tried to understand why I was there. But it was too late.

'This is to avenge Grettir Asmundarson, the man you foully murdered,' Thorstein called out as he stepped across the watching circle of men, raised the nicked sword and from his great height brought it slicing down directly on Ongul's unprotected skull. Thorstein had found the sweet spot. The sword bit through Ongul's skull and split his head like a melon. The man who had killed my closest friend died instantly.

For a moment there was stunned silence. The onlookers gazed down at Ongul's corpse, sprawled on the flagstones of the parade ground. Thorstein made no move to escape. He stood with bloody sword in his grasp, an expression of profound satisfaction on his face. Then he calmly wiped the blood from the sword, walked across to where I stood and handed it to me with the words, 'In Grettir's memory.'

As soon as word of the killing reached the excubitors, who were responsible for police duties, a Greek officer arrived to place Thorstein under arrest. He offered no resistance but allowed himself to be led quietly away. He was at peace with himself. He had done what he had set out to do.

'He hasn't got a hope,' said Thorstein's platoon commander, looking on. He was a tough veteran from Jutland with ten years' service in the guard. 'To kill within the palace precincts is a capital offence. The pen pushers in the imperial secretariat dislike us so much that they will lose no opportunity to damage the regiment. They will say that Ongul's death was just another squalid brawl amongst bloodthirsty barbarians. Thorstein's as good as dead.'

'Isn't there anything that can be done to help him?' I asked from the edge of the little group of onlookers. The Jutlander turned to look at me, standing there with Grettir's sword in my hand.

'Not unless you can oil the wheels of justice,' he said. Grettir's sword felt like a living thing in my grasp. 'What happens when a guardsman dies on active service?' I asked.'

'His possessions are divided among his comrades. That's our custom. If he leaves a widow or children, we auction off his personal effects and the money goes to them, along with any back pay that is outstanding.'

'You say that Thorstein is as good as dead. Could you organise an auction of his possessions in the barracks, including the sale of this sword? Ongul told you how he looted it from Grettir the Strong, even used it for his death blow, and you've seen how Thorstein took it back.'

The Jutlander looked at me in surprise. 'That sword's worth two years' salary,' he said.

'I know, but Thorstein presented me with the weapon and I would gladly put it up for auction.'

The platoon commander looked intrigued. He knew me only as Thorstein's valet and was probably curious to know what role

I had played in this affair. Perhaps he was wondering if he could acquire the sword for himself. 'It's irregular, but I will see what I can do,' he said. It'll be better if the auction is held without the Greeks knowing. They would only claim that we were so avaricious that we sold off Thorstein's effects before he was even dead. Not that they can accuse others of avarice. They're the past masters.'

'There's one more thing I would ask,' I continued. 'A lot of people heard Thorstein shout out the name of Grettir the Strong just before he cut down Thorbjorn Ongul. No one really knows why he did so, though there's a lot of speculation. If the auction could be held tonight, just when interest is at its height, it would attract the largest number. More than just his platoon.'

In fact nearly half the regiment crowded into the courtyard of the Numera barracks to attend the auction that evening, cramming themselves into the porticos that surrounded the yard. It was precisely what I had wanted.

Thorstein's platoon commander, Ragnvald, called them to silence. 'All of you know what happened this afternoon. Thorstein, nicknamed the Galleon, took the life of his fellow countryman, Thorbjorn Ongul, and none of us know why. Thorbjorn can't tell us because he's dead and Thorstein is in solitary confinement awaiting trial. But this man, Thorgils Leifsson, claims he can answer your questions, and he wants to auction the sword that Thorstein gave him.' He turned to me. 'Now it's your turn.'

I climbed up on a block of stone and faced my audience. Then I held up the sword so all could see it and waited until I had their complete attention. 'Let me tell you where this sword comes from, how it was found among the dead, where it travelled, and the story of the remarkable man who owned it.' And then I proceeded to tell the tale of Grettir the Strong and his remarkable career, from the night we had robbed the barrow grave, through all our times together, both good and bad: how he had twice saved my life, first in a tavern brawl and then aboard a foundering ship. I told them about the man: how perverse and stubborn he could be, how often his best intentions had led to tragedy, how he could be violent and brutal, how he did not know his own strength and yet had struggled to remain honest to himself in the face of adversity. I went on to describe his life as an outlaw in the wilderness, his victories in hand-to-hand combat over those who had been sent to kill him and how, finally, he had been defeated by black seidr invoked by Thorbjorn Ongul's volva foster-mother, and had died on Drang.

It was Grettir's saga and, as I told it, I knew that the men who heard it would remember and repeat the tale so that Grettir's name would live on in honoured memory. I was fulfilling my final promise to my sworn brother.

When I had finished my tale, the Jutlander stood up. 'Time to auction the sword of Grettir the Strong,' he called out. 'From what we have just heard, Ongul's death was not murder, but an act of honourable revenge, justified under our own laws and customs. I suggest that the money raised from the sale of this sword is put towards the expense of defending Thorstein Galleon in the law courts of Constantinople. I call upon you to be generous.'

Then something remarkable happened. The bidding for the sword began, but it was not in the manner I had anticipated. Each of the Guardsmen shouted out a price far less than I had expected. One after another they called out a number and the Jutlander carved marks on a tally stick. Finally the bidding stopped. The Jutlander looked down at the marks. 'Seven pounds in gold, and five numisma. That's the total,' he announced. 'That should be enough to see that Thorstein avoids the hangman's rope, and receives instead a prison sentence.'

He looked round the circle of watching faces. 'My platoon has a vacancy,' he called. 'I propose that it is filled, not by purchase, but by acclamation of our general gathering. I propose to you that the place of Thorstein Galleon is taken by the sworn brother to Grettir Asmundarsson. Do you agree?'

A general mutter of agreement came back. One or two guardsmen banged their sword hilts on the stones. The Jutlander turned to me. 'Thorgils, you may keep the sword. Use it as a member of the guard.'

And that is how I, Thorgils Leifsson, was recruited into the imperial guard of the basileus in Metropolis, and was on hand to pledge my allegiance to the man called the 'thunderbolt of the north' or, to some, the last of the Vikings. In his service I would travel to the very hub of the world, win spoils of war sufficient to rig a ship with sails of silk, and — as his spy and diplomat - come within an arrow's length of placing him on the throne of England.

Thorstein Galleon did take his revenge on the murderer of Grettir his half-brother, according to Grettir's Saga written cad 1325. That saga traces the celebrated events in Grettir's life, from his rebellious childhood, through the plundering of a barrow grave and his many escapades as a notorious outlaw, to his eventual death on Drang Island at the hands of Thorbjorn Ongul and a posse of local farmers. Thorstein Galleon is said to have tracked down Thorbjorn Ongul to Constantinople and confronted him at a weapons inspection of the Varangian guard. Ongul was boasting how he had killed the outlaw with Grettir's own sword, taken from him as he lay dying. The weapon was passed from hand to hand among the guardsmen and when it came to Thorstein, in the words of the saga, 'Thorstein took the short sword, and at once raised it up and struck at Ongul. The blow landed on his head, and it was so powerful that the sword went right down to his jaws. Thorbjorn Ongul fell dead to the ground. Everyone was speechless .. .'

from Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson, University of Toronto Press, 1998